He thought he'd learned long ago that hoping, wishing, was pointless. But he couldn't believe that anymore. Refused to believe that. Hopes and prayers were all he had right now, and by God, he was going to give them everything he had.
"You're going to be okay." Alec's voice was rough, raw. "You have to be. I won't leave your side, Dad." His voice broke on Dad.
The ambulance stopped in front of the Emergency Room, and the doors were flung open by hospital personnel. One of his siblings had already called in William's information, and the doctor was planning to take him immediately into the cath lab for surgery to inflate a balloon that would clear the blockage in his heart.
They had to pry Alec's hand away from his father's. He didn't know how long he stood there after they'd gone, fear clamping down on his chest so hard he could barely breathe.
He felt a hand on his arm. "Alec." Cordelia's gentle voice was the only thing that could have soothed him even the slightest bit. "The paramedics got your father here in record time and he's in great hands. The surgeon worked on a colleague of my parents, who couldn't sing her praises enough."
"He tried to talk to me in the kitchen," Alec confessed, needing her to know everything, needing to admit what he'd done out loud. "But I wouldn't listen to him. Wouldn't even let him say thank you for tonight. I should have stopped plating the damned salads and let him talk. You were right, I should have given him a chance. But I never did." Alec had never felt so bleak, so lost in the dark. "If he dies, I'm to blame."
*
"Alec, no."
Cordelia took his hand and drew him into a small meditation garden to the side of the waiting room. There were big windows along the outer wall, so the doctors would be able to find Alec easily if they needed him. So would his siblings, who would be walking in any second. But before they arrived, they needed to speak privately.
"Your father is a very strong man," she said in a firm voice. "He'll pull through this. And when he does, the last thing he's going to want to hear is that you blame yourself for anything that just happened. I know you're stunned right now, and scared. But I won't let you take the blame for this. None of us will."
The steel in her words finally made him look at her. "He doesn't know, Cordelia." Her heart broke at the grief in his voice. "He doesn't know I love him."
"He does."
"How could he? When he told us Mom died, I yelled I hate you over and over at him. That's the last thing he knows. That I hated him. Because I haven't let anything change since I was five years old."
"I guarantee there's no possible way he believes you hate him. He would have understood why you said it, because you'd just lost your mother in the most horrific way possible. And he wouldn't have blamed you for it. No father would."
"I've spent the past thirty years making sure he couldn't forget."
"No," she said again, even more forcefully this time. "You've spent the past thirty years doing the best you can, the same way he has. I may have only spent a couple of hours with your dad at Summer Lake, but it only took a matter of seconds for me to know how much he loves you. And that he's never given up hope that the two of you can find your way back to each other."
The tears that fell from Alec's eyes as she spoke told her how much he wanted that.
She put her arms around him and held on tight. Soon, she knew his family would need him with them in the waiting room, their big brother who always held them together. Through thick and thin. Good times and bad. Alec was the one they could count on to keep them whole.
"Stay," he said, and she was holding him so tightly that his request reverberated from his chest to hers. "Please."
"I'm not going anywhere," she promised him. "Whatever you need, I'll take care of. You can count on me, no matter what."
*
Alec and Cordelia sat with Harry, Suzanne, Roman, Drake, and Rosa in the waiting room. After discussing the details of the surgery, they'd all been sitting silently. Waiting for news. Waiting for the doctor to come out and tell them everything would be okay.
Aunt Mary was still back at the barn corralling and comforting one hundred-plus worried Sullivans and family friends. If anyone was up to the task, though, it was Mary.
Just as Cordelia was clearly up to the task of making sure he and his siblings had whatever they needed as they kept vigil in the waiting room, having gotten coffee and soda and water for everyone during the past few hours. But when she went to refill Harry's coffee cup, Alec grabbed her hand and pulled her down into her seat. He wanted her to stay right there beside him. Her hand in his. Her gentle voice soothing him. "We don't need anything."
Except her. He needed her. Because she was his lifeline, his rock, the one person who would get him through tonight.
She curled her fingers through his, then laid her head against his shoulder. And for the briefest moment, a tiny ray of light shone through the darkness. Just from knowing that he didn't have to do this alone.
His brothers, his sister, his cousins--all of them were there for him too. But Cordelia wasn't at his side because they shared the same bloodline, or family history. She'd chosen to be with him, to be his friend, to stand beside him even when the chips were down.
He'd almost blurted out that he loved her at Tanglewood, while James Taylor was still singing "Fire and Rain." But he'd been so stunned by what he felt that he'd forced himself to come up with a million rationalizations for why love couldn't ever make sense for him. That he was destined to hurt her the way his father had hurt his mother. That he couldn't stand to give her false hope for a forever after that might never come. That since he was incapable of changing his bleak past, it meant a bleak future was also set in stone.
Now, suddenly, he realized that in the same way he'd screwed things up with his father, he was blowing it with Cordelia.
What would it take for him to accept the truth of what he felt for her? A horrible accident? Another hospital waiting room? Or would it be the day she finally gave up on him and found a man who wasn't afraid to love her the way she deserved to be loved?
