Harbor Street (Cedar Cove #5)(61)

“Olivia,” her best friend said when she answered. “I was almost out the door. You’re lucky you caught me.”

“Jack—heart attack.” The three words fought their way through the tightness in her throat.

“Where are you?”

“Home.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”

It was the longest five minutes of Olivia’s life. All she could think about was the day her son Jordan had drowned. She remembered what a lovely August afternoon it had been when the sheriff’s deputy came to the house. At first she didn’t believe him—didn’t want to believe him. Then she’d wanted her husband with her as quickly as possible.

The officer had called Stan, but her husband worked in Seattle. It took him nearly two hours to get home. Two hellish hours as the reality of their son’s death started to set in. Olivia remembered how she’d gathered Justine and James around her. The three of them had sobbed and clung to one another. Grace had been the first person Olivia had phoned that day, too. She’d come over and sat with her and the children until Stan arrived.

Olivia would never forget the wrenching ache in her stomach that horrible day in August and now she experienced it all over again. She didn’t know if Jack was dead or alive.

Jack hadn’t wanted to get on the treadmill. He’d tried every excuse, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Oh, no, she knew best and she wasn’t going to let him off. Then she remembered that he’d claimed he wasn’t feeling well. She’d insisted despite that. In fact, she’d badgered him into it.

Grace pulled up, and the moment Olivia saw her friend, she sprinted across the lawn, weeping and nearly hysterical.

“Get in,” Grace said. “We can talk on the way to the hospital.”

“I—I don’t think he made it,” she sobbed.

“We won’t know until we get there.”

Her dearest friend was the voice of reason, but Olivia was afraid to hope, afraid to believe that Jack would be given a second chance. Losing him now, so soon after finding love again, was unthinkable. Surely God wouldn’t be so cruel to her.

“Did they take him to Harrison?” Grace asked as she negotiated the curves on the winding road at well above the speed limit.

“I—no, the new medical clinic, I think.” All of a sudden she didn’t know. The Emergency Medical Technicians must have told her, but at that point she’d been beyond comprehension.

Sure enough, the aid car was parked outside the new Cedar Cove facility. Olivia hurried inside and to the front desk. “My husband is here—Jack Griffin.”

“Yes, Mrs. Griffin, the doctors are working on him now. If you’ll have a seat, they’ll be with you as soon as they can.”

“No,” Olivia argued. This woman didn’t seem to understand that the man behind those closed doors was her husband. Damn the rules and regulations! Jack could be dying and it was her right as his wife to be with him. In all the years she’d served as a family court judge, Olivia had never used her position for personal gain. In this instance, however, she didn’t care. She refused to remain silent.

“I’m a judge. And I need to be with my husband.”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t allow that.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, her voice raised and nearly hysterical. “I need to be with my husband!”

Grace stepped up to the counter and placed her arms around Olivia. “The doctors will be out shortly,” she said.

Olivia stood her ground. “I want to be with him.”

“You will be,” Grace promised in soothing tones.

“He needs me.”

“Right now he needs those doctors more. It won’t be long, Olivia.” Grace led her back to the waiting area and with only a token protest, Olivia sat down.

An eternity passed. Two eternities.

Charlotte and Ben arrived.

“Ben has a police scanner,” Charlotte explained. “When we heard the dispatcher say 16 Lighthouse Road, we knew it must be Jack.”

Charlotte sat next to her on one side, Grace on the other. Each held her hand.

When the physician finally emerged, Olivia saw that his name tag said Dr. Timmons. He walked over to her.

She stood, mentally preparing herself for the worst.

But Dr. Timmons gave her a reassuring smile. “We have him stabilized.”

“Thank God.” Her relief was so great she felt her knees buckle. Thankfully Grace was there to support her.

“He’s a fortunate man. Another five or ten minutes, and there would’ve been no saving him.”

Olivia stared at the physician blankly. “What do you mean?”

“Without the medical clinic here in Cedar Cove, your husband would have died on his way to the hospital.”

“Oh.” Olivia was only beginning to grasp the implications of what he was telling her.

Dr. Timmons continued. “We’ll need to transport him to Harrison Hospital, where he can be examined by a heart specialist.”

“Of course.”

“There’ll be some paperwork for you to sign before we do that.”

She nodded, and remembered how embarrassed she’d been when her mother and Ben and their friends from the Senior Center had been arrested for unlawful assembly after demonstrating for a medical clinic.