Face the Music: Beyond Jackson Falls Book 1

by Laurie Breton

  Still trembling from the shock of the hard body blow he’d taken, he checked the mirror. It was worse than he’d thought. He really had cracked his head open. Head wounds had a tendency to bleed heavily, so it was hard to assess the damage, but he suspected he’d need a couple of stitches. As bad as he was bleeding, he couldn’t get back into the shower. The bathroom floor was slick with blood. If he wasn’t careful, he’d take another tumble.

  The soap, already drying all over his body, made him itch like there were fire ants crawling up his ass. He grabbed an old bath towel, held it to his head, and staggered to the bedroom, where he threw on sweatpants and a tee shirt. A black one, to minimize blood damage. His humiliation would become public after all. Somebody was going to have to drive him to the goddamn hospital.

  Mikey picked up his phone, then hesitated. Mom or Harley? Dad or Rose? Every one of them was working. Every one of them would have dropped what they were doing to help him. But the embarrassment factor would be overwhelming, and any one of them would also be more than willing to give him a safety lecture he didn’t need to hear today. Aunt Casey would have rushed to his aid, but then she would have fussed endlessly over him, and the mere thought of it made him squirm. Clearly, Amy was out of the running. And Gunther was manning the store.

  Which left just one person he could call.

  He punched in Paige MacKenzie’s number.

  * * *

  SHE BLEW THROUGH the door without knocking, took a single look at him slumped on the couch, holding the blood-soaked towel to his temple, and said, “Jesus Christ on a Popsicle stick. What the hell did you do to yourself, Lindstrom?”

  It surprised him, how glad he was to see her. Scowling, he said, “What’s it look like, MacKenzie? I took a spill.”

  “That you did, my friend.” She moved closer and reached for the towel. “Let’s take a look.”

  He reared up and away from her. “I don’t need to be manhandled,” he said. “All I need is a ride.”

  “Nobody’s manhandling you, fool. I just want to get a look at the situation, see what we’re dealing with.”

  Again, that gladness welled up in him. “Hurt me,” he said, “and you’ll find yourself on the other side of that door over there.”

  She snorted. “You’re all talk and no action.” She removed his hand from the towel and the towel from the wound, gently turned the crown of his head toward the light so she could examine the damage. “Looks like the bleeding’s died down. Good thing you have such a hard head. And you’ll have one hell of a shiner tomorrow.” She made a show of sniffing his shoulder. “You smell like bubble bath.”

  “It’s not bubble bath,” he said, mildly offended. He was, after all, a U.S. Marine. “It’s soap.”

  “So that’s what’s crusted all over you. I thought somebody’d rolled you in tempura batter to get you ready for frying.”

  He locked his jaw and winced. “Do I or do I not need stitches?”

  She took another quick look at the wound. “I left my M.D. in my other jacket, but my astute powers of observation tell me that you do. Two or three on top, and probably a couple more on your forehead. What a shame, to mar that pretty face of yours.”

  “You’re not wearing a jacket.”

  She straightened, blinked. “That was certainly the most pertinent piece of that little exchange. You weren’t, by any chance—” She mimicked raising a bottle to her lips.

  “I wasn’t drinking,” he said. Even to his ears, the words sounded indignant. “I was showering. And then I wasn’t.”

  “What’d you hit?”

  “First the toilet. Then the floor. You don’t even want to know what my ass will look like tomorrow.”

  “That’s a shame, because I was hoping to get a look at it. You land on your ass?”

  “Shoulder first. After my head hit the toilet. Then ass. Flat on my back. Wham. Any shred of dignity I had is now history.”

  “Let’s get you out of here. You okay with the crutch?”

  “Normally. Right now, I’m a little shaky.” It was hard to admit it. Marines weren’t supposed to be shaky. It was written somewhere in the Top Secret Marine Code of Honor Book. Never show weakness, especially in front of a female.

  “I’d expect you to be shaky after taking a tumble like that.” She nodded her head in the direction of the empty leg of his sweatpants, flopping in the breeze. “You want to pin that up, or is it good the way it is?”

