Welcome to Harmony (24 page)

To Alex’s surprise, her father put his hand on her mother’s shoulder and talked to her softly.

The room went silent and Adam’s words drifted like smoke through the air. “He took a blow to the head, Fran; I think that’s what concerned the doc most. The other injuries look like they’ll heal.”

Fran leaned against Adam’s shoulder and began to cry. A river of ice set Alex’s spine. It was a scene she’d seen once before three years ago. Warren had been dead when they lifted him from the road, but they’d still loaded him into the ambulance and brought him here. Her parents had stood just as they were now, her father talking softly, her mother crying. Two people who never got along in the calm of life clung to one another in crisis.

Alex pushed her way through the crowd. There wasn’t enough air in the world for her to breathe. She made it outside and away from all the bright lights. She couldn’t watch her parents. Not again. She couldn’t look for Hank, either. If she saw Hank now, all the memories of Warren’s death would flood back and she couldn’t deal with it, not with Noah hurt.

Once she passed the doors, the only dark place she spotted was a shadowy drive leading to a back parking lot behind the hospital. Alex almost ran to it.

One person stood in the center of the drive. She saw him too late to choose another direction. Hank. He’d found the darkness before her.

Part of her wanted to turn and run. Part of her knew this one man would be the only one to understand. He’d walked the nightmare once before. He’d hear the echoes of it again.

He turned to her and opened his arms. She stepped into his embrace, needing the strong hug her father had never given her.

He pulled her close. Holding her to earth as he always had.

They stood for a while. When she felt the silent tears running unchecked down her face, she pulled back. “It’s too much like . . .”

“I know,” he answered.

He pushed her hair out of her face. “Noah isn’t Warren. We don’t know much, but we know one thing: Noah’s alive.”

She nodded. “Promise you’ll stay until we know more?”

He smiled. “Of course.”

They moved apart and walked back into the waiting room, where she joined her parents. Everyone else in the room was talking, but she felt she was floating in a silent bubble with her parents. The only thing keeping her sane was Hank ten feet away, keeping an eye on her. She had a feeling if she bolted again, he’d be right there to meet her in the shadows.

Finally, the doctor emerged with a status report. Noah seemed to be out of danger. He had two cracked ribs, multiple bruising, and a concussion. They were keeping him for a few days to run more tests.

Alex closed her eyes and breathed.

Her parents went in to see Noah, and Alex encouraged the friends and relatives to go home. The doctor had insisted on no visitors.

When the last one left, she turned to Hank. “Thank you. For being here.”

“You’re welcome,” he responded, his hands in his pockets. After a moment, he added, “I called in ten minutes ago. Still no sign of fire.”

She’d forgotten about the fire. “Good,” she managed. “I think I’ll ask if I can go in and say good night to Noah.”

Hank moved toward the parking lot. “I’ll be here when you get finished. Take your time.”

“You don’t have to wait.” She frowned. She’d appreciated his presence tonight, but that didn’t make them a couple.

He smiled. “Yes, I do. You’re my ride back to my truck.”

“Oh.” She felt stupid. “Of course. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

In Noah’s room, her parents were on either side of the bed. Her mother clutched Noah’s hand in both of hers. Her father stared at his sleeping son with tubes taped to his arm.

“I can’t stand seeing him like this,” Frances whispered. “His riding days are ended.”

“We’ll talk,” Adam also whispered in his gruff tone.

“He’ll wear a helmet and a vest from now on. He should have had one on tonight.”

Alex let them leave without her, knowing they’d be arguing as soon as they stepped outside the door.

“Hold on, little brother,” she whispered to Noah, as she must have a thousand times when they were growing up. She threaded her fingers through his. “Hold on tight.”

“I KNOW YOU’RE THERE.” NOAH SOUNDED LIKE HE HAD A sore throat. “You might as well come on out.”

Reagan thought of staying in the corner between the blinds and the shelving filled with supplies. Maybe he’d go back to sleep and when he woke again he’d think he’d dreamed he had seen her hiding.

“Rea, come on out.”

She looked at the door. A nurse wandered in now and then, but she’d heard a racket in the hallway and knew that another round of customers had arrived at the emergency room. Slowly, Reagan slipped from concealment and approached Noah’s hospital bed.

“You look terrible,” she whispered.

He raised his left hand. The back was blue from where it had been stomped on, and the fingers were swollen double in size. Three or four stitches laced across a cut at his wrist.

“I probably look better than I feel,” he said. “My side is killing me and I feel like one of the doctors, the fat one, is sitting on top of my head.”

Reagan smiled. “He is. You want me to tell him to get off?”

The corner of Noah’s mouth twitched. “Any chance you want to hug me, Rea?”

“No, and even if I did, I’d have trouble finding a place on you that’s not bruised, bleeding, or bandaged. They could use your body for the model in a new Operation game.”

Noah lifted his right arm. There was a bandage from his elbow to his shoulder, and his hand had tubes taped to it. “I don’t like this.”

“Me, either.” She scrubbed at her cheek. In fact, she hated seeing him like this, all broken and pale.

“Have you been crying?”

“No,” she lied. She’d waited until everyone left, not knowing what else to do. When a dozen people from a bar fight stormed in, all the hospital staff had their hands full. It hadn’t been that hard to slip between the doors and find Noah. She’d planned to just talk to him a minute, but she’d waited an hour for him to open his eyes.

