Forever After (Unrestrained 5)

“Or photos,” I said. He started to go towards her but I grabbed his arm. “Don’t,” I said softly. “Don’t make it worse. It’s good they got a picture of us kissing.”

Drake glared at the woman but then he must have thought better of it and turned back, pulling me against him one last time.

When we arrived back at the waiting area, Elaine smiled and took the tea and sandwich.

“You look upset,” she said to Drake, who sat on the other side of me, his arm over the back of my chair.

“Some people recognized Drake in the cafeteria,” I said and made a face, raising my eyebrows, hoping to signal to Elaine we shouldn’t talk too much about it. “They took a video or picture of us kissing.”

“I can’t believe it,” she said, her mouth open. “People have no respect for privacy anymore. Not with all these cell phones and Snap Chats and the like. It’s none of their business.”

“The news has made it their business, I guess,” Drake said and pointed up at the screen on the wall.

I glanced at it and saw that the very same news report was being repeated. It was short and only featured a scandalous headline, and a picture side by side of Drake and Lisa. I was glad we couldn’t hear what she said.

“Goddammit,” Drake said, his voice choked. “I’m going to call Detective McDonald and ask that he clear my name publicly so all this speculation will stop.”

Elaine held out her hand. “Don’t Drake,” she said, shaking her head quickly. “That would make things worse. Believe me. The police will either charge you or they’ll clear you as a suspect soon. Until then, anything you do will only delay things. Keep a low profile.”

Drake’s fists clenched and I could see a muscle twitch in his jaw. I rarely saw him angry about anything, so it was hard to watch him feel so much negative emotion. Usually, he was so positive about everything.

I felt frustrated myself. I knew there was no way Drake had been involved. Why couldn’t the police figure it out?

Lisa must be spinning a pretty convincing story for them to keep Drake on the suspect list – if he was even on it. It was those damn letters. Still, someone at the police department must have spoken to the news reporter about the case for them to know the details. I felt like calling up Detective McDonald myself and speaking with him, to find out what they thought.

“Lara will take care of this,” Drake said, his voice low. He turned to me. “She knows the procedures. She’ll talk to the Assistant DA and find out what the hell’s going on.”

I nodded. “Thank God for Lara.”

For the next hour and a half, we sat in the alcove and watched the news. The report came back on again and luckily, Drake had a magazine in hand and didn’t see the feed, but it was pretty much a repeat of the previous news story. I decided to go to the desk and ask if we could change the channel.

The nurse looked up at me, smiling sweetly. “Sure,” she said. “Let me get the remote. We don’t want the volume up so we don’t bother any patients or other family members. There’s a more comfortable lounge down the hall if you want. You can close the doors and turn up the volume.”

I shook my head. “We want to stay close to where my father will be, so we’ll be fine here. I want to change the channel.”

I took the remote and changed the channel, flipping through the selections until I came to the National Geographic Channel, which had a show on birds in the Amazon. It would be a peaceful alternative

to the local news and its endless repeat.

Finally, the nurse came over to us to tell us my father had been brought to his ICU room from post-surgical recovery and we could go in and see him as soon as he was settled.

“He’s breathing on his own and his blood pressure has stabilized,” she said, glancing between Drake and me, and then to Elaine. “He’ll probably be sleepy and may go in and out, so don’t expect too much at first, but he should wake up over the next hour or two. You can go in one at a time, and please, no longer than five minutes each at first.” She smiled at us.

Drake nodded. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll go easy on him.”

When she left, the three of us looked at each other.

“You should go first,” I said to Elaine.

She shook her head. “No, dear,” she said softly. “You go first. He’s your father.”

“Thank you,” I said and took in a deep breath, steeling myself for what I’d see when I went into his room. I turned to Drake, who was looking at me intensely.

“He might be pretty pale and he’ll have a bandage on his head from the surgery,” Drake said. “He may not be able to speak at first, so don’t be upset if he’s quiet or doesn’t seem to be able to talk. It’ll take a few hours for him to get over the anesthetic.”

“Okay,” I said doubtfully, my gut tight at the thought he’d been so close to death. “I’ll go in. Can I give him anything to drink or ice chips?”

“He may have problems swallowing at first because of the airway during surgery. If you have any questions, ask the nurse. If you’re concerned about anything, use the call button, but they’ll be watching him very closely for the first few hours.”