Keeper of the Light. Diane Chamberlain

her in she was in very bad shape, and I could tell from her symptoms that the bullet had entered her heart and surgery was the only option.”

      “Was it you who performed the surgery?”

      “Yes. Along with Mike Shelley. He’s the director of the ER, and he got there about halfway through.”

      “Shouldn’t she have been sent up to Emerson Memorial—to a trauma unit—for that sort of injury?”

      Olivia stiffened. She heard Mike Shelley’s voice in the back of her mind. Maybe she should have been sent up. This way her blood’s on your hands. “Ideally, she should have had a trauma unit, yes. But it would have taken far too long to transport her to Emerson. She would have died on the way. Immediate surgery was her only chance.”

      “So you had to … open her up right there?”

      “Yes. Then I … Do you really want to hear more?”

      He set his sandwich down. “I want to know everything.”

      “We’d lost her heartbeat. I was able to get my hand around her heart and hold my finger and thumb over the holes the bullet had made, and then her heart began to contract again.” Olivia had lifted her hand involuntarily. Alec stared at it and something contracted in him. She saw him start, saw his breathing quicken, and she rushed on, dropping her hand to the arm of the chair. “I was very hopeful then. I thought if we could just close those holes we’d be all right.” She explained about Mike Shelley trying to sew the hole in the back of Annie’s heart. She remembered feeling the blood seeping over her fingers. Sometimes still she woke up at night, winded, and had to turn the light on to be certain her hand was not warm and sticky with blood. Suddenly she was afraid of crying herself. The tears were so close. Her nose burned with the effort of holding them back.

      “Well,” said Alec. There was no feeling at all in his voice. “It sounds as though everything that could have been done was done.”

      “Yes.”

      He sank lower in his chair. “I’ve forgotten most of that night,” he said. He was not looking at her. His eyes were focused on some invisible point in the air between them. “Someone must have called my neighbor, Nola, because I know she drove us home. I couldn’t tell you a thing about that ride, though. My kids were with me, but I don’t remember them being there at all.” He looked over at her. “I get the feeling it was a difficult night for you too.”

      “Yes.” She wondered what she was giving away in her face.

      “Even talking about it now isn’t easy.” “You have a right to know.”

      He nodded. “Well, thank you. For everything you did that night, and for taking the time to talk with me now.” He gestured toward the sandwich in her lap. “You haven’t touched your lunch.”

      She glanced down at the tightly wrapped sandwich. “I’ll save it for dinner,” she said, but he wasn’t listening. He was staring at the photograph on his desk.

      “I just wish I’d had one extra minute with her to say good-bye,” he said. Then he looked at Olivia’s hand, where her wedding ring circled her finger. “You’re married?”

      “Yes.”

      “Be sure to treat every minute with your husband as though it’s your last.”

      “Well, actually, we’re separated.” She squirmed, feeling somehow guilty that she and Paul were alive and healthy, yet apart.

      “Oh,” Alec said. “Is that good or bad?” “Horrible.”

      “I’m sorry. How long has it been?”

      “Six months.” If he made any connection between his six months without his wife and hers without her husband, he gave no sign.

      “His idea or yours?”

      “Entirely his.” She looked down at her hand, where she was twisting the diamond ring around on her finger. “There was another woman,” she said, wondering how far she would take this. “It wasn’t an affair, exactly. They weren’t … it was platonic. He barely knew her. I think it was more of a fantasy, and anyway, she’s no longer around. She … moved away, but he’s still upset about it, I guess.”

      “Is there any chance you two will get back together?”

      “I hope so. I’m pregnant.”

      He dropped his puzzled gaze to her stomach.

      “Just eleven weeks,” she said.

      Alec raised his dark eyebrows in a question. “I thought you said …?”

      “Oh.” She felt herself blush. “He … stopped by one night.”

      For the first time, Alec smiled, and she could see the handsomeness hiding behind his haggard demeanor. She laughed herself.

      The door to his office opened a crack and a woman stuck her head in. “Alec?” She stepped into the room. She wore a white lab coat over jeans, and her dark hair was braided down her back. She glanced at Olivia, then back at Alec. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you were with someone. Are you working?”

      “You wish.” Alec actually grinned. He stood up and walked around his desk to kiss the woman’s cheek. Then he gestured in Olivia’s direction. “This is Olivia Simon. She was the doctor in the ER the night Annie died.”

      “Oh.” The woman’s expression sobered and she turned toward Olivia. “I’m Randi Allwood.”

      “Randi’s my partner,” Alec said.

      “Can’t prove it by me,” said Randi. “I seem to be running this place singlehandedly these days.”

      Alec nodded toward Olivia as a signal it was time to leave, and she rose from her seat.

      “I need to talk to you, Alec,” Randi said as Alec started for the door.

      “All right,” Alec held the door open for Olivia. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

      He walked Olivia to her car. “Thanks again for doing this,” he said, “and good luck with your husband.”

      “Thank you.” Olivia turned to face him.

      “Does he know about—” Alec dropped his hand between them, nearly touching her stomach with the back of his fingers “—what happened the last time he … stopped by?”

      Olivia shook her head. “No.”

      “Does he know you still love him?”

      “I think so.” Did he? There had been so much unpleasantness between them lately that perhaps he didn’t.

      Alec opened her car door. “Make sure he knows that, okay?”

      Olivia got into her car and waved to him before pulling out onto Croatan Highway. She could not recall the last time she’d told Paul she loved him. What about that night in April? She must have, but she couldn’t remember. She’d avoided the memory of that night for the past few months.

      It had been a Thursday night, early in April, and he’d stopped by the house, looking for something. Software for his computer? She didn’t remember. It wasn’t important. She was already in bed, but she was not quite asleep when she heard him let himself in. Her first thought was angry, bitter—what gall, marching into the house as though he still lived there—but it was quickly replaced by relief, that she could see him, talk with him. She lay still as he walked through the living room and up the stairs. He came into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the queen-size bed.

      “I’m sorry to disturb you this late,” he said. “I just need to pick something up and then I’ll be out of here.”

      She looked up at him. It was dark in the room, but she thought she saw something tender in his eyes. He was actually sitting on their bed, next to her, the warm length