by Erin Wright
Where the hell were the McLains?
He and Iris had decided weeks ago to go to a Christmas ice skating show over in Franklin. He’d bought the stupidly expensive tickets that included a meal with the show.
He had everything he needed…except his Iris.
Angry now, he stomped back to his truck. After her cold shoulder and slamming the door in his face, it’d taken him a while to simmer down enough to go to sleep last night. He’d had every intention of pinning her down tonight and forcing her to answer his questions about what the hell was going on inside of that frustratingly beautiful head of hers, but now she had to pull a disappearing act on him.
If she didn’t want to go to the damn ice skating show with him, she could’ve just said so. To stand him up like this was a class act of assholeness, in his opinion.
He threw his truck into reverse and spun out of the McLain’s driveway. Fine. If she was going to be like this, he’d go do something else with his Saturday evening.
He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, and then it hit him – he could go buy propane for next year over at Frank’s Feed. He’d been meaning to do that anyway. No time like the present.
Ignoring how pathetic it made him that he was going to spend his Saturday evening buying propane for next year’s growing season, rather than go on a hot date with a beautiful woman, Declan headed towards Frank’s.
When he got there, he stormed inside and up to the counter. “I’d like to buy propane for next year,” he growled at the pimply kid behind the counter.
“Yes, sir,” the kid said. “Let me go grab the contract.”
Declan ignored the pang of panic at the word “contract,” and just nodded his head dismissively, as if he read contracts every day.
Thank God that wasn’t actually true. He wasn’t sure if he’d survive such tortures on a daily basis.
“Sorry to hear about your girlfriend,” Mr. Burgemeister said at his elbow.
Declan jerked his head in surprise as he turned to stare at the older farmer. Sorry to hear…? What is he talking about?
“Tell her I hope she gets better soon,” the old man continued.
Declan’s mind raced. Get better? Hold on, is this why her parents weren’t home either?
He debated demanding answers for a moment from the gentleman, but it was bad enough that he didn’t know what was going on – he didn’t need to inform Mr. Burgemeister of that fact also. And how the hell was it that Mr. Burgemeister knew and he didn’t?!
“Thanks, I’ll pass that along,” he finally got out.
The kid reappeared from the back room, but Declan was already heading towards the front door. “Hey, you haven’t signed the contract yet!” the kid hollered after him.
“I’ll come back later!” he tossed back and then he headed outside, into the bitter cold.
He drove to the only place he could think of – Wyatt and Abby’s house. She was a deputy sheriff for Long Valley County. If anyone knew what was going on, it would be her.
He skittered to a stop on their gravel driveway after the longest drive of his life, and leaped out of his truck.
“It’s a good thing I’m off duty so I don’t have to arrest you for reckless driving,” Abby observed wryly, standing on her front porch, cradling a mug of coffee in her hands.
Declan jerked his head in acknowledgment of her words, but started right into his burning question. “Do you know what happened to Iris?” he demanded.
“You don’t know?” Abby asked, shocked. “I just figured someone would’ve told you.”
“You don’t know?” Wyatt repeated, coming out of the house and letting the screen door slam behind him with a bang. “I thought Stetson told you.”
“Told me what?!” Declan practically hollered. If someone didn’t talk to him and fast, he was going to start knocking heads together.
“Iris is at St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise,” Abby said quietly. “They life-flighted her out there this morning. I’m surprised you didn’t hear the helicopter.”
Declan staggered backwards, feeling like someone had punched him in the stomach. “Life flight?” he whispered.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Abby said, moving over to him and pulling him into a one-armed hug. “She fell while trying to clean off her front steps and hit her head on the concrete. Her mom was just coming out of her house when it happened, and thank God for that. It knocked Iris out cold and she could’ve ended up freezing to death.”
Declan couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t speak. Abby rubbed his back. “It’s going to be okay,” she said soothingly. “They’ve got her in the ICU—”
Intensive Care Unit. Life flight. Freezing to death.
Whatever else Abby said was lost to him as he sprinted towards his truck.
“Declan!” she called out but he was gone, tearing down their driveway like a madman.
He had to get to Boise. He had to find Iris. He had to make sure she was okay.
Chapter 31
Iris
Oh.
Her head.
Something was really wrong.
What was wrong? She didn’t feel good.
At all.
Sweeping. She’d been sweeping. White stuff. Why was the dirt white? And outside? So cold.
She wasn’t cold now, though. She was hot. She pushed the blankets away. “No, you have to keep them on you, Iris,” her mom whispered.
“Mom?” she croaked out. She wanted to open up her eyes, but she didn’t dare. It seemed like something bad would happen if she did. She just didn’t know what.
White dirt? No, it’d been snow. She’d been outside, not in her kitchen. It came rushing back to her. She’d fallen on the front steps.
Everything ached. Everything hurt.
“I’m right here,” her mom cooed, stroking Iris’ hair away from her forehead. “Your dad and Ivy are, too.”