  She spoke the words so matter-of-factly that he felt a gush of gratitude. More weakness. He really needed to work on his tough-guy skills. “I’m walking into the E.R. on crutches. Bloody, battered, and caked with soap. Does it really matter?”

  “Good point.”

  At the hospital, she parked the car and found him a wheelchair, because he hadn’t already lost enough of his dignity. Inside the E.R., they made a much bigger deal of him than he wanted, giving him a new understanding of how Amy had felt after the bee sting. He was ushered into an exam room, where the nurse helped him up onto the examination table and then left him there. Pen and clipboard in hand, Paige parked herself on a chair and studied the medical history form they’d given her to fill out. “Don’t they already have this stuff in the computer?” she said.

  “You’d think. It’s not the first time I’ve been to this hospital.”

  A second nurse bustled in, glanced at Paige, and did a double-take. “Hey,” she said. “Aren’t you—”

  “She’s not Paige MacKenzie,” he said. “She just plays her on TV.”

  Paige snickered. Looking nonplussed, the young nurse turned to him and said, “What on earth happened to you?”

  His head throbbed, and one entire side of his face had gone numb. All he wanted was some strong drugs and his own bed. “I fell in the shower.”

  Still focused on the admissions paperwork, Paige said absently, “Actually, he fell out of the shower.”

  “Same thing,” he said, irritated.

  She glanced up, grinned. Said, “Not really,” and went back to studying the paperwork.

  The nurse patted his hand. “The doctor will be right in,” she said, and buzzed back out.

  “How long do you suppose ‘right in’ really means?”

  “Half-hour, forty-five minutes,” Paige said. “Have you ever had mumps?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Hand it over.” She gave him the clipboard, and he quickly ran through the questions, boldly checking boxes as he went. He reached for his wallet to enter his insurance information, realized he was wearing sweat pants and hadn’t brought the wallet. The hospital should have that information on file. Screw it. Mikey scribbled his name at the bottom of the page and handed it back to her.

  The curtain parted, and a petite redhead in a starched white jacket strode into the room. “Hi,” she said, briskly shaking his hand. “I’m Dr. Levasseur. Nice to meet you. Hey, Paige. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “I think they sent you to the wrong room.” Paige handed her the clipboard. “You’re in for a big surprise if you try to fit him into those stirrups of yours.”

  Levasseur explained to him, “OB/GYN.” To Paige, she said, “Once a month, I take an E.R. rotation. Lucky for your friend here, today’s the day.”

  The name clicked. “I know who you are,” he said. “You delivered my sister.”

  “And pretty much every other baby that’s been born around here in the past twenty years.” She glanced at the clipboard. “Lindstrom,” she said. “You’re Beth’s brother.”

  “You remember her?”

  “I remember them all. Let’s take a look at you.”

  Her examination was brief but thorough. “We’ll be needing to pull that together with a few stitches. I imagine you were expecting that. How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Three.”

  “Good.” She pulled out a tiny flashlight, checked his pupils. “Any nausea, vomiting, impaired vision?”

  “No.”

  “Name the presidents in order.”


  “Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison—”

  “Better than I could do. On a scale of one to ten, with one being the least and ten being the worst, what’s your pain level right now?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  She patted his knee. “We’ll get you taken care of as quickly as possible, and then we’ll give you something for the pain.”

  The sutures took longer than he’d expected, but she was meticulous and thorough. When she was finished, she made him rotate his arm, move it up, down, forward and backward, to make sure his shoulder was working properly. When she asked him to take off his shirt and drop his drawers so she could check out the rest of his injuries, Paige discreetly left in search of coffee.

  He’d already begun to bruise. His shoulder, his hip, his face where he’d slammed into the toilet. “You’ll be a mess for a few days,” she said. “Make sure you move around for five minutes at least once an hour. We don’t want you stiffening up and losing mobility. The nurse will be back to give you a shot for the pain. I’ll call in a prescription for some heavy-duty meds. Don’t drive or operate machinery while you’re taking them. What do you do for work?”

  “I’m a cop.”

