It's Always Complicated (Her Billionaires Book 4) (25 page)

“None of this is your fault,” Josie soothed, hugging Laura. Darla looked over Laura’s shoulder and mouthed the word coffee. Josie nodded and Darla took off down the hallway, walking at a slow, respectful pace, unusual compared to her normal fast energy.

Josie took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her hot air heating Laura’s wet hair.

“It’s all my fault. If only I hadn’t invited Mike’s parents. He wouldn’t have run and he wouldn’t have fallen off the cliff and then Mike Bournham wouldn’t have found him and gotten injured trying to help and I’ve done all of this. I did this, Josie. I made all these bad things happen because I was trying to do one good thing. One.”

“The fact that Mike had a freak accident is not your fault. Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop trying to feel like you have control over an awful mess by taking on responsibility for it.”

Laura looked dumbstruck.

“What?”

“You did nothing wrong. You’re trying to beat yourself up for this so you feel like you can somehow control it. You didn’t make Mike run off a cliff. You didn’t make a freak thunderstorm soak the hill. You didn’t make Mike Bournham slip and fall down the cliff. You didn’t do any of those acts, Laura. All you did was take a step toward reconciliation with Mike’s parents that went horribly wrong because other people made choices to act in certain ways. That’s it. Stop thinking that any of this is your fault. The worst thing you did was contact Mike’s parents behind his back. You can settle that mistake with Mike when he’s better. But the rest? The rest was random. Bad shit happens to good people. It’s. Not. Your. Fault.”

Laura’s mouth trembled. “When did you become so smart? You sound like a psychologist.”

“I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

Laura sniffle-snorted.

“No, really. I did. Well, two nights ago.” Portland, Maine felt like another lifetime. She idly wondered where Marlene, Uncle Mike, Aunt Cathy and Calvin were, but she didn’t need to borrow any more trouble. Hopefully, Cathy and Mike had her mom in check. Marlene was a walking crisis, but sometimes other crises loomed larger.

Laura gave her a dark look.

“I mean it all, Laura. Don’t internalize what happened. Sit down. Wait with me. Let’s talk about how we’re going to unravel two hundred wedding guests and a huge event, because I think the paparazzi are going to find out about this rescue mess soon, and I don’t think anyone’s going to be up for the wedding tomorrow.”

“And it’s raining and so many people are in tents tonight!” Laura added.

Josie bit back a smile. At least she got Laura to stop thinking, for a few seconds, about Mike. Everything she just said to Laura was true, but what she wouldn’t admit was that all that advice had been said to her over the past few years by Alex and his mother.

You know—the clinical psychologist.

It was so much easier to urge her friend to listen to it than to accept it herself, she marveled, as Darla delivered three cups of coffee that reminded Josie that hospital coffee in emergency rooms is bad by design, intended to make you never want to spend any extra time there.

Then again, who would want to?

Darla guided Laura to a chair and gently nudged her to sit, all three women gripping their coffee cups, absorbing the warmth into their palms. The waiting room was half full, with people in various states of illness waiting their turn. A mother cradling a feverish toddler looked anxiously at the clock, making little cooing sounds to calm the child, who whined quietly.

Josie felt so, so helpless everywhere she looked.

“We really can only wait? I have to just sit here with all my fears eating through my brain and wonder what’s wrong with Mike, and worry that Dylan doesn’t fall down the cliff or hurt himself in some other way? Is this a cosmic joke? We’re supposed to be panicking over not having enough chairs and discovering a missing button on my wedding dress, not freaking out about one of the grooms falling off a cliff!” Laura burst out, her last sentence nearly a shout.

The mom holding the toddler cocked and eyebrow and turned to her husband. “
One
of the grooms?” she whispered to him. He was reading a sports magazine and just shrugged.

“And yooooouuuuu,” Laura groaned, looking at Josie.

“What about me?”

“I ruined your wedding! One of my grooms ran off a cliff and the other one is out in the rain rescuing Mike Bournham and it’s my fault that you can’t marry
your
groom!”

“I’m really confused,” the mother of the toddler whispered to her husband, who was now clearly listening to Laura’s outburst.

Just as Josie went to open her mouth, Darla interrupted.

“Laura, how’re the babies?”

