by Rebecca Rode
“Of course I want you to stay with me for as long as you can. Just promise me you’ll never drive in a storm again.”
“I promise.” She was silent a moment before adding, “I’m grateful for that emergency kit you got me. That stupid glow stick—who knew it would give me so much comfort?”
I laughed. “Try to rest, okay? As soon as the rain lets up, I’ll get you to the hospital.”
Obediently, Bianca closed her eyes. Too obediently. I moved my hand to check her forehead. She was burning. I sat up and stared at her face. By the dim light from the wood stove, Bianca looked flushed.
Declan came in at that moment, carrying a load of mattress pieces. “Those mice . . . ugh.” Seeing my face, he dropped the pieces quickly near the stove and came to me. “What’s wrong?”
“Fever. She’s burning up.”
He frowned. “She might be hurt worse than we thought.”
“What should we do?” It felt odd asking. For so many years I’d made all my decisions by myself. Or with a little distracted guidance from Lily.
“We’re not doing anything. I’m going to get your truck.” He held out his hand. “Can I have the keys?”
“No. It’s too dangerous.”
“The rain isn’t as bad as it was when we had to stop. I’ve dug out cars before.”
“I can help.”
He motioned to Bianca, who appeared to be sleeping. “You need to stay with her. You’ll have to trust me.”
Trust him? Before today, the only man I’d ever trusted was Lily’s husband. But Declan was right that I couldn’t leave Bianca. I handed him my keys.
He took them and went down on one knee, kissing me with a delicious slowness that sent tingles up my spine and warmth throughout my stomach. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
I watched him go, remembering that he still hadn’t told me what his wounds were. I couldn’t help but wonder.
Chapter 9
DECLAN WAS GONE A LONG time. Bianca awoke, and I made her eat a candy bar and drink more water. It was all I had.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“How do you feel?”
“Like your truck hit me.” She turned her head, looking around. “Where did your friend go?”
“To see if he could bring the truck closer.”
“He’s really cute. All those blond curls. Like a younger version of that guy who used to play on all those Mentalist reruns Lily loves to watch. Only longer hair.”
I spluttered a laugh. “Simon Baker? Yeah, Declan looks even better when he’s not soaked.”
“You like him.”
“Yeah. A lot.”
She roused herself enough for a little squeal. “I’m so excited for you!” She moved as if to hug me and gasped. “Ouch.”
“Just hold still. We’ll talk about this later.”
She drifted off again, and I threw a couple mattress pieces into the stove. They smelled odd as they burned, and I hope the mattress had been here long enough that any dangerous chemicals had already leaked out. At least the room was warm.
Leaving the lantern for Bianca, I went to the front room in the dark, peeking past the couch I’d pulled back into place over the broken window. No sign of Declan yet. Had he managed to get the truck unstuck? Had he fallen into a worse rut? I itched to go help him. I didn’t like depending on anyone else.
Time dragged on. I tried to doze next to my sister, but sleep eluded me. Bianca’s forehead felt hotter despite the pain killer I’d given her, and I wondered if I should make her take another one. I checked my phone again for service, but like the other dozen times I’d looked, there were no bars. I’ll have to go find him, I thought. Maybe he needed help. But how could I leave Bianca?
A loud bang had me jumping to my feet. In the front room, Declan had pushed aside the couch and was climbing inside. I ran to him, and he held me tightly, his lips finding mine. His jeans and poncho were covered in mud, but I didn’t care. Fire spread through me.
“How’d it go?” I managed to ask.
“Couldn’t get it up the hill, but it’s close. Let’s get her to the hospital.”
I kissed him again, hard. “Thank you.”
“You keep that up, and we won’t get far,” he joked.
Laughing, I started for the kitchen, but Declan’s hand grabbed my arm. “Zoey,” he said, slightly hoarse. With the flashlight angled down, his face was mostly in shadow. “After we get Bianca safe, I want to tell you something . . . about myself. My past. I know you wondered . . . I just don’t want you to think I’m hiding anything, because I’m not.”
For a fleeting moment I was torn between wanting to help Bianca and hearing his story right now. Obviously, he’d had to work up to telling me this much. But my sister needed immediate help, and she had to come first. “Okay, but I’m holding you to it.”
“I know. That’s why I told you.” His hand released mine, going up to my face, trailing fire across my skin. “I think I’m falling for you, Zoey Morgan.”
