“You awake?” she called softly.
“Awake and bored,” Annie said.
Her mom came into the room, brushed a kiss across her forehead and pulled a chair up beside the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Lousy,” Annie replied.
Alarm flared in her mom’s eyes and she was on her feet in an instant. “What’s wrong? Should I get the nurse in here? The doctor? Is it your heart?”
Annie stared at her. “Mom, chill. I just meant I was tired of all these people coming in here to poke around in my psyche and tell me what to do.”
Her mom’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Oh.” She looked as if she wanted to say a lot more, but instead she sat back down, appearing uncomfortable.
Annie lost patience with all this tiptoeing around what was on both their minds. “Mom, why don’t you just say it?”
“Say what?”
Annie’s eyes welled with tears. “That I screwed up and you’re mad at me.”
“I’m not…”
Annie regarded her with a watery, disbelieving stare. “Come on,” she said, swiping at her tears. “You know you want to yell at me. You believe what everyone around here is saying, that I was deliberately starving myself. Why not admit it? You’ve thought all along that I was anorexic. Now you have backup. You can say ‘I told you so’ for the next hundred years.”
Her mom gave her a weary look. “I’d rather it weren’t true, sweetie. And I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself for not facing it sooner and getting you some help.” Her eyes filled with tears, as well. “I can’t believe I was so stupid. I thought I was handling it. I thought you were smart enough to see what you were doing to yourself after you passed out at Maddie’s wedding. I thought a lot of things that just weren’t true. This isn’t something that gets fixed by wishful thinking.”
Annie was shaken by the tears spilling down her mom’s cheeks. She’d never seen her cry before, not even when her dad had left. Oh, sure, she cried when they watched certain movies, but that wasn’t the same. This was real. And the tears were all Annie’s fault.
She reached for her hand. “I’m sorry, Mom. Please don’t cry.”
Her mom lifted her face, her expression filled with anguish. “We could have lost you, Annie. If Raylene and Sarah hadn’t been there…”
Annie shuddered. The gravity of what had nearly happened was finally starting to sink in. Worse, if Dr. McDaniels was telling her the truth, there were no certainties that it wouldn’t happen again.
“Mom, I’m scared,” she whispered. “Really scared.”
Her mom moved to the side of the bed and pulled her into her arms. “Me, too, baby. But we’re going to fix this. All of us together.”
“Dad, too?” she asked hesitantly.
She thought she felt her mom sigh against her cheek.
“Yes, sweetie, Dad, too.”
Ronnie found a motel room about halfway between the hospital and the home he’d once shared with Dana Sue. Even as he pulled into the parking lot, he knew what lay ahead. The owners of the Serenity Inn, Maybelle and Frank Hawkins, had lived in town all their lives. They knew every person who came and went, including those who only passed through for a day or two. They’d known Ronnie’s parents and Dana Sue’s entire family, including her black-sheep uncle and his no-account sons who lived outside of town and caused more trouble with their illegal still and gambling than the Sweet Magnolias had ever dreamed of. Maybelle and Frank went to every high school football game, every basketball and baseball game. And they were regulars at Wharton’s, where town gossip spread faster than a winter cold.
Still, the Serenity Inn, with its whitewashed exterior and big pots filled with geraniums, was clean, inexpensive and comfortable. And it held a few very fond memories, too….
Even though he knew this was the best of Serenity’s limited options, Ronnie approached the office with a sense of dread. He plastered a smile on his face and opened the door, relieved to see that there was no one behind the desk. The sound of the bell over the door, however, brought Maybelle bustling in from the back room.
A smile lifted all the wrinkles on her round, motherly face when she recognized him. “Ronnie Sullivan, as I live and breathe. I never thought to see you in these parts again.”
Before he could respond to the surprisingly warm greeting, her expression sobered and her gaze turned chilly. “I’m surprised you dared to show your face after what you did to Dana Sue. Then again, I imagine you came back because of Annie.” Concern chased away her icy demeanor. “How is she doing? Is she better today?”
