He paced restlessly, hoping that she would call him back, but knew that she would not. Worry for her, and for the unknown child, rode him. He thought over the phone call again. There was something that he was missing. Then he had it. He had heard what sounded like an intercom. Like at a hospital.
Michael snatched up his keys and slung on his jacket. He left the house, slamming the door behind him.
* * * *
“I’m not scared anymore, Mommy.”
Cathy tried to smile. I’m scared spitless. She was glad her daughter couldn’t read her mind. “You’re not?”
“No—I’m tired. Very, very tired.”
Cathy’s breath hitched. She looked closer at her daughter. There was a new awareness in Chloe’s eyes. She swallowed the gathering lump in her throat. She was barely able to speak. Her heart was thumping. “Tired?”
“I want to sleep and get better now.” Chloe’s unclouded gaze was locked on her face. “Is that okay, Mommy?”
Comprehension was slow, but then it burst full-blown. Cathy’s heart cracked. She loved Chloe so much. Hot tears blinded her, spilled, overflowed. She said, thickly, “It’s okay, baby. I’m okay with that.”
Chloe smiled, beautifully, gave a tiny sigh and closed her eyes.
Cathy held her daughter. She felt the frail flutter of Chloe’s breath, followed by the next, and the next. The methodical ping of the heart monitor continued. She sat immobile, holding Chloe, tears streaming down her face.
At last someone gently drew her away. Dr. Richardson met her just outside the hospital room to speak a few brief words, words that only confirmed what she had already sensed. “She’s turned the corner.” He briefly squeezed her shoulder before he hurried away.
Frozen with shock, Cathy walked into the waiting room. As soon as she entered, her sister and brother-in-law leaped to their feet.
With one look at her wet face, Pam burst into tears. She flew at Cathy, almost knocking her down. If it hadn’t been for her sister’s arms swooping tight around her, Cathy would have fallen. Automatically, her own arms came up to wrap around her sister. Her brother-in-law enfolded them both in a comforting, strong brace.
Cathy was utterly numb, incapable of speech or thought. She heard the jagged burble of her sister’s grief. She understood the disjointed words, but she wasn’t really taking them in. She was so dazed. She struggled to get free of her sister’s clinging arms, her clutching hands. She gasped, hyperventilating. “Let go.” She had managed the merest whisper, but her brother-in-law heard her.
“Pam, that’s enough. Give her some air.” He drew his wife back against him. Pam instantly burrowed into him, wrapping her arms around his waist. Over her head, John Thompson’s eyes were dark and searching. “Are you going to be all right?”
It was so odd, she thought dispassionately. His voice seemed to echo from such a very long way. Everything appeared surreal, distant. “She’s going to be all right.”
Pam straightened, turning a tear-streaked face. “What?”
“Chloe. Dr. Richardson said she has turned the corner. S–she’s going to m–make it.” Cathy stuttered on the words. She felt the cracking in the thick block of ice that had encased her emotions for so long.
“Oh God, oh God! Are you sure?”
Cathy gave a laugh that ended in a sob. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop the wave of shivering that overtook her body. “Yes, yes! He just told me.”
“Thank God,” breathed John, shutting his eyes briefly.
Pam wiped her reddened eyes and shook her head, a smile breaking out. She leaned back against her husband. “I’m so, so glad!”
Cathy felt exhaustion fall on her like an anvil. She swayed. She was grateful when her brother-in-law steadied her with a hand under her elbow. “Thanks. It–it just hit me. I’m so tired all of a sudden.”
“You need rest. You’ve been here day and night! You’re coming home with me, Cathy.” Pam turned her head up to meet her husband’s gaze. “You can stay here for awhile, to look in on Chloe, can’t you, John?”
“Sure. You go on with Pam, Cathy. I’ll call you if I hear anything else.”
Cathy shook her head. “No! No, I don’t want to go home with you.” She was still shuddering. She couldn’t stop or force out more words. What was wrong with her? She felt the cracking inside of her deepen. An ominous tide was rising inside of her. Her thoughts scrambled in panicked confusion. Losing it. She had to get out, she had to go.
