“Thirty to forty minutes.”
Autumn’s arm was throbbing now, and she wondered if she should ask for ibuprofen. Why hadn’t she thought to carry some in her pocket?
“Come on.” Bret guided her to a chair.
Across from them, a blond man in his fifties nodded at them and then covered his mouth with his hand to cough, looking away from them apologetically. A haggard woman in the corner cradling a young child stood as her name was called.
Autumn folded her feet under her and adjusted her arm carefully over her stomach before opening her Smokey’s bag. The delicious smell of the pie was calling to her. With deliberation, she pulled the pie carton from the bag, barely managing to hook her pinky finger around the plastic-wrapped fork seconds before the bag fell to the ground. Balancing the pie in her lap, she ripped open the plastic with her teeth, proud of herself. She forked up a taste of pie—only to have it fall down the front of her sweatshirt. Oops, she thought. Not that it really mattered. The sweatshirt already sported bits of the granola Jake had made her eat for breakfast that morning. Or had it been yesterday morning? And there was mustard from her sandwich, frosting from the cake, and who knew what else. Her jeans were worse. Autumn usually didn’t care if her clothes were matching, or in style, or even if she wore them for a week, but she did like her clothes to at least look and smell clean.
She looked up to see Bret watching her. “You need help?” he asked.
“No. I like wearing my food.”
He laughed and reached down for the bag, pulling out a napkin, which he held out to her. She wiped the gravy from her chest as he took the pie from her lap and balanced it on a stack of magazines he laid on the armrest. “There, that should be easier to reach.”
A heavyset woman with dark hair rushed through the doors of the clinic. “I just called,” she said to the receptionist.
“Your card?”
The woman pulled out her wallet.
“Very good. Sit down for a minute, and we’ll get you right back.”
Fat chance, Autumn thought as the woman sat opposite them, a hand pressed against her heart. Yet less than five minutes passed and the woman was ushered back to the examination rooms.
Two more groups of people came in, and the tiny room became even more compressed. Autumn’s arm throbbed incessantly as she tried to concentrate on the meat pie. It was good, though the flavor was somewhat lost on her.
Fifteen minutes later, the coughing man had been ushered inside, though most of his germs had probably been left behind, and now the receptionist was calling back one of the others who had come in after them. Autumn’s meat pie was long gone.
“This is ridiculous,” Bret muttered under his breath
Autumn thought so too. “Let’s just go. My arm is fine.”
“You need to get it X-rayed.”
“It’s fine.”
“You always say you’re fine.” He stopped abruptly.
She shook her head. “I’m not your friend.”
“I know.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “That just slipped out. Sorry.”
Another thirty minutes dragged by.
At last, Bret crossed to the reception desk. Hands on the counter, he leaned over close to the receptionist. “How much longer is it going to be? We’ve been here an hour already. I know it might not seem serious to you, but my friend was on the Hawthorne Bridge when it collapsed. That’s why she doesn’t have her card—it’s at the bottom of the river. And she hasn’t seen a doctor since they pulled her out of the water because she’s been down there every day waiting to see if they find her father. He’s still missing.”
Instant pity replaced the woman’s cold stare. “I was just going to call you.” She herself took them to an examination room.
“Could I get some ibuprofen?” Autumn asked. She was embarrassed that Bret had to practically force their way in, but a part of her was angry, too. Through the open door, she saw one of the people who’d come in after her saying good-bye to a dark-haired man in a white coat. “Is that the doctor?”
“The P.A.,” replied the receptionist.
“Physician’s assistant?” Bret stared at her through narrowed eyes. “Isn’t there a doctor?”
“Not tonight. Just the P.A. and the nurse practitioner.”
“I see.” He looked about as pleased as Autumn felt.
“I’ll get that ibuprofen for you now.”
The receptionist returned almost immediately with the pain reliever, staring at Autumn with undisguised interest. Autumn looked pointedly away. She didn’t want to answer questions.
Another half hour crept by. “That lady came in thirty minutes after we did!” Bret said, staring out into the hallway as yet another woman said good-bye to the dark-haired P.A.
Autumn was beginning to feel claustrophobic. She had never done well in tight spaces. “I think we should leave.” She stood and walked to the door, only to find her exit barred by a petite black woman with the most perfect facial features Autumn had ever seen—large eyes, prominent cheek bones, heart-shaped face, and the most lovely brown complexion. Her hair was braided tightly against her head in elaborate pencil-width braids.
“Hi,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. Her eyes wandered briefly to Autumn’s bare feet and back to her face. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I’m the nurse practitioner. What happened to your arm?”
“I fell.” Autumn didn’t want to be pitied. “It’s probably nothing. The swelling has gone way down.”
The nurse felt the arm gently, studying her face for signs of pain. Autumn didn’t disappoint her. “We’ll definitely need an X-ray.”
Bret gave her an I-could-have-told-you-that look, and Autumn couldn’t help but smile. He was like an impatient child.
“Will I need to take off my sweatshirt?” she asked.
“Do you have a shirt on under it?”
Autumn nodded.
“Probably a good idea then—especially if we need to cast it.”
