Authors: Sherryl Woods
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Romance, #Contemporary
Still, the Serenity Inn, with its whitewashed exterior and big pots filled with geraniums, was clean, inexpensive and comfortable. And it held a few very fond memories, too….
Even though he knew this was the best of Serenity’s limited options, Ronnie approached the office with a sense of dread. He plastered a smile on his face and opened the door, relieved to see that there was no one behind the desk. The sound of the bell over the door, however, brought Maybelle bustling in from the back room.
A smile lifted all the wrinkles on her round, motherly face when she recognized him. “Ronnie Sullivan, as I live and breathe. I never thought to see you in these parts again.”
Before he could respond to the surprisingly warm greeting, her expression sobered and her gaze turned chilly. “I’m surprised you dared to show your face after what you did to Dana Sue. Then again, I imagine you came back because of Annie.” Concern chased away her icy demeanor. “How is she doing? Is she better today?”
Almost dizzy from the rapid change in Maybelle’s manner, he nodded. “She’s going to be fine. It’s good to see you, Mrs. Hawkins. Do you have a room available?”
She studied him with the kind of considering look a mother might give a wayward child. “For how long?”
“Until I can find a place of my own,” he said.
His words seemed to catch her by surprise. “You’re staying?”
“That’s the plan.”
“How does Dana Sue feel about that?”
He grinned, thinking back on the kiss. “She’s still adjusting to the idea.”
Maybelle studied him a moment longer, then finally nodded and brought out a registration form. “Fill that out. I’ll give you a weekly rate for now.” She wagged a finger at him. “But if I hear one word about you upsetting that girl, I will not hesitate to toss you out on your behind. Understood?”
Ronnie nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly.
She smiled at last. “Just wait till I tell Frank you’re back. He still talks about that ninety-eight-yard touchdown run you made your senior year to win the homecoming game. Glory be, that was something. We all thought you’d be a star in college or the pros one day.”
“You have a long memory, Mrs. Hawkins.” He leaned in closer. “Don’t tell anyone, but that touchdown was a fluke. I knew there wasn’t a chance on earth I’d ever make a run like that again, so I decided to quit while I was ahead.”
“You quit because you couldn’t keep your hands off Dana Sue,” she corrected knowingly. “Once you set eyes on that girl, marrying her was the only thing on your mind. And just so you know you didn’t get away with anything, I know all about the two of you sneaking over here from time to time after the night clerk took over for me.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “Why you’d go and mess up a thing like that is beyond me.”
“It’s beyond me, too,” he admitted. “But it’s never too late to correct a mistake, isn’t that right?”
“It’s never too late to try,” she agreed. But there was enough doubt in her tone to warn him that she didn’t think Dana Sue was going to be open to his attempts. “Here’s your key. We don’t allow wild partying on the premises, so behave yourself.”
“Wild parties would hardly help me prove to Dana Sue that I’m walking the straight and narrow now, would they?” he said, winking at her. “I’ll be so quiet you won’t even know I’m here.”
In fact, he was so thoroughly beat, he doubted there would be a sound louder than the occasional snore from his room for at least twenty-four hours.
After her disconcerting run-in with Ronnie and her draining visit with Annie, Dana Sue was too restless to sit in the hospital waiting room between her visits to Annie in ICU. She needed to stay busy, to do something that would drive the memory of that kiss right out of her head.
Glancing at her watch, she realized it was four o’clock, the height of the dinner prep commotion at the restaurant. Stopping at the nurse’s station, she told them how to reach her if Annie needed her, then headed to work. A couple of hours chopping vegetables with a sharp knife might relieve some of her stress. She could envision Ronnie’s neck beneath the blade.
At Sullivan’s she stopped by her office long enough to glance at the pile of messages, grabbed a pristine white chef’s jacket that would be splashed with food in minutes, and headed to the kitchen, where the noise level was comfortingly familiar.
Erik spotted her first. “Hey, darlin’, what are you doing here? Come to make sure we aren’t ruining your business?”
“No chance of that,” she told him. “I just need to do something normal for a couple of hours. I know you and Karen have probably divvied up the workload, but there must be something left for me to tackle.”
Karen glanced up from the salad greens she was distributing on plates and grinned. “I will gladly volunteer salad setup. It may just be the most boring job ever.”
Dana Sue eyed the plates. “Plain old house salads?”
Karen nodded. “No time to do anything fancier.”
