Our First Christmas (40 page)

Megan had trouble thinking that Claire could actually be nice to anybody, but she wondered if she had judged the Upland girl too harshly. It wasn't easy to lose someone you cared for, even if you did have a backup boyfriend in tow.

“Did you break it off with her?” she asked.

“I didn't have to.”

“Because of Brad.”

“Yeah, but I did call her, the day after Adam's wedding. The day after I met you,” he said. “And I made sure she understood that I was interested in someone else and we could be ‘friends.' ”

“And how did she take it?”

“Like a dare, I guess.” He looked over at Megan in the dark interior of the car. “It was like she didn't believe me, even though she was dating Brad. But seeing you, with me, I think she finally understood.” He sighed. “It's funny.”

“Funny?”

“Yeah, she didn't really want to be with me. I think she kind of used me to get back at Brad. But once she couldn't have me, she got a little more interested.”

“And what about you? How do you feel?”

“It's over with her. You see, I've found someone else, a girl from Central. The trouble is, I'm not sure she likes me.”

Megan felt herself smiling. “I think she probably does,” she said, and he laughed, flicked on the ignition, and drove the rest of the way to her house. Once he'd parked, he carried Megan's backpack to the door. Natalie and Adam's car was gone. “I guess they got tired of waiting,” Megan said, disappointed, though it was as much about missing her sister as it was about Adam, which was a surprise. She wondered if the change in her feelings was because he was married now, officially had become her sister's husband, or because of Chris.

It didn't take long for her to decide. She was falling in love with Chris. It was just that simple, and the thought of it brought a smile to her face. When he dropped her backpack onto the porch, she didn't wait for him, but put her arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the lips. He glanced overhead, as if searching for a sprig of mistletoe, but she giggled.

“It's not there,” she assured him.

“No?”

“Uh-uh. No tricks this time. Just you and me and the fact that I want to kiss you very, very much.” And so she did it again, and this time his arms surrounded her and he drew her close. She swayed against him, closing her eyes and thinking that she'd been foolish, mooning over Adam for far too long. Maybe it had been because Adam was off-limits and could always be a fantasy, but this boy with his sexy smile, devilish glint in his eyes, and way of looking at her as if he really cared, he was the here and now. Real.

And if she thought about it, she was pretty sure she could fall in love with him.

Maybe forever.

“Megan?” Adam's voice caught her off guard, bringing her crashing back to the here-and-now of the waiting room at County General. With a start, she looked up to find him standing over her, his face a mask of concern. “How is he?”

“I don't know,” she admitted, and turned her head to glance at the chart again. Nearly an hour had passed since she'd last read the information on his chart. Her heart sank. No change. “He's been in surgery for four hours.” It seemed like a lifetime. “I talked to his admitting nurse, though.” As Adam took the chair next to hers, she explained the situation as best she knew it and realized how little that was.

Once she was finished, he snorted, his jaw set. “And they're not telling you anything else? That's ridiculous.” Jerking his head toward the woman manning the single desk, he said, “We need answers.”

“I'm sure we'll get them as soon as there are any.”

“I'm not so certain.” His lips were compressed, and he was agitated. “I'll talk to them.”

“It won't do any good,” she said, and his eyes flared. There was nothing Adam Newell liked better than a challenge. “Look I've already tried.” But her words were ignored as Adam was on his feet and making a beeline toward the unsuspecting woman who handed out the patient numbers. “Adam, please—”

Too late. He didn't push to the front of the line, but waited impatiently, hands in his pockets, as an older man who was in front of the desk and obviously hard of hearing was asking the information clerk to speak up for the sixth time.

A redhead seated across from Megan peered over the top of her beat-up fashion magazine, her eyebrows elevating a fraction as she watched Adam shift from one foot to the other.

Pushing forty-five Adam was still a handsome man, one who could turn heads. Though there was a bit of gray at his temples and he'd filled out a little over the years, and his face showed a few lines, he was good-looking and cut a striking figure in and out of the courtroom. He realized it and carried himself with the pride of a person who knew his place in the world, a place he'd worked hard to carve for himself.

This evening, though, his persistence and glib tongue didn't pay off. The woman behind the desk didn't and wouldn't tell him anything more despite the fact that he peppered her with questions.

“No luck?” Megan guessed as he returned to her side and dropped into the chair he'd recently vacated.

“Zero.”

“I just don't think there is any more information to be had.”

