Crowned (Girls of Wonder Lane Book 2)

by Christina Coryell

  With a jolt, Harley shook herself from her stupor. “I’m sorry, this is baffling me. You’re driving around on a Harley, and yet you’re…”

  “I’m what?”

  “You know,” she hissed, glancing around her again. “Homeless.”

  “Who said I was homeless?” His lips tilted slightly upward under his mess of facial hair.

  “Um, circumstantial evidence?”

  “You made an assumption.”

  “Yeah, because you sit on the park bench outside Tiny’s every Friday night.”

  “I have a recovery group just down the block from there on Friday afternoons. I like to sit outside Tiny’s afterwards and pray for the people in my group.”

  “He gives you free food.”

  “You too, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “That’s beside the point,” she said, shaking her head. “What about being at the shelter?”

  “I volunteer there.”

  “This is all very perplexing,” Harley stated as the music began and Annie grabbed her arm to pull her toward a chair. They stood in front of their seats as the guitars began to play, and Harley felt Duke reach over and touch her arm from the aisle. She glanced at him, and he leaned close enough to be next to her ear.

  “Sometimes people aren’t what they seem,” he whispered, “but when God gives me friends, I figure it’s for a reason.” Giving him a quick scowl, she turned back towards the musicians. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” With that, he positioned himself next to her and began to sing.

  Trying to concentrate on the music, her mind began racing. All the time she spent treating Duke like a homeless person, and he was just sitting on the bench to pray. She felt the warmth rising in her neck thinking about her mistake and how she’d jumped to conclusions. What a colossal imbecile she had proven to be!

  And what did he mean, saying sometimes people aren’t what they seem? If referring to the friends he made he was referencing her, then she found that fact practically an insult. Why would he accuse her of not being what she seemed?

  Unless…

  What if he was talking about Ryan? He was friends with Ryan, but how? It had to be from the recovery group, and if so, he definitely had some sort of problem. Whatever it was would explain the desperate need for money all the time. It was one thing to imagine herself wanting to date a man who lived with his parents and didn’t have a car, but add in some sort of addiction, and it was simply too much.

  Closing her eyes, she lowered her head and shook it a bit, the full realization of the fact that she absolutely could not date Ryan practically smothering her. Not that he even wanted to date her, since he seemed extremely wishy-washy about the subject in the first place.

  She jumped a tad and glanced to her right when she felt a hand grasp her own, and Annie gave her a grin. No doubt she believed Harley was praying, and she found it encouraging. Squeezing her wild-haired friend’s hand, Harley closed her eyes again.

  “What the heck,” she whispered inaudibly. “God, remember me? Harley?” Pausing, she bit her lip, trying not to allow the concern to spread across her face. “What do I do?”

  After spending the morning at Annie’s church, which Harley admittedly enjoyed and found amazingly non-pretentious, she drove to the studio and sat at her desk, going through her emails and jotting notes on what she wanted to accomplish during the week. When she saw several congratulatory messages about her piece the week before at the shelter, where she had talked with Duke, she guiltily placed her head in her arms on her desk. The number one rule of reporting was not to assume, but to get the facts. She hadn’t bothered to get the facts on Duke, and she felt humiliated.

  Two hours later, when she roused and realized she had fallen asleep with her head against her desktop, she sat up and rubbed a fist against her eyes. The entire weekend had been a jumble of mixed emotions. The two bright spots had been her evening with Ryan at the hospital, which was decidedly cloudy after the phone call the night before, and her meeting with Kelsey in the hospital room down the hall. Allowing a slight smile to touch her lips, she thought about the pretty blonde-haired teenager’s sweet answer that she wanted to be a missionary.

  Blowing out a deep breath and taking care not to stretch her muscles, Harley rose gingerly from her chair and grabbed her purse, pulling out her keys. She couldn’t explain it, and it felt a bit impulsive, but she wanted to talk to Kelsey.

  C hapter Thirteen

  “Hello?” Harley called tentatively after knocking twice, and then waited until she heard a response before she peeked into the room.

