* * *

Jack slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the Jeep almost before the motor died. Megan’s sister had sounded calm on the phone, but the woman had invented cool and collected. He wouldn’t stop worrying until he saw Megan for himself. The tale of slipping on the attic ladder didn’t ring true. Especially, considering the paranormal activity at the house. What if the apparition had returned and she hadn’t told him? He’d seen what could happen at her house.

One look at her pale face blending into the hospital-white pillow and he confirmed his suspicions as correct. Her gaze skittered away from him. This hadn’t been a simple fall. Megan was the most coordinated person he’d seen. She didn’t just fall.

Her arm rested on a pillow, the plaster cast a light gray. Her fingers were swollen and red. He took a deep breath and put a smile on his face. She had enough to deal with, without him acting like he had a right to say anything to her.

“If you didn’t want to see the evidence reveal, you just could have said so,” he joked, happy to see a smile cross her face.

“It’s just a broken arm. You’ll wait for me, right?”

“Of course,” he said, pulling a chair to the bedside, and taking a seat. He touched the cast. “How long?”

“The cast or the stay?”

“Both, I guess.”

“The cast is six weeks, maybe more. They aren’t sure yet. I pretty much shattered my arm. The hospital is just overnight since I hit my head and blacked out.”

The smile fell off his face. “Andrea didn’t tell me that. For how long?”

She bit her lip. “I’m not sure. I was cleaning the room, putting stuff in the attic, and fell.”

Her voice stuttered to a stop as she looked away. “I was almost done with the room and was going to jump in the shower next, so Andrea was due soon. It couldn’t have been too long.”

Something wasn’t adding up. How could Megan not know how long she’d been out?

She moved her arm and winced. Moving in the bed seemed to bring her no comfort.

“Maybe I should leave?”

“No, please. Stay,” she replied. “Talk to me. Take my mind off the pain.”

“Does it hurt a lot? I thought hospitals give you stuff for that.”

“I refused it,” Megan said with a frown.

“Why in the hell would you do that?” His voice raised in the room.

“Because our mother had to be in rehab,” Andrea said from the doorway, her hands full of a tray of food.

She shut the door with her foot, moved a table to the bed, and set the tray in front of Megan. “And you did not hear me say that, Mr. O’Malley.”

“Of course, ma’am,” he replied.

Megan snorted from the bed. “Really, children. Can’t we all just get along?”

Andrea started laughing and Megan joined in, laughing until tears rolled down her red cheeks.

He stared at them, his mouth falling open. The two women stared at him and just laughed harder.

Megan gasped for air and settled down. Andrea wiped her cheeks and sat in a chair on the other side of the bed.

“It’s…it’s a game we play. Andrea and I,” Megan explained, smiling at Jack. “Have you ever seen our mother?”

“Beverly Martin-Stovall? Just in interviews on television,” he said.

“Mr. O’Malley, how dare you be present in my daughter’s hospital room. She is in a state of…of undress.”

Jack couldn’t help laughing. Megan’s impersonation of her mother was right on the money. Every time he’d seen the woman being interviewed she sounded like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth and she had the cliché stick up her butt. He couldn’t say that to the woman’s daughters.

Megan giggled as if she read his mind. “Definitely a stick-in-the-mud.”

“Or something like that,” he muttered.

The women just started laughing again.

He gazed at Megan’s shimmering blue eyes and her long blonde hair spread on the pillow and felt a kick to his heart. Staring at her broken arm brought a bigger twinge. How had she wiggled into his life so swiftly? What was it about her that had him caring about her safety when he barely knew her? She was like a warrior princess who still needed a hug.

Looking at Andrea and Megan holding hands and laughing he realized the society papers knew nothing about these two women.

Amid a tale of a young Megan learning to bake cookies while their mother was at a social event, the door opened and a nurse shooed Andrea and Jack from the room to let the patient sleep.

“Remember Jack, no reveal until I can get there,” she called sleepily from the bed.

“I promise,” he whispered as he shut the door.