“Better,” he commented, his heart turning over at the shadows in her eyes that no amount of sprucing up could banish. He held out his hand. “Now let’s go see to it that your father gets well.”
As they pulled up outside the hospital, Cara turned to him, stripped for once of her brave facade. Her lower lip quivered. “What if he doesn’t?”
The doubts, the forlorn look in her eyes, tore at him. He squeezed her hand. “He will, princess. He has everything to live for.”
But when they reached the intensive care unit, not even Rod’s optimism could counter the ominous hum of activity. Louise was waiting for them just outside, her dark hair uncharacteristically mussed, her flawless makeup long since gone. Cara hesitated, then squared her shoulders and moved forward with a brisk, confident step. Rod had never been prouder of her.
“How is he?” she asked as the older woman embraced her.
“They say it’ll be at least another twenty-four hours before we’ll know for sure. If...” Louise’s voice shook. She took a deep breath and drew herself up. Rod noticed that there was compassion and reassurance in her eyes as they met Cara’s. The two women were united in their love for Scottie.
“If he makes it that long, he has a chance. The doctors aren’t trying to gloss this over. Obviously, it doesn’t help that he just went through another attack a few weeks ago.”
“It’s all my fault,” Cara whispered, her shoulders slumping. The fight seemed to drain right out of her.
Louise and Rod exchanged a look. “How on earth do you figure that, princess?”
“If I hadn’t gone away...”
“He would just have worried about something else. Now stop it.”
She turned an angry gaze on him. “Why should I listen to you? You’re the one I had to go chasing after.”
The accusation stung, just as she’d known it would. Rod paled, his jaw tightening. This time it was Louise who stepped in.
“Stop it, Cara,” she said firmly. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s Scottie himself. He wouldn’t listen. Do you know I actually caught him with a cigar about ten minutes after you got on that plane to Mexico? I’m surprised the whole room didn’t go up in flames with all the oxygen they had in there.”
That brought a faint smile to Cara’s lips. He noticed she had already chewed off most of her lipstick. “When can I see him?”
“Same rules as before. One visitor at a time. Ten minutes every hour. It’s almost time. You go in. I’m sure he’s tired of seeing my face by now. He’ll be glad to know you’re home.”
Rod reached out and clasped Louise’s hand as Cara approached the intensive care unit door, glancing impatiently at her watch.
“You’re a hell of a woman,” he said gently.
“I love them both.”
“I think they know that.”
They sat there, watching helplessly as Cara paced.
“She’s ready to crack,” he said softly to Louise.
The secretary surveyed him knowingly, then smiled. “She’s stronger than you think. She’ll be better once she’s seen him. How are you holding up?”
“Me? Don’t you remember? I’m the coldhearted man who lets disasters roll off his back, the womanizer who never sticks around long enough to see the damage he’s caused.”
“I, for one, never believed that nonsense,” Louise retorted.
“Then you’re in a minority.”
“Does Cara believe it?”
“Actually, no. That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is? One look in your eyes and I can see you love her. I’d have to guess she feels the same way or I’d never have found her in your hotel room in Mexico. She doesn’t take such things lightly.”
“You always were a shrewd woman, Louise. There’s just one hitch. Cara and I don’t want the same things.”
“If you start out wanting each other badly enough, time has a way of taking care of the rest.” She smiled at him. “Scottie will be pleased. He guessed, you know. He told me after he talked to you both in Mexico that you two were in love. Scared the daylights out of him that you both might be too stubborn to admit it.”
Rod grinned. “You don’t suppose he staged this heart attack just to get us here, where he could have a hand in manipulating things to suit himself?”
She laughed at that. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Then I know he’s going to live. He won’t want to miss seeing how it all turns out.”
* * *
It was worse this time than before. Knowing what to expect when she walked through the doorway to see Scottie still hadn’t prepared Cara for the sight of all those tubes and monitors being back again. She knew what every piece of equipment implied, and none of it was good.
He looked even more diminished now than he had when she’d left for Mexico. In less than two weeks he’d lost more weight, his cheeks were sunken, his complexion bloodless. There was none of the spirit and fight she remembered from childhood, none of the determination she’d seen after the last attack.
She blinked back tears and swallowed terror. “Scottie,” she whispered, “I’m back.”
Blue eyes blinked open, registered her presence and closed again on a sigh. She took his huge, callused hand in her own and held it to her cheek.
“Get well, damn you. I need you. Rod’s going to take off and leave me. If you die, I won’t have anybody.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. “He’s so like you, Scottie,” she whispered. “It would be like losing you twice, and I couldn’t take that. We both know how stubborn you can be, so that means you can beat this. You’ve got me waiting for you, and Louise and a company. I don’t want to run WHS one minute longer than I have to. I nearly made a mess of it in Mexico, but Rod and I did okay in the end. Actually, we make a pretty good team, but I suspect you knew we would.”
