My eyes flashed open, widened, and focused on Nate’s profile. We were up to call number three.

Three. Three attempts wasn’t just wanting to talk to me. Three attempts was needing to talk to me. Later wouldn’t do. It had to happen now.

My heart started racing.

I spun around while digging my phone out of my pocket, bringing it in front of me after I was facing the kitchen so Nate couldn’t see it. I looked at the screen, my thumb automatically sliding to unlock it so I could shoot Jamie a quick text of explanation when the name of the caller came into focus.

My thumb quit sliding. Jamie wasn’t calling me right now. My mother was.

And after the final vibration cleared the screen a second later and my missed calls displayed, I saw it had been her calling me all along.

My stomach clenched. My heart was racing for an entirely different reason now. My mother never dialed me up urgently like this.

What if something was wrong? Oh, God …

Gripping my phone in my hand, I spun around and held it in the air, waving it and grabbing Nate’s attention.

“It’s my mom,” I whispered, counting on his ability to read lips since my voice couldn’t carry any louder right now.

Worry had its hand curled tight around my throat.

Nate nodded, then jerked his chin at the door to the employee lounge, indicating that was where I needed to take the call. I made it out from behind the bar before I was dialing her back, but I never made it to the lounge.

My mom answered on the first ring, and I heard her voice, her panic, which told me all I needed to know before she even uttered the words a breath before my phone hit the floor.

I never even bothered to pick it up. I was too focused on getting out of there and getting to my parents.

As it turned out, I did leave in the middle of a shift that day. But not to hop on a plane.

While my man was winning another title, I was driving to Raleigh Regional Hospital.

My father had suffered a heart attack.

* * *

“Mom,” I groaned, covering my face with my hands as I stood at the foot of the hospital bed.

I had arrived minutes ago after hightailing it out of Dogwood Beach like a bat out of hell.

I shaved close to forty-five minutes off my three-hour drive time. I got cleared at reception and assigned a visitor’s pass, was told my father’s room number after screaming my demand for it, and ran through the ER with tears streaming down my face.

I was expecting the worst. My father hooked up to machines and possibly unconscious, or news that it was just too late, we’re sorry, and we did all we could do.

My mother could’ve been calling to inform me of this devastation. However, I had no way of knowing since my phone was back in Dogwood Beach.

I was panicked, hysterical, and scared out of my mind.

So you can imagine my shock and alarm when I threw open the curtains to his room, darted inside, and saw the state my father was currently in. Sitting up in bed. Hooked up to machines but with nothing beeping, only monitoring. Eyes alert. Smile tugging at his mouth as he watched my mother’s continuing freak-out.

That’s right. The man was smiling on the day he’d possibly had a heart attack.

Possibly because I didn’t know for sure if he’d had one or not. I was still trying for specifics. It was like pulling teeth at this point.

Dropping my hands to the foot rail and holding there, I frowned at my mother as she stood beside the bed, arms folded under her chest, foot tapping, and anxious eyes glued to the monitor.

My father had just revealed there was a chance he hadn’t suffered a heart attack. His exact words being, “Your mother exaggerates.”

“Okay, you need to tell me exactly what the doctor said,” I insisted, directing my words at either of them, not caring who answered, just needing an answer. “Was it a heart attack, or what? What are they saying?”

My mother’s quietly admitted “They aren’t sure” came at the exact time as my father’s conceited and overly confident “Nope.”

I pinched my eyes shut and shook my head. Oh, my God. This was beyond frustrating.

“Mom,” I snapped, looking to her again and waiting to continue until after her head turned and her eyes pried off the numbers flashing on the screen. “You said on the phone you were in the ambulance and they were telling you Daddy was having a heart attack.”

“Well, that’s what the paramedics thought,” she replied, brow tightly furrowed. “He was showing symptoms of it. Chest pain. Shortness of breath. And he was sweating like crazy. They assumed that’s what he was having.”

“I was sweating ’cause it was so goddamn hot in that attic and I was working up there,” Dad offered up, tugging at the collar of his hospital gown. “Christ. Get me my shirt. If I’m gonna be waiting around, I’m doing it in my own clothes.”

“You are staying in that gown until they release you.” Mom slapped his hands away, then pushed against his chest when he tried getting up. “And if you were sweating ’cause of the attic, how come you were still sweating in the ambulance? It wasn’t warm in there.”

Dad waved her off with a dismissive hand, looking away as he revealed, “They were poking at me and you were saying the Lord’s prayer. I thought I was dying.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault you were showing symptoms? Is that what you’re saying?”

Mom was leaning over the bed with her hands on her hips now. And I knew if I didn’t step in soon, she’d probably throw my father into heart attack symptoms once again.

“So the paramedics thought it was a heart attack, but the doctor doesn’t think that’s what it was?” I asked, interjecting.

Holding her scowl, Mom straightened up, stared at my father for another breath, then turned to look at me. “They’re waiting on some test results, but it could still be serious even if it wasn’t technically a heart attack,” she replied.

I breathed deep. Stay calm, I told myself. If you freak, she’ll freak, then freak out on him, and that can’t possibly be good for his heart, attacked or not.

“Okay.” I nodded, reaching up and gathering my hair over one shoulder. I twisted the strands into a bundle so my hands stayed busy and my mother couldn’t see how badly they were shaking. “Well, we just need to stay positive and wait. That’s all we can do,” I told them both.

Mom nodded once, agreeing with me, then reached for my father’s hand and squeezed it on the bed. “That’s all we can do,” she repeated, softly smiling at him.

Keeping his hand, she reached back and pulled the chair closer to his side, sat it in, passed the smile she was wearing my way, then lost it when her eyes slid over my shoulder and focused behind me.

She stood out of her chair, lifting my father’s hand off the bed and gripping on to it with both of hers. I spun around then and saw who my mother was reacting to. The muscles in my legs tightened and my knees locked.

My God …

It was Jamie, only older by a handful of years, I was guessing. And instead of board shorts, the man wore a white lab coat and had a stethoscope around his neck. Instead of overgrown wave-tousled hair and a permanent five o’clock shadow, he was clean-cut, close-shaven, and more GQ than model gone rogue.

He was Jamie G-rated. Smoke-free lungs, I was sure, and most likely had no idea how to pick a lock.