by Karina Bliss
“Charlie,” he shouted, “she’s not Meredith, she’s Viv!” Blood from his nose splattered across the other man’s business shirt.
But Charlie was beyond hearing. With a grunt of effort he started to break out of Ross’s hold. In desperation, Viv jumped on his back, so all three were locked in a grotesque hug. “You’re terrifying the kids, Charlie,” she yelled in his ear. “Not in front of the kids.”
He stopped struggling. Viv slid off his back and nearly fell over. One hand on the car for balance, she stumbled around to the passenger door to comfort the hysterical kids, waving reassurance to other parents and kids.
“It’s okay,” she called automatically. “It’s a mistake… I’m not Meredith. Everything’s fine.” Tears poured down her cheeks. “Kids, it’s okay,” she wept, wrestling the upset children out of their seat belts and soothing them with hugs. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
In Ross’s arms, Charlie started to sob. “How could you do this to me…you’re my brother.”
Ross tightened his embrace. “She’s not Meredith,” he repeated helplessly over and over again, ignoring the metallic taste of blood every time he opened his mouth. “Charlie, she’s Viv, not Meredith.”
At last the message penetrated. Charlie pulled back, his face smeared with Ross’s blood and his own tears. “Viv?” he said, dazed.
“It’s Viv, buddy, I would never make a move on Meredith, you know I wouldn’t.”
“But Viv’s in New York.”
Ross shook his head. “She’s here. Now.”
Pushing free, Charlie buried his face into his shaking hands. “Oh, God,” he rasped. “What have I done?” He raised his head. “When I got out of the taxi and saw you locked in each other’s arms, I…” He frowned. “But why is she wearing Merry’s soccer-coaching uniform?”
CHARLIE TOOK MERRY’S CAR, he took the kids. He didn’t look back.
Ross found a towel in his gym bag and, using the faucet in the kids’ playground, cleaned off the blood as best he could, refusing Viv’s help.
As soon as he’d walked out of her sight, he’d slammed his fist into the wall of one of the prefab classrooms. Now his hand hurt, too, along with his leg, his nose, his cheek, his bruised eye. Ross still couldn’t believe his friggin’ stupidity in giving in to his feelings for Viv in a public car park, while she was in character as Meredith. Some covert operator he was.
Charlie had caught an earlier flight to surprise his daughter at her big game. Instead he’d found his brother lip-locked with his wife.
Now Ross had blown it for everybody…himself included.
Not only did Charlie intend to start divorce proceedings against Meredith, he never wanted to see Viv again and he never wanted to see Ross. It had been like looking into Linda’s eyes. He saw the same chilling hostility, the same ruthless rejection.
“You’re no longer my brother.”
“Here,” said Viv, and he lifted his face out of the towel to see her holding out a packet of frozen peas. “I found some money in your console and bought them from the convenience store across the road.”
Neither of them had said much since Charlie drove off. Both were too shell-shocked.
“Thanks.” Ross pressed the package to his nose and wished it could numb him all the way through. He seemed to have experienced more emotions in this single day than he had over the rest of his life, and he was spent.
“I’ve been thinking about how we’re going to fix this.”
Peas held to his swelling eye, he stared at her with his good eye. Somewhere in the skirmish, her ponytail had been knocked sideways, giving her a skewed look. She was pale, tearstained and disheveled in Meredith’s track pants. And the oversized white Small-Stars T-shirt was rainbow-stained from gummy snakes.
She still had the whistle around her neck and he loved her so much his brain hurt.
But seeing that evangelical fervor in her brown eyes—a fervor that had led to this mess, that had just cost him his brother—was too damn much. Right now, he wished Viv Jansen a thousand miles away.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “You’re with me on this, aren’t you?”
“Don’t you get it? There’s nothing left to save, Viv. We’ve screwed up everyone’s life—your sister’s, my brother’s, their kids’.” He pressed the peas to his face. Charlie. “Haven’t we done enough damage?”
“So, what? We walk away and leave them at Ground Zero? You must see that’s not an option.”
