Page 164

MAVERICK

With Sadie in surgery, there’s not much I can do.

Once again, I’m completely and utterly helpless.

The paralytic has worn off, though there’s a weakness to my muscles that the emergency room doctor said will likely linger another few hours. Darren gave me a nasty, bloody nose, but the hit thankfully didn’t break it.

Still, none of the pain or the physical weakness I’m currently feeling even comes close to the fear plaguing me as I walk down the hallway in the hospital.

The doctor wasn’t sure what Sadie’s odds were.

She’d lost a lot of blood by the time we got the gauze packed into her wound, and even still, it just kept bleeding. While we were in the ambulance, she coded twice.

Two times, her heart stopped.

Two times, I watched them restart it.

Tears burn in my eyes, and I stop walking to place a hand on the wall beside me. How can this be happening? Why wasn’t I strong enough to save her?

Failure haunts me like a shadow creature clinging to the light in my soul. If she dies, I know that it’ll devour me whole. God, please don’t let her die. I’ve prayed more times in the last few hours than I have in my entire life.

Will He hear me and save her?

After fighting to gather myself, I straighten and keep walking. One foot in front of the other, I attempt to put distance between me and the people back in that waiting room. Others who are sitting around, awaiting news about whether or not Sadie will survive.

Sawyer and Anastasia.

Weston and his wife, Reese, who showed up right after they’d wheeled Sadie back.

Ryker is there, too, as are Zane, Tessa, and Garrison.

Even Pastor Reeves and his wife, Helen, are sitting there.

Will she make it? Or will everyone here go home, knowing that Sadie Eaton died while under my care? That I fell in love with a woman, only to lose her just as fast?

I should have been able to save her.

The hallway turns, so I follow it, then pause right beside a door to my left with the word Chapel written on the front. Need wells in my chest, need for answers. For truth. For hope. So, I push the door open.

It’s small, about the size of a hospital room, and there are pews on either side of a narrow walkway. Straight ahead, there’s a cross sitting on top of a small altar. Behind it is a brightly lit stained-glass window depicting a spring meadow with two large trees.

It’s happy.

A direct contrast to the storm within me.

There’s another man in here, though he’s sitting with his back to me, so I take a seat toward the back and close my eyes, bowing my head as I’ve seen Sadie do so many times.

But what do I do from here?

How do I pray strongly enough for Him to save her?

The seat beside me creaks, and I open my eyes as the man who’d been sitting at the front takes a seat beside me. His hair is grey, as is the stubble on his aging face.

“What troubles you?” he asks.

Normally, I would have just kept my mouth shut or popped off with something bordering on rude to get him to leave. But right now, with my heart on an operating table, clinging to life, I don’t have any fight left in me.

“Someone I love might die.” The words strangle me.