When He Finally Found Her, She Was Already Married novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Careful, Hargrove

Stevie's POV

I read the whole folder standing up, at the end of the long bakery table, with the ovens ticking behind me.

Declan sat on a flour stool by the door and didn't say a word.

The pages were stamped in Portuguese and translated underneath in English.

Admitted Tuesday, eleven forty at night. Emergency surgery. Fever. Intensive care, Wednesday through Saturday. Sedated for two of those days.

The wedding had been on a Tuesday too, a week before that.

I knew the date I'd carried in my head for six years, because I'd never had to count it.

The petition that came in the mail was dated the Thursday nine days after it.

On the last page, next to his name, someone had written the date in careful black ink.

That Thursday, according to the Lisbon hospital, he had been sedated in a bed with a tube down his throat.

I turned the page over and read it again.

"Anyone can print a hospital record," I said.

"Call them," said Declan. "The number's on the front. Ask for the records office. I'll leave the room."

"I'm not calling Portugal at five in the morning."

"Then wait until nine."

I put the pages down on the flour-dusted wood and squared them with my palms.

I did not want to believe it.

If it was true, then the man I'd spent six years hating had been lying in a hospital bed fighting an infection while his mother wrote a letter in his name.

And I'd cashed the check.

I'd taken his mother's money and used it for my father's heart, and then I'd gone on hating him for it.

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