We All Sleep Alone (Finley Creek #11) - Calle J. Brookes Page 0,12
started for the door. He had another woman to track down and make certain she was recovering and home where she was supposed to be. His sister was a quiet woman, but no less determined than the one watching him now.
“Hey, Jacobson?” Izzie said his name quietly as he made notes in her chart.
He turned to look at her. A curly lock of dark-brown hair was sticking straight up on top of her head. He fought a smile. That hair told him everything he needed to know about the woman. She defied everything apparently. Just like that hair. “Yes?”
“Thanks, by the way. For keeping me company during that little storm we had. Nice not to go through all of that alone.”
No kidding. “Yeah. You, too.”
He was about ready to say something else when someone walked in the door, pulling his attention away from her.
11
Her baby.
Jennifer Ray stood next to the closed casket and listened as the minister intoned words over one of her babies. She was burying one of her babies. Nine days after the storm had taken him from them.
Burying one of her babies—again.
It shouldn’t be this way. Ray had his entire life ahead of him. He shouldn’t have been crushed to death in the storm.
He shouldn’t have been lost like this.
Any more than her baby girl Elizabeth had been lost twenty-six years ago.
Her son wrapped his hand around hers, so strong and stoic next to her.
He and his cousin hadn’t gotten along. Ray’s fault, mostly. He’d so enjoyed pushing Reggie’s buttons.
Jockeying, Wallace had said. It had been boys jockeying for position in the pecking order of their family. Jennifer clung, though she refused to break down now. Not in front of all these people.
These people hadn’t known her nephew. Not really. Jennifer had made certain of it, afraid of what Ray would do to embarrass her.
The others were there because they felt guilty for how they had treated him.
Wallace was on her left side. She turned to him, glad for the dark glasses that hid her eyes from her husband. She was used to hiding how she felt from him. She’d had plenty of practice.
She always had been the more stoic one in their relationship. Wallace was all heart. It had always infuriated her.
Passion drove her husband. Ruthless logic drove her.
Cold logic was the only reason she hadn’t left him two decades ago.
The first time she learned of the affairs.
Jennifer pushed those thoughts aside.
Now, Ray’s special day, wasn’t the time to even think about that.
Wallace looked horrible. Tortured. He hurt so deeply. She shifted closer.
He had loved Ray so much. Wallace had always been an excellent father. Ray had been her nephew, not his by blood, but that hadn’t mattered. He’d loved him like a son from the moment they had taken him in.
He was hurting now, as he had hurt for Elizabeth all those years ago.
He’d been an excellent father for both of the boys.
Reggie reached around her and put his hand on his father’s shoulder.
He was taller, stronger, and far more handsome than Wallace.
Reggie had the soft heart like his father.
What she was going to tell Wallace today would break his heart.
She hated to do this to Reggie. Losing Ray had made one thing clear. She couldn’t keep living a lie.
Life was too damned short for that. Jennifer deserved far better than what Wallace had given her.
It was time she went after what she deserved.
12
Izzie worked every day of the nine days following the storm, taking whatever shift she was needed on, including the day she was released from Dr. Jacobson’s hold.
Just like she’d suspected, she’d been back to normal within a few hours. Her oxygen stats were back to ninety-five and steady.
She was good with that.
Hospitalization had been entirely unnecessary. She could have slept in the chair between the two beds in 403 as easily as she had the bed that had been pushed in there. That bed could have gone to someone who had needed it far more.
Heaven save her from doctors with dictator complexes. Even if, technically, he had saved her life.
Some of the doofiest first-shift nurses had had to point that out to her.
As if hiding out under a metal desk during a natural disaster all wrapped up together was romantic.
Um, no.
It had been one of the most terrifying moments—and it hadn’t been more than a few minutes total—of her life.
The hospital was getting back to normal. The ER was already being cleared of debris, and she’d heard Rafe talking about what