His cracked lip twitched again. “You were worried about me.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Reagan ducked into the shadows as the door opened.

Noah closed his eyes.

A nurse whose name tag identified her as Georgia Veasey looked at the monitors, adjusted a few bags, and left. Before the door closed, they heard someone down the hall yell that someone had thrown up in room three.

Reagan reappeared and finished her sentence. “I wasn’t worried about you, I was just worried I wouldn’t have anyone to eat lunch with. I’ve kind of gotten used to you bothering me.”

“You should go on home. I’ll be all right.” His words came slow, like someone who hadn’t slept in days.

“No,” she said simply.

“You think I’m lying? I’m just waiting until you’re gone so I can die.”

She bit her lip. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

He smiled weakly. “You’re staying then? No matter what I say?”

“Until they kick me out. You’re not much in the way of a friend, but you’re all I got.”

He moved his left hand away from his body, making room on the bed. “You may not like any touching, Rea, but I could sure use someone next to me about now. You look tired enough to drop, plus you’re the only one left around.”

She hesitated, glancing at the door.

“What are they going to do,” he asked, “kick you out five minutes earlier? They’ll do it anyway; you might as well rest until she comes back.”

She crawled carefully up beside him and stretched out next to him, her hand gently crossing below the bandages on his ribs.

He sighed and kissed the top of her head. “It’s over, Rea. You don’t have to cry. I’ll be around to bug you tomorrow.”

She closed her eyes, and they both fell asleep to the rhythm of the machines.

Fifteen minutes later, Nurse Veasey opened the door to check Noah’s bags. She froze at the sight before her. A Truman was curled up against a McAllen.

Everyone born in Harmony knew that the youngest, and soon to be the last, Truman had come to live with her great-uncle out on Lone Oak Road. Georgia hadn’t seen the girl up close, but there was no mistaking that wild red hair.

Georgia smiled. The kids were close in age, about sixteen or seventeen, but he looked double her size. The girl was curled close, barely touching him with her hand resting on one of the few spots on his chest not bandaged. They were both sound asleep.

As a nurse, she should wake the girl and tell her to get out, but Georgia couldn’t. Everyone knew Trumans and McAllens never spoke, not for years and years. Yet here they were, curled up together like a lion and a lamb. Only from what she’d heard from her husband, who taught English at Harmony High, the girl was the lion.

Georgia slowly closed the door, knowing it would be an hour or more before she got all the drunks now piling into emergency sorted out, doctored, and sent home to sober up. Let the kids sleep until then. She’d see they weren’t disturbed.

The feud, if there still was one, could wait for another day.

UNCLE JEREMIAH WALKED THROUGH THE BACK DOOR AND into the kitchen. He crossed to the sink and washed his hands, then sat down to breakfast.

Reagan had made French toast, which he ate without comment.

“Where’s the McAllen kid?” he asked between bites with the same disinterest with which he asked everything.

“Maybe he spent the night here,” she answered, just to see if Jeremiah would bother to look up from his food.

“He didn’t.” The old man kept eating. “If he had, you’d have set another place.”

Reagan smiled, guessing that if Noah walked into the room in his underwear, Jeremiah would simply tell him to pour himself a coffee and keep eating.

“Noah was hurt last night at the rodeo.” She whispered the words, hoping that would make them sound not so frightening.

Now Jeremiah looked up. “He all right?”

“He will be. I stayed with him until midnight just to make sure he didn’t die, then I drove his pickup home.”

“I thought you two might be planning to leave for parts unknown in that old junker of his.”

“Nope.” She passed him the syrup. “I think I’ll just go to see him as soon as the dishes are done. I won’t be long and I’ll work extra fast to make up the time I’m missing in the orchard.”

Jeremiah nodded as he refilled his cup. “The sheriff told you not to drive until you passed your driving test.”

“I know, and since Noah’s her brother, she’s bound to notice when I drive his truck back into town to check on him this morning.” She stopped and waited.

Like a slow cooker, he stewed on what she’d said a while before he asked, “You want me to drive you in?”

“Would you?”

He nodded. “But I’m not going in. I don’t like hospitals. I went in one back in eighty-seven with one problem and came out with two.” He reached for the calendar on the wall behind the door and marked off the date. “Month is sure going by,” he mumbled, and put the calendar back on its nail.

Reagan hurried to finish as she added between bites, “If you drive me, we can stop at the bookstore and I’ll go in and get you a new copy of the Dallas paper. That one you got in the front room is two months old.”

“Fair enough,” he echoed. “I can start reading it while you visit.”

A half hour later she walked into Noah’s room.

He was sitting up in bed talking to several girls from the cheerleading squad. They all had their uniforms on and giggled at everything he said.

Reagan made no attempt to announce her presence; she just stood at the door and watched.

“That last hug made me feel a lot better, Arlee.” Noah smiled at the girl in a goofy way she’d never seen him smile.

“You want another one?” She laughed. “We’re all happy to do whatever we can to help out the sick.”

“And brave,” one of the other girls said. “That was so brave.”

“No.” A blonde beside Arlee pushed closer to the bed.

“It’s my turn to give him a hug.”

Reagan wanted to throw up. They giggled and talked on for five minutes. Most hadn’t been at the rodeo last night, but apparently visiting someone in the hospital was a free pass out of church, so they’d all decided to put on their uniforms and cheer him up.