No.

It was too tangible, too sensory-rich to be a dream. As real as this moment, here, in the hospital, as real as the fire-poker pain searing down my back and the salty droplets leaving mascara-colored tracks down my sister’s red cheeks.

“What about my kids? The boy and the girl?” I’ll be damned—I can’t remember their names either.

“You don’t have a wife and you definitely don’t have kids, at least none that I know about …” She perches on the side of my bed once more. “You once told me … and I quote … I’d rather stick my manhood in a vise grip than lock myself down with a wife and kids. Granted, you were drunk when you said that, but you said it. And hell, Cain, you’re a freaking divorce attorney. You make money on the fact that more often than not, marriages are a joke. Mine excluded, of course.”

She winks despite her serious tone.

“Mr. James?” Nurse Miranda clears her throat in the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need to take you down to imaging. Claire, you can wait here. It shouldn’t be too long.”

“Yeah. Let’s check out that head of his.” Claire squeezes my hand before I’m wheeled away. “Apparently my brother ran off and got married while he was out of it …”

My sister would never mislead me—and yet a part of me refuses to believe her.

I lie on my back as the muted fluorescent hall lights pass above me, one after another, alternating with stark white ceiling tiles.

More fucking white.

The instant I close my eyes, her face is the first thing I see—and in full detail, from the starry, Northern-Lights glow of her green eyes to the single freckle on the side of her nose.

Fullness invades my chest and warmth courses through my veins when I imagine her smile.

Maybe I’m dreaming now. Maybe, if I close my eyes one more time, I’ll wake up in our bed, her soft skin hot against mine as she kicks off the covers and laughs in her sleep.

If none of that was real, how do I know she gets teary during happy movies? How do I know she sponsors orphans in Third World countries and donates to no-kill shelters? How do I know her favorite author is Toni Morrison, with Stephen King coming in as an unexpected close second? Her favorite vacation spot is this hole-in-the-wall place we found in Greece on our honeymoon. She glows when she’s pregnant. Pure radiance. And she’s a phenomenal singer, even though she’ll insist she isn’t. Her thick, chocolate-brown hair gets frizzy in the summer and flat in the winter, but she’d be just as gorgeous if she sheared the whole thing off. She chipped her front tooth when she was twelve, though it’s hardly noticeable unless she points it out. She loves Christmas more than a person should. Loves those disgusting hot dogs from the carts on the street, too. She’s seen Chicago on Broadway more than anyone else I know. But more than anything, I know that I’m her whole world. The kids too. We only work when we’re all together. And right now, I’d do anything to get back to them.

And I will.

I’ll do anything.

“All right, Mr. James.” The nurse brings my bed to a halt outside a set of double doors. “We’re here.”

This is all a dream.

No—a nightmare.

It has to be.

3

Brie

“I hope you weren’t waiting long. There was a stalled semi on 15.” His name is Grant Forsythe, and I met him in a hospital waiting room in Hoboken a month ago. He noticed my ASU sweatshirt and after a couple of minutes of small talk, we discovered we both live in the Roosevelt Row section of Phoenix, never miss the opening Cardinals game, belong to hiking clubs, and enjoy many of the same dive bars and local musicians.

He’s also the best friend of the man whose life I helped save.

As an actuary and hobbyist statistician, I should be able to calculate the odds of such a chance encounter, but I’m trying not to overthink this. While I’ve never been the girl with the adventurous spirit and a go-anywhere-anytime attitude, something about witnessing a man cling onto his life last month has sparked something in me.

Life is short.

And it can be gone in the blink of an eye—zero warning.

I was on my way to catch a late flight out of Newark when I witnessed the accident happen in real-time—a red Ford truck crossing the interstate median, only to barrel into a black sedan head-on. The truck skidded into the ditch and proceeded to burst into flames, but the sedan came to a rolling stop upside down beneath an overpass. The screech of tires, the burn of rubber, the metallic crunch that followed—I’ll never forget them as long as I live.

Tags: Winter Renshaw Romance
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