Girls of Summer (Shelter Rock Cove - Book #2)

by Barbara Bretton

  “Not you!” Again that unfamiliar laugh. “You haven’t changed a bit in the last twenty years.”

  “Okay,” he said. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “I paid you a compliment.”

  “I know,” he said. “What gives?”

  “Do I have to spell it out?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I think you do.”

  That was his first mistake.

  * * *

  Deirdre sat up against the pillows and stretched. All of those wasted classes, trying to understand how to be in the moment. The answer had been right here in Scott the Mechanic’s bed all the time. She felt completely connected in body and soul, alive in every atom of her being.

  “You’re not much of a talker,” she said, running her fingers through her tangled curls. “Believe it or not, I’m a pretty good listener.”

  “I know,” he said. “Maybe some day.”

  Or maybe not. They both knew life would make that decision for them.

  “Come back here,” he said from the other side of the bed. “You don’t leave until tomorrow morning, right?”

  Oh God, she was tempted. A night in his arms would be enough to carry her through the next decade.

  “I have to go,” she said. “Ellen had to work late, but I’d like to spend a little time with her before I leave.”

  “I could try to change your mind.”

  “And you’d probably be able to do it.”

  “But you want to spend time with your sister.”

  “I really do.”

  He watched her as she climbed from the bed. “What would it take to get you to stay?”

  “For the night?”

  “For the summer,” he said.

  She sat down next to him and brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “Not many things in life are perfect, but tonight was. We should keep it that way.”

  An hour later, freshly showered and with her damp curls loosely gathered on top of her head, she started back to Ellen’s house. She felt lighter in spirit than she had in months, as if just maybe things were finally going to make a turn for the better.

  She was going to miss Scott the Mechanic, but then she was going to miss the entire town. She had grown very fond of the place over the last few weeks and was beginning to feel as if she belonged there. There was something to what Ellen had said about the lack of privacy, though. She wondered how many Shelter Rock Cove townspeople had noticed her Hyundai parked in Scott’s driveway. Not that it mattered. They were both free to do whatever they liked. Still, it was a thought. In three blocks, she had already noticed Sweeney’s Harley in front of Artie’s house, Roberta’s Lincoln angled in front of the Stop ’n’ Shop, and Susan Aldrin’s SUV tucked next to Hall Talbot’s Rover at the foot of his driveway.

  She laughed as she drove past the cluster of new homes at the edge of Shore Drive. Score another point for Dr. Ellen. No wonder she had been paranoid after that night she spent with Hall. Her red PT Cruiser really did make a statement you couldn’t miss. The car was parked in the driveway of the last house on the corner, one of those gorgeous saltbox rip-offs that went for more money than she would probably earn in her lifetime.

  A little late for house calls, she thought as she stopped at the traffic sign. Ellen had said she would be home by nine, which was one of the many reasons why she didn’t stay longer at Scott’s. She reminded herself that obstetricians didn’t work on their own schedules; they worked on the babies’ schedules.

  But what was with the house call anyway? Nobody made house calls anymore.

  She looked back at the house through the rearview mirror. It had been ablaze with light. Nothing abnormal there. But something wasn’t quite right and she couldn’t put her finger on it. The road was empty. All she had to do was throw the car into reverse, back down the block, and take a look. What could it hurt? Ellen wouldn’t even know she was there.

  She backed her way up the street and came to a stop in front of the house with Ellen’s Cruiser in the driveway. The front door was wide open. Not open a crack, mind you, but wide open with the foyer lights blazing. She threw the car into park and dashed up the walk. Okay, so maybe this town really was Maine’s answer to Mayberry RFD, but things happened. Even Paradise had its share of snakes. The worst that could happen was that she pissed Ellen off. It wasn’t like that hadn’t happened before. She was leaving town tomorrow. She would take her chances.

  “Ellen!” She called from the doorway. “Are you in here?”

  No answer.

  She stepped into the foyer. It was almost too quiet in there. Prickles of alarm erupted up and down her arms.

  “Ellen! It’s Deirdre. Are you here?”

  She jumped at a sound corning from somewhere down the hallway. Footsteps? A television? She couldn’t be sure. Cautiously she moved through the foyer, past the living room, until she reached—

  A hugely pregnant woman lay sprawled on the floor, blood pooling beneath her ivory nightgown. Her face was dead white and she clutched her belly.

  “Call 911,” she begged Deirdre. “Hurry! Dr. Markowitz—”

  And then she saw Ellen. Oh, God. Oh, God. Not Ellen. Please not Ellen. Her sister’s slender form lay at the foot of the dresser in the corner. She was motionless. Her eyes were closed. No no no no no—

  “911!” the woman begged. “Do something please!”

  “Where’s the phone?” she asked, struggling to keep it all together. “I don’t see a—”

  “Kitchen... try the kitchen. Hurry!”

  * * *

  How did you tell your oldest friend to keep her shirt on without losing her friendship forever?

  Susan’s fingers trembled at the buttons of her silk blouse as she waited for him to respond to her invitation. Truth was, he was shocked. He wasn’t an unsophisticated man and he had known his share of women, but the sight of the woman he loved as a sister getting ready to bare her breasts shocked the hell out of him.

