“Wait—what? Why?” Coraleen popped to her feet, then was hit with a wave of dizziness and her stomach churned. Damn. She’d better not barf again.
“To check for a subdural hematoma.”
That sounded bad. But she did not need a babysitter. “I’ll just set an alarm. Wake myself up. I’ll be fine on my own.” She’d have to buy an alarm clock at Camden’s Grocery. Her roll of twenties was dwindling away much faster than she’d expected. Blast—she should have bought one of those cheap pay-as-you-go phones at a gas station along the way. Even the inexpensive flip phones had alarm clocks on them these days.
The doc sighed. “That won’t work. Someone needs to evaluate your cognitive state. Ask you a few questions, like the name of the current president. What year it is. You can’t do that on your own.”
But this news threw a twist in her plans. So much for getting in, getting out. She hadn’t even found Visada yet, and she was wasting time in the ER. And now, apparently, she needed a babysitter for the night. Well, too bad. Because she didn’t have one. Emotion clogged her throat.
No one who’d witnessed the accident or, by now, had heard about it, had stopped by the ER for a visit. Or to bring her flowers. Not that she’d expected a grand bouquet from Bindi’s Blooms, but still.
Thoughts rattled throughout her mind and she tried to find the ends of the threads, to put some order back into her brain. “I’m fine. But thanks for your concern.”
Doc frowned. “Coraleen, I don’t think you understand me. I won’t dismiss you unless you have someone who will agree to provide care for you tonight.”
Oh, god. The doc was serious. She swallowed. “And if I don’t?”
“You can stay another night here, under our observation.”
The blasted cash register in her mind kaching-kachinged again. She couldn’t afford that. Guess she’d have to swallow her pride and ask her friends for help. But it was a little hard to think with Remy so close.
“Juliet Terrell would take me,” she said, thinking hard, “but she’s on the road with a few of the show jumpers she trains. Same with Chessie Gibson—not the show jumpers, of course. She’s in the Bay Area interviewing business manager candidates for her company. But if someone could loan me a phone, I’ll call Delilah and have her come get me.”
“And then do what?” Remy asked.
“Hopefully she can take me in tonight. Watch over me as the doc asked.”
“Where would you stay?”
“What do you mean?” She frowned. “In her apartment, of course.”
“Her apartment is on the top floor of her diner.”
“Right…” She nodded, an action she immediately regretted. Wow, that hurt.
Remy pushed his way into the room. Between him, the doc, and Coraleen, plus the bed and the medical tray table, there wasn’t much room. Funny how the space seemed even smaller once he’d entered. He seemed to fill it—taking up the air around her with his wide shoulders, narrow hips, and…oh, good god, she wasn’t getting all goo-goo eyed over him now, was she?
“Unfortunately, that won’t work.” He frowned and looked off into the corner of the room, as if in deep thought.
“Not sure I see what the issue is,” Coraleen said, backing up a step, only to hit the bed with the back of her knees. Unstable, she dropped like a sack of potatoes onto the bed. “I know I clunked the outside of the diner, but I’m sure the upstairs is fine.”
“The issue is that the fire department’s gone and shut down Delilah’s until a full inspection is complete. And that means her apartment above the diner, too. The place is off-limits until next week.”
“Oops.” Not good. Poor Delilah.
“Do you have anywhere else to go?” Remy asked.
She shook her head.
He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. “What, you get out of jail—”
“Prison.”
“As I was saying, you get out of prison, come back to Meadowview, and you don’t have a place lined up to stay?”
The comment stung. “What can I say? I’m not too popular around here anymore.” Staying with Delilah could have been an option except that she’d gone and knocked down the place. Such a pain. She tipped her chin and tried to glare at Remy (emphasis on tried—the man still did yummy things to her tummy). “Besides, I’m not even planning on staying in town. I’m only dropping by for a day or two on my way to Placer County. I have a job and a place to live waiting for me there.”
