My Stubborn Heart (22 page)

Since that moment at his house when she'd seen the look on his face when hockey had come on TV, she'd been thinking about Matt and his sport. She could almost hear God whispering to her, saying,
He needs to return to it, Kate. He's not done.

This conversation had only cemented the idea in her head. Matt Jarreau, hockey legend, needed to make phone calls, train, play the minor circuit if there was one, audition if they did that, and whatever else was necessary to get himself back into the NHL. He was never going to have closure or peace about it until he finished his career on his own terms.

Could he find the same passion for it that he'd had before Beth died? She'd bet that it had already returned. Otherwise, accidentally catching a glimpse of it on TV wouldn't have the power to hurt him like it did now.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said, and left it at that. This wasn't the time or place to share her revelation with him. She needed to think and pray about it. To sort out everything clearly in her own head.

“Are you cold?” he asked with a trace of worry.

“Not at all.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.” She drank down the last of her latte and licked her upper lip.

His gaze followed the movement. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course. Anything.”

“I want to know about your job,” he said.

“What would you like to know?”

“How you feel about it.”

“Well . . .” Over the weeks, they'd often talked about her job, but their discussions had only touched on things like her day-to-day duties, what the complex was like, her co-workers. That he'd ask her this made her wonder if he could read what she didn't say, the same way she was learning to read him. “I used to feel really confident about my job. I enjoyed it, I got a lot of satisfaction from it. But more than that . . . This is going to sound weird to you.”

“Try me.”

“I felt like it was exactly what God wanted me to be doing.”

“You're right. That
is
weird.”

She balled up the napkin she'd wrapped around her coffee cup and threw it at him. He caught it effortlessly one-handed. Grinned.

“You're such the joker,” she said.

“Yeah, I'm full of laughs. Here.” He took her cup and threw all their trash in a nearby garbage can. When he returned he asked, “So how do you feel about it now?”

“Like maybe I've done the job too long.” She struggled to be as truthful with him as he'd just been with her. “One of my kids, a teenage girl, committed suicide about six months ago.”

Matt's breath hissed inward at the news.

“After that happened my job started giving me this sad, hopeless feeling. I always used to be so optimistic about the kids, about their futures, but now I don't know. I was having a hard time finding any joy in it for those last few months before I left.”

“You're planning to go back to it when you return to Dallas.”

“Yes. Although, if nothing's changed, then I'm going to have to think about looking for another job, which scares me.”

“When are you leaving Redbud?”

“In about a month.”

He scowled. “That soon? I didn't know.”

“Thanksgiving is next week. We'll stay a week or two into December, but no more than that. Gran and I both need to get back for the holidays. Will you be finished working on Chapel Bluff by then?”

“Yeah, I'll be done.”

A beat of quiet. “Ready to look at a few more antiques?” she asked.

He nodded, and they made their way side by side down Main.

“Listen,” he said. “About Thanksgiving. I'd really like for you and Beverly to come over to my house and spend it with us. You owe me that after forcing me to invite my whole family.”

That he wanted her to join him for Thanksgiving pleased her inordinately. “We've already told Velma we'll do Thanksgiving dinner with her, but we could probably come over to your house that evening if you want us to.”

“I want you to.”

“Then we'll be there. What can we bring?”

“Nothing. We'll have too much food as it is.”

“Gran will insist on cooking and bringing something. Just tell her to do a pie—that'll make her happy.”

They reached the nearest of the shops. Matt held the door for her as Kate entered into an environment brimming with classy accessories, expensive British antiques, and the smell of cloves. Kate weaved her way along, appreciating the various pieces, until she came to a table that stopped her in her tracks. It wasn't large. It was dainty, in fact, with a satinwood rectangular top and two satinwood sides that folded down. Its graceful cabriole legs ended in worn brass casters. The top and sides of the table had been skillfully painted with swags of leaves and wreaths accented with fluttering white ribbons.

“You like it,” Matt said.

“I do.” The piece clutched at her heart in the way that antiques sometimes did. “It's a Pembroke table.” She checked the dangling white price tag. Five thousand dollars.

The owner of the store, a ruddy-faced older gentleman, approached them with a smile. He did a double take when he recognized Matt. “Are you Matt Jarreau?”

“I am.”

He extended his hand and introduced himself. “Henry Vernon. I watched every televised game you ever played. I'm a big fan.”

“Thank you.”

“It's a real pleasure to meet you.” He glanced from Matt to Kate to the table. Cleared his throat. “I bought that on my last trip to London. Just came in on the container I had shipped over. It's a beauty, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is,” Kate said.

“It's a George the Third Pembroke table. Made around 1780.”

They chatted about the table, some of the other finds he'd made on his trip, and about the delights of antiquing in England. When a trio of new customers came in, he excused himself to greet them.

“This is too expensive for Beverly's budget,” Matt said.

“Way too expensive, and she doesn't need anything quite like this. But it
is
pretty.” Kate admired it for a few more moments and then reluctantly moved on.

“Kate,” Matt said.

She turned.

