Rose Harbor in Bloom (13 page)

Mark looked up at me as if shocked that I was actually doing as he asked.

“I told the aid car to come in the back, but I thought I’d show them the way.”

Leaning back on his hands, he closed his eyes and nodded.

I gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “It won’t be long now.”

A car door slammed in the distance, and I raced out of the shop and called, “This way.”

Mark wasn’t happy I’d phoned for help, but at the same time I knew he was relieved. He was angry and short-tempered, but I accepted that was the pain and didn’t take it personally.

The men from the local fire station did quick work lifting the heavy table off Mark’s legs. Right away I could see that his leg and
ankle were twisted at an odd angle. Clearly it was broken. The pain must be severe; nevertheless, Mark attempted to stand up on his own.

The firemen put a stop to that, and with Mark protesting loudly, a gurney was rolled into the shop.

“I’m fine now that this blasted table is off me.”

“Your leg is broken,” I pointed out. Anyone looking at it could see that.

Mark fussed some more, but he was basically ignored.

“Are you his wife?” one of the men asked me. His name badge identified him as Mack McAfee.

Mark must have heard the question, because he snickered loudly as if the very idea was cause for humor.

“Just a friend,” I supplied. Frankly, after this morning I wondered if Mark would even consider me that.

“We’ll transport him to the Bremerton hospital. Can you meet us there?”

“I don’t want Jo Marie anywhere close to that hospital,” Mark insisted, as two men rolled him out the door.

I pretended not to hear. “I’m on foot, and my dog is with me. I’ll go back to the house, get my car, and head over to the hospital.”

“It’s a good thing you happened along when you did,” Chief Holiday mentioned.

I wanted to tell him Rover was responsible for me finding Mark, but I wasn’t sure he would believe me. Really, who would? This was the stuff movies were made of, stories with Lassie or Rin Tin Tin. Rover was a pound dog who appeared to possess magical powers.

Together Rover and I hurriedly walked back to the inn. As far as I could tell, Mary remained in her room, and the others hadn’t returned from lunch yet. I had guests due to arrive in a couple of hours and would need to be back.

Now that his work was done, Rover curled up in his bed and promptly went to sleep as if the short walk had completely worn him out. I left a note for Annie and her grandparents, and then headed out the door.

My heart pounded fast and erratically as I inserted my key in the car ignition, and I realized how badly shaken I was by all this.

When I arrived at the hospital, I learned that Mark had been sent down for X-rays. With nothing else to do, I went to the emergency room waiting area and took a seat.

I’d read through one entire magazine and had just started a second when I heard Mark’s voice, protesting something. I didn’t need a crystal ball to tell me he was not going to be a compliant patient. A broken leg was going to severely hamper his ability to work. Oh, dear, I might as well give up the hope of having the rose garden in before autumn. Right away, I felt guilty for being so thoughtless.

A nurse’s aide rolled Mark out in a wheelchair. His left leg was in a cast up to his knee. “Your friend is here,” the nurse told him.

He looked up at me and then looked away.

So that was the way it was to be. Fine. One would think the least he could do was show a little gratitude. The ingrate.

“I’ll bring the car around,” I told the woman, ignoring Mark. Two could play that game.

It took me a few minutes to drive around to the emergency room entrance. By the time I was under the portico, Mark and the nurse’s aide were waiting outside for me.

I put the car in park and then hurried around to the passenger side and held open the door. The aide helped him into my vehicle.

“Thank you,” I told the young woman. If Mark wouldn’t thank her, then I would.

He held himself stiff in the seat beside me.

“It wouldn’t hurt you to show a bit of appreciation,” I muttered. In his current mood, I didn’t expect him to respond.

“The nurse ruined a perfectly good pair of jeans,” he complained.

“Would you rather have had her unzip your pants and pull them off over your broken leg?” I could only imagine how painful that would be.

He didn’t answer right away, and when he did speak I wasn’t able to make out what he said.

“Do you need me to stop by the pharmacy?” I asked.

He shook his head. “They will deliver.”

“What about crutches?”

“I have a pair at the house.”

So this wasn’t the first time around for him. “Did you break your leg before?”

