Sophie's Path

Her choice. His consequences.

Nurse Sophie Mattuchi has seen a lot of angry patients in the ER, but no one’s ever rattled her like Jack Carter. He has no right to blame her for his friend’s death. Sophie did everything she could. Didn’t she? Yet his accusations sting, and that sets off all kinds of internal alarms. She’s never cared this much about any man’s opinion of her. But Jack is different. He stirs up feelings. Strong feelings. Guilt. Anger. Attraction. Curiosity. Sympathy. Sophie’s definitely not interested in Jack, but even if she was, he’d never forgive her for the decision she made that night in the hospital. Would he?

In the blink of an eye, Jack had placed the people in his charge in jeopardy.

Now he had to face his darkest hour.

The air was split again with screams of human pain that Jack would never have imagined, even in his worst nightmares. He heard a man, a young man, yelling for help on the other side of the ER. Jack wanted to cover his ears, but even if he could have, he knew he would never forget that scream for the rest of his life. It was so terrifying it sounded inhuman.

But above it all, he heard the high-pitched wail of a young girl’s terror that turned his blood to ice.

“That’s Aleah!” Jack growled as tears burned his swollen and bruised eyes.

A voice came over the loudspeaker. “Code Blue. Code Blue. Dr. Barzonni to the ER, stat.”

Sophie glanced back at Jack with pleading eyes. “I want to help you, but I have to go to her.”

Jack reached out his aching arm and motioned her away. “Save her, Sophie. Save her.”

Dear Reader,

Since I first conjured the inhabitants of Indian Lake, Sophie Mattuchi was a favorite because she was so complicated, intense and an audacious flirt. If you read Heart’s Desire, book two in the Shores of Indian Lake series, you will remember that Sophie was Maddie Strong’s rival for Nate Barzonni. Sophie went so far as to lose eight pounds, cut her hair and bleach it to look more like Maddie. The ploy didn’t work, of course, because Nate only had eyes for Maddie. Then in book three, Sophie tried flirting with Nate’s brother, Gabe. That didn’t work, either.

Sophie’s infatuation with being infatuated, combined with her dedication to cardiac nursing, could only ignite fireworks when she meets handsome Jack Carter in the ER on the night of a devastating car accident. An accident caused by a man high on drugs.

The battle against drug addiction is being fought in far too many families. Mine is no exception. The challenges facing parents are agonizing and daunting. Sophie’s empathy toward addicts captured me. If you are a parent, I urge you to go to www.notmykid.org and make use of their guidance. Stopping drug addiction before it starts for your children is the wise course.

Sophie’s Path also gave me an opportunity to peek back into the lives of some favorite characters in town: Mrs. Beabots, Sarah and Luke Bosworth and of course, Liz and Gabe Barzonni, who are about to give birth to their first child. Boy? Girl?

As always, I’d love to hear from you. Your comments have a strong influence on my upcoming stories. Visit me on Facebook, Twitter @cathlanigan, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Goodreads and my website, www.catherinelanigan.com.

Happy Reading!

Catherine

Sophie’s Path
Catherine Lanigan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CATHERINE LANIGAN knew she was born to storytelling at a very young age when she told stories to her younger brothers and sister to entertain them. After years of encouragement from family and high school teachers, Catherine was shocked and brokenhearted when her freshman college creative-writing professor told her that she had “no writing talent whatsoever” and that she would never earn a dime as a writer. He promised her that he would be her crutches and get her through his demanding class with a B grade so as not to destroy her high grade point average too much, if Catherine would promise never to write again. Catherine assumed he was the voice of authority and gave in to the bargain.

For fourteen years she did not write until she was encouraged by a television journalist to give her dream a shot. She wrote a six-hundred-page historical romantic spy thriller set against World War I. The journalist sent the manuscript to his agent, who then garnered bids from two publishers. That was nearly forty published novels, nonfiction books and anthologies ago.

MILLS & BOON

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This book is dedicated to my late husband, Jed Nolan, my hero, my best friend, my love.

