“Oh, Gabe,” she whispered again, but there was a melancholy note to her voice.
She raised her chin a fraction and began to open her eyes. Slices of cornflower blue met his gaze.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Her eyes popped open and flashed with concern. She took a step away from him.
Gabe looked around, trying to ascertain where that damn noise was coming from.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
There it was again.
She retrieved a cell phone from her pocket and glanced down at it.
Ice filled his veins. “Is that your boyfriend calling?”
No wonder she couldn’t look at him. He was a moron to think she didn’t have men lined up at her beck and call.
“No, it’s a Kansas City number, but I don’t recognize it.”
He took a step back as she answered the call. Gabe crossed his arms. He was a fucking fool. Why the hell did he kiss her? He turned away. His heart may have won out this time, but his head was back in control.
“Oh my god! Is she okay?”
He spun around. Monica had gone white as a ghost.
“I’ll be there. I’m only a few minutes away.”
She ended the call and met his gaze, eyes wide and childlike.
All the resentment built up in his heart dialed down a notch. “What is it? Is someone hurt?”
She pressed her hand to her chest. “Oma!”
At the mention of Gerda Becker, a sharp chill ran down his spine. “What happened, Mon?”
“She fell coming down the steps from our apartment. I guess something caught fire while she was upstairs. That was Mr. Collier’s granddaughter on the phone. She runs his flower shop now. She saw the commotion when the fire truck got there. My grandmother asked her to call me.”
Gabe took Monica’s trembling hand into his. “Can you run? If we take all the shortcuts, you know it’ll only take us a few minutes.”
Her grip tightened on his hand. “Yes, I can run. Let’s go.”
They raced through the gardens and shot up Bellflower Street toward the bakery. They hit Mulberry Drive, and the emergency situation unfolded in front of them. A firetruck sat angled, blocking traffic as two EMTs rolled a cot onto an ambulance parked nearby.
“Oma!” Monica called out, running toward the vehicle.
One of the EMT’s tried to stop her, but Gabe waved him off. “This is Mrs. Becker’s granddaughter. It’s okay.”
The EMT stepped aside, and Monica climbed into the back of the ambulance next to Oma.
“What happened, Oma?” she asked on the verge of tears.
Oma grimaced.
“Ma’am, your grandmother fell coming down the stairs. A pot in the bakery was left on the stove, and the contents started to burn. That triggered the fire alarm.”
Monica brushed back a few gray hairs from her grandmother’s face. “It’s all right. I’m here. We’re going to take you to the hospital.”
Oma nodded to her granddaughter then looked up and met his eye. “Gabriel?”
He held her gaze and swallowed hard. “It’s going to be okay, Oma.”
After everything she had done for him, he hadn’t visited her since he’d left, not once.
Monica held Oma’s right hand, but the old woman reached out to him with her left.
Gabe’s eyes darted between the women.
The EMT put a hand on his arm. “Come on, sir. If you’re riding along, we need to go.”
Gabe jumped into the back of the ambulance and took Oma’s hand. He tried to give the woman a reassuring smile, but he couldn’t mask his surprise. She looked frail. The Gerda Becker he remembered was a force of nature. Her glare alone could have made the most fearsome of adversaries tremble. He’d mimicked this behavior in the kitchens he’d cooked in and found it worked on line cooks and sous chefs alike.
The hint of a smile pulled at the corner of her lips. But just when he thought things were calming down, Oma closed her eyes, and her body went limp.
“What’s happening?” Monica cried.
“She’s okay,” the EMT said, checking Oma’s vitals. “Your grandmother just passed out, probably from the pain. She’s hurt her hip and her wrist. We can’t tell if either are broken, but both injuries are extremely painful, especially for a woman of her age.”
Gabe reached across Oma’s body and cupped Monica’s cheek. “She’ll be okay, Monica. Oma’s strong. I don’t know anyone stronger than your grandmother.”
Oma opened her eyes. Her expression was glassy and far away. “Here we are again, the three of us.”
