LITMIR.BIZ

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that. How incredibly ungrateful that sounds. I apologize. I’m not at my best right now.”

      “Forget it,” he said, but shadows crept into his eyes. “I understand you work here at the hospital but can’t—” He stopped and didn’t say whatever it was he’d been about to, but something suspiciously like pity crept into his eyes. “Walnut River isn’t that far out of my way and Ella said your daughter’s facial injuries are pretty serious.”

      Tears welled in her eyes again and she turned away, embarrassed by the show of weakness. When he put a comforting hand on her shoulder, the urge to give in to her fear and grief swamped her. With an effort, she pulled herself together and faced him again. She might be the nobody who ran the gift shop but if that connection was what got him here it was one more reason to be grateful for it.

      She looked at the half of her daughter’s face that she could see and noted the pale skin on Janie’s normally healthy pink cheek. “She’s been sleeping off and on since the accident.”

      “That’s a combination of shock and medication to keep her comfortable,” he explained.

      “They told me.”

      The staff had done an excellent job of keeping her informed. They were her friends as well as coworkers and if not for them, she wasn’t sure this wouldn’t have broken her.

      He walked around to the other side of the bed and very gently pulled away the strips of paper tape loosely holding the gauze over Janie’s cheek and ear. “I just got here and wanted to introduce myself and have a quick look at the patient—”

      “Janie,” she said. “My daughter’s name is Jane Josephine Albright. Everyone calls her Janie.”

      “Janie.” He met her gaze, then looked down and continued his examination. “She’s a beautiful child.”

      “Yes, she is—” Courtney stopped, choked up because she wanted to say was.

      She’d known it was bad or he wouldn’t be here.

      Courtney remembered very little about the accident and nothing about the helicopter flight that airlifted her and Janie to Walnut River General Hospital. She’d come around and remembered being X-rayed and having her wrist immobilized. The E.R. doctor had ordered CT scans for Janie, then they’d cleaned her up, covered her face and called in a specialist.

      No one had pushed Courtney to look and she didn’t really want to see. If that made her a coward, so be it. But she didn’t think she could bear it, knowing what she’d done to her own child. If she could have her choice of days to do over, today would be at the top of a very long list.

      She’d been taking Janie out to an early breakfast before work and school. It was a rare treat because she couldn’t afford meals out but Janie had been named student of the month and they’d planned to celebrate. Courtney’s gut had told her it wasn’t a good idea. The weather was bad. What was that saying? March came in like a lion, out like a lamb? It was true. And she’d worried about the roads being safe.

      She should have listened to her gut. She could try and pin this on Mother Nature or God, but the fact was, there was no one else to blame for a single-car rollover accident.

      She knew part of her was always trying to make up for the fact that Janie didn’t have a dad. It didn’t matter that if he’d lived, Joe wouldn’t have been a very good parent. All Janie knew was that her father was gone forever.

      Courtney was the mom and trying so very hard to be a good one. Trying not to be like her own mother. A powerful wave of guilt washed over her. Her mother had walked out, which was unforgivable, but Courtney had never ended up in a hospital intensive care unit. So which one of them was the worst mother ever? Janie was a beautiful child, but she might be scarred for life—and it was all Courtney’s fault.

      The doctor replaced the gauze and brushed Janie’s blond hair off her forehead in a surprising and unexpectedly tender gesture. He met her gaze. “I’m going to look at her chart.”

      “Is she going to be all right?”

      “Her condition is serious, but her injuries aren’t life-threatening.”

      “They already told me that. I want to know if her face is going to be all right.”

      “I need to evaluate all her test results.”

      “What aren’t you telling me, Dr. Wilder?”

      “Please call me David.”

      She’d call him the devil himself if it would help Janie. She’d call him anything he wanted if he would simply tell her the truth. “David, what are you keeping from me?”

      He glanced at Janie and sympathy slid into his vivid blue eyes. “The injuries to her cheek, eye and nose are severe, but I can only see the soft tissue. I need information about muscles, nerves and bone involvement before I can evaluate the extent of the damage. Until I see everything, I can’t tell you what kind of outcome you can expect.”

      “Okay.” That made sense. If the little patient in the big bed were anyone other than her child, she’d have realized that without him telling her. It’s true what they said about losing objectivity when it concerned someone you loved. “But when you have answers, I want you to tell me everything. The whole truth.”

      “You have my word, Mrs. Albright.”

      “Call me Courtney.”

      He nodded, then walked out. She felt inexplicably alone, which was weird since she hadn’t expected him actually to show up at all. Why would he go out of his way? Unless there was something in it for him. She was probably the most ungrateful woman on the planet for thinking such thoughts. But not listening to her gut had cost her in the past and she’d paid a high price today for another lesson.

      She didn’t have to like the situation, but in her circumstances she had very little choice but to go along with it. The old children’s rhyme Humpty Dumpty kept going through her mind.

      All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again—but none of them were a mom.

      David would rather be anywhere but Walnut River, and the feeling wasn’t about the CT films he was studying on the viewer. Although it would require a great deal of work, he could repair Janie Albright’s face and she would grow up to be as beautiful as her mother. Courtney.

      He hadn’t known her name until today, but he remembered seeing her the day they’d buried his father. She’d been the single bright spot in his dark void of what-ifs and self-reproach. With her blond hair blowing in the frigid wind, she’d been like a beacon in the sea of pitch black. Her warm brown eyes had been full of sympathy and sadness and he had wondered why she looked that way.

      What was her relationship with his father? Why did she mourn so deeply for the man David had disappointed so many years before? More than once since that day he’d recalled her all-American beauty that included a matching set of dimples. His patients who were searching for physical perfection would pay a lot of money to duplicate her looks.

      From what Ella had said, Courtney didn’t have a lot of money. That meant she needed him. And that made him wary. It wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been instantly and intensely attracted. But he’d learned a long time ago that intense feelings for a beautiful woman could make a man do stupid things. Life-altering things.

      Still, she wasn’t the reason he didn’t want to be here. That was all about a past filled with mistakes and regrets. It was all about the things he’d done wrong and could never make right. His father was dead and he could never get back time with him or the relationship he’d lost.

      At the airport when he’d talked to Ella, his initial reaction had been to plead schedule conflicts that prevented him from coming here. The truth was, he wasn’t due back in his Beverly Hills office for several days. The other doctors in the practice would pick up the slack for him. When he’d intended to say no, the word yes came out

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