LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      August

      A PERSISTENT RINGING dragged Faith Hyatt from a deep sleep. As one hand fanned the air above her nightstand in an effort to silence the sound, her sleepy brain insisted the call had to be a wrong number. She’d just come off two weeks of back-to-back shifts at the Boston hospital where she worked. Half the staff was laid low by flu. Maria Phelps, who scheduled shifts, had promised Faith four uninterrupted days off.

      “’Lo,” she said in a raspy voice, burying the receiver in the pillow under her ear. Faith covered a yawn and tried to focus on the voice at the other end of the line.

      In spite of exhaustion, she shot upright. Her head and heart began to pound, and the receiver slipped from her shaking fingers. Scrambling to find it in the dark, she brought it to her dry lips again and croaked, “Gwen, you’re positive the woman admitted through E.R. is my sister? Lacy Cameron?”

      Long used to being ejected from bed in the middle of the night, Faith turned on a light and found clean clothes as the caller relayed details. “Yes,” Faith said, bending to tie her sneakers, “It’s possible she’d revert to Hyatt now that she’s divorced. I’ll be there in ten minutes, Gwen.” Smack! The receiver hit the cradle. Faith’s mind continued on fast-forward as she splashed cold water on her face, brushed her teeth and ran a comb through her short brown hair.

      Her last contact with either Cameron had been in June. It was now the end of August. Lacy’s husband, Michael Cameron, had thrown Faith for a loop when he’d phoned late one night in early June to inform her that he and Lacy had divorced. At the time Faith had been crushed to think her sister hadn’t confided in her. But family ties had never meant to Lacy what they did to Faith. In fact, it was pretty typical of Lacy to arrive here in the middle of the night after months of silence, expecting her big sister to haul herself out of bed and put in an appearance at a moment’s notice. Lacy had always thought the world revolved around her needs. And when hadn’t Faith turned herself inside out for family? Sighing, she strapped on her nurse’s watch and rushed from the building. Lopsided though the relationship was, she and Lacy were bound together by blood.

      Faith set out to jog the four night-shadowed blocks that separated her apartment building from the hospital. Passing the corner deli, she realized she hadn’t asked Gwen what was wrong with Lacy. No one detested being sick more than Lacy did. As her worry increased, Faith broke into a run.

      At last, lights spilled onto the street at the corner where Good Shepherd had stood for over fifty years. Breaking her stride only long enough to press the button that operated the front doors, Faith rushed into E.R.

      “Hi, Cicely.” Breathing hard from her sprint, Faith latched on to the plump arm of a passing nurse, another friend. “Gwen phoned. About my sister,” she managed after the next deep breath. “Do you know where she is, or which doctor admitted her?”

      “Finegold. He sent her up to Three East. Said he’d do a complete workup after he finishes the emergency surgery that brought him in tonight. Your sister just dropped in, said she hadn’t seen a doctor. Finegold ordered tests, which Lacy refused until after you see her.” The nurse rolled her eyes. “The great Finegold doesn’t take kindly to anyone vetoing his edicts. I don’t envy you having to unruffle his feathers.”

      Faith gave a puzzled frown. Finegold was senior staff gynecologist. “Uh…Cice, did Lacy say why she happened to be in Boston at this hour? She lives in New York City.” Faith frowned again. “Or she did. Perhaps Newport, Rhode Island, now. Her husband, er, ex, said she’d received their beach house in the divorce settlement.”

      “I thought her chart listed a Boston address, but maybe not. Uh-oh. Hear those sirens? Headed our way. You’d better get out of here, girl, while the gettin’s good.”

      “You don’t have to tell me twice.” Faith ran and boarded the elevator as two ambulances screeched to a halt under the portico. Loudspeakers began to drone the names of staff who were needed in E.R. Doors opened and nurses spilled out.

      By comparison to the E.R. chaos, the third-floor ward was silent. Faith stopped at the nursing station and spoke to a nurse she knew. “You admitted my sister, Lacy Camer…er, Hyatt.” Shedding her coat, Faith tossed it over a rack. “May I see her?”

      Two nurses at the desk appeared to be relieved. “In 312,” one of them said. “We hooked her up to oxygen, Faith. It was all she’d allow.”

      “Lacy hates hospitals.” Especially this one. First, their mother had been chronically ill. She was in and out of Good Shepherd for years. Then, in college, Lacy had developed degenerative cardiopulmonary disease. Faith stared into space as memories of those unsettled years crowded in. Her sister had been terrified of their mom’s cystic fibrosis. On their mother’s bad days—and there were many—care of the household fell to Faith. She was just seven when she first assumed responsibility for her baby sister, since their dad could only afford part-time help. About the time Lacy hit her teens, life became doubly traumatic for Faith, who by then attended nursing school at night. Her sister rebelled and refused to help take care of their mom. In spite of everything, the family had endured—until worse tragedy struck.

      Mrs. Hyatt died and shortly after that, Lacy fell ill. Their dad folded inside himself. Only good thing happened that year—Faith met Dr. Michael Cameron, Good Shepherd’s rising star of heart-lung transplant surgery.

      As she turned away from the nursing desk and approached her sister’s room, Faith guiltily recalled the secret crush she’d once harbored for the handsome, brilliant surgeon. The man who’d ultimately married her sister. How fortunate that Michael had never had any inkling of how she felt. Before she’d begged him to take Lacy’s case, Faith had rarely drummed up enough courage to even smile at the man. He’d left her tongue-tied and feeling giddy. Nurses didn’t feel giddy. It wasn’t allowed.

      Hearing that Dr. Cameron had fallen in love with her more attractive, more outgoing sister really hadn’t come as any big surprise to Faith. The real shocker came when Michael telephoned to say he and Lacy had split up.

      Now Faith wished her shyness hadn’t kept her from asking pertinent details. Michael had volunteered nothing—merely mentioned he’d been out of the country and he didn’t know about the birthday gift Faith had sent Lacy until a full month after her twenty-seventh birthday. Michael promised to forward her package to the beach house, which he said Lacy had received in the divorce settlement. He’d signed off, leaving no opening for questions of a more personal nature.

      Faith, who’d observed numerous doctors’ infidelities, took for granted that Michael had ended the marriage. She knew from experience that all sorts of attractive

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