“What?”

“Why don’t you call Cyndi and check on your kids? This is a good time, before the doctors come out and talk to you about Mike. You’ll be too busy later,” she said kindly, offering up her own phone. “Go in that little phone booth area over there,” she added, pointing to a privacy booth, “and check in now.”

Laura frowned. “Good idea.” She stood and did exactly as Darla suggested, leaving Josie in awe.

“That was smooth.”

“I have good people skills sometimes.”

“Clearly. So why’d you get rid of her like that?”

“Because I just got a text from Alex. You did too. Group text. Mike Bournham’s coming in through the back entrance, and they’re rushing him to ICU.”

“What?” Josie scrambled for her phone and read the full text. “Seizure? Oh, God.” Tears filled her eyes. “Head wound through the dura to the bone? Plus a seizure?”

“I don’t need to be a nurse or a doctor to know that combination can’t be good,” Darla said quietly, squeezing Josie’s hand.

“And he was trying to rescue Mike.”

“Yep.”

The two sat in stunned silence.

“Fuck,” Josie muttered. “Laura’s going to feel even more guilt.”

“Why’s she taking it on so hard? It really wasn’t her fault.”

Josie sighed. “because this is Laura. It’s what she does. It’s how she’s made. She wants the world to be a better place, and for people to get along and be happy. She really did reach out to Mike’s parents and invite them to the wedding because she thought that it would make Mike happy, in the long run. No one could haven’t predicted this chain of events.”

“Right. No one could have predicted it. So none of this is her fault. It’s all random,” Darla said.

“Random.” Josie rolled the word around in her mouth. She went pensive, lapsing into quiet.

“You upset about the wedding?” Darla asked. “Mama and Marlene and everyone from Ohio came all the way out for this, and now...”

“No.” Josie didn’t have to think to find her answer. “No. Not upset. You’d think I would be, right? But no. Alex and I will get married. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow. The wedding is for our friends and family. The marriage is for us. I get the better end of the deal.”

Darla gave her a half smile. “Still can’t believe you’re getting married.”

“Because you’re amazed I found someone who will put up with me?”

“Well, that wasn’t what I meant, but yeah. That, too.” Darla chuckled. “I just never thought you’d settle down.”

“You didn’t?”

“I hoped. Just like I hoped I’d find the right guy someday.”

“You found two Mr. Rights.”

“I sure did. And you only needed one.”

They got a good giggle out of that.

Alex rushed into the waiting room, looking around frantically, setting Josie’s nerves all atwitter in the worst way possible. Alex wasn’t a frantic person, especially in a medical setting, and when he reached her and touched her shoulder, she could feel something pass between them that made her feel raw and vulnerable.

Made her realize
he
was raw and vulnerable, too.

“Mike? How is he?”

“They’ve got him up in radiology for a head scan, and they’re—”

“A head scan?” Laura squeaked, returning at just that moment. “What’s wrong with his head?”

Alex shot her a confused, angry look that even made Josie take a step back. Mild-mannered and a little too chill most of the time, Alex wasn’t the kind of man to express that kind of fury.

“What are you talking about?” He softened as the words came out of his mouth, the change morphing his face as he spoke, until Josie saw the Alex she knew inhabit the Alex who had just taken over moments ago. “Ah—Mike. We have two Mikes here, and both are patients, and I’m sorry, Laura. I was talking about Bournham. He’s the one I was working on. He seized twice on the way here, and his condition is...well...”

Laura closed her eyes and swallowed, clearly struggling to stay calm.

“What about Mike Pine?” Josie asked him, keeping her voice as flat and neutral as possible.

“I don’t know. I didn’t get into that bay. I literally just came out of the ambulance and handed Bournham off to the team here.” Alex ran his hands up and down his coat, which Josie looked at with dawning horror. He was drenched, soaked completely through, his forearms bare and criss-crossed with little scrapes.

And covered with Bournham’s blood.

“What happened to you, Alex?” she gasped. He began to shiver. In any other setting she’d assume it was from the chill of being soaked, but she suspected something more was at play here.

“I—nothing. Mike and Mike are the ones who took the worst of it.”

“Get out of that wet coat,” she insisted. “We’ll ask for some dry scrubs or something for you.”