“Of course you are! John, tell her. She can’t go back to that horrible apartment by herself!”
Cathy understood. The panic sharpened her wits. Pam didn’t want her to be alone, wouldn’t let her be alone. She forced herself to form sentences, to make sense, an excuse. “I–I called someone. Earlier. A friend.” Cathy snatched up her coat and her purse. She took a step backward, toward the waiting room doorway, toward escape.
“Cathy, are you sure that’s what you want?” There was honest concern in John’s expressive face. “At least let one of us drive you.”
“No, no. I have my car.” Cathy turned swiftly and barreled straight into an immovable object. She staggered back with the impact. Strong hands caught her arms, steadying her. “Sorry! I didn’t see—”
“I’m glad I found you.”
Her head snapped up. “Michael!”
She stared at him. Horror slammed through her.
* * * *
Michael saw the color drain out of her face. It was a huge breach of her privacy, he knew that. “I came down when I realized where you were calling from. I asked at the desk for Chloe, and they sent me up here.” The tightness in her expression didn’t lesson. He gentled his voice, trying to make her understand. “I had to come.”
“Michael? Michael Lambert!”
Michael turned his head, at last focusing on the couple that was standing nearby in the waiting room. The man’s eyes had widened in recognition. Michael realized that he knew him. John Thompson. His brows creased, grappling at the significance of his international business contact’s presence. He knew it to be an odd coincidence, but at that moment, it didn’t seem particularly important. He nodded stiffly, putting a polite smile on his face. “John.”
John reached out a hand. Michael automatically shook it. “How do you know Cathy?”
The woman exclaimed in delight. “John! Is this Cathy’s Michael?” She stared at him, excitement lightening her expression. She also reached out to shake his hand. “I’m Pam, Cathy’s sister.”
Michael felt the air rush out of his lungs. Things were hitting him all at once. His mind made a leap back to an evening in Singapore and a certain conversation. He had not met the man’s wife before. She had been away helping a family member. “I’m sorry! I didn’t realize—”
John’s thoughts had obviously paralleled his own. “I never mentioned Pam’s sister’s last name, did I?”
“No.” Michael shook his head, with a shrug. He didn’t bother to explain having that piece of information would not have clued him in. He had never known her by any other name than Winter.
“You’ve come at a good time! We just heard. Chloe is going to get better!”
“I’m glad to hear that!” Michael felt a sharp shaft of relief. A grin broke free. His smile faltered as Winter stepped away from him, still wearing an expression of profound shock on her face.
* * * *
Cathy felt all of the morbid fascination she might have at watching a train wreck. Her gaze flicked back and forth between the two men. The thudding of her heart was so loud she wondered that no one said anything. Her brother-in-law and Michael knew each other. It was inconceivable. It was appalling. It was a disaster.
Shame and panic hit her. They were going to know. Pam and John.
She tried to breathe. Crushing pressure built, squelching the air out of her lungs. She practically flew out of the waiting room. “Cathy!”
She evaded Pam’s hands. “Please! I can’t bear—not now. Just let me go!�
�
She heard her brother-in-law’s voice. “No, Pam! Let her go. She’s got to do this her way.”
Cathy didn’t turn or look back as she ran down the hospital hall to the elevators. She repeatedly stabbed the down button, the breath sawing harshly out of her lungs.
* * * *
At her sister’s hasty retreat, Pam shook her head. “I’m glad you came, Michael. She needs her friends. She needs all of us. She’s carried the burden alone for so long.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “When I think about everything she’s had to go through…”
John put his arm around his wife, and she leaned into him. “Hush, baby. It’s going to be okay. We’re here now. We’ll take care of Cathy and Chloe.”
Pam nodded. “I know. She’ll have to give up that awful apartment now.” She turned to Michael. “We’ve leased a house. John was able to apply for leave, and we’re going to stay in town for awhile until Chloe is stronger. Later, if Cathy decides it is what she wants, I hope that both of them will come back to Singapore with us.”
