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Marlowe closed her eyes. “Oh Lord, I thought once Bowie caught that disgusting stalker, everything was going to start going back to normal. But this is just too awful,” she declared, her eyes filling up with tears again.
She felt strong arms going around her shoulders and knew that Bowie was trying his best to comfort her, literally offering her a shoulder to cry on.
Marlowe struggled to pull herself together, but for now, she just let him hold her and did her best to rally for her mother’s sake, if not for her own.
* * *
Bowie remained with Marlowe and her family until Payne’s surgeon, Dr. Jonathan Bohan, came out to tell them that the operation had been successful. The bullet had not hit any vital organs. Currently, he was in the recovery room.
“When can we see him and talk to him?” Ace asked.
“You can see him in an hour once they bring him to his room. Talking to him, however, is going to be another matter,” Dr. Bohan told them.
Instantly suspicious, Ainsley asked, “Why do you say that?”
“Because,” the doctor said heavily as he delivered the news, “Mr. Colton slipped into a coma.”
“A coma?” Rafe questioned. “How long is that going to last?” he demanded. “When’s our father going to wake up?”
“I’m afraid that is anyone’s guess,” the surgeon said. “It could be in the morning, could be in a few weeks.”
Ace looked up sharply, disturbed by what he was hearing. “Or it could last forever?” he questioned.
“It could,” the surgeon agreed matter-of-factly.
“In other words, anything is possible,” Marlowe said, hating to even entertain that idea, but it seemed that was what they were being told.
The surgeon exhaled heavily. “I’m afraid so,” Bohan answered.
“But he could wake up tomorrow,” Bowie hypothesized, speaking up for Marlowe’s benefit in order to give her something to hang on to.
Bohan nodded his head. “We can only hope that,” the surgeon told the family members.
Somberness gripped the Coltons even tighter.
* * *
Bowie remained with Marlowe for a few more hours, doing what he could to bolster her morale. He congratulated himself on achieving moderate success with his efforts.
When Marlowe appeared to be doing a little better, he decided that he could leave her for a while in order to take care of something that had been preying on his mind. Watching this drama unfold before him the way that it had, having something so traumatic happening without any warning, convinced Bowie that he needed to square things with his own father.
This had shown him that there weren’t endless opportunities in which to take care of things, to square them away and make them right. There was only now. Tomorrow might never come.
Time was mercurial and fleeting.
He almost hated to disturb her, but he knew he’d never forgive himself if he let this matter go and something happened to his father the way it just had to hers.
Leaning over toward Marlowe as they all sat in the waiting area, Bowie whispered in her ear, “You’ll be okay for a while if I run an errand?”
Marlowe was touched that he actually cared enough about her to ask if he could leave her side for a while. “I’ll be fine,” she assured him. And then, because she wasn’t sure if he was going to leave permanently, she asked, “You’re coming back here?”
On his knees if he had to, Bowie thought. But he didn’t want to crowd her at a time like this. “Unless you don’t want me to,” he qualified.
She hesitated, wanting to tell him that she didn’t need him to stay with her, that she could get through this on her own. But then she thought, Who was she kidding? “Come back,” she told him.
Bowie knew that took a lot for Marlowe to say. It was, in effect, exposing herself. “As fast as I can,” he promised. “Call me if you need me to come back faster than that,” he added, concerned.
“Go do whatever you have to do,” she told him, sending him on his way.
