"He's on his way home," Randy answered. "His wife is about to go into labor."
"Who else do we have over there?"
"Anita is in Lebanon. I'm already on it."
"Good." Cole hung up the phone to find Gisela shaking her head in disgust. "What?"
"You're addicted," Gisela replied. "The news is a drug to you, and you can't get enough."
"The news is my business, and this is a newspaper. We're supposed to report what's going on in the world."
"How about what's going on in your own life? Aren't you interested in that?"
"What are you talking about?"
Josh cleared his throat. "I don't think you two need me for this. I'll come back later."
"Oh, you can stay," Gisela said with a frustrated shake of her head. "I'm done. I'm leaving."
"Okay. I'll see you later tonight," Cole said, as Gisela picked up her designer purse.
She shook her head, an expression of amazement on her face. "I don't think so. Did you hear nothing of what I just said?"
"Uh..." he said warily. What on earth had she been talking about?
"Oh, my God," she said in exasperation. "You really don't listen. I'm breaking up with you. I never want to see you again. Is that clear? Or do you need a ton of bricks to hit you in the head?" To make her point, she picked up the heavy stapler on his desk and threw it at him on her way out the door.
Cole ducked, but not fast enough. The stapler caught the side of his head and the next thing he saw was a burst of stars that went along with an explosion of pain in his forehead. He put his fingers to his face and they came away bloody. "What the hell?"
He was barely aware of the flurry of activity that followed. Someone gave him a towel. Josh helped him into the elevator and down to the parking garage, where he put him in his car and drove to the nearest hospital. Apparently, the emergency department of St. Timothy's wasn't as impressed by the gash in his head as his coworkers had been, because they handed him an ice pack and told him to take a seat in a waiting room that was overflowing with a mix of people, many of whom didn't appear to be speaking English.
"This could take hours," Cole muttered. "We should forget it."
"We can't forget it. You probably need stitches." Josh sat down in the chair next to him. "You really know how to piss off a woman, I'll say that for you. How's your head?"
"It hurts like hell." The throbbing pain made it difficult for him to speak.
"Next time you break up with a woman, make sure there aren't any heavy objects lying around."
"I didn't know we were breaking up."
"Apparently that was the problem," Josh said with a grin.
Cole moved his head, then groaned at the pain that shot through his temple. "Dammit. This is the last thing I needed today. I've got to get out of here. I have things to do."
"What things? It's Friday night."
"The news doesn't stop just because it's the weekend. In case you haven't noticed, the world has gone crazy in the last few months."
Josh leaned forward. "In case you haven't noticed, your world is going crazy."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you should start paying attention to problems closer to home, like your girlfriend. You can probably get Gisela back if you call her tonight."
"Why would I want to do that? She almost killed me."
"If you'd moved faster, she wouldn't have hit you. You've gotten slow, Parish."
"I have not gotten slow." Even though his job kept him at his desk for long hours at a time, he worked out every day. "Frankly, I think I've had enough of Gisela anyway. What is with that baby-girl voice she uses? It makes me want to rip my hair out."
"Thank God she finally got to you. She's been driving me crazy for weeks. She was hot though."
"Cole Parish?" a nurse asked, interrupting them. "Come with me."
Cole got to his feet. "You can wait here, if you want," he said to Josh.
"I'll stick with you. It's a zoo out here," Josh replied as a group of drag queens came into the waiting room.
They followed the nurse down the hall and into a room with three beds, each separated by a thin curtain. An elderly man lay in one bed. The other was empty. "A doctor will be in shortly," the nurse said. She had barely left the room when they heard a commotion in the hallway.
A flurry of people in scrubs dashed past the door, shouting out various medical terms as they pushed a gurney down the hall. Cole's reporter instincts kicked in despite the pain in his head. He craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on.
"I'll check it out," Josh said.
Cole frowned as his friend rushed out of the room, irritated that he was sidelined while someone else caught the action. He sat down on the bed, holding the ice pack to his head, and wished for a television set. If they were going to make people wait this long, at least they could offer an all-news channel to take their minds off their pain.
