Pulled along by the grip Devil had on her hand, Molly stumbled to a halt as he reached the reception desk in the busy emergency room. 

“Kathleen Delancy,” he barked at the middle-aged desk clerk sitting behind the counter.  “Where is she?”

Molly grimaced when the woman lifted her eyes from the computer, raising a dark, challenging eyebrow at Devil and gazing at him coolly.  He’d obviously made quite a first impression on the lady with smooth caramel skin and piercing brown eyes.  Speaking to somebody like they were a dog would do that.  “Please excuse him,” Molly interrupted, squeezing Dev’s hand in warning.  “He’s a bit overwrought.”  Smiling when the other woman shifted her gaze to her, Molly began to explain.  “We just received a call about fifteen minutes ago from one of your nurses.  Jasmine, I think.  She informed us that Kathleen Delancy had been admitted through the emergency room.  She’s his grandmother,” she said, jerking her head toward an impatient Devil.

“Yeah, and I’d like to see her.  Now,” he demanded querulously, ignoring the pinch of Molly’s nails digging into his hand.

“He’s terribly worried about her,” Molly added quickly, shooting the other woman a beseeching look.  “Please excuse his poor behavior.”

“My behavior is fine,” Devil snapped at her as the desk clerk began tapping on her keyboard.

“Settle down before you get us thrown out of here, Devil,” Molly ordered, keeping her voice low as she shot the clerk an anxious look.  “This lady is the Keeper of the Gate.  If you want to pass through it, shut up and play nice.”

“I’d listen to the lady,” the woman behind the computer advised evenly without looking away from her screen.  “She makes a lot of sense.”

“Thank you,” Molly said prettily while Devil growled under his breath, his hand tightening around hers.  He was scared and Molly didn’t blame him, but ripping off the heads of unsuspecting, underpaid hospital employees wasn’t going to accomplish anything productive.

“Alright, I’ve found a Kathleen Delancy in my files,” the desk clerk said, looking up from her screen.  “Your name?” she asked Devil.

Looking between Molly and the expectant clerk, he snorted.  “I’m allowed to speak now?”

“Just your name, Sugar,” the woman taunted, her ruby lips lifting in a half-smile as she exchanged an amused look with Molly.

“And only your name, Devil,” Molly warned in a low voice beside him.

“William Delancy,” he bit out tersely.

“Or she might have called him Devil,” Molly interjected smoothly.  “That’s his nickname.” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug when the woman smirked.

“It fits,” the woman replied dryly, eyeing the tall dark-haired man beside the petite redhead.

“Where is my grandmother?” Devil ground out. 

If somebody didn’t act fast, Molly was pretty certain that he was going to show the entire waiting room why he’d earned his nickname.  “We’re a little frantic,” she added for emphasis.

“She’s in Cubicle 3C, but it’s family only from this point,” she said to Molly.  “Are you his wife?” the clerk asked with a nod toward Devil.

“Molly is family, and she’s staying with me,” Devil answered severely, hauling Molly against his side before she could open her mouth.

Rolling her coffee-colored eyes, the clerk gestured toward the metal double doors behind her left shoulder.  “Through the doors, take the second hallway on your right, and go left when you reach the water fountain.  I’ll alert her physician that the patient’s family has arrived.”

Sparing the woman a brief smile of gratitude before Devil yanked her toward the doors, Molly ran to keep up.  Together, they weaved through a throng of nurses and patients as they made their way down the corridors, following the desk clerk’s instructions.  As they drew closer to Nana’s cubicle, she silently noticed Devil’s stiffening back as she trailed a footstep behind him.  She could see his handsome face was twisted with concern for his grandmother.  “Devil,” she murmured when they finally reached the closed curtain of the cubicle, “I can wait here while you have a private moment with Nana.  I don’t mind.”

Pausing to frown down at her, Devil blinked.  “Why would you do that?  Like you said, she’s been your Nana, too.  You’re coming inside with me,” he replied implacably, pushing aside the curtain and ushering her into the tiny room with an insistent hand at her back.

