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11
Bronte’s stomach dropped at the mention of her father. “What?”
“We’re at the hospital. He had a heart attack.” Bronte pressed her hand to her chest as her sister continued, “Mom called me. He got up to go the bathroom and collapsed.” Her voice broke on the last word.
“Is he okay? Is Daddy okay?”
“I don’t know. Tommy and I just got here, but they’ve been here for a while. We had to wait until Tommy’s mom got to our house to take care of Zoe, so we—”
Bronte interrupted her sister’s nervous rambling. “Where’s Mom?”
“She’s here.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah, you know, relatively.”
Bronte held the phone with one hand and shoved Hunter with the other. “I’m coming home. I only have to wake Hunter up,” she said, pushing on his shoulder again, but he was passed out cold. She cursed and hit him with the pillow before stumbling around for her glasses. Finding them on the dresser, she flipped on the light and dropped to the floor to search for his car keys that she was sure fell out of his pants pocket when they got back. Though they were nowhere to be found.
She groaned. “Hunter’s drunk and won’t wake up. I can’t find his car keys and don’t have a way to get home without him. God, Shelley, I don’t know what to do. What should I do?”
While Shelley spoke to someone in the background, Bronte stood up, looking around. Her eyes were glassy, chest tight, but she would not cry. She couldn’t. Not yet. She needed to focus on getting home.
Hunter didn’t move.
“I need a ride,” she said more to herself than Shelley. “Are rental car places open all night? Or, um, a cab?” She struggled to think. “How about Fitz? Can Fitz come get me?”
“Hold on.” Shelley relayed the message to whomever she was with. Then to Bronte, she said, “I don’t think Fitz should leave Mom right now, but Chris is here. He said he’d come get you.”
“Chris is there?”
“Yeah, he did CPR on Dad until the ambulance showed up.” Bronte didn’t have enough time to process that information because her sister went on, “He’s leaving right now. Text him the address.”
Bronte hung up, her trembling fingers tripping over themselves as she tried and failed to text Chris the correct address. After three attempts, she finally sent the right numbers and letters, before trying to wake up Hunter again, but he only rolled over, drool pooling on the side of his mouth. In her panic, she tried once more to search for Hunter’s car keys, even ripped open his overnight bag in the process, causing a small square box to fall out. She gasped at the pear-shaped diamond ring, sitting in the middle of the cushion, and his odd behavior earlier suddenly made sense. He was planning on proposing to her.
A thousand thoughts entered her mind, but she shook them away. She needed to concentrate on only one, getting home. She’d deal with the asshole in bed later.
Waiting on the steps outside of the bed-and-breakfast, she lost track of time. It felt like only two minutes later when Chris pulled up to the curb. She ran straight to him as he stepped out of the car. It was then she let her tears fall, burying her head into the crook of his neck. He tightened his arms around her, and it was as if he was the only thing holding her together anymore. If it weren’t for him, she would break into a million pieces.
“It’s all right. He’ll be all right,” he said repeatedly, his voice low against the top of her head. He placed one kiss on her temple before shifting so she could look at him, blinking through her tears, her glasses all fogged up. “It will be okay, I promise.”
And for some reason, because he promised, she believed it.
He tucked her into the car, helping with the seat belt since her hands were trembling, and drove as fast as he could, accelerating through the yellow lights, hitting the highway as the sky turned a dull gray. Reading the time on the digital clock, she figured he must have been driving a hundred miles an hour to get to her so fast.
“I knew it was probably killing you to not be with your family,” he said. “I think I broke about fifteen traffic laws to get to you.”
Her heart thudded at his statement. Chris knew what she needed and did whatever it took to give it to her. It was a stark contrast to what she’d been settling for all these years. “Thank you.”
The rest of the drive was quiet, only the purr of the car and Bronte’s sniffle every once in a while. Chris dropped her off at the entrance of the hospital to park the car on his own, and she made her way to the information desk, where they pointed her to the bank of elevators. Collapsing into the corner of one when it arrived, she said a quick prayer as she got off on the proper floor.
Her family was in the waiting room, Fitz huddled in the corner on his phone, Shelley with her head on her mom’s shoulder, and Tommy stretched out on a few chairs, asleep. Her mother, brother, and sister all looked up simultaneously, as if sensing her presence, and enveloped her in a hug.
“How is he?” Bronte asked, holding her brother’s hand.
“He’s in surgery. They said it would take a couple of hours,” Fitz said.
Bronte nodded like a bobblehead as she touched her mother’s shoulder. “How are you?”
