Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Yes, she said to Takuro. Just ask if they know where he’s at, because his phone keeps going to voice mail.
Okay, I’ll ask. Not sure they’ll reply quickly. It’s a break weekend, so everyone’s scattered.
Thanks, Tak. Message me when you know.
Though she picked up a muffin from the café, she couldn’t make herself eat it. Instead, she drank an herbal tea, and on arriving at the hospital, offered Gloria the muffin. “I also got you a latte. I hope that’s something you like?”
“Oh, you’re a godsend.” Rubbing at tired eyes, Gloria took the coffee but said she wasn’t up to the muffin.
Catie put it on the bedside table. “How is he?” She placed a hand on Gloria’s shoulder.
The other woman reached up to take it, her fingers soft. “No real change. But the nurses say that’s good. He just needs to rest for a while.”
“And you? How are you doing?”
“Better now that you’re in Sydney. I just felt so alone. So scared.”
“I know.” She hugged Gloria when the older woman stood, then nudged her out the door. “You need rest, like you told me to get. Even if it’s only a few hours.”
Exhausted, Gloria finally agreed and left. Taking a seat beside Clive’s bed, Catie closed the fingers of one hand around her father’s and glanced at her phone. No message from Takuro.
Her chest squeezed.
Just as her phone lit up with a most unexpected caller.
“Mum?”
“How is Clive?” Jacqueline asked in her direct, no-nonsense way.
After Catie gave her the breakdown, Jacqueline said, “He should have little to no medical costs given the cooperation agreement with Australia, but if he has any bills that he can’t cover, let me know and I’ll handle it.”
Catie swallowed hard. “Thanks, Mum.” She knew Clive had done a number on Jacqueline, so this kindness was unexpected.
A sigh. “He was a terrible husband, but he gave me an amazing daughter.” Then Jacqueline hung up.
Eyes burning, Catie gave a soft laugh and spoke to the air. “I love you too.” That was the thing with the Dragon; she wasn’t in any way maternal and had—frankly speaking—been emotionally neglectful, but Catie knew without a doubt that Jacqueline would scorch the earth if anyone dared hurt her children.
“People are complicated, aren’t they, Dad?” she said to the man who’d shaped so much of who she was simply by being himself. Unreliable, fickle, unable to hold on to money—and unwilling to shoulder responsibility. Yet he’d been an unswerving presence by her bedside after her accident.
He loved her.
He just didn’t love her as she needed and deserved to be loved.
Throat tight, she rose to brush back his hair and press a kiss to his forehead. “I’m here, Dad,” she murmured. “And I love you for who you are.” She saw him and she knew what she could and couldn’t expect from him, just as she knew the same about Jacqueline.
Rubbing her face after she sat back down, she picked up her phone. Nothing from Takuro and nothing from Danny. Worry crawled across her skin. This was so unlike him. But surely if anything had gone seriously wrong, his team would’ve contacted the Eseras? And Sailor and Ísa would’ve contacted her in turn.
Telling herself that Danny was fine—it was probably something simple like a flat phone battery that he hadn’t noticed—she returned her attention to her father. And because she figured it couldn’t hurt, she started telling him about her aim for gold at the next Paralympics. The specific training schedule she’d mapped out… and the ways she’d adapted it so she could see Danny. “Because he’s important to me.”
It came out solid, unshakable, that confession. “And I’m important to him.” So strange to say that and to know it without question. “I can ask him anything and he’ll give it to me.”
That was when she got it.
Oh, of course he isn’t answering his phone. He’s on his way to me.
34
TRUST
It should’ve been a stupid fantasy thought that she dismissed out of hand. But it stuck. And kept on sticking in the minutes that followed. Until her stomach settled and she could actually eat the abandoned muffin.
A stir from the bed, her father’s hand moving.
“Daddy?” She rose to see his eyes fluttering… and then they were open and looking into hers.
A moment of fuzziness before they lit up. “Sugar girl.” His voice was a croak, his joy at seeing her open.
Swallowing back her tears, she leaned in to gently hug him before she pressed the call button.
After that, she had to back off to give the nurse and doctor room to evaluate him. Gloria, who couldn’t have slept more than an hour, rushed in during the middle of all that and burst into smiling tears at seeing Clive awake.
Catie was surprised but happy to see the way Clive looked at Gloria, how he tried to joke with her to make her feel better. Maybe this might actually work. Perhaps her feckless father had finally found his match.