Shopping for a Billionaire 3 (3 page)

“I’m here,” I mumble. He’s running hard and I can hear his heart pounding against my ear, pressed against his sweaty shirt. We’re more than half a mile from the parking lot and I hear a horrible wheezing sound. My weight isn’t a small number, and I feel embarrassed that he’s struggling so hard to breathe through carrying me.
Yet he cradles me, mumbling something as he runs. All I can sense is the tumbling of air against his lungs and ribs.
 

If I could just move, I could stand and walk back to the lot.
I start to resist, to try to help.
 

Then I realize th
e
wheezing
is coming
from me.
Not him.
 

He’s moving swiftly and with
great power
, and my th
ro
at stops swelling. This is how the
E
pi
P
en always works, like slamming the brakes on a car going a hundred miles an hour. For me, the relief comes in waves. First, the swelling stops, but it doesn’t recede. It just doesn’t get worse.

That’s what
ha
s happened now. I’m so tired, though. Exhausted and depleted, and it takes everything in me to stay upright
in his arms
so Declan can
carry
me. The ground becomes bumpy and he slows down, carefully navigating down a slope on the wider part of the trail.
It
’s dark, and insects buzz in my ear.

“Bees?” I mumble.

“No,” he says, his panting heavy from exertion. “
Flies.
But the two
bees
that stung you—”
He’s huffing through a final sprint and I can make out a red flashing light in the distance.
 

Two. Oh. That’s it. I’ve never been stung
twice
like this. My eyelids feel like quilts covering my vision, and my lips tingle
and
balloon out. If only I could lift an arm and give him some help. I will it to move but it doesn’t.
Nothing does.
 

I’m sorry
, I want to say. Maybe I do. It’s hard to tell.

And then I fade out completely, remembering nothing more than the steady sound of Declan’s breath as he races me to safety.

“Is his penis going to fall off?”

Mom’s voice floats into my awareness as a big, bright light blinds me. Am I in heaven? Hell? Somewhere in between? If Mom’s here, that narrows this down considerably. I’m either alive or in purgatory.

“Whose penis?” I mumble. “What did you do to Dad this time?” Someone squeezes my hand and I open my eyes slowly. They feel like wet wool blankets coated with glass shards, but I open them all the way anyhow.

Amy is the one holding my hand, and she looks so scared. “Not Dad. And don’t worry.”

My mouth tastes like dry pencil shavings that have been sitting in Death Valley for a thousand years. “Where am I?”

She names a local hospital.

“Why am I here?” My mind feels like dry pencil shavings, too. I’m cold suddenly, and my legs begin to shake. I have no control over this, and soon my chin chatters.

Mom grabs a stack of blankets and starts covering me in them, in layers up and down my body. The thick, heavy warmth cocoons me.

“You were stung by a
bee
, honey,” Dad whispers, taking my other hand. I turn to look at him and his eyes are red-rimmed. Crying?

“
Two, actually,” Mom says.
 

“Daddy, don’t cry,” I mumble. “I’m sorry.”

That makes Amy start to sob. “You don’t have to apologize for something you can’t control, Shannon,” she says. “And thank goodness you’re a paranoid freak,” she adds.

“
I
t comes in handy sometimes,” I mutter, unsure what she means.

“
You really scared us,” Carol says. Carol! Carol’s here, with a frightened-looking Jeffrey, who can’t seem to look at me. Geez. Why is my seven-year-old nephew here? Haven’t seen him in, what—a month? He’s getting so big, with those long eyelashes and—has he been crying?
 

“Hi, Jeffrey,” I croak out. He gives me an uncertain wave. I try to wave back, but a sharp stab of pain in my hand halts me.

An older female doctor with more salt than pepper in her hair strides into the room. It’s not really a room, I see—there’s just a curtain between me and another bed, where I hear two men talking in hushed voices.

The doctor looks at my chart and flips through pages, jotting notes.
Her white jacket has little gold pins all over the lapel and she smells like freshly bathed dogs. Her face is tight.
She looks up and realizes I’m awake.

