by Mary Brady
As she stood waiting because she was too nervous to sit, Sammy came charging out of the room and ran right by her.
“Sammy.”
He didn’t stop.
Delainey hurried back into her sister’s cubical.
Christina had her eyes closed again but opened them as Delainey approached.
She smiled. “He’s so funny.”
“Sammy?”
“He said hospitals gave him big hives and when he started scratching, I told him to get out.”
Funny. Yeah, Delainey thought. Sammy probably hadn’t even asked how Christina was going to get home. Taxi? There were none in Bailey’s Cove. Bus? Nada.
“How soon are they letting you go?”
“They’re not. Letting me go. They’re keeping me overnight. The officers said I was confused when they found me. So the doctor thought they should observe me until morning. Don’t be concerned. It’s standard procedure. That and it’ll be difficult because of the snow for me to get back here if I do have any problems.”
Speaking of problems, Delainey had no idea how she’d get home. It was only about five miles but it was dangerous in conditions like this. She tried not to do dangerous. Her daughter deserved at least that from one parent.
Christina reached out for her. “Oh, gosh. Sammy should have taken you home to Brianna. She’ll be worried about you.”
“She’s safe and as distracted as possible. Monique will be seeing to that.”
“You should go.”
“I should stay with you.”
“I’ve got a nurse and a great orderly taking care of me and soon they will put me in a room and I’ll have the whole nursing unit to watch over me. Go. Go to your daughter.”
If this insistence was how she’d shooed Sammy, Delainey understood how the man could run away.
“I’ll stay until they transfer you.”
An hour later Delainey kissed her sister’s forehead and went to find someone to give her a ride home.
The emergency department was quiet. If the citizens of Bailey’s Cove were getting themselves into trouble because of the snow, they weren’t hurting themselves. Maybe the officers would be back soon and she could get a lift.
“Delainey.”
Hunter Morrison strode in her direction from across the open bay of the emergency arena. His brows drew together and his forehead wrinkled. He looked like Hunter in high school trying to figure out the math proof before she could. She wanted to reach up and soothe the worry, just as she had wanted to then.
But this was now.
Then why couldn’t she seem to catch her breath?
“Are you all right? Is Brianna?”
“We’re fine,” she said when he reached her. “My sister was in a car accident. And she’ll be fine, too.”
His face relaxed. The vulnerability was covered over by the big-city attorney mask again. This facade was easier to look at. Easier to deal with. At least she could breathe.
“The problem is, I need a ride home.” She couldn’t believe she was asking this. The two of them trapped in a car the first time hadn’t gone so well. But this would be a relatively short ride. And then it occurred to her...there must be a reason he was here. “How rude of me. Why are you here?”
“I was picking up something from the pharmacy.”
“Any problems?” Not her business.
“No. It’s not for me.”
That left Shamus or Connie. One of them was sick. It had to be why Shamus was retiring. It was Connie. She had seen Shamus bustling around clients recently.
“I hope she’ll be all right.”
The grim set of his mouth might have been disappointment that he had given away private information, or it could be Connie was really sick. If Delainey had a vote, she’d let Hunter be disappointed.
A person got over disappointment. She had.
“Are you ready to leave?”
She looked up at him, judging whether or not she was ready to get in the car with him. Maybe a walk would be brisk and fun. And stupid if the sidewalks and streets were clogged with snow and vehicles were losing control.
“I’m a safe driver,” he added, his expression deadpan but his tone light.
She nodded, suddenly feeling as if the quarterback Hunter from high school were coming to her rescue.
“I’m ready, but I don’t want to be too much trouble.”
“It’s no trouble.” He gazed at her and she felt the heat of attraction warm her. She knew she should go back into her sister’s room, sleep on the floor if she had to. Instead, for Brianna, she headed for the exit.
The snow was piled high, softening every angle. In the air it made fuzzy halos ’round the lights, and as it gently fell on her face, it made her think of sledding and ice-skating and times when life had been easier.
She stopped and waited until he joined her. “Are you sure you want to go all the way to my house? Does Connie need the meds now?”
“She won’t run out until morning, but Shamus didn’t want her to be without them if too much snow fell. It’s all right, Delainey.”
All right? To take the medications to Connie later. All right for the two of them to get into a car again. The shadows of evening masked his features so she could not read them. She knew she wasn’t all right at all.
Every time she saw Hunter Morrison, more of her peace of mind fled.
* * *
AS SNOWFLAKES FELL on Delainey’s lips, her nose, her eyes, Hunter wanted to lean in and kiss them all away. He wanted to take her into his arms and tell her he wanted her—for as long as he could have her.
No. He did not. They had been there once and he’d nearly failed his first big test in law school because of it.
At least she didn’t seem to hate him. There was that. He pointed to where Shamus’s snow-covered car sat and they started off across the lot.
“Get in,” he said as he held open the door. “I’ll clean it off.”