“No.” He didn’t elaborate, and I wasn’t going to pry when he so clearly wasn’t in the mood to chat.

It seemed to take forever to drive around the waterfront to Cedar Cove. The silence between us was as heavy as that table must have been. When I pulled up to the front of the house, he didn’t even wait for me to stop the car before he had his hand on the doorknob.

“You’ll need those crutches,” I said. Even Mark had to recognize he wouldn’t be able to get from my car to the house without them.

He exhaled and nodded. “Back bedroom closet.”

I turned off the engine and started toward the house, doing my best to hide a smile. So I was going to be able to see the inside of his house after all.

Annie didn’t know how she’d make it through lunch with Oliver and her grandparents. It was awkward enough being with Oliver, but her grandparents couldn’t seem to agree on anything. Annie found it amazing that they had managed to stay married all these years. She couldn’t remember them ever being anything but loving toward each other and wondered what had changed. It used to be that she saw them at least three or four times a year, but college had changed that, and then she’d taken a job. The last two Christmases her grandparents had spent with friends in Hawaii.

“I don’t understand why you insist on eating Mexican food,” Julie said once they were seated and handed menus. Right away a bowl of salsa and chips were delivered to their table.

“I happen to like enchiladas.”

Annie’s grandmother muttered under her breath. Annie didn’t catch what she said, which was probably for the best.

Kent reached for a chip and dipped it in the salsa. “You complain that cheese isn’t good for me. Well, I happen to enjoy it, and if I choose to eat cheese, you shouldn’t stop me.”

“Someone should,” her grandmother insisted, grumbling louder this time.

Annie hid behind the menu, embarrassed by the attention her bickering grandparents generated. Her grandfather spoke loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear. Their squabble had attracted the notice of everyone in the room.

“If the enchiladas kill me,” her grandfather insisted, “then I’ll die a happy man.”

“Then go right ahead. You’re absolutely right, if you want to clog up your heart valves and die, then that’s your prerogative. I’ll have the time of my life spending the insurance money.”

“Have fun. And like I said, I’ll die happy.” And with that, Kent ordered three-cheese enchiladas with rice and beans.

Her grandmother had a chicken salad with no sour cream but with extra avocado. Oliver asked for chicken fajitas, and Annie went with an appetizer sampler plate, although she barely touched her lunch.

How could she?

If she wasn’t refereeing her grandparents, she was forced to deal with Oliver’s stares. With restraint she managed not to kick him under the table and tell him to stop eyeing her like she was a piece of tenderloin. Naturally, he did it on purpose, trying to unnerve her. That had been his game plan from the time they were kids. He found it highly amusing to tease and irritate her. It was easy to see that nothing had changed.

Once they’d paid their tab and were outside the restaurant, Annie whispered, “Would you stop?”

“What?” he asked, playing innocent.

“You know exactly what I mean. I’m telling you right now I’m not putting up with it.”

Oliver looked genuinely confused. “Putting up with what?” he asked.

Annie narrowed her gaze and bellowed, “Stop staring at me.” Then, to her absolute horror, she turned to find both her grandparents looking at her with their mouths hanging open in shock. Annie had no choice but to explain. “Oliver was watching me,” she told them in a low voice. She felt like a schoolgirl tattling on him, hoping to get him in trouble.

“Well, of course he was,” her grandmother said, looping her arm around Annie’s elbow. “You’re lovely, Annie, and Oliver is a young man who appreciates a beautiful woman.”

Annie wanted to contradict her grandmother but quickly realized it would do no good.

They headed toward their car, Annie walking with her grandmother and Oliver with her grandfather. The ride back to the inn was tense and silent. It seemed they were all at odds with one another. For her part, Annie couldn’t wait to get away from Oliver, and it appeared that her grandparents were no longer speaking to each other.

As soon as they reached the inn, Kent and Julie returned to their room. Annie followed them to make sure they didn’t need anything.

“Your grandfather takes an afternoon snooze every day now,” Julie whispered to Annie. “Otherwise, he gets cranky.”

“I heard that,” her grandfather complained. “You make me sound like a two-year-old.”

