A Family for Easter by Lee Tobin McClain

Author:Lee Tobin McClain
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-12-13T19:17:03+00:00

Chapter Ten

Fiona woke to a jolting, dizzying world with someone holding her impossibly foggy head. Rain, a crash and then awful pain surged in her memory, and she struggled to sit up. “Kids,” she rasped, opening her eyes and trying to focus.

“They’re fine,” said a woman’s voice. “They’re safe.”

“Daisy?” She looked up at her friend’s blurry face. Why was Daisy here?

Where was here?

“Shh. Lie still.” Daisy glanced at someone off to the side. “Go straight to the emergency room. They’re waiting for us.”

Emergency room? But Fiona couldn’t go to the emergency room. She had four kids to care for. Again, she tried to sit up, but a sharp pounding pain in her head made her collapse back down, gasping for air.

There was a screech and jolt, the too-loud bang of a door opening, voices.

“Lightning—”

“Tree branch—”

“Lost consciousness—”

“Head injury—”

Somehow, she was lying down flat, zooming along surrounded by people in scrubs. Clenching her teeth against the nausea, she looked around for someone familiar. “My kids...”

“Your kids are fine,” came Daisy’s soothing voice. “Safe and dry. Your friends are taking care of them.”

But they needed her. Especially Poppy. She forced herself up onto her elbows, but pain knifed through her forehead and she collapsed back down again.

More shouts and then the stretcher stopped in a cubicle with beeping machines and too-bright lights and a whole crowd of people.

Daisy’s face came into view, directly above Fiona’s own. “Do. Not. Worry.” Her reassuring smile didn’t reach her eyes. “You hear? We’re all taking care of your kids and they’re fine. And you’ll be fine, too.” She glanced to the right where a masked doctor was doing something to Fiona’s arm. “Right?”

“We’ll do everything we can to take care of her. Are you a relative?”

“Her sister.”

Fiona blinked at the skill with which Daisy told the lie, but it reassured her, too. Daisy would take care of things. Her kids were okay.

She started to sink back into fog again. If only they’d stop poking and prodding her.

Where was Eduardo? She wanted him. But there was some reason—she couldn’t think of it now—why she didn’t get to have him.

And suddenly, overwhelmingly, she needed to sleep.

* * *

Eduardo sat in the ER waiting room, elbows on knees, hands clasped tight. The disinfectant-heavy hospital smell made him queasy, and a heaviness in his chest weighted him down. In his experience, hospital visits didn’t end well.

Around the waiting room, a few family clusters sat, talking and looking at their phones. A television, sound off, showed talking heads. A low, well-modulated voice sounded from the hospital intercom: “Smythe family? Smythe family to the reception desk, please.” A teenage boy went to the drinking fountain with a uniformed police officer a few feet behind him.

Everyone here had a story, but Eduardo couldn’t rouse any curiosity about anyone’s but Fiona’s.

If he hadn’t been having a stupid fight with her, she wouldn’t have gone running off alone to find her kids. They’d have been in good communication, and when that sudden rain came up,

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