AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, dear God,” Lillian cried as she dialed the number on her phone.
Nathan knelt beside him on the floor. He wasn’t dead yet.
CHAPTER 14
The ride to the hospital seemed to take forever. When the ambulance arrived, the EMTs checked his vital signs, shook their heads, and told Lillian they would meet her at the hospital.
All the way there, she prayed. She needed a little more time before she could clear his name and reunite him with her grandmother and Kenneth. Just a little longer.
When she and Nathan pulled up to the ER, the doctors and nurses were rushing around her grandfather, giving him oxygen, hooking him up to monitors, and giving him fluids.
After an hour, the doctor came out to the waiting room.
“Miss Bradley, your grandfather is in a very serious condition. We’re not certain he will make it through the night. Is there any other family you want to contact? Now is the time.”
“They’re on their way,” she said, fearing no one would get the chance to say good-bye. “Can I see him?”
“We’re moving him up to a room now. But don’t go far,” the doctor told her.
“Why not the ICU?”
“Ma’am, he’s stage four cancer. Even if we did our best, he’s not going to last much longer,” he said.
She felt Nathan’s arms go around her as she sagged against him. Stage four. This was the end. He would not be here to see her clear his name or even get the ranch back. She’d found him only to lose her grandfather once again.
“Give the nurses about twenty minutes, and he should be in a room,” the man in the white coat said.
“I’m sorry,” Nathan said, holding her tightly against him.
“It’s not fair,” she said.
“No, it’s not,” he replied.
“I need to call my grandmother and see where they are. They were leaving this afternoon to come. Now I need to tell them to come straight to the hospital.”
Lillian breathed in and realized the afternoon was almost gone. It would soon be evening.
She pulled out her cell phone and quickly dialed her mother’s number. Her grandmother answered.
“Hello,” she said.
“Where are you?”
“We’re right outside of town. We should be in Blessing in ten minutes,” she said. “You sound upset.”
“Come straight to the hospital. Grandpa is not doing well,” she said.
“Oh,” her grandmother said, sounding stunned. “I thought you said he had several more months.”
“I thought so too,” she said, watching the ambulance load up an empty stretcher and the EMTs crawling back into the big box before they drove away.
“Hurry,” she said. “I’ll text you the room number.”
“We’ll be there as soon as possible,” her grandmother said and disconnected the line.
When she walked back into the ER, she saw Nathan on the phone talking animatedly to someone. She didn’t want to invade his privacy and just needed some time to adjust to being here, where life and death happened every day.
“I gotta go,” she heard Nathan say. “Get here.”
