Finding Hope (13 page)

He nodded eagerly. “I thought I was going to burst if I couldn't talk to you about it. I was so excited and the connection was awful, but I heard you promise to keep praying and I was wild with joy.”

He had been touched by God. He was wild with joy. Hope's heart was about to explode. “Tell me more,” she
begged, gazing deep into the hazel eyes that seemed almost to be on fire. She wanted to jump in, be consumed by it. “Charlie, please tell me everything!”

He shook his head. “I can't—it would take forever. But I'll tell you about the boy. He was eight years old and he had fallen off a moving truck while he was holding a machete. It nearly sliced him in half, Hope. You wouldn't believe how bad it was. It happened just thirty yards from where we were working, so the people carried him in immediately. We didn't think he was going to make it. And suddenly it mattered to me, like nothing had ever mattered before.”

Hope had to be closer, touching him, so she moved from the sofa to sit on the floor next to his chair. She put her hand on his knee and looked up into his face.

“Hope, he wasn't a ‘case' at all. He was just a little boy, and for some reason I thought of Tom at that age. I was thirteen when Tom went off the high diving board into our pool. He came off sideways and cracked his head on the board. When I pulled him out of the water he wasn't breathing, so I—”

“You saved Tom?” she interrupted.

“Yes,” Charles admitted. “He's probably forgotten about that. But that's why I had to become a doctor. Somehow in the back of my mind I felt that Tom might need me again one day. But it was Susan, instead, and I couldn't—”

“Don't, Charlie.” She patted his knee and pulled him back to the present. “Tell me about the little boy.”

He took a couple of breaths and calmed himself. “I couldn't bear it that he was going to die. So I prayed to God.”

“How wonderful,” Hope whispered, not minding the tear that slid down her cheek. “What did you say?”

“I said, ‘I don't know You and I have no right to ask,
but please take over my hands like You did before and save this boy.' Right after I said that I looked up and met the eyes of the Christian. Hope, I
know
I didn't speak out loud, but that man looked me right in the eye and said ‘Amen!' Everyone turned to stare when he said it. That was when I knew it was happening again. It was incredible.”

Hope sniffled. “And the boy was all right?”

He nodded. “The mother and father thanked me like I had done some wonderful thing. But the hands that saved him were not mine! I tried to tell them, but nobody understood.”

“I think the Christian doctor understood.” Hope smiled, accepting the handkerchief Charles offered her.

“He did. I longed to talk to him about so many things, but there was work to be done. We finally had ten minutes together and he asked whether I had someone to talk to back in Chicago. I told him all about you and I showed him your eagle. I even told him the verse.”

He paused, which was fine with Hope, because she didn't know how much more she could take. Surely he was about to surrender to the Lord. A ripple of eager expectation rushed through her as she met his intense gaze.

And then something went horribly wrong.

As she smiled into his eyes, his excitement faded. He looked bewildered, then dismayed. Abruptly he rose from his chair. “I need some water,” he said. He stepped over her and headed for the kitchen.

It was a minute before she followed, and what she found made her heart turn over. He clutched the edge of the sink with both hands, his head down. His eyes were tightly closed and his face was contorted with pain.

Hope understood immediately. She moved behind him and put her arms around his waist, leaning her head
against his strong, stiff back. Then she stepped into the silence and spread her heart out before him. “You
know,
don't you?”

When he spoke, his voice caught. “I saw it in your face just now.”

She forced herself to ask the question even though she already knew his answer. “Do you mind?”

“Yes, I mind!” he rasped. He spun around to face her, but his clenched fists went to his sides and he made no move to accept or deny her embrace. His stormy eyes met her frightened ones. “I don't
want
you to love me!” he grated. “Because I'm not capable of—”

“Oh, Charlie! Do you still think you're heartless?”

He sighed heavily. “I've tried, Hope. I just can't make it happen. I've gone to your church and I've even tried to pray. But it's too late for me.”

“No, it isn't!” She leaned her forehead against his chest. Her arms were still around him, but he was as cold and unyielding as a marble statue.

When he spoke again, his voice was deadly calm, flat as a windless sea. “I'm no good for you, Hope. We could talk all night and that fact would remain.” His hands reached behind his back, closing gently over her wrists. When she raised her head, his tortured eyes pleaded with her. “Hope, you have to let me go,” he said in a heartbreaking whisper.