“Do we have pears? Walnuts? Blue cheese?” Dana Sue asked.
“Of course,” Erik said. “I’ve been making up the orders from the lists in your office. You’re so organized this place could run for a year without you setting foot in it.”
“I’m not sure I like that idea,” Dana Sue said.
“Well, it’s been a godsend the past few days,” he assured her. “Doesn’t mean we don’t need you, so if you want to make fancy salads, go right ahead. I’ll go make a note on the specials board and tell the waitstaff.”
As Dana Sue settled in to slice the pears paper thin and arrange them on the greens, she sniffed the air. There was the distinctive scent of cinnamon in it. It smelled heavenly.
“What’s tonight’s dessert special?” she asked Erik when he returned.
“Deep-dish apple pie.”
“Any of it ready yet?” she asked, her mouth watering.
“There are a couple of pies cooling on the rack now,” he said. “You want a sample?”
“I want a whole slice,” she said at once. “Vanilla ice cream on top.”
He cast a worried look at her. “Dana Sue…” he began.
She held up her hand. “Not your job to lecture me about what I eat. I’m starved and I want apple pie and ice cream. Do I need to pull rank?”
Instead of immediately going for the pie, he pulled a stool up beside her and sat on it. “What’s this about?”
“It’s pie, for heaven’s sake. What’s the big deal?”
“You know what the big deal is,” he said quietly. “Your daughter’s in the hospital because of an eating disorder. Do you want to wind up in the bed beside her because you’re not paying attention to your blood sugar?”
Temper stirring, Dana Sue turned on him angrily, but when all she saw in his eyes was genuine concern, she wilted. “Okay, I know you’re right. I just need comfort food right now.”
“There’s meat loaf on tonight’s menu. How about a slice of that with some mushroom gravy?” he suggested.
She finally relaxed and grinned. “May I at least have a bite of that pie afterward?”
“You may,” he said, then went to fix a plate for her. When he brought it back, he regarded her with curiosity. “Anything happen this afternoon you want to talk about?”
She took a bite of meat loaf to delay responding. “My God, this is better than mine. What have you done to it?”
He gestured across the room. “Ask Karen. She made it.”
Dana Sue stared at her assistant. “You made this? It’s amazing.”
“I just tweaked your recipe a little bit,” Karen said, her cheeks flushed. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Are you kidding me? I predict this will be tonight’s sell-out, and our customers will insist it be on the regular menu.”
“You mean it?” Karen asked.
“Of course I mean it,” Dana Sue said. “If you have ideas for any other dishes, talk them over with Erik or me, if I’m around, and feel free to experiment.”
“Thanks,” Karen said, beaming. “I didn’t want to step on your toes.”
“We’re a team. I may own this place, but when the food’s great, it benefits all of us. I want Sullivan’s reputation to get better every year. I don’t want to rest on our laurels.”
She turned back to Erik, who was still watching her intently. He lowered his voice. “She really needed to hear that,” he said. “Now let’s get back to my earlier question. Did something happen this afternoon to upset you? Is Annie doing okay?”
“She’s getting better every day,” Dana Sue replied. “She’s had her first sessions with the psychologist and the nutritionist. I gather they weren’t exactly love fests, but both women think she’ll cooperate.”
“If Annie’s on track, then it must have been something else that sent you in here trying to stuff it down with comfort food.”
“Erik, babysitting me and my moods is not your job.”
“I do it because I’m your friend,” he said, looking wounded. “At least that’s what that pretty speech of yours a minute ago suggested.”
Dana Sue felt her stomach knot. “I didn’t eat the damn pie, okay? What more do you want?”
His gaze never wavered. “An explanation,” he said quietly. “Did it have something to do with the kiss your ex-husband planted on you outside the hospital?”
She felt the color drain from her face. “You know about that?”
“Grace Wharton was on her way inside to check on Annie,” he explained. “Apparently she made a U-turn to get back to Serenity’s information central. It was the hot item over at the pharmacy soda fountain five minutes later.”
“You were there?”
He shook his head. “Karen was.”
Dana Sue buried her face in her hands. “I hate this. I just hate it. I should live in a big city where nobody has a clue who I am.”
“You’d be miserable,” he said. “So, do you want to talk about the kiss or not?”
“Not.”
“Okay, then, but if it stirred you up enough to make you want to reach for apple pie and ice cream, you might not want to repeat it too often,” he advised.
“Oh, I think I can reassure you on that point,” she said. “Ronnie Sullivan will not get within a hundred feet of me ever again.”
