Annie took a tiny swallow and nearly gagged on that, too.
“Good,” Lacy said, as if she hadn’t nearly choked to death. “Now the cracker.”
It went on like that, bite by tiny bite, sip by sip, until the half hour had passed. Annie looked at the tray and saw that she’d managed only one cracker and not even half the salad. She risked a look at Lacy, expecting to see disappointment, but instead the nutritionist gave her an encouraging smile.
“Not bad for the first time. I’ll get you that energy shake I told you about to make up for the food you didn’t finish.”
Annie felt tears well up in her eyes again. “I have to drink a whole shake? I can’t.”
“Not a whole one. Just two ounces. You can do that in a couple of swallows. Remember what I said about treating it like medicine. Just drink it right down and you’ll be finished until it’s time for your snack.”
“More food?” Annie said, sagging back against the pillows. She had no idea when eating had become such excruciating torture.
“It won’t be so bad,” Lacy promised. “Just half of a banana. Bananas were on that list you gave me.”
Only because Annie had been coerced into writing down something or leaving the decisions to Lacy. At least making that list had given her a tiny sense that she was still in control of things.
“You won’t sit with me for that, will you?” she asked hopefully.
“I won’t,” Lacy said. “But someone will.”
“Oh,” Annie said, her voice flat. “Nobody trusts me, huh?”
“Should we?”
“I guess not,” she conceded grudgingly. Because she and Lacy both knew that at the first opportunity, she would flush all that food right down the toilet.
Ronnie was impressed with Sullivan’s. The restaurant was cozy and inviting. It was elegant without being pretentious, and judging from the fancy Specials board posted by the hostess station, it had a diverse menu of items that would appeal to the locals, while still expanding their culinary tastes. Of course, he was so sick of hospital-cafeteria food by now that anything would have seemed gourmet caliber by comparison.
“You going to feed me, darlin’, or wait for me to beg?” he inquired as Dana Sue dug into a slice of deep-dish apple pie that made his mouth water.
“We’re not open yet,” she said with grim finality, forking another bite of pie into her mouth.
“Not even for family?”
“You are not family.”
“I’m the father of your daughter and the best husband you ever had,” he stated.
“You’re the only husband I ever had, more’s the pity,” she retorted.
After what seemed like an endless, silent stalemate, during which Ronnie just bided his time, she finally met his gaze. “You’re not going away, are you?”
“Not till I’m fed,” he agreed cheerfully, ignoring the fascinated glances the woman working at the stove was casting his way. He figured she could be won over to his side with a little charm. He was a bit more concerned by the stiff posture of the guy who was sticking so darn close to Dana Sue that Ronnie couldn’t help wondering if there was more between them than a working relationship.
“Fine.” Dana Sue flounced off her stool and marched past him. “Bring him the meat loaf special,” she called over her shoulder. Then added, “In a take-out box. We’ll wait out front.”
Ronnie grinned. “You think my dining here will take away from the class of the place?”
“No, but I do think it will fuel the gossip already flying around town,” she said. “Frankly, I don’t need the aggravation. Besides, we need to get back to the hospital. Annie is your top priority, right?”
There was no mistaking the challenge in her expression. “Of course,” he said. “I called to check on her right before I came here. The nurse said she was finishing her first meal under the supervision of the nutritionist. She said to come back around six-thirty.” He glanced pointedly at his watch. “It’s barely five-thirty now.”
“I want to go back now,” Dana Sue said stubbornly.
“Then by all means, we’ll go now,” he said, amusement threading through his voice. “You taking your own car, or can I give you a lift?”
He saw her warring with herself over the absurdity of both of them driving, when they’d be coming back to places less than a mile apart.
“I’ll drive,” she said at last. “You can eat your dinner in the car.”
“Still have to control things, don’t you, sugar?”
She shrugged. “Pretty much. Last time I let loose and trusted someone else, I got burned.”
The barb struck home. “Shouldn’t you be over that by now?” he asked.
She skewered him with a gaze that could have pierced steel. “Just FYI, Ronnie, women don’t get over a thing like that. They suit up in body armor and move on.”
He nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.” When Erik came out of the kitchen with the take-out box, Ronnie accepted it. “How much?”
“This one’s on the house,” Dana Sue said tersely. “Now let’s go.”
“Before you introduce me to your friend?” He already knew Erik’s name from Annie’s adoring description of the man, as well as the glimpse he’d caught of him at the hospital, hanging out with Dana Sue in the waiting room and again outside.
“Oh, he knows exactly who you are,” she said, in a way that suggested Ronnie ought to check the dinner for arsenic. “I suspect the gossip was quite specific in its description.” She glanced at Erik for confirmation.
He nodded, then gave Ronnie a man-to-man, vaguely commiserating look. “I’m Erik Whitney, Dana Sue’s pastry chef and second in command around here.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ronnie said, relieved that the introduction hadn’t included anything that suggested the relationship was personal.
“I’m also her friend,” Erik added pointedly. “We look out for each other.”
Ronnie nodded. “Good to know. I hope to look out for her some myself.”
“Have you two finished marking your turf yet?” Dana Sue inquired testily. “We need to get going.”
