by Donna Alward
Not that she seemed to stick to any of them!
An awful possibility occurred to him. Maybe it was because he had just thought of his wife that he was suddenly aware how quickly things could go sideways.
“Have you been having outbursts since you hit your head?” he asked.
“I am not having an outburst!” Now Nora was insulted.
Brendan was astounded that he felt guilty. When he’d been dancing her down the aisle of the animal shelter, he really should have been asking her concussion-related questions. And instead of doing the easy thing, and avoiding her and all the complications that her lips had caused in his uncomplicated life over the last few days, he should have been evaluating her medical condition.
“Have you been to see a doctor?” he asked.
“I don’t need a doctor!”
“Look, outbursts can be a sign of concussion—”
“I am not having an outburst!” Each word was enunciated with extreme control, and then the phone went dead in his hands. Nora Anderson had hung up on him!
It seemed to Brendan that hanging up on someone could be evidence of an outburst.
Luke, flushed from heat, his hair flattened by sweat, came out of the flower bed, a tangle of bramble in his gloved hand. “Is Aunt Nora coming with us? For ice cream.”
“I’m not sure what your aunt is doing.” Except he was sure she was crying over an iguana. “Has she, er, been having outbursts?”
“What does that mean?”
“Crying. Snapping.”
“Oh. You mean PMS.”
Brendan wasn’t sure if he should reprimand Luke or not, but a look of such deep masculine sympathy passed between them that he just couldn’t.
Luke seemed to contemplate the fact his aunt might be a little off today. “Maybe just bring me back a milkshake,” he muttered, and disappeared into the garden again.
Then he peeked back out. “Can you get something for Deedee, too? And just a little dish of vanilla for Ranger. I’ll pay for it.” He glanced toward the house. “She’s trying not to. But she likes him. Ranger.”
There seemed to be a bit of that going around. People trying not to like each other, and liking each other anyway.
Luke was a prime example. It was damn hard not to like this kid.
And that went ditto for his aggravating aunt.
Knowing she wasn’t going to appreciate it one little bit, Brendan made his way to the vet’s office.
Nora was sitting in the waiting room, doing her best to look like a woman who would not cry over an iguana. The iguana was in a cage at her feet. It had a ribbon around its neck. Who tied a ribbon around the neck of an iguana they planned not to get attached to?
When she saw him, she folded her hands over her chest.
“I. Can. Handle. It. Myself.”
“Uh-huh.” It was the first time he’d seen her in a dress. Or in clothes that fit, for that matter. It was a denim jumper. She had amazing legs. It was kind of like Ranger, hard not to like something so adorable.
He ignored her glare and took the seat next to her. “Have you decided what to do then?”
He slid her a look. She gnawed her lip. He knew darn well that meant she hadn’t. He remembered how her lip tasted.
What was he doing here?
Trying to do the right thing, he reminded himself sternly. Brendan took one more quick look at her, and then got up and sauntered past the receptionist and into the back to talk to Herb Bentley.
“Okay,” Brendan said, coming back into the waiting room. Nora was fishing through her handbag, looking for tissues. “Let’s go for milkshakes.”
While she was sipping her shake, he could grill her about concussion symptoms. He would look up a complete list of them on his iPad while waiting in line. There was always a line at the Moo Factory on Saturday.
She looked stubborn. “In case you’ve forgotten, I have to make a decision about the iguana.”
“I’ve already made it,” he said. He picked up the cage and put it on the receptionist’s desk.
Nora bristled, balled up a tissue in her fist. “You made the decision? But you can’t!”
It wasn’t exactly an outburst, but it certainly seemed as if she might be on the edge of one.
Patiently, Brendan told her, “I told Doc I’d pay for the operation. Let’s go have ice cream.”
“I didn’t tell you about Iggy because I needed you to fix it!” she said.
“Whatever.”
“No! It’s not whatever! I told you because I needed a little tiny bit of feedback. I needed to not feel so alone. I trusted you. I didn’t tell you because I needed the decision made for me.”
She looked as if she wanted to stick her fist in her mouth after she admitted that. About not wanting to make the decision by herself. She had let it slip how alone she felt in the world.
He looked at her lips.
Well, that shouldn’t last long. Her being alone. At the moment, she was the best kept secret in Hansen. When word got out, every unattached guy for a hundred miles would be beating a path to her doorstep. Brendan didn’t even want to question the hollow feeling that realization caused in the pit of his stomach.
But only, he told himself, because he knew she’d made a bad choice once. Only because he knew it would destroy that kid up there slaving away in his grandmother’s garden if Nora did it again.
Why was he worried about her? She claimed not to like attachments. On the other hand, she was already attached to the iguana, and God knew there were lots of lizards around.
“My paying for the procedure is no big deal,” he explained patiently. “You could be having cognitive difficulties, postconcussion, that were making it hard for you to make a decision.”