Almost dizzy from the rapid change in Maybelle’s manner, he nodded. “She’s going to be fine. It’s good to see you, Mrs. Hawkins. Do you have a room available?”
She studied him with the kind of considering look a mother might give a wayward child. “For how long?”
“Until I can find a place of my own,” he said.
His words seemed to catch her by surprise. “You’re staying?”
“That’s the plan.”
“How does Dana Sue feel about that?”
He grinned, thinking back on the kiss. “She’s still adjusting to the idea.”
Maybelle studied him a moment longer, then finally nodded and brought out a registration form. “Fill that out. I’ll give you a weekly rate for now.” She wagged a finger at him. “But if I hear one word about you upsetting that girl, I will not hesitate to toss you out on your behind. Understood?”
Ronnie nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly.
She smiled at last. “Just wait till I tell Frank you’re back. He still talks about that ninety-eight-yard touchdown run you made your senior year to win the homecoming game. Glory be, that was something. We all thought you’d be a star in college or the pros one day.”
“You have a long memory, Mrs. Hawkins.” He leaned in closer. “Don’t tell anyone, but that touchdown was a fluke. I knew there wasn’t a chance on earth I’d ever make a run like that again, so I decided to quit while I was ahead.”
“You quit because you couldn’t keep your hands off Dana Sue,” she corrected knowingly. “Once you set eyes on that girl, marrying her was the only thing on your mind. And just so you know you didn’t get away with anything, I know all about the two of you sneaking over here from time to time after the night clerk took over for me.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “Why you’d go and mess up a thing like that is beyond me.”
“It’s beyond me, too,” he admitted. “But it’s never too late to correct a mistake, isn’t that right?”
“It’s never too late to try,” she agreed. But there was enough doubt in her tone to warn him that she didn’t think Dana Sue was going to be open to his attempts. “Here’s your key. We don’t allow wild partying on the premises, so behave yourself.”
“Wild parties would hardly help me prove to Dana Sue that I’m walking the straight and narrow now, would they?” he said, winking at her. “I’ll be so quiet you won’t even know I’m here.”
In fact, he was so thoroughly beat, he doubted there would be a sound louder than the occasional snore from his room for at least twenty-four hours.
After her disconcerting run-in with Ronnie and her draining visit with Annie, Dana Sue was too restless to sit in the hospital waiting room between her visits to Annie in ICU. She needed to stay busy, to do something that would drive the memory of that kiss right out of her head.
Glancing at her watch, she realized it was four o’clock, the height of the dinner prep commotion at the restaurant. Stopping at the nurse’s station, she told them how to reach her if Annie needed her, then headed to work. A couple of hours chopping vegetables with a sharp knife might relieve some of her stress. She could envision Ronnie’s neck beneath the blade.
At Sullivan’s she stopped by her office long enough to glance at the pile of messages, grabbed a pristine white chef’s jacket that would be splashed with food in minutes, and headed to the kitchen, where the noise level was comfortingly fam
iliar.
Erik spotted her first. “Hey, darlin’, what are you doing here? Come to make sure we aren’t ruining your business?”
“No chance of that,” she told him. “I just need to do something normal for a couple of hours. I know you and Karen have probably divvied up the workload, but there must be something left for me to tackle.”
Karen glanced up from the salad greens she was distributing on plates and grinned. “I will gladly volunteer salad setup. It may just be the most boring job ever.”
Dana Sue eyed the plates. “Plain old house salads?”
Karen nodded. “No time to do anything fancier.”
“Do we have pears? Walnuts? Blue cheese?” Dana Sue asked.
“Of course,” Erik said. “I’ve been making up the orders from the lists in your office. You’re so organized this place could run for a year without you setting foot in it.”
“I’m not sure I like that idea,” Dana Sue said.
