No Less Than a Lifetime

by Christine Rimmer

  Faith jumped from the car. Ariel’s exhausted face lit up. She shoved the hair out of her eyes and started running, her arms outstretched.

  “Oh, my dear!” Ariel cried. “I cannot tell you. We need you so. I’m so grateful you’ve come.”

  Her nostrils filled with the smell of Tabu and dust, Faith wrapped her own arms around Price’s mother and held on for dear life.

  Then Ariel pulled back.

  Faith searched the older woman’s face. “Who is it? Who’s under there?”

  “Price and Eli.”

  “Are they alive?”

  “Yes, we think so.”

  Just then, the ground came alive; it rumbled and rolled. Faith grabbed Ariel again and prayed that the man and boy beneath the rubble would be all right when the shaking stopped.

  At last, near dark, having removed the roof piece by piece with power saws, the rescue workers finally managed to clear away enough broken beams and plaster that the boy and the man had room to crawl through to safety.

  Parker, in the center of the action, had just grabbed Eli and pulled him into his arms when once again an aftershock began. Parker clutched the child close as everyone waited for the shaking to stop.

  As soon as the earth was still, Justine slogged through the rubble to reach her son. She held out her hungry arms. Parker handed the boy over.

  Right then, the child looked down and saw that the small tunnel he’d just climbed through was gone.

  He started shouting, “Price! Price!”

  “Shh…” Justine murmured soothingly, “Settle down, they’ll get him out.”

  Parker signaled to her to carry the boy out of there. She turned and stumbled away, her child begging frantically, “Mommy, where’s Price? He has to get out. They have to get him out…”

  The EMTs were waiting to look the boy over. They surrounded Justine and took Eli from her.

  In the rubble, Parker was calling, “Price? Big brother, you still with me?”

  He got no answer. Faith heard a strangled sob from behind her. She turned to meet Ariel’s despairing violet eyes.

  The women grabbed each other.

  “Tell me he’s going to be all right,” Ariel whispered in Faith’s ear. “Tell me. Tell me, please.”

  “He will,” Faith replied through clenched teeth. “I promise he will.”

  Half an hour later, beneath an almost full moon, they pulled Price out, in one piece but unconscious. Faith was granted one quick glimpse of his frighteningly pale, dirty face, and then the paramedics were all over him, monitoring vital signs, strapping him to a gurney.

  “Come on, gal,” Oggie said, “get Ariel and Regis. And Parker, too. We’ll follow the ambulance right to the hospital.”

  Quickly Faith collected the elder Montgomerys and herded them into the back seat of the Cadillac.

  Then she turned to Parker, “Come on. Get in.”

  “Naw. I’ll take Mom’s Range Rover, I think. So we’ll have another car if anyone wants to go home.”

  Faith looked him over. His Def Leppard T-shirt was ripped in several places. His long hair had plaster in it. His face was filthy, and his high-tops were covered with dust.

  Love welled in her, pure and strong. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  Parker threw back his head and laughed at the big, pale moon. “Hell. After today, I’m ready for just about anything. And about time, too.”

  “Has your license expired?”

  “Nope. It’s still good. Barely.”

  “Drive carefully. There are people who count on you.”

  “I know. I’m one lucky guy.”

  Oggie was already gunning the engine, eager to move. “Come on, gal. That ambulance’ll get away…”

  Faith settled into her seat, and Parker shut the door.

  The hospital was packed. There weren’t enough rooms to go around. They put Price on a bed in a hallway, with an IV in his arm, and people in white coats came by periodically to pry open his closed eyes and check his pulse.

  Faith was with him, around ten, when he woke. He groaned and slowly opened his eyes.

  He blinked. “God. Am I dreaming?”

  “Don’t talk. I’ll get a nurse or something.”

  He started to sit up, then settled back with another groan.

  Faith flagged down a passing orderly, and within moments medical people were all over Price, checking his eyes and his pulse and his IV drip, scribbling notes to themselves. Then, as quickly as they’d descended, they left, threatening that they’d return soon.

