Maddy smiled to herself, deciding to wait and see how long it took the little imp to realize that her seat was getting hot. “No, it’s Mr. Killkenny’s. We’re just borrowing it for this morning, because Eve’s car was . . . in an accident. I’m going to buy us a new car, but it might take a couple of days, so Gram will have to drive us around next week.”
Sarah started running the windows up and down again. “I like the leather seats, only they’re a lot warmer-feeling than Dad’s cloth ones,” she said, giving a squirm. “And I like that this truck’s so smart it automatically turns off the airbag, so I get to sit in the front. Instead of a car, can we get a new truck like this one? Maybe red, too?”
“Sorry, kiddo, not on the salary I earn—unless you don’t mind eating macaroni and cheese every day for the next six years.”
“Why don’t you just marry Mr. Killkenny, and then he can move in with us and Gram, and that way we can use his truck all the time? Now that Sissy’s moved in with Dad, he gets to drive the new car her parents gave her for graduation.”
“I don’t think getting a vehicle is a very good reason to marry someone, do you?”
“Well, you could have Mr. Killkenny’s baby,” Sarah suggested, looking at Maddy with absolutely serious eyes. “That’s why Dad’s marrying Sissy.” She suddenly smiled. “And that way, I’d get two new brothers or sisters. And I like Mr. Killkenny, because he doesn’t treat me like I’m five.” She suddenly wrinkled her nose. “When I spend the weekend at Dad’s, Sissy’s always trying to mother me.”
Maddy grinned out the windshield. “She’s going to be your stepmother, Sarah, and she’s just trying to make sure you like her. Now, let’s get back to your climbing out your window last night, young lady. Is there a reason Rick didn’t walk into the house and take you out the door to go firefly hunting?”
Sarah gave a little snort, and Maddy glanced over at her in surprise. Good Lord, had she snorted when she was nine? “Out with it, Sarah Jane, what did Uncle Rick say about why he didn’t come inside and get you?”
Sarah glanced over, her big brown eyes looking far too old for her age. “He said Trace decided you and Uncle Rick needed a vacation from each other, and that’s why he’s sleeping on Trace’s boat. But he missed me, so he snuck up to my window after you put me to bed.” She smiled, looking like a little girl again. “It was fun, Mom. I’ve never crawled out my bedroom window before.”
“And if I ever catch you doing it again, the television gets turned off for an entire month,” Maddy told her, figuring that in a few years, the girl was going to lose her television rights for forever.
God, she was growing up fast.
“So, will you get pregnant so Mr. Killkenny will have to marry you?”
Maddy put the brakes on at the intersection a little harder than she intended and blinked over at her daughter’s expectant expression. “Um . . . you do know that getting pregnant first and married after isn’t the way it’s supposed to work, don’t you?”
“You got pregnant before you married Dad. And so did Sissy.”
“Who told you I did?”
“Sissy. She said Dad has a thing for cheerleaders.”
Dammit to hell; she was going to have to sit that little cheerleading snot down and explain to her that Sarah was nine, not nineteen. “That’s because we were both . . . we didn’t . . . both Sissy and I were too young to know any better,” Maddy said with a sigh. She reached over and gave a soft tug on one of Sarah’s long braids. “But you will have the benefit of my experience, young lady, and will do things in the proper order. First comes love, then comes marriage, and then comes the baby carriage. Got that?”
Maddy glanced up into her rearview mirror when she heard the rev of a powerful engine behind them and saw a dark-visored, red-helmeted head looking at her over the tailgate. Realizing that she was just sitting at the Stop sign holding up traffic, she looked both ways and pulled out onto the main highway.
Checking her mirror again, she saw the motorcycle come up behind her and then suddenly pass. Only instead of zooming by, the idiot slowed down when he got beside her door, gave a wave with his left hand, and then zoomed ahead, slipping back into the lane in front of her just in time to miss an oncoming car.
“Oh, man, I’d give anything to ride on a motorcycle,” Sarah said, watching the bike lean into the upcoming curve and disappear.
“Not as long as I’m your mother,” Maddy said with a laugh.
