Her body was shaking as she looked up at Mrs. Pollifax. “Which hospital?”
The housekeeper told her. “But you’re in no fit state to drive. I’ll have Collins bring around the car. Shall I come with you?”
Letty shook her head numbly.
The older woman bit her lip, looking sad. “He’s in room 302.”
The drive to Brooklyn seemed to take forever. When they finally arrived at the large, modern hospital, Letty’s body shook as she raced inside.
She didn’t stop at reception, just hurried to the elevator, holding her heavy, aching belly. On the third floor, she followed the signs toward room 302.
Her steps slowed when she saw a man sitting in the waiting area. He looked up and saw her, too. She frowned. She recognized him from somewhere...
But she didn’t stop, just headed straight for her father’s room.
“Miss!” a nurse called anxiously as she passed the third-floor reception desk, barreling toward the corner room. “Please wait just a moment.”
“It’s all right,” Letty said. “I’m his daughter.” She pushed open the door. “Dad. Dad! I’m—”
But the room was empty.
Letty stared around in shock. Was she in the wrong room? Had she misunderstood?
Was he—oh, God—surely he couldn’t be...?
“I’m sorry,” a woman said behind her.
“You should be!” her father’s gruff voice retorted.
With a sob, Letty whirled around.
In the doorway her living, breathing father was sitting in a wheelchair, glaring back at the dark-haired nurse struggling to push him through the doorway.
“You practically ran me into a wall. Where’d you learn how to drive?”
Letty burst into noisy tears. Her father turned his head and saw her, and his gaunt, pale features lit up with joy.
“Letty. You came.”
Throwing her arms around his thin frame in the wheelchair, she choked out, “Of course I came. As soon as I heard you were sick. Then when I didn’t see you in the bed, I thought...”
“Oh, you thought I was dead? No!” Glancing back at the nurse, he added drily, “Not for some people’s lack of trying.”
“Hmph.” The nurse sniffed. “That’s the last time I agree to help you win a wheelchair race, Howard.”
“Win! We didn’t win anything! Margery crushed us by a full ten seconds, in spite of her extra pounds. After all my big talk, too—I’ll never live this down,” he complained.
Letty drew back with astonishment. “Wheelchair race?”
“Admittedly not one of my best ideas, especially with Nurse Crashy here.”
“Hey!”
“But it’s what passes for fun here in the hospice wing. Either that or depress myself with cable news.”
“It’s totally against hospital protocol. I can’t believe you talked me into it. Ask someone else to risk their job next time,” the nurse said.
He gave her his old charming grin. “The race was a good thing. It lifted the spirits of everyone on the wing.”