Page 1 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

INHERITANCE OF SECRETS

COVENTRY SAGA BOOK 6

ROBIN PATCHEN

CHAPTER ONE

Aspen Kincaid's throat was thick with emotion.

At the restaurant the night before, Dad had been perfectly fine in his serious, tender way.

That morning, she’d been awakened by a call from a police officer. Dad had been riding his bicycle, something he did along the narrow roads near their apartment every single day.

A teenage driver, not paying attention, had swerved into him.

Aspen had made it to the hospital just moments after he did and had waited in the ER until a nurse called her back, telling her tohurry, hurry.

Aspen had run, skidding past doors and machines and doctors until she reached the room.

Now, she stood at Dad's bedside and took his hand, trying not to react to the scrapes and cuts on his face and neck, to the way his breath wheezed. This was the man who’d raised her and loved her so well. His kind brown eyes were rimmed with red. His tan face was pale. She brushed his hair back, feeling soft strands and gritty sand left from the fall.

She lifted a prayer and tried to smile. “How you feeling?”

Before he could gather enough breath to respond, a white-coated doctor and four other people crowded in, one pushing a machine.

“You’ve got five minutes,” the doctor said. “Then we need to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Intubate. One of his lungs collapsed, and the other?—”

“What are you waiting for? Do it.” Panic rising in her chest, she stepped back. “Why did you wait?”

The doctor only nodded toward her father, who said, “I have to talk”—he took a wheezing breath—“to you first.” He gasped, and she felt the pain of it, inhaling and exhaling with him as if she could infuse him with her strength.

“We can talk after, Dad,” she said.

He shook his head.

The doctor squeezed her arm. “He insisted.” A flicker of sadness filled his eyes, but he masked it quickly. “We’ll be back in five minutes.” He followed the others from the room, leaving the machine that would keep Dad alive until he recovered.

“Dad, that was foolish.” Aspen tried to keep her tone kind, despite her frustration. “You should have let them do what they do. What could be so important?—?”

“I need to tell you…” Another wheezing breath, then another.

The tears she’d barely held back slipped down her cheeks. “There’s nothing that can’t wait?—”

“…about what happened…to your mother.”

Her mother?

Aspen’s heart pounded.

Because those words told her two things in an instant. First, that Dad didn’t believe he’d have another opportunity to talk to her.

And second, that he’d been lying to her all her life.

Aspen had heard a lot of words to describe her mother over the years, certainly more than her father had ever intended for her to hear. Unkind words from extended family who visited on occasion.

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