Harlequin Superromance February 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: His Forever GirlMoonlight in ParisWife by Design

by Liz Talley

  “Please, Brandon. You’re making me crazy with worry. What’s wrong?”

  She braced herself. Knew, when he met and held her gaze, that her life was about to change forever. And still wasn’t prepared for his reply.

  “I’m gay.”

  Present

  THIRTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Grant Bishop wasn’t an emotional guy. He was a busy guy—too busy to get tangled up in things he couldn’t control. Except for the things he couldn’t let go.

  He couldn’t let go of Darin’s condition.

  Sitting in the silence of his older brother’s hospital room that balmy February morning, he rested one ankle on his knee and beat out the rhythm playing over and over in his brain. Da da dah. Da da dah. Da da dah. Da da dah.

  Dr. Zimmer’s Tuesday-morning rounds were at seven-thirty. Grant wanted to be at a job site across town by nine so he could be back to make sure Darin got up in his chair for lunch. As long as his brother cooperated, he should be able to have Darin back home the next day.

  Assuming the doctor told him the previous day’s surgery had gone as well as he’d thought. That Darin was responding as expected. His forty-four-year-old brother had still been groggy from the anesthetic the night before when Grant, after spending fourteen hours at the hospital, had finally gone home to shower and get some sleep.

  Darin, with a big patch of gauze taped over one side of his head, didn’t look much different nine hours later.

  More than two nights in the hospital was going to be a financial hardship. But if Darin wasn’t ready to go home Wednesday morning, they’d manage. He’d paid off the loan against his landscaping business and could borrow again if he had to.

  And if there was a long-term problem? If the surgery hadn’t been successful? If the infection that had formed around the bit of irremovable stingray barb lodged in his brother’s brain was still active?

  If Darin experienced any of the numerous side effects that could have resulted from the craniotomy itself?

  Hands clasped, he pounded his thumbs together, keeping the beat with the rhythm rocking his foot.

  Darin was going to be just fine. The brothers had been dealing with this—Darin’s accident—for seventeen years, and things always worked out.

  Maura, the sixty-year-old widow next door, checked in on Darin for Grant on the rare days his brother couldn’t accompany him to the job site, in exchange for handyman work whenever anything needed fixing at her place. She was all set to nurse Darin through the two weeks postsurgery the doc had said it would take before his brother was able to return to work.

  Arrangements had been made. Details tended to.

  It was 7:40 and the doctor was late. Standing, hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, Grant walked to the door of his brother’s room, pulled it open and stood in the entryway, watching the hallway. Nurses went to and from rooms; an orderly pushed a cart with breakfast trays up the hall, stopping at doors, delivering trays and moving on.

  Darin was still on IV. He should have progressed to a liquid diet the night before but hadn’t cooperated enough to sit up and drink. He’d barely regained consciousness and hadn’t known Grant was even in the room, prodding him.

  Running his fingers through thick black hair that hadn’t yet begun to show the gray that had started to appear on his older brother’s head, Grant rolled his shoulders and sat back down. He’d built extra time into his schedule in case the doctor was late. This wasn’t his first hospital run. He knew how things worked.

  And Santa Raquel, the coastal California town where he and Darin had settled after Darin’s accident, wasn’t all that big. He could make it across town and to his job site in less than twenty.

  “Grant?” The deep voice had Grant out of his chair and at the bedside in one second flat.

  “Right here, bro,” he said, pushing the hair off from his brother’s forehead as he took Darin’s right hand in his and held on. “Just like always.”

  Darin studied him with eyes that appeared to hold recognition—and more.

  “How you feeling?” He started out small, not sure what kind of cognition Darin would have left. Or what further damage might have been done.

  “Head hurts.”

  “You just had surgery.”

  “Not just. I had a night since then.”

  With a grin, Grant nudged his brother’s shoulder. “You’re right, bro, you did. And if you’ll cooperate with the nurses today, tonight will be your last one here. You ready to come home?”