“I bet Mr. Killkenny could talk you into letting me ride one.”
“What makes you say that?” she asked, looking over in surprise.
Sarah snorted again. “Yeah, like you would have let me ride a warhorse all by myself if he hadn’t pointed out that I’m not a kid.”
“That’s different. Mr. Killkenny knows horses, and I trusted his judgment.”
“What if he had a motorcycle? Would you let me go for a ride with him?”
Maddy gave a quick bark of laughter. “Mr. Killkenny has all he can do to drive this truck, Sarah. I sure as hell wouldn’t let you on the back of a motorcycle with him.”
Sarah held out her hand. “A quarter, please.”
“Damn,” Maddy muttered, reaching into the change pocket of her purse.
Sarah giggled, motioning with her open palm. “Make that two quarters. But I think I’m upping it to a dollar for each cuss word. That way I’ll be rich enough to buy my own car by the time I’m sixteen.”
Chapter Sixteen
“What are you guys doing hanging around out here in the sun?” Maddy asked as she walked up to the group of residents gathered at the front entrance—some of them in wheelchairs, some using walkers, and all looking more excited than a bunch of kids on Christmas morning.
“We’re waiting our turn,” Charlotte said. “I’m next.”
“Your turn for what?”
“A motorcycle ride.”
“Excuse me?” Maddy said with a gasp, looking around for a motorcycle. She looked back at Charlotte. “Who’s giving rides?”
“William.”
“Killkenny?” she squeaked.
Elbridge chuckled. “It seems the boy went out and bought himself a bike a few days ago. And it seems the women,” he said, waving toward Charlotte, “have all decided they want to be biker babes when they grow up.”
“Oh, Maddy, you just wait until you see it,” Charlotte said. “It’s candy-apple red, it looks like it just beamed down from outer space, and the air literally rumbles when he revs the engine.”
“The leather jacket he got at the dealership is thicker than the one we ordered for him, and he also got two matching helmets,” Janice said from her wheelchair, pulling the brim of her bonnet down as she squinted against the sun. “But I told him we could have gotten them cheaper on the Internet, and to check with me first before he buys any other accessories.”
Maddy felt her panic growing and scanned the parking lot again, then looked toward the road. “Who’s on the bike with him right now?”
“Lois,” Charlotte told her. “She said it’s been over thirty years since she’d ridden on a motorcycle, but that she figures it’s like riding a bike.”
Maddy turned wide eyes on Elbridge. “But William can’t keep his truck on the pavement,” she whispered. “You told me yourself that he keeps oversteering.”
Elbridge started to say something but stopped when the sound of a downshifting engine rumbled the air. Maddy spun around just in time to see the idiot who had passed her earlier pull into the parking lot—a tiny woman on back wearing a candy-apple red helmet and a leather jacket that looked ten sizes too big for her, clinging to William as if her life depended on it.
He made a loop around the parking lot and came to a stop in front of everyone, took the bike out of gear and revved the engine a few times before he shut it off, dropped the kickstand, and pulled off his helmet.
Maddy immediately ran over and took hold of Lois. “Let me help you,” she said, wrapping an arm around her waist as the older
woman set one foot on the ground and wrestled her other leg over the bike. But then Maddy had to continue holding her when she realized Lois was unsteady on her feet as she fumbled to take off her helmet with trembling hands.
“Here, let me get that for you, Lois, my sweet,” William said, reaching under her chin and unsnapping the strap.
Maddy was expecting to see terror-filled eyes, but when the helmet came off, Lois Manning was beaming from ear to ear. “Holy hell, William, you certainly know how to show a girl a good time.”
“It’s my turn now,” Charlotte said, taking the helmet and shoving it down over her head. “Hurry up, give me the jacket, too.”
“Wait!” Maddy cried, having to lift the visor to look at her. “Charlotte, I don’t think . . . I wish you . . .” She looked into the older woman’s excited eyes and blew out a sigh. “Does Doris know you guys are out here taking turns on a motorcycle?”
