Free Finally a Bride by LISA CHILDS Page A

dropping to his haunches so he was eye to eye with the man in the wheelchair.
    “Fine, Sarge,” Corporal Underwood claimed, even though it was obvious he was not entirely fine. A tank on the back of his chair pumped oxygen through plastic tubing into his nose, but still each breath he drew rattled in his frail chest. Even so, as weak as he must have been, he’d probably have been too proud to use the chair if not for his missing leg.
    “Now stop wasting your time with me, boy, and get in to see the major,” the old man admonished him. “He’s in his room.”
    Eric’s jaw grew taut, and the skin around his scar puckered. “So he’s not doing too well…”
    The corporal shook his head. “I’ve seen a lot of soldiers come and go in this place. It probably won’t be long now.”
    Molly’s heart clenched in commiseration for Eric’s pain and with a resurgence of her own pain. She still missed her dad. She didn’t want Eric to experience that sense of loss but, then, he already had—when he was just a child. No wonder he understood her so well. Sometimes she thought he was the only one who understood; that was why she’d come to him.
    As they walked down the hall, Eric’s fingers closed around her hand and squeezed. “If this is hard for you…”
    “It shouldn’t be.” But it was.
    “This place is hard for a lot of people,” he murmured, his deep voice pitched low. “That’s why they don’t get many visitors.”
    “It’s not that,” she insisted. But she hadn’t ever done well around sick people. That feeling of helplessness always overwhelmed her, paralyzing her. She had thought knowledge would have changed that, would have made her stronger, but it hadn’t. Just volunteering at the hospital had been difficult for her, and yet her younger sister Colleen had been doing it regularly for years. Maybe Mom was right; Colleen was the stronger sister.
    “Then you’re thinking about your dad,” he guessed. “I’m sorry.”
    “No. I’m thinking about you.” About how he could have wound up here, and how he still might. When his uncle passed away he would have no family left. No one to take care of him when he got old…unless he got married and started a family of his own. Why did the thought bring her sadness rather than relief?
    “I’m okay,” he said. “I knew what to expect when Uncle Harold was diagnosed.”
    “Knowing and living through it are two different things,” Molly said.
    Immediately after they’d had that family meeting when her parents had told her and her siblings about her dad’s cancer, she’d researched every aspect of the disease. She had hounded her father for every detail—which stage, how many milligrams of each medication, an explanation of every procedure. That was when Ronald McClintock had decided that she would become a doctor.
    “Molly…”
    She forced a bright smile. “You shouldn’t have to do that alone, you know.”
    He squeezed her hand again. “I’m not alone.”
    “Not now. But I’m not staying.”
    The words slammed into Eric’s gut. “Of course not.” Why would she? Since graduation she had spent more time away at college than she had in Cloverville. She probably no longer considered it home.
    “You need to find someone,” she said, her eyes bright with the matchmaking gleam she’d inherited from her mother. “You’re a great guy. You shouldn’t be alone.”
    He stopped outside Uncle Harold’s door. “I prefer to be single.”
    “No one prefers to be alone.”
    He couldn’t argue with her now. Not here. Drawing a deep breath, he pushed open the door. A glass crashed, shattering against the jamb next to his head.
    “Get out!” the major shrieked.
    Ignoring the stinging he felt on his face, Eric rushed to his uncle’s side. While the elderly man was often confused, he’d never been violent before. “Uncle Harold, it’s me—Eric.”
    The old man’s shoulders shook as he collapsed onto his bed, sobbing. “I’m sorry. I