Her Very Own Family by Trish Milburn Read Free Book Online Page A

glanced at Brady. That’s all she could hope for now. It had to be enough.
    “We should get back. I want to get some of those flowers in the ground,” she said.
    They walked back through the interior of the fort and the visitor center. On the way out the front door toward the parking lot, a headline in the USA TODAY box caught her attention.
    More Arrests Possible in Evangelist Fraud Case.
    Her heart stumbled painfully, as if it’d tripped on a big root and crashed to the packed earth. Pulse pounding in her ears, she leaned forward and read the opening of the article.
    Investigators have found new evidence in the fraudcase of former evangelist Thomasina York, which may lead to more arrests.
    Audrey felt the hated tightness in her chest right before her air passages constricted and her lungs started wheezing. Dizziness swamped her. She grabbed at the newspaper box, but her fingers slipped off the edge. She opened her mouth in an effort to suck in needed air as she felt her arms and legs go weak with tingling.
    Just when she thought the nightmare was behind her, it came barreling into her new life.

Chapter Four

    Brady turned around at Audrey’s sound of distress to see her gasping and stumbling backward. He sprang to catch her before she fell and hurt herself. With his arm wrapped around her shoulders, he guided her back a few steps to a bench then knelt in front of her.
    “Audrey, what’s wrong?” As soon as he asked, he heard the wheezing and saw her struggling to get it under control.
    “Asthma,” she said between wheezes. “I’ll be okay…in a minute.”
    She didn’t look okay. Totally freaked was more like it.
    “Do you have an inhaler?”
    “At home.”
    Where it would do her no good. But he wasn’t going to scold her now when she couldn’t breathe. He stood and pulled her to her feet, then started to lift her in his arms.
    She took a step away. “What are you doing?” she gasped.
    “Taking you to the hospital.” And fast.
    She waved away his concern. “I’m fine.”
    “You don’t sound fine. You’re having an asthma attack, and you have no inhaler.”
    “Really—”
    “You’re going. That’s final.”
    She gave up arguing, either feeling it was futile or realizing she needed the help. But she didn’t let him carry her, instead making her way slowly to the car and falling into the passenger seat.
    Brady slid the driver’s seat back to accommodate his longer legs and started the ignition in the same motion. He ran one stoplight and nearly creamed a squirrel racing across the street, but he didn’t care.
    Audrey’s breathing sounded less labored by the time he braked outside the E.R. doors, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He honked several times, then raced to her side of the car to help her out.
    A nurse hurried out the door. “What’s the emergency?”
    Brady looked across the top of the Jetta. “She’s having an asthma attack.”
    Audrey tried to protest again, but her words were drowned out by the activity of hospital staff guiding her into a wheelchair, hurrying her inside and pumping him for details.
    “Is she allergic to anything?” another nurse asked.
    “I don’t know,” Brady said, feeling useless.
    Once inside the E.R., he was steered in one direction as Audrey was wheeled off in another. He answered the nurse’s questions as best he could, but that wasn’t very well. All he could offer was what had happened in the minutes leading up to the attack.
    “I’m sorry. We only met a few days ago. She just moved to the area.”
    “Maybe she’s allergic to something here she’s not been exposed to before.” The nurse, a cherub-cheeked woman of about fifty, patted his hand. “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of her. Why don’t you have a seat over in the waiting area.”
    How in the world was he supposed to sit still when Audrey couldn’t breathe? And when bad memories still lingered in this very hospital? It seemed only yesterday that he’d been here