Home with You

by Shirlee McCoy

  “Lucky you,” she said.

  “Not so lucky. There are six kids at my place and about twenty loads of unwashed laundry.”

  “Six kids? Girlfriend, he must be really good to you!” She grinned.

  “Oh. He is, but they’re not his kids. They’re his nieces and nephews. Their mother is in surgery. Sunday Bradshaw? We’re obviously really anxious to get updates on her condition.”

  “Sunday Bradshaw.” She typed something into the computer and frowned. “I remember hearing about the car accident on the news. Her husband was killed, right? On their anniversary. Poor thing. She’s been through a lot. Hopefully, she’ll recover and go back home to her kids. Looks like she’s out of surgery as of a minute ago. Someone should be out momentarily to update you.”

  Thank God!

  That’s all Sullivan could think.

  She’d survived. There’d been no further need for resuscitation. Which meant no more tough decisions.

  Not tonight anyway.

  “Are they bringing her to recovery?” Rumer asked as if she were family and had every right to the information.

  “Soon, I’m sure. Surgery is just around the corner. You’ll see the sign on the door. You can’t go in, but you can wait there if you want to see her. I doubt she’ll know you’re around, but sometimes the family finds it comforting.”

  “Great! Thanks.” She grabbed Sullivan’s hand and started dragging him in the direction the nurse had indicated.

  He went because it beat the hell out of pacing the waiting room.

  They rounded the corner, and her hand was still in his, the warmth of it suddenly registering. The smooth silky skin and long narrow fingers. The fine bones and dry palm. He wanted to slide his hand along hers, feel the thrumming pulse in her wrist, the velvety flesh there.

  She dropped his hand, nearly jumping away.

  As if she’d known his thoughts or felt the same heat zipping through her veins that he did.

  She was gorgeous. There was no doubt about it. Smart. Savvy. If he’d been in the market for a relationship, she was exactly the kind of woman he’d have been looking for.

  He wasn’t.

  He’d dated Sabrina for six months and broken things off two weeks before the accident. Even if Matthias hadn’t been killed and Sullivan hadn’t been thrust into this mess of a situation, he’d have waited a while to find someone new.

  The truth was, he’d gotten tired of the game. Tired of the flirtation. The façade. The women who pretended to want one thing while they tried to get another. He was tired of keeping things shallow and light and easy because sharing more than a few pieces of himself made him seem more available than he was.

  No leading women on. No hurting them.

  That had been his motto for as long as he could remember.

  Because, he didn’t want to be his bastard father. A wife at home. A mistress or two on the side. All of them trying to be everything to him while he strung them along.

  No kids plus no long-term relationships equaled an easy stress-free life. The equation was simple, and he’d solved it effectively. Until now.

  Now, all hell had broken loose, his life had gone up in flames, and the only person standing between him and total destruction was a child-whisperer with silky skin, silvery-blue eyes, and the most tempting lips he’d ever seen.

  Chapter Five

  She’d been holding his hand, for God’s sake!

  Holding his hand!

  Like he was a child.

  Or worse, her boyfriend, significant other, lover!

  “Idiot,” she muttered.

  “Who?” he asked, so, of course, she looked at him, stared right into his beautiful green eyes. He had long thick lashes. The kind good-looking guys always seemed to have. The kind every woman in North America seemed to drool over.

  Not Rumer.

  She didn’t drool over anything but chocolate cake and iced sugar cookies.

  “Me.”

  “For accepting the job? You can still back out. It was a verbal agreement, and I can’t legally hold you to it. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. The kids need someone who wants to be there. Not someone who’s obligated.”

  Like you? she almost asked, and then thought better of it.

  He was there because it was his family, and that was a lot better than some people would have done.

  “I’m not going to back out.” And, she wasn’t going to explain why she’d called herself an idiot.

  “Thank God for that,” he responded, stepping back as the double doors that led into the surgical wing swung open.

