Ring of Truth (34 page)

It was her first kiss in years. Tara told herself not to lose her head, not let her brain melt and dribble out her ears. It was a goodbye kiss after all, even if it felt like a hello.

He released her. She wasn't cold anymore; she was burning up, her face aflame with embarrassment. She ducked her chin into the sweatshirt hood. At least it was dark. He couldn't see her flushed cheeks. Making up Justin, lying to everyone seemed like the dumbest thing she had ever done. If he knew, he would look at her with mocking contempt.

“Listen,” he said. “Let's get you home. Do you have to work tomorrow?”

She nodded.

“I'll text you when I find him.”

“Yes, please. And may I text you if I see him?”

“Sure.”

“Good.” Her bag felt heavy on her shoulder.

Hours later Tara sat in her window seat, holding her bear, trying to figure out how she had gone so wrong in her search for happiness. Before now it had never seemed wrong or harmful to pretend she had a boyfriend. Justin had been her strategy for deflecting her friends' sympathy and concern. He had been her way of entering conversations about men or relationships, and avoiding having her hopes dashed at the end of a promising evening. She had met no one who made her regret inventing him. Now the pretense came with a price.

Daniel was going to have his “magic” moment. She had settled for illusion. The green stone looked like a dead leaf, a withered green. She ought to put it back in its box and get on with her life. She pinched it between her thumb and forefinger and pulled, but the thing stuck on her knuckle.

Well, she could wear it two more days, until they found Eddie, and until she saw her last Belmont guests out the door, and then she would dump Justin and start over. If she had missed her chance with Jack, that was the price she had to pay for her deception. She looked at the ring to see whether it had brightened at her new plan.

Nope.

Tara received two texts before seven a.m., neither of them from Jack. The first was from Jennifer saying she was out sick, and asking if Tara could do part of her shift. The second was from Arturo telling her to be at the hotel for Jennifer's shift. At the registration desk, she checked departing guests out while sneaking frequent peaks at her phone. She had unblocked Jack, so he could let her know when he found Eddie. She knew he had not stopped looking.

During a lull, Hadley insisted that Tara come upstairs to look at the Tower Room, where the florist had come through with dozens of yellow roses and banks of yellow and white primroses making a garden path to the view of Coit Tower in the fog.

 “Imagine having a boyfriend who spends a fortune to give you all your favorite things. He must be so in love with her.” Hadley's Tinder guy was already history.

At three Arturo switched Tara from registration to her usual station at the concierge desk. He was treating Daniel's proposal party as a coup for the hotel and insisted that she double-check all the preparations. He clapped his hands to hurry any bellmen not moving their lingering guests along fast enough.

As the last of the hotel's other guests checked out, Daniel's friends and family began to arrive. Arturo hustled them into concealment in the conference room where they were to wait over wine and cheese for the signal to join the engaged couple in the Tower Room. He made a special effort for Nicola's prominent parents, and Tara kept her head down as Daniel's parents arrived. Arturo emerged from the conference room beaming with the triumph of having gathered such illustrious guests in his hotel. No one seemed to think that Nicola might say no. By four the fog had lightened just enough to promise a red and gold sunset. Tara had not heard from Jack.

The lobby was dead about thirty minutes before sunset when Tara got a text from Daniel that he and Nicola were on their way. Tara relayed the message to Arturo. Everyone got into position out of sight but ready to assist.

At fifteen minutes to sunset, right on schedule, Daniel's town car pulled up. Tara slipped into the background next to Arturo. George held the door open as Daniel and Nicola, absorbed in each other, passed through a lobby as empty as the Beast's castle. In the hush, the buzz of a text on Tara's phone made Arturo turn and glare. Tara looked at the message feeling instant relief then confusion.

Eddie's at your door.

She looked through the open lobby door to the street.
Eddie? Here?

 Daniel and Nicola had reached the middle of the lobby. Once they turned for the elevators, Tara could slip behind them for the door. Even as the thought occurred, she saw Eddie, framed in the doorway, poised to come in. She wanted to shout to him to wait, that she would come out, but he slipped past George and lurched into the lobby.

Tara took a step toward him, a hand outstretched, causing George's gaze to flicker her way. Arturo grabbed her wrist and hissed at her. Oblivious, Eddie angled his unsteady steps her way, until a cough doubled him over. At the sound of the cough, George turned and lunged for Eddie, a gloved hand reaching for his collar. Eddie simply crumpled, as quietly as if he were made of rags. George's hand closed on air. Eddie hit the rug with a thump.

Tara shook off Arturo and went down on her knees at Eddie's side.

