The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [144]
“But I want Janine to know what you did,” Paula said. “To know that you saved Lucas’s life. That you’re the most incredible man on earth. That you sacrificed—”
“Paula,” he said, interrupting her.
“What?”
He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “I don’t need her to know any of those things,” he said. “It’s not Janine’s opinion that matters to me anymore.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
They finally let Janine into Lucas’s hospital room. She walked in quietly, not wanting to wake him if he was still asleep. He lay in the bed, hooked up to a couple of monitors and an IV, and he looked pale and pained, but his eyes were open, and he smiled when he saw her.
“Hello,” he said. “You found me.”
She leaned over to kiss his temple. “Not only did I find you,” she said. “I also found Sophie.”
His mouth fell open.
“She’s safe,” she added hurriedly. “She’s going to be all right.”
He didn’t seem to know what to say. “Have I died and gone to heaven?” he asked. “Or is this just a dream?”
“Neither.” She pulled a chair close to his bed and sat down. “It’s a very long and quite amazing story,” she said, knowing there was too much to tell him just then. “She was staying in the log cabin.”
“The one we saw from the—”
“Right.”
“You had a feeling,” he said.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s here in the pediatric unit. They transferred her here this morning from a hospital in West Virginia.”
“I can’t wait to see her,” Lucas said. He shook his head in disbelief. “This is too wonderful.”
She saw his eyes begin to tear, and she handed him a tissue from the box on the nightstand. It was a moment before he could speak again.
“Oh, Jan,” he said, “I’m so glad for you. And for Joe.”
“Joe doesn’t know yet,” Janine said. “I can’t reach him. Paula said he went off on some retreat or something, and he doesn’t even have his cell phone with him. Isn’t that weird?”
Lucas smiled. “A retreat, huh?” he asked.
She nodded. “Doesn’t really sound like Joe, does it?”
Lucas’s smile turned to a grin. “Oh, Joe might surprise you,” he said. Then he reached out his arm, wrapping his hand around her wrist, tugging her toward him.
“Come closer to me, sweetheart,” he said. “I have so much I want to tell you.”
EPILOGUE
One year later
The waiting room in the hospital was chilly, and Janine slipped into the sweater she’d brought with her.
“Why do they have the air-conditioning turned up so cold?” her mother asked. “Don’t they know there are sick people in a hospital?” She was sitting a few seats away from Janine, a magazine in her hands, but Janine knew she hadn’t turned a page for at least the past hour. Her father was just as distracted. He had one of his Civil War books with him, but his eyes were glued to the double doors at one end of the waiting room rather than to the pages in front of him.
“I don’t know, Mom,” Janine said. “Would you like to borrow my sweater?”
“No, thanks,” her mother said. “I’ll get another cup of tea if we don’t hear anything soon.”
Sophie suddenly ran into the waiting room from the corridor, a few steps ahead of Lucas, who was walking more carefully, balancing two cups of coffee in his hands. Sophie carried a can of Coke, and she plunked down in the seat next to Janine.
“No news yet?” she asked, and Janine was reminded of all the times that question had been on everyone’s lips a year earlier, when Sophie had been lost in the woods.
“Not yet,” Janine said, as she took one of the cups of coffee from Lucas. She smiled up at him. “Thanks,” she said.
“Donna? Frank?” Lucas asked her parents. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything?”
“Nothing, thank you,” her father said.
“Nothing, unless you can get some warm air into this room.” Her mother was still a complainer, and Janine guessed she always would be, but she treated Lucas—and Janine—with kindness these days. It was Joe who had brought about that change in her parents. He’d pointed out that they would no longer have their granddaughter had it not been for Lucas’s secretiveness and Janine’s rebellious tenacity. Somehow, Joe’s words