I kissed him again, and for a tiny moment, I forgot about the storm and even about Bianca. He tasted of rain and warmth, and breath-taking promises. “Good, because I think I’m falling for you too.”
***
Getting Bianca down to the truck turned out to be the easy part of our journey to the hospital in Kingman. The hard part was creeping down the road and digging out the three more times we became stuck. But we finally made it to the paved road, where we could increase our speed. Even then, it took ninety minutes to traverse the Route 66 to Kingman, a journey that usually took me only thirty minutes.
We drove straight to the emergency room and carried Bianca inside. They found her a bed right away and started X-rays, but there were so many people needing attention that an hour passed before an older doctor came to explain her injuries.
“Your sister has two breaks in her right arm that we’re calling in a specialist to pin,” he said, his face grave. “Her left ankle is also severely sprained, so I’m guessing she’ll be in a boot for six weeks, but the orthopedic surgeon will talk to you about those injuries. The most pressing thing is the internal bleeding in her abdomen, and I think she might be showing signs of infection related to that. She needs surgery to repair the damage.”
“Is she going to be all right?” Anxiety made my voice sharp.
The doctor cracked a confident smile. “Oh, yes. Definitely. Barring any unforeseen complication, of course. This is extremely minor surgery compared to my usual fare, plus she’s young and healthy. Meanwhile, we’ve put her on an antibiotic. I think her lethargy is due more to the combination of injuries and exposure rather than the bleeding and infection. But it’s a good thing you got her here so quickly. Another day and the infection could have made this a very different story.”
“Thank you.” I was speaking to the doctor, but I really meant the words for Declan, who reached for my hand and squeezed it gently, telling me he understood.
“You can stay with her until the surgery,” the doctor said. “But first, why don’t you clean up a bit in the bathroom? I’ll have a nurse get you some scrubs. The authorities are still warning people to stay put, so you probably don’t want to leave.” He winked as he added, “We certainly don’t want you back here with any injuries.”
By the time we were cleaned up and Bianca was in surgery, it was after two and the rain had stopped. We settled in the ER waiting room, where the receptionist had promised to give us Bianca’s room number once it was assigned.
I took Declan’s hand, stifling a yawn. “So, back at the cabin. You wanted to tell me something. What happened?” I said it casually, the way he’d asked me about my past.
He grimaced, and under the fluorescent lighting, his eyes looked more gray than blue. “It’s just . . . my father was killed by a drunk driver. I was eleven.”
Tears stung my eyes. “It’s hard to lose a parent.” My father had never been in my life, but I still longed for my mother.
“Everything I misse
d with him, I blamed on that man. My mother told me it’d eat me up inside, but I didn’t care. For a long time, I couldn’t get past it.”
From his haunted tone, I could tell there was more, so I waited.
Declan pulled my hand into his lap, sandwiching it between both of his. “The man who hit him came to me five years later, asking for forgiveness. I was sixteen at the time and told him exactly where he could go—it wasn’t a pretty scene.” He paused, releasing a heavy sigh. “Less than a month later, he committed suicide, leaving behind a wife and three little kids. The oldest was eight.”
“Oh, no!”
“It was a wakeup call for me. I felt that maybe if I’d just forgiven him, he’d be alive and those kids wouldn’t be missing their dad the way I missed mine.”
I tried not to rush too fast to excuse him, because it didn’t matter if I thought he wasn’t responsible—he felt he was, and he still hurt over what had happened. “I’m so sorry. That’s really sad. Of course there had to be other factors that contributed. You know that, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but I’ll never know if my words would have made the difference.” His hand clung to mine. “It took me another three years before I was able to face his family. I expected anger from them, but the guy’s wife took me in her arms and said it wasn’t my fault. She forgave me and made sure her kids did too. She didn’t want the cycle to continue.”
“Did she ever remarry? What happened to the kids? Do you know?”
A glad laugh escaped him, and his voice was lighter. “She eventually remarried a great guy, but for three or four years I did all the activities with those kids that their father would have done. It didn’t make up for not having a dad—I can never change that—but it made a difference for them. And for me. The oldest just graduated from high school. I still see them all occasionally.”
“You did a good thing.”
“I just did what anyone should have done. Once I realized it was up to me.”
I understood too well. “Like I did with Bianca and my little step-cousin.”