  Darin made a face, scrunching his lips up toward his nose. And did it again.

  What the hell was that?

  The covers moved above Darin’s left hand. And then moved again. Darin made that face again.

  “Nose itches.” Pulling his right hand free from Grant’s clasp, he scratched.

  And Grant grinned a second time, letting go of a deep breath. The day before had been slightly alarming, he admitted to himself now that Darin was back. His brother hadn’t come out of the anesthetic as the doctors would have liked—the way he had for all previous surgeries.

  He hadn’t really been coherent, either, even when he’d opened his eyes.

  But Grant had known Darin would make it through just fine.

  Still, it was great to—

  “Good morning.” The tall, gray-haired doctor entered the room. Dr. Zimmer was Grant’s kind of doctor. No-nonsense, tell it like it is. With a nod toward Grant, he focused on Darin. Asked a couple of questions. Slowly. Kindly. Lifting the sheet to look at his brother’s feet, he asked Darin to move his toes. Asked about pain and other sensations. He studied Darin’s eyes, had his brother follow a penlight with his gaze.

  Everything was going as expected. Fine. Grant would be out of there soon. He’d get to work on time, come back to spend the evening with Darin and then go home to prepare the house for Darin’s return the next day. All in all, they’d come through the potentially life-threatening episode with only one day of missed work. “Your left hand, Darin. Can you lift your left hand?”

  Grant watched, nodding, waiting. The covers moved. And...nothing. The left toes had moved. Hadn’t they? Grant hadn’t paid that much attention.

  He wanted Dr. Zimmer out of the way so he could check again. Just to make certain.

  Moving to the left side of the bed, the surgeon lifted the cover, setting Darin’s hand on top of them. “Now,” he repeated gently. “Move your fingers for me.”

  And Darin did.

  Thank God.

  “Lift your hand.”

  Grant stared. Willed the hand to move. And it did. Okay, not a lot. But the movement meant that Darin was capable, didn’t it? That there was no permanent damage to his brother’s motor skills resulting from the latest surgery?

  They’d been through this before. Through worse surgeries. Like the one right after the accident when they’d had to go in to remove the barb the stingray had left in his brother’s brain. Grant had been a senior in college at the time. A mere boy.

  Darin, once a force to be reckoned with in the business world, had been forever changed. He had his normal moments. And childlike ones. Stress made things worse. He couldn’t figure out basics, like monetary value.

  But they’d survived. Made a fine life for themselves. Just the two of them. A satisfactory life. Other guys had wives. Kids. Grant had Darin.

  “Can I speak with you in the hallway?” Dr. Zimmer’s request interrupted Grant’s silent pep talk. The look on the surgeon’s face put a blight on the positive outlook he’d been trying to create.

  “I’ll be right back.” Grant squeezed Darin’s hand. “You get ready to spend an hour or two in that chair over there.” He nodded at the high-backed leather seat in the corner by the window. He knew the drill. Darin had to be up, able to walk and get to the bathroom before they’d release him. And i
t all started with the chair.

  “I can’t lift my hand, Grant.” Darin’s voice was low. “Why can’t I lift my hand?”

  “Because it’s asleep,” he said, keeping his tone light. Lightness was the last thing Grant felt as he uttered his asinine response and followed the doctor out the door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I’M PUTTING BUTTERFLIES on this, but it needs stitches,” Lynn Duncan said, her tone as matter-of-fact as she could make it while tending to the brutalized skin of the twenty-four-year-old brunette sitting on the table in one of the two small examination rooms at The Lemonade Stand Tuesday evening.

  “I hate hospitals.” Regina Cooper wasn’t crying as she gave yet another reason she was refusing to allow herself to be stitched. Lynn almost wished Regina was sobbing, even though that would make her task more difficult. The younger woman’s voice was deadpan, her words slurred as she formed them through cut and swollen lips. Like the life had been beaten out of her.

