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“It’s our most popular. We mix it here ourselves.”
“I’d like a jar of that, if it’s for sale.” Still, if she came away with scars on her face from an over-eager masseuse, Jill would hold Edith and Noelle personally responsible.
In spite of her intentions to remain vigilant, her muscles seemed to liquefy of their own volition. She could feel her body merging with the soft sheets on the massage table until she wasn’t sure where the padding ended and her flesh began. Moreover, she didn’t care.
Jill seldom relaxed. She had been accused of being one of the most uptight, untouchable single women in Hideaway and the surrounding area. Most of the townsfolk made such comments out of her earshot—or so they thought—but Edith never hesitated to speak her mind, and neither did Noelle.
As Jill thought about it, she had recently found herself blessed—if that could be the term for it—by associates at work who never minced words with her.
They understood the term for her condition. Thanks to recent popular television shows, who didn’t know what the letters OCD stood for? Yet they wouldn’t let her get away with the typical behavior of someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Blessed…yes. That was it. She was truly blessed by people who loved her in spite—
“Your brows could use a good plucking.” Sheena’s soft voice interrupted Jill’s reverie.
“What?” Jill opened her eyes to see the young woman hovering over her, wielding a pair of tweezers far too close. Now what tortures was she expected to endure for the sake of moral support?
“I want to shape your eyebrows. I can take ten years off your face with a few good jerks.”
Jill’s loose muscles suddenly tightened again. “Look, Sheena Marshall,” she said, keeping her voice low in deference to Edith, “I didn’t come here to be plucked or jerked or tweezed, I just came for a simple massage with this green stuff you smeared all over my face. Are you finished?”
“Not yet. There are just so many things you need to have done. With your great bone structure—”
“Shouldn’t someone be tending to Edith?”
“She knows how to relax, unlike you.”
“Where’d your mother go? I’d be perfectly willing to let her finish this massage so you can see to Edith.” At least Mary would complete the job without trying to do a total makeover in the process.
“She was only scheduled to work this morning,” Sheena said, “and she wasn’t too happy about having to do that.”
Sheena’s mom, Mary Marshall, had reluctantly agreed to come to work at the spa on an as-needed basis until Noelle could determine for sure how many full-time staff members she would require.
Not only was Mary an accomplished massage therapist who had worked for years in surrounding resorts, she was also a cosmetologist, with a good head for business.
Sheena still lived at home, at the age of twenty-two, and seemed content to stay in Hideaway the rest of her life, living with her parents and working here at the spa. Jill felt for the girl, since she, too, had stayed home out of necessity for several years after graduating from high school.
Sheena needed to get out of this place for a while and learn a little more about the world. Mary and Jed were keeping too tight a leash on her.
Jill shifted on the massage table. “I think I heard Noelle come back from her errands a few minutes ago—can’t she see to Edith while you’re finishing here? I hate to think of Edith waiting over there all by herself.”
“I’ll be…fine,” Edith called to her.
With a frown, Jill glanced at Sheena. Edith sounded less peaceful and relaxed than she had moments ago.
“We won’t be much longer,” Sheena assured Jill. “Noelle warned me not to take too long the first time.”
First time? Like this was going to happen again? What did Noelle need with moral support, anyway? Though the business was new, it was doing well.
Was that laughter she heard in the next room?
Jill gave a sigh, forcing herself to relax again. Edith had a sense of humor that had brought healing light to some of the darkest moments in Jill’s life. Let her laugh.
Yet even as Jill listened to that laughter, it didn’t sound quite right….
Sheena’s movements slowed, as if she, too, noticed a change.
That wasn’t laughter. “Edith, you okay in there?” Jill asked. It sounded as if Edith was coughing.
For several long seconds there was no answer, then came a muffled thump.
Jill lunged up from the massage bed and scrambled out, stumbling against the tray table beside her. Bottles and jars crashed to the wooden floor. She swept past Sheena and raced into the hallway, then into the next cubicle, her loose gown billowing around her.
