A Change of Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

He was about to turn away. He’d seen enough. But her hands stopped after opening the shirt only a sliver, exposing no more than a mere inch of her sternum.
    His eyes locked on that narrow, exposed strip of skin.
    She held the fabric in place as the wind tried to pry it apart. The lamp behind him hit her like a spotlight. She lifted her chin, elongating her neck.
    His eyes traced the exposed strip of flesh and his dead heart slammed to life in his chest.
    Etched into the pale bronze skin was a clean, straight, pink gash starting at the base of her throat and slashing her chest in half right down the center.
    â€œI have your wife’s heart,” she said so quietly that if the words had been any different he would never have heard them.
    A surgical scar.
    Holy mother of God.
    Jen’s heart.
    She had his Jen’s heart.
    He lifted his hand and reached for her. He didn’t know why he did it. But Jen’s heart was right here, her DNA, her tissue, her . Alive and beating.
    The girl sucked in a breath and stepped back, moving away from his outstretched hand as though it were a live wire. She pulled her shirt back together and went to work on her buttons. The scar disappeared behind black cotton and trembling fingers.
    â€œI’m sorry.” He had no idea why he was apologizing, but she had looked so terrified when he tried to touch her, it just came out.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said at the exact same time, and that accidental crash of words snapped her out of wherever she had gone.
    For a few moments, neither one of them moved or spoke.
    What could he say to her?
    Give it back? Give back that thing beating in your chest. It isn’t yours.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” she said again. The sympathy in her voice struck a match to the fuse hanging from him. Another blast of rage exploded inside him.
    â€œHow do I even know you’re telling the truth?”
    â€œI am. My name is Jess Koirala. You can look it up. I was on the national donor registry for five years before I got her heart . . . Jen’s heart. It’s part of the Government of India medical records.”
    â€œNo. I mean heart surgery is a physical procedure. It can’t—” He had no idea what kind of madness this was, but God, he wanted what she was saying to be true. He wanted it so badly, his entire being vibrated with the effort to break free from a lifetime of medical knowledge. He’d seen it a million times with patients’ families. They’d take hope anywhere they found it. They’d dig up a mountain with their bare hands if hope sat at the center of it.
    â€œI’m a physician. This doesn’t happen,” he said more to himself than to her. A flat line was a flat line. A period. Done. You could scream and pray and pump someone’s chest until their ribs splintered beneath your hands. But that door, once slammed shut, was closed forever.
    She pressed an unsteady hand to her chest, over the pink slash she’d just flashed at him and then hidden away. “How would I know all the things I know? She tells me things. Intimate things. You went to Scotland for your honeymoon. You were together for four months in Malawi after your wedding and then she left the MSF for a chance to work in Dharavi in Mumbai.”
    â€œAnyone could find that out. Anyone could look that up or ask someone we know.”
    â€œBut how would I know how upset you were about her taking it.”
    â€œI was not—”
    â€œYes, you were. She knew you were, even though you didn’t say anything.”
    He turned away from her, needing to move. Jen was one of the most private people he knew. These weren’t things she would share with anyone casually.
    * * *
    Nikhil walked to the railing and stared out at the ocean. His body remained upright but he looked like she had slid a knife between his ribs.
    She knew she had him.
    With cruelty she wished she didn’t possess, she twisted the