Chapter 22

Clare was worse in the morning. When Aidan woke up, he could hear her wheezing in her sleep. He took her temperature with an ear thermometer and was alarmed when it reached 104.5. “Shit!” He jumped off the bed to find the phone.

He dialed the number in Rhode Island that Jill had given him yesterday. Dr. Langston’s answering service took a message and promised he would return the call within an hour. When the phone rang twenty minutes later, Aidan pounced on it.

“This is Dr. Paul Langston. I got your message, Mr. O’Malley. You’re with Clare Harrington?”

Aidan appreciated the sense of urgency in the doctor’s voice. “Yes, I’m a friend of hers in Vermont. I think she has pneumonia.”

“What are her symptoms?”

Aidan rattled off the list and provided her latest temperature.

“Are you a doctor?”

Aidan took a deep breath. “I’m an MD.” He hadn’t said those words in ten years. “But I don’t practice. If you could call something in up here, I could administer it IM.”

“Give me the pharmacy number. I’ll call in a script for penicillin right now and order the syringes for you so we can get it into her faster.”

Swamped with relief, Aidan gave the doctor the pharmacy phone number. “Thank you.”

“Do you know her history?”

“Yes. She didn’t want to be in the hospital.”

“I want you to promise me you’ll get her admitted somewhere if she gets any worse.”

“I will.”

“She’s more than a patient to me. She’s a friend. Take good care of her.”

“She’s more than a friend to me. Don’t worry.” He hung up with the doctor and called Bea. She agreed to go to the pharmacy for him, so he wouldn’t have to leave Clare alone.

“Hurry, Bea.”

Clare was floating. The pounding in her head and the throbbing in her chest seemed far away. She dreamed Bea was there and Aidan was giving her a shot, but she couldn’t make herself wake up, even when she felt someone trying to get some water into her.

So hot! Have I ever been so hot? She thrashed at the covers, trying to get out from underneath their heaviness. A nagging worry in the back of her mind kept her from falling back to sleep. What if she didn’t wake up? It had happened before. Could it happen again? Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she fought the blackness.

She must have dozed off. Where was Jack? Was that his voice she heard?

“Clare, honey, wake up.”