Gabe gave Oma a weak smile. “We’re taking you to the hospital. Just hold on.”
The doors to the ambulance slammed shut, and the vehicle sped away from The Little Bakery on Mulberry Drive.
13
Monica sat forward and rubbed her eyes. The constant beat of the heart rate monitor pinging out Oma’s vitals echoed off the shiny linoleum floor of the hospital room. In a bleary rush of events, Oma had been admitted to Midwest Medical. The emergency room staff quickly diagnosed her with an intertrochanteric hip fracture and a sprained wrist. She required surgery for her hip. Surgical stabilization is what the doctor had called it before she was rushed to an operating room.
Mr. Collier’s granddaughter, Stacey, had called to let her know no damage had been done to the bakery. She’d found Oma’s keys and locked up the shop for them. Stacey went on to report that the firemen had told her the alarm had gone off because Oma had forgotten about a pot of what looked like apple filling on the stove. The burning contents triggered the alarm, which was a godsend. Without it, who knows how long Oma would have been left stranded and injured on the floor.
A sickening sensation passed over her. If it weren’t for Gabe Sinclair, she would have dropped off those cupcakes and came straight back to the bakery. She could have intervened. But no, she had led him back to their spot in the gardens.
Why had she even gone there?
By giving into her childish wants and desires, Oma was now lying asleep in a hospital bed recovering from surgery.
“Coffee?”
Monica glanced up and frowned. Crouching down in front of her and holding out a steaming Styrofoam cup was Gabe Sinclair. The man wouldn’t leave the hospital, but at least he had the sense to stay out of her way. Or at least she thought he did.
She shook her head. She’d given him the cold shoulder from the moment she had gathered her wits about her. She gave him an icy glare. “You have no reason to be here, Gabe.”
He stood and set the cup on the table next to her. “I have every reason to be here, and you know it.” He took a sip from his cup and grimaced.
“Not as good as the fancy stuff you’re used to?” she asked.
He released an audible breath and ran a hand through his hair.
An angry, crackling current passed between them. Every beep of the monitor added another drop of tension into the room. She held his gaze like a willful kid in a staring contest.
A knock at the door broke their standoff.
A doctor and a nurse walked in, and Gabe’s expression softened. “Dr. Stein,” he said, extending his hand.
The doctor shook his hand. “It’s good to see you, Gabe.”
Monica came to her feet. “Are you Zoe’s father?”
“Yes, I am,” the man replied with a comforting smile. “Are you a friend of hers, too?”
She looked from Gabe to Dr. Stein. “I met Zoe a long time ago when I was a teenager.”
The doctor nodded then glanced over at Oma. “Your grandmother is a fighter. Dr. Zimmer completed the hip stabilization surgery, and he said that she came through beautifully. Unfortunately, he needed to attend to an emergency surgery. Otherwise, he would be here talking to you. I didn’t want to keep you waiting. I’ve gone over his notes, and I wanted to come down and fill you in on your grandmother’s surgery and her rehabilitation plan.”
“Rehabilitation,” Monica echoed. She glanced over at Gabe. H
e looked just as worried as she was.
The nurse handed Dr. Stein a packet of papers, and he gestured toward a small table and chair set in the corner of the room.
Gabe hovered next to an open seat. “Do you want me to leave, Monica?”
Worry creased his face and those sage green eyes she had fallen in love with all those years ago were filled with such pain. This was all becoming too real. She needed to push aside her childish angst and act like a grown up.
She gestured toward the chair. “No, you can stay.”
Dr. Stein waited for a beat for Gabe to settle in then opened the folder. “Your grandmother should be waking up soon. She may be a little groggy. The nurses will be monitoring her here at the hospital for the next day or so.”
“Will she be able to walk?” Monica asked. “We live above the bakery. I’m not sure how I’ll get her up and down the stairs.”
The doctor folded his hands on the table. “The goal is for her to have full weight bearing capabilities and complete mobility. She’ll need to start rehabilitative therapy as soon as possible. I put in a call to Langley Park’s Senior Living Campus. They’ve got a range of care options for seniors, including rehabilitation services. Lucky for us, they’ve got a room available. She could be moved there as soon as she’s discharged from the hospital.”
