Chapter Twenty-Six
Pippa ended the call, and wiped her clammy hands on her thighs. She’d either made the biggest mistake or the best decision of her life. Isn’t this where she was supposed to feel all peaceful and resolved? How did she do that when the two parts of her were tearing her in half? The job with Chris had been her dream job, everything she’d worked so hard to achieve, but her family needed her here and for the first time in her life she needed to put them first. All night long the same question had been hammering through her brain. What if next time something like this happened, she wasn’t here?
Outside her bedroom window, horses hung out in the pasture cropping grass. God, it must be nice to be like that. Someone to feed you, make decisions for you.
Chris Germaine had listened and said very little as Pippa explained why she needed to stay here in Ghost Falls for the indeterminate future. Accepted her decision not to go forward with quiet understanding.
Pippa needed to get some clothes on her ass. Matt would be here any minute to take her to the hospital. How much of a part had he played in her decision? Stupid to be even thinking that way, when they’d agreed to call it quits. But if she stayed, would things be different?
Fuck, can anyone say “Pippa is Pathetic”? Don’t all yell at once, now.
Surprisingly, it was her mother who had pushed her decision into the end zone. Seeing her mother at the hospital, so desperate to make a connection with Phi, had been the clincher. Emily had lived two minutes away from Phi for years and failed to heal the breach between them. It had taken Phi’s brush with death to make her realize time wasn’t limitless. You couldn’t live your life like you had another one tucked away in the pantry.
Maybe the Ray thing did have a silver lining. It had forced her back to Ghost Falls long enough to see what she’d been glancing past for years. She didn’t have a relationship with her sister. She and Laura shared a fight cage, and they were getting too old to carry on like this. Pippa didn’t have any huge hopes for a Hallmark moment with Laura. She couldn’t see them falling into each other’s arms and weeping away the scar tissue. She still had to try to find something better than what they had. Build real connections with Daisy and Sam that weren’t based on glamour or expensive gifts.
Her job had paid well and she had enough money saved to sit still for a while and plan the next step of her life. And Phi, wonderful, crazy, infuriating diva that she was. Phi was getting old, there might not be that many years left for them.
Pippa dragged on a pair of jeans. Her clothes perfectionist kicked in and steered her away from a T-shirt and into a draped silk jersey top. She slipped her feet into a pair of heeled sandals. Then changed her mind and went with flats. She didn’t have enough experience with hospitals to know what worked best. Why did she care about her shoes, again? Because she didn’t want to dwell on the decision she’d just made.
“Hey.” Matt stood in her doorway. “June let me in. You ready to go?”
The pressure in her chest eased up. Matt had that effect on her. He walked into a room and her shoulders felt lighter. She nodded and grabbed her purse.
“We’re taking June to the hospital with us,” Matt said as he followed her down the stairs.
Pippa nodded. June must be going out of her mind right about now.
Matt caught her arm and stopped her. He turned her to look at him. His topaz eyes stripping right past her defenses. “What’s going on?”
She hadn’t sorted it out in her head, yet. “I’m worried about Phi.”
“I know that.” Matt frowned and studied her. “I get the feeling it’s something else though.”
“It’s nothing.” Telling him would make it more real. Also, she wasn’t sure how he would react to the news she was staying in Ghost Falls. With the Phi thing, she couldn’t take another blow to the gut. The idea that Matt might panic, or be freaked out by her staying, was one she couldn’t get her head around right now. Maybe later. Or maybe never.
The ride to the hospital was largely silent. June asked a few questions, which Pippa answered. She stared out the window to avoid the way Matt kept glancing at her.
At June’s insistence, they brought a small packed lunch for Emily, and Pippa brought her mother a change of tops.
They found Emily sitting beside Phi in her room. The nurses didn’t want too many people in the room, so Pippa said hello to her mother, greeted Phi, and let June have her moment.
Matt was on the phone in the waiting area. “Okay, well, keep trying,” he said, and hung up. “Still can’t find Laura. Patrick wasn’t much help. He thought she was with Phi.”
Weird. You could set your watch by Laura. Where the hell could her sister be?
June entered the waiting area, sobbing softly in her hands.
“Why don’t you go and see Phi,” Emily said to Matt as she hugged June’s frail frame.
Matt nodded and left them alone.
“She doesn’t look like the Diva.” Out of her pocket June produced a crumpled Kleenex and blew her nose. “But she looks peaceful.”
