Brisa fiddled with the cord to her mouse as she considered that. She’d been avoiding Wade because she was embarrassed or ashamed of making another mess. What if he thought it was worse than that? Then it wasn’t about how many chances he’d given her. It was only about clearing up a misunderstanding.
Which she had decades of experience with.
“He promised to pay the next time we go to Surf and Turf. What if we lure him out there with the promise of food, and Sean and I conveniently forget to show up?” Reyna asked before she straightened. “No, we tell him to ride with us, that you’re meeting us there, then we dump him and drive away. He’ll have to listen to you then.”
Sean frowned. “Isn’t that kidnapping? I’m not down for jail time for your baby sister.”
Brisa laughed as Reyna waited for him to meet her stare. “You won’t go to jail for me?”
He rolled his eyes. “For you, yes. For her…” He pointed at Brisa and then waved his hand as if it was a no-go.
Before she could convince her sister that jail time would not be required, her phone rang. Brisa checked the display to see her father’s name. “Morning, Daddy… You need to reschedule? If coming here doesn’t work, I can swing by your office. We have all hands on deck at Concord Court today.” Brisa stuck her tongue out as she realized how grossly chipper she sounded. She wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. One big problem untangled would leave her plenty of time to deal with Wade.
And she wanted to get to dealing with Wade.
“Brisa, listen carefully. Is your sister with you?” her father asked. Brisa pressed the phone harder against her ear. It was difficult to understand him. There was road noise and something else in the background.
“Reyna? She’s here. Do you need to talk to her?” Brisa asked. Why hadn’t he called Reyna’s phone if that was the case?
“No. Listen to me.” He coughed. “I’m headed to the hospital by ambulance. There was an accident. I need you…” He coughed again and Brisa stood slowly, the alarm raising goose bumps on her arm.
“Daddy, are you okay?” she asked, before pressing her fingers to her mouth. Silly question. He was in an ambulance.
“I will be fine, Brisa. I promise. Do not worry. I need you or your sister to go and pick up Marisol to bring her here. She doesn’t drive enough to be steady to make the trip in a hurry and…” He coughed again. “Please tell her about the accident and that I am fine. Do you understand? I do not want her to worry.”
Reyna had picked up on the problem and moved to grip Brisa’s arm tightly.
“I understand, Daddy. I’ll go and get Marisol. Reyna will head to the emergency room to meet you. We’ll take care of everything,” Brisa said firmly and pinched her nose to prevent the tears from falling. Her father didn’t need sobbing at this point.
“Thank you. Please drive carefully, baby. Both of you.” Then he ended the call and Brisa frowned down at her phone.
“What is it?” Reyna asked.
“I think it’s a car accident. It was hard to understand, but Daddy’s on the way to the hospital. He wants me to go and get Marisol.” Brisa stared from her sister to Sean. “I’ll go. Lock up the office and both of you go meet him in the emergency room. And you make sure you tell him he promised he’d be fine. I won’t accept anything less. It would be un-Montero-like.”
Sean pulled his keys out. “Got it, boss. We’re on it.”
Reyna let him pull her toward the door. “Should one of us stay…”
“Sean, get her in the truck and go,” Brisa snapped and followed them out. As she raced to her townhome and her car, she experienced half a second of irritation at Reyna who wanted to keep the business going at a time like this and then let it all go as she slid behind the wheel of her convertible.
Drive carefully. That was her father’s order. She was going to prove her Montero-ness by following it. Before she turned out of the Concord Court driveway, she accessed the hands-free phone and pulled up Wade’s number. She pressed it to call before she could even ask herself what she was doing.
“Brisa?” he answered on the first ring. As if he were anxious for her call. Not angry. Maybe. She’d think about that later.
“Wade, are you at the hospital by chance?” Brisa couldn’t remember how soon his schedule started or when his ex-wife would be home so Thea might still be with him. All she was sure of was that she wanted Wade near her father and soon.
