Cattail Ridge (22 page)

Emma stared at him with a look akin to horror. She started slowly shaking her head and rose to her feet. “No. Archer, no. Don’t say that.” She put the couch between them as though afraid he was going to attack her.

When Candace had shot him Archer thought the betrayal would cut him in half. He had known the marriage was in trouble but until that moment hadn’t known how bad it truly was. That pain was nothing compared to what he was experiencing now.

Emma didn’t trust him. That was clear. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, and without trust every dream he’d had crumbled to the ground in a pile of ashes.

Still he had to try. “Emma, you can’t be that surprised. Hell, everyone in your whole family knows how I feel. How is it that you can’t see me?”

Her arms were wrapped around her body and her hand was pressing against her mouth. Tears filled her eyes and started to spill over. “You don’t. You can’t. And I can’t take the chance, because as nice as you are, you won’t stay. I’ll mess things up, and you won’t stay.”

They both jumped when the phone rang. There was utter silence between the loud trilling as they stared at each other across the living room. The machine picked the call up and Amelia’s voice sounded.

“Em? Are you there? I need you to pick up if you are. Sydney’s sick.”

With a hand shaking so badly she could barely answer the phone, Emma grabbed the receiver. “Pip?”

Archer shoved his hands through his hair, pulling hard as he walked to the window that looked out over the street. His heart was being ripped out of his chest and he wanted to lick his wounds in private, but he needed to hold on until he was sure Sydney was okay. Emma’s half sob told him she wasn’t.

“Okay, I’ll meet them at the hospital.” She hung up as he was swinging around and dashed to the hall. She grabbed her purse and started rummaging through it frantically. “I have to go. Amelia says they think it’s her appendix. Where are my keys?”

“Emma, I’ll drive you.”

She ignored him, cursing as she searched the bag for her keys. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I never should have left her. I never should have gone out. This is my fault. Where the hell are the fucking keys?”

“Emma! Snap out of it.” Archer’s sharp command got her attention and some of her tears turned to fury.

“Snap out of it? My daughter could be dying and you want me to snap out of it? This from the man who wants to be her father?”

If he’d been standing closer, she would have hit him. He knew that much. But he also knew that if he let her drive right now he might as well sign her death warrant.

He enunciated his words carefully, firmly. “I will drive you. Let’s go.” He went to the door and when he opened it, saw her keys hanging in the lock. Once she was on the front porch he locked the door and pocketed them. He was afraid if he gave them to her now she’d try to get in her car.

They didn’t say a word on the drive over. Archer couldn’t so much as look in her direction to see how she was faring. Instead of comforting each other, they had torn each other apart. And he didn’t see any way they’d be able to fix what was broken.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

E
mma saw Owen and Sarah pull up to the Emergency Room entrance just ahead of them. She was out of the truck almost before Archer had it stopped and at the car an instant later.

“Sydney!”

Sarah was holding her in the backseat and from the stench that hit her as she opened the door, Emma surmised that Sydney had thrown up.

“Mom, how is she?”

“Not great. Stand back so we can get out.” Sarah edged out, Sydney still in her arms. The little girl was listless, whimpering when she saw Emma. Owen had come around and he put his hands on Emma’s shoulders to move her back. She jerked away.

“Don’t.” She slid her arms around Sydney, ignoring the mess of the vomit, and cradled her close. “I’m here, sweetheart. I’m here. I’m so sorry, Sydney. We’ll make you better, I promise.” She turned and hurried into the ER where a nurse was waiting.

“Is that Sydney?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Come with me. Dr. Browning called and told us to expect you,” she explained as they walked into the department. “She’ll be in here in a few minutes.”

The next little bit was nerve-racking, to say the least. The nurse gave Emma a gown to get Sydney changed into. As she washed up at the sink, Sarah told them what had happened.

“She just started crying and got sick. Said her side hurt, and she was hot to the touch.”

Michelle came in then and while she examined Sydney, Sarah ushered Emma over to the sink to wash her hands.

“How did this happen? How did I miss this?” Emma asked over her shoulder.

“You didn’t,” Michelle said calmly. “How bad does it hurt, sweetie? And where?”

Sydney answered, her voice weak, “Here. And it hurts bad. I was sick last week and Archer stayed with me the whole time. Where is he, Mommy? I want Archer. He’ll make it stop hurting.”

Michelle glanced at her. “I saw him in the waiting room. Want Lorene to get him?”

Emma wanted to say no but Sydney had asked. She gave a single nod instead, and the nurse left. “So what happens now?”

“Now we get this little lady prepped for surgery.”

Archer came in with the nurse and Sydney stretched her arms up for him. He didn’t hesitate, just picked her up and held her. “Hey, baby girl. How are you feeling?”

“My tummy’s upset. It hurts. Make it stop, Archer.” She cried weakly, and he sat down on the edge of the bed. He looked to Michelle, ignoring Emma completely.

“What do I do?”

“Just hold her. We’ll get an IV started and some lab work going. The surgeon should be here by then.”

Archer held Sydney the whole time, keeping her attention away from the needles. Emma ached to have her daughter in her arms but Sydney was calm, and she knew tearing her away from him would be a petty move.

Michelle brought Sarah a clean scrub top to change into, and they gave Emma paperwork to fill out as the surgeon arrived. He went over the procedure with them and with Emma’s permission granted, they gave Sydney a sedative to get her prep started.

“Mom and Dad can go back with her, to the recovery room. We’ll wait there until the OR itself is ready.” The surgeon laid his hand on Archer’s shoulder before he left. “See you in a few minutes.”

Archer kissed Sydney’s forehead and whispered something in her ear. She nodded sleepily and he stood, placing her in the bed.

“Love you,” she whispered.

