Page 113 of About that Fling
Jenna froze, recognizing the stilted language she’d used so many times with nosy journalists and visitors. “I—yes, I understand.”
“Mr. Dawson is in fair condition.”
Jenna nodded, her brain running through the different terms. “Fair” was better than “serious” or “critical,” but it wasn’t “good.” It wasn’t “treated and released.”
And it wasn’t the information Jenna would get if Mia had given her permission to share more. Mia knew hospital rules. All she had to do was sign the form, give the okay to release more detail and let them know what was happening.
Jenna sat down, feeling numb. Adam reached for her hand again. “She probably just didn’t have time.”
Jenna turned to look at him, barely recognizing his features. “What?”
“To sign the HIPAA forms. That’s what you’re thinking, right? She’s deliberately shutting you out?”
“I don’t?—”
“We’ll wait here,” Gertie said, reaching out to take Jenna’s other hand. “Until there’s more news, we’ll be right here.”
The nurse nodded. “Okay then. If I’m able to tell you more, I will.”
“Thank you,” Jenna said.
The nurse vanished the same way she’d come, the double doors making an impersonal swoosh as she passed. For a moment, none of them spoke. They sat with their hands linked together, connected in pain and desperate hope.
“So we wait,” Adam said, the first to break the silence.
“I guess so,” Jenna said, and squeezed his hand so tightly it hurt.
Adam wasn’t sure who fell asleep first. He woke sometime around seven in the morning, his back stiff and his legs asleep. Jenna’s hand lay limp in his, and her head lay heavy on his shoulder.
He watched her for a moment, studying the rise and fall of her chest and the way her hair fell over his arm. She was beautiful, even now with tear tracks smudging her cheeks and her hair matted to the side of her face.
She’d taken Gertie home sometime after midnight, insisting someone who’d broken a hip in the last year needed a good night’s sleep in a bed instead of a hard plastic chair. Gertie had tried to argue, but Adam had watched the relief fill her eyes, the way she winced as she stretched out her sore leg.
Aside from that short run home, Jenna hadn’t left her seat all night. Neither had Adam, and his body ached from it.
His heart ached for other reasons.
Trying not to disturb Jenna, he pulled his phone from his pocket.
No messages.
What had he expected, really? A text from Mia saying, Just wanted you to know the guy I left you for is in good condition.
Still, it would have been nice to hear something. He’d stirred briefly around 3:00 a.m. when there’d been a shift change in the nursing staff, but no one had come to talk to them. Did Mia know they were all out here waiting? Was Mark still in the ER, or had he been moved to surgery?
Adam lingered on that thought for a moment. In the three years since the divorce, he’d had plenty of unkind thoughts about Mark. What kind of man takes another man’s wife? What kind of man swoops in when a relationship is in trouble, weaseling his way into the cracks of a broken marriage?
A man with faults. An imperfect man. A man who makes mistakes.
A man not unlike himself.
Part of him would always hate Mark. But right then, he said a small prayer the guy would pull through.
He felt Jenna stir and shoved his phone back in his pocket. She sat up, blinking in the harsh light of the fluorescent bulbs above. She turned to look at him, her eyes still blurry with sleep. “What time is it?”
“A little after seven.”
“No word?”
