Kiss & Tell (Small-Town Secrets-Fairview Series Book 2)

by Sophia Sinclair

  “It’s absolutely your decision,” Dr. Morrissey said. “But if we are to do organ donation, we can’t wait too long. I can answer any questions about it you might have.”

  “Do you think somebody else might live if we do this?” the mother asked through her tears.

  “No!” her husband said.

  “A young and previously healthy girl like Sarah is an ideal candidate for organ donation,” Dr. Morrissey said. “I believe there’s an excellent chance that several other lives might be saved if you agree to organ donation.”

  “Then do it,” the mother said. “It’s what Sarah would have wanted.” Lori took the woman’s hand and squeezed it. The mother was holding up better than her husband, who seemed unable to speak through his grief. He was shaking his head.

  “Mike, honey, you know Sarah would have wanted to help someone else. I think we should do it,” the woman said. “Do you agree?”

  “She was OK a few hours ago! I didn’t even say goodbye to her when she left!” he said, and he covered his face with his hands, sobbing. Tough-as-nails Harriet looked to be on the verge of crying herself. “How could this happen?” he asked.

  “She and another driver collided at a four-way stop,” Harriet said. “One of the unmarked ones. I don’t think it’s clear who had the right-of-way. The police may have more information about that later.”

  “Can we see her?” the father asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Morrissey said. “We can take you in. I have to warn you that though her heart is beating and she’s breathing, that’s the machines doing that. There is no brain activity.”

  That sent both parents into more crying, but Lori knew it was important that they be prepared. More than once she’d watched family members find it difficult to believe their loved one was really gone. They accompanied the parents to the room where their daughter’s body was hooked up to multiple machines; a breathing tube partially covering her face. The girl’s body was perfectly still and if not for all the medical equipment she was hooked up to, she would look as if she were merely asleep. Some of her eye makeup was still in place, and someone had smoothed her hair. But Lori knew that under the sheet, the girl’s abdomen would be sporting a large incision hastily made by the surgeon as he had raced to locate the source of the bleeding inside.

  The couple had stopped sobbing and were holding one of their daughter’s hands and speaking to her. They were probably both in shock, Lori knew. She listened to them telling their daughter they loved her and Lori had to make an effort to hold her own emotions in check.

  “Do you think she can hear us?” the woman asked, looking straight at Lori.

  “I’m sorry, but there’s no brain function,” Dr. Morrissey said.

  “We don’t know whether she can hear us. I don’t know what your religious beliefs are, but some people believe the spirit lingers for a while after death. You should feel free to talk to her if you want to,” Lori said. The three of them stepped back and gave the parents a few minutes, in which they held their daughter’s hand, stroked her hair and repeatedly told her how much they loved her. Then, they stepped aside. Harriet and Lori led them back into the private room, where, as if in a daze, they signed the paperwork allowing their daughter’s organs to be harvested. Harriet excused herself to call the transplant team while Lori talked to them about local funeral homes. She asked them if there was anyone else they wanted her to call. They shook their heads.

  “Do you have children?” the woman asked suddenly.

  “No,” Lori said. “I’ve never been married.”

  “She was our only one,” the man said, and lost control again, causing his wife to do the same.

  “I’m so very, very sorry,” Lori said.

  It was getting light outside when Lori finally got home. She shucked off her scrubs, threw them into the corner of her bedroom, climbed into bed and cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter 3

  Around noon, Lori woke, feeling completely unrefreshed. She was thankful she had the day off, though it also meant she’d need to find something to take her mind off the terrible events of the previous night. She knew there was nothing anyone could have done differently to result in a better outcome; the girl had gone into surgery within a few minutes of arriving at the hospital. She made coffee in her tiny kitchen and reflected on the mother’s question of the previous evening. “Do you have children?” the woman had asked. At the moment, Lori didn’t even have a boyfriend. She’d had high hopes about a cardiologist she’d dated for a few months, but that hadn’t worked out. There was an anesthesiologist she’d seen a couple of times, but they hadn’t clicked at all. Who would hold her hand if something bad happened to one of her family members? Who would mourn her if something happened to her? She had friends, but she longed for the kind of relationship some of them had — the kind you could count on. It was what she wanted more than anything, but it just didn’t seem to be happening for her.