“I am, actually. Dr. Holt had a liver transplant scheduled. He asked me to observe. Since Vanessa and Steve made it home last night, I decided to…” He paused. “What’s wrong?”
As she sped through a yellow light, Brisa forced herself to take her foot off the gas. Drive carefully, baby. That’s what her father had said.
“My father is headed to Emergency. There was some kind of accident. I know we’ve had some…” How could she describe their relationship?
“I’ll head down there now. Are you on your way?” His voice was firm. Certain. Reassuring. It was easier to drive slowly since Brisa immediately felt better because Wade would be nearby.
“I’m on my way to get my stepmother. Reyna and Sean will be there soon.” Brisa inhaled slowly. They had a plan. Everything was better with a plan.
“We’ll be here when you arrive. Slow down. He’ll get the best care. You know that.” Wade was calm.
And he was right.
“Thanks. I’ll see you soon.” She quit the call because she needed to concentrate, but she missed his voice as soon as she did.
Luckily, traffic was lighter than normal, and she turned into the long driveway to her parents’ home without much trouble. Her car could almost operate on autopilot as she made the familiar trip.
Turning down the long driveway lined with old oaks and royal poinciana trees, she might as well have stepped back in time to when she was a little girl. The trees had shaded the Montero grounds then, and nothing had changed. Warm sunshine illuminated the paved area between the garages. As she drove through the portico, Brisa waved at the security camera that covered all entries and exits on the grounds. It was an old habit. She’d started doing it when she was successful in sneaking out of the house as a teenager. She slammed the door and decided to gamble that Marisol would be in her favorite spot on the planet, the covered lanai that overlooked the pool and the ocean.
“Brisa, what are you doing here?” Marisol asked as she set down her coffee cup. She was dressed for a lazy day at home, but Marisol Montero had impeccable fashion sense. Even for days at home, she was smartly dressed. “Is something wrong?”
Brisa forced herself to take a deep breath. Her father wanted Marisol not to worry. Most of that relied on Brisa’s delivery. “Daddy called and asked me to come pick you up. He’s had an accident, but he’s fine.” Brisa wrapped her arm around Marisol’s shoulders as she stood. “He’s fine. We talked on the phone. He didn’t want you to have to fight the traffic, so he asked me to bring you to see him. He’ll probably have to wait a bit, be checked out before he’s released. He knew you would worry.” There. It sounded so everyday when she said it like that. Marisol’s eyes were locked to her face, so Brisa smiled. She’d had years of experience telling half-truths and white lies, so this should be no challenge.
Thanks to the knowledge that Reyna and Wade were both headed toward her father, it was easy for Brisa to be strong for Marisol.
“Let me grab my purse, and we’ll go.” Marisol glanced around as if she wasn’t exactly sure where her purse lived.
“You know what? You don’t even need it. I’ll wait with you and bring you home when Daddy is released. We’ll make him ride in the tiny back seat.” She grinned at Marisol and wrapped her arm around her stepmother to help her down the stairs. Under normal circumstances, Marisol would float or dance down the stairs with style. Today, this close, with her confusion, Brisa understood that Marisol was as human as the
rest of them. Even her father had succumbed to the world’s imperfections today.
“Dan took the week off to go visit his mother,” Marisol said quietly as she buckled her seat belt. “Your father has enjoyed driving himself everywhere and now this.” She shook her head.
Her father, the man who worked every single waking minute of every single day and if you were late to dinner, ordered dinner for you, used a driver most of the time. That explained one of Brisa’s questions. She’d been afraid to ask what happened to Dan in the accident.
“Accidents happen. It’s one of those things,” Brisa murmured as she negotiated the traffic. It was easier to pretend everything was fine with that distraction.
“We were surprised you didn’t tell us about Reggie’s proposal.” Marisol stared hard out the window. Was she urging Brisa to go faster? Brisa pushed harder on the gas pedal.
