by Amy Andrews
“Someone should have made him go,” she insisted.
“Oh for God’s sake Faith,” Ronan snapped, pushing himself out of his chair. “Don’t come in here after you’ve been out playing Cinderella all night when you don’t have a freaking clue what went down.”
“Easy, Ronan,” Casey said gently, putting a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
Faith sucked in a breath. Ronan’s words stung but he looked terrible and he was right, she didn’t know what they’d been through. Although it had obviously been a harrowing experience if the haunted looks on their faces was anything to go by.
While she’d been spreading her legs at the Waldorf.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m sorry.” She pressed her thumbs into her eyeballs. “Then what happened?”
“Casey had picked up his fiddle and was playing something for us and Pop kind of rubbed his chest and said he didn’t feel very well and then he just…crumpled into a heap.”
Faith shut her eyes. She couldn’t begin to imagine the level of panic everyone must have felt.
“He had a pulse and was breathing and the ambulance was there in under ten minutes but he crashed in the truck on the way to the hospital. They got him back and once they had him stabilized he went straight for an emergency angioplasty. The cardiologist is pleased with the result but he’s still on life support. They hope to get him off it later this morning.”
Faith could barely take it all in. This was exactly what they’d been through before. Exactly what the doctors had warned Pop would happen if he didn’t have the surgery.
Could his heart take it again? A nearby chair provided relief as she sank into it on suddenly wobbly legs.
“I called you as soon as they put him in the ambulance, Faith, I swear,” Ty said.
“I tried Raf a few times,” Mercy said. She left Seb’s side and sat in the chair next to hers, slinging her arm around Faith’s shoulder. “And then we tried the front desk at the Marriott to ring up to your room but they said it wasn’t answering.”
“We stayed at the Waldorf,” she said. It seemed like a million years ago now.
“You okay?” Finn asked.
“Not really,” she said, her voice as wobbly as her legs.
“This isn’t your fault, Faith.”
She nodded her head. Logically she knew Finn was right and of course he would be the one to say it. But emotionally there was a crap ton of guilt pushing down on her now. If she’d been there she might have been able to get him to go upstairs sooner. She knew his signs, his tells, when he was hiding how tired he was.
If she’d been there she’d have…been there. For him. For it. And for this…the horror her family had endured without her. Watching their father collapse. They’d all been there for Pop and where had she been? Enjoying herself. Thinking of herself on the most important day of the pub’s year.
While she was busy trying to reclaim her life she’d forgotten she’d taken on the job of looking after Pop. And now this had happened.
“He’s right, Faith,” Dawn said, putting her arm around Finn. “No one could have foreseen this.”
Tears welled in Faith’s eyes because she knew that wasn’t true. “I could have,” she said, looking up at her friend, pleading with her eyes, trying to make her see. Trying to make them all see. Her brothers hadn’t taken Pop’s health seriously enough. “This is what his doctors had been warning him would happen again if he didn’t get the operation. That it would put extra pressure on his heart.”
“Maybe he’ll have it now?” Casey said.
Faith nodded, trying to be positive in the face of a deep well of negativity that flowed inside her. She was fairly sure Pop would take it as a sign that his end was nearer and that he’d welcome it to be with his darling Kathleen again.
But that was all moot if he didn’t make it through this episode. She needed to see him. She needed to see him for herself.
Her phone rang and she knew it would be Raf even before she looked at it. She couldn’t talk to him. She couldn’t deal with anything else other than this right now. Her head – her heart – couldn’t cope with divided loyalties. She’d thought she could have both but clearly that wasn’t the case.
Pop needed her attention now.
She hit the cancel button and stood. Early morning light pushed in through the large windows as dawn broke over Brooklyn. “I’m going to see him,” she announced.
“I’ll go with you,” Finn said.
Faith nodded, more tears threatening. She would pull her father through this through sheer force of will if needs be and she would convince him to have the surgery.
*
Faith had seen her father like this before – a tube in his mouth, a machine breathing for him – but it still didn’t make it any easier. He’d looked old these last few years but he’d never looked…small. Surrounded by a host of complex medical machinery, he looked diminished in every way.
Faith was so frightened for him she couldn’t leave his side. Wouldn’t leave his side. It didn’t matter that they took him off the ventilator and he’d roused a little and they’d moved him to the cardiac care unit, as long as he was in danger, Faith wasn’t leaving his side.
They made a decision to not open Sully’s until they knew what was happening with Pop and Ty and Zel went and dealt with that, for which Faith was grateful. Zel also brought her back some jeans and a shirt and clean underwear and Faith used Pop’s bathroom to divest herself of all reminders of the ball and Raf and any fanciful dreams.
The day progressed at a snail’s pace considering the constant rapid background beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor. Her father stirred briefly every now and then, her brothers trickled in and out sitting for a while, trying to convince Faith to take a break, to eat something but she couldn’t.
She hadn’t been there for him last night but she was now.
Mercy and Dawn took turns sitting in with her too. They were better company than her brothers in the way women often were with their purposefully distracting prattle.