A nurse touched her shoulder, “I’m sorry, miss, but you’ll have to leave now.”
“But I just got back. There’s so much I need to tell him.”
“He needs his rest now. You’ll be able to tell him later.”
Later. She clung to the word as some sort of talisman. There would be a later.
* * *
The days that followed passed in a haze of uncertainty. Cara moved between the hospital and her apartment with no real awareness of when the transitions took place, only that Rod executed them with quiet insistence. He dropped her off at the hospital each morning at eight, after insisting that she eat breakfast and standing over her until she’d finished it. He returned at six and sat with her through the evening, before taking her and Louise out for dinner. She had no idea where he went in between.
They had been back in New York a week before she realized how thoroughly enmeshed he had become in her life. He moved around her apartment as though he belonged there, and she found that she liked the intimacy of finding his razor by the bathroom sink, his shirts hanging in the closet. Most of all she liked waking in his arms, feeling his strength surround her and give her the courage to get through another day. It was a make-believe world, but she didn’t have the will to fight it.
Scottie was improving bit by tiny bit. The doctors were cautiously optimistic. She clung to every shred of hope they offered. It got her through the days. Rod got her through the nights.
Now it was barely 6:00 a.m. and he was still sprawled across the bed, arms outflung, one leg draped across hers. She grinned and wondered how he had ever managed on a cot, much less in a hammock. He was one of those people who would have made even a king-size bed seem too small. She thought about the contrast between his very masculine presence and her very feminine decor. He’d taken one look at the frills their first night here and his lips had twitched with amusement. Until that moment, she’d never noticed how many ruffles and tucks and flowers there were from bedspread to drapes to lamp shades. Perhaps it was time to redecorate, she thought, then brought herself up short. Why? Rod would be gone soon.
She sighed and his arms cam
e around her.
“You’re awake early,” he mumbled sleepily. “What are you thinking about?”
She curved happily into the embrace. “Ruffles.”
His eyes snapped open at that. “I beg your pardon.”
“I was just thinking how cute you look surrounded by all these ruffles.”
“Cute?” His lips found the precise spot on her neck that set her wild.
She groaned. “I take it back. You are wonderful. Handsome. Sexy.”
“But not cute.”
Her back arched as his mouth sought out her breast. “Definitely... Oh... not... oh, Rod... cute.”
He grinned at her and sprang out of bed. “Thank you. Now let’s hustle. I want to spend a few minutes with Scottie this morning, too, before I get started on my day.”
Cara sat up and drew her knees to her chest and watched him move around the room, his lithe body as graceful and exciting as a tiger’s. “That reminds me. I’ve been meaning to ask you where you’re spending your days.”
“At the office,” he said and shut himself in the bathroom.
Cara stared after him, openmouthed. She was still sitting like that when he emerged from his shower wearing nothing more than a towel and a smile.
“Explain.”
He stared at her blankly, removed the towel from around his waist and used it to dry his hair. Admittedly, it was one hell of a distraction, but Cara wasn’t allowing him off the hook that easily.
“You said you’ve been going to the office.”
“Where else would I go?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it. What do you do there?”
He laughed. “Princess, if you don’t know what an engineer does at WHS, then no one does.”
She shook her head. “I know I sound dense, but I never thought of you actually sitting down in an office behind a desk.”
“I don’t do it all that often, but that doesn’t mean I can’t when the need arises, and it seemed to me that the need had arisen. Louise said there were decisions that had to be made, and neither of us wanted to bother you with them. She helped out the first couple of days just to be sure I knew the routine.”
That really silenced her. “Wait a minute,” she said finally. “You’re actually running WHS?”
“Someone has to,” he said nonchalantly. “Scottie certainly can’t and with everything else you have to handle right now, you’re not up to it. Don’t worry, princess, I’m just keeping your chair warm. You can have it back the minute you’re ready.”
“I don’t give a damn about getting my chair back. I’m just astounded. I thought you hated this sort of thing.”
Rod looked uncomfortable. “This is an emergency.”
She studied him closely. He didn’t look all that miserable. “How do you feel about the work, though?” she asked cautiously.
“It’s work,” he replied evasively. “Now come on and get moving. There’s a lot of it to do and I want to get started.”
She actually thought she heard a note of excitement in his voice and her heart flipped over.
* * *
Over the next weeks the pattern varied hardly at all, except that Scottie began an astonishing recovery. By the end of July he was barking orders at everyone again and demanding to be released from the hospital.
“Only if you come home with me,” Cara insisted, then caught the look that passed between her father and Louise. “Never mind.”
“I’ll take good care of him,” Louise promised.
“I know that.”
“Then why the scowl?” Scottie demanded. “Don’t tell me you don’t approve, because I know different.”
Cara and Louise both blushed. “It’s not that.”
“What then?”
“I guess I was just counting on your being at my place when...” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
Scottie completed it for her. “When Rod leaves.”
She nodded miserably.
