by Kristy Tate
“French Kiss.”
CHAPTER 11
The next morning, Charlie sat on the edge of her bed and held her head in her hands. The thought of going back to the hospital and not seeing Lincoln paralyzed her. She didn’t know if she could do it.
After rolling her shoulders and giving herself a little mental pep-talk, she got out her running clothes and slipped them on. Her shift didn’t start until eleven o’clock. She had time for a quick run.
What would she say to Kirk? After all, she’d ditched him. Which had been rude, but he’d been…himself? Which was what? Insensitive? Brutish? His words echoed in her mind.
When I give an order, I expect it to be followed.
You’re a nurse and I’m a doctor.
Our lives as medical professionals will always be full of bad news.
We can’t get too attached to our patients.
Ugh. She hated him. No, that couldn’t be right, could it? She hated herself for believing she’d been in love with him.
You can’t run to the hospital every time a patient has an episode.
You can’t let yourself become embroiled in your patient’s drama—because there will always be drama.
You have to be above the fray. You must distance yourself from them.
Even though she tried to stop thinking about him, his words kept her company as she jogged down the sidewalk toward the bike path that would ultimately lead to the beach…but she didn’t have time for that. She couldn’t go that far.
But how far was she willing to go?
She blew out a sigh of relief when she thought about Zach. Thank goodness he’d been so levelheaded; otherwise, she’d have…well, she didn’t want to think about what she would have done in the heat of the moment. And he’d been true to his word. He’d made her popcorn and cocoa and snuggled up with her on the sofa and laughed at all the right places during the movie and didn’t call it a chick flick once.
And then he’d left and promised to call.
“Charlie!” A familiar voice stopped her and brought her out of her thoughts and back to the bike path that ran along the back bay. She turned to see Layla running to catch up with her.
“Hey, what happened to you last night?” Layla asked.
“One of my patients died.” Charlie tried to hold her voice steady, but it still quivered.
“Oh, geez, I’m sorry,” Layla said. “Have you talked to Kirk?”
Charlie shook her head. “Was he mad?”
“Well, he’s not really talking to me, so I wouldn’t know, but rumor is—yeah. He thought you left with Zach Walden.”
“Zach drove me to the hospital.”
“Ah, that explains why Kirk was so mad. Although I don’t know why he needs to worry. I mean, there’s nothing between you and Zach, right? Everyone knows he’s engaged to Eva Littleton.”
“Was engaged, right?”
“I doubt things have changed since yesterday.” Layla pulled her phone out of the pocket of her hoodie and tapped the Celebrity-Buzz icon on her phone, and scrolled through the posts before pulling up a video of Eva Littleton.
Eva, of course, looked stunningly beautiful. She was sitting in a café and talking with Tina Marie, a popular talk show host.
“Tell me about you and Zach,” Tina said.
Eva smiled. “What’s there to say that hasn’t already been said?”
“Except ‘I do’?” Tina pressed.
“Well, there is that,” Eva said.
“Is it still happening?” Tina asked.
“Of course.”
“And the rumors about this Charlie Angel?”
“She’s a lovely nurse, who happened to be at the right place at the right time. Zach and I will both always be grateful to her—but that’s it. Everything else was just a figment of the media’s imagination.”
Layla shut off her phone with a self-satisfied look on her face. “I guess your fifteen minutes of fame are over.”
“It’s nice to be thought of as an angel,” Charlie said in a wooden voice.
“See you at work?” Layla asked.
“I don’t think so,” Charlie said.
“No? Aren’t you working today?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? I’m pretty sure you’re on the schedule.”
“No.” Charlie took off running. She didn’t know where she was going, other than away.
Far away.
