скачать книгу бесплатно
“She just—just— Jon, it’s Ginny.” Luke ran trembling fingers through his hair.
For a moment the brothers stared at one another. Jon nodded. “Want me to drive you to the hospital?”
The ambulance had left. The crowd dispersed.
“No.” Luke sighed. “I’m okay.” He headed for his car. “If you need a statement…”
Jon waved him off. “Later.”
Later, when she was well again. If she got well again.
Why was an IV hanging from the ceiling? Ginny closed her eyes, then opened them again. A motor. Was she in a camper truck? Beside her sat a man—no, a paramedic. She remembered the car…the silver car…
“Hey,” the medic said. “You’re awake.” He smiled. “You’re going to be fine. Just a little bump, but the doctor needs to check it out at the hospital first.” He fiddled with the IV. “Got a bit of saline to stabilize you.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“Apparently you stepped in front of a car.”
Puzzled, she studied the medical paraphernalia around her. “I wouldn’t… Why would I…?”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Ginny Franklin.”
He held up his hand, fingers spread. “How many?”
“Five.”
“Now?”
“Two.”
“What’s the name of your town?”
“Misty River. Look, all my faculties are in place. I just—” She attempted to rise. Pain bloomed behind her eyes.
“Take it easy.”
“My head—”
“I know.” He checked her pupils with a small light. “We’re almost there. Doc’s waiting.”
“My kids…”
“Where are they?”
“With a sitter. Hallie…”
“I’ll call her. Got a number?”
She gave it. The ambulance rolled up to the hospital’s emergency doors.
“Really,” she said, “I’m fine. Can’t I just go home?”
“Not yet, Mrs. Franklin. You might have a broken leg.”
Because of her concussion, the doctor wanted to keep her for the evening, possibly overnight. She couldn’t afford to stay overnight. At First National, her bank account had dwindled to a mere ten thousand. Boone’s first wife had drained his savings with her illness just as Boone’s cancer had marked every dollar of his health insurance and most of Ginny’s account. In the last months, when he’d known he would not return home, she’d sold the house to pay off the remaining debts and moved into a rental duplex. Ironically Boone had the Oregon house repaired—unbeknownst to her—with a fund they’d saved for Alexei’s college.
Their worst—and final—argument.
I want you safe and secure, he’d said.
From what? she’d asked.
From whatever happens.
Premonition? Who knew.
But he hadn’t counted on her jaywalking.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Tonight her kids could be alone for the first time in their lives, without mother or father. Sure, they’d have Hallie. But they’d just met, and she wasn’t mommy. Ginny imagined Joselyn’s cries, saw her rosy mouth pucker, the tiny tears.
And Alexei. Would he hide in his bedroom with his music, the way he had while cancer ate Boone’s brain?
She studied the cast on her right foot, tractioned and swinging above the bed to keep the blood from pooling the first hours. A nice, clean break, the doctor had told her. How are broken bones nice or clean? Was it the same as having a nice, clean brain tumor? Nice and clean didn’t warrant painkillers. Didn’t warrant a young boy’s horror.
The door to her room opened. A bouquet entered—an immense fireworks-like display of deep gold sunflowers. Then the door closed and a face peered around the ribboned, blue vase.
Her heart jolted. “Luke,” she whispered as if she saw a phantom instead of the man who had once been her husband.
“Hey, Ginny. How are you?”
“I’m…” Amazed. Her mouth worked without words. “What—what are you doing here?”
“Seeing you.” He walked to the window where a high-rolling table stood, and placed his summer bouquet upon it before scooting the table near her bed.
As he moved about, she stared openly. If possible, his shoulders had grown broader under the cloth of his expensive teal shirt, and at his temples silver reeled into his clipped, pecan-brown hair.
Tucking his hands into the pockets of tailored black slacks, he looked down at her with the same somber gray eyes she had fallen in love with at seventeen.
She struggled past the fumble of her brain. “How did you know I was here?” she managed.
He studied her leg. “I live in Misty River. Have a law office just down the street from where you…from where I… Ginny, it was my car.”
That had struck her. That she’d walked into, mindlessly.
They hadn’t told her who, and she hadn’t asked.
She closed her eyes against the grim lines around his mouth. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” His warm hand covered her cool one on the lightweight blue blanket. “It was my fault. I should’ve been paying attention.”
