Peach Pies and Alibis (29 page)

Ella Mae paced the hospital hallway, too restless to sit in the waiting room. Every
few minutes, she’d stop by the nurses’ station to check on Reba’s status, but there
was still no word.

Finally, a physician in sea blue scrubs tracked her down in the corridor. “Ms. LeFaye?”

“Yes.” She searched his face for clues and found none. “How’s Reba?”

The doctor explained that because Reba’s throat swelled so dramatically in response
to the spider venom, she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. As a result, she’d
been quickly sedated and intubated.

“Now that her breathing’s been regulated, she’s out of immediate danger,” he told
Ella Mae in such an even, confident voice that she could have kissed him. “This is
the first time I’ve seen a brown recluse bite to the neck. Usually, they occur on
arms and legs. A person will accidentally press against the spider, triggering its
defense system. Ordinarily,
they’re shy creatures.” He glanced at the notes he’d scrawled on Reba’s chart. “Brown
recluse bites aren’t typically a cause for concern unless they happen to young children.
The smaller the patient’s body, the more damage the poison can inflict.”

The doctor’s insinuation wasn’t lost on Ella Mae. “And Reba’s petite. Nearly as small
as a child.”

He nodded. “That’s right. Her recovery may not be as swift as that of an adult female
of average height and weight. And the location of the bite may cause complications
as well. The venom produces enzymes that break down human tissue. The necrosis has
occurred around your friend’s windpipe, causing the entire throat to swell. We’ve
given her antitoxins to counteract the venom and are pumping her full of antibiotics,
but so far, the swelling isn’t abating.”

“What does that mean?” Ella Mae asked, a trickle of fear running through her.

“She needs to be kept sedated until we can get that swelling down. Having a breathing
tube isn’t comfortable, so we’ve put her in a medically induced coma. She’ll have
to remain in this state until her throat has returned to its normal size.”

Hearing the word coma, Ella Mae grew cold all over. Crossing her arms over her chest,
she felt all the power that had flowed through her in the ambulance ebb away like
melting snow.

“Can I see her?” she asked, hating how her voice had become as thin and fragile as
a dragonfly wing.

He nodded. “Come with me.”

When they reached the ICU room, Ella Mae’s first thought was that Reba didn’t look
like Reba. A breathing tube poked from her mouth, IV tubes ran from her arm, and beeping
monitors and screens filled with moving lines or pulsating waves flanked her head.
Ella Mae glanced at the machines with dread. She couldn’t begin to decipher what
their blinking lights, hums, or ever-changing readouts meant, but she hated them all
the same. She knew this was illogical, for they were keeping Reba alive, but someone
like Reba wasn’t meant to be attached to such devices. She was a warrior. She was
supposed to be invulnerable.

She would hate this,
Ella Mae thought and swallowed a sob. Coiling her hands into fists, she told herself
to be strong. Reba needed her and she had to be clearheaded and sharp-eyed. Tears
and anxiety were useless, so Ella Mae fought them both until her emotions were under
control.

Turning to the nurse attending to one of Reba’s IV drip bags, Ella Mae asked, “Is
she responding to the medication?”

The nurse shook her head. “Not yet. Right now, her body is reacting to the toxins
by fighting it the only way it knows how. It’s releasing inflammatory agents, which
creates the swelling. We’re trying to get rid of the venom, but so far, our antitoxins
aren’t working as well as we’d like.”

Ella Mae nodded. “She’s a fighter. Normally, that would be a good thing, but I guess
in this case, it’s a detriment.”

“No, no. It’s always better for us to work on a strong, healthy patient,” the nurse
assured her. “Your friend has the physique of a woman twenty years her junior.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty special,” Ella Mae murmured and squeezed Reba’s hand.

When the nurse kindly told her she had to go, she leaned over and whispered in Reba’s
ear, repeating what she’d said in the back of the ambulance. “Let go,” she begged.
“Stop fighting. Just let go.”

The moment she left the room, Ella Mae rushed outside and called her mother. Within
thirty minutes, the LeFayes were all gathered in the ICU’s waiting room. Verena questioned
anyone wearing a hospital ID, but the answers were all the same. “We can only wait
and see.”

“I’m not a fan of wait and see!” Verena bellowed and
then drew a notebook from her voluminous hot pink bag. Smoothing her black pants,
she sat in one of the room’s plastic chairs and did her best to lower her voice. “This
spider bite is probably a freak accident, but with the harvest only three days away,
I’m not sure I can wholly believe that. We’re going to take turns watching Reba’s
room. She must never be left alone. Not for an instant!”

“Then we should guard her in pairs,” Sissy said. “One of us could miss something.
Nothing can get past
two
LeFayes.”

They decided on four-hour shifts, beginning with Dee and Sissy. Ella Mae and her mother
would go next. Verena would partner with Buddy, and then they’d start all over again.
Buddy didn’t know of his wife’s magical abilities, but he was so devoted to Verena
that he’d sit in the hospital all night if she asked him to.

Verena tapped on her notebook. “This won’t do. We have to rearrange Ella Mae’s schedule
so she can get to the pie shop in time tomorrow.”

“I’m not leaving Reba,” Ella Mae protested. “I don’t care who else comes or goes.
I’m staying here.”

“She wouldn’t want that,” her mother said. “What about the shop?”

Ella Mae’s face darkened. “I’m not baking pies while Reba’s in the ICU! The shop will
stay closed until after the harvest.”

