Divine Charity (26 page)

“I’m starting to get really stiff,” Justine commented, grimacing as the cast impeded her efforts to wiggle into a more comfortable position. “Ready for a night of being awakened every two hours?”

With a sigh and a grimace, Charity remembered again why she hadn’t wanted to stay overnight in the hospital. It would’ve been much nicer to be awakened during the night by one of her guys. Not that they could do much. But it would be home at least.

* * * *

“Nice try, beautiful,” Noah said with a smirk on his handsome face.

Justine held up the clunky cast on her right arm and pointed at it and gave him a
“like, duh!”
look but he shook his head and kept on pushing her wheelchair in the direction of the exit.

“The prom isn’t for a month, Justine. And even if you still have the cast on your arm, I’ll want you to be my date.”

“So you say now, until I accidently conk you in the head with this thing while we’re dancing. Besides, my dress and all the stuff to go with it were in the back of Mom’s SUV which I heard is a total wreck.”

Noah snorted behind her as he wheeled her into the elevator and leaned down so his lips were next to her ear. “Your dad told me that Val and Ransome saved all of your stuff. Your dress is undamaged and waiting for you at home.” He rested his forearms on the wheelchair handles and wrapped them around her gently, careful of squeezing her stiff and achy body too hard. Heat raced into her cheeks as he pressed a light kiss to her temple, the first time he’d ever done anything like that.

Justine’s throat constricted in reaction to his touch. “I just wanted you to know you have an out if you wanted it. I wouldn’t hold it against you.”

“Why would I want an out? And the only thing I want to hold against me is you.”

She gasped as he chuckled behind her and wheeled her out of the elevator as the doors slid open. She was about to reply when she saw her dad in the hallway.

He handed the truck keys to Noah and said, “Will you help her into the truck, son?”

“Sure,” Noah said with a nod. Her stiff neck probably wouldn’t allow it but Justine wished she could see Noah’s reaction to being called son. Then she remembered that her dad had been calling Noah “son” for years. It just seemed to mean more somehow.

“Sweetie, I’m on my way up to get your mom. She told me she was going upstairs to see Grace for a minute before leaving, so just sit tight.”

Justine half expected her dad to give Noah “the Intimidator look” but he didn’t. He just stepped into the elevator and reached for the button. He gave her a wink as the doors slid closed.

A little surprised, Justine laughed and said, “Have you been sucking up?”

“Me? No. Your dad—sorry
dads
—are cool. And I still want to know why you think I’d want out of our prom date.”

Biting her lip, Justine murmured, “I don’t know why I said that.”

The automatic doors opened as they approached them and he rolled her to a stop beside the four-door truck and keyed the remote to unlock it. “Justine, you’ve never struck me as the kind of girl who doesn’t say exactly what’s on her mind.”

Her head ached where she’d hit it as she frowned and said, “Hey, I do not—”

“I didn’t mean that the way you think I meant it,” he said as he squatted down so they were eye level, which she appreciated, given her sore neck. “You obviously thought I meant you talk too much but that’s not it at all. You’re not yappy, like some girls I know. You’re careful about what you say but I can rely on you to say what you mean, mostly because you’ve thought it out.”

She frowned again, wondering how he’d drawn that conclusion. She’d have thought until the last few weeks that she’d barely even registered on his radar.

He smiled at her and raised an eyebrow as if he was waiting.

“Oh. Well…I figured that you might’ve reconsidered about dating me and I just wanted you to know that I’d understand…”
Oh, shut up. He obviously had a high opinion of your reasoning skills and now you’re sounding more and more like you don’t know your own mind. Just shut up.

Judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t satisfied with her answer as he stood and opened the rear door to the truck and then moved to her side. She braced herself to stand and yelped softly as he put his arm around her back and under her thighs. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry. I should’ve warned you first. Relax and let me lift you.”

Oh, hell no!

“No, no,
no
, you don’t have to do that,” she said with skyrocketing trepidation. “I don’t want you in a back brace for the prom.”

He relaxed his hold at her words, made a disgusted noise, and then moved around in front of her. “I am perfectly capable of lifting you.” He looked offended.

“I’m not skinny like Maggie. Okay?
Okay
?” she asked, exasperation rising up in her for having to explain.

His frustration showed in the way he gritted his teeth but he didn’t bark back at her. He just gazed at her for a few seconds and then that slow sideways smile that always made a warm knot form in her stomach crossed his lips. Instead of speaking, he took action.

Returning to her side, he curled his arms around her again and lifted her with seemingly little effort and gently placed her in the seat. Now that they were nearly at eye level with each other, he said, “When I think about Maggie, I don’t think how little she weighed. I think about how she talked too much, and too loud, and how controlling she was, how she threw fits for attention. When I’m with you, I’m not worried about how much you weigh. I’m always wondering what you’re thinking behind those beautiful blue eyes. I’m wondering what it would feel like to put my arms around you. And how it would feel to kiss you. I’m not trying to figure out ways to not date you or trying to figure out how to get out of taking you to prom. Tell me what’s really bothering you.”

Noah’s words disarmed her. Her heart pounded as she reached for words to explain and then realized there was no need to sugarcoat it. “I’m going to miss you when you leave after graduation.” She looked down because her eyes stung and she prayed that the tears didn’t form.
Don’t be a ninny!

He tipped her chin up with his index finger and mesmerized her with his warm chocolate-brown eyes. “I didn’t brave the gauntlet with your dads to back out on you now, beautiful.” He looked aside for a second and she saw the tension of a fleeting emotion cross his face and then he looked back at her. “And I’ll miss you, too.”

Standing so close to her, his masculine scent—a somehow comforting combination of fresh laundry and his own clean skin—teased her senses and made her heart flutter. He leaned closer, still holding her gaze, and she wondered for a split second if he could hear her heart pounding.