Acknowledgments

The days and nights of writing this book were difficult and a struggle for me because my husband was dying of leukemia. Much of this manuscript was written in his hospital room and then the hospice room. My heart was breaking and my mind was often distracted, though I continued to write. The gratitude I have for my editor, Claire Caldwell, who was able to take my “compilation of sheets of paper” and be my pathfinder to the core of this story that we both knew was there under too much exposition, is as deep as the ocean. Thank you and bless you, Claire, for being all that you are for me.

And to Victoria Curran and Dianne Moggy for the heartfelt empathy you had and have for me. You have been my champions and I honor and cherish that.

A special hug to Rula Sinara, my Heartwarming blog partner and “sister” of the heart, who answered my midnight texts from Rush Hospital in Chicago. To Kate James, who listened and emailed endlessly to a woman she barely knew, but to whom she extended her friendship and caring. At the time, none of us knew the outcome, but you were all there offering hope.

Always, to Lissy Peace, my agent of over two decades, love and more love.

To ALL my Heartwarming author sisters who sent flowers, cards, phone calls, emails, text messages, each and every one of you saved my sanity and allowed my heart to begin to heal.

God bless you every one.

Contents

COVER

BACK COVER TEXT

INTRODUCTION

Dear Reader

TITLE PAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DEDICATION

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

EXTRACT

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

JACK WAS AT the bottom of a dank, wet drainage tunnel. He smelled earth, rain and blood. It was dark and he couldn’t see even a few inches in front of him. The ringing in his ears drowned out everything else. He felt as if there was something nibbling at his ankles. Rats? He hated rats. Just the thought of them made his stomach lurch. He tried to shake them off but couldn’t move his legs. No, not rats. It was pain. Shooting, biting, sharp pain that now went careening up his calves.

His thoughts were confused and morphed into one another, creating a senseless universe. That was it, he reasoned. He’d been catapulted into some black hole. Floating. Spinning. Weightless.

And alone. Utterly, completely alone.

Except for the pain. The pain was his bedfellow. His traveling companion. It overtook his entire body now. His spine felt as if someone had shot it with molten steel. His skull pounded in agony. He couldn’t open his eyes for fear that the tiniest beam of light would penetrate him like bullets.

Surely, he was dying.

This was what it was like at the end, he thought. Every cell in his body felt as if it had been shot with electricity strong enough to fry him to ash. No human could endure this kind of torture and live. No human would want to. This was the moment, that sliver of awareness that he was about to give up the ghost. And in his moment of choice, Jack knew it was okay to let go. Except for his sister and brother-in-law, he had no one. No wife. No children. No one would mourn him. He wouldn’t be missed.

Then he heard a familiar male voice, though he couldn’t place it.

“9-1-1? There’s been an accident. Hurry. We’re going to lose them!”

* * *

LIKE THE HIGH-PITCHED, irritating buzz of a mosquito, a voice reached into Jack’s consciousness. Impossible as that was to accept, he struggled to figure out what it was saying.

“Jack? Can you hear me? Help is coming. Stay with me.”

Jack had expected to talk to an angel upon dying, but this was a man’s voice. A young man who sounded vaguely like the new recruit he’d hired for his insurance agency, Owen Jacobs. Yes. His mind slowly ground into gear.

“Jack,” Owen said. “Can you hear the sirens? The cops are here. The ambulance, too. It’s going to be okay.”

Jack didn’t hear sirens. It took all his effort to listen to Owen’s voice, which he was positive was coming to him from the other end of a tunnel. Jack wanted to answer Owen, but there was so much blood in his mouth, all he could do was choke, cough and spit. His tongue refused to obey his commands.

Now that he was a little more aware, though, his training kicked in. Apparently, even in his last minutes on earth, he was an insurance agent through and through. He wanted to know all the particulars. Where was he? What happened? Why was he paralyzed and in pain? And what was Owen doing here in this tunnel, if that’s where they were? He wanted facts. Even if Owen was talking to him, Jack couldn’t be sure he’d understood all the words. Each wave of pain smothered reality like a desert haboob that engulfs land, water and all living creatures. Jack’s world now contained only himself and the pain. The incessant, unrelenting, excruciating pain.

