One More Dance by Roxanne Rustand (best ebook reader for pc txt) 📗

them all and delivered a warm message about love and commitment. And his wife, a frail old dear with violet hair and hands roped with veins played the organ with ethereal grace.

Closing her eyes, Kate imagined a church full of flowers and well-wishers. But none of that would have made the day more special than it already was as she stood at Jared’s side, looking up into his dark, handsome face as he spoke his vows.

Sure, they were young. Broke. Had years of school left. But with this kind of soul-deep love, how could anything go wrong?

PRESENT DAY

Sylvia glared at the doctor, the monitors around her bed and the young nurse hovering just beyond arm’s reach. Her angry gaze settled on Kate next and hardened to pure steel.

“Leave it to you to cause trouble,” she hissed. “Even now, with my son so badly injured.”

“Dr. Kate didn’t make the call, ma’am,” the nurse ventured, shooting a wary glance between Kate and the staff physician, Dr. Walters. “The ICU nurses did.”

Sylvia waved her off like a troublesome fly, her anger palpable. “Tell these people to let me go at once. I need to be with Jared, not wasting my time like this.”

Dr. Walters cleared his throat. “You fainted, Mrs. Mathers. Your blood pressure was just 70 over 54, and your pulse was too fast. We want to run an EKG to make sure nothing’s wrong before we release you. Have you had any chest pain?”

“No.”

“Shortness of breath?”

“No.” The nurse moved forward to pull the blood pressure cuff from its holder on the wall above the head of the bed, but Sylvia swung her legs off the gurney and batted her away. “I’m refusing medical care. Is that clear enough?”

The doctor frowned. “I really think we should—”

“Let me be.” But Sylvia’s face turned ashen as she slid off the gurney and her knees buckled.

Dr. Walters caught her under one arm and the nurse under the other. They gently backed her into a chair where she slumped forward, a sheen of perspiration forming on her forehead.

“Are you her daughter?” Walters asked.

Kate shook her head. “Daughter-in-law. Her daughter, Julia, is trying to arrange the soonest possible flight here from New York. Sylvia’s son—my husband—is a patient in the ICU.”

“We need to run some tests. I’m guessing we might even want to keep her overnight.” As an afterthought, he turned to Sylvia and appeared to carefully choose his words. “I’m concerned about your heart. We certainly don’t want to take any chances now, do we?”

“Humph.” But this time, she didn’t argue.

“Whatever it takes. We just want her to be safe.” Kate reached over and rested a hand on Sylvia’s shoulder. “It’s time for me to go sit with Jared for a few minutes, but then I’ll be back.”

Beneath her hand, Kate felt the old woman stiffen. Alarmed, she bent closer. “Are you okay? Does your chest hurt?”

But it wasn’t pain reflected in Sylvia’s eyes. It was the first hint of fear and loneliness the woman had ever revealed, though Kate knew she was too proud and stubborn to ever admit it.

“This is the place to be if you’re not feeling well, and you’re in good hands. I promise I’ll let you know immediately if there are any changes with Jared, okay?”

When Sylvia responded with a single, curt nod, Kate hurried back to the ICU and took her place at Jared’s bedside.

He lay there without moving, and his thick, dark eyelashes didn’t even flutter when she took one of his hands in hers. She shot an anxious look at the monitor stands on the other side of the bed. The fluorescent green lines continued to slide across the screens; his heart, pulse and respiration were as steady as before.

One of the nurses—Barbara S. on her name pin—silently appeared at her shoulder. “The surgeon was back in while you were gone. The pressure in Jared’s skull hasn’t gone down as much as he hoped, so he added another med to the IV that should help.”

Alarm flashed through Kate. “I want to talk to that doctor.”

Barbara smiled. “He thought as much. He’s doing rounds, but he’ll be back. He said to tell you it’s not unusual to put a patient into a barbiturate-induced coma for a while to help bring that cranial pressure down.”

Kate mentally reviewed the complications of barbiturate use in animal medicine and guessed at the similarities in humans. “But the risks... Is he aware of the risks?”

“Altered heart function and liver damage are possibilities, but of course we are monitoring your husband very closely, and he won’t be on it for very long.”

Soothing words for family.

Generalities.

Comfort.

Optimism.

Heaven knew how many times she’d handled distraught families just that gently during the critical illness of a beloved pet. But what Kate needed now was for Jared to open his eyes and look at her—for him to know his own name, and where he was, and what he’d had for breakfast.

“No matter what else happened yesterday, we can work through it,” she whispered softly. “Come back to me, please. Come back.”

The nurse slipped away and left Kate to sit with him alone. But despite what Barbara had said, Kate knew there was still a very real possibility that Jared wouldn’t survive this endless night...or that he might never be the same.

And, once again, she began to pray.

BY SEVEN O’CLOCK IN the morning, Kate was exhausted after running between Sylvia’s room and the ICU.

“Mr. Mathers will be fine if you want to slip home for a while.” Marie, the perky redheaded nurse who’d just arrived for first shift, checked her watch. “I don’t expect the docs to come around for at least another hour, maybe more.”

At the thought of a good, hot shower and a chance to check in at the vet clinic, Kate nodded. “You’ve got my cell number?”

Marie nodded. “Taped to the front of your husband’s chart, as well as on the records inside. If he so much as looks at me cross-eyed, I’ll give