“Shannon, that was close,” she says in a clipped British accent. “
I’m Dr. Porter.”
She sounds like Jud
i
Dench playing an older female doctor
in a
D
octo
r Who
episode, because there are so many tubes and bright flashing lights in the room that I feel like I’m surrounded by Daleks that have taken over the TARDIS
. “Good work by you and your date, though his aim was remarkably better than yours.”

“
Thank you,” says a deep, familiar male voice from behind the curtain. “I agree one hundred percent. And Shannon, I’ll never go target practicing with you. Ever.”
 

H
uh?

“And no, Marie, all my equipment is in place and intact. She got my
thigh
,” the voice adds in a tone that makes it clear there is no follow-up discussion.

“
Thank goodness!” Mom chirps. “Can’t have grandbabies if it falls off,” she whispers.
 

Maybe I’m the Dalek, because all I want to do now is scream EX-TER-MIN-ATE at her.

“I am five feet away and can hear every word,” he growls. The curtain whips back in one smooth movement and there’s Declan, alone, buttoning his jeans.

T
he memory floods me instantly. Wine. Hiking. Making out. Sex (almost…). Bees. Epi
P
en.

“I didn’t break your penis, did I?” I rasp
through vocal cords that feel like painful ribbons
.
Because that would be the Epic Fail of Dates. I would have to become a nun if I broke a man’s penis. My name would become part of Urban Dictionary, like Lorena Bobbit.
“Why’d you stop dating Jill?” “Because she tried to Shannon
Jacoby
me.” “
No way
, dude…”
 

“What, exactly, were you doing out there?” the doctor asks, one eyebrow arched perfectly.
She sounds so disapproving and snobbish, the way only a British person can, the accent so intelligent. “And no, you broke nothing. You’re fortunate the denim on Declan’s jeans helped to reduce the injury from the injection.”
 

I try to hate her but don’t really have the energy.
Mom’s words break through some of my angry confusion, but they leave me stunned and overwhelmed.
 

“No one broke anything, and I think everyone should go so I can take care of my daughter.”
She looks so defeated. Where’s the sarcasm? The over-the-top exuberance and social cluelessness? The inappropriate oversharing?
 

Mom’s eyes are swollen and hollow at the same time, and my throat closes again, except this time not from being stung.

I look at Declan, and he’s looking
back
with so much concern that I close my eyes, unable to process anything.

“
I was stung?” I murmur.
 

Mom scooches Amy over and takes my hand.
Carol’s holding Jeffrey’s hand, with little Tyler perched on one hip, his eyes zeroed in on the television, which is set to Cartoon Network without sound. Jeffrey looks a lot calmer now, and he’s watching Declan with narrowed eyes, like he’s studying him.
 

P
oor boy. His own dad never comes around, so maybe he’s just checking out the Daddy crowd. Not that Declan’s a daddy. Or is he? My head really hurts.

Amy and Declan share an inscrut
a
ble look. “Twice, honey.” She slows her speech down, her eyes watching me carefully. All her makeup is gone and the
hand that grabs mine is shaking
.

T
hey’ve all been crying. How bad was I?

“Did I die?”

Declan’s face shifts to a quick expression of shock and he swallows,
hard
.
He looks like he’s about seventeen suddenly, wide-eyed and frozen.

Dad stands up and points to him. “No. But only because of him.” Everyone turns and looks at Declan.

Steve would have smiled and taken all the credit if I’d been stung and he’d carried me out of there to an ambulance. A
s
my brain starts to clear, I remember that Steve was there the previous time I was stung, back at UM
ass
. That had happened on campus, and Steve had screamed like a little kid and run away, leaving me with my phone and my purse, digging furiously for the
E
pi
P
en.

He’d only come back after the paramedics arrived and I’d nearly
passed out
.

What Declan did was heroic in every sense of the word.

“We were half a mile—” I sa
y
. The rest of my sentence is choked off by my dry mouth.