  And it wasn’t even as if he hadn’t seen her breasts before. He was her gynecologist. He had delivered her children.

  “Susie, stop.” He tried to soften the words with a smile, but he couldn’t quite get it right. “Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

  “That’s where you’ve got it wrong,” she said as the first button popped open. “You only regret what you don’t do.”

  “You don’t really want to do this.”

  The second button popped open. “Yes, I do.”

  He could see the lacy edge of her bra. “You’re like my sister.”

  “I’m not your sister.”

  “We grew up together.”

  “Claudia always wanted to see us get together. Better late than never.”

  “You’re married.”

  “I’ve never not been married,” she said. “I was born married.”

  He wasn’t a psychologist, but he recognized a clue when he saw one.

  Jesus, there went the third button. Would she think he was a weasel if he sprinted for the door? This was more than he had bargained on. The woman was his oldest friend, his confidante, the person he had turned to for advice and consolation before Ellen came into—

  Wait a minute. Wasn’t this the same way she had reacted a few years ago when Annie and Sam first got together? She tried to push change away with both hands and, to his embarrassment, so had he. That hadn’t been the finest hour for either one of them. He had actually looked into Sam’s background, hoping to find something that would send Annie running straight into his arms. Annie had been a lot kinder and more understanding than they had deserved, something he saw now with painful clarity.

  “Susan, we’d better—” He stopped as he realized she wasn’t listening to him. She was looking over his right shoulder toward the doorway with a look of utter horror on her face.

  He turned around and found himself looking straight into the angry eyes of Ellen’s sister Deirdre.

  “They’re taking Ellen to the ER,” she said without preamble
as she glared at Susan. “Next time, try closing the door.” She turned and left without another word.

  * * *

  “Dr. Markowitz!” The voice came to her from very far away. “Dr. Markowitz, can you hear me?”

  She opened her eyes. A young man was looking down at her. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t remember his name. “Where—?”

  “You’re in an ambulance, Dr. Markowitz. We’re taking you to the hospital.”

  “Patsy... how is...”

  “Mrs. Wheeler is stable. She’s en route to the hospital in our other vehicle.”

  “Hall,” she whispered. “Hall?”

  “Hospital,” the young man repeated, a puzzled look in his eyes. “We’re taking you to the hospital.”

  She tried to sit up, but the pain wouldn’t let her, so she sank back into oblivion where it couldn’t find her.

  * * *

  “Go,” Susan said. She fumbled with the buttons on her shirt. “Get to the hospital.”

  Why did he have to look at her that way, with that combination of love and friendship and compassion that made her so damned ashamed of herself that she wanted to crawl out the door and disappear.

  “Susie, I—”

  “Just go, will you? She needs you.”

  He kissed the top of her head and was gone.

  Now what? How was she going to walk back into her life? How could she climb back into bed with Jack tonight like nothing happened? She had never been very good at lying to herself, and she knew that if Hall had said yes, if he had shown the slightest interest, nothing on earth would have stopped her. And it wasn’t because she loved him that way, because she really didn’t. He was gorgeous, he was her friend, and he was safe. Her secrets had always been safe with him, and this one would have been no exception.

  A safe fling. A walk on the wild side without crossing the street. Infidelity without repercussions, where nobody got hurt and everybody but the clueless husband was happy.

  Get real.

  Not a very pretty picture. Not a terrific thing to find out about yourself.

  And, even worse, not something you wanted his future sister-in-law to know.

  * * *

  Hall burst into the ER and demanded to know where Ellen was.

  “Number three,” one of the residents told him. “Arnstein’s with her right now.”

  He heard Ellen before he saw her—a sharp high-pitched cry of pain he felt in his own gut.

  Arnstein looked up as he stepped into the cubicle. “What happened?” he asked his colleague. Car accident? Broken leg?

  “She had a small cyst on her right ovary the last time she was in. We weren’t too concerned, figured we’d watch it through three cycles before we made any decisions.”

  “Torsion?”

  “I think so. The pain is at the high end of the scale and all the other symptoms are there.” Arnstein met his eyes. “She’s been calling for you.”

  He nodded, afraid Arnstein would see his heart beating on his sleeve.

  “I keep asking her if she has any family she wants me to call, and she keeps saying you’re her family.”

  Goddamn it. His eyes welled with tears, and Arnstein was there counting every single one.

  “I’ll take care of it.” Deirdre was probably on her way to the hospital. She could call the other sister in Cambridge while he called Cy.

  Arnstein nodded. “I need someone to sign the surgical release for her. She’s not in any condition to sign herself in.”

  The ER crew had shot her up with some powerful drugs to dull the worst of the pain, and she wasn’t tracking well.

  “Her sister’s on her way here. Can she do it?”

  “Any port in a storm.” Arnstein cleared his throat. He was a young man who didn’t wear his discomfort well at all. “Any chance Dr. Markowitz is pregnant?”

  “No,” he said, then caught himself. “Strike that. Yes, there is a chance.”

  “We’ll run a test.” Arnstein ducked out to order a pregnancy test added to the list.

