CHAPTER ONE
Maybe, just maybe, she shouldn’t have quit yesterday. Maybe she should have waited for one of the many job applications she’d sent out to bounce back as a firm job offer before she’d gone ahead and given notice. Elle was three hours in to her morning shift, and already she’d been told she was soooo brave seven times.
Seven.
As an ER nurse she was used to being the one who told patients how brave they were, usually as they were gushing blood—or other stuff—and genuinely deserved the encouragement. She was now in the position to know that after the fifth so brave, you stopped believing it, and started thinking everyone knew something you didn’t.
Which was why she was now hiding out in the cafeteria, taking an early lunch.
Waiting might have been the smart move, but she had no doubts about her decision to quit. It wasn’t the wild and impulsive act of the moment her friends and colleagues seemed to think. She’d been planning it for some time. There was nothing dramatic about it. Elle Finley didn’t do dramatic. She did practical. And so, when she felt the flicker of burnout at the edges of her life after eight years of working in a busy city hospital, she’d taken sensible and practical steps to fix it.
Elle swallowed the last bite of her sandwich, washed it down with a warm and now-flat Diet Coke, and braced herself to get back to the ER and her colleagues’ well-intentioned support. She just had to stick it out for the next two weeks. She could handle that.
Her cell phone rang, shuddering its way across the table. Elle caught it before it danced into the congealing puddle of ketchup left by whoever had eaten there last, and glanced at the display. Her brows twitched together. This couldn’t be good. She hit the green button. “Jenny?”
“Yeah.”
She waited for her sister to continue, but all she heard from the other end was angry breathing.
“Everything okay?” Elle asked, even though she knew it wasn’t. She hadn’t talked to Jenny in a while—more than a while, she realized with a blink of surprise—and these days they weren’t close enough to be making calls for coffee-break chats. Something was up. “Shit. Is Katie all right?”
Jenny sighed. “She’s fine.”
The sudden lurch of acid panic that seared Elle’s gut at the thought something had happened to her niece drained away. “So…how are you?”
Another sigh. “Awesome. Freaking awesome.”
“Good to hear. Now the truth?”
A short pause, then Jenny bit out, “I need you to come home.”
Elle held the phone away from her ear for a moment and squinted at it. Jenny Hansen, using the words I and need and you, all in the same sentence? If she’d thrown a please into the mix, Elle would have fallen off her chair. “Say again?”
“I need you to come home.”
“To Emerson?”
“Yes, to Emerson. You think we just drove to Seattle and showed up at your apartment for a surprise visit?”
Elle hoped not, since she didn’t live there anymore and hadn’t gotten around to telling Jenny. Seriously, when had they last talked? She and Chris had called time on their relationship three months ago, and she’d moved out of their shared apartment the same day. Had it been that long? “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“Okay, I’ll come home to Emerson. When do you need me?”
“Okay? That easy?”
“Did you want me to make it hard?”
“No.”
“Then, okay. Also, why?”
“I broke my leg.”
“Jenny! How? Are you all right? What happened—”
“Don’t freak out. I fell over at the garden center, that’s all.”
Every broken bone Elle had ever seen in her entire nursing career flashed through her mind. Don’t freak out? Was she kidding? “How bad is it? What kind? Is it a closed fracture, a compound fracture, did it come through the skin? Where on your leg? Is it a tibia fracture, a fibular?”
“Eww. Stop being gross. It just snapped when I fell, all right? If it makes you feel any better, the doc said it’s the tidiest damn fracture he’s ever seen. It’s a clean break, it didn’t come through the skin—gross—and the cast will be off in six weeks. It’s nothing. I wouldn’t bother you except I need help with Katie and with…other stuff…since I can’t get around or drive her to preschool, things like that.”
“What about Dean?” Elle didn’t think much of Jenny’s husband, but surely even Dean Hansen could find room in his busy schedule of being a douche to help out his injured wife.
“Listen, just say no if you can’t get time off work. It’s not a big deal.”
Apparently Dean’s schedule was still packed. Figured. “I’m there, okay? I’m coming back, it’s fine.”
“Thank you. Um. There’s something I should tell you before— Hey.” Jenny’s voice faded as she spoke to someone in the background. “Hey! Be careful with that vase. In fact, you know what? Hands off. Don’t touch it. I’ll move it.”
There was a low rumble of response.
