Page 20 of Summer Affair
“Don’t you start with the waterworks,” he said quietly. “I’m going to be fine. They shouldn’t have called you for something like this. Nothing that some antacid won’t cure.”
“Of course they should call me. We’re family. And this is what family does.” Wasn’t that the same thing Darcy had said to her?
Someone cleared their throat behind her. Jillian turned to find an older man, in his sixties, wiry with caterpillar eyebrows, sitting in the guest chair. She’d been so focused on her uncle she hadn’t even noticed him sitting there.
“I’m Jillian.” She stuck out her hand. “Are you his doctor?” she asked, even though he was in street clothes.
“This is Miles,” Eddie said. “He’s my bookie.”
Jillian looked from Miles back to her uncle, narrowing her eyes in disbelief. “I have to get a call from the hospital, but you called your bookie?”
“I’m listed as a family member,” Miles explained, standing as if from the generation who arose when a lady entered the room.
“Your bookie is listed as family?” she asked, working hard to keep the anger from creeping in. “I’m sorry, why would you need to have your bookie at the hospital?”
“In case I kick the bucket. Need someone to square up my bets,” he said as if this was a completely normal transaction. “He even put on his mourning best just in case.”
Ten minutes ago, Jillian had been terrified of a situation where she’d have to wearhermourning best, and now she wanted to kill him. Only he was saved by the entrance of the doctor.
“We want to run some more tests, but it looks like gallstones,” the doctor said. “The size of the stones is in your benefit. If they don’t pass on their own, we can use ultrasound to break them up.”
“Great. Then I can get out of here.” He started to sit up and Jillian shoved him back down.
“You will stay here and let them run all the tests they need to run, or I will make you eat tuna casserole every family dinner night for the next year.”
The threat was enough to have Eddie lying back down. He wasn’t happy about it, but he was willing to humor Jillian.
An exhausting hour later, Jillian was pacing the waiting room. Miles had left and the doctor wanted Eddie to get some sleep. Jillian wanted to get some sleep too, but she couldn’t sit still long enough to even rest her feet.
The waiting room had emptied about twenty minutes ago leaving her with just her thoughts and the residual panic left over from earlier. It may just be gallstones, but to her it was a painful reminder that her uncle was getting older. And while he had never really been sure what to do with a niece, his grand-nephew Sammy adored him.
God, Sammy was going to be worried sick seeing his uncle in a hospital bed. Jillian turned to make another round of the room when something had her coming to a hard stop. Standing at the entry to the waiting room, wearing a pair of faded jeans and a forest-green sweatshirt, was Clay. Looking big and strong and like a life preserver in her storm of an evening.
“What are you doing here?”
Wasn’t that the question of the hour? One Clay didn’t have an answer to.
“I thought you could use some coffee.” He’d stopped by an all-night coffee place near the hospital and picked her up a latte and some muffins.
She looked at the coffee cup, then back at him. “Thank you,” she whispered, then took a big sip of the coffee. She closed her eyes and sighed. “So good. Hazelnut latte, my favorite. How did you know?”
“Darcy might have told me.”
She grimaced. “Please tell me she didn’t wake you. She didn’t need to do that. I’m fine.”
She didn’t look fine. In fact, she looked one more step from falling over. And not just from exhaustion but from the kind of fear that only comes when faced with losing a loved one. It was a feeling Clay knew well. The night Kyle died, Clay sat in a waiting room just like this, waiting to hear from the doctors that a miracle had transpired. It had been crushing and Clay had never recovered. But he’d had his brothers to share the pain. Jillian was in the waiting room all alone.
It made him wonder, if not for the first time, who she had in her life to lean on. By the looks of things, she had no one but Darcy and Piper.
“Your house was lit up like Christmas and I got worried, so I called Darcy. She told me about your uncle. How is he?”
“They say he’s going to be fine. Just gallstones.”
He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “And you? Are you okay?”
He thought she was going to brush it off like he’d seen her do before. Play brave so she didn’t worry anyone. But instead, she said, “I’m a mess.”
She was also shaking. He reached out and touched her cheek and before he knew it, she was in his arms. Her cheek pressed against his chest, her arms around his waist, holding on as if he were her lifeline. He changed his earlier assessment. She wasn’t shaking, she was trembling.
