The Honeymoon Trap

by Christina Hovland

  “Get Chief Lawson over here,” a fireman called out the door to another near the truck.

  Lucy’s breath seized, and she tried to get off of the stretcher.

  “Keep her still,” the medic said to Dixie.

  Dixie pressed her against the pillow, holding firm while he attached white gauze to the wound. Lucy jerked and bit her lip against the sharp pain. “Will’s dead.”

  Dixie gripped her hand tight. “Hush your mouth.”

  Lucy closed her eyes to the silent tears. An unfamiliar hurt unleashed a flood of torment and remorse within her. This couldn’t be real. She opened her eyes and stared blankly into the night.

  “Butter my butt and call me a biscuit,” Dixie murmured.

  Lucy turned her head. It took a moment to focus against the flurry of activity all around the building. Will walked toward her, covered in soot.

  Her breath caught. A ticked-off Mitzy struggled in his arms. Their eyes met, and she didn’t move her gaze from his until he was close enough so she could stroke Mitzy’s head. The cat snuggled against her hand, purring softly.

  The medic glanced up from taping her bandage and raised his eyebrows at the cat.

  Lucy ignored him.

  “You scared me,” she whispered to Will.

  He glanced at the bandage on her arm. “Could say the same. You okay?”

  She followed his gaze there. Red splotches already seeped through the gauze.

  “I’m fine,” she replied. “Just a scratch.”

  Dixie harrumphed. “Pfft. She needs a doctor. I’ll take the cat. Hospitals get touchy if you show up with ’em.”

  She plucked Mitzy from Lucy’s grasp and looked to Will, jerking her head in Lucy’s direction. “Scared yer girl. Glad ya made it out.”

  Dixie was wrong. She wasn’t his girl.

  Dixie turned, barked an order at one of the neighbors, and disappeared with Mitzy.

  Lucy swallowed the lump in her throat.

  Will’s whole body convulsed as he coughed.

  “Will…” Lucy started, her blood pressure rising each time his lungs spasmed.

  “She’s ready to move,” the medic yelled, and Lucy’s stretcher lurched as someone pulled her to the ambulance.

  Will’s breaths were shallow, a horrible scraping sound on each inhale.

  “Oxygen tank,” the medic barked.

  No.

  He was really hurt.

  “I’m fi—” Will doubled over as a new round of spasms racked his lungs. Lucy tried to pry herself off the stretcher to help him.

  One of the paramedics put a hand against her shoulder. “Let them take care of him.”

  They loaded Lucy into the back of the ambulance, and Will climbed in behind her. He sat across from her, holding an oxygen mask to his face.

  “Will—”

  “It’s all right, Luce. Everything’s fine.” The oxygen mask muffled the words. His breath clouded the plastic, partially obscuring his serious expression.

  He was wrong. Everything was not fine. Not fine at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sunshine radiated through the blinds into the sterile hospital room. Lucy blinked her eyes open and squinted against the light. She checked the clock on the wall at the foot of her bed. Nearly noon.

  She was leaving Confluence. She rubbed her palms over her cheeks and blew out a breath.

  She’d tell Will. Her path was somewhere else. The road she paved went a different direction.

  When she sank back into her pillows, the one propped against the bandage on her arm shifted. She mashed her lips together at the tugging pressure. To her surprise, the emergency room doctors hadn’t treated her immediately. They waited for the plastic surgeon to arrive. Everyone seemed put out about the delay, so she was fairly certain it wasn’t protocol.

  She had a suspicion it was Will’s credit card that pulled Confluence’s one and only plastic surgeon from his bed at midnight to fix her up.

  A light tap at the door, and her nurse popped her head in. “Oh good, you’re awake. You have a visitor. Feel up to it?”

  “Who—”

  “She’s awake? Then of course she’s up to it.” Katie’s voice came from the hallway.

  “Katie?” Lucy raised herself up, grimaced, and lay back on the bed.

  Katie slipped past the nurse into the room.

  “Hey,” Lucy called before the nurse could leave. “How’s Simon?”

