“I WANT TO kick or punch something,” Shelby snarled, and she knew no one in the hospital waiting room would accuse her of sounding like a cranky toddler.
Well, no one who didn’t want to risk her yelling at them—which would be her version of actually kicking and punching, but she was looking at a couple of chair legs that might catch the brunt of a kick or two.
And Callen was looking at her as if he might offer himself up as a punching bag.
He felt bad about keeping her dad’s secret. She knew that. He was pacing across the waiting room just as she was, and his expression was worried with a spattering of “I’m screwed.”
But mostly it was worried.
It not only mirrored what she was feeling, but Shelby also knew it wasn’t going to ease up anytime soon—not until they heard from the doctor and nurses who’d whisked her father into an examining room. Whenever that would be. Even though it seemed like a millennium or two, it had only been about ten minutes since they’d done that whisking away.
“He was too pale,” she muttered when the urge for her to kick or punch lessened some.
Callen didn’t go for sugarcoating, something that only would have riled her more. He made a sound of agreement, groaned and scrubbed his hand over his face. Maybe he was getting the kicking and punching urge. Of course, he’d likely want to aim that at himself. No way could he be pleased with himself for agreeing to her dad’s dumb-head plan of keeping something like this quiet.
The ER doors swished open, and she immediately heard the sounds of hurried footsteps and distress. Lots of “oh dears” and what appeared to be a whimper. A few seconds later, Rosy came rushing in. She was swishing, too, because she was still in her wedding dress that swept through like a big pink plow, leaving a trail of sequins and seamstress pins in its wake.
Judd was right behind Rosy, and behind him were Lucy, Mateo and Alice, who still had pins clamped in her mouth. Obviously, they’d been in alteration mode, though Lucy had changed out of the bridesmaid dress and was back to her usual jeans.
“Oh dear,” Rosy repeated.
Judd wasn’t oh dearing, though. His gaze zoomed straight to Shelby. She suspected Judd was plenty worried, too, but he had a slightly different way of showing it. Intensity that was well past the kicking and punching mode.
“Where’s Buck, and what the hell happened?” Judd demanded.
To answer the first part of the question, Shelby motioned toward the corridor with the examining rooms. The second part wasn’t quite so easy to answer. It probably would have helped had her throat not clamped as tight as a miser’s fist, and she found herself motioning to Callen to do the explaining.
“Buck passed out at the diner,” Callen said. “He regained consciousness and wanted to go home, but Shelby and I brought him here.”
“Oh dear,” Rosy said. There was a whole lot of shakiness in those two muttered words.
Shakiness that Shelby saw in Lucy and Mateo. They were holding hands and generally looking terrified. Lucy won the prize on that, though, maybe because she’d been the one who’d spilled a secret that never should have been a secret in the first place. Shelby didn’t blame the girl, though. If her father could convince Callen to do this, convincing Lucy would have been a snap.
“Oh dear,” Rosy said again. It had all four adults and Mateo reaching out for her. Judd was closest, and he gathered her into his arms while keeping his attention on his brother.
Clearly, Judd was going to want a whole lot more info than Callen had just given him, and it seemed to Shelby that Judd’s cop instincts had zoomed in on Callen as being the primary source of that whole lot more.
Callen looked at her, silently asking if she wanted to be the one who spilled all of this, but Shelby gave him the go-ahead gesture with the lift of her hand. She knew the basics—well, now she did—but she suspected Callen knew more. And besides, no way was she going to attempt to justify to Rosy and Judd why her father had kept this to himself or why Callen had agreed to keep quiet right along with Buck.
However, before Callen could speak, Shelby heard yet another swish of the ER doors and more hurried footsteps. This time it was Kace, Nico and Havana. Shelby had texted Kace right after she’d called Judd to bring Rosy to the hospital, but she hadn’t noticed Callen texting Havana. However, since the inn was just up the street from both the diner and the hospital, it was likely Havana had got the news from someone who had seen or heard what was going on.
“What happened?” Kace asked, and he hurried to Rosy’s other side.
Shelby gave Callen another hand motion to let him know he was going to be the mouthpiece here, and she went to Lucy. She slid her arm around the girl, drawing her close.
Callen gave each of them a glance, then nodded the way a person would when mustering up whatever courage was needed to face a firing squad or a pack of rabid wolves. “Buck has a tumor on one of his lungs. He found out a couple of weeks ago.”