Without waiting for instructions from her brain, her arms tightened around him. But the hands holding her wrists tightened, too, hurting her.

“Let me go, Hope. We can't be friends anymore. Not after this.” Still gripping her wrists, he forced her arms to her sides. Then he let go and walked away.

She followed him, watching in horror as he pulled open the front door and walked out without another word or glance for her. He was trying to do the right thing, the
honorable thing, but how could she let him go? Who would teach him about God's love? She stood in the doorway, watching him go, and the cry was wrenched from the depths of her being. “Charlie!”

His body jerked as if he had just taken a bullet between the shoulder blades, but he kept walking. Hope closed the door and sank to her knees.

A
lmost a week had passed and Charles had not returned any of Hope's calls. By Friday night she admitted to herself that he never would. She went to bed early, testing her theory that if she was asleep, she couldn't cry.

She awakened at a quarter past two, the dampness on her pillow having conclusively disproved the theory.

She wiped her wet eyes with the back of one hand. This pain was even worse than losing Gramps. That goodbye had been bittersweet because her wise old friend had gone home to God. But there was no sweetness in losing Charles. Her grief at being parted from him was magnified by the horror of knowing that he was once again alone, lost in his private wilderness of doubt and confusion, far from God. Who would guide him now?

“I can't accept this, Lord,” Hope said aloud. “I don't believe You want me to.”

She switched on her lamp and reached for the slim volume of Wordsworth on her bedside table. With a thumb she absently traced the star-shaped coffee stain on the cover before opening the book to Charles's inscrip
tion: “For Hope, a better friend than I could ever deserve.”

Yes, that was it. She hugged the open book to her heart. They were friends and he needed her more than ever. It didn't matter that he was unable to love her. With God's help she would make him understand.

She sat up and pushed her hair away from her face. This was Friday night, and he always worked Fridays. She would go to the hospital right now. She'd ask one of those nice nurses to tell Dr. Hartman she was waiting. Then she would camp out in his office until he gave up and came to see her.

Hopeful for the first time all week, she scrambled out of bed. She flung off her nightgown and tossed it at a chair before stepping into a pair of jeans, almost tumbling forwards in her haste. She pulled on a light cotton sweater, sliding her feet into her favorite loafers as she settled the ribbed bottom of the sweater over her hips.

In the bathroom she splashed warm water on her tear-stained face. “It's right,” she said as she buried her face in a fragrant, fluffy towel. “I know it is. Lord, please make him understand.”

She caught up a tote bag and hurriedly stuffed it with bottled water, granola bars, notebooks and pens. She didn't think she'd be able to concentrate on them, but she gathered up a couple of grammar books anyway. Even if he wasn't busy, he'd probably let her cool her heels for a while. Hope was determined to outlast him.

It had been raining steadily all evening, but now the storm was worsening. Bob whined shrilly as he paced the kitchen floor, his toenails making nervous little clicking noises on the vinyl. Hope refilled his water dish and gave him some food.

She kneeled in front of him and caught his head in her hands. “I'm going after him, Bobby,” she said into the
velvety brown eyes. “Not because I'm a lovesick fool, but because he needs me.”

A thunderclap rattled the windows and Bob cowered. Hope took a minute to soothe him, then she went out, carefully locking the door behind her.

Halfway to the hospital she reduced her speed and switched her windshield wipers to “high” as the wind picked up and the furious rain lashed her car. She tensed and leaned forwards, white-knuckling the steering wheel as she peered into the deluge with a growing sense of unease. It was becoming increasingly difficult to see, so she began looking for a safe place to pull over.

A pair of headlights waggled crazily on the road in front of her.
Someone must be drunk,
she thought in alarm. She felt prickles on the back of her neck as the lights moved into her lane and bore down on her.

She took her foot off the gas, pressed hard on the brake and tried to turn out of the car's path.
This can't be happening,
she thought, but it
was,
and it seemed to be happening in slow motion.

There was a loud noise, then everything went eerily still.

Hope was surprised by the complete absence of sensation. She was adrift in a strange, dark world where she could hear, see, feel nothing at all. Her senses seemed to have shut down but her brain was working just fine. Concluding that she was critically injured, she gave herself to God.