“Should I leave?” Bret asked.
“No.” Autumn started pulling down the sleeve of the sweatshirt over her hand. It took both her and the nurse practitioner a good minute to get off the sweatshirt, and Autumn was blinking back tears by the time they finished.
The nurse practitioner took in the torn sleeve where the triage bandage had covered her cuts since the day of the bridge collapse. “Same fall?” she asked.
Autumn nodded dumbly. “I was bleeding. Someone put on a bandage.”
“I’ll want to look at that.”
Autumn clenched her jaw as the woman removed the bandage, clicking over the size of the cut. “This should have been stitched. It’s too late now, so you’ll have a noticeable scar, though it does seem to be healing fairly well.”
All this preoccupation with scars, thought Autumn. What about the ones they can’t see?
“You should have come in before,” Bret told her.
She felt a surge of anger at this stranger who acted like he knew her. “I guess my father wasn’t around to make me.”
“I’m sorry.”
She lifted her left shoulder. “It’s okay. I just don’t care about a scar.”
A new bandage and fifteen minutes later they were waiting outside the X-ray room. Thirty more minutes passed, and Autumn found herself starting to fall asleep. The pain reliever had deadened the pain, and she couldn’t feel the cut because her shoulder was numb.
Finally, the door to X-ray opened, and the woman who’d been grabbing her chest in the waiting room emerged with the P.A. “We want you to go over to the hospital for more monitoring,” he said. “Whatever it was seems to be gone, but better safe than sorry where the heart is concerned.”
Her heart. So that was why she’d been rushed inside so quickly.
X-rays took another half hour. Autumn gasped as the female technician moved her arm to get all the right angles, having to repeat one of them for lack of a good picture. Autumn was beginning to wish she hadn’t agreed to any
of this, though the technician, who reminded Autumn of her middle-aged kindergarten teacher, was as gentle as possible.
The nurse practitioner studied the X-rays and then called in the P.A. for backup. Autumn heard their voices coming from the next room. Autumn strained to hear what they were saying, but she managed to grasp only a few words: crushed and fractured.
“Looks like you broke it,” Bret said.
Autumn groaned. They were supposed to send her home with a patronizing pat on the back. This was her right arm they were talking about. How was she supposed to run a store? Not that she had been doing much in the past few days, anyway. If it hadn’t been for Jake, she wouldn’t have made a dime.
The medical personnel worked more quickly after that, though Autumn’s confidence in them wasn’t very high when they pulled out a medical book to decide how they should splint her arm.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Bret whispered. “Why didn’t we go to the hospital?”
“This is cheaper,” she said.
“Hey, you know what,” the X-ray technician said to the P.A. “I’ll do the splint. I did a million of these at my last job.” The others readily agreed, and Autumn was soon wearing a splint that went from her wrist to halfway past her elbow. The technician hadn’t needed to consult the book.
“Did you see them looking it up?” Bret asked the technician.
The technician pushed her frizzy, shoulder-length hair behind her ear, and Autumn couldn’t help wondering if the yellow-orange color was natural or a dye job gone bad. “Yeah, I saw them. A little scary, huh? That’s why I said I’d do it. Now you need to wear this for the next seven days. Eight, tops. After that you have to take it off and begin moving it a little. Otherwise you may lose mobility in your elbow. You should use the sling as much as you need after the splint is off, but throw away the splint so you won’t be tempted to use it. They’ll give you some medication to take for the pain. You should come back in a week for an X-ray to make sure it’s healing properly.”
Over my dead body, Autumn thought. This experience had already met her yearly quota of time at the doctor’s. But she smiled and nodded.
“It won’t be fully healed for at least six weeks,” the technician warned. “Don’t lift anything heavy until then. Nothing.”
There went any rearranging at the store. Not that she cared. It all meant nothing without Winter.
Outside the clinic, dusk had fallen. Nearly three hours had passed since they’d gone into the clinic. “I’ve arranged a car with my hotel,” Bret told her. “It’s supposed to be here now. Ah, there it is.”
In minutes they were ready to go. “Where do you live?” Bret asked.
“I’m going back to my store.”
“Where’s that?”
“Across from Smokey’s. It’s an antiques shop.”
“You sleep there?”
“I have.”
“What about a shower?”
“Are you saying I stink?” she made her voice light.
His mouth curved into a smile. “Not exactly, but I couldn’t help noticing that you are wearing a lot of food.”
“You mean that I haven’t changed since the bridge.”
“That too.” All amusement was gone from his voice.
“Look, I don’t have a car anymore. It’ll be easier if I stay close, so I’m going to my store. Once we get there, I’ll pay you back for the clinic.”
“I don’t want the money. But I would like to know what happened on the bridge. From your point of view, that is.”
Probably the reason he’d stuck with her so long. That and the fact that she looked like someone he knew. All at once her weariness felt crushing. “No.”
“No?”
“Not tonight. Tomorrow I’ll be at the river. We can talk then.”
“The divers may not find him.”
“I hope they don’t.”
“You think he’s still alive? Perhaps wandering around Portland with memory loss?”