“All I see is someone who never frickin’ learns her lesson.”
“Ross—”
“No,” he said. “Neither of us is interfering again.”
“Neither of us,” she said dangerously.
He wasn’t in the mood for diplomacy. “Let me rephrase that. If you want to go screw something else up, you are going on your own.” A low blow. They both knew she had no car, no money and no choice but to go home with him.
Viv’s eyes narrowed. “Fine,” she said tartly. “That’s how I prefer to live anyway. Alone.” She marched off, her crooked ponytail swinging like an angry cat’s tail.
Oh, for God’s sake. “You can’t walk to Hamilton,” he bellowed after her.
“I’ve got a thumb,” she said. “I’ll hitchhike as soon as I get to a main road.”
“Don’t be so bloody silly, woman.”
She used other fingers to give him the bird.
Ross cursed until he’d colored the school grounds blue. Goddamn it! If he wasn’t so furious with himself, with her, if he wasn’t so gut-wrenchingly sick over Charlie he might have seen the funny side.
She was walking the wrong way.
Storming back to the SUV, he climbed in, tossed the peas into the passenger seat and turned the air-conditioning on full. Tempted as he was to leave her to it, he knew he’d given up that choice half an hour ago. Ross started the engine. If this was love he didn’t like it.
He caught up to her at the intersection of Flower and Main, and curb-crawled beside her with the driver’s window down. “Okay,” he called. “You win—I’ll help you. What are we doing?”
She stopped and Ross pulled over. “We’ll take Merry home, grab the kids and leave her and Charlie to thrash out the issue alone,” she said. “See, I can stop interfering.” She looked pissy and defiant and so endearing with that ridiculous ponytail.
“It’s a good plan,” he said quietly. “Hop in.”
“Move over and I’ll drive. Coltrane, you’re a mess.”
Ross hated being driven. Dan’s wife, Jo, thought he had a thing against being driven by women, but he got twitchy with anyone else in the driving seat. He’d been the patrol’s driver, behind the wheel when an IED—improvised explosive device—detonated under the Dumvee, throwing Lee into the path of the enemy and trapping Steve in a fiery death.
He looked at Viv and moved over without protest. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done and she didn’t even register the sacrifice. She jumped in the driver’s seat, graunched the gears… “I’m used to automatic”…and immediately pulled onto the wrong side of the road.
“Left-side drive,” Ross reminded her, and she veered over to a cacophony of horn blasts from oncoming traffic.
Reclining the passenger seat, he lay back with a towel and covered his face with the frozen peas.
“Wake me up when we get to Hamilton.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
STAFF NURSE FLORENCE Hore’s eyes were the prettiest color, the blue of spring skies. Trapped in a glare-off, Viv only noticed the darker shards embedded in the iris.
“The fact that you’re embroiled in yet another argument, this time with my patient’s husband, doesn’t remotely interest me,” she’d said when Viv had rushed in and demanded her sister’s immediate discharge. “Until the surgeon has given Mrs. Coltrane her final clearance and signed the discharge papers, I’m not authorized to release her.”
“So let’s phone the guy, get him out here. As I’ve already explained�
�twice—it’s a family emergency.”
Viv might as well have suggested dragging the Pope away from holy mass. “We do not,” Florence said, “call out our specialists for anything but an emergency.”
Viv glared. “This is an emergency. My sister’s kids—”
“General Hospital called,” Florence said. “They want their melodrama back.”
Viv blinked first. “Damn it. To hell with this. You know what, Nurse Ratched? We’re leaving anyway, with or without your permission.”
“In that case…” Florence picked up the phone and punched in a number. “Security?”
Viv leaned forward and cut the connection. “Fine—you win. We’ll wait until tomorrow.” She added bitterly, “You probably miss the old days when surgery was performed without anesthetic.”
“And we were allowed to call people like you lunatics…yes.”
Frustrated, Viv returned to her sister’s room, where she found Merry trying to pace on crutches. She looked up hopefully but Viv shook her head. “We’ll have to wait until tomorrow…. How about you, any luck getting hold of Charlie?”
