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

nodded and turned back to her father’s still form. “And there’s something else...something I’ve got to tell you, but I don’t know how. You and Mom always wanted the best for me. And you’ve given me so much—”

One of the monitors by the bed sounded a shrill alarm and suddenly there were nurses everywhere, jostling for position at the bed, reaching for something on the IV pole.

“We need to help your father,” one of them said in a low, urgent voice. “Go back to the visitors’ lounge.”

Hurried footsteps arrived, followed by a cart rattling across the floor, and three more medical personnel burst into the small area. Casey stumbled backward, straining to see her father’s face one more time as guilt flooded through her.

Had he really heard her? Had her words stressed him out, tipping the balance in his already precarious state? A wave of grief swamped her. And why wasn’t anyone here with him? The nurses had made her leave, and with no sign of Mom or Grandma anywhere, was he going to die alone?

She blindly made her way back to the lounge, barely able to see through her hot tears. An old man sat hunched over in a chair to one side. He lifted his head briefly in alarm when she appeared at the door, then sank back with a heavy sigh and dropped his head over his folded hands.

So someone else was here, too, awaiting bad news.

She managed a weak smile in his direction, though he didn’t look up as she passed on her way to the far end of the room. The bitter irony of it all hit her as she settled at the edge of a chair, her eyes pinned on the open doorway and a sick feeling of dread pressing in on her from every side.

During the flight home, she’d been nearly overwhelmed with anxiety over the conversation to come. But now, the ruin of her own life seemed as inconsequential as a speck of dust.

CHAPTER TWELVE

KATE GLANCED AT HER watch and unlocked the back door of her clinic, stepped inside and locked it behind her.

There’d been a time when she would have left it open to the crisp early-morning breeze, happy to savor the sharp scent of pine and the faint spring fragrance of lilacs. When she would’ve been comfortable with unlocked doors and open windows, knowing that her small town had always been safe. Now, her first thought was to protect herself and her clinic.

How could everything be going so terribly wrong?

She flipped on the hall lights and felt a moment of peace at the familiar sounds of the clinic. From the moment she opened the door, a cacophony of barking erupted from the kennel room to the left, answered by the yowls of a disgruntled patient in the neighboring room reserved for cats.

Across the hall, where the birds, reptiles and pocket pets were housed, a cockatiel whistled sharply.

Amy would be here in an hour to begin her kennel duties before taking over the front desk at nine. Though Kate needed to get back to the hospital as soon as possible, it felt good to be in this familiar world, alone for a few minutes, with no questions, no expressions of sympathy.

She needed to check on her surgery cases.

Draw labs on the retriever still on IVs, recovering after consuming an entire bag of chocolates, to see if he could finally go home.

Examine the feline emergency C-section.

Everything else—all the appointments for today, and the three or four elective surgeries—Amy would need to cancel if she hadn’t done so already.

Even being away from the hospital for less than an hour had Kate feeling jittery, as if a strong magnetic force was pulling her back, but thankfully there hadn’t been any calls from the ICU since she’d been gone.

Yet.

On her way into the kennel room, she reached for the comforting presence of the cell phone in her jacket pocket. Startled at its absence, she quickly searched her other pockets, her purse, then ran back out to her car.

Had she left it at home, where she’d gone for a quick shower and a change of clothes? Back at the hospital? Her anxiety swelled. What if someone had tried to call her about Jared?

Calm down, she told herself sternly. They do have the house and clinic numbers in Jared’s chart. Everything is all right.

Still, she hurried to the front office to check the answering machine and felt her heart stumble at the blinking light. Please—no bad news. Please. Her hands trembling, she pressed the button.

A call from a pharmaceutical sales rep, promising to be in late this afternoon.

Lucille Clark asking about her dog Percy, the cruciate ligament surgery Kate had done yesterday—probably at the very time Jared was getting in his car for his fateful trip.

Getting in his car with another woman at his side, an insidious inner voice whispered. A woman who was dead less than an hour later.

Oh, Lord—what on earth happened?

Biting her lip, Kate fought back a surging sense of loss and betrayal and grief as she hit the button again.

A reminder about the county veterinary meeting tomorrow night and a fervent plea for her to run for an office this year.

And then...the small, heartbroken voice of her daughter.

“Mom. Where are you? Why aren’t you here?” Her voice caught. “Daddy—he doesn’t look so good. The nurses came running in and they made me leave and...and I’m scared.”

Oh, God, please not now—don’t let him die with Casey there alone.

Grabbing the keys from the rack at the back door of the clinic, Kate ran to her car. She hesitated for just a heartbeat, then climbed behind the wheel. Had she locked the clinic? Surely she had...and Amy would arrive in less than an hour, at any rate. It would be okay, and she had no minutes to waste.

Her cell phone—praise the Lord—was on the front seat.

She reached up to adjust the rearview mirror before backing out and caught a glimpse of her tension-ravaged face, almost unrecognizable