I grinned at him. “Then let’s do this so we can go home and I can set this dress on fire.”
Win laughed as we got out of the car and strode across the mostly empty parking lot to head into the visitor’s lounge area, where I told Loretta I’d meet her.
Our hospital here in Eb Falls was smaller than most, nestled in the far end of town and surrounded by trees. It definitely wasn’t Cedars Sinai, but I’d done some volunteer work here over the last few years, and they had a great reading program for sick children and a nice batch of nurses and doctors who loved small-town living.
As we entered the building, the rush of warmth from the lobby greeting us, I saw Loretta and Kirkland sitting in the waiting room on big orange chairs, both pale and red-eyed.
“Loretta! Kirkland!” I called out as I began to rush forward. “Are you all right?”
Loretta hopped up to greet us, grabbing my hand and pulling me back toward the lobby doors, away from her brother and toward a small alcove.
Leaning into me, she whispered, “We’re waiting for someone to come collect Kirkland to take his blood. He hates needles, so I offered to stay with him, but I haven’t told him about the blood test results yet. He doesn’t know that neither Mom nor Dad are AB negative.”
“Listen, is it possible that you’ve got this wrong? Is it possible one of your parents could be AB negative? Because if not, that would mean…”
I was too afraid to say it out loud.
“Lida is Kirkland’s biological mother,” Loretta provided, tears filling her eyes. “I’ve always suspected something was off with my father and the way he feels about Kirkland, Stevie. He’s a jerk. A misogynistic jerk. Everyone knows that. He’s always been horrible to Kirkland, too. But that’s not all he is. He’s a liar and a cheat. I know that for a fact, because I saw him once when I was sixteen or so with one of my friends’ mothers. They were kissing! Hanging all over each other.”
I blanched. “Oh, Loretta. I’m sorry you had to see that. You were so young.” The more I learned about Harris, the more I despised him.
“He’s had countless affairs, probably since long before I saw him with my friend’s mother and long after. In fact, I’m sure of it. There’s always talk about it at corporate. People think I don’t hear, but plenty gets back to me, and he’s always proving what a man he is by showboating with his good ol’ boy attitude. In my father’s eyes, what better way to prove you’re a real man than talk about all the women you’ve bedded?”
I’ve always known Harris was a rotten human being, but I didn’t know one of his children was aware of how rotten.
“Do you think your mother knew?”
Loretta shook her dark head, covering her mouth with her hand. “I’m pretty sure she did—which makes this that much more disgusting. We live in a big house, but voices carry. My parents were always fighting behind closed doors. I’m sure their fights had to do with his infidelities. But this? Do you know what this means, Stevie?” she squeaked, her eyes wide with horror as she gripped my arm.
I did know what it meant. It meant Harris was an even bigger pig than I’d given him credit for.
“It means my father allowed the woman he impregnated to live in our house with our mother, for heaven’s sake! And why did Lida watch her own child grow up with my monster of a father, and never say a word to Kirkland about who she really was to him? Not a word! It means my mother allowed this! She allowed this man to bring his affair to her home and flaunt it right under her nose, because she loved her money and her booze and pills more than she could ever love anyone!” she hissed.
The impact of that kind of choice made my head spin. But wait…could that have been why Lida wanted to talk to me last night? Was she going to tell me that Kirkland was her son?
But how did that explain the business card from Divinia’s?
Yikes, my head was in a tizzy. I had too many questions and not enough answers.
Gripping Loretta’s hand, I begged her, “Please, please calm down. I know this is horrible news, but we have no proof Kirkland truly is Lida’s, Loretta. There are other people in the world who are AB negative.”
As I said it, I knew it was likely a weak suggestion, but we couldn’t condemn everyone until we knew for sure.
