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“Stop.” He actually put up a hand. And then he took her by the arm again, causing all those strange, heated sensations to pulse along her skin. “Sit down before you fall down.” He took her other arm, too, and then he turned her and carefully guided her down into the chair where he’d been sitting. The chair was warm from his body, and that felt both enormously comforting—and way too intimate, somehow.
Once he had her in the chair, he just stayed there, bent over her, his big hands gripping the chair arms, kind of holding her there, his face with its manly sprouting of five-o’clock shadow so close she could see the faint, white ridge of an old scar on the underside of his chin. It was a tiny scar, and she wondered where he might have gotten it.
She stared up at him, miserable, wishing for a little more gumption when she needed it. “It’s not right that you have to be here. It’s not fair, after...everything. Given the...situation. James, I’m taking total advantage of you and I hate that.”
“You’re not. Stop saying you are. I’m here because I want to be here.”
She laughed. It was a sad laugh, almost like a sob. “Having a great time, are you?”
“Wonderful.”
“Ha!”
He let go of the chair arms and rose to his height. “And you’ll feel better if you eat something.”
“Oh, no.” She pressed a hand to her belly, which still ached a little from the aftermath of losing everything that had been in it, including what felt like a good portion of her stomach lining. “Uh-uh. What I need is never, ever to eat again.”
“A little hot tea and some soda crackers. You should be able to keep that down. Then later, I’ll get you some soup.”
She glared up at him. “What I really hate...”
“Tell me.”
“...is that tea and soda crackers sound kind of good.”
His fine mouth twitched at the corners. “Sugar?”
“Yes, please. Two packets.”
“Don’t budge from that chair. I’ll be right back.”
* * *
Addie drank her tea and ate four packets of soda crackers. She felt better after that, and she told James so. He nodded approvingly as he munched on the turkey sandwich he’d brought back from the cafeteria along with her tea and crackers.
Actually, his sandwich looked kind of good, too. She tried not to stare at it longingly.
But the man missed nothing. He chuckled and held out the other half to her.
She should have refused it. It wasn’t right to take the guy’s food. He was probably starving. She knew she was. And just to prove it, her stomach rumbled.
“Take it,” he said, those blue eyes all twinkly and teasing. “I know where to get more.”
She did take it. Ate it all, too. And felt a whole lot better once she did.
A few minutes after she’d demolished half his sandwich, her cell rang. It was Carm, who said that her mother-in-law was staying with the kids and she and Devin were on the way.
“A couple of hours and we’re there,” Carmen promised. “How’s PawPaw?”
“In surgery, which is going to take at least three hours from what the surgeon said. When you get here, they’ll still be operating on him.”
“Anything you need?”
She longed for a toothbrush. And she still needed to find someone to take care of Moose and the horses back at the ranch. But she could call her neighbors herself. And she didn’t want her sister wasting her time stopping at a drugstore. “Just you. Just get here as fast as you can.” Carmen promised she would do exactly that and they said goodbye.
Addie got to work trying to find someone to look after the livestock. But the Fitzgeralds, who had twenty acres bordering Red Hill, were off visiting relatives in Southern California. And Grant Newsome, Levi’s longtime friend, had put his house and acreage up for sale and gone to Florida to live near his oldest daughter and her family.
She was trying to figure out who else she might try when James suggested, “How about Walker McKellan? He and his wife, my cousin Rory, would be happy to help. They’re not that far from Red Hill.” Walker and Rory lived at Walker’s guest ranch, the Bar N, which was maybe eight miles from the Red Hill ranch house.
Addie knew Walker, but not that well. He’d been more than a decade ahead of her in school. And Rory was an actual princess from some tiny country in Europe. Addie had met her just once and been impressed with how friendly and down-to-earth she was. “I hardly know them and I’m sure they’re busy and don’t have time to—”
“Stop,” James said again, in the same flat, dismissive tone he’d used on her when she tried to tell him to go. “I know them. And I know they’ll want to help. I’m calling them.” He had his phone out and ready.
“You stop,” she insisted, strongly enough that he quit scrolling through his contacts and looked at her with great patience. She added, “I said that I hardly know them and it doesn’t seem right to take advantage of them.”
“It’s not taking advantage. It’s just asking for help. And there’s nothing wrong with asking for help now and then, Addie.”
She didn’t really have a comeback ready for that one, so she settled for glaring daggers at him.
He gentled his tone. “Look. You’d do the same for them in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would, but—”
“So someday they’ll need you. And you’ll be there. And that’s good.”
By then, she didn’t know why she’d even tried to argue with him. “I bet you could sell an Eskimo a refrigerator,” she grumbled.
He shrugged. “Hey, with the way weather patterns are changing, an Eskimo might need one. Ah. Here we go.” He punched in the call.
Ten minutes later, she’d talked to both Walker and Rory and they were set to tend to the animals for as long as she needed them to. Walker said he’d take Moose back to the Bar-N. He even insisted she give him the phone numbers of the owners of the horses she boarded. He said he would call them personally and let them know what was happening, reassure them that their animals were being cared for and that if they needed anything, he would see that they got it.
Addie thanked Walker profusely.
He said essentially what James had said. “We should have joined forces years ago for times like this.”
When she hung up, she handed James back his phone. “I think I’m running out of ways to thank you.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “You can thank me by eating the soup I’m going to go get for you now. They have chicken noodle or New England clam chowder.”
“No clams. Please.”
“Chicken noodle it is, then.”
She dug in her purse for her wallet. But he was already up and headed for the elevators.
When he returned with the soup, he also brought sandwiches. Two of them—one roast beef, one ham, both with chips.
She took the soup and tried to give him a ten. He waved it away. She should insist he take the money, but so far, insisting wasn’t getting her anywhere with him.
