Part 23 (1/2)
”It's up to you whether you tell him,” Ca.s.sie said, her voice so low that Sam had to lean down to hear her. ”Your decision.” Ca.s.sie took another gasp of air, tried to say something, but stopped herself. Instead, she motioned to the table beside the hospital bed.
Sam pulled open the drawer and saw a piece of white paper. At Ca.s.sie's insistence, she drew it out. Ca.s.sie had gotten the nurse to draw up a paper and had paved the way for Sam to adopt Zack. The paper had been signed and witnessed.
Sam's eyes blurred with tears. She looked at the woman lying in the bed and reached for her hand. ”Thank you.”
Ca.s.sie shook her head slowly. ”I just needed to know-” she sucked in another breath, her face drawn with pain ”-Zack is going to be all right now.”
The monitor beside Ca.s.sie's bed went off, a shrill frightening sound. Several nurses raced into the room and ordered Sam out.
”I promise I'll take care of him,” Sam called to Ca.s.sie as she was pushed back. A crash cart was rushed into the room. She held the precious paper to her as she stumbled out into the hall.
She stayed there, captured by the frantic sounds inside the room she'd just left until the doctor came out to tell her that Ca.s.sie was gone.
Then she stood in the hallway and cried, cried for Ca.s.sie and Lucas and Zack and Charley and Katie, and for herself and Will. She didn't cry long. Then, wiping her eyes, she went to find her cousin.
WILL LOOKED UP FROM his hospital bed to see Charley Murphy framed in the doorway.
”Mind if I come in?”
”Not at all, I could use the company,” he said, and smiled. He hadn't seen Charley since last night and he hadn't been in any shape then to thank him. ”Thanks for your help.”
Charley shrugged. ”Part of the job. I'm just glad I got Sam's call and could get there in time. You were the real heroes, though.”
”Yeah, right,” he said. ”How is Ca.s.sie?”
Charley shook his head. ”I'm grateful for what you did, helping Sam. And Zack.”
Will nodded. ”Something tells me you didn't just come by to build up my self-esteem.”
Charley shook his head. ”I need to know how you feel about my cousin.”
”Yeah, I thought that might be it.” Will took a deep breath. ”Twenty-five words or less? I'm crazy about her. I can't imagine living a day without her. But I also can't imagine living a day with her working as a private investigator. It scares the h.e.l.l out of me. I've always thought of myself as a pretty progressive kind of guy. But I'm not sure I can be married to a woman who risks her life like that.”
”That's kind of what I thought,” Charley said.
Samantha stuck her head in the door then, almost as if on cue. ”Hi,” she said, and smiled at him. ”How are you feeling?”
He nodded. He'd forgotten just how beautiful she was. The bright blue morning and the suns.h.i.+ne streaming in the window gave her a glow that pretty near made him take back everything he'd just told Charley and turn those words into a proposal of marriage. Pretty near.
But he could also see that she'd been crying. ”What is it?” he asked.
”Ca.s.sie. She just pa.s.sed away,” Sam said.
He could see her fighting more tears.
”Mind if I steal Charley for a moment?” she asked, her voice hoa.r.s.e with emotion.
He noticed tension then in her eyes, and feared why she'd come to talk to her cousin. He thought of Zack. The boy had lost both his mother and the only father he'd known.
A nurse stuck her head in the doorway. ”Good news! The doctor said you can leave this morning,” she said cheerfully. ”By the way,” she said holding up his chart, ”happy birthday.”
”Thanks.” His thirty-sixth birthday. And he could go home. It seemed like eons since the day he'd driven to Wolf Point to bid a job and seen Samantha sitting in the sun in her Firebird. Or one of her cousins' Firebird. He never had gotten around to asking her just whose car it was. Not that it mattered now.
He realized he should call his sister. Katherine was probably worried about him. Yeah, right.
”Where have you been?” she demanded the moment she heard his voice on the phone. ”You've heard what happened? The commissioner has been arrested. Someone captured him on film exchanging construction bills for cash at my my party! In party! In my my library!” library!”
”Really?” He smiled, remembering the beautiful young woman he'd followed to the library terrace with two gla.s.ses of cold champagne. ”Imagine that.”
”Where are you? It almost sounds like you're in a hospital,” Katherine said, obviously overhearing a page for one of the doctors on call. ”Will? Will, what's happened?”
He didn't know where to start. But as was his nature, he started from the beginning.
When he finished, Katherine said, ”You risked your life for this woman and child?”
He guessed he had. He realized he'd do it again.
”That is so unlike you,” his sister was saying. ”Just taking off like that. Tell me more about this woman. Murphy? Samantha Murphy, right?”
This time when he finished, his sister said, ”Oh, Will,” and he realized she was crying. ”Jennifer Finley will be so disappointed.”
SAMANTHA AND CHARLEY WALKED down the hall to one of the hospital atriums. They had the s.p.a.ce to themselves and stood for a moment, neither talking.
”Ca.s.sie is gone,” she said after a moment.
He said nothing, just stared at the floor. ”I know. I'm sorry.”
”She signed a paper making me Zack's legal guardian and asking that I be allowed to adopt him.” Her voice broke with emotion.
He looked up quickly. ”Is that what you want?”
”More than anything.” She hesitated. ”Before she died, she told me who Zack's father is.”
Charley's gaze met hers and held it, gentle and yet solid as a rock. That was Charley. She felt her heart begin to pound and tears welled again in her eyes. ”How long have you known?”
He shook his head. ”Not until the day that Ca.s.sie came by the house with the court order to pick Zack up. I guess something just clicked. I remembered that one night we'd spent together and suddenly I looked at Zack as she left with him-and realized he was mine. Do you know he's going to have my big feet? Poor kid,” he added with a laugh.
”You and Ca.s.sie,” she said, shaking her head.
”It was only one night. I had no idea she had conceived, since we used protection. But nothing is failsafe, huh?”
”She didn't realize she was pregnant with your baby until after you met Katie and fell in love with her,” Sam said.
”She still should have told me,” he said, then shook his head, obviously thinking how that would have changed all of their lives.