Page 58 of Sentinel's Kiss

Her mother looked over her shoulder at the room. “All right. We’ll be right back.”

Ashley gave her mother another hug before bracing herself to walk into her father’s hospital room. Squaring her shoulders, she forced herself to go in and sit down. She’d thought it might be easier the second time, but it wasn’t. He was pale and cold. Lifting the blanket over him, Ashley patted his arm.

“Hi, Dad.”

Afraid she was going to break down in tears, she sat down next to the bed and held his hand, careful not to jostle the IV line or any of the sensors on him.

It was quiet in the room and almost peaceful except for the beeping of the monitors. He had a private room and the nursing staff were people he had worked with. Someone wrote, “Get Well Soon, Dr. Carver” on the whiteboard where all of his medications and important information were listed.

“I’m going to be on the news again this Wednesday.” She looked up at the TV screen, which was showing a cooking show with the volume turned off. Clicking the channels, she found a baseball game. She kept the sound off. Her father’s favorite team was the Mets and the way they were playing lately, it couldn’t be good for his heart.

She was surprised that the panic she usually felt inside a hospital wasn’t as bad as it usually was. Maybe it was because she had been through this just a few months ago and her father had recovered just fine. Well, just fine until right now.

“They’re thinking it could be a Jets-Giants Super Bowl this year.” Ashley knew there was as much chance of that as there was of snow at the equator, but if it gave him something to live for, she’d lie and tell him his two favorite teams were going to play against each other in the biggest game of the year. Of course, that was almost seven months away.

Setting his hand gently under the covers, Ashley got up to pace. She waited for the flashbacks of being here with Dawn, but they were almost as muted as Brett’s face. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

The panic attacks had been really bad when she was here for her leg, but she had been drugged up and in pain. So it stood to reason that her mind would compare the two experiences. It hadn’t been so bad when she was here a few months ago, after her father had his first heart attack. And now she could almost pretend that everything else had happened to another Ashley.

Almost.

She wished it didn’t make her feel so guilty.