  She glanced around her small, one-bedroom apartment with its tiny kitchen and living room. She had rented it several years ago, choosing it as a temporary place she would ditch as soon as she got married. Why waste money on a larger place, she’d thought, when she didn’t plan to stay there for long? She suddenly realized she’d put her entire life on hold waiting for a man.

  She impulsively looked up the number for Williams Realty and placed a call, but it went straight to voicemail. She didn’t leave a message.

  She took a shower and styled her platinum hair. No need for makeup. This was going to be a rare quiet day at home for her. She smoothed on some moisturizer and left things at that.

  Her phone rang — of course it was Jake Williams. She hadn’t left a message, but he had called her back anyway. She picked up.

  “Hello, this is Jake Williams. I see that I missed a call from you,” he said.

  Lori waited so long to answer that he repeated himself. “Jake Williams, returning your call,” he said.

  “Uh, I’m possibly thinking of buying a house,” she said.

  “Great! Your name?”

  “Lori Randall.”

  “The nurse. Caroline’s friend. OK, when is a convenient time to meet and discuss what kind of place you’re interested in?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. I’m currently working nights. As I guess you know. This is my only day off this week, so — ”

  He cut her off. “How about 3 p.m. today?”

  “Oh, I wasn’t expecting anything that fast,” she said. “But all right. Why not?” It wouldn’t hurt anything to meet him, after all. She gave him her address and looked around the apartment. It was a mess. So was she. What had gotten into her? She’d lived here seven years and it hadn’t ever occurred to her to buy a house before. And why pick a real estate agent who rubbed her the wrong way? There were other realty companies in the area, and other agents. She knew she had an impulsive nature and tried to curb that tendency, but she normally only recognized her impulses in hindsight.

  Well. It’s not like he needed to inspect her whole place, since she wasn’t selling it. She only needed to spiff up the living room and kitchen. She picked up piles of stuff and dumped everything on her bed and closed the bedroom door. She threw all the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and ran a rag over the table and countertops. She stashed other things inside the oven where he’d never see them — that was a trick Lori had learned from her equally undomesticated mother. Once she’d turned on the oven to bake a pizza and had completely ruined some dirty plastic containers she’d hidden from impending guests and then forgotten about, but in truth, she used the oven more as a place to stash all the crap cluttering the counter than as a place to prepare food. “I need a bigger oven,” she said aloud to herself. “Or to accumulate less clutter. Hell, I’ll go with the bigger oven.”

  She quickly ran the vacuum around the place and then ducked into her bathroom to put on her makeup. Few people in the last 20 years had ever seen her without full makeup, and this guy was not going to be the first. Her routine
even involved curling her eyelashes. She didn’t feel like herself without concealer, foundation, powder, lip primer, lip liner, lipstick, blush, eye primer, eye shadow, eyebrow pencil and mascara. She was just brushing her hair when she heard the bell and quickly answered it.

  He was back in professional mode — all shaved and showered and wearing a suit — which Lori appreciated. You could claim that how you look is less important than who you are, but people did judge you by your appearance. Lori’s was always impeccable. Today, so was Jake’s. The only detail that looked wrong was the bandage wrapped around his right hand.

  She invited him in and offered him coffee, which he declined. That was good, because, as she realized after she’d offered, she’d hidden the dirty coffee pot in the oven.

  “So tell me what you’re looking for in a new home,” he said, pen poised above a pad of paper. “Do you want a house or a condo?”

  “I don’t really know,” she said.

  “Do you want a yard, or do you want to be free of lawn care?”

