Читать книгу Unexpected Destinies - Constance Ruth Clark - Страница 8

Chapter 4

Removing her sunglasses, Jayne strode through the doors of the main entrance to Norwalk Hospital. She’d covered her head with a scarf, but was afraid it was almost too much. Sure enough, a woman in the waiting area looked at Jayne with interest as if trying to place where she’d seen her before.

Crap. She should have just dressed normally. But she was too worried about her father.

“Excuse me,” she said to the woman behind the desk. Her nametag said Karen and she barely looked up, her gaze fixed on the computer screen in front of her.

“Yeah?”

“I’m looking for Greg Stapleton . He’s a patient here in the Cardiac Unit.”

“Yeah,” Karen managed to sound about as uninterested as possible, but she switched her headset on and punched an extension.

Jayne looked away while she spoke into her phone tapping her sunglasses on her hand as she waited. Seeing the woman in the waiting area still staring, she turned abruptly back.

“He’s on the fourth floor, room 425.” Karen looked directly at her for the first time and her eyes widened in recognition. “Hey, don’t I know you?”

“Thank you for the information,” Jayne said, slipping her sunglasses back on and striding toward the elevators. She might have been nicer if she wasn’t so worried about her father, but the receptionist really hadn’t given her a good reason to stick around and chat.

The elevator doors swished open and Jayne strode inside and punched the fourth floor button. She wasn’t alone as she waited for the elevator to stop at her floor, but the other people riding with her were content to mind their own business and no one tried to make eye contact. Jayne was glad because the last thing she wanted was someone recognizing her and running to the press about her presence here.

When the doors opened on the fourth floor, she followed another person out and walked to the front desk.

“Where can I find room 425?” she asked the older woman sitting there.

“It’s down the hall to your right,” she stared up at Jayne through her jeweled half glasses and jabbed her finger in the appropriate direction. “Are you family?”

“Yes,” Jayne said, taking off her sunglasses and slipping them into her purse. “I’m his daughter.”

“Jayne?” A nurse she hadn’t noticed at first turned from the opposite side of the nurses’ station and stood up to greet her.

“Yes?” she looked vaguely familiar but Jayne couldn’t place her at first.

“Don’t you remember me?” she gushed. “Oh, I know it’s been years but we went to school together. We even had a crush on the same guy!” she laughed and Jayne felt her stomach drop. It couldn’t be.

“I’m Caroline Wilson.”

“Caroline.” Jayne forced a smile. “How… er, nice to see you again.”

This was the same woman who had managed to break up Jayne from her boyfriend so many years before by making sure Jayne had caught them in bed together. It might have been almost fifteen years since it had happened but the wound was still just as raw and fresh as the day she’d walked in on a naked Caroline sitting on top of an equally naked Nick in a hotel room on prom night.

So why was she acting so happy to see her? Didn’t she know that scene was something that had been burned into Jayne’s brain forever? Red flags were going up all over the place but maybe Caroline had changed. If she was working at a hospital then she must have managed to do something right. Jayne wondered if she was married to Nick now. She’d certainly tried hard enough to get him.

Her stomach cramped painfully from the direction of her thoughts and Jayne grimaced. She could care less if Caroline and Nick had married and had a dozen brats. He was nothing to her. She ignored the small voice in her head that said she’d thought about him and what he was doing entirely too often over the years.

“I’m a nurse here now and I’m taking care of your daddy,” Caroline grinned as if Jayne would be overjoyed that a woman she had hated since high school was her father’s nurse. “I can take you down to him if you’d like.”

Jayne struggled to find something to say in reply. How was it that she wasn’t ten minutes in Caroline’s presence and was already reduced to the gawky teenager with bad teeth and glasses she’d been in high school? Unable to find her voice, she nodded and Caroline took her arm as if they were best friends and led her off down the hall, chatting all the while about how worried they all were about her “daddy”.

“Well, here we are,” Caroline stopped in front of room 425, but stood in front of the door so Jayne couldn’t move past her into the room. “We’ll have to get together soon. For old time’s sake,” Caroline smiled in a friendly way and Jayne wondered again if maybe she’d changed.

“That would be great,” she found herself saying, despite her better judgment. She was dying to ask if she was married to Nick but her throat closed up and she found herself unable to utter another sound.

“Fabulous.” Caroline moved away from the door and Jayne gave her a weak smile. “I’ll leave you to see your father. He’s past the worst now but the doctor wants to keep him for observation for a few days.”

“Thank you,” Jayne said, moving toward the door and wishing Caroline would leave.

“No problem,” Caroline apparently finally realized that Jayne wanted to be alone to see her father. “I’ll be at the nurses’ station if you need anything. Feel free to give me a buzz.”

Finally. Jayne watched Caroline walk back down the hall and heaved a sigh of relief at her departure. God, she was way too perky. It was bad enough she was seeing her father for the first time in over a year in a hospital. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she pushed open the door and stepped inside.

“Daddy?”

“Princess.” His voice floated over from the direction of the bed, sounding stronger than she’d expected.

Jayne somehow found herself beside his bed, grasping his hand and fighting back the tears she didn’t want him to see. He looked so small in that bed. Her father had always seemed larger than life to her and now she was facing his mortality. She barely noticed her mother sitting on the other side of his bed, her hand clasping his other hand.

“If I’d known this would get you to come see me, I would have had a heart attack a long time ago,” he joked.

“Daddy.” Jayne choked back a laugh at his irreverent tone. “I should have come sooner.”

“You’re here now and that’s all that matters,” he said, surprising her with his strength as he let go of her mother’s hand and pulled her toward him for a close hug.