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Aidan wasn’t out of the woods yet...
After the Uber driver dropped him off and he let himself into his truck, he took out some of his pent-up emotion on the steering wheel, hitting it with the side of his fist.
“Damn you, Aidan. How could you be so stupid? You had no business on a bike like that. Being a reckless idiot is my territory. Not yours, dumb-ass.”
He punched at the steering wheel again, and for about the hundredth time, he wondered why it had to be Aidan lying in that bed and not him. Because he would gladly change places with him. Chloe needed her father. She depended on him.
Why did the drunk driver have to travel through that intersection at the same time that Aidan had made the turn?
Would it have made a difference if he’d talked to his brother in the office a little bit longer? Kept him there...listened to what he was trying to tell him—something about Chloe and school and making cupcakes for her holiday party. Daniel had mocked him and called him Betty Crocker and then he’d cut him off and said he had to run. What if he’d tried to engage his brother in conversation for once instead of always having something more important to do? Would it have made any difference? Would he not be up there in the hospital in a medically induced coma fighting for his life?
When the moisture stung Daniel’s eyes, he uttered a string of expletives and lowered his head onto the steering wheel, willing the weakness to pass. Before it did, his phone buzzed the arrival of a text and sent his heart into near cardiac arrest until he realized a split second later that if it was the hospital trying to get him, they would call, not text.
He turned over the screen and saw Elle’s name.
Checking in to see if there was any news. We’re fine here. So, no worries. Gigi and Chloe have become fast friends and are having a fun playdate.
Seeing her name was like a balm to Daniel’s open wound. The thought of Chloe wrapped in the warm layers of Elle’s family helped him regain his equilibrium. Family... He’d never dwelled on it, but now that one of his two living family members was in the hospital fighting for his life, that intangible seemed like the most rare and valuable thing in the world. Daniel had never been a praying man, but he closed his eyes and said a prayer for his brother to survive and recover and a prayer of thanks for the Boudreau-Clark family and their generous spirits. For the second time, they were there for him, extending selfless help.
Even though offering his remodeling skills at cost seemed inadequate, he would somehow find an adequate way to repay their kindness.
He picked up his phone and started typing.
Thanks for the update. I’m on my way to pick up Chloe. Tell Gigi I owe her. I owe you, too, Elle. Big time.
She texted right back. No one is keeping score.
He was tempted to text back and ask if that meant she’d stopped holding the Roger/wedding debacle against him. But that would be a cheap shot. She believed it was his fault that Roger had left her at the altar. All these years, he’d let her believe that. He wondered what would’ve happened if he hadn’t gotten the call about Aidan. Would they have talked about what had happened before the wedding that made Daniel talk Roger into walking away? Would she have heard him out? Of course, learning the truth wouldn’t have been any easier to swallow. Maybe it was just as well that she blamed him. If she could forgive him, maybe she didn’t need to know the truth.
It was too bad that it took a tragedy to open lines of communication, but if any good came from Aidan’s wreck, maybe this would be the catalyst that would help Elle and him put the past behind them once and for all.
Chapter Six
Daniel looked exhausted, Elle thought when she saw him standing in the lobby.
His handsome face looked drawn and pale, in sharp contrast with his dark hair and eyes. There were fine lines around his eyes that she hadn’t noticed before. Of course, he’d faced the worst kind of stress today. If one of her sisters was in the intensive care unit, she probably wouldn’t be able to function. Never mind how she would look. She’d be a mess. You wouldn’t be able to pry her away from the hospital bedside, either. That wasn’t a judgment. She knew the only reason Daniel was here right now was because of Chloe.