#
Ricardo gave a preliminary knock on Zach’s office door before stepping through and closing the door. Zach lifted his eyebrow in question. When he’d lost his memory, he hadn’t been able to imagine enjoying his affiliation with Wonder Weight Loss, but now that he’d returned to himself, he’d discovered a passion for his work.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I have something you need to see.” Ricardo took his phone out of his pocket and placed it on the desk before Zach. He touched an app Zach didn’t recognize and immediately Eva and Tina Marie popped onto the screen. They were sitting at a café talking about him and Charlie.
“What the hell!” Zach boomed, slamming his hand onto the desk and making the phone and several pencils jump. “When was this?”
“Yesterday.” Ricardo tried to sound soothing, but he just came across as girly. “Charlie may not have seen it.”
Zach pointed at the phone. “Maybe, but probably one of the three hundred thousand other viewers will tell her about it.”
“That’s why I came in here, so you could get to her first.”
Zach bounced to his feet. “Get Eva on the phone! Call me a car!”
Ricardo leaned back in his chair. “It’s good to see you like this.”
“Like what?” Zach asked as he rushed from the room.
“Alive. Even before the accident, you were like a dead man walking,” Ricardo called after him.
Zach didn’t have time to talk or even wonder about this odd observation as he jogged down the stairs toward the waiting car.
#
“I don’t know, Grandma,” Charlie cried in Dotty’s arms. “I just don’t know what I want or even who I am anymore. It’s like I built my life around Kirk…no, that’s not true. I built my life around an imaginary Kirk. I was in love with a figment of my imagination—and that wasn’t fair to the real Kirk. Or to the real me, whoever that is.” She gulped down a sob. “I don’t want to be a nurse!” she wailed. “I can’t stand watching people I love die! I wanted to be a nurse because Kirk was a doctor.” She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I thought we could go on medical missions together—but Kirk isn’t interested in Doctors Without Borders. He’s more interested in fundraisers and hanging with the drug dealers.”
Dotty patted her back and murmured something that was probably supposed to be comforting, but Charlie wasn’t interested in being comforted.
“What am I going to do?” she cried.
“Do? Why do you have to do anything?” Dotty asked.
“I have to do something. Even when you’re doing nothing, you’re doing something, so you might as well make it good.”
“Okay, fair enough.” Dotty thought for a moment, then climbed to her feet. “Let me make you some cocoa.”
“No! No cocoa!”
Dotty stood in the center of her living room, frowning at Charlie as if she were a puzzle with missing pieces. “But you love cocoa!”
“I did.” She swallowed hard, thinking about Zach and kissing Zach. And Zach’s traitorous cocoa. “I’ll never drink cocoa again,” she announced.
“Are you this passionate about tea?” Dotty asked.
“No. I’m lukewarm about tea. In fact, I’d like some tepid tea. Nothing to get excited about with tepid tea.”
Dotty made a guttural sound as she shuffled into the kitchen. Charlie sat up, her gaze flitting around her grandmother’s home. She knew it as well as she knew her own family home. The personal photos on the walls. The piano and the basket full of sheet music in the corner. The large picture window over
looking the stormy ocean. Then her gaze landed on the wooden box full of her grandparents’ journals from when they were missionaries in New Zealand.
Charlie went to the box and opened it up. A scent she couldn’t place wafted toward her. Sandalwood, a voice in her head told her. The leather journal felt brittle in her hands. Stroking the leather, she thought about how she was touching something her great-great-grandmother, a woman she had never known, had touched.
In the kitchen, the microwave dinged. Shortly, Dotty emerged carrying a tray bearing two steaming mugs, a pair of spoons, and a plate of cookies. “I know you wanted tepid tea, but I thought it would be easier to let yours cool.” Dotty placed the tray on the coffee table and frowned at Charlie. “I don’t understand why you thought you needed Kirk to go with you if you wanted to serve a medical mission. Why not just go on your own?”
Charlie hugged the journal to her chest. “Why not indeed?”
“Indeed!” Dotty cried.
“I wonder how I can go about getting a job with them.”
“Let’s figure that out after we get back,” Dotty said as she settled on to the sofa and picked up a teacup.