“I don’t like iguanas. But that doesn’t mean I want to have the decision whether he lives or dies in my hands.”
“Well, now it’s not. There. Solved.”
“Oh!”
“Irritability,” he said sagely. He knew it would be wiser to keep that observation to himself, but he was surprised to find a part of him was actually enjoying this little interchange.
“I am not having cognitive difficulties! And I’m not irritable.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“It’s justified irritability, not knocked-over-the-head irritability!”
“It just seems a teensy bit out of proportion. I mean, I thought you’d be—” he considered saying grateful, and then said “—happy. I just don’t see that it’s a big deal.”
“You paying is a big deal. I’ll pay you back,” she said stubbornly.
“Consider it a donation.”
“No.”
“You really need a board of directors to answer to.”
“And it’s you making the decision that’s a big deal.”
“Wouldn’t it be forgivable if I made the decision based on the presumption you might be having cognitive difficulties? Even if you weren’t?”
He blinked at her. He happened to know he had eyelashes women found irresistible. He wasn’t opposed to using them as a weapon when backed into a corner.
She stared at him. Blinked herself. Looked away.
“Talk about cognitive difficulties,” she muttered. He was pleased that she suddenly lost her desire to argue with him. Still, she couldn’t just give in! Let him have the last word!
“I will pay you back.”
“Fine. I’ll take it out in milkshakes. A lifetime supply. I like licorice.”
“A lifetime supply? How much is the procedure going to cost?”
Seeing the worry creasing her brow, he cut the amount in half and was rewarded for his little lie when she looked relieved.
“There is no such thing as a licorice milkshake,” she said.<
br />
“That just shows you’ve never been to the Moo Factory.”
“Besides, if you think other people making decisions for you is no big deal, I’ll pick the flavor of your lifetime supply.”
It was all turning lighter. He could tell it was against her will. Maybe she was experiencing cognitive impairment!
“Have at it,” he said drily. “I’ve never met a flavor of ice cream I didn’t like.”
“Apparently,” she muttered. “Licorice? Yuck!”
He held open the clinic door for her and she went outside to the parking lot, eyed his vehicle suspiciously. “Where’s Luke?”
“At the last minute, he said he didn’t want to come. He asked us to bring something back for him so he could keep working. And he asked me to bring something back for Deedee, too. And Ranger. He said he’d pay for theirs.”
“My nephew, Luke Caviletti, said he’d pay?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure? He’s the kind of gangly kid with red hair.”
But her attempt at humor was meant to cover something else and it failed. Her face crinkled up. She did a funny thing with her nose and squinched her eyes hard.
The facial contortions didn’t help her gain control. He could tell she was making a valiant, valiant effort not to cry again. The tears squeezed out anyway.
He wanted to just shove his hands in his pockets and wait it out. But he was helpless against what he did next.
“Maybe...I...am...having...just...a...little...bit...of...cognitive...impairment.” She was scrubbing at her eyes with that balled up tissue.
He went to her and pulled her against him, wrapped his arms around the small of her back and held on tight.
He could feel the wetness soaking into his shirt.
And the warmth oozing out of her body.
And her heart beating below his.
Now, for his own protection and for hers, would be a great time to confirm that emotional changeability was definitely a sign of concussion.
But somehow those words about the proven correlation between concussion and emotions got trapped in his throat and never made it to his mouth.
Somehow his one hand left the small of her back, went to her hair and smoothed it soothingly.
That feeling was back.
Of being alive.
Only standing there in the vet’s office parking lot, with sunshine that felt warmer after the months of rain, with her body pressed into his, Brendan was aware he didn’t feel resentful of waking up, of being alive. Not this time.
Not at all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“OKAY,” BRENDAN GRANT said, consulting his iPad. “Are you getting headaches?”
“You are spoiling the best milkshake I have ever had.”
“Just answer the question, ma’am,” he said, in a voice that reminded her of a policeman.
Nora leveled him a look that she hoped would get him to stop. He was wrecking a perfect moment. They were sitting at a picnic table across from the Moo Factory, in Hansen Lakeside Park. Iggy had been granted a stay of execution. Luke had actually offered to spend his own money buying another human being—and a kitten—ice cream.
The sun had brought everyone to the park. Children were screaming on nearby playground equipment, some boys were throwing a Frisbee, a young couple was pushing a baby carriage. Nora watched the small family and identified the emotion she was feeling as envy.
“They look like they would provide the perfect home for a three-legged dog,” she said to Brendan when she saw that he had noticed her watching them.
“Now who is spoiling the moment? Can you stop worrying about your animals for one minute and focus on the question? Lack of focus! It’s on this list of symptoms!”
“I seem to be getting a headache right now.” Nora was trying so hard to steel herself against him, but honestly, when he turned on the charm? It was nearly hopeless. That thing he had done with his eyelashes? The big, innocent blink?
Criminal, really.
“I’m being serious!” he insisted, glancing at his iPad and then scowling back at her. As long as he didn’t blink!
