"Dude, I don't think they have flowers for that."
"Screw you, Tris. Like you would have done any better after the week I've had."
"Brianna is her name, right? I don't want to be using the wrong name when I meet her."
"Brianna is her damned name." Jackson shoved him out of the way and stomped off.
"No, seriously. We can fix this," Tristan said, racing to Jackson's side. "First, Ray. Then you need to do some serious groveling. Maybe explain about your parents brainwashing-slash-training—"
"She knows." They arrived back at Ray's room, and Jackson stopped in the doorway. "Thanks for having my back and watching out for Ray."
"Anytime. And I'll help you fix it with Brianna. I have no idea how yet, but we'll think of something."
Jackson found his first smile. He heard Ray groan from the bed and turned to face the man that chose to take on an angry, hurt twelve-year-old and loved him despite the evil his parents used him for.
"Son, glad you came, but there wasn't a need. I'm fine," Ray croaked in the semi-darkness.
"Yeah, you look it." Jackson took the chair Tristan had been napping in. "Tris tells me you want to sell the pub and become a cowboy."
"I hate hospital gowns, and as for Tristan, he talks too much." Ray tucked the covers around himself as his gaze darted. "For a lawyer, that's not a good quality."
"Screw both of you. I'm a real estate attorney, not some big-time courtroom lawyer." He turned. "Jacks and I were headed to get some breakfast. You want anything?"
"No, they're putting the stent in today, so no food." Ray sighed. "But while you two are gone. I'm going to catch a bit more sleep. It's too early for a bunch of damned yapping. Especially without my coffee."
Jackson patted Ray's arm and stood. "If you need me, call Tristan's cell. Mine is on the charger right now."
Ray tossed a thumbs up at them and closed his eyes.
"Come on, Jacks, let's go figure out the best way for you to grovel. But first, you need to tell me the entire story."
Jackson groaned but followed Tristan's retreating back to the elevator.
Chapter Fifteen
Brianna grunted when she lifted another shovel full of dirty hay and dumped it in the wheel barrel. Her frustration and confusion still simmered in her, and she was determined to confront Jackson the second she could talk to him. After she made sure his dad was okay, then she would tear into him.
"Call me by my sister's name and then give me a half-assed apology on your way out the door and think I won't hurt you? I'm going to ream you out when we talk again, Jackson McCord," she mumbled under her breath while scooping up another shovel full of dirty hay. Mucking stalls sucked. But it was a mindless chore she could do while working out her anger.
She heard the sharp pings of gravel hitting the bottom of a car going fast up her drive before it screeched to a stop outside the barn. Curious, she propped the shovel against the stall door and stuck her head out to shout at the person. Before she made a sound, Callie was screeching her name. Panic flowed into her, and she yanked her gloves off while racing to the door. "Callie?"
"Oh, thank God. Come on." Callie grabbed her wrist and jerked her to the car.
Digging in her heels, Brianna shook off the hold. "No way am I getting in there with these dirty boots." Slamming her hands on her hips, Brianna squinted at her best friend. "What the heck has gotten into you?"
"Your grandmother's been in an accident. We've got to go."
"And no one called?"
"They did, but you nor Jackson were answering. Thank God, Sheriff Brigston called me."
"My parents?"
"No idea. Now come the hell on." Callie motioned sharply to her car.
Shock slammed into her when she realized Callie wasn't screwing with her; Brianna spun and raced back into the barn to swap her boots out while yelling for Vince to finish the last two stalls. Then she was jumping in the passenger seat. Callie shoved her foot on the gas pedal before Brianna's door had fully shut. "What happened?"
"I've no idea, like I said the sheriff tried calling your parents but they weren't there. Then he tried you and Jackson before finally calling me."
Callie drove like a demon down the back roads heading for Birmingham.
Digging her cell from her pocket, Brianna released a groan. "My cell's dead." She shoved it back into her pocket and wondered briefly if Jackson had tried to call. "Did he explain what happened?"