His warm lips brushed across hers, tentative as the touch of a butterfly, as if giving her the opportunity to pull back before returning. He stroked her cheekbone and kissed her once more, his lips brushing against hers with slight pressure and the barest teasing flick of the tip of his tongue. The warm sensation of his touch lingered as he drew back and smiled at her. There was no teasing in his eyes, only sincerity as he said, “I wish we’d had more time.”

Just then she caught a glimpse of her father wheeling her mom out of the first set of automatic doors. “Yeah, my parents are coming,” she whispered breathlessly.

“No, beautiful. I meant I wish we had more than just this spring together before I leave. I’ll be right back.”

“Uh…oh,” she replied, placing a hand to her lips as he backed the wheelchair away from the truck, closed her door, and turned the wheelchair to take it back into the hospital.

Her dad helped her mom into the front passenger seat, lifting her in the same manner Noah had just lifted her. Noah accepted the wheelchair from her dad and took it back in for him before jogging around the truck to the other rear door. There was a twinkle in his eyes as he climbed in and sat beside her.

He had my first kiss all this time.

* * * *

A couple of days after the accident, Ransome waited with Charity and Val as their friend Vincent Elder had a brief, quiet conversation with a nurse in the ICU department. Ransome felt funny about being there, like he was intruding, but Vincent gave them a reassuring nod and led them to the curtained, glass-walled cubicle Patterson was currently in. Vincent’s eyes were bloodshot and tired-looking as he paused and listened through the curtain barrier.

A soft, female voice filtered through the thin fabric, the sound of someone reading aloud. Vincent lowered his eyes and smiled and then he looked up at them. “She’s reading his favorite Zane Grey novel to him.”

Looking ready to start crying, Charity put a hand on Vincent’s forearm as he reached for the opening in the curtain and she whispered, “Vincent, we don’t want to interrupt Leah if she’s spending time with him.” Ransome agreed, especially knowing that Patterson might not make it. He didn’t know Leah well, but the last thing he wanted was to cut into her remaining time with him.

Vincent shook his head with certainty and said, “I need to get her out of here for a little while and see if I can’t get her to eat something.”

Ransome felt a bewildering mix of discomfort and sympathy for the little brunette who looked up from her seat beside Patterson Elder’s hospital bed. With one hand she was holding open a tattered paperback on the bed, while holding his hand with the other.

Looking exhausted, she glanced at the three of them and then gave her attention to Vincent as he went over to her and squatted down. “Doll, let’s take you to get you something to eat, okay? You remember Charity, Val, and Ransome? They want to visit Patterson for a few minutes.”

“Of course,” she said, her voice sounding weary and somehow older than her years. “But I don’t want to leave for very long and I don’t want to go very far.”

“You got it. Don’t forget your purse,” he said as she followed him.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Yeah. Silly of me.” She smiled at Charity when she reached out to pat her shoulder but the smile didn’t reach her sad eyes.

Charity’s chin was trembling as the curtains swung closed and then the three of them turned back to the man lying in the bed. The sounds of the equipment monitoring his vital functions was a backdrop to the discomfort of watching his friend slipping away by slow degrees.

Ransome indicated for her to take the chair Leah had just vacated. She cleared her throat as she sat down and covered Patterson’s hand with her own, giving it a gentle squeeze. The quiet in the room grew as he searched his mind for something to say. When he’d suggested the three of them visit Patterson, he’d thought it was a good idea.

Charity sniffled and braced her elbow on the bed while resting her forehead in her open palm. When she finally spoke, it was to the two of them. “The day could come when we’re forced into a situation like this…”

Val walked over to her and gathered her long golden hair into his hand. His hands were shaking a little bit and he looked as if he was having a hard time, too. “Baby, don’t…”

Looking up at him, she gave him a sad smile. “Like it or not, it could. If I’m in a situation like Patterson’s I don’t want the three of you approving valiant measures to keep me alive. I have a living will. If there’s no hope I want you to let me go.”

Ransome nodded in agreement when Val cast a questioning glance his way and then said, “It’s the same for us. No point in delaying the inevitable. But we’re going to avoid getting into that kind of situation as long as we can.”

“I hope so, Val. It hasn’t been that long since you’ve joined me and Justin, but I’d feel the same way about losing any of you. It would be hell.”

Ransome’s eyes burned at the thought of having to live without her and he said, “It’d be hell for us if we lost you, angel.”

She lifted her head and said, “Patterson, if you can hear me, thank you for being my friend. I’m going to miss you, you big flirt.”

Ransome and Val rumbled amused agreement. Charity picked up the paperback and opened it to a yellowed, dog-eared page, and began to read. The two of them gladly stood by and listened for a few minutes.

This situation wasn’t anything near okay. It was the last kind of ending he wanted for any of his friends. But it was the best tribute they could offer. It gave the woman who’d obviously cared about him a chance to breathe for a little while. He knew that if he, Val, or Justin were in a similar circumstance they’d appreciate Charity having the break.

It was a fucked-up kind of rationalization, but losing friends in tragic accidents had a way of making a person look at the world differently.

After the visit, they checked in with Grace and then took a long ride out into the Hill Country. The only thing missing was Justin. Ransome knew he could’ve gotten off of work to go with them on the visit but he’d taken him and Val aside and had told them that it might do Charity good to go for a ride and get some fresh air.

In the end, as the sun had begun to turn the sky brilliant shades of orange, pink, and purple, the ride itself was a sort of tribute to Patterson.

“Knock, knock. Good morning, Gracie. You decent?” Ethan murmured from Grace’s hospital room door as he swung it slowly open. His teasing tone suggested he hoped she wasn’t decent.