“Well, dear, it’s the truth. You’re a bear to live with if you don’t take your nap.”

“Not a word of that is true,” Kent said and, shaking his head, closed the door.

That left Annie and Oliver standing in the hallway outside the room. Without a word to Oliver, Annie headed upstairs to her own room. The less said to him, the better.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she reached for her cell phone and noticed there were six text messages from Lenny. Annie didn’t bother to open and read them, determined to cut him out of her life completely. With a few presses of the phone, she deleted each one in turn.

Just as she finished, her phone rang in her hand and startled her to the point she nearly dropped it. Thankfully, it was her mother.

“Mom, I’m so glad you called.” Annie couldn’t get the words out fast enough. She needed help if she was going to survive this celebration.

“Mom and Dad arrived okay?” her mother asked.

“Oh, yes, and you won’t believe it when I tell you how they got here.” The mere thought of the insufferable Oliver doing everything he could to get her goat was enough to make her voice tremble.

“Oliver drove them,” her mother said, as if this had been planned from the beginning.

Annie gasped. “You knew?”

“Well, yes. Mom phoned last night and told me she’d asked Oliver to drive them to Cedar Cove. Dad refuses to wear his glasses, and she was worried.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” It seemed the entire family had turned on her.

“I didn’t think it was important.” How innocent her mother sounded.

“Mom,” she cried, “you know how I feel about Oliver. He terrorized me as a kid.” To be fair, her mother didn’t know the half of it.

“Oh honey, that was years ago. You’re adults now, and really it wasn’t that long ago since you last saw him. Last summer, wasn’t it? By the way, how is Oliver? He’s a fine-looking young man.”

Annie started to say,
“No, he hasn’t changed,”
but swallowed the words in the nick of time. Oliver was exactly as she remembered. As for his being so “fine-looking,” she was willing to admit that was true, and her parents and brother certainly thought highly of him—her grandparents, too. Oliver and her brother, Peter, had
gone on a hiking trip together, stopping to see her before they took off for two days in the Olympic rain forest. Half the fun for Peter while visiting their grandparents was spending time with Oliver. Naturally, the fun included making her as miserable as possible.

“Tell Oliver I look forward to seeing him, will you?”

Annie struggled to assure her that she would.

“Mom and Dad made the drive okay, then?” her mother asked next.

Annie hesitated, hardly knowing what to say. “They seem fine, I guess.”

“It isn’t Dad’s heart, is it?” Her mother was instantly concerned.

“Not exactly.”

“Then what is it?”

Annie exhaled slowly. “They seem to disagree a lot.”

“On what?”

“Everything.”

“Oh, dear. Is Dad in a bad mood?”

Actually, both her grandparents seemed to be out of sorts. “I don’t know … It’s hard to tell.”

“It’s just nerves, honey. Don’t let it worry you.”

Annie couldn’t help being worried. She couldn’t imagine this was the way good relationships worked. She’d always viewed her grandparents’ marriage as the ideal. From what she’d seen to this point, they didn’t even seem to like each other.

“More important, Annie, how are you?” her mother asked, cutting into her thoughts.

“I’m good, Mom.”

“Lenny called the house looking for you. I told him nothing; you’re well rid of him.” She hesitated and then asked, “When I realized your grandparents didn’t know about your breakup with Lenny, I told them. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, that’s fine … but they must have said something to Oliver, because he was full of questions.”

“Oh, dear. Are you upset that he knows?”

“I guess not.” Although she’d rather have let him assume she was still engaged. Annie sighed. “Do you mind if we talk about this later, Mom? Talking about Lenny depresses me. I’m just grateful you and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa support my decision.”

“Of course we do, sweetheart.”

“Frankly, now that the engagement is off, and everyone knows, I feel better than I have in months,” Annie continued. And that was the truth. All that she needed was for Lenny to accept that it was over. It surprised her the way he held on, but then he’d recently let it be known he had yet to tell his family, believing that she would eventually change her mind.

To be fair to Lenny, he had a number of fine qualities. He was charming, friendly, and funny, but he lacked the ability to be faithful.