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“Yeah.” Addie straightened her shoulders. “Chat. Just chat. And that’s it. That’s all. I’ve never gone out with him. It’s casual and it’s only conversation and you couldn’t even really call us friends.”
Carmen patted her hand. “I’m only saying I’m not surprised that PawPaw jumped to conclusions.”
Addie batted off her sister’s touch. “It is Brandon’s baby. I have never even kissed James Bravo.”
Carmen put up both hands. “Okay, okay. I believe you.”
“Oh, gee. Thanks a bunch.” Addie pressed a hand to her stomach, which had started churning again.
Carmen hooked an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “And I don’t want you upset.” She stroked Addie’s hair. It felt really good. Carmen was only two years older, but Addie had always looked up to her. When you grow up without a mom, a good big sister really helps. Carmen chided, “It’s bad for the baby, for you to get so upset.”
“No kidding.” Grudgingly, Addie leaned her head on her big sister’s shoulder.
“Just breathe and relax. We’re going to get through this. PawPaw is going to be fine—and here come the guys.”
Addie glanced up and saw that James and Devin had just come around the corner from the elevators. “I don’t like the way you say the guys. Like James is suddenly part of the family.”
“Honey, stop overreacting. It’s only going to make you want to throw up.”
Well, okay. That was true. And Carmen was right. They just needed to stay calm and support each other. There’d been more than enough drama today to last Addie a lifetime.
So she focused on speaking softly, on being grateful—for her sister and Devin. And yes, for James, too. He’d made a horrible time a lot less awful and she needed to remember how much she owed him.
She drank her tea and ate the toast James had brought her. Strangely enough, she’d kept more food down in the past few hours than she had in days. Yet another reason to be grateful to James.
When she finished her tea and toast, she realized she was completely exhausted. She leaned her head back against the wall behind her and closed her eyes just for a minute.
* * *
The next thing she knew, James was rubbing her arm, stroking her hair, whispering in her ear, “Addie, wake up. The doctor’s coming...”
With a sharp cry she sat bolt upright—and realized she’d been sound asleep, her head on James’s broad shoulder. The big clock on the far wall showed that over an hour had passed since she leaned back and closed her eyes.
And James was right.
Levi’s surgeon had emerged from the long hallway between the double doors and was coming right for them.
Chapter Three (#ulink_6596bca5-836d-5f0e-a356-e0c9b14f8f3e)
They all popped to their feet at once—James, Addie, Carmen and Devin. And then they waited in a horrible, breath-held silence until the doctor, still in surgical scrubs with a matching cap on his head and a mask hanging around his neck, reached them and started speaking.
Addie watched his mouth move and tried to listen to what he was saying, but her heart was beating so damn loud and her blood made a whooshing sound as it spurted through her body and the words were really hard to understand.
But then Carm said, “Oh, thank God.”
And Addie put it together: he’d made it. PawPaw had survived the surgery.
* * *
Forty-five minutes later, they all proceeded to a new waiting room, this one adjacent to the Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit, which was five floors up from surgery and in another wing.
A nurse came out and led Addie and Carmen through automatic doors and down a hall to one of those rooms full of curtained cubicles. In this room, all the curtains were drawn back. There were twenty beds, two rows of ten, half of them with patients in them. Nurses, doctors and technicians moved between the beds and back and forth from the group of desks that formed a command center in the middle of the room. The nurse led them to the left side of the room, the third bed from the door. Addie clutched for Carm’s hand and when she got it, she held on tight.
Levi lay on the hospital bed with a tube down his throat and another in his nose. There were tubes and wires hooked to his chest, and more of them disappearing under the blankets. And there was an IV in the back of his hand and another in the crook of his arm. Both arms were strapped to the bed; Addie assumed that was to keep him from pulling out any of the complicated apparatus that hooked him up to the various machines. There was a ventilator by the bed. It wheezed softly as it pushed air in through the tube in his mouth.
