by JoAnn Ross
“I have an idea.” He went around the counter and brushed away two tears that were trailing down her cheek. The other hand brushed along the outline of her lips that he’d gone too long—hours—without tasting. “When does that hash need to go into the oven?”
She covered his hand on her cheek with her own softer, smaller, smoother one. “It can wait.” Then went up on her toes to meet his mouth.
* * *
“I HAVE SOMETHING to ask you,” Brianna said after they’d dressed and were back downstairs in the kitchen.
“Okay. Did I mention this is the best yet?” he asked after plowing halfway through the crab hash she’d topped with a spicy sauce.
“You did. Thank you. And amazingly, I won that praise without including a single slice of bacon.”
“I already had bacon today.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Dad got bacon maple Long Johns.”
“A heart attack waiting to happen.”
“Probably. But worth it. Though they were nothing like this. Your guests are going to lick their plates. And the fact that it has fresh Dungeness makes it even more of a treat for all those folks who aren’t lucky enough to live on Pacific waters.”
“Thank you.” She got up from across the table, bent down and kissed him. “That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say. But what I was going to ask you has to do with the farm.”
“Your parents’ farm?”
“Yes.” She seemed hesitant, which was unusual for her. From the time she’d arrived in town, she’d seemed totally confident. “Next week is planting time.”
“Which means the festival.”
It wasn’t that big a deal as festivals went, because it involved work, but a lot of townspeople came out to plant the trees and eat great food donated from local vendors like Luca’s Kitchen, Mannion’s, Dinah’s Diner and Taco the Town. And this year, Cops and Coffee and Ovenly would be joining them. The cool thing for families was that the trees could be tagged with the names of the people who’d planted them. Then, seven or ten years later, they could come out and cut their own personal Christmas trees. Granted, not that many had the patience to do that, but Bri had told him that families celebrated the births of each of their children that way. Others bought living trees that they’d replant in their own yards.
“Yes. I was thinking that just maybe, you’d be willing to go with me.”
“Even though everyone will see us together?”
“We’ve been working on the house for weeks,” she pointed out as she sat back down in her own chair and put her napkin back on her lap in a way that revealed her surprising discomfort with the topic. Which left him thinking that in a way, by keeping their affair, or relationship, or whatever the hell it was a secret, he’d been behaving as if he was somehow ashamed of it. Or at least ignoring it the way his dad had with his mom. “It’s not as if it would be that much of a surprise,” she said. “Unless you felt moved to do something like kiss me.”
“I always feel moved to kiss you.”
It was his turn to get up from the table. From now on, he decided, they were going to sit next to each other. Or better yet, she could sit on his lap and he’d feed her. He bent and let his lips cling to hers for a long, delicious time that had him thinking he could probably warm up the rest of the hash later. After he’d had her again.
“And, FYI, everyone already knows about us,” he said.
“They do not.”
“According to Dad they do.” And the park ranger, whom he decided wasn’t relevant to this conversation. “There’s no reason for us to try to keep it a secret anymore, Bri. It was probably an impossible idea in the first place.”
“True,” she agreed with a sigh. “But I’ve enjoyed having what I thought was our private time together. Time to get reacquainted, but in a new way.”
A more intimate way, she didn’t say. But he knew she was thinking it. And not just a sexual intimacy, but a personal one. She’d even told him about Doctor Dick, who’d been the inciting incident that had triggered her return home. Part of him had wanted to fly to Des Moines and punch the doctor in his smug, billionaire face. Another, stronger part thought he ought to thank the dick for his part in Brianna Mannion being back in his life.
“I always liked the tree planting,” he said. Though back then he’d hung out more with her brothers, and they’d always seemed to end up more wet and muddy than everyone else due to pitching wet, packed balls of soil and mulch at each other. “And I can’t think of any better way to spend the day than planting your family’s trees with you. On one condition.”
She narrowed her eyes, hearing the sexual tease in his roughened tone. “What’s that?”
“That we wash the mud off each other in that shower upstairs.”
Her smile was both promise and temptation as she reached up, caught his face in her hands and drew his mouth back to hers. “Deal.”
* * *
AFTER ANOTHER ROUND of steamy sex that Seth figured would’ve set up earthquake alarms all over the peninsula, they were lying in bed, all warm in each other’s arms, when his phone rang.
“Hey, Dad,” he said, feeling far more cheerful than he had in a very long time. It turned out that Quinn and Jarle had been right that frequent and hot sex had been just the ticket to lift that dark cloud from his head.
But not with anyone. It was Brianna who’d changed his life. And as he lay there in the wide bed, with the quilt, top sheet and all those froufrou pillows women seemed to like knocked onto the hand-scraped wooden floor, he admitted to himself something that had been teasing in the background of his mind, but he hadn’t dared put into words.
Just like the ranger had with her Kenny somehow, when he hadn’t been looking, he’d fallen in love with Brianna Mannion.
“What’s up?” he said, dragging his mind back to his father.
“It’s your mom.”