“Oh, I’d bet my life on it,” she spat, fire in her eyes. “When I heard the nurse tell Kirkland his blood type was rare, but a match for Lida’s, that made me pause. I can’t say why, but it made me stop and wonder. I can only think I did it because I wanted to have all my ducks in a row—especially when it comes to dealing with my father. So, I had my assistant look up my parents’ wills, with all of the gobbledygook information that goes into a will. Like DNRs and blood types. Like I said in my text, both my mother and my father are O positive—just like me. It’s on file in case of emergencies. Kirkland is the only one of us who’s AB negative, and I plan to confront my father about it as soon as I can!”
I think, if there were any blood left in my body after being squeezed so tight in this dress, it drained out of me right then and there. At a time like this, when everything was such a mess for Kirkland, confronting Harris Endicott about where he’d been catting about felt like bringing a bucket to a hurricane.
“Okay, so now what, Loretta? You have a decision to make. If you haven’t told Kirkland, maybe we should simply let him donate blood without ever being the wiser and, when he’s done, you can take him home. Then you can speak to your parents and figure this out. Or you can tell him now and throw caution to the wind, but Kirkland’s so fragile at this point...”
Boy, would I like to be a fly on that wall when that conversation occurred, because it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Loretta trembled, her hands shaky, her lips dry as she gripped my hand. “It’s all I can do not to crawl out of my skin right now, Stevie. When I get my hands on that man—on both of them—I’m going to strangle them. And I know that sounds bad in light of what happened to Wade, but they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this! And, dear God in Heaven. What about poor Lida?” Tears filled her eyes again. “She’s always been so good to us. Both of us, not just Kirkland. All these years, she’s had to watch Kirkland suffer the wrath of my father, suffer his distaste about his lifestyle. Why would she do that, Stevie? Why?”
As all this new information really sunk in, I was, as Win would say, gobsmacked. If this were true, it would explain Lida’s affection for Kirkland, even if it didn’t explain why she’d allowed Rosemary to raise Kirkland as her own.
I almost had no words. “I have no answers, but I do need you to help Kirkland get through this. You know him better than I do. Should we just let him donate the blood and tell him later about Lida, after we know for sure? This is a huge, life-altering secret, Loretta. He’s already in so much pain.”
And that didn’t even take into consideration what we’d learned about Wade tonight. I wasn’t looking forward to telling him everything we’d discovered at Divinia’s.
Before Loretta had a chance to answer my question, Harris and Rosemary came blustering in from the chilly evening, taking some of this dilemma out of our hands.
Harris whipped past us with Rosemary trailing behind, his round face red, his beefy fists clenched as he stomped his way toward Kirkland.
Loretta let out a ragged breath. “Oh, cripes! I forgot I called them. I thought the least they could do was show up for Lida, who’s been nothing but loyal to them from the beginning, and now, thanks to me, World War III is about to break out!”
I looked at the quiet waiting room with its light beige walls and orange chairs, a television in the corner, high on the wall, playing the weather channel, and wondered if it wasn’t best to leave.
“Maybe we should leave, Loretta? Your father is no fan of mine, and I don’t want to make things worse for all of you at such a harrowing time.”
But she gripped my arm, her eyes, so like Kirkland’s, pleading. “Please don’t go, Stevie. If he finds out I know about this, he’ll flip his lid
—and I don’t really care. But I don’t want him to flip his lid in front of Kirkland. Kirkland deserves my father’s support, and he’s done nothing but make everything worse.”
“Okay, then let’s go see if we can’t get Kirkland in and out before things get out of hand. You up to that?”
“I swear, Stevie, if he starts an argument with Kirkland, he’ll regret it,” she seethed.
“Let’s just focus on Kirkland.”
Taking her hand, I pulled her toward Kirkland and Win, who were chatting softly, just as Harris, like the blustering ignoramus he was, approached, his face a mask of anger.
“What the hell’s going on here, Kirkland?” he roared, startling us all. “You’re mother and I were getting ready for bed! Did you lose an arm? A leg?” Then he scoffed in disgust. “Of course you didn’t. Can’t lose a limb planting flowers, can you?”
