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Chapters (25)
  1. LETTERS FROM KATE
  2. Also by
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Dedication
  6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  7. CHAPTER 1
  8. CHAPTER 2
  9. CHAPTER 3
  10. CHAPTER 4
  11. CHAPTER 5
  12. CHAPTER 6
  13. CHAPTER 7
  14. CHAPTER 8
  15. CHAPTER 9
  16. CHAPTER 10
  17. CHAPTER 11
  18. CHAPTER 12
  19. CHAPTER 13
  20. CHAPTER 14
  21. CHAPTER 15
  22. CHAPTER 16
  23. EPILOGUE
  24. Teaser
  25. About the Author

Allison battled waves of nausea. “I’m coming now,” she said.

“Now, Allison, you’re in no condition to—”

She disconnected the call.

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

Allison walked into the hospital room at Cox Medical Center, her eyes bloodshot, her hair falling in strings around her face. She had flung on the first things that came out of the closet—her jogging shoes, a pair of jeans, and one of Burke’s old gray sweatshirts. Her headache lingered like a dusty cobweb in her brain, but she’d forgotten it in the rush to reach her husband’s side.

Refusing to wait for Garrett, she’d driven the mountain highway herself, screeching around the hairpin curves in the white Lexus Burke had given her. This couldn’t be happening. Not to Burke. He was so strong, so vital. Surely she would arrive at the hospital to find him sitting up in bed, joking about the brief scare. They would collect his belongings and she would drive him home. Everything would be all right.

But it wasn’t all right. The truth struck Allison as soon as she caught sight of her husband through a maze of plastic tubes and blinking monitors in the ICU. There could be no going back. Burke’s life, and hers, would never be the same.

The polite young Indian doctor had tried to prepare her. Burke was semiconscious now, but he’d suffered a concussion and some spinal injuries, which would need surgery. It was too soon to know whether the damage would be permanent.

Allison walked toward the bed, feeling the liquid resistance of the air as if she were moving through water. Burke lay between blinding white sheets, the neck of the faded green hospital gown falling loose around his throat. An IV needle connected to a saline drip was taped to the back of his left hand. Above his head, monitors blinked and hummed like a committee of cold-eyed robots.

Struggling for self-control, she stood looking down at him. His sunken eyes were closed above the plastic oxygen mask. His skin was grayish and mottled with bruises. A white bandage wrapped his head. He looked worn-out, vulnerable, and wounded. The urge to bend down, gather him close, and rock him in her arms was so overwhelming that it brought a freshet of tears. How could she not have noticed the exhaustion, the strain in him? How could she have been so wrapped up in her glamorous new life as Mrs. Burke Caldwell that she’d allowed this to happen?