He looked terrible, every line in his craggy face dug in deeper than before. But he did open his eyes briefly. It seemed he saw them, recognized them. But then a second later, his eyelids drooped shut. Together, still clutching each other’s hands, Addie and Carm moved closer, up to the head of the bed. Gently, so lightly, Addie dared to touch his pale forehead below the blue cap that covered his hair.
He groaned and opened his eyes again.
Carm touched his wiry upper arm at a rare spot where no tube or needle was stuck. “I’m here, PawPaw. We’re both here. You made it through your surgery and you’re going to get well.”
“We love you,” said Addie, biting back tears. “We love you so much.”
His red-rimmed blue eyes tracked—from Addie, to Carmen, back to Addie again. And then he tried to speak. “Aiff. Air aiff?”
Carm said, “Shh, don’t try to talk now. The tube’s in the way.”
But he wouldn’t shush. “Aiff? Ear? Aiff?” He tried to lift an arm, found it pinned to the bed and groaned in frustration.
Addie stroked his brow. “Shh, PawPaw. Don’t. You’ll only hurt your throat.”
The nurse who’d brought them in approached again. Addie and Carmen stepped back and the nurse bent close to Levi. “Easy, now, Levi. It’s okay. We’ll find out what you want and get it for you. I’ve got a pencil and a paper...” She pulled a small tablet and a pencil out of her pocket.
He nodded, making a harsh gargling sound around the tube.
“Is he left-handed?” she asked.
Carm said, “No, right-handed.”
The nurse eased the tablet under his right hand and wrapped his scarred, knotted old fingers around the pencil. He gripped it and scratched at the paper.
When he stopped, the nurse asked, “Is that it?”
Levi grunted a yes.
The nurse took the tablet and read, “Jane? You want to see Jane?”
Another grunt accompanied by a head shake.
Addie knew. “James,” she said bleakly. “You want James.”
More grunting, but this time with a nod. Her grandpa stared right at her, daring her to produce the man he demanded to see.
She turned away—and there was Carm, looking all innocent, giving a little “what can you do about it?” shrug.
“Fine,” Addie said and tried not to sound as fed up as she felt. “I’ll get him.”
Levi grunted again. To Addie, the sound was way too triumphant.
The nurse took her out and waited by the double doors.
Devin and James jumped to their feet again at the sight of her. She marched up to James, blew out a breath of pure frustration and said, “I’m sorry. He’s asking to see you.”
“Uh. Sure.”
“I hate to ask you to go in there.”
“I don’t mind. Honestly, I don’t.”
“It only encourages him in his ridiculous delusions.”
James held her eyes steadily. “Addie. Right now we just want him happy and calm, right?”
“Yeah. But what if you weren’t here?”
“But I am here.”
And you shouldn’t be. But she didn’t say that out loud. Because he’d been a lifesaver and she was so grateful to him it made an ache down in the heart of her. She turned to Devin. “Don’t be hurt that PawPaw didn’t ask for you. You know he thinks the world of you.”
“I’m not hurt.” Dev seemed to mean it. “I’m just glad he’s pulled through the surgery all right.” He clapped James on the shoulder. “Good luck, man.”
James made a low noise in his throat that could have meant anything and fell in beside Addie as she marched back to where the nurse waited to lead them through the double doors.
In CSICU, Carm stood by the bed holding Levi’s hand. His eyes were shut. But he must have heard their footsteps, because, with obvious effort, he opened them again and focused instantly in on James.
“Levi,” James said mildly. “See? I’m right here and I’m going nowhere.” Addie gasped and shot him a sharp look, but he kept his gaze on Levi as he softly added, “Rest now.”
Levi blinked a couple of times, as if to reassure himself that his old eyes and his drugged mind weren’t playing any tricks on him. Then, with a low, rough sound of pure satisfaction, he closed his eyes and didn’t open them again, though the three of them stood there for several more minutes. Finally, the nurse bustled over and whispered that it was time to go. They would be allowed back in for brief visits—no more than two of them at a time, please—for as long as Levi stayed in intensive care.
They filed back out to the waiting room, where Carmen went straight to Devin. She sagged against him. He gathered her in and stroked her hair as Addie told herself she was not, under any circumstances, going to sidle up close to James and hope that he might wrap those big arms around her.
