by Carol Ross
She inhaled a breath through her teeth as his lips kissed their way back to her mouth. He groaned softly and nibbled on her lips.
This was... She felt like a teenager on a date. And that was the thought that brought her to her senses. She was about as far from a carefree teenager as a woman could be.
She brought her hands up and rested them on his shoulders. “Aidan, we—”
“I know.”
He grinned and took a step away, but he kept looking at her with his gray eyes all soft and smoky. “You are so beautiful and so... I’ve never felt more comfortable with another human being in my life.” He muttered something else under his breath, then quickly leaned in and kissed her one more time, harder and hungrier this time, like he couldn’t quite get enough of her. Like she was the most desirable woman on the planet and that this was a real first kiss—a romantic start to something special and full of hope and not...this complicated situation that couldn’t possibly go anywhere.
A rush of panic flashed through her; she had to stop this before it went any further.
“Aidan—”
Aidan backpedaled a few steps and ran a hand through his hair. He stepped to his left and bent over a patch of wildflowers. He plucked a flower and Janie felt her chest flood with warm anticipation.
If he gave her a flower she would be a goner...
He started toward her.
“Aidan—”
“Shh.” He dropped the flower and paused like he was contemplating something. He stepped toward her.
“Remember what happened at the beach when you—” She started to playfully remind him about the last time he’d shushed her. “What are you doing?”
He grimaced like he was in pain. “Janie, I need you to listen to me very carefully. I have to ask you...something very important.”
“What...?” she whispered.
“Have you ever given Gareth a shot with his EpiPen?”
Not the question she’d been expecting. “No, I’ve never had to—Tag has been there both times he’s been stung.”
“In my backpack, there’s an EpiPen.”
Janie nodded her head eagerly. “That’s good to know. I can’t tell you what a relief that is. Gareth says you always have them and I really appreciate—”
“You’re terrible at listening sometimes, do you know that?”
“Yes. I do. It happens when I’m nervous. Sorry. I have a difficult time shutting my brain off and it comes out of my mouth...”
He traced a finger over her bottom lip. “I love your mouth, but you need to get an EpiPen out of my backpack. Take the black cap off, then the gray cap.” He demonstrated by holding one fist aloft, thumb up. “Hold it like this and—”
“Aidan, I know how to use them. I just haven’t had to do it yet.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
He brought a hand up slowly and placed it on his chest. He stood still for a few seconds and then inhaled a raspy breath, like he was struggling to breathe...
Janie felt her stomach do the broken-elevator plummet as the circumstances finally dawned on her.
“Aidan?”
He looked down at his arm. Janie followed his gaze to where she could see a red patch that was already swelling up high on his biceps.
“It wasn’t a bee. It was awfully aggressive. Maybe a wasp? I wasn’t paying attention because you...and I’m—”
“Allergic,” she said, finishing for him. “Where’s your EpiPen?”
He leaned over and placed his hands on the large rock beside them. He picked up the bumblebee still encapsulated in plastic, flipped the latch on the container and released it. What kind of man would think about a bee at a time like this? He turned his back to the rock and lowered himself to the ground. He draped his arm across his knee and she could see it already turning an angrier, deeper shade of red.
She tried to quell the panic creeping over her.
“You need to go get the EpiPen and give me the shot... In a few minutes I won’t be able to do it...myself.” He swallowed and Janie wondered if it was her imagination that the action seemed difficult.
Her voice was sharp. “Aidan, where? Where is it?”
“In the pickup. Inside my backpack. Gareth has—”
Janie didn’t stick around to listen to the rest. She took off running toward the vehicle. She felt a wave of heat rush through her followed by a bout of nausea, but somehow she reached the vehicle, tore open the back door, where she remembered Aidan leaving his pack.
It was there—the faded, green-and-brown camo-printed canvas pack. She snatched it up and ran back toward him. Why hadn’t he had the pack with him? Why didn’t he carry the epinephrine with him at all times? How long did she have? What if she was too late? By the time she returned Aidan’s breathing was labored and his arm seemed to be about five hundred times more swollen than before she’d left. The redness and swelling appeared to be creeping up his neck as well.
Gareth and Reagan suddenly appeared by her side.
“Aidan?” Gareth asked calmly. “Did you get stung?”
Reagan’s voice took on a harried tone. “Mom, has Aidan been stung? He’s allergic, too.”
“Yes, I’m looking for an EpiPen.” She rummaged through the pack but felt as if she was sifting through a thick pot of oatmeal. “Where is it? I don’t see it.”
“I got it, Mom.” Gareth was already calmly reaching under his own shirt. He peeled off a black neoprene belt. Where had he gotten that? She heard the tear of Velcro and suddenly he was holding a plastic tube. He removed a vial from inside that she recognized as an EpiPen. He pulled the black cap off of one end, the gray cap from the other and then efficiently injected the life-saving epinephrine into Aidan’s outer thigh.
Janie and the boys managed to assist Aidan to the pickup. Later, she would take the time to be amazed at how strong her boys had become, but in the moment all she could think about was getting Aidan to the hospital.