His face angled toward mine, and my pulse raced in anticipation of another kiss. But the ER doors chose that moment to open, and Stephen came inside, half hopping and half carried by his uncle. There was an awkward moment as Stephen’s eyes fell on my hand tucked inside Declan’s.
Declan released me and jumped up, hurrying to help Josh carry Stephen to the chair Declan had just vacated. “Good to see you guys are okay,” Josh said. “We were worried.”
“I’m just glad to see Stephen survived his time with that attorney,” Declan quipped.
Josh ran a hand through his white hair, firmly plastered to his head with water. “Yeah, he’s still back at the sanctuary driving my wife mad. He’s too afraid to leave until the rain stops completely, so she might kill him before we get back.” He nodded at Stephen. “Keep an eye on him while I go check in.” He hurried to the desk.
“You take up medicine?” Stephen asked me.
“What?” I said. “Oh, you mean the scrubs. Yeah, we were pretty much covered in mud, and they didn’t want us tracking it through the hospital. Look, they even gave us these sock booties because our shoes were soaked.” I lifted my feet to show him. “Anyway, we found my sister. She’s in surgery, but the doctor says she’s going to be fine. We found her in time.” I would still worry until she was home with me again, but I’d asked enough questions in the past hour to know that Bianca’s doctor was highly skilled.
“That’s good,” Stephen said. “I bet you have a story to tell.”
“We sure do.” Declan sat on my other side and reached for my hand again. I felt grateful for both his steadying touch and his message to Stephen. Hopefully, there would be no more awkwardness. I valued my friendship with Stephen, but after what happened tonight, I was pretty sure that what I felt for Declan was the real thing.
Stephen leaned back and tented his hands on his stomach. “So that’s how it is, huh? For what it’s worth, I’m happy for you both. Really.” He paused, catching my eye, tapping the tips of his fingers together. “Who knows? Maybe if I’m lucky, Zoey will introduce me to her sister.”
“We’ll see.” I spared a glance at his uncle, who was still talking to the receptionist. “It depends if you’re finally ready to go after what you want.” My sister already knew what she wanted, and I didn’t want to set her up with someone who lacked the courage to grab hold of his destiny.
Stephen’s hands stilled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Declan snorted. “Yeah, you do—those law classes you’ve been taking? You know that’s your real future. But we can argue about it later. I think that nurse with the wheelchair is coming for you. Don’t hold your breath on getting to see a doctor any time soon, though.”
Stephen didn’t respond as Declan and the nurse put him into the chair, but his eyes held the same interested gleam I’d noticed when he’d gone off to debate with that useless attorney at the sanctuary.
As the nurse rolled Stephen away, Declan put his arm around me and pulled me close. “Now where were we before he arrived?”
I moved closer until our lips were almost touching. “Just about here.”
The End
Note from the Author:
Thank you for spending a little time with me in my world. If you enjoyed this novella, please see my novel, House Without Lies to learn more about Zoey and Bianca when they first went to live at Lily’s House. I have also written a stand-alone novella about Bianca.
About Rachel Branton
Rachel Branton has worked in publishing for over twenty years. She loves writing women’s fiction and traveling, and she hopes to write and travel a lot more. As a mother of seven, including a four-year-old, it’s not easy to find time to write, but the semi-ordered chaos gives her a constant source of writing material. She warns her children that if they don’t behave, they just might find themselves in her next book! She’s been known to wear pajamas all day when working on a deadline, and she is often distracted enough to burn dinner. (Okay, pretty much 90% of the time.) A sign on her office door reads: Danger. Enter at Your Own Risk. Writer at Work. Under the name Rachel Branton, she writes romance, romantic suspense, and women’s fiction. Rachel also writes urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and science fiction under the name Teyla Branton. For more information or to sign up to hear about new releases and download a free ebook, please visit RachelBranton.com.
BOOKS BY RACHEL BRANTON
Lily’s House Series
House Without Lies
Tell Me No Lies
Your Eyes Don’t Lie
Noble Hearts
Royal Quest
Royal Dance
Picture Books
I Don't Want To Eat Bugs
Anthologies
Wild Weather: Sweet and Sassy Anthology
Blind Date Collection: A Timeless Romance Anthology
UNDER THE NAME TEYLA BRANTON
Unbounded Series
The Change
The Cure
The Escape
The Reckoning
The Takeover
Unbounded Novellas
Ava’s Revenge
Mortal Brother
Lethal Engagement
Short Stories
Times Nine