“He’s not answering…his cell, Linda’s phone, our phone. Tell me the truth, Viv, how upset were the kids?”
Merry read the answer on her face and paled. “Why didn’t I tell him earlier,” she said, and burst into tears. “My poor babies.”
Viv swallowed the lump in her throat. “To hell with this,” she repeated. “We’re breaking you out of here.”
“But the specialist—”
“You’re a nurse. Is there any medical reason you can’t go home now?”
“No.”
“So it’s bureaucracy and Florence on a power trip. We just have to work out how we’ll do it without alerting her. Get dressed and put your hospital gown over the top. I’ll go find Ross.” Parking was notorious around the hospital so he’d dropped her off while he circled the lot.
“He’s not going to go along with this.”
Was she right? Viv experienced a resurgence of doubt. True to his word, he’d fallen asleep en route to Hamilton—how could he have slept at a time like this? On the other hand, he’d needed to. He’d looked terrible.
“Do you think he’ll help?” Merry looked skeptical.
“I don’t know,” Viv said honestly. The kiss in the parking lot seemed a lifetime ago…. “All I can do is ask.”
“SO THAT’S THE SITUATION,” Ross told Dan. Cell pressed to his ear, he stepped aside to let two ambulance officers push a stretcher bed carrying an old man into Accident and Emergency. Pale, blinking to clear his vision, disorientated. Probably a stroke. “Basically,” he said to Dan, “it’s all turned to shit.”
“You need me there?”
“Not at the moment, we’ll take Meredith home and see what happens. I’ll keep you updated.” He changed the subject. “Listen, you were right with your concerns about my redeployment.”
“Ice, they weren’t concerns about your redeployment, they were concerns about you. No,” he amended, “they were concerns about me. I need you alive.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry. For behaving like an asshole.”
“That’s okay, I’m used to it. Anyway, we’ll sort this out, buddy. It’s not fair that you stand to lose Charlie because of my damn sisters.”
“We’re playing the one for all and all for one card now.” Gingerly, Ross touched the bridge of his nose. The peas had reduced the swelling substantially. Enough to establish it wasn’t broken. “So, while I have you on the line, tell me how to sweet-talk Hurricane Viv. It’s become kinda important.”
“You seriously think I’m going to help you nail my sister?”
“Actually I’ve already nailed her.” Ross checked for the women’s orthopedic ward on the board beside the elevator. “I need advice on talking her into some kind of commitment.”
There was a long silence. “You want to marry my sister?…No, Jo, there’s no way I’m handing over the phone now.”
“For God’s sake, Shep.” Frowning, Ross pushed the elevator button. “Don’t mention the M word around Viv or you’ll scare her off. But…maybe…” He tested the idea. “Eventually.” It began to have appeal. “Actually, yeah. Possibly a long campaign,” he added thoughtfully, “unless I catch her in a weak moment, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
None of which were suitable for sharing with big brothers. Impatiently he jabbed the elevator button again. “So do I have your blessing?”
“Hell, no!” His best friend sounded appalled. “You need to prove yourself first. I need a history of stability…at least six months.”
“I’m glad you don’t approve,” Ross reflected. “That would have made it too easy.”
“Ross!” Jo came on the line, possibly after a struggle because she sounded out of breath. “Is it true? You want to marry Viv?”
He grinned. “You hate being left out of the loop, don’t you, journalist?”
“You know it.”
“I suppose you want every juicy detail.”
“Yes…. Wait a minute. You’re going to hang up on me, aren’t you?”
“No. You owe me a favor for helping you kidnap Dan and I’m calling it in. Keep your overprotective husband out of my wooing.”
“You’ve got it,” she said, then coughed delicately. “Alpha Hole, you do know wooing isn’t just dragging Viv off by her hair, don’t you?”
“Now I’m hanging up on you,” said Ross, and did. The elevator finally arrived and disgorged its occupants, including his intended. His target. Whatever. Her anxious frown lifted as Viv caught sight of him.