“Oh?” He exchanged a smile with Bri, who’d left the bed and was fastening a skimpy lace bra the color of a midnight sky. As much as he was enjoying all the fancy lingerie she’d picked up at the Dancing Deer, he would have found her just as sexy in that plain cotton she’d been wearing their first time. “Need some more dating advice?”
“No. She’s in the hospital.”
“The hospital? Why? What happened?”
He was out of bed like a shot, searching around for his own scattered clothing. Briana fell to her knees and crawled beneath the bed to retrieve the boxer briefs she’d sent flying.
“She had a heart attack while painting some damn deer in a meadow.”
“Fuck.” He yanked on the briefs and began hopping foot to foot, pulling on his jeans. “I’ll be right there.” This time the look he exchanged with Brianna, who was already fully dressed, was grim. And, he suspected, as terrified as he felt. “Do you need me to pick you up?”
“No. I just reached the ER.” With that Ben cut off the phone.
“She’ll be all right,” Brianna assured him after they’d found their shoes, raced out to his truck and went roaring down the long driveway that Amanda, who’d had bulldozers working for the past week in front, had begun lining with tall, shaggy fir trees.
“You don’t know that,” Seth said through clenched teeth as he turned onto the road leading down the bluff into town. It was only because he didn’t want to kill any innocent people on the way that kept him from flooring the gas.
“And you don’t know she won’t be,” she pointed out with a calm that he figured had worked well with angry people for whom she couldn’t get tickets for some stupid, overpriced Las Vegas show.
“Don’t fucking patronize me.”
“I wasn’t,” she defended herself with a flair of heat that, even as terrified as he was, Seth realized came from her own fear.
It was all either of them were to say until they’d reached t
he hospital. “You go in,” she said as they pulled up into the yellow zone in front of the ER. “I’ll go park the truck to keep it from getting towed, then come find you.”
He wanted to thank her. Not just for that, but for being there for him. For being her. But not wanting to take the time to find the words, he burst out of the truck and raced to the door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
HE HEARD HIS father before he saw him, standing in front of a window labeled Reception. Like they were checking into some hotel or something. On the other side, a woman stood at a counter, shaking her head.
Oh, yeah. This was going well.
“Dad.” He put a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Calm down.”
“Calm down? You expect me to calm down when my wife’s back there and they won’t even let me see her?”
“As I’ve explained, Mr. Harper,” the woman said, color beginning to rise in her cheeks, “your wife has been admitted and is undergoing tests.”
“I need to be with her.”
“I understand. But what she needs is for the doctors and nurses treating her not to be distracted. And, to be perfectly frank, the only thing you could do back there is increase her stress, which I’m sure you wouldn’t want to do.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about us,” Ben said. “Maybe she’s worried that I don’t know. Maybe—” he swallowed, like he had a boulder in his throat “—maybe she’s afraid that she’ll die without me with her.”
“Both those scenarios are quite possible.” Seth heard a calm voice behind them and realized that Bri had parked the truck and found her way here. “And you’re right to be concerned. If I were you, I’d be frightened. But truly, the best thing you can do right now, Ben, is let the people who know what they’re doing take care of her.”
She took Ben’s hand, which was curled into a fist by his side, and gently unfolded his fingers, lacing them with hers. Amazingly, at least to Seth, his father didn’t pull away. Instead, he clung so tightly that he could see Bri’s knuckles going white.
“Hello,” she said with a smooth, professional smile meant to soothe troubled waters. “I’m Brianna Mannion. A friend of the family.”
“I know who you are,” the woman said. “You’re the mayor’s daughter. You’re fixing up that old haunted house.”
“I am. And I realize that you have a great deal to do, but Mr. Harper and I are wondering if there’s any way you could get a message to his wife, to let her know that he and her son are both here.”
“I could do that,” she agreed.
“Thank you.” The smile turned from professional to warm and grateful. Watching her, Seth realized that her former job had required more than organizational skills and a caretaker personality. It had also required acting skills. “We’d appreciate that so much, Ms. Banning. Would you be related to Jack Banning?”
“He’s my grandson.”
“Isn’t that one of the benefits of a small town? We’re all family, in a way. Jack sat in front of me in Mr. Clinton’s social studies class. He was an excellent student.”
“He’s a teacher at the college,” the woman said as Seth’s father begin to shift from foot to foot.
“Isn’t that wonderful! He was always the smartest boy in the class... And I don’t want to put you to too much bother—”
“That’s her damn job,” Ben muttered.
Brianna squeezed his hand but ignored his statement.
“Let Bri handle this, Dad,” Seth said quietly. “Trust me. She’s got it.”
“As I was about to say,” Brianna continued, “it would be so helpful if you could have someone find us a waiting room. Mrs. Harper has a great many friends and I know that you wouldn’t want all the other people who are waiting in the main room to be disturbed by the crowd that will undoubtedly show up. Especially since they have their own worries and don’t need the distraction.”
