Her Forever Hero (Unexpected Heroes)

by Melody Anne

  Cam sat there, his eyes widening as he looked at her as if trying to figure out if she was speaking the truth or not. When she said nothing more, his lips twitched and then he laughed out loud.

  “Okay, then. I think you’re right. She just might be the biggest bridezilla I’ve ever heard about.”

  They both continued sitting there in silence for several more moments, and Grace’s stomach rumbled. Dang it! She really wanted to eat, but weren’t they in a standoff at the moment?

  “Are you going to be so stubborn that you’re not going to eat after I went shopping and then was kind enough to prepare breakfast?”

  “Are you going to be so needy for compliments that you’re going to beg for them and puff up your own worth? Look, I didn’t ask you to do that. I didn’t ask you to do any of this,” she told him.

  “I know. However, I like taking care of you. You’re one of the strongest women I know, Grace, and it’s been nice to catch you in a weak moment,” he said, his voice soft, although he didn’t look up from the paper.

  “So you’re one of those guys that like weak, simpering little females who can’t do anything without a big, strong man around the house?”

  “Not at all. I love your strength, but a truly strong person also knows when it’s time to ask for a little help, to ask when she needs a shoulder to cry on, and to ask when she’s so weak she can’t even feed herself,” he told her, finally setting the paper down and sending her an intense stare.

  “I was doing just fine on my own.”

  “Yes, you were, and I’m sure you would have woken up today, still weak, but able to get moving again. It was still my pleasure to be here for you.” If only he had been there for her the one time in her life she had needed him the most. But she would never say that to him. That wasn’t a can of worms she was ready to open, one she probably never would be.

  “I don’t like people taking care of me.”

  “I’ll make sure to not do it too often,” he said with a laugh, holding up his hands. “Do you want a little of everything?” He stood up and moved over to the oven, where he began pulling out dishes he’d placed in there to keep the food warm.

  “I can get it myself.”

  “Then you won’t be surprised by what I’ve made you. Enjoy your coffee and be awed by my culinary talents.” With that, he grabbed two plates and piled them high. He set hers in front of her, then went to the fridge and pulled out a bowl of fresh-cut fruit and set it out, too.

  He’d made a breakfast strata, potatoes, and bacon, along with muffins and the fruit. It looked and smelled delectable, and she wasn’t such a fool that she was going to let it go to waste just because she didn’t appreciate the way he’d swooped in and saved the day.

  Not able to stifle her ecstatic groan, Grace finally looked up at Cam again. “You really went to far too much trouble, but it is sort of nice.”

  “There’s no way I’m getting another thank-you, is there?” he asked.

  “Nope. If I gave you another one, you’d think I want or expect this sort of thing, and I don’t.”

  “All righty, then. When you’re finished, we can get down to business,” he told her.

  She took her time eating, because she knew what he was going to say and she didn’t want to have this fight with him again. It had been going on all year, and he was starting to wear her down. But it was all so stupid. She hadn’t opened that damned nonprofit, so she had nothing to worry about.

  The innocent didn’t get accused—that would just be wrong, she assured herself.

  The two of them finished in silence, and she made sure to be the first one up, gathering the plates and empty dishes and going with them to her sink.

  “I’ll do those,” Cam said, stepping right up behind her, far too close. “You’re still not one hundred percent.”

  “No. You’ve done enough for me. Sit down and drink your coffee and I’ll take care of the dishes. Of course, if you need to go to the office, you can go ahead and take off.”

  “I don’t have a single place to be today,” he said, brushing against her back before moving away and returning to his chair. That small contact sent a delicious tingling sensation through her entire body.

  She wasn’t in any hurry—with luck, he’d grow bored and leave. She knew better, though. Cam wasn’t one to give up once he had his mind set on something. When she’d finished with the few dishes they’d dirtied, she poured herself a fresh cup of coffee and returned to the table, where he had that blasted file sitting in front of him.