Josh walked back into the room a few minutes later. "Gunshot victim," he said. "Convenience store robbery in the Mission district. The owner shot the robber, a seventeen-year-old kid."
"Will he make it?"
"They took him to surgery."
"I should call Blake," Cole said, referring to the assistant editor who ran the city desk on Friday nights.
"I'm sure he's already heard about it."
"Where's my phone?"
"Who knows? Relax, dude. You might have a concussion."
"I don't have a concussion, and I don't want the Trib to miss the story. We have a lot of competition these days with blogs and online news outlets."
"We can handle the competition." Josh sat down in the chair next to the bed. "Besides, you have a lot of people working for you. Let them do their jobs." Josh leaned back and toyed with a piece of tubing hanging from some sort of a machine. "What do you think this is?"
"I have no idea. Where is the damn doctor anyway? I could have bled to death by now."
"'Death by Stapler,'" Josh said with a laugh. "There's a headline for you. Or how about 'Psycho Supermodel Snaps'?"
Cole groaned. "Not funny."
"It is kind of funny."
Josh was right. His personal life was now officially a joke. Gisela's parting shot had definitely gotten his attention. Maybe he did need to focus on something or someone besides the news. But not Gisela. That was over. He'd known it for a while. He'd just been too busy to end it. Now that she'd done it, he felt more relieved than anything else.
Cole looked up as a woman entered the room.
"Good evening, Mr.--” She stopped abruptly, looking up from the chart with wide, shockingly familiar eyes. "Cole?"
Natalie?
His heart thudded against his chest. It couldn't be Natalie. Not now, not after all these years. Not here, not in his city.
She moved farther into the room, slow, small steps, as if she wasn't quite sure she wanted to come closer. Her hair, a beautiful dark red, was pulled back in a clip, showing off the perfect oval of her face. Her eyes were a brilliant blue, her lips as soft and full as he remembered, but it was the tiny freckle at the corner of her mouth that made him suck in his breath. He'd kissed that freckle. He'd kissed that mouth. God! Natalie Bishop. The only woman he'd ever... No, he couldn't think it, much less say it.
It should have been easy to see her. It had been ten years, but it seemed like ten minutes.
She was older now, a woman -- not a girl. There were tiny lines by her eyes and around her mouth. She'd filled out, grown up, and she'd come back. He wasn't ready to see her again. She didn't look ready to see him, either.
Cole suddenly became aware of the white coat she was wearing, the stethoscope around her neck, the chart in her hands. She was a doctor. She was his doctor!
"Well, isn't this quite the reunion?" Josh murmured, breaking the silence between them. "Remember me?"
Natalie looked at Josh blankly for a second; then recognition kicked in. "Of course. You're Josh, Dylan's twin brother and Cole's
next-door neighbor."
"Good memory."
Natalie turned her attention back to Cole. "Did you come to see me about the book? Is it really about Emily?" Her gaze moved to his head. "Oh, you're hurt. You have a laceration. That's why you're here. Of course that's why you're here," she added with a shake of her head. "What am I thinking?"
"What book? What are you talking about?"
Her mouth opened, then closed. "Nothing. Are you in pain?"
"I've had better days. Are you really a doctor?"
"Yes, I am. What happened?" She held his chart in front of her like a protective shield.
"I got hit by a flying object," he said, preferring not to go into the details.
"His girlfriend threw a stapler at his head," Josh interjected helpfully. "She was trying to get his attention."
"Did it work?" Natalie asked briskly, her demeanor changing at the mention of a girlfriend. Or maybe she was just coming to grips with the fact that they were in the same room. Whatever the reason, she now had on her game face.
"I'm definitely switching to paper clips," Cole replied.
She stared at him for a long moment. He wondered what she was seeing, what she was thinking. Not that he cared. Why would he care what she thought of him? He knew what he thought of her. And it wasn't good.
