Not Quite Forever (Not Quite series) (27 page)

“No, you need the nurse to order cultures and present them to you in the morning. A good nurse knows when to call, a nurse worried she’ll be reprimanded for doing the right job will call and second-guess everything they do. I bet you never get a good night’s sleep.”

Instead of commenting, Walter picked at the tape covering his IV line. “Where is your mother?”

“I sent her home. You didn’t tell her about your heart.”

“I didn’t want to worry her.”

“Too late.”

His dad dropped his head against his pillow. “I don’t like being on this side of the chart, Walter.”

“None of us do. Sucks being human.”

His dad offered a half smile. “I’m going to have to have surgery.”

Walt picked his words carefully. “You’re always telling me how routine bypass has become.”

“It is . . . it is.”

“. . . But?”

“Wrong side of the chart. I can’t control anything while I’m under.”

Walt leaned forward, patted his father’s hand. “You’re a control freak.”

“Lotta good that’s doing me.”

“You and Dakota have a lot in common.”

His father glanced up. “How is your girl?”

“Fine. Driving Mom home.”

“Alone?”

Walt nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“You’re braver than I am. Your mother isn’t happy with her.”

“Hence the reason why we stayed away this week.”

Walt noticed the monitor beeping as his father’s pulse increased. It was time to change the subject. “Brenda and Larry just left to get some rest. Do you want them to bring anything back with them?”

“No. But when your mother returns tell her to bring my pajamas. I’m not letting any of these people see my ass.”

His pissy disposition was proof positive he was on his way to recovery.

Chapter Twenty-Four

JoAnne’s silence from her side of the car forced insecurity up Dakota’s spine.

The drive up to the Eddy property was slow, slippery, and quiet. After only two comments about a California girl driving in the snow, JoAnne rested her head on the window and drifted off.

Good thing, too. Dakota wasn’t as secure behind the wheel as she’d like to believe. It didn’t take long to feel like she had some control over the car and the road. Still she inched up the hill and didn’t pay a lot of attention to the locals who buzzed around her like she was a sixteen-year-old who’d never driven before.

She breached the Eddy gate, pulled in front of their home, and turned off the engine. Only then did JoAnne stir.

“We’re here,” Dakota offered.

JoAnne blinked a few times and then pushed from the car without a word.

Inside the house, JoAnne moved into the kitchen and poured a glass of water.

Dakota followed, not certain what to do with herself. “Would you like me to make you something to eat?” Dakota asked, steeling herself for whatever words were coming her way.

The last time JoAnne and she had spoken, they were less than friendly.

“I need to sleep.” With that, JoAnne Eddy turned on her heel and left Dakota standing in the middle of the kitchen . . . alone.

Dakota watched Walt’s mother retreat and blew out a slow breath.

At least she didn’t have to add another ugly confrontation on top of everything else. She placed the small bag housing an overnight’s stay of belongings on the sofa in the den, and took in the scene beyond the windows.

The lake she’d tossed Walt in only a few months before was iced over . . . snow filled in the edges and made the scene something out of a movie.

On any other day, this picture might inspire something moving.

Today it felt frozen.

Perhaps if Walt were beside her she could appreciate it. Only he was held up in a hospital looking over his father’s care.

She placed her purse in her lap and retrieved her phone. A quick text to Walt told him they’d arrived in one piece.

The moment she kicked her shoes off and her feet up, Junior decided to dance. “You’re something,” she said to her unborn child. “Nothing for hours and now you wanna play.”

Instead of searching out a bedroom and risking disturbing JoAnne, Dakota helped herself to a glass of milk and a piece of bread before finding a blanket and pillow on a couch. Even with Junior kicking up a storm, she fell asleep in minutes and didn’t wake for hours.

Her head ached, her back wasn’t right, but she woke feeling marginally better than when she’d fallen in a comatose heap on the couch. The sun was still high, which told her she’d not slept as long as she might have needed.

She found her cell phone and checked her messages like some might check the morning paper.

Walt let her know he received her text hours before, and then sent a message later to text when she woke.

Another text came from Mary, asking how everyone was.

Then there was her agent, Desi, asking if they could meet before their noon appointment with the publisher.

Overwhelmed, Dakota called Walt first.

“Hey,” she said when he answered the phone.

“You haven’t slept long enough.” Sure enough, she’d looked at the time on her phone before she’d placed the call and she’d only been down a few hours.

“I could never work graveyard and sleep during the day. How are you? You sound tired.”

“Remind me to never do this again.”

She forced a laugh. “Like you have a choice. How’s your dad?”

“Cantankerous, argumentative, and downright mean. So he’s better than I thought he’d be.”

Funny how a man being an ass could bring joy to her heart. “Good to hear. How are you? Did you manage any sleep?”

“I’ll sleep tonight.”

Translation . . . no. He hadn’t slept. “Walt.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

He sighed. “How’s my mom?”

“Sleeping.”

“Was she awful to you?”

Dakota watched the wind blow snow off the treetops. “She was too tired for that. She’s been in her room the whole time.”

“That’s probably a good thing.”

Walt went on to tell her about his father’s upcoming surgery and how the nurses were earning their Christmas bonuses putting up with him. Walt asked if she could order dinner and lunch for the staff in an effort to ease their suffering.

Dakota moved into the kitchen and wrote a note to herself to order something for the staff. “I’ll take care of it,” she told him.

“Have I told you how much I appreciate you being here?”

“You have, and you don’t need to. I’ll let you know when we leave to visit.”

“OK. Drive safe.”

“I will.”

Dakota hung up the phone and moved about the kitchen. After foraging through the kitchen, she found the coffee and brewed a pot. From there she managed to heat up some soup, found a mug to bring some to Walt when they left.

For company, Dakota turned on the television, found the evening news.