Dee touched her on the shoulder. “Yesterday, you told us how sorry you felt for Maurelle—how
you wished she didn’t have to live in that junky trailer. Can she afford to miss three
days’ worth of tips?” She looked into Ella Mae’s eyes. “I’m not trying to make you
feel guilty, but your mother’s right. Reba would want you to keep the pie shop open.
This schedule will be hard enough on you as it is, seeing as you’ll be losing sleep
guarding her at night.”

In the end, Ella Mae relented. “But only if you promise to call me if there’s any
change in her condition. Good or bad.”

Her mother and aunts gave her their word.

“I’m going to the shop now,” she told them. “To find that spider. Maurelle saw Reba
on the front porch earlier this afternoon. If it’s still there, I need to get rid
of it.”

“That spider likes porches,” Dee said. “Barns, basements, attics, woodpiles. Someplace
safe and dry and warm, but with a nice, dark corner. You’ll recognize it by the violin
shape on its body, on the part near the head where the legs attach.”

“Thanks,” Ella Mae said to Dee and then turned to her mother. “Can you drive me? I
came in the ambulance with Reba.”

“Of course.” Her mother’s jaw was tight with anger. “I’d like to get my hands on that
damned spider.”

Verena wagged a finger. “Not literally! Stick the thing in a bag and bring it back
to Dee. She needs to make sure the docs are giving Reba the right medicine.”

At the pie shop, Ella Mae and her mother searched the ground for the spider but couldn’t
find it, dead or alive. Ella Mae had seen it through the eyes of butterflies during
the ambulance ride, but she couldn’t find the exact spot now.

Sitting in a rocking chair, she closed her eyes. She allowed her body to relax and
focused on the sugared vanilla scent of the roses climbing up the columns and onto
the roof. She listened to the birds twittering to each other from the branches of
the magnolia tree and felt the slightest sigh of wind. And then, she heard the hushed
murmur of butterfly wings.

Show me the spider,
she commanded and instantly felt
the ground drop away. In her mind’s eye, she rose into the sky and then darted downward
again, her flight path jarring and bumpy. She saw the body of a brown spider lying
belly up on a patch of dirt next to an ochre-colored chrysanthemum.

Opening her eyes, she jumped up and searched the yard. The butterflies were clustered
along the flagstone path, hovering over one of the dozens of chrysanthemums she and
her mother had planted prior to Candis’s wedding. Hurrying down the path, she squatted
next to the plant and immediately spotted the spider. Using a twig, she pushed it
out of the dirt and into the light.

“Dead,” she told her mother.

“Get a bag. Dee will want to see it.”

Ella Mae unlocked the pie shop and returned half a minute later with a baggie and
a pair of small tongs. As she picked up the spider by one of its legs and examined
its brown body and violin-shaped markings, she looked up at the butterflies. She silently
thanked them and they quickly dispersed.

Watching them flit away, Ella Mae was struck by an ominous thought. “If I can command
butterflies, is it possible that someone could have…told this spider to bite Reba?”
She dropped the lifeless arachnid into the bag, sealed it, and stepped back onto the
porch.

Her mother paled. “Yes. With magic, anything is possible. But why would someone go
after Reba? Unless…”

“They wanted to get to me,” Ella Mae finished for her. “But why? I have nothing to
do with the Lady of the Ash.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not taking any chances. I’m going to give Maurelle
a week’s worth of tip money,” her mother stated firmly. “Hang a note on the door.
You’re officially on vacation. Starting now.”

Ella Mae examined the spider in its cocoon of plastic. “After this month, I could
really use one.”

Ella Mae dropped her mother off at the hospital and then drove over to Canine to Five
to collect Chewy. Hugh met her at the door, his face filled with concern.

“I just talked to one of my EMT buddies. He told me he responded to a call at the
pie shop. Is everything okay?”

“No,” Ella Mae said in a leaden voice. “Reba was stung by a brown recluse. On the
neck. She can’t breathe on her own.”

Hugh raised his hand and touched his own neck. “God, that’s terrible. Can I do anything?
Take care of Chewy? Help you out at work?”

“You can hold me,” she blurted without thinking. It was what she wanted from him more
than anything else. The feel of his strong arms encircling her body would make her
feel sturdy and safe, if only for a small measure of time.

Without hesitating, he closed the distance between them and crushed her to him. Drinking
in his familiar scent of dew-covered grass and the cool, deep water of the swimming
hole, she clung to him.

“Sloan and I are finished,” she whispered into his shoulder. “He’s played me for a
fool for our entire marriage. He…he…” She trailed off. Not because telling Hugh how
Sloan had deceived her would hurt too much, but because her mind had involuntarily
taken her back to Reba’s hospital room. The pain of her husband’s duplicity was instantly
overshadowed by her fear of losing Reba. A sob welled up in her throat.

“Shhhhh,” Hugh said. “I’ve got you. I won’t let go.”

A cacophony of dog noises—barks, yips, whines, growls, and snorts—came from the main
room behind them, but Ella Mae didn’t hear a thing. Hugh’s words were the only sounds
she registered.

“I’ve got you,” he repeated, murmuring into her whiskey-colored curls. He kissed the
crown of her head, her brow,
her cheek, and her chin before his lips brushed against her lips. He’d barely made
contact before he pulled away, but not so far as to detach from her embrace. He gazed
down at her, his blue eyes shimmering with tenderness. “Sorry, I can’t help myself.
Whenever I’m around you, I want to kiss you in the worst way.”

She smiled. “The feeling’s mutual. And everything about you makes me feel stronger,
more steady. So kiss me all you like.”