  “There’s really no use in going over this again and again, Cam. I didn’t open that nonprofit—Youthspiration or whatever it was called—so I’m not worried about facing the law,” she told him, pulling her legs up to her chest and hugging them, her way of trying to protect herself.

  “I’m not going to tiptoe around this anymore, Grace. Even if you weren’t the one to open this thing up, it’s in your name. This is money laundering, dammit—it’s not Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders—and everything is pointing right at you. You need to talk to me so we can figure this out.”

  “But I didn’t do it,” she said, doing her weary best to sound like a broken record.

  “Well, then, you need to give me a list of people who you think are capable of coming up with something like this and using you as their scapegoat.”

  She glared at him for several heartbeats. She didn’t like being pushed into this corner, didn’t like having to answer to something she hadn’t done. But he was right. She hadn’t told him she had done so, but she’d finally gotten around to reading through the copies he’d left with her. It really did look like all roads led back to her. Suddenly her shoulders sagged as she looked at him.

  When she took too long, he spoke again. “Did you know that in most jurisdictions, embezzling is punishable by prison time and, of course, fines, including the money taken? And do you remember Bernie Madoff, the stockbroker and investment adviser who got away with about sixty-five billion dollars from various investors? In 2009, he was sentenced to one hundred and fifty years in prison. Sure, that’s an extreme case, but it shows that the courts aren’t smiling on people guilty of fraud, not even the rich ones who can afford lawyers. So you need to tell me, and tell me right now, who you think is behind this. I promise you that this is no joke, Grace.”

  Nausea took up permanent residence in her stomach at the thought of prison time. She wouldn’t survive being caged up. No way. No how.

  “I have no idea who would do this to me, Cam.”

  “Somebody did, and it’s my job to figure out who. The only way I can do that is if you cooperate with me.”

  “Why do you even want to help me with this? How do you even know I’m innocent? I could be playing you.”

  “Innocent people don’t make comments like that,” he told her with a wry smile.

  “Ugh. You think you have it all figured out. Well, you don’t. I have no clue what is going on with this, but I didn’t steal any money. I don’t need to! My grandfather left me a generous trust fund that’s more than enough for me to live off. And my poor excuse of a father left me property. I make a modest income from work, but you know that I don’t have to work at all if I don’t want to.” She was practically yelling now. “There’s just no reason I would ever need to embezzle money!”

  “Slow down. Let’s just talk. We’ll figure this out. But you’re going to have to open up to me. You’re going to have to tell me about your life over the past ten years. Well, at least the years that you weren’t here in Sterling,” he said, reaching out and patting her hand.

  “I don’t want to talk about my past. I made a lot of mistakes. It’s not something I’m proud of.”

  “Grace, I want to help you. You have to tell me everything or I can’t.”

  “Really, Cam? Would you like to just open up to me? Do you want to tell me every mistake you’ve made while you were away from this sleepy little Montana town?” she asked. But before he had a chance to answer, she an
swered for him. “No. No, you wouldn’t.”

  “If I needed to tell you something so you could help me, I would. As a matter of fact, you would be one of the first people I’d run to,” he said.

  Her eyes snapped to his. Did he really mean that?

  “But we aren’t friends,” she said, almost begging him to agree with her.

  “I want to be so much more than friends, Grace.”

  The heat in his eyes told her that he wasn’t trying to fool her. Another shudder raced through Grace as she fought to keep herself from leaning against him. She’d done her damnedest to convince herself she was over this man, but Grace had a strong feeling that their story wasn’t quite finished yet.

  “Please tell me you just leaned into him and gave him a nice, big, sloppy kiss,” Sage said as she zipped down the hospital corridor.

  “Sage! I did not kiss him. You know how big a mistake that would be,” Grace told her best friend.

  “Because once or twice in the last few months was warning enough, and let’s not forget the night of my wedding, where a little more than kissing happened . . .”

  “I cannot believe you just said that!” Grace snapped.