“I just wanted to say thank you.”

“What for?”

“For today. I've enjoyed it.”

“You have?” She found it hard to believe.

“Yes.”

“I should be the one thanking you. You've been a big help and really patient, even though most of what we've done must have bored you to death.”

He gazed at her levelly. “I wasn't bored.”

“Good, I'm glad.” She started forward. “C'mon, almost done here. Then one more store and I'll let you off the hook.”

———

Matt followed her, his thoughts churning. He'd been completely serious when he'd told her he'd enjoyed their day. Actually, if anything, it had been an understatement. Today had been the best day he'd had in years because he'd been near her.

Inside Chapel Bluff's chapel, he'd railed at God because this world could be so incredibly rotten. But today had reminded him that there was good in it, too. There was still beauty here and there was still kindness and maybe . . . maybe there was even still hope.

Kate was in serious trouble. She knew it almost instantly. She'd lived with asthma long enough to differentiate between her regular symptoms and a severe attack. This was a severe attack, and it had come on suddenly and hit her like a freight train.

She paused, leaning her hand against the trunk of a tree. She tried to relax. Hard to do with her heart rate surging, pounding fast in her ears.
Calm down
, she told herself. But her airways only constricted more, and the wheezing sound of her breath grew louder, more labored.

She pushed away from the tree and continued up the driveway to Chapel Bluff. She'd woken up restless this Sunday morning. . . . A walk had seemed like a good idea. She coughed repeatedly. It had turned out to be a bad idea. A really bad idea. It shouldn't have been. She'd checked the weather online before she'd left, thinking it'd be okay. But the air was much colder than she'd expected. And cold air combined with exercise could sometimes trigger her asthma. But rarely—so rarely—did it ever get this bad.

Desperation rose inside her. She kept her focus forward, on where the house would be when she rounded the bend. How much farther? How many more steps until she could get herself inside? Gran was there. Her inhaler was there.

Help me, God.

She was struggling to get any air at all now, her chest unbearably tight.
You'll be okay
, she told herself.
You'll be okay.
You'll be okay.
But the house was still far away and the panic was rising, overwhelming her. She wheezed in and out, drowning without a drop of water anywhere in sight.

“Matt?” Beverly said.

The tone of her voice over the phone caused Matt to still immediately. “Yes.”

“I've just brought Kate to the hospital, to—to the emergency room.”

A bolt of pure fear tore into him, deep and deadly. He couldn't bring himself to speak. His fingers clenched the phone.

“She had a terrible asthma attack. They've taken her away to treat her. I'm sure she'll be fine but I'm worried. . . . Her lips were turning blue.”

“You're at the ER at Redbud General?”

“Yes. I'm about to call Peg and Velma but I felt—I felt like I should call you first.”

“I'm on my way.”

“That's probably not necessary—”

“I'm on my way.” He clicked off the phone and tossed it on the kitchen countertop. His body was hot and cold at once, and he thought he might be sick.
Kate is in the emergency room. Kate. Oh, God.
He knew he needed to get a grip but couldn't quite manage it.

He rushed into the living room, pushed his feet into his Adidas, palmed his car keys, then bolted out the back door toward the garage.

Near-death experiences took a lot out of a girl.

Once the doctors had stabilized Kate—her breathing passages open, her chest loose—her mind had washed clean with relief and her body had turned heavy and relaxed. They'd wheeled her to an upper floor, and she'd simply let herself sink into the hospital bed and drop into sleep.

Sometime later, a deep drum roll of thunder penetrated her dreams. Half conscious and eager for more sleep, she screwed her eyes shut tighter and tried to shift onto her side. The IV in her wrist pulled uncomfortably, so she returned to her back with a sigh.

What exactly had happened? She went back over her memories of the day, starting with the walk, the attack, Gran's frantic drive to the hospital, the blur of doctors, nurses, faces, medicines, and finally—blessedly—the ability to breathe freely. How bizarre that all of it had happened so quickly. The morning had started in the same normal way that all of her mornings at Chapel Bluff had started. But between then and now she'd nearly suffocated, been rushed to the ER, and was currently tucked into one of those mechanical hospital beds with the top half raised at a forty-five-degree angle.

Rain pattered against the glass. Blearily, she cracked open her eyes and looked toward the windows—

Matt was leaning against them. In the room's corner, where the windows met the wall.

Matt?
Goose bumps flowed down her arms. How long had he been there? She struggled to fight past the last of the grogginess and the beginnings of embarrassment. She didn't exactly want him seeing her like this.

He said nothing, just stared at her with burning brown eyes. His arms were crossed and his face was grim. Something like anger radiated from him in waves.

She wasn't sure exactly why he'd be angry—and then it hit her. Hospitals. After everything he'd gone through with his wife, he must hate these places. He looked like a lion in the far corner of its cage, defiant but trapped all the same.

She honestly wouldn't have imagined he'd come here. If she'd been conscious, she would have stopped him from coming to spare him the reminders.

He pushed off the wall and approached her. He had on jeans and a frayed gray Abercrombie sweat shirt. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Pretty good.”

