Chapter 6: Charlie

I'd stopped by the hospital again to get Jack to sign off on a finance agreement for equipment he needed for the irrigation project I'd been working on in his fields. He'd barely been at Cross Acres since the accident, and the hospital seemed to be the only place I could track him down with any success.

I found him in the same place I had the other times I'd come for one thing or another. I felt like I spent more time on the road to and from the Anston Medical than actually accomplishing what Jack was paying me to do. But right now, this was the only option. I either came up here, or irrigation stopped. And it wasn't just Jack who was affected. His entire staff needed this monkey off their backs with the drought we were dealing with, I'd planned time away from my family's farm-and Twin Creeks needed me just like Cross Acres did.

No sooner had I sat down and started to explain the paperwork to Jack than a nurse appeared at the double doors that never seemed to open, or they hadn't when I'd been here.

"Mr. Adams?" There was no one else in the waiting room, so I wasn't sure who she thought she might be talking to when she spoke into the air, not once glancing our direction.

Jack's head turned quickly. The only word that described his expression was haggard. "Yeah?"

Her brows lifted a fraction of an inch, and a hint of a smile curled her thin lips. "Sarah's coming around a bit if you'd like to come back to see her." She stepped back to press her back against the door, holding it open for Jack.

Jack sprang to his feet, and before he got two steps toward the door, he turned back to me. "Charlie-"

"Go. We can do this later." It would set me back a day, but I couldn't argue that it was more important than his daughter coming out of a coma. That would have made me a selfish prick, and my mom raised me better than that.

He shook his head. "I was going to ask if you were coming." His energy was infectious, and I could see the gleam of excitement in his eyes-or maybe that was just the hope of an answered prayer.

I didn't know why he wanted me with him, but maybe he just needed moral support. To my knowledge, he hadn't seen Sarah since the incident, and if he had, it had been brief, at best. The doctors had kept her in a medically induced coma to give her body the best shot at survival, and twice, they'd had to revive her when she'd flatlined. No one knew how long any of this would last, and the doctors refused to speculate.

After five days, Jack had started muttering about brain damage and the lingering effects of being under that long. He worried that she wouldn't be able to do anything for herself, that her muscles would forget how to work. It was fear talking because Jack was alone. And it was irrational. But I guessed that was what happened when a parent faced losing their child. It wasn't supposed to happen that way. And while Jack faced losing Sarah, he'd all but run Randi off.

He didn't want my advice or my input, so I didn't offer it. Jack had made a mistake with Randi. She wasn't to blame for the accident any more than Sarah was-it was just that, an accident. But he blamed Randi, and I wondered if he would ever forgive her. But even now, there wasn't anything I could say regarding either situation. So, I did what I did best; I kept my mouth shut and followed him behind the metal doors.

I should have considered what I was doing before I'd blindly allowed myself to be led into Sarah's new reality. I'd dealt with some pretty gruesome situations on ranches around town with cattle that had become prey, sick animals, traps, and everything in between, but there was something vastly different about an animal that had been mangled and a human.

Sarah was hooked up to every machine imaginable. Wires, cords, IVs, there was so much crap hanging from her body that it was almost hard to find her. And then I realized, I couldn't find her because I didn't recognize her. My stomach twisted and threatened to revolt at the carnage. There wasn't an inch of visible skin that wasn't marred by bruising, swelling, cuts, stitches, or some other injury I couldn't even define. The girl looked dead. The only life in the room was the constant hum and beeps of the machines that forced her to breathe. And I had no idea what they had stuffed in her mouth, but it looked like a torture device. It would hurt like hell when they took the tape off her cheeks.

"She's just starting to come out of the sedation," the nurse warned as she pulled a sheet over the thin gown that covered Sarah's lifeless body. "So she may not be very responsive. But you can say hello." The nurse patted my shoulder as she walked by. "She can hear you. Don't be afraid to talk."

Jack moved to his daughter's side with caution while I stood at the foot of the bed. He scooted a chair from the corner next to the mattress and took a seat. He hesitated, clearly unsure of where he could touch her that wouldn't cause her pain. In the end, he decided on her pinky and ring fingers that were already bandaged together. Jack held that section of her hand tenderly and stroked tiny circles on her knuckles, managing to ignore the wires that spiraled off the back of her hand and the oxygen monitor on her index finger.

"Sarah, sweetie." His voice cracked as he attempted to contain his emotion. It was barely a whisper. "It's Daddy. Can you hear me?"

The machines around her beeped a rhythm that would haunt me for the rest of my life. It wasn't the cadence of a strong heartbeat; it was like "Taps," marking her trail to death. I hated it, and I wanted the hell out of here. Yet, here I stood with a stack of papers rolled up in my hand at the end of a hospital bed, staring at a girl I barely knew. She'd always been so reserved and closed off. It hadn't mattered that she was pretty because she was a snob in high school. And even as that thought crossed my mind, the one that countered that wracked me with shame. Nothing about her current situation was pretty.

Sarah moved her head a little, and her eyes fluttered open. She stared up at him with big blue orbs the same color as an afternoon sky.

Just the sight of his daughter's eyes was nearly his undoing. Jack fought against the onslaught of emotions as he broke in front of me. But he didn't give a damn who saw it. After five days of not knowing, he held her hand and looked into her baby blues. That was all he cared about.

All of the pain, the waiting, the suffering...it came to a head in that moment, and I felt like a fraud witnessing this deeply personal scene between a father and his daughter.

Her lips were chapped, and she tried to speak around the tube in her mouth. When she realized it wasn't possible, her eyes filled with tears. And then she closed them as the machine inhaled for her. Sarah was confused, disoriented, and when her lids parted again, she didn't appear to recognize her dad or me. As she frantically searched the room, her bright blue irises dashing from one thing to the next, it dawned on me. It wasn't that she didn't recognize us; she didn't have a clue what was going on.

I nudged Jack's chair with my foot, not wanting to startle Sarah or draw attention to myself. Although the moment he turned toward me, I realized I'd done just that. "I don't think she knows what happened." I tried to whisper to keep Sarah from hearing me, but she stared at me, waiting for an answer.

It made sense. The last thing she likely remembered was a tractor-trailer slamming into the side of her car-or hell, she may not even remember that. And now she was lying in a dimly lit room, unable to speak, and likely in a shit-ton of pain. I didn't say anything, though. I didn't even move to the side of the bed. Sarah and I weren't tight regardless of the fact that we'd gone to school together since kindergarten and her family ate dinner at my parents' house more often than not. We didn't run in the same social circles, and Sarah Adams would never have sullied her name with the likes of me. In fact, my being here only added to her confusion. And again, I wanted to stop, drop, and roll-right on out of this room.

"I'm so glad to see you, sweetheart." Jack leaned over and kissed her forehead.

A soft mewl escaped from her chest, but I couldn't tell if it was happiness or pain that caused the noise. The nurses were already starting to close in so they could usher us out. All the cliché lines I'd heard uttered in movies came flying out of their mouths. It had been a big day. She was confused. He could come to see her again in the morning. I stopped listening after that. None of it applied to me, but even though I'd stopped listening, I hadn't stopped watching.

Sarah's eyes tracked my movement around the room, even as her lids grew heavy. I gave her an awkward wave, and she looked away. That one gesture-my poor attempt at being friendly-seemed to have caused her more pain than the poking and prodding the nurses did at her side. I tried not to overanalyze it. My attendance hadn't been intentional, and I'd give her space and privacy going forward...once I got Jack to sign the papers still wadded up in my hands.