Honestly, folks, forget Loretta and her wish to give Harris what for. If not for Win, I would have used my sky-high shoes to kick Harris’s keister from here to ever-lovin’ infinity. I’d have planted my foot so far up his backside, a surgeon would have had to remove it, I was so incensed!
But Win grabbed hold of my arm to keep me from punching Harris’s lights out as everyone gasped, including poor Kirkland, who looked as though he’d been kidney punched.
But to his credit, he rose from the chair with slow and measured movements, glaring at Harris with hot defiance.
He lifted his chin and squared his shoulders. “I’m here to give blood to a woman who’s been nothing but kind to me my entire life—kinder than you’ve ever been! I guess Loretta thought you might want to be here for the woman who’s kept our house together and taken care of our family for over thirty years, so she called you. But I could have told her you don’t care about anyone or anything but your cigars and your women and being a real man, do you, Dad?” Kirkland spat at a very surprised Harris.
I gathered Harris wasn’t used to Kirkland lashing out, due to his outraged reaction.
He drew his lips back in a snarl and struck like a cobra. “Don’t you talk to me like that, boy, or I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Kirkland seethed, his teeth clenched when he jammed his face in his father’s. “Call me a sissy flower lover? Mock me because I don’t want to go hunting with you and your disgusting friends while you slap each other on the back and degrade women’s body parts? Make fun of me because I’d rather read a book than watch some stupid football game? What are you going to do to me, Harris Endicott?”
Kirkland’s screaming rant made us all stop dead in our tracks, including Rosemary, who’d looked zoned out up until that point. Now her eyes were wide and her jaw hung open.
The prim receptionist of about seventy, manning the desk, looked up from her book, peering over the counter with distaste at us, probably fully prepared to call security.
Harris’s face wore a look of shock for only a moment before he turned red with rage. “How dare you challenge me, boy! How dare you!”
He raised his fist, prepared to sock Kirkland right in the kisser, but Win, in all his 007 glory, intervened quicker than The Flash.
In a blur, he grabbed Harris’s arm and twisted it behind his back, leaning in to whisper in a tight voice, “If you value your arm, I wouldn’t, Mr. Endicott. Now, you will take yourself over to the other side of the waiting room where you will sit down, quietly support your son, and behave like a gentleman until otherwise requested. Do you understand me?”
Harris shook with anger, his big body trembling, his eyes on fire with hatred, but when Win shoved him toward the other half of the waiting room and pointed to a chair, he reluctantly sat with flaring nostrils and a heaving chest.
Rosemary ran to his side and reached for him, but he angrily brushed her off.
Kirkland’s face was ghost white, his chest heaving, his eyes filled with such sadness, I wanted to hug him. His mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out…and that’s when he turned and ran.
Loretta looked to me with apologetic eyes filled with unshed tears. “I’ll go after him, get him to have some coffee from the cafeteria and calm down, but before this night is through, my father’s going to wish he’d never raised his hand to my brother,” she said fiercely. “Will you tell the doctor where we are?”
I nodded. “Absolutely. Go after him. We’ll wait here until things settle down and the doctor comes. Go,” I whispered, still in shock.
As Loretta ran after her brother, her dark hair flying behind her, I looked up at Win, his eyes flashing with fury, something I rarely, if ever saw.
I blew out a cleansing breath. “You’re a good egg, 007. I love you, you know,” I said with a watery smile full of deep admiration.
As though someone had snapped their fingers, Win looked down at me and smiled, his eyes going soft and warm. “And I you, Dove. I’m going to go and check on them, if you don’t mind. I know this is usually your role, the nurturer, but my heart aches for Kirkland. And the look on his face… You don’t mind if I take this one, do you?”
I loved this side of Win. As tough as he was, as skilled, as smart, as witty as he could be, he had a softer side—for animals, the elderly, and the emotionally wounded, and in that moment, I fell deeper in love than ever before.
