Then, as she viewed the scenario with more distance, she started to pick up on something.
She literally believes her entire life depends on whether he lives or dies.
She believes her life lies in the balance of his. Whatever they say, that is her fate.
Prinny would not have expected this of Diana. She thought her sister-in-law had grown far wiser than this in the time since leaving Leif. After all, she’d left! She’d gotten fed up with terrible treatment and had washed her hands of him. She’d been doing so well, even! She’d done an amazing job cleaning up the little apartment over the shop, and she’d come up with the tea logo and had already made several dozen ready-to-go kits.
Prinny knew Diana wanted to be self-sufficient, and she believed she had become so.
The panic coming from Diana became stronger, pulsing at Prinny almost like a fist.
Was she strong only because she knew he was out there, ready to bail her out if things got too hard? That wasn’t the person Prinny had thought she was.
Was she really so dependent on a man that she couldn’t see a way to live without him?
“I’m sorry,” Diana said, taking a quick, deep breath. “This is all just so unexpected.”
The nurse smiled, clearly trying to reassure her. “We’re waiting for the labs to come in, as well as X-ray and EKG results, but there is reason for optimism.”
“What is the treatment right now?” Diana persisted anxiously. “Are you doing anything at this time?”
“We’re just trying to get him stabilized with some digoxin.” She must have felt Prinny’s question coming on, as she added, “Which is the standard medical treatment for arrhythmia.”
Diana’s shoulders slumped in apparent relief. “Thank goodness,” she murmured. “Hopefully that will do it.”
“What does it do?” Prinny asked, looking from Diana back to Shannon C. “That medicine, I mean. Is it a cure or just an emergency stopgap or what?”
She felt Diana shoot her a look and hoped she hadn’t made things worse for her by prolonging the conversation.
“It helps the heart beat stronger and more regularly.” She gave Diana a gentle pat on the shoulder before saying, “If you don’t have any other questions, I’m going to get back into the ward. I’ll let you know the moment we know anything more.”
“Thank you,” Prinny said. She took Diana’s hand in hers. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Diana blinked once, then turned her eyes toward Prinny. “This is all just so unbelievable.”
“I’ll say.” The words “too good to be true” crossed her mind, and she silently chastised herself, ashamed to think that way in front of a woman who was so clearly devastated by the potential loss of the very person Prinny was having a hard time rooting for now.
But he’d asked for it. He’d asked for everything he was going through now. She didn’t want to say it out loud, but if called to court, before God or anyone else, she’d have to say it. He’d asked for it and he got it.
This was his own damn fault.
“Do you want me to go try and hunt down some coffee?” Prinny asked her.
“No thanks.”
“Or maybe a soothing tea? Something without caffeine? It won’t be as good as yours, but maybe it would help calm you down some.”
“No, it wouldn’t be as good as mine,” Diana said, then gave a laugh. Then another. And suddenly she was giggling like the proverbial hyena, clutching her stomach and bending over, unable to catch her breath.
Prinny felt her own face grow hot. The last thing she wanted was to be the center of the attention this was bringing from the nurse’s station. She looked guilty of mirth by association.
Then again, maybe they were used to this in her family. Gallows humor, Prinny’s father had always called it. The phenomenon of laughing at a funeral or at some other wildly inappropriate place. There was probably even an official name for it. Some sort of clinical diagnosis.
But that didn’t make it okay.
“Shhhh.” Prinny patted Diana, as if she were crying, not laughing. “It’s going to be all right.”
“I’m sorry.” Diana wiped tears from beneath her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, Di, I understand.”
“No, you don’t. No one does. This is really messed up. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Nothing?”
Diana shook her head. “The strain of all of this is taking its toll on me.”
Prinny couldn’t explain the relief she felt. “Of course it is! Who could expect anything else? This has been one hell of a night for you! Actually, a hell of a month. More!”
“I’ll say.”
She started thinking about what Diana had been through. “In fact, maybe we should take you down to the ER to get checked out while we’re here.”
Diana waved the notion away. “I’m fine.”
“It didn’t sound like it when I got to the store.” She remembered the quartz scattered all around, and the broken geode. “And it sure as hell didn’t look like it. How’s your head?”
She reflexively lifted a hand to her head but remained resolute. “I need to stay here and find out how Leif is.”
“I understand that, but if he were to skip out of here tonight, I’d be worried about what’s going to become of you.”
“Me? I don’t think I’m the one in danger right now.”
“Maybe not at this exact moment, but listen.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but if Leif comes out of this like he does everything else and wants to come at you for some sort of vengeance, you really should have a hospital report.”
“Mm.” Diana nodded and thought about it. “I did take pictures. Bloody selfies.”
“Those can be faked.” That sounded harsh. “I mean, people could accuse you of faking them. I certainly don’t think you did. It’s just much better if you have an actual medical report.”
“I know that, but why bother? Why even waste the time? You know Leif. Do you really think I could win against him under any circumstances?”
