The Cottage on the Corner

by Shirlee McCoy

  Daisy wailed in response, her cries almost as loud and uncontrolled as Zuzu’s had been.

  “I am not a criminal!” she managed to gasp between sobs.

  “Right. Because most law-abiding citizens use credit cards and bobby pins to open locked doors.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “You were, too!” Emma barked. “You thought the apartment was empty because Max’s car was gone and all the lights were off. You thought it was the perfect opportunity to break in and take what you wanted. What were you going to do? Steal his computer and television?”

  “No!”

  “Well, you were there to steal something!”

  “Now, let’s not throw around accusations without knowing all the facts.” Ida interrupted the argument. “I’m sure Daisy had a logical reason for being here tonight. Why don’t you explain it to us, Daisy? So we’ll all understand.”

  The car fell silent as Charlotte did a three-point turn and followed the ambulance back down the driveway. They were on the freeway before Daisy spoke. When she did, her voice was so low, Charlotte could barely hear it.

  “I needed the recipe for double chocolate delights,” she whispered. “I saw Charlotte give it to Max, and I just had to have it. I’ve been waiting years for Jerry to propose. I know he wants to. He just needs a little extra incentive.”

  “First of all, Max doesn’t have the recipe, Daisy. I gave him one for an easy chocolate cake, but the other recipe is in my head. I never write it down. Second of all—”

  “Please,” Emma interrupted. “Let me. Second of all, Daisy, even if you’d gotten the da—”

  “Language,” Ida warned.

  “Even if you’d gotten the darn recipe, it would have all been for nothing,” Emma snapped. “Because cupcakes can’t make a man propose any more than sitting in this car with you can make me stupid.”

  “Emma!” Ida chided. “Be kind.”

  “Why? If she hadn’t been fiddling around with Max’s door, I wouldn’t have run after her and Zuzu wouldn’t be hurt.” Her voice shook with anger and, Charlotte thought, the aftermath of adrenaline and fear.

  “I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen!” Daisy cried.

  “You can tell that to Cade. He’s meeting us at the hospital. You can also tell him that you were responsible for the break-ins at Charlotte’s place, because you were. Right?”

  “I just wanted the recipe! If Charlotte had agreed to give it to me—”

  “Enough,” Ida commanded. Not loudly. Just a quiet command that swept through the car and seemed to steal all fight from both women. “Obviously, mistakes were made, and restitution will have to be offered. For now, though, we have a little girl to worry about. The rest of this can wait.”

  She was right.

  At that moment, Charlotte couldn’t have cared less about Emma’s accusation or Daisy’s confession. All she wanted to do was get to the hospital. The ambulance had left her in its dust, the station wagon no match for the faster vehicle. She puttered along the nearly empty freeway, snow swirling in the headlights. The way things were looking, she’d be driving home in a snowstorm on her bald tires, but even that seemed inconsequential in view of what had happened.

  Within minutes snow covered the asphalt.

  She slowed the station wagon to a fast crawl, leaning forward to peer through the deepening storm. At the rate they were going, they might reach the hospital sometime before Zuzu’s eighteenth birthday.

  Then again, they might not.

  “Can’t this thing go any faster?” Emma leaned over the seat, fingers beating a fast tattoo on the seat.

  “Not if we want to stay on the road. My tires are shot. I need to get new ones. I just haven’t had time,” Charlotte admitted.

  “Wonderful,” Emma huffed, dropping back into her spot. “Not only did I nearly let a kid I was babysitting die, but I’m going to spend the next three hours stuck in a car with . . .” She didn’t finish.

  Charlotte had a feeling she’d been about to make some snide comment about being stuck in the car with America’s Most Wanted librarian.

  “You didn’t almost let Zuzu die, Emma. She fell down the stairs. Children do that all the time,” Ida reassured her, but Emma didn’t seem convinced.

  “She landed on concrete, Ida. Most kids don’t do that. Most don’t dislocate their shoulders or nearly knock themselves out.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I just really, really hope she’s okay.”

