The Single Dad's Family Recipe

by Rachael Johns

  “...and I was surprised.”

  Oh, God. He’d been talking and she hadn’t heard a word. “Sorry?”

  He passed a slow-moving car. “I didn’t think your family used the cottage anymore.”

  Was he here because he thought she wouldn’t be?

  “I—”

  “Sorry.” He glanced at her. “I didn’t mean to make you keep talking. Save your breath. We can catch up later.”

  Fiona had two more weeks of vacation with Grampa Mac and Doris. Most lake rentals lasted a week. Riley would be gone before Fiona came home. Meg curled her fingers into her palms. She should be thinking of ways to tell Riley the truth, not celebrating the timing of his visit. If he’d come three weeks ago or two weeks from now, there would be no escaping the truth; it would be literally staring him in the face. But now? With a bag of whiskey bottles waiting on his porch? She could last a couple of weeks. Riley had shattered her heart... What would he do to Fiona’s tender one?

  “Meg? You still with me?”

  She opened her mouth but began coughing.

  “I noticed the musty smell. Did mold bring on your attack?” He turned onto the road leading to the hospital.

  She reached out to rest her hand on the dashboard. “Yeah...spring rain and snowmelt caused some spring flooding.”

  “What about your place?” He gave her a quick glance. “Do you have mold, too?”

  She nodded and he continued, “I’ll take a look later and see if I can’t get it cleaned up.”

  “No!” He gave her a wounded look and she softened her tone. “Don’t waste...your week.”

  He slowed the truck as they approached the hospital. “No problem. I’ll be here for the next thirty days.”

  What? Thirty days? Meg shook her head. Riley might not know—yet—what she’d done, but karma had obviously memorized it line, verse and chapter and was gleefully punishing her. First, Riley showed up looking like sex on a stick while she looked like something he’d step in with his size thirteen boots. And he was staying an entire month. Last night, after she’d talked to Fiona on the phone, Meg had cried because another fourteen days without her baby seemed like an eternity. Now, a week wasn’t enough time to get ready for the impending storm.

  * * *

  Riley took the first empty parking spot. Her color had been pale before but it had suddenly gotten much worse. He threw the truck into Park while the wheels were still rolling and winced when the transmission groaned.

  Leaping down, he sprinted to the passenger door and pulled Meg to his side. Keeping one hand under her elbow, he hustled her through a pair of glass doors that whooshed open to a small waiting area with a nurse seated at a desk.

  She greeted them with a smile, but her sharp, assessing gaze stayed on Meg. “What brings you here today?”

  “Asthma. I—” A fit of coughing cut Meg off.

  Riley slipped an arm across Meg’s hunched shoulders, easing her closer. “She’s having an asthma attack and her inhaler was empty. Ma’am, she needs to see someone. Right away.”

  After they’d taken seats in front of her desk, the woman tapped her finger on a small black pad that looked like a calculator. “Can you type your Social Security number into this for me?”

  After Meg typed in her number, the nurse slipped a blood pulse oximeter on her finger.

  “When did the wheezing start?” the nurse asked and verified Meg’s date of birth and social.

  “About...thirty minutes ago.” Meg leaned forward in the seat.

  “And what were you doing?”

  “Laundry.”

  Riley drew his chair closer and secured an arm around Meg as if she’d slip away from him if he let go. He listened impatiently to every inane question and Meg’s breathless replies, the incessant tapping on the keypad. Geez, couldn’t they just give her an inhaler or something? What was taking so long?

  The nurse checked the oximeter and clucked her tongue. “Ninety-one. We’ll get you back there right away.”

  While the nurse put a hospital bracelet around Meg’s wrist, Riley glanced over at the crowded waiting room. Texting and watching TV, none of them looked as though they wanted to shout and tear the place apart until their loved one was treated. Not that Meg was...

  He closed his eyes and rubbed his forefinger across the bridge of his nose, searching for calm. He’d been fighting nausea since finding her at the bottom of those stairs. Sheer force of will had kept him moving up to this moment. Sweat trickled down his sides. Meg had asked him if he’d been expecting company when he’d picked up his bag of Jack Daniel’s bottles. What he hadn’t told her was that most nights the image of Private Trejo lying in a pool of blood and spilled guts at the bottom of those dusty steps in Kandahar kept him company.

  A hand touched his arm, and his eyes flew open.

  “She’s going to be fine.” The nurse flashed a reassuring smile. “Someone is coming right out to get her.”

