by Bella Andre
Just after seven p.m., the Vail General Hospital parking lot was pretty well emptied out, apart from a throng of reporters smoking and waiting by the entrance. As he paid the driver, he suddenly wondered if they were here to see Dianna.
How could he have forgotten that she was famous now, that she had a whole new life that he knew nothing about? They were no longer on the same playing field. She was a star. And he was still just a firefighter.
But as he moved past the reporters and pushed through the tall glass entry doors into the lobby, none of that mattered. Not when the possibility of Dianna being injured and in pain had his heart racing and his hands sweating. Replaying the past had been nothing more than a convenient way to push away his fears regarding Dianna’s current situation.
Sam hadn’t spent much time in church, but it didn’t stop him from praying now. Please, God, let her be okay was what he sent up as he headed to the reception desk.
A young redheaded woman was watching a soap opera on the TV hanging from the far corner of the room. A half-dozen people were slumped tiredly in their seats waiting to be called in to see the next available doctor.
“I’m looking for Dianna Kelley.”
She stopped watching the TV and gave him her full attention, smiling up at him flirtatiously. “I’ll bet you are. I swear, some women have all the luck.”
He frowned. She wouldn’t be flirting with him if Dianna was in a coma, would she? Or was this just her regular m.o. with every reasonably good-looking guy without a ring who walked into the hospital?
“How is she?”
The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. But I heard it was a pretty bad crash. Head-on. That road she was on can be dangerous when it’s icy.”
Air whooshed out of his lungs. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. She was supposed to tell him that Dianna was all right, that she was the one in a million who walked away just fine. He’d tended to enough car crash survivors to know how bad her injuries probably were, that she was most likely fighting for her life that very second.
“I need to see her.”
The woman studied him more carefully, looking at his left hand again. “Are you her husband?”
“No.” Hell, no, he wasn’t her husband. That ship had sailed a long time ago.
“You’re not a reporter, are you?”
“No, I’m a firefighter.”
“Oh, that’s so much better,” she said with a smile. “We’ve been given express instructions not to let any more of the reporters past the front desk. They’re like vultures. It’s kind of creepy,” she said with a feigned shiver. “But firemen are always welcome here.”
She quirked her head to the side, even more flirtatious than she’d been at first. “So who are you?”
It was a good question. He wasn’t Dianna’s boyfriend. Wasn’t even a friend. And yet he’d flown all the way to Colorado to see her. Because he needed to see for himself that she was all right.
Sidestepping the woman’s question with a charming grin, he said, “Sam MacKenzie.”
Blushing furiously beneath his gaze, the woman immediately picked up the phone. “I’ll let Ms. Kelley’s nurse know that you’d like to pay her a visit.”
Dianna woke up to bright light bouncing off the framed picture of wildflowers on the wall across from her bed. She squinted out the window, surprised to see that the sun was already setting over the mountains, but glad to realize that she finally felt reasonably alert after dozing off and on all day while the sedatives they’d given her during the night slowly left her system.
Her heart squeezed as she recalled the conversation she’d had with the doctor that morning.
“Please,” she’d said, “I’d like to know if the people in the other car are okay.”
The doctor hadn’t taken her eyes off of her chart for a long moment. Too long. Something in the lines of her face had warned Dianna to prepare herself for bad news.
“I’m afraid the driver of the other vehicle died. There were no other passengers.”
Every time Dianna thought about it, she had to fight back a thick wave of nausea.
Why was she lucky enough to be alive when the other driver had died?
What had she done to deserve such luck?
And what was she supposed to do with this incredible second chance?
Her life was pretty simple, really. She loved her job, wished she had a better relationship with her sister, and hadn’t yet met the right man to settle down with. But even as she ran through the list, a voice in the back of her head told her she wasn’t being totally honest.
Later. She’d take a hard look at herself and her life. When she wasn’t so tired.
A nurse bustled into the hospital room and asked Dianna to try to sit up. Slowly shifting her weight with the woman’s assistance, she was extremely happy to note that the throbbing in the back of her skull didn’t get any worse.
She felt a little achy all over, kind of like when she had the flu, but apart from that she was surprised by how good she felt. Almost as if she’d simply had a little too much to drink the night before, rather than being rushed from a totaled car to the hospital in an ambulance.
Still, she didn’t really feel up to making small talk with the small, dark-haired woman who took her temperature and blood pressure, then tentatively asked for an autograph.
Knowing the past four years as host of West Coast Update had made her a bit of a celebrity, Dianna played her part as best she could. With her job, there was no downtime. She always had to be on. And even though she was in the hospital, she still felt that she had an image to uphold. People—including this nurse—expected to see the “perfect” Dianna Kelley. She didn’t want to disappoint them.
Not when she’d worked so hard to create that illusion.
As soon as the nurse closed the door behind her, Dianna pushed back the blanket and slowly swung her legs out over the edge of the bed.
So far, so good.
She slid her feet onto the floor and made sure to hold on to the side table as she stood up, just in case. Fortunately, she was only the slightest bit dizzy. Taking her large purse into the bathroom, she closed the door and stared at herself in the mirror.
