CHAPTER3
“Gillian? At the hospital?”Nick’s dad asked with confusion in his voice. “Is she all right?”
“I wish I knew,” Nick admitted and rubbed a hand down his face. He tried to focus on the conversation, on the questions he couldn’t answer. “There’s a lot of blood, Dad. She’s in the ER now. Can you call her parents?”
“Any sign of her husband?” his dad asked softly.
Bitterness, dried and brittle, snapped within him. “No.” Nick disconnected the line and steadied himself. Gillian had been the love of his life for as long as he could remember and even though he hadn’t seen her in seven or eight years, his feelings for her hadn’t changed. The instant he saw her, the love resurfaced, slicing through him. She’d been the girl next door and always part of his life until she wasn’t.
He tried to stop the memories—the images of her smile, the sweet taste of her lips, the way his arms ached to hold her—from resurfacing. She’d been right for him; they’d been right for each other, but she hadn’t believed it, hadn’t trusted he was enough. After they’d graduated high school, she’d gone to college and had fallen in love with someone else and married him instead.
“You can’t die, Gilly,” he said aloud. A woman sitting in a nearby chair looked up at him and frowned.
He turned and paced up and down the corridor, eventually making his way back to Gillian. He peeked through the curtain. A doctor was still examining her, and the nurse was fiddling with her IV. A deep ache squeezed his heart. The nurse he’d seen earlier, McDougal, pushed back the curtain and stopped as he saw him. “You can’t stay here.”
“Is she going to be all right?” he asked, cringing at the plea in his voice.
His gaze softened. “She’s pretty beat up, but she’ll survive. Go back to the waiting room.”
Relief surged through him, and he did as he asked. A few minutes later, his dad rushed in with the Joneses right behind him. They hurried toward him.
“She’s going to make it,” Nick said to his dad, a smile filling his face.
Relief lifted the worry from his dad’s eyes.
“They haven’t told me much, and they won’t let me see her, but she’s going to be okay.”
“Thanks, Nick, for calling,” Roger Jones said as he and his wife, Mary, joined them. Nick’s dad placed his arm on Roger’s shoulder. “She’s going to make it. She’s going to be okay.”
The doors opened again, and the sheriff walked in. They heard him as he inquired about Gillian at the front desk.
“Sheriff Halloway,” Roger said, stepping toward him. “Do you know what happened to our daughter?”
The sheriff stared at him for a moment, his hat held tight in his hand. Nick recognized him as Josh Halloway. They’d gone to school together.
“Your daughter’s car hit an embankment and tore through several trees. She managed not to hit anyone else, but I’m afraid her vehicle and the trailer she was pulling are very damaged,” Josh said.
Gillian’s mom visibly faltered. Nick stepped forward to steady her with a hand on her back.
“Do you know what caused the accident?” Roger asked in a shaky voice.
“From what we’ve gathered from a witness, her car swerved to avoid hitting a deer. I was hoping to speak with your daughter.”
“The doctor is still with her,” Nick said.
Josh nodded with sympathy in his eyes, then turned to talk to the nurse.
“How’d you happen to be here?” his dad asked.
Before Nick could answer, he saw Shelley’s parents approaching and cringed. This day was going to happen sooner or later, so he might as well get it over with. “Dad, I know the timing is not great, but there are some people I need you to meet.”
His father frowned as Nick stepped toward the Reaves. “Mr. and Mrs. Reaves, I’d like you to meet my father, Reverend Alan Carr.”
“Reverend Carr, it’s good to see you,” Mike said, stepping forward to shake his dad’s hand. “I didn’t realize Nick was your son.”
“You know each other then?” Nick asked with surprise and wondered if Shelley knew.
“The Reaves have been attending our church for a little over a year now,” his dad told him. “It’s good to see you, Mike. Belinda.” His dad drew up a friendly smile.