Erik grinned. “Is that so?”
“Yes, that’s most definitely so,” she said.
“Then you might need to consider putting it in writing,” he suggested, gesturing behind her.
Dana Sue whirled around and looked straight into the amused face of her ex-husband.
“Talking about me?” he inquired cheerfully.
“Go away,” she retorted. “I thought you’d crawled into some cave to get some rest.”
“Turns out a little catnap was all I needed,” he responded. “Besides, the second I crawled into that bed at the Serenity Inn, I remembered the last time I’d slept in it—graduation night twenty-two years ago.”
“You rented the exact same room?” she sputtered. “The one we…” She glanced at Erik’s and Karen’s fascinated expressions, then sighed heavily. “I’ll have that apple pie now, please.”
This time Erik didn’t argue. He did, however, leave off the ice cream.
A
nnie’s first so-called meal was absolute torture. The nurse brought her a tray with what looked like a mountain of food, though truthfully it was only a small salad with a tiny container of dressing and a package of crackers. It was accompanied by some kind of watery, orange-colored drink.
“It will help to get your electrolytes back into balance and keep them there,” the nurse said cheerfully.
Annie had no idea what electrolytes were, and the drink looked disgusting. “Do I have to have it?” she asked, regarding the bottle with dismay.
“That’s what it says on your chart,” the too-perky nurse explained. “Lacy said she’d be here any second to sit with you while you eat.”
Great, Annie thought. Obviously nobody in this place trusted her to actually put the food in her mouth.
Since the nurse didn’t seem to be going anywhere, Annie made a great show of putting the dressing on the salad and mixing it with the greens. She opened the package of crackers and set them side by side on the tray. Then she carefully removed the top from the drink. When there was nothing left to do except eat, she tried to force herself to pick up the fork and put a bite of salad into her mouth. Halfway there, the aroma of vinegar and oil made her nauseous.
“I’m going to be sick,” she said, dropping the fork and turning away from the food.
Two seconds later the nurse was beside her with a disgusting little plastic bowl just in case Annie made good on her threat. Naturally, that was exactly when Lacy walked into the room.
“How’s it going in here?” she asked, then moved to take the nurse’s place. “Thanks, Brook. I’ll take over now.”
After the nurse had gone, Lacy moved to the chair beside the bed. “That’s not going to work with me, you know,” she said calmly.
Annie frowned. “What?”
“Pretending that the food makes you sick.”
“It does,” Annie said indignantly. “That salad dressing is nothing like my mom’s. It smells awful.”
“Would you like me to ask your mother to bring some for tomorrow?” Lacy asked.
Tears welled up in Annie’s eyes as it became clear that Lacy was every bit as tough as she’d warned she would be. “Whatever,” she mumbled.
“You have thirty minutes to eat your meal,” Lacy said. “Since this is your first one, we’ll start the time now, rather than from the time the tray arrived.”
Annie regarded her with a sense of panic. “You’re going to time me? You actually want me to eat all this in half an hour?”
“That’s the rule,” Lacy said, her gaze unflinching. She glanced pointedly at her watch. “Starting now.”
“But…” Annie couldn’t think of a single argument that the determined nutritionist would buy. She put one small lettuce leaf in her mouth, chewed for as long as she could, hoping that Lacy would glance away so she could spit it into a napkin. When it became obvious that wasn’t going to happen, she swallowed, gagging as the food went down.
“I don’t think I can eat any more,” she whispered.
“Sure you can,” Lacy said. “Try a cracker or the drink.”
“The drink looks disgusting.”
Lacy’s lips twitched, but she didn’t allow a smile to form. “It actually tastes okay. Give it a try.”
Annie took a tiny swallow and nearly gagged on that, too.
“Good,” Lacy said, as if she hadn’t nearly choked to death. “Now the cracker.”
It went on like that, bite by tiny bite, sip by sip, until the half hour had passed. Annie looked at the tray and saw that she’d managed only one cracker and not even half the salad. She risked a look at Lacy, expecting to see disappointment, but instead the nutritionist gave her an encouraging smile.
“Not bad for the first time. I’ll get you that energy shake I told you about to make up for the food you didn’t finish.”
Annie felt tears well up in her eyes again. “I have to drink a whole shake? I can’t.”
“Not a whole one. Just two ounces. You can do that in a couple of swallows. Remember what I said about treating it like medicine. Just drink it right down and you’ll be finished until it’s time for your snack.”
