Page 94 of Casualties of War
Chapter Twenty
The first time Olivia’s father opened his eyes, they were pain-filled but aware. His gaze roamed, searching, until it found her. He sighed. “Youarehere.”
She picked up his hand, feeling the thin flesh and ridged veins under her fingers. “It turns out, this is the safest place in the city.”
Callan Davenport gave a snort, then winced. “I’m alive…” he whispered, his tone oneof wonder. “How long was I out?”
“Eight days,” she told him. “It’s after four p.m. Tuesday.”
A nurse bustled in, in dark green scrubs. “I saw the vitals jump,” she said, patting Olivia’s shoulder. “The doctor is on his way. How are you feeling, Colonel?”
“Like someone tried to blow me up,” her father said, his voice a croak.
“You’re sure picking the wrong dates, aren’t you?” the nurse returned,her tone cheery, as she covered one of his eyes and waved a penlight at the other.
Farther down the passage, Olivia could hear a cart trundling in their direction. She put her father’s hand down and got to her feet. She was stiff and achy from sitting for so long.
Her father lifted his hand. “No, Olivia. Stay.”
“They’ll poke and prod you for a while,” she said. “I’ll get out of the way. I needcoffee like nobody’s business and the stuff at the nurses station has been brewing since the last ice age.”
“Oh, now, that’s not accurate,” the nurse said, with a chuckle, her attention still on Callan Davenport. “I saw it being made around the time of the Reformation.”
A doctor in blue scrubs with a white coat over the top and paper slippers over his sneakers, sailed into the room, slinginga stethoscope around his neck. “Colonel Davenport, it’s good to see you recovering, sir.”
“If this is recovery, I want my money back,” Callan said, making both the nurse and the doctor chuckle. The consummate politician had slipped into place between one breath and the next.
Olivia turned and left. An all-night café was in the basement of the hospital. She needed coffee, although she wantedsolid food even more. Her father didn’t need her to hold court. He had been doing it without her all his life.
When she got back forty minutes later, the doctor and nurse had left. Her father’s deputy chief of staff, Doug Mulray, was bent over the bed, murmuring. The Secret Service detail were a few steps closer to the room, now, too. They were no longer guarding a comatose body and it showed.
Even the nurses on the unit were moving with more energy. It was as if her father’s waking had shot everyone full of adrenaline.
Olivia waited outside the room until Mulray had finished. When he left, she picked up the chair she had been using, which someone had pushed into a far corner and settled it back beside her father’s bed.
“You could have come in while Doug was here,” her father said.
“No, I couldn’t, Dad. I’m a Vistarian, now. A foreign national.”
His face clouded over. “Daniel, right? That’s his name? Daniel…” He frowned.
“Daniel Alejandro Castellano y Medina,” Olivia said.
“That’s…quite a name.”
“Names are important to Vistarians,” she replied calmly, even though her gut felt as though a battery was decomposing in there. Acid gnawed at her. The baloney sandwich she hadeaten sat like a rock in her stomach.
“He was there? At the Whitesands?”
Olivia made herself smile. “I’m certain you asked for a file on Daniel as soon as you knew who he was. You know he was there, Dad. You know what he did, too.”
Her father’s eyes met her. “Saved your life. I remember that much.”
“Twice at least, then a third time when he married me.”
Her father’s gaze shifted away. “Youfigure I will ever meet him?” he asked.
The wistful note in his voice was shocking. Callan Davenport had never been anything other than completely sure of himself.