  “She’ll be fine, dear,” Ida responded. “Trust me. A dying child cannot scream like that little girl did. Not for any length of time anyway. She’ll be a little bruised and a little sore, but she’ll be up to most of her old antics, driving poor Max crazy by tomorrow morning. Won’t she, Charlotte?”

  Charlotte wasn’t as confident as Ida, but she didn’t plan to tell the others that. “Of course! She’ll probably be begging for cookies for breakfast and insisting on riding her Big Wheel down Main Street in the snow.”

  “Showing off her bruised head to everyone who’ll take a look,” Ida said with a little laugh.

  “Using it to get every shop owner on Main Street to feel sorry for her. She’ll get all kinds of treats,” Charlotte added.

  “I hope you guys are right. I’ll never forgive myself if she has some kind of long-term problem because of the fall she took.”

  “The biggest problem that Zuzu has isn’t the knot on her head or the dislocated shoulder,” Charlotte responded. “It’s that her mother isn’t here.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Ida said. “Morgan has lost all sense of priority. Fortunately, Zuzu has Max. She has you. She has me and all the people in town who have grown to love her. Even if Morgan never came back for her, she’ll be okay.”

  “Okay?” Emma snorted. “She’d be better off. Morgan is no prize as a mother. Zuzu deserves a lot better. If she sticks around here, she’ll have it.”

  “We can’t know for sure that being here will be better for Zuzu,” Ida responded.

  Emma laughed harshly. “Of course, we can. Morgan is a loser. She dropped her kid off with someone who was a virtual stranger to the child and went off to wait tables at a casino. There’s no pretty way to say that, Ida. No way to paint it into a nice little Apple Valley picture.”

  “You sound bitter, dear.”

  “I’m a realist.”

  “In the midst of your realistic assessment of the situation, don’t forget to extend a little grace. Morgan made a mistake. That’s the truth of the matter, but she may rectify it once she finds out about the accident.”

  “By what? Coming back? Too little too late. She should have all her parental rights taken away. That’s my opinion anyway,” Emma said with a quiet huff.

  “It’s your opinion because you’re just plain mean. Just like your dad.” Daisy chose that moment rejoin the conversation.

  Not the best time, and probably the worst subject she could have chosen.

  But Charlotte was certain she knew it.

  “I may be mean, but at least I’m not a sneak and a trespasser!” Emma retorted.

  “Girls!” Ida cut in with an exaggerated sigh. “I thought we just agreed this wasn’t the time for arguments.”

  They weren’t girls, and they hadn’t agreed, but neither said that to Ida. They shut up and stayed that way until Charlotte finally turned into the hospital parking lot.

  She chose a spot close to the emergency exit, and they all filed out. Except for Daisy, who huddled in her seat, arms wrapped around her waist, a forlorn look on her face. “I’ll just stay here. I’m sure that Max won’t want me there after what I’ve done.”

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and come on!” Emma yanked her out of the car.

  “I’m not feeling sorry for myself.”

  “Okay, then, you’re putting on an act, so we’ll leave you out here and you can make your escape.”

  “I am not going to make an escape,” Daisy sputtered, her face mottled red as they walked into the emerg
ency room lobby.

  Cade was already there, sitting in a vinyl chair nursing a cup of coffee. He stood as they approached. “Tough time getting here, huh?”

  “My tires—”

  “Are bald. Max mentioned that three times. He doesn’t want you driving home in this. One of the guys from the station is putting chains on Max’s Vette and bringing it over here, so you guys will have a safe ride home.”

  “How’s Zuzu?”

  “The doctor already popped her shoulder back into place and had an MRI of her head done. She’s in triage for now. Max asked me to take you back there when you arrived. You”—he pointed at Daisy, and her face lost every bit of color—“stay right here. We have a few things to discuss.”

  He took Charlotte’s arm and walked her through a doorway and into a wide hall. Rooms opened up to either side, the sounds of televisions and conversation drifting out from a few of them. Soft music played through a centralized PA system. A Christmas carol, but Charlotte was too nervous, her stomach too tied up in knots to really listen.