She looked away. His words stung because that was exactly what she hoped. Why else did she feel a connection? It wouldn’t be there if he was dead.
Or would it?
She was too tired to think about it anymore. “Turn here,” she said, as they reached her street. He had almost retraced their path exactly. She bet he was a good engineer. Maybe he would find out the reason for the collapse, though it didn’t really matter to her. If Winter was dead, what did it matter how it happened?
He walked her to the door of the store, picking up her newly copied key when she dropped it onto the sidewalk. “Thank you,” she whispered. The store was dark and held none of the vibrance that had filled it when her father was there.
“Are you sure you don’t—”
“Good night.” She firmly shut the door in his face.
Chapter 6
Tawnia was stunned. She had sat up half the night making plans for the bridge campaign, enlarging upon what she had told Dustin, only to have him present much of her plan to the executives as though it was his own. She felt betrayed, though in hindsight she should have known better than to trust a man she didn’t know. In fact, she was beginning to wonder if there were any men she could trust. Her father had worked more than he was home, she’d caught her first real boyfriend kissing her best friend in high school, Christian had died before they really knew each other, and Bret . . . well, she didn’t want to think about Bret. The bottom line was that she didn’t have a great track record with men. But stealing her ideas—Dustin was the lowest scumbag of all.
“Well, those are some great ideas,” said Joseph Sumpter, the CEO of Partridge Advertising. “Tawnia? You’re up next. What do you have for us? Anything to top getting a victim to speak in the county’s behalf?”
She was tempted to expose Dustin’s deceit, but she suspected no one would believe the new girl on the block. “Well,” she stalled, “his ideas are very good.” She looked at him pointedly, hoping he’d feel the venom in her words. Because of that jerk, she’d have no choice but to claim she didn’t have anything better to offer. Unless . . . She took a deep breath and plunged on. “I think there are many great ways to go after this account, and I would certainly use the voice of the victims in the campaign, but what if we had a well-known person—someone famous in these parts, someone people trust, to be the spokesperson for all the new ads. That would go a long way to make people feel safe again. If we added in victim compensation, counseling, and outside inspections of the bridges, I think everything will go back to normal in as little time possible.”
Sumpter rubbed his shaved chin thoughtfully. “Very good ideas. But it would likely be too expensive. First paying the celebrity, and then all the people that will pop out of the woodwork wanting reimbursement for their pain and suffering.”
“I can just imagine it,” Dustin said. His voice became high and trembling like that of an old lady. “My brother’s cousin’s daughter died in that collapse, and she was very special to me, though I only saw her once when she was baptized at the church.”
Everyone laughed, except Tawnia, whose face flushed. “There would be an initial cost,” she said in a rush, “but we’d expand with new logos and advertisements that in the long run would bring a lot of visitors to Portland. It would be good for everyone, and there’s nothing like prosperity to help people forget a tragedy.”
Everyone was silent as Sumpter considered, and Tawnia dared to hope. Finally he shook his head. “Though I actually agree with you, I don’t think the county would go for it. Too much initial cost when they are focused solely on protecting their good name. I think as we get into the campaign, we should encourage something like Tawnia is suggesting, but for now, Dustin, you’re going to run with this. But good job, everyone, especially on such short notice. Dustin, you’ll meet with county officials today and pitch your plan. Tawnia, you can pitch to the other new account on Friday.” That meant the small computer company with limited funds who wanted to make a few signs and radio ads. Not much e
xcitement or leeway with funds, but she’d give it her best.
As everyone congratulated Dustin, Tawnia schooled her face to show no emotion. After life with her parents, she was good at that. The very ability had made Bret uneasy, but how else could she protect herself? Maybe if she had reacted when he’d called it quits between them something might have been different.
She walked slowly from the meeting to her own office, carefully placing one navy blue heel in front of the other. She’d worn this suit dress today because, according to her mother, navy screamed business and demanded that she be taken seriously. It usually worked. Someone tugged on her sleeve, and she turned—to look into the face of scumbag number one.
“Good one in there,” Dustin said. “I thought for a moment you had me.”
She let the annoyance into her voice. “You’re despicable.”
“You know what they say: ‘All’s fair in love and war.’”
“Well, we certainly know which this isn’t.”
“Oh, come on. One doesn’t rule out the other.” He raised his eyebrows in what she supposed he considered an attractive manner, but she had seen him for what he was. “You’re not really mad at me,” he added. “You couldn’t have wanted this campaign. You’re still getting settled in. You haven’t been here long enough to have your finger on the pulse of what makes this city tick. I’m doing you a favor.”
She rotated sharply on her heel. “If you excuse me, I need to find a bathroom. I think I’m going to be sick. All this kindness turns my stomach.”
“So does that mean we’re not going to Smokey’s tonight?” he called after her. “I’ll buy.”
She didn’t bother to reply.
• • •
Tawnia met her team at the table in their offices to go over their projects, all in different stages of production. Among the most important were a shoe account, a T-shirt account, a motivational speaker who was self-publishing a third book, and a cereal, which Sean vowed he had tried and hated. “It’s hard to come up with something good to say about that junk,” he said with a disgusted face.
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