“Come here and sit beside your old man.”
Cara went and perched on the edge of the bed. He took her hand in his.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
“About Rod?”
“Yes. How would you feel about me taking on a partner?”
Her eyes lit up with excitement. Then she shook her head. “He’ll never do it.”
“He’s already agreed to... if it’s okay with you.”
Cara was astonished. “You’ve discussed it with him?”
“Actually it was his idea. Seemed to think it might solve some other problems he was having. I don’t suppose you know anything about those?”
“Yes.” She felt like shouting. She threw her arms around Scottie. “I love you.”
“I know that, but I’m not the one you ought to be saying those words to. I think there’s a fellow over at the office who needs to hear ’em a whole lot more than I do.”
She grinned at him and hugged Louise. “I’m on my way.”
* * *
At the door to Scottie’s office, she hesitated. Rod was sitting behind her father’s desk, his sleeves rolled up to reveal muscular forearms from which his tan was fading. He was chewing on the end of a pen and staring pensively out the window at the skyscrapers beyond. He didn’t look happy. Her heart sank. What if this wasn’t what he wanted after all?
She went up behind his chair and put her arms around his neck. “A penny for your thoughts.”
He twirled the chair around and pulled her onto his lap. “They’re worth much more.”
He drew her head down for a long, breath-stealing kiss. “That’s what I was thinking about.”
“I like the way your mind works. Any other ideas?”
“Plenty, but your father would fire me if I tried any of them out here.”
“That’s not the way I hear it.”
Hazel eyes regarded her closely. “He told you?”
She nodded. “Is it what you really want?”
He sighed and tightened his arms around her. “Remember when you told me about wanting to follow in Scottie’s footsteps? You said you’d discovered later that you were actually good at it.”
“I remember.”
“Well, that’s what I’ve found out these past few weeks, too. I’m every bit as good in this office as I am out in the field.”
She touched a finger to his lips. “I never doubted for a minute that you’d be good at anything you decided to do. The question is do you like it?”
“Surprisingly enough, I do. I’m not sure I could take a steady diet of it, but with the agreement Scottie and I have worked out, I wouldn’t have to. I’ll split my time between fieldwork and New York, depending on...” His words faltered.
“Depending on what?”
“Things.”
“What things?”
Amusement lurked in the depths of his eyes and his lips formed a half smile. “You couldn’t let me do this the conventional way, could you?”
She looked at him blankly. “Do what?”
“Propose. I actually had reservations for a fancy restaurant tonight. I’d ordered the finest champagne. I even put in a request for a full moon. I wanted all the romantic props.”
“You don’t need them.”
This time she got a full-fledged grin. “Does that mean you want to hear my speech now? I have this one about compromise and love and commitment and white picket fences. It’s in my pocket.”
She grinned back at him. “I’d settle for one that gets to the point.”
“Will you marry me?”
“And be your partner?”
“Actually I’ll be Scottie’s partner.”
She hit him. “You know what I mean.”
“Will you be my partner and friend and lover?”
“You left off wife.”
“You weren’t listening, princess. As usual. That was the original question.”
“In that case, I accept.”
&
nbsp; “Don’t you want to think about it?”
“And give you time to change your mind? Not a chance.”
“It will be okay, princess, I promise you. We’ll make it work.”
“I know we will.”
“Starting now.” He stood up and carried her across the office, then kicked the door shut. He took an extra five seconds to flip the lock.
“I thought you had dinner reservations.”
“I do.” His lips were hot and demanding as they swept along her jaw, across her brow. “Later.”
“Shouldn’t we get dressed?” The words came out on a breathless sigh.
“Undressed is better.”
He proved his point by slipping her blouse off her shoulders. Her skirt slid to the floor. Her insides quivered as his hands moved over her.
“Undressed is definitely better,” she concurred. It was the last thing she said for a very long time.
Shadows filled the office and turned to darkness. Murmured words and quiet sighs filled the air. With Rod’s body pressed to hers on the narrow sofa, Cara suddenly began chuckling.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was just wondering about something. Do you suppose Scottie and Louise ever...”
“Cara!” He silenced her with a kiss.
They never did get to dinner.
* * * * *
“Sherryl Woods writes emotionally satisfying novels about family, friendship and home. Truly feel-great reads!”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
Love can be found in the most unexpected of places...
And sometimes, it takes a family’s help to find it.
Join #1 New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods and the Carlton family in the Perfect Destinies saga, where true love, a little matchmaking, second chances and a sassy tale of revenge (with an unexpected twist) await:
Isn’t It Rich? (March 2016)
Priceless (April 2016)
Treasured (May 2016)
Destiny Unleashed (June 2016)
Looking for more great reads from Sherryl Woods?
Catch up with the O’Brien family in Chesapeake Shores, where stories of friendship, family and love are only just around the corner—you may never want to leave. Collect the complete series!
The Inn at Eagle Point
In Too Deep Page 18