Flores placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Your dad’s condition is stable for now, and he seems to be resting comfortably. Although his medication has worn off and he’s in pain, he refuses to swallow another dose until he speaks to you.”
A terrifying weakness paralyzed Caitlin. Her father had always been a healthy man, except for a light heart attack a few years back from which he’d fully recovered.
“You can only visit him for a few minutes, Caitlin. Then I need to sedate him so he can rest comfortably through the night.”
A sense of despair washed over her. Her dark eyes burned with fatigue brought on by a sleepless night. “So nothing has changed.” It was more a statement than a question.
Dr. Flores hesitated before answering. “As I explained over the phone this morning, we diagnosed his condition over eight months ago. Since the tumor was discovered, its malignancy has spread very rapidly. Chemotherapy would have been useless. I advised him to tell you about his condition but he refused. He didn’t want you to know he had prostate cancer until it became absolutely necessary.”
Caitlin nodded, then asked the dreaded question she had to have answered. “How much longer?”
Louis Flores shrugged. “A matter of days, maybe a week. It’s hard to say at this point. There’s really nothing we can do for him, other than making him comfortable. He doesn’t want you to see him this way, but has no choice.”
Dr. Flores paused and then went on. “And another thing, Caitlin. Don’t question anything he tells you. The reason he won’t let me sedate him just yet is because he wants to be completely coherent when he talks to you. Don’t think what he’s saying is prompted by the medication.”
Caitlin’s instincts sensed a warning in Dr. Flores’s words; a warning that went beyond mere medical advice. She lifted her eyes to his face, letting her gaze run over the distraught features he arduously shielded behind a cloak of professionalism. “Dr. Flores—”
“No, Caitlin. Whatever Halston has to say, he’ll tell you himself.” An expression of tenderness softened his face. “Let’s not keep him waiting.”
A short walk down the hall brought Caitlin to her father’s room. Inhaling a deep breath, she walked over to the bed where he lay with his eyes closed. Taking a seat in the recliner next to the bed, she studied her father’s pallid face. As if sensing her presence, a weak smile touched his mouth. His eyes opened slowly.
His gaunt appearance looked nothing like the robust man she’d always known and loved. Sickness had aged him beyond his fifty-eight years and he’d lost an enormous amount of weight. Caitlin had to bite back a strong urge to cry out in agony. Instead she remembered Dr. Flores’s words and took her father’s hand in hers. Immediately she sensed his loss of strength. Her heart ached.
Halston Parker forced out a ragged breath. “Caitlin?”
“Yeah, Dad. It’s me. Don’t try to talk now. I’m here, and I’m not going anyplace.”
He closed his eyes, then reopened them. A hint of a smile barely touched his mouth. He stared at her. Caitlin wondered if he saw her or was visualizing her mother whom she favored, his beloved Catherine, who’d died eight years ago. He had taken her mother’s sudden death from a ruptured appendix extremely hard, never fully recovering from it. It had been during that time their already close relationship had become even closer. He had devoted all of his time and attention to his only child. It was as if Caitlin had become the only thing that had kept him going in a world filled with extreme loneliness.
Caitlin sighed, remembering how, six months ago, he had encouraged her to accept a job offer that required a move to Fort Worth. He’d known about his condition and had sent her away to spare her the anguish of seeing him suffer. If only she had known…
She reached out and, with an unsteady hand, wiped beads of moisture from his forehead.
“Dex.”
Caitlin’s hand stopped moving, hanging in midair. Her eyes widened. Surely her mind and ears were playing tricks on her. Her father couldn’t have spoken the name of the only man she’d ever known him to despise…and the only man she’d ever loved. “Dad?”
Halston Parker stared at his daughter through glazed, dark eyes. “Call Dex. I need to see him.”
His words, although wrested from his lips, sounded clear and precise. Silently, Caitlin stared at him. She moistened her dry lips remembering Dr. Flores’s words— Don’t question anything he tells you— but with her father’s strange request, she couldn’t help asking, “Why would you want to see Dex, Dad?”
Pain clouded Halston Parker’s eyes, making them appear more deep set. His craggy jaw was covered lightly with a day’s growth of gray whiskers. His once-rugged features now looked muted and frail. New lines, a result of some emotion Caitlin couldn’t name, creased across his cheekbones. His nostrils flared slightly from labored breathing. “Tell him to come before…”
His words drifted off as his eyes closed slightly. He forced them back open to gaze at her. “Call Dex, Caitlin,” he pleaded raggedly in a voice so low Caitlin had to lean over to catch the words. He closed his eyes again.
Caitlin forced back a rush of tears. Why would her father want to see her ex-husband? She’d decided four years ago Dex would no longer be a part of her life. Since that time she’d managed to move ahead and not dwell on the love she’d given up. She couldn’t say she hadn’t looked back, because a few times she had. No, she confessed, more than a few times. A familiar twist of pain unfolded within her. It had been a decision she’d made and stood by.
Seeing that her father had lapsed into a deep sleep, she rose from the chair and went to the window. Could she do what her father had asked? Could she handle seeing Dex again? Would he come even at a dying man’s request?
She took a deep breath as numerous questions flowed through her mind. No matter what her father’s reasons were for wanting to see Dex, no matter what the chances were of her wounds being reopened, she would do as her father had asked. Telling Dex her father wanted to see him didn’t necessarily mean he would come. Why should he?
Walking out of the room, she went to use the pay phone in the lobby. She wasn’t even sure if Dex was in the States. The last she’d heard, he was still out of the country. Minutes later she dialed the residential telephone number in Houston that had been given to her by the operator.
After three rings she found herself listening to Dex’s answering machine. The sound of his deep, masculine voice nearly made her jump. It had been four years since she’d heard it. A sensation she thought had dissolved long ago crept down her spine. Even over the phone lines Dexter Madaris had the ability to make her knees weaken, her pulse escalate and her breathing thicken.
She quickly hung up the phone, deciding not to leave a message. She would try contacting him again later. A sigh whispered through Caitlin’s lips. Time hadn’t totally destroyed the effect Dex had on her. This unexpected revelation struck her suddenly. After four years she still couldn’t force the strong-jawed, dark handsome face with its sensuous voice out of her mind…and completely out of her heart.
But she had to. She couldn’t afford to go back and dwell on the past. But still, she couldn’t stop her mind from drifting back to that beautiful day in late May four years ago, when she and Dex had met…
Caitlin
