Save the Last Dance (6 page)

“Don’t care?” Sylvia lifted her chin. “They’re too young to understand their father’s legacy right now, but they’ll thank me in the future. You can bet on it.”

“You should be thinking about who you want all this for—you, or them.” Dexter regarded her for a long moment, then his shoulders slumped and he turned to the door. “Because I think you’re going to drive them away, and then you’ll have nothing. Nothing at all.”

She clenched her fingers on the back of a chair until her arthritis ached and her knuckles were white, still staring at the door long after Dexter was gone. He had no clue. No clue at all about how hard things were right now.

Which meant, she supposed, that she’d been a success. Smoke and mirrors—her life now amounted to that and nothing more, because Ellsworth had died so young.

A stock market plunge in the eighties had decimated their investments, and he’d been foolish—too focused on his constituents to pay proper attention to his family’s financial security.

One avaricious, sleazy little constituent in particular extracted quite a cozy nest egg for herself in exchange for her silence after the senator died in her arms on the dance floor of some tacky bar.

He’d been careless about other matters as well—like maintaining adequate life insurance—and left his family in luxurious housing Sylvia could scarcely afford, with debts beyond anything left in the bank.

So now she worked long hours on full commission in an upscale dress shop, on the pretext that she was simply bored and needed something beyond her volunteer activities to fill her time. She found creative ways to keep up a good front—
buying designer garments and accessories that had been returned to the shop soiled or damaged, and then discounted. Or skillfully refurbishing the classic pieces she already owned.

But above all, she had a plan—a perfect plan—to ensure that the future would be far, far better.

And her children were the ones who could make that happen.

Present Day

K
ATE RUBBED HER ARMS
, trying to stir some warmth into her cold flesh. Was it twenty degrees in here? Thirty?

At ten o’clock the hallway lights had dimmed, leaving just the harsh glare of ceiling lights in the empty hospital waiting room and the glow of the red exit signs at either end of the hallway she’d been pacing for the last two hours.

Bright light taunted her from behind the double doors marked Staff Only. More than once she’d stopped at those doors to rest her forehead against the frosted windows, willing someone to come out.

Desperately needing to hear good news.

The last announcements hadn’t been promising. Blood loss. Concern about reducing the pressure in Jared’s brain before permanent damage occurred. From the nurse’s grim expression, things
were going worse than expected, and there wasn’t a single thing Kate could do to help except pray.

She’d certainly kept the line to God open the entire evening—praying Jared would survive, praying that he wouldn’t have permanent damage. Praying that Casey and Sylvia would arrive in time for goodbyes if he was beyond hope, though that thought renewed her silent tears every time.

I wish I could go back…do things right. Take back things I’ve said…I’d be a better wife. A better mom.

The silence of the hospital mocked her as she hesitated at the doors once again, then resumed her pacing.

At the sudden ring of her cell phone she nearly jumped out of her skin, then fumbled to pull it from her jacket pocket. Her heart raced as she squinted at the name on the screen.

“Tom?”

“How are you holding up, Kate?” Jared’s law partner’s voice was warm and sympathetic, but she could hear a note of hesitance, too.

“All right, I guess. No—” She shoved a hand through her hair. “It’s awful, waiting to hear. Casey won’t arrive till sometime tomorrow, and Sylvia’s on her way.”

“But no news is good news, right? He must be holding up in surgery or they would’ve come out
to tell you by now. I’m just so sorry I can’t be there with you.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to be. H-how’s Neta?”

“She’s doing okay.” The single word held a weary acceptance that spoke of all the trials they’d been through with his wife Neta’s recurring cancer and coping with their three young children. “I hate to keep you on the phone, but thought you should know that a deputy came out to see me tonight. He left just a few minutes ago.”

“About the accident?”

“And about the deceased. We talked at the house, then drove to the office and looked over the planner that Jared keeps on his desk. We couldn’t find anything about an appointment this afternoon. There weren’t any messages on his office phone, either, and his cell was destroyed in the fire.”

Icy fingers clenched Kate’s stomach, sending a queasy feeling up her throat. “You have no idea who that woman could have been?”