“I hope you haven’t had to answer too many questions at the club.” Their complaints always revolved around the gossips at the club and being caught without answers. “Reggie’s ready to be married, but I didn’t think that was a good enough reason to say yes.”
Marisol sighed. “You two were never a love match anyway.” Then she patted Brisa’s arm. “Right?”
Brisa supposed it made perfect sense that her father and stepmother had seen through her careful plot to throw off matchmaking. They’d been untangling her messes as long as she had.
“Right. Friends, who made easy plus-ones to ward off matchmakers,” Brisa said. They were quiet for the rest of the drive. Brisa parked in the deck instead of dropping her stepmother at the door. In case the situation was worse than she’d convinced herself it would be, Brisa needed to be on hand to support Marisol. That was the job she’d been assigned.
And it was good thinking on her father’s part.
For some reason, the woman who knew the hospital backward and forward, thanks to years of fundraising and volunteer committees, was struggling to find the elevators. They hurried through the humid parking deck and into the hospital, where Brisa took control.
“This way, Mari,” Brisa murmured and was happy when Marisol slipped a hand inside hers. This was the woman who’d kept her connected to the Montero family through some rough patches. It was sweet that Marisol depended on her when she needed to.
When they made it to the emergency lobby, Wade was standing outside the double doors. Her panic must have shown on her face, but he held up a hand. “I’m here to lead you back. He’s going to be okay.” His lips curled. It wasn’t a full smile, but it warmed his eyes. Brisa would call him a friend in that moment, and she believed he would do the same for her.
As Marisol hurried ahead, Brisa said to Wade, “You don’t have to wait with us, but I needed you here until I could make it myself.”
Wade wrinkled his nose. “You better let me get you past the nurse in charge. She’s a Reggie Beaumont superfan, according to her lanyard, so…” He held the doors open and waited for her to step inside. “Left corner, in the back.”
Brisa gripped his hand as she followed his directions and joined her family around her father’s bed. There was a lump on her father’s head, his face was bruised as if his nose was broken, and he was surrounded by machinery. Brisa immediately turned to Wade for an explanation.
“He’s going to be fine, Brisa. Pulmonary contusions caused by impact. The ER doctor’s scheduled a chest X-ray and CT scan to be supersafe.” Wade’s voice was quiet. Eventually, her body settled, resting against his and she got control. “The bruises on his lungs will heal. They’re monitoring his oxygen levels to see if oxygen therapy is called for. The ER doctor doesn’t think anything’s broken, which is amazing.” Wade squeezed her hand tightly.
“I’m sorry. I was holding it together and then… I wasn’t.” Brisa forced herself to stand on her own, but Wade didn’t let go.
“You did exactly what you needed to do.”
Brisa realized half the staff in the ER and everyone gathered around her father’s bed was watching them.
“McNally, you can release me, right? Send me home.” Her father’s voice was stronger than it had been on the phone, but he coughed at the end.
Brisa bit her lip to contain her smile as she stepped up next to her father. “McNally needs to go back to his office. We’ll let the ER doctor make any decisions and we won’t argue with him if you need to stay overnight, Daddy.” She pressed her hands on the sheets next to her father and relaxed a fraction when he gripped her hand.
Marisol was frowning as fiercely as her father. “You will be staying here overnight. I insist.”
“My oxygen levels are fine,” her father said as he held up the finger with some kind of clamp on it. He shook it at the machine that showed numbers fluctuating in the eighties.
“What is a good number?” Brisa asked her sister under her breath. Wade chuckled quietly behind her.
“At least seventy, but a Montero number is closer to one hundred. That’s the goal.” Reyna wrapped her arm around Brisa’s shoulder. “Good job, BB. They’ve been arguing since Marisol walked in, so you did exactly as you were ordered.”
“Of course, I did. I would never disobey my father,” she said with a straight face, but it was louder than she intended, and all other conversation stopped.
“Fine. I might disobey my father, but it’s more likely I’ll use a little lie to get out of trouble.” Brisa shook her head. Was she going to do this? “Are you on any painkillers by chance?”
