by Rula Sinara
“What is it?” Finn echoed.
“An order for a root beer float.” He chuckled. “I figured it would take just long enough to give us time to discuss—” he nodded toward Sam and the producer “—that. Don’t worry about it, honey. It’s probably nothing.”
“I’m such an idiot,” she said. “I knew better than to fall for a musician. I fought it, but seeing that... It makes me realize I lost the fight. I don’t want him to leave!”
“Don’t jump to conclusions. If every one of my tête-à-têtes with guys like that had panned out, your old dad would be a rich and famous recovering alcoholic.”
“This is the first I’ve heard about anyone offering you a contract.”
“Because the minute they got a whiff of my breath, they changed their minds.”
But why single him out, when every third performer had some sort of addiction issue? She couldn’t pose the question, though. Not without hurting his feelings.
“Besides,” he continued, “those guys are all cut from the same cloth. They promise the moon but rarely deliver. Sometimes it’s because the singer just doesn’t have sticking power. But more often than not, it’s because the guy offering the deal doesn’t know the meaning of the word loyalty.”
“What about the guy with Sam? Is he one of those?”
Connor shrugged. “No, Bernie has a pretty good reputation.”
It didn’t come as welcome news, and Finn’s heart rate doubled. “Do you think he’s offering Sam a contract right now?”
Connor glanced at the guy, too. “Who knows?” He held her hands in his. “Now ask me if I think Sam will sign.”
Finn swallowed. Hard. “Do you think Sam will sign?”
“Not if it means leaving Nashville.”
“Really? Why?”
“He’s a smart guy. He knows you’re one in a million.”
Ciara returned to the table with her root beer float, and before taking her seat, she kissed Connor’s cheek.
“You remembered that these are my favorite.”
“You bet I did.”
One by one, the Marks Brothers climbed back onstage. “And I remember what it looks like when the next set is about to start, too.”
“How’s it going?” Finn asked. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
His shoulders lifted in a nonchalant shrug. “If that’s your way of asking if Mark intends to make this a permanent thing, yeah, I think so.”
He nodded toward Ciara. “She’s fading fast. No need to hang around until the last set. I’ll see you at home.” He kissed the top of her head.
So this is what it feels like to have a dad who cares. How ironic that just when she admitted she wanted a life with Sam, he’d probably leave...and the father who’d made a habit of letting her down had decided to stay.
“I’ll wait up,” she said, “so you can tell me...everything.”
“Sounds good.” He blew her a kiss. “Love you, honey.”
He’d barely strapped on his guitar when Ciara frowned. “You should have—should have said it back. And you should have called him Dad, too.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Probably?” Ciara snorted. “Definitely.”
Smiling, Finn turned to watch Connor. He seemed so comfortable, so happy up there, and made it look easy, keeping the audience in the palm of his hand. She knew better than most that it had come at a price. If anyone deserved a contract, it was Connor.
“Finn?”
“Hmm?” She shifted her attention to Sam, who’d perfected the same stage presence at half the age, in half the time. He was every bit as talented and deserving as Connor. A decent human being would be happy that he might get a chance to make his musical dreams come true. So why wasn’t she?
Because you want too much, she thought again. You want it—
“Finn,” Ciara said again...
...and fainted dead away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SAM LEFT THE club’s office and closed the door behind him. Halfway to the stage when he saw the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle.
“Hey, Sue, what’s going on?” he asked a waitress.
“Those two girls who were sitting there,” she said, pointing at Finn and Ciara’s table, “well, the younger one fainted, so the other one called 911.”
Sam shouldered his way through the crowd of curious onlookers gathered in the club’s vestibule in time to see the ambulance pull away from the curb...and Finn’s worried, frightened face in the vehicle’s rear window.
If he hadn’t left his keys and wallet in the dressing room, he would have followed immediately. Sam ran back inside, where that same waitress said, “Do you know those girls?”
Know them? he thought. I love them!
“Where’s Mark?”
“Onstage, I guess. No. Wait. I think I saw him go into the storeroom.”
Instead, he found Mark in the dressing room.
“Good grief,” his friend said. “What did Bernie say to put that look of doom and gloom on your face?”
Sam didn’t have time to go into Bernie’s offer: studio time to record Sam’s original songs, along with several written by another client, tour dates with megastar Carly Overton and appearances on all the major morning talk shows.
He palmed his keys, and on the way to the door, Sam added, “They just took Ciara away in an ambulance.”
“Finn’s kid sister?” Mark shook his head and exhaled a heavy breath. “Which hospital?”
Sam realized he’d forgotten to ask. “Where’s Connor?” he asked, pecking a dispatcher friend’s number into his phone.
“Onstage, last time I saw him. The guy’s good, Sam. Real good. If it’s okay with you, I’m giving him the job. He’ll be backup for the nights you can’t work.”
“You can deliver the good news tomorrow. Right now, I need to find him and get him to the hospital, so he can be with his daughters.”
Mark frowned as Sam talked to his dispatcher friend.