  When they reached the end of the corridor, Cade stopped at a closed door. “This is it. I’m going to let you go in alone.”

  “So you can deal with Daisy?”

  “And so you can deal with Max.”

  “You heard what happened?”

  “Not all of it. Max just told me that you’d decided against the picnic, and that he’d taken you home before Zuzu fell. He probably wouldn’t have mentioned it, but Jethro showed up a couple minutes after the ambulance arrived. We were talking, and he mentioned that Max had been up at the church by himself when he heard the news about Zuzu.”

  “I’m an idiot.”

  “No.” He shook his head, gave her a quick hug.

  “You’re cautious. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “There is if I miss out on something great because of it.”

  “I’m tempted to say that Max won’t be a great thing.”

  “You don’t think he will be?”

  Cade studied her for a moment, his gaze intent but open. He knew her as well as anyone, and she’d always been able to count on him for honest advice. “Truth?”

  “Of course,” she managed to say past the tightness in her throat and the sudden dryness in her mouth.

  “Max is a good guy. I can’t say he’ll never hurt you, but I can say that if he loves you, he’ll do whatever it takes to make things work. He’ll move heaven and earth to make you happy, and he won’t ever purposely let you down.” He scowled. “And just so you know, it hurt like hell to say all those nice things. If you tell him I did, I’ll deny it. Now I really do have to go. Daisy needs to be dealt with.”

  “You were right about her, Cade. She admitted she’s been breaking into my house looking for my cupcake recipe.”

  “You and those cupcakes, Charlotte,” he said with a smile. “I might have to ask the town council to ban any mention of them.”

  “And trample the right to free speech?”

  “If it prevents people like Daisy from going nuts, it might just be worth it.” He grinned. “I’ll check back in later. Tell Max to give me a call if he needs anything before then.”

  “I will.”

  He walked away, and she took a deep breath, bracing herself for the moment when she walked into the room, saw Max and Zuzu, felt her heart jump in acknowledgment. She’d made a lot of mistakes in her life. She’d paid for a lot of mistakes.

  This wouldn’t be one of them.

  She knocked softly.

  The door opened immediately, and she looked into Max’s eyes. They were hollow and old, his gaze raw with anxiety.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “I thought I heard you out here.”

  “I was talking to Cade.” She tiptoed over to the bed. Zuzu lay sound asleep, the lump on her head slightly smaller and much more colorful than it had seemed before, an IV line attached to her hand. “How’s she doing?”

  “She’ll be in a sling for a few days, but the shoulder should heal fine. The doctor said the head injury looks superficial.”

  “That’s superficial? It’s the size of a small ostrich egg,” she protested.

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He told me that when I got a Ph.D, I’d probably be better able to know the difference between serious and not.”

  “Nice bedside manners.”

  “We’re old hunting buddies. Last year I came home with an eight point buck, and he got nothing. I think he’s still a little upset about that.” He slid an arm around Charlotte’s waist, tugged her into his side.

  God, he felt good. All hard muscles and warmth. At some point he’d changed into running gear, the fabric of his shirt soft against her cheek. “You’ve been running.”

  “I needed to clear my head.”

  “Of me?”

  “That,” he responded, shifting so that they were face-to-face, “would not be possible. Even if I wanted it to be.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what? Digging yourself so deeply into my brain that I can’t get you out of it no matter how hard I try?”

  “For being a coward.” She touched his cheek, her hand slipping to the curve of his jaw and resting there. “I wanted that picnic so badly, Max. It scared me.”

  “Are you still scared?” He pressed her palm to his stubbled skin, his callused hand familiar and wonderful, and she had this feeling way deep in the depth of her soul that he could be everything she’d ever wanted if she had the courage to let him.

  “I have never been more terrified in my life,” she whispered, her heart beating so fast she thought it would fly right out of her chest.

  “Don’t be,” he responded. “I would never hurt you. Not intentionally.”

