Read The Things We Do for Love Online
Authors: Margot Early
Tags: #American Light Romantic Fiction, #Romance: Modern, #Contemporary, #General, #Romance, #Romance - Contemporary, #Fiction, #Fiction - Romance, #Man-woman relationships, #Contemporary Women
The Things We Do for Love (19 page)
And he stretched one long leg down.
H
E WAS COMING
. It had nothing to do with her. It was just decency. And she was down here feeling stupid and broken and hurting, and she couldn’t move at all because moving would make her throw up and what if they had to cut off her leg?
Mary Anne had not cried and would not cry.
Instead, she said, “Cameron says they’ll be slow because it’s winter. They’re really not moving much. They’re just a bit noisy sometimes.”
I
NDEED
, G
RAHAM NOTICED
, the rattlesnakes were
very
noisy. “I won’t step on you, guys,” he said, trying not to think of photographs with snakes’ jaws spread, two fangs thrust out in front at an angle that seemed, to him, unnatural. Supposedly, snakes struck faster than anyone could see.
Well, the fangs definitely couldn’t penetrate his boots, and his canvas pants
were
sturdy.
But something curious was happening to him, something that didn’t have much to do with his own
recoil
from snakes. The snakes were there, but they didn’t
matter. Except the big one near Mary Anne’s head that was rattling like its neighbors.
Her shoulder looked strange. Angie Workman, for that was whom the small woman in the caving helmet had proven to be, was delivering a nonstop monologue. That Mary Anne thought her leg was crushed, thought her shoulder dislocated. He said, “Give me that flashlight.”
When it was in his hand, he shone it on the snakes on the floor. If they didn’t move, he could step between them and the pile of rocks.
He shone the light on the boulder trapping Mary Anne’s leg. It was smaller than a trash can, and he knew he could lift it.
He stepped down to the ground between coiled bodies. He reached the boulder. “Baby, if I lift this, will you be able to move out from under it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Should I come down and move her out as you lift?” asked Angie.
Brave woman,
he thought. “Yes.”
“I don’t think there’s room,” said Mary Anne. “I can do it. I’ll make myself do it.”
He met her eyes, trying to read her strength in them. “Okay. You’ve got to do it, because I don’t want to put it back down on you.”
“Yes,” Mary Anne said, swallowing.
He came close to her, careful not to disturb her nearest neighbor. What if the snakes decided to strike as he lifted the boulder?
I have to move,
Mary Anne told herself.
I have to move, no matter what.
“I’m going to go to the right,” she said. “Toward you.”
“Yes.”
He grabbed the rock, annoyed that it was sandy, which threatened to compromise his grip. “On three. One, two, three.”
She moaned and yanked herself forward, dragging her calf toward him. Pain surrounded her and everything went black.
“I
CAN DO IT
. I can do it from this bed,” Mary Anne had insisted to Jonathan Hale. “If you can figure out the phone thing so we can take callers. This is a series. I can’t not do it.”
Jonathan had asked her what drugs she was on. She’d had two surgeries on her foot and calf, but the doctors were optimistic.
Now the studio was her semiprivate hospital room, shared with a woman who’d trashed her knee in-line skating. Her roommate was a wildlife biologist by profession, and upon hearing Mary Anne’s story, she’d promptly sent a colleague to count the rattlesnakes denning in Big Jim’s Cave.
Mary Anne told Graham, who was settling in a chair not far from her bed, “I bet we’re going to get challenging callers today.”
The topic was Recognizing the Real Thing. This would lead up to the next two weeks: Popping the Question, and Tying the Knot.
Graham gave her a smile that was less aloof than the one she’d seen before he’d rescued her from the cave. He had not brought her flowers but had shown up the day after her first surgery with a four-foot-long rattlesnake
puppet purchased at the state park zoo. Mary Anne had named it Buzz, suspecting she would become even more fond of it than she had of Flossy.
