CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alex and Faith were sitting in an exam room, sucking on lollipops and waiting for the doctor to return.
“Don’t you find it odd?” Alex asked. “Doctors giving out sugar when it’s supposedly so bad for you?”
“I’m not gonna complain.” Faith talked around the ball of sugar in her mouth.
Alex’s phone pinged. “Oh, it’s Holly. Hey, Holls, what’s up?”
“Are you okay? I heard you got hurt.”
Alex glared at Faith, who shrugged. “You would have told her eventually.”
“Faith’s here. We’re at the doctor’s. He took an X-ray and should be back soon with the results.”
“Okay. Well, I was gonna call anyway to find out how the weekend with Drake went.” Her voice was tentative. Like she’d already heard something. “I…um…I learned some stuff about him I wish I’d known sooner.”
“That he’s a flirt? A lush? A moody jerk?”
“Ah, so, guess I don’t need to warn you. Cole found out, a little too late, that he’s got a real rep as a ladies’ man around the station.”
“Someone also might want to check on his after-hours alcohol consumption,” Alex muttered.
There was a slight tap at the door before the doctor came in holding an X-ray.
“Doc’s back. Gotta go. I’ll call you later.”
The doctor turned on a light box and shoved the photo into a slot at the top to hold it in place. “You’re lucky,” he said.
“Finally,” Alex said at the same time Faith said, “Of course she is.”
Alex shushed her. “You’re here for moral support only. No talky. Sorry, Doc. Go on.”
“By the way you described it, I thought for sure it’d be broken, but it’s just a good sprain.”
“Thank goodness,” Alex said. “How long till I can run again?”
“Easy now. You need to start with several days of rest with ice and elevation. I’ll give you some crutches for the short term and a boot to wear once you can tolerate walking. Running’s a ways off, but if you do what I say and let it heal properly, you’ll be good as new in a couple months.”
A couple of months? Alex sagged. Screw that. She’d be better by the end of the month. “Thanks, Doc.”
They waited for someone to come fit her for crutches and a boot.
“So,” Faith said. “Drake’s gone for good?” Alex easily caught the underlying subtext.
“Yes, you can talk crap about him.” That was the answer to Faith’s real question. “I don’t know why I thought long-distance would work. When has it ever, in the history of man, worked? Never.”
“You can do better, Gray.”
Alex laughed, thinking of Brody declaring the same thing.
“So, Brody?” Alex took Faith’s meaning with that question too.
“Don’t.”
Faith widened her eyes innocently. “I’m just saying. He’s handsome. Rich. Gallant. Borderline famous.”
“Unemployed. Recently dumped. Homeless. Also, he’ll be gone in two days.”
“Never say never,” Faith sang.
They were on the road back to Green Valley Falls when a black SUV sped past them going the opposite direction.
“Holy crap,” Faith gasped. “That guy must be going a hundred miles an hour.”
“Yeah,” Alex agreed. “He’s gonna kill someone driving like that after all the rain. What an idiot!”
They made it back to Alex’s cabin. Faith helped her change into dry sweats and got her settled on the couch with an icepack and a book.
“You need anything else before I go?”
“No. Thank you, Faith.”
“All right. Juliet’s gonna come by later with dinner. Tess will be here after she gets off work to spend the night with you. She’ll make a schedule for who’s on Alex watch after that.”
“I don’t need constant supervision.” She wanted to be annoyed, but was secretly happy her friends were there to look after her.
“Well, it’s not constant. I’m leaving you alone now. Don’t do anything stupid. Just take a nap or something.”
Alex rolled her eyes as Faith kissed her cheek. “I’m glad you’re all right,” she said. “Be safe.”
Two chapters into her book, Faith called.
“It’s only been twenty minutes,” Alex said. “You think I can’t survive that long?”
“It’s not that.” Faith’s voice cracked, and Alex knew immediately something was wrong.
“What happened?”
“Nick just called. You can’t tell anyone yet. Not until they tell Max.”
“What are you talking about?” Alex said instantly on edge.
“That black car that sped past us? It was the fugitive. He crashed into another car. Both he and the other driver died on impact.”
“Okay. What’s that got to do with Max?” A heavy feeling hit her in the gut as the pieces fell together. “Jenny?”
“Yes,” Faith sobbed. “Jenny was the other driver. She’s dead.”
“Oh, God.” A tear fell, followed by another and another. Jenny was younger than Alex and her team. She wasn’t part of their best-friend clique, but she was a good friend. Also a wife and a mother. The news was devastating.
“I gotta go,” Faith whispered. “I’m meeting Nick at the inn to take care of Lilly while Nick tells Max.” Lilly was Max and Jenny’s three-year-old daughter. Thinking of her made the whole situation even sadder. “I’ll come over later.”
Alex had just hung up when someone pounded on the door. “Alex? You here?”
“Come in,” Alex choked out around the lump in her throat.
Brody pushed open the door and took her in, relief flooding his face. “You’re here.” He exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath for an hour.
“I’m here.”