She burned to ask Remy about Visada, but pride and defensiveness had snuck in, replacing logical thought. Her grandpop once told her pride would be her downfall. Then he’d claimed her inability to follow rules would be her downfall. About a day later, he’d said her lack of understanding chores simply did not do themselves would be her downfall.
She’d had a lot of options for downfalling.
Remy folded his hands over his chest and didn’t respond. Just stared at her, like she was some sort of homeless freak. She supposed she was.
“God, Remy, it’s no big deal. Let me call Delilah, and I’ll stay wherever she’s staying. She can wake me up tonight like the doc wants.”
He shook his head. “Kiddo, maybe I’m not making myself clear. Delilah’s already left town. She’s staying with her nephew in Sacramento tonight. I think she’ll be back tomorrow, but…”
But that meant Coraleen had no one in town, no one at all, who’d babysit her for the night. She felt scared all of a sudden. Loneliness welled up inside her and she bit down hard on the inside of her lower lip. No way would she cry.
“I’ll put in a few calls,” Remy said. “See if I can come up with someone to watch over you for tonight.”
God, she hated the concern in his voice. Hated the pity. “Like I said before, I’m not your problem.” The words came out defiant, snappy, but she didn’t regret them. Not much. Well, yeah, she kinda did. He was only trying to help, and it wasn’t like anyone else was lining up at the door to offer her a hand. Too late, though, to take her tone back. She dropped his gaze and glanced back at the doc.
Doc frowned. “Who else can you call?”
Coraleen pretended to think for a moment. She had her pride. Even though she felt it melting inside her like an ice cream cone on the Fourth of July, becoming a drippy, sticky mess of…what was an appropriate antonym of pride to use in this circumstance? Where was a thesaurus when one needed it?
Her head spun. Stupid concussion. “Not sure…like I said, my friends are out of town. All my other friends went on to college or moved away. Grandpop died.”
“So no one,” Doc said, a hint of compassion filling her words.
Coraleen forced herself to act nonchalant and not display the emptiness she felt inside. She fake snorted. “Back to orphan status, I guess.” She’d been there before. Mom and Dad, there one moment, dead the next, in a car crash that instantly made her an orphan and her grandpop the unexpected center of her life.
“A pity party won’t get you far in this town, Coraleen,” the doc said, then when Coraleen jerked her gaze back up and fought back tears, sudden regret seemed to fill Doc’s eyes. “Listen, I’m sorry about your grandfather. We did all we could to save his life, but in the end…” She hesitated, clearly choked up, then blew out a breath and continued. “Macer was a good man. All of Meadowview loved him. I’m sure he’d have done anything to be here to welcome you back, but—” She bit off the rest of her sentence, then said sharply, “Coraleen, you have to find someone to take you home. I really can’t release you until you do.”
“Like I said, I’ll find her a place to stay.” This time Remy’s words sounded strong. Heroic.
“Okay good. Because…” A commotion sounded down the hall, and as if she had a rattlesnake biting her rear, Doc charged out of the room, leaving Coraleen alone with Remy.
Remy…
Coraleen carefully examined a spot on the floor near his boot.
“He never stopped loving you.” Warmth mixed with strength in Remy’s voi
ce.
She glanced up, uncertain of what she’d heard.
“Macer. Your grandpop. He loved you to the very end.”
“I know,” she said quietly.
“It just about killed him when you confessed.”
“Prison would have killed him for sure. I couldn’t let him take the rap for something…something I did.”
“He always claimed you were innocent.”
Of course Pop had said that. Because she was. But that’s not what she wanted the town to know. After Lydell discovered his money was missing, Pop—as Lydell’s accountant—had been accused of embezzlement. There’d been an investigation. He’d gone on trial. The day before the jury was to deliver their verdict—one Pop’s defense team was ninety-nine percent sure would come back as Guilty—he’d had a major stress-induced hypertension attack that sent him to the ER.
His defense team came to her that afternoon, trying to get her to convince Pop to plead Guilty in exchange for a shorter prison sentence. She couldn’t, though. Because if he went to prison, that’s where he’d die. And she couldn’t let that happen.
