Seconds to Live (Scarlet Falls #3)(14)

He signed in at the registration desk just as a young nurse locked the main door. She rounded the desk and sat down, her blond ponytail bobbing as she glanced up at him. “Visiting hours just ended.”

“I know. I’m here to see Colonel Barrett.” Official hours didn’t matter when death was imminent.

“Of course,” she said with sympathy. “Do you need me to show you to his room?”

“No. I know the way.” And Mac didn’t want any company.

At least he was still alive.

In the hallway, commercial gray carpet silenced his trail runners. Open doors along the corridor made him feel as if he was intruding on the patients’ privacy, so he kept his eyes forward as he walked. Next to his father’s room, he stopped for a breath before poking his head through the doorway.

Grant and Hannah were on either side of the bed, each holding one of the Colonel’s hands. At the foot of the bed, Grant’s fiancée, Ellie, and Hannah’s cop boyfriend, Brody, stood in silent support.

“I’m sorry, Mac. He passed about ten minutes ago.” Grant gently placed the Colonel’s thin, veiny hand on the white sheet. Then he moved toward his brother.

Emotions steamrolled Mac. They hit him hard and fast and in such great variety he couldn’t distinguish disappointment from sorrow from relief. He backed out of the room. What did it matter? He hadn’t been here very often for the Colonel during his two-year stay at the nursing home.

Grant followed him into the hallway. “We’ll give you some privacy if you want to say good-bye.”

“No point now, is there?”

“Mac, don’t beat yourself up,” Grant said. “He’s been unconscious for days. He didn’t know who was here and who wasn’t.”

“But I do.”

“Just go in and see him. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.”

Mac knew his brother was right. He nodded.

Grant herded him into the room and cleared everyone else out.

Hannah gave him a quick hug on her way to the door. Her blond cap of hair was longer and softer-looking than he remembered. A stray lock fell across her eye, and she shook it off her forehead. “We’ll be in the hall if you need us.” Before she left the room, Brody had an arm around her shoulders. Ellie held Grant’s hand.

And Mac stood alone.

He gathered his courage and approached the bed. His father didn’t even look like the Colonel he remembered. His face was gaunt and gray, his body withered. Mac had no memories of his father before he’d been paralyzed, but mental images from his childhood still evoked strength. At his core, the Colonel was a warrior. When his legs had failed him, he’d specially rigged an ATV into a four-wheeled warhorse to charge through the woods with his kids. Nothing could stop the Colonel from battling his way through, over, or around the obstacles in his path. But Fate had battered him with relentless determination. The bitch hadn’t been satisfied until she’d shattered not just his body but his soul.

Mac reached out to touch his father’s hand. The physical contact felt alien. Nerve damage had left the Colonel in constant pain, a cruel irony considering his paralyzed state. Even if he’d been a demonstrative person, which he hadn’t, physical displays of affection had been impossible.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Mac whispered, his eyes traveling over his father’s sunken face and body. The Colonel would have hated people seeing him like this. Mac had no doubt that the Colonel would have preferred the roadside bomb had blown him to the grave in Operation Desert Storm rather than left him in bits and pieces. But it hadn’t been in his nature to quit, no matter how much misery he’d had to endure.

“I never quite measured up, did I? Maybe someday . . .” Mac’s next breath sliced his lungs like shards of glass. Ripping them to shreds from the inside out.

This was one of the reasons he avoided his hometown. It was easier to leave the trappings of his childhood behind than to relive them. Every time he returned to Scarlet Falls, he drowned in memories.

Mac turned toward the door. The quick movement sent a dizzying wave of agony through his injured side, but he plowed forward, using the white-hot pain as an anchor. Physical discomfort he could handle, which made him frighteningly like his father.

“Mac!” Grant came after him, grabbing hold of his shoulder.

“I’m OK. I just need some air.” Mac shrugged off his brother’s grip and bolted for the exit. Luckily, the door was only locked from the outside and it opened automatically to let him out. Rain drummed onto the pavement. The smell of death was embedded in his nostrils. Mac turned his face to the storm and breathed in its cleansing scent. His heart rate slowed, and his lungs relaxed. He looked back at the nursing home. Through the rain-streaked glass doors, he could see Grant waiting for him in the brightly lit lobby.

Like the Colonel, Grant was an imposing figure, and it wasn’t his size that intimidated Mac. Grant was as honorable as a man could be. Fifteen months ago, after their brother Lee had been murdered, Grant had left his military career to raise Lee’s two young children. Grant had also inherited their father’s determination, and it was damned hard to refuse him any request. Grant wanted to fold his wayward brother back into the family, but Mac wasn’t ready to make any commitments.

His chest constricted and panic clawed at his throat like a beast at a cage door. He couldn’t go back in there. Grant would never let him go if he did.