“Get back? From where?”
“From New Zealand, of course!”
“You still want to do that?” Charlie asked.
“Now more than ever. In fact, I haven’t told anyone because I knew they would try to talk me out of it, but I have a ticket for a flight tomorrow morning.” She winked at Charlie. “You should come with me.”
“Grandma!” Charlie gasped as if her grandmother had suggested something immoral or illicit.
“Why not? I booked you a ticket, too.”
“What?”
“Remember, I asked you to come with me.”
“But…I told you I couldn’t go!”
“And I knew you’d change your mind.”
“When were you going to tell me?”
“Today. That’s why I called you.”
“You called me?”
“Of course.”
Excitement zipped through Charlie. She didn’t remember her grandmother calling her, but that must have been what had happened. “I better go pack and get my passport!” She set down her tea and bounced off the sofa.
Dotty studied Charlie over the brim of her cup. “I’ll make up a bed for you here. You’d better stay the night so we can leave first thing in the morning.”
Charlie paused in the doorway. “You’re afraid I’m going to change my mind, aren’t you?”
Dotty set down her cup, shuffled across the room, put her hands on Charlie’s shoulders, and kissed her cheek. “You wouldn’t do anything to disappoint your grandmother, would you?”
Charlie gave Dotty a tight hug. “I love you. How do you always seem to know exactly what I need?”
“It’s not just me, sweetie. You have a whole lot of angels rooting for you, too.” Dotty’s smile widened when she caught sight of Charlie’s phone lying on the sofa. Knowing it must have fallen out of her pocket, Dotty planted herself so that Charlie wouldn’t be able to see it.
As soon as Charlie left, Dotty turned the phone off and tucked it beneath the sofa cushions.
#
Zach first went to Charlie’s apartment, and when he didn’t find her there, he went to the hospital and headed for the fourth floor. She had told him she had the 11:00 a.m. shift.
He cringed when he locked eyes with Layla in the lobby.
“Hi there, handsome,” Layla said. “Whatcha doing here?”
“I’m looking for Charlie.” Zach took an instinctive step back and bumped into a counter. The elderly man behind the desk gave him a curious look.
“Well, you won’t find her here. She took a personal leave.”
“What?” She hadn’t mentioned anything the night before, but, of course, she had been pretty shaken up about Lincoln.
“Maybe you should talk to Kirk.” Layla cocked her hip and fluttered her centipede-like eyelashes at him. “He’ll know how to find her. According to him, she’s going to be the mother of his children.” She rolled her eyes.
“Has he mentioned that to her?” he asked, his throat tight.
“Well, everyone knows she’s been in love with him forever.”
“Even forevers have endings,” Zach said before he turned on his heel and strode from the hospital. Without Charlie, he had no interest in being there.
#
At the airport, Charlie double-checked her purse for her missing phone. “I’m really not comfortable leaving without my phone,” she told Dotty.
“Oh, phfft.” Dotty waved away Charlie’s worry. “I traveled the world when I was your age without an electronic leash. And that was before we had GPS systems! Life is supposed to be an adventure! Besides, I have my phone and if anyone needs to reach us, they can call me.”
“Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?” Charlie asked.
“Of course we are! What could go wrong?”
#
Zach stopped by Dotty’s Dresses. If he couldn’t find Charlie, maybe he’d be able to track down her cousin or her grandmother. Sadly, the shop had a “closed” sign in the window. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it started to rain.
Why would the shop be closed at noon on a Saturday?
Zach shoved his hands into his pockets and slouched away.
“Hey!” Maddie called after him. She splashed down the sidewalk in a pair of bright yellow rainboots, carrying a pink umbrella in one hand and a takeout bag from Chuck’s Hamburger Hangout in the other. “Zach, isn’t it? You’re a friend of Charlie’s?”
Maddie had her hair tucked under a multi-colored crocheted cap, but a few red curls had escaped and framed her face.