Biting her lip as her gaze zeroed in on the elderly woman resting in the bed, Molly swallowed hard as tears filled her eyes.  Letting Devil step ahead of her, she waited as he crossed the small space to stand beside the bed.

“Nana?” she heard him whisper softly, taking the hand that didn’t have an IV attached to it into his.  “I’m here, Nana.”

Molly watched as Nana’s eyelids flickered, her keen blue eyes lighting up as she stared up at her grandson.  Devil had those identical eyes, a family trait passed down through the generations, she guessed.  One moment they could be filled with humor, and the next, they could burn a person alive.  It all depended on the mood of the owner.

“Willy, lad, you made it, my boy,” Kathleen greeted her grandson in her lilting Irish brogue despite having lived in the United States for the past sixty years or so.  Lifting the hand that held her IV to his face, she patted his lean cheek gently.  “I wondered when ye’d be arrivin’.”

Molly smiled at Nana’s greeting.  No one, save her, would ever dare call Devil by the name Willy.  Well, not to his face, at any rate. 

“We’d have been here faster, but we had to deal with Attila the Desk Clerk out there,” Devil joked softly, jerking his head toward the curtained entrance.

“We?” Kathleen echoed, trying to lift her head to peer around Devil’s broad shoulder.  “Who did you bring with you, Willy?”

Stepping to Devil’s side, Molly smiled down at the woman who’d spent as much time kissing her boo boos as a child as her own mother had.  “It’s just me, Nana,” she said softly, smiling at the elderly woman in the bed.

“Oh, you brought my bonny lass with you, Willy!” Nana smiled happily and reached for Molly’s hand.  “What a lovely surprise ye’ve brought an old lady,” she praised her grandson.

“You’re not old, Nana,” Molly protested.  “Just a little seasoned.  How do you feel?  Any pain?”

“Not a wee bit,” Kathleen denied, waving off the question.  “I feel much better now that ye two have arrived.”

“Nana, what happened?” Devil asked, frowning down at the woman in the bed. 

“Ach!  I had a wee episode in the garden, lad.  ‘Tis naught to worry about.”

Shaking his head, Devil’s eyes narrowed.  “Try again.  I already know that it was your heart.  The nurse that called me shared that you’ve already made a trip to the cath lab and that you’ll be moving for a few days into the cardiac care unit.  So, I’m going to ask again, what happened?  Or, I can go find your doctor and harass him.  Which would you prefer?”

Pressing her lips together, Kathleen glared at the boy she’d raised since his parents died.  Her son and daughter-in-law had left the world much too soon in a deadly car accident when little William had been a mere child.  She’d spoiled the boy rotten, and he’d gotten entirely too well accustomed to getting his own way.  It didn’t surprise her at all that he stood by her bedside making demands now.  Though that didn’t mean she’d let him get away with it, even if she was lying in a ridiculous hospital bed.  “I don’t know who ye think ye be talkin’ to in that tone, lad.  It couldn’t be your beloved Nana,” she chastised sternly, offering him an arch look as she pursed her lips.

Hanging his head, Devil sighed.  “I apologize, Nana.  I’m worried.”

“Don’t pay him any mind.  He’s been in a sour mood all afternoon, Nana,” Molly added with a wink at the old woman.  “And he’s been the very Devil everyone calls him since that nurse called the office.”

“Hmmfff,” Kathleen huffed, patting her faded red hair as she glared at her grandson.  “Tis no excuse for poor manners, lad.  I taught ye better than that.  As soon as I’m out of this bed, I’ll be searching for me wooden spoon, I will.”

Both Devil and Molly shuddered at that threat.  They’d both been on the receiving end of that punishment spoon over the years.  It could be a cruel, unforgiving instrument in Nana’s hand.  She was not a woman that had spared the rod.  When she believed it warranted, that spoon connected with your backside.  Repeatedly.