Graham had made her laugh by showing her that when he got upset, Buzz had a habit of tying himself in knots.
But she hadn’t seen him since. Not till today. The show.
Jonathan was set up against the wall, and Mary Anne and Graham donned headphones to take the first caller.
“Ellen” said, “I’ve been dating this guy for four weeks. Every Saturday. We have this agreement. Every weekend we go to this old theater that shows black-and-white movies. We drink mint juleps and watch the movie. It’s like a commitment, that we both know we’re always going to be doing that on Saturday afternoons. So, I think he must be kind of serious about me, don’t you?”
Graham answered that one, reminding her that her date could simply perceive her as a reliable friend and that it was impossible to tell his intentions without knowing more.
The next caller was a woman whose boyfriend had asked her to marry him. “The thing is, every time he has a girlfriend, he tries to get her to marry him, and he has been through, like, one girlfriend a year.”
“Has he ever been married?” Mary Anne asked.
“Once. The divorce was epic, but it doesn’t seem to have put him off romance. The thing is, it just doesn’t make me feel too special since he’s also asked every other woman he has ever dated to marry him.”
“I hear you,” Mary Anne said feelingly.
The final caller of the day identified himself as James and said, “Okay, I’ve had a girlfriend for three years. She’s a hairdresser. She’s like my best friend. We’ve talked
about moving in together, but I know she really wants to get married. The thing is—how do I know she’s the one?”
Mary Anne opened her mouth, then shut it. What could she tell this guy? She knew what made her feel as if she could marry someone, but it was something unique in her heart.
Graham said, “Well, I’ve heard some people say they
don’t
know.”
“Really?”
“But it’s not like that for me,” Graham answered.
“Yeah?”
Graham stared ahead of him into space, the way he did whenever formulating an especially serious answer. “For me, it’s like this. Say you’re really, really terrified of something. Heights. Enclosed spaces. Let’s use snakes.”
Mary Anne’s pulse picked up. But she wouldn’t let herself think. She mustn’t. It would all be too painful. If she was wrong. So she mustn’t think.
Anyhow, Graham wasn’t looking at her. He was still staring straight ahead, concentrating on his words.
“And say the woman who has you wondering if she’s the one is…Well, let’s say she’s caving. We know there aren’t snakes in caves, but let’s just say for once there are.”
“Actually,” James said, “I think snakes sometimes do den in caves. Anyhow, for sure there are blind snakes, cave snakes.”
“Right,” Graham agreed. “Anyhow, say this woman you think you like, you think you might even be a bit in love with, falls and gets stuck under a boulder.”
“Okay.”
Mary Anne’s face felt warm. Now, she
couldn’t
look at Graham, couldn’t look at Jonathan, couldn’t even look
at the wildlife biologist in the next bed, whom she sensed was suddenly staring between her and Graham.
“She’s stuck under a boulder, she’s been there a while, she’s afraid she’s going to lose her leg. But that’s not all. She is surrounded by venomous snakes.” Spontaneously, Graham reached for Buzz and rattled him next to his microphone. “In fact, there’s a big one right beside her head.”
Mary Anne swallowed, unable to think a single word, determined
not
to think.
“And you come upon this scene. What do you do?” Graham asked.
“Well—” James said. “I’m not sure.”
“Come on. Imagine it’s your hairdresser girlfriend.”
“Well, if it was Karen. Man, if it was Karen, I’d get down there. Screw the snakes. Excuse me, sorry I said it that way. I mean, I wouldn’t care. I’d have to help her. I couldn’t let her lie there.”
“Dude, help is on the way.
You
don’t have to go down there,” Graham argued. “Someone else will be right along. You can hang out, talk her through it from a safe place.”
“No way. No way. I’d get down there. I’d get that rock off her.”
Graham smiled, still into the distance, as if at James, somewhere out there, listening. “There you have it, James. I think you know. Thanks for your call. This is Graham Corbett….”