“She had the first ride,” Elbridge said. He shook his head. “Didn’t seem to care that she was wearing a skirt and heels. Apparently the woman has a wild streak.”
Seeing that Lois was steady on her feet now, Maddy grabbed hold of William’s shirtsleeve and pulled him a good distance away from everyone. “What are you doing?” she hissed, turning her back to the residents. “William, they can’t be riding a motorcycle at their age, especially not with . . . look, it’s not that I don’t think . . .” She took a calming breath. “How long have you been riding motorcycles?”
“Three days, if ye count since sunrise this morning.”
“Three days?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll give you a turn right after Charlotte.”
“Three days? William, you can’t even keep your truck on the pavement!”
Apparently not realizing she’d just insulted him, his grin widened. “When I saw the ad on the television, I realized a motorcycle was what I should have. It’s exactly like riding a horse, Maddy; I get to use the weight of my body to guide it, and there are fewer buttons to deal with.”
Maddy could only gape at him, utterly speechless.
He suddenly clasped her face in his hands and leaned down and kissed her rather robustly, obviously on a motorcycle adrenaline high. And instead of stopping when the claps and whistles and catcalls started behind them, he wrapped her in his arms, tucked her head into the crook of his elbow, and kissed her senseless.
She finally had to poke him in the ribs so he’d at least let her breathe, but her reprieve lasted all of two seconds before he started kissing her again.
The whistles and clapping increased, although the whistles were hoarsely blown wind and the catcalls had turned downright bawdy.
Well, bawdy for eighty-year-olds.
Maddy gave up and dropped her purse on the ground with a dull thud—ignoring William’s flinch—and wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed him back.
Well hell, if she’d known that was all she had to do to make him stop, she would have done it sooner. Because the moment her tongue started dueling with his, he lifted his head and smiled down at her.
She frowned up at him. “I don’t believe I’ve said yes yet.”
“I don’t believe you’ve said no yet, either.”
“William, a motorcycle is the most dangerous vehicle on the road.”
“Nay, Madeline, not for me. The moment I sat on one at the dealership, it was like slipping into a second skin.” He kissed the tip of her nose then smiled down at her again. “I won’t let anything happen to your residents, lass. I didn’t let the speedometer go over seventy, and I made Lois lift her visor at every Stop sign so I could see how she was doing.”
“William, you’re going to have to help me up!” Charlotte called out. “Come on, you’ve got the rest of your life to kiss Maddy. Dr. Petty’s coming this morning, and I want my turn before he gets here. If he sees me riding a motorcycle, he’ll have a coronary, and then I’ll have to break in a whole new doctor.”
“Oh, go on,” Maddy said, giving his chest a pat as he finally let her go. “Your biker babe is getting impatient.” She reached down and picked up her purse, and started walking with him back to the bike.
It really was a beautiful motorcycle, although it looked more like a rocket with two wheels attached. It was obviously designed for speed more than riding double, and Maddy believed William would feel more in control if it was like riding a horse.
He swept a positively giddy Charlotte into his arms and carefully set her on the tiny piece of leather that passed as a backseat. He immediately slipped his leg over the bike and plucked his helmet off the handlebar. “The rule book said I have to wear one of these blasted things until I’ve had my license for a year, but the damn thing is more of a hindrance than a help and keeps rubbing my whiskers,” he muttered, slipping it down over his head.
Maddy lifted the visor and then tapped the dial where she assumed the speedometer was. “Forty, William,” she said, figuring if she lowballed his speed, he wouldn’t do more than fifty. “You keep it under forty miles per hour.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he solemnly agreed, although his eyes were smiling. “Are ye ready, Charlotte, my sweet?” he asked, turning to grin back at his passenger.
Charlotte wrapped her arms around his waist tightly enough to choke a horse, her squeal of delight drowned out by the rumble of the starting engine. He put it in gear, kicked up the kickstand, gave Maddy a nod, and slowly—and very smoothly—drove off.
It was as she watched them pull onto the road that she had a thought. “Omigod, he’s not allowed to carry a passenger on a provisional license, is he?”
