Chance of Loving You

by Terri Blackstock

  “That you shouldn’t forget to water her garden.”

  When Lucas got back to his grandmother’s room, he was astounded to see Wanda Clay there. In street clothes—and holding a dog in her arms.

  “He loves me!” Margie squealed, giggling as the corgi nudged her pudgy arm with his nose. “See, Lucas? Potter thinks I’m very, very special. He wants my leg to get well so I can hold his leash and—”

  “I forgot something in my locker,” Wanda mumbled, meeting Lucas’s gaze across the room. “I was on my way out. Just stopped in for a minute, that’s all.”

  “Well . . . thanks.” He glanced toward his grandmother’s bed, saw her smiling. “Looks like your dog made some friends.”

  “Always.” Wanda jiggled the dog in her arms, and Lucas swore her gruff voice managed a cootchie-coo. “My little man is quite the social butterfly. Aren’t you, baby?” Then her terse expression returned. “I’m going now,” she muttered, heading for the door.

  “Bye, Potter!” Margie raised both hands, waggling her fingers. “Nice to meet you—come back!”

  Lucas shook his head as he walked to his grandmother’s side. Her Bible was in her lap, and he found himself questioning the mercy in a divine plan that would take both of his grandparents so close together. He could find no peace in that.

  “You had a visitor,” he began.

  “Two.” His grandmother’s eyes, to prove what a fool he was, were sharper, clearer than ever. “A darling dog. And my grandson’s hired gun.” She smiled before he could sputter a guilty apology. “Very nice woman. With fine taste. She owns one of my paintings.”

  “So she said.” Lucas glanced toward the bedside table. “Your paintbrushes. Did the aides put them away?”

  “I asked them to put the brushes in a sack. So you could take them back to the house.”

  Lucas’s heart stalled. “But I thought you could use them in occupational therapy, while you’re learning to do things with your left hand.”

  “Here.” His grandmother reached out, took hold of his hand. Her skin was soft, thin as the tracing paper he’d used in grade school. Her fingers squeezed his. “This is what I want to do with my left hand. I don’t want to talk about how many bites of food I took, how much I weighed this morning, what my blood tests showed . . . or how I’ll earn a gold star if I take just two more steps with that wretched metal walker.” She shook her head and sighed, the snowy braid grazing her sharply prominent collarbone. “I want to talk about you.”

  Lucas lifted her hand to his lips, praying she didn’t want to talk to him about funeral homes. “What do you want to know?”

  “Tell me what you’re doing. Outside of this place.”

  He shrugged. “The usual. I’m expecting some overtime this week.”

  “Not at work. I meant, what are you doing for your life?”

  “My life?” Lucas repeated. The truth was, he had very little life outside of work and this room. “I’m eating, sleeping, playing a little basketball, watering your flower beds, and . . .”

  “And?” His grandmother hunched forward, her eyes squinting a bit as if she were taking aim at a clay pigeon thrown high in the sky.

  “Well . . . when I had coffee with Aimee Curran today, I invited her out to dinner. On Sunday evening.” Lucas smiled, unexpected warmth spreading across his chest. “I like her, Grams.”

  “Ah . . .”

  There was an almost-imperceptible shift in his grandmother’s gaze, but Lucas caught it. She’d glanced at the framed photo: his grandparents, the day of their first kiss. She sank back against the pillow and sighed. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

  “HOLD OUT YOUR HAND,” Taylor chided. “Prove it. I think I see a little nervous twitch.”

  “No way.” Aimee extended her hand and smirked at her cousin. “No trembles. No nerves. Steady as a rock—or should I say steady as a surgeon with a scalpel?”

  “Let’s not.” Taylor grimaced. “You don’t want to know the things I’ve seen.”

  “You’re right. I’m the one who hit the OR floor.” Aimee maneuvered the loaded tray cart a little closer to the wall as a clutch of respiratory therapists jogged by, responding to an overhead page to the ICU. “But really, no worries. I’ve got things under control for the contest. I’m feeling really good about this. Hopeful.” She smiled. “About a lot of things.”

  “I see that.”

  Taylor’s knowing expression made Aimee’s stomach dip. It was a new, giddy gymnastic move she’d perfected the past several days.

