The former chief of police turned toward the rest of his family as the nurse hurried away to find the missing physician.
“Anyone have any more information on what happened than what we already know?” Andrew asked the various members of the family around him.
“Sounds like a mugging gone bad,” his younger brother Sean answered. Several other heads nodded. “Not much to go on yet,” Sean concluded.
“Who found him?” Brian asked, throwing out the question to anyone who could answer it.
“A guy walking his dog,” his daughter, Riley, volunteered. “He called a patrolman.”
“Who was the detective who was first on the scene?” Andrew asked.
“That would be me,” Detective Finley Cavanaugh said, raising his hand as he stepped forward to the front of what was quickly becoming a very large crowd. “I caught the case and I was hoping to have a few words with your father, Uncle Andrew.”
“So are we, Finn,” Andrew replied with feeling. “So are we.” He looked around, hoping to see the ER doctor cutting through the growing gathering of his relatives.
Rose tugged on her husband’s arm. When he looked quizzically in her direction, she pointed toward a rather young-looking man in hospital scrubs quickly walking toward them.
“Looks like maybe the doctor’s finally going to tell us what’s happening,” she said.
Dr. Joshua Logan had recently transferred to Aurora from a hospital located on the opposite coast. He was still getting acclimated to the mild weather. His easygoing manner belied that he was a top-notch emergency-room physician.
Dr. Logan quickly assessed the crowd, then introduced himself. “The good news,” he continued after shaking the hands of the people nearest him, “is that there doesn’t seem to be any internal bleeding or a skull fracture.”
“And the bad news?” Andrew asked since the doctor’s tone clearly indicated that there was a downside as well.
“I’m afraid that your father’s pride was badly wounded.”
“Wait,” Andrew responded suddenly as the doctor’s words registered. “Does that mean that my father’s conscious now?” There was no missing the eager hope resonating in his voice.
“He was for a few minutes,” Dr. Logan qualified. “But when I told your father that I wanted to keep him here overnight for observation, he started to become very agitated. I thought that it was best if I gave him a sedative.”
Brian wanted the ER doctor to realize that their father wasn’t just being difficult. “The problem is our father doesn’t really like being in a hospital,” he explained.
Dr. Logan nodded, curtailing the need for any further explanation. “I completely sympathize, but I still want to keep your father for twenty-four hours, just to make sure he’s all right before I discharge him.” His expression turned serious. “Your father did sustain a severe blow to his head,” he told the family gathered around him. “I’m sure none of you want any unpleasant surprises suddenly coming up if he goes home too soon.”
“Do what you need to do, Doc,” Andrew told the emergency physician, speaking on behalf of the entire family. “We want to be sure to keep that annoying old man around for a lot more years to come.”
Dr. Logan seemed to take Andrew’s words seriously. “Well, barring any more unforeseen incidents like this one, I’d say that you should probably get your wish. Except for being banged around and getting a number of cuts and bruises, your father appears to have a very strong constitution.”
Andrew blew out a breath. “That’s definitely reassuring. When can we see him?” the former chief of police asked.
While hearing everything that Dr. Logan had just said was definitely making him feel more hopeful, Andrew still felt a very strong need to see his father with his own eyes before he could begin to rest easy.
“Tomorrow morning,” Dr. Logan replied automatically.
As the ER physician turned on his heel to leave, Rose quickly moved directly into the man’s path.
“Doctor, please,” she said, then looked toward her husband.
Logan read between the lines. The woman’s meaning was clear. “All right. But just one of you,” he asserted, raising his voice so that it carried in order for everyone to hear. “And just for five minutes, is that clear? If Mr. Cavanaugh should come to, I don’t want him getting any more agitated.”
“Understood,” Andrew responded solemnly.
Logan nodded. “All right then. You’ll find him in the third bed.” Since all the beds were hidden behind individual curtains, the ER physician offered, “I’ll take you to him.”
Andrew hesitated, looking back at his two younger brothers, silently asking if either of them wanted to go in his place.
But no one contested the decision. “You’re the head of the family,” Brian told him.
“Go on in before the doctor changes his mind,” Sean urged.
With a grateful nod, Andrew quickly followed Dr. Logan out of the area.
They went down a long corridor and then the doctor abruptly stopped.
“He’s right in here,” Logan said, parting the curtain just enough to give Andrew a glimpse inside the interior. “Remember, five minutes,” the doctor cautioned again and then left in order to give Andrew some privacy with his father.
Drawing closer, Andrew very gently took his father’s hand in his. For the very first time that he could remember, his father’s ordinarily strong hands somehow looked and felt almost fragile. They weren’t the powerful hands he recalled, that seemed capable of lifting up and holding anything.
Hands that seemed almost inconceivably strong and incredibly capable.
Andrew squeezed his father’s hand, but Seamus didn’t squeeze back.
When he thought of what might have happened, Andrew felt tears spring to his eyes. He blinked hard to keep them from falling. This wasn’t the time to fall apart, he thought.
“You gave us one hell of a scare, old man,” Andrew whispered thickly to the unconscious man in the hospital bed. The sight of a bandage wrapped around his father’s head, all but covering his right eye, hurt to look at. What if the damage had been worse? “What did those lowlifes do to you?” Andrew asked, trying to control his mounting anger. “And why were you even there at this time of night? You have people for that,” he insisted almost angrily. This didn’t make sense and it didn’t have to happen. “Young people,” Andrew stressed. “Haven’t you learned how to delegate yet?”
Andrew sighed, answering his own question. “Of course you haven’t. You’re a Cavanaugh and you feel you have something
