Chapter 25
Kara’s heart beat so hard she worried she’d end up a patient at the clinic before she got to see Dan.
No one was around in the reception area, so she headed for the treatment rooms, passing Mac asleep with Maddie next to him, Evan curled up to Grace, and Stephanie standing beside Grant’s bed, staring down at him.
The men were attached to IVs and other machines that beeped and blinked.
Stephanie looked up when she saw Kara.
“Is he okay?” Kara whispered.
Stephanie nodded.
“Are you?”
Stephanie shook her head and began to cry.
Kara went into the room to hug her. They’d all bonded during the long, difficult day, and each of the women already felt like a close friend to Kara. “It’s okay now. Everything is okay.”
“I keep telling myself that, but I’m having a hard time believing it.”
Grant stirred and let out a moan. “Steph.”
She pulled back from Kara and wiped her face. “I’m here, babe. I’m right here.”
“Closer. I’m cold. So cold.”
As Stephanie slid into bed with her fiancé, Kara backed out of the room and found Dan sleeping next door. Dr. Lawrence was standing watch over him, writing something on a chart.
“Are you Kara?” he asked when she appeared in the doorway.
She nodded, unable to take her eyes off Dan. He was pale, and his face was battered with bruises. His hair was standing on end, and his lips were dry and cracked, but he was alive. Thank God he was alive, and she had another chance to tell him…
She wasn’t sure what she’d tell him, but the word “nothing” wouldn’t be mentioned ever again.
She glanced at David. “Can I…”
“Come in but try not to jostle him. He’s in a lot of pain from the broken ribs.”
Kara stepped cautiously into the room. “Okay.”
Dan’s eyes opened and found her. When he tried to smile, his lips fought back, making him grimace.
“Is there something I could put on his lips?” Kara asked.
“Let me get some ointment,” David said.
“You came,” Dan said, his voice little more than a croak.
“Of course I came.”
“I wasn’t sure you would.”
“You scared me.” Kara dropped into the chair next to the bed and gripped his left hand. His right arm was bandaged and resting on his belly.
He turned his hand so their palms were aligned. “I scared myself.”
“It must’ve been terrifying.”
“Luckily, I don’t remember much past the moment of impact. I was pretty out of it. Grant saved my life about fifty times yesterday. He was amazing.”
“I’ll have to remember to thank him.”
“How come?”
“Because now I’ve got the chance to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For acting so badly yesterday morning, for letting you leave thinking I didn’t like you or enjoy being with you or—”
He squeezed her hand. “Stop. I know all that. It was your first time after a bad breakup, and you had a little freak-out. I get it.”
“You do?”
“Sure.” He tried to move and groaned from the pain. “I didn’t like leaving things that way, either. Thinking about you…about our night together…it got me through yesterday, so thanks for that.”
“Glad I could help,” she said, smiling for the first time since she heard he was missing.
“You did help.”
“I’ll be there for you while you recover. I promise.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Hush. After you ingratiated your way into my life, it’s the least I can do for you.”
“I like to think I charmed my way in.”
Bantering with him the way they always did made her heart feel lighter and less burdened. Finally, she could breathe again. “Ingratiated.”
David returned with the ointment.
“Thank you,” Kara said as she took it from him and applied it gently to Dan’s tortured lips.
“No kissing for a while,” he said mournfully when she was done.
Always happy for an excuse to argue with him, she bent over the bed to kiss his cheek, the tip of his nose and each lid as he sighed and closed his eyes. “Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
His eyes remained closed when he gave her hand another squeeze.
The next few days were frantically busy for Tiffany. When she wasn’t working at the store, she was taking care of Ashleigh and Thomas and helping out with Hailey as much as she could so Maddie could tend to her cantankerous husband, who was already sick of everyone fussing over him.
After David released Mac with orders to stay quiet for a few days, Maddie flatly refused to allow him to leave the house until he’d had forty-eight hours of total rest.
Tiffany wondered if they’d all be driven mad before the time was up.
The activity helped to keep her mind off the fact that she hadn’t heard a word from Blaine in two days. Not that she thought she’d hear from him after their argument, but still… She missed him. Terribly. And she couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking about and why it was taking so long.
Maddie came to take Hailey from her. “Feeding time,” she said. “Would you mind keeping an eye on him while I take care of her?”
Tiffany eyed her brother-in-law, who was fuming on the sofa as he had for almost two days now. “Do I have to?”