  “Dinner with CSI guy Sunday night?” her cousin asked.

  “That’s the plan.” Aimee sighed. “Unless all these new breaks in the abduction case bring him in to process new evidence. Lucas isn’t officially on call, but . . .”

  “I get that. But thank God that woman escaped her captor—my heart was breaking for her family and friends. She’s finally safe. And if the information she’s given leads to an arrest, that will be frosting on the cake.” Taylor wrinkled her nose. “Excuse the dessert metaphor. Considering.”

  “No problem. But that reminds me: I was right; my fridge is dying. I could poach eggs in the vegetable bins. I brought my vegan butter to work this morning and tucked it in the dietary cooler. Tomorrow morning you’ll bring the strawberries and the miracle rhubarb straight from the farmers’ market to me here. I’ll add them to my refrigerator stash, safe and sound. Then I can whiz by and get them Saturday morning.” Aimee smiled. “I’m bringing my mom’s favorite spoon, the orange plastic one with the happy face cutout.”

  “I remember it.” Taylor lifted a brow. “Hey, tomorrow’s your last day of bondage to Wanda, isn’t it?”

  “Right, but . . .” Worry crowded in. “I wish I were leaving in a better situation. I’m afraid things haven’t been improving with Mrs. Marchal.”

  “Hospice?” Lucas shook his head, certain he’d heard the discharge planner incorrectly. “You don’t mean like what they do for people who . . . want to die at home?”

  “I meant that hospice care could be an eventual option,” the woman explained, her dark eyes meeting his. “If your grandmother doesn’t want to return to the hospital and her health continues to decline, we can arrange for nurse visits and a home health aide.”

  “But she beat the pneumonia, and the therapists said it was possible she could regain some strength in her leg. At the very least, be mobile with the walker. And learn to use her left hand.” Dread tried to choke him. “She was supposed to get better.”

  “We all want that, Mr. Marchal. But unless your grandmother agrees to prescribed medical interventions . . .”

  “You mean the IVs and the feeding tube.” He glanced across the room. A lab technician was trying yet another vein to draw his grandmother’s blood. Her frail arms were black-and-blue. “I’ll talk with her again and try to change her mind.”

  “If she’s not going to accept further treatment, we can’t keep her here. It isn’t medically warranted. The only option would be the extended care facility.”

  “Nursing home,” Lucas breathed. “She won’t go for that.”

  The social worker captured his gaze. “She wants to go home.”

  Lucas had gone out to the patio to get some air when Aimee found him. Just the sight of her—hair free of its band and tumbling over the collar of her uniform, those beautiful, caring eyes—brought a peace he hadn’t been able to find all day. Her smile hit him square in the heart. “Hey,” he said softly. “Must be dinnertime.”

  “Your grandmother’s tray should be there in a few minutes. I think they switched it out to full liquids tonight.” Her brows drew together. “What’s wrong?”

  “They didn’t try to take her for physical therapy today. She’s too weak. And she’s lost another two pounds. That’s eleven in two weeks.” For the first time, Lucas found no comfort in the sensible order of numbers. “They’re starting to talk about hospice.”

  Aimee pressed her fingers to her throat. “Lucas, what can you
do?”

  He shook his head, looked toward the doors to the hospital. “They drew blood again. I’ll hear about that tomorrow, I guess. And according to the social worker, the rehab team is going to reevaluate my grandmother on Monday. If things haven’t changed—and if she hasn’t changed her mind about life support measures—there’s no medical reason to keep her here. She’ll insist on going home.” His throat closed. “To die.”

  “No. Oh no . . .” Aimee grasped his forearm, her eyes intense. “That’s not going to happen. We’re going in there right now. We’ll double-team her—you handle the soupspoon; I’ll man the juice straw. I’ll distract her with tales of my worst kitchen bloopers while you slip her some lime Jell-O. We can do this, Lucas. I promise.”

  He smiled, overwhelmed by gratitude and the sudden urge to kiss her. “Sounds like a plan.”

  She nodded, her lips twitching upward at the corners. “We’ll flip a coin for Margie.”

  “Margie?”

