“Luke, man, you okay?” Drew asked as he rounded the front of his truck. Luke focused so hard on his task he hadn’t even noticed Drew pull up beside him.
Luke’s head turned in Drew’s direction; the fear in his wide eyes felt like he stared right through him.
“Drew, thank God! You gotta come with me. She can’t…you gotta come now.”
“Who can’t? What’s wrong?”
Luke didn’t answer, just ran ahead to the construction trailer, rushing up the metal steps so fast Drew was surprised they didn’t fall.
The door started to close, but Drew pushed through. His eyes were immediately drawn to the girl sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, wheezing to breathe.
His girl.
It took less than a second for him to fall in front of Anna, his hands caressing both sides of her face as he tried to remember his training and not freak the hell out.
“She was in here by herself eating lunch, and when I walked in from talking to some of the guys, she couldn’t breathe.”
Drew tucked Anna’s long blonde hair behind one ear, trying to calm the look of panic in her eyes that he’d thankfully only had to witness once before. They’d been having a picnic at their spot on the river one summer afternoon, and Anna suddenly started wheezing for breath. Drew hadn’t known what was wrong or what to do. The helpless five minutes it took his dad to get there were the scariest of Drew’s life. It was the first moment he saw himself practicing medicine someday.
“Anna, sweetheart, where is your EpiPen?”
She shook her head, tears now running down her face as her airway began to close up.
“I searched her purse, but I didn’t see one,” Luke said, grabbing the bag and dumping its contents on the table above them.
“Where’s your pen, Luke?” Drew asked, his gaze never leaving Anna’s as he cradled her in his arms. The fear grew, and her eyes rolled back in her head from the inevitable panic attack.
“I thought there was one in my truck, but I couldn’t find it. I don’t remember where I had it last.”
Without thinking, Drew kissed her forehead gently and laid Anna’s head on the floor. He burst out the door to his truck and grabbed his fishing bag from behind the back seat. His own panic, that gut-wrenching fear that something might happen to her and he couldn’t stop it, got him back to her side in less than a minute.
“Damn, you two. Neither one of you could be bothered to carry the device that could save your peanut allergy asses.” Drew pulled the EpiPen from his bag and stabbed it in Anna’s leg right through her jeans.
He pulled her into his arms and closed his eyes, praying the injection would work quickly. Within minutes, her breathing became less labored and her eyes fluttered.
“Grab that bottle of water.” Drew took the antihistamine from his bag and pulled out the correct dosage. Luke handed him the water. “Sunshine, could you swallow this please?” Her mouth opened slightly, and he placed the pills inside.
“You carry an EpiPen and antihistamine in your fishing bag?” Luke asked.
“Hell, yeah, I do. I’m not about to get stuck on the lake with one of you.” One of you…Drew paused catching what he’d said. “I mean you. I’m not about to get stuck in the middle of nowhere with you and have you almost die on me because you didn’t carry it. So I do.”
Luke gave a small laugh, and Drew knew he hadn’t missed the slip. “You’ve been doing that for us since we were kids, haven’t you?”
Drew shrugged, pulling Anna into his arms. “I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
***
A warm hand on Drew’s shoulder pulled him from sleep. He blinked away the grogginess and raised his head from the side of Anna’s bed. Luke smiled down at him. The sun shining through the windows and a glance at the round wall clock told him it was just past seven in the morning.
With a roll of his neck, he tried unsuccessfully to relieve the crick from sleeping next to her all night, waking every hour to check her meds and vitals even though it wasn’t really necessary.
The look of panic, the sound of her struggling to breathe, haunted him. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was her on the floor of that trailer looking to him like he was her life raft in the middle of the ocean. He’d been terrified as hell, but protecting her, caring for her, holding her, caused his heart to swell with feelings he damn well knew he couldn’t have.
“How’s our girl doing?” Luke whispered, walking to the opposite side of the bed. He sat next to Anna in some of the ugliest, most uncomfortable chairs known to man.