  “Funny, that’s exactly what Cade just said to me.”

  “Did he?” he murmured. “Because, about twenty minutes ago, he told me that he’d knock my head off if I so much as thought about breaking your heart.”

  “Nice.” She laughed, and Zuzu shifted, the bedsheets rustling.

  “Charl-lott!” she called weakly, lifting her right hand beseechingly. “I needs you to hold me.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “It’ll be okay,” Max said. “Just sit in the bed with her.”

  She climbed in, leaning against the headboard as Zuzu crawled into her lap. She smelled like antiseptic and little girl.

  “Better?” Charlotte asked, patting her back.

  “Yes.” She dropped her head onto Charlotte’s shoulder. “Where’s Mommy?”

  “On her way,” Max responded.

  Charlotte met his eyes. “You finally reached her?”

  “She called me back while we were in the ambulance.”

  “Was she upset?”

  “She’s worried about the head injury, but she said Zuzu has loose joints and that this isn’t the first time her shoulder has popped out. I told her that would have been nice information to have.”

  “And?”

  “She said something I can’t repeat in front of the kid. Then she told me that she’s going to get a flight out as soon as she can. Hopefully she’ll be here by morning, but with the snow—”

  “Snow!?” Zuzu squealed. “I wants to see!” She bounded up, nearly slamming her head into Charlotte’s chin.

  “So much for being weak and injured,” Max muttered, snagging her by the waist before she could jump off the bed and rip out her IV line. “Slow down, kid. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “I already did that. Now I needs to see the snow,” Zuzu responded with such a serious look on her face, Charlotte laughed.

  “Knock-knock!” a tall red-haired doctor called from the open doorway. Dr. Eli Winters had grown up in Apple Valley. After attending medical school in Maryland, he’d returned. Charlotte didn’t know much more about him. Except that he had a weakness for gingerbread and pumpkin muffins. “Looks like our patient is feeling a little better. That matches what
we’re seeing on the MRI.” He glanced at a clipboard as he walked into the room. “Shoulder looks good, too. Since Zuzu isn’t vomiting or showing any signs of a concussion, I think it’s safe to send her home. A nurse is on the way in to take out that IV. She’ll bring the aftercare instructions with her.”

  “Thanks, Eli.” Max grabbed the footy pajamas Zuzu had been wearing from a chair. “I really appreciate you moving so quickly on this.”

  “Thank me by not getting in my way when we go hunting next year,” the doctor replied. “I’m having a hard time living down the fact that a city slicker brought in a bigger buck than I did.”

  “You didn’t bring in any.”

  “Thanks for the reminder, Max. I’d forgotten that little detail.” Eli smiled and ruffled Zuzu’s hair. “Are you ready to go home, Zuzu?”

  “I’m not going home. I’m going to see a snow,” Zuzu informed him.

  “Have you ever seen snow before?”

  Zuzu shook her head, her eyes big in her pale face.

  “Then you’re in for a treat.”

  “A cookie treat?” she asked, her whole face lighting up. “I love cookies.”

  “I don’t see why you can’t have a few cookies.” Eli laughed.

  “That’s because you’re not going to have to deal with her at three in the morning when she’s wired up from sugar,” Max growled, but Charlotte could see the amusement in his eyes.

  “Payback sucks, man! You have my cell phone number if Zuzu has any trouble when she gets home. Call me if you need to.” He walked out of the room, and Max tugged Zuzu’s pajama pants up her legs.

  “We going?” she asked.

  “As soon as the nurse takes that needle out of your hand.”

  Zuzu’s eyes widened, and her face went from happy to terrified.

  “You shouldn’t have—” Mentioned that, Charlotte was going to say, but Zuzu’s high-pitched scream drowned out the words.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Three hours.

  That’s how long it had taken to get released from the hospital and make the drive—what should have been a twenty-minute drive—home. Max glanced in the rearview mirror. Charlotte had squeezed into the backseat, smashing herself in beside Zuzu and holding the little girl’s hand.