She must look atrocious. She had an oxygen tube running under her nose. Her hair and face were probably a mess. And under the flannel sheets she was dressed in nothing but one of those white and blue hospital gowns.

Maybe she should blow off those worries, however, because for once Matt himself looked horrible. His expression was gaunt, his skin pale, and his hair stuck up in tufts.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Three o'clock.”

“Where's my grandmother?”

“They're all waiting down the hall. They were scared of waking you.”

“Oh.”

“I promised to go and get them as soon as you woke up.” He made a move toward the door. “Do you want me to—”

“No. Just give me a couple of minutes first.”

He paused, watching her intently.

She yawned, stretched a little under the covers. Her attention panned around the small room, so similar to every other hospital room she'd ever been in. TV hanging from a big metal arm that bolted into the wall. Sink and cabinets opposite the windows and beyond that, the bathroom.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked.

“Maybe just some water.”

A nurse had left a cup with a straw and a pink pitcher on a tray next to the sink. He filled the cup and handed it to her. She took some long draws through the straw. Thanks to the round ice pellets, the water tasted blessedly cold.

“What is this they're giving you?” he asked, gesturing to the IV stand.

She glanced at the tubing running from the bag into her wrist. “Some kind of corticosteroid.”

“And oxygen.” His gaze moved to the line beneath her nose.

“Right.”

“What happened, Kate?”

She took one more sip of water and handed the cup back to him. He placed it back on the tray.

“I went for a walk this morning,” she said. “When I felt my asthma start to kick in, I turned around and headed home. At first I thought it was going to be fine. Manageable. But then it got worse fast, before I could get back to the house. It was pretty bad by the time I reached Gran.”

He frowned. “Beverly said your lips were turning blue.”

“Hmm.” She made a face. “That must have been lovely.”

“This isn't your first time to be hospitalized for this,” he stated. While she'd been sleeping, Gran had obviously filled him in on her history with asthma.

“No. I've had some attacks like this before, but the last one was five years ago. I've kept it really well under control since then.”

“Until today.”

“Until today,” she acknowledged. He was inexplicably furious. She could read it in every rigid line of him, but mostly she could see it seething in his eyes.

Good grief. He didn't exactly have a warm bedside manner. “Matt,” she said gently, “I get that this probably isn't your favorite place. Thank you for coming to check on me, but it won't hurt my feelings if you want to go home. This is your day off. I'm sure you'd rather be at home taking it easy.”

“I'm not leaving.”

And he didn't. He stayed and stayed. All through the hours that the seniors kept her company. All through dinner, which he went out and brought back for her from her favorite salad place. All through two really bad reality TV shows.

When she couldn't hold her eyes open another second, she drifted off to sleep. Much later, when a nurse roused her in the middle of the night to check her temperature and blood pressure, Matt was still there. Back in his spot in the corner of the room by the wall and the windows. His arms crossed, his face foreboding.

A caged lion.

Matt drove his Lamborghini home from the hospital in the wee hours of the morning, hardly aware of the road in front of him.

From the little he'd been able to pick up from the doctor, Kate might have been able to curb her asthma attack if she'd had her inhaler with her or if she'd avoided exercising in the cold. Simple precautions. Easy. And yet she'd ignored them and gone and gotten herself into a seriously dangerous situation. Just thinking about her alone, away from the house, and fighting for breath made him stiff with dread.

His irrational fear for her pissed him off. But what pissed him off more was that she'd put her life at risk out of sheer carelessness.

He wanted to kill her himself, he was so angry.

He reached home, eased his car into his garage, and hit the button that closed the door behind him. But he didn't move. He just sat there in the dark, holding on to the steering wheel.

When he'd arrived at the ER, the doctors and nurses had restricted him and Beverly to the waiting room. The other seniors had arrived gradually. Their small group had been surrounded by sick adults, fussing kids, and worried family members. He'd sat there the whole time, waiting, with his heart thudding dully, his thoughts a chaos of panic.

After what seemed an eternity, the doctor had come out and explained how they'd gotten Kate's attack under control. An orderly had escorted them up to her room. By the time he'd arrived she'd already been fast asleep.

He'd expected her to look terrible, but she'd actually looked beautiful. Her skin had been smooth and clear like white china, her hair blazing dark red. She'd reminded him of a doll tucked smoothly into its doll bed—except for the lifeless gown, the dripping IV, and the oxygen tube.

It reminded him powerfully of Beth. There had been times during her fight against cancer when she'd looked deceptively beautiful, too, and he'd wanted to believe she wasn't as sick as they'd said. But there had been evidence of reality those times, too. Endless doctors, nurses, hospitals, machines, medicines. Eventually she'd begun to look every bit as seriously ill as she was.

He'd
never
wanted to stand by the bedside of another woman at another hospital, feeling as powerless and scared as he had the first time. But that's exactly what he'd just spent the past sixteen hours doing.

The fact that Kate was recovering well and would be released tomorrow didn't ease his mind at all. People were fragile. You couldn't count on them not to die.