by Jane Jamison
Please don’t die. Please don’t die.
She continued, repeating the compressions then tilted the girl’s head back and lifted her chin. She checked for any obstructions in her mouth and throat then pinched the girl’s nose.
Instinct prevailed again as she continued the life-saving techniques she knew as well as her own name. Over and over, she kept going, repeating the pattern along with a silent prayer.
When the girl began coughing, relief flooded her. Easing the girl onto her side so that the water she’d swallowed could run out, Stella fell away and let the others take over. Exhaustion swept her. Unable to stand, she allowed Alex to lift her into his arms.
“You saved her, honey.”
I saved her.
And in doing so, she’d saved herself. A tear started the crying that soon turned to sobs.
* * * *
“How’d you know?” asked Stella.
She was resting comfortably on the couch and sipping a warm cup of tea. Although she would’ve preferred something stronger, she didn’t have the heart to tell Danny after he’d had such a tough time figuring out how to brew tea. If she hadn’t been so exhausted, she might have found the curses and noises from the kitchen funny. Instead, she’d drink the tea then ask for a glass of whiskey.
Mike sat on the couch with her and rubbed her feet. Alex was on the other side of her, letting her snuggle against him. Danny paced back and forth between the living area and kitchen, offering every so often to get her something else.
At first, she thought Mike was going to avoid answering. Instead, he shrugged. “Just because I’m a man and a rancher and a shifter doesn’t mean I don’t know how to Google someone.”
“I wouldn’t think you’d find out anything that way.”
“You’d be surprised. Once I had the basics, I asked a few friends to do some digging.”
“So you had me investigated.” She should’ve been irritated, but she wasn’t. He had, no doubt, done it to try and help her.
“I guess you could call it that. Still, they couldn’t tell me anything more than I already knew.” His dark eyes, glittering with specks of amber, met hers. “You were an EMT in Atlanta, but you gave it up and moved to Fate.”
She lowered her eyes to her drink. It was time they knew everything. “That’s right.”
“Why’d you give it up, darlin’? People who become EMTs usually stay EMTs. Unless, of course, they move on to some other kind of job where they can help people.”
“I couldn’t do the job any longer.”
“Why not? Judging by what you did at the lake, you obviously remember your training.” Mike tilted his head in question. “What aren’t you telling us?”
She dragged in a breath. Telling them had been on the tip of her tongue many times, yet she hadn’t had the nerve to speak up until now. “I let a little girl die.”
Judging by their surprised expressions, they’d expected her to say almost anything, but not that. The old familiar guilt swamped her.
“You lost someone on your watch.”
“Yes.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“But you didn’t do anything to cause her death. We know that can’t be the case.”
She looked at Mike. Instead of seeing judgment in his eyes, she saw compassion. “Not that I know of. But she was in my care.” The more she thought about that day, the tighter the knot in her stomach became.
“So no one blamed you?”
“No, but…”
“But you still blamed yourself.”
“Wouldn’t you? I had to have missed something. I checked everything, did everything I knew how to do, but in the end, none of it mattered.”
“How can you blame yourself for something you didn’t do?”
She couldn’t hold the pain inside any longer. Fisting her hands, she screamed at Mike. “Don’t you get it? I had to have missed a vital piece of the puzzle.”
He didn’t say anything. None of them. Instead, they were willing to let her take out her frustration, her gnawing ache on them. She closed her eyes and tried to regain control. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve gone over that day so many times, and I still can’t figure out where I went wrong.”
“Darlin’, you’ve got to stop this. People die for unknown reasons all the time. It wasn’t your fault.”
Logically, she knew he was right. Maybe in time, her heart would believe it. “I know what you’re saying is true, but I just can’t let go of it. She was my one.”
“Your one?”
“Every EMT has a patient that sticks with them. One that, for whatever reason, they couldn’t save. Losing a patient is part of the job. You do your best and then you move on. But this little girl…”
“She’s the one you can’t forget.”
“Yes.” Her breath was ragged, just like her emotions. “Can we please let this go now?”
“Sure, darlin’.” Mike’s tone was soft, comforting. He cleared his throat, suddenly fidgeting. “Maybe this isn’t the right time, but you should know something else. I also found your engagement photo in the online newspaper.”
Shit. “Sometimes I wish the Internet had never been invented.”
“You don’t need to hide anything from us, honey.” Alex rubbed her shoulders. “There’s nothing in your past that would ever make us think less of you.”
“Especially now that you’re a hero.”
She was quick to shut Danny down. “No. Don’t ever say that again. I’m no hero. I’m sure someone else would’ve helped her if they’d had the training. I sure as hell wasn’t a hero to the other little girl.”
“But they didn’t help her, including us. We had no clue what to do.” Mike used his thumbs to press into the balls of her feet.
“Please. Let’s not talk about either girl. I don’t want to think about what might have happened.”
“Then can we talk about this fiancé of yours?” asked Alex, his concern flashing in his eyes.
“He’s not my fiancé any longer.”
