Oh, Jack.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay. Let me just…I’ll tell them.”
Dean and Harper moved away to let me call my dad.
He answered on the second ring with a curt, “Yes?”
“I’m at Newport Hospital. It’s Jack.”
“What happened?” Dad asked with a slight tinge of urgency in his tone.
“His hand… We were at the bonfire and…he burned his hand. It’s pretty bad. He needs help, Daddy. He needs—”
“Was he drunk?”
“What—? Daddy, just come, please. Newport Hospital.”
“Calm down, Emery, and don’t say anything to anyone. I’ll be right there.”
The line went quiet, and I let the phone fall to my lap. Harper sat with me while Dean talked to the nurses at the front desk.
“Do you want some water?” Harper asked. “Coffee?”
“Water, please,” I rasped. I felt as if I’d been lost in a desert. Harper returned quickly with a paper cup. “Thank you for helping tonight.”
“Of course.”
She and Dean sat on either side of me as we waited. Finally, my father arrived with Colin, his driver and unofficial bodyguard.
I rushed to him, then stopped when I saw no one else was with them. “Where’s Mom?”
“She’s indisposed,” Dad said tightly, glancing between Dean and Harper, who flanked me. To them, he said, “This is a family matter. You may go.”
“Daddy!” I cried, mortified. “If it weren’t for Dean, we’d still be at the beach waiting for an ambulance.”
My father offered Dean his hand. “I appreciate your quick thinking, son, but this issue is a private one.”
“Sure, sure,” Dean said, and glanced at me. “Keep us posted, okay?”
I nodded as Harper gave my hand a squeeze, and then they headed out.
Dad glanced around. “Who is the doctor in charge?”
“I don’t know. They’re working on Jack. They took him back somewhere and told us to wait.”
Grayson Wallace was not about to wait. He went to the nurse’s station with Colin and started making demands. I sank back into my chair and waited for what felt like an eternity before a doctor appeared.
“Wallace family?”
I jumped up. “Yes.”
My father indicated a quiet corner where we should talk. “What’s the situation?” he asked once we were out of earshot.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush,” the doctor said. His badge readBaker. “Jack has sustained second- and third-degree burnsover approximately eighty percent of his left hand and wrist.”
My dad stiffened. “What does that mean? Does he keep his hand?”
Oh God…
