“Do you want me to follow you out there, just to make sure you get there okay?”

She reached over and squeezed his hand. “Thanks for the offer, but really, I promise I’ll drive carefully.”

He handed the keys back to her. “You call me when you get there and find out what happened, okay? No matter how late it is.”

“I will.”

“And be sure to let me know if there’s anything I can do.” He walked her to the front door.

“Just pray.”

“I already am.”

Meredith ran to her SUV and was about to punch the accelerator to get to the hospital as fast as she could—then remembered where she was going and why. No point in getting into an accident herself by speeding on the wet roads. With both hands in a death grip around the steering wheel, she headed for the sprawling medical park that surrounded the largest hospital in town.

She prayed the entire way, never getting beyond Please let him be okay.

Trying to figure out where to park to get to the emergency room frustrated her almost to the point of tears. She eventually found the designated lot and pulled into a space, not caring that her right wheels were over the line.

Her heels tapped on the tile floor in a quick staccato as she half walked, half jogged to the information desk.

“May I help you?” the woman behind the glass asked.

“Yes. I’m here for Major O’Hara. He was in a car accident. I talked to a nurse—” Oh, what had her name been? “Amanda or Abigail or ... Alison! I talked to Nurse Alison, who answered his phone when I called it.”

“And your name is?”

“Meredith Guidry.”

“Please have a seat, Ms. Guidry.”

“But—”

The woman slid the glass closed.

Defeated by worry, Meredith perched on the edge of the nearest chair and dug in her purse for a piece of gum or candy or something. She found a peppermint that had been in there forever and put it in her mouth, tapping her back teeth on its hard surface.

The sitcom on the TV hanging off the wall twenty feet away ended, and another show started. Meredith couldn’t sit still any longer. So she paced.

Surely after so many years and so much time wasted, God wouldn’t take Major away from her like this.

Chapter 26

Major tried to concentrate on what was going on around him, but the shot they’d given him in the ambulance made his stomach woozy and his head feel like it was stuffed with cabbage. He couldn’t move. They had him strapped to a board.

But he needed to get to Ma. She would be frantic when he didn’t show up at the time he said he would. She’d have an episode—and she’d caused so much trouble recently that it might be the last straw. He didn’t want to have to find another place for her to live.

“I need my phone.” He watched as they put another shot of something into his IV.

“Mr. O’Hara, we need to get X-rays of your neck and spine. If those come out okay, we’ll unstrap you from the board. Is there someone we can call for you?”

“My mother—she’s at Beausoleil Pointe Center. She’s expecting me. But if I don’t come—I think I’m going to throw up.”

The medical staff scrambled to turn him onto his side and stuck a plastic tray under the side of his face. After a few long seconds, the wave of nausea abated.

“I’m okay now.” But he wasn’t really. His vision started going dark around the edges. Maybe if he just closed his eyes for a minute, everything would be okay when he opened them again.

Painful pressure on his chest woke him.

“Mr. O’Hara, don’t go to sleep on us now.”

“Won’t.” But the drifting feeling tempted him, because to follow it meant he didn’t have to experience the reality of the severe pain in his left leg or the sharp stabbing in his left side every time he breathed.

“Mr. O’Hara, there’s a Meredith Guidry here to see you.”

“Meredith? Where?”

“Is it okay if she comes back? She said she’s your emergency contact.”

“Yes.” He closed his eyes. He answered yes or no to the nurses’ questions about his medical history. They finally removed the neck brace and back board.

“Major?”

He opened his eyes to the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld. “Meredith. I love you. Will you marry me?”

Tears dripped from her eyes. “I think that’s something we should probably talk about sometime when you aren’t doped up on morphine.”

“Okay. I need to get out of here. I’ve got to go—get to Ma.” Strong hands pressed his shoulders back against the bed.

“You just need to stay here and let them fix you up.” Meredith’s fingers grazed his forehead, pushing his hair back.

“We need to take him up to get an MRI on his leg before surgery.” A nurse appeared beside Meredith with a plastic bag. “These are his personal effects—his clothes, shoes, wallet, phone ... everything he had on him.”

“Surgery?”

“For the compound fracture in his leg. I’ll take you upstairs to the waiting room near where they’ll be doing the procedure.”

“Thank you.”

Major heard a familiar sounding tune. Ma’s song. It was his phone. Ma was calling. But the sound grew fainter, and the ceiling tiles whizzing by overhead were making him sick to his stomach again.

* * *

Meredith wiped the moisture from her face and followed Alison to a different set of elevators than the ones they’d taken Major away in.

“The pain killers they gave him were making him say things that he probably didn’t mean,” Alison said.

“You mean when he asked me to marry him?”

The nurse nodded.

“I told you I’m his boss, but we’re also sort of dating.”

“Oh, so he might have meant it, then.” The elevator doors opened, and Alison motioned Meredith to follow her.

Major’s phone started to ring again with that peculiar ringtone she’d noticed on other occasions.

“Whoever that is has called a couple of times already. Once we talked to you as his emergency contact, we didn’t want to answer it.”

Before Meredith could dig the phone out of the bottom of the big plastic bag, it stopped. “Well, if they call back, I’ll answer it, just in case it’s something important.”

They stopped at the nurses’ station for the surgical unit, and Meredith gave them her name and cell phone number.