“I don’t care if you think you’re some kind of a professional, I said I’m moving it. You get to take the TV. That doesn’t mean you get to touch everything on it. You have to wait for me to move it, and no I won’t sit down. Because I don’t want to sit down. No. What? Right.” Jenny cleared her throat. “Sorry, Elle, I’m back.”
“What’s going on? Having a party?”
“Drop the vase, and I’ll have you arrested for destruction of personal property.” Whoever Jenny was hissing at found this hilarious, because Elle heard another rumble, followed by laughter. “I’m not joking!” Jenny yelled.
Ouch. Elle pulled the cell away from her ear, glared at the screen, then cautiously brought it back up. “Jenny!”
“What?”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Derek Tate is stealing my television, that’s all.”
“And you’re on the phone with me, letting this guy steal… Wait. Derek Tate from high school?”
“That’s the son of a bitch.”
“The pastor’s son?”
“Yes.”
“I used to babysit him. He was such an adorable little moppet. Why is he stealing your television?”
“Because he’s already taken the stereo, the Xbox, and the dishwasher. Because he’s an asshole jerk and he wants to make me miserable. Because he can’t pass up the opportunity to heap the burning coals of God’s wrath upon my unbeliever’s head.”
“Now Jenny, don’t be like that,” a deep voice said, increasing in volume as he continued, “This is all legal, Elle. Got the paperwork and everything right here.”
Paperwork? “Put him on, Jenny. Jenny! Put Derek on the phone.”
“Fuck it. Fine. I don’t care. Here you go.”
“Hey, Elle,” Derek said. “How’s it going?”
“Derek, are you robbing my baby sister?”
He laughed. “’Course not. Me and my buddy are here to do a little repo, that’s all.”
He was in collections? For some reason it struck Elle as an odd choice of profession for a pastor’s son. Especially for the Derek Tate she remembered. Thought he’d grow up to be a professional puppy cuddler or something.
“Don’t worry, though. I drove Katie to preschool first so she didn’t get confused. See? I’m still an adorable moppet.”
Elle heard a scuffle at the other end of the line and Jenny shouted, “He’s got piercings, Elle, he’s not adorable.”
“That right?” she said to Derek. “Where?”
“In my eyebrow.”
“Cool.”
“And other places.”
“C-cool.”
“Right.” Jenny snorted.
Derek’s voice was muffled as he said to Jenny, “Want to see it?”
“I swear to God, Tate, you show me your stupid bellybutton ring, I’ll snatch it right out.”
He laughed. “It’s not a ring. And it’s not in my bellybutton.”
“Derek,” Elle called down the phone. “Stop flirting with a married woman and tell me why you’re repossessing Jenny’s household goods, would you?”
“I’m not flirt—” There was a brief hitch of silence, then Derek said, “Dean is in debt. Serious debt, Elle, and his creditors are done with him putting them off. This is the part where collections agencies come in.”
“How bad is the debt?”
“Welll… Shit.” He cut off with a yelp. “Jenny! That hurt.”
“You’ve paid people to poke holes in you and then stick bits of metal inside, Derek. A tiny pinch can’t possibly hurt. You infant.” Jenny had the phone again. “Elle. Listen, we’ll talk details when you’re here. Things are in a state of, uh, flux right now. Dean and his stupid debts and all that can wait.”
Elle recognized the tone of voice. Jenny was on the edge. Even though she wanted to know what the hell was going on, and she wanted to know right now, she choked it down. “Sure. When do you need me?”
“Next couple of days? I hate to ask. I really hate that I’m doing this to you. So, maybe a week? I don’t want to make things difficult for you at work, or with Chris. Yeah, I can cope for about a week, now I know you’re coming home.” Her voice wobbled as if she was moving, and her words sped up. “Got to go, Derek is going to break my fingers to steal the phone any minute now. It’s a brand-new one. See you soon?”
Derek sighed. “Stop trying to run on crutches, Jenny. It’s just sad. You can finish your call.”
“That’s Mrs. Hansen to you, since you’re here legally and with paperwork and not visiting.”
“In that case, Ms. Finley, wrap it up. You know what? This is ridiculous. Give me the phone.”
“No! Goddamn it, Tate, don’t you dare— Elle, he’s stealing the phone! Hang up! Conversation’s over! Ignore him!”
“Hi, Elle. Me again.”
“Derek.”
“Since you’re coming home, think I may as well tell you— Shit! Jenny! Stop pinching me. Elle, don’t wait a week. Come home soon as you can. Jenny needs you right now.”
“I’ll be there.”