One Special Moment - Brenda Jackson [74]
“So what you think?” Mac asked as he came around to open the car door for her.
She turned to him and smiled. “I think I’ve come home.”
When Sterling’s plane landed in Jacksonville, Florida, prior arrangements had been made for him to be picked up and taken immediately to the hospital. As he sat in the chauffeur-driven car, he couldn’t help wondering what Nicholas Chenault’s reaction would be when he arrived unannounced.
He took a deep breath, wondering if he really should have come. Even now the thought occurred to him that it might be too late.
When the car pulled up in front of the hospital, he got out. He had spoken with the hospital officials from his jet. So that the hospital wouldn’t become a circus with his arrival, and to not tip off the media, arrangements had been made for hospital security personnel to meet his car. He was then taken up to the tenth floor by way of a special service elevator.
When Sterling stepped off the elevator he glanced around and immediately saw Nicholas Chenault talking to a man who appeared to be a doctor. Sterling recognized Nicholas because he favored Angeline. He had her light brown coloring and light-colored eyes.
Sterling knew that he, himself, was the spittin’ image of Chandler. It was strange how one woman could give birth to two sons and they looked nothing alike. If anything, the only similarity they shared was their towering height. No one would ever guess they were brothers unless they chose to reveal that fact.
As if he had felt someone studying him, Nicholas Chenault glanced his way. Their eyes met. A part of Sterling wanted to feel resentment for the fact that this man had shared a part of his mother’s life where he had not. He remembered how protectively she’d held Nicholas in her arms as a baby that day he had approached her and asked her to come home to him and his dad. Beginning that day, a part of him had resented the child she had preferred over him.
But not anymore.
Thanks to Colby, he’d been given food for thought. And plenty of it. She had been right. Nicholas Chenault had never done anything to him. And as he continued to look deep into his brother’s eyes, he no longer saw him as an adversary. Nor did he see him as the “other child” that had gotten his mother’s love when he had not. Instead, he saw a man in pain who faced the possibility of losing a parent he undoubtedly loved deeply.
Sterling sighed. Nicholas probably loved Angeline just as much as he loved Chandler. In that case, he was going through pure hell.
As if they both made an important decision at the same time, Sterling and Nicholas began walking toward one another. It was Nicholas who offered his hand first in a firm handshake.
“I’m glad you came, Sterling.”
Sterling relaxed when he felt the sincerity in Nicholas’s words. “Thanks for notifying me.”
Nicholas gave him a pained smile that was filled with warmth nonetheless. “She’s your mother, too.”
Sterling nodded, finally, after all these years, accepting Nicholas’s words. “How is she?”
“There hasn’t been any change. She’s holding her own, although she hasn’t come around since the surgery. Her doctor is afraid she may have slipped into a coma. I was just talking to him. You may be interested in what he has to say.”
Sterling followed Nicholas to where the doctor was standing. He wondered how Nicholas would make introductions.
He soon found out.
“Dr. Thorn, I’d like you to meet my brother, Sterling Hamilton, and we want to know everything that’s being done for our mother.”
Colby had fallen in love with Sterling’s home. The two-story house was large and spacious on the inside. It was apparent the house had been specially designed so that each one of the four bedrooms upstairs had a balcony that overlooked one of the many huge mountains. The sights were breathtaking.
Very nice, she thought as she settled into bed that night. The only thing missing was Sterling.
He had called earlier from the