Jodi Thomas - Sunrise Crossing
Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Jodi Thomas - Sunrise Crossing» — ознакомительный отрывок электронной книги совершенно бесплатно, а после прочтения отрывка купить полную версию. В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: unrecognised, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.
- Название:Sunrise Crossing
- Автор:
- Жанр:
- Год:неизвестен
- ISBN:нет данных
- Рейтинг книги:3 / 5. Голосов: 1
-
Избранное:Добавить в избранное
- Отзывы:
-
Ваша оценка:
- 60
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Sunrise Crossing: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация
Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Sunrise Crossing»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.
Sunrise Crossing — читать онлайн ознакомительный отрывок
Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Sunrise Crossing», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.
Интервал:
Закладка:
“I’m so sorry.” Then he grinned. “I could give you a couple of my sisters. Ever since I got out of med school they think I’m their private dial a doc. They even call me to ask if TV shows get it right.”
“No, thanks. Keep your sisters.” She tried to smile.
“There are times when it’s good to have family around.” He said, “Would you like me to call someone for you? A close friend, maybe?”
She glanced up and read all she needed to know in the young man’s eyes. She was dying. He looked terrible just giving her the news. Maybe this was the first time he’d ever had to tell anyone that their days were numbered.
“How long do I have to hang around here?”
The doc checked her chart and didn’t meet her gaze as he said, “An hour, maybe two. When you come back, we’ll make you as comfortable here as we can but you’ll need—”
She didn’t give him time to list what she knew came next. She’d watched her only cousin go through bone cancer when they were in high school. First, there would be surgery on her leg. Then they wouldn’t get it all and she’d have chemo. Round after round until her hair and spirit disappeared. No, she wouldn’t do that. She’d take the end head-on.
The doctor broke into her thoughts. “We can give you shots in that left knee. It’ll make the pain less until—”
“Okay, I’ll come back when I need it,” she said, not wanting to give him time to talk about how she might lose her leg or her life. If she let him say the word cancer, she feared she might start screaming and never stop.
She knew she limped when she was tired and her knee sometimes buckled on her. Her back already hurt, and her whole left leg felt weak sometimes. The cancer must be spreading; she’d known it was there for months, but she’d kept putting off getting a checkup. Now she knew it would only get worse. More pain. More drugs, until it finally traveled to her brain. Maybe the doctor didn’t want her to hang around and suffer? Maybe the shots would knock her out. She’d feel nothing until the very end. She’d just wait for death as her cousin had. She’d visited him every day. Watching him grow weaker, watching the staff grow sadder.
Hanging around had never been her way, and it wouldn’t be now.
A nurse in scrubs that were two sizes too small rushed into the room and whispered, loud enough for Parker to hear, “We’ve got an emergency, Doctor. Three ambulances are bringing injured in from a bad wreck. Pileup on I-35. Can you break away to help?”
The doctor flipped the chart closed. “No problem. We’re finished here.” He nodded to Parker. “We’ll have time to talk later, Miss Parker. You’ve got a few options.”
She nodded back, not wanting to hear the details anyway. What did it matter? He didn’t have to say the word cancer for her to know what was wrong.
He was gone in a blink.
The nurse’s face molded into a caring mask. “What can I do to make you more comfortable? You don’t need to worry, dear. I’ve helped a great many people go through this.”
“You can hand me my clothes,” Parker said as she slid off the bed. “Then you can help me leave.” She was used to giving orders. She’d been doing it since she’d opened her art gallery fifteen years ago. She’d been twenty-two and thought she had forever to live.
“Oh, but...” The nurse’s eyes widened as if she were a hen and one of her chickens was escaping the coop.
“No buts. I have to leave now.” Parker raised her eyebrow silently, daring the nurse to question her.
Parker stripped off the hospital gown and climbed into the tailored suit she’d arrived in before dawn. The teal silk blouse and cream-colored jacket of polished wool felt wonderful against her skin compared with the rough cotton gown. Like a chameleon changing color, she shifted from patient to tall, in-control businesswoman.
The nurse began to panic again. “Is someone picking you up? Were you discharged? Has the paperwork already been completed?”
“No to the first question. I drove myself here and I’ll drive myself away. And yes, I was discharged.” Parker tossed her things into the huge Coach bag she’d brought in. If her days were now limited, she wanted to make every one count. “I have to do something very important. I’ve no time to mess with paperwork. Mail the forms to me.”
Parker walked out while the nurse went for a wheelchair. Her mind checked off the things she had to do as her high heels clicked against the hallway tiles. It would take a week to get her office in order. She wanted the gallery to run smoothly while she was gone.
She planned to help a friend, see the colors of life and have an adventure. Then, when she passed, she would have lived, if only for a few months.
After climbing into her special-edition Jaguar, she gunned the engine. She didn’t plan to heed any speed-limit signs. Caution was no longer in her vocabulary.
The ache in her leg whispered through her body when she bent her knee, but Parker ignored it. No one had told her what to do since she entered college and no one, not even Dr. Brown, would set rules now.
CHAPTER THREE
Crossroads, Texas
YANCY GREY WALKED the midnight streets, barely noticing where he was going or caring that winter’s breath still circled in the breeze.
Today was his birthday. Or at least he thought it was. His mother’s memory had been smothered with pills most of his childhood. She’d told him she’d filled out the birth certificate a week or so after he’d been born when she’d finally healed and sobered enough to walk to the clinic in Crossroads, Texas.
When Yancy had run away at fourteen, he doubted she’d noticed. She’d never celebrated his birth, and after he left, he continued the nontradition through his wandering teen years and his early twenties, which he’d spent in prison. And now, he thought, during his calm years in Texas.
He was alone at thirty-two and wise enough to realize that it wasn’t a bad place to be. The old folks at the Evening Shadows Retirement Community, where he worked, would have thrown him a birthday party if they’d known, but they were all tucked in their beds by dark. They counted away what was left of their lives, but Yancy wanted to count forward.
He’d been with the retired teachers for seven years now, repairing their homes, managing the twenty-cottage complex that had started as an eight-bungalow motel set in a town where two highways crossed. The school system had originally bought the old motel, hoping to offer small homes to new teachers, but those retiring from teaching had wanted to stay in town and together.
Yancy drove the old residents to the doctor and picked up their prescriptions. He cared about and for them. He repaired everything around the place and built a new cottage now and then when a single teacher needed a place to live out his or her days in peace.
In return, they all loved him and tried to pass down their wisdom. Cap taught him carpentry and plumbing, and Miss Bees had taught him to cook. Leo was a wizard with money and had him investing, and Mrs. Abernathy had even tried to teach him to play the piano. No matter what project he took on, Yancy knew there would be someone waiting to advise him on every detail.
Yancy sometimes thought he’d gone from high school to grad school in the years he’d been employed by the teachers. They were a wealth of knowledge, and he was a ready pupil.
But when it came to women, nothing they said worked. He hadn’t had a date in months, and the two he’d had last year had convinced him that being single wasn’t so bad. There seemed to be no family for him, past or future. No girl wanted to be seen with an ex-con, handyman, drifter, no matter how nice he was or how much her grandmother bragged about him.
Читать дальшеИнтервал:
Закладка:
Похожие книги на «Sunrise Crossing»
Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Sunrise Crossing» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.
Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Sunrise Crossing» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.