Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
“Thanks for the donut holes,” Rickie says from her computer terminal behind the nurse’s station. “You want coffee? We’ve got an espresso machine in the break room now.”
“I’m good,” I reply because that break room has a couple of memories I’d rather not revisit. “Did our unwanted guest make another appearance?”
“Nope.” Rickie nibbles a bite from the donuts I brought for the nurses when I visited Meg this morning. “Why were you tree planting, anyways?”
“Just doing my part.” I push back from the counter.
“I’ll bet,” Rickie says with a warm smile.
Rickie and I had some fun together. The adult kind with zero strings. Her idea, which was kind of a mind-bender because it was just after my divorce and I was so dead inside, I would have felt like an asshole asking.
It was a beautiful thing, until she met someone. At least we’ve stayed friends.
“Okay, I’ve requested an assistant to wheel her out,” Rickie says. “Think you’ll need help? ”
“No. Thanks.” I rap my knuckle on the counter.
“You take care, Linden.”
I walk toward Meg’s room. A spike of nerves knocks through my insides. I didn’t think twice about hauling her down to the trailhead in my arms, or about holding her hand in the ambulance and stroking her forehead throughout those scary fever dreams when her body was fighting the poison.
A day and a half later, it feels awkward. The only person I let into my space is my daughter.
Fuck fuck fuck!
Before the snake bite, I was content pushing Meg’s buttons and anticipating the way she’d try to push mine.
Now I don’t know what to feel. Meg’s feisty, bossy, and incredibly gorgeous, and I think she enjoys hating me. But hearing her getting herself off combined with the terror I felt yesterday as I held her in my arms is doing things to me. Things I need to turn off, before I can’t.
Meg’s a good girl, a bring-home-to-meet-Mom sweetheart who would absolutely fit in with my ragtag yet fierce-loving family.
But she’s had her heart broken, and I’m not the person to fix it.
Not only will I never let myself get close to someone like that again, the age difference between me and Meg is a problem.
Just thinking about touching her should be illegal.
And yet I seem to keep doing it.
When I open Meg’s door, she’s talking on the phone but wraps up her call when I enter her room. She’s sitting in the bed in a t-shirt with the sheet and blankets draped across her lap and right leg. At least the color is back in her cheeks.
I huff a quick breath. “Hey. Ready to get out of here?”
“Definitely.” Her pale blue eyes tense with apprehension. “I, um, can’t get my shorts on,” she says in a rush.
“You want help?” I wipe my palms on my jeans. “I can call a nurse. ”
Her lips press together in determination. It’s the same look she gives me when she’s getting bossy.
I huff a breath to stifle the heat erupting in my chest.
“If you can get them up to my knees,” she says. “I can do the rest.”
“Okay.” She wants to feel independent. I get that. And she doesn’t want a stranger to help her. It’s fine. I can help. I’ll just pretend she’s one of my patients.
She pulls back the sheet, exposing the pair of nylon running shorts that are hooked over her right foot but that she must have struggled to get up her injured leg.
I take the sides of her shorts and reposition the other leg hole and pull the fabric over her narrow little foot. Her skin is silky soft here and already there’s a slight tan line from the river sandals she wears.
“Not very pretty, is it?” she says, grimacing at her shin.
“It’s colorful,” I reply, shooting her a wink. This is the second time she’s brought this up. What’s behind this thinking? She’s injured, for crying out loud.
Her lips twitch.
“You get to keep it. That’s what matters,” I say, cradling the back of her swollen calf and tugging the shorts up. She flinches and gives a little hiss of pain as the fabric floats over the bite area. But then she relaxes and reaches for the shorts.
I look away while she slides them the rest of the way up.
The door opens and a lanky kid who could be Greta’s age pushes a wheelchair into the room. He’s got a hospital badge clipped to the breast pocket of his scrubs top, so I know he’s at least eighteen, which makes me feel like I’m at least a hundred.
When I help Meg into the wheelchair, her breathing sharpens and her face pales. A part of me wants to question her eagerness to leave the hospital, but if it was me, I’d be long gone, even if I had to crawl my way out .
I grab her backpack and the plastic hospital bag containing the clothes she was wearing and the set of crutches they fitted her with and swing open the door.
I’ve pulled my truck into the turnaround already, but when we get there, it’s clear the only way she’s getting in is if I lift her.
I tell myself it’s no big deal, but when she pushes up to stand and I scoop her gently into my arms, her warm skin against my bare arms and her quickening breaths against me and the curves of her body feel like a very big deal.