“You realize he’s going to be in pre-op and surgery for a few hours, right?” the nurse asked when Meredith told her she planned on staying around.

“Someone needs to be here for him, and as far as I know, I’m the only someone he’s got.” Pressure built in her throat. Even though she’d seen him with her own eyes and Alison had assured her he’d be okay, fear laid claim to her soul. Something could still go wrong.

“All right. But it’ll be a long evening. If you’d like, the cafeteria is down on the second floor. They serve dinner until nine o’clock, and the coffee shop is open all night.”

The heavy plastic bag started digging into Meredith’s fingers. “I think I’ll go put his stuff in my car—oh, I’m parked in the ER visitor lot. Should I move it to another parking area?”

“Your car should be fine where it is.” Alison touched Meredith’s arm. “I’ll be praying for your ... friend.”

“Thank you.” Meredith briefly pressed her hand on top of Alison’s.

“I’ll take you back down to the ER—that’ll be the easiest way to get to your car.”

Meredith did her best to pay attention to their route so she could find her way back through the labyrinthine building when she came back. Alison showed her where to go from the emergency room lobby to get back upstairs. Meredith thanked her again then stepped out into the chill March air.

Only when Major’s phone started ringing again did Meredith remember to dig it out of the bottom of the bag.

BPC flashed on the screen. It took her a couple of tries to find the correct button to answer. “Hello?”

A slight rustling came over the line then a click and dead air.

“Hmm.” Meredith looked at the screen again. Call Ended. Well, that was odd.

She’d just gotten onto the elevator when the phone rang again. “Hello? This is Meredith Guidry answering for Major O’Hara.”

A slight pause. Then, “Major—I need to talk to him.” The voice was low and hoarse enough that Meredith couldn’t tell if it was male or female.

“He can’t come to the phone right now.”

“I need to talk to him.” Urgency made the voice sound female.

“I understand, but he’s ... he’s been in a car accident, and the doctors are looking at him right now. Is this—are you his mother?”

Dead air was the only response she received. She looked at the screen, but the call timer kept ticking the seconds away. They hadn’t been disconnected.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

She kept the phone to her ear and made her way down a myriad of corridors until she found the correct surgical waiting room.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

Silence came back to her.

After another few minutes, she tried again, but to no avail. She disconnected and stared at the screen a moment. What did BPC mean? She scrolled through his contacts to find it. Taking a deep breath, not knowing who would answer, she hit SEND.

The line rang twice, then a click. “Hello. You have reached the main switchboard at Beausoleil Pointe Center. Our hours of operation are 7:00a.m. to 6:00p.m. If you know your party’s extension, please dial it at any time. If this is an emergency, press 6 to page the on-call physician.”

Meredith hung up. On-call physician? What was this place?

She went back into his contacts list and scrolled down to the Ms. She got a slight smile seeing her name with all of her contact phone numbers listed, but kept scrolling. No Mom or Mother listed. Closing the phone, she sighed. She’d just have to wait for the woman to call back.

She flipped through a couple of old magazines, called her parents, tried to watch the news program on the overhead TV, called Forbes, paced, sat, called Ward, paced some more, and prayed—prayed hard. The more time dragged on, the more frustrated and worried she became.

“Ms. Guidry?”

She practically ran to the nurses’ station. “Yes?”

A male nurse dressed in green scrubs leaned against the counter. “Mr. O’Hara is in the pre-op area. The doctor said you can go back and see him for a minute if you’d like.”

“Definitely.”

He spotted the cell phone in her hand. “You’ll have to turn that off. You can’t use it back there anyway.”

“Okay.” She pressed and held the End button, hoping it worked just like hers. Blessedly, it did, and she dropped it into her jacket pocket. Flipping her phone open, she did the same to it.

Major was the only patient in the pre-op area. Her breath caught. The entire left side of his face looked bruised, with tiny cuts across his forehead, cheek, and jaw. His broken leg, the sight of which had nearly made her ill downstairs, was covered with a sheet.

The anesthesiologist who hovered near the head of the bed introduced himself. “I thought I’d wait until you had a chance to talk to him before I gave him the sedative.”

“I appreciate it.” She approached the other side of the gurney. “Major?”

His eyelids raised to half-mast to reveal glazed eyes. He blinked a couple of times, and his gaze became a little clearer. “Meredith.” He reached toward her.

She grabbed his hand with both of hers. “It’ll be okay.”

“Will you pray for me?”

“Of course. I have been praying for you.” She lifted his hand and pressed it to her cheek.

“I mean right now.”

“Miss, I really need to administer this.” The anesthesiologist raised a hypodermic needle.

“Major, I’ll pray for you while the doctor gives you the sedative.” She looked up at the anesthesiologist. At his nod, she leaned closer to Major, keeping one hand wrapped around his and resting the other on top of his head.

“Lord God, I bow before You right now so thankful that You chose to spare Major’s life. Father, I pray for the doctors and nurses who will be performing the surgery. Steady their hands, give them strength and wisdom and clarity of mind. And I pray especially for Major, someone I know is precious in Your sight. Watch over him and protect him while he’s in surgery, and then we ask for a quick recovery afterward. Amen.”

“Amen,” the nurse who’d brought her in repeated.

Major grunted, and his head lolled to the side.