Even though I was the messenger, the one who’d come to tell her that her husband was dead, she grasped me to her and held on tightly, as if in that moment I was the last living connection to him that she would ever have.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, switching from English to Spanish.
She cried harder, sobbing with the entire force of her body. Amanda came into the waiting room and approached me.
I shook my head, silently telling her that I didn’t need her to take over. I wanted to comfort the Martinez widow. I’d let her cry out her anguish in my arms while she mourned for her husband and began to taste the cruelty and unfairness of life.
Amanda discreetly headed back to the nurses’ station, and my arms around Mrs. Martinez tightened.
When her storm of emotion passed, she ripped herself from my embrace and dragged her hand down her cheeks, clearing away the proof that death was hardest on those left behind.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said to her.
She nodded, but it was instinctual, not like she’d actually heard me.
“His injuries were substantial. There was too much internal bleeding…”
“I should’ve forced him to go to the hospital, but he was stubborn,” she murmured, still speaking in her native tongue. She looked away from me to stare out the window. Sun beams painted the sidewalk. It was a perfect, sunny day on the saddest day of her life.
Fate had a cruel, twisted sense of humor.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” I asked her.
She nodded, a lone tear streaking down her cheek. She hastily swiped it away.
When I was sure she was in control of her own emotions and it was safe for her to drive, I left the waiting room and went to the nurses’ station.
Without saying a word, Amanda set down a chocolate peanut butter cup in front of me.
“I’m gonna need a lot more than that,” I said, swiping it off the counter and unwrapping it.
“I have a whole bag.”
“That’s a start,” I said with a sigh. “Do you want to go out tonight?”
She blinked. “Really? You never want to go out.”
I nodded. “If I go home, I’ll sit and drink a bottle of wine and think about how I couldn’t save Mr. Martinez. And Ireallydon’t want to sit and stew. So, how about it?”
“Sure. Where do you want to go? Tony’s?”
I shook my head. “Something not hospital related.”
Tony’s was the hospital’s watering hole and the bar the nurses had taken me to when I’d first moved to town. Normally, I would have been fine with it, but I wanted something different tonight.
“I haven’t had a chance to really explore the city that much,” I said. “You’ve lived in Dallas a while. Where’s a good spot?”
“You want something different. Something unusual?”
I nodded.
She paused, tapping a manicured finger to her lip. “How about The Rex Hotel?”
I frowned. “The Rex Hotel?”
“Yeah. They have a Whisky Room. It’s the top floor of the hotel, and it looks like an English smoking den. They have killer cocktails and after dinner drinks. It’s also got the most amazing view of the Dallas skyline. I think a snazzy East Coaster like yourself will appreciate it.”
“Dress code?”