Yes, Lord. All right,
she prayed as the irresistible blackness reeled her in.
But I really would have liked to see him one more time.

 

Something was on her face, covering her nose and mouth. Hope struggled, trying to get out from under it so she could breathe better.

“Try to be still,” a woman said. “You've been in a car wreck.”

Hope opened her eyes and looked straight into a pair of sympathetic brown ones.

“No, don't fight this—I'm just giving you a little oxygen,” said the woman, readjusting the plastic cup over Hope's face. “We're taking you to the hospital. You'll be fine, don't worry, but I need you to be calm now.”

What was wrong with her? Why did it hurt so much to breathe? She felt dizzy and she wanted to go back to sleep, but she had to make sure they were taking her to Charles. If she wasn't dead yet, perhaps it was because God was planning to grant her last wish. “Hospital,” she said weakly. Her eyes begged the woman to understand. “Please, I need—”

“Yes, honey. We're taking you to the hospital right now.”

“Lakeside,” Hope demanded. Her voice wasn't strong enough, so she said it again. “Take me to…Lakeside Hospital.” Her strength spent, she closed her eyes again. But every time she drew a breath she felt a fierce stabbing in her chest. She tried holding her breath, but that hurt just as much.

The woman spoke urgently and Hope heard crackly radio voices, but through the thick curtain of pain she was unable to make out what was being said.

She panicked, suddenly terrified that Charles might
not
be at the hospital tonight. But they would call him, wouldn't they? “Please,” she begged, “I need Dr. Hartman.” To her own ears Hope's desperate voice sounded miles away.

“What was that, honey?” The brown-eyed woman leaned closer and lifted the oxygen mask slightly.

Hope closed her eyes and summoned strength from every cell of her body. “Dr. Charles Hartman,” she said
clearly. “Tell him…I'm coming. My name is Hope. Please…tell Dr. Hartman.”

 

The case was a stab wound, inflicted on a twenty-four-year-old marine during a barroom brawl. “He'll live to fight another day,” Charles announced dryly as he finished suturing the man's lacerated liver.

Holding a mask to her face, a nurse stood just inside the doorway of the operating room. “Dr. Hartman? Excuse me, but don't you know someone called Hope?”

He didn't look up from his work. She'd been calling his home number, his cell number and his pager all week. Was she going to start calling the hospital now? In the middle of the night? He wondered briefly how she had managed to talk this particular nurse, a real hardnose, into interrupting him during surgery. Hope could charm the stripes off a tiger.

Talking to her tonight would only postpone the inevitable, but he longed to hear her gentle voice. Couldn't he give her a call after he finished here?

No. Under his mask his lips clamped tightly together. Hope needed to forget him, and she couldn't do that unless he kept his distance. That was the only thing he could do for her now, and he
would
do it, whatever it cost him.

“Doctor?” the nurse pressed.

“I know her,” Charles replied tersely. “Take a message.” He would never return the call.

The nurse hesitated. “Dr. Hartman, she's not on the phone. They're bringing her in to the ER.”

His hands stilled but he didn't look up. “Tell me,” he said in a strangled voice.

“Motor vehicle accident,” the nurse said carefully. She said nothing more until he raised his eyes to hers. “Doctor, it's a Level One,” she added gently.

Charles felt a thump inside him as his world was
violently tipped off its axis. “Level One” was the designation given to the most critical trauma cases. Hope was in serious trouble.

Reminding himself that he was still standing over a patient, Charles fought back flutters of panic as the nurse reported what she knew about Hope's condition. She ended with the information that Hope was expected to arrive in the ER within the next five minutes.

“Is Dr. Phillips in there?” Charles demanded.

“Yes, Doctor. They're ready for her.”

“Okay. And I want Dr. Olmstead,” he ordered.

“She's already on her way,” the nurse said quietly.

Charles swallowed hard. “Tell Dr. Olmstead—just tell her Hope Evans is the best friend I have in the world. And…” He paused, dangerously close to losing his grip. He forced himself to breathe deeply as he glanced at the startled team around him. “If anyone in here prays, please do it now.”

 

“Hope, can you hear me? Squeeze my hand.”

Pain and confusion. Noise and bright lights. Why couldn't she wake up from this awful nightmare? She heard a low, agonized moan. Had that primitive, wounded-animal sound come from
her
throat?

