A Summer to Remember (27 page)

He left the bathroom, turned to the bedroom, then spun around to sprint into the kitchen for a bottle of water as Patricia continued.

“If the lights aren't already off, turn them off. These spells make her really sensitive to light. If you can, get her undressed and into something comfortable, or I can help. I'm on my way over. Massages help with the spasms. Just be careful. You're a lot stronger than any of us. That's all you can do until the pills kick in. I'm already in my car. I'll see you in a few minutes.” Patricia hesitated, then asked, “You didn't know about any of this, Elliot?”

“No.” Though he'd known
something
was wrong. Though he'd wanted to know what. At this moment, he wasn't sure if he wanted to know more—everything—or wanted his ignorance back.

“Okay, start with those pills. I'll see you.”

After hanging up, he pressed his forehead against the cool stainless of the refrigerator, trying to calm his breathing. He was worried. And scared. And just a little bit pissed that Fia had known this could happen when she was alone with him and still hadn't confided in him. Forget the trust and the falling in love. This was a serious health issue, and she hadn't told him how to deal with it.

Then his jaw tightened. He could think about that later. All that was important right now was getting the pills down her.

Back in the bedroom, he uncapped the bottle of water, set it on the night table, and lifted her up until she was leaning against his arms and chest for support. Her eyelashes fluttered as if seeing was too painful, and her skin was cool. “El?” she whispered.

“I'm here, darlin'. I've got your pills. Open your mouth so I can put the first one in.”

“Doan wanna puke on you.”

He'd never felt worse, but a chuckle came out on its own. “I'm a tough guy. I've been puked on before. Don't worry about it.” He slid the first tablet into her mouth, then lifted the water to her lips. She drank, swallowed, and shuddered. Though he wanted to cram the last three down her throat with a big suck of water, he took his time, limiting the water she got, waiting a moment or two between pills.

When she swallowed the last one and let her head sag against his shoulder, he silently sighed.
Get her into something comfortable,
Patricia had said. Damn, he had so looked forward to taking off this dress tonight. He'd just expected it would be a whole lot more fun.

The buckle at her waist came open easily, and he tossed the belt on the bed. The zipper at her back slid open all the way past her waist, and he pulled her arms free, then shifted to lay her back. “This was supposed to be a whole different thing,” he said in an even voice. “Me undressing you and you thinking, ‘Wow, Elliot's the sexiest guy in the entire world. He's handsome, he's sweet, he knows all the tricks and has all the talent, and he's hung like a—'”

He was pretty sure her choked sound was meant to convey amusement, since it was accompanied by a pitiful attempt at an elbow gouge. “You are…sexiest…world.”

“Thank you, darlin'.” He pulled the dress past her waist, under her butt, and down her legs. He tossed it aside, too, and wasted a moment wishing for the next chance to see her in it and take her out of it.

By the time Patricia knocked at the door, Elliot had removed Fia's bra, gotten her into a cozy T-shirt, and begun massaging her hand. He didn't try to talk to her. She was clearly fatigued and still in pain, groaning occasionally when he pressed too firmly or tried to work out a particularly strong spasm. He had a thousand questions, and that quiet anger still simmering, but all that could wait.

Patricia set down her purse and a tote bag that a pair of house slippers stuck out of. Clearly she'd come prepared to spend the night if necessary. Leaning forward, she hugged Elliot tight, the kind of hug his mom had given him for every upset and disappointment. He had an urge to bury his face, hold on forever, and let tears fall. It was amazingly comforting.

“How are you?” she asked, letting go, then cupping his face in her palms.

“She scared me out of my wits.” He half wished Emily were there for one of her wisecracking responses:
Aw, El, you were always a dimwit.
“What's wrong with her? Is she gonna be okay?”

“We don't know. Let's see if we can make her comfortable, then when the medicines put her to sleep, you and I will talk, all right?”

“All right.”

Grimly he led the way to the bedroom. He'd been wondering all week, and tonight, for better or worse, he would find out. He prided himself on being a good guy, honorable and decent, but he couldn't remember anything involving a woman that had scared him as badly as finding Fia on the bathroom floor. He hoped this situation proved him to be honorable and decent, but his gut was worrying the uncertainty like Mouse with a bone.