“Vanderbilt,” he said. “Got it. Thanks, Tom, I owe you one.” He pocketed the phone and glanced around, looking for Connor.
“There he is.” Sam gestured for him to come closer.
“He’s Ciara’s dad,” Mark said, “so I get why he needs to get over there. But you’re making noises like you’re going, too.” He nodded toward a table of rowdy young women seated near the stage. “But you can’t. See the gal in red? That’s the maid of honor. She booked this place for her friend’s bachelorette party...specifically because of you.” He handed Sam a twenty-dollar bill. “Put Connor in a cab, on me, and get back onstage before one of ’em busts a lung screamin’ your name.”
Until that instant, Sam hadn’t noticed the party. They caught sight of him just then and began waving excitedly. He forced a smile and waved back, then turned to Mark.
“I hate leaving you in the lurch, man.” He tucked the twenty into Mark’s shirt pocket. “I can’t explain it right now, but I need to be there, too.”
Connor joined them. “Hey, why the long faces?”
“Because Finn and Ciara are on their way to Vanderbilt,” Sam said.
“Vanderbilt? Why? What happened?”
“Only way to find out is to get over there.” Sam met Mark’s eyes. “Sorry, dude, but I’ll make it up to you.”
He led Connor to the door.
“Is that why an ambulance was here?” He thumped himself in the forehead. “I had a feeling I oughta check things out...”
“No way you could have known.” He opened the door. “My truck is out back.”
Neither man spoke as they made their way to the hospital. Sam frowned, noticing Connor’s labored breathing. They’d raced out of the club and across the parking lot, but not at a pace
fast enough to make him pant. The temperature gauge in the rearview read fifty-five, too cool to explain the sheen of perspiration on his upper lip and forehead.
“Hey, man, you doing okay?”
Connor laid a hand on his chest. “My heart’s beating like a parade drum, and I can’t catch my breath. Aside from that,” he said on a whispery chuckle, “I’m good.”
Sam’s training kicked in. “Any numbness in your fingers?”
“No, but they’re tingling.”
It could mean anything from a panic attack to a full-blown heart episode.
“There’s a good reason Vanderbilt made the best-hospitals list, so don’t worry. Ciara is in good hands.”
“Easy for you to say. She isn’t your kid.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions—women faint for all sorts of reasons.”
“Not women with Ciara’s history. What do you really think is going on?”
The man was in no condition to hear his best guess, so Sam said, “Hospital is just ahead. No sense speculating when we can get the facts directly from her doctor.”
“Man.” Connor slumped lower in the passenger seat. “Times like these, I sure could use a good, stiff drink.”
Sam pulled into the lot. “Look at it this way—getting through this without booze or pills will be proof you can get through anything.”
He got Connor situated on a bench across from the sign-in counter. “Stay put while I find out where Finn and Ciara are.”
The man seemed only too happy to comply.
Somewhere in this ER, Finn and Ciara were in good hands. Sam wanted to put their father in good hands, too. So he made a call and hoped his pal in the radiology department was on duty.
“Williamson,” she answered.
“Melody.” Sam put his back to Connor and lowered his voice. “Thank God you’re working tonight.”
“Sam? Sam Marshall?”
They’d dated a time or two, but he’d quit asking her out when she’d offered him a key to her place and started talking commitment.
“Hate to bother you, but I’m hoping I can call in a favor.”
“Oh, so that’s how it is, huh?” she said, laughing. “You carry an old lady out of her burning house and the family is indebted to you for life.”
Sam grimaced slightly because it had been Melody’s grandmother he’d saved the night the ceiling caved in on him. The next day, Melody had taken one look at his mangled thigh and asked how she’d ever repay him. He’d told her that one day he’d call in a favor and left it at that. Now that day was here.
Sam explained why he’d called, and Melody agreed with his assessment of the situation. She promised to meet him in the ER, and after putting Connor into her care, Sam began a search for Ciara and Finn. He saw an ambulance parked outside the ER doors, and the twenty-eight painted on its side identified it as the same vehicle that had delivered Ciara to Vanderbilt. He noticed the paramedics heading toward the exit and hurried to catch up with them.
Sam had worked with the guy, and the woman had been in one of his first classes. Their radios squawked with another assignment, so they told him where he could find the Leary sisters and got on their way.
Ciara was barely visible behind half a dozen nurses and aides, and yet she smiled when she saw him. “Where’s—where’s my dad?”
“Oh, he got a little dizzy, so I asked a friend to take a look at him. Wouldn’t want him infecting you if he picked up the flu or something.”
Finn grabbed his forearm. “Dizzy?” She lowered her voice. “I knew it was a bad idea for him to spend time at the club. One night, one night, and already he’s—”
“He wasn’t drinking.”
Her weary, worried expression relaxed a bit. “Then, what caused the dizzy spell?”
He shrugged. “Could be any one of a hundred things. He’s had a crazy couple of days. Auditioning, rehearsal, getting onstage after who knows how many weeks, then finding out his baby girl was carted off in an ambulance.” He winked at Ciara and forced lightheartedness into his voice. “That’s enough to make even a superhero shaky.”