“None.” After a long pause, Tom added, “But there’s a lot I don’t know about what Jared is handling now.”

“Me, too. I know the free clinic is a wonderful concept. There’s such need in this county, and it’s great that he wants to help. But, well…”

“We’ve gotten a few anonymous, threatening calls here at the office, and I know you’ve had some, too.” Tom cleared his throat. “I think he’s taking on some difficult adversaries.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” She shuddered, thinking about the hours she spent on near-deserted roads, going out on farm calls alone. The relative isolation of her own clinic and the house…and the fact that Jared was alone in that free legal clinic into the wee hours of the night.

“The sheriff said he was going over there in the morning to check the appointment book.”

Kate swallowed hard. “That woman was probably just a client.”

“Of course—of course she was, Kate. Maybe she was a spousal abuse case who walked in off the street and needed a ride to the women’s shelter.”

But the likelihood of that, with the accident so far south of town, was slim, and they both knew it.

Tom and Jared had been partners since graduation from law school, and he knew about the marriage problems Jared and Kate had been through. His reassurances were those of an old, close friend, but she could hear the overly positive note in his voice.

“The thing now is to just get through this surgery and the recovery,” he added gently. “Right?”

“Absolutely. Everything else can be resolved later.” Kate sent up another brief prayer, begging for that to be possible. “I—I’ll call you whenever I hear anything more.”

“Day or night, honey. Neta and I will be by the phone.”

Kate snapped her phone shut and dropped it in her pocket. A wave of loneliness and sorrow threatened to buckle her knees, and she sank into a nearby chair, wishing someone would walk through the surgical suite doors
right now
and make the world settle back onto its axis and—

She blinked at the gaunt apparition sitting stiffly in the farthest corner of the waiting room. “
Sylvia.
I didn’t hear you come in.”

Sylvia sniffed. “I’m sure you didn’t.”

Though the woman had clearly taken the farthest possible seat on purpose, Kate moved across the room to sit opposite her, scooted a chair closer and reached out to take Sylvia’s cold, bony hands between her own.

The woman had always been New-York-model thin, but as she aged, it hadn’t served her well. Her skin held a yellowed, waxy pallor and the dark circles under her eyes emphasized her deeply lined face. “You must be absolutely exhausted.”

“There was no question, of course. I had to get
here. The nurse in the E.R. said she’d notify surgery that I’d arrived and send someone out with a report. Have you seen anyone?”

“Not for more than an hour. But the last report…” Kate hesitated over just how much to say. “Well, it wasn’t very promising. Jared is strong and healthy, and he’s a fighter. But his injuries are serious.”

Sylvia pulled her hands away and lifted her chin. “He’ll make it. The Matherses don’t give in.”

“I’m praying that’s true,” Kate said gently. Twenty years of marriage to Jared had never brought companionship, not even acceptance, from his mother, and Kate didn’t expect it now. But she knew the stony expression in the woman’s eyes hid a great deal of pain that Sylvia had never shared. “He has a lot of people to live for—people who love him. I have to think that it will make a difference.”

“Love?” Sylvia’s voice sounded like the crack of a whip in the tomblike silence of the hospital. “Don’t crow too loudly, my dear. If he loved you so very much, why would he have been driven into the arms of someone else?”

Kate jerked back in her chair, stunned.

“I heard your conversation when I walked in. You might’ve snared him all those years ago, but
it was wrong then, and it’s still wrong.” Stress and exhaustion and years of simmering dislike seemed to take hold of her, and Sylvia leaned forward, her hands clamped on the arms of her chair and her voice rising. “My son wouldn’t be on that surgery table if not for you.”

Her thinking was beyond illogical, but there was no point in arguing. Kate silently withdrew to another seat several chairs away.

“You know it’s true,” Sylvia added in a low, vicious tone. “All the hopes and dreams he had, his bright future, were lost when he was too young to even realize what he was giving up.”

The kernel of truth in her words helped Kate bite her tongue when she wanted to refute every word, but none of this was new. Critical, cold and relentless, Sylvia had found endless ways to drive home subtle barbs over the years about their marriage. Her advancing age had only sharpened her tongue…but she’d always been crafty enough to guard what she said within her son’s hearing.