So fine, then. She ate every last drop of that soup and half of his ham sandwich, too. Unfortunately, once the food was gone, there was nothing else to do but sit there and try to read the magazines strewn about the waiting room tables, try not to watch the second hand crawling around the face of the clock on the far wall, try not to think too hard about what might be happening down the long hallway beyond the automatic double doors.
Carmen and Devin arrived at a little after nine. Addie ran to her sister. Carmen grabbed her and they hugged each other tight. Then Carmen took her by the shoulders and held her a little away. Carmen was taller and thinner than Addie and her hair was dark brown, her eyes a warm hazel.
“Any news?” her sister asked.
Addie pressed her lips together and shook her head. “We’re still waiting to hear. I’m hoping it won’t be too long now.”
Devin, tall and lean with light blond hair, said, “Levi’s tough as old boots. He’ll pull through and be driving us all crazy again in no time.”
Addie turned to her brother-in-law. “I know you’re right.” He hugged her, too. “I can’t even tell you how glad I am you’re both here.” She wrapped an arm around each of them and turned for the row of chairs several feet away where James, on his feet now, was waiting.
Carmen leaned close and whispered, “Isn’t that one of the Bravo brothers?”
Addie stifled a tired sigh. “It’s James.”
“The lawyer, right, second of Sondra’s two sons?”
Addie nodded. “He was, um, there when PawPaw had the heart attack. He’s been wonderful,” she whispered back grimly, reminded again of all the news she needed to share with her sister. “I can’t get him to leave.”
“I heard that,” James said wryly. “Carmen, Devin. How have you been?” He held out his big hand.
Devin took it first, and then Carmen. Carmen said how grateful she was for his help. She assured him he could go now.
He just shook his head. “I can’t go now. I wouldn’t feel right. At least not until Levi’s through surgery.”
Carmen shot Addie a look and then turned to him again. “You and our grandfather are...friends?”
“Well, we’ve kind of formed a bond, I think you might say.”
Now Carmen glanced at Devin, who shrugged, then back to James and finally at Addie. “Okay. What is going on?”
Addie groaned. “Got a month, I’ll tell you everything.”
“I’m here and I’m listening,” Carmen replied.
Addie hardly knew where to start.
James got up. “I could use some coffee. Anybody else?”
Carmen piped right up. “I’ll take some.” She elbowed her husband. “Dev will go with you.”
“Uh. I will?” When Carmen elbowed him again, Devin caught on. “Sure. Great idea.”
“Tea?” Addie asked James, and then got uncomfortable all over again thinking how easily she’d started to depend on him.
“You got it—and maybe Devin and I will hang around the cafeteria for a while.” He gave her a look—one thick, dark eyebrow raised.
And she took his meaning. “Go ahead. Tell him,” she said. “Tell him everything you know. Believe me, he won’t be surprised.”
“My God,” murmured Carmen. “What is going on?” For that, she got another bewildered shrug from her husband.
James asked, “You sure?”
Addie nodded. “He has to know eventually anyway.”
So the men left. And Carmen said, “Okay. Tell me everything.”
Addie told all—from how she’d agreed to have Brandon’s baby, to the fact that she was now pregnant with said baby, to Levi snooping in her trash and finding the test stick and then kidnapping James just the way he’d done to Devin eight years ago. Carmen sat there with her mouth hanging open, as Addie went on to describe finding James and Levi in the basement and the shotgun going off, blowing a hole in the ceiling while Levi had a heart attack.
Finally, when the totally out-there story was told, Carmen hugged her again and told her she loved her and could hardly believe she was going to be an auntie.
Then came the questions. “If Brandon’s the father, why did PawPaw kidnap James?”
“He won’t believe it’s Brandon. He claims he’s seen the way James and I look at each other and he just knows there’s been a lot more than looking going on.”
Carmen was silent. Too silent.
Addie was forced to demand, “What is all this silence about, Carm?”
“Well, now, honey. I did see the way you and James looked at each other just now...”
“What are you talking about? I swear to you, James Bravo has never done more than shake my hand—at least not until today, when he put his arm around me to comfort me, held my hair while I threw up and then made me sit down when I tried to get him to leave.”
“But that’s just it, see?”
“No, I don’t see.”
“He seems very devoted. And I saw the blood on his collar.”
“I told you, PawPaw knocked him out, tied him to a chair in the basement and put a shotgun to his head. Because you know PawPaw. He thinks we live in some Wild West romance novel where it’s perfectly okay to hold a man at gunpoint in order to convince him to ‘do the right thing.’” She said that with air quotes.
Carm snickered and then quickly switched to a more sober expression. “And yet, even after all the abuse PawPaw heaped on the poor guy, James drives you to Denver and holds your hair while you hurl? He knows you’re having another man’s baby, but he brings you food and tea and insists he has to stay with you to make sure that your crazy old grandpa makes it through surgery?”
“Carm, it’s not like that. It’s just that he’s a good guy.”
“Beyond stellar, apparently.”
“Really, I hardly know him. We...well, we talk now and then.”
A sideways look from Carmen. “You talk.”
“Yeah. He’s bought land that borders Red Hill and he’s building a house there. I go by there a lot, working with the horses, you know?”
“Right...”
“Quit looking at me like that. Sometimes I stop is all. We visit. We talk about life and stuff—in general, I mean. Nothing all that personal.” Well, okay. Once, James had told her about his ex-wife. But as a rule, they kept it casual. She added, “And now and then, he drops by the ranch house. We sit out under the stars and chat.”
“Chat,” Carmen repeated, as though the simple word held a bunch of other meanings that Addie wasn’t admitting to.
