Orchard Valley Grooms Read Free Page B

fool your father. Norah talked to him shortly after you phoned from…where was it? Chicago? He knows you caught a flight out of New York. No one’s going to make him believe something more important came up that’s kept you from him.”
    “Steffie!” Valerie cried. “When Norah spoke to her, she said there was a transportation strike.”
    “Yes, but these are only stop-gap measures. Your father feels there’s nothing left to live for. He talks about your mother constantly, almost as though he’s waiting to join her. We need something concrete that’ll give him the will to fight, to hold on to life.”
    Again Valerie knew the doctor was right, but her confused brain was having trouble assimilating the most basic details, let alone a situation as complex as this.
    “He’s all we have,” she whispered despondently. “Surely he realizes that.”
    “Yes, but at the same time, he believes you have one another.”
    “We have nothing in common,” Valerie told him. “Steffie’s a crazy woman who flies off to Europe to study the Italian Renaissance, and Norah’s main goal inlife is to become another Clara Barton. We don’t even look alike.” Valerie was grasping at weak excuses, and she knew it. Anything she could think of to enlist Dr. Winston’s help in keeping her father alive…
    “That has nothing to do with me, Valerie,” he told her gently. “However, I’ll do everything I can to see that your father regains his health and lives to a ripe old age.”
    Blinking away tears, Valerie nodded, reminding herself once again that she was the oldest of David Bloomfield’s daughters. In a crisis everyone looked to her; she was the one who needed a cool, decisive head, who couldn’t let her emotions dictate her reactions.
    But it was different this time.
    The man in that hospital bed, barely holding on to life, was her father, the man she idolized and loved beyond reason. Her emotions were so close to the surface that the force of them frightened her.
    “I’d—I’d like to see him as soon as possible. Please.” She’d grovel if necessary. She had to be with her father. “I won’t make the least bit of noise, I promise.” She certainly didn’t want to disturb his rest. Somehow, though, she had to reassure herself that he was still alive. She’d never been more frightened.
    Dr. Winston hesitated. “Wait here, I’ll go and check on him.”
    He returned a few minutes later. “David’s awake and asking for you.”
    Valerie was so eager that she nearly vaulted out of the room, but Dr. Winston stopped her. “Before you goto your father, let me prepare you for what you’re going to see.” He spent the next five minutes explaining the different medical devices used to monitor his patient’s heart. He explained how the small electrodes on her father’s chest detected the electrical impulses that signal the heart’s activity. He warned her about the tubes going in and out of his body.
    But nothing he said could have prepared Valerie for what she saw. Her father was connected to a frightening number of tubes, machines and devices. His face was ashen, so pale and bloodless that his skin seemed iridescent. His eyes, which had always sparked with vitality, revealed no emotion, only a weariness that was soul-deep.
    “Oh, Daddy,” Valerie whispered, fighting tears. She locked her fingers around his hand, careful not to disturb the intravenous needle.
    “Valerie…so pleased you’re here…at last.”
    “Where else would I be?” she asked, managing a smile. With the back of her other hand, she brushed a tear from her cheek.
    “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” her father said, apparently talking to Dr. Winston, who hovered in the doorway. “Only…what did you do to your hair?”
    “Do you like it?” Valerie asked, rallying somewhat, surprised he’d even noticed that she’d changed the style. “I had it cut.” The new look was short and tousled.
    “She’s got the temper to go with that red