“More food?” Annie said, sagging back against the pillows. She had no idea when eating had become such excruciating torture.
“It won’t be so bad,” Lacy promised. “Just half of a banana. Bananas were on that list you gave me.”
Only because Annie had been coerced into writing down something or leaving the decisions to Lacy. At least making that list had given her a tiny sense that she was still in control of things.
“You won’t sit with me for that, will you?” she asked hopefully.
“I won’t,” Lacy said. “But someone will.”
“Oh,” Annie said, her voice flat. “Nobody trusts me, huh?”
“Should we?”
“I guess not,” she conceded grudgingly. Because she and Lacy both knew that at the first opportunity, she would flush all that food right down the toilet.
Ronnie was impressed with Sullivan’s. The restaurant was cozy and inviting. It was elegant without being pretentious, and judging from the fancy Specials board posted by the hostess station, it had a diverse menu of items that would appeal to the locals, while still expanding their culinary tastes. Of course, he was so sick of hospital-cafeteria food by now that anything would have seemed gourmet caliber by comparison.
“You going to feed me, darlin’, or wait for me to beg?” he inquired as Dana Sue dug into a slice of deep-dish apple pie that made his mouth water.
“We’re not open yet,” she said with grim finality, forking another bite of pie into her mouth.
“Not even for family?”
“You are
not
family.”
“I’m the father of your daughter and the best husband you ever had,” he stated.
“You’re the
only
husband I ever had, more’s the pity,” she retorted.
After what seemed like an endless, silent stalemate, during which Ronnie just bided his time, she finally met his gaze. “You’re not going away, are you?”
“Not till I’m fed,” he agreed cheerfully, ignoring the fascinated glances the woman working at the stove was casting his way. He figured she could be won over to his side with a little charm. He was a bit more concerned by the stiff posture of the guy who was sticking so darn close to Dana Sue that Ronnie couldn’t help wondering if there was more between them than a working relationship.
“Fine.” Dana Sue flounced off her stool and marched past him. “Bring him the meat loaf special,” she called over her shoulder. Then added, “In a take-out box. We’ll wait out front.”
Ronnie grinned. “You think my dining here will take away from the class of the place?”
“No, but I do think it will fuel the gossip already flying around town,” she said. “Frankly, I don’t need the aggravation. Besides, we need to get back to the hospital. Annie is your top priority, right?”
There was no mistaking the challenge in her expression. “Of course,” he said. “I called to check on her right before I came here. The nurse said she was finishing her first meal under the supervision of the nutritionist. She said to come back around six-thirty.” He glanced pointedly at his watch. “It’s barely five-thirty now.”
“I want to go back now,” Dana Sue said stubbornly.
“Then by all means, we’ll go now,” he said, amusement threading through his voice. “You taking your own car, or can I give you a lift?”
He saw her warring with herself over the absurdity of both of them driving, when they’d be coming back to places less than a mile apart.
“I’ll drive,” she said at last. “You can eat your dinner in the car.”
“Still have to control things, don’t you, sugar?”
She shrugged. “Pretty much. Last time I let loose and trusted someone else, I got burned.”
The barb struck home. “Shouldn’t you be over that by now?” he asked.
She skewered him with a gaze that could have pierced steel. “Just FYI, Ronnie, women don’t get over a thing like that. They suit up in body armor and move on.”
He nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.” When Erik came out of the kitchen with the take-out box, Ronnie accepted it. “How much?”
“This one’s on the house,” Dana Sue said tersely. “Now let’s go.”
“Before you introduce me to your friend?” He already knew Erik’s name from Annie’s adoring description of the man, as well as the glimpse he’d caught of him at the hospital, hanging out with Dana Sue in the waiting room and again outside.
“Oh, he knows exactly who
you
are,” she said, in a way that suggested Ronnie ought to check the dinner for arsenic. “I suspect the gossip was quite specific in its description.” She glanced at Erik for confirmation.
He nodded, then gave Ronnie a man-to-man, vaguely commiserating look. “I’m Erik Whitney, Dana Sue’s pastry chef and second in command around here.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ronnie said, relieved that the introduction hadn’t included anything that suggested the relationship was personal.
“I’m also her friend,” Erik added pointedly. “We look out for each other.”
Ronnie nodded. “Good to know. I hope to look out for her some myself.”
“Have you two finished marking your turf yet?” Dana Sue inquired testily. “We need to get going.”
