Prologue 6

“Sure.” He looked over at Noah and Jax, lowered his voice a bit. “How are they doing?”

She glanced over at them too, lowered her gorgeous eyes. “Well… I don’t know. Jax is – well. He’s angry. No, correction: he’s furious.” She looked up at Sam. “You saw his hand?”

“From when he tried to punch a hole through the brick wall down in the ambulance bay?” Sam asked. “Yes. Sometimes people need to express things physically, though it tends to be hell on the body when they do.”

“Yeah, no argument from me.” Annie drank some more coffee, and now she looked out the massive arched window at the vibrant early-autumn colors up on the Rockies. With a shock, she realised that Christmas was a mere three months away, and she had literally no idea if this was going to be the first one without her daughter. She wrenched her mind away from the gloomy thoughts, reminded herself that she needed to stay positive for her children. “But he’s not doing well at all. And Noah is… well. I know that he may look like he hasn’t got a damn clue what’s going on, but make no mistake: he knows, and I mean exactly. He and Sarah, they have this… connection. She’s always been the only person who could really reach him, understand him, help him to change and cope. And he’s always known things about her – things she’s thinking and feeling – that he shouldn’t or couldn’t possibly know. But he does. Noah might not be great at expressing emotion… but he does feel it, and he does understand it. On some level.”

“I can tell,” Sam said. “And you? How are you, Annie?”

“Me?” She continued to stare up at the trees and mountains. “I’m fine. You know.”

“…Annie.” His deep voice was gentle.

“Yes?” Her eyes were still fixed far, far above her. “Yes, Sam?”

“Look at me.”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“Because.” Her voice trembled. “Because if I see the pity on your face, it’ll finish me, and I can’t fall apart. I just can’t, because if I do, I might not be able to put myself together again.”

“No pity, I promise. Look at me. Please.”

Annie turned her head to face Sam; her eyes met his, then locked. And all she saw was kindness and something else…

Caring?

“Yes, Sam?” she asked again, more calmly.

“How are you?”

“I’m…” Suddenly those amazing blue eyes were filled with tears. “I’m a mess.”

“I know,” he said, wishing hard that he could hold her now, but every professional pore in his body held him tightly in check, held him closely to protocol. Though just barely. “I’m so sorry, Annie. If I could do more, if I could do anything, I’d do it. In a heartbeat.”

“I know,” she whispered. “You’ve done so much, and you keep coming around and checking in even though you’re based in the E.R., and you know… I haven’t really thanked you for that, have I?” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you, Sam. Thank you for fighting for my daughter when she first arrived here, and thank you for going above and beyond. I know you don’t have to.” Her brow furrowed suddenly, as a thought occurred to her. “So… why do you?”

“Why do I what?”

“Why do you keep coming here? Even though Sarah isn’t really your patient any more?”

And there it was. There was the moment for Sam to tell her the truth. To tell her that as much as he cared about Sarah – and he did, just as he cared about every single person who got rolled through those E.R. doors to him – he cared about Annie too. And not as a badly-injured patient’s frightened mother, or as an employee struggling to hang onto her job through a horrific ordeal, or as a strong, scrappy, hurting woman determined to see this thing through to its bitter end, no matter what it cost her in terms of her emotion and her sanity.