“I’m coming,” I assured her.
She thanked me and hung up.
I stood, running to my car, not bothering to tell Jason I was leaving. I wouldn’t waste a single second getting to Hannah.
I called my private pilot and told him I’d pay him whatever amount he wanted to meet me at the airport and get me to Boise immediately.
Then I called Chloe and told her what had happened.
“Oh, Jack. No.”
“Can you book me a hotel in Boise near the hospital?” I asked her.
“Of course. But, Jack, you’ll need to get this trip approved by Cedric, especially if you’re going to be staying in Boise awhile.”
Dang it. She was right. “Call him. Tell him the situation, but I’m going either way.”
“Jack,” she warned. “You’ve worked so hard for your freedom. You could be found in violation of your probation if you just leave the state without permission.”
She had no idea what freedom was. Not now. I had true freedom in Christ. True peace in my soul. Had I known all of this sooner, I would have become Christian years ago.
“Chloe, I’m going. Get it approved, or don’t. I don’t care.”
She sighed. “You’re prematurely aging me.”
“Chloe, she’s in the ICU,” I begged, my voice cracking.
“Okay, I’ll figure it out,” she promised.
Thirty minutes later, my pilot rolled up to the private strip in a Seattle Kraken jersey. I’d probably just pulled him from a game.
Chloe was on speakerphone and wired him the money to fly me.
His eyebrows hit his hairline when the wire went through. In the end, he’d asked for half a million dollars for a few-hour flight and to remain in Boise for the week in case I needed to airlift Hannah to Seattle. I had no idea what I’d be walking into there. That amount of money might seem crazy to most people, but anything that brought me to Hannah as soon as possible was priceless to me.
As I stepped on the plane, Molly was already inside, wiping down the seats and getting everything ready.
“Jack, Cedric hasn’t called back yet,” Chloe warned as I was about to get on a flight to cross state lines.
I shrugged. “My fate is in God’s hands now, Chloe. I’ll call you tomorrow with news on Hannah.”
“Okay, Jack. Okay.”
There was an ominous feeling in the air that I hated. As the plane lifted off, I bowed my head and prayed for the first time in years.
God, heal her fully and I’ll follow You for the rest of my life.
I didn’t know how bad things were, but I knew that the ICU was bad. And I was just praying that my ball-of-sunshine Hannah was going to be okay. Because I had yet to tell her how madly in love with her I was. I’d broken my own rule and I couldn’t have been happier about it.
When I got to the hospital, Hannah’s mom and Jules were sitting in the waiting room, holding hands. The moment Hannah’s mom saw me, she ran to me and pulled me into a hug I felt in my soul. I hadn’t been hugged like this in forever. And just like when she’d hugged me last night, it reminded me of the hugs my mother used to give me. They were all encompassing and tight and filled with love. When she pulled back, we were both teary.
Jules walked up and introduced herself to me. She looked shaken, pale, and wide-eyed in shock.
“I was on the phone with her when it happened,” she told me.
Claire rubbed Jules’s back as tears brimmed in her eyes. “Why don’t you go get a hotel room for the night and get some rest, honey?”
Jules looked lost. “What hotel? Where?”