  “Oh, goodness!” Regina said, rising from her chair. “I’m surprised to see you again, Harley.”

  Glancing at the bed, Harley quickly realized that Kelsey was dozing.

  “Did I come at a bad time? I don’t have to stay.”

  “Of course not!” Regina insisted. “Please, have a seat.”

  “Thanks,” she breathed, settling into a chair and glancing at the middle-aged blond man with eyes that matched Kelsey’s, who sat beside the bed.

  “Oh, where are my manners?” Regina asked. “Harley, this is my husband, Sam.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Sam,” Harley stated with a smile.

  “Same here,” he informed her, rising and offering his hand. “Kelsey was real excited yesterday after meeting you. She told me as soon as I got here this morning.”

  “She’s a great girl. I feel very fortunate to have stumbled upon her yesterday. Or I should say, it was quite astonishing that we were both spying into the hallway at the same time.”

  “Yes, she gets a bit restless,” Regina stated with a sad smile. “She has so many things she’d like to do, but she gets tuckered out rather quickly nowadays.”

  “And there’s nothing that can be done, besides the transplant?” Harley felt a bit rude for being so brusque, but Regina and Sam didn’t seem to notice.

  “Nothing of any consequence.” Sam glanced at Kelsey before he continued. “Of course everyone here is doing what they can, but until a new liver is available, it’s like patching up an old, bald tire. You can keep throwing new patches on there, but it’s still worn out.”

  Harley grinned at the thought of the man describing internal organs as parts of a car.

  “And how long will it take to have a liver available, or is that something they can’t tell you?”

  Twisting her mouth to the side, Regina tilted her head a bit. “Well, a living donor would be the best option for Kelsey, because she’s not very far up on the list. She doesn’t share a blood type with anyone but Sam, though, and he has a bit of a health problem, so he’s ineligible at the moment.”

  “That must break your heart,” Harley whispered, to which Sam only nodded.

  “And you don’t have any friends or other family members who would be willing to help you?”

  Regina looked down at her hands in her lap and shook her head slightly. “How do you ask someone to do that? To look another person in the eye and ask them to lay down their life for you? There’s always a risk involved, and it’s not something to take lightly.”

  “But I know you want to ask, because she’s your daughter,” Harley continued quietly.

  Regina glanced up with eyes full of moisture. “Of course, how could I not? She’s my baby girl.”

  “Are you talking about me?” Kelsey wanted to know, her eyelids fluttering as a small smile touched her lips. “I heard baby girl. Either it’s my mom, or it’s Zac Efron.”

  “Zac Efron,” her mother repeated, shaking her head as she swiped at her eye. “I don’t suppose you know Zac Efron, do you Harley?”

  “No, I can’t say that I do.”

  Kelsey fully opened her eyes and directed her gaze toward Harley. “Hey, Harley. I’m surprised to see you. I figured your arm decorator would have swept you off to a distant land by now.”

  Clearing her throat, Harley tried not to smile. “Let’s just keep that to ourselves,” she whispered. “That is classified
information, patient/healthcare worker confidence, HIPAA violations and all that.”

  “I hope it’s not Zac Efron,” Kelsey muttered, causing a loud giggle to erupt from Harley.

  “You’re full of life today, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Kelsey admitted, stretching her arms to her sides. “I’m feeling a lot better, and I can go home tomorrow.”

  “Probably,” Regina was quick to interject.

  “Thank goodness I’m an optimist,” Kelsey stated, wrinkling her nose. “Do you like Scrabble, Harley?”

  “Scrabble? I can honestly say I have never played that.”

  “I’m quite good. I would probably beat you.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sure Harley doesn’t have time for that,” Regina insisted.

  “Actually, I’ve been looking for someone to school me in Scrabble-playing abilities. If Kelsey’s up to the task…” Harley winked at her blonde-haired friend, and Kelsey positioned herself a little higher in her bed.

  “Mom? Dad?” Kelsey’s eyes seemed a little brighter, and both her parents agreed to play her game. Regina spread the board out on the rolling table that rested near her daughter’s bed, and Harley shrugged out of her coat and stepped toward the three of them.

