“Talk to him,” Dr. Howarth urged. “And you can touch him. It’s okay. He’s sedated, but there’s every chance he can hear you.”
Max had heard of that before, and he knew it was true. He’d spent three days in a coma after his parents were killed, but he’d woken up knowing for sure that Kim was there with him.
He took Jed’s hand and touched his face. Jed’s skin blazed, and his cheeks were stained pink with an unnatural flush. “Why’s he so hot?”
“Fever. They’re trying to bring it down.” Dr. Howarth pushed a hard plastic chair close to the bed. “Sit.”
Max sat. “They?”
“This isn’t my department. The ICU team is caring for Jed right now. Dr. Greene will be by in a moment.”
“Is he nice?”
Dr. Howarth’s lips twitched, though Max could see he was stressed. “He’s chief of the ICU, the best we have. Max, do you understand what’s happening?”
“Dan said he had an infection.”
“We believe so, yes. Even without his blood work back, he’s deteriorated too fast for it to be anything else.”
“Where did he get it?”
“I’m not sure. The endoscopy or the IVs are the most likely culprits, but we can’t say for sure. We can’t even be sure how long he’s had it. The early symptoms of infection are very similar to the symptoms we expected from Jed’s underlying condition. We might have missed something.”
The door opened before Max could respond. Another doctor, Dr. Greene, entered the room and took his place at the other side of the bed. He introduced himself, looked Jed over, and made some notes, but he didn’t have much more to add. “We’ll know more tomorrow,” he promised. “For now, we need to concentrate on getting him through the next twenty-four hours.”
Max stared at the tube jammed into Jed’s throat. He’d hate that. Even the teeny-tiny nasal oxygen bugged the hell out of him. “Will he wake up?”
“No. Not for a while, at least. He’s in a coma right now.”
And he might not wake up at all.
Dr. Greene didn’t say it, but Max heard it all the same.
“Your sister is outside. She said you have epilepsy. Is there anything you need? Medication you didn’t bring with you? You can’t have your alert dog in the ICU, but we want to help you in any way we can.”
Max thought as hard as Jed’s limp hand in his would allow. He had some meds at Carla’s place, but he needed someone to go back to the cabin to fetch Flo and feed the chickens. “Who else is here?”
Dr. Howarth walked to the door and peered through the tiny window. “Your sister and Ms. Valesco’s mom and brother.”
“Can Anna come in? I need to talk to my sister.”
Anna slipped through the door a few minutes later. Her eyes filled with tears as she took in Jed’s prone form. She touched his scarred shoulder with shaking hands, and Max realized that she’d probably never seen it before… maybe hadn’t known it existed. “Oh, sweetie, you’re not well at all, are you?”
There was no response, but Anna didn’t seem to expect one. “Go on, honey,” she said to Max. “Carla has gone to the cabin to set up the feeders for the chickens, and Jed will be okay with me for as long as you need.”
Max felt numb as he set Jed’s hand back on the bed and left the claustrophobic room. He spotted Kim and Dan sitting close together in a corner of a secluded waiting area.
Kim scrambled to meet him. “Oh, God, Max. What happened? I thought he was getting better—”
“I need you to go to the cabin and take Flo home.”
“Carla already went. She’ll set up the timed feeder for the chickens and take Flo and the kids to Hector.”
Max closed his eyes to the image of gentle Hector Valesco trying to manage Tess. “You should go home. They said he won’t get better for a few days. There’s nothing you can do here.”
He didn’t have to look to see the hurt in her eyes. Kim had come to love Jed, and despite her faults, she’d always been there for Max. “I want to stay with you,”
“No.” Max took her hands from him. “I need you to fetch the spare medication I have at your house. They can give me some here, but it will be better if I have my own.”