The forecast told her the night would freeze and sometime during the next twenty-four hours a low would pass through. On the heels of that, another would sock in.

“Great,” she mumbled. “Like we need bad weather to make things harder.”

The thought, however, made Dakota consider what was in the Eddy pantry. She moved into it, noted the canned food, the water supplies. The central heater kept the house warm, but did they have firewood?

In full prepper mode, Dakota pulled on her jacket and checked the mudroom and porch outside the house.

Firewood was stacked alongside the house, giving her some ease.

They’d be driving up and down the mountain . . . so the question was what did the Eddys have in their cars?

Dakota cringed when she realized how little JoAnne had in her possession when driving.

Well, Dakota knew better, and she went about making sure any car she’d be using over the next week was prepared.

The drive back down the mountain was just as entertaining as it was going up. JoAnne didn’t sleep, but conversation was limited to directions. Dakota was happy to drop her off at the front door of the hospital and search out a parking spot on her own.

She took a moment alone once she parked the car to call Desi. “You’re going to have to make my excuses,” she told her agent. A five-minute discussion explained where Dakota was and why she wasn’t meeting with her publisher in the morning. “The good news is, my next book is done.”

“What?” Desi’s surprise matched the high-pitched tone. “You’re kidding?”

“No. I was going to deliver it personally, but I’m sending you a file instead.”

“You’re two months ahead of schedule.”

“I know. Call me inspired, or maybe it was the restless nights. I’m sure the pace won’t be the same once Junior is born. Might as well put in the hours now while I can.”

“It sounds like you’re stressed out. How are
you
doing?”

“I’m good, actually. Walt and I have found our pace, I think . . . hopefully his father’s blip in his health is only that.”

“And what about wedding bells? Any of those ringing?”

Dakota shook her head to the empty car. “There are a lot of Hollywood movie stars who shack up, have families, and don’t get married for years.”

“You’re not that woman.”

“Yes, I am.”

Desi offered a short laugh. “No! You’re not.”

Arguing with her agent was a waste of time. “I’ve gotta go. Tell Loretta I’m sorry and that I’ll send the manuscript tomorrow.”

“I’ll tell her. You take care of yourself. Make sure that doctor of yours takes care of you, too.”

Dakota bundled against the cold and walked into the hospital. She ran into Walt as he was walking out of the ICU.

He looked tired, a full day’s growth of stubble on his face, his hair looked like he’d combed it with his fingers for hours. “Oh, Doc.”

He pulled her into his arms and damn near collapsed.

She just held him for several seconds. “Is it that bad?”

He shook his head, talked into the side of her neck. “He’s irritable and ready to yell at anyone who walks in the room.”

“So he’s feeling better.”

Walt nodded, pulled away, and captured her face in his hands. “You look good, smell even better.”

“I bet you say that to all the women carrying your babies.”

He kissed her gently. Dakota folded into him and smiled somewhere deep inside. Yes, they were in a hospital in a crappy situation, but they had each other.

Dakota ended their kiss when the door to the ICU opened to let someone out.

“My dad wanted to see you,” he told her. “Then I’d like to get out of here.”

“Are we leaving your mom?”

He nodded. “Larry said he’d drive her home after visiting hours. Stanley is enforcing visiting hours between now and his surgery.”

“So your dad agreed?”

“Yeah. He’s on the schedule for Wednesday morning.”

Dakota laid a hand alongside his face. “Then we should try and catch some sleep while we can.”

They walked into the ICU together.

Dakota had been in her share of hospitals over the years, but never in an intensive care unit, where the sick teetered on the edge of life and death. It was hard not searching out the conditions of the patients as she passed by the glass-enclosed rooms. The scent unique to hospitals was stronger here. She’d have to ask Walt later what she was smelling. Right now, she didn’t want to know. Her stomach wasn’t too happy with the odiferous department.

Walt walked her into his father’s room.

Unlike the other rooms she’d passed, this one had a couple of people inside. Walter Eddy I sat beside JoAnne. The patient was sitting up in his bed, his gaze went to them as they stepped in. “There you are,” Walt’s dad said.

“Hello, Dr. Eddy.”

Walt’s dad was so much more welcoming than his mother. “Well c’mere and give an old man a hug.”

She obliged, careful not to upset all the wires and tubes he was hooked up to. “You’re not old,” she told him.

“Feel like I’m a hundred today.”

She smiled and left the comment about how he only looked ninety inside her mouth.

“So where’s that grandchild of mine?” he asked.

Dakota stood next to Walt and patted her stomach. “Right where Stud Muffin put him,” she said with a wink.

JoAnne scoffed and Walt’s grandfather laughed.

“As soon as I’m well enough to knock some sense into my son, I’m going to ask about those wedding plans.”

“So, by the weekend, then?” Dakota asked, showing her optimism.

Walt’s dad winked. “I’ll give you until next week. Consider yourselves warned.”

Walt’s grandfather chimed in. “Well, I don’t have to wait.”

JoAnne turned to her father-in-law. “Not now, Dad.”

He grumbled.

“Well, son. I don’t have to tell you why you need to get your girl out of here. We don’t need her getting sick.”

Walt placed a hand to the small of her back. “We’re leaving.” He turned to his mother. “Larry will bring you home.”

“I don’t have to go home.”

“Yes, you do. Dad needs his rest, and so do you.”

JoAnne pinched her lips even closer together. It was amazing the woman could still breathe.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Dad.”

Dakota went ahead and placed a hand on his leg through the blankets. “Don’t pinch any nurses’ butts. Be professional.”

He chuckled and the sound grew like the first flower in spring.

They turned to leave.

“Walt?”

“Yeah, Dad?”

“Thanks for being here.”

Walt smiled as they left the room.