Gracie.”
“Night, Dad. Hope you feel better in the morning.” I mean it, but I’ll tell you what I won’t do—make more wishes.
The ER doctor hadn’t given us much to go on. A light prescription for a lung infection, a diuretic, and a few suggested dietary changes, but none of that’s helped his shortness of breath.
It feels so hopeless.
“I’m sure I will,” Dad throws back before entering the room and closing the door.
Frustration bears down on me like a boulder.
There’s so little I can do for him.
Not just making him feel better, but finding a way for us to get out of the mess we’re in.
It’s true that we have nowhere to go ever since the Miles City plan fell through, yet, like Dad, I know we can’t stay here. We can’t drag Ridge into a living nightmare.
I’m just grateful we’re here for now, a refuge where Dad can rest for a few days in relative safety and comfort while I search for our next hiding place.
I tuck the last of the antiques in the boxes, finishing with a shiny set of silver spoons that look just as good as new now that they’re polished up. I leave them on the counter and go back to the couch.
Picking up my phone, I scroll through my contacts one more time, hoping a new idea hits. Some place we can go or someone I can call.
But the list of names might as well be total strangers. They’re all friends and college roommates I haven’t spoken to in years.
My thumb idly brings up a tab I’d minimized.
I pause when the website I’d been reading earlier pops up.
It’s a link from a clickbait article about Ridge, one from last year. I curl into the corner of the sofa and start reading again, my brows knit together.
A little more snooping can’t hurt, just for a little while.
Then I’ll plot a course out of North Dakota. Maybe we can go farther than Miles City, wind up in Billings or Bozeman, bigger cities with real hotels. Or maybe we’ll get lucky and find somewhere off the beaten path, where Dad can rest for a few days.
For now, I turn back to my screen, and the deeper I get, the more my heart tries to stop mid-beat. The headline almost hurts to read.
Dane Barnet Ghosts Star-Struck Charity Bash! Tragedy Still Haunts America’s Favorite Boy Actor.
According to the article, Ridge’s disappearance from the Hollywood scene happened after his mom’s death several years ago.
Judy Barnet’s demise was labeled a ‘probable suicide’ by investigators. I vaguely remember hearing about it but forgot until now. She’d fallen off a balcony at this luxury ski resort.
The piece goes on to discuss an earlier disappearance from the industry, a time when he’d abruptly left his childhood acting career to join the Army.
That ‘disappearance,’ they attributed to a child actor meltdown.
Yeah. I think I’ve got a nose for crap, and the breakdown they’re implying doesn’t jibe at all with the man I know.
Well, sorta maybe know for all of one action-packed day.
Overall, the article is negative, which irritates me, but also fills me with more questions.
And not just about how little I can believe.
I wonder what really brought Ridge to the desolate hills of North Dakota.
He doesn’t seem like the kinda guy to go into hiding because his mom committed suicide—which is what the article seems to be pressing readers to believe.
Too intrigued to stop now, I continue searching, reading, scowering for everything I can find about Ridge Barnet since the day he was born. I keep an open mind.
We won’t be staying here long, but however lengthy our stay, I’d love to find out more about our mysterious, generous host and what makes him tick.
Everything I’d read last night lingers in the back of my mind come morning.
It’s Dad in the front and center. Another rough night.
Even from my room, I’d heard him coughing so hard he was literally gasping sometimes.
He finally fell into an exhausted slumber after midnight. I pray he’ll stay asleep until I return.
There’s a drugstore in Dallas and that’s where I’m heading. Before I deal with anything else today, I have to throw something at that nasty cough.
I’ll see what the pharmacist suggests. Whatever it takes to make him feel better. It’s my only hope.
I already know I could talk until I’m blue in the face, but Dad won’t see another doctor while we’re stuck here.
“Back at it this soon or just an early riser?”
I’m almost to the truck when I