“Not if you don’t try.”
Diana dropped her head into her hands. “Then so be it. Let them think I faked them. I just can’t face doing one more thing tonight. I don’t even know how I’m going to get through the next ten minutes, much less handle things like medical reports and police reports.”
“Okay, I understand.” Prinny decided it was best not to push the matter, no matter how strongly she felt Diana was making a mistake. “I’m going to go try to find something to eat other than the crap in these vending machines. I’ll be right back. Just let me know if anything happens in the meantime.”
“I will.” Diana nodded.
“Oh God, I should have asked—how are you doing with this?”
“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Really, don’t worry.”
“I will.” Prinny gave a short laugh, then left the waiting room and stepped onto the wide elevator just as someone else was stepping off. The doors closed, and it smelled like stale coffee inside. Stale coffee and sadness. Apart from the maternity ward, not a lot of really happy things happened in the hospital. Only positive relief after potential negatives.
As soon as the doors opened to the lobby, damp, hot air rushed over her. The lobby doors to the outside were open, and the tinny sound of pouring rain was louder than anything else.
That’s when she saw Alex.
He was coming in from the rain, like a movie character, holding a newspaper over his head. As soon as he was in, he shook it off, threw it in the trash, and swatted the rain off his jacket.
Then he looked up and met her eyes.
There weren’t even words for what that one look did to her whole physiology. Heart pounding, chest tightening, her breath shallow, she had every symptom in the book.
Which still didn’t explain where she got the gall to run over to him and throw her arms around him.
Luckily, he welcomed her,
pulling her into a strong embrace. For a long moment they stood there, holding each other, chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat. She felt her soul drain out of her and into him, then back again. This was it, she knew this was it, she’d always known.
Now, with this first touch, she had no doubt. The bliss of his touch was indescribable.
Even though they were right in the middle of a public hospital lobby, this felt, in a way, like the most intimate thing she’d ever experienced.
“Why are you here?” she asked against his shoulder. “Please tell me this isn’t a horrible coincidence.”
“I heard about Leif,” he said. “I thought you could use some moral support. And maybe a lawyer.”
She drew back and looked at him. “Moral support, yes. But a lawyer?”
“I’m kidding,” he said, then removed his hands from her shoulders. “Gallows humor, I apologize.”
“Gallows…” She smiled faintly. What a fool she was to take even that small expression that had just made her think of her father as a sign that Alex was the One for her. Especially at a time like this. “No, I don’t think I need a lawyer, but thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Anytime. So what’s going on up there?”
“They think it’s something called arrhythmia, which they don’t sound all that worried about, and they’re treating it with some sort of medicine that sounds like it should take care of it.”
“So he will live to torment you another day?”
She gave a nod. “Indeed he will. He always will. I think we know by now that he’s immortal, don’t we?”
Alex pressed his lips together in a grim line and didn’t comment further.
“I was just on my way to find some alternative to the vending machines.”
“Want to grab a bite of actual food?” he asked. “There’s a diner across the street. They might at least have something resembling real food, right?”
She paused. How was it that sometimes things could be so good and so bad all at once?
“That sounds perfect.”
They walked side by side through the rain—though it had lightened to a drizzle now; occasionally their arms bumped, and one or the other of them would draw back as if they had done something wildly inappropriate. There was a palpable tension between them that seemed so obvious that she almost acknowledged it.
She wanted to hold his hand. Such a silly, small desire, but she wanted to hold his hand.
In the diner, they found a booth by the window and took half an hour or so to enjoy good, strong java and, for Prinny, a toasted Asiago cheese bagel with veggie cream cheese. She hadn’t realized how famished she was until she saw that on the menu.
After toying with the idea for a bit, alternately deciding to say something and deciding not to say something, she finally came out with it, surprising herself. “I saw your wife the other day.”
He looked taken aback. “Did you? Where?”
“Georgetown.” She didn’t reveal that Britni had come for a reading. That was a confidence she wouldn’t break, but she wanted to open the subject. “It was only in passing, but I’d have recognized her anywhere.” He looked puzzled. “That picture you have on your desk.”
“Oh.” He nodded.
They’ve already broken up. Whatever scene she had anticipated coming had already happened now. The marriage was over.
The picture was no longer on his desk.
And it wasn’t Britni he was thinking about right now.
It was Prinny.
She blushed under his gaze, which caused him to blush as well, and suddenly she had no idea what to say.
“She always did love to do her shopping on that main drag,” he said awkwardly. She didn’t need supernatural intuition to know that he had put his wife in the past tense to communicate something specific to her.
Suddenly Prinny felt stupid for even bringing it up. Granted, doing so had brought out good information for her. If they were going their separate ways, that had to be a good thing, if only because Britni didn’t love Alex, and no one should be stuck in a loveless marriage.
Diana could testify to that.
“I didn’t mean to raise a sore subject,” she said. “It was just such a coincidence.”
