Counting On It (Hearts for Ransom Book 1) (14 page)

“I expect you to mind your manners and respect your elders,” Jesse gravely advised Austin before giving him an awkward hug. Austin then stopped by the bus door where Abby and Emily were standing and politely embraced each one. Jesse had indeed seemed to have made a difference in a young man’s life.

All of the boys, except Trevor and Seth, were on the bus. Pastor Rhinehart stood patiently waiting as they said their goodbyes.

“I’ll see you soon,” Bo told Seth. “Your aunt Janet said I can visit you whenever I want. I’ll bring my girlfriend, Liz, with me. You’ll like each other.”

“Can just you and me do guy things sometimes?” Seth asked, his eyes tearing up.

Bo’s eyes were suspiciously bright as he hugged the boy. “We sure can, buddy. We’ll go fishing, and I’m going to teach you how to play ball. We’ll have fun.”

“Okay.”

Both women had to wipe their eyes before they hugged Seth and let him get on the bus.

“I called your grandpa, and he’s expecting me first thing Monday morning.” Logan was speaking to Trevor. Mason would be in charge of the business until Logan finished up at the Rymans’ house.

“Will I see you?” Trevor asked him.

“Sure.” Logan gave him a quick hug. “When you’re not in school, you can come to work with your grandpa sometimes. You’ll like my mom, too. You can go there with your grandma as often as you’d like.”

“But what about just you and me?” Trevor’s voice quivered.

“I’ll find the time, and we’ll try to go with Bo and Seth sometimes. Would you like that?”

Trevor nodded, then with a grin on his face, hugged both of the women before getting on the bus.

Emily had barely turned to walk away when Paul Findley appeared in front of her.

“I’m sorry, Emily, to ask you like this, but it might be my only chance.” His hazel eyes were clear. “I’d really like to see you again. I know we both have busy schedules, but if I can get over here on Friday night, can you leave long enough to go to dinner with me?”

Emily was well aware that they had an audience, but she decided to ignore them. Paul was a very kind man, and he was handsome—a doctor, even.

“I’d like that,” she told him. “I’ll just have to be back by ten.”

He smiled brightly, relief on his face. “I’ll just bring dinner with me, then. Okay?”

She nodded.

He gave her a quick hug, then re-boarded the bus.

She stood beside Abby, waving goodbye to the twelve young men she had come to care about.

“Brody and I are going for a short walk before they leave.” Abby had laid down the law with him, and he had responded just the way she hoped. He asked her to dinner—only dinner—at a nice restaurant on the following Saturday.

“Okay.”

Emily was about halfway back to her motorhome, still relying on the crutch when Logan caught up with her.

“So, Miss Perfect Scott has found her Dr. Perfect Findley. You can still have your ‘perfect’ life.”

If he was going to be like that… “Back to name calling? How about if I take a turn? Liar. Phony. Two-faced. Poser.”

“I’m so sorry I’m not perfect and don’t fit into your little fairy tale world! I’m human and I make mistakes—big ones sometimes. But you never do, do you? You never have. I could always count on that.” There was that smirk again.

She turned to face him. “I made a great big mistake when I believed that you might actually care about me. That your kisses…what we shared…was real. So, yes, you jerk, I make mistakes.”

“Well, it
was
real, and you know it, you obstinate woman, if you could get over yourself long enough to see it!”

“Lies, lies, lies! Kristine?!” she called to the photographer, who was just about to get into her car. “Is this a good pose?” Emily slapped Logan’s face. “Leave this campground and don’t come back. Boone’s reserves the right to refuse service to anybody we deem unfit to use these facilities. You, Logan Taylor, are as unfit as anybody I’ve ever seen.” She turned and hobbled away with as much dignity as she could muster.

Logan stared at her. Oh, no she didn’t.

He easily caught up with her and moved to stand right in front of her.

“Just one more thing before I leave.” He reached around her waist and pulled her into his arms. Then he kissed her. He put everything he had into that kiss, but she didn’t respond. He could have been kissing a store mannequin and gotten more of a reaction.

He finally let go of her and stepped back.