  “Not sure,” she said.

  “Do you like modern or traditional homes?”

  “Uh, I guess modern? I haven’t really thought that much about it, I guess.” She realized she should have at least given some thought to this ahead of time.

  “Will you be living alone?” Was it just her imagination, or did he seem more than professionally interested in her answer?

  “Yep. It’ll be just me,” she said. “So something small.”

  “Something to consider is that a smaller home may not appreciate in value as much as a larger house. You aren’t just purchasing a house. You can think of it as an investment as well. This can be a part of your overall investment strategy. Now, we need to think about your budget. How much money do you have saved to put down?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She suddenly felt stupid. This was what her impulsive nature got her.

  “OK. Let’s make a list of questions here, and we’ll work on them one by one,” he said. He explained to her the process, recommending she go to her bank and find out how much of a loan she’d qualify for. “In the meantime, let’s just go through a few listings and see which ones grab your attention.”

  He opened his laptop and began quickly scrolling past the very high-end houses and zeroed in on several that his experience told him might be affordable to a single nurse. “This one is new on the market. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms. Living room on the main level. Finished family room in the basement. Two car garage. It’s a little on the small side, but I think it’ll be plenty of room for you. And I’m guessing it’s going to cost, roughly, about three hundred a month more than you’re paying now. How does that sound?”

  “OK, I guess,” she said. “I feel really unprepared. I just suddenly decided this morning it was time to think about buying.”

  “What made you decide that?”

  “A bad case at work. I can’t talk about it, of course. But it was enough to convince me that it’s time to start taking life a little more seriously.”

  “I can guess,” Jake said. The tragic death of Sarah Andrews was all over the local media. “But I won’t ask any questions.” He seemed to drop his professional persona for a moment and said, “I’m sure there are many difficult moments when you’re an ER nurse.”

  “Yes.” She didn’t elaborate but she closed her eyes briefly, seeing, as she did, Sarah Andrews asking her to call her mother.

  “Not so much for me. The worst thing I run into are people who are insulted when I tell them their harvest gold kitchen has got to go or that their tiny little place with the leaking roof is not, in fact, worth the $350,000 they think it should fetch.”

  “Maybe I’ll switch to real estate,” Lori said. “Except I think I’ve already proven that I’m not especially good at keeping on top of financial stuff.”

  “But you’re a good nurse,” he said. “I can tell.”

  “How can you tell? On the basis of me looking at your splinter last night?”

  “I’ve seen a lot of nurses in action. Not for me, but for … a family member.” A look crossed his face that Lori didn’t quite know how to interpret. “You were efficient and effective. I’ve seen a few who are not.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I do my best.”

  “I believe you do. And I do my best to be good at what I do. You get back to me after you’ve talked to your bank, and we’ll see what’s available in your price range. You’ll be surprised how different you’ll feel when you walk into a house at the end of the night, knowing it’s all yours.”

  After he left, she got back into bed, her glass of wine on the nightstand. She thought about calling her bank. Later, she thought. For now, she intended to binge-watch something funny and think of nothing at all.

  Chapter 4

  Lori ignored the first three texts from Jake, all of them saying something like “Ready to meet anytime that’s convenient for you! Do you have pre-approval set up from bank?”

  She ignored him because she had not, in fact, called the bank. She didn’t like dealing with money or any kind of financial stuff. She commonly stuffed pay stubs and bank statements into a junk drawer, and she was afraid to even look in there — she knew it would be a frustrating mess.

  She knew some money went from every paycheck into a retirement account. How much, she had no idea. Whatever she’d signed up for the first day she started her job at Fairview Medical Center. They sent her statements occasionally but she never read them. Did she have enough money to put a down payment on a house? She wasn’t sure. The thought of signing into her bank’s website to look up all the numbers filled her with dread. She didn’t even remember what her password was.

  The fourth text from Jake, she finally answered: “Sorry, super busy at work! I’ll get back to you!”