“I’ll help.”
“If you do, we’ll get a lot of snow inside Shamus’s car.”
She got in without a battle. That was one of the things he had liked about Delainey. She didn’t fight for the sake of a fight. She didn’t do battle because she could. When she had a cause, she could take up arms and fight until the end, like the time her friend Jinny fell prey to bullies who happened to be cheerleaders. As a result, the whole school had gotten to attend an hour-and-a-half-long sensitivity course in the gymnasium instead of a pep rally.
He grabbed the snowbrush and got to work knocking snow off the hood in long quick strokes. If he worked fast enough, he could finish before too much snow covered the surfaces again.
His heart had nearly stopped dead in his chest when she stepped out from behind the curtain in the emergency department. The dread that had jerked his senses sideways had not yet completely abated. Wanting to know she was safe was one thing. Wanting to kiss her was unproductive and senseless. His life, his family and most of his friends were in the Midwest. She belonged here where this loving community could keep her and her daughter secure and happy.
He moved on to the windshield and the roof. As he worked, large wet snowflakes plopped on his head and shoulders. Lawyers in Chicago didn’t wear hats as a rule. He was sure his were packed with the things being shipped. The rental car wasn’t coming today because of the snow. The truck with his things would not be coming today either, so the condo unit here in Bailey’s Cove that he had leased for the year sat empty.
He looked in the window as he cleared the snow on the passenger side. She smiled at him, a soft unguarded smile, the way she had smiled at him before he told her he was leaving the last time.
That she could still stir such feelings in him made it clear he could never again be the cause of pain or any kind
of harm to her. She deserved better. Her daughter deserved better.
He made one last pass over the windshield and hopped inside the warm car. On the way to her house, they talked about everything that had to do with the snow and how the town had changed and nothing that had to do with the two of them. Or mostly Deelee talked and he listened.
“...and a skeleton was found in a wall of the Pirate’s Roost when it was being remodeled. Some people thought the treasure of Liam Bailey, our very own pirate of Bailey’s Cove, might also be buried there. Anyway, it got messy and the restaurant almost didn’t get finished. But it’s all right now.” She laughed nervously and he was sure her unease wasn’t about a pirate or his treasure. “And the owner of Pirate’s Roost is about to marry a professor, the anthropologist who was sent to investigate the bones. It’s a double wedding with Officer Gardner and Monique, who’s looking after Brianna.”
She paused here and looked out the window.
“Did they find any treasure?” He wanted her to keep talking. The more she did, the more she sounded like his Deelee.
She laughed at this. Her laugh had not changed. Another of the things he liked about her.
“We still have our pirate’s legend and we can still look forward to finding his treasure. Though most of us don’t believe...” she said, her voice trailing off as he stopped in front of her house.
The windshield wipers flapped back and forth, their battle with the snow a dead heat with one occasionally nosing out in front. After ten or fifteen seconds he said, “Delainey.”
“Oh, thanks.” She popped open her door and nearly leaped out of the car. Halfway up the sidewalk she skidded to a stop and returned to the driver’s-side door.
He rolled down the window, and she leaned down with her hands in the pockets of her coat. When the snow fell on her face, landed on the tip of her nose, he knew whatever she asked he would give her. It was not a fair fight.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“IT’S LATE AND you probably haven’t eaten. I can feed you. I mean, I put a Crock-Pot on this morning and it will be a nice dinner by now.”
“I’ll find something on the way back to the Murphys’.”
“Everything will be closed. Come in. I might be out of my mind, but come in. We were good friends at one time and we can have that back if we dig really hard for it.”
He looked at the snowflakes on her lips and appreciated she was not the only one who was crazy for considering this. But he was hungry.
“Okay.” Not a fair fight at all.
When they stepped inside the door into the foyer, Brianna came running up to the pair of them.
“Mommy, you’re safe.” Brianna hugged her mother, putting her cheek to her mother’s face, wet from the snow.
He found himself smiling. Whoever’s child she was, she was Delainey’s and it was clear to see his friend from the past loved her daughter with all her heart and maybe her soul.
Delainey stood up and Brianna stepped back. “Hello, Mr. Morrison.”
“Hello, Brianna, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”
Brianna took another step back and bumped into the babysitter who had come into the foyer. The good-looking woman with a head of blond curls and piercing blue eyes did a quick study of him and then of Delainey.
“Monique, you remember Hunter Morrison.”
Monique smiled. “I remember a jock two years behind me in school.”
“A long time ago,” Hunter said.
“Isn’t that the truth,” she replied, and then turned to the child. “Brianna, how about coming to my house for those sugar cookies I told you about.”
“Yes, yes. Mommy, can I, please?”
“I know you ate your peas and carrots because Monique is here.”
The girl’s dark eyes got bigger as she grinned. “I did. Didn’t I, Monique?” She looked between the women.