“Hope, it's Charlie. Squeeze my hand.” His voice floated closer, sounding more real except it was pitched a little too high.

What was that awful stabbing in her chest?
Lord, please help me catch my breath,
she prayed.
It hurts so much.

“Come on, Hope. Give me a squeeze, will you?”

It seemed to matter an awful lot to him, so she squeezed.

“Good girl.” He sounded enormously relieved. “I'm right here with you. Can you open your eyes for me?”

She could. “Charlie,” she whispered gratefully.

“Right here,” he said again. He leaned close and with a gentle thumb, nudged her left eye open a bit wider and shone a light into it. Repeating the process on her other eye, he asked an odd question. “Do you know where you are?”

His voice was thin and strange. He sounded frightened. The pain was incredible but Hope was determined to reassure him. “Relax, Doctor,” she gasped, aiming for a flippant answer that would ease his mind. “My brain is…still…on the job.”

Someone in the room chuckled and Hope heard Charles's immense relief as he replied, “That's very good to know, kid.”

Her courage deserted her suddenly and she focused on his face. “Charlie, it hurts,” she said in a pathetic, little-girl voice. “It hurts to breathe.”

“I know,” he said gently. “We're working on that.”

She was being touched everywhere, jostled by several pairs of hands that were surprisingly ungentle. At least half a dozen bodies crowded around her, all coming and going like bees around a hive. Although she knew medical terms in four languages, these people were speaking a kind of shorthand she just couldn't follow.

And there was blood. It was everywhere, and it scared her. Where was it coming from?

Her clothes had been cut off and she was lying naked under the bright lights, in front of Charles and this swarm of jabbering strangers. That shocked her, but she tried to remember they were just doing their jobs. Still, she wondered whether she was blushing.

A woman with a musical Southern accent seemed to be directing the activity. She spoke often with Charles, but Hope didn't understand their exchanges.

Finally the honey-voiced Southerner addressed her.
“Hope, I'm Dr. Olmstead. I know you're in a lot of pain right now. You've got some broken ribs and a collapsed lung, for starters. But there's some internal bleeding that we need to check out right away. Do you understand? You need surgery, babe. Right now. In just a few minutes we're gonna take you in. Any objections?”

No, a question. Hope drew a painful breath. “Dr. Hartman?” He'd moved out of her line of sight and she didn't know whether he was still in the room.

Dr. Olmstead sounded amused. “I didn't invite him, darlin', but I suspect he's plannin' to crash the party.”

“I'll be there.” The beloved voice came from somewhere behind her head and Hope's eyes closed in relief. “I promise you, Hope. I'll be with you the whole time.”

 

Hope opened her eyes and a ceiling of dingy-white acoustic tiles slowly came into focus. She was in the hospital, she remembered. She turned her head to the left and her heart sank when she saw the empty chair.

“Looking for me?” The deep voice, tender and amused, came from her right, so her head swiveled in that direction.

Sprawled in a chair that was jammed against her bed, Charles was so close she might easily have touched him. He sat facing her, using the edge of her bed as an armrest. He smiled gently. “The surgery went great. You're going to be just fine.”

She fought hard, but her eyes wouldn't stay open. She felt him lean towards her, his warm fingertips lightly brushing her cheek. “Everything's all right, Hope. Go back to sleep.”

She must have done that, because when she opened her eyes again she was in a different room. He was still beside her.

He studied her face for a moment and gave her a sympathetic look. “It hurts, doesn't it?”

Her chest and abdomen had united to form a solid wall of pain. “It hurts a lot,” she said in a pinched whisper.

“I know,” he soothed. “We'll kick up the pain meds, okay?” He reached for the intercom button just above her head and spoke briefly with a nurse.

Hope smiled drowsily as he stroked her hair. It felt beautiful to be touched that way. She wanted to tell him to forget the drugs and just keep caressing her, but it was too much trouble to talk. She was asleep before the nurse came in.

 

Alone in total darkness, Hope was falling. She cried out and a warm, strong hand closed around hers, catching her, arresting her descent. Gripping the hand tightly, she opened her eyes and looked around her in confusion.

“I'm here,” Charles said. “It's all right. It was only a dream.”