At the sound of rattling wheels—gurney wheels?—Kate shot to her feet, a hand over her heart.

A cleaning woman wearily trudged down the hall, pushing a cart of supplies.

Five endless minutes later, the double doors to
surgery swung open, bathing the hall in blinding light. The surgeon stepped forward, his face haggard beneath his five o’clock shadow, the surgical mask hanging in front of his neck.

Kate’s heart skipped a beat, stumbled, then started pounding as her anxiety grew. He seemed to be walking toward her in ultraslow motion, while she couldn’t will herself to move a single step toward the news that might change her life forever.

Then time stopped as numbness swept through her. “Is he…Is he…”

The words couldn’t get past the lump in her throat.

Dr. Jacobs reached out to take her hand. “Honestly, I had my doubts, but he’s still with us. He coded several times. We had trouble bringing him back the last time. The next twenty-four hours are going to be critical.”

She swallowed hard, dimly aware that Sylvia had come to stand next to her, her back ramrod straight in preparation for the worst possible news.

“Critical.” Sylvia knotted her fists at her sides. “Clarify that, please.”

“You are…”

“His mother, naturally. Sylvia Mathers.”

Sympathy warmed Jacobs’s eyes. “Your son is a lucky man. In cases like this we need rapid as
sessment and immediate evacuation to an appropriate medical facility—within an hour or less. He was here within that golden hour, and fortunately, surgeons experienced with his types of injuries were available.”

“Thank God for that,” Kate whispered.

“With hematomas or depressed skull fractures, the immediate risk is dangerously elevated intracranial pressure and brain damage. We’ve placed a temporary catheter to help drain excess fluids, and so we can closely monitor him for rising pressure.”

“And if that happens?”

“We’ve already started IV Lasix, but we’ve got other options…We’ll just have to see how he does. We’ll also be monitoring him for blood clots. I promise you,” Jacobs said with a ghost of a smile, “that he will have the best of care.”

Sylvia frowned. “When can I see my son?”

The doctor glanced at the clock on the wall. “He’s in recovery now, then he’ll be transported to the ICU. Maybe you two can go home and get some rest, and come back in a few hours? You’ll only be able to sit with him for a few minutes every hour, anyway.”

Anxiety rippled through Kate at the thought of leaving the hospital—leaving Jared here without family—even for an hour. She turned to Sylvia.
“I’ll stay, if you’d like to go out to the house. I can give you the keys.”

“I called for hotel reservations on my way here.”

“But—”

“I think it would be best, don’t you?” The frosty tone in her voice gave no room for discussion. “We’ll all be more comfortable.”

Dr. Jacobs looked between them and cleared his throat. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I need to check in on Jared and write my surgical report. You can ask the nurses to contact me if you have any questions.”

As soon as he was gone, Kate tried again. “Are you sure you want to be alone? Casey will be home tomorrow, and we have two empty bedrooms. It would be nice for you two to have some time together.”

Sylvia turned to gather her purse and a light jacket she’d draped across the back of a chair. “Perhaps
you’ll
have some time to spare. But I assure you, this hospital is where I plan to spend my time. I’m going to settle in at the hotel, and I’ll be back in an hour.”

Kate listened to the sharp staccato click of her high heels fading down the hall, the oppressive weight of two difficult decades descending upon her. As she slowly made her way to the ICU in the
east wing, Kate tried to focus on positive thoughts. Tried to sympathize with an old, bitter woman still dwelling in the past and too caught up in her anger to set aside her differences with her son’s wife, even in the face of Jared’s critical injuries.

But Sylvia had rejected every opportunity for opening herself up to a loving relationship with her son’s family. She’d suffered for it, Kate was sure…and so had Kate and Casey and Jared.
Feel sorry for her,
Kate muttered to herself as she waited for the elevator.
She must be terribly lonely.

But sympathy was hard to gather.

Her mother-in-law’s parting barb had hit the mark with perfect accuracy as always, conjuring up the memories of too many cutting remarks to count…

And the one Kate had never been able to forgive.