“If you’re finished, perhaps you can get your butt out of here like I told you to.” Emily remained calm although she didn’t know how she managed. Just like she didn’t know how she’d been able to resist his kiss when everything inside of her wanted to return it.

Logan looked at her with disbelief. She was really finished with him. There wasn’t going to be a second chance.

“For what it’s worth, Emily, what I felt…what I
feel
for you is real, whether you believe it or not. And I’m sorrier than you can imagine that I hurt you.” He searched her eyes, praying for hope, but seeing only emptiness. “I hope you have a happy life. I won’t bother you again.”

He stepped around her and walked to where the rest of his friends were already packing their tents. Brody had loaded his before he left with Abby.

He took one last look at Emily limping up the steps into her camper. Then he turned to leave.

“Emily, did you hear me? I asked if you’d like another glass of wine.” Paul leaned over and softly touched her cheek.

They were sitting on a large, cotton sheet with their food spread in front of them. Emily had already finished one glass of wine with her meal. Paul was an entertaining dinner partner and she hadn’t even realized she was drinking it.

“I better not,” she told him. “I’ll get too sleepy to make my night rounds.”

“Speaking of rounds, do you remember Danny Adams? He was paired up with Matt Newman.”

She didn’t want to talk about the boys or the Slammers, but she needed to be polite. “Yes.”

“My friend, Luther Timmons, maybe you know him?”

“I’m familiar with the name. He’s a pediatrician, isn’t he?” As best as Emily could remember, he wasn’t very well thought of by the hospital staff—something about being too full of himself.

“That’s him,” Paul confirmed. “Anyway, he had to admit Danny this past Wednesday for an emergency appendectomy. When he made his rounds on Thursday morning, he said the center fielder for the Slammers was sitting there talking to him, so I guess Matt must be keeping in touch.

“I’m glad,” was all she could think to say.

“Do you miss the emergency room?”

“Believe it or not, I do.” She was starting to go a little stir-crazy. Aaron had watched the campground the day before so she could drive into town for a little more shopping than her regular weekly grocery excursion allowed. Retail therapy hadn’t helped as much as she hoped.

“Do you deal with the transfers by ambulance much?” Patients sometimes needed to be picked up by ambulances from nursing homes or assisted living facilities and brought to the hospital for tests or treatments.

She shook her head, but then remembered an amusing story. “One of the other nurses, Butch, is a big guy. He handles most of the transfers. One time he had gotten a man out of the nursing home and had him on the gurney in the driveway. Butch forgot to set the brakes and turned to talk to one of the nursing home staff. Meanwhile, the patient is slowly rolling down the lane, his bed lowering as it rolled.” Paul joined in on her laughter. “By the time Butch caught him, he’d rolled right under a parked car—a squad car!”

“The patient wasn’t injured, was he?” Paul asked, his eyes crinkled with laughter.

Emily shook her head. “The poor guy laughed so hard his dentures fell out. The police officer ended up having to move the car so Butch could find them—after he had the patient safely in the ambulance, of course.”  It felt good to laugh like this.

“I bet you get a lot of nutcases.”

“Like I told Log…” She had to gather her thoughts. “We get all kinds of patients. Some of them think we’re their doctor’s office. What really aggravates me, though, are the ones who think they can just come in and get some new drugs.”

“People do that?” She could forgive him his ignorance. After all, there probably weren’t many dermatological emergencies.

“This one patient, Micki, comes in at least once a week with a new ailment. She suggests to whichever doctor is on call that codeine or something stronger is just what she needs. Whatever it is has worked just fine for her in the past.”

“How do you handle somebody like her?” He seemed genuinely interested.

“The doctor examines her, then prescribes plain old ibuprofen or acetaminophen, or gives her a sugar pill.”

She realized Paul was looking at her strangely.

“What? Do I have food stuck between my teeth?” She started to feel with her finger.

He chuckled as he pulled her hand away from her mouth. “You’re perfect. I was just thinking how perfect—how beautiful—you are.”

Perfect. Logan had called her perfect. She pushed him out of her mind. “Thank you, but I’m not perfect.”