"You may need stitches," she said.
He wondered how she knew that when she hadn't looked at the wound. In fact, she'd stopped a good three feet away and couldn't seem to make herself come any closer. "How long have you worked here?"
"A few years."
"A few years?" he echoed. She'd been in San Francisco a few years, working at a hospital a couple of blocks from the newspaper?
"St. Timothy's is an excellent hospital. They offered me a terrific opportunity, better than I could find anywhere else. That's why I came to San Francisco," she said in a defensive rush. "It had nothing to do with you. I'm going to get some sutures. I'll be back."
Josh let out a low whistle as Natalie left the room. "I didn't see that one coming."
"I didn't either," Cole murmured. It must be his night for getting blindsided by women.
"She looks good."
"I didn't notice."
"Yeah, tell that to someone who doesn't remember how crazy you were about her."
"I can't believe she's been in San Francisco for years. Why would she come here after everything that happened with Emily and with me?"
"She always loved the cable cars."
Cole's chest tightened. Natalie had loved the cable cars and the sailboats down at the marina, the fresh crab on Fisherman's Wharf, the long walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. At one time, he'd thought she'd fallen in love with the city as much as with him. Hell, maybe it had always been the city and never him. Not that he cared anymore. She was old news. Nothing was worse than old news.
"What was that book she was talking about?" Josh asked.
"I have no idea." It occurred to him that it was the second time that day someone had mentioned something about a book.
Silence fell between them as several long minutes passed. It was too quiet. Cole didn't like it. "Do you think she's coming back?"
Buy All She Ever Wanted
Excerpt: ASK MARIAH
Barbara Freethy
Excerpt © 2014
All Rights Reserved
CHAPTER ONE
Michael Ashton beat the fire engines to his house by thirty seconds. Smoke poured from the kitchen window of the old Victorian as he jumped out of his car and ran up the walkway. His daughter's favorite teddy bear lay abandoned on the top step. Cups from a tea party were scattered across the welcome-home mat as if the participants had left in a big hurry, as if they had smelled smoke and run inside to see what was wrong.
His heart raced as he reached for the doorknob. Locked! He fumbled with his keys, swearing, sweating each second of delay. His children were inside. He had to get to them. The keys slipped out of his grasp and fell to the ground. He stepped backward, crushing a tiny pink teacup.
To hell with the keys. Panicked, he slammed his body against the door, forcing it open.
All he could think of were Lily and Rose, his six-year-old identical twin daughters. If anything happened to them, he would never forgive himself. They were all he had left.
"Please, God, let them be all right," he whispered as he entered the house. Smoke drifted through the hall and dining room, darkening the white walls, covering the hardwood floors with dust. "Lily! Rose!" he shouted as he moved toward the thickest area of smoke. "Where are you?"
The girls burst through the kitchen door, two whirling, smoky figures in blue jeans. Michael swept them into his arms, pressing their heads against his chest for one thankful second. "You're all right. You're all right," he muttered. "Let's get out of here." He ran toward the front door. Two firemen passed him on the steps.
"Anyone else inside?" one of them asked.
"Mrs. Polking, our nanny." Michael didn't stop moving until he reached the sidewalk. Then he set the girls down on the pavement and tried to catch his breath. Lily and Rose stared back at him.
They didn't appear to be hurt. Nor did they seem overly concerned about the fire. In fact, on closer inspection there was a light of excitement in Lily's dark eyes, and Rose looked guilty, so guilty that her gaze seemed fixed on the untied laces of her tennis shoes. At that, his panic began to fade.
He squatted in front of them so he could look directly into their eyes. Their long brown hair was a mess. Lily's pigtails were almost completely out. Rose still had one rubber band clinging desperately to a couple of strands of hair, while the rest swung free past her shoulders. There were no bumps or bruises on their small faces, no scratches to mar their tender skin, no sign of blood. "Are you hurt?" He ran his hand down Rose's arms, then did the same to Lily.