As he ended the show, he finally turned his head to look at Mary Anne, then pulled his headphones off.
The wildlife biologist pushed the button for a nurse, then said, “Sir…”
Mary Anne turned. Her roommate was looking not at Graham but at Jonathan.
“Yes?” he said.
“I hate to ask you this, because I swear a lot when we do it, but I am supposed to get out of this bed and go up and down the hall. Can I talk you into keeping me company, if a nurse isn’t available?” She gave Jonathan three enormous, slow, extremely obvious winks, tilting her head ever so subtly toward Mary Anne’s bed.
“Right. Right. Just let me clear a path,” Jonathan answered, suddenly scurrying.
T
HEY WERE ALONE
. Maybe only for minutes. Mary Anne’s family had threatened to visit.
Graham pulled his chair close to the side of the bed. Mary Anne lay back against her pillow, looking at him, trying to make herself say something that would take him off the hook, that wouldn’t
force
him to do anything he might not want to do. She could say that the show had gone well. She could say that Buzz had been a nice touch. Hell, she could ask after Flossy.
She said, “You drank the love potion, Graham.
You
drank it. At Jonathan’s party. You took the glass…” She let her voice trail off. “I didn’t mean it to happen.”
His grin broadened. “They don’t work anyhow.”
Mary Anne swallowed. “Good. Of course not. I knew it wouldn’t. That’s why I never…Well, it would have been stupid to tell you.”
“Definitely.” His eyes seemed to smile more completely now. He bit his bottom lip, as though choosing words. “I have the distinct feeling that your mother and grandmother and perhaps your aunt Louise and definitely the very respectable Lucille might really have something to say if you were to move in with a man to whom you weren’t married.”
Mary Anne tried to think what to say. Was he asking her to live with him? How did she feel about that?
A little let down. Just a little. Because…
“And,” Graham went on before she could answer, “I’m feeling quite a bit more comfortable with the idea of snakes these days, but I have to admit I’m still terrified of provoking Lucille’s disapproval.”
Mary Anne laughed, admitting, “Me, too.”
I mustn’t be disappointed. I can think all this over.
“So I think I better do it the right way.”
In an athletic movement worthy of a man who could lift a boulder off an injured woman, he dropped to one knee and took her hand. “Mary Anne, will you marry me?”
She held his hand back, holding it tightly, the hand she would always want to hold. “Yes.
Yes
.”
T
HE
L
OGAN
S
TANDARD
and the Miner
was open to the society page, and Bridget Cureux was gutting the season’s last pumpkin on top of it. Behind her at the sink, her mother was teaching her son Nicky to peel potatoes. Across the table, Cameron McAllister, looking ill, was rolling out pie crust. Bridget’s father and brother came in the door behind her, carrying a trestle bench between them. It was an antique of her mother’s, which her father had refinished.
Bridget flicked pumpkin off her spoon and used the utensil to point to an item on the society page.
Mr. and Mrs. Jon Clive Drew announce…
“And you say they don’t work, Dad. Look at that.”
Cameron’s head snapped up. “What are you talking about?”
David Cureux squinted at the engagement announcement.
“The love potion,” said Bridget. “Obviously, this is the guy who drank it.”
Cameron stared rather blankly. “What makes you think that, Bridget?”
“Because it’s who Mary Anne is marrying,” Bridget said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“She dosed Hale,” said Paul dismissively. He looked thoughtful and suddenly cheered. “Score one for Dad.”
“How do you know?” Bridget asked. “Were you there when he drank it? It seems to me you’re underestimating our mother’s powers, Paul.”
“No—just your omniscience, sis.”
Abruptly Cameron left the table, hurrying down the hall.
“What’s with her?” asked Paul. Setting down his end of the bench, leaving it awkwardly in the middle of the room, he started toward the hall.
Bridget dug her spoon into the pumpkin, smiling a witchy smile.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2819-5
THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE
Copyright © 2009 by Margot Early.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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