“I don’t mind at all. While you’re there, would you grab me a coffee, too?” I stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’m going to go to the car and see if I can find my beach shoes while we wait because my feet are killing me. Meet you back here in a bit?”
He pressed his lips to mine and rubbed his nose against my cheek. “Always.”
As he strode down the hallway toward the sign that said cafeteria, I went to the desk and approached the stunned night receptionist.
“Hello there. I’m Stevie Cartwright, a friend of the family you were forced to watch argue. I’m so sorry. But of course, you know how tense things can get when a loved one is ill. I’m sure you see it all the time, don’t you, er,” I peered at her nametag, “Elaine?”
Her expression didn’t change—it was still as sour as it had been when she’d witnessed Kirkland’s outburst, but she acknowledged me with a nod of her graying head.
“I do.”
“I’m going to run to my car for a moment to change shoes and grab a breath of fresh air. Should the doctor come back looking for Kirkland Endicott, please take my number and call me so I can locate Kirkland promptly, would you please, Elaine?”
I wrote down my number on the sign-in sheet and smiled at her, and she gave me another curt nod before returning to her book.
Without looking back at Harris, who would have two black eyes and a bloody nose if I were in charge of meting out punishments for worst parent of the year, I headed to my car to grab my shoes and maybe unzip this dress a little. Because if I didn’t stop breathing soon, it would be a miracle.
While I did that, I was going to give Bel a call and tell him what we’d found at Divinia’s, so he could have a good laugh at my expense, too.
And then I smiled at how weird my life was.
Because ooo-wee, it was really weird.
Chapter 17
I was just bending over to slide my shoes on, half hanging out of the driver’s-side door, my purse at my feet, when I heard someone talking.
The voice drifted in and out on the roar of the wind. It had picked up, so I couldn’t quite distinguish if it was male or female.
Naturally, the rain began to come down again, too. There was nothing I wanted less than to get this dress wet. I’m certain the rain would turn it into shrink wrap.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a change of clothes in the car, but note to self, carry a change of clothes in the car so you won’t end up strangled to death by a red plastic dress.
“Santini!”
My eyes popped wide as a voice drifted to my ears, stilling my movement. Had I heard that right? Did I hear someone say Santini? This couldn’t be random. How many people were named Santini? How many people talked ab
out someone named Santini twice in one day? I mean, come on.
As the wind howled and the rain sprinkled, I dropped my beach shoe on the ground and cocked my ear, while my heart thrashed in my chest.
Now, I’m not sure if that had to do with how tight my stupid dress was or my fear, but it crashed in my ears like the tide coming in before a storm.
“They were what? What happened to all that discretion I pay through the nose for…” the voice yelled then drifted off again, distorted by the rustle of leaves skittering across the parking lot.
My mouth went dry as I tried to make myself as small as possible. I couldn’t place where the person was located in the parking lot, but my mind raced with the possibility of discovery.
That was when I realized the dome light in my car was on, and if whoever was outside talking about Santini saw it, they’d know I was there.
Lying on my back to stay hidden, as the center console dug into my spine, I reached up and quickly snapped the light off, my breathing irregular and choppy.
“Oh, you’ll all regret this! You’re going to regret the day you were born!” were the last words I heard before there was silence and nothing but the roar of the wind and the call of a few seagulls overhead.
I slithered forward and sat up, hunching as low as possible on the edge of the driver’s seat, cursing my stupid dress, which allowed me very little mobility and was going directly into the trash the moment I got home, as I tried to decipher who this could be.
A doctor? Surely doctors had pressure-cooker jobs, right? Win’s description of the lifestyle sounded as though it catered to someone who wanted to let go of all control.
Leaning forward, I closed my eyes to keep from screaming and dug in my purse for my cell so I could call Win. I’d dropped it back in there after I’d left a message for Bel.
As I dug, hoping the noise I was making sifting through Twinkie wrappers and loose change was absorbed by the wind, two feet appeared in front of me.
Two feet with a pair of black shiny shoes and a copper buckle on the side of them.
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