God, don't let this be more than I can handle.

The ice cream shop Cadence had so quaintly referred to was Braum's, sitting at the back of a crowded parking lot with cars lined up eight deep for the drive-through and families and friends crammed into booths or sharing tables. If Dillon were home, he would be getting ready to take his last walk around the barns and the pastures with Oliver, then going to bed. Town people didn't have the same concept of bedtime and late nights as he did. They didn't get up the same time he did, either.

They joined the line to order ice cream, Cadence stretching on her toes to see the various flavors in the freezer case. “Ooh, Aunt Marti, why haven't we been here before?”

“Because if I come here very often, I'll have to take up real exercise, and you know I just can't do that.”

Dillon's gaze slid over Marti, from her sleek hair to her sleek outfit, all creased and pressed and showing a whole lot less skin than that yellow dress had. “You don't need real exercise.”

“You haven't seen my butt after a few quarts of cherries, pecans, and cream or birthday cake ice cream,” she retorted.

“The blue stuff?” He snickered. “That's such a kid flavor.”

Her left brow arched as she looked at him. “I see you know it, too.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. On the rare occasions he and Tina had made it to Braum's, it had been Lilah's favorite. Tina had taken a picture once, snapped on her cell phone, of his baby with a blue-smeared grin, her expression pure delight. He supposed her family had it now. Why not? They had everything else.

They got their ice cream cones and were on their way to a table when a chorus of voices called Cadence's name. Looking pleased, she waved to the kids grouped around a table, then her gaze turned pleading. “Aunt Marti, can I sit with my friends? I'll be right in the same room with you. I'll never be out of your sight.”

“Go on.” They watched her walk to the table as casually as if she'd done it a hundred times, then Marti pointed to a table for two against the wall. He nodded, and she made a beeline for it, getting there ten feet ahead of another couple. There was a tinge of triumph to her smile as she took a seat. She moved with an easy grace, every movement flowing naturally, as if she didn't even think about it, as if it was pure muscle memory, inborn, smooth. Impressive.

“Cadence's parents don't give her a lot of freedom, do they?” Dillon sat opposite her, laying a handful of napkins on the table between them, swiping a lick of his chocolate chip ice cream.

“I don't think so. Her life is pretty tightly scheduled at home: prep school, dressage for a long time, dance, gymnastics, violin lessons, language immersion, cultural outings.” She rolled her eyes. “Her mother is rigid about taking Cadence to museums, the theater, the opera, twice a month. It may not show, but my mother put me through the same stuff, only she didn't go, too. She sent me with other people. I had more culture growing up than a yogurt factory.”

He smiled—at least, his best attempt in a while. “The first time I set foot in a museum was on a field trip our sophomore class took to the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma City, and the only way you'd get me to an opera or symphony is to hog-tie and drag me.”

“Did you get kicked out of the museum?” At his look, she shrugged. “I hear you were a little, um, unruly when you were a kid.”

“Just because I got thrown out of Bubba's a few times? Had a few suspensions from school? Spent a night or two in jail?”

“Oh, no, my sources were wrong,” she said agreeably. “You weren't unruly at all.”

“I prefer the word
spirited
.” After a moment, he relented. “No, I didn't get kicked out of the museum, but my friend and I had to stay at the teacher's side for the last hour of the tour. She wouldn't even let us go to the bathroom by ourselves.”

“You probably would've set it on fire.” Marti sighed. “I never got in trouble in school my whole life. I was such a good girl. Really, the worst thing I did was negotiate with my mother: time at the beach for every time she sent me off for culture's sake.”

She took a bite of her ice cream, swiping a cherry from the cone, her tongue licking the last bit of cream from her lip. Dillon watched a moment longer than he should have, realizing with a start that this was the best Saturday evening he'd had in years: ice cream, conversation, and a beautiful woman to look at. Ten years ago he would have been partying hard, lots of booze, maybe some fighting, plenty of women before settling on the one he would go home with. Was this an improvement or a sorry commentary on his life?

Marti glanced up and smiled, and the question answered itself: definitely an improvement.

“So how did a rich girl from back East with tons of culture wind up in Tallgrass?”

