Laire and Kyrstin called a taxi service from Hatteras and paid a hefty fee to be driven up the coast. It only occurred to Laire as they pulled away from the health center that she could have called Erik and asked him to drive them. But, for the first time since meeting him, the thought of Erik didn’t fill her with warmth or excitement or happy tingles. She felt desperately sad and confused as she stared out the taxi window thinking about him, some significant part of her blaming him for what had happened to her father. If she and Erik had been more responsible, if they’d been able to stay away from each other, if he hadn’t pursued her so damned doggedly in the beginning, this never would have happened.
So quickly, the magical, secret world she and Erik had built all summer had been toppled—tarnished beyond recognition when her father fell to the ground, clutching at his chest. Laire inhabited a grotesque new world now, in which her beloved father was glad her mother was dead—a world in which he had almost been killed by her irresponsibility.
It made her feelings toward Erik much more complicated than they’d been on Thursday, much less black-and-white. What if loving Erik ended up killing her father? How could that love be right? It couldn’t be. Which meant that loving Erik was just a fantasy. A self-serving, self-indulgent, childish fantasy that, left to their wild, unhampered, unchecked desires, had raged out of control, hurting someone she dearly loved. And more than a fantasy, it was wrong. And the worst of it was, on some level or another, she’d known it was wrong all along.
On the interminable ride from Hatteras to Nags Head, with these terrible thoughts swirling, Laire’s conscience tidily relegated her worth to the darkest, lowest level of shame, propelling her into a state of guilt—of such profound, profane, breath-catching, terrifying guilt—that her love for Erik felt almost unbearable.
Her father lay prone in a hospital bed, his prognosis still uncertain.
She had no right to happiness or love.
Not now and maybe not ever.
That was her new reality.
Their father was settled into a room in the cardiac unit, and in a strange twist of events, Issy, who prided herself on being the most caring and responsible daughter of the three, wasn’t able to sit by their father’s bedside. She wasn’t permitted to bring baby Kyle into the adult wards, due to a breakout of pneumonia. With Paul at the height of his sea-fishing season and her in-laws unable to watch the baby for more than a day, this meant that Issy had had no choice but to return to Corey with her son, leaving her younger sisters with their father.
Kyrstin and Laire, who checked into a motel in Nags Head, took turns sitting beside their father’s bedside, hoping against hope that he’d wake up soon.
On Sunday afternoon, with Kyrstin at the motel taking a nap, it was Laire’s turn, and she held her father’s weathered hand in hers, reading to him from the Bible and praying that she’d have more time with him.
“Laire.” She opened her eyes and looked up to see Nurse Patty, assigned to her father’s care, peeking into the room. “There’s someone here to see you. He’s at the nurses’ station.”
“My cousin? Harlan Cornish?”
“Didn’t catch his name. A man, though, with a big bouquet of flowers.”
Uncle Fox had called earlier to say that Harlan might be coming up to visit, and she almost cried with relief at the thought of seeing him.
She nodded eagerly. “Sure. Send him in.”
“I’ll do that.” Patty flicked a glance to her patient. “His color’s good.”
“When do you think he’ll come to?”
“Hard to tell,” she said. “His body created the coma to protect itself. But his vitals are better and better. Stay hopeful.”
Laire’s eyes filled with more useless, painful tears, and she nodded, turning back to her father. When she heard the sound of a man’s heavy footsteps, she didn’t look over her shoulder.
“Hey, Harlan. You can put the flowers anywhere.”
“Laire.”
The voice wasn’t Harlan’s, but it was just as familiar—soft and worried, deep and beautiful. It was the voice of her dreams, of her torment, and every space in between. Laire’s breath caught with a sudden burst of love she didn’t want to feel, but she was in control of herself enough not to turn and face him.
“Laire? How you doing, darlin’?”
“Erik,” she murmured. “What are you doing here?”
His hand landed on her shoulder. “I was worried when you didn’t show up to work. I called King Triton.”
She whipped her head to face him. “You did what?”
“I pretended I was a café owner,” he said, his eyes registering instant concern as they carefully swept her face. “What . . .” He cringed, reaching up to gently touch the bandage covering her stitches. “What happened to your head?”
She recoiled from his touch, quickly reaching up for his hand and leaving it to hang in the air between them. “Don’t touch.”
He searched her eyes. “Okay. But what happ—”
“Doesn’t matter. You can’t be here.”
“I was worried.”
“You. Can. Not. Be. Here,” she repeated in a grave, urgent whisper, flicking worried eyes to her father, who slept peacefully, before looking back up at Erik. “Go.”
“Laire,” he said, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “I just . . .”
“You have to go,” she insisted, turning back to her father. “Now.”
“I’ll wait for you—”
“No.”