All They Need - By Sarah Mayberry Page 0,89

a complicated set of directions until they located her room and found her sitting up in bed with her injured arm carefully resting on a pillow to one side of her body. Her forearm was covered in a thick, many-layered bandage and the tight, pained look was gone from her face. Adam sat beside the bed, his face set in the same dogged, determined expression he’d worn earlier.

“There you are. We were beginning to think you’d gone to the wrong hospital,” Patricia said with a weary smile.

“We’ve been waiting downstairs until the nurse gave us the all clear. How are you doing?” Flynn asked, reaching to take his mother’s good hand.

“Better and better. The doctor wants to keep me in overnight so one of the plastic surgeons can take a look at it. Apparently it’s a borderline third-degree burn and I might need a skin graft.”

“And that’s something they’d do straight away?” Flynn asked.

“I have no idea. I forgot to ask them that.” Patricia gave him a small apologetic smile. “They’ll be back soon—you can ask them yourself.”

“But you’re comfortable?” Flynn asked.

“Very. A little spacey, but there’s no pain.”

“Good.”

Mel had been hovering in the doorway but Flynn drew her forward now.

“I didn’t get a chance to introduce anyone earlier, but Mel, this is my mother, Patricia, and my father, Adam. Mom, Dad, this is Mel,” he said.

“Lovely to meet you, Mel. I wish the circumstances were different, but there’s not much I can do about that,” Patricia said.

“I’m glad to hear you’re feeling more comfortable,” Mel said.

Flynn’s father didn’t say anything and Flynn fixed his father with an assessing look. “You doing okay there, Dad?”

His father met his eyes and Mel could see that the older man was working hard to keep a lid on his emotions.

“What’s going on, Dad?” Flynn asked gently.

“I’m fine. You’re mother is the important one here.”

Patricia eyed her husband shrewdly. “You’re blaming yourself, aren’t you?”

Again, Adam didn’t say anything but his answer was in his face as he made eye contact with his wife.

“Don’t go all quiet on me. Talk to me,” Patricia said quietly. “We said we’d always talk. So talk to me.”

There was a moment of silence before Flynn’s father responded. “I let you down.”

He said it so quietly Mel almost didn’t hear him.

“No, you didn’t. You called Flynn. That was the exactly right thing to do.”

Adam shook his head. “Don’t. Don’t try to make me feel better. I panicked. I couldn’t handle it.” The grief and self-disgust in his voice and his face were so real, so deeply felt, that Mel stirred uneasily and dropped her gaze to the floor.

“No,” Patricia said. “You got help. You helped me. You waited with me.”

“I stood there crying like a baby. I could barely think. I’m useless. Might as well have had a five-year-old in the room.”

Patricia surprised everyone by reaching over the edge of the bed to grab a fistful of her husband’s sweater. Her expression determined, she gave him a none-too-gentle shake.

“You listen here, Adam Randall. You are not useless. You are not worse than a child. You are an intelligent, articulate man. You make me laugh more than anyone I’ve ever met. You still beat me at golf, even though I’ve been taking lessons for fifteen years, trying to beat you. You are kind and you are loving and you are the man I have loved all my life. Those other things you’re talking about, that’s not you. We both know that. You have a disease. A horrible, shitty, low-down bastard of a disease, and that’s the reason you got confused this morning. That wasn’t you, and you did not let me down. You have never, ever let me down. Not once in more than forty years of marriage. You are my knight in shining armor. You will always be my knight in shining armor.”

There was so much fierce love on the other woman’s face, so much determination and vehemence in her voice, that Mel could not look away, even though she knew she was witnessing an intensely personal, private moment.

“I love you so much, Patty.”

“I know. Now give me a kiss.”

Adam’s face was filled with emotion as he stood and stooped over his wife, cupping her head with infinite gentleness as he lowered his head to kiss her lips.

Mel sniffed and finally managed to drag her gaze away, using the sleeve of her sweater to wipe her eyes. She glanced at Flynn to see what he’d made of his parents’ touching,