Read Online Say That Again by Gemini Sasson - Free Book Online

sent a stab of long ago memories through Hunter. When he was a boy, the age Hannah was now, he’d had his first cardiac event. He’d been playing ball with his Australian Shepherd, Halo, in the yard, when suddenly he felt faint. After that, he wasn’t aware of anything going on around him. They rushed him to the hospital and in the time that his heart was not beating, Hunter had heard things, seen people. People who had died. He had a sense they were waiting for him, yet were surprised to see him so soon.
    The doctors had brought him back from cardiac arrest four more times before he turned nineteen. It was a condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Simply put, his heart didn’t work right, so he was given a pacemaker in his twenties and his health improved.
    Still, dying hadn’t been as bad as most people feared. The experience for him had been precisely like so many others reported: a light at the end of a tunnel, voices calling, speaking to him, then telling him to go back. It was as if he were waiting for a bus, but whenever one came by he realized it was not the one he was supposed to get on.
    It was all so long ago now. His recollections had blurred. Sometimes, he wondered if he had only imagined it all. The mind was a powerful thing.
    As he gazed at Hannah, his heart filled with love. She looked so ... delicate. Someone had taken the time to brush the snarls from her hair. Gone was the pink hooded sweatshirt with cartoon characters holding hands on the front. Shiny foil blankets wrapped her body, except where tubes and wires were attached. The heart monitor next to her bed beeped at a constant rate. Her pulse was still sluggish, her blood pressure on the low end, but her chest was moving up and down steadily.
    They sat with Hannah for a long time, holding her hand, stroking her hair, speaking softly to her. The nurses drifted in and out to record her vital signs and change the IV drip.
    “She’s doing well, relatively speaking,” Dr. Townsley said from the doorway. She was dressed in street clothes, trendy and tight fitting, and wearing a pair of three-inch-high silver heels, her hair freshly washed but hanging damp down her back. A jacket dangled from her fingers, sleeves trailing the floor. “I’m on my way home for the time being. Dr. Pruitt has been apprised of her condition. I told him to call me immediately if anything changed.”
    “Thank you,” Jenn said. “For everything.”
    She shrugged. “I know it sounds cliché, but I’m just doing my job.”
    “But not just anyone could have given her another chance, Doctor,” Hunter said, going to her and offering his hand.
    Dr. Townsley stared at it for a moment before shaking it once lightly, then pulling her hand back and sticking it in her jeans pocket.
    “If you don’t mind my asking,” Hunter said, “what brought someone as brilliant as you here?”
    She narrowed her eyes at him, her voice flat. “I do mind. It’s personal.” She turned, went a few steps out into the corridor, then came back. “Maybe I go where I do because in places like this, Dr. McHugh, people aren’t used to seeing miracles every day. I’ve worked in facilities where the brightest minds in the medical world are on staff. Fact is, nobody appreciates brilliance if it’s commonplace. Go someplace like Sierra Leone or Namibia, save a life, and they think you’re a god among men.” She flung her leather jacket over her shoulder, smirking. “Or goddess.”
    She marched off down the hall, her steps ringing in the empty corridor. Hunter and Jenn exchanged a glance.
    “Personable, isn’t she?” Jenn remarked.
    He returned to Hannah’s bedside. “I wasn’t going to say it.”
    “Yeah, but you were thinking it.”
    “You always could read my mind.”
    Jenn drooped back in the chair, staring wistfully at Hannah. “But you were always crap at reading mine. Right now, I’m thinking how tired I am and what a long day this has been. I need to sleep. So do