A Love Worth Waiting For

“Everyone gets sick now and then.” With the way she bit her lip, she looked as if she was trying not to laugh. “Fine, have it your way. Come with me. I’m feeling sick.”

Well, if she was feeling ill, he’d go along with her. “Maybe you need some fresh air, too.”

“How did you know?” She was teasing him now, and he wasn’t sure if he liked it. Miss Julie Renton seemed far too sure of herself as she hauled him out the back door and into a dark room.

“I’ll be right back,” she promised like the angel she was, disappearing through the door, leaving him alone.

The tightness in his chest was worse. Much worse. He just had to breathe deep. Relax. This was stress, that was all. It had to be. He was too young to have a heart attack, right?

Blade-sharp pain sliced from back to front, leaving him panting. He tugged loose his tie and popped the top buttons on his shirt. This is only stress. Just a lot of stress. So that meant he could will the pain away….

The door swung open, and warm air spilled across him where he sat on the concrete floor, clutching his chest. He saw Julie’s eyes widen and the shock on her face, then the door slammed shut, leaving them alone in the empty room.

She sank to the step next to him and pressed a plastic cup in his hands. “You’re not looking so good.”

“Then I’m looking better than I feel.” The punch was sweet and cold. It tasted great, but didn’t do a thing for the pain in his chest. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. It hurt to do anything. He set the cup on the step behind him.

“I’m going to go fetch Dr. Corey.” Julie’s touch on his shoulder felt like a rare comfort. One he wouldn’t mind hanging on to.

“No doctor.” He cut off a groan of pain. Sweat broke out on his face. “This isn’t anything.”

“Sure, you mean, the way a heart attack isn’t anything?” She slipped the tie from beneath his collar. “Let’s get you lying down.”

He caught her by the wrist, holding her tightly so she would understand. “I’m not having a heart attack.”

“If you want to stay in denial, fine.” She pulled a worn blanket from a nearby shelf. “There’s a doctor on the other side of that door. I won’t be gone a minute.”

“Don’t leave, Julie. It’s not a heart attack.” At least, he thought it wasn’t. “It’s some kind of stress thing. I’ve already been to the emergency room over this.”

“Same symptoms?”

He nodded, pain hitting him like a sledgehammer. It left him helpless, struggling to breathe. He hated this.

Julie’s cool fingers pressed the inside of his wrist. “You swear that you’re not going to die on me?”

“Didn’t last time.”

“Great. That’s comforting.” She shook the blanket out and draped it over his shoulders. “I’ll go get your grandmother.”

“Don’t tell Nanna.” He choked on the words. The air in his lungs turned to fire. He couldn’t say anything more. He couldn’t tell her how important this was. To keep this secret from his grandmother. Please, he silently begged.

“What am I going to do with you if you have a heart attack on me?” She said it as though he was bothering her, but he could see the fear tight at her mouth. The worry furrowed lines into her forehead. “I should go get the doctor, call the ambulance and make them wheel you out of here.”

“That would ruin my grandmother’s party.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t see it that way.”

“I don’t care. You’re not calling anyone.” More pain spliced through his chest. He leaned his forehead on his knees. His palms felt clammy. Just like last time.

He flashed back to last week. To being trapped in the emergency room, the monitors beeping, voices above him blurring, the ceiling tiles too bright and his fears too enormous.

The same fears whipped through him now. “Please.”

What was she going to do? Julie knew she had to get him help. How could she go against his wishes? She understood exactly how important his grandmother was to him. “Can you make it to the parking lot?”

“I will make it.” His hand found hers and squeezed.

She felt the need in his touch. Strong and stark, as if he had no one else to turn to. Maybe he wasn’t used to relying on others.

She knew how that felt.

She helped him up. When he couldn’t straighten, she almost pushed him back down. He needed a doctor. Now, not later. But he took one limping step out of her reach. He was one determined man. His back was slightly stooped and his shoulders slouched from the pain. His face was ash-gray.

The poor man. Julie grabbed the heavy back door before he could, and pushed it open. The wind roared in, snatching the blanket from his shoulders.

She caught hold of the wool and smoothed it back into place. A fierce desire took root in her heart, one she didn’t understand. She needed to take care of him, to make sure he came through this all right. She’d give Misty or Susan a call and ask them to take care of things. The party would go on just fine.

All that mattered was this man at her side. The one who seemed so alone.

She knew how that felt, too.

Noah swore hours had passed, but he’d been watching the clock on the pickup’s dash so he knew it was exactly seventeen minutes later when Julie pulled into the well-lit driveway. The red flash of ambulance lights glowed eerily in the snowfall. Pain seized him up so tight he could only breathe in little puffs.

Noah was dimly aware of a cold gust of air when she opened the door. She called out to someone by name, and the next thing he knew he was being hauled from the passenger seat and laid on a gurney.

He searched for Julie, but couldn’t find her. Strangers’ faces stared down at him as the world around him blurred and the gurney bumped over the concrete and through the electric doors. The ceiling tiles flashed above him like lines on a highway.

I don’t want to be here. I’ll do anything, Lord, if I can come out of this all right. I’ll work less. I’ll eat better. I’ll take a vacation. I’ll listen to my sister. I’ll do everything my grandmother says. Just get me through this.

He knew he was bargaining. Pain roared like an erupting volcano in his chest, and he didn’t know what else to do. He only wanted the pain to stop.

More strangers crowded around him. A needle pricked his arm. Cables tugged at the skin on his chest. Monitors beeped too fast, or it sounded that way. He worried about that, too.

We need to run some tests, the doctor back home had told him. But there had been meetings that couldn’t be delayed, deadlines that had to be met and a business to tend to.

It was easy to put off a few tests, because a lot of people depended on him for their jobs. Jobs that made their lives better. That was important, and the attack he’d had was due to stress, so it was nothing to worry about.

Now he wasn’t so certain.

As the people worked around him, grim and efficient, he had to admit it. Something was wrong. He couldn’t deny it any longer.

“Your EKG looks good.” The doctor jotted something down on a clipboard. “We need a few tests.”

Relief left him feeling numb. That meant it wasn’t a heart attack, right? He’d been fairly certain it wasn’t—it hadn’t been last time. But the pain had been so fierce, he’d started to wonder. It was probably just stress again. He would stop working on weekends maybe and get more exercise. That ought to take care of it, right?

A light tap of heeled shoes sounded on the tile floor near the door. Julie? He hoped so. This place was feeling lonely, and he wouldn’t mind seeing a familiar face.

The shoes hesitated on the other side of the blue curtain, then a chair rasped against the floor. “Sarah,” a stranger’s voice said to someone else on the other side of the curtain on the other bed.