  Aimee grinned. “I promised her a finger-puppet show if she ate her vegetables.”

  DESPITE YESTERDAY’S BRAVADO with her cousin, Aimee couldn’t deny the truth: she was getting jittery about the bake-off. Tomorrow. Her stomach did a swan dive. She stilled the dietary department’s chef blade, gazed down at the fingers on her right hand: each nail polished in a different color, the thumb in “Natural Blush.” She’d realized, late last night as she re-rechecked her ingredient and tool lists, that her fingers—chopping, measuring, whisking—would be on camera, in close-up. For the whole world to see. Since she had no idea what would look best, she’d tried several colors, then managed an awkward series of selfie videos of her hand in action. But even so, Aimee still wasn’t sure which—

  “Are you going to use that knife, Curran, or just think those tomatoes into neat little slices?” Donny, the grill chef, chuckled, his beefy hands planted on his hips. “I could sure use a stack for my burgers, one way or the other.”

  “Sorry,” Aimee told him, feeling her face turning the shade of her thumb polish.

  Donny smiled. “We’re all going to be rooting for you tomorrow, kid. You’re gonna do fine.”

  “Thank you.” She gripped the knife, pretending her fingernails didn’t look like a Skittles spill. “I’ve got things under control. And sliced tomatoes coming your way, pronto.”

  “Great.” Donny took a step away, then turned to look at Aimee again. “So what are you going to do after cooking school? Work your way up in some of our local restaurants? Or—” one dark brow rose toward his paper cap—“become a top chef on one of those fancy cruise ships? Maybe open your own place? What’s the big dream?”

  “I . . .” Aimee stared at him, her mind a complete blank. What’s my dream? Was it possible she’d never thought beyond—?

  “No worries.” The chef raised his palms. “Didn’t mean to put you on the spot. You’re young. Plenty of time to find your calling.” His grin exposed a gold-rimmed tooth. “First things first, Curran: knock ’em dead tomorrow.”

  “Right.” Aimee drew the knife through the seeded tomato, sneaked a peek at the wall clock. Taylor would have left the farmers’ market by now after getting the strawberries and the rhubarb. She’d have put them in the insulated bag and would be driving straight to the hospital. Aimee had already cleared a spot for them in the dietary refrigerator and prepared a paper towel–lined dish for the ripe organic berries. She’d hand-lettered a half-dozen little signs saying, Aimee’s fruit—please don’t touch. In English and Spanish. She smiled, remembering the French word for strawberry . . . fraises. And Lucas’s romantic story about his grandparents.

  They’d managed to coax Mrs. Marchal into taking more than seventeen ounces of fluids from her dinner tray last night, difficult because she seemed especially drowsy. At one point, she even choked a little on the soup. It had brought back too many memories of Aimee’s mother in those last, sad days. But still, it was worth it to see some of Lucas’s worry recede. He was cautiously optimistic that there would be no need for the doctors to approach his grandmother with the issue of intravenous fluids and feeding tubes; he thought by Monday she’d pull out of this slump on her own. The hope in his eyes had touched Aimee’s heart. And though yesterday had been her last shift working for Wanda, she still planned to stop by tonight and—

  “Aaagh!” Aimee yanked her hand back from the blade in pain and disbelief. Stared at the blood. Her left index finger, dripping.

  “No . . . no.” She grabbed a towel, hurried to the sink, and forced herself to hold her finger under the water stream despite the immediate sting. Aimee grimaced, made herself take a quick peek: a slice into the fingertip, blood welling again and making it hard to tell how deep it was. She squeezed the towel against it, her mind tumbling. She’d have to go home; the hospital wouldn’t let her work around food with a wound. Would it be a problem with the bake-off? Would she be disqual—?

  “Aimee?” Taylor stepped into the kitchen, the market tote bag over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

  “Cut myself—can’t believe it. I’m afraid to really look.”

  “Let me see.” Taylor set the tote down and moved toward the sink. “You don’t have to look; just let me have it.”

  Aimee kept her eyes on the hopeful market bag. Please, Lord . . . “Is it bad?”

  “No.” Taylor pressed against the wound with a clean part of the towel. “Sorry; I’m trying to get it to stop bleeding. It’s a slice, pretty shallow. Not any place where we need to worry about tendons or nerves.” She caught Aimee’s gaze. “You’re good with your tetanus?”