Reading my mind,
Declan
grabs the pitcher of water on the tray above me and pours a glass that has a straw sticking in it. He hands it to Mom, who ministers it to me like I’m on my deathbed.

Am
I?

“Early spring bees. Who knew they’d be out?” Dad sa
ys
.

“That was my fault, sir,” Declan says in a low voice. Contrite, even. “I chose the picnic spot and didn’t think to clear the ground for bees’ nests.”
He sounds angry. He should be. It was my fault for not telling him.
 

“Who would in April in Massachusetts?” the doctor snaps. I’ve never se
e
n Declan like this,
furious at himself,
sheepish and so young looking, like he thinks he deserves to be u
p
braided for something that was completely out of his control.

“I should have.” He looks at Mom and Dad. “My brother is highly allergic to
wasps
, and—” His face shuts down as he caps his emotions.
My entire body aches, like someone is stabbing kitchen knives into my thighs, my butt, my neck and upper arms, but none of that pain compares to what my heart feels watching his reaction.
 

“No,” I croak out. “You did everything right.
You didn’t know. I should have said something, but it’s never been a big issue.
”

Mom
snorts. “Shannon,” she says in a chiding voice. Whether it’s a “big issue” or not has been a bone of contention between us ever since I was first stung.
 

Then she
squeezes my hand and looks between him and me. “You did
everything perfectly
, Declan.” She lets go of my hand and stands, grabbing him for an embrace. “You did everything perfectly, and thank you for saving my daughter’s life.”

My eyes start to water and two tears tric
k
le down each side of my face, rolling into my ear
s
. It itches. A tightness in my throat triggers panic in me. Too close to what I felt after the bee stings. My breathing becomes labored and the doctor checks my pulse.

“Slow breaths, Shannon,” she says in a soothing tone. “The adrenaline is still in you and it will be a while before you’re okay.”

I nod, following her instructions. Mom’s arm is thrown casually around Declan and they look like they’ve been best friends for years. It f
r
eaks me out and warms me at the same time.

J
effrey clears his throat and opens his mouth. I see two white nubs along his gum line, the permanent teeth poking through. His nose is big
and
sunburnt and his cheeks have freckles on them.

“Yes?” I ask, giving him permission to speak in a crowd of scary grownups who tower over him.

It’s Declan he turns to. “Did you break your penith?”

Oh, that lisp.

Suppressed snickers fill the room. We sound like a bunch of
taste testers for canned baked beans after a new product line rollout.
Futt-futt-futt…
 

“No, buddy, my penith—penis—is just fine.” Declan reaches down and ruffles his hair. Jeffrey leans into the touch like a cat cozying up for some petting.

“Good.” Jeffrey tugs on Declan’s shirt. Declan bends down, but what comes out of Jef
f
rey’s mouth can be heard by everyone.

“Jutht tho you know, you thouldn’t play with your penith anywhere exthept in your
bed
room. The penith is a private plathe.”

Declan’s eyes widen. Dad’s hand flies to his mouth to cover a grin. Even the British
doctor
chick is trying not to laugh.

“Thanks,” Declan says with a stage whisper. “I’ll remember that
forever
.”

Jeffrey’s on fire now. A room of grownups paying attention, and a
d
ad (in his mind, Declan’s a dad, because all men over thirty are “
d
ads”) who is riveted by what he’s saying.

“And you know what el
th
?” Jeffrey is king at court.
He makes eye contact with every grownup as he takes roll.
 

“Yeah?” Declan is amused. He’s confident and fine with a room full of adults making fun of his penith.

“You thouldn’t let Auntie Thannon touch your penith. It’s a private plathe and no one hath the right to touch it without your permithon. ”

Oh, I had permission, bud.
I can’t, of course, say that, and the room is now filled with giggles and people biting their lips so hard they are causing de facto piercings.

Carol lunges for him. “Let’s go get ice cream!” She mouths
I’m sorry
to Declan, who waves it off and gives Jeffrey a hi
gh-
five as
she scurries
out the door
with her boys
.