She thrust the door open to find Edith lying on the floor, gnarled hands grasping her throat, eyes bulging with terror. Her face was still half covered with the mask of herbs, and her white hair tufted over the mask in sticky strands. The half of her face that was bare was nearly purple.
“Call for help!” Jill dropped to her knees beside her friend and wiped the green mask of goo from her face with a towel. “Edith, it’s okay. We’re going to take care of you.”
The lady’s fear-stricken gaze caught and held Jill’s, begging for help. Her mouth worked silently.
“Who do I call?” Sheena cried.
“Get Noelle,” Jill said, grasping Edith’s hand. “I think she came back in. If not, call her on her cell. The clinic’s closed today.” In a more populated place, they would call 911. Here in Hideaway, that wasn’t a good option.
As Sheena rushed from the room, Edith’s grasp tightened in Jill’s. “S…c-cool,” she rasped.
“You’re cool? I’ll get a blanket for—”
The hand tightened further. “N-no.” She closed her eyes, and her grip weakened.
“No. Edith! Stay with me. Help is on the way.”
Those eyes opened again. “S…cool…” Her voice barely reached Jill, and her mouth worked as if with great effort. “Re…cords…jet…”
“Edith, just hold on. We’ll take good care of you.”
Edith shook her head, obviously agitated. “Jet…bomber.”
Jet bomber? “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Just hold on and concentrate—”
Edith’s hand relaxed from Jill’s grip. Her eyes closed. She stopped breathing.
“No. Edith! Don’t give up now. Edith!”
Chapter Two
Dr. Rex Fairfield seldom felt ill at ease with colleagues, whether they were strangers, friends or even antagonists. He felt perfectly comfortable presiding over large meetings, which was good, considering the requirements of his present career choice.
Today was different, however, as he sat in the tastefully decorated conference room of the Hideaway Clinic, deep in conversation with two other doctors.
His tension didn’t stem from the suspicious glint in Dr. Karah Lee Fletcher’s gaze or from the quiet expectancy in Dr. Cheyenne Gideon’s dark eyes.
“If we can bring the clinic up to code in, say, three weeks, the timing would be perfect for an announcement at Hideaway’s September festival,” he said. “You’ve already done a lot more than I’d have expected.”
“So why all the secrecy?” Dr. Fletcher asked him.
He frowned at her. “Secrecy?”
The statuesque redhead, second in command of this clinic, leaned forward, spreading her hands. “Yeah, the secrecy. The whole town supports what we’re doing here. They want the clinic to become a hospital. The community’s growing, we need these improvements. There’s no reason to keep it a secret.”
“Maybe not everyone wants it,” corrected Dr. Gideon, the clinic director, “but the detractors are few in number, and they aren’t adamant, they just want to have something to complain about.”
“I didn’t ask for complete secrecy,” Rex told them, “I only asked for discretion.”
“You asked us to keep your name out of our discussions with everyone, including our own staff,” Dr. Fletcher reminded him.
He nodded. Aha. That was the reason for the small flicker of wariness he had detected in the demeanor of this tall woman with the commanding presence. “Please understand I’m not calling your staff’s integrity into question, but there is one particular person with whom I’ve had…um…previous experience.” He hesitated, unwilling to share all to these virtual strangers. This was intensely personal.
“I assure you, Rex, that you can trust all of our staff members,” the director said. “I have found them to have the utmost integrity.”
“I wouldn’t dream of calling any of your staff’s integrity into question, Dr. Gideon.”
The dark-haired, dark-eyed woman rolled her eyes. “Please, I asked you to call me Cheyenne. We keep everything very casual around here.” The woman reached up and tucked a strand of her short, shaggy black hair behind her ear. She did, indeed, appear to have some Native American blood in her lineage.
“I’m sorry—Cheyenne.”
“And I’m Karah Lee,” insisted the tall redhead. “Now, are you going to tell us why all the mystery?”
Rex had become acquainted with Cheyenne, the clinic’s founder and director, and he felt confident in the abilities and good conscience of both the clinic’s doctors. But he had never been inclined to share personal confessions with those he did not know extremely well. In fact, he had learned that even with those he thought he knew well, he must be cautious. His faith in his own judgment wasn’t what it used to be. Perhaps that was a good thing, perhaps not.