"It's bad. Jake's in a coma, and even if he wakes up, he might not walk again. And if your grandmother had been riding in the front, like she usually does, she would have been dead."
"Jesus. Did he say what state Grandmother was in?" Brianna's stomach rolled at the thought.
"No, she was the first one they pulled from the car, and they had her on the first ambulance while they were still working on Jake's door." Callie turned the car onto the highway and skidded through three lanes before ending in the far left and gunning the small car. "Do you know if your grandmother talked it out with your parents last night?"
Brianna shrugged while grasping the oh-shit bar and trying to pump the brake. Not that there was a brake on the passenger side to pump. Heart in her throat, Brianna struggled for breath. "I've no idea."
"Because my sources say she didn't get a chance that Bianca went to bed early due to a migraine."
Crap. Brianna raked a hand through her hair. "I don't know. Guess we'll find out when we get to the hospital." She flinched as Callie swerved on to the shoulder to pass a slower car. "If we get to the hospital. Slow down, Callie. I'd like to get there in one piece and not in the back of an ambulance."
Callie huffed but took her foot off the gas. The car shuddered to a slower speed.
After parking in the emergency parking lot, they both rushed through the door. Brianna followed Callie to the information desk. Within seconds they had the floor ut no room number as her grandmother was in surgery. Since nothing was ever straightforward in hospitals, the elevator they needed was at the far end of the corridor. They passed two sets of elevators on the way, neither of which went to ICU.
She beat back the panic at the thought of her steely grandmother lying in the hospital and headed for the nurses' station.
"I'm Brianna Spencer, I'm here for Evelynn Spencer."
The nurse turned, and Brianna saw her nametag said Henderson. The woman smiled as she tapped a few keys. "Ms. Spencer is still in surgery, and I've made a note, so the doctor will talk to you the second it's done." Nurse Henderson pointed further down the hall. "There's a waiting room down there, and vending machines are on the floor below. Also, please turn off cell phones."
Brianna fell into step next to Callie as they headed for the waiting room.
"So, was Jackson's phone dead too?" Callie asked when they stepped into the empty room.
Brianna slumped into the nearest chair.
"Well?"
"Jackson had to go to Chicago, his dad had a heart attack."
"Shit. What the hell is going on today?" Callie's narrowed-eyed gaze bore into Brianna. "But that's not what has you upset."
"He told me he loved me—"
"That's great—"
"Then, he called me Briony." Brianna flinched; it sounded worse when she gave voice to the words. Her heart clenched as she imagined the softness in his gaze, looking at her sister and not Brianna.
"Mother—"
"I know." She shook the images away.
"It's not his fault," Callie said, settling in the chair next to Brianna. "You told me how his parents trained him. How he would get into a role."
"That's true."
"He knew how important this last week was for you. He would have used every single trick at his disposal."
Brianna's simmering anger lessened, but the pain of it still cut.
"All I'm saying is to listen to him." Callie wrapped an arm around Brianna.
"I plan to." But how could she explain how deep the pain went? She understood he had played his part of
doting boyfriend for the contract in between his shifts at the Sheriff's department. She understood he ran himself ragged for her. She even understood him using her sister's name.
None of that was the issue.
The issue was having her dead sister steal the one precious moment that should have been hers. That one moment, when the man of Brianna's dreams finally gave her his heart and expressed his love for the first time. There would be a hundred more instances of Jackson telling her of his love, she hoped, but there would only be one 'first time.'
Did that make Brianna selfish not to want that tarnished by Briony? If so, then she was selfish.
And yes, she would forgive Jackson. She loved him. She wanted him in her life, and for that to happen, she would have to move past it. Besides, it was her fault they were in this mess, to begin with. But it would take a while for the pain of that memory to disappear.
Before she could open her mouth and let the words fall out, a doctor stood in the doorway, calling for the 'Family of Evelynn Spencer.'