  Faith stayed back out of the way until Price was no longer surrounded by white coats. Then she cautiously drew near once more.

  He smiled at her. A wobbly smile, but a smile nonetheless. “You’re really here.”

  “Did you think I’d be able to stay away?”

  He said nothing, just looked at her.

  Faith thought of the others. “Your mother and father. And Parker…”

  “What?”

  “They’ll kill me if I don’t tell them you’re awake. They went to find the cafeteria. To see about getting something to eat.”

  He was frowning. It looked as if it hurt him to do that. “Parker’s here?”

  “You bet.”

  His eyes clouded. “Eli?”

  “He’s fine. Or he will be, as soon as he finds out that you’re all right.” She put up both hands. “Stay right there.”

  “No problem.”

  She hurried down to the nurse’s desk and asked them to page the Montgomerys in the cafeteria. They looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. The hospital was total chaos. They had better things to do than page people in the cafeteria.

  Faith hurried back to Price’s bedside. “They can’t page them. I’ll have to go get them.”

  “You’re real,” he said.

  That gave her pause. “Huh?”

  “Every time you leave, I get positive I only hallucinated you.”

  “No. I’m perfectly real. Listen, I’ll just go and—”

  His hand closed over her wrist. “No way. Stay with me.”

  “But—”

  “Are all of them all right?”

  “Yes. They’re fine.”

  He sighed. “I thought so. But I wanted to be sure. And you don’t have to go. They’ll be back here soon enough.”

  “But don’t you want me to—”

  “No.” His eyes drifted closed, but he didn’t let go of her wrist.

  Two nurses barreled past them, jostling Faith. And voices kept coming over the loudspeaker, calling doctors to different places of the hospital. A man in another bed, about four feet from the end of Price’s, kept groaning and mumbling to himself.

  “How long will you stick around?”

  The sound of Price’s voice surprised her; she’d assumed he’d drifted to sleep again. She looked and saw that he was watching her. “I, um, thought we could talk about that a little later, when you’re feeling stronger.”

  “Later.” He repeated the word as if it offended him.

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head, then swore softly at the pain it caused him. “No. Let’s talk now.”

  The man on the other bed mumbled something unintelligible. A little girl went by in a wheelchair, pushed by a man with a beard.

  Faith ached to touch Price. So she reached out and smoothed his brow. He closed his eyes once more and released her wrist, his hand dropping to the sheet as if the effort of holding her there had tired him out.

  “I’ve missed you so,” she whispered.

  His eyes popped open. “So how long will you stay?”

  “Oh, Price…”

  “How long?”

  She gave up all pretense of evasion. She had made her decision, and he might as well know it. Still, the words came out haltingly. “I guess…indefinitely. If you want me to.”

  “Indefinitely…” He seemed to run the word through his mind, checking for flaws.

  She thought she’d better ex
plain a little further. She bent close, so that none of the people who kept rushing past his bed could hear. “I guess I just can’t stay away from you, Price Montgomery. I…want to be beside you, on any terms…” Her face was turning red, she just knew it. She felt like ten kinds of fool.

  He groped for her hand. She gave it to him. He brought it to his lips. The brushing caress set every nerve she had humming.

  “Are you telling me you won’t send me away again, even if I won’t marry you? Even if there are no babies?”

  The man on the bed a few feet away went on groaning and babbling to himself. And a voice on the PA system demanded that Dr. Valerian report to ER immediately. A woman walked by, sobbing, muttering to herself, “She’s all right. They said she’s going to be all right…”

  Faith hardly heard any of it. She bit her lip and nodded, squeezing the hand that held hers. “I want every moment I can have with you. Life is too short. You’re the one I love. And I’ll be with you. Whether you’ll marry me or not.”

  His eyes were so tender. “That’s bull,” he said.

  Faith blinked and pulled back. “What?”

