Healing Hearts (New Hope Falls #6) - Kimberly Rae Jordan Page 0,87
them on the beds. Without knowing when he might get back to the house, he wanted to make sure it was ready for Sophia and Bryson when they were able to come home. Finally, the washer finished so he could transfer the load to the dryer.
By the time he got to his own place half an hour later, Ryker was exhausted. But he wasn’t foolish enough to think he was going to drop into bed for a solid eight hours of sleep.
No, he’d come face to face with his worst nightmare that day: a sick child…a very sick child…and being able to do nothing himself to help Bryson except drive him to the ER.
He had frozen up, though, when he’d realized how sick Bryson really was. Sure, he’d managed to move past it and do what was required to help Bryson, but freezing up was unacceptable. He’d done a rotation in the ER. He knew that seconds could mean the difference between life and death.
Memories of the night he and Silas had witnessed an accident take place right in front of them flooded his mind. Silas had already been working in the ER, and as soon as he’d seen the accident happen, he’d pulled over and gotten out of the car, telling Ryker to call 911, before he took off running to where the cars had come to rest. There had been absolutely no hesitation in Silas’ actions.
Ryker had done what Silas had asked then had joined him at the accident to see if he could help too. He wanted—needed—to get back to the confidence he’d had in his abilities that he’d had before what had happened in Syria. He wanted to get back to believing that he could help in any situation he was presented with.
The fact that he’d gotten past his initial fear and panic with Bryson was a step in the right direction. Well, he was sure that’s what his therapist would say anyway.
The problem was that his brain was going to treat it as just another excuse to bring up other memories from when he’d experienced that feeling of panic followed by helplessness. And he had no doubt that no matter his exhaustion that night, the nightmares were going to come.
Right then, however, Ryker was experiencing something new. The desire to just get the night behind him. To crawl into bed, knowing full well the nightmares would come, and just not caring. He wanted to get what hours of sleep the nightmares would allow and then get back to the hospital to be with Sophia and Bryson.
To that end, he skipped his workout and went to take a quick shower, then fell into bed. As he lay there, staring up at the ceiling, he found himself sending up a prayer for Bryson and Sophia. During his residency, he’d seen plenty of parents dealing with sick children, and his heart had always gone out to them.
This was the first time though, that the child who was sick also held a piece of his heart. He’d tried to reassure Sophia that everything would be okay, but he knew better than most, that things could take a turn for the worse.
Don’t let me have lied to her. Please, God, let Bryson be okay.
It took him awhile to fall asleep, and as he’d expected, the nightmares came, dragging him down into the depths of despair before releasing him to consciousness.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, Gavin took several deep breaths and tried to get his heart rate to settle back down. Though his sleep had been fractured, he’d managed to get five hours of sleep in total, so he was going to call it a win for the night.
He took another shower, then got dressed before making himself some coffee, knowing he’d need several cups to make it through the day ahead. It was still too early to head to the hospital, even with an hour or so drive, but he decided to leave anyway.
Once he made it to Seattle, he found a drive-thru fast-food restaurant and picked up an assortment of breakfast items in hopes that one of them would appeal to Sophia. He’d eat whatever she didn’t.
He’d stuck in a banana and a container of peanut butter just in case Bryson felt like eating. Though he hoped he did, Ryker also knew that Bryson was a very sick little boy, and it might be awhile before he wanted to eat his favorite snack.