Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“Okay. We’ll wait. We’ll be right in the waiting room. If Knox is looking for us, can you let him know Callum and his daughter are here?”
I was trying to hold it together, trying to keep from showing how I was cracking apart inside. I wasn’t supposed to be freaking out, but this was…this was Logan. This was too close to my heart.
I sat down with Charlie, who was crying.
“Do you want a hug? Are you okay?” I asked, and she leaned against me, let me wrap my arm around her and hold her while she cried. I didn’t move until she fell asleep against me.
Knox still hadn’t come out. Still hadn’t updated me.
I dialed Mom’s number. It was late, and she answered with, “What’s wrong?”
I replied softly so as not to wake Charlie. “Mama, I need you.”
“Where are you?” I told her, and she said, “I’ll be right there.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Knox
I’d never been so scared in my life.
They had Logan’s breathing under control now. He’d had X-rays and a breathing treatment. They wanted to run some tests and keep him at least overnight. They weren’t sure exactly why he’d had such a bad asthma attack. It could have been the smoke and the exacerbation of playing the games. He likely felt it coming on but thought he had it under control and didn’t want to stop and use his inhaler when he was playing with his friend.
I would never get the sound out of my head, of Callum’s voice when he’d said my name. The sharp edge of fear that had sliced through me. I tried not to think about it. Things were better now. Logan was fine. It would be okay. It was hard sometimes, when you could be used to something, can have dealt with it, but for me, it was still hard because it was my son. Plus, we’d had urgent-care trips before and the ER once, but those had always been when it was me and Carol.
He was sleeping now while I waited for them to get him admitted to the floor. We’d been here for hours, and I hadn’t left his side. I didn’t have my phone on me, but I’d spoken to one of the nurses about letting Callum know Logan was okay. They wouldn’t allow him and Charlie into his ER room, because of Charlie’s age and they only wanted one person in the room.
A tech stuck his head around the curtain. “They got him a room. He’ll probably go up in about thirty minutes.”
“Okay.” I rubbed a hand over my face. My eyes were scratchy. “I’m gonna head out to the waiting room to talk to my…Callum.” My Callum? Christ, I needed to get it together. “Make sure he and Logan’s sister know what’s going on. Can you tell Logan where I am if he wakes up?”
The man gave me a kind smile. “Yeah, of course. He’ll be all right. We’re taking good care of him.”
“Thank you.” Natalie worked in the ER, and I’d been hoping she was here tonight, but she wasn’t. Everyone had been great, but it would have been nice to have her there.
My legs were stiff as I stood. I was aching to see Callum. To hold him and have him tell me that everything was going to be okay. I knew it would, but sometimes you needed to hear it from someone you loved, someone you trusted.
I also wanted to hold Charlie, to make sure she was okay. Having something happen to Logan made me want to keep them both a little closer.
I made my way to the waiting room. It was the middle of the night, so it was quiet there. When I walked around the corner, I saw them. Callum with his arm around Charlie, who was asleep against him. Mary Beth sitting on the other side of Cal, then Law and Remy.
Callum’s eyes darted up, as if he sensed me, even though I hadn’t moved from my spot near the entrance.
“Knox,” he said softly, pain in his voice.
I walked over. “He’s okay. We aren’t sure why things got so bad there. They want to keep him overnight to watch his oxygen levels. We might need to adjust his treatment. He’s sleeping now. They had to give him some oxygen. That’s never…” That had never happened before.
Charlie rolled over but didn’t wake. Her position made it so she wasn’t as heavily against Cal as she had been. He was able to slip out from under her, and she didn’t move, stayed curled up where she was. I whispered, “How did you all…?”
“Here, let’s go around the corner so we don’t wake her,” Callum said.
We all left the waiting room and went right around the corner, so we could still keep an eye on her and hear her but have some privacy.