“Tell us about him, sugar. We want to know.”
“Fine.” She’d tell them all of it, including the fact that she now realized that she’d never truly loved him. “Bruce was…”
“No, darlin’, forget what Danny said. You don’t have to explain him to us. We know you have a past. We all do. The important thing is that you wised up before you got hitched to him and now you’re with us. Everything else is just white noise.”
“I hope you let the poor guy down easy.” Danny grinned. “Or not. Either way’s fine with me.”
“Danny, let it go,” warned Mike.
Was Danny sorry for Bruce? “Sorry, Danny, but it didn’t go down that way.”
“So you didn’t dump him?” Alex’s breath trailed over her shoulder.
Mike growled but didn’t try to stop the conversation again.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, shit. I can’t believe any man would ever dump you.” Mike paused in his massage. “You’re saying he dumped you, right? And not the other way round?”
“Yes.” She spoke a little too emphatically. “He didn’t dump me. He didn’t give me the consideration of dumping me before he cheated on me. In fact, he cheated on me the day of our wedding. I found him fucking one of my friends in the church cloakroom.”
“Damn. What an asshole.” Danny plopped down on the coffee table. “And what an idiot. It’s like Mike said. Who’d ever cheat on you? At least, no sane man would. Hell, no sane man would ever want any woman besides you.”
His sincerity made her feel better, releasing the tension that talking about her past had caused. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m glad he cheated. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have moved to Fate.” Her gaze swept over each man, one by one. “And I never would’ve found the three of you.”
“There’s something more you’re not saying. I can see it in the sadness on your face.” Danny paused as Stella and his brothers gave him looks. “What? I can be just as sensitive
as you guys.”
“He’s right.” Telling them about Bruce wouldn’t be as difficult as telling them about Maddie.
“Then tell us,” ordered Mike. “You don’t have to be careful what you say to us. Not ever.”
“My sister was the one who dragged me to the cloakroom and exposed Bruce as a cheater.”
“So she did you a favor, right?” asked Alex.
That was the way most people would’ve seen it. How could she explain how much her sister had hurt her? How betrayed she’d felt that her sister hadn’t told her about Bruce earlier?
“My sister, Maddie, knew about him well before my wedding day, and she never told me. Instead, she let me go through a year of engagement, through all the wedding planning and all the expenditures without telling me.” She swallowed hard. “Maybe you won’t understand, but it feels like she betrayed me even more than Bruce did.”
“Did you ever ask her why she didn’t tell you?”
She was sure she had, yet right then she couldn’t recall what Maddie had said. Something about not wanting to break her heart? About hoping Stella would break up with Bruce before she walked down the aisle? “She was hoping I’d dump him and she’d never have to get involved. She stood by and let me believe he was the right man for me.”
“But she didn’t let you marry him. In the end, she kept you from making that mistake, honey.”
“I get that, I do, but I still can’t believe she didn’t tell me sooner.”
“Yeah, that’s a tough one.” Mike stood up, placing her legs on the couch where he’d sat. “Still, she was in a rough spot. Would you have believed her if she’d told you earlier?”
“I—I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Or would you have blamed the messenger instead of blaming Bruce?”
Shit. She wanted to deny that she’d done exactly that, but wasn’t it true? Maddie had finally told her, albeit almost too close for comfort. Had she taken her pain, her wrath out on her sister because she couldn’t take it out on Bruce? “I don’t know any more.”
“Where’s your sister now?” asked Alex.
“She still lives in Atlanta.” She sat up, suddenly realizing what she needed to do. “She told me she’s coming to Fate soon.”
“She is? That’s great, sugar.”
“Yeah, maybe it is.”
“No maybe about it, darlin’. You should never lose your family. Especially not over some bullshit, cheating jerk that split you two apart.”
Suddenly it all seemed so clear. Whether it was because she’d finally realized that she’d never loved Bruce or because she’d found the loves she was meant to have, she didn’t know. It no longer mattered. She’d been wrong to take out her hurt and anger on her sister. Something had opened up inside her after saving the girl at the lake. Suddenly, everything seemed possible, even forgiving Maddie. She prayed she really could, but at the very least, she had to reach out to her. She had to try. She got onto her feet and dashed toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?” asked Alex.
“Want us to come along?” added Danny.
She laughed at Danny’s eager grin. “Give me ten minutes. I’m going to call my sister.”
“And after ten minutes are up, darlin’?”
The sultry look she sent them wasn’t missed. “Then come on up.”
Chapter Eight
“I’m trying, Maddie. I really am.” Stella gripped the phone tighter. “It’s really hard to do an about-face on this.”
“On this? This is your sister. Why is it so hard to talk to me?”
Stella sat on the end of the bed. “It just is. Please try and understand.”
Maddie’s sigh broke against her ear. “I know.” Silence came. “You still blame me, don’t you?”
“No.” Yes. Damn it. I still do.
“If I could go back in time, sis, I would. I’d tell you the first second I figured it out.”
