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“I am.” Jessy was direct. “You don’t like to hear that, do you?”
Tara was not without her poise as she eyed her opponent with cool speculation. “But I hope you don’t think you are the first woman Ty has used for consolation. Of course, the others were not foolish enough to think it meant anything.”
“Why do you let him?” Jessy demanded, showing the first traces of temper. “Why do you go off and leave him to get lonely? You’re taking a terrible chance. Don’t you realize I wouldn’t have been here if you had been home? You’re in his blood, and I don’t deny it. Maybe that makes you happy to know it. But I have no respect for you. You can’t help being what you are and living the way you want. But you’re hurting Ty. You want to have him and everything else, too. Well, you can’t.”
“Neither can you,” she retorted.
“The difference is, I know it.” Jessy became calm again. “If Ty asks where I am,” she continued, “tell him I’ve gone to Ruth Haskell’s house. Chase was like her own son. She’s taking this pretty hard.”
On that assertive note, Jessy walked past a silent and stiff Tara to the front door and let herself out.
Upon arrival at the hospital, Ty went directly to the intensive-care unit. Tara followed him, a supportive arm wrapped around Cathleen, whose face was strained white and whose eyes were red and puffy
from tears. A tension surrounded all of them as they stopped at the nurses’ station.
“I’m Ty Calder. My father—” He wasn’t given an opportunity to complete his inquiry as a man in a doctor’s smock interrupted him.
“We’ve been expecting you.” He passed a patient’s chart board to one of the nurses and slipped his pen into the breast pocket of the long jacket. “I’m Dr. Haslind. We spoke on the phone earlier today.”
The voice on the phone had sounded as if it belonged to a much older man, but Haslind appeared to be in his early forties. Despite an air of professional competence that kept him tall and straight, there was a drawn and tired look about his face that suggested long, tense hours without rest.
“My father—” Cat’s demand quavered on a high-pitched note. “How is he?”
“Under the circumstances, he’s doing as well as can be expected.” The response had an emotionless quality, as if repeated by rote, which made it meaningless.
“What are his chances?”
“Your father is alive.” It seemed the one hope he was willing to offer them, but he appeared reluctant to say more in front of the obviously distraught Cathleen. “More surgery will eventually be required, but it will have to wait until his system is better able to take it.”
“Earlier today, you mentioned possible spinal injuries.” The possibility that his father might be incapacitated was something Ty had difficulty accepting.
“Yes.” The doctor nodded affirmatively. “There are indications of some paralysis, but at this stage it is impossible to gauge the extent of it or if it might be permanent. It’s simply too soon.”
“I want to see him,” Ty requested.
“Of course.” Haslind nodded again, this time giving permission. “However, I must restrict your visit to two minutes.”
Ty hesitated. “Does he know about my mother?”
After an uncomfortable pause, he answered, “No. I deemed it ill advised to tell him when they brought him in this morning.”
“Doctor?” An approaching nurse summoned him to the side. He excused himself and stepped away, but they were still within range of Ty’s hearing. “You asked me to notify you when Mr. Calder began to regain consciousness,” the nurse was saying. “He’s coming out of the anesthesia now.”
“Good.”
A splintering crash violated the hushed silence of the special ward. For a shocked second, no one reacted except to look toward the door of the room from which the loud noise seemed to have originated. Then both the nurse and Dr. Haslind were hurrying toward it. Ty followed, only a step behind.
As they pushed the door open and charged inside, Ty had his first glimpse of the trouble inside the room. A nurse was trying to strap a struggling patient into his bed and at the same time prevent him from ripping off the array of tubes and wires attached to his body. Beside the bed, an Ty stand had been overturned, its bottles of solution on the floor, still rocking from the fall.
The patient’s head was wrapped in bandages, as was most of his naked body, a cast enclosing the lower half of him virtually from the waist down. Myriad cuts and bruises made his face almost unrecognizable, and his head rocked from side to side in a frustrated protest at his inability to move, never giving Ty a clear look at him. Only one arm appeared to be fully functional, since the other was in a cast; but judging by the havoc that had been raised, one was enough.
At the last minute, he tore his arm loose from the strap before the nurse could fasten it securely. “My wife! Why won’t you tell me where she is?” His voice was so weak and hoarse, it was barely above a loud, rasping whisper. It finally hit Ty that this battered and scarred man was his Either.
The doctor joined the nurse, lending his efforts to firmly subdue the patient. “Calder, you’ve got to lie still,” he ordered impatiently. “A lot of us have worked hard to put you back together. You’re going to undo everything we’ve done.”
Ty approached the bed in a kind of daze, trying to reconcile this person with the indestructible image of his father he carried in his mind. The man he’d practically idolized, and whose respect he’d valued above that of all others. So tough, so strong, so helpless now.
“I’ve got to know if Maggie’s all right.” It was as near to a plea as anything that had ever come out of his mouth. His arm was strapped down, immobilizing him, but still he strained in resistance. No one listened to him. They were too busy trying to put everything back in order, righting the Ty stand and reinserting the needles into his veins and attaching the monitoring equipment.