Gordon had given Alec the ultimate gift in bringing Cordelia into his life. Finally, he could see that no matter how bad his past, only a total idiot wouldn't grab at a future with her with both hands. And not let go even when his dark memories, the nightmares from his childhood, tried to wrench her from him.
"Cordelia." He didn't care that they were sitting in the waiting room with his family all around them. In fact, he was glad Harry and Suz and Drake were there. Glad they would all hear what he had to say. "I need to tell you something. Here. Now."
She lifted her head from his shoulder and shifted to face him. "What is it?"
"I--"
"William Sullivan's family?" The doctor who had been operating on their father stepped into the waiting room, and all of them jumped out of their seats.
"Yes," Harry replied. "We're William Sullivan's family."
The doctor smiled at them. "I'm very happy to let all of you know that the procedure was a success. Your father is going to have to take it easy for a while, and lay off the hamburgers," she said with a grin, "but I know a fighter when I see one. And no wonder, with his kids all here waiting for him to be a hundred percent again. I'm sure you have questions and I'll be happy to answer them all. I'd like to get William settled into recovery first, and then I'll come back out to chat."
"When can we see him?" Alec asked.
"Let's give him a few hours to sleep off the anesthesia, and then we'll see if he's up to a short visit."
People liked to say money could buy happiness--but Alec would happily give every single penny he had just to be able to sit at his father's bedside and watch over him until he woke.
"I promised him that I'd be at his side when he woke up," Alec implored. The doctor had to understand how important this was. "I need to be there with him in recovery, not in a few hours, but now."
She looked like she was going to refuse his request, but then at the last second she nodded. "Ju
st you. And only if you remain quiet and stay out of our way."
People very rarely gave Alec Sullivan orders, not when he was always the most powerful man in any room. But he was more than happy to obey the doctor.
The kiss he gave Cordelia before he left the waiting room was one of new hope. And, though he hadn't yet had a chance to say the word, love.
*
Cordelia lifted her fingertips to her lips, which were tingling from Alec's surprise kiss. Everyone was doing their best not to make her uncomfortable by staring at her, but she could tell they were all more than a little surprised by Alec's behavior.
"I'm so glad your father is going to be okay." Cordelia hugged Suzanne, and then Harry and Drake. When everyone sat down again, they were all much more relaxed now that the doctor had given them good news.
"Dad will be glad to see Alec in the room with him when he wakes up," Harry said. "He'll know what it means, that it's the olive branch he's been waiting for."
"Hopefully it's more than just that," Drake said. "Hopefully Alec will not only listen to him, finally, but also talk to him."
"For the first time, Alec seems to want to talk." Suzanne looked at Cordelia. "About more than just Dad."
Cordelia was still flushed from the kiss Alec had given her--and from the anticipation of whatever he had been about to say before the doctor walked in. He'd looked so serious. So determined. And yet, at the same time he'd seemed totally vulnerable, as though he'd finally stripped away his armor.
Alec's siblings knew Cordelia and Alec were friends. But she was pretty sure none of them had guessed they had also been lovers. Not until he'd kissed her in front of them all.
"I care about Alec," she said softly. "Very much." Maybe it would have been easier to stay silent, but they'd welcomed her into their family circle, and she wanted to be as honest with them as she'd always been with their brother. "I know you won't be surprised to hear that he's become my best friend. He's always there for me and I always want to be there for him too." She made herself look Alec's siblings in the eye. "But if you're hoping that he's changed his mind about..." God, she was really wading into the deep end, wasn't she? "About relationships or falling in love, I don't think he has." Her stomach was clenched and her throat was tight. "I know other women have tried to change Alec, but I could never do that to him. He's never tried to change me--he's simply accepted me for who I am and what I believe. And I feel the same way about him. Whatever changes he wants to make, whether it's with his father or his job or even his haircut, I'll be right there supporting him in any way I can. But those changes will always be up to him, not me."
Suzanne took Cordelia's hand, one woman in love comforting another. "From the first moment we met, I knew you were special. And it's obvious my brother feels the same way, regardless of what he has or hasn't said to you about his feelings." She squeezed Cordelia's hand. "No matter what happens from here, if you and Alec stay just friends--or if he finally pulls his head out of his you-know-what and realizes how good the two of you are together--as far as I'm concerned, you're already one of us. You're part of our family, Cordelia."
"Just like Gordon." Cordelia's words were thick with the overwhelming joy of belonging to such a wonderful group of people who would always have her back, no matter what.
"No one understood Alec better than Gordon," Harry told her. "Not even the three of us." He smiled as he added, "But you, Cordelia, seem to understand Alec best of all."
That's because I love him, she thought. And though she didn't speak the words aloud, something told her she didn't need to.
Because Alec's family already knew.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"Son...you're here."
William Sullivan woke up two hours after Alec took his seat at his bedside. His father's voice was weaker than usual, but still stronger than most people's. William had always been larger than life, and it was beyond strange to see him lying in a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of him.
The nurses had made it clear that Alec shouldn't upset his father in any way once he woke up, and he'd promised to take the utmost care. But he couldn't let another second go without saying what he should have said a long time ago.
