Snow Falls in Prague; I Won't Wait for a Heartless Man novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: A Bruise, Not a Break

Brecken's POV

They put a needle in my arm in a Prague hospital and told me not to move.

I moved anyway.

I took the bottle out of my coat on the chair, and I held it under the lamp.

B.Q., in blue ink.

I knew that handwriting better than my own.

It had signed my birthday cards for twenty years.

"Sir, the doctor says forty-eight hours," my chief said from the door.

"Give me my phone."

"It's two in the morning in Chicago."

"I know what time it is."

He gave it to me and did not argue.

I dialed a number I had not used in five years.

It rang six times, and a thick sleepy voice answered.

"Who is this?"

"Brecken Lowry. I'm sorry about the hour."

There was a long pause.

"Brecken," said the surgeon who had set Bethany's wrist and treated her after the crash. "Is it your mother?"

"No. It's Bethany."

"What about her?"

"I need to know what her injuries were the night I wrecked the car."

I heard him sit up.

"That is a privileged record, Brecken."

"I know. My father paid for your wing at that hospital."

"Don't," he said tiredly. "Don't do that to me."

"She told me she can't have children. She has told that to everyone for five years. She said the crash did it."

Nothing came down the line.

Then the surgeon said, carefully, "She told you that?"

"Yes."

"And you believed it."

"She was in a hospital bed. I saw the bandages."

"Brecken."

"Tell me."

"A cracked wrist. A seatbelt bruise across the hips, a scar the size of my thumb, and a night's observation." He breathed out. "I examined her myself, twice. There was no damage to her reproductive system. None. She asked me to write it up as more serious for her insurance, and I refused."

I looked at the ceiling.

"I told her to tell you the truth," he said. "She said she would. She said it was complicated."

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