For some reason he couldn’t open his eyes. Something had glued them shut. He forced himself to listen, to make out even the faintest sounds, but Owen’s voice had faded and all that was left were the surges of his pounding blood and rapidly beating heart. Mercifully, that one sound told him he was still alive. For the moment.

Just as Jack’s mind was beginning to ease away the fuzzy edges of confusion, a searing, debilitating pain shot across his forehead, making him feel as if his eyes had just been scorched out of their sockets.

Everything went black. Jack was floating in the galaxies again.

* * *

SOPHIE MATTUCHI HAD a little over an hour before she began her weekend night shift as a cardiac nurse in the ER at Indian Lake Hospital. Sophie had signed on for the extra hours because the ER was shorthanded and because she saw the need. Sophie always saw the need.

Although it was an unusually foggy evening, she pulled on her running shoes, determined to fit in a run around the three-mile running trail that circled the lake. It had been a rainy and cold early June, and before that, she’d felt as if winter would never end after a record four-foot snow pack that stayed until late March. Still, she hadn’t missed a single day’s run since she’d taken up the sport two years ago to keep her weight under control and her mind off Louise Railton’s extra creamy homemade ice creams. The city had installed LED street lights all along the trail that allowed fanatics like Sophie to run in just about any kind of weather.

Sophie had invested in the best running shoes, clothing and gadgets to track her fitness, and she’d downloaded motivational podcasts to listen to while she ran. There was nothing like starting her workdays or evenings with inspiring mantras to help her reinvent her life.

And these days, she was all about reinventing, restructuring, realigning and rebooting Sophie.

Ever since she’d kissed a very reluctant Scott Abbot in first grade, Sophie had been labeled the town flirt. For most of her life, she hadn’t minded the moniker at all. She liked boys. A lot. She liked flirting and dating and being around men. She liked living in a man’s world and she liked being as good as any man in her job. Sophie thought that men were more interesting than women, or at least she’d been telling herself that since high school because she’d never had many girlfriends. She was too busy dating two, three, four different guys in a single week. Sophie always took it upon herself to explore whatever world it was that her newest guy was into. Baseball, football, track, cars, boating, weight lifting. She didn’t care. They liked her because she was “interested” and she loved their attention. The truth was that Sophie learned to be good friends—and often more—with all the guys she knew. They liked holding her hand and stealing kisses on the Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair.

However, the moment anything started to get serious, Sophie moved on. It had been the only way to handle her life when she was in school. She’d been dead set on obtaining her degree, and nothing and no one could stand in her way.

When she graduated, she’d spent a year at a hospital in Grand Rapids then moved back in with her parents to help them with her aging grandmother. What Sophie thought was going to be a single summer at home while she applied to top hospitals in Chicago and Indianapolis had evolved into an entire year. One year had turned into five. Her biggest surprise had been landing her dream job with Dr. Caldwell and Nate Barzonni.

In all that time, Sophie’s modus operandi for dealing with men never changed. She was an expert at getting a man’s attention, but once she’d landed him, she threw him back. Catch and release.

Sophie had come to realize that her commitment phobia and the lighthearted, devil-may-care persona she put on for the world to see, was just flat boring. Like a hamster in a cage, she was spinning her wheels and getting nowhere with her life.

The problem was that in a small town where everyone knew everyone’s business and had very long memories, her flirtatious ways had caused her to lose many people’s respect. And that was unacceptable to her.

Sticking her earbuds in her ears, Sophie smiled to herself. She bent down to press her nose to her knees as she clasped the backs of her thighs. She’d made some real changes over the past year.

Running had become nirvana for her and for the first time she had the body she’d always wanted. These days when she got depressed, she headed for the lake trail instead of a dish of Louise’s salted caramel and pecan ice cream. Her favorite store now was the organic farmer’s market. She had stamina that she hadn’t known before, and her weekend shifts at the ER, which could run as long as eighteen hours, didn’t compromise her regular weekday workload helping Dr. Nate Barzonni with heart surgeries.