Monica swallowed hard. The bakery had been her oma’s entire life. Even if she did need rehab, dumping her in some facility seemed cruel.
Monica grasped her locket and rubbed her thumb over the etched sunflower. “I don’t want to put my grandmother someplace…” she couldn’t say the words. Her grandmother had taken her in and raised her. Now, for the first time, her oma needed her. She didn’t want to abandon the woman.
She hadn’t even noticed she’d been clutching the side of the table until something warm engulfed her hand. She knew that touch instantly. Gabe’s hand, solid and protective, sent a calming wave through her body. She met his gaze. How could so much time have passed and so little had changed? The memory of his touch came flooding back. She wanted to bury her head into the crook of his neck and find the safety and security she had only known in his arms.
Dr. Stein pulled out a pamphlet with a picture of a large college campus looking building on the cover and slid it across the table. “Most of the assisted living communities today are well-run with rehabilitation facilities located on site. I can assure you, the Langley Park Senior Living Campus is one of the best facilities in the country. I’m over there quite a bit checking on patients, and my wife is there a few times a week teaching restorative yoga classes. The staff strives to go above and beyond for their residents. I couldn’t recommend a better place for your grandmother to recover.”
Gabe tightened his grip on her hand. “Michael’s dad lives there in the Memory Care Unit, and Em, you know, his wife, her father lives in their assisted living cottages. From what Michael’s told me, it sounds like a topnotch facility. They’ve got recreational activities, speakers, exercise classes, and concerts. There’s even a pool and a ballroom for dances.”
Her head was spinning. Monica looked down at the pamphlet and then to Gabe when it hit her. She was going to need to care for her grandmother and run the bakery.
If the last few days were an accurate representation of the current situation, the bakery was running on a wing and a prayer. Her grandmother’s office was filled with papers. It looked like Oma was trying to plan some kind of event, but Monica hadn’t been able to make much of the chaotic stacks of scribbles written in German. And then there was the staffing issue. Sure, someone had come to make deliveries for the bakery. But the young man didn’t return, and this didn’t seem to concern Oma in the slightest. Maybe the bakery had become too much for her to manage. A twist of guilt wrenched in her stomach. Oma had always seemed so capable, so in control. To Monica, she’d appeared superhuman, up at the crack of dawn, running a business and raising a granddaughter.
She glanced at her grandmother and gasped when she saw the woman’s eyes open.
“Where are you sending me?” Oma said, her German accent cutting through their conversation.
Monica sprang to her feet and went to her grandmother’s side. “Oma, how are you feeling? Are you in pain?”
The nurse adjusted Oma’s IV, and her grandmother observed the woman carefully, ignoring the question.
“Strawberry cheese strudel,” Oma said, continuing her assessment of the young nurse.
The woman smiled. “I can’t believe you remember. That was my favorite as a girl. My mom used to pick one up from your bakery every week when I was growing up.”
“I see the resemblance. You look very much like your mother,” Oma said, a note of sadness in her voice.
The nurse gave Oma a gentle smile. “Your vitals look good, Mrs. Becker. I’m going to check on another patient. If you need me, press the call button.”
The nurse left the room, and Oma released a pained sigh.
“What is it, Oma?” Monica asked.
Her grandmother still didn’t meet her gaze. “Lately, it’s been easier to remember things that happened twenty years ago than twenty minutes ago.” She released a slow breath. “What happened to the bakery?”
“Nothing,” Monica said, taking Oma’s hand. “Stacey Collier called. She says there’s no damage. She locked up for us and returned the keys through the mail chute. Everything’s all right.”
Oma eyed her bandaged wrist. “Everything is not all right.”
“Are you feeling any pain, Mrs. Becker?”
Monica startled at the sound of Dr. Stein’s voice. He and Gabe stood behind her.
“I’ll survive,” Oma said, but that hint of steel that usually permeated her every word was missing.