  “You can sit by me, Harley,” Kelsey insisted, so Harley sat down cautiously next to the girl on her bed and gave her a quick smile. “Do you want the full directions, or just the abbreviated version?”

  “Abbreviated?”

  “You get letters. You make words.”

  “Easy enough, I guess,” Harley replied with a laugh. “So, do I get to go first?”

  “Sure.” Kelsey shrugged as Regina divvied up the wooden tiles and passed them around.

  After much consideration, Harley finally placed the word TO on the board, followed by some teasing giggles from Kelsey. Harley shot her a playful warning glance and insisted that she try to do better, but Kelsey wanted her parents to go next. Sam hastily added N and O to the top of Harley’s word to create NOT. Regina paused for a moment before using Sam’s N to create the word AND.

  When it was Kelsey’s turn, she hid her tiles behind her hand and glanced over at Harley mischievously before using Harley’s original TO and encompassing it with OC and PI.

  “Octopi?” Harley blurted. “Are you kidding me?”

  “It’s just a simple word,” Kelsey muttered.

  With an exaggerated roll of her eyes, Harley dejectedly added an N to the bottom of the last letter of Kelsey’s word to create IN.

  Nearly an hour went by, with Kelsey soundly beating her three companions, when suddenly Harley shook her head.

  “I call a foul,” she stated, crossing her arms against her chest. “Zax? That’s not a word.”

  “Dictionary,” Regina simply ordered, and Sam brought out his phone.

  “Zax,” he said quietly, scanning the results. “A tool like a hatchet.”

  “Oh, come on, how do you know that?” Harley whined, causing Kelsey to giggle.

  “Somebody’s having a party without me,” a voice sounded from near the door, and Kelsey tried to halt her giggling as Harley glanced up and felt her breath catch in her chest.

  “You can take my place,” Sam indicated, rising from his seat. “I need a break, and Kelsey’s killing us anyway.”

  “Just like always,” Regina agreed. “You finished a bit early today, didn’t you?”

  “Huh?” the newcomer muttered, attempting to drag his eyes from Harley. “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “We have a new friend,” Kelsey stated with a smile, looking protectively at Harley, who realized in that instant that she was holding her breath and let it out in a slight rush.

  “Yes, you hadn’t talked to Kelsey yet, had you?” Regina asked him as he took another step into the room. “Harley, this is Kelsey’s brother, Ryan.”

  Harley was vaguely aware that she should be saying something in reply, but as she stared at the man with his hair brushing his shoulders in front of her, she couldn’t seem to force her brain into action.

  “We’ve met,” Ryan informed his mother, directing his gaze back at Harley. When his eyes locked on hers, she quickly looked down at her hands.

  “Ryan is our rock,” Regina stated emphatically, smiling warmly at her son. “I don’t know what we’d do without him.”

  “Mom,” Ryan said, shaking his head to discourage her.

  “Our hospital bills were getting out of hand, and we were struggling financially, so Ryan took it upon himself to move back home and start paying all our bills so we could focus on getting Kelsey well again. He saves us every day.”

  Clearing his throat, Ryan gave his mother a silencing glance. “How are your muscles feeling today?” he directed toward Harley. “I guess your stitches are alright?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Harley managed to squeak out as Kelsey gave her a quizzical look. “Ryan was in the ambulance with me the other day.”

  “Oh,” Kelsey stated uninterestedly, before widening her eyes and really locking in on Harley. “Oh!” Leaning toward Harley, Kelsey gave her a little nudge in the shoulder. “Miguel is really cute.”

  Before she had time to think, Harley lifted her hands to her face and shook her head.

  Not happening. Not happening. Not happening.

  “Was Miguel in the ambulance with Harley, too?” Kelsey wanted to know.

  “Yeah, he was there,” Ryan stated, lowering himself into the chair next to the bed, positioning himself closer to Harley. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Did he happen to mention anything about Harley?” Kelsey continued, giving her new friend a slight grin. “That he maybe has a crush on her?”

  Dear God, make it stop!

