“Right.”

“If we get medical airlift from Timberlake, we’ll be there in no time. Will you meet me?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Try to stay calm.”

“I’m good,” she said.

“She’s a wreck,” Sully muttered. “Airlift. Gonna cost a goddamn fortune.”

“I gave him nitro, oxygen and morphine. He seems to be comfortable. EKG coming to the ER for you.”

It was not like this with Walter. With Walter, whom she’d become close to once she’d passed through adolescence, she was able to be a physician—objective, cool, confident. With Sully, she was a daughter clinging to her medical training with an internal fear that if anything terrible happened to him she would be forever lost.

Sully was not experiencing terrible pain once the morphine kicked in; his breathing was slightly labored and his blood pressure remained high. Maggie watched over him through the transfer into a medical transport helicopter and stayed with him while he was taken into the emergency room where Dr. Hollis waited.

“Jesus, Maggie,” Rob said, his stethoscope going immediately to Sully’s chest. “Nothing like making an entrance.”

“Who are you?” Sully asked.

“Rob Hollis, cardiac surgeon. And you must be Sully.” He picked up a section of the EKG tape, glancing at it almost casually. “We’re going to run a few tests, draw some blood, bring down that blood pressure if possible and then, very probably, depending on the test results, go to the OR and perform a bypass surgery. Do you know what that is?”

“Sure I do,” Sully said, his voice tired and soft. “I’m the last one on my block to get one.”

“Maggie, this is going to take a while even though we’ll push it through with stat orders. Maybe you should go to the doctor’s lounge and rest.”

“She should go grab a beer and find a poker game but she don’t need no rest,” Sully said. “She’s plenty rested.”

“I’ll stay with my dad,” she said. “I’ll keep out of your way.”

“You’re going to be bored,” Rob said.

Not as long as he’s breathing, she thought. “I’ll manage.”

* * *

Maggie knew almost everyone in the hospital, in the ER and the OR. Because of her stature as a surgeon, she was given many updates on the tests, the results, the surgery. She even thought to ask one of her friends, an operating room charge nurse, for the loan of her car once Sully was out of recovery, out of danger, and resting comfortably in the coronary care unit. Here she was in Denver with no vehicle, no purse, credit cards, phone, nothing, but there was a spare key to her house under the flowerpot on the back patio and she could write a counter check at her bank for cash. There might even be a duplicate or extra credit or debit card she didn’t keep in her purse. In her closet there would be something to wear. In fact, there were drawers full of scrubs, if it came to that.

She wasn’t bored and she’d had plenty of sleep before Sully’s medical emergency, but by the time she stood at his bedside in the CCU at five in the morning she was so exhausted she could hardly stand up. She had the wiggles from too much caffeine, looked like bloody hell and hadn’t had a shower since leaving Denver for Sullivan’s Crossing. It reminded her of some of those days in residency when she stayed at the hospital for over forty-eight hours with only a catnap here and there. This time it was all stress.

She went home in her borrowed car to freshen up. She located an old wallet and purse, found a credit card she didn’t often use in her file cabinet and was back at the hospital by eight. By nine they were rousing Sully.