The Queen Reborn: Claiming What's Mine novel · Chapter 20 of 32

Chapter 20: Flowers

Odessa Maddox walked into the emergency room with her head high.

The lilies were in her arms, and a woman with a camera followed three steps behind her.

Nobody had called the camera.

Cora stood by the admissions desk with her sooty hands at her sides, and watched them come.

Two nurses looked up from their screens.

An orderly leaned on his mop.

A man in a wheelchair, waiting with a bandaged arm, turned to see.

"Cora, my darling," Odessa said, and her voice rang through the room. "I came the moment I heard."

She opened her arms.

Cora did not move.

Odessa let the arms drop, and her smile grew sad and patient, and she turned a little so the camera caught her best side.

"I know you're angry," she said. "You have every right. But I will not let a child of this family sit alone in a hospital while her grandmother is hurt."

"I'm not part of your family," Cora said.

"You were, for six years."

"Mrs. Maddox." Ronan stepped up beside her. "This isn't the time."

"Mr. Keane." Odessa gave him a small nod, polite as a hostess. "Of course. I only want to help."

A nurse at the desk smiled at her. A second one pressed a hand to her chest.

They were looking at a pearl-wearing saint in pale blue wool, who had come to a hospital at midnight with flowers.

Cora could see the story forming on their faces.

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