  The door to the ER buzzed open and another nurse in dark blue scrubs stepped through, pushing a wheelchair in front of her. She called for Meg. Riley swallowed and helped Meg stand.

  “Meg, I figured that must be you when I saw the name on the face sheet from triage.” The trim, fortysomething nurse glanced at him, did a double take and smiled. “I would say it’s good to see you, but considering we’re in the ER, I won’t.”

  “Hi, Jan. I’d...” Meg coughed and settled in the chair, and Riley started to follow them into a small treatment area. “I’d say the same, but yeah, ER and all.”

  Jan stopped and gave him a sharp look. “Are you a relative?”

  “No.” But if you think you’re keeping me out here and away from Meggie, think again, lady.

  “He’s...” Meg’s gaze bounced between him and Jan. “I’d like him with me.”

  The nurse nodded and started forward again. He sighed, glad he didn’t have to fight and claw his way back there to be sure they did their best for Meg.

  “We’ll get you fixed up right quick,” Jan said cheerfully as she wheeled Meg down a short hall with curtained treatment areas. “I ran into Brody the other day at the Pic-N-Save. He said Fiona is enjoying her trip. Bet you miss her like crazy. It was the Grand Canyon, wasn’t it?”

  Meg bit her lower lip. “Yes. Grand Canyon.”

  “They went by motor home, didn’t they?”

  “Yes.” Meg’s fingers gripped the sides of the chair, her knuckles white.

  Riley looked to Meg, but she ignored him. Who was Fiona and why would Meg be missing her like crazy? And who was Brody?

  She’s made a life for herself complete with new friends in the past five years, dumbass.

  The nurse stopped in front of a curtained treatment area, engaged the brake on the wheelchair and helped Meg transfer to a narrow stretcher. She closed the curtain and pulled a hospital gown from an overhead cabinet. “Sir, if you’ll wait on the other side of the curtain for a moment.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He was loath to leave Meg, but took a step back. Getting escorted out by security wouldn’t be a good idea.

  “Thanks.” The nurse smiled at him as she yanked the curtain closed in his face. “Now, Meg, take off your shirt and unhook your bra.”

  The curtain hadn’t closed all the way and he could still see Meg. He should be a gentleman about this. But he needed to reassure himself they were taking proper care of Meg. Yeah, right.

  Jan, the nurse, clucked her tongue, saying, “Oh, my.” Riley stiffened as she continued, “Looks like you’ve got some mold on the back of this sweatshirt.”

  “I must’ve brushed up against it in the basement,” Meg responded.

  “I’ll bag the shirt up just as a precaution and look for a scrub top for you to wear home,” Jan said and there was some rustling.

  “There, all covered,” Jan said, as if signaling the all clear, an
d Riley stepped back around the curtain.

  A tech came in right behind him and took Meg’s vital signs while the nurse did an evaluation. He clenched his jaw. How many questions did they have to ask before they treated her?

  The curtain flew aside and the doctor stepped in, stethoscope looped around his neck and holding a clipboard. He introduced himself and pulled a small black stool up to the stretcher and sat down.

  “So you’ve had an asthma attack. Was this one any worse than the others?”

  “No, but I had used up my inhaler and someone got a little freaked out.”

  Riley opened his mouth but thought better of arguing and shut it again.

  “I see. Let’s have a listen.” The doctor stuck his stethoscope under the gown and listened to Meg’s chest, right upper, left upper, right lower, then left lower, then repeating the process on her back all the while explaining, “We’re going to get your asthma exacerbation under control by giving you several updrafts back to back and, if necessary, an IV steroid.”

  When he finished, he went to the computer to document his findings and the nurse tied the gown. “It says you have inhalers. Did you say you used one today?”

  Unable to keep silent any longer, Riley stepped away from the wall he’d been leaning against. “The one she had was empty. I found her at—”

  “And you are?” The doctor turned and studied Riley over the top of his glasses.

  Riley flexed his fingers. Good question. What was he to Meg? Blowing out the breath he’d been holding in, he said, “Riley Cooper, sir.”

  The doctor glanced at the chart. “Are you a relative?”

  Riley stepped closer to Meg. “I’m—”

  “He’s just, uh...just a neighbor.”

  Well, that answered who and what he was. His gut burned at being relegated to such a mundane role in Meg’s life.

  Copyright © 2018 by Carol Opalinski

  ISBN-13: 9781488093432

  The Single Dad’s Family Recipe

  Copyright © 2018 by Rachael Johns

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