Page 127 of Speechless
He’d said that so many times to her in the past. Had willed her to set the panic aside and focus on his voice, his touch, and center herself with him. As his fingers dug into the cold tiles, he fought to followhervoice.
They’d been through so much since the beginning. Every tear, every haunted look and comforting touch. Her trust in him from the start had astounded him, and he didn’t know where she’d found the courage to set her faith in him the way she had.
Was it any wonder he’d fallen for her so quickly?
“Sarah, help him. Please help him.”
“Well, shit. Jenna, I love you but if you try get out of that bed, there’s going to be hell to pay, I swear.” Hands gripped his shoulders, one tighter than the other, and eased him down onto his side. “Connor, can you hear me?”
Blindly, he grabbed for the first thing he could reach and held on. Jenna’s voice urged his manic brain to settle; his fingers around Sarah’s slim ankle under her scrubs gave his overwhelmed body a chance to breathe.
“Christ,” he wheezed.
Sarah pried his fingers from her leg so she could kneel beside him, offered her hand instead. She brushed her hand over his hair and shook her head. “Want me to get the oxygen?”
Hell, he could use a hit of it to reflate his burning lungs, but as the last of the panic ebbed away, he felt stupid enough without using a crutch to lean on. “No. No, I’m good.”
“Sarah?” Jenna asked tremulously.
“He’s okay, sweetheart. Just let him catch his breath and I’ll have him back in bed in a few minutes.” Sarah held him down when he struggled to get up. “I mean it, buster. Catch your breath or it’s the oxygen mask and a sedative. That was one hell of an anxiety attack. We heard you howl from the nurses’ station.”
“You heard mewhat?”
“Howl. Like a wolf. If said wolf had a noose around its neck and its leg trapped in a snare. Eeriest damn noise I’ve ever heard.” Her fingers tipped his face back so she could peer into his eyes before they slid down to his pulse. “I think you freaked out most of the patients on the ward.”
“Shit.”
“It’s fine. I’m sure they’ve heard worse.”
Connor let himself relax, releasing the last of the attack on a deep breath. It didn’t last long—tension turned his muscles to stone when a masculine cough shattered his tentative tranquility and a pair of black leather loafers stopped at the threshold to the room.
“Would you like some assistance, Doctor O’Malley?”
Aaron fucking Abernathy. Just the person Connor wanted to see when he was at his lowest point, collapsed on the floor and still perspiring the sweat of the tormented. He groaned softly and wondered how to avoid the mortification of hauling himself back into bed in front of this particular man.
Rabid guard dog that she was, Sarah was on her feet in an instant, ranging over Connor while angling herself to defend Jenna. “Mr. Abernathy. You’re not welcome here.”
“I know,” Aaron responded gravely. “I’m sorry for intruding. I…I’ve been down the hall in the waiting area for several days now and when I heard that sound…I assumed something terrible had happened to Pene—to Jenna. Only a man in extreme pain can summon the voice to expel it.”
Curious, Connor tilted his head where it rested so he could see the man’s face. Genuine emotion, he noted. Honest concern. Was there hope yet for a reunion? If not between Jenna and both her parents, between Jenna and her father? “Why are you still here?”
“We all are. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to come alone, to apologize profusely for the way things went last week. For everything we’ve done to hinder Jenna’s progress since we learned she was alive. There is no excuse. Ilene and I have five beautiful children and we adore each one. But Jenna…” The older man’s gaze lifted to pin his daughter. “But you, my sweet girl, you were the perfection we strived to create. Losing you ripped us apart, the whole family. Where we should have come together, we fell apart. It’s taken months to rebuild the family into a semblance of what it was before you were taken, and even now there’s a huge hole in the middle of us.
“Stupidly, we believed if you came home with us, that hole would be filled and everything would go back to the normalcy we’ve yearned for. We didn’t take into consideration how much your ordeal would shape you, or that you’d make a life for yourself that didn’t include us. It just seemed imperative that you come back to us, make us whole again, no matter the cost.”
Well, fuck. Some of Connor’s intense hatred toward Jenna’s father broke off and wobbled away. After what Aaron had done, Connor didn’t want to feel sympathetic toward him. He’d destroyed any chance she’d had at a beautiful, welcoming reunion with her family—the kind of welcome Connor wished for her—because he’d been so focused on keeping that family together, using Jenna as the cement to patch the cracks.
“The cost was far too high.”
Grunting softly, Connor managed to prop himself into a sitting position. His shoulder and knees throbbed but he couldn’t sense the warm trickle of blood anywhere, so he figured he was safe from the majority of Sarah’s wrath. “So what the fuck is your problem with me?”
Aaron sighed wearily. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not to me.”
“You’ve been there for Jenna from the very beginning. You were her first contact with civilization after her escape, the man she trusted and depended on. You provided her with health care, food, shelter, social skills. You are everything we weren’t when she needed it most.” It was said almost bitterly, but without a cruel edge. “Then, quite evidently, you became more. I still love my wife despite our difficulties, Doctor. I recognize a man in love, and Jenna is the spitting image of her mother when Ilene first fell for me.”
“So, you hate me because Jenna loves me, and I love her?” Connor summarized slowly. His brain couldn’t comprehend the logic of that, but it wasn’t his logic to deal with. “Do you know how ridiculous that is?”