  A nurse pushed a hospital bed out, the shrouded figure lying on it so small, Rumer thought it was a child.

  “Sunday?” Sullivan said, and she realized her mistake, saw that the ghostlike creature was the woman she’d caught a glimpse of in the ICU. Eyes closed, face gaunt, she had the kind of wholesome good looks Rumer had always wanted but had never been able to achieve.

  “She’s still sedated,” the nurse said, checking one of the lines that snaked out from under a sheet.

  “Things went well?” Sullivan asked, moving aside and letting a crew of medical personnel file out through the doorway. An orderly rolled the IV pole and portable oxygen machine. Right behind her, the surgeon was reading Sunday’s chart.

  “After the initial rough start? Yes. We’re hopeful this procedure has curtailed any further injury to the brain.”

  “Has she shown any sign of regaining consciousness?” Sullivan asked, walking beside the doctor as they entered an elevator.

  No one told Rumer she couldn’t go along, so she followed, stepping in as the doors were sliding closed, listening as the doctor explained the procedure, the possible complications, the prognosis.

  It all sounded more than grim.

  It sounded dire, and she couldn’t help studying Sunday’s face, wondering if she could hear and understand what was being said.

  Probably not.

  Hopefully not.

  But, if she could, she’d be terrified, listening to all the ways that things could go wrong, hearing the surgeon say over and over again that chances of a full recovery were zero. There would be disabilities. There would be long-term issues. There would be a dozen things that would keep her from living her life the way she had.

  They arrived at recovery, and Rumer thought they’d stop her there. She knew how these things worked. She’d gone through it with Lu. Only one person in recovery at a time, but instead of telling her she’d have to wait, they ignored the fact that she was following.

  Maybe they were too caught up in the details of the surgery and recovery to notice.

  She kept out of the way, half listening and half wondering, her mind drifting along, trying to connect the unconscious woman with the six children she’d met. They obviously weren’t all biologically hers. As a matter of fact, Rumer wouldn’t be surprised if all the kids had been adopted.

  Not that that changed anything.

  The magnitude of the tragedy couldn’t get any bigger. Six kids had lost their father. From the way the surgeon was talking, they were going to lose their mother, too.

  Sullivan was obviously hearing the same pessimism she was. His jaw was tight, his expression grim. He had a day’s worth of stubble on his chin and looked like he was ready for a fight, fists clenched, eyes flashing.

  “So, what you’re saying,” he said, “is that you’re giving up on her recovering.”

  “Mr. Bradshaw, if we’d given up, we’d have never done the surgery. We’re simply being realistic. She’s been in a coma for weeks. That could stretch into months, or even years.”

  “Or, it could end today,” Rumer cut in, showing her hand and letting everyone know that she’d walked in uninvited.

  No one told her to leave, but the doctor sighed. “It could. We don’t know, and that’s the limits of medicine. With all the high-tech images, all the peer-reviewed studies and documented successes and failures, we still can’t predict a person’s outco
me.”

  “Exactly.” Rumer stepped up to the bed, looked down at the woman who had six children depending on her, believing in her, hoping and praying she’d come home to them.

  She didn’t know Sunday Bradshaw from Adam, but after seeing the Bradshaw kids, she was pretty darn sure she knew her heart. She lifted her hand and held it gently. It felt warm, blood pulsing just beneath nearly transparent skin.

  The surgeon was talking again, outlining the next step. Stabilize her. Get her breathing on her own. See if her vitals stayed good. Make sure her bones had knit together well, that her lungs had healed, that her body was in working order, and then, send her to a rehab facility.

  Or a long-term care facility.

  Depending on how things progressed.

  “You’re going to progress just fine,” Rumer said, leaning down to whisper it in her ear. “Your kids need you to come home. You should see them—Heavenly wearing the teeniest shirt she can squeeze into. Moisey kicking every person she disagrees with. And, the twins . . . well, they’re cute little buggers, but they sure do need a firm hand. Twila is trying to keep everything under control, but I’ve got a feeling that little one has some deep water running beneath her stillness. I haven’t spent much time with the baby, but I’m sure she’s missing you as much as the rest of them.”