  Hall knew too much. That was the problem. He knew all of the things Arnstein wasn’t saying. The risks to Ellen. The risks to a pregnancy, if there was one. A torsioned cyst caught early was relatively minor. A torsioned cyst at the stage this one appeared to be at was something else again. The sheer weight of the cyst caused the ovary to twist on its stem, effectively blocking the blood supply to both the ovary and the fallopian tube and causing both to die. The next stage was gangrene, a painful and potentially dangerous situation.

  For the first time he was grateful she was most likely not pregnant.

  He held her hand while she drifted in and out of a drugged sleep.

  “Hall...”

  “I’m here.” He bent down and kissed her gently. “I’ll always be here.”

  * * *

  They grabbed Deirdre immediately and set her to work signing consent forms for Ellen’s surgery. Her hands shook as she tried to comprehend the endless paragraphs snaking across the pages.

  “Your sister and Mrs. Wheeler owe you big time, Ms. O’Brien.” The clerk, a sweet-faced woman named Tina, shuddered. “I hate to think what would have happened to the two of them if you hadn’t gone back.”

  The whole thing made her think of a line of dominoes. Touch one and the whole thing tumbled down. Patsy Wheeler’s husband was away on business. The day-shift nurse left early. The evening-shift nurse was delayed. Patsy’s cell phone battery died. And so it went. A series of minor annoyances that added one upon another led straight into the heart of what could have been a tragedy.

  She finished signing papers, then went off in search of cubicle three, where Ellen was being monitored. Hall parted the curtains and stepped outside as she approached.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I figured it out.”

  The look of relief on his face made her smile.

  “How is she?”

  He spelled it out in a combination of medicalese and plain English.

  “They’re waiting for some test results, and then they’ll start prepping her for surgery.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “Serious enough,” he said, “but not life-threatening.”

  She would lose a tube and an ovary, but her ability to become pregnant and carry a child to term shouldn’t be compromised.

  “How about the other woman?”

  “Patsy is fine, but it’s touch-and-go for the baby. They admitted her.”

  Deirdre inclined her head toward the cubicle. “Can I see her?”

  He held open the curtain for her, and a wave of relief came over her at the sight of her sister in the hospital bed, hooked up to all manner of monitors and IV tubes. Anything was better than the sight of her unconscious on the floor.

  “I’m here, Elly,” she whispered into her ear. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’ll try to smuggle Stanley in tomorrow.”

  She hoped she hadn’t imagined the smile.

  * * *

  Ellen opened her eyes and saw flowers. Roses. Daisies. Carnations. Big splashy flowers. Little delicate flowers. Flowers she had never seen before. Flowers with big long Latin names she couldn’t pronounce.

  “I must be dead,” she murmured and closed her eyes again.

  The next time she opened them there were even more flowers. Flowers on tabletops, windowsills, in big colorful tubs lined up against the walls. And sitting in the middle of this indoor garden was Claudia Galloway, thumbing through a copy of Cosmopolitan.

  “Welcome back,” Claudia said, beaming a bright smile in her direction. She put down the magazine and reached for her hand. “You’ve been gone awhile.”

  She was a little fuzzy-headed, but the images were beginning to arrange themselves into a recognizable pattern. She remembered pain. Patsy Wheeler on the floor of her bedroom. An ambulance ride. Hall, his face gray with worry, holding her hand as they wheeled her into surgery.

  “What day is it?”

  “Saturday morning. You’ve been catching up on
your sleep.”

  She glanced around the room and saw the computer monitor tucked in the corner. “I want to read my chart.”

  “What you need is more sleep.”

  She tried to protest, but it took too much energy. She fell back again into healing sleep.

  She dreamed there was an endless stream of visitors trekking in and out of her room. A crazy quilt of people she couldn’t imagine together in the same room no matter how hard she tried. Cy and Nancy. Their son David. Claudia. Roberta. Annie and Sam Butler. Susan. Janna and the office staff. The OB-GYN residents. Doug Wheeler. Deirdre and Mary Pat and baby Declan. Sweeney in her motorcycle-mama gear. Scott the Mechanic.

  A dream with a cast of thousands, but not the one she most wanted to see.

  She opened her eyes again and what she saw was better than any dream imaginable. Hall was sitting next to her bed, her hand in his, his beautiful face aglow with happiness.

  “You’re really here,” she said, sounding sleepy but clearheaded. “I dreamed that everyone in town showed up but you.”

  “Thanks a lot,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her gently. “Everyone in town really was here, but I had a baby to deliver.”

  “Holder?”

  “Baby girl,” he said. “Seven pounds even. Nineteen inches long.”

  “Black hair?”

  “Raven’s wing.”

  “Healthy?”

  “Very.”

  She smiled and closed her eyes for a second. “I’m glad.” She rested her free hand on her belly, over the cushion of heavy gauze that shielded the incision. “So what happened? Is Patsy...?”

  “She and the baby are holding their own.” He told her the rest in detail—from Deirdre’s discovery to her recovery.

  “Your red Cruiser saved the day,” he said. “Deirdre saw it in the driveway and began to wonder if something was wrong.”