Brianna clutched Callie's hand as they hurried to meet the doctor. "I'm Brianna Spencer. Evelynn Spencer is my grandmother."
The doctor looked at the pad he carried and nodded. "Just the person I need."
"What?"
His eyes held a distant warmth. "I'm Dr. Snyder, and I'm the doctor who operated on your grandmother. You're listed on all of her paperwork as her medical power of attorney."
"Me?" Brianna touched a finger to her chest in confusion.
"Yes." Doctor Snyder's tone became brisk. "Now, as to your grandmother's condition. She came in with a punctured lung, a broken arm, and shoulder. We took out the bone fragment, that broke off her rib and punctured her lung. She also has a concussion."
"How did it happen? A drunk driver? Someone fell asleep at the wheel?"
"I've no idea. Those are better questions for the police." Doctor Snyder looked at the tablet again. "I have also placed your grandmother in a medically induced coma. We need her immobile for at least a few days so her body can rest and heal as well as getting the swelling in her brain to come down."
"When can I see her?" Brianna asked just as she saw the hospital bed with her grandmother's prone figure wheel down the hall and enter a room on the far end.
"You can see her now, but in ICU, you can only visit her for fifteen minutes every hour." He pointed to the nurses' station. "Nurse Henderson can answer any other questions you might have. And if she can't, she can have me paged."
Brianna took the doctor's hand. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." With that, he turned and strode down the hall in the opposite direction of her grandmother's room.
"Go check on Evelynn. I'll wait here for you." Callie squeezed and released Brianna's hand and pulled her cell phone from her purse.
With heavy feet, she walked the short distance to her grandmother's room and peered in. All the vitality that made her grandmother seem invincible was gone. In her place a frail, bruised, and battered woman that Brianna would never recognize as Evelynn unless someone pointed her out.
The quiet hum of machines in the background didn't mask the rasping breaths that passed Grandmother's lips. Stepping into the room, Brianna took the only hand not hooked up to lines and cringed at how cold it felt.
She had so many questions and no one to ask. What happened? That was the one that kept popping into her head. Jake had been her grandmother's driver since he left the army, and never in all the two decades he had been with her grandmother was there even a fender bender. He was too careful. Mostly because he loved Evelynn's car collection but also because he saw Evelynn as a close friend.
Something else had to have caused this. A throat cleared behind her, and Brianna turned.
"Fifteen minutes are up, Ms. Spencer," Nurse Henderson stated before turning on her thick-soled shoes and making her way to the room next door.
Brianna pressed a kiss to her grandmother's cool forehead and waited for Nurse Henderson in the hallway. When she emerged making notes in the tablet she carried, Brianna stopped her. "Can my grandmother have another blanket? Her hands are like ice."
"Sure." Nurse Henderson smiled and stepped to a door across from them. Within seconds she had covered Evelynn with a thicker blanket.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. If you don't mind me saying so, you might want to rest right now. We have your grandmother in an induced coma, so she won't wake up for a while. It's when she regains consciousness that you'll want to be here." Nurse Henderson shrugged. "At least that's what I've found."
"I'll just wait for my parents to come so I can fill them in."
Brianna made her way back to the waiting room and slumped onto the padded chair, numb and dumbfounded.
Her grandmother hadn't looked at all like herself in that hospital bed. She had looked like some weird cyborg with all the tubes and lines coming and going from various parts of her body. The machines had been humming steadily, so that was something positive. At least to Brianna, it was. If there had been any blips or hiccups, those same machines would have caught it.
Her mind whirred with too many thoughts.
With the accident, Brianna needed to set up a different rotation. Maybe have Vince call in a few volunteers to free Brianna up to be here. But first, she needed to know if Grandmother and Father had ended the contract.
Brianna had met every one of her father's new stipulations to end the contract early. But with Grandmother hurt, would he follow through?
Brianna idly wondered when her parents would show up and if she would be expected to be Briony or Brianna. She still didn't know if the contract was done and over or if she needed to wait for her grandmother to talk to her parents. This feeling of limbo wasn't helping her nerves settle.