  “Now who’s the prude? If a man came into my home while I was sick, then bathed me, tucked me into bed, and fed me, I’d do a hell of a lot more than kissing,” Sage told her as she pushed open a door and rushed inside.

  “Why are you always moving as if you’re preparing for a marathon?” Grace grumbled, finding that she was slightly out of breath.

  “Because I could be called to the ER at any time, and if I don’t get some caffeine inside me, and very quickly, I might accidentally slip a catheter into the wrong hole.” Sage was already brewing a fresh mocha while speaking. “Do you want one?”

  Grace chuckled before replying. “Do you even need to ask?”

  “You’re lucky I’m asking. It’s been the day from hell already and I still have half my shift left,” Sage said with a sigh, and grabbed her cup.

  “Wait a minute!” Grace gasped. “You can’t get away with that earlier comment.”

  “What comment?” It was typical that Sage had already moved on. With the mind of a genius, she was always moving forward, not backward.

  “If a man came into your home and bathed, changed, and fed you, I think Spence might well have to shoot him.”

  “Who in the hell is planning on coming to my house and touching my wife?”

  Dr. Spence Whitman sent a thunderous scowl toward the two women, and they turned and smiled at him. His expression didn’t change.

  “No one is doing that for me except you, love,” Sage said, walking over and kissing him on the cheek. His scowl lessened, if only a little. “Your little brother Cam was doing that for Grace last night,” she added before sending a wicked smile Grace’s way.

  Grace wanted to shoot Sage when Spence glanced in her direction, his scowl completely gone. “Well, I’ll have to pat my brother on the back. He always has been in love with you,” Spence said with a wink.

  “I am so not having this conversation with you, Spence. I was trying to talk to my best friend,” Grace told him pointedly. She was praying he’d go away and not tell Cam that she’d been at the hospital talking about him.

  “Sure, sure. I’ll leave you gals to chat just as soon as my coffee is done,” Spence said, kissing his wife one more time before giving his attention to the espresso maker.

  “Back to the kissing. After putting out that much effort, you didn’t even give him a little cheek action?” Sage asked.

  Grace let out a slight growl when Spence turned her way again, and she shot a murderous look at Sage, who just smiled happily in return.

  “We’ll talk more when we’re alone,” Grace said through gritted teeth.

  “You know that she’ll tell me everything when you’re gone, right?” Spence said as he added half-and-half to his coffee and leaned against the counter as if he were planning on staying awhile.

  “She wouldn’t do that, because it breaks the best-friend code of honor,” Grace told him. “If she were to break that, we’d be left with no choice but to ensure you came to a speedy death, followed by an unmarked grave so that she could never break the code again by talking to you.”

  Spence laughed before stepping over and kissing Grace’s cheek once again. “Always a pleasure to see you. Let’s do dinner tomorrow night. I’ll grill steaks, and you bring your famous oriental chicken salad.” He didn’t leave the room before giving Sage one more scorching kiss, and then finally the two friends were alone.

  “How in the world were you so lucky as to find and marry that man?” Grace sighed.

  “Hey! Hands off. I chose Spence, you chose Cam. We were supposed to both be married by now so that we’d be sisters,” Sage reminded her.

  “You chose the better brother,” Grace grumbled.

  “I did do well,” Sage said. “But so did you. If you would get over your silly pride and jump that man, you’d feel so much better. He’s in love with you, and you’re in love with him. You know that in the end it will all work out, so why not skip the melodrama and just get to the I dos?”

  “Who are you and what have you done with Sage Whitman? Marriage has morphed you into some other human being—certainly not my shy BFF,” Grace snapped, exasperated.

  “She was a bore. Spence makes me come alive—actually makes me come over and over and over again. And when you feel as good as I do, you want everyone you love to feel the same way,” Sage told her, a bit smugly.

  Grace rolled her eyes. “Oh, my gosh! It’s been so long since I’ve been around people in love, I forgot how nauseating it is,” she grumbled. “And Cam and I are certainly not in love with each other. That died ten years ago.”