Despite all these changes, Sophie hadn’t yet gotten a handle on love. She had no earthly idea how she’d overcome her bad habits, phobias and insecurities, but this was the year she’d start trying. Her self-help podcasts promised she could make it happen. She had to think differently and then she’d be able to make the right choices. She had to trust in the universe. Believe in the laws of attraction. Be the master of her own fate. Write her own script...

Her cell phone blared with an ambulance siren alert. It could only mean the ER was calling.

Sophie halted her run before it even started. She whipped the cell out of her shorts’ pocket. “Mattuchi here.”

The excited woman’s voice on the other end said, “How fast can you get here? We have a multiple-car accident on its way in from Highway 421. Possible DOA.”

“I’m there,” Sophie shouted into the phone, already sprinting toward her car.

CHAPTER TWO

JACK CRAWLED OUT of the rabbit hole. Or maybe it was some kind of wartime trench. Lights were flashing like mortars and bombs exploded. But this wasn’t war. He’d never been in a war, though he’d seen those kinds of movies. Maybe he was in a movie. No. Impossible. This wasn’t the drainage tunnel either, because they’d moved him out of that.

But who were “they”?

“Can you hear me, Mr. Carter?” a woman asked in the softest, most melodious caress of a voice he’d ever heard. It came to him like the peals of church bells tumbling through a mountain valley, distant yet beckoning.

It had happened. He’d died. Life was over. Pfft. Just like that. And this voice was that of the angel sent from heaven or the beyond to take him to his new life. He was struck by the utter finality of it all.

A thousand regrets fluttered across his heart. Jack never thought of himself as a family man, but the first person he pictured was his sister, Ava. He’d never see her again. Nor his brother-in-law and business partner, Barry. Would Ava be okay without her big brother Jack to watch out for her? Would Barry be able to handle the company without Jack’s guidance? And what about his niece, Kaylee? She wasn’t even a year old yet. He’d arranged for a bank account in her name to start her college fund. Ava and Barry were planning to come to Indian Lake for Katia’s wedding. Jack had hoped to talk them into moving here. Or had he already done that?

Facts tumbled into Jack’s brain like slow-falling snow. No, Ava and Barry still lived in Chicago, but Katia said she missed Ava a great deal and had investigated housing options for them, should they decide to make the move.

Now that Jack believed he was dying, he wished he’d pressed the issue more. He’d missed six months of little Kaylee’s life. Suddenly, oddly, that realization was very important to him and the loss filled him with sadness.

He also realized how vital Katia was to him. She was more than his stellar salesperson, manager and second-in-command at the office. She was a dear friend. He loved her like a sister and she took care of him like he was her brother. Katia juggled her own life—right now, she was planning a wedding and a two-week honeymoon in Italy—managed his business, grew their sales and made certain that just about everything in Jack’s world ran smoothly. How would he manage without her while she and Austin were on their honeymoon?

But if I’m dead, I won’t care. Will I?

His head was a jumble of thoughts and he was having a difficult time sorting out the present from the past. He supposed that was to be expected, considering he was dying. Or was already dead. But how did he get here?

Jack’s head felt like it was torn in two. Pain seared through his temples like a sizzling lance.

If he was dead, why was he in such agony? Think, Jack. Think.

A minute ago he was driving his car, though he couldn’t remember where he was going. Then the squeal of his brakes, the thud of the initial impact with the other car; the grind, crunch and thunder of his car being mangled. And the voices. His voice—cursing. Owen shouting and cursing even louder than Jack. And Aleah’s blood-curdling scream. Then soft whimpers. Then nothing.

Aleah. She was the reason he’d insisted on this seminar in Chicago today. Katia had hired Aleah to be an assistant. Sweet kid. Only twenty-one but with the wired kind of energy he could only get from a triple cappuccino at Cupcakes and Coffee. She didn’t know a darned thing about insurance, but she was smart and so willing to please. Jack had wanted Aleah and Owen to learn as much as they could about the business as quickly as possible. Proper information and training were key. Jack didn’t have time to teach them all he wanted them to know, and this seminar was perfectly timed for his needs.