  “I can do it right here,” Lynn said. Technically she was off shift, but when you lived on the premises of one’s job, you tended to be on call 24/7. Not that Lynn minded.

  At-risk women came to The Lemonade Stand in coastal Santa Raquel, California, to find shelter. Lynn had found her life’s purpose here, nursing them.

  Tending to the third of three ugly cuts on the woman’s chin and neck—one the result of a knockout punch to her mouth and the other two gashes from the glass that broke when it had been thrown at her—she said, “These are going to scar, Ms. Cooper, if we don’t get them stitched properly.”

  “I don’t care.” Regina hadn’t said much in the half hour since she’d arrived at The Lemonade Stand, partially, Lynn suspected, because it hurt too much to talk.

  “You’re a beautiful young woman,” she said. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. And we need to get these taken care of properly.”

  Sara Havens, one of the Stand’s counselors, was outside, waiting to take Regina under her wing. She’d know better what to say. But they didn’t have weeks, or even days, for counseling to change Regina’s mind about these cuts.

  A member of the Stand’s small full-time security team was there, too, standing guard.

  Lynn’s face was inches from the other woman’s as she gently worked the torn skin together as well as she could. Regina’s pretty blue eyes met hers. “You see where my beauty got me?” she asked in a near-whisper, her eyes growing moist but not enough for a tear to fall. “I can do without it.”

  “You’ll remember him, and the beating you just took, every single time you look in the mirror if we don’t get these properly stitched,” she said.

  “I’m going to remember anyway.”

  “You want to wear his anger? To keep him with you every minute of every day for the rest of your life?” Nursing school had taught her how to tend to bodies. The year she’d spent in grad school after Kara’s birth had provided her with her advanced nursing midwifery certification. The two years she’d been living full-time at The Lemonade Stand had been a completely different education. “You want to let him mark you that way?”

  Tears blurred the hurt-filled blue eyes. “I can’t afford stitches,” the woman said. “I don’t even know how I’m going to pay for the butterfly bandages. I can’t use my health insurance. It’s through his work and he’ll know where to find me....”

  Stopping her work, Lynn studied the younger woman. “That’s why you won’t agree to stitches? Because of the cost?”

  Regina nodded. “I went to the ATM as soon as I left, but he’d already drained our account. I’ve got a hundred bucks on me, this week’s grocery allowance, and that’s it.”

  Regina spoke slowly, sounding as if she had marbles in her mouth, but she made herself understood.

  Going for stitching supplies, Lynn pulled on a fresh pair of sterilized procedure gloves. “Your care here is free, Regina,” she said. “I thought you knew that.”

  “Medical care, too?”

  “Everything. For the first four weeks you’re here, you have access to all services, and pay only what you can afford to pay. If that’s nothing, then nothing is what you owe.” She smiled at the young woman. “Now, are you going to let me take proper care of you and get this stitched?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Regina’s mouth wouldn’t allow a smile, but the relieved look in her eyes spoke volumes.

  And twenty minutes later, when Lynn turned over her newest patient to Sara Havens, who would see Regina through the admissions process and get her set up with clean clothes, toiletries and a safe place to sleep, she was fairly certain she’d managed to minimize the damage Regina’s husband’s brutality had inflicted.

  At least on the surface.

  * * *

  “LYNN?” THIRTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD Maddie Estes, one of only a few permanent residents at The Lemonade Stand, looked upset as she hurried toward Lynn just after Sara escorted Regina out of the three-room health clinic located in the main house.

  “What’s up, Maddie?” Lynn smiled at the pretty woman who was three years older than her by birth, but fifteen years younger in mental acuity. Maddie’s developmental challenges, present since a premature birth, caused the sweet, gentle woman to worry over small things.

  But with regular weekly physical therapy sessions, Maddie’s motor skills, while slow, were finally within the normal range.

  The woman’s hands were flailing as she moved.

