Fall From Grace. Kristi Gold

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СКАЧАТЬ out o the country, Anne. Jack needs friends and family right here to help him recover, and that includes you and Katie.”

      Anne admitted Hank was right, but her survival instincts were much stronger than logic. This summer she’d planned to cut her hours at the hospital and begin work on her master’s degree, bringing her one step closer to realizing her dream—a dream she’d put on hold for the sake of Jack’s career. Once she had the degree she could sell the house, with its memories, and start over. She could give Katie a mother who was whole, alive and sure of herself. Jack’s need might take all that away. She would suffocate in Jack’s need.

      Anne tried to stay strong, although she was crumbling inside like week-old pastry. She swiped furiously at the tears that slipped past her attempts to stop them. “Katie’s only seven. She wouldn’t understand seeing her daddy this way. It would scare her to death.”

      Hank pinned her with a glare. “Are you intending to keep Katie from him? Are you going to just say, ‘To hell with you, Jack. Make it on your own’?” He shrugged. “Of course, you could hire someone to take care of him while he’s recovering. Is that what you want, Anne? Strangers tending to him? Do you hate him that much?”

      No, she had loved him too much.

      Her tears fell in earnest now. She didn’t know what to do, what to feel. She only knew she couldn’t breathe in this stifling atmosphere. She needed air. She needed to get back to work. She needed to think.

      Anne walked away and headed past windows revealing the deluge outside that was no match for the storm of emotions within her. She reached the elevator where she would travel to the labor and delivery floor to resume her shift, a place to forget the prospect of death while welcoming new life. And if that didn’t work, she would go home and prepare for her daughter to return from school.

      Hank let her go without protest, but she could sense his accusing glare while she waited for the next car to arrive. The doors sighed opened and several people streamed out, family members of loved ones clinging to life. She didn’t want to count herself among them, so she brushed past the group, seeking an escape, only to run into another man from her past, hospital administrator Maxwell Crabtree, as always looking polished in his tailor-made blue suit, his thinning sandy hair held in place by a light coat of gel.

      Before Anne could hand out a polite greeting and be done with it, Max took her by the arm and led her away from the elevator. He stopped outside the ICU waiting room, his expression grim. “I’ve heard about Jack, Anne. Tough break for him.”

      His tone was less than compassionate—something that didn’t surprise Anne in the least. He’d despised her ex-husband for many years. “He’ll recover from this, Max,” she said, with only minimal conviction.

      “I’m sure he will,” Max replied. “And I’m sure he’ll have plenty of people helping him with that recovery. I only hope you don’t get it in your head that you should be one of them.”

      The exact opposite of what Hank had told Anne a few moments ago. She felt as though she was engaged in a mental tug-of-war of opposite opinions. “This isn’t any of your business, Max.”

      He narrowed his eyes. “You are considering it, aren’t you?”

      Anne could barely think at the moment, much less make any solid plans. “Jack is Katie’s father, and Katie needs him. If that means putting aside the past for her sake, then I have no choice.”

      “Maybe you don’t have a choice as far as your daughter’s concerned, but you do have a choice when it comes to how involved you’re going to be in his life.”

      Anne tugged her arm from his grasp and backed away. “Again, this isn’t your problem. It’s mine.” A problem that seemed almost insurmountable.

      Max slid his hands inside his pockets and leaned against the wall. “I’ll still be here for you, Anne, the way I’ve always been whenever you’ve needed someone to pick up the pieces after Jack tore you apart. Feel free to call me. Or stop by, day or night, if you want to talk.”

      An offer she didn’t intend to accept this time. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine.”

      Anne rushed back to the elevator and managed to catch a car before the doors closed her out. But she couldn’t close out the decision weighing heavily on her heart after Hank’s comment had sliced through her mind.

      “He’s got no one, Anne…. No one but you.”

      1983

      In the country-club ballroom housing Dallas’s most prosperous physicians, he stood out like a black diamond against a drift of snow. His stance exuded unmistakable confidence. His unkempt dark hair, faded jeans and sport jacket, sans tie, hinted at the unconventional.

      Anne Cooper appreciated anyone who went against the norm in this setting. She detested these New Year’s Eve snob-fest soirees. But the stranger across the way had made the obligatory event somewhat bearable. For the past half hour she’d pretended to socialize while covertly watching him, and playing the part of secret admirer suited her fine. Although her mother made an attempt at subtlety, Anne realized Delia Cooper’s insistence that her daughter attend the annual shindig had to do with one thing only—introducing Anne to prospects with M.D. behind their names in the hope that she would eventually find one who suited her discriminating tastes.

      “His name is Dr. Jack Morgan, Anne.”

      At the sound of the familiar voice coming from beside her, Anne closed her eyes briefly and muttered a silent oath. She should know by now that her mother qualified as a master mind reader. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

      “The man you’ve been staring at since we arrived.”

      Anne saw no use in denying her interest. Only mild interest. “Actually, he doesn’t look like a typical doctor. Are you sure he is?”

      In her usual efficient fashion, delightfully refined Delia sent a wave at the hospital’s chief of staff while murmuring through her compulsory smile. “Of course he’s a doctor. Everyone here is a doctor. He’s a first-year surgical resident. He graduated from medical school with honors—”

      “Did you take his résumé at the door, Mother?”

      Delia didn’t seem the least bit irritated over the question. “Your father’s mentioned him a time or two. He claims Jack’s going to be a brilliant surgeon. The man also happens to be single, so this is your lucky day.”

      Lucky? Ha! Maybe if he’d been a tennis pro. For all of her twenty-three years, Anne had been steeped in the sanctity of medicine. Her father was a preeminent surgeon; her mother, a member of every medical auxiliary of acquaintance to God and man and even the inventor of a few; and she herself had become an R.N. She intimately knew the arrogance of physicians, the obsession, the insistence that the lowly folk bow and scrape in their presence. She bowed and scraped for no man.

      Before Anne could issue a protest, Delia had her by the hand and was dragging her toward the doctor in question.

      Anne stopped dead a few feet prior to the point of no return. “Mother, what are you doing?”

      “I’m introducing you. Now, be nice.”

      “But I don’t want—”

      “Hush, СКАЧАТЬ