Erik laughed and Ronnie chuckled with him.
“Maybe we’ll compare notes another time,” Ronnie said.
“I don’t think so,” Dana Sue said tersely. “Not if either of you expect to live.”
Erik shrugged. “She’s the boss.”
“Always was,” Ronnie agreed.
In the car, he met her gaze. “Must be nice to have a fierce protector like that around. He’s half in love with you.”
She stared at him incredulously. “He is not. He’s a friend and he works for me. It’s bad policy to date an employee.”
“Wouldn’t stop some women.”
“Well, it would stop me,” she said flatly.
Ronnie hid a relieved smile and said, “Yet another thing that’s good to know.”
He figured he’d made significant progress in discovering the dynamics of Dana Sue’s life these days, including who her friends were—besides Maddie and Helen, of course—and where her loyalties lay. At this rate, it wouldn’t take all that long for him to decide where he could fit in.
At the hospital, Dana Sue sailed down the hall ahead of Ronnie, determined to get to Annie’s room before him. She knew it was ridiculous to be so competitive over something so small, but ever since he’d declared his intention to stick around town, he seemed to be bringing that out in her. She didn’t want him to have the upper hand at anything, no matter what it cost her to best him.
When she opened the door to Annie’s room in ICU and saw an empty bed, a gasp escaped before she could stop it. She whirled around and latched on to Ronnie’s arm. “She’s gone!”
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” he demanded, peering past her.
“Look,” Dana Sue said. “She’s not in her bed. The room’s empty. Ronnie, if something happened to her while you and I were away, I will never forgive myself.”
Stepping back,
he grabbed her shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. “Calm down, Dana Sue. Annie was perfectly fine when I spoke to the nurse less than an hour ago. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. Let me check at the nurses’ station.”
“I’m coming with you,” Dana Sue said, right on his heels. If there was bad news, she wanted them to hear it together. She didn’t want it filtered through Ronnie.
A thin, blond nurse with pouty pink lips was behind the desk. Naturally, Ronnie managed to give her one of his trademark crooked smiles in an obvious attempt to charm her. Did the man have to flirt with every woman who crossed his path? Dana Sue wondered irritably. Especially now?
“Where’s our daughter?” she demanded before Ronnie could speak.
The nurse—Brook, according to her name tag—beamed at both of them. “Good news,” she reassured them. “The cardiologist saw her a little while ago and decided she was ready to be moved to a regular room.” She glanced at a paper on the desk. “She’s down on the second floor, room 206.”
Dana Sue sighed with relief. “Thank goodness.”
Ronnie draped an arm around her shoulder. “See, everything’s fine. Let’s go see our girl.”
Dana Sue let his arm remain where it was for a full five seconds, drawing strength from the contact. Then she shrugged away from him. “You go. I want to call Helen and Maddie and let them know to look for us downstairs when they come by later.”
He regarded her with a vague hint of disappointment in his expression, then said, “If that’s what you want.”
She watched him head for the elevator. Only after he was gone did she take a deep breath and relax. She caught the next elevator and went outside to place her calls. Neither of her friends was home, so she left messages, then tried to gather her composure before going back inside to see Annie.
Dana Sue sat on a bench near the fountain that splashed water into the small pond, and let the sound soothe her. The rustling of the breeze through the palmetto trees added its own lulling music. That was where Helen found her a few minutes later.
“Everything okay?” Her friend dropped onto the bench beside her.
“I just left you a message. They moved Annie to a regular room.”
“That’s great,” Helen said. When Dana Sue didn’t respond, her gaze narrowed. “Isn’t it?”
“Something tells me there’s still a long way to go before anything’s great again.”
“With Annie? Or does this have something to do with Ronnie?”
Tears welled up in Dana Sue’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “It’s everything,” she whispered, swiping ineffectively at the tears.
“Hey, come on now,” Helen soothed. “Annie’s going to be okay. Focus on that. Everything else will fall into place.”
“Sure,” Dana Sue said skeptically. “That implies that my ex-husband will go back where he belongs, which, according to him, isn’t going to happen.”
Helen winced. “I was afraid of that. I could take some steps to limit your contact with him. I could probably keep him away from Annie, too.”
“And have her hate me?” Dana Sue responded. “Forget that. I just have to find some way to deal with this.”
“I could talk to him and tell him he’s making things worse,” Helen said a little too eagerly. “I imagine I could persuade him to rethink his plan, at least once the crisis is past.”
“Same problem,” Dana Sue said with regret. “Annie would never forgive either of us.”
Helen looked disappointed at not being allowed to use her considerable skills of persuasion. “I suppose you’re right,” she finally conceded. “It certainly backfired last time I managed to get him out of Annie’s life on a daily basis.” She studied Dana Sue. “So, what will you do?”
“I wish I knew. Maybe I just need to stop obsessing about it.”
“Sounds like a start,” Helen concurred. “And if you change your mind about letting me do something official, all it takes is one word from you and it’s done.”
Dana Sue gave her a watery smile. “Thanks. Let’s not talk about Ronnie right now. Tell me what’s going on with you. Are you still exercising? Did you write down your goals and give them to Doc Marshall?”