He paused, no doubt giving them a chance to absorb that. Shelby saw the shock first. Easy to recognize because she’d experienced the same thing when Callen had told her. She wondered if they would also experience the need to kick or punch something when Callen spelled out the rest.
“Weeks?” Rosy questioned.
Callen nodded. “Buck told me, but he asked me to keep it to myself. He didn’t want anyone to know until after the wedding.” Again, Callen paused for some absorption, followed by reaction.
And he got it.
“What?” Pretty much all of them except Mateo and Lucy said that. They stayed quiet, but the others sure didn’t.
“Dumbass,” Judd ground out, and she thought he meant that for both Buck and Callen.
Judd likely would have added a lot more profanity if Rosy hadn’t given him a parental whack on the arm. Rosy was visibly upset, but apparently that hadn’t stopped her from remembering that there were kids in earshot.
“Idiot,” Kace contributed, obviously going for nonprofanity.
“Good grief.” From Nico.
“Have you lost your flippin’ mind?” That from Havana, and it was aimed at Callen.
Alice mumbled something, finally took out the pins and said, “You don’t put off something like a tumor.” Which was the most logical of the scoldings.
Scoldings that continued when the blame shifted from Callen to her father.
“What the heck was Buck thinking?” That from Nico, and Kace grumbled something similar.
“Did you both lose your flippin’ minds?” Havana again.
“Sweet baby Jesus,” Nico contributed.
“Dumbass,” Judd said, even though he knew it’d get him another swat from Rosy—which it did.
They groaned, threw up hands, and a few glanced up as if seeking some kind of divine answer. Shelby was reasonably sure the only one who was going to give them answers about this was Buck, and it wasn’t an answer that any of them were going to accept. Well, other than Callen, and he’d already accepted.
She huffed and amended that when she looked at him. They were all deep in some ditch of emotion that was scummed with uncertainty and fear, but Callen was probably deeper in that ditch than any of the rest of them.
“Sometimes people screw up, even when they’re trying to do what they think is right,” Mateo said, causing them to turn in his direction. He definitely didn’t seem comfortable with that attention, either, and some of them—specifically Judd—didn’t seem especially receptive to the opinion.
“Just saying,” Mateo added.
Shelby let go of Lucy so she could punch Judd on the arm and give the boy what she thought might be a much-needed hug. Then she stepped away when she realized that Lucy appeared to need a hug from her brother.
“This is my fault,” Rosy said. That caused another shift in their attention, and this time all of them shifted in her direction. “Buck did this for me, you see.” And with that, she burst into tears.
They all swarmed around her, each of them trying to get in a hug or a comforting pat. It wasn’t easy to get close to her, though, in that dress. It might as well have been body armor.
There were some murmured denials about this being her fault, but none of them denied the second part. Because they knew that Buck had indeed put off telling them so that it wouldn’t put a cloud over the wedding. And now, instead of a cloud, they had a blasted tornado looming overhead.
Rosy cried and was comforted while sequins fell around them. Shelby got her share of hugs and soft whispers, too. Family, friends and a seamstress, all coming together to try to help. Shelby noticed, though, that some were closer—proximity-wise—than others. Lucy, Mateo and, yes, even Callen were holding back some, so Shelby remedied that. She latched on to whatever part of them she could and hauled them closer into the comfort mix.
She heard Callen’s sigh of relief.
Shelby looked up at him, to let him know that while she was more than willing to dole out some comfort, she wasn’t ready to forgive him for keeping quiet.
But she was ready.
Nothing good could come from her holding a grudge against him for that. Well, nothing good other than she might like to wallow in some misery for a little while longer. Still, she couldn’t mentally kick or punch him more than the job he was doing on himself.
The sound of yet more footsteps had them all moving back. Not easily. Since the netting and sequins had adhered to some of their clothes, it was a little like pulling apart a pan of sticky cinnamon rolls. They managed to untangle themselves as Dr. Breland, Buck’s doctor, came toward them. Of course, he got peppered with a bunch of questions that centered around “How is he?” but the doctor just waited until they’d settled before he spoke.
“Buck’s still in the examining room, and his condition is stable. No injuries. From what I can tell, he simply passed out, and since he was seated in his truck, he didn’t hit his head or anything.”
That settled the tornado a little for Shelby, and she refused to think of just how badly he could have been injured had he been driving at the time. Refusing didn’t stop the thought from coming, though, and she found herself muttering one of Judd’s dumbasses.
“Buck figures by now you all know about his tumor,” the doctor went on. “And he knows you’re probably all a little upset.”
