Finding Home. Marie Ferrarella
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Название: Finding Home
Автор: Marie Ferrarella
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Контркультура
Серия: Mills & Boon Silhouette
isbn: 9781472091949
isbn:
“I’ll be there Wednesday,” she told the lawyer.
“I will have the airplane tickets forwarded to you.”
“There’s no need—” she began.
“It’s per Mr. Radkin’s instructions,” the lawyer told her.
“Oh. Well, then, all right,” she agreed. “Thank you for calling.” She was still fighting the numbness as she hung up the receiver.
Brad had remained beside her for the duration of the conversation. “You’ll be where Wednesday?” he asked.
“Attending Uncle Titus’s funeral.” It felt so strange to say that. She had gotten accustomed to the idea that the man was going to live forever. The way he’d always thought he would.
She realized that Brad was frowning and shaking his head. “I can’t make it, Stacey.”
Brad and Titus had met twice, once at a family Christmas and once at their wedding. Brad had thought the man odd, a throwback to another era, but she needed his support now. He couldn’t be falling back on prior commitments. Didn’t she mean anything to him?
“What?”
“The funeral. I can’t make it,” he said. “I have a six hour surgery scheduled for Wednesday. I cleared my calendar completely to accommodate the time it needed. The patient’s already given his own blood. Everything’s been set in motion. It can’t be rescheduled.”
She knew how difficult it was coordinating everything that went into performing a surgery. But this was her uncle Titus. The last living relative in her family. She needed Brad with her.
Stacey tried to think. “Could you fly out right after the surgery?”
Brad’s immediate response was to shake his head. “I’ve got another surgery for Thursday morning.” But then he paused, thinking. He didn’t want to be the bad guy twice in her eyes in such a short duration. “Maybe I can get Harris to cover for me—”
Stacey knew that neurosurgeons didn’t “cover” for one another. Not unless something like an earthquake or hurricane was directly involved. Each had his own area of expertise, his own small kingdom.
She banked down the bitterness that had prompted her to think the last part. “That’s okay. I’ll go alone.”
Brad peered at her face, his own uncertain. “Are you sure?”
She didn’t want to argue about this, too. Especially since she knew how it would turn out. Why waste the time? “I’m sure.”
Off the hook, Brad still didn’t like the idea of her flying alone. “Maybe Jim could go with you—”
She looked at him sharply. “Jim’s busy setting up his new life. I’m perfectly capable of flying on my own.” She blew out a breath, the impact of the news hitting her all over again. “God, I can’t believe that Uncle Titus is really gone.”
Brad nodded as he absently checked his pockets for his car keys. “I thought your uncle would go on forever.” Their eyes met for a moment. “Outlive us all.”
“Yes,” she said quietly, waiting for the ache to set in, the one that always came when she lost a loved one, “me, too.”
There was an awkwardness in the air. Brad felt he should say something more. He had no idea what. “He never married, did he?”
“Not officially, at least, not that I know of,” she amended, then smiled. “He was too much into ‘free love.’ Thought that monogamy was a waste of time, although he was pretty faithful to his ‘lady of the moment’ as he used to call them. When I was little, my parents used to have him over for the holidays because they kind of felt sorry for him.” There was irony for you, she thought. Titus was always smiling. Her parents never were. “I think he enjoyed life a lot more than they did in the long run.”
“At least he got to do it for longer.” Brad glanced at his watch. “Oh, hey, look at the time. I should have already been halfway to the hospital. I need to make my rounds before I go to the office,” he told her, striding toward the threshold.
He was halfway to the front door before he stopped and turned around. Hurrying back to the kitchen, he caught her off guard.
“Did you forget something?” she asked.
In response, he took her into his arms and kissed her forehead. “I really am sorry about Titus.”
He could have knocked her over with a feather. Stacey smiled up at him. She doubted that he realized it, but that was worth far more to her than the two hundred dollars he had left on the counter.
“Thanks,” she murmured.
Brad released her. “I’ve got to rush.”
She followed him to the door. “That really meant a lot to me.”
Brad nodded as he left the house. But he really didn’t understand why Stacey had said that.
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