Drew looked back to Anna, focusing on her sleep-ruffled hair falling around her face, the peaceful look she wore, and those adorable freckles sparingly scattered along her nose. He reached to take her hand in his, thought better of it, and backed away from the bed with a deep breath.
“She’s doing good,” Drew answered. “The meds may make her tired for a few days, but I’ll probably release her to go home this morning.”
“Beth went home?”
“Yeah, she needs her rest. Their parents left yesterday morning with Kevin to look at some horses. They’ll be gone a few days, so I said I’d stay with Anna.”
Luke rolled his eyes and leaned forward, careful not to move Anna’s bed or wake her. “Right, that’s the reason you stayed. So Beth could get some rest.”
“Don’t start with me. I barely slept, and I haven’t had any coffee so just…don’t.”
“Okay.” Luke raised his hands in defense as he leaned back and swung a leg over the side of his chair.
“Seriously?” Drew asked, full on skeptic in his tone.
“Hell no. You stayed because you couldn’t leave even if you wanted to. You’d sleep out in the hall on the damn floor before you went home with her in here, knowing something could happen and she might need you. She’s got this string attached to your heart that you couldn’t cut with a freaking chainsaw. The way you held her yesterday without even thinking about it, kissed her temple while you carried her to your truck. You’ve never stopped loving her.”
“I’m not in love with her,” Drew whispered, and even he couldn’t believe the lie.
“I never said you were in love with her, but thanks for confirming it for me just then.”
“I hate you, and I’m leaving. See that, I’m walking out of the room right now.”
“And you’ll get a cup of coffee, check in with Aunt Sara at the clinic, and be right back in this room. I give you…an hour. Man, you can stand there all day and deny it, but the very few girls that came after Anna when you’d pull your face out of a med school book or not work hundred-hour weeks were just Band Aids trying to cover your self-inflected gushing wound from leaving her. You will always love her, and if you try to deny it again, I’ll come over there and junk punch you.”
Drew scrubbed his hands down his face and walked toward the door. “Why am I friends with you again?”
“Because I’m awesome, buddy. You wouldn’t last a day without me.”
He quietly turned the knob on the door, stepping halfway though. “Luke, you’ll…”
The mocking Drew expected from his best friend wasn’t there, only an understanding smile. “Yeah, man, I’ll stay with her until you get back.”
Chapter Five
Anna
Sunlight streamed through the paisley curtains in Beth’s guest bedroom as Anna slowly woke from a sleep so heavy she couldn’t be sure if it had been hours or days. She vaguely remembered being in the hospital then being discharged to Beth since her parents were still out of town.
One thing she did remember with absolute clarity was the dream she’d had in the hospital. Even though he’d been holding her in the dream, she’d awoken to find Drew asleep leaning on the bed beside her. She blamed the drugs when her hand immediately touched his hair, running her fingers through its softness before she realized she was no longer in her beautiful dream world. Drew hadn’t woken, but his deep sigh of contentment escaped the sa
me as it would have so many years before. Sleep had pulled her under too quickly then to be embarrassed, but now that she had more of her mental faculties, the mortification was front and center.
She slowly dragged herself to the restroom, and her reflection in the mirror confirmed she looked as out of it as she still felt, her hair sticking in pretty much every direction possible. She smoothed what she could with a ponytail holder and set out to fill her need for coffee and bacon. In that order.
Closing the bedroom door behind her, Anna leaned against the wall for a minute, waiting for the stars clouding her vision to subside before the journey downstairs. She regained her focus in front of a photo hanging on the wall, running her fingers along the snapshot of Beth and Kevin with their girls. They sat in a pile of leaves all wearing smiles, except Charlotte, who frowned at the ground. Anna’s heart ached for the life she’d once thought would exist for her. The life where she had a family of her own, a house with a swing set and so much love. She’d wanted it so badly, and when the pregnancy tests continued to show only one pink line for a year, she’d gone into full-on fertility mode to try and make her and Mason a family of three.