She felt someone patting her. Was that her dad? She should open up her eyes. Her eyelids were just so heavy…
“You just hang in there, baby,” her mom said. “I’m gonna step out and make a phone call and find out what Declan’s number is, and I’ll call and tell him to come visit you. That’ll make you feel better. Ivy, darlin’, come sit next to Iris while I—”
“No, Mom!” Iris got out. She struggled to get her eyelids open. She had to look at her mom. She had to get her mom to understand. “No Declan.” But there were bright lights, and her eyes fluttered shut again, blocking out the pain.
No Declan. She’d fallen on her own front steps. If she’d been holding a baby…she could’ve killed it.
She couldn’t be a mom. She couldn’t be a wife. She couldn’t love Declan.
It was better to just be done now, before she hurt anyone else.
Chapter 32
Declan
He tore to a stop in front of the St. Luke’s Hospital ER. He slammed the door shut and sprinted towards the sliding doors.
“Sir, you can’t leave your truck the—” The doors slid shut behind him, cutting off the words of the employee. Declan ignored them anyway. His entire life, he’d followed the rules; done what other people wanted him to do. He was the nice guy, through and through.
Where had that gotten him? A girlfriend who wouldn’t talk to him, and was now in the ICU of the largest hospital in the state.
Screw the rules.
“Where is Iris McLain?” he barked at the plump, older woman sitting behind the reception desk. She looked up at him, calm as a cucumber.
“Spell the last name, please,” she said, turning to her computer.
He barked it out as the employee from outside came jogging in. “Sir, you have to move your truck,” he said, panting. He was quite heavy, and most definitely not used to running even short distances. Declan figured if it came to it, he could beat the guy in a foot race while hopping on one foot.
Ignoring the man as if he hadn’t spoken, he turned back to the receptionist. “Room!” he practically hollered.
>
“She’s still in the ICU, sir. Are you her husband?”
“No, but I oughta be,” he snapped back. She just cocked an eyebrow at him. He growled in frustration. “She’s been my girlfriend for years – since we were in high school together.” He conveniently left out the part where he’d broken up with her because he was an idiot. “I was about to propose to her, and then she got hurt. Please, I have to see her.”
“Your truck!” the heavyset man got in. Declan whirled on him and tossed his keys at the man’s head.
“You want it moved – go move it yourself!” He turned back to the receptionist, ignoring the indignant sputterings of the man behind him that he was not a valet. “I have never loved a woman more than I love Iris Blue McLain,” he told her. “Please, let me go see her.”
She softened. “Down this hallway and to the left. Third door on the right.”
Declan took off at a sprint, his cowboy boots pounding the tiles, echoing loudly. He brushed past doctors and a pair of nurses, intent only on finding Iris. Apologizing for whatever it was that he’d done, and making the world better again.
It was all that mattered.
He skittered to a stop, almost falling on his ass on the slick tiles, and then stared at the door for a moment. Did he knock? He didn’t know the proper protocol for an ICU hospital room. He raised his fist hesitantly, when the door opened. Ivy’s face appeared right about where his knuckles were, and he drew back before he accidentally punched her in the face.
Wouldn’t that be the cherry that’d top this sundae?
Instead of greeting him happily, her eyes went round and she looked horrified. She stepped out into the hallway and quickly pulled the door shut behind her. “What are you doing here?” she whisper-scolded.
“I came as soon as I heard. Not from anyone who should’ve told me, by the way.” He glared at her for a moment. She had the decency to look ashamed.
“It wasn’t my idea,” she said softly. “I’m sorry, Dec, I really am. But Iris is refusing to see you. Mom was going to call you and tell you what had happened, and Iris told her no.”
“No?!” Declan felt like he’d been punched in the stomach again. Twice in one day was just too much for one body to take, he reckoned, and he began to feel queasy. It’d be just his luck to start throwing up all over the hallway of the hospital.
“She didn’t say why, but she was very, very clear on the topic.” Ivy let out a small, pained chuckle at that.
Declan just stared at her. Lost. Confused. What the hell is going on?
He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her until he got some answers from her, but as he looked down at her sweet face, so close in appearance to Iris’ and yet not her at all, he realize that it wouldn’t be fair. He needed to get some answers out of Iris; Ivy was just the middle man, and didn’t appear to be any happier to be put in that position than he was to have her in it.
His shoulders dropped and he trudged back towards the front. “Declan!” Ivy called out. He spun around, his heart in his throat. Had Iris somehow changed her mind? Ivy simply looked at him for a moment and then said softly, “Don’t give up on her yet. I know my sister can be exasperating, but she’s always loved you. I think she always will. Don’t give up on her yet,” she repeated for emphasis.
He jerked his head once in acknowledgment and then continued his journey back up to the front. He had to find the security guard employee, apologize, retrieve his keys, and drive the winding, ice-covered road back home.
Without any more answers than he'd had before.
He was pretty sure he’d never felt so defeated in his life.
Chapter 33
Declan
He scooped the cat food out of the mouse-proof bin tucked up underneath the eaves of the house and dumped it into the weathered metal bowl. Two of the outdoor cats wound their way around his feet eagerly, while a third sat off to the side, regally inspecting the going-ons without actually getting involved. Declan had nicknamed him King last week, during his first trip over to feed the cats since the…
Since everything happened.