“No,” Elbridge said with a chuckle from beside her. “But then, William told me he’s decided simply to ignore any rule he doesn’t like.”
“He does seem to have acquired that habit,” Maddy said with a laugh, taking hold of the back of Janice’s wheelchair. “Come on, everyone. Let’s get out of this sun before Dr. Petty finds half his patients looking like cooked lobsters.”
Having spent a good portion of the morning following Dr. Petty on his rounds, Maddy finally sat down at her station to go over everyone’s chart and reread her notes. Then she wrote several memos to Paula, the weekend day nurse, highlighting any changes in meds or treatments. After placing the last chart in the file stand, she leaned back in her chair with a sigh, glancing up at the clock to find that she had twenty minutes before her appointment with Elvira.
Eve might think she was neglecting herself by not going to a salon in Oak Harbor or Ellsworth, but Elvira was one of the great perks of this job. Doris also had Elvira do her hair and even brought her husband in for haircuts. Heck, the whole staff had their hair done at the River Run Nursing Home, creating a win-win arrangement for everyone, especially Elvira. The woman really was good, and Maddy suspected that feeling needed was more rewarding for Elvira than the generous tips everyone gave her.
Maddy noticed the mail crammed in her purse down by her feet, and pulled it out and started thumbing through it. She tossed the bills into one pile, tore up the credit-card offers and other junk mail and tossed them into the recycle bin, and put the catalogs in another pile to let the residents browse through.
She stopped when she reached an envelope from the University of Maine addressed to Richard Lane. God, she hoped it was a letter saying his bill was paid in full; with grants, scholarships, and a small student loan, he shouldn’t owe them another dime. Maddy used a letter opener to slice along the top, pulled out the single sheet of paper, and frowned as she read it.
And then she reread it several more times.
It took her three tries to stuff the letter back into the envelope because she was shaking so badly. She shoved the envelope into her purse and then picked up the phone and called Midnight Bay’s harbormaster, making up some lame excuse for why she needed to know the minute Trace Huntsman’s boat docked. As soon as she hung up, she went over and locked her purse in the medicine cabinet, and then headed down the hall to her appointment with Elvira.
B
ut she slowed as she approached Hiram’s room and stopped outside his door. Taking a calming breath and plastering a smile on her face, she walked in. “How are you feeling, Mr. Man?”
It took him a few moments, but Hiram finally stopped staring out the window and looked over at her, his eyes still somewhat distant. “I’m feeling a wee bit more tired than usual.” He gave a weak snort. “Dr. Petty said I’m entitled, considering I wore out my body working in the woods for sixty years. But that man don’t know squat. All those years logging the forest are what’s kept me moving this long.”
Maddy smiled, realizing that more than one of the residents had begun using the term wee ever since William had started visiting. “He also said that if you’re not back up to snuff by tomorrow, maybe you should consider going to the hospital in Ellsworth for a few days,” Maddy reminded him.
He shook his head and patted the bed beside him. “Ain’t nothing they can do to treat old age in a hospital.”
Maddy sat down with a sigh, feeling as old and tired as Hiram.
He took hold of her hand. “You know how I said I’ve been hanging around so long because I’m afraid to die, Maddy girl?”
“I remember,” she said, a lump rising in her throat. She reversed their grip. “And at the rate you’re going, you’re going to outlive me.”
He shook his head again. “I don’t think I got any fight left in me.” His fingers tightened around hers. “I know you didn’t like it this morning when I made sure that do not resuscitate order is still on my chart, but will you . . . if the end turns out . . .” He looked down at their clasped hands. “I’m scared, Maddy. I’ve told you my father got kicked in the head by a horse, and that I watched him linger in pain for nearly a week before he died.” He looked at her. “I was seven, and I remember sitting on the front-porch steps that whole last night, covering my ears to block out his screaming.”
Maddy forced a smile, rubbing her thumb along the back of his large but withered hand. “That was over eighty years ago, Hiram. You have my word; you won’t feel any pain when . . . your time comes. We have medicine we can give you now that they didn’t have back then.”
Dragon Warrior (Midnight Bay) Page 18