My eyes narrowed into slits and stopped her mid-sentence. “You want me to call the cops and tell them about her little con artist ways?”
Julie grabbed her chest. “Con artist! Listen here, you littlemotherfucker.” She stepped forward. “Maybe if you weren’t such a broken piece of shit, trashing Colin’s heart with cigarettes, alcohol, and hatred, Millie wouldn’t have felt like she needed to move in here and save you!”
The moment it left her lips you could see the regret in her face. The truth hurt, stung so bad I had to bite back tears, but it was something I needed to hear. I needed Millie’s full colors to show.
“Sothat’swhat this was? Project ‘Save Ashton,’ save Colin’s heart from going to a piece of shit?”
“No, I—”
I spun and headed for the door. If I stayed one minute longer I was liable to lose my mind. Millie didn’t like me for me, she was just trying to save me, the bar, my dad. She wasn’t doing it for my benefit, she’s doing it for her, for her husband’s memory. What we shared was never anything more than her wanting to be close to him.
Colin.
I started to question if what I was feeling for her were even my own feelings or if those feelings belonged to her dead husband.But that only made me feel insane.
And right now this lying snake was with my father at the hospital putting on her little “I care about your family” act.
What a psycho.
I left a blank check on the bar for the glass repair man with a key telling him to lock up after he fixed it and drop it in the mail slot at the apartment entrance door. Then I headed for my truck.
I was going to the hospital to confront Millie about the game she was playing.
Chapter 16
Millie
The second we stepped into the hospital, it triggered all of the memories of that night Colin died. The smell, the beeping machines, the doctors. I hadn’t been in a hospital since that night. I purposefully avoided visiting Julie at work and this was why.
“Ma’am?” The doctor called my name, snapping me from my thoughts.
“Yes. Sorry.”
The doctor was young, mid-thirties, and looked tired. “We had to take him in to surgery for the laceration. It hit a main artery, but he should be okay as far as that is concerned. He’ll need a blood transfusion.”
Damn.
“Okay.” Numbness started to creep into my body as I remembered the night the nurse told me Colin died. Blood. There was so much blood.
“What I need to talk to you about is his liver.” That snapped me right out of my trance.
“Liver? Oh yes. He’s an alcoholic. The family has tried to help him but…”
The doctor nodded. “I understand. Because of the alcoholism I can’t get him on a liver transplant list, but if your husband could be tested, he might be able to do a living donation. You just donate a small lobe and it grows back in six to eight weeks.”
Liver donation?
“Wait, what?”
The doctors face fell, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but your father-in-law is in end-stage liver failure. Without a liver donation, and stopping drinking … he won’t make it.”
My stomach dropped at his words.End-stage liver failure? Won’t make it?
No.
“I’m not donatingshitto my old man,” Ashton’s gravelly voice said from behind me and I froze.
The doctor stiffened. “Is this your husband?” he asked me and I flinched.