Dr. Stein glanced at the monitors. “It’s going to take a lot more than this to slow you down, Mrs. Becker. But we do need to make some decisions regarding your rehabilitation. There’s a room available at the Senior Living Campus. I would recommend you take it.”
Oma met Dr. Stein’s steady gaze. “I don’t have time for all that. I have a bakery to run. And then there’s all the planning for—”
The door swung open, and Zoe Stein and Sam Sinclair burst into the room.
“Oma,” Sam said, coming to the side of the bed. “We came as soon as we heard.”
Zoe joined him. “I know what you’re thinking Oma, but I know we can figure something out.”
“Figure what out?” Monica and Gabe asked in unison.
Monica tried to give Gabe her best “this has nothing to do with you face,” but worry and guilt had drained her energy. She turned her attention to Zoe and Sam. When did her grandmother become best buds with these two?
“Oktoberfest,” Zoe answered like it was common knowledge.
“Oktoberfest?” Gabe repeated.
Sam crossed his arms. “Oma and I have been working together to plan a family-friendly Oktoberfest, here, in Langley Park at the end of September. The gardens have agreed to host the event.”
Zoe nodded. “Kansas Public Radio has several interviews and segments planned to record beforehand to highlight the preparations for it.”
Gabe pinned his brother with his gaze. “When were you going to mention this to me? Last I checked, I still owned half of Park Tavern. I should have some say in a decision like this.”
The tension in the room ratcheted up a notch.
Sam gave his brother a tight smile. “I have tried to discuss this with you, but you’re either on the television or jetting off somewhere to be on television these days. I explained all this to your PR guy, Calvin.”
A muscle ticked in Gabe’s jaw. “Corbyn.”
“I guess Corbyn didn’t pass along any of my messages to you.”
Sam held Gabe’s gaze. A beat passed, then two. Back when she had met Sam, years ago, he and Gabe had a close, loving relationship. But times had changed. She could almost see the bonds of brotherhood stretched thin between them.
Zoe cleared her throat. �
��This looks like a great time to get everyone up to speed.” She threw a quick, warning glance at each brother. “Oma and Sam have been planning Langley Park’s first Oktoberfest. There will be German food, Bavarian music, traditional clothing, kids’ activities, and beer tents. The whole shebang. Kansas Public Radio is going to cover the whole thing. We’re going to tape and film Oma making her famous strudels, do a segment on the history of Oktoberfest, highlight the community involvement. That kind of thing.”
“Film?” Gabe said, cutting her off. “You work in radio.”
Zoe released an impatient sigh. “We have a website with quite a bit of content, Mr. Jet-Set Chef. Public radio isn’t just little old ladies talking about cats and crochet hooks on some am station anymore.”
“Zoe, Sam,” Oma cut in. “I don’t know how we’re going to get everything ready by the end of September.”
Zoe and Sam leaned in, and the three of them began to strategize. Monica could hear them reassuring her grandmother, but when she caught Oma’s eye, her heart broke. Those sharp blue eyes had dimmed and shined with emotion. She’d never seen her grandmother cry. Not at her parents’ funeral. Not at her grandfather’s funeral. This Oktoberfest was important to her.
“I’ll do it,” Monica blurted out.
Sam and Zoe stilled.
“You, enkelin?” Oma asked.
“I can do it, Oma. I grew up baking right alongside you. I know all the recipes.”
Oma’s blue eyes narrowed. “You’re not expected back in California?”
Monica could feel the heat of five pairs of eyes. “No, I’m not expected anywhere.”
Failure.
It hit her like a punch to the gut.
She might as well have tattooed the word to her forehead, but it didn’t matter. Running the bakery. Making Oma’s dream of a Langley Park Oktoberfest come true. These were her new priorities.
“I can help, too,” Gabe said.
Everyone’s gaze shifted to him.
“Folks,” Dr. Stein said, breaking into the discussion. “I know this festival is important, but so is Oma’s health and rehabilitation. We need to make some decisions.”
The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5) Page 91
