by Terri Osburn
She’d been sitting in the waiting room, nearly leaping out of her shoes every time the automatic doors flew open. Abby’s nerves couldn’t take any more waiting.
“All I can tell you is that there are two firefighters on their way here. ETA on the first is two minutes, which means I need to get my butt in gear.”
“Dammit, Dottie, give me a name. I’m begging you.”
Dropping a hand over Abby’s, the nurse said, “I only have a name on the first one, and he isn’t your man. Unfortunately I don’t know who the other one is, so I can’t offer the same reassurance on the second.” Dottie didn’t bother schooling her expression when she imparted the news. One nurse didn’t waste time trying to fool another. Justin could still be the second firefighter.
Abby would have to take the small scrap she’d been given and return to her seat. Two minutes later the doors flew open and a gurney raced in, surrounded by three paramedics, one of whom straddled the patient, administering chest compressions.
Rising from her chair, Abby recognized the patient right away. “Clifton,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes as familiar facts were rattled off in a staccato manner. Like a blur, the gurney and the activity around it disappeared behind the heavy brown doors, and she dropped to her seat. Poor Clifton’s heart wasn’t beating. The sweet old man who’d kept her company not even a month ago might not survive the next hour.
Suddenly angry, Abby burst from her chair, ready to run into the night and rail at the heavens. Why did bad things have to happen to good people? Why did men insist on putting their lives on the line without a thought for those who could be left behind? And by all that was holy, why hadn’t Justin called her yet?
As she stormed through the visitors’ entrance, Abby nearly barreled over a person coming in. Steadying them both, she recognized the agonized eyes of Mildred Graves.
“Is he here, Abigail?” she asked, clearly assuming that the former nurse was still on duty. “Is my Clifton going to make it?”
Like throwing a switch, Abby put on a brave face. “They just brought him in. I’m sure the doctors are doing everything they can.”
Such empty words. She hated herself for saying them.
“They said he had a heart attack after the roof collapsed, but that’s all I know.” Dazed, she added, “I’m not even sure who called me.”
“Come sit down.” Abby led her to the waiting area, keeping a tight grip on Mildred’s soft hand. “The cardiac team here will do everything they can. Let’s think positive, okay? Clifton won’t give up without a fight.”
Holding her purse in her lap, Mildred watched the double doors behind which her husband’s life hung in the balance. “I’ve always feared this day would come. Forty years of never knowing if the next fire call would be the one.” Mildred sighed. “I made him promise that this would be his last year volunteering. I want to sleep in peace in my golden years.”
Abby had endured less than ten years losing sleep over Kyle. Forty sounded horrifying.
“How do you do it?” she asked, truly curious. “How did you not lose your mind at some point?”
Taken aback by the question, Mildred shook her head. “You just do, honey. What’s the alternative? Should I have given him up?” Voice steadier, she said, “I could never do that.”
“But you said yourself, you spent forty years worrying. Losing sleep, all because a man insisted on playing hero.” Abby’s anger returned. “I did that once and I lost him. I don’t think I could survive going through that again.”
Turning in her chair, Mildred took on the role of consoler. “Would you give up one second of the love and happiness that you shared with your soldier just to take away the pain that came with losing him?”
Abby searched her heart for an answer. Kyle had been her first love. He’d made her laugh every time her chest ached with another good-bye. Made her feel safe and protected and special, even from the other side of the world. And she wouldn’t have missed a moment of their time together. Not for anything.
“No,” she replied, tears welling up again. “I wouldn’t.”
Mildred patted her hand. “I didn’t think so.”
They each reached for a tissue, dabbing their cheeks as Dottie appeared at the desk.
“Mrs. Graves, you can come back now.”
“Is he all right?” she asked, rising wobbly to her feet. Abby rose with her.
Dottie nodded. “He’s alive but not out of the woods. The doctor will explain everything.”
Watery blue eyes turned to Abby. “Thank God,” she murmured. “And thank you for sitting with me.”
“No problem,” she replied, sniffling into her tissue as the ER nurse escorted the older woman through the doors.
Sending up a prayer of gratitude, Abby returned to her chair, uncertain what to do. She still didn’t know if Justin was hurt. The second ambulance should arrive soon, so she decided to stay. If it wasn’t Justin, Abby could at least be there for the next loved ones who needed a shoulder and a reassuring voice.
And then Ken and Karen Donovan stepped through the door, and Abby nearly hit the ground.
Why wouldn’t someone stop the damn beeping?
Like rising from a deep hole, Justin returned to consciousness slowly, aware of only the pounding in his head and the security of a warm hand in his. First he needed to figure out where he was. On his back was the obvious part, but what was his back on?
At the risk of angering the little bastards trying to chisel their way through his skull, he struggled to remember what had happened. His first recollection was the heat. Intense, lung-singeing heat. They’d been fighting a fire. The noise came next. The roar of a blaze and a cacophony of steady voices, calling out orders until a deafening boom wiped them all away.
Scenes clicking into place, he remembered feeling weightless as that boom had tried to wipe him away, too. The soreness in his limbs. The blow to his head. The ambulance ride and the call to his mom.
