The Breaking Point. Mariella Starr

      Chapter 1

      Ales held Faith’s hand. His forehead was lying against the mattress of her hospital bed. He jerked alert when he felt someone touch him.

      “Has she awakened yet?” Jill whispered.

      “Sort of, but she wasn’t making sense,” Ales whispered. “She has a concussion, but the doctors are saying all the scans show no imminent danger, whatever that means. She’s been in scanning machines most of the afternoon. The nurses and doctors have been checking on her every half-hour or so. They can see the monitor readings at the central stations.”

      “She’ll be okay,” Jill said. “You should get some rest, yourself. It’s after midnight.”

      He shook his head, tears welling in his eyes again. “I’m not leaving her.”

      “All right, I’ll see if I can find a machine that serves a half-decent cup of coffee,” Jill said, hugging him. “If not, I’ll send Mack out to get some. I’ll stay here with you.”

      When asked, Jill said she’d hired an armed guard to keep their mother from coming to the hospital, although later she admitted to hiring a home nurse. She had told the nurse to keep her client at home.

      Cybil was not accepting any responsibility for what she’d done, and when she’d been told about the accident, she’d said she was coming to the hospital. Mack, Jill’s husband, was generally blunter than his wife. He rarely tolerated any nonsense from his mother-in-law. He warned Cybil if she went to the hospital, she might be thrown out of a fifth-floor window.

      The hours went by incredibly slowly, with no changes. Sometimes Jill was in the room; other times it was Mack, but they never left Ales by himself. Carrie, his younger sister by five years, was at home with her children and Jill’s, impatiently waiting for updates, although nothing changed. Her husband, John, swung by the hospital on the way to his night shift at the fire department and dropped off a basket of sandwiches and thermoses of hot coffee.”

      It was daylight when Jill came in again. “Have you called the office yet?” she asked.

      “I left a message on Tyrell’s phone,” Ales said of his partner in Benedetti/Monroe Design. “He’ll call as soon as he gets the message.”

      “I’m going to rescue Carrie for a few hours. I’m sure the kids slept last night, but she didn’t because she was calling me almost every hour on the hour. If Faith wakes, call me. She will pull through this!”

      A half-hour later, Carrie tiptoed through the door of the ICU room, looking around furtively. “I slipped by the nurses’ station. Am I allowed to come in?” she whispered.

      Ales smiled at his younger sister. Carrie was his timid sister, and never one to break a rule.

      “As long as there aren’t more than two people in the room, they’re okay with family staying with her. I gave them a list of everyone that was allowed to visit.”

      Carrie hugged her brother, but her chin started to tremble. “When is she going to wake up?”

      Ales hugged his sister. “The doctors say it could be hours, or it could be days.”

      “Have you called Ricco yet?”

      “I don’t know what to tell him. He’s at camp, and...”

      “We’ll go get him as soon as John gets off his shift,” Carrie said, checking her watch because she knew her husband’s schedule. “Ricco needs to be here.”

      Ales nodded. “I still don’t know what to tell him.”

      “That Faith is going to be okay,” Carrie said firmly. “She’s going to survive this, and be as good as new! Don’t call Ricco at the camp, we’ll tell him when we get there. There’s no reason to scare him any more than necessary.”

      “No.” The word was a raspy whisper.

      Ales and Carrie rushed to the side of the bed.

      Faith’s eyelids were squeezed tightly together. “Don’t tell him,” she gasped, and then she slumped into the pillows. Her forehead was bandaged because she had seven stitches high on her forehead, into her hairline. Her pixy cut blonde hair was matted, although the nurses had sponged off the blood. Her face was swelling and darkening with bruises. She had a cut in her lip that had required several stitches.

      Ales took a deep breath. His beautiful, delicate wife was almost unrecognizable. He was so used to her natural beauty that it had become an everyday thing to him. He closed his eyes and vowed to God not to ever let his love for his wife become complacent again. Never! His beautiful Faith. She was a warrior woman in some instances, in others shy and unassuming. She’d been his blonde, blue-eyed beauty from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her. He’d known instantly that she was going to be his, for the rest of his life. He just had to do whatever it took to get her to agree with him.

      Recovery was slow, and luckily, Faith didn’t remember the worst of it. Several days went by. The horrible pain in her head began to lessen, and every day after, it hurt a little less. The nurses, her husband, and various in-laws, all repeatedly said she’d been lucky. She didn’t feel lucky.

      The police had come to talk to her when she was moved from the intensive care unit and into a sterile white and gray hospital room. Except for the two days she’d spent in the hospital when her son had been born, Faith had never had to stay in a hospital.

      When the police entered her hospital room, the looks on their faces had terrified her. She hadn’t seen herself in a mirror, and from the looks on their faces, she knew she was disfigured.

      She tried to get out of bed, demanding to see the damage. Ales stopped her, but the commotion brought a nurse into the room. She asked the policemen, and Ales to step into the hallway. The nurse calmly explained to Faith that her injuries were superficial. They would heal, and there shouldn’t be any lasting damage. She produced a hand mirror, and Faith gasped when she saw her reflection.

      Both of her eyes were blackened and swollen. The stitches high on her forehead and into her hairline looked ragged and nasty. Every part of her face was swollen, bruised and terrifying.

      A constant monolog by the nurse kept her calm. She explained the bruising and swelling would go away, and the stitches would be removed. The scarring would be minimal. When her hair grew back, the scar wouldn’t be visible.

      The nurse told Faith, she might have to wear bangs for a few months, but every woman needed to change her hairstyle occasionally. She assured Faith that the facial bruising would be gone in a week or two. Facial bruises healed much quicker than most areas of the body.

      Faith pulled her hospital gown loose and saw that her chest was various shades of dark blue, green and purple. She’d already seen the bruises on her arms and legs.

      “Most of this was done by the airbag,” the nurse explained. “It saved your life, but it deploys at approximately 100 miles per hour. It does leave a lot of damage behind. It did its job,