She looked a sight!
For the past decade, she hadn’t let anyone see her looking less than her best. But as she stared into the mirror, she saw right through the successful twenty-eight-year-old woman to the confused eighteen-year-old girl whom she feared was never far below the surface.
In the small shower, she scrubbed her skin with the industrial pump soap by the sink. After drying off with a tiny, thin towel that was a far cry from the ultrasoft, oversized ones hanging in her bathroom at home, she stood naked in front of the mirror.
Looking at herself with a critical eye, she found herself wondering—not for the first time—how long it would be until she’d need to book an appointment with a plastic surgeon. Thus far, her breasts and stomach and thighs were still okay, but okay wasn’t even close to good enough for TV.
She hated the thought of someone cutting her apart. Was there any other option? she wondered as she opened her makeup bag and brushed some color onto her pale skin. Could she grow old gracefully and not lose her viewership?
Not likely, she thought with a sigh. Not with a hundred—more like a thousand or more, actually—women waiting in the wings to take her place if she ever started slipping.
Giving silent thanks that the makeup artists she’d worked with over the years had taught her everything they knew about doing professional hair and makeup on her own, fifteen minutes later the face staring back at her looked like the woman everyone recognized from West Coast Update.
The paramedics had retrieved her luggage from the trunk of her rental car and she changed into a pale yellow, long-sleeved cashmere shirt and her favorite form-fitting jeans. As a finishing touch, she spritzed herself with a tiny travel bottle of her signature scent, which she’d found in a tiny town in the south of France.
Realizin
g her legs were beginning to quiver, she made her way back to the bed. Scooting onto the mattress, she was pulling the blankets back up when a line from a song suddenly ran through her brain: “Listen to me now ’cause I’m calling out. Don’t hold me down ’cause I’m breaking out.”
In the rental car, she’d thought the lyrics had only applied to April’s life, to the emotional hurdles that her sister was leaping as she became a woman. But suddenly, Dianna could no longer hide from the chilling truth: That song could have been about her own long days on a set with the crew and her guests, her dates with men she didn’t care one fig about, even the girls’ nights out where she was afraid to reveal too much in case she seemed too high maintenance. For years, she’d gone out of her way to make sure people had no reason to abandon her.
Her hands stilled on the blanket, halfway up her legs. For so long, she’d pushed forward with her career, with her façade of perfection, willing to do anything if it meant proving to the state that she would be a good guardian for April. Wasn’t it time to stop covering up her true feelings with false smiles, with perfect makeup and hair and the latest designer clothes?
Feeling terribly shaken, this time from the inside, rather than from any surface injuries, she reached into her purse for her cell phone. She’d distract herself with work.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone this long without her phone in hand. Pulling it out, she wasn’t surprised to see that there were a dozen messages. She settled back against the pillows with a pen and pad of paper to take notes for Ellen Ligurski, her best friend and producer, who was supposed to be dropping by the hospital within the hour.
But instead of someone from her staff calling with a problem at the studio, the first message was from her sister.
“Oh my God, Dianna, I just found out about your accident. I know you probably can’t get this message, but just in case you can, I want you to know that I’m coming to the hospital right away.”
Dianna pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it. April had been at the hospital?
She hit the nurses’ call button, and when the woman poked her head in, Dianna said, “I’m sorry to bother you again, but was my sister here earlier when I was sleeping?”
The nurse looked confused. “No. I don’t think so.”
Dianna’s brain raced. “Could she have seen me in the ICU?”
“I could call over there to ask, if you’d like.”
Using the phone beside Dianna’s bed, the nurse quickly confirmed that April had, indeed, visited Dianna in the ICU when she was sedated. One of the nurses recalled seeing her sleeping on a chair in the waiting room a couple of hours earlier.
When the nurse left, Dianna called April’s cell phone and left her a message saying she was all right and that she’d love to see her. But why, she wondered anxiously as she hung up, hadn’t her sister come back for another visit?
Just then, her friend Ellen came rushing into the room. A ball of energy who never walked when she could run, and never ran when she could sprint, Ellen was a big reason that West Coast Update was such a success. Were it not for her friend’s recommendation to the network’s producers, Dianna might have remained just another green-eyed blonde waiting in the wings.
“Oh honey, how are you feeling?” Ellen asked mid-hug. “I wish I could have been here sooner, but I couldn’t get a flight back out of San Francisco until late this morning.” Not stopping for a breath, she said, “Oh boy, I have to tell you about a simply breathtaking man sitting across the aisle from me. Big shoulders, wounded eyes. What I wouldn’t give to make things all better for him.”
It was so nice to have Ellen’s soft, warm arms around her that Dianna felt tears coming. Taking a deep breath, she blinked them away before sitting back against her pillows.
Smiling at her friend, she teased, “Did you take a covert picture of him on your cell phone?”
Ellen snapped her fingers. “No picture, darn it, but do the words ‘tall,’ ‘dark,’ and ‘gorgeous’ mean anything to you?”
