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The boy didn’t speak, just fought the tremble of his lower lip and stared straight ahead, tears shining in his eyes.
That could be Ryan.
How would her son feel if something happened to Daniel and he’d never had the opportunity to know his father?
All these years Ryan could have had Daniel’s love and support, and she’d denied it to him. Why?
The boy leaned over, said something in private to Daniel, and he nodded.
“Peyton needs a moment with his father,” Daniel told them, oblivious to the heart-shattering pain ripping through Kimberly at every mistake she’d ever made.
Monumental mistakes that could never be undone.
Then again, with the way Daniel’s eyes kept searching her face, maybe he wasn’t so oblivious.
“It’s not visiting hours,” Daniel admitted. ICU stringently controlled visits due to the critical nature of the patients on the unit, but doctors could get away with bending the rules when the occasion called for it. “But I’m going to take him over and give him a minute.”
Without a word to his mother, Peyton went with Daniel to ICU room number three.
The boy walked so rigidly Kimberly half expected him to snap. Poor boy, seeing his father like this had to be so difficult.
The mother in her cried for his pain and wished she could ease his suffering.
Through the glass wall Kimberly and Cathy Clark watched while Daniel and the boy talked next to his father’s hospital bed.
Daniel’s hand remained on Peyton’s shoulder and from time to time the boy nodded at something Daniel said.
Probably Daniel was explaining the purpose of the tubes and machinery in hopes it would make the image of his father hooked to all the technology keeping him alive a bit less scary.
“He’s really good with kids,” Cathy commented, possibly to fill the silence or to distract herself from the harsh reality of the situation.
Kimberly cringed at the woman’s word choice.
“Yes, he is,” she mumbled, reminding herself that she had to keep it together until she and Daniel finished for the day. Then she could pour out her heart to him and, in the process, probably make Daniel hate her.
He would hate her. How could he not when he’d missed out on knowing Ryan?
Wouldn’t she hate someone who’d stolen that from her?
Cathy’s red-rimmed eyes met Kimberly’s and the woman attempted a small smile.
“Does he have children of his own?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
REELING didn’t begin to cover Kimberly’s reaction to Cathy’s question.
She opened her mouth to try to form a reply, but nothing came out.
The room spun. Her face flushed. Her heart slammed against her rib cage so hard it felt as if it bruised her insides.
She turned to Peyton’s mother, but the woman seemed oblivious to everything but where her son stood next to his father’s bed.
Did Daniel have children? Such an innocent question and yet one that held the power to set off a domino effect that would leave a lot of pain in its wake.
Kimberly’s vision blurred and, fearing she might hyperventilate, she forced her breathing to stay steady, controlled.
How did she answer the woman’s question?