Now Anna was almost thirty, single, staying with her sister after having an allergy attack like a kid. The dream of being a mother seemed so far away now, even if her body would allow it to happen.
Her gaze moved to the next picture, and her breath caught as she stared. The group photo was taken at her parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Drew’s arm wrapped protectively around Anna’s waist, their eyes focused on each other instead of the camera. As much as she wished she didn’t, she remembered what came next. Drew kissed her temple, whispering in her ear how he couldn’t wait to officially be a member of her family.
Anna pushed away from the wall, willing this morning’s venture down memory lane from her mind. The thought of being in a relationship again, of physical or emotional intimacy of any kind and trusting someone not to rip her apart, wasn’t something she planned to experience again anytime soon.
An empty kitchen greeted her, but a fresh pot of coffee sat still dripping even though the clock on the stove read almost noon. Anna poured herself a cup and spotted her laptop bag. Someone must have dropped it off from the construction site. She fired it up and answered emails about her adjustments to the design specs and confirmed a meeting with her boss for a progress report.
“Hey, sleepy head,” Beth said, waddling into the kitchen with a grimace. She kissed Anna on the top of her head and sat with a deep sigh beside her. “Glad to see you awake and moving around. You had us scared yesterday.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I haven’t had an attack in so long that I got lazy. I had the last donut from the box after lunch and got distracted with a conference call. I didn’t think about what other donuts might have been previously cozied up to it.”
“Well, let’s be more careful, shall we? If Drew hadn’t come to Yoakum Ridge for lunch, things could have been much worse.” Beth patted her hand. She stood with a frown, moving toward the refrigerator. “Let me make you some lunch. You should eat.”
Anna joined her at the pantry, pulling the bread from the bottom shelf. “I’m perfectly capable of making a sandwich myself. You sit down and rest.”
Beth rubbed her belly and leaned against the granite. “Not sleeping well with this little girl kicking me every five minutes, but Charlotte is about to wake up from her nap, and I’ve got to run some errands before I pick the girls up from school.”
“Let me do that for you.”
“Oh no. Drew already gave me a lecture this morning about making sure you take your meds and not letting you drive or go to work for the rest of the week. He’s my only doctor right now; I’m not about to piss him off.” Beth grinned, grabbing her shopping list from the refrigerator.
“Drew was here?” Anna said before she could stop the words. A smirk was already appearing on Beth’s face.
“Yeah, I practically had to sign my name in blood to get him to agree to let you come home with me. He hadn’t left your side since he found you in that trailer. He even followed us home and carried you up to bed yesterday.”
“He what?” God above, how could she not remember that? It seemed the embarrassment had no end.
“He fell asleep on the couch last night after pretending to keep me company, but his eyes just kept wandering to the stairs. He checked on you this morning, then I forced him to go home and shower before he had to be at the clinic. He gave me the lecture and said he’d check in again later.”
Anna could see the wheels turning in her sister’s head. She was not coherent enough for whatever Beth was about to attack her with. “What if I ride with you and do the errands? You stay in the car with Charlotte, and I’ll get the groceries and whatever else you need. I won’t be driving, and you can get some rest. If the friendly neighborhood doc sees me, I’ll show him I’m perfectly fine and save you his wrath.”
“Deal.” Beth sighed, heaving herself away from the counter to retrieve Charlotte from her nap.
Later, Anna had successfully navigated the market with little dizziness, adding ingredients for meatloaf and mashed potatoes to cook for dinner. They dropped off some boxes at the post office and grabbed a coat from the dry cleaner before their last stop at the salon.
Dawn Matthews handed Anna the bottle of shampoo she’d ordered then squeezed her neck so tightly Anna struggled to breathe.