“I can do that.” She scribbled a note and gave it to a young man sitting at a black metal desk behind her. “Go tell Mrs. Harper that her family’s here,” she instructed. “And the mayor’s daughter.” She added that as if Brianna were some sort of Honeymoon Harbor royalty, which, Seth considered, in a way she was. “Then take them up to the small waiting room by the CCU.”
She turned back to Brianna, totally ignoring Ben as if he’d turned invisible. “Since the cardiac care unit was named after your family, it’s only right that you get yourselves a private waiting room.” She paused, shooting Ben a steely warning look. “As long as there aren’t any Mannion/Harper problems.”
“There won’t be,” Seth’s father said, his jaw clenched.
“Good.” The woman picked up a stack of papers, hit them against the counter to line up the edges and put them in a folder. “If you’ll have a seat, Brian will be back in a moment. But he’s only a clerk,” she said, wagging a finger at him. “So don’t be trying to get any information from him, because he’s neither medically trained nor allowed to talk to families about such things.”
“We’ll wait for the doctor,” Seth assured her.
“Fine.” She smiled at him. Then at Brianna. Once again his father had turned invisible. Which right now could only be a good thing.
* * *
CAROLINE HAD BEEN worried about Ben. Even more concerned that he’d be getting the news from Michael, who’d called 911. But the nice young orderly had assured her that her husband and son had arrived at the hospital with Brianna. And that a private waiting room was being arranged. She worried a bit that Ben might feel as if the Mannions were throwing their name around, which is certainly what she’d do if it would have made any difference, but she also decided to leave that problem to Seth and Brianna. Who, from what Sarah had told her over the years, excelled in making the impossible possible. This situation, which she’d gotten herself into by being a damn fool and not realizing that her symptoms had not been from allergies but heart problems, could well require every ounce of professional skills Sarah and John’s daughter possessed.
On the plus side, she was feeling much better. The IV and meds they’d given her when she’d first arrived were obviously doing their job. And the sense of panic that had had her in its grip during the ambulance ride down from the park had eased. Though she figured she’d have bruises from that bumpy ride. You’d think, she considered as an orderly wheeled her toward the X-ray department, where they were going to take films of her heart and give her an echocardiogram, and possibly yet more tests, that vehicles transporting seriously injured patients would have softer suspensions. She doubted that the old iron-wheeled wagons that used to go up and down those mountain roads could have been any rougher.
Her last thought, as the door to the room closed behind her, was that she was going to miss a date with her husband.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE WAITING WAS INTERMINABLE. Although Brianna had sat with that woman in Honolulu, and cared about her husband’s outcome, she’d still been there as what she saw to be part of her job. This, on the other hand, was intensely personal. Her mother and father had arrived, as had Quinn. Sarah had called other friends, but asked them to put off coming to the hospital for now. Knowing how quickly word would get out, she’d also had Caroline’s condition put on the town’s Facebook page with a note that she wouldn’t be allowed visitors, so, not wanting to get in the way of staff trying to help patients, she requested that people not come to the hospital at this time. And please, no flowers, because, as they all knew, Caroline Harper suffered from allergies, especially during spring pollen season.
So for now, those waiting were just the small group of Mannions and Harpers attempting to reassure each other that everything was going to be fine. And repeating the cliché of all clichés—that no news was good news.
Ben, unsurprisingly, couldn’t sit still. Although his pacing was getting on her nerves, she understood. Taking in his complexion
, which had turned from the angry red it had been when she and Seth had arrived to a sickly gray, she was grateful that medical care was close by. And wouldn’t that be all Seth needed? Both his parents admitted to the hospital on the same day.
Finally the doctor arrived.
“Mr. Harper?” she addressed Ben.
“That’s me. How’s my wife?”
“She’s doing quite well, actually. Especially considering that she’s already had at least one heart attack.”
“What? How could she have a heart attack and not know?”
“Women’s symptoms often go unnoticed. They can be mistaken for cold, fatigue, flu, general malaise. Even, this time of year, allergies.”
“She complained about that,” Seth murmured, closing his eyes and shaking his head, giving Brianna the impression he was wishing he could turn back time.
“It well could have been allergies,” the doctor reassured him. “This year’s Scotch broom is the worst I’ve seen in years... At any rate, as a precautionary measure, we performed blood tests to measure the levels of cardiac enzymes that can indicate heart muscle damage. The results of your wife’s test revealed that she did indeed have an attack today.”
Ben’s low, pained moan was easily heard in the silence of the small room.
“Not to get too technical, but troponins are proteins found inside heart cells that are released when damaged due to a lack of blood supply to the heart. Her levels also indicated an attack.”
“Christ.” The way Ben collapsed into a chair had Brianna worried he’d pass out.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat this,” the doctor said briskly. “It’s definitely serious, but not nearly as bad as it could be. The echocardiogram revealed enough damage that, since you’d signed permission for any necessary tests—”
“Hell, yes. Do whatever you need,” Ben said.
“We did a coronary catheterization, which you may have heard referred to as an angiogram. Liquid dye was injected into the arteries of Mrs. Harper’s heart through a long, thin catheter that was fed through an artery in her leg to her heart.”