Somehow both of the boys knew to lay Aidan in the backseat and to elevate his legs. Gareth sat with him and placed Aidan’s legs across his lap. He informed her that this would help prevent Aidan from going into shock. Knowing Aidan he’d probably had a conversation about this very action in case it was ever necessary for him or Gareth.
As she passed the Faraway Inn, where she knew she had a cell signal, she handed her phone to Reagan and told him to call Emily and have her meet them at the hospital.
* * *
“HOLY COW, AIDAN. You look like... I’m not going to sugarcoat this, buddy, you’re hideous. Whatever you do—don’t look in the mirror.”
Janie gaped at her cousin. “Tag, stop. That’s not funny.”
He let out a loud belly laugh and pointed. “Yes, it is. Look at him.”
“How old are you? I swear my eleven-year-old is more mature than you. Get out of here.” She pointed at the door.
Aidan smiled. “Janie, it’s fine. I’m fine. This is nothing. You should have seen me when I got stung by fire ants.”
Janie stared at his swollen arm, chest, neck—his skin was red and mottled. He looked... She didn’t even want to think about it.
“Barely.”
“Barely what?”
“You’re barely fine.” She felt an aftershock of fear wash over her as the incident replayed in her mind. She squelched the feeling by reassuring herself that he was going to be fine. Yet she had to stop herself from crawling onto the bed with him and wrapping her arms around him... What was the matter with her? What had happened between them? Why was she thinking about that while he was lying in a hospital bed?
“Please, stop worrying. You guys got me here in plenty of time. Reagan told me he’s never seen you drive so fast. They were really impressed.”
Impressed? “Aidan, you were practically unco
nscious when we got here and now you look like...”
“Like?”
She frowned. “I can’t think of anything that doesn’t sound really bad.”
Tag laughed again. Janie glared. Bering and Emily walked into the hospital room.
Bering’s eyes went wide. He said, “Wow, Aidan—are you sure you’re all right? You look miserable.”
Tag busted out another round of guffaws. Bering and Aidan joined in. When Tag finally caught his breath, he wiped his eyes and said, “I gotta get to work. But I hope you’re feeling better for playing basketball on Wednesday.”
Aidan raised his hand and Tag grabbed it.
“Thanks for stopping by, Tag.”
“Bering, I was just lecturing Tag about not making Aidan feel worse than he already does.”
Bering blew out a loud breath as his eyes passed over Aidan’s swollen body. “I doubt that’s possible.”
Emily scowled at her husband and then at Tag. “You guys are awful.”
“Oh, honey, insults are our way of showing affection.”
Emily gave him the requisite fake-irritated yet full-of-love glare. “Yeah, well, don’t try that on me—ever.”
Bering chuckled. “Never.” He turned to Aidan. “Seriously, you scared us there, dude. We’re really glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks to your sister and your nephews, I’m fine.”
They talked about what had happened and then chatted for a while. Bering announced that he needed to get back to his shop because he had to repair a boat. He patted Aidan on his good shoulder, gave Janie a peck on the cheek and Emily left to walk him out.
Janie peered at Aidan and asked the question that had been foremost on her mind since she realized he was going to be well. “Why didn’t you tell me you were allergic?”
One side of his mouth tugged up into a smile. “It didn’t seem relevant.”
“Really? It wasn’t because you were afraid I wouldn’t let the boys work with you if I knew? Kind of like the boxing? Where you thought it would work better for you to ask for forgiveness rather than for permission?”
His brows dipped down like she’d asked him a really tough question. “No, I did consider that it would distract you from the bigger picture, but I didn’t... I don’t think it matters. The chances of me getting stung were remote. The rewards outweigh the risks.”
Janie scoffed. “Clearly we have different methods of assessing risk.”
He looked troubled by her statement. “You can’t really live if you don’t ever take risks, Janie.”
“Yeah? Well, you won’t live to take any risks if you don’t think about your safety, Aidan.”
He grinned and she couldn’t help but smile in return. Why wasn’t she more upset about this? Probably because she was too relieved and so incredibly grateful that he was going to be okay. What kind of man studies something that could so easily take his life? A brave one was the answer that immediately popped into her head, but... Brave or reckless? She didn’t know—she wasn’t even sure of the difference.
She sighed, and grudgingly acknowledged, “You seem to have taught the boys how to stay calm in case of an emergency. They were more levelheaded than I was. So, thanks for that.”
“They are wonderful kids. And yes, we reviewed several times what to do in case of an emergency. But for the record I’d like it noted that I got stung because I wasn’t paying attention—not because of the work I’m doing.”
“What do you mean you weren’t paying attention?”
“I was distracted with trying to pick you a flower. I was distracted by you. I wanted to...”
Her heart seemed to stop as she waited for him to finish his thought.
Janie’s eyes were still on Aidan when someone walked through the door. His smiling mouth tightened to form a thin line and his warm gray gaze seemed to ice over. Janie noted the stunning raven-haired woman give Aidan a searching look.
She stepped around Janie, leaned over and kissed Aidan on the cheek.
“Aidan, I’m so glad you’re going to be okay.” Her tone was part relief and part affection, and Janie knew immediately that the two of them were something more than friends. She felt a knot form in her chest as the woman reached out a hand and trailed it affectionately over Aidan’s swollen arm.