Just after lunch Mercy sat herself down in the chair on the opposite side of the bed. “Raf’s outside,” she announced.
Faith looked up, startled from her activity of twisting her father’s wedding ring round and round his finger. “What?” She’d been ignoring his texts and phone calls all morning.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “He texted me. You ran out on him, Faith, and there was a bunch of missed calls from me last night. He was half out of his mind. So I told him what had happened. He’s worried about you.”
Her pulse tripped. “Tell him I’m fine.”
“Tell him yourself.”
Faith glared at her. “I can’t deal with him, Mercy.”
Mercy shook her luxurious locks. “Don’t do this, Faith. Don’t punish Raf for this. Or yourself. You’re entitled to a life.”
Faith bit down hard on the emotions that were threatening. That’s what she’d thought too. “My father was having a heart attack while I was getting naked with Raf. A man who is just a fling. Who told me his grand philosophy on life was to love the one you’re with. A man who is leaving tomorrow. My life does not involve him.”
Mercy reached her hand across the bed and grasped Faith’s hand. “People can change their minds, you know? Maybe he’s just never found that one special woman?”
Faith snorted. “Raf doesn’t believe in the one and he’s certainly not looking for her. And, by the way, neither am I, especially not now.”
She withdrew her hand from Mercy’s grip and resumed her endless twisting of Pop’s wedding ring.
*
At five in the evening Faith stood to stretch her legs. They were stiff from lack of activity and she was drifting off. Considering she’d only had a few hours sleep last night it wasn’t surprising.
The room shifted as she let go of the bed and she swayed, grabbing for the mattress as everything tilted.
“Right, that’s it,” Zel snapped, storming around to he
r side of the bed. “You’re going outside for a break and eating something immediately.”
Faith plopped down in her seat, her head still spinning. She flapped away Zel’s fussing. “Just bring me something in.”
The nurse and Zel exchanged a look. “No eating at the bedside, I’m afraid,” she said.
“Right,” Zel said all bossy. “That solves it. Up you go.”
“I’m fine,” Faith insisted as a wave of nausea hit her.
“Faith Sullivan. Do I have to go out there and get Ty to pick you up and throw you over his shoulder, because you know that man will do anything I ask.”
Faith gave a half laugh. Never had truer words been spoken. “Okay fine,” she said, flapping Zel away again as she stood, the wooziness no longer present. “Promise you’ll stay here with him?”
“Cross my heart,” Zel said.
Faith pulled Zel into a fierce hug. She had truly been blessed with her wonderful friends.
*
The first person Faith saw as she opened the door to the waiting room was Raf talking with her brothers like he’d known them all his life. Like he hadn’t been debauching her in a Waldorf suite while their father was having a heart attack.
She stood and stared at all his Levi’d perfection. “What are you still doing here?” she gasped.
He stalked over to her and didn’t stop until he’d yanked her into his arms and wrapped her hard against his chest. “I wanted to see you.”
Faith knew she should push him away. But she’d been holding herself together today by sheer force of will and it felt good to lean into someone.
To lean into him.
Everyone else had intimate support, somebody to lean on except her. Even Casey and Ronan had their freaky twin connection. And sure, they’d all supported her throughout the day but not like this.
He pulled back after long moments, his hands on her upper arms. “I’m so, so sorry about your father.”
Faith swallowed a lump the size of Ireland as he searched her face. Looking for signs of guilt and regret? And maybe blame too? Blaming herself. Blaming him. After all if he hadn’t asked her to the ball she would have been there for Pop.
She stepped out of the temptation of his embrace. “I can’t talk now. I just need to get some sugar into me and go straight back.”
“Let me take you to the coffee shop in the lobby.”
Faith spied one Krispy Kreme left in an open box and a half-open packet of Twizzlers. “This will do,” she said, plucking the doughnut out of its box.
Raf shook his head. “You haven’t eaten anything since last night.”
Faith thought back to her last meal. Key Lime pie right off the Waldorf room service menu. She’d smeared the last spoonful on his belly and licked it all off.
“You’re going to get indigestion,” he said as he watched her devour the doughnut in thirty seconds.
She shrugged as she swallowed the glut of sugar and dough in one huge lump. “I’ll live.”
“Please, Faith.” His hand slid onto her arm, his voice dropping an octave. “I’m not going to leave until I’ve spoken to you.”
Determination turned his green eyes stormy. Faith sighed. He was deadly serious. Maybe it was just best to get it over and done with. She wiped the sticky doughnut residue off her mouth. “Okay,” she conceded. “But I need to be quick.”
“I promise.”
They made their way down in the elevator and Raf insisted she find a table to sit at while he ordered them coffee and paid for their pre-packaged sandwiches. The place was busy but she found a table at the back.
When he arrived she stood to go. “Sit,” he said. “We need to talk.”
“We can walk and talk.”
He put a stilling hand on her arm as she tried to walk away. “You can’t go back into your father with food anyway so you might as well eat it here.”
Faith had to admit he made a lot of sense and the earthy aroma of the coffee was sending her taste buds into overdrive. She sat back down and took a sip.