“May I ask who it is you’re concerned about?” The expression in Cheyenne’s dark brown eyes was direct.
He hesitated, feeling foolish. His request had been impulsive, which was uncharacteristic of him. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get out of this situation without looking unprofessional, even silly, to these two serious, obviously dedicated physicians. Karah Lee Fletcher’s frown deepened.
He cleared his throat. “I simply wished to speak with this particular person in private before any—”
There was a clatter beyond the closed conference room door. Someone had come running into the waiting room of the clinic.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” came an urgent, feminine voice—a voice familiar to Rex, even after all these years, and even with the sharp edge of urgency that carried it down the hallway.
Cheyenne frowned at Karah Lee, who rose quickly, opened the door and stuck her head out into the hallway. “Noelle? What are you doing here? It’s Saturday.”
“Oh, thank goodness! I didn’t expect anyone to be here, or I’d have called. Jill and Sheena are doing CPR on Edith Potts at the spa. Not sure what happened. I came to get—”
“She’s unresponsive?” Cheyenne shoved away from the table and came out of her chair, yanking the door open wide.
Through the doorway, Rex caught sight of a beautiful woman with thick brown hair and small, exquisitely feminine features. She would be in her midthirties now. The only thing that marred her beauty were those blue eyes filled with dark concern. She was very obviously pregnant. Jill’s younger sister.
“She stopped breathing,” Noelle said. “Jill is—”
“Karah Lee,” Cheyenne said over her shoulder, “grab the crash cart. Make sure there’s a cric kit on it. We may have to do a cricothyroidotomy.”
“There is a cric kit,” Noelle said. “I checked it myself yesterday.”
“Let’s get it to the spa,” Cheyenne said. Without a backward glance, both doctors followed Noelle from the clinic, pushing a fully loaded crash cart in front of them.
Rex rushed out behind them. It had been three years since his last official stint in an emergency department, but he would be there if he was needed.
And besides, he, too, needed to know what was wrong with dear old Edith Potts.
In frustration and despair, Jill forced her own breath into Edith’s lungs through the protective pocket mask Noelle kept in each massage room, while the young massage therapist pumped rhythmically on Edith’s chest. The soothing background music was a stark contrast to the sound of hard breathing. This spacious room suddenly felt far too confining.
Sheena’s face was red from exertion and anxiety. Though she obviously knew the procedure, it was just as obvious she had never handled an emergency like this before.
“She isn’t responding, Jill. It isn’t working!” The young woman’s blond hair had darkened around her neck with perspiration. “What are we going to do?”
“Stop a second.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m not tired, I’m just—”
“Stop, Sheena! I need to check her.”
The masseuse withdrew her trembling hands from their locked position over Edith’s chest.
Jill knelt close to Edith’s mouth and listened for air movement. None. She pressed her fingers against the carotid artery and checked for a pulse. Nothing. Lord, please don’t take Edith!
“Come and do rescue breathing, and I’ll take over the chest compressions,” she told Sheena.
“No, I can do the compressions. I’m not tired.”
“I’m not asking, I’m telling you, trade places with me.”
“Where’s Noelle with that kit? Shouldn’t she—”
“Just do it!” Jill shouted.
The sound of multiple footsteps reached them from the marble-tiled front entryway.
“Noelle?” Jill called to them. “Is that you? Did you get the intubation—”
Cheyenne burst into the room with a crash cart, followed by Noelle and Karah Lee and a bearded man she didn’t recognize—
For a millisecond, Jill glanced at him again. Not a stranger. She knew that face, in spite of the short, salt-and-pepper beard she’d never seen before, and the cropped dark hair, receding hairline and slight creases of maturity around the calm, gray eyes….
Jill knew that man. Very, very well. Or she had known him once.
But there was no time to react, no time to think. “Chey, she’s gone unresponsive—”
“We’ve got it.” Cheyenne ripped the intubation kit open and started giving orders.