  “It would last about two weeks. Then you’d be miserable again.”

  “No, I…”

  “Faith. Come back here.”

  “But, I…”

  “Don’t argue with an injured man. Come on. Bend down close.”

  Cautiously she leaned near him once more.

  “Closer.”

  She put her ear near his lips.

  “Marry me,” he whispered.

  She was sure she hadn’t heard right. She pulled back enough to gape at him. “What?”

  “Marry me. As soon as I can get out of this place. Marry me…and we’ll throw all those damn foil packets.out the window of our honeymoon suite.”

  Faith had to remind herself to breathe. “Oh, Price. What are you saying?”

  “That I love you, Faith. And that I want you to marry me. And I want to have babies with you. As many babies as…God will give us.”

  Her legs felt strange. She had to grip the bed rail. “What—? I can’t—Are you—?”

  Price chuckled. And then he groaned.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “My head aches. Even my hair is in pain.”

  “I’ll get the—”

  “Forget it. Just kiss me.”

  “You’re not in any condition for kissing.”

  “Bend down here.”

  “Price.”

  “No. I mean it. Down here. Now.”

  She cast a quick glance around. No one was looking at them. “I don’t think we should…”

  “Don’t torture me. Kiss me.”

  “Price…”

  “Don’t you want to kiss me?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Well, then?”

  Carefully, mindful of his bruised and battered body and the IV drip, as well, she bent over and laid her mouth against his. It was not the most passionate kiss they’d ever shared. But it was certainly the sweetest.

  When she looked up, the Montgomerys and Oggie were blocking the hallway. They were all grinning.

  Eli, holding his mother’s hand, had the widest smile of all.

  Faith stepped back beside Oggie to let the others get near the bed.

  “Think everythin’s gonna be all right now, gal?” Oggie asked.

  “I do, Uncle Oggie. I truly do.”

  “He gonna marry you now?”

  “Yes. He is.”

  After a few moments, they joined the others, close to Price.

  Price was asking about the house. Ariel said everything in it was now in pieces on the floors. But the building itself—not counting the morning room wing, of courseseemed fine.

  Nevertheless, they planned to camp out on the grounds for a night or two, until the aftershocks tapered off and someone could be brought in to declare the place safe.

  “Roughing it,” Ariel said proudly. “Like everyone else in the Bay Area will be doing.”

  They shared what they knew of how others had fared. Several people had died. And more than one building had been completely destroyed. But all of the hospitals remained fully functional, if overcrowded. And the fires had been kept to a minimum, thanks to lack of wind and quick response by local fire fighters.

  Soon enough, a nurse came up and said they couldn’t all stay with the patient; they were blocking the hallway. It was agreed that everyone but Faith would retreat to a waiting room for a while.

  As soon as the others were gone, Faith moved close. She took Price’s hand.

  “Go ahead, ask,” he said.

  “No. I know you’re probably tired.”

  “I am. But I know it’s driving you crazy, wanting to know.”

  “All right,” she admitted. “Tell me. What happened, Price? What changed your mind?”

  He mouthed a name. “Eli.”

  She repeated it. “Eli?”

  Price nodded. “He told me that I had to get on with the job of living. That Danny would have wanted that.”

  “And you actually listened to him?”

  He squeezed her hand. “Faith, when you’re trapped in the dark under two stories of rubble, things you never understood before tend to become very clear.” He tugged on her hand, so that she’d bend down again.

  She held back a little. “You saved Eli’s life, didn’t you?”

  He made a noise in his throat. “Hell. Maybe. It’s impossible to say for sure, though.”

  Faith knew she was right, even though Price wasn’t willing to come right out and admit it. She thought of Danny. And all the years that Price had blamed himself for Danny’s death. Now he’d saved the life of another little boy. Maybe it didn’t make up for the loss of Danny. But it seemed that it meant something. It made it possible for Price to forgive himself.