“You were gone when I woke,” he said after she’d devoured one half of her sandwich.
“Yes. I got up to go to the bathroom and I turned my phone on to check the time and there were all these missed calls.”
“I wish you’d woken me,” he said. “I could have come with you.”
A boiling hot helix of suppressed emotions spiraled through her chest. What was he doing? Why was he pretending to care so much when he’d been adamant that he wasn’t after that kind of relationship? Was it his guilt speaking?
“Why?”
He shot her a measured look. “To be here for you. To support you.”
“We’ve known each other for a month, Raf. You’re leaving tomorrow. For Australia. We’re…fuck buddies.”
She hurled the word at him hoping to wound him with it but it deflected immediately, bouncing right back, piercing her straight through the heart with the full horrible truth.
She’d fallen in love with him.
Here, in a hospital, with her father in a CCU bed, with the walls of her world falling down around her, she’d fallen in love with him.
And they were a fling. And he was leaving.
Her heart crumpled in her chest as if it were made of paper. So much for not being able to fall in love in a handful of weeks – her mother had been right. When you knew, you knew.
Funny…this was not how she’d pictured such a moment. Where were the rainbows? Where was the choir?
God. What a disaster. Falling for the player. What a sap she’d been. What a fool. And she didn’t even have the space in her head to contemplate it right now.
His green eyes clouded like a squall way out to sea. “This isn’t your fault, Faith. Being with me last night did not cause your father’s heart attack.”
“I know that,” she snapped. “But I still should have been there.”
“Everyone coped, Faith.” His hand snaked across the table to cover hers and she saw desperation in his eyes. “Getting away once in a while isn’t a crime. Everyone pitched in and helped for a change.”
Faith blinked, the helix in her gut spinning hot and fast now. She snatched her hand back. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his jaw clearly frustrated. “They take you for granted, Faith,” he growled. “He’s their father too but they let you do the lion’s share of the caring.”
“I like doing it,” she snapped loud enough to cause heads at nearby tables to swivel in their direction. Tears spilled down her face and her nose started to run and she knew she must be a snotty mess but none of that mattered. Her father was sick and she loved Raf and she couldn’t do anything about either of them and it was driving her crazy.
“It shouldn’t be your whole life, Faith.”
“Oh, you want me to choose you who I’ve known for a handful of weeks over my family?”
“No, Faith.” He shook his head. “I want you to choose you. Choose what you want every now and then.”
“So I can be like you? Mr. Love The One You’re With? Drifting through life with no commitments? And why do you care anyway? You were just in it for a roll in the hay, right?”
His jaw clenched hard, turning white right at the angle. “Don’t say that,” he demanded, his voice an angry whisper. “It was more than that. Maybe we could be more than that?”
Faith blinked, her heart leaping at the strange statement while her brain brought a sledgehammer right down in the middle of it all. “No. We can’t. You’re leaving tomorrow and I’m staying here where I belong.” She stood, picking up the remains of her sandwich and takeout mug. “Go home, Raf.”
And she walked away, her heart breaking wide open.
Chapter Thirteen
‡
Raf sat in the coffee shop for a while after Faith left, grappling with a storm of emotions. Go home, Raf. Her edict had been clear and there’d been nothing about her demeanor that had suggested she wasn’t one hun
dred percent serious.
But how could he do that? How could he just leave, go home to the other side of the world, with all this worry weighing her down?
God…what if JP died? How could he leave the woman he loved to face that?
Yes. Love. He loved her.
Sitting here listening to her talk about them, about him like he was nothing but a fuck-buddy had sealed it for him. He’d known then and there that he felt so much more. That he’d fallen for her.
It had been so clear.
He’d been in lust. He’d been in like. He’d even been in thrall but he’d never felt like his heart had been ripped from his chest and stomped all over. He’d never felt like someone else’s life mattered more than his. That he’d give his own life to take away her pain.
And he’d wanted to tell her. He’d wanted to grab her and shake her and say I love you, goddamn it but he couldn’t do it. Not here. In a hospital. Where her father lay in a coronary care bed after having a heart attack. Where she was worried and stressed and frightened about his future.
It was insensitive to what she was going through. And crass. And it could come off as sounding disingenuous. An afterthought. Like he was saying it because of the situation not because it was how he felt with every fiber of his being.
When he told her – and he would tell her – he didn’t want any other distractions. Any other obstacles she could throw in his path. He wanted her to listen, to know, that he meant every one of those three little words and he was here for the long haul.
He didn’t have a clue how that would even work but he knew as sure as he knew the sun rose over the ocean at Coogee that he’d figure it out. Whatever it took.
Henri had been right. Faith was a keeper.
He’d never told any woman he loved her so this whole thing was new to him but he knew instinctively this was not the time or place to do it. This was too big, too important to screw with.
Too important to screw up.
*
Raf bumped into Mercy in the corridor leading to the coronary care unit half an hour later. “Faith back in with JP?” he asked.
She nodded. “I don’t think we’ll be able to pry her out again. What are your plans?”