Finn tightened her grip on his arm. “Where is he?”
“My pal did a quick once-over on him, then sent him up to Radiology. Near as we can figure, he’s having a mild panic attack.”
“You’re sure it’s nothing more than that?”
“Well, as sure as I can be for now.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Don’t worry. These people are the best. We’ll hear something soon. Worst-case scenario, they’ll prescribe an antianxiety medication. Best case, he’ll calm down when the doc tells him Ciara’s all right.”
“Antianxiety meds? Oh, I hope not.”
Sam understood perfectly: a few weeks without pills and booze didn’t change the fact that Connor was still an addict.
“Remember, they know what they’re doing. I gave Mel a brief rundown of your dad’s history. She won’t put him on anything that’ll cause a setback.”
He glanced at Ciara, still encircled by hospital personnel. “Has her doctor been in yet?”
“No, but he’s on his way. He already made arrangements for new scans.” She nodded toward the bed. “They’re doing what tests they can now, too.” She heaved a big sigh.
Sam moved, forcing Finn to put her back to Ciara. “So tell me what happened.”
“She’s been...off lately. Pale. Dark circles under her eyes. Sleepy. No appetite...” She shrugged. “I kept pestering her—are you sleeping all right, does your head hurt, is your stomach queasy—but she said no to everything.”
“No fever?”
“No fever.”
Something he’d read during his academy days niggled at him: Ciara’s traumatic brain injury made her a prime candidate for a transient ischemic attack. Were her recent dizzy spells, double vision and headaches evidence that she’d already suffered a ministroke—maybe more than one? If a TIA had put Ciara in the hospital tonight, the doctor had time to get her on the right medication to prevent a bigger, more damaging stroke down the road.
Finn glanced over her shoulder. “She looks so tiny and vulnerable, doesn’t she?”
“But they’re taking good care of her here. So don’t worry.”
She studied his face, and he didn’t know what to make of the almost angry spark in her eyes. “I’m fine. Really.”
The wind had rumpled her hair, worry had lined her brow and sadness dulled the usually bright gleam in her dark eyes, yet she was as beautiful as ever.
Sam held out his arms, expecting her to step into them. Instead, she hesitated, then moved to the left. The depth of his disappointment came as a surprise. Fortunately, she filled the silence by repeating how bad she felt for Connor.
“I’m sure when he gets here, he’ll tell you there’s no place he’d rather be,” Sam assured her.
“How long do you think it’ll be before your friend lets us know what’s wrong with him?”
“Could be an hour or a few minutes. Tell you what. There’s a vending machine right down the hall. What can I get you?”
“Bottled water if they have it.”
Sam withdrew a few rumpled dollar bills from the pocket where he kept loose change...and Bernie’s business card fluttered to the floor.
She picked it up, frowning as she handed it to him.
The look of disapproval told him Finn had seen him talking with the producer. But if “this isn’t the time or place to talk about it” sounded defensive and argumentative in his head, how much worse would it sound to Finn?
A doctor entered the room, and Finn hurried to his side.
“Dr. Peterson, I’m so glad you’re here!”
They stepped up to Ciara’s bed. Between them, Sam saw the ashen-faced young woman who, despite the chaos all around her, seemed ca
lm and unafraid, thanks to her sister’s loving, reassuring words.
Two orderlies rolled a gurney into the room and told Peterson they’d been summoned to deliver Ciara to Radiology. “Meet you there,” the doctor told Finn, white coat flapping as he exited the room.
The IV drugs were working, as evidenced by Ciara’s droopy eyelids and soft murmurs. Finn pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’m right here, Kee.”
As the men wheeled her into the hallway, Ciara reached for Sam’s hand.
“Where—where’s Dad?”
A little white lie at a time like this wouldn’t hurt anyone, right? “He told me to let you know he’ll see you soon, and that he loves you.”
She smiled, exhaled a relieved sigh. “I’m—I’m glad you’re here,” she slurred, “so Finn won’t be alone.”
He glanced at her, and Sam chose to blame fear, worry and exhaustion for the indifferent expression Finn aimed his way.
One of the orderlies punched the elevator’s up button, and they all stared at the glowing green numbers above the doors. “This could take a while,” Finn told Sam.
“I know.”
“Maybe long into the night.”
“I know.”
The doors opened, and she followed the gurney inside. “You don’t have to stay.”
“I know.”
There wasn’t much space inside, what with the bed, the two big guys and Finn already in there. But Sam squeezed in anyway.
The nearest orderly shot him a sympathetic grin.
“You want to hear what I know?”
She answered with a slight shrug.
“I know that it’s dangerous to jump to conclusions, because you can’t predict where you’re going to land.”
Her brow furrowed slightly as she tried to figure out what his comment had to do with anything. Then, in one blink, a wily grin grew on her lips. In another, she said, “And I know that the explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct.”
Leave it to Finn, he thought, to put him in his place without a hint of melodrama.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
QUIET SQUEAKS AND the scent of honeysuckle floated by, both gone as quickly as they’d materialized.