The justice system worked fast when a signed confession was on the table.
Six days later, by the time Pop was out of ICU, she’d been long gone on a prison transport bus down to AZ/PC. He would have fought like crazy to keep her from confessing if he’d known about it, so she’d kept him in the dark as she’d hatched and implemented her plan. And then had left him a letter, explaining how it was all for the best. Knowing he’d try to use the letter to get her out, she’d made it sound like she was guilty.
“Pop, I’m confessing because I can’t bear to let you take the blame for something someone else did. I can’t let you lose your job, your community, and probably your life going to jail for something you didn’t do. You are innocent. I’m going to where I need to be. Five years for me isn’t much—for you, it would have been your forever. Forgive me for what I’ve done.
Love, your devoted granddaughter, Coraleen.”
Once he got out of the hospital and arrived home to discover what his granddaughter had done, Pop had fought her decision, tooth and nail.
He’d gone back to Reinhardt and tried to give the judge his own confession, against the advice of his attorneys, but Reinhardt and the US District Attorney figured that Coraleen had been the real thief all along and Macer’s confession was just a load of bull, that he was trying to protect her and take the blame for what she’d done.
Pop had tried to explain that she was trying to protect him. Her friends had joined him in trying to open up an investigation—they hadn’t believed her guilty, either. But with a signed confession and proof she’d done the deed, that’s all the feds wanted. They had a criminal behind bars and an elderly man they no longer needed to worry about. Pop hadn’t let it rest, though, but after five different appellate attorneys informed Pop there wasn’t any way he was going to get his granddaughter out of prison, he’d finally been forced to let it go.
She’d begged him to still love her. To still visit her in AZ/PC. Which he did, nearly every weekend, until three months ago, when his heart finally gave out for good. Leaving her alone once again.
Blinking hard, she staved off the flood of tears that threatened to spill. “Is my car still buried in Delilah’s front wall?” she asked, her voice coming out choked and thick.
“I towed it to Dave’s Auto-Body.”
Her stomach sank. Realistically, she probably couldn’t sleep in the Impala now that she needed a babysitter for the night, but the fact that Remy’d had to tow the car meant the damage had to be fairly severe. Kaching, kaching. “I’ll pay you back for the tow.”
He shrugged. “I did it myself. No charge.”
“Nope. I’ll pay you for your time. And gas. I always pay my debts.” She nibbled her lip, the dollar bill sign flashing over and over again in her mind, like a neon sign without enough juice. “Any idea how much it will cost to repair?”
“You weren’t going all that fast, so it’s damaged but not totaled. Probably needs a new radiator, a few new hoses. New bumper. Brake pads, clearly. Dave likes you—thought you got a raw deal with the extended sentence the judge slapped you with, and said he’d do the work for the cost of parts alone. Probably will cost you a little over a thousand.”
Her head went light again. She’d have to use the money she’d saved to buy back Visada on the car repairs. “I’ll pay Dave the full amount. Somehow.” But wow, her finances were fluttering away before her eyes. How could she ever afford to buy back her horse?
She’d been twelve when the retired racehorse had come into her life, along with Pop. The day Child Services dropped her off at Pop’s, with three big cardboard boxes full of books and one suitcase stuffed with clothes, she’d wandered off onto Pop’s property to find a private place to cry. She’d been surprised to see a chestnut thoroughbred grazing in a back pasture. Pop never had horses before. She’d chirruped loudly, catching the chestnut’s attention. He’d trotted up to her and wuffled her face with his soft, sweet muzzle…and she’d fallen in love.
Turned out one of Pop’s associates, Allan Reinhardt, had given Pop a former racehorse he owned. The horse, Visada, had won only one race, but it was a win that had put Reinhardt in the money, and in a big way. After the race, though, Visada had come up lame and Reinhardt had been forced to retire him. For some reason, Reinhardt had given Visada to Pop. She didn’t care why, she was just grateful he had.