  But now she felt committed. She took a deep breath and called her bank, requesting information on the balances of all her accounts and asked, almost as an afterthought, how much she could borrow if she bought a house. She held her breath, hoping the guy wouldn’t laugh. He didn’t, but he did say she’d have to make an appointment. She actually made one, every fiber of her being dreading the process.

  Lori made good money, had no children to support, and paid little in rent. In theory, she ought to have a nice fat bank account. In fact, Lori had a little shopping addiction that ate a good chunk of her paycheck. She wondered if the bank guy would scold her. She decided to go a whole month without buying any clothing or shoes and see if she could get her finances straightened up a bit. This was going to be her adulting time.

  She sent a text to her best friend, Molly: “I am swearing off new clothes for one month”

  Molly: “Who the hell is this, and why are you using Lori’s phone?”

  “Haha … hey, seriously, gonna buy a house!”

  Molly called her immediately. “Are you really! I think that’s great. What brought this on?”

  “Eh, something at work made me think about getting my life in order. And frankly, I’ve run out of doctors unless I wanna go for one of the really old ones. Which I don’t. I think maybe I’ve put too much energy into thinking about cute doctors and not enough into just getting my own life together.” She knew that Molly had delivered basically that same warning about a hundred times over the past few years, but she had enough tact not to say so.

  “I think that sounds good,” Molly said. “I’d suggest we celebrate at The Clipper but instead, given my current whale-like condition, I think I’ll just say good for you.” Molly was hugely pregnant, having recently married the Pirate Man, and not up for much beyond coming home from work and taking naps. Lori had a feeling it was going to be a good long while before she could look forward to meeting Molly at their favorite local dive bar.

  “How are you and little Pirate Junior doing?”

  “I can’t breathe, I have to pee every 15 minutes and I can’t sleep without arranging about seven different pillows to support everything. So about how you’
d expect. But Beth and Suzie are coming home this weekend, so I’m trying to get ready for that.”

  “Don’t overdo it. I’m your nurse and I order you to put your feet up right now!”

  “Yes, Nurse,” Molly said sarcastically. “I’m ready for a nap anyway. Catch you later.”

  OK, Lori thought to herself. Now she was really doing it. She’d told her best friend she was going for it, so she was committed now.

  As it turned out, the banker hadn’t really scolded her, but he’d definitely impressed on her that with her income, a little bit of discipline could make a dramatic difference in her lifestyle. She had her choice of buying something less expensive now, or waiting a year to give her time to clean up her finances, improve her credit rating and save up a big down payment. She said she’d think about it. But she wasn’t thinking about it. She was watching movies, wine glass in hand, before going to sleep, studiously avoiding even looking at the giant drawer full of paperwork of all kinds. She almost felt like the drawer was accusing her. She tossed a lacy negligee over the dresser. “Go away, paperwork,” she said. “I’ll think about you later!”

  Then she thought to herself how stupid it was to be talking to a drawer full of paperwork. “OK, Lori,” she said to herself. “Let’s put down the wine glass and do this. Damn it.”

  She tossed the negligee onto the floor and pulled out the drawer. It was stuffed. She dumped the whole thing onto her bed and started three piles: Important stuff. Stuff to throw away. Stuff to think about. The older the paperwork, the more likely it was to end up in the throw-away pile. It didn’t take her that long, surprisingly. After about a half an hour, she was all done. She carried all the discarded stuff to the kitchen garbage. It was already overflowing. She stepped outside, turning on the light by the back door, took the armload of paper out to the barbecue grill on her patio, doused it with starter fluid and tossed a match. “There you go. Better than a paper shredder,” she said to herself. She poked it with a pair of barbecue tongs. Little pieces of gray paper rose on the warm air current and drifted away. It didn’t take long before the whole irritating pile was bits of papery ash. She poked it a few more times, immensely satisfied with herself, and returned to her bedroom.