In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance by Sandy Nathan Page B

latest tests have revealed that she’s brain-damaged. She apparently died during her journey here, maybe several times. The scans show it. She was resuscitated, or came back, but not fast enough. She suffered brain damage from lack of oxygen.”
    “Will she be able to …” Look normal? Act normal? Will choked back a sob.
    “We don’t know the extent of it or how it will affect her daily functioning and personality. She could have rages. She could be childlike. She could forget everything that she’s said or done fifteen minutes after doing it. Or, she might heal enough that you don’t notice anything at all. Though she will be low functioning.”
    “What do you mean? She was top of her class when she got her MBA at Stanford. She’s brilliant!”
    “Not anymore, Mr. Duane. When she leaves here, if she leaves here—she’s not out of the woods at all—she’ll be a different person than you knew. You’ll have to get to know each other again.”
    Will barked, a sound between a choke and a sob.
    “I’m sorry to have to tell you that. We’ll update you daily or more often as we have information. We’re on red alert. I need to go now.”
     
    Leroy’s face flashed before him. That stinking son of a bitch! He brings her back to life but doesn’t keep her back. He let her die several times. Stinking bastard left her brain-damaged.
    Will jumped up and began pacing in his office, then up and down the hall in his suite of rooms. Excluding the basement gym, Will’s house was fifteen thousand square feet. Three guesthouses, the pool house, and the horse trainer’s residence in the barn completed the estate. A village could live in style on his property.
    His rooms were four thousand square feet, the size of a large normal house. They were complete with his colossal bedroom, an office, gym, kitchen, media room, and closets the size of most people’s living rooms. He wanted to go to the basement and work out. His gym down there was as big as the footprint of the whole house. He had an indoor track. He could work this off. Figure out what to do.
    But he couldn’t go to the basement because he’d brought a dozen Indians back from the retreat with him. Staff, ostensibly, but a substitute family in fact. Or they were until he found out how much room Indians took up. They had their own quarters—the three guesthouses, the studio apartment in the pool house, and the apartment in the stables. But they came into his house to eat; Carl was a chef and cooked for all of them. They ate in the kitchen/family room.
    Then they wandered around the house, looking at his art collection. He couldn’t blame them for that. It was educational. They watched movies in the theater in the basement. Worked out in the underground gym all the time. They’d be there now, he knew. They played Frisbee on the lawn. And tennis. They swam. They laughed and talked. Carl cooked. He was as good a cook as Jon Walker had been, but he was huge and noisy and had tattoos all over and didn’t look like his predecessor, the classy and stylish Jon.
    Will was trapped in his suite of rooms in his own house. He didn’t want to kick the Indians out, and he didn’t want them there. All the camaraderie and love that had bound them at the Meeting seemed to have vanished. Between fighting for his life at work all day and Cass close to death, all he could do was draw a breath, and then the next, and figure out what he should say to whatever asshole was standing in front him.
    Will sent Leroy Watches to save her. The bastard had saved her halfway. He’d left her brain-damaged. “You will never marry my daughter. If I have to kill you, you will never marry her.” He shouldn’t have sent Leroy. But he saved her. Leaving her brain-damaged.
    Will stopped dead, clenching his hands. How did his life go so wrong? He was golden once, the man who couldn’t be beaten, the hero of his age, the new age, the electronic age. Now, everything was dust.
    Oh, Cass. I destroyed