Page 1 of Shine On Oklahoma

Chapter One

Dax Russell hit the double doors running,only to be met by a nurse and an orderly. The alarm on their faceslet him know he was out of line.

He took a step back, held up his hands.“Sorry.” He was out of breath, had run all the way from the taxi.Then he saw his mom, just coming out of a hospital room through aheavy wood door that dwarfed her. Caroline Russell was Tinkerbellpersonified, and he adored her.

She met his eyes, gave him a sad smile andthen said to the staff standing between them, “It’s okay. That’sour son.”

“Oh. Thank God.” The nurse patted his chest,and the orderly grinned and shook his head as they moved aside. Daxmet his mom halfway. Her pixie short platinum hair was probablymostly silver now, but you couldn’t really tell with blond hairthat light. She hugged him and he picked her up off her feet likehe always did when he saw her. It was kind of their thing, himbeing so big, her being so small. He hugged her hard, but not toohard, then set her on her little feet again.

It often amazed him that a man of his sizehad somehow been produced by a little thing like his mom.

“How are you, honey?” she asked.

He lifted his head and looked toward the doorshe’d come out of. “I’ll let you know.”

“No, tell me now. Howareyou?”

The way she said it, he knew what she wasasking. And he didn’t mind. “Dry since Christmas,” he said. “Not adrop.”

“And?”

He smiled. “Life is pretty amazing when youreyeballs are clear enough to see it.”

“It is.”

It wasn’t. The only woman he’d ever loved wasa criminal, and he couldn’t seem to get over her. But that wasn’tanything his mother needed to know.

She took him by the hand, led him in thewrong direction.

He tugged half-heartedly. “I should seehim.”

“After we talk.” She led him through the ICU,through a set of doors and into a small waiting room with littleround tables and padded chairs. A TV set mounted high on one ivorywall played the headlines to no audience. A row of vendingmachines, a row of windows, and a water cooler filled the remainingwall space.

Caroline went to a little table far from thetelevision, near the windows. Dax sat down, and she did too, andthen she clasped his hand in both of hers across the table. “It’syour father’s time honey,” she said. “The cardiologist is amazed heeven made it to the hospital. It was a massive heart attack.”

It seemed like her words didn’t register inhis brain at first. She could read him, his mom could. She lovedhim, had left her boorish husband mostly because of him, he’dalways thought. His father was a bully, and it didn’t matter if youwere a business rival or his own son. He was mean to everyone. Andyet she was here. Probably because there was no one else who caredenough to be bothered.

“He’s going to die,” she said. “Do youunderstand, Dax?”

“He’s gonna die?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, son.”

He blinked, trying to find words. His fatherwas a strapping, powerful man. He couldn’t just die. “When?”

“Could be any minute. Could be a couple ofdays. The doctor says it won’t be longer. Right now, he’s slippingin and out of consciousness. Eventually, he’ll just slip out andkeep on going.”

“Wh-what about life support? Why can’t theykeep him—”

“There’s too much damage to his heart, Dax.He’d need a transplant, but there’s damage to other organs, aswell, and his lifetime of drinking has riddled his liver. There’sno way back from this.”

He blinked, taking that in. It sounded cold,somehow. “Can I see him now?” he asked, staring at nothing, a spotin the space between them.

She nodded and let go of his hand. “I’ll beright here.”

He got to his feet and walked mindlessly outof the waiting room. A nurse saw him, the one who’d stopped him inthe hall, and gave a smile. He had brown hair and bangs that triedto cover up the acne on his forehead, and his eyes were soft butknowing. He pointed at the door, and said, “three-oh-five” in afuneral voice.

Dax pushed the door open and went inside. Atfirst he thought he’d walked into the wrong room. A wrinkled,saggy-faced man with gray tinted skin lay against white sheets,beneath a white blanket. The top sheet was folded over the blanket,and the old man’s arms were resting on top of it. There was an IVline in his arm, and oxygen tubes in his nostrils. There were leadsstrung from his chest to a monitor. The monitor and IV were mountedto a pole beside the bed. The oxygen came from a port on thewall.

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