  Sunday’s fingers twitched, and Rumer was so surprised, she nearly released her hand.

  “Are you trying to squeeze my hand?” she asked, and felt another twitch.

  “Is something wrong?” Sullivan asked, cutting off whatever else the surgeon had to say.

  “I swear she’s trying to squeeze my hand.”

  “Hun,” the nurse said, “that’s just a muscle spasm. Sometimes it happens after surgery.”

  “Does it happen at exactly the time the patient is asked to respond?” Rumer asked, because she didn’t think Sunday’s muscles were twitching unintentionally. She thought the young mother was trying to communicate.

  “Sometimes.” The surgeon stepped to the other side of the bed, frowning slightly as she lifted Sunday’s other hand. “Sunday? Can you hear me?”

  Another little twitch, and Rumer’s heart started racing faster than Ezekiel the pony when he heard the food buckets being rolled out.

  “She did it again,” she said, and the surgeon’s frown deepened.

  “I didn’t feel anything.”

  “Maybe because my hand is the one she’s trying to squeeze.”

  “We all want to believe that she’s making conscious movements. Trust me, I’d be as thrilled as anyone if she did, but sometimes love is blind. Sometimes we see what we want to see rather than what’s there.”

  “What does love have to do with anything?” She was getting annoyed now, frustrated by the surgeon’s unwillingness to believe the clear-cut evidence.

  Or, at least, what she thought of as clear-cut evidence.

  The medical community obviously didn’t agree.

  Even Sullivan looked doubtful, his brow furrowed, his focus on Sunday.

  “You’re her sister-in-law. You want her to improve. It’s natural and it’s right. She needs you rooting for her, but I don’t want to give you false hope. We see these kinds of unconscious movements all the time.”

  “I’m not—” she began, planning to correct the assumption, but Sullivan put a hand on her nape, his palm calloused and warm.

  “It is hard to see family suffering,” he said, emphasizing family.

  She might be distracted by his warm, rough skin against hers, but she sure as heck could still take a hint.

  “Right. It is,” she agreed as his hand slid from her nape to her shoulder and settled there. “But, I know what I felt, and I know she was trying to communicate. Weren’t you, Sunday?”

  Nothing for a heartbeat, and then the twitch again.

  “She did it again.”

  “Ms. Bradshaw,” the surgeon began.

  “Call me Rumer.” Otherwise, I might not realize you’re speaking to me, seeing as how Bradshaw isn’t my name.

  She kept the last part to herself.

  “Rumer, I know you want to believe that she’s improving, but, as I’ve said—”

  Sunday’s free hand shifted, moving across the blanket the doctor had set it on. Just a little slide. Maybe an inch, but it was enough to stop the surgeon’s words, to make the nurse freeze, her hand on a probe she was trying to attach to Sunday’s heart monitor.

  “Did you see that?” the nurse asked, and the surgeon nodded, pulling out a penlight and checking Sunday’s pupils.

  “Sunday?” she said.

  Another small movement.

  Rumer’s heart was galloping now, pounding so hard, she thought it might burst right out of her chest.

  “You are in there, aren’t you?” she asked, and Sunday’s hand tightened on hers. No mistake this time. It wasn’t just a twitch. She was holding on, clinging as if she were trying to keep from floating away, and then her hand relaxed and it was over, whatever had drawn her close to consciousness gone.

  “That didn’t look like unconscious movement,” Sullivan said, his hand still on Rumer’s shoulder.

  She could have stepped away.

  She should have, but she was a Truehart and prone to making lousy decisions when it came to men.

  So, of course, she stayed right where she was.

  “I’ll admit, that surprised me.” The surgeon smiled, and since it was the first smile Rumer had seen from her, she was counting it as a good sign.

  “Do you think she might be coming out of the coma?” Sullivan asked.

