Hummingbird Lake Page 0,99
what he did. Later he apologized to me and asked my forgiveness. He said he was frightened for me, and that’s how he reacted when he was afraid.”
“That’s stupid.”
“That’s a man for you. Sage, I’ll bet my favorite pair of flats that whatever you told Dad—if it was as awful for you as I think it must have been—scared him. Rather than giving you the comfort you needed, he reacted to his fear for his little girl.”
“No, he wouldn’t …” Sage’s voice trailed off. Hope flickered to life inside her and she added, “Do you really think he …?”
“Yeah, I really do.”
The sisters sat without speaking for a bit. Sage mulled over all that Rose had said. She’d love to believe it was true, that her father hadn’t died thinking her a coward. It would lift such a burden from her soul and be her own personal miracle.
She looked at Rose. Her sister would have made it happen. “Why did you come here tonight?”
She shrugged. “Celeste asked me to bring Snowdrop to you.”
“I’m glad you did.” Sage licked her lips. “Rose, can you tell me about your diagnosis? I’ve been so worried about you.”
With that, Rose’s tears overflowed. Then, physician to physician, sister to sister, and woman to woman, Rose explained first the clinical aspects of her cancer and treatment, then the personal ones.
“Oh, Sage,” she said, her voice cracking. “They had to take my uterus. I’ll never have the babies I wanted. I let Brandon convince me to put the marriage off, and at the first sign of sickness, he bailed on me. Now he’s married to someone else and has a baby on the way.”
“He’s scum. A selfish, scurrilous cad.”
Rose snorted a laugh. “You still read historical romances, I see.”
“Not to say I told you so, but I told you so. I really couldn’t stand him.” Now Sage was the one who reached for her sister and held her tight. “I’m so sorry. Cancer is such an evil disease. It’s not fair. You should have had your babies. I know how badly you wanted them.”
Pulling back, she added, “Maybe someday you’ll hear something from the registry.”
Rose shut her eyes, visibly flinching at Sage’s oblique reference to the child she’d given up for adoption. “I’m afraid I’ve lost my faith in miracles.”
“That’s okay.” Sage drew a deep breath and reflected on the momentous, stupendous changes she’d experienced within the past hour. Then her thoughts turned to Colt and dreams that might not be dead after all. “I have enough faith in them for us both.”
Colt entered Children’s Medical Center in Dallas on a run. He’d been in constant contact with his brother during the drive, and Jason had told him exactly where to go. Rachel was in surgery, still.
When the bus rolled over, she’d gone flying and landed on her head. She’d told a first responder that she’d heard her neck go pop. When she went to get up, her arms wouldn’t move. X-rays revealed broken bones in her neck pressed against the spinal cord. The ligaments, joints, and a disc were injured. One of four main arteries that feeds the brain was kinked.
“They took great care with her neck while transporting her, thank God,” Jason had told Colt while he waited to board his flight at the airport in Amarillo. “Her pediatric neurosurgeon says that had she moved any more, she would have compressed the spinal cord to the point that she would have functional loss.”
“And that means …?”
“She would have been paralyzed from the neck down.”
Those words had haunted Colt the rest of the trip. The last time he’d seen his niece she’d been playing tag with the neighborhood kids.
At the doorway to the waiting room, he hesitated. His sister-in-law, Ann, sat in a chair, her arms wrapped around herself, rocking, staring unseeing into space. Jason stood staring out a window, his hands shoved into his pockets. He’d aged ten years since Colt had seen him last.
Colt sucked in a bracing breath, then stepped into the waiting room. “Ann? Jason?”
Ann flew from her seat and into his arms. She mumbled mostly unintelligible words against his chest, though he did make out “Glad you’re here.”
He met his brother’s tortured gaze, and asked, “What’s the latest?”
“Nothing new since we hung up. Thanks for coming, Colt.”
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
The waiting was misery. The doctors had warned Rachel’s parents to expect a lengthy surgery, but the wait seemed like days. Especially when her loved ones knew that the operation carried