“Let me call Sandy and see if someone can deliver dry clothes,” Laura said helpfully, and Darla stood, following Laura, giving Josie a worried glance, eyes pinging between her and Alex.

Yeah, I’m worried about him, too
, her return look said.

Darla nodded and turned away with Laura, rubbing her back and huddling with her. A wave of intense gratitude washed over Josie as she watched them, then turned to Alex, clucking like a hen.

“Get out of that coat,” she insisted, standing on tiptoes and reaching for the zipper, unzipping him and getting a minor puddle at her feet for her efforts. As Alex peeled off the coat, she nearly screamed, grinding her teeth together to hold back her reaction.

His right arm was half raw flesh, like something you’d find in a butcher’s display at the grocery store.

“What the hel
l
happen
ed
to you? Your hands? Are they damaged?” A surgeon by trade, Alex’s hands were the first part of him that he worried about when hurt. Josie had learned to respond accordingly over the years.

“Hands are fine. That’s why the arms are so bad. I had gloves on for the hands, though I may have strained my
flexor pollicis brevis
.”

Josie knew what that was from nursing school. Thumb flexor muscle.

“What did you do to make this happen?”

“I pulled Dylan and Jeremy up the hill.”

“By yourself?”

He nodded. “They needed some help right at the end. Just when the boulder fell.”

“When the
what
?”

Blood began to bloom on the pink flesh. She saw gritty sand and flaps of pale surface skin poking in the redness.

“You need ER attention,” she declared.

“I’m fine,” he protested. “Just need some antiseptic and a good—”

“No, sir. No. You don’t get to do this again, Alex.”

“Do what?”

“Be a bad patient.”

“When have I ever been a bad patient?”

His habit of crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at her with an intimidating look was thwarted by pain as he yelped and held his raw arm away from his body.

She jumped up and tapped the tiny scar above one eye. “When you ran into a No Parking sign in front of my apartment one day while you were stalking me.”

“I wasn’t stalking you!”

“You were
so
stalking me.”

“I was mooning over you.” His voice went low, amusement infusing the space between them, taking his mind off his pain as his eyes met hers.

“You were?”

“You know that.”

“You had a funny way of showing it.”

“Let me make it up to you.”

“Yeah? How?”

“Give me the next fifty years or so.”

“It’ll take that long?”

“If I’m lucky.”

“You two gonna suck face right here in the waiting room, or can we get Alex some medical attention?” Darla asked, making Alex jump, startling Josie. Darla stood next to a very no-nonsense-looking nurse who frowned at Alex’s arm.

“I hear you’re a doctor?” she said. “I’m Margie. Let’s get that cleaned up and do some wound care.”

“I’m fine.”

Margie shot Josie a look that made Josie grin.

“Margie’s right, Alex.”

“I’m a—” If he said doctor, he was about to become
so
not fine.

Margie and Josie raised their eyebrows, giving him an appraising look that said,
Go ahead. Make my day
.

“You’re a what?” Margie said, her eyes narrowing to brown triangles. She looked like so many of the fifty-something nurses Josie had worked with over the years, as if nursing made women look a certain way. Short, wavy, salt-n-pepper hair. No makeup. Clipped nails. Stethoscope around her neck, and gloves stuffed in every available pocket, including the breast pocket of her scrubs.

“I’m a...groom.”

“You two about to get married?” she asked Josie.

“Tomorrow.”

“Then you want to get out of here.”

Alex exhaled with relief. “Right.” He reached for his coat. Josie pulled it away.

Margie placed one unyielding hand on his back and began guiding him to the ER bays. “The sooner we do wound care, the sooner you can get back to your fianc
é
e and go to your wedding. You part of the big campground to-do at Escape Shores?”

As the doors snapped shut behind them, Josie let out her laughter.

Leave it to a nurse to make Alex behave.

Josie suddenly found herself alone, Darla in the corner talking on the phone with someone, Laura nowhere to be seen. She took a deep breath and chugged her lukewarm coffee, grimacing when it was done. Cup in the trash, she looked around and wondered why people put such uncomfortable chairs in waiting rooms. They should outfit these areas with plush recliners and comfy bean bags instead of metal and barely-cushioned office chairs.