  “He’s shook up, but he’s fine. Jeff’s on the warpath about those kids.”

  “How’d you get here?” Lucy tapped a button to raise the head of the bed a little.

  “It’s called a car. Nifty things. You get in them, turn the key, and they take you where you want to go.” Katie leaned to give her a hug. The scent of gumdrops and cinnamon perfumed the air around her.

  She took a long look at Lucy, pausing at the large swath of gauze and tape. “Jeff called me in the middle of the night to tell me what happened.”

  Jeff. After things calmed down at Camelot, he had visited with Lucy at the hospital to take her statement.

  “Is he all right?” Lucy asked.

  “He’s beating himself up. He’ll be okay, once you are.” Katie bit at her lower lip. “Listen. Between that whole alligator thing and your house burning down, I figured your family would be worried, so I called your parents last night when I heard.”

  Lucy sucked in a breath. “They aren’t coming, are they?”

  Katie scooted one of the metal guest chairs closer to the bed. “I told them not to, that you’d call later.”

  “My cell phone is presently a molten mess of plastic and metal somewhere in Camelot.”

  Katie flopped to the chair. “You can use mine when you’re ready. Where’s William?”

  “Down the hall. Smoke inhalation. They’re keeping him for observation.”

  Will did not appreciate being confined to a bed. The nurse informed her of this fact because, apparently, he was not being a model patient. As soon as they were separated in the emergency room, he insisted he needed to keep checking on Lucy. He finally agreed on a note passing system through the nurses—a flashback to the era before cell phones. The messages had stopped a few hours ago when the nurse told her they had taken him for a chest x-ray.

  “Did you guys figure out your caterpillar problem?” Katie asked, a bit too casually.

  “No.” Lucy studied little bits of dust that danced in the light. “But then I got offered a job in Ohio. Reporter, anchor, they’re giving me my pick. I’m taking the job. Will doesn’t know yet.”

  Katie tilted her head, contemplative. “This is what you really want?”

  “I can’t stay here. We’re not together anymore and I can’t work with him.” Or for his company.

  “When are you going to tell him?”

  “Well, I guess as soon as we’re alone. They say I’ll be released this afternoon. I have no idea where I’m going to go though. Where are you staying while you’re here?”

  “At a hotel…with Jeff.”

  Um. Say again? “With Jeff?”

  Katie’s cheeks turned red. “The kid’s staying with Dixie’s at one of her other houses for a few nights.”

  “Is there something you never mentioned?” Lucy asked.

  “We had a thing when I lived here.”

  Lucy’s mouth dropped open. Then she lifted her hand to theatrically press it closed.

  Katie fussed with the edge of Lucy’s blanket. “It’s not a big deal or anything. Nothing serious.”

  “I can’t believe you held out on me with this,” Lucy said low. “I mean, Jeff’s totally adorable, but you never said anything about him.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Lucy gestured around the room. “I’ve got time.”

  “Is she in here?” The door muted the sound coming from the hallway, but Lucy recognized her mother’s high-pitched voice immediately.

  “She’s got to be. They said she’s in two-oh-four. This is two-oh-four,”
her father replied.

  Lucy gritted her teeth. “Katie, is there an oxygen tank under the bed?”

  Katie leaned down. “Yeah, do you want me to get a nurse?”

  “No. Just, uh, hit me over the head with it until I’m in a coma. That’d be great.”

  “Lu—”

  The door creaked open.

  “Lulu, are you awake?” Her mother entered the room, and Lucy promptly pretended to be asleep. Or dead. Either would work.

  Katie shook her arm. “Wake up, sleepy head. Your mom’s here.”

  Lucy glowered at Katie and gave a little wave in her mother’s direction. “Hey, Mom.”

  “There’s my Luluroni.” Her father barreled over her mother to get to the bed. He wrapped her in a huge hug.

  Ugh. She hated that nickname.

  She gasped. “Dad. Bandages.”

  He reluctantly let go.