A laugh escaped, short and bitter. She slipped her hand free, curling it into the palm of its twin. “Okay, so we agree to disagree. Like always.”
“Ginny.”
She opened her eyes, studied him while he studied the casted leg. His Adam’s apple worked. His hand found its pocket again.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “That wasn’t called for. I’m being a shrew.”
“You have the right.” For the first time his mouth shifted and she caught a half smile before it vanished.
She said, “The doctor figures it’ll be healed in six weeks. Only a hairline fracture in the tibia, just above the ankle.”
He swallowed. “Only. Right.”
“It’s not as bad as it looks, Luke.” She forced a smile. “I’m not dying.”
“Huh.” He surveyed the room.
“I’ll be released tonight,” she said, aspiring toward the positive.
His eyes wove to her. “Who’s with your kids?”
He knew she had children? “They’re with a sitter. Your niece, actually.”
“Hallie?”
“Yes.”
Relief loosened his shoulders. “Good kid. You won’t find anyone more responsible. I’ll check on her. Or…where’s your husband? Shouldn’t he be here? I asked at the desk, but no one’s come to see you. It’s like no one knows you in this town.”
Her chest hurt at his offhand remark. “We moved here eleven days ago. Hard to make friends when you’re uncrating boxes and setting up a home.”
Those gray eyes remained sober. “Is there a Mr. Franklin?” he repeated.
She glanced at the flowers, lustrous and cheerful in the window’s light. “My husband passed away.”
Luke tugged at his thick, short hair. “I’m sorry. I mean… Hell, I don’t know what I mean.”
“It happened three months ago.”
“Sudden?”
“I suppose six months of cancer is sudden by some standards.”
His eyes held hers. Seconds ticked away. “I won’t say a bunch of banal words for something I don’t understand and never experienced. But I will say you and your family have my deepest sympathy. If there’s anything I can do…”
“Thank you.”
Silence. A food trolley rattled past her door. He said, “Heard you’re living on the old Franklin property.”
“We are.”
“Why?”
Because Boone wanted me there. “Because it’s my husband’s land—was his land.”
“I meant why did you come back to Misty River?”
“Boone wanted our kids to know their heritage.” At least that was what he’d told her. “Both of us have roots here. Why are you here and not in Seattle?” Where rewards had knocked on his office door more than on the door of their marriage.
He stroked a finger along the petals of a sunflower. “I left Seattle after we divorced. Things weren’t… Well.” He dropped his hand. “They feed you yet?”
“Just the saline and some painkillers.”
He turned for the door. “I’ll get you something from Kat’s Kitchen. She’s got the best food in town. Anything in particular?”
Ginny couldn’t help but laugh. Luke was still Luke, ready to rudder the barge of discomfort toward happy land. He’d been an excellent lawyer because of the trait. “Would she have a spinach salad with focaccia bread?”
He gave her a thumbs-up. “Still your favorite lunch, huh?” Then he was gone.
Ginny leaned back against the pillows, her eyes settling on the bouquet. She hadn’t thanked him for brightening her room. A dozen years, and still he remembered—remembered her favorite flower, her favorite lunch.
Ah, Luke. What haven’t you forgotten?
Recalling the expression on his face when he first walked into the room, she was afraid to contemplate the answer.
Chapter Two
L uke pulled Ginny’s rattling old station wagon off Franklin Road onto a single-track dirt lane that wound through a thicket of birch and Douglas fir. The track was worn smooth from the crews he’d seen coming and going throughout the spring.
“I suppose six months of cancer is sudden by some standards.” No doubt the diagnosis prompted Boone Franklin to renovate his parents’ homestead. The work had begun four months ago, in January.
He’d heard a family named Franklin was reopening the sprawling house and wondered which of the far-flung kin decided to return. He never would have guessed Ginny.
Breaking through the trees, he saw the aged house—or what used to be an aged house. Now it sported vinyl siding that sparkled like snow in sunshine. He noted other changes: windows, fascia and door painted in burgundy; a new cedar-shake roof; the reconstructed surrounding porch.
Only a coat of paint was required on the replaced pillar posts and railings. Were the tins of mint-green paint in back of her station wagon meant for the job?
Luke swung in front of the porch steps and stopped beside his youngest brother’s ’92 blue Honda hatchback. Hard to believe Seth’s daughter, Hallie, was old enough to drive.
Hands gripping the wheel, he stared at the house. Now what?
You’re here for Ginny’s kids.