“Singapore?” Until then, Michael had just stood there, trying to take everything in. He had kept his gaze trained on Winter. She was still waiting at the elevator doors, and he watched her pull on her long black coat. He was impatient to get away from her relatives. But now, his attention swung back to Pam Thompson. There must have been something telling in his expression or in his voice because she looked startled.
Sudden compassion flashed over her face. “I’m sorry, Michael. I didn’t mean to—Nothing is really settled.” She looked up in mute appeal at her husband.
John cleared his throat. “Why don’t you go talk to Cathy, Michael?”
“I’ll do that.” Michael saw that the elevator had arrived at last. The door slid open, and Winter bolted forward into it, her coat flaring back. He strode down the hall, but the elevator had closed. He didn’t stop to wait for it. Instead, he pushed open the exit door to the stairwell and began running down the flights of concrete stairs. Winter had a start on him, but he hoped to catch up with her.
When Michael emerged from the hospital and walked outside to the parking lot, the winter wind whipped him. He turned up the collar of his coat and shoved his hands deep into the pockets. The fingers of one hand crinkled paper. He vaguely recalled stuffing a leftover napkin into his pocket at a fast food place earlier in the week.
Winter was waiting for him beside the Porsche. Her auburn head was bowed. Her arms were folded over her breast. She looked cold and miserable.
Michael’s heart began to beat thickly in his chest. He clenched his hands inside the coat pockets. He passed between the parked cars and crossed the graveled pavement.
Winter must have heard his approaching footsteps because she lifted her head suddenly. He was shocked by her pallor, by the ravaged look on her face.
Michael stopped and waited, painfully pulling cold air into his lungs.
Her voice was very low when she addressed him. “I don’t want them to know about you, about us. It’s over. I don’t need you anymore.” She bent her head again and started walking rapidly away.
Fear, anger, searing pain, all twisted through him. He ripped one hand free of a pocket and caught her elbow before she was out reach. “Wait.”
She raised her head. Her eyes were huge, deep pools of anguish. Her face was parchment-white except for the hectic flush on her cheekbones. “Michael, please. Don’t make this harder.”
“You should have told me about Chloe,” he said quietly. It wasn’t the only thing he could have said, but it was one of the most important.
She gave a quick shake of her head. Her reply was sharp. “She was my business.”
Despite himself, his voice rose. “It wasn’t fair to me. To us.”
“Fair! You are nothing in my life, Michael! Don’t you understand?” She wrenched loose of his hold.
He felt like he had been kicked in the gut. His own turbulent emotions coalesced into what he felt for her. He moved, stepped in front of her, and reached out to touch her. “Winter—”
Her eyes blazed, incandescent with rage and contempt. “My name is Catherine!” she spat. She stepped around him, quickening her pace. She stumbled on an uneven patch of icy ground, righted herself and kept going. She never looked back.
Michael stared after her, his heart pounding. His gut was clenched so hard that he felt like he was going to be sick. He watched, helplessly, as she walked away from him, out of his life. She made directly for the Lexus and climbed inside. Within moments, the engine was started to life, and the vehicle cruised smoothly away, leaving a white trail of smoke in the frigid air.
“You look like you could use a drink.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Michael turned. He hadn’t heard anyone approach. An attractive dark-haired woman looked up at him, sympathy in her gaze. She touched his coat sleeve briefly with gloved fingers. “Come on. I have a thermos in my car.”
Without a word, without knowing why he did it, he followed her to a parked sedan. She opened the front passenger door and bent inside to retrieve a large thermos from the floorboard. Unscrewing the top, she poured steaming liquid into the cup and handed it to him.
Michael took an experimental swallow and looked at her. “Cocoa?”
“You were hoping for a shot of something stronger?”
“Something like that.” He took another swallow. It was sweet and cloying and loosened the twist in his gut. Michael wrapped both hands around the plastic cup, welcoming the warmth against his stiff fingers.
“For a minute there, you looked white as a sheet.” The woman held out her hand. “I’m Vicky Sotero, by the way, one of Cathy’s friends. Her sister called me a few minutes ago to tell me that Chloe was doing better. I, uh, happened to overhear you and Cathy, but she took off before I could say anything. Cathy probably mentioned me.”