Her father drawled, “My mind is clear. Very clear.”
She nodded. Of course, it was. She stared over her shoulder at Wade in a weak attempt at making a wimpy apology and confessed, “Reggie and I had an arrangement to keep you from setting me up with eligible men you favored for me. The engagement? I was supposed to say yes, but I couldn’t.” She held out her hand to tick off the points. “I’m going to get all this off my chest here. I set up a personal ad for Reyna and corresponded with Wade McNally on her behalf until she went and fell for Sean. That’s where the matchmaking thing started.” Two fingers. She met her sister’s stare. Instead of disappointment, Reyna just rolled her eyes. Wade squeezed her shoulder. “I received two grant rejections last week that I haven’t told you about, Daddy, but I have a plan to fix that. I met with Julius Stewart, got a much smaller contribution that will allow me to hire a freelance grant writer who will get this small business lab’s funding moving.” Three fingers.
She wanted to clear the air completely, but she was forgetting something.
“I’m going to heal, it’s okay, Brisa. Save some of this confessing for another day,” her father whispered.
Brisa laughed and held up her fourth finger. “Wade McNally might not know it yet, but he’s going to fall in love with me. I’ve been training for this my whole life and I will use every bit of Montero stubbornness and conniving to make it happen.”
Sean muttered, “The guy’s already so far gone he’s about to come all the way back around and get you himself.” Brisa didn’t check on Wade’s reaction to either her bold statement or Sean’s comments. There would be time for that later.
“What else, daughter?” Her father pointed at the knot on his forehead. “I already have a headache. We might as well clear the air.”
So she held out her hand to show him she was on her fifth point. “I want you to be proud of me. You. Reyna. Marisol. I want you all to be proud of me. That’s it. The end. I might have tried to show you how little your disapproval hurt, but we’re going to change the whole conversation. I’m going to make Concord Court work. I’m going to make my big ideas work. I’m a Montero. I won’t stop until you’re proud to call me a Montero, too.”
Her father wrapped his hand around hers and pulled her to him. “I have always been proud of my beautiful girls. Always. Worried. You have worried me. Both of you. It’s unacceptable. If you would both settle down here, follow my direc
tion, then things would go much more smoothly for us all.” He shook his head and grimaced. “You are on exactly the right track with Julius Stewart, the grant writer, Wade McNally, all of it. I had to drag you both here to get this going. I’m an old man. I wondered if you would both fight me to the end.”
Brisa stared at her sister across the bed and they shared a smile.
“Safe. Secure. Home. Together. That’s all I ask of you. From either one of you. Instead of demanding you be Monteros,” he said slowly, “I will ask you to be Brisa and Reyna first.” He lifted a shoulder in a careful shrug. “Let’s see if that is any less successful.”
Brisa was a little ticked off, and a lot relieved that her father was as Luis Montero as ever. His brilliant idea was to back off, something she and Reyna had been demanding since they could string words together.
And he was proud!
“Thank you for calling me, Daddy. I’m glad I had a chance to help.” Brisa stared down at him and tried not to let the fear of his injuries and how much older he seemed in a hospital bed swamp her. Their way forward was going to be bumpy, but they were all going to go together.
“You’re number two in my phone, Brisa. When I need help, only Marisol comes before you.” He smiled.
Reyna muttered, “If she’s number two, what number am I? Three?”
Her father shook his head. “Four. Sorry. You were a world away for so long and Trina has all my credit card information.”
Brisa knew her eyes were huge as she watched her sister, her perfect sister’s face, as she struggled to come to grips with the fact that their father would call his assistant before he called her. Eventually, Reyna said, “That’s fair. Unexpected, but fair.”
Sean wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her back to lean against him. “You’re number one on my speed dial.” Everyone laughed and Brisa finally believed that everything was going to be okay.
Harlequin Heartwarming March 21 Box Set Page 42