“So am I!”
“You have a headache?”
“Yes.”
He scrutinized her, and looked as if he was going to scoop her up and rush her off to the hospital. Really, she didn’t quite know what to do with all this chauvinistic caring.
What if she just surrendered to it? She’d had a bump on the head. She could be forgiven a weak moment.
“Could be brain freeze. From the milkshake,” she told him.
“Ah.” He looked genuinely relieved, but she wasn’t letting him off the hook yet.
“Of course, it could be from being nagged by an exceedingly annoying man!”
His lips twitched a little, with amusement, not annoyance. He didn’t look the least contrite. In fact, he consulted his tablet again. “I’m not being exceedingly annoying. I’m being mildly annoying. For your own good.”
She rolled her eyes and took a long sip of her milkshake. Huckleberry Heaven really was heaven. But to be sitting across the table from a man like this on such a gorgeous summer day, and be asked about your cognitive function?
“Are you having any foggy feelings? Like you can’t concentrate?”
Only when you blink at me.
“Would that be the same as lack of focus?”
He considered this thoughtfully.
“Can I taste your milkshake?” she asked him.
“I’m going to put yes for that one. What does tasting my milkshake have to do with feeling foggy?”
“I’ve never tasted a licorice milkshake before. I’ve decided to live dangerously, since a blood vessel in my head may be perilously weakened, getting ready to explode as we speak.”
He glared at her.
She put a hand to her forehead, swayed. He furrowed his brow, baffled.
“My best impression of pre-aneurism,” she told him.
She wasn’t sure what it was, but he brought out something zany in her, a kind of lack of inhibition that she had not experienced often.
She liked it, especially when he shoved his milkshake across the table to make her stop. Before he gave in and laughed.
She put his straw in her mouth. She was way too aware of the fact that her lips were where his had been. She thought maybe he liked it, too. He suddenly didn’t seem nearly so interested in his silly questions. Instead, he watched her suck on his straw, and there was something so intense in his eyes it made her shiver.
“Whoo, that’s cold,” she said, to explain the shiver. She suspected he was not fooled. She pushed the shake back across the table at him. “Not to mention surprisingly good.”
Deliberately, his eyes still locked on her, he took the straw. He was caressing the damn thing with his lips.
It was the closest she’d ever been to being kissed without actually being kissed. What he was doing with that straw was darn near X-rated. She shoved her milkshake across to him.
“Want to try mine?” she asked softly. She was encouraging him!
Apparently he did want to try hers. Intensity sizzled in the air between them as he grasped her shake, lifted it to his mouth, took the straw between his teeth and nipped before closing his lips over it.
“What else do you want to do?” he asked softly. “To live dangerously. Before the blood vessel in your head lets go.”
The thing was, he was kidding. But the other thing was it was no joke. Life was not predictable. Her sister the health nut, dead in her early thirties. His wife in a car accident.
Suddenly, it seemed to Nora that she had not taken nearly enough chances. That she had not lived as fully as she should have.
If it was all going t
o be over, what had she missed?
It was easy to see the answer right now, with him sitting across from her, doing seductive things to her straw. The sun was gleaming in his dark hair; the faintest shadow of whiskers were appearing on the hard-honed planes of his cheeks.
She had missed the glory of being with a man like this.
And just letting go.
Enjoying wherever life took them, even if it was dangerous. Especially if it was dangerous!
“I want to rent one of those things down there.” Nora pointed to a colorful booth and a dock. Parked beside the pier were flat-bottomed boats that had pedals in them.
She realized she wasn’t kidding. She wanted to forget Iggy and a three-legged dog she could not find a home for. She wanted to forget an old lady whose cat, despite a reprieve, was going to die. She even wanted to forget poor Luke and the weight of her responsibility to him. She wanted to forget she had Ask Rover columns due, and bills to pay that relied on that column to pay them.
She just wanted to go out on the water and play.
“I think,” she said slowly, “I want to live as if I’m dying.”
“That’s a song,” he said.
She looked at him. She screwed up all her courage. “So, do you want to sing it with me?”
“Sure,” he said, and it didn’t even reduce her pleasure when he added, “So I can watch for more symptoms.”
While he went down to the dock and arranged to rent the boat, Nora called Luke to tell him his milkshake was going to be late.
He said it was okay. He and Deedee had gotten tired of waiting and were eating pie, anyway.
“Don’t ever eat pie cooked by someone really ancient,” he warned Nora in an undertone. “I don’t think she remembered to put sugar in it. It might be really old, too, like it’s been in her fridge for three weeks.”
“Don’t eat it!” Nora declared.
“I can’t hurt her feelings,” Luke whispered, and then said good-bye and hung up.
She was still contemplating that when Brendan returned. Luke didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. It really was shaping up to be a perfect day.
“Okay, sailor,” Brendan said, coming up to her and passing her a life jacket, “let’s go.”
