The Wedding Gift

Someone jostled her from behind and a loud whooping sounded from the group at the pool table. Three middle-aged men yelled at the ref on a television mounted on the wall, drinks were plunked down, a blender started. Sitting in this bar in this town of strangers, her elbows on the marred countertop, the heel of one boot hooked over the rung of her stool, she felt a weight lifting.

“I met a friend of yours today,” she said. “Kipp Dawson could use some training in social graces.”

“I’ll let you tell him.”

She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure he threatened me.”

“Kipp threatens everyone.”

She found herself staring at Riley’s mouth. It was broad, the lower lip just full enough to entice a second look. “He told me he has your back.”

“What else did he say?” he asked.

“I won’t repeat it verbatim, but he was very poetic.”

He leaned closer, as if to tell her a secret. “The only time Kipp waxes poetic is when he’s referring to sex.”

Was he flirting with her? Her heart fluttered wildly at the thought. “Just so there’s no confusion,” she said, her beer a few inches from her mouth. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

“Madeline?”

They were nearly shoulder to shoulder now, their bottles raised, gazes locked. “Yes?”

“I didn’t ask you to.” He took his time taking a long drink, set his beer back on the bar, then added, “But I was thinking about it.”

Her beer remained suspended in midair. Her mind remained blank. With two fingers placed gently beneath her chin, Riley closed her mouth for her.

“Once more,” she whispered, her heart hammering in her chest, her gaze still on his.

“Pardon me?”

“That’s my answer.”

“What was the question?” he asked.

“How many more times will my mouth go slack today?”

He didn’t quite smile, but she thought he wanted to. Feeling a curious swooping pull in the pit of her stomach, she raised her beer to her lips and drank it down.

Chapter Three

Are you okay over there?” Riley asked as he backed out of a parking spot behind Sully’s.

Huddled low in his passenger seat, Madeline forced her eyes open and tried to focus on the lighted dials on the dash. “It must have been that last margarita.”

“More like the last three margaritas,” he said. “You and your friends were the life of the party. The bartender said their karaoke machine hasn’t seen that much action all year.”

She held a hand to her forehead, remembering. Madeline had jumped in to harmonize as Ruby sang the greatest Pat Benatar song of all time, “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.”

And somebody had, a shot of tequila for each of them, that is. Things were a little blurry after that. She couldn’t quite recall how she came to be missing one earring. Was she wearing Riley’s jacket? Where was hers?

Moaning softly, she said, “This is why I don’t drink.”

“I saw how you don’t drink.”

She considered telling him a gentleman wouldn’t have mentioned that, but then he probably would have said a gentleman hadn’t, and she just wasn’t up to that kind of banter. When his tires splashed through a pothole, she placed a hand over her poor stomach.

“Hold on,” he said. “These streets are coming apart. I can turn the radio on if you think it’ll help, but if I go any slower, we’ll be moving backward through time, and I doubt you want to relive the past ten minutes.”

“What I want is someone to start an IV to put me in a medically induced coma.”

“So it’s true.”

“What’s true?” she asked miserably. “Doctors and nurses make terrible patients.” “To tell you the truth, I’ve never been a patient.”

She paused a moment before broaching a very delicate subject. “What kind of patient were you?”

“The impatient kind, to hear my brothers tell it.”

She liked the mellow tone of his voice and the way he didn’t take himself too seriously. She wished he would keep talking. “Kipp said you have two brothers.”

“Kyle and Braden. Between us we had one father and three mothers, all of whom have a wide array of yappy little dogs that are obnoxiously high-strung, and too many grandmothers and aunts to officially count, most of whom are also obnoxiously high-strung. Kyle calls the women in the family The Sources because they leak information when it suits their hidden agendas. I don’t know how much my mother told you about me.”

Obviously he hadn’t called his mother. If he had, he would know she’d had nothing to do with Madeline’s arrival in Gale.

“Riley, she didn’t—”

“Why don’t you tell me what you already know.”

I knew the sound of your heart beating before it was yours, and the way it felt beneath the palm of my

hand.

If only she could say that out loud. But she couldn’t do that without explaining how she’d discovered his identity.

Her memories of that horrible day never recurred in their natural order. Instead they flashed back randomly from out of the blue, blindsiding her every time. There was the E.R. doctor’s grave expression, the screech of a gurney, the specialist they called in to confer. Dread. Her frantic race to reach Aaron in time, the sting of her own tears. Dread. The discordant hiss and rattle of the machines doing what Aaron could no longer do, the results of the tests, the bitter taste of coffee. Dread.

It went on for hours and hours. Gradually the seconds slowed then stopped altogether. It was over. One moment she’d been saying goodbye, and the next she was engulfed in a void so vast it sucked the air from her lungs, the sound from the room, and color from every surface. Summer believed Madeline had been having a panic attack. Madeline only knew that the pressure building in her chest had forced her from Aaron’s bedside and sent her clamoring for the stairs.

Up and around and up and around she’d gone until she’d burst onto the hospital roof where a helicopter was readying for takeoff. She crept close enough to feel the wind from the blades, the whomp, whomp, whomp matching the horrible pressure in her chest. The hospital staff scurrying about paid no attention to her. Since she was wearing scrubs, she probably blended right in. She dazedly stepped aside as two men raced toward the helicopter. One carried a cooler; the other was talking on a cell phone.

“ETA one hour,” he said as he veered around her. “Prep Riley Merrick for surgery. His new heart is on the way.”

The next thing she knew the helicopter was lifting. It hovered overhead, turned then disappeared in the midnight sky. All that remained in the ensuing stillness was the whomp, whomp, whomp of her heart and the whisper of Riley Merrick’s name.

There were strict laws protecting patients’ identity. Even if it was legal, did she have the moral right to tell him about Aaron? Transplant recipients were always given the opportunity to obtain information about their donor. If Riley had wanted to know, he would have gone through the proper channels via his surgeon and the hospital. For whatever reason, he hadn’t. Madeline didn’t see what choice she had but to allow him to continue to assume she was here because of his mother.

“Are you still awake?” Riley asked, bringing her from her reverie. Hearing her sigh, he said, “Why don’t you tell me something about you.”