Slow Hands

answer, they reached the hospital. Every woman in the car leaned forward, wearing expressions of fear and anxiety. Jake almost pulled into the emergency entrance, by habit, but remembered, at the last minute, to go to the front. “Go on inside,” he told them. “I’ll park and meet you.”
    Maddy barely spared him a glance. She still appeared shell-shocked, stunned from the revelations from their short but informative car ride.
    He was worried about Jason Turner. Very worried. Right now, however, he could throttle the man’s wife and daughter for having aired their personal dramas—and man-hate—on the night when he and Maddy had reached their own crisis point.
    Before she got out of the car, he grabbed her hand, silently urging her to be strong. To not give in to the pessimism that had just been dumped on her head. “Maddy, I…”
    “Thank you for driving us,” she said, her eyes averted, her voice calm. “I have to go.”
    He didn’t like her mood. Not one bit. But there was nothing he could do. Not now, not until she’d found out whether her father was going to live or die.
    After that, however, he intended to finish the conversation they’d started before dinner. And to reverse any damage the two other women in her family had caused.
    * * *
    T HAT NIGHT WAS one of the longest of Maddy’s life. She, Tabitha and Deborah shared an uneasy truce in the hospital waiting room, while her father went into surgery.
    A double bypass. And they hadn’t even realized there was a single thing wrong with him, beyond occasional high blood pressure.
    Fortunately, Jake kept them informed about what was happening. He served as a liaison between the medical staff and the family. Not to mention a comforting presence for Maddy.
    She didn’t, however, allow herself to lean on him too much. Because even while racked with worry for her father, she couldn’t stop replaying the conversation on the ride over here. The awful revelations, the sadness, the bitterness.
    All the happy thoughts she’d had twelve hours ago about how the Turners seemed to finally have come out from under their unlucky-in-love-curse…. Look at them now. Tabby and her father both freely admitting they weren’t in love with the people they’d pledged—or planned to pledge—to love until death. What in heaven’s name was wrong with her family?
    And was it also wrong with her?
    Bradley was with them. He’d arrived shortly after they had. Despite being a jackass, in her opinion, he’d at least offered whatever comfort he could to Tabby. Not exactly warm, he hadn’t been a disapproving, judgmental cold fish, either.
    Well, maybe a disapproving one, at least when he’d first been introduced to Jake. But the judgmental glint had finally disappeared from his eye.
    “Hopefully the word will get out to everyone else, too,” she told Jake when they had a private moment. “I’ll do my best to make sure everyone knows Bitsy and Oliver were crazy. Considering everyone saw you save my father’s life, only a fool would believe the story, anyway.”
    Which said a lot about Bradley, who had still believed it until confronted with a truth he couldn’t deny—Jake’s friendly interaction with the hospital staff, who knew him by name and by reputation.
    “Don’t worry about it. I don’t care.”
    “I do. My family has done enough damage to you.” She heard her own stiff, formal tone and half hated herself for it. But she couldn’t bring herself to ease up. Because while part of her wanted desperately to just lean on him, fall into his arms and take whatever comfort he could offer, emotionally, she couldn’t risk it.
    He opened his mouth to argue, as if realizing she’d begun to draw away from him, to retreat behind the barrier that had safely guarded her heart for so long, but the door to the waiting room was suddenly pushed in. Spying the surgeon, one of the best in the city—who’d come to the hospital immediately when he’d found out about her father—they all leaped to their feet.
    “The procedure went very well. While I don’t want to be premature, I do think it’s safe to say Mr. Turner is well on the road to recovery.”
    Those were all the words Maddy heard before slowly sinking back to her seat. The others hung avidly on every instruction, every detail the physician would provide. She didn’t. She instead sent up thankful prayer after thankful prayer, wondering if her own personal guardian angel—the mother she’d always