Monique laughed. “She ate them all,” Monique agreed, and she and the girl did a fist bump of solidarity.
“Then sugar cookies it is.”
“And,” Monique said, fists planted on her hips, “my soon-to-be niece accidentally left behind her copy of the latest Little Dinosaurs movie, if anybody would like to watch it with me.”
“Me! I would!” Brianna jumped up and down and then turned to her mother.
Monique looked at Delainey and smiled. Delainey dropped her shoulders but nodded.
Brianna cheered as she fled toward the back of the house, presumably for her coat and boots.
The two women chatted for a few minutes. Coats were donned and shed. Delainey hung theirs up in the front hall closet.
“No school tomorrow, so we won’t be back until nine,” Monique said as she and the girl ran out into the snow giggling and twirling.
“Monique’s a big kid. Brianna loves her. I think Brianna and I are invited to the wedding because she and Monique have become such good friends.”
She stood in the open doorway and watched the two of them frolic in the snow and then reluctantly closed the front door and turned toward him.
This had definitely not been a good idea. Standing this close to her, he could smell her shampoo and soap maybe mixed with a floral perfume he remembered she used to like.
How she had smelled that summer after college was what had made him first realize he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her now.
He forced himself to step away.
She walked past him and out into the kitchen. The smells coming from there were blissfully good in another sense. He was hungry enough to eat tree bark.
“Can I help?”
“There really isn’t much to do. If you get us something to drink, I’ll dish it up. I’ll have red wine. Glasses are there.” She pointed first to the wine and then to a cupboard to the left of the sink.
“It smells good,” he said as he sat down when she did.
“Well, now that we have our proverbial chicken wings...perhaps we should have that talk you wanted.” She held her wineglass up in a salute and he did the same. “I want it straight and unvarnished, the truth and nothing but.”
He took a bit of the chicken dripping with gravy so he could have a moment chewing and swallowing to think.
“I think we have established one thing very clearly.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “What would that be?”
“That we eat well together.”
She huffed a laugh and then her face got serious.
He looked into her beautiful gray eyes, wondering if he should just get up and leave. He had nothing to offer her. In fact, if Callista White found him, he could put Delainey in the middle of his mess just by associating with her.
“I left because I couldn’t stay.”
“Hmm, that was concise.” She flicked an eyebrow as she held her fork aloft. “But nothing else.”
“You know why I came back to Bailey’s Cove that May. My dad’s health made it impossible for him to do much.”
“I could tell it was hard on you that your father was ill.”
He acknowledged her kindness and continued after the next bite. “When I got here, the first person I called was you. I missed you every time we left for college. When you answered the door and you hugged me, there was...er...” He stopped and looked up at her.
“Straight and unvarnished.”
“You realize I’ll expect the same.” He watched her. He was great at spotting guile. There was none on her face or in her body language. “Sorry. I guess I’m jaded enough to expect some degree of dishonesty from everyone, but the way you smelled that day made me want to kiss you and I was shocked.”
Her expression changed to surprised.
“Hey, straight and unvarnished,” he said.
“Okay, so you were shocked that I smelled good e
nough to kiss.”
“I was not. You probably always smelled good enough to kiss. I was shocked that how good you smelled made me want to kiss you. In the past kissing you would have been, I don’t know, like kissing Harry.”
“I was a better friend to you than Harry. He caught your passes. I got you As.” She looked at him and when he frowned, flipping her empty fork up and down, she remarked, “I’m just saying.”
“It seemed that when I did kiss you, I couldn’t get enough of you.” He stabbed a carrot, not sure he should have said that at all.
“I think this is going well, don’t you?” She skewered a carrot of her own and popped it in her mouth along with a few peas.
“We’ll see when it’s your turn.”
She swallowed and pursed her lips. “I meant we used to be able to talk easily like this. Continue.”
“Easy?” He made a “you’ve got to be kidding me” face. But she was right—the flow was like their easy pace had been. “I loved what we had that summer.”
Her brows knitted again over her next forkful, but she didn’t say anything.
“It was exciting. You were exciting. I didn’t want to be apart from you.” He paused for vegetables and then continued. “I also didn’t want to hurt you. I knew I was going back to the Midwest and it wasn’t fair to ask you to come with me.”
She nodded thoughtfully.
“I could have stayed longer, wanted to stay longer...”
It seemed this was the part she had been waiting for all these years. She stopped eating and put her elbows on the table.
“I didn’t think it was fair to, well, to be honest, to either of us for you and I to go on getting deeper and deeper when it had to end. Even when I was a kid, I always had the feeling that I was going back one day.”
She made a little huffing sound. “Practical Hunter.”
“I thought since we stayed in contact, we hadn’t ruined our friendship, at least. And as long as we were friends, there was a chance that we’d find a way to make things work between us. When I got the email that said you’d found someone else and didn’t want to hear from me again...” He wasn’t sure there was any point in continuing with that thought.