  Or maybe it had just been the earthquake that did it. An act of God, as Uncle Oggie had said.

  “Come back down here.”

  Faith was still marveling. “Eli’s very bright. He’s a super reader, you know?”

  “Faith…”

  “All right, all right.” She bent close.

  “I love you,” he said.

  Her heart took wing as her lips met his.

  In another hallway, off the waiting room where he’d just left the Montgomerys, Oggie Jones chortled to himself. Yessiree, life was grand.

  He pulled out a cigar.

  “You can’t smoke that in here!” a passing orderly told him huffily.

  “All right, all right,” Oggie said. “Show me to the door. It’s time I headed on home, anyway. I’ve done what needed doing here.”

  Epilogue

  Two weeks later, Faith and Price were married in the Community Church in North Magdalene. Parker was best man and Eli Clary was the ring-bearer. Since both Price and Faith considered Montgomery House their home, they returned there to live after all the necessary repairs had been completed.

  Justine Clary, her son Eli, and Eli’s gray cat, Shaker, moved to North Magdalene, where Justine took over the Foothill Inn.

  Sir Winston seemed to have disappeared. But then, three months after the earthquake, Ariel was enjoying an outdoor show of her watercolors in Plaza de Vina Del Mar Park, right beyond the ferry docks. The black bird swooped down out of nowhere and landed on her head.

  “How you been, baby?” Sir Winston inquired.

  Ariel laughed and told him that she’d been just fine.

  Eden Jones bore a second daughter, Diana, in June. Evie Riggins bore a son, Stephen, in October.

  And on Easter Sunday, one year after Faith and Price were married, Faith went into labor with their first child. Oggie appeared out of nowhere only minutes after a little girl was born.

  Oggie took one look at the tiny scrap of humanity and declared, “This here is Hope.”

  Though Price and Faith had been arguing about names for months, nobody argued with Oggie. They named the baby Hope.

  * * * * *
>
  Watch for HONEYMOON HOTLINE,

  the next installment in Christine Rimmer’s

  JONES GANG series, coming in November from

  Silhouette Special Edition.

  The first book in the exciting new

  Fortune’s Children series is

  HIRED HUSBAND

  by New York Times bestselling writer

  Rebecca Brandewyne

  Beginning in July 1996

  Only from Silhouette Books

  Here’s an exciting sneak preview…

  Minneapolis, Minnesota

  As Caroline Fortune wheeled her dark blue Volvo into the underground parking lot of the towering, glass-and-steel structure that housed the global headquarters of Fortune Cosmetics, she glanced anxiously at her gold Piaget wristwatch. An accident on the snowy freeway had caused rush-hour traffic to be a nightmare this morning. As a result, she was running late for her 9:00 a.m. meeting—and if there was one thing her grandmother, Kate Winfield Fortune, simply couldn’t abide, it was slack, unprofessional behavior on the job. And lateness was the sign of a sloppy, disorganized schedule.

  Involuntarily, Caroline shuddered at the thought of her grandmother’s infamous wrath being unleashed upon her. The stern rebuke would be precise, apropos, scathing and delivered with coolly raised, condemnatory eyebrows and in icy tones of haughty grandeur that had in the past reduced many an executive—even the male ones—at Fortune Cosmetics not only to obsequious apologies, but even to tears. Caroline had seen it happen on more than one occasion, although, much to her gratitude and relief, she herself was seldom a target of her grandmother’s anger. And she wouldn’t be this morning, either, not if she could help it. That would be a disastrous way to start out the new year.

  Grabbing her Louis Vuitton totebag and her black leather portfolio from the front passenger seat, Caroline stepped gracefully from the Volvo and slammed the door. The heels of her Maud Frizon pumps clicked briskly on the concrete floor as she hurried toward the bank of elevators that would take her up into the skyscraper owned by her family. As the elevator doors slid open, she rushed down the long, plushly carpeted corridors of one of the hushed upper floors toward the conference room.