He refused to let himself think anything deeper than that.
He placed a bowl on the ground and the two eager cats dug into it, while King just continued to observe. He knew another bowl was coming.
Yup, he deserved that nickname all right.
“Come on, boy,” he said, as he dug out the food for the second bowl, “you know it wouldn’t hurt you to say thanks every once in a while.”
One long blink was his reply.
Declan wasn’t sure how to interpret that, so instead, he simply put the bowl down on the ground. “Yours for the eatin’,” he said gruffly.
Eleven days, and no word. He stared at Iris’ front windows, the drawn curtains telling him nothing. Not that he expected them to. For all he knew, she was still in the ICU, clinging to life.
Surely she wasn’t dead, though. Someone would’ve told him if she were dead.
Right?
Of course, he’d always thought that someone would’ve told him if she’d gotten into an awful accident and got life-flighted to Boise, and look at how that assumption turned out.
He’d tried her front door the first few times he’d come over, and it’d always been locked. He could only hope that a neighbor had a key and was feeding Oreo and Milk. Surely someone would’ve thought to arrange for that…
After he’d come back from Boise, it’d taken him a while to calm down. Truth be told, he’d been pissed as hell at a certain Iris Blue McLain. First her yelling at him during the party, then crying, then slamming the door in his face, and then, the worst of all: Refusing to talk to him while she’d been in the ICU.
He’d calmed down, though that’d taken days to happen, and finally realized that whatever was going through her head, it made sense to her. He just needed a chance to figure out where the train had jumped the tracks, and rectify the situation. He’d probably screwed something up royally without realizing it – a talent he owned in spades – but he needed Iris to talk to him.
But until she came back home from the hospital, he could do nothing but feed her cats, and worry.
A position of helplessness that he detested.
A movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see the front door swing open to reveal Iris. Beautiful in a white sweater, she seemed to glow just a little. “Iris?” he whispered, taking a step forward. Was he imagining her? Was she his Christmas angel, come back to earth to tell him all the ways he’d screwed up their relationship?
Then he saw her cane, and thought that if she were an angel, she got the bum end of the deal. They were supposed to come back perfect, not still with shaky legs and an off-kilter way of looking at the world.
“I thought I heard something out here,” Iris said softly. “It took me a while to get dressed and to the door. Sorry.”
He moved closer, his breath forming clouds in the air in front of him, obscuring his vision a little, blurring her into an out-of-focus painting of a red-haired angel. But then the clouds dissipated, leaving him free to study her face closely.
To see the blue smudges under her eyes, and a flash of white in her hair. Quick as lightning, he moved over to her side to stare at the bald patch, covered over with a large white bandage.
“Oh, Iris,” he said softly, his heart breaking as he stared at the bandage. Why hadn’t he taken care of her? For the hundredth time, he wondered why he hadn’t thought to come over and shovel her steps for her. He should’ve thought of it – a true gentleman would have.
“I’m getting tired,” she said, just as softly. “Do you mind if we go inside and sit down?”
“Of course not!” he said, moving forward and looping his arm through hers.
As he shut the door behind them and helped guide her towards the couch, she said, “Thank you for thinking of feeding the outside cats. No one else would have, and then I would’ve broken my agreement with them.” She grimaced slightly in what he assumed
was supposed to be a smile. Milk and Oreo, disturbed from their afternoon nap, jumped off the couch and headed to the back bedroom. They appeared in perfect health, so someone had been taking care of them.
Good.
“Well, we couldn’t have that,” he said lightly, trying to make a joke out of her comment. He helped lower her to the couch and then stood back, unsure of what to do. Did she want him to leave? She looked worn out. He wanted answers – God, how he wanted answers – but he also couldn’t pester her while she was so worn down. He could come back—
“Sit down,” she said, patting the cushion next to her lightly.
Thank God.
“Declan, I want to apologize,” she said, cutting him off before he could marshal his thoughts together and really start grilling her for answers. Cut off at the pass, he snapped his mouth closed and simply stared at her.
He was finally going to get some answers.
Finally.
“I…You may or may not have noticed this,” her mouth quirked for a moment, “but I am stubborn.”
He busted out laughing. He couldn’t help himself. Describing Iris Blue McLain as being stubborn was rather like saying that a bull rider liked to take risks. Yes, that was true, but it didn’t exactly sum the situation up in its entirety.
She glared at him for a moment, and then the corner of her mouth quirked up and her face broke out into a grin.
“Really, don’t argue too heartily with that,” she said with a sarcastic smile. “I’d hate for you to strain yourself, arguing so hard with me.”
“Have you met you?” Declan finally got out around his laughter.
She stuck her tongue out at him. He grinned back.
“So anyway,” she said with a huff of breath, “this whole thing,” she waved her hand in the general direction of her cane, “has served to teach me that I have to learn how to swallow my pride. I just hate being dependent on other people. Hate it with a passion.”