The Bridesmaid's Gifts

“And there was an accident?”

He nodded. “Joel and I were spending the week with our maternal grandparents in Tennessee, as we did every summer while they were living. Mom thought Kyle was still too small to be gone for that long. Anyway, for some reason, the nanny took him out during that heavy rain. No one knows why they left the house. They were in her car, a cheapie little compact.”

He cleared his throat, then continued, “Apparently she hydroplaned, went off the road and was swept into a flooding river. The car was found a few days later, overturned in very deep water, but it was empty. Several other people drowned during that same tropical storm and resulting flood. There was another man whose body wasn’t recovered for several months, but neither the nanny’s body nor my brother’s was ever found.”

There was no identifiable emotion in his tone, though his eyes looked darker than usual. He obviously believed every word of the sad story he had just told her. The story that had been told to him.

She moistened her lips again. “It isn’t true,” she whispered.

He frowned more deeply at her. “What isn’t true?”

“Any of it. I mean, I know that’s what you think happened. What you all believe. But…”

Ethan’s arms dropped to his sides, the fists clenched. He took a step toward her, making her instinctively move backward. “If you’re going to try to feed me a load of crap about how you’ve been talking to my dead brother…”

“No!” She shook her head forcefully. “It’s not like that, Ethan. I’m not a medium. And even if I were, it wouldn’t apply in this case.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

She drew a deep breath, then blurted out the words before she could lose her nerve. “Kyle isn’t dead.”

Chapter Four

A gentle breeze ruffled Cassandra’s snow-white hair, one straight lock tickling her right cheek. She reached up to tuck it back, savoring the scent of the flowers that bloomed in the gardens around her.

As she often did, she thought of how fortunate she was to be at this pleasant, exclusive, private facility. It was expensive, but her late husband had made sure she would be well cared for after his passing. Just as she had known he would when she’d married him.

She sat alone in her little corner of the garden. She didn’t mingle much with the other residents here, most of them being quite a bit older. Besides, she wasn’t interested in socializing. She actually enjoyed her solitude, for the most part.

She didn’t come outside very often, but she had allowed herself to be persuaded this afternoon, thinking that the fresh, warm air might clear her mind. She didn’t like the new medications. They left her feeling groggy. Lethargic. And she still had the nightmares. Not as often, maybe, but just as vivid and disturbing when they came.

She would have to ask Dr. Thomas to make another adjustment.

Her knitting needles clicked with a slower-than-usual rhythm as she tried to immerse herself in the soothing sounds of the birds singing in the trees above her head, the water splashing gently in the nearby fountain. Lovely, peaceful sounds that almost—but not quite—drowned out the echoes of her dreams.

“Here you are.”

She couldn’t have said how much time had passed between her thoughts of him and his appearance. A few minutes. An hour, perhaps. Time had a trick of slipping away from her. “Hello, Dr. Thomas.”

He sat on a concrete garden bench, crossing one leg over the other. The casual pose stretched the fabric of the khaki slacks he almost always wore with a solid-color shirt and brightly patterned tie beneath the required white coat that made him look so handsome and professional. She liked the way he dressed. Not too stuffy but neatly enough to show regard for his patients here.

There had been a trend away from ties and white coats a couple of years ago, but the residents hadn’t liked seeing their physicians in blue jeans and polo shirts and other members of the staff in T-shirts and flip-flops. Now that the doctors were back in their white coats and the rest of the staff wore tidy uniforms, everything seemed to run much more smoothly. More civilly. She firmly believed that the general decline in polite society could be measured by the pervasive loss of respect for proper attire.

And weren’t there people in her past who would find that attitude hilarious, coming from her?

“What are you thinking about so seriously?”

She made herself smile as she replied candidly, “Neckties and panty hose.”

To give him credit, he didn’t seem at all taken aback by the non sequitur, asking merely, “Are you for ’em or agin ’em?”

She chuckled, thinking of how much she liked this nice young man. “I’m for ’em.”

He tugged lightly at the blue-and-green-patterned tie he wore with a blue shirt that contrasted nicely with his light tan. “I was afraid you might say that.”

Laughing again, she shook her head. “Don’t try to con me. You like looking nice or you wouldn’t give so much thought to matching your shirts and ties. Unlike some of the doctors who show up in mismatched patterns and colors that make one’s head hurt to look at them.”

“Now, Cassandra, don’t make fun of Dr. Marvin. Everyone knows he’s color-blind.”

“Then he should always let his wife dress him in the mornings, bless his heart.”

Grinning, the doctor nodded. “You’re probably right. So how are you?”

She told him about the effects of the new sleep aid, finishing with a request for a change.

Dr. Thomas nodded gravely. “We’ll make another adjustment. I still think it would be good for you to talk about your dreams with someone, though. If not with me, at least with your counselor. We don’t discuss specifics about our clients, as you’re aware, but I get the feeling you aren’t being much more forthcoming with her than you are with me.”

“I tell you both everything you need to know,” she assured him, catching a dropped stitch.

“I would like to think you trust me, Cassandra.”

The sincerity in his voice was genuine, not like some of the doctors who only pretended to be truly concerned about the residents here. Dr. Thomas cared so much that she was tempted at times to advise him to put a bit more distance between himself and his patients. As appealing as his empathetic nature made him, it also made him more susceptible to burnout and disillusion. As fond as she was of him, she would hate to see him fall prey to either of those conditions.

“I trust you as much as I trust anyone.”

He sighed lightly. “I suppose I have to be satisfied with that.”

Nodding, she let her hands rest. “How was your date last week?”

“We were talking about you, not me.”

She lifted her needles again.

After a moment, he conceded. “We attended a symphony performance. We had a flat tire on the way to the concert hall, but I was able to change it without messing up my clothes or making us late to the concert. On the whole, it was a pleasant evening.”

“But a little dull,” she interpreted, reading easily between the lines. “You probably won’t ask her out again. I told you she wasn’t right for you.”

He shook his head in obvious exasperation. “Maybe you can introduce me to Ms. Right,” he muttered.

“I can’t introduce you, but I can tell you that you’ll know when you find her. And you will find her.”

“A seer, are you?” he teased.

She didn’t smile in return.

“You’re crazy.”

Aislinn flinched in response to Ethan’s blunt words. “I’m not crazy.”