  “It’s hard to say. Once we get her back to her room, I’ll run a few tests and see how the results compare to our baseline. I don’t want to give you undue hope, but it did seem like she was responding. We’ll be moving her back to her room in ICU soon, if you two want to meet us there.”

  What Rumer wanted to do was keep standing right where she was, holding Sunday’s hand and waiting for another sign that she was in there.

  Sullivan leaned past her, his hand falling away as he touched Sunday’s cheek. “The kids are fine, Sunday. They’re doing great, but they’d really love for you to come home. I’d really love it, too, because as much as I appreciate all the little rug rats, I’m just not parental material and the only one of your kids who doesn’t know it is Oya. If you stay here too long, she might just figure it out.”

  Not even a hint of movement from Sunday, and he sighed, stepping away. “I guess I’d better go fill people in on what’s going on.”

  He sounded so tired, so overwhelmed, Rumer did exactly what she shouldn’t. She opened her mouth. Again. “Why don’t you let me take care of that?”

  “I don’t think running interference between me and Sunday’s friends is part of your job description,” he said as they walked into the hall.

  “I thought my job description was jack-of-all-trades?”

  “Around the farm, maybe. Everywhere else, I think I can handle things.” He smiled, touching her back as the elevator door opened. Sure as God made sunrise and dandelions, that was all she could think about. His hand. Right there at the base of her spine.

  She engaged her brain for a change and moved away, because she had already decided she didn’t need Sullivan’s brand of trouble.

  She’d take the job.

  She’d do her best for the kids and for Sunday, but she was going to give Sullivan a wide berth while she did it.

  No way was she getting pulled in by his gorgeous eyes and dimple-flashing smile.

  “I really don’t mind passing the surgeon’s information along. Maybe I can ask the sheriff to give me a ride back to your place while I’m at it. The kids need some consistency. It will be good for me to be there when they wake up.”

  And, better for her to be far away from him.

  “So, you haven’t changed your mind?” They stepped off the elevator again. The waiting room was just ahead, and she could hear voices drifting out from it.

  “Abou
t the job? No.”

  “I’m relieved. I don’t have the time or the patience to interview more people.”

  “You didn’t interview me,” she reminded him.

  “True. I’ll have to thank Byron for convincing you.”

  “The kids convinced me, and the pay.”

  “I was trying to make you an offer you couldn’t refuse. I’m glad it worked out. The kids need someone like you around.”

  “They need their mother, but I’ll do what I can to make things easier while they wait for her.”

  “You’ll do a hell of a lot better than I’ve been doing.”

  “From what I saw—”

  “I hope you’re not going to say that I was doing fine, because we both know that I wasn’t.”

  “I was going to say that from what I saw you were in over your head but managing to tread water.”

  “Barely. But, thanks for not adding that.” He smiled, flashing his dimple again.

  God!

  Did he have to have a dimple?

  They walked into the waiting room, and he fielded dozens of questions from a bunch of well-meaning people who seemed to really care about Sunday and her family. They wanted to know what the doctor had said, how Sunday looked, if it seemed like she was recovering. The four blue-haired ladies who’d been sitting side by side stood in a semicircle at the head of the group, lobbing questions as quickly as he could answer, talking about meal trains and after-school activities, pulling binders out of their oversize purses and taking notes.

  Rumer glanced at her oversize bag. Besides the fact that it was bright blue, it was a close match. She had the sturdy boots, too. Thick-soled no-frill ones that she’d borrowed from Lu. And, the curly hair.

  She smoothed her hair, trying to get a feel for just how curly it had become, and realized the hair she’d straightened for her interview had become tight ringlets. If she cut off a few inches, bleached it white, and tinged it purple, she could probably join whatever group these women belonged to.

  A church prayer group maybe, but they weren’t there because of some vague religious obligation. They were asking questions about the kids as if they knew them and Sunday well, as if they’d been a part of their lives for years and considered them family.