Chance by Christina Palmer Page B

uncomfortable goodbye, and disappeared through the
door.
    Charlotte immediately
felt another wave of guilt wash over her for flirting with the attractive doctor
while Logan was on the operating table. She berated herself silently before taking
a seat on one of the hard, uncomfortable orange chairs.
    She looked around for the
first time since entering the area. There were a couple of other people waiting,
too. Either they were reading the magazines that were strewn around on small
tables, or they were looking at their phones. On a television mounted high on
the wall in one corner of the room, a news program was playing.
    Charlotte's brain was
still not fully functioning. She was having trouble concentrating on anything,
unable to focus her mind on any kind of distraction. She simply stared at the
floor and anxiously picked at her polished nails. She was still trying to get
her head around the fact Logan had been shot, although she'd clearly seen the
result with her own eyes. Questions started to bounce around in her mind.
    What kind of work did Logan
actually do? Was it legal? Did the shooting have something to do with his mysterious
job? Is that why he'd refused to tell her anything? Had the shooting been a
random attack on his way home? Did someone try to rob him? What the Hell
happened? What if she'd been home even later? Would he have died because of
her? Why didn't she leave earlier?
    Charlotte decided no
matter what Logan thought, no matter how secretive or mysterious he was,
she'd get some answers out of him, once and for all. She needed to know what he
did for a living. This time, she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Even if it
meant hours of him sulking or even an out and out argument. If he was putting
himself in danger, she needed to know about it—she had a right to know.
    Charlotte wasn’t sure how
long she’d been waiting. It felt like hours. Checking her watch made little difference,
as she had no idea what time it had been when she’d arrived. Looking around
her, she saw the same three people were still waiting in the room with her.
They were still either reading their magazines or tapping away on their phones.
Perhaps it hadn’t been that long after all.
    Finally, after what had seemed
like an eternity, a nurse wearing green scrubs emerged from a set of double
doors.
    “Mrs. Tyler?” she asked.
    Charlotte stood up and
approached the woman.
    “No, we’re not married…”
she said weakly.
    This detail seemed
unimportant to the woman.
    “The surgery was
successful and Mr. Tyler is in stable condition. Please, come this way,” she
said, as she started walking toward a set of doors.
    “Will he be okay?” Charlotte
asked, still reeling from all that had happened.
    “He should be fine. The
doctor will give you more details,” the nurse said nicely.
    “Thank you,” Charlotte said,
following her through the doors and down the corridor towards his room. “Thank
you so much.”
    “He was very lucky you
found him when you did,” the nurse added. “If it was much longer, he would've
lost far too much blood…he might not have made it.”
    She silently thanked
herself for being sensible and loyal enough to have left the reception when she
did. The nurse closed the door behind her as she left. Charlotte was left alone
in the small, dimly lit recovery room, standing at the foot of Logan’s bed.
    It was quite a shock, to
see him like that—hooked up to machines, a monitor displayed his heart rate and
other vital signs on a small green and black screen accompanied by a rhythmic
beeping sound. She'd tried to avoid hospitals whenever she could. It had been a
long time since she’d been in one.
    Logan was still sleeping,
his chest moving up and down in a slow, steady rhythm. There were two hard
backed plastic chairs shoved against one wall. She picked one of them up and placed
it next to his bedside, sitting and reaching for his hand. She held it silently
and waited for him to wake up.

Chapter