He shrugged. “Honestly, I thought she’d go to your store. She saw your file out the other day and was asking about it. Not private information or anything, just the plans for expanding into the space next door.”
“And how would you feel about your wife going to a metaphysical shop?”
He looked genuinely puzzled. “What do you mean? Should I feel negatively about that?”
“Oh, you’d be amazed how many men complain about their wives having readings or buying crystals.”
He laughed. “Well, yeah, I guess I can imagine. Or maybe I’ve just had to intercept too many Leif calls.”
“We know all about how Leif feels about the shop,” Prinny went on. “But I never knew just what you thought of it.”
He looked at her for a moment, his eyes so warm that looking at them made her have to fight back a giggle.
“I think the shop, like the owner, is absolutely charming.”
She couldn’t stop the huge, goofy, stupid puppy dog smile. “Oh, go on.” She laughed. “Most people think it’s a little weird and kind of … eccentric.”
“That, too,” he said. “Definitely that, too. But charmingly eccentric.” He looked at her very seriously. “It’s you, really, that makes it. You’re what’s so good about it.”
She didn’t know what to say. Of course she wanted the moment to last, but it couldn’t, and even though it called for her to say something graceful in response, all she could do was grin like an idiot.
“Thanks.” It was all she could muster, but it worked.
He gave a small smile in return. “We should probably go back to the hospital,” he said. “See what’s going on.”
“Of course.” What was she thinking? Flirting away while poor Diana had been sitting there all alone. “Di hasn’t called, so I guess that’s a good sign.”
Alex left cash on the table, waving away her reach for her wallet, and together they walked back across the street. The rain had stopped now, but the damp was rising off the still-hot pavement of the street in waves. They went into the air-conditioned lobby and boarded that stale coffee-scented elevator and went back to the horrid little waiting room where seemingly nothing had changed.
Prinny introduced Alex and Diana, and Alex expressed his sorrow over meeting under these conditions. Then they all three sat, barely making conversation, watching snatches of golf on TV.
When the doctor came out, it wasn’t like on TV. He wasn’t taking off his cap and wiping his brow, with a sad look in his kind but wise old eyes.
He was all business.
“I’m sorry,” he said, without compassion.
Then he went on to explain how Leif had died at 11:52 P.M. of cardiac arrest, just as they had been hoping to get the arrhythmia under control. It wasn’t unheard of, he explained.
They did all they could.
They tried.
Diana’s expression had grown distant while the doctor spoke. She looked numb. It wasn’t even clear if she was hearing anything anymore. Prinny put an arm around her and squeezed until he had finished and told them there would be paperwork shortly.
Leif had come in alive, and now only paperwork would be leaving. It gave her the chills in a way that the news itself did not.
As the doctor walked away, Diana let out a long, slow breath. Almost like relief. At this point, with the tension of the past couple of hours, it wasn’t surprising that both of them were finally breathing, even if it wasn’t exactly a comfortable situation.
Prinny glanced at Alex, and he nodded back toward Diana.
“You’re going to be all right,” Prinny said to Diana, giving her another squeeze. “I swear you are.”
Diana turned clear eyes on her. “He was so awful to me, yet he’s been my lif
e for so long that I almost … I don’t know who I am now. He’s … gone.”
“You’re the same person you have been becoming since you left him, Diana. You are talented and starting a new life, a new business. I know this is hard”—she felt an unexpected pang of loss for the brother Leif had never opted to be—“but life will go on.”
“Yes.” Diana closed her eyes for a moment, and her shoulders sank. “Life will go on.”
She did not cry.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Chelsea
One Year Later
Of all the nights when Chelsea really needed to get some sleep, it was that one. But instead of sleeping deeply and waking up with a dewy glow and energy for the day and more, she was half awake all night. Her feet writhed; she bit her lip so hard she tasted blood rising to the surface beneath the skin. She looked at the clock a million times.
But for once, she wasn’t tossing and turning from anxiety. She wasn’t longing for a drunken haze to put her to something resembling sleep. No.
Not anymore.
She couldn’t sleep because she was so. Damn. Excited.
It was like Christmas Eve as a kid, with those glances up at the electric candle in the window, just waiting for the sky beyond it to lighten. So the day could begin. The half-eaten cookies could be found, the presents opened, the marathon of holiday movies begun in the living room.
Today, though, it wasn’t Christmas Eve. In fact, it was almost just like any other day. Her happiness probably could have kept her awake even if tonight wasn’t The Night.
Chelsea’s alarm went off at eight—she’d looked at the clock every one to five minutes in the last forty-five minutes, waiting for it to go off—and she pushed herself up in bed.
“Up, up, up!” she said, not bothering to contain her Christmas-morning excitement.
Jeff groaned, but smiled when she laughed. “It’s gotta be too early, doesn’t it?”
“Nope!” she said, draping herself over his torso.
He yawned and put his free hand on her waist. Blinking, he looked at her. “You look pretty.”
“You don’t have your contacts in, you can’t see anything,” she said, but grinned anyway.
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