He seemed to read her mood and immediately rushed to her side, kneeling on the floor beside the couch. “You know who it is.”
The tender way he said it, the concern in his eyes, and his warm hand grasping hers as she nodded, caused the dam to burst.
She let the tears fall freely. It didn’t matter that he was a virtual stranger, that she hated being vulnerable, or that she was about to ugly cry. He moved up to the couch to take her into his arms, and she didn’t object. She let him hold her as pent-up emotions poured out in liquid form.
Grief over Jenny’s death. Heartbreak for Max and Lilly’s loss.
Anger toward the fugitive for taking another life unnecessarily.
And if she dug deep and was honest with herself, yes, simultaneous guilt and relief that it hadn’t been her and Faith.
That admission added self-loathing to the mix of jumbled emotions.
“I’m sorry,” Brody whispered, stroking her hair. “I’m so sorry.”
After a minute, Alex pulled herself together, the tears finally drying up.
She took a deep breath and released it slowly.
“It’s my friend, Jenny. She has a three-year-old little girl.
She and her husband, Max, own the Three Bears Inn.
” Mundane facts might keep her mind off the emotional part of all this.
“Nick introduced me to them at The Rusty Nail, my first night here. They seemed like a very happy family.”
“Faith and I saw him speed by—Dexter, I mean. We even commented on it. Said that guy was going to kill someone.” She had to choke out the last words. “We should have called the police.”
“Hey,” he said. “Don’t. This isn’t your fault.”
Of course he would say that. But was it true? Could they have prevented it somehow? She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand as reality seeped in. Realization that she’d just had a breakdown in front of a man she barely knew.
All of a sudden, she was cognizant of his arms around her. His face close to hers. His lips right there. And his eyes, boring into hers. Almost like he was about to kiss her. That couldn’t be right.
She sniffed, breaking the moment.
Without letting go, he looked around. “Tissues?”
Alex shook her head. Never needed the stuff. He gently extracted himself and went to the bathroom, returning with a roll of toilet paper.
She gave a weak smile as he handed it to her. “Thank you.”
He walked to the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards, presumably to give her a minute to compose herself. She blew her nose and shoved the used TP into her pocket.
He brought her a glass of water and sat next to her again. “Here.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Um, not to be rude, but what are you doing here?” How was it that he’d popped in just as she needed a shoulder to cry on?
He chuckled. “I came to see if you were okay. I figured you’d come home on that road, and when someone at the diner announced what had happened, I…well, I…” He shrugged. “Wanted to make sure you were all right.”
It might have been the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to or done for her. And the lump in her throat returned. She had to nip this in the bud before she broke down again.
“Oh, well, my girls are coming soon. Should be here any minute.”
“Is that a polite way of saying ‘get out’?” He smiled.
Yes, was on the tip of her tongue, but he’d just been so kind to her, and she didn’t want to seem ungrateful. She was saved from answering by the door bursting open. Tess and Juliet rushed to her side, and all three burst into tears, hugging each other tightly.
Alex didn’t see Brody slip out.
They cried together silently, mourning the loss of their friend. When the tears faded, Tess and Juliet moved to adjacent seats in the living room.
“Got any tissues?” Juliet asked, wiping residual tears away with her hand.
Alex tossed her the toilet paper roll.
“Classy, Gray.” Tess reached for it after Juliet had ripped off several squares.
It was enough to break the sad tension, and they all started talking at once about what they knew and how they’d found out.
“Faith still with Max?” Alex asked.
“Yeah,” Tess said. “She stayed after Nick did the notification. He had to return to the accident scene, but they didn’t want to leave Max alone. She’s watching Lilly until Max’s parents can get here from Boston.”
They all nodded.
“What was Brody doing here?” Tess finally asked.
“Oh.” Alex felt her cheeks heat. “Said he was just checking on me.”
“You mean because of your ankle injury?” Juliet said.
“Nah. He heard about the accident and knew I’d be on that road coming back from the clinic.”
“Re-hee-hee-heelly?” Tess dragged out the word and waggled her eyebrows.
“Stop it,” Alex said. “He just stopped by on his way home.”
“We rushed over here as soon as we found out.” Juliet cocked her head. “He must have sped like a bat out of hell to beat us here.”
“Let’s not make this a thing,” Alex said. “He’s just a nice guy. A nice guy I barely know who’s leaving on Wednesday.”
Tess and Juliet gave her matching looks.
“Seriously,” Alex insisted. “Yesterday, he met Pops at the hardware store and five seconds later was installing his deadbolt for him. He’s nice to everybody.”
“Chivalry’s not dead then,” Juliet said. “Good to know.”
The dinner plans fell apart with the news of their friend, so they made scrambled eggs and turkey bacon—pretty much the only food in Alex’s refrigerator. Juliet had to get back to her dogs, but Tess spent the night.
Alex took some ibuprofen for her ankle pain and fell asleep with several things on her mind.
Somewhere amid the grief of her friend’s death was a handsome travel writer who’d been in the right place at the right time to help her twice today.
She refused to read too much into it. Like she told her friends, he was just a nice guy.