  “True love never dies. It may dim, and it may drift to the far reaches of your mind if you allow it to, but all it takes is a spark, a scent, a memory, and in a flash, you’re back at the moment your heart fluttered for the first time. You and Cam are meant to be, so no matter how much you fight it, the result will be you in a beautiful wedding gown, and me picking out my own maid—no, matron—of honor dress. I so don’t trust you with that task,” Sage said, and just then her beeper went off.

  “I wouldn’t trust me, either, after the awful dress I had to wear to your wedding,” Grace growled. “Not that I’m going to be getting married, especially to Camden Whitman.”

  “Denial, denial. And that dress was from Paris and absolutely fabulous.”

  “I’ll let you think so,” Grace said. “Where are we going now?” Sage was once again on the move.

  “To the ER.”

  Grace trailed behind her friend toward the emergency room, knowing their time was about up.

  When a child came in on a stretcher, blood pouring down his hand and his parents sobbing as they were led in right behind him, Grace decided that this scene was just too much for her. Especially after the loss she herself had suffered so many years ago.

  “I’ll call you later. I’m going behind the doors now.”

  Grace backed away as Sage’s favorite nurse, Mo, ran by holding up a Broselow tape, ready to assist in the trauma. “I hope you got some coffee into your friend, Grace, because we’re going to need her brain working at full capacity.”

  “I did, Mo. Good luck,” Grace called back before turning to leave.

  Before the door shut behind them, Grace watched this superstar team begin work on the small child.

  “We have a two-year-old, approximately fourteen-foot fall out of a window. She has a Glasgow coma scale of seven but the medic couldn’t get a breathing tube in her because . . . well, frankly, because it’s his first day on his own and he sounded like it may be his last. BP is sixty-four over thirty-two, HR one fourteen, RR twelve, and are assisted with a bag valve mask. Oxygenation is ninety-one percent and trending down. The medic got a twenty-two-gauge IV to her left AC and should be arriving any moment,” Mo called, ever efficient.

  “Everyone in this hospita
l fears that woman, but Mo sure loves my wife.”

  Grace jumped at finding Spence next to her. “Is the little girl going to be okay?” she asked, not wanting the answer if it was bad.

  “She will be if my wife and Mo have anything to do with it,” Spence told her.

  “Are we keeping you from something, Cheryl?” Mo shouted at a lab tech, who quickly put her phone away and stood at attention.

  “She has a roar but she’s got a heart as big as Texas,” Spence said.

  “I’ve always enjoyed her. Sage loves her to pieces,” Grace replied.

  The brand-new paramedic spoke with a shaking voice, preventing Spence from saying anything else for a moment as they both listened. He confirmed Mo’s findings.

  With that, the medic, who was almost as pale as the patient, finished his job by helping to get the patient transferred to the hospital’s gurney and monitoring equipment. He slowly crept to the back of the room as if watching a movie unfold before him.

  Sage began her head-to-toe assessment of the patient, calling out her findings. In minutes, the child was assessed, medicated, intubated, and on her way to the CT scan, and out of Grace’s sight.

  “I don’t know how you do this day after day,” Grace whispered.

  “We do it because we make a difference,” Spence told her, his hand resting on her shoulder.

  They watched Mo walk over to the medic, who was obviously only still standing because of the counter behind him, holding him up. “Listen, kid, you did great . . . Not an easy call, but you managed everything perfectly.” She walked toward Spence and Grace after that. “I think you saw way more than you wanted to see there, darling.”

  “Yeah. I really shouldn’t have peeked in,” Grace said, her voice shaking.

  “We’re here to help people. Sometimes it’s messy, but at the end of the day we go home knowing we did everything we possibly could have.” Mo walked away without waiting for a response.

  “I have to get out of here,” Grace told Spence.

  Not paying attention to where she was going, she turned a corner and slammed into a rock-hard wall of flesh. She would have fallen on her butt if strong arms hadn’t shot out and caught her.