  “That Miguel has a thing for Harley?” Ryan repeated, allowing his eyes to rest on Harley’s face. “My instinct is to say no, but since Harley’s turning a muted shade of red, maybe you should ask her.” He folded his arms across his chest, which dragged the top of his T-shirt down just enough that Harley glimpsed the top of his tattoo. The taunting nature of his stare made her even more embarrassed, but the desire to snap at him was tempered by the knowledge that Kelsey was at her side and there were other individuals in the room.

  “I honestly don’t know anything about Miguel,” Harley told them, daring to glance at Ryan’s eyes, sensing a hint of something. Disapproval? Distrust? Maybe disappointment? “Obviously, since he didn’t reek of a trust fund, I probably wouldn’t notice that kind of thing anyway.”

  Ugh, why did you say that?

  “Wow.” He pulled his eyes away and looked at his lap for a second. “I guess I deserve that. But I did tell you I was sorry, remember?”

  “Sure,” she stated as breezily as she could under the circumstances. “You’re sorry, and I’m cake. I remember.”

  “And as far as this morning goes, I’m not necessarily saying I should have changed my answer last night, but I did kick myself a little about it after the fact. Just so you know, for the next time you ask.”

  “As if I would risk that again,” Harley muttered, trying to ignore Ryan’s hint of a smile.

  “Oh, eww…” Kelsey added, wrinkling her nose. “Ryan? Not Miguel? Your story just got a whole lot less cool.”

  “What story is this?” Sam wanted to know, scraping the Scrabble tiles off the board and placing them into the box.

  Rather than answer, Harley mentally cringed and glanced toward her coat, wondering if she could make a hasty exit without being completely rude. The fact that it was partially under Ryan’s thigh was a problem, and the realization that he might confuse her coat-rescuing trance with an attempt to stare at those black jeans that were molded tightly against his thigh caused the blood to rush straight up into her cheeks once again.

  Verbally explaining that she was not checking him out didn’t seem like a great idea under the circumstances.

  “Yesterday when Harley came in here, she had a bunch of marks on her skin, and she told me a totally smokin’ hot guy on the ambulance
got romantic and wrote his phone number all over her arm.”

  Harley’s mouth fell open in sheer mortification. “I assure you, the majority of those words were not ever spoken by me.”

  “Maybe not,” Kelsey giggled, looking at her mother. “She did have the numbers on her arm, though, and she was all smiley about it.”

  “And you did this, Ryan?” Regina asked with a laugh.

  In response, he gave a lopsided grin. “Does that sound like something I would do?”

  “You know what? I’ve stayed too long and I’m interrupting your family time, so I think I’m going to go,” Harley said, rising to her feet and reaching for her coat. She had to lock eyes with Ryan to do so, as he tilted to one side so she could slide the coat out from beneath his leg. “Thanks for the schooling in Scrabble, Kelsey. Sam, it was nice to meet you.”

  “You don’t have to leave,” Regina told her as she settled near Kelsey on the bed.

  “Oh, I think I do,” Harley was quick to disagree. “Thank you, though, for allowing me to visit with you for a while. I enjoyed it.”

  “Maybe you can come over for dinner sometime,” Kelsey suggested.

  “Sure, maybe, we’ll see.” Harley allowed herself the slight agreement, albeit noncommittal. “Good night.”

  Stepping into the hall, she held her fist against her forehead and laughed contemptuously at her own stupidity. She could remain totally composed in the face of people wearing the most ridiculous outfits when she interviewed them for television. She had the presence of mind to take preposterous topics and somehow turn them into poetic pieces of fine art. She had spoken eloquently with sports figures and civic leaders and once even the United States Attorney General, and managed to appear unaffected and professional while standing in chicken dung or judging horrible city-wide talent competitions.

  She was Harley Laine, for heaven’s sake!

  So why did the mere presence of Ryan Temple turn her into a blithering idiot?

  As she neared the end of the hall, she punched the button on the elevator and the doors opened immediately, welcoming her into the waiting solitude. The moment they closed around her, she pulled the back of her hair through her hands and fought the urge to groan.