Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
JACK
Hannah woke up yesterday, we’d kissed, and everything was perfect. Except for Cedric.
Hannah and I were both getting discharged from the hospital today, New Year’s Day, and Cedric had finally gotten home from his vacation and checked his email. He sent me a stern response that I needed to video chat with him immediately and provide all of the proof that I was in the hospital and had gotten emergency surgery. He warned that, even with that, I could still be in violation of probation and forced to return to prison.
My stomach was in knots. I was so embarrassed to tell Hannah and her mom, but I did, and they immediately started praying over me and this meeting. Now Chloe was outside the door, pacing the hallway with both of them as I sat up in the hospital bed and opened my laptop.
Lord, please don’t let me go back to prison for doing the right thing , I prayed. But if I did go back to jail for saving Hannah’s life, then so be it.
I clicked on the meeting link and the camera opened up. Cedric sat behind a desk I hadn’t seen before, with a bed in the background. He was still at home and not yet back at work.
“Hello, sir.” I cleared my throat.
He sighed. “What kind of trouble did you get yourself into, Jack?”
Where did I begin?
“You know my friend Hannah from Willow Harbor?” I asked him.
He nodded.
“Well, she was in a car accident and put into a coma. I care about her a lot, sir, so I flew out here to see if she was okay.”
“Without my permission,” he added.
“Yes, sir,” I admitted.
“And you gave her a kidney? Your assistant sent over the medical files. I’m in shock. The odds of you matching for her can’t be high.”
“One in one hundred thousand, sir.”
He shook his head. “Sounds like a miracle.”
I perked up at that. Was Cedric a believer? I hadn’t really paid attention before.
“I think so,” I said.
Cedric tapped his chin. “I approved your trip to Willow Harbor for the holiday. Technically, it’s still the holiday being New Years. Can you get home by tomorrow? If you can, I won’t find you in violation of probation.”
Relief spread throughout my limbs.
I could fly out to Seattle tonight. Then I’d make long-term plans to sell my half of the company and move to Willow Harbor to be with Hannah.
“Yes, sir, I can. But I’m not in Willow Harbor.”
“Yes, you are,” he said, widening his eyes as if daring me to challenge him.
Oh…okay. “Yes, I am,” I said.
“That’s right. See you tomorrow in Seattle, Jack.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, and I meant it. He’d just done me a huge favor.
He hung up the chat, and I called for Chloe to open the door. She did, and Hannah and Claire were standing there with her.
They stepped inside, all three of them holding hands and peering at me with anxiety.
“If I can get to Seattle by tomorrow, I won’t be in violation.” I smiled.
All three ladies screamed in joy and hugged each other. When Hannah and Chloe hugged, my heart squeezed. They seemed to have become friends, something I loved seeing.
“We’ll let you two chat.” Chloe hooked arms with Claire and they left the room.
Hannah walked slowly over to my bed, wincing as she sat at the corner of it. She was still understandably sore. I was sore and I’d only had one organ removed—she’d had multiple. Dr. Andrews said my surgery was complicated and I’d lost a lot of blood. But he had been prepared for that, and I’d had a transfusion and made it through okay. Now I was going to have to meet with a specialist and be on some medication to thicken my blood so that, if I was ever cut badly, I wouldn’t bleed out.
Like my mother had.
It had eaten at me for the past week, knowing that she’d probably had the same bleeding disorder and never knew. Knowing that’s why she’d died so quickly at the scene of the accident…I wasn’t sure if it made it better or worse, but I’d given up needing to know why. Why did bad things happen to good people? Only God knew, and it would be the first thing I’d ask Him when I met Him one day.
“I had a dream when I was in my coma,” Hannah said suddenly, jarring me from my thoughts. She reached for my hand, and I took hers, relishing the affection from her. Holding her hand felt so natural.
“What kind of dream?” I asked.
She gave me a sheepish smile and her cheeks pinked. “It’s going to sound a little crazy…”
I shrugged. “I’m okay with crazy.”
She smiled then. “I dreamed I was at Willow Lake, fishing with a man named Pete and watching you play with our future son, Noah.”
I froze. Pure shock washed over me the second she said Pete’s name. Hannah must have seen it on my face because she winced.
“You’re totally freaked out.”
Pete. She’d said Pete!
I laughed, pulling her mouth to mine, pressing my lips against hers. When I pulled back, she was smiling. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that,” I told her.
I knew in that moment that God was always with us, even when we might not know it.
“Really? You’re not freaked out?” she asked, looking shyly up at me.
“No way. Having a son named Noah with you is now officially on my bucket list,” I told her.
She smiled. “Well, slow down. We’d have to get married first.”
We would. And even though it felt crazy, I poured out what was on my heart to her.
“I’d marry you tomorrow if you’d have me, Hannah with two N’s,” I told her.
She looked surprised at my words, but her words shocked me even more. “I’d have you, Jack.”
The unworthiness I’d battled for years tried to creep back up in that moment, but I pushed it down. Hannah was a gift from God, and you didn’t deny gifts from above.