The House on Sugar Plum Lane by Judy Duarte

Author:Judy Duarte
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2010-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

Chuck didn’t remember much about how he got to the hospital. He was told that he’d been brought in by an ambulance, but that entire afternoon was pretty much a blur to him now.

Apparently, while getting off the bus, he’d passed out for some medical reason unrelated to the cancer and fell. But then he’d cracked his head on the curb, and he’d gone down for the count.

When he finally came to, he was lying on a gurney in the ER and some woman was asking him the typical questions needed to admit him: name; address; date of birth; religious preference; nearest relative; whether he had insurance or not.

He answered each one truthfully. Well, everything except next of kin. He didn’t know where Brandon was living nowadays—even if he’d wanted to give them his name. But he didn’t see any reason to do that. Too much time had passed since they’d last seen each other, and there was too much murky water under the bridge.

But almost everyone had a family, and Chuck had spent enough years without one. He hated to make it sound as though he was alone in this world, which wasn’t the case any longer. He had tons of close friends, most of whom either worked at or frequented the soup kitchen.

So Chuck had told the woman from the admissions department that Craig Houston, the associate pastor of Parkside Community Church, was his nearest relative.

And hey, that wasn’t such a big stretch. Biblically speaking, they were brothers—joint heirs in the family of God, right?

And now here he was, banged up and as weak as a newborn kitten. He reached up, felt the bump on his noggin, fingered the stitches that held the gash together. It still smarted, and it was also the least of his troubles, but he needed to get out of here. The hospital bill was going to be outrageous, and there was no way he’d ever be able to pay it on his wages.

A knock sounded at the doorjamb that led to the busy hall, and when he turned to see who it was, he spotted Pastor Craig.

“Hey, Chuck,” the fair-haired young minister said as he entered the hospital room. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner, but my wife and I were out to dinner when the call came in. And we didn’t check our messages until morning.”

“Young love, huh?” Chuck offered him a smile. He remembered those days, back when he and Marianne were first married. “Lucky you.”

“My wife is pretty special. But it wasn’t a romantic dinner. We went out with friends last night. Do you remember Ramon Gonzales?”

“Is he that fella who works with that youth baseball league?”

“Yes.” Craig crossed the shiny tile floor and took a seat in the chair next to Chuck’s bed. “But how about you? What’s going on?”

Chuck made an attempt to laugh it off. “Tripped and fell while getting off the bus. I wouldn’t be surprised if the transit district made me wear a football helmet next time I tried to get on board.

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