Lily shook her head, then Rose. Neither one said a word. Not even now. Not even in the midst of a crisis would they speak to him. Michael sighed, feeling the tear in his heart grow bigger. Since their mother, Angela, had died almost a year ago, the girls had refused to speak to him. No one had been able to tell him why. Thousands of dollars of family therapy had not helped him get to the root of their problem.
The doctors said the children, for whatever reason, didn't trust him. They were supposed to trust him. He was their father, their protector. He would die for them, but he couldn't seem to convince them of that fact.
"This is not my fault," a woman said from behind him.
Michael straightened as their nanny, Eleanor Polking, came down the steps, assisted by one of the firemen. Eleanor was a short, robust woman in her late fifties who carried an extra forty pounds.
"What the hell happened?" he asked.
"The girls set the kitchen on fire. That's what happened," Eleanor said in obvious distress.
She tried to push her hair away from her eyes, but the sweat from her forehead glued it in place. There was a wild light in her eyes. She looked as if she wanted to run as far away from them as possible, if she could just figure out an escape route. Michael had seen that expression before, on the faces of the four nannies who had previously served time in his home.
He glanced at Lily, then at Rose. They wouldn't look him in the eye. Damn.
"We were just making pasta, Mrs. Polking," Lily said defiantly, directing her explanation to the nanny. "Like Mama used to make."
"For our tea party. We didn't mean to cause a fire." Rose darted a quick look at her father, then turned back to Mrs. Polking. "We didn't know you had to put water in the pot. When the pot got all red and smelled funny, we threw it in the trash."
Michael groaned. "Let me see your hands. Did you burn them?"
Lily and Rose held out their hands. Their pudgy little fingers were covered with streaks of red and green paint, but thankfully there were no burns.
"We used a hot pad, Mrs. Polking," Lily said, "just like you told us."
"Why were the girls alone in the kitchen?" he asked the nanny. "Don
't I pay you to watch them?"
"I was in the bathroom, cleaning the paint off my dress." Eleanor turned around, revealing a circle of green paint on her ample bottom. "Do you want to know how this happened?" she demanded, her anger matching his.
Michael sighed. "Not really, no."
"The girls painted the chair in my bedroom green."
He scowled at Lily and Rose. "You've had a busy day, haven't you?"
"Too busy for me," Eleanor declared. "This is the last straw. I'm leaving just as soon as I get my suitcase packed."
"Yay—" Lily's spontaneous cheer ended with Michael's glare. "I mean, that's too bad, Mrs. Polking. Come on, Rose, let's look at the fire engine."
"You can't just leave, Mrs. Polking." He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "You agreed to stay the summer. I know the girls are difficult, but they just need a little extra attention."
"That's not all they need."
He ignored that comment. "I'm in the middle of a bid for a very big job. At least give me a week or two to make other arrangements."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Ashton," Eleanor said, not sounding a bit sorry. "The girls have made it clear that they want you."
"I can't work full-time and take care of the girls. I'm only one person."
Mrs. Polking softened just a bit. "I understand. That's why I took the liberty of making you a list of summer school programs. You'll find it on the credenza in the dining room."
"When did you decide to do that?"
"This morning, after the girls glued my shoes to the floor. Perhaps they'll do better in a more structured environment." Eleanor checked her watch. "It's not yet five. If you hurry you may be able to find one for Monday. Good luck," she said, turning away.
Good luck? Since when had he ever had good luck? His wife was dead. His children wouldn't speak to him. The demands of his job as an architect, combined with the responsibilities of being a single father, made him feel as if he were running around in circles, chasing after his tail like a foolish dog.
He had never imagined that his life would end up like this. As he stared at the house, he was thankful it hadn't burned down. The house had belonged to his in-laws, the De Lucas, for almost a hundred years, since they first emigrated from Italy in the late 1800s. More than a house, it was a symbol of tradition, of family, of responsibility, of loyalty, of everything that a man should be.
When Shadows Fall (Callaways #7) Page 29