“I’m sorry, Nana.  Please, just tell me what happened and what the doctors are saying,” Devil asked again.

Mollified by his attitude change, Kathleen settled back against her pillows.  “I think ye can guess what the sawbones are saying.  I’ve got congestive heart failure, lad.  Did ye think I’d been given a pass to linger in this world forever?”

“So it was just the heart attack? No blockage then?” Devil asked tightly.

Touching his stiff back, Molly smoothed her hand up and down the tense muscles.

“It nary amounted to much of anything, lad.  A slight myocardial infarction, I believe they called it.  It’s just a portent of things to come, Willy.  We both need to be wrappin’ our heads around it.” 

Kathleen spoke so matter-of-factly that Molly shivered beside Devil.  “Surely there’s something they can do, Nana.  They have some of the finest physicians in the country here.  Grant will be here soon; I’m sure he’ll have some recommendations. I’m positive he’ll be able to get you a referral to the best doctor there is.”

Nodding, Devil agreed.  “She’s right.  I’ll fly them in if I have to, or we’ll fly you there.  Atlanta isn’t the end of the earth.  There’s New York and Boston… all kinds of place we haven’t investigated yet.”

“I’ll not be goin’ anywhere but home to me cottage, lad,” Kathleen objected with a negative shake of her head.  “No more doctors and no more of their blasted needles,” she continued, shaking her arm furiously where the IV was lodged in her vein.  “I don’t want me last days to be spent tethered to a pole.  I wouldn’t be here now if that nosy toad, Mr. Carter from over the hedge, hadn’t called the meat wagon,” she muttered.

“Thank God for Mr. Carter then,” Molly murmured, rubbing Nana’s leg under the blanket. 

“Nana, it sounds like you’re trying to quit on me,” Devil replied quietly as he met his grandmother’s wise eyes.

“Oh, Willy, I’ll never quit on ye.  The time is coming, though, when our Lord is going to call me home.  I intend to answer that summons, lad.”

Stunned, Devil and Molly stared at Kathleen.  “Nana, did those doctors tell you that…”

Looking at Molly, Nana smiled benignly.  “They indicated to me that the time was ‘nigh.  I’m eighty-two, child.  I’ve lived longer than most souls do.  I’m ready to meet my Maker and see my beloved again.”

“We’re not,” Devil objected sharply.

“Death is the consequence of living, lad.  It comes for us all.  I’ve avoided the Reaper for years, my boy, while I waited on you to make an old lady happy,” Kathleen said softly.

“What are you talking about, Nana?” Devil questioned softly. 

“I’ve waited and waited for ye to meet a lass and settle down.  Perhaps gift me with a great-grandchild or two if I was lucky.  If ever I had a dying wish, it be that, but I reckon it wasn’t to be,” she mourned quietly, her elderly face unhappy as she stared into her grandson’s eyes.

Molly could almost see the wheels spinning in Devil’s intelligent blue gaze as he turned to look briefly at her.  With a sinking feeling, she knew whatever his thoughts were…they involved her... and not in any way she was likely to approve of.  But, he couldn’t be going to do what she instinctively knew he was going to….

“Then, Nana, you’re about to be an extremely happy woman.  Maybe you’ll even decide to fight a little harder.”

“Eh?” Kathleen lifted her head to squint up at her boy. 

“We were saving our announcement for a surprise Christmas gift, but I can see you need it now,” Devil said smoothly, sliding his arm around Molly’s narrow waist and drawing her against him.

“Devil…” Molly’s eyes widened in alarm, her hand finding his as she buried her nails in the top of his hand.  She had a sneaking suspicion of what was coming, but he couldn’t!  He wouldn’t dare!

“What are ye saying, lad?” Kathleen asked, lifting her head from the pillow.

“I’m talking about Molly and me, Nana.  We’ve fallen in love.  We’ll be married by Christmas.”