And then the memories stopped. All signs indicated that he’d survived beyond that point, which was encouraging, but he had a feeling he’d scared some people he cared about.
Dragging himself from the darkness, he forced one eye open only to close it again when the light pierced his brain. Good God, how could anything be that bright? The thought made him second-guess the still-alive assumption. Testing his body, he squeezed the hand pressed against his palm.
“Justin?” he heard Abby say, and the subsequent effort to answer got him nowhere.
He needed to calm the fear in her voice. To tell her not to worry and that he was fine. Except he wasn’t fine, if the thumping in his head was any indication.
“Is he awake?” his mother asked. “Did he move?”
“He squeezed my hand,” Abby said. “Do it again, Justin. Let me know you can hear me.”
The gesture took great effort, but he managed another squeeze.
“Oh, thank God. Justin, honey,” she said, laying a hand against his cheek. “You need to try to wake up. Can you do that?”
For her, he could do anything.
With Herculean effort, he opened his eyes, blinking with the pain of it.
“Turn off the light,” Abby yelled, and a second later someone mercifully followed her order. “Try again, baby. It won’t hurt as much this time.”
Trusting her, Justin lifted his lids to find the world blurrier than he remembered.
“That’s it,” she encouraged. “Take your time.”
“You can do it, son,” echoed his father from the opposite side of the bed.
Justin licked his lips. “Drink,” he said, desperate for anything liquid.
“I’ve got it,” Mom exclaimed before Abby slid a hand behind his neck.
“Your head isn’t going to like this,” she said, holding his gaze. “But bear with me.”
She leaned him forward and the angry chiselers switched to jackhammers.
“Motherfu—” he started before reining in the expletive. The pain made him
nauseated.
“Take a second,” Abby soothed, never letting go of his hand. “Bring it closer, Karen. Let him feel the straw.”
As soon as the plastic touched his lips, Justin filled his mouth, driving back the dryness with ice-cold water. Once he’d had enough, he pressed back on Abby’s hand.
“Okay,” she said, returning him gently to the pillow. “That’s a good start.”
His mouth finally cooperated. “I’m sorry,” he said, angry at himself for putting all of them through this.
Abby hushed him. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“Speak for yourself,” Mom cut in. “He just took ten years off my life, and I already don’t have that many to go.”
“He’s alive,” Pop pointed out. “That’s all that matters.” He squeezed Justin’s shoulder before wrapping an arm around his sniffling wife. “Come on, darling. You can relax now. Let’s take a walk to the cafeteria. I hear they’ve got good pastries down there. You know how sugar always makes you feel better.”
Justin caught the wink over his mom’s shoulder and appreciated the chance to be alone with Abby. As soon as the door closed with a whoosh, he repeated the only words he’d managed since waking.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop that,” she said. “You’re the one lying in a hospital bed. I should be saying sorry to you.”
“You were worried,” he mumbled, determined to make her understand. “Remembering what happened before. With your husband.”
A delicate finger settled against his lips. “A little worry is just part of life, right? You take the good with the bad.” Abby placed a warm kiss on his lips. “For better or worse. That’s how love works.”
Her words gave him strength. “Are you saying you love me, Abby?” Justin asked, wiping a tear from her cheek.
Abby nodded, and it was as if the light had been turned back on, only this time he wasn’t blinded. In fact, his vision cleared completely.
“Say it,” he pleaded. “Say you love me.”
Something between a hiccup and a laugh danced off her lips. “I love you, Justin Donovan. So, so much.”
“I love you, too, Abby girl. More than anything.”
“Hey there,” Haleigh whispered, finding Abby in the hall outside Justin’s room. “How’s he doing?”
“Good,” she responded, accepting a much-needed hug. “Dr. Benedict is in with him now, but he’s already said we can take him home in the morning.”
“No swelling then?”
“None, thank goodness.” Abby lowered onto the vinyl bench and motioned for Haleigh to join her. “But the concussion is pretty bad. He’s on strict orders to rest and won’t be fighting fires again for at least six weeks.”
Haleigh whistled. “In a way that’s good news, but I can’t imagine convincing any man to sit still for that long.”
“I’ll tie him down if I have to.” She would not let Justin jeopardize his recovery. “He’s already argued that we have to get the beautification project done, but a restriction on bending and lifting means he’ll have to settle for supervising. From my couch, if I have my way.”
“But can you do it without him?” she asked.
A week ago her answer would have been very different. “I have to. We’re partners in this business, and we made a commitment. I won’t let Justin down.”
Haleigh took Abby’s hand. “Are you really okay?”
Confused, she said, “I’m not the one with the head injury. Of course I’m okay.”
“I wouldn’t have had you turn on the news if I’d known what would happen.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” she said. “Because this could have been Kyle all over again. You can’t tell me this didn’t bring back memories.”
No, she couldn’t. But thanks to Mildred, Abby saw things differently now.
“Have you fallen off the wagon since getting together with Cooper?” she asked.
Lips pursed, Haleigh replied, “You know I haven’t. Why would you ask that?”