  “Hi, Mr. Campbell. I thought we agreed you’d wait for Lucy to call?” Katie quirked her head to the side.

  “Our girl got herself in trouble. Figured I’d have to come sort this out.”

  Was he for real? “Sort what out, exactly?” Lucy asked.

  “You’ve got yourself thrown into the hospital.”

  Lucy scrunched her eyebrows together and opened her mouth to respond.

  Her mother made a face at her. “Darling, you look atrocious. Do they not have combs at this hospital? We can pop out and get you one.”

  Lucy scowled. “Good to see you, too, Mom.”

  She pressed her eyes into slits and attempted to make Katie’s head explode with only her mind.

  It didn’t work.

  “Thank God I don’t have to plan your funeral, Lulu. Can you even imagine?” Her mother flicked something from her fingers and wrinkled her nose as though the place smelled awful. At the moment, it was scented with industrial strength cleaner, gumdrops, and extreme irritation.

  “I try not to, Mom.”

  Katie made big eyes at Lucy and mouthed, “I’m so sorry.”

  “She doesn’t want to talk about death, Berta. She’s in the hospital, for Pete’s sake.” Her father crossed his arms over his argyle sweater vest.

  “Here we go,” Lucy said under her breath.

  “This is kind of fun to watch,” Katie whispered.

  Lucy disagreed. And she’d finally had enough.

  “Mom. Dad. I had a really rough night. And you know what? It’s actually been a really rough ten years. So, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you’d go.” Lucy gestured to the hallway. “Like. Now. Now would be great.”

  “That’s very rude.” Her mother dug through her Louis Vuitton purse. “Have you eaten? I thought I had some crackers from the plane. Darn, where’d they go?”

  “You ate them while we waited for our bags.” Her dad gave his condescending look he’d practiced to perfection.

  “Right, well we can order something up. That’ll make things better.” She leaned to Katie. “She always had the strangest moods. Food’s the best way to calm her down.”

  Lucy seethed, and the monitor at the side of the bed started to chime.

  “Out. I mean it.” Lucy pointed to the door. “You march in here uninvited telling me all the things that are wrong with me. If you want to come and support me, great. But you’ve been here less than three minutes and you’ve insulted me, criticized my hair…and…I don’t need you here for that.”

  “Is she on drugs?” her father asked Katie in total seriousness.

  Lucy exaggerated a strangling noise.

  “Luce.” Will’s hoarse voice came from the entry.

  Her dark knight had come to her rescue one last time. Where had he found jeans and a T-shirt? And when had he had time to shower? He dropped a bag from the nearby café known for their breakfast burritos on the tray table next to her bed.

  “You brought me food.” Lucy’s stomach rumbled at the thought.

  Her mother raised an eyebrow at Katie. “Told you.”

  “Who’d you have to bribe to sneak it in?” Lucy asked.

  “No bribes, just some well-placed phone calls.” He gestured to her parents and Katie. “Princess, who are all these people?”

  “My family.”

  “Hello, Lucy’s family.” He shrugged off his jacket.

  Apparently, he planned to stick around awhile. She shouldn’t have been relieved, but even with everything else, she felt better when he walked through the door.

  She rummaged through the napkins and sauce packets. “Do you have any vodka?”

  He chuckled. “No. They frown on mixing alcohol with your pain meds.”

  “Lucy?” her father asked. “Lulu, who calls you Lucy?”

  “Everyone,” she said, her focus attuned to the emotional eating binge in front of her.

  “How’d you get out?” Katie asked Will.

  “My x-rays and oxygen levels are fine, but I’ll sound like I inhaled a bonfire for a while.” He propped a hip to sit on the edge of her bed. “Hoped you’d be resting, so I stepped out to get you non-hospital-grade food. Looks like I missed the party.”

  He was acting like everything was fine between them, but everything was not fine.

  “Where’d you get clothes? I thought your clothes all burned at Camelot?”

  He stared at her a beat too long. “I have my ways.”

  “Lulu, why were his clothes at your house?” her father asked.

