Right Brother (21 page)

“Ready for those stitches? If you'll wait outside, Ms. Truesdale.”'

“Stitches?” Ashley's voice wavered. “Mom?”

Jennifer knew her daughter needed to learn some tough lessons in life, lessons that wouldn't be easy for her, especially not since her mother had let her believe that too much of the universe revolved around her. Not only had Ashley been following in her mother's mistaken footsteps, she'd also been in danger of becoming like her father.

But being alone now was not one of the lessons she needed to learn.

“I'm staying, Doctor. And so is Trent.”

The doctor clearly intended to give her an argument.

Then the young man looked at Trent, and the argument went right out of him. And she didn't mind. Because she knew she would have won if she'd had to. So having Trent spare her the effort was fine with her.

“You'll have to go to the other side of the bed,” the nurse told Trent.

He squeezed Jennifer's hand once before releasing it to follow the nurse's gesture to the far side of Ashley's bed.

Ashley slanted him a look of enmity that evaporated when her gaze fell on the medical cart the nurse had pushed forward. Ashley went white.

“I think, we'll just…” the nurse muttered, as she used a frame to rig a bridge over Ashley's hips. She hooked a sheet across it as a screen, then lowered the bed so Ashley couldn't see what the doctor was doing.

Jennifer turned so she couldn't see, either, focusing on Ashley's face, while she grasped her hand.

Trent reached across Ashley and offered his hand to Jennifer. She immediately put hers in it. His hold was so warm and so right. The ice under her feet hadn't cracked, it had melted under the summer sun, slipping her into sunlit waters.

Trent extended his right hand to Ashley. She turned her head away and grabbed onto the sheet.

“All set?” the doctor asked. “This shouldn't hurt a bit.”

Ashley gave a small whimper, then twisted her head to glare at Trent.

“You've had surgery and stuff. Is that true? It won't hurt?”

“No, it's not true. It'll hurt. But not more than you can bear, Ashley.”

Her lips parted, as if she would say more. But then came a faint clink of medical tools from the vicinity of where the doctor leaned over her leg.

Ashley's hand released the sheet she'd clutched and inched across the bed to slide into Trent's.

He wisely said nothing. None of them did.

Maybe they didn't need to, now that they were linked, hand to hand. Like a real family.

T
rent found Ashley sitting on the old bench behind the service area. Some of the techs used it for breaks, even now that the weather was downright chilly. She sat with her knees drawn up under her jacket and her heels resting on the seat.

He'd just heard a customer who used to know Eric asking Ashley about her father. Well-intentioned questions about how he was doing and where he was living now and when did she expect to see him—but wrenching ones for a child who hadn't heard from her father in years.

Trent handed Ashley a can of root beer and popped the top on his cola, sitting at the far end of the bench.

She gave her usual mumbled thanks.

They sipped in silence.

He debated a couple smooth introductions, then decided to cut to the chase. “You have every right to be ticked that your
father isn't around. Some people just don't have an ability to think about anyone but themselves.”

She tossed her hair. “Some people are different. Special.”

“Like who?”

“Famous people. You know. Movie stars. Singers. Athletes. Models. People like that. The really good ones. The best ones.”

He eyed her.
My dad was the best quarterback this town ever saw.

He'd thought she'd had an awful lot invested in that declaration when she'd made it that first night by the soft drink machine. More invested than just being proud of a father.

Did she think that if her father had been a great player that it excused him from being a good person? Was that how she held on to loving him? Excusing his not coming to see her, dropping out of her life, not helping support her, by telling herself he was a great athlete and therefore the rules for mere mortals didn't apply?

God knows, it was how Eric had always operated.

But Ashley…Ashley deserved better than dealing with males who thought like that.

“Nobody gets a free pass on being a good human being. And anybody who passes out free passes for somebody famous or infamous is just as bad as the person who takes that free pass.”

Her eyes welled up too fast for her, because even though she turned away, he saw the tears glinting. She shot off the bench.

“Ashley.”

She stopped, though she kept her back to him.

“I'm not going anywhere. I love your mother and you're starting to grow on me.”

She looked over her shoulder at that. The look held questions and doubt, rather than anger. And she didn't look away. A major breakthrough.

“So, that's my promise to you,” he said. “I'll be here as long as I live, and I won't lie to you.”

He thought he saw a memory of his not lying to her in the hospital flicker across the eyes that were becoming more like Jen's every day.

“That doesn't mean I have to like you.”

He held up his hands. “Heaven forbid.”

And damned if her mouth didn't twitch as if she might smile.

She clamped down on it and ran off, but he could almost swear he heard her actually say, “Thanks for the drink.”

He took another sip and waited. In another half a minute, Jen came around the corner.

“Eavesdropping?” he asked as she took a seat on the bench beside him, settling naturally into the curve of the arm he put around her just as naturally.

They'd eaten dinner together at the café the night after Ashley's accident, so it was public knowledge that they were together. After football season they would look for a house. He'd promised he would plant as many rosebushes as she wanted. He'd even given her catalogues full of them to start choosing.

“How would I know what a wise man you are if I didn't?”

He kissed her hair. “Faith? Trust?”

“Yeah, right.”

They could joke about it now, because they had it.

Because they had everything.

“How much longer before you think I can ask your daughter for your hand in marriage?”

She tipped her head back to look at him without raising it. “Are you serious?”

“Serious.” He kissed her, letting her know how serious. “Because we got to get started soon on having babies together, babies who are born into a family where their mother and their father love each other and love them.”