Erik laughed and Ronnie chuckled with him.
“Maybe we’ll compare notes another time,” Ronnie said.
“I don’t think so,” Dana Sue said tersely. “Not if either of you expect to live.”
Erik shrugged. “She’s the boss.”
“Always was,” Ronnie agreed.
In the car, he met her gaze. “Must be nice to have a fierce protector like that around. He’s half in love with you.”
She stared at him incredulously. “He is not. He’s a friend and he works for me. It’s bad policy to date an employee.”
“Wouldn’t stop some women.”
“Well, it would stop me,” she said flatly.
Ronnie hid a relieved smile and said, “Yet another thing that’s good to know.”
He figured he’d made significant progress in discovering the dynamics of Dana Sue’s life these days, including who her friends were—besides Maddie and Helen, of course—and where her loyalties lay. At this rate, it wouldn’t take all that long for him to decide where he could fit in.
At the hospital, Dana Sue sailed down the hall ahead of Ronnie, determined to get to Annie’s room before him. She knew it was ridiculous to be so competitive over something so small, but ever since he’d declared his intention to stick around town, he seemed to be bringing that out in her. She didn’t want him to have the upper hand at anything, no matter what it cost her to best him.
When she opened the door to Annie’s room in ICU and saw an empty bed, a gasp escaped before she could stop it. She whirled around and latched on to Ronnie’s arm. “She’s gone!”
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” he demanded, peering past her.
“Look,” Dana Sue said. “She’s not in her bed. The room’s empty. Ronnie, if something happened to her while you and I were away, I will never forgive myself.”
Stepping back, he grabbed her shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. “Calm down, Dana Sue. Annie was perfectly fine when I spoke to the nurse less than an hour ago. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. Let me check at the nurses’ station.”
“I’m coming with you,” Dana Sue said, right on his heels. If there was bad news, she wanted them to hear it together. She didn’t want it filtered through Ronnie.
A thin, blond nurse with pouty pink lips was behind the desk. Naturally, Ronnie managed to give her one of his trademark crooked smiles in an obvious attempt to charm her. Did the man have to flirt with every woman who crossed his path? Dana Sue wondered irritably. Especially now?
“Where’s our daughter?” she demanded before Ronnie could speak.
The nurse—Brook, according to her name tag—beamed at both of them. “Good news,” she reassured them. “The cardiologist saw her a little while ago and decided she was ready to be moved to a regular room.” She glanced at a paper on the desk. “She’s down on the second floor, room 206.”
Dana Sue sighed with relief. “Thank goodness.”
Ronnie draped an arm around her shoulder. “See, everything’s fine. Let’s go see our girl.”
Dana Sue let his arm remain where it was for a full five seconds, drawing strength from the contact. Then she shrugged away from him. “You go. I want to call Helen and Maddie and let them know to look for us downstairs when they come by later.”
He regarded her with a vague hint of disappointment in his expression, then said, “If that’s what you want.”
She watched him head for the elevator. Only after he was gone did she take a deep breath and relax. She caught the next elevator and went outside to place her calls. Neither of her friends was home, so she left messages, then tried to gather her composure before going back inside to see Annie.
Dana Sue sat on a bench near the fountain that splashed water into the small pond, and let the sound soothe her. The rustling of the breeze through the palmetto trees added its own lulling music. That was where Helen found her a few minutes later.
“Everything okay?” Her friend dropped onto the bench beside her.
“I just left you a message. They moved Annie to a regular room.”
“That’s great,” Helen said. When Dana Sue didn’t respond, her gaze narrowed. “Isn’t it?”
“Something tells me there’s still a long way to go before anything’s great again.”
“With Annie? Or does this have something to do with Ronnie?”
Tears welled up in Dana Sue’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “It’s everything,” she whispered, swiping ineffectively at the tears.
“Hey, come on now,” Helen soothed. “Annie’s going to be okay. Focus on that. Everything else will fall into place.”
“Sure,” Dana Sue said skeptically. “That implies that my ex-husband will go back where he belongs, which, according to him, isn’t going to happen.”
Helen winced. “I was afraid of that. I could take some steps to limit your contact with him. I could probably keep him away from Annie, too.”
“And have her hate me?” Dana Sue responded. “Forget that. I just have to find some way to deal with this.”
“I could talk to him and tell him he’s making things worse,” Helen said a little too eagerly. “I imagine I could persuade him to rethink his plan, at least once the crisis is past.”