Thrown By Love by Pamela Aares Read Free Book Online Page A

She didn’t know Scotty well enough to share this news with him and didn’t want to.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“Can I drive you? That didn’t look like good news.” He stood when she did.
“I’ll be fine, thank you.” She hadn’t meant to sound frosty, but she couldn’t worry about how she was coming across.
“Can I help?”
If only he could.
     

     
When Chloe reached the apartment, her dad was squabbling with the nurse he’d hired.
“I am not going back to the hospital,” she heard him say as she ran down the hall.
“Indeed you are, McNalley,” Chloe said as she entered the room.
The nurse waved her hands, revealing her frustration. “Miss McNalley, I think we should call the paramedics. I tried, but he said he’d fire me.”
That her dad could stop a nurse from calling for help was just another reminder of his power. “He can’t fire me .” Chloe grabbed the phone from beside the bed and dialed.
“Chloe, wait.” Her dad tried to push himself up in the bed.
“No.”
“I’ve raised a stubborn girl,” he said to the nurse as he sank back against the pillows.
Chloe sat beside his bed for three days in the hospital. Only three days and yet he changed almost beyond recognition. But on the afternoon of the third day he insisted that she drive down to Stanford and teach her class. It was important to him, he argued. It’d make him feel better, he insisted. He’d be there when she got back, he said.
When her phone rang in the middle of class, she knew she’d made the wrong decision. Again. When would she learn to stop letting him talk her into things? But that was who he was, maybe even part of what she loved so much about him. Peter McNalley was a hard man to argue with.
When Chloe reached the ICU, the nurse in the bear and bunny lab coat waved her into her dad’s room. Other than an IV, he didn’t have any tubes or machines hooked up to him.
“Dad.”
He opened his eyes. His arms were swollen, and he struggled to lift one to wrap it around her neck, lifted himself off the pillow to kiss her cheek.
“Spitfire.”
“Dad, why aren’t any of the machines hooked up?”
He dropped his head back on the pillow. “It’s too late for all that, honey.”
She wanted to scream, but she swallowed the impulse. She wanted to rage at the heavens. He was only fifty-six years old. He was all she had. He couldn’t die. Not ever.
“No. Tell them to hook them up. Tell them.”
He shook his head.
A nurse came in with a syringe.
“No.” He pushed the nurse’s hand away. “I want to talk to my daughter.” He turned his head to Chloe. “That stuff puts me out.”
“Maybe you should let them give it to you.”
“I’d rather have the pain and be able to talk to you.”
She turned to the nurse. “Can’t you do something? Can’t you hook him up? He’ll pull through, he’s tough.”
“Leave us, please,” her dad said to the nurse. But the nurse crooked a finger and called Chloe to the door.
“He’s going.”
Chloe didn’t want to believe what the woman’s tone said all too clearly, but she knew it was true.
“Talk to him,” the nurse said. “Just talk to him. And if he needs to talk to anyone else, get them on the phone.”
Chloe walked back to the bed and took her dad’s hand. Tears welled and she couldn’t hold them back. “Dad.”
With a groan he reached toward her and wiped at her cheek. His own eyes pooled with tears.
“I’m glad you made it,” he said with great effort. “I love you, Spitfire.” He patted her cheek. “Everything will be okay.” A slight smile curved into his lips. “You’ll see.”
She twined her fingers in his swollen ones. “I love you too, Dad.”
She wanted to say don’t leave me , but she didn’t want to make him feel rotten. It wasn’t like he could do anything about dying. He certainly didn’t want to go.
As if he read her mind, he slowly stroked his fingers over her hand. “I’ll be watching over you.” His head fell back on the pillow.