Abby ignored her friend’s irritation. “Do you think that might be because loving Cooper makes you stronger?”
Studying the toe of her shoe, Haleigh smiled. “Like loving Justin has made you stronger. I see your point. I guess I should have given you more credit.”
“No, you’re right, actually. When I saw the roof of that building collapse, my first thought was that I couldn’t do this again. But you know what I’ve forgotten in the last two years?”
“What?”
“There was more to my life with Kyle than tragedy. There was laughter and love, and as a wise woman reminded me, I wouldn’t trade those moments for anything. So,” she said, “yes, this was a rough night. And I love you for worrying about me. But Justin will recover, and my focus is back where it belongs—on the good times.”
Throwing an arm around Abby’s shoulders, Haleigh sighed. “It’s nice to have you back, buddy.”
She relaxed into the embrace. “It’s nice to be back, my friend. It’s nice to be back.”
Chapter 20
“You are going to sit here, and that’s final.”
The woman was driving him mad. Justin had been out of the hospital for forty-eight hours. In that time he’d been allowed to piss. That’s it. And even that had been a negotiation.
“I feel fine,” he argued, standing up to prove his point. The world only wavered for a second or two. Nothing he couldn’t handle. “We’ve already lost too much time on this project as it is.”
Abby had insisted they take an extra day off to make sure he could handle leaving the house. Thanks to Doc Benedict, Justin couldn’t drive for a week, minimum, be on a computer for at least a month, watch more than one hour of television a day, or even read messages on his phone.
Lifting anything heavier than a magazine was out, but then he wasn’t allowed to read articles either, so screw that. The bending over was the worst. He couldn’t even put his shoes on without Abby insisting he let her tie them. Which was the only argument he’d won today. He would tie his own freaking shoelaces.
“We have two weeks until the deadline. That’s plenty of time.”
“Not with only one person doing the work.” Abby adjusted the fancy bag chair she’d set up on the sidewalk, and pressed one finger against his shoulder until Justin surrendered and sat back down.
“Then it’s a good thing I recruited some helpers.”
Now she’d crossed a line. “You hired someone without telling me? Abby, I should have been involved in that decision. And we can’t afford to pay anyone. We aren’t even paying ourselves yet.”
Opening a patio umbrella, she secured it to what he’d begun to think of as his time-out chair.
“I didn’t say I hired anyone,” she replied, adjusting the umbrella until he was fully shaded. “Let’s just say some fairy godmothers have offered their services.”
Now she sounded like the one who’d taken a blow to the head.
“I assume you’re going to explain that one?” Justin drawled, fighting back a burgeoning headache.
Like a woman without a care in the world, Abby trilled, “You’ll see.”
Right on cue the explanation appeared in the distance as a parade of armed garden gnomes, looking remarkably like the Ardent Springs Garden Society, marched down Main Street, led by none other than the head gnome herself, Thea Levine.
“You can’t be serious,” Justin murmured, marveling at the colorful display before him.
Bright, wide-brimmed hats covered silver-topped heads, and like a surging rainbow of Bermuda shorts and disturbingly pale calves, the botany brigade descended on the square as if reporting for duty.
Struggling to keep his jaw off the ground, he took in the silent soldiers before planting his gaze on Abby. “What is going on here?”
Gesturing toward her minions, she said, “These ladies know more about gardening than you or I will ever know, which made them the perfect solution. It was Ms. Thea’s idea,
actually.” Abby curtsied in the society matron’s direction and received a royal nod in return. “Once she put the word out, all of these lovely ladies volunteered to help finish the project. Isn’t that fabulous?”
Justin wanted to laugh but knew from experience that doing so would intensify the headache.
“It’s brilliant, is what it is.”
Abby visibly relaxed before dropping a gentle kiss on his cheek. “We’re going to do this,” she said for his ears only. “And it’s going to be beautiful.”
He caught her hand before she could step away. “You’re amazing, you know that?” he murmured.
“I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to please stay in his chair.”
No longer able to hold back the mirth, Justin laughed through the pain. “I can do that.”
“Good,” she said. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”
Shooing her away, he watched his partner divide the new recruits into teams, assigning two to each flower bed. Another team would transport the plants across the roundabout, while a final group was in charge of watering. Within minutes Abby set the entire operation into motion, joining Thea to tackle the front left quadrant.
One perk of Justin’s position came to light right away, as Abby knelt with her bottom in the air, providing a show he’d happily admire all day long. And then Thea bent down to place the first plant, revealing a startling amount of cleavage, and he immediately searched for an alternate view.
Justin had never been much of a people watcher, but the pastime helped alleviate his boredom. When his phone rang an hour into the day, he appreciated the distraction.
“Hello?” he answered, following doctor’s orders and not looking at the screen first.
“We’ve hit a speed bump,” Q said in a panic-stricken voice.
Thanks to the accident, Justin hadn’t thought about the real estate deal since Friday, when Q had volunteered to compile a list of possible investors.
“Gee, I’m fine, buddy,” he replied. “Thanks for asking.”
“Why wouldn’t you be fine?” Q asked, clueless as usual.