Needs.

“...needing immediate attention,” the angel voice said. “I’m so sorry if I cause you any more pain, Mr. Carter.” Her voice brought him back to the present. “I have to clean the glass out of your eyes.”

I’m not dying.

Hospital. I’m in a hospital.

She was wiping his mouth with a warm, wet cloth. With light dabs, she sponged at his nose and he realized that the musty smell he’d thought was the drainage tunnel had been the scent of his own blood. He heard, but did not see, the plinking sound of bits of glass as she plucked them away from his face and put them in a hard plastic container.

She leaned her face close to his and he smelled mint mouthwash and a floral perfume.

“Mr. Carter? I know you’ve been through a trial. The police said they had to use the Jaws of Life to get you and the woman out of the front seat.”

Jaws of Life... Was he alive now? He thought he was dead. Floating in the stars. No. He had to be alive because he felt excruciating pain.

“Aleah,” he said, but her name came out like a choke and was indecipherable even to him.

“Mr. Carter, I’m so sorry if I’m hurting you. Am I hurting you?”

The angel’s words somersaulted over each other and didn’t make a lot of sense, and then Jack realized it wasn’t the angel, it was the fact that his brain was working on slow track. But he didn’t mind letting her voice wash over him. It took away his fears.

Impossible as it was, he clung to hope.

“I know it’s difficult to talk. Just go slow, Mr. Carter. Try to say your name. Can you do that for me?” she urged.

He wanted to please her. He didn’t know why, but he thought there might be some kind of judgment about all this. He lifted his tongue. “J-Jack.”

“Wonderful,” she breathed. “Marvelous.” She smoothed the cloth over his right eye and continued to wash it before moving on to his left. “It’s looking good. You’ll probably need some stiches over your eyebrow and along your hairline. Can you open this eye for me?”

The struggle was like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up a mountain. His eyelid barely lifted and what little he could see swam in front of him like a school of silverfish on one of his snorkel dives in the Caribbean. “I’m—not blind?”

“No.” She chuckled softly. “The blood and glass had matted them shut. I’m almost done with the other eye. I’m glad to see that no glass hurt this one.” She continued cleaning his left eye then rinsed the cloth. She used what appeared to be a long pair of tweezers to remove a tiny flake of glass from his upper lash. “You have long lashes. Good thing. They helped to capture this little rascal.”

She wore medical gloves, but he could feel her warmth as she traced her fingertip over the top of his left eyelid. “I think you should go ahead and open this eye for me now.”

Jack couldn’t believe the enormity of his task. If he opened his eye and didn’t see, what would he do? How would he cope? Would he have to have surgery? What if there was no cure?

“You’ll be just fine,” she assured him, touching his forearm and holding his hand in hers. “I’m right here.” She offered him more comfort and more confidence than he’d thought possible. He realized he was deeply afraid.

He finally managed to get his eye open, and as he looked at her he realized that in some sacred part of him, he’d hoped this was heaven, and that she might be an angel. Yet his slow and beleaguered consciousness affirmed that he was alive. As his eyes focused through swollen and bruised lids, he saw a beautiful stranger with an illuminated smile and dark eyes that promised a universe filled with hope.

“Hello, Jack,” she said with that voice he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life, even if he never saw her again.

She had a heart-shaped face; naturally, being an angel of mercy and saving lives, she would be all heart. She wore a white lab coat over maroon scrubs. Her name tag rested over her right side, heart pocket.

S. Mattuchi. RN.

“Nurse Mattuchi?” Jack mumbled, feeling a jagged pain saw through his head.

“You can call me Sophie. The doctor has ordered more tests for you. I’ve assured him your heart is stellar.” She leaned close.

Jack caught a floral scent in her dark hair as she fluffed his pillow and continued talking.

“Hearts are my specialty,” she continued. “I’m a cardiac surgical nurse, but I help out in the ER when they need me.” She pulled away and added, “I was off duty but came immediately when I got the call about you and your friends.”

Friends?