"I'm so glad you're okay, Dad. And I'm sorry. So damned sorry that I kept pushing you away, that I shut you out every time you tried to talk. When you were lying on the floor of the barn, all I could think was that I'd lost my chance to know my own father." He gripped William's hand, not shoving away his painful emotions for once. "I want that chance, Dad."
His father's eyes were damp as he said, "I do too."
"You don't need to try to talk," Alec said, even as relief flooded him that it wasn't too late for the two of them. "You need to save your strength to get well."
"I already feel a million times better. Just because you're here."
"I'm not going anywhere, Dad. Not without you."
William's eyes closed and he fell asleep again. Alec didn't let go of his hand, not even for a second. An hour later, when a nurse came in to check his blood pressure and IV, his father woke with a smile. And a request.
"Talk to me. Tell me about Cordelia."
"Subtle and Sullivan might start with the same letter," Alec said with a smile, "but that's as far as the connection goes."
"I really like her," William said, undaunted.
"Me too." The only reason Alec didn't use a stronger word for his feelings was because he wanted to say it to Cordelia first. Wanted her to know before anyone else that he loved her. "I know it might not seem like it from the outside, but Gordon loved her and wanted the best for her." Alec thought again about the note Gordon had left for Cordelia's adoptive parents--asking them to give her everything he couldn't, and trusting them with her life, her happiness. "He was wrong to think that meant staying out of her life, but he was right to bring us together. She makes me want to be a better man, makes me think it might even be possible."
"You don't need to be a better man, Alec."
"Yes, I do. And I will be. Starting here, now, by fixing things with you, no matter what it takes."
But his father simply shook his head on his pillow. "You've always carried so much weight on your shoulders, son. Carried the entire family since you were a child. It's time to stop taking care of everyone else, Alec, and start taking care of yourself. And this time, let all of us help you."
"Harry, Suz, and Drake--they've already been trying to help," Alec told his father. "Mostly by pointing out that I'm going to lose the best thing that has ever happened to me if I don't wake up and get my act together."
"They're right."
Alec hated being wrong about anything. But the thing he hated most was screwing up something with someone he loved. That was why it had always been easier to keep his distance. But he couldn't do that anymore, couldn't make sure a wide gulf always lay between him and everyone else.
"The past few weeks," he said, "you kept asking me if you could help."
"Anything," William said. "Anything you need, I'll make it happen for you."
Even lying in a hospital bed, his father still radiated power, and Alec believed he truly would move heaven and earth for him. If only he'd understood this sooner.
"Help me convince Cordelia to marry me." Maybe he should ask her to consider dating him first, but Alec had never been a patient man. Once he knew what he wanted, he moved heaven and earth to have it. Three weeks of knowing Cordelia was more than enough for him to know that he wanted her by his side forever. Not just as his friend, not just as his co-worker, but as his everything.
"You're not going to need my help with that, Alec. I may not know Cordelia well, but I'm damned positive about how she feels about you."
"You also know how great I am at shutting out the people who matter most," Alec reminded him.
"Fortunately," his father said, "those also happen to be the people who love you the most. When Cordelia came to me, I nearly begged her to sit for me, nearly dragged my paints and canvases ou
t of retirement just so I could paint the love in her eyes when she talked about you, when she said your name. Nothing could be more beautiful for a father than knowing that someone else loves his child as much as he does."
Alec's throat tightened up. "If she's willing to give me a chance, will you do me the honor of officiating at the wedding?"
His father nodded solemnly. "It would be the greatest joy of my life, son. The greatest one of all. Only..."
"What is it, Dad?" Alec looked at the numbers on the machines and the drip to see if anything seemed off. "Should I call the nurse? The doctor?"
He was about to press the call button when his father put a hand on his arm. "No, don't call anyone. I don't want them to make you leave before I finally get the chance to say something to you that I haven't been brave enough to say before."
After so many wasted years, Alec hated to waste another second. But his father had just come out of major surgery. "The nurses told me not to do or say anything that would upset you--"
"Forget the machines. My heart is strong enough for me to say this. It's time," his father said. "Now that you're finally here. Now that I'm finally here with you."
Alec took a deep breath. "I'm listening."
"I don't know if you remember, but your mother loved flying. Once we got in the air, she would always be so happy. Free from everything that weighed her down on the ground." When Alec shook his head, William said, "She loved to cook too. Do you remember that?"
Even if Alec had blocked out other things, how could he forget that? "Of course I do. She's the one who taught me."
"She always marveled at what a quick learner you were. She said you not only made every dish better than she did, but that you had a knack for knowing exactly what was missing from a meal and what might overpower it." William squeezed his hand. "I know she hurt you, Alec, but I hope you know how much she loved you."
"I loved her too." But while Lynn Sullivan would never be able to hear Alec say the words, this was his chance to make sure his father did. "I love you, Dad."
"And I love you, Alec. I've always loved you. Even when I didn't show you. Even when I wasn't there for you."
"Dad--" This was everything Alec needed to hear, but he couldn't let his father make himself sick again. "You don't have to do this now."