“I love you, too. See you soon.” Without a word to anyone else he turned and left.

Emma felt the weight of her cousin’s stare but she ignored it and went to Sydney. She’d turned onto her side, her legs curled up, and was whimpering a little, even through the sedation. Seeing her daughter in such pain, unable to help, made her want to kill someone.

Before she had a chance to catch her breath they were taking Sydney back. Emma collapsed into a chair a few minutes later when they wheeled her away to the OR, and Sarah, now in the clean shirt, crouched down beside her.

“She’s going to be okay. You have to believe that.”

“What if she isn’t? How many more miracles can we expect, Mom? What if I lose her?”

Sarah brushed Emma’s hair back from her face. “You will not lose her. I refuse to even entertain the idea. You know John went through this when he was ten. Medicine has come a long way since then, and Michelle’s going to be right in there with her. Now let’s go to the waiting room. I know the men are getting antsy.”

The men. Archer. He was the last person Emma wanted to see right then. She couldn’t explain that to her mother, though. Not at the moment. Doing so required more concentration than she had.

Once again, a vigil was set up in the room where they’d so recently waited for word about Zanny’s fate. Amelia and Rachel were there, along with Jack, Gilly, and Burke. Owen and Archer were not in the room.

“They went for some air,” Amelia explained when Sarah asked about their absence.

That was fine with Emma. She couldn’t face him right now, face the hurt she’d inflicted on him.

The atmosphere in the waiting room was tense as the time wore on. The surgeon had told them to expect the procedure to take an hour, ninety minutes. Emma kept watch on the wall clock, whose hands moved so slowly she almost got up and slapped it to make sure it was working.

“Where in the world are your father and Archer?” Sarah asked about thirty minutes in. “I think I’ll go look for them.”

Emma didn’t say anything, not when Sarah left, not when Amelia took her spot. All she could do was hold very still and pray that she got her daughter back, healthy and whole. At this point everything else was incidental. She wouldn’t let herself think otherwise.

Sarah found Owen and Archer down the hall in a quiet room adjacent to the nurse’s station. She tapped on the door to get their attention.

“Hey. Why aren’t you guys in the main room with the rest of us?”

“This, uh, was a little more comfortable for us,” Owen answered, his face implacable. “How’s Em?”

“Ready to shatter. We should know something soon, hopefully.” She wasn’t sure what was going on but something was. “Can you walk with me, Owen? I need to stretch my legs.”

“Sure. I’ll be back. Archer, need anything?”

The younger man shook his head. He didn’t raise his gaze from the floor. “Thanks.”

Owen steered her into the stairwell. As soon as the door closed behind them, Sarah was in his arms.

“She’ll be okay. She has to be okay,” he whispered into her hair. “Doesn’t she?”

“I think so. I hope so. God, Owen, how much more can we take?”

His breath hitched on a laugh that was closer to tears than humor. “I don’t know. Sarah, it’s not just Sydney. Emma and Archer had some kind of fight. He’s dying from the inside out. Did she say anything?”

Sarah pulled back and wiped her eyes. “No. She was acting a little standoffish, but you know how she internalizes everything. I figured that’s all it was.”

He shook his head. “It isn’t. He wouldn’t tell me anything, other than Emma didn’t want him here, and that he wasn’t leaving but he would stay out of her way.”

The implications of Emma and Archer fighting were too painful to even think about. If they weren’t together now, during this awful time, whatever had separated them had to be tremendous.

“What do we do?”

Owen slid his hands down her arms to capture her fingers with his. “Pray. That’s all we can do. And be here for them, whatever it turns out has happened. Hopefully, it’s just a misunderstanding.”

Sarah knew he was right but that didn’t mean she had to like it. “Let’s go back to our babies. And if God is listening, a break in all this tragedy and trial would surely be appreciated.”

She just hoped he
was
listening.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

U
nlike Emma, Archer wasn’t watching the clock. He knew better. If the time he’d spent at the hospital with Logan had taught him anything, it was that watching a clock tick seconds away was a quick road to insanity.

Instead he kept replaying Emma’s reaction from earlier that evening. He’d blindsided her, which said more about her expectations of their relationship than he wanted to know. He didn’t think he’d been unclear as to his intentions in the past, but apparently he had.

When he’d come out of the emergency room after seeing Sydney he’d hit the glass doors going outside so hard, they’d rattled. Owen, who had been pacing outside the emergency department, was fast on his heels. Even so, Emma’s father hadn’t caught up to him until he was at the top of the hill behind the hospital, bent double and retching in someone’s sculpted flower bed.

Archer let Owen guide him to a low stone wall and they sat down.

“Want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked after Archer had caught his breath.

“Not particularly.”

“Okay.”

His patience got to Archer. “Emma doesn’t want me here. But I can’t leave until Sydney’s okay. I’ll stay out of her way, but please don’t make me leave.” He hated begging but being available to Sydney was worth more than his pride.

“Unless Emma tells me you abused her somehow, I’ll do what I can to make sure you’re able to stay. Let’s get back down there in case they need us.”

And they’d said little more as they waited.

When Sarah found them Archer could tell she was concerned about their absence from the main waiting room, but right then being in the same room with Emma was beyond his abilities. He was grateful to Owen for not leaving him alone for the first leg of the waiting. He hadn’t expected the man to return after his walk with Sarah but he did. He brought two cups of hot coffee with him and wordlessly handed one to Archer.

“Thanks.”

Owen patted his shoulder before taking a seat. “John had appendicitis when he was ten. It was just like with Sydney–one minute fine, the next thing you know the child is screaming in pain. I’d hoped we would never have to go through that ever again.”

Archer understood the unstated message–John had recovered fully. The unwavering support from Owen gave him the courage to speak. “I told Emma I wanted to marry her.”