  “You two are living together?” Her mother stared at Lucy as though she had suddenly sprouted a parasitic twin out of her neck.

  “William Covington.” Will cleared his throat and offered her mother his hand. She shook it and gave Lucy an accusing look.

  “You’re dating our girl?” her father asked.

  Not anymore… Lucy opened her mouth to correct her father. “N—”

  “What do you do, William?” Her father shot his patented witness-on-the-stand, take-em-down-death-ray stare at him.

  This wasn’t happening. Lucy shoved more tortilla in her mouth with a newfound understanding as to why she had been chubby for all those years.

  Will glanced to her and stopped abruptly, raising an eyebrow. “I…uh…own several television stations across the region.”

  Lucy snorted. “He owns dozens of them.”

  “Oh my.” Her mother’s nasally words pitched higher. “Why’s he with you, dear?”

  Katie gaped at her.

  Will tensed.

  Lucy squeezed the burrito, and a chunk of chorizo plopped out.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” Will had clicked into his get-it-done CEO tone.

  Had he forgotten they broke up? They were over?

  Her mother paled. “She’s…well…Lulu.”

  As though that explained exactly why he wouldn’t want to be with her. The burrito landed, thump, a solid mass into Lucy’s stomach.

  “Berta.” Her father’s tone held warning.

  Lucy was beyond over this little meeting. They were as impossible as they had always been.

  “Could you both leave?” Lucy stared straight at her parents, vaguely aware of Will’s hand moving to her leg. “I mean it. Don’t come again. You’ve made your choices. Now I’m making mine. Please…go.”

  “She’s kicking us out.” Her mother glanced to her father. “Graham, she can’t just kick us out.”

  “Lucille, apologize to your mother,” he barked at her.

  “No,” Lucy replied, shocking even herself with the unyielding tone of the word.

  Will stared her father down and spoke low. “You can’t just show up here and take over. Lucy, Lulu, whatever you want to call her…she’s not disposable. You can’t toss her aside and come back later.”

  Whoa. What?

  He wasn’t done.

  “I’m not sure what you see when you look at her, but the rest of us see the kind of person who takes in a cat because its owner died.” He held a professional note of respect despite the boldness of his words. He rose and efficiently lifted Lucy’s mother�
��s coat, shook it out, and offered it to her. She reflexively slid an arm into the sleeve. “Lucy’s the person who can’t cook but bakes you a birthday cake anyway because she knows you’re having a rough time.” Her mother had a deer in the headlights expression painted across her face as he unceremoniously hung her purse on her rigid shoulder and guided her toward the door.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” her father sputtered.

  Will took a step back to pull shut the privacy curtain, separating them from Lucy. But she could still hear his words.

  “She’s the kind of woman who makes you smile by simply being in the same room. She asked you to leave. It’s time for you to go.”

  Lucy stared in shock at the pastel-blue divider.

  “You’re out of line,” her father said.

  “I said she’s not disposable,” Will rasped.

  “Holy shit,” Katie whispered.

  “This is a mistake, Lulu,” her father called.

  “Think she already asked you to leave.” Will’s words were granite.

  More mutterings came from the doorway as they evacuated. But she knew her father was, how would he say it? Displeased. Very displeased. Will didn’t seem thrilled either. For once, her mother remained silent.

  Will emerged from behind the curtain.

  “That explains so much.” He wrapped up her abandoned burrito, as though he understood her appetite had vanished.

  “I should…um…go. You need privacy.” Katie stood and moved to the edge of the curtain. Then she turned and gave her a dazzling smile. “Lulu, can I have him when you’re done? Or could you order me one just like him for Christmas?”

  Will flashed the dimples at Katie, and she left.

  The two of them were alone. And she had something to say.

  Except, she couldn’t remember what it was anymore.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lucy’s pale face nearly matched the bleached white sheets of the hospital bed where she lay. But even after her parents’ ambush, she seemed okay. William sat with her in the chair next to her bed and curled his fingers around hers. Her smile hit him straight in the gut. He wanted to wrap himself around her and never let go.