James said, “I’ve got a room at the Marriott down the street. I figure we can take turns using it. For showers, naps, whatever.”
Carm beamed at him from her husband’s arms. “Great idea. Addie should go first. She looks dead on her feet.”
Addie sent her sister a quelling glance and asked James, “When did you have time to get a room at the Marriott?”
All twinkly blue eyes and easy charm, he coaxed, “Come on, don’t look so suspicious. I made a phone call when you two went in to see Levi. The Marriott had rooms available—you know, being a hotel and all? So I got us one.”
He’d done way more than she should have let him do and she needed to put an end to it. Immediately. “We have to talk.”
He frowned. “Now, Addie—”
“Go ahead,” said Carm with a shooing motion. “You two work it out. We’ll be right here.”
Addie so didn’t like the way Carm had shooed her—as if she and James had had some lovers’ spat they needed to resolve. But she could deal with her sister later. Now she and James had to get a few things straight.
She whirled and marched across the waiting room to a grouping of chairs along the other wall. When she got there, she dropped into one.
James took his sweet time following, but finally he sat down next to her. “What’s the problem now?”
She turned and met his beautiful eyes and said sincerely, “It’s enough—no, it’s too much, all you’ve done. And I thank you so much for everything. But my grandfather’s out of surgery now. You said yourself that you were only staying to see that he made it through all right. Well, he has. And Carm and Devin are here, to help me. You don’t need to stay anymore.”
He studied her face for several nerve-racking seconds. Then he shook his head. “I’ve reconsidered.”
Somehow she made herself ask him quietly, “Reconsidered what?”
“Levi wants me here. And he needs to have what he wants—at least until he’s out of the woods.”
“But he is out of the woods.”
“Addie. He’s almost eighty. He’s just been through major surgery. You know you want him relaxed and focused on getting well. You don’t want anything preying on his mind.”
Okay, that was true. She didn’t want PawPaw upset. But sometimes, well, people just didn’t get things the way they wanted them. “I can’t help it if he insists on lying to himself.” She blew out a hard breath. “Uh-uh. He needs to accept that he’s got it all wrong and get past his totally out-there assumption that you are the father of my baby. As long as you’re here, that’s not going to happen. As long as you’re here, he can tell himself his crazy-ass plan to marry us at gunpoint is working the same as it worked when he pulled it on Dev and Carmen.”
“So what if he tells himself his plan is working?”
She was gaping again. She’d been doing way too much of that recently. “What do you mean, so what? His plan is not working. It’s never going to work. You are not my baby’s daddy and PawPaw needs to learn to accept that.”
“And he will. When he’s ready. But he’s not ready now. All I’m saying is let me help. Let him believe what he needs to believe until he’s back on his feet.”
God. He was not only big and strong and kind and helpful, with that killer smile and those damn twinkly eyes. He not only looked good and smelled way too manly and tempting. He was also so calm and logical. And what he said actually seemed to make a bizarre kind of sense.
And she was so darn tired. She kept thinking of that room he’d taken at the Marriott. Of a shower and clean sheets and a few hours of much-needed sleep.
He leaned closer, filling her tipped-over world with his strength and his steadiness. “Come on, Addie.” His deep, smooth voice washed through her, so soothing, making her want to lean into him, to curl into a ball and cuddle up close. “Let me help you. I want to help you.”
“Why?”
The question seemed to hang in the charged air between them.
And then he actually answered it. “I like it, helping you. I honestly do. I like Levi and I want him to get well.”
“Even after what he did to you?”
James chuckled. “He’s a determined old guy. I admire that. I’m not crazy about his methods, but his intentions are good.”
She almost laughed. “What’s that they say about good intentions paving the road to hell?”
“Addie, lighten up.”
“You shouldn’t make excuses for him.”
“I’m not. And it’s not really all that complicated, or it doesn’t have to be. I’ll just hang around for a few days, help out however I can, until your grandfather’s better.”
“Define better.”
He dodged right on by that one. “Can’t we just play that by ear, see how he does?”