Pop had encouraged her to work with the horse, retraining it to be a trail horse, and between the care Pop gave her and the unconditional love Visada gave, she slowly healed from her parents’ death.
With Pop gone, that horse meant everything to her now.
“How’d you end up with that Impala, anyway?” Remy asked, interrupting her trip down Memory Lane.
“Bought it from the nephew of one of the prison guards, a lovely woman named Irma who’d taken to sharing discussions of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer with me during dinner prep.” Coraleen herself tended to lean toward rationalism, but was grateful for the dialogue and even more grateful Irma hadn’t been enamored with post-structuralism. The thought of trying to comprehend Jacques Derrida gave Coraleen the willies.
“You know about Nietzsche?”
She frowned. “Duh. He’s one of the first existentialists.”
“Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.”
Coraleen cocked her head. “You know his work?”
“Some.”
She frowned. “You could have picked a less depressing quote of his.”
Remy laughed. “Are there any less depressing quotations?”
Her frown turned into a grin. “I always got inspiration from the one quote of his: What does not destroy me makes me stronger. Totally depressing, although often misconstrued.”
But that misconstrued line had kept her going in prison, especially on the day Remy had come to see her, a few weeks after she’d entered AZ/PC. He’d sat across the table and asked her if she felt anything for him. He didn’t say why he was asking. Didn’t tell her he still wanted her—didn’t even tell her he still thought she was innocent.
And she hadn’t been brave enough to ask him why he wanted to know.
She couldn’t live with the hope that Remy might want her, because she knew that no matter what, they could never be. She couldn’t live with that horrible, hollow, vastly empty ache in her heart.
So she’d pushed him away, even as she’d wanted to pull him close. She’d said something nasty and cruel and horrible and he’d bought ever word.
She realized he was still waiting for her to speak. She flashed him a quick smile and said, “But you have better things to do than debate philosophy. Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure something out on my own. Or, you know, I’ll be even stronger.”
For a long moment, Remy simply stared at her. “You need a place to stay and someone to watch over you. I’ll see what I can do,” he sai
d quietly, then spun on a heel and strode out of her room. Leaving her alone.
And very lonely.
Ten minutes later, contents of the pudding cup brought to her by one of the nurses almost completely devoured, the door to Coraleen’s exam room opened. She glanced up, spoon still in her mouth, and saw a familiar figure step in. Her heart leaped and warmth suffused her chest. She pulled the spoon away and threw it in the corner, squealing “Juliet!” even as emotion choked her throat.
Her friend burst into a wide smile, then ran the few steps across the exam room and threw her arms around Coraleen.
“I’m sooo sorry I wasn’t here earlier to welcome you back,” Juliet exclaimed. She pulled back and held Coraleen’s shoulders, staring at her and grinning like a total goof. “I wouldn’t have taken my client’s horses to that Grand Prix in Canada if I could’ve helped it. I took the red-eye, though, and got into Sacramento early this morning. Drove like crazy to get here, only to find out from Delilah you’re in the ER, not hanging out at her diner. I would have been here sooner except I had an impatient horse in the back of my trailer I had to get back into his pasture. I can’t believe Delilah’s diner is temporarily no more, thanks to you and a Chevy.”
Coraleen cringed. “I’ll pay Delilah back for the damages. But wow—I can’t believe you came back to town early just to see me.” She scooted down the hospital bed and patted the mattress next to her, indicating for Juliet to sit. “And yep, you definitely missed my grand entrance.”
“So I heard,” Juliet said, laughing, but hugging Coraleen tight. “It’s the buzz of Meadowview.”
Coraleen closed her eyes, allowing herself to relax for the first time in what seemed to have been an eternity. Then, so very happy, she pulled back and gazed at her friend, eager to just be, unfettered and unencumbered by rules, restrictions, bars over windows, barked-out orders, and grey jumpsuits.
Always the One: (Meadowview Heroes # 2) (The Meadowview Series Book 6) (Meadowview Heat) Page 4