“No. She didn’t. She didn’t mention a lot of things.” Michael shook her small gloved hand briefly. “I’m Michael Lambert. And I’m sure that Winter… that she never talked about me.”
“No, she didn’t, at least not very much.” Vicky cocked her head, speculatively eying him. “You didn’t expect this, any of this, did you?” She waved her hand to indicate the hospital.
Michael shook his head. He didn’t bother to say that he hadn’t even met the child, let alone known that she was sick. He had actually told Darryl once that he didn’t care about Winter’s personal life, especially about her child or children. He had been a consummate ass.
“And you called her Winter.”
“She asked me to,” he said shortly, feeling defensive.
Vicky nodded. She turned away from him, her gaze returning to the hospital. She said quietly, “Chloe had been sick a long time, almost three years. She had acute lymphacitic leukemia, which is supposed to be one of the more treatable in children, but in Chloe’s case proved to be atypical. She went into remission once, but the leukemia came back. After that, there was never much real hope with traditional therapy.”
For the second time in the space of ten minutes, Michael was figuratively sent reeling. Leukemia? Her daughter had leukemia?
Unaware of the blow she had dealt, Vicky glanced over at Michael. “The bills were astronomical. When the policy cap was reached, the insurance company stopped paying. Cathy wouldn’t give up. She loved that little girl. She sold her house, liquidated her retirement and IRAs.”
Vicky gave a sudden, short laugh. “She told me once that she even donated her eggs for cash, for God’s sake!” Her smile faded. “She did everything she could, working full-time and taking part-time jobs whenever she was able. Even then, she still tried to spend every free minute she had with Chloe at the hospital.”
Michael poured the rest of the cocoa on the cold pavement. The scent of the chocolate was suddenly nauseating. “I knew that she was divorced and that she had a daughter. I knew that she needed money. She never told me why,” he said in a low, grating voice that he hardly recognized as his own.
“I just suspected that she couldn’t get child support from her ex-husband, Rick.”
“She told you about Rick?” Vicky whipped around, shock in her expression. She shook her head. “That really surprises me. It was bad enough that he abandoned her and Chloe, but I think he really tore Cathy’s heart out when he refused to even be tested as a blood cell transplantation donor. It was Chloe’s last chance. She told him that.”
Stunned, Michael drew in a long breath of icy air. What kind of man wouldn’t try to save his own kid? What kind of asshole… Something echoed in his memory. He narrowed his eyes. “I remember she made a phone call to him that left her upset.”
“Yeah, I guess so! Rick—bastard—Stein couldn’t bother to come across town for Chloe, but Cathy’s sister could come all the way from Singapore!” Vicky’s glittering eyes were hot, her voice bitter. “It was Pam who became the donor for the transplantation. God, I’m so glad it worked! For awhile it looked like everything was going to be okay. I even announced on the website that it had been a success! Then Chloe got an infection, and we all thought…” Vicky ducked her head, her face flushed with anger and grief, and wiped her eyes with the back of her glove. “Sorry! Chloe is like family to me. Even now, I can hardly stand to think about it. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Cathy!”
Michael stared down at her. He carefully kept his expression neutral, even though he could feel the rage inside him boiling just below the surface. “You said this guy lives right here in Austin?” he asked quietly.
Vicky nodded and gave a contemptuous shrug. “He has an office-supply business. Believe me, no one who knows Cathy will buy from him.” She drew herself up, making an obvious effort to turn her own thoughts. “I’m glad you helped her out, Michael.” She took the empty cap from him and screwed it back onto the thermos.
He was stung on the raw. When Vicky glanced back up, she appeared startled by the blazing glare that he had pinned on her. Her expression altered with compassion. “Michael, look. I realize that you and Cathy had some sort of relationship. And that you’re hurt she kept all of this from you. But I don’t think it was from lack of trust.”
Roberts, Sarah - His Sugar Baby (Siren Publishing Allure) Page 21