“A lot upset,” Judd snapped. “A lot,” he emphasized with a glare at Callen.
The doctor nodded in a calm, unruffled way. “Buck will talk to all of you.” He stopped, frowned. “Most of you,” he amended when he looked at Alice and Havana. “He didn’t mention you two. But for now he wants to see Rosy, Shelby and Callen. Then Kace, Nico and Judd. Judd, he gave specific instructions that he’d box your ears if you came in cussing.”
As if in defiance, Judd cursed under his breath, something that Shelby was betting he wouldn’t do when he got into the room with Buck.
“This way,” the doctor said, motioning toward Rosy, Callen and her.
They followed Dr. Breland down the shiny tiled corridor that Shelby imagined would be shinier if the sequins on Rosy’s dress continued to shed. She started to blurt out something about it being bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her dress, but Shelby figured they’d already met their quota of the bad.
When they went into the examining room, it surprised her to see her father sitting up, and he certainly wasn’t as pale as he had been when he’d been passed out behind the steering wheel. There was actually plenty of color in his cheeks, but she doubted it was from a sudden onset of good health. No. He was embarrassed layered with a hefty dose of dread.
Rosy ran to him. Well, as much as she could run while dragging all those yards of fabric, and she showered Buck’s cheeks with kisses. Buck caught her in midcheek smooch to shift her mouth to his. The kiss he gave her was soft, long and incredibly intimate. So much so that Shelby looked away, her gaze colliding with Callen’s.
“I’m sorry,” Callen said to her, and while Shelby knew he meant it, she didn’t get the chance to respond because her father said those exact words.
“I’m sorry.” Buck glanced at each one of them as he repeated it, and then he held up his hand before they could start bombarding him with protests, whys and more hugs.
God, it was good to see him sitting up like that. Good to see the color in his face. But Shelby still wanted to throttle him.
Her father’s attention settled on Rosy. “You look so beautiful. My beautiful bride in her beautiful dress.”
Rosy managed a smile. “You really think so? You don’t think the dress has too much sparkle?”
It was enough to trigger seizures, but Shelby had to hand it to her father when he said, “It’s perfect, just like you.” He gave both the dress and Rosy an approving look. “I love you, and I didn’t want anything to get in the way of me marrying you. That’s on me, not you. I kept this secret for me. Remember that.”
It was a kind thing to say, especially since Rosy was still crying, but she was also shaking her head as if she was going to continue to take some of the blame.
Her father turned to Callen next. “I was wrong to ask you to keep this quiet. Wrong to put this on your shoulders. I just wanted...needed your help, and I knew you would do it. I knew there’d be a price to pay, that Rosy and Shelby would be upset, but I didn’t figure you’d stay around long after the wedding to deal with their aftermath.”
In other words, he would cut and run. Which Callen wouldn’t have done.
No, Shelby mentally amended.
He would have stayed and faced their anger just as he’d done in the hospital waiting room. Because at the core of it, Callen loved Buck and would walk through hell and fire for him. Or in this case, he’d deal with a crying bride and a pissed-off daughter.
Her dad finally looked at her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I’m even sorrier that I mucked up things between Callen and you.”
“Wh-what?” Shelby managed. The first “I’m sorry” she got just fine. She deserved that apology, but the second one led her to believe that her father thought there was something to muck up with Callen.
Something like a relationship.
Callen and she did have one of those. Sort of. After all, they’d had sex and she had almost forgiven him for keeping the truth from her. Maybe she had anyway. But relationship seemed to be something, well, more than sex. More than even onetime forgiveness. It seemed like another step toward that broken heart that was looming like a second tornado.
Shelby didn’t have the heart to argue with her dad. With Callen. Or with anyone else. She felt spent, raw and afraid.
Very afraid.
“What will happen now?” she asked, almost too scared to hear the answer.
But Buck wasn’t the one who responded anyway. Dr. Breland came back in. “I’ll need a word with Buck,” he said. “I have to go over some things.”
“I’d like for them to stay,” her father insisted, and he caught onto Rosy’s hand. Then Shelby’s.
The doctor nodded. “Your blood pressure’s low, and you’re anemic. I think that’s why you fainted. We’ll find a way to fix that, but the tumor is the big fix.” He looked Buck straight in the eyes. “No more delays. I want to keep you overnight and get you scheduled for surgery.”
The room went so quiet that Shelby heard one of the pins from Rosy’s hem ping to the floor.
Dr. Breland shifted to Rosy then. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to need to postpone the wedding.”