“Emily, I know this is only our second date, but may I please kiss you?” His eyes flashed with something—desire?

Maybe that’s what she needed to get
him
out of her head. She nodded.

Paul leaned over and his lips brushed against hers. His arm went around her and he pulled her against him as he kissed her more firmly, increasing his efforts. It should have been a sexy kiss, but Emily felt…lips pressed against hers and somebody else’s tongue in her mouth.

He slowly drew back, looking at her knowingly. “You’re in love with Taylor, aren’t you?”

Unbidden tears started streaming down her face. “I’m afraid I am.”

“Why aren’t you with him?” Paul asked softly.

Her vision cleared as she looked at him. “You know what he did to me—the pictures in the paper so he could keep his team going?”

“I heard it when the guys were talking about it,” he admitted. “They were pretty mad at him.”

“Well, that’s why I’m not with him.”

A perplexed expression on his face, he asked, “You can’t forgive him for that?”

Emily wanted to scream. “Logan and I have a history. We went all the way through school together.”

“So, you’re childhood friends?”

She let out an unladylike snort. “Hardly. He did everything possible to make my life a walking, talking nightmare.”

Paul sat back and shifted to get comfortable. “Like what?”

He’d asked for it. “It started our very first year—in kindergarten. He tied my shoelaces together during rest time. I had dozed off. When I stood up and started to walk to the table, I fell and since I was wearing a dress, the whole class saw my panties.”

Paul grinned at her. “That sounds like a childish prank any mischievous little boy would pull.”

“If only he stopped there.” She had just gotten started. “Over the years—even in high school—he did stuff like that to me. He glued my art paper to his. He glued my
bottom
to my desk chair. Logan cut a good three inches off of my ponytail when he was horsing around in art. I think we were in third grade then.”

“In biology, he somehow talked our teacher into making us lab partners. He made our dead frog ‘talk’ to me during the entire time we dissected it. Then he ‘brought it back to life’ and put a live frog down the back of my blouse.” She raised her eyebrows. “We were juniors in high school when he pulled that stunt.”

“He stopped by your senior year, didn’t he?” Paul asked, obviously trying not to laugh. Men!

“Oh, no. That’s when he became even more creative. He somehow smuggled a blowtorch out of shop and welded my locker shut. I still have no idea how my car ended up in the middle of the ball diamond on a game day. I almost lost my parking permit over that one.” It still made her angry.

“Why didn’t any of the teachers or your parents do anything about it?” He was trying to hide it, but he was still fighting laughter.

“He was already in trouble most of the time, anyway. I think he was blamed for any transgression, whether he was the perpetrator or not.” She had actually felt sorry for him a couple of times. She witnessed Billy Williams break the glass in the trophy case, but Logan had been the one served with detention. Emily had always justified her silence by thinking his discipline for something he didn’t do made up for all the stuff he had gotten away with doing to her.

“My dad was involved once, though.” It was the angriest she had ever seen him. “Logan got my car keys and flushed them down the toilet. My dad teaches in Hazard, which you know is a good forty-five-minute drive from Ransom. He had to get a substitute teacher and take off for the afternoon just to bring me the extra key. If he’d have known it was Logan who did it, I’m not sure whether Logan would still be breathing the same air we are.”

“Wait a minute,” Paul interjected. “What do you mean,
if
he’d have known Logan flushed them? Why didn’t you tell him?”

Emily shrugged. “You tell me, and we’ll both know.” She remembered what she believed had been an honest expression of surprise on Logan’s face when he told her they went down. He hadn’t thought they would flush. He was going to fish them out and wash them off before giving them back to her. She still didn’t know why she let him off the hook.

Paul finally laughed. And laughed.

Emily sat there, her arms crossed. “I’m glad you find a girl being tortured so amusing. It wasn’t fun to experience, believe me.”

“I’m…I’m sorry,” he managed to say. He slowly sobered, a few chuckles still escaping. “Emily, you’ve just described a boy who was trying to get your attention all the way through school. He was crazy about you.”

