you sure?” She gave a labored cough that left her gasping for breath all over again.
“That you have pneumonia? No. But I am hearing some sounds in your lungs that are cause for concern. Your husband can stay with you every step of the way.”
Mrs. Lowell had to be pushing seventy-five or maybe eighty. Lung infections at that age were worrisome. The couple was in Seattle on a whirlwind vacation. He could understand why she didn’t want to wind up in a hospital so far away from home.
As his daughter had?
They too had been on vacation when Grace had got her first headache. They’d gone to an emergency room, and had left with antibiotics. But things had got better, so they chalked it up to a sinus infection. In the end, they’d waited until they got home to follow up with their regular doctor, not knowing it was already too late. If he’d just taken her symptoms more seriously, would things have ended differently?
“It’s right across the street. We won’t even need to call an ambulance.” He crossed his fingers mentally, hoping this would work and that Gloria wouldn’t board her scheduled flight later on today. “I have a friend who can bring a wheelchair over from the hospital. We’ll just take you across, and if nothing’s wrong we’ll bring you right back. You still have several hours before you need to be at the airport.”
He prayed what he was thinking would work.
“Clyde? You’ll stay with me?”
He took ahold of her hand. “Always, baby.”
The obvious love between the husband and wife made his gut tighten. If Grace had lived, would he and Janice have made it until “death do us part”? Although if their relationship had been strong enough, it should have survived even Grace’s illness and death. But it hadn’t.
Gloria took a deep breath and then immediately went into another coughing fit. Once she stopped, she nodded. “Okay. But no ambulances. My daddy died after going to the hospital in one of those.”
“No ambulance.” He paused. “Let me just make a quick call.”
Pulling out his cell phone, he hoped he wasn’t making a terrible mistake. It had been less than a week since he’d spent the night with Maddy. She could very well hang up on him. He knew he’d acted like a jerk on his way out of her house, but Chloe’s headache...
Damn.
He pressed the numbers for the hospital and then asked the operator to connect him with Maddy. He waited as the line started ringing. He could only hope she wasn’t with a patient and picked up rather than letting the phone go straight to voice mail. Although once she realized who it was, she might very well not answer it.
The ringer sounded for the third time when he heard a familiar click. “Dr. Grimes.”
“Maddy? It’s Kaleb.”
“Hi.”
“Sorry to bother you, but I have a patient over here at the Consortium. Breathing problems—”
“Asthma?” The tone of her voice immediately shifted, moving into the realm of a professional in a single breath.
“Bilateral crackles.”
“Can you bring the patient in?”
He hesitated, then forged ahead. “She doesn’t want an ambulance. I told her that I would try to arrange a wheelchair transport.”
“A wheelchair what?”
“Are you busy with patients right now?”
“Not right this second. Do you want me to come over and take a look?”
Well, at least she didn’t sound irritated. “Would you? It’s the only way I can get her to agree to get checked out.”
“I’ll be right there.” She paused. “And I’ll bring that wheelchair with me, just in case.”
* * *
Maddy arrived at the hotel ten minutes later. When she went into the lobby, the concierge was expecting her. He came right over. “She’s on the tenth floor, room 1021. Do you want me to go up with you?”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
Would she? She no longer knew.
She walked over to the bank of elevators, pushing the wheelchair. It only took a minute until she was headed up to the patient’s floor. She had no idea how she was going to feel when she saw Kaleb’s face. She’d been actively trying to avoid him ever since he’d left her place. Her mom coming to spend the week with her had not only put a crimp in her schedule, but it had also brought a lot of other complications. She’d begun hinting that it was time for Maddy to start looking for love again. Reminders that Matthew had died a little less than a month ago had done nothing to deter her. And Maddy’s attempts to get her mom to change her mind about moving to Seattle had also fallen on deaf ears.
Did she really want her mom here, messing in her business?
She closed her eyes. Since when did she consider it messing?
Since Kaleb?
Ping!
The sound came just as she was mulling over the answer to that question.
She shook her head and pushed the wheelchair out of the elevator. And the man she’d been worried about seeing was in the hallway, waiting for her. The air left her lungs in a rush.
It was bad. Just as bad as she expected. Her legs trembled and her mouth went completely dry in the space of a few seconds.
The man did it for her. Really, really did it, in a way that no man ever had, and that included Matthew.
She swallowed and forced as normal a smile as she could, even though her heart was beating out of her chest. “You called for a chariot?”
“I did indeed.” He gave her a smile in return that was a lot warmer than hers had been. “Thank you. I owe you.”
“No, you don’t. Tell me what’s going on.”
Within two minutes he’d filled her in on the situation. He then introduced her to Gloria and her husband. Kaleb hadn’t been exaggerating. The patient’s breathing sounded labored and there was a definite congested rattle to it. They needed to get her to the hospital. The woman was in no hurry to leave, though, despite how hard it was for her to catch her breath.
Maddy sat on the bed next to her. “Tell me why you’re afraid to go.”
Gloria’s eyes tracked away to her husband and then back. “My father went to the hospital. He never came out.”
That she could understand. When she glanced up at Kaleb, he was standing by the big bank of windows looking out over the city.
“What happened?” she asked.
“He had a heart attack. I was just a girl. They wouldn’t let me go into the room.”