Aidan seemed utterly nonplussed. “Meredith, what are you doing here?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MEREDITH? THE FAKE REPORTER? Aidan hadn’t mentioned that she was still a part of his life.
Emily walked back into the room and reached out a hand toward the woman. “Hi, I’m Aidan’s sister, Emily James. You look familiar, have we met?”
She turned friendly brown eyes on Emily and extended a hand. “We have. It’s nice to see you again, Emily. I’m Meredith Montoyo—we met when you were at Cam-Field. I worked PR on a Littleton Oil project you were involved with. Years ago, before Aidan and I were engaged...”
Engaged?
“What are you doing here?” Aidan repeated when Emily and Meredith were through catching up.
Aidan had never mentioned that he’d been engaged to Meredith—Meredith, who had betrayed him. Suddenly Janie was struck with the feeling of how little she actually knew about him. She’d spent weeks conducting an interview, yet she didn’t even know that he’d nearly been married. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t know anything about his past relationships.
And here she’d been arguing her case that she was genuinely qualified to write an article about him.
Aside from the obvious, she knew he liked meatballs and huckleberry pie, and drank copious amounts of black coffee. He enjoyed playing gin rummy and watching television shows about restoring old homes. She had thought she was getting to know him. And she’d believed she was chipping away at that shell of privacy he wore like a plate of armor. A lightning bolt of clarification struck her as she realized she’d really only discovered as much as he’d wanted her to see.
“Didn’t Blake tell you?” asked Meredith.
“Tell me what?” Aidan replied.
“That I was coming here? He hired me and—”
“Blake told me he was coming to see me—but he didn’t mention it would be today and he didn’t mention that you were coming, too.”
A stocky man with a red beard a few shades lighter than his hair barged through the door carrying a cup of coffee bearing the Donut Den’s logo. He stretched his arms out wide. “Aidan! Stung again, huh? You would think those fire ants would have been enough for you.” He emitted a loud belly laugh as he stepped closer to the bed.
Aidan’s smile looked genuine when he reached out and shook the man’s hand. “That fire-ant fiasco was your fault and you know it. I wasn’t expecting you for a while, Blake.”
“I heard you were having some problems. Emily just told me something about cutting your hand on a mollusk shell? Why didn’t you mention it?” Another chuckle boomed from his thick barrel chest—he reminded Janie of a Shakespearean stage actor. She was struck with the thought that everything this man did was likely executed with this degree of drama.
“It was nothing—got my stitches out ages ago.” Aidan flipped his hand over to reveal where the thin red lines of his healing lacerations were still very much evident.
“That’s good. It’s always something with you, isn’t it, Hollings?”
Blake introduced himself and then Aidan quickly explained who everyone was. Janie couldn’t help but notice how Meredith graced her with a warm smile even as she subtly shifted closer to Aidan. She leaned over and whispered something in his ear as Bering and Emily chatted with Blake.
Janie strangely felt very alone. And she realized she hadn’t felt this way in weeks, not since before Aidan had stormed his way into the middle of her life, her boys’ lives—right into their hearts. He�
��d made her boys fall in love with him with his basketball and boxing and...bees. Even the twins adored him—Finn shared his normally jealously guarded buddy bear with him, and nearly every time Gabe dozed off in Aidan’s arms, he would sleep the whole night through. And, Janie now realized, he’d made her feel alive and hopeful, in a way that she hadn’t in so very long. She’d found herself hoping that her life—that the boys’ lives—could finally reach a level of contentment that she’d begun to fear would never be possible.
She slipped quietly from the room and exited the hospital, feeling like everything that had happened that day had been some kind of surreal and cruel, foggy dream—except for the viselike ache that gripped her heart.
That she could definitely feel.
* * *
GARETH WAS RELIEVED that Aidan was going to be okay. The experience had been scary. Gareth thought Aidan was pretty cool—someone who was allergic to bees but still chose to work with them was really brave. Aidan might be the bravest person Gareth had ever met. Gareth wanted to be like him—to face his fears head-on like Aidan had done with bees.
Aidan had told him and Reagan about how he had been bullied, too, when he was a kid and about how he’d been scared of things in his life and had to learn to overcome his fears. And now he was helping Reagan overcome his, too.
Gareth never would have guessed his little brother would be good at boxing. But somehow he’d taken to it the same way he did chess—“if I do this, then he’ll do that...” Strategy—that was something Reagan was good at and it was definitely translating in the boxing ring. And he was fast with his hands—superfast. Faster than Gareth and for the first time in his life Gareth felt like there was the possibility that Reagan might stand a chance if—or rather, when—Harmon got ahold of him. That was a relief. So, the pressure was off of him a little where Reagan was concerned and that was great, but he also felt a little guilty because of the relief. And there was also a piece of him that felt bad about his brother maybe not needing him quite so much.
Even Mom seemed to be doing better. She liked Aidan—Gareth could tell. It had been hard since his dad died knowing how much his mom relied on him. Now he found himself thinking that it was both a relief and a concern to think that she might not need him so much, either.