Laughing, Maddie said, “Yes, you have to. It’s in the sisterly handbook.”
“I must’ve missed that. What page is it on?”
“Please, I beg of you. If I wasn’t so grateful he survived the accident, I might be tempted to kill him.”
Tiffany let out a dramatic sigh. “I suppose if it means keeping you from committing murder, I could take a turn. But just remember, I don’t love him the way you do, so I might not be so merciful.”
“I can hear you two,” Mac growled.
“Hi, honey,” Maddie said in the endlessly cheerful voice that hid her true aggravation with her husband—and her true feelings about the close call that had nearly taken him from her. “Can I get you anything?”
“Yeah, the keys to my truck.”
“No can do, but Tiffany is going to keep you company while I feed Hailey and get her down for her nap.” Maddie went over to the sofa and bent to kiss his forehead. “If you give her a hard time, I’ll withhold sex for a month. You got me?”
He glowered at her. “You’re a terrible nurse.”
“You’re a horrible patient, but I love you anyway.”
“Yeah, yeah. If you really loved me, you’d give me my goddamned keys.”
“You’re not getting your goddamned keys until you sit your goddamned ass on that sofa for forty-eight goddamned hours the way David told you to.”
“You’re my wife, not my mother.”
Maddie raised that famous eyebrow. “Want me to get your mother back over here?”
“Good God, no.”
Tiffany held back a laugh that she knew Mac wouldn’t appreciate. Watching Maddie manage her husband was about as entertaining as it got. Since the accident, Linda had been hovering over her sons and generally driving them all to drink.
“Then behave, or I’ll call her and tell her you need her,” Maddie said as she headed for the stairs with Hailey. “Tiffany, he’s all yours.”
“Oh, joy.” In truth, she was filled with joy to see Mac alive and well and full of beans. At some point, she’d come to love the pain in the ass.
She flopped down in the chair next to the sofa and stared at him.
“What’re you looking at?”
“It’s funny.”
“What is?”
Had she ever seen him quite so grumpy? Not that she could recall. Usually his boundless cheerfulness and optimism got on her nerves. “It’s hard to believe Thomas isn’t your biological son. You’ve got the same pout.”
“I am not pouting.”
“What would you call it?”
“Don’t you have your own house and your own people to bother?”
The reminder that she hadn’t seen Blaine in a couple of days stole the smile from her face.
“Sorry,” he grumbled. “That was kinda mean, since you just got divorced.”
“I’m not thinking about him. He’s ancient history.”
“Then who are you thinking about?”
Tiffany bit her lip, debating whether or not she should tell the ultimate busybody that she’d been seeing his good friend on the sly. “Someone else.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Maybe.”
“Come on, Tiffany. We’re both grown-ups here.”
“Well, I am. The jury’s still out on you.”
“Very funny. You’re supposed to be entertaining me.” He folded his hands behind his head and settled in. “So entertain me.”
“Blaine.”
Mac’s mouth fell open. “So you two finally got together? It’s about damned time. He drove me crazy asking when your divorce would be final.”
Tiffany was speechless. “He did?”
Mac nodded. “Every time I saw him, for months all he wanted to talk about was you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because he told me not to. He said he didn’t want you to know how much he was suffering, waiting for you to be free of what’s his name.”
“How come he can tell you that, but he can’t tell me?”
“Guys are weird that way.”
“No kidding. He doesn’t tell me much of anything about himself.”
“He’s had a tough go of it with women.”
“So I’ve heard—from everyone but him.”
Mac seemed to be debating whether or not he should say more.
“Will you please just tell me what you know? I can tell you’re dying to.”
“You should probably hear it from him.”
“Probably, but I’ve given him so many chances to tell me. He clams up every time.”
Mac scrubbed at the stubble on his chin. “The first one he was in love with cheated on him.”
“Oh jeez.”
“Took him totally by surprise. He found out after she cleared out his bank account and left town with the other guy.”
Tiffany ached for Blaine. No wonder he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Have you heard about Eden?”
“He’s mentioned her name, and I heard his mother ranting about how she caused him to lose his last job, but he won’t tell me how.”
“Probably because he’s still embarrassed about what happened.”
Tiffany was literally on the edge of her seat as she waited for Mac to proceed.
“He was a cop in a small Massachusetts town. He’d done quite well and had just been promoted to sergeant when Eden was busted for dealing drugs while he was working nights.”
Tiffany gasped. Even her vivid imagination couldn’t have come up with that scenario.