shock still had the effect of a punch in the gut every time he called them to mind.
He hadn’t left her side except for the time she’d spent in the operating room. Then he’d paced the hallway cursing and muttering, calling himself seven dozen kinds of a fool for being so damn “patient” so damn long.
He should have just hauled her off to a justice of the peace as soon as he’d arrived. It was what his father and Dominic would have done.
It was fine to let people go their own way if they didn’t matter to you. But Carin mattered!
He loved her.
The moment he realized it was frozen forever in time as if he’d framed a shot, clicked the shutter and captured the mind-boggling amazement that came with it.
He had told himself he’d come for Lacey. He had a daughter; he wanted to know her. And Carin? He hadn’t let himself think about Carin.
When he couldn’t help but think about her, he’d focused on his anger at her not telling him, on his pain that she hadn’t loved him enough to trust him to do the right thing. And after he’d got here and faced further rejection, he’d done his best to get his heart to reject her, too.
But it wouldn’t. Because his heart knew what his head had tried to deny—that he had come because of Carin. Lacey had been a part of it, the catalyst, but not the deepest reason.
That had been Carin all along.
He’d had a lot of time to think about it during the fifteen hours or so, after his epiphany. He had sat by her in the recovery room. He’d walked alongside the gurney when they’d taken her back to her room. He’d scarcely left her side since. He’d answered questions from the doctors and nurses. He’d fielded visitors—and she’d had several, including Hugh, who had run into his sister at the airfield.
Hugh had come up to the room right after she’d returned from recovery and had insisted on seeing her. “Lacey will want to know how she is,” he’d said.
“Getting along,” Nathan had replied. But he knew that Hugh was right, that Lacey would expect a report and that it would be better for her if she knew Hugh had actually seen her mother. So he let Hugh in.
“For a few minutes.” He’d stayed right by her side, and he’d made sure Hugh understood that he was in charge.
Hugh hadn’t seemed inclined to dispute it. There were no grins and intimate glances. He kept a respectful distance from Carin’s sleeping form, standing at the foot of the bed, looking pale and worried and shaken, but uninclined to fight Nathan for the place of responsibility.
On the contrary, after he’d looked at Carin, he’d turned his gaze toward Nathan and said, “You’re staying?” he asked as if he already knew the answer.
“Yes.”
“I’ll bring Lacey tomorrow.”
Nathan had wanted to say that it wasn’t necessary. But of course Hugh’s offer was sensible and was what Carin would want. So he’d agreed. “That’d be good.”
Hugh nodded and looked back at Carin, then sighed. “What a mess.” Then noting how Nathan had stiffened, he grinned faintly. “Not Carin.”
“Definitely not Carin.”
“She’s going to be crazy when she realizes she won’t get enough paintings finished.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
As soon as Hugh left, Nathan had used the phone in the room to call Gaby. He’d told her to call Carin’s agent to tell her what happened, to see what could be done. And then he’d gone back to sitting beside Carin.
He wished he could at least hold her hand. But both hands had been bandaged and she was asleep and there was nothing he could do at all.
Only sit there and know that he loved her.
He wouldn’t go away.
They were going to keep her in the hospital three days. Three!
It was ridiculous, Carin told the nurses, the doctors, everyone who came to see her. Everyone knew they were sending people home from the hospital the moment they’d pinned them back together these days.
“Not here,” said Dr. Bagley, who had done the surgery. “Not my patients. You stay until I say you are ready. You cooperate, maybe you go home tomorrow.”
And since there was no way she could go without help, Carin stayed—and cooperated.
But she didn’t need Nathan bloody Wolfe staying with her!
She told him that. She told the nurses and doctors and everyone else who came to see her, too. Often. Hourly sometimes.
No one paid any attention. Not even Hugh. He