Suddenly, Jack’s mind was alert and the jumbled pieces of information in his brain fell into place. He moved his sluggish and swollen tongue. “Owen and Aleah?” He reached for Sophie’s forearm and squeezed it anxiously. “Tell me.”

“Owen is just fine. A broken collarbone and a few bruises. Aleah is being examined by the doctor right now, as is the driver of the other car. We were quite worried about you. You were unconscious and I was afraid you’d been blinded.”

“What else— I mean...” He closed his eyes and felt a scratch across his eyeballs as if they were filled with sand. Even the most minute movement was so difficult. “Please. Sophie. What else happened?”

“You have whiplash. No broken bones, but your ankle is sprained. No internal injuries. We’ll keep you overnight for observation. That concussion is dangerous. The neurosurgeon will be down later to check on you and she’ll probably order a CT scan.”

“Neurosurgeon?” Jack’s fear meter leaped to high alert.

“We have to make sure there are no blood clots or other damage. Best to cover our bases. Yours and ours.”

Jack tried to nod and failed. “Good thinking.” He paused for a moment. Words were reluctant to move from his brain to his lips. “Your insurance carrier will commend you for your prudence.”

Her expression was quizzical. “I wasn’t thinking of our liability—I only want what’s best for all our patients.”

“Don’t...take me wrong—” Jack tried to sit up but failed. He slumped back on the pillows. He groaned as he tried to touch his aching head, but when he lifted his arm he saw the IV and several butterfly bandages over a nasty gash in his forearm. A fleeting worry about scarring shot through his mind, but he dismissed it. He’d come razor-close to losing his eyesight. He was thankful that, in all likelihood, he’d walk away from this with some scars on his arm, a badly sprained ankle and a headache.

A beep went off in Sophie’s lab coat pocket. Anxiety distorted her pretty features and suddenly her entire demeanor changed. Her motions were brusque, hurried, but exact as she tore a plastic wrapper away from a disposable hypodermic needle. She dabbed gauze with alcohol and cleaned his IV site, then took the IV line, unhooked it and cleaned both ends of the plastic connections before injecting a vial of medication into his IV. “This will help with the pain,” she said, glancing into the hallway. She turned back to him. “This is your call button if you need anything. I know you must be thirsty, but we can’t let you have anything to eat or drink for a while. If you feel nauseous, you hit that button immediately. Do you understand?”

Jack nodded, disconcerted by her stern tone, and suddenly realized that the soothing melody of her voice had distracted him from what was going on in the rest of the ER. Sophie peered through Jack’s privacy curtain, and he heard what sounded like dozens of people all talking at the same time. Orders were being shouted. Someone was rattling off clipped, terse instructions. Rubber-soled shoes and sneakers pounded against the linoleum floor. Wheels of gurneys wobbled and screeched.

Though it sounded like pandemonium to Jack, an outsider, he knew these were professionals. He believed in this hospital and its very qualified staff. After all, it was only a few months ago, thanks to Katia Stanislaus’s expertise, that he and his company had landed the insurance contract for the Indian Lake Hospital. He’d met with President Emory Wills himself. Jack also knew cardiac surgeon Nate Barzonni personally. He was an excellent surgeon and could have had his pick of positions at Sloan-Kettering in New York, but being the altruistic man he was, Nate chose to divide his work between the Indian reservations up in Michigan and here in Indian Lake.

It eased Jack’s nerves to know that he, Owen and Aleah were in very capable hands.

Still, Jack wanted to talk to somebody who knew what had happened to him and his employees in the fog on Highway 421 tonight. Had he gone off the road? Had he fallen asleep? Was this his fault? What could have caused all this suffering?

Just considering that he could be responsible in the slightest degree was intolerable. Guilt flooded him like a tsunami, taking over his thoughts and causing more agony than his physical pain.

His whole life, he’d tried to do the right thing in every circumstance. From striving to live up to his marine father’s demanding and impossible expectations to taking care of his sister and mother after his father’s death. He chose insurance as a career to help others protect their lives and their possessions. Jack Carter was a guardian.