Helen flushed. “Not exactly.”
Dana Sue regarded her with dismay. “Helen! Doc Marshall must have been furious. Did he put you on medication for your blood pressure the way he threatened?”
“Um, no,” Helen said, not meeting her gaze.
“You canceled your appointment, didn’t you?” Dana Sue guessed.
Helen gave her a guilty, barely perceptible nod.
“Are you crazy?” Dana Sue demanded. “This is important, Helen. You can’t keep ignoring it and hoping your blood pressure will correct itself. Have you at least taken a day off to relax, the way you promised?”
“There was no way I could do that this week,” her friend said defensively. “I’ve been here every second I wasn’t at the office or in court.”
“Okay, that’s it,” Dana Sue said fiercely. “Tomorrow morning we’re all meeting at The Corner Spa at eight. I will even spend twenty minutes on the stupid treadmill, if you will. Deal?”
Helen regarded her with obvious reluctance, then nodded. “Fine. Deal.”
“Then we set our goals,” Dana Sue continued. “Maddie can type them up for us afterward so we’ll all have copies. It’ll help us to keep ourselves and each other motivated. I think we should even include penalties if any of us start backsliding.”
“You don’t think the big reward is enough motivation?” Helen teased. “I thought you really wanted that convertible.”
“I do, but that’s a long-term reward. I have a hunch we’re going to need a lot of prodding along the way. If the most obsessive human being I know can’t stick to a regimen for more than two days at a time, then the rest of us are doomed.”
“I can stick to anything I want to,” Helen declared.
“Then you obviously don’t want to stick to this.”
“And you do?” Helen said.
Dana Sue met her gaze, then sighed. “Not especially, if I’m being totally honest. But there’s a big difference between not wanting to do it and knowing that I have to.”
“Ditto with me,” Helen admitted. “I honestly thought the challenge would make me stick to it.”
“And then Annie got sick,” Dana Sue said. “We have to resolve not to let anything interfere, okay? No begging off because of work for you and no using Annie as an excuse for me.”
“You’re right.” Helen nodded. “Now let’s go upstairs and see Annie.”
“Ronnie’s with her,” Dana Sue said.
Her friend’s eyes glittered with mischief. “Then we’ll chase him away. That should be fun.”
Dana Sue laughed despite herself. “You have the oddest sense of what passes for entertainment.”
“Tell me the idea doesn’t appeal to you, too,” Helen dared her.
“Okay, it does,” Dana Sue confessed. “At least a little bit. One thing, though….”
“What?”
“How’s he going to get back to his motel? I drove him over here.”
“All the better,” Helen said. “A long walk will be good for him. Might give him time to think better of sticking around.”
“Or make him mad enough to dream up a diabolical way to get even,” Dana Sue said.
“Not to worry. When has any man ever been able to put one over on the Sweet Magnolias?” Helen asked confidently.
“Not often, that’s true,” she admitted. But that didn’t mean her ex-husband wouldn’t try. The prospect sent a little shudder through her. More troubling was the fact that she couldn’t tell if the reaction was dread or anticipation.
Despite the earlier struggle to eat even a little portion of her meal, Annie lay back in her hospital bed feeling better than she had in months. Her dad was right there beside her, and Sarah and Raylene had come by the minute they’d found out she could have visitors. They’d told h
er that Ty was on his way over, too. He was coming with his mom after dinner. Annie wasn’t sure how she felt about him seeing her like this, but then she remembered that he’d seen her under all sorts of embarrassing circumstances over the years and he was still her friend. Eagerness overcame her trepidation.
She’d tuned out most of the other news Sarah and Raylene were delivering. It was just a bunch of gossip from school, and right now none of that seemed important. A week ago she would have wanted to hear every word, certain that her life would be over if she missed any hot news flashes about the in crowd. Now she understood what having her life be over really meant. She felt a hundred years older than her two best friends.
“Are you even listening to us?” Sarah demanded. “You look as if you’re a thousand miles away.”
“I heard you,” Annie swore, then grinned. “Well, some of it, anyway.”
“Are you getting too tired?” Raylene asked, glancing at Annie’s dad for his input. “Should we go?”
Her dad looked at her. “Annie, it’s your call. You still feeling okay?”
“Maybe I am a little tired,” she admitted finally. It was better than saying she was bored listening to the same old stuff. “Come back tomorrow, though, okay?”
“Right after school,” Sarah promised. “My mom said she’d bring us whenever we want.”
“Mine, too,” Raylene said.
They were almost to the door when Sarah ran back and gave Annie a hug that almost squeezed the breath right out of her.
“You scared us,” she said, an angry edge to her voice. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again, you hear me?”
“I’m not planning on it,” Annie assured her.
“But Ms. Franklin said in P.E. that eating disorders don’t just go away.” Sarah’s expression was filled with concern. “You have to want things to be different, Annie.”
Annie flushed with embarrassment. She was apparently being turned into some sort of example at school. “Ms. Franklin was talking about me in class?”
“She never mentioned you by name,” Raylene said hurriedly. “But everyone knew. I guess she figured the opportunity to lecture us was too good to pass up.”
A Slice of Heaven Page 14