Dianna felt her smile wobble. Tall, dark, and gorgeous sounded like Sam. Exactly like Sam.
She hadn’t thought about him this much in years. Hadn’t let herself. She must really be feeling bad if she was letting a bunch of old feelings about an ancient relationship get to her.
Wanting to change the subject, she said, “I can hardly believe I was in such a bad crash. Honestly, I feel more hungover than anything.”
Ellen sat down on the edge of the bed and held Dianna’s hands in both of hers. “Oh my gosh, honey, I shouldn’t be talking about a man. What’s important is that you’re feeling better. We were all so worried about you. No one wanted to stay in San Francisco at the studio. They all wanted to come here to be with you.”
Her staff at West Coast Update were as close as she got to family. Well, she had April, but they didn’t exactly hang out and joke around. She was godmother to three new babies, and attended every birthday party she was invited to, even though she was usually the only childless, husbandless woman there. Years ago, she’d been on the verge of becoming a sleepless, but radiantly happy, new mother. Now she was resolutely single, without a family anywhere on the horizon.
At least she’d found a place where she belonged, where no one questioned where she’d come from. Her coworkers assumed Dianna had always been confident. Beautiful.
No one knew how hard she’d worked to transform herself.
Ten years ago, she’d come to San Francisco with just enough money to rent a crappy apartment. She’d needed to find a job. Fast.
She’d done surprisingly well in her communications course at Tahoe Junior College, given how shy she’d always been, so after carefully studying the morning newscasters and realizing she could probably do what they did, she went to a training salon. For ten dollars they gave her a cut and color, transforming her dirty-blond locks into golden waves.
They also told her about clothing resale shops, where she soon found a couple of beautiful outfits in her size with the tags still on them. She’d marveled over the fact that some people had so much money that they would give things away without ever using them, but she was thankful, too, because she no longer looked like a hick from the mountains. She looked like a young professional, ready to make her mark on the world.
That morning when she’d walked into the local news station, she’d felt utterly out of place. A total imposter. All she wanted to do was turn tail and run. Instead, she planted a wide smile on her face and made sure they knew she was willing to work hard. She wasn’t afraid of sweeping floors or cleaning toilets or filing endless piles of papers.
Amazingly, she got the job, and one day when someone on set was sick, they actually let her help out onstage. Even more remarkable, at twenty-four, after six years of giving every spare moment she wasn’t fighting for April to the network, they’d accepted her proposal for a brand-new show.
Her vision of a positive, fun show that highlighted all the West Coast had to offer, from restaurants and shops to local stars, quickly became a hit. And she loved it. Even though sometimes she didn’t feel like smiling or sitting still for two hours while the stylist touched up her highlights and perfected her makeup.
All that mattered was that she was making an excellent living doing exactly what she wanted to do—and that her success had allowed her to pull April out of the foster system. Even better, unlike her mother, she didn’t have to rely on a man to take care of her … and she wouldn’t be left with nothing after he’d gone.
“I shouldn’t have let you go meet April by yourself,” Ellen said, breaking into her thoughts.
Dianna squeezed her friend’s hand, wanting to reassure her. “The accident could have happened anywhere. I shouldn’t have been driving in that storm.”
But Ellen knew too much about Dianna’s difficult relationship with April to think that their meeting in the coffee shop was just a friendly chat between loving sisters.
“It was more than the storm, wa
sn’t it? What did April say this time to upset you?”
Dianna’s chest tightened as she thought about their conversation in the Vail coffee shop. “She has a new boyfriend. That’s why she’s decided to stay in Colorado.”
In truth, there was much more to the situation, but Dianna wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about what April had told her just yet. Not until she figured out what she was going to do about it.
A pretty middle-aged doctor whom Dianna hadn’t met yet knocked lightly on the door before entering the room.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Kelley. You are a very lucky lady to have survived that crash in such good condition. I’ve never seen anyone moved out of the ICU so quickly. Good for you. From what I can see on your X-rays you’ve got no broken bones and no internal injuries, although I’m sure you still feel pretty banged up.”
The doctor flipped through the chart from the previous night. “How are you feeling today?”
“Pretty good, actually.”
The doctor slipped her chart back into the slot on the side of the bed. “I’m glad to hear it. I’d like you to spend another couple of hours with us so that we can continue to monitor you. But if you feel up to it, and everything looks good, I’m prepared to discharge you tonight.”
After shaking her hand and getting an autograph for her daughter, the doctor exited the room and the nurse stuck her head back inside.
“Ms. Kelley, I wanted to check with you about another visitor who’d like to say hello.”
Quick to protect Dianna against reporters looking to get the first sound bite on the accident, Ellen replied, “She isn’t ready to make a statement yet.”
The nurse shook her head. “Oh no, this man says he’s a firefighter, not a reporter.”
Dianna’s heart practically stopped beating. “A firefighter?”
“Swear to God he’s one of the best-looking guys I’ve ever seen,” the young nurse said innocently.