“Have you seen her?” He cleared his throat, hating his panicked tone. “She’s not returning my calls.” He grimaced, because now he sounded like a stalker.
Maddie slipped her key into the door and pushed it open. The bell gave a cheery ring. “She lost her phone. If you really need to get hold of her, you can call my grandmother. They’re together.”
Zach tried to school his voice. “We had a date.” Damn. Now he sounded petulant. He followed Maddie into the shop and wiped his shoes on the rug.
Maddie placed the umbrella behind the sales counter, slipped off her slicker and cap, and tossed her curls. “And she heard Eva Littleton tell the world you were going to marry her and that Charlie was just a nice girl that the media exploited.”
A couple of teenage girls walked in. The tall one with a mouthful of braces stared at Zach and elbowed her friend. Together, they ducked behind a clothes rack, but Zach could feel their gazes on him.
Now what?
“I need to talk to her.”
Maddie shrugged. “You’ll have to go through my grandmother. And if you thought her brothers are scary-protective, they’re nothing compared to Granny Dot.”
Zach stepped near the counter and lowered his voice. The girls must have contacted their friends, because the two behind the clothes rack had been joined by three others. Good heavens, they were multiplying.
“Ask her to call me,” Zach said.
“Well, I would, but it’s got to be three in the morning there.”
“What? Is she in Australia? Why do all the women I love go to the opposite end of the earth?”
“Eek!” A little squeal came from behind the clothes rack.
“You’ve done it now, boy,” Maddie whispered.
#
The eighteen-hour flight to Gisborne should have exhausted Dotty, but as soon as they landed, she strode to the rental agency to hire a car. “It’s only an hour’s drive to Nuhaka,” she informed Charlie.
Charlie was also curious to see the small community where her great-great-grandparents had served as missionaries, but why not take a nap first? Maybe eat a decent meal. “What’s the hurry?” Charlie asked as she trailed after her grandmother.
“No hurry,” Dotty said. “Zed and Milly who run the orphanage are expecting us
tonight for dinner. It’s so nice of them to give us a room!”
“We can call them and tell them we’ll be there tomorrow.”
“I want to see the sun set over the ocean.”
“We’ll have to see the sun rise over the ocean. Remember, the sun comes up in the east.”
“Oh dear. That’s just wrong. The sun should always set on the ocean.”
“I know what you mean. It is discombobulating, but still a fact. I promise, we can get up early tomorrow morning to watch the sun rise on the beach.” She stifled a yawn. “We have two whole weeks. We can do whatever we want. And I want lunch. And a nap.”
“Honestly, Charlie, you’re more of a senior citizen than me! Where’s your spunk?”
Charlie sighed. She was being bullied by an eighty-five-pound seventy-five- year-old. “My spunk performs better when it’s fed and rested,” she growled. She plopped down in a plastic chair to wait while Dotty marched up to the car rental desk to wait behind an elderly man in a cable-knit sweater.
“What do you mean there isn’t a car?” the man boomed.
Charlie’s ears perked up.
“No way!” Dotty yelled. “I reserved a car. This is totally unacceptable!”
Charlie watched the drama, trying to read lips. A few moments later, a frowning Dotty approached while the gray-haired man trailed after her. “This is Owen,” Dotty told her. “He’s driving with us. He’s assured me that he’s not a serial killer and I’ve told him you have a black belt in karate.”
Charlie stood, took her grandmother’s arm, and pulled her away from Owen. “What are you doing? We can’t share our car with this strange man!”
Dotty ran an appreciative gaze over Owen. “He doesn’t look strange to me. Besides, the man at the counter told us this was the last car in the lot and possibly the last car in the entire airport. And Owen said he would not only pay for the car, but also all of the gas.”
Charlie eyed the stranger, gauging his serial killer likelihood. She’d read enough murder mysteries to know that often a killer was charming and charismatic.