“The duty nurse won’t allow Merry to leave until tomorrow and has security on speed dial if we try.” Catching his arm, she hustled him away from the elevator and lowered her voice. “We’re going to have to smuggle her out.”
He sighed. “Of course we are.”
FROM MERRY’S HOSPITAL BED, Viv glanced over at her twin who stood behind the heavy swing door, holding it open in one hand, her crutches in the other. She wore street clothes, the pencil skirt and blouse she’d left the house to interview in a week earlier.
It was lucky, Viv thought inconsequentially, that her sister always wore half a dress size too big for her. The skirt fitted over her cast…just. “Ready?” she asked.
Merry swallowed. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” She hid behind the door. Placing a pillow over her left leg, Viv tented the sheet over the bulge, straightened the hospital gown to hide her soccer T-shirt and pressed the call button.
Florence showed up five minutes later. “Yes,” she said crisply.
“I just wanted to apologize.” Viv bit her lip as her twin did when she was stressed. “For the fuss my twin made earlier.”
“Humph.” Florence folded her arms.
“You see, my sister is so passionate about perceived injustice…” Out of the nurse’s view, Merry crept out from behind the door—at least as much as a person with a cast to their thigh could creep “…she can say things she later regrets.” Viv tried not to watch as Merry used her crutches with exacting slowness to inch out the door.
“Your sister,” said Florence with volcanic heat, “has anger management issues and needs psychiatric treatment.”
She started to turn away. “Wait!”
Florence paused. Behind her, Merry froze. “Something’s wrong with the adjustment thingie on my bed.” What was wrong with it was a folded piece of cardboard jammed under the lever to stop it depressing. “It won’t recline and I’d like to nap now.”
Merry disappeared from view. So did Florence, down the side of the bed. The frame rattled as the staff nurse struggled with the mechanism. “I don’t understand…let me try wiggling it the other way.”
Viv imagined the action outside. Ross waited in the hallway with a wheelchair. He’d scoot Merry to the elevator, which she’d take to basement level. There she’d wait to be collected. All Viv needed to do was keep Florence occupied until she heard the distinctive ping of the elevator.<
br />
“Here’s the problem.” Florence stood with the chocolate box fragment in her hand. “Who on earth would have put that there?”
“I wonder if my daughter did it yesterday? She’s such a kidder.”
Still no elevator ping. “Do you have children, Florence?”
“Too scared they’d turn out like yours. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the nurses’ station and organize meds for Mrs. Pearson.”
“Could I ask you to pour some water into a glass for me before you go?”
The older woman’s eyes narrowed. “It’s well within reach, Mrs. Coltrane. You need to practice independence if you’re going home tomorrow.”
Still no ping.
Unable to think of another excuse, Viv watched her march toward the exit…and collide with Ross in the doorway. He put his hands on the nurse’s shoulders to steady her. “I’m so sorry…I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
Florence straightened her bib and looked at Ross’s face—the grazed cheek, the red-bruised eye and his slightly swollen nose—then stiffened. “You’re not the outraged husband, are you, come to cause more trouble?” She thrust out her arms to secure the doorway, obviously with the intention of protecting Merry, and Viv forgave the woman everything.
“I’m not married,” Ross said truthfully. “And I’m hunting for X-ray.”
Florence relaxed her guard. “You’re on orthopedic… X-ray’s one floor down. The elevator’s right out here.”
Ross reached out to clutch the door frame. “Give me a second,” he said. “I’m feeling dizzy.”
“In here.” With brisk efficiency, Florence steered him into Merry’s room, sat him on the chair by the door and shoved his head down. “What’s wrong with your leg?”
He’d favored it, sitting down.
“That’s what the X-ray will tell me,” he replied smoothly.
The elevator door pinged.
Ross lifted his head. “I think I’m okay now…. Thanks for your help.” He looked at the name badge. “Florence.” He made the word sound sensual and followed it with a smile that would have made Viv need to lie down, if she wasn’t prone already. Even Florence blinked.