Her first response was to vehemently deny it. After all, there were many much more orthodox ways for a boy to show a girl he liked her—like giving her flowers and candy or writing sappy love notes—not spreading a coat of glue on her chair and gleefully waiting for her to sit on it.

Then she considered Paul’s words. Logan himself had commented about wanting her “perfect” life and being jealous. Could it have been more than that? Could he have
liked
her?

“If he was after me, then why hadn’t I seen him for seven years before he showed up here?”

Paul looked at her sympathetically. “Did you ever give him any reason to believe he’d have a chance with you?”

She slowly shook her head. Her words had been her only weapon—mean and hateful.

“Maybe he figured it was time to cut his losses.” Paul shrugged. He began to gather the dishes of food, snapping lids back on them before placing them back into the basket he’d brought. “I’ll be honest with you, Emily.”

What other revelations was he going to present her with?

“I saw you with Logan…I mean, as soon as I realized what was going on, I went back into my tent. I didn’t know anything about the pictures, though. I promise you.”

Her face warmed with humiliation. Would this never end? Would she eventually find out the entire group of men had somehow witnessed Logan and her becoming intimate on the picnic table? Maybe she should have sold tickets and offered popcorn.

“Why did you want to date me?” she finally asked Paul.

Paul smiled at her. “I really like you, Emily, but like Logan, I know when to cut my losses and run.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not going to try to build a relationship with a woman who is in love with another man. It would be a waste of my time and yours.” He stood and picked up the basket full of leftovers. “Thank you for having dinner with me, Emily. I hope you and Logan get it figured out so you can be happy.”

She stayed sitting, feeling miserable. Logan had used her, and now Paul was rejecting her. She was a real winner.

She was still sitting there when he drove away.

“Emily.” Her heart jumped into her throat.

“Aaron, don’t ever sneak up on me like that again. I almost had a coronary!” Her heart was still racing.

“I’m sorry, Em.” It was then that she noticed the look on his face.

“What’s wrong? Is it Sara?” He had already been through on his afternoon run. It was nearly eight o’clock, too late for him to be there.

He sadly shook his head, then sank to his knees in front of her. “It’s your parents, Em. The police just told me…I’m so sorry, sweetheart, but there’s been a terrible accident.”

Emily started to stand up. “I have to get to my mom and dad. They need me. You’ll have to take care of the campground yourself. I’m going…”

Aaron gently held her arms, keeping her down. “Emily, they didn’t make it. I’m so, so sorry.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “What do you mean, they didn’t make it? Of course, they’re fine. Somebody has made a mistake—that’s all. I bet the Hendersons were…they’re the ones. Mom and Dad are fine. I’m going down there to them. You’ll see.”

Aaron pulled her into his arms. “They’ve made a positive ID, Emily. All four of them were in a motorboat going from the yacht to the shore. Another boat crashed into theirs, and both boats exploded upon impact. They were all killed instantly.” Aaron was crying. “I asked the police officer, Em. I wanted to be sure before I told you. All the bodies were recovered and positively identified. Sweetheart, it happened three days ago. It’s taken this long for them to make sure who they were and notify me. I’m sorry, Emily.”

She blindly shook her head and began chanting. “No…no…no.” She screamed, “No!” and fell against Aaron, sobbing her heart out. Her mom and dad couldn’t be dead. They had so much living left to do. What would she do without them? She was never going to stop crying.

Aaron held her, still crying too. “Abby’s on her way. Is there anything else I can do for you, Em?”

“I need Logan,” she choked out. “Get me Logan.”

“Okay. I’ll call him as soon as Abby gets here to stay with you. I’m not leaving you alone.” He hugged her against him. “No matter what, Emily Irene Scott, you’ll never be alone. You’ll always have Sara and me. We love you like a daughter.”

“I love you too, but I want my mom and dad.” She began to sob uncontrollably again. It might have been minutes, or it might have been hours before she heard a familiar voice.

“Oh, Em, I’m sorry.” Abby had taken Aaron’s place. “Emily, it’s dark out here. Will you go inside with me?”

Emily didn’t care. She didn’t want to move. If she stayed here, it would all go away. It would just be a bad dream.