“I married a soldier. Some younger wives go back home when their husbands deploy, but I wasn't that young, and I had a house, a job, some good friends. Then Joshua died, and…” She shifted her gaze out the window.

He didn't regret asking the question. Joshua was a major part of her life, just as Tina had been a major part of Dillon's. Blocking them out, pretending they didn't exist, wasn't normal or healthy. He'd been doing it long enough to know that for a fact.

“I didn't really have anywhere to go,” she finally continued. “I wasn't the same girl who'd grown up in Connecticut, so it didn't feel like home anymore. By then, my mother had moved to Florida, but I'd been too independent to move back under her thumb again. None of the places I'd lived were home, but Tallgrass came closest. And since I did have a job, a house, and friends, I decided to stay for a while. ‘A while' became eight years and counting, and now it really is where I want to be. Where I belong.”

Funny. When she'd faced trauma, she couldn't go home. When he'd faced it, he'd had nowhere to go but there. If he hadn't come back to Tallgrass when he did, if he hadn't met Jessy and Oliver, then seen Dalton and their mom, he didn't know what would have happened to him.

“What are you doing in town alone on a Saturday night?” Marti asked before taking a crunchy bite of her cone.

“I could ask the same of you.”

“I'm not alone. I'm with Cadence. Besides, I am determinedly single. All my margarita sisters might be falling in love and getting married again, but I'm content exactly the way I am.”

Contentedness wasn't happiness, he wanted to point out. Being content sounded an awful lot like settling for what life had chosen to give her. He knew because, other than his desire to find Lilah, he'd done the same thing.

And settling could be awfully lonely.

If Elliot hadn't spent so much time kneading bread over the past days, he was pretty sure kneading Fia's muscles would have worn out his hands and biceps long before he saw results. He didn't know how long it had been—since he'd found her on the floor, given her the medicine, called Patricia. He just knew at least some of the meds had kicked in a while ago, putting her into a deep sleep even though her limbs were still crampy and drawn taut.

Now, finally, Patricia stood and stretched out the kinks in her back. “I think that's the best we're gonna get tonight. Want a cup of coffee?”

Not particularly. In fact, the nerve-numbing provided by a bottle or two of whiskey sounded much more appealing. But the liquor stores were closed, and he wasn't going to go looking for a bar to drown his sorrows. “Okay.”

She left the bedroom. He gazed at Fia, her breathing deep and steady, her T-shirt twisted a little around her shoulder, a strand of hair fluttering against her cheek. She looked peaceful, but he knew that was an illusion. Her sleep came from drugs and exhaustion.

He shared the exhaustion.

Quietly he went out, leaving the door halfway open. He found Patricia in the kitchen, coffeepot in hand, cups on the counter. “This isn't the first time you've done this,” he said as he slid onto a barstool.

“Made coffee?” Her laugh was throaty and deep, but she sobered quickly. “Fia calls Jessy or me usually. Ilena's got the baby, Therese has her kids, Carly and Bennie are pregnant, everyone has a job. Well, me, too, since I joined Lucy at the bakery. We've all spent our share of time here. We all have a list of Fia's medications, which one's for what, how many.”

He opened his mouth for a simple question, four words. He'd been wondering for nearly a week, had wanted to ask her and everyone who knew her, but now that he could, he had to force the words out. “What's wrong with her?”

Patricia started the coffeemaker, and within seconds, a rich aroma drifted onto the air. She took cream from the refrigerator, sugar from the cabinet, and set them with spoons on the counter in front of him. “We don't actually know.”

“Don't know? She's on five medications—some powerful stuff. How can she be taking all that if they don't know what's wrong with her?”

“They treat the symptoms. As far as her diagnosis…” She shrugged, palms up. She went to her bag on the sofa, pulled out a plastic container, and came back. As she opened it to reveal fresh apple turnovers, she explained. “I didn't know Fia when all this happened. I just met the margarita girls, except for Lucy, at George's funeral about a year ago. When I met Fia, she was already having problems. They'd started over the winter. Little injuries, clumsiness, pulled muscles, that sort of thing. She was a personal trainer; she could run circles around most of the soldiers in town; the doctors said it was a hazard of her job. Take it easy, be more careful, rest more.