  “Last fall.” Aimee hated that she’d begun to tremble. “Will it need stitches?”

  “I doubt it.” Taylor gave her a reassuring smile. “Some eager-beaver intern might want to try, but I’ve taped up my own cuts that were bigger than this and they healed fine. It will need a cleanup, maybe some Steri-Strips to close it.”

  “How about that glue stuff?” Aimee asked, beginning to relax.

  “Yes, Dermabond might work. You could ask the doc.”

  “Oh, good. Because stitches and bandages would show. On camera.” Aimee waggled her uninjured and brightly polished fingertips. “The contest is being taped for TV. And I definitely don’t want to look like the kind of rookie who can’t even slice a tomato without hacking herself up. Everything needs to be absolutely perfect and—”

  “Aimee . . .” Taylor winced as if her own finger were sliced. “The Garden of Eatin’ farmers weren’t there. I couldn’t get the rhubarb.”

  C’MON, CALL ME . . . Aimee stared at her maddeningly silent cell phone and drummed her fingers—including the freshly glued one—on her small, seventies-vintage kitchen table. Then she took a slow breath and prayed. Please, Lord. It’s my future. Make this happen with a new recipe.

  Everything depended on getting official contest approval for a substitute dessert. After all, there were baskets of beautiful strawberries waiting at the hospital, and Aimee had a spendy stockpile of vegan butter, nutmeg, organic sugar . . . and a secret weapon: her mother’s recipe tin. There had to be a winner in there. Aimee would bet her life on that. And she’d find it as soon as she got the green light from the Vegan Valentine Bake-Off coordinator. Nothing would happen without that, and the clock was ticking toward the start of the contest. She’d left a message on the coordinator’s phone, let herself believe it could happen. Even that fragile hope was far better than how discouraged she’d been barely an hour ago.

  After the urgent care PA glued her finger, she and Taylor had split the list of all the local farmers’ markets and driven off in different directions. A futile hunt to find the AWOL Aiden and Eve. They questioned the vendors in all the booths without success. Everyone was surprised that Garden of Eatin’ was a no-show; nobody knew why. They all suggested trying to call the farm phone number.

  Right. Aimee frowned at the farm flyer lying on the kitchen table next to her. There had been no answer at the farm; she’d left three messages. Then she’d
tried to find an alternate source for local organic rhubarb. Not one city market had it. Frozen fruit would get Aimee laughed out of the contest kitchen, but who could make strawberry rhubarb crumble without rhubarb? She’d imagined the embarrassment of telling her family and friends that she’d been disqualified and been certain she’d be doomed to defending olive garnishes for the rest of her life, when the obvious solution occurred to her: she’d find a new, last-minute but completely brilliant dessert idea. All Aimee needed was—

  Her heart stalled as her cell phone rang. Then it did an unrelated, but athletically worthy, somersault: Lucas.

  “Hey,” she said, keeping an ear tuned for the call-waiting beep. “What’s new?”

  “We caught the kidnapper—you haven’t heard?”

  “No . . .” She glanced at her glued finger and then at her mother’s recipe file, not sure if her current situation was an adequate excuse for checking out of the real world. “It’s been a little hectic on my end. Does this mean you’re working the scene?”

  “Two scenes—two camps where he held that woman. Way up in the woods. I’m going to be here for most of the evening. And I don’t know when I’ll be able to visit my grandmother. They moved her reevaulation up. It’s happening tomorrow morning.”

  “On a Saturday? Why?”

  “Because . . .” Lucas hesitated, obvious concern in his voice. “Those last lab tests showed further dehydration and early signs of kidney failure.”

  Aimee winced. “Oh no . . . I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s why she’s been so weak and sleepy.” He drew a breath. “They took more blood today to compare the numbers. I told them we got her to take more fluids, so maybe it’s changed. But they still plan to see her in the morning. And recommend that she accept IV fluids, maybe a temporary feeding tube until things turn around. Everything depends on her decision. I’ll be there in the morning, but I really wanted a chance to talk with her ahead of time. Tonight.”