  “There’s a man here. He’s been waiting to see you for a long time. He looks like he might be getting mad. You know, walking back and forth and back and forth in the hallway and slapping his baseball cap against his hand.”

  Maddie emulated the motion with jerky movements, her gaze meeting Lynn’s only for a brief stop as it traveled around the space they occupied—the empty waiting room at the clinic. Lynn held regular, well-check office hours. They’d long since passed on that particular Tuesday in February.

  “A man?” Lynn frowned, more concerned by Maddie’s agitation than any visitor she might have. “Did he say who he was?”

  After suffering for fourteen years at the hands of a man who’d once adored her but had grown to hate the sight of her, Maddie was extrasensitive to any sign of male aggression. And Lynn was particularly protective of Maddie.

  “Grant...I can’t remember what. I’m sorry, Lynn. I know I should remember, but he’s just so upset, and your treatment light was on and I didn’t know what to do so I took him to the bench in the main hall and waited back here for you.”

  “Grant Bishop!” Lynn said, remembering. She’d had an appointment with the man almost an hour ago. And had completely forgotten.

  He’d called that morning, said he couldn’t get there until four-thirty. And if he had a woman in jeopardy, she’d just made them wait even longer.

  “You know him, then? I’m sorry, Lynn, I probably made him mad, but—”

  With one hand stilling Maddie’s twisting hands, Lynn looked the woman straight in the eye and said, “It’s okay, Maddie. You did the right thing.” Maddie’s fidgeting stilled instantly.

  “And now, can you do a favor for me?”

  “Of course!” Maddie smiled. She agitated easily, but she settled easily, too.

  “Kara’s in the playroom,” Lynn said, picturing her curly-haired three-year-old with a crayon in her hand and her tongue sticking out of her mouth. “I was supposed to pick her up at six and it’s almost that now. Can you collect her and take her home for me? There’s some leftover macaroni and cheese in the fridge. I’ll be there as soon as I can be.”

  “Of course!” Maddie said again, hurrying away down the hall, but turning back before she got far. “Can I give her her bath, too?” Maddie asked.

  Lynn liked to reserve bath time—and bedtime story reading—for herself. To keep some semblance of normal famil
y and routine for the preschooler who was growing up so untraditionally in the arms of so many people who loved her.

  “How about if we give her her bath together?” Lynn suggested, now conscious of the man waiting for her. Bath time was at eight, as delineated by the detailed schedule Lynn kept on her refrigerator. A schedule that Maddie followed religiously. “I’ll be home in plenty of time,” she assured the short but slender blonde woman.

  “Okay, Lynn.” Maddie’s expression was serious. “And we’ll save some macaroni for you, too. You’ll get hungry if you don’t have dinner.”

  Bless Maddie. She might struggle to understand the monetary value of coins and dollars, to connect the heating and lighting in her room with a bill that had to be paid, or to ascertain the nuances of human interaction, but she knew how to pay attention. To nurture.

  And she was adamant about nurturing Lynn and Kara most of all.

  They were lucky to be so loved.

  * * *

  FOR THE UMPTEENTH time Grant looked at his watch—and pulled his cell phone out of the holster on his belt, just to verify that the time he’d read on his wrist piece was accurate. He’d hoped to get to Darin by suppertime. To make certain that his brother ate. And did it sitting in his chair, not lying in bed.

  The doctor had said Darin could get up as soon as he was ready. And he didn’t need his left hand to feed himself. Or to chew and swallow, either.

  Almost as soon as he’d returned his phone to its holster, he felt it vibrate. Darin, wondering where he was?

  Pulling the cell phone out, he was already answering when he saw the caller ID. Luke Stellar, his right-hand man.

  “This is Grant,” he answered as he always did.

  “Fountain’s in and running.”

  A rock edifice he’d designed to the homeowner’s specification. “What was the problem?”

  When he’d had to leave at four-thirty to make his appointment at The Lemonade Stand before getting back to Darin, they’d had a water flow issue.