“Well, it’s been a godsend the past few days,” he assured her. “Doesn’t mean we don’t need you, so if you want to make fancy salads, go right ahead. I’ll go make a note on the specials board and tell the waitstaff.”
As Dana Sue settled in to slice the pears paper thin and arrange them on the greens, she sniffed the air. There was the distinctive scent of cinnamon in it. It smelled heavenly.
“What’s tonight’s dessert special?” she asked Erik when he returned.
“Deep-dish apple pie.”
“Any of it ready yet?” she asked, her mouth watering.
“There are a couple of pies cooling on the rack now,” he said. “You want a sample?”
“I want a whole slice,” she said at once. “Vanilla ice cream on top.”
He cast a worried look at her. “Dana Sue…” he began.
She held up her hand. “Not your job to lecture me about what I eat. I’m starved and I want apple pie and ice cream. Do I need to pull rank?”
Instead of immediately going for the pie, he pulled a stool up beside her and sat on it. “What’s this about?”
“It’s pie, for heaven’s sake. What’s the big deal?”
“You know what the big deal is,” he said quietly. “Your daughter’s in the hospital because of an eating disorder. Do you want to wind up in the bed beside her because you’re not paying attention to your blood sugar?”
Temper stirring, Dana Sue turned on him angrily, but when all she saw in his eyes was genuine concern, she wilted. “Okay, I know you’re right. I just need comfort food right now.”
“There’s meat loaf on tonight’s menu. How about a slice of that with some mushroom gravy?” he suggested.
She finally relaxed and grinned. “May I at least have a bite of that pie afterward?”
“You may,” he said, then went to fix a plate for her. When he brought it back, he regarded her with curiosity. “Anything happen this afternoon you want to talk about?”
She took a bite of meat loaf to delay responding. “My God, this is better than mine. What have you done to it?”
He gestured across the room. “Ask Karen. She made it.”
Dana Sue stared at her assistant. “You made this? It’s amazing.”
“I just tweaked your recipe a little bit,” Karen said, her cheeks flushed. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Are you kidding me? I predict this will be tonight’s sell-out, and our customers will insist it be on the regular menu.”
“You mean it?” Karen asked.
“Of course I mean it,” Dana Sue said. “If you have ideas for any other dishes, talk them over with Erik or me, if I’m around, and feel free to experiment.”
“Thanks,” Karen said, beaming. “I didn’t want to step on your toes.”
“We’re a team. I may own this place, but when the food’s great, it benefits all of us. I want Sullivan’s reputation to get better every year. I don’t want to rest on our laurels.”
She turned back to Erik, who was still watching her intently. He lowered his voice. “She really needed to hear that,” he said. “Now let’s get back to my earlier question. Did something happen this afternoon to upset you? Is Annie doing okay?”
“She’s getting better every day,” Dana Sue replied. “She’s had her first sessions with the psychologist and the nutritionist. I gather they weren’t exactly love fests, but both women think she’ll cooperate.”
“If Annie’s on track, then it must have been something else that sent you in here trying to stuff it down with comfort food.”
“Erik, babysitting me and my moods is not your job.”
“I do it because I’m your friend,” he said, looking wounded. “At least that’s what that pretty speech of yours a minute ago suggested.”
Dana Sue felt her stomach knot. “I didn’t eat the damn pie, okay? What more do you want?”
His gaze never wavered. “An explanation,” he said quietly. “Did it have something to do with the kiss your ex-husband planted on you outside the hospital?”
She felt the color drain from her face. “You know about that?”
“Grace Wharton was on her way inside to check on Annie,” he explained. “Apparently she made a U-turn to get back to Serenity’s information central. It was the hot item over at the pharmacy soda fountain five minutes later.”
“You were there?”
He shook his head. “Karen was.”
Dana Sue buried her face in her hands. “I hate this. I just hate it. I should live in a big city where nobody has a clue who I am.”
“You’d be miserable,” he said. “So, do you want to talk about the kiss or not?”
“Not.”