The old heartache threatened to come back. She had to fight the feeling. Her sister hadn’t told her soon enough, but at least she finally had. To continue to punish her was wrong, yet it was so hard to change her way of thinking. “I know, Maddie.”
“Sis, I wanted to tell you, but would you have believed me? You thought the sun rose and fell with Bruce.”
“I was wrong. I didn’t know what real love was until I came to Fate.” Thinking about the three men waiting downstairs eased the tension in her chest. “I was closeminded and unable to see what was happening right in front of me.”
“You were in love.”
“I thought I was in love.”
“Damn it, Stella, we’ve wasted so much time. I’ve missed having my sister in my life.”
“Me, too.”
“But you’re right. I should’ve told you earlier. It was just that I didn’t have any proof. I figured it was his word against mine, and I had no doubt that you’d believe him over me.”
“You’re right. I probably would have.” She paced over to the mirror and studied her reflection. She’d been so sure she was right, so positive that her sister had betrayed her by not telling her about Bruce’s infidelity sooner. Yet Maddie had gotten caught in a bad position. “If you’d told me earlier, I might’ve cut you out of my life sooner. Bruce was always going on about me needing to let you live your life on your own terms. I didn’t realize he was trying to keep us apart.”
“Yeah, the asshole. I’d already confronted him about his cheating. I kept trying to make him confess to you, threatening to tell you myself, but I had no proof to show you. No photos of them together, nothing. The jerk was a lowlife, but he was a sneaky lowlife.”
“It was tough finding out the way I did.”
“I know, sis. It about killed me to see your face, but I knew it was the only way you’d ever believe me over him.”
“I’m sorry, Maddie, for not believing you.” Bruce had cost her time with her sister. “Listen, let’s put it behind us, okay? I can’t promise I can do it right away, but I want to try.”
“That’s great, sis.” The happiness in Maddie’s voice was unmistakable. “I want to try, too.”
“Good.” She smiled, her reflection showing the easing tension in her face. “So when are you coming to Fate?”
She waited for her sister to answer. When she didn’t, she tried again. “Maddie? Are you still there? Did we get disconnected?”
“I’m still here.”
Something was wrong. “You’re still coming to Fate, aren’t you?”
“Sure.” Another long silence ensued. “As soon as I can tie up some loose ends around here.”
“Loose ends? Like what?”
“Nothing big. Just stuff that needs to get fixed before I can take time off.”
Stella didn’t want to argue, but how hard was it for a medical transcriptionist who worked out of her own home to get time off? “Is it money? Do you have enough money to take time off? To come here?”
“No, no. Money’s not a problem. I’ve been doing really well with my job. I even landed two new clients this week. Of course, it’s all thanks to you.”
“I told you that being a medical transcriptionist was a good job to have.” Stella cringed, hating the way she sounded. She didn’t want any “I told you so” statements between them. As the younger sister, Maddie had often complained that she felt judged by Stella. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t take it that way.”
“So what’s the holdup?”
“Like I said, just some loose ends.”
“Okay.” She knew when to let it go, even though Maddie’s reluctance to tell her anything more made her even more curious. “You know you can stay here, right?”
“Really? Are you sure your men won’t mind?” Maddie laughed. “Wow. That’s really strange to say. Your men. I still can’t believe my sister is living with three men.”
“You? I still can’t believe it. But they’re terrific guys. You’re going to love them
.”
“I’m sure I will. Still, if I don’t, or if I think they’re playing a game, I’m going to let you know right then and there. Okay?”
It was her turn to laugh. There was no way in hell Maddie would find anything wrong with the Lennox brothers. “You do that.”
“Good. Listen, I appreciate the offer, but I’m going to pass. I think I’d be more comfortable staying at that bed and breakfast you worked at.” Maddie laughed again. “I still can’t believe you changed people’s sheets for a living.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a maid.”
“Of course not. It’s just that our parents couldn’t get you to make your own bed, much less someone else’s.”
“True. And they couldn’t get you to clean the bathroom. But we’ve both done a lot of growing up since then.”
“Yes, we have. Sometimes I wish we hadn’t.”
Stella sat back down on the bed. “Things have a way of working out the way they should. If we hadn’t gone through all that shit with Bruce, I wouldn’t have ended up in Fate. I wouldn’t have Alex, Mike, and Danny in my life right now.”
“And the ménage thing is okay? I mean I would’ve thought a small town in Georgia would’ve been more conservative than to have that going on right out in the open. Are you sure you don’t have any church ladies wanting to run your skinny butt out of town?”
“Those church ladies are into multiple-partner relationships, too.” Not to mention being werewolves. But it was too soon to tell her sister about shifters.
“I think I’m going to enjoy visiting Fate. The people sound very interesting.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Okay, well, I need to run. Take care, sis. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“You, too. Oh, and, Maddie?”
“Yeah?”
She swallowed, not having said the words to her sister in far too long a time. “I love you, little sister.”
“I love you, too, sis.”
Stella held the phone to her ear long after her sister had ended the call. At last, she and he sister had reconnected.