  “I’ll give you a note. I don’t want you going back to work for seven days. Don’t try to be macho and second-guess me. If you go back before seven days is up, I’ll hear about it. This is a small town, and people have big mouths. Listen to what your doctor tells you. Capisce?”

  “Got it.” He was used to taking orders. Clearly, this woman was used to giving them.

  “The stitches will dissolve in about ten days. Don’t get them wet. Oh, and until you’re moving easily, and off the meds, stay out of that shower. I don’t want to see you in here again.”

  Beyond caring about modesty, he willingly bared his ass so the nurse could give him a shot of pain-killer. She directed him back to the front desk, where they wasted ten minutes while the young blonde working the computer tried to locate him in their database. “The system’s been up and down all day,” she said with a cheerfulness that grated on his already frayed nerves. “Here we go. Lindstrom, Michael. Date of birth?”

  He gave it to her. “Yep,” she said. “This is definitely you.” She peered at the screen, hit a couple of keys, peered again. “That’ll be a hundred-dollar copay.”

  “You’ll have to bill me. I didn’t bring my wallet.”

  Paige stepped in, said, “I’ll take care of it.” She whipped out a credit card and gave it to the blonde.

  “I’ll pay you back tomorrow,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about it.” She signed her name with a flourish, folded the receipt and tucked it into her purse. “You stay right here, and I’ll get a wheelchair.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No wheelchair. I’m a frigging United States Marine. I think I can handle walking a few feet to the car. I don’t need to be wheeled around like a baby.”

  “Former United States Marine.”

  “There’s no such thing as a former Marine.” It irritated him that he had to tell her this. It was so obvious. Why was he forever having to explain it to people?

  In the car, he closed his eyes and tilted back his head. “Whatever they gave me, it’s good stuff. I’m already feeling no pain. In every way imaginable.”

  “It was Demerol. And that’s a mixed blessing.”

  “Why mixed?”

  “Because I still have to get you into the house.”

  “I’m not that far gone. Just a little loopy. I can walk. Get me home, sit me down on the couch, pour a little vodka into me—”

  “Jesus, Mikey!”

  “Just kidding, MacKenzie. Just kidding.”

  “Your sense of humor’s a little warped.”

  For some reason, her words tickled his funny bone. Smiling a small, private smile, he turned his head and watched Jackson Falls pass by his window in a blur. “Whoa,” he said.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just—whoa.”

  His front steps were a bit of a challenge. He wobbled a little, but between the crutch, the solid railing, and Paige, he made it inside, where he collapsed in a damp, soap-encrusted heap on the couch. Utterly exhausted, he closed his eyes for a minute.

  He could hear her bustling around. It was a comforting sound. Her footsteps echoed down the hallway, paused, then returned. “Where’s your disinfectant? Your bathroom floor’s a bloody mess. I need to mop it up.”

  He opened his eyes and looked directly into hers, clear and green and worried. “That’s a biohazard,” he said.

  When she squared her jaw like that, she looked just like her father. “You have any infectious diseases I should know about, Lindstrom?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Then I’m cleaning your bathroom before it starts to stink.”

  He closed his eyes again. “Good call,” he said.

  “After that, I’m running to the pharmacy to pick up your prescription. Will you stay put for a few minutes while I’m gone?”

  Surrender was tough. Marines weren’t taught to surrender. The word wasn’t in their vocabulary. “Think I’ll just wait here,” he said.

  “Good call,” she said.

  * * *

  THE AROMA WOKE him, smelling like manna from heaven. Mikey clawed his way out of the fog and into full wakefulness. Paige stood at his kitchen stove, stirring something in a big pot. The kitchen looked like some science experiment gone awry. If whatever was in the pot tasted as good as it smelled, the mess would be worth it. “I thought you were going out to pick up my prescription,” he said.

  “I did.” She stopped stirring, tapped the spoon against the lip of the pot. “Two hours ago. You zonked right out.”

  “Two hours?”

  “Powerful meds,” she said, setting down the spoon and lowering the burner temperature. “I made a pot of soup.”

  “I can smell it. It’s driving me crazy. I’m starving.”

  “It’s just about ready.”