Callie shifted in the seat next to her. "You know your grandmother's too ornery to stay lying in that hospital bed for long, right?"
"Maybe." Slowly the words penetrated the fog that seemed to float around her brain, and Brianna frowned. "Ornery? Is that you calling my grandmother mean?"
"Nah, more like stubborn and set in her ways." Callie flipped another page of some magazine with Michelle Obama gracing the front of it.
Silence fell around them, broken only by the quiet shuffling of Callie's magazine. Brianna had expected to find her parents waiting in the room with Callie, but they weren't there. Doubt and worry plagued her, and when the second hour crept past without her parents, Brianna grew concerned. Nudging Callie, she pointed to Callie's cell. "Can I borrow that? I want to see what the holdup is with my parents."
Callie passed it over. "I'll hop down to the cafeteria and grab us some lunch. Anything in particular?"
"A sandwich or soup, I don't think I can stomach much else."
"I'm on it." Callie pointed to the left. "There's a stairway over there. If you take it one floor down, you dump out near another waiting room. I used it to call Derrick."
"Thanks." Brianna meant for more than the use of the cell phone. The thanks included her friend calling Derrick to handle any emergencies for today because it had slipped Brianna's mind. And so many other little things Brianna kept forgetting.
"No worries, that's what friends are for." Callie headed for the elevator as if she were on a mission, so Brianna knew she wouldn't have much time.
Taking the stairway, she found the waiting area. Only one other person was there and seemed to be engrossed in their own phone call if the one-sided argument was anything to go by.
Dialing her parents' number, she waited for Ms. Williams to answer. She would know where her parents were and if Grandmother had talked to Reginald yet. She was also Brianna's only ally in that house; the other servants wouldn't tell her anything no matter how many times she asked.
"Spencer residence," Ms. Williams's crisp tone cut through the line.
"Ms. Williams—"
"Brianna, thank God, I've been trying to call you, but your cell goes straight to voice mail."
"It's dead. I'm using
Callie's. Listen, I have some news—"
"About Evelynn?" Ms. Williams released a heavy breath. "We know. I had to give your father the news a few hours ago."
"They're on the way?" Brianna wanted to dart up the stairs and see if they'd arrived yet. She craved to find out if Father had released her like he promised he would.
"Yes, but they were in Dothan attending a Christening, so it will take them another hour to get there."
"Do you know … " Brianna trailed off terrified to ask about the contract in case it was bad news. No news would be better than bad news.
"About the contract? Yes. Your father gave the signed agreement to release you to your grandmother last night."
Brianna's heart stopped. "Last night? Which means—"
"Nothing. It means nothing because your grandmother immediately found Willoughby and passed the documents to him. So you're officially free."
"Thank God." Brianna slumped against the wall relief so profound slamming into her. "I won't ever have to go back into that house."
"And I'm finally able to retire," Ms. Williams said her own relief palpable over the phone.
"Retire?" Brianna straightened, and she found her first smile. "Would you maybe want to retire to my ranch?"
A quiet gasp followed by a brief silence filled with so many emotions Brianna felt as if she could reach out and touch them.
"In your home?"
"No. There are a few cabins near the house. One of them is fixed up because I thought Vince would want to live in it, but his fiancee lives in town to care for her parents, and he's opted to stay there." Brianna hesitated when she remembered Ms. Williams had always lived in her parents' house. "But if you want to live in the house with me—"
"Heavens, no, child. You and Jackson need plenty of alone time. But the one-bedroom house sounds perfect, and if it's near enough to your house, I could come over and make sure you two are fed properly."
Brianna winced and then laughed. "Well, we've been living off buffet food from the events and take out the last week."
"That settles it. I'll hand in my notice, and you'll show me where I will be living. Then I'll get the movers to get my things over there."
The Twin Contract (The Contract Series Book 1) Page 27