“I brought Jack to you.” Eddie's voice croaked in the perfectly silent lobby, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Tara called to him and leaned down to check his breathing.

Arturo stood over her. “Move aside, Ms. Keegan.” She looked up as he signaled George to move to Eddie's feet. “George, call security. Let's get this fellow out of here.”

With her hands on Eddie's shoulders keeping him in place, Tara looked straight at George. “Call 9-1-1.” She did not break eye contact until George punched the number into his phone.

She hunched over to check Eddie's breathing again. “Can you hear me?”

“Ms. Keegan,” Arturo insisted. “This man does not belong here. You will move aside.” George stood at Eddie's muddied boots in his immaculate Belmont uniform. Arturo, reaching for Eddie's shoulders, hesitated, with an obvious reluctance to touch him.

A security man arrived, his shoulders the width of an SUV. He pushed Arturo aside and reached down to grab Eddie beneath the arms. “Back to the street you go, buddy.”

Tara leaned over Eddie. They would have to toss her out, too.

***

Jack passed through the untended hotel door. One glance took in the scene. Eddie lay in a heap on the expensive carpet with leaves in his hair and salty lines of dried sweat down the sides of his face. His body twitched, but he was breathing. Tara Keegan had flung herself across his trunk, in her eyes a fierce flash of determination to protect him from the three men who stood ready to heave his unconscious body out onto the pavement.

Jack took a careful step forward, a volatile mix of love and anger churning in him, aware that he might hit someone if he moved any faster. “Move that man, and you answer to me.”

All pairs of eyes turned to him. The security man dropped his hold. The uniformed functionary raised his hands and backed away. The guy in the suit sputtered something about the hotel not being responsible for trespassers.

Jack stared them down. “I'm a doctor. I say when this man may be moved.”

He waited for them to retreat and make enough space around Eddie and Tara for him to go to work. The lobby was oddly empty except for the couple, Daniel and Nicola. Jack could not conceive what they were doing, standing there watching. The atmosphere felt charged with anticipation.

His gaze met Nicola's, and he saw recognition there.

She pointed at him, shaking her head, and then at Tara. “He's not her fiancé, you know. He's single. He's from the Mr. Single San Francisco contest. I saw his picture. His name is Jack Reeder, Doctor Jack Reeder.”

“He's breathing, Jack.” Tara's voice drew his gaze back to Eddie.

Jack knelt at her side. He opened Eddie's coat and checked the pulse in his throat. Eddie was alive. Jack steadied himself. He just had to find the injury or illness. He ran his hands lightly over Eddie's head, keeping his movements both calm and assessing. He talked to Eddie the whole time, telling him what he was doing.

From the other side of the room he heard Daniel speak in an urgent whisper to Nicola. “Baby. Whatever. It's not our concern. I've got something I want you to see upstairs. It's... magic.”

His pleading voice seemed to reach her. “Magic?”

Daniel's voice came again. “It's a surprise. Let me show you.”

Jack kept his concentration on Eddie. “Help me get him on his side.”

Together they rolled Eddie over, and Jack tilted his head back, checking once more for breathing. He lifted Eddie's eyelids and continued his examination of Eddie's limbs and trunk.

When the paramedics arrived, Jack again identified himself as a doctor, and explained what he'd observed. For a few minutes they worked together. Then they had Eddie on a gurney, hooked up to an IV, and ready to move.

With a glance at her badge, one of the paramedics turned to Tara. “Does anybody know who this guy is?”

She started to answer, but Jack was first. “His name is Edward Reeder. He's my brother.”

His gaze met her shocked one over the gurney. He could imagine what she thought, the woman to whom Eddie had turned in his illness, the woman who hadn't hesitated to throw her body over his brother's, while he, who was supposed to be his brother's keeper, had failed to keep him from the streets. The naked exchange of glances between them ended, and Jack followed the gurney to the waiting ambulance.

***

Tara did not know what had just happened. She and Jack had been working together, hands and hearts focused on Eddie. Then the gurney had been between them, and Jack had confessed his true connection to Eddie. They should be closer than ever, and yet he'd looked at her as if an ocean of regret separated them.

She stood staring after them until Arturo stepped in front of her and snatched the badge from her lapel. “You no longer need this, Ms. Keegan,” he said through clenched teeth. He drew himself up, his shoulders back, head high. “You're done here. Finished. At the Belmont we have the highest standards of hospitality. Our duty is to our guests. We offer romance. We do not permit homeless trespassers to bring sickness and filth into our hotel. We don't tolerate any interference with our guests' comfort and security.”