She wraps one arm around my neck, oblivious to the thoughts clashing inside me.
She’s able to maneuver onto the seat, but it’s tricky with her swollen, injured leg leading, so by the time I get her settled I’m huffing and anxious to get behind the wheel.
Her frame goes limp into the corner of the door as I turn the key. “Thanks for the lift.”
I fight back the urge to take her hand or touch her knee by drawing a measured breath, then pull out of the hospital turnaround. “Of course.”
She fidgets in the seat as I drive and her face is pale. Is she hurting? I try to drive smoothly, but it’s a truck with a manual transmission so I don’t do a very good job.
“Do you need me to stop at the pharmacy?”
“No.”
I know they prescribed painkillers because I saw her discharge paperwork. “How did getting the time off work go with your boss?” I ask her at the stoplight.
She shifts in her seat. A thin sheen of sweat coats her forehead. Shit, I need to get her home.
“My boss is great,” she says. “Though at first, she thought I was joking.”
I wince.
“Did you know there are eight thousand venomous snake bites every year?”
“That’s a lot.” If only I’d been just a little bit closer to her. If only I had never planted that fake snake on her deck then teased her about it later.
When I pull into my driveway, Meg glances my way, confusion in her pale blue eyes. “You aren’t taking me home?”
“Not until you’re a little more mobile.” And until I’m sure Russet has gotten the message.
Meg draws a shaky sigh and looks away. “One night, and then I’ll be fine. You can easily check on me if you’re so worried.”
“You are welcome to stay with me as long as you need to.” I don’t want her to think I’m keeping her from going home. But I’m also not letting her out of my sight. And that’s easier to do at my place.
Meg doesn’t say anything when I come around and help her with the crutches. This time I’m prepared for the feel of her in my arms, and I stay focused on helping her down without jostling her too much. She slips the crutches into place and takes a mini step, then another.
“You good?” I reach for her bags.
“Totally.”
On the two steps to my porch, I stay at her side, ready to help, but her jaw is clenched in determination.
Inside my house she’s still silent when I get her set up on the couch. “Hungry?” It’s past supper time and I don’t think she’s eaten anything.
Her apprehensive eyes find mine, and she nods.
I spin away and get to work in the kitchen. “Pasta and red sauce okay?” I call out.
“Sounds great,” she replies.
“How about some cran-raspberry juice? Or a soda?” I call out, leaning into my fridge .
“You have cran-raspberry juice?”
Like I didn’t notice how she guzzled the one we got her last night? “Yep. Big juice drinkers around here.”
She doesn’t reply, but I pour her a glass and add a few ice cubes and drop in one of Greta’s metal straws on my way back to the couch.
“Thank you,” she says. Her cheeks are still flushed but she’s breathing easier. In the low evening light of my living room, her pale blue eyes look almost violet.
Our fingertips brush, and a current of heat pops under my skin. “Welcome.”
Supper is a simple garlicky tomato cream sauce and spaghetti. Not fancy but a solid weeknight meal I could make in my sleep because it’s one of Greta’s favorites.
I’m just tossing our salad when my phone chimes with a text in the group chat I share with my siblings.
EVERETT:
She said yes!
There’s a picture, probably taken by Logan, of Everett with his lips pressed to Vivian’s, his arm wrapped tight around her waist and the diamond on her finger sparkling in the sunshine.
I swallow the sudden lump in my throat. I send a quick CONGRATS while the screen fills with messages from my siblings.
SEPP:
Yes!!!!
EDIE:
Did you set a date ?
EVERETT:
September 27th
Shit, they’re not wasting any time. I do a quick scan of the calendar—it’s a Saturday, and I’m scheduled to work. Damn. I’m sure I can find someone to trade with, but I’d better start working on it.
Cam doesn’t reply, but he’s a moving target this time of year and rarely remembers to charge his phone, let alone take time to respond.
EDIE:
On my calendar! Now I just need a date!
Shit. Date? A beat of panic fires under my skin. Maybe I can get away with bringing Greta as my date. My brothers won’t hassle me, right?
I groan. Who am I kidding? Of course they will.
The timer for the pasta beeps, so I shut off the burner and dump the noodles into the colander. “Inside or outside?” I call out to Meg.
“Outside sounds awesome,” she says.
I get everything to my picnic table just as the sun slips behind the low clouds hugging the western horizon, casting a soft, golden glow across the black lake. Out on the water, my unfinished dock project calls to me like an itch I need to scratch, but it’s officially on hold until Meg is better.