C.J. Carmichael - Small-Town Girl

Julie froze, certain she hadn’t heard correctly. “Russell?”

“I know how much you love Vancouver, love this house. And you’ve done a beautiful job with it. But we’re in a rut.”

“Russell, this house is perfect—and I’m not talking about the bloody furniture or the color on the walls, for heaven’s sake. We’re close to Ben’s school, and his friends…. And what about the ten thousand we just spent on landscaping?”

She considered Russell’s long commute to work. “Do you want to move closer to the university? Is that it?”

“No. Farther. Much farther.” Russell cleared the plates from the table and rinsed them for the dishwasher.

Julie sat, waiting for him to tell her exactly what he had in mind. Finally he returned to the table. Gripping the back of the chair, he took a fortifying breath.

“I’ve been tossing the idea around for years now. Ben’s accident is only the catalyst.”

Cold dread pinned Julie to her chair. Years, Russell had said. Yet he’d never even hinted he wasn’t happy living here.

Then he added, “I’d like us to move back to the farm town I grew up in….”

Dear Reader,

We’ve all suffered personal tragedies, the sort that can turn your entire world upside down. You see people walking to work, stopping for coffee, mailing a letter, and wonder, Why are they bothering? Don’t they realize how unimportant it all is?

That’s how I felt as a young teenager when my brother was seriously injured in a farming accident. With my other brother and two sisters, I sat in front of the TV at my grandma’s house while my parents waited at the hospital. Disney was playing—it must have been a Sunday night. I remember staring at the set and wondering how Donald Duck could be up to his usual antics when my brother was so desperately hurt. I felt lost and scared. All I wanted was for life to go back to the way it had been that morning at breakfast, before any of the men had gone out to the fields.

In Small-Town Girl, that’s how Julie Matthew feels, too, when her son is gravely injured by a drunk driver. She wishes she could turn back the clock to the moment her phone rang that morning. She wishes she could change the answer she’d given, the decision she’d made so quickly.

But of course she can’t. And so our story begins….

C.J. Carmichael

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For around-the-clock advice (mostly pertaining to my stories) I thank my brother-in-law, Dr. Gordon Bird

For my brother David

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

AT THE TIME, THE MEETING had seemed very important to Julie Matthew, senior editor of West Coast Homes. She frowned when the magazine’s administrative assistant opened the boardroom door and beckoned to her.

“I’m rather busy, Gina.” She’d just put up her first overhead on projected advertising revenue. “I don’t suppose this could wait?”

Gina shook her head, her expression grim.

“Well, then.” Julie sighed, then smiled apologetically at the familiar faces, including those of the publisher and managing editor. Her felt marker still in her hand, she strode out of the room, closing the door behind her. “This had better be—”

Without a word, Gina handed her the phone, her eyes huge in what was, Julie noticed, a very pale face. What was wrong? Julie took the receiver in her left hand and clenched the marker in her other.

Russell was due home from Saltspring Island today. He’d taken some papers to mark in the peace of their seaside cottage. Had there been a problem with the shuttle plane as it sprinted across the Strait of Georgia to Vancouver Harbor? Oh, God, please no…

“Julie Matthew speaking.”

A stranger asked, “Are you Ben Matthew’s mother?”

Ben. It was Ben. Julie leaned against the wall, her knees suddenly undependable. “Yes” was all she could say.

“I’m sorry. Your son was in an accident. The ambulance brought him here, to the General Hospital.”

No! She didn’t actually scream—at least, she didn’t think so. She tried to ask what had happened, where to go, how he was. But her brain was stuck in a loop. Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben…

It wasn’t her husband. It was Ben, her nine-year-old son.

JULIE TOOK A TAXI from her office to the hospital. Gina had ordered the cab for her, and had promised to get hold of Russell, too. Julie should have been the one to tell her husband. But when she’d held her cell phone she couldn’t direct her shaking fingers to the familiar numbers.

Julie managed to pay the driver, get out of the car and shut the door. Now that she was here at the hospital, her heart began to slam against her chest. The red letters spelling out Emergency seemed ominous, almost evil. A deep breath didn’t help much but gave her the strength to head for the reception desk.

“Julie.”

She froze, taking in the face of her husband, who had somehow beat her here. He had the shell-shocked expression of a casualty victim on the cover of Life.

“I can’t believe this….” He offered his open arms and for a moment she gave in to the relief of his strong embrace.

“How did you get here so fast?”

“Gina called me on my way home from the harbor.”

It didn’t matter. Only one thing mattered.

“Where is he?”

“I haven’t seen him yet. They tell me it’s—it’s a head injury. He was unconscious when they brought him in. I think he still is.”

COMA. MANY TIMES JULIE had read books, watched movies, where characters were described in this state. Now she discovered she didn’t really know what the term meant. Dr. Assad, Ben’s neurologist, tried to explain.

“When you see him, he’ll appear as if he’s asleep. But Ben isn’t responding to outside stimuli the way a sleeping person would.”

“But…he will wake up…he’ll be okay?” Russell asked the question Julie didn’t dare voice.

“The CAT scan showed small amounts of bleeding. We won’t know the extent of his injury for a couple of days.”

Julie still couldn’t frame a question or even a comment. This couldn’t be happening to them. Yet there was no doubting the reality of the clean-cut, earnest physician in front of her.

“I wish I had definitive answers for you,” Dr. Assad said. “I know the uncertainty is difficult. Where brain injuries are concerned, long-term predictions are difficult. I’m afraid we’ll have to take this one day at a time.”

“Can we see him, Doctor? Can we see Ben?” Russell asked.

The physician nodded. “We have him in our Fast Track area. Be prepared for a lot of activity. Also, don’t be alarmed by the tube down his throat and the monitor leads. We’re taking good care of your son.”

Julie followed the doctor, Russell’s guiding hand on her back. People, corridors, walls blended in a kaleidoscope of whites and grays and greens as she thought of Ben. All she wanted was the relief of seeing him. Of holding his hand.

At the entrance to the trauma area, Julie stopped dead. She barely noticed the half-dozen medical personnel or the equipment Dr. Assad had warned them about. For her, all the light in the room focused on one person only—her child, motionless on an operating table.