Dawn and Anna had been friends their whole lives. When she and Drew broke up, Anna found herself unable to spend time in Sage Hill without being pulled down by the memory of the someday she’d planned that was gone. Her relationship with Dawn had suffered, and she hated that she’d let it, but Dawn had never shown her anything but understanding and kindness.
“We’ve missed you around here! You don’t get home nearly often enough.” Dawn held Anna’s shoulders, giving a gentle squeeze before releasing her.
“I know, I…”
“You know, we’d all like to give that ex of yours a few choice words for what he did to you, but it’s so nice having you around now. Maybe you’ll think about making it permanent?” Dawn’s pleading smile had easily swayed Anna into some serious trouble as a kid, but she wouldn’t give on this one.
“That would be a serious commute to work every day, two hours each way,” Anna answered with a chuckle. “But I promise to come home more often. Tell me more about what’s going on with you. Beth said you have a tall, dark hottie you’ve been dating.”
“Justin is wonderful. He actually just asked me to move in with him. We’re looking at houses,” she squealed with a dreamy look in her eye that almost brought Anna to her knees. She’d been there, twice, and she’d crashed and burned both times. Dawn continued. “I’m still helping my grandparents at the diner when I can and on the farm. They think they can do it all even though they are close to eighty now. So super busy, but great.”
Anna hugged her friend, glad that one of the sweetest people she’d ever known had finally found happiness after fighting through the trauma of losing both parents as a child. “Wait, is this Justin Grant? The same Justin Grant you dragged me to the river court to watch take his shirt off during their pickup games? When he’d come over to play video games with my brother, you stalked him from the balcony above the living room.”
“Confession? I was also stalking your brother to see him shirtless,” Dawn said, scrunching up her nose.
“Gross, but yes, I remember.”
“I’d love for you to come out with Justin and me for dinner. Maybe we could double date?” Dawn winked, nudging her head across the street at the Stevens’s clinic.
Anna shook her head with a kind smile, focusing on her shoes. “I will take you up on dinner, but I think I’ll just have to be a third wheel.”
Before Dawn could argue, Anna explained she had to get to the school to pick up her nieces, hugged her friend, and slipped out the door.
Trying to avoid eye contact with the too-familiar
clinic across the street was as impossible as not closing her eyes when she sneezed, but she regretted the slip immediately. Drew stood with his back to her Avery Bennett clutching his bicep while she threw her head back in fake laughter.
Anna looked to the sky, wondering why she had to see the one girl who had never stopped trying to create a wedge between her and Drew in high school.
Avery practically begged for his attention with her low-cut top and sky-high boots as he locked the door to the clinic and turned to open her car door parked on the street. She kissed his cheek, sank into her black Mustang, and drove away.
Anna forced her gaze away, biting the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted the familiar metallic burn. Walking with way too much force than necessary, she flopped in the passenger seat of Beth’s minivan.
“That wasn’t what it…”
“I don’t give a damn, Beth. Just go, okay?” Anna’s voice wavered with emotion, understanding she had no right to the insane burn of jealousy in her stomach but unable to rein it in no matter how hard she tried to be logical. She hated being this weak person who couldn’t stop thinking about Drew leaving her and Mason sleeping with another woman. All the inadequacy rushed in full force with the images. She’d loved two men in her life, and they had both ripped her apart. One of them just happened to be staring after her in the side mirror as Beth held her shaking hand and drove away.
Anna cooked dinner while her sister rested on the couch. She gave Charlotte a bath and read each of the three kids a bedtime story before returning to clean up the kitchen she’d all but threatened her sister not to touch.
The exhaustion set in as she made her way back up the stairs, her mind ready for a hot soak in the tub but her body sure to collapse on the bed.
Fingers perched on the door handle to her room, Anna noticed Beth’s light still on at the end of the hall. She pushed the door open slowly. Her sister perched in the middle of the bed clutching her belly.
“Beth, what’s wrong?” Anna immediately dropped down beside her sister, stroking her back. “Is it the baby?”
When It Was Us Page 4