“Okay, then, but if it stirred you up enough to make you want to reach for apple pie and ice cream, you might not want to repeat it too often,” he advised.
“Oh, I think I can reassure you on that point,” she said. “Ronnie Sullivan will not get within a hundred feet of me ever again.”
Erik grinned. “Is that so?”
“Yes, that’s most definitely so,” she said.
“Then you might need to consider putting it in writing,” he suggested, gesturing behind her.
Dana Sue whirled around and looked straight into the amused face of her ex-husband.
“Talking about me?” he inquired cheerfully.
“Go away,” she retorted. “I thought you’d crawled into some cave to get some rest.”
“Turns out a little catnap was all I needed,” he responded. “Besides, the second I crawled into that bed at the Serenity Inn, I remembered the last time I’d slept in it—graduation night twenty-two years ago.”
“You rented the exact same room?” she sputtered. “The one we…” She glanced at Erik’s and Karen’s fascinated expressions, then sighed heavily. “I’ll have that apple pie now, please.”
This time Erik didn’t argue. He did, however, leave off the ice cream.
10
Annie’s first so-called meal was absolute torture. The nurse brought her a tray with what looked like a mountain of food, though truthfully it was only a small salad with a tiny container of dressing and a package of crackers. It was accompanied by some kind of watery, orange-colored drink.
“It will help to get your electrolytes back into balance and keep them there,” the nurse said cheerfully.
Annie had no idea what electrolytes were, and the drink looked disgusting. “Do I have to have it?” she asked, regarding the bottle with dismay.
“That’s what it says on your chart,” the too-perky nurse explained. “Lacy said she’d be here any second to sit with you while you eat.”
Great, Annie thought. Obviously nobody in this place trusted her to actually put the food in her mouth.
Since the nurse didn’t seem to be going anywhere, Annie made a great show of putting the dressing on the salad and mixing it with the greens. She opened the package of crackers and set them side by side on the tray. Then she carefully removed the top from the drink. When there was nothing
left to do except eat, she tried to force herself to pick up the fork and put a bite of salad into her mouth. Halfway there, the aroma of vinegar and oil made her nauseous.
“I’m going to be sick,” she said, dropping the fork and turning away from the food.
Two seconds later the nurse was beside her with a disgusting little plastic bowl just in case Annie made good on her threat. Naturally, that was exactly when Lacy walked into the room.
“How’s it going in here?” she asked, then moved to take the nurse’s place. “Thanks, Brook. I’ll take over now.”
After the nurse had gone, Lacy moved to the chair beside the bed. “That’s not going to work with me, you know,” she said calmly.
Annie frowned. “What?”
“Pretending that the food makes you sick.”
“It does,” Annie said indignantly. “That salad dressing is nothing like my mom’s. It smells awful.”
“Would you like me to ask your mother to bring some for tomorrow?” Lacy asked.
Tears welled up in Annie’s eyes as it became clear that Lacy was every bit as tough as she’d warned she would be. “Whatever,” she mumbled.
“You have thirty minutes to eat your meal,” Lacy said. “Since this is your first one, we’ll start the time now, rather than from the time the tray arrived.”
Annie regarded her with a sense of panic. “You’re going to time me? You actually want me to eat all this in half an hour?”
“That’s the rule,” Lacy said, her gaze unflinching. She glanced pointedly at her watch. “Starting now.”
“But…” Annie couldn’t think of a single argument that the determined nutritionist would buy. She put one small lettuce leaf in her mouth, chewed for as long as she could, hoping that Lacy would glance away so she could spit it into a napkin. When it became obvious that wasn’t going to happen, she swallowed, gagging as the food went down.
“I don’t think I can eat any more,” she whispered.
“Sure you can,” Lacy said. “Try a cracker or the drink.”
“The drink looks disgusting.”
Lacy’s lips twitched, but she didn’t allow a smile to form. “It actually tastes okay. Give it a try.”
A Slice of Heaven Page 13