Tara could see the ambulance doors closing. Arturo believed every word he said. It was the code he lived by, but he didn't really get hospitality, after all. “Eddie was a guest, Arturo. He was my guest. He needed and deserved my hospitality, so I gave it to him. Keep the badge.”

She grabbed her phone, and dashed for the curb. A red-orange sunset lit up the windows of North Beach and the slender white tower on the hill. Daniel would be proposing to Nicola. Tara hoped that the view, the cascade of yellow roses, the pretty tables, the delicious food were all the magic they needed. But she did not envy them. They needed
things
to make their romance happen. She needed something else, some
one
else.

She banged on the side of the ambulance. The hunky paramedic in the passenger seat lowered his window. “Sorry, miss. No one rides in the ambulance but family.”

“Where are you taking him?”

He shouted an answer as the ambulance pulled away.

Behind her the sun had set, leaving the west-facing windows of Telegraph Hill gray again in the fog. From the hotel a cheer went up. She glanced back and saw Daniel's friends swarm through the lobby toward the elevators, like sports fans celebrating a victory.

George closed the hotel door on the happy din.

***

Waiting for Jack, Tara had lots of time to think, and an ER waiting room was precisely the place to realize she wanted something quite different from the Mr. Wright she'd created in her head. The ER was as shabby and functional as the Belmont was elegant and luxurious. The harassed woman checking people in was a concierge in a way, helping people get their needs met. She didn't get to wear a chic suit or sit at a Chippendale desk. Instead she listened to people and met their needs with linoleum squares under her feet, perforated ceiling tiles overhead, and the smell of strong cleaning solution like a miasma over all. The only glamor about the place was in the glossy photos of celebrities on the tattered covers of last month's magazines.

Emergency room hospitality looked and smelled different from Belmont hospitality, but Tara recognized it as genuine hospitality. The ER took in everybody from Eddie to Daniel. You didn't need designer clothes or endless wealth to get a room. You just needed to be a human being in need. That was your ultimate claim on other people's compassion and help. Arturo's standard of hospitality was not the highest after all.

The ER was also a good place to realize that she wanted an ordinary man, a man without fancy labels or big deals to make him important in the world, a man who would buy a girl a sweatshirt when she was cold and shoulder her too-heavy bag, a man who needed her help and wanted to work with her, a man who could be harder on himself than on others. She wanted Jack.

She glanced at the ring on her finger. She had never seen it flash so bright. Its green was about hope, about fresh blades of grass, new leaves, the first buds of elm trees, and traffic lights that blinked
Go!
after eons of gridlock.

When Jack emerged from the examining rooms hours later, he looked dazed and surprised to see her, but she had never felt more clear. She stood and went to him.

“How is he?”

“He's dehydrated, which is probably why he passed out. And he has pneumonia, with a complication called pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac around the heart.”

“Which means?”

“They've admitted him. They'll give him fluids and antibiotics, and he'll get better.” He gave her a smile as tired as the wrinkled suit he had been wearing for twenty-four hours. She wanted to see him in jeans and a sweater, with his grin restored.

“Did you talk to him?”

“He wants to talk to you.” He sank into one of the orange plastic chairs. “I let him down again.”

The waiting room was momentarily empty. She sat beside him and considered what to say. He had not let anyone down. He couldn't. He was a man who took action, a man who wouldn't quit on a friend, or back down, or leave anyone behind, not even his homeless brother.

“Tell me,” she said.

Jack leaned forward, his hands dangling between his knees. “I'm a doctor. I have knowledge and skills. I help people every day, but I couldn't help my brother. Instead I lost him to the streets.” He looked at his hands as if they disgusted him. “It makes me feel...”

“Helpless?”

He nodded.

“What makes you think you let him down?” She reached over and pulled one of his hands into her lap.

He looked up. “He went to you, not me.”

Tara let out a long slow breath. Jack had no idea. She was going to have to tell him the truth, and maybe she would lose him yet. She started with the easy part. “It's easy for Eddie to come to me. Eddie knows I need him. He knows I don't have it all together.”

“You?” His look was plainly incredulous. “With your suits and your job, and that bag that has more stuff in it than an Ikea store.”

She nodded. “Eddie thinks
you
don't need
him
. He's the one who feels useless. He is supposed to be the older brother, isn't he? He was your hero, once, wasn't he?”

Jack nodded. “In high school. He was a three-sport, all league, MVP kind of guy, and a flirt as well.”

“But now he can't be your hero because you're successful and confident and capable, and he's a homeless guy.”

He shot her a sharp glance. “I thought that once. That was part of the problem between us, but I was wrong. You didn't judge him by his circumstances. You didn't ever see him as just a homeless guy, did you?”