“Maybe.” He said it as if she'd expected something more from him, as if he thought she believed he could move immovable mountains. Perhaps that had been the crux of her interest in him. Not only had she had girlish fantasies about him in her youth, but she'd seen a man who tried his best, though sometimes his methods weren't effective or the best choice. Years before, Megan had witnessed Adam try to save his marriage to a woman who had left him abruptly as she'd chased after her own dreams and a college professor who had convinced her to leave her “stick-in-the-mud” husband. Yep, that had been Natalie, ever flighty. Despite having thought she was marrying the love of her life not ten years earlier, she'd packed it in, left Adam a note saying it was over, and taken off for Paris, the city of light or love or whatever and where she now resided long after the college professor had turned his attention to another, younger student.

Adam, always stalwart, when he'd finally realized his marriage to Natalie was over, had remained single, throwing himself into what had become a successful career and dating a string of girlfriends, not one having lasted more than nine or ten months. And then he'd bought into the law firm where Megan worked just as her own marriage was crumbling. Even though she believed he was a confirmed bachelor, there had been the office flirtation with her, the rekindled fantasy when her own marriage had become rocky. Oh, geez, they were both idiots, she thought, leaning back in the stiff chair. They'd never dated, never kissed, never touched, but there had been an old spark that kept igniting, and, once her divorce was final, she'd thought she might just see what would happen between them. It would be messy, of course, probably too messy, with Adam still Chris's cousin and her kids remembering him as having been married to Natalie years before, but Megan would be lying if she said she hadn't considered what it would be like to be with him. To cut loose. To let the wild child within her free, if only for a few short nights.

Now, however, under the harsh glare of the waiting room lights, with Chris fighting for his life, she wondered what she'd been thinking. What kind of dangerous fantasies had she let grow in her imagination? All because she'd been unhappy. All because the romance had seemed to disappear from her relationship with her husband. All because she'd become lonely once the kids had moved out.

Foolish, foolish woman.

Did it really take a tragedy to wake her up?

How sad. How clichéd. How downright stupid.

“I don't suppose you called Natalie?” he asked. From the corner of her eye she saw the furrow of his brow.

“Texted,” she said. “Time difference.”

“Your dad?”

“Not yet, but I did send a quick note to Chris's parents.” She glanced at Adam. “I'm surprised they haven't called. As for Dad”—she sighed, not looking forward to that conversation and all the questions—“I'll deal with him later, once I know more . . . oh!” She looked at the chart again and saw that Chris's status had changed from the blue square of surgery to the green of recovery. Her heart did a little leap. That had to be a good sign, right? Her husband was on the right track? “He's out of surgery.”

“Thank God.” Adam's phone beeped as he gazed at the chart. He yanked the phone from his jacket pocket, his eyebrows drawing together as he read the number on his phone's screen. “Looks like I'd better take this.” As he pressed the phone to his ear, he answered. “Hey.” Then he obviously saw the sign indicating that cell phones were banned in the room. With a nod to Megan he made his way to the hallway, his voice barely audible, the words indistinguishable.

Surprisingly, she was relieved that he was gone and she was alone again. She didn't need to deal with Adam Newell and how he'd woven his way in and out of the periphery of her life. Not now.

“Mrs. Johnson?”

Megan looked up to find a woman in scrubs in the doorway searching the faces in the room. On her feet in an instant, she said, “I'm Megan Johnson.”

“Dr. Atwood.” Probably in her late forties, she was a trim woman with serious blue eyes, sharp cheekbones, and a dimpled chin. Her hair was hidden as it was pinned beneath a surgical cap, and she didn't smile.

Megan's stomach knotted. “How is he?”

“It's serious, but he's stable,” she said. “We can talk in one of the consultation rooms.”

“He's going to make it?”

The doctor didn't immediately answer, but led her down the hallway and around a corner and through another waiting area to a small office not much larger than a closet. Dr. Atwood took one of the chairs by a slim table and Megan sat in the other, facing the woman as she pulled off the cap, letting it dangle at her neck, her ash-blond hair still restrained by bands.

“Your husband hasn't regained consciousness and might not for a while,” she said, leaning her elbows on the table. “He suffered a head injury along with several broken bones in his pelvis. Both femurs were broken, his left more substantially, and he had some internal bleeding. . . .” She went on to describe Chris's injuries in medical terms and even showed Megan several X-rays, all of which caused Meg to cringe inside. Dear God, the extent of his injuries was phenomenal, but then, though the doctor didn't say it, Chris was lucky to be alive. “. . . To sum it up, he's in for a long haul.” She left out the
if he does survive.
“Possibly another surgery to his pelvis, and with head injuries a lot is uncertain. When he is well enough to leave here, he'll probably need to spend some time in a rehab facility for intense physical therapy, then once he transfers back home, he'll need in-home care, if that's possible.”