  His bladder was sending out major SOS signals. “I need to hit the head.”

  “The soup will wait. Need help getting up?”

  “Pretty sure I can manage on my own.” Bracing himself with the crutch, he managed to rise from the couch. His muscles had stiffened, and the pain was starting to creep in around the edges of what was left of that Demerol.

  “If you need anything,” she said, dish towel in hand, “yell. For God’s sake, don’t fall again.”

  “I don’t plan to.”

  “You didn’t plan to the first time.”

  It was a valid point. He hobbled down the hall, shut and locked the bathroom door, then reconsidered and unlocked it. Just in case he fell on his ass again, he didn’t want her to have to break down the door.

  The room was immaculate. She’d mopped up every last speck of blood, had tossed out the torn shower curtain and the broken clips, wiped down the sink and the counter. The room would have passed a white-glove military inspection. He owed her big for this. She’d gone above and beyond. Way beyond. He’d be paying her back for the next six months.

  He relieved himself, flushed the toilet, then slowly turned and looked in the mirror.

  He looked exactly like you’d expect a man to look after he’d been split open and stitched back together like a teddy bear with the stuffing falling out. The stitches gave him something of a rakish air that would undoubtedly have women falling at his feet. They’d washed his face at the hospital, but specks of blood still clung to his temple, his ears, his neck. There was a streak on his left cheek, on the side where he’d hit. He took out a clean washcloth, soaped it up, and scrubbed off what was left of the blood. Then, being careful not to pull at the stitches, he tugged off his clothes and scrubbed away as much of the caked-on soap as he could reach. This kind of bath—what one of his bunkmates in boot camp had referred to as a whore’s bath—might not be as good as a shower, but the military had trained him to clean up
using very little water. Who knew how useful this skill would turn out to be?

  From the kitchen came the clinking of glasses and bowls and flatware. He tossed his dirty clothes into the hamper, wrapped a towel around him, and while she was otherwise occupied, snuck into the bedroom and shut the door. Progress was glacial, but he managed to put on the prosthesis and dress himself. He was steadier with the leg than he was without it, and if she’d gone to the trouble of cooking for him, he should at least try to make himself presentable.

  It seemed like forever since he’d cared to make himself presentable to a woman, but he knew precisely how long it had been. In fact, if prodded, he could name the exact date he’d stopped caring. With Amy, he’d made the effort, but only because he knew it was expected. He had to keep up a certain standard for his job, but again, expectations. Why he’d want to look like a civilized human being in the presence of Paige MacKenzie, he couldn’t say. But he did.

  Keep moving forward. It had become his mantra. Oddly enough, this time, he heard it in Rachel’s voice, as clearly as if she’d been standing next to him: Keep moving forward, Mick. You’re not a quitter. You give up, I’ll kick your lily-white ass.

  He’d failed her. If he’d listened to his instincts, instead of letting her have her way, instead of allowing himself to be overruled, if he’d done his goddamn job, she’d be alive today. He’d killed her, as surely as if he’d been the one to detonate that bomb. Her blood was on his hands, and like Lady Macbeth, no matter how much scrubbing he did, he couldn’t get them clean.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to her ghost. “I’m so sorry.”

  And Rachel’s ghost said, “I forgive you.”

  It was a damn shame that he couldn’t forgive himself.

  PAIGE

  HE’D BEEN GONE forever. She was about to check the bathroom to make sure he hadn’t fallen face-first into the toilet and drowned when he came down the hall, moving slowly, like a very old man. He’d washed, changed into clean clothes, and was wearing the prosthetic leg. His cheekbone and temple were puffy and purplish; the lump on his head looked painful. But there was something about his walk. That military bearing. Even bruised and lame, even doped up on Demerol and walking with an artificial limb, he stood tall and proud, a Marine to the core. He’d been to hell and back, and it was only natural that he’d show a little wear. The Middle East had done a number on him. But he hadn’t let it destroy him. He was still standing, a testament to his inner strength. There’s no such thing as an ex-Marine. There was nothing about Michael Lindstrom to be pitied, but there was much to be admired.