Read Online Halfway to Forever by Karen Kingsbury - Free Book Online Page B

similar symptoms? If it was what she feared, then her thoughts hadn’t been irrational after all. God must indeed be punishing her. Punishing both of them.
    Jade opened her mouth to speak but she no longer could.
No, God … please. Don’t let it be …
    She wanted to tell Tanner she was sorry, that she loved him more than words could say, and that he needed to call an ambulance, but she couldn’t make her tongue work to form words.
    For a while Tanner was gone, and Jade fought to remain conscious.
He’s calling for help … everything’s going to be fine
. Then he was back and he swept her into his arms again. The last thing she remembered was his breath on her face, his distant voice begging her to hold on, telling her that help was on the way.
    And something else … a damp area on her chest. With a jolt she realized Tanner was crying.
Tanner … honey, don’t cry. I’ll be okay, I promise
.
    Then there was nothing but cold, quiet darkness … and the lingering wetness of Tanner’s tears.
    Tanner could force himself to do only two things as he followed the ambulance in his car: breathe and pray. Neither was easy. The moment he had seen Jade on the floor of the shower, her lips blue, her arms and legs jerking unnaturally, a grenade of raw fear had exploded in his heart.
    Over and over he had pictured himself waking to her screams and finding her on the floor. “No, God!” he’d shouted as he stared at her, panic coursing through his veins. He’d had no idea what to do first. Call for an ambulance? Help her stop shaking?
    In a split-second decision, he dropped to the floor, took her by the shoulders, and tried to force her body to stop shaking.
    When that didn’t work he called 9-1-1.
    “What’s the emergency?” an operator had asked him.
    “I don’t know … my wife is dying! Come quick. Please!”
    In the minutes after that, Tanner hadn’t meant to cry, but tears came anyway. Streams of them. As though his heart knew something his mind wasn’t ready to grasp. That there was something terribly wrong with the only woman he’d ever loved.
    When the paramedics arrived, Tanner told them Jade was pregnant. They noted the information, hooked her up to several monitors, and gave her a shot of something. While they did, Tanner pounded them with as many questions as he dared ask. Was this something they’d seen before? Was she dying? What was the shot for? Could they help her stop shaking?
    Two men worked on her, loading her onto a stretcher, and one of them answered Tanner’s questions, his tone calm and confident. “It happens often,” the man explained while he helped his partner hook an IV line into Jade’s arm. “She isn’t dying. She’s having a seizure. The shot will calm her down.”
    Seizure?
The word screamed in Tanner’s mind even now. A seizure? Other people might have seizures, but not his wife. Not his precious Jade.
    The memory evaporated in a desert of fear. Tanner swallowed hard and kept his eyes glued on the swirling lights in front of him. He knew nothing about medicine, but he knew this: Seizures were a sign of something bad.
    Something very bad.
    It was more than Tanner could process, so he continued to pray. Not the conversational prayer he so often shared with God, but a desperate cry for help, for an answer they could live with. One Jade could live with.
    At the hospital Tanner tore from his car and raced into the emergency room. Jade was being moved through the lobby toward the back. Tanner was at her side in seconds, his heart racing as he gently leaned over and hugged her close.
    “Jade, honey …” He took hold of her hand and walked alongside the stretcher. “How are you?”
    She forced a smile, and Tanner tried to keep the fear from showing on his face. She looked small, almost childlike, lost in a sea of sheets and intravenous lines. Her face was pale, her tone groggy. “I have a headache.”
    “I know. Dr. Layton’s on his way.”
    Her eyelids lowered