“Absolutely,” Megan said without so much as a blink. “Whatever he needs.”

“Good. Good. He'll be in ICU until he can be transferred to his own room, and I'm sorry, but I can't tell you exactly when that will be. If you have any questions, please, call the office.” And then she was gone, leaving Megan alone in the small room. She closed the door behind the doctor and slid back into the chair. Alone for the first time since storming into the hospital, she dropped her head into her hands and let the tears flow, feeling the release and hoping beyond hope that Chris would survive. She'd been selfish, she thought, and possibly he had, too. Now, it was time to heal, not only his broken body but both their scarred hearts.

If it was possible.

 

Two hours later, in the intensive care unit, Megan stared down at the broken body of her husband and reached for his fingers. He was hooked up to tubes and wires, and an IV hung over his bed to drip fluids into his body, with computer monitors recording his heartbeats and other information she didn't pretend to understand. He wasn't alone, but cordoned off from the other patients by long curtains, the beds in the unit fanning out from a central nurses' station where each patient's vital signs and needs were accessed and controlled.

“Chris?” she said softy, all too aware of the lack of privacy. Five of the seven beds were occupied, a few other loved ones visiting for the allowed ten minutes per hour, nurses moving quietly from one patient to the next. “Honey, can you hear me?” She touched his fingers and expected some response, a change in the beeping of his heart rate, the miraculous fluttering of his eyes opening, the monitors strapped to him going as crazy as a million-dollar slot machine payout. But nothing happened, and the man on the bed, his head bandaged, his legs wrapped and elevated, didn't move. At all.

Nothing changed.

Invisible bands tightened over her chest.

“Chris, honey, it's Meg,” she said, her throat thick and those damned tears she swore she was through shedding burning her eyes again. “I'm here, and I want you to know . . . I want you to believe that . . . that I love you. I always have.” She blinked, trying not to dwell on the past two years, the way they'd both faltered and fallen away from each other. “I know that we lost our way, but that's over. Get well, darling, please,” she said, and then, spying a nurse heading in her direction, gave his fingers a squeeze. “I'll be back.”

She left wishing that he'd heard her, hoping somehow her words had pierced the unconsciousness, but of course, his condition hadn't altered in the least. Her allotted minutes had passed, and numbly she left his bedside.

When she reached the waiting area outside the intensive care unit, Adam was leaning against a heat register near the windows and looking outside to the view of the parking area at night. Several other people were waiting as well, a teenager slouched in a chair, his feet propped on a table as he played some game on his iPhone, his mother nearby reading a Bible. Another woman was knitting, and the harried mother of a squirming two-year-old was pale and wan, brightening when a man in his twenties hurried from the area near the vending machines, a package of crackers in his hand.

Adam turned, catching her reflection in the glass.

Before he could ask, she said, “He's still unconscious. No change.” Reading another question in his eyes, she added, “No one's giving me any clues as to when he might wake up. They just don't know.”

He nodded slowly, processing, then looked at her intently again. “So how're you holding up?”

“Not very well,” she admitted, her voice cracking a bit. Too late she realized he intended to embrace her, but she was too exhausted to care; she needed the support. Thankfully the hug was only brotherly, compassion for another person who was suffering, two people holding each other up as they worried about a loved one. “You should go home, get some rest,” he said, his breath moving her hair. Vaguely she was aware of the woman who'd been knitting watching them. Who cared?

“Not yet.” She shook her head. “The kids texted. They're on their way. And . . . and I can't. I just can't. They'll let me see him in another hour, and I want to stay.”

“But you need to keep your strength up. When was the last time you ate?”

When had it been? “Lunch, I guess.” She stepped away from him. “Don't worry. I'll be okay. I'm tougher than I look.”

“If you say so.” He hesitated, still close enough that she noticed the shadow of his beard darkening, then said, “Natalie's coming back.”

“What?”

“She called earlier. From the airport. Flying standby.”

Megan couldn't believe it, but felt a moment's ray of hope. God, she'd missed her sister.

“She'll be here in a few hours. I'm picking her up at the airport.” He smiled then, a smile she hadn't seen in years, the one that had been reserved for his wife.

“Good.” Megan gave him another hug, and he held her a second longer than necessary. Pulling away, she caught a glimpse of a man heading in their direction, a scraggly-looking dude just getting off the elevators and then, with a jolt, recognized Brody. He was striding purposefully, his gaze focused on his mother.

“Brody!” Her emotions collided in her chest at the sight of her firstborn. No longer clean-cut and military, he now sported long hair, an unkempt beard, and an army jacket that seemed to swallow him.