“I brought her stuff.” Pippa held up the bag in her hand. “As soon as she wakes up, we’ll repair her a little.”
“I knew she was upset about the tiara.” June wiped away tears and more crept down her cheeks. “I shouldn’t have left her alone.”
“You were only in her bathroom.” Pippa would never understand the bond between these two women. Maybe because she’d never taken the time to form those sorts of bonds for herself. When her life had collapsed, Pippa had no June to lean on. No June, just a desperate trip home to Phi. Another point on her list for staying in Ghost Falls.
“But I knew she was upset.” June’s shoulders heaved up and down in a huge sigh.
“She gets upset a lot,” Pippa said. “You know what she’s like. It’s hard to tell sometimes when she’s really pissed or just doing Carmen.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” June tucked her soggy Kleenex back into her pocket. “When Matt comes back, I’ll ask him to take me back to the Folly. When she comes home, the Diva is going to expect everything to be perfect. I can do that for her.”
Matt came back shortly after. He pulled Pippa straight into his arms. “She’s going to be fine, babe.”
Pippa leaned into the spicy, warm heat of him and let it enfold her. For a minute, she let herself be there and be comforted. They might not be an “it,” but Matt was a good guy. The sort a girl wanted by her side in a crisis. In happy times, he wouldn’t be bad either. But you couldn’t rely on the happy times. They didn’t amount to anything when a man decided being part of a family wasn’t for him.
“I’ll take June home,” Matt murmured against her temple. “I need to check on a couple of things, and then I’ll be back.”
“Okay.” What the hell was the point in even making a token protest when she wanted him here for as long as he would stay? How long would that be?
Pippa walked into Phi’s room. The shock of seeing Phi like this had lessened enough to make breathing a bit easier. She passed her mother a bottle of water and a sandwich. “If I have to eat, so do you.”
Emily managed a wan smile. “I’m not sure I can eat.”
“Try.” Pippa pressed the sandwich back. “Any more news?”
Emily nodded. “They ran a brain scan, now they’re not sure it even was a stroke. They’re thinking it might have been some sort of seizure.”
“That’s good news, right?”
“Yes.” Her mother’s lips quivered and she pressed them tightly together and cleared her throat. “Have you spoken to Laura?”
“Not yet.” Laura’s cell was turned off too. Another anomaly for Power Mommy. Okay, staying in Ghost Falls was not enough to mend the gap. She would actually have to put some more effort into getting over her shit with her sister if she expected this to work. “Do you have any idea where she could be?”
Emily nibbled at her sandwich. “She does this from time to time.”
“She does?”
“The pressure of being a mother, and all her committees and charities, gets a bit much sometimes. I think she goes to a spa in the new casino.” Emily wrapped up the sandwich with barely a bite taken out of one corner. “Which reminds me, I need to make some calls and tell people where I am.”
“I can do that for you.”
“No.” Her mother stood and tweaked her jeans straight. “People will only worry if they don’t hear from me.” She put her purse on her shoulder and strode for the door. “You will stay, won’t you? I can rely on you?”
Pippa nodded. Baby steps.
Phi had more color in her face since Pippa had left. She looked peaceful, as if she was only sleeping. A beam of sun streamed through the window and cast an oblong patch of warmth across the bottom of the bed.
“Mom’s stepped out to make some phone calls.” It felt a little stupid to be talking to an inanimate Phi. This is what you were supposed to do in these circumstances, right? Keep talking, making a connection with your loved one. “Laura will be here soon.”
Laura wouldn’t stay gone for much longer. Supermom—
Stop it.
Laura’s love for her children would bring her back soon.
A nurse came in and checked the monitors. She smiled kindly at Pippa. “We’re going to take her off the ventilator now, if you’d like to step outside.”
Pippa got up, her legs creaky underneath her, and left the room.
Her mother was in the waiting area, speaking into the phone and making a list. Funny, she got that from her mom. Phi had never made a list in her life. Not one she’d glanced at after it was made, anyway.
Emily ended her call and looked up.
“They’re taking Phi off the ventilator.”
“Ah.” Emily turned the page in her book and ticked something off. “The doctor said they would do that, as soon as they were sure she was breathing for herself. While I was waiting for you, I made notes of all the things he told me.”
Pippa took the seat next to her mom and peered over her shoulder at the list. “I make lists too.”
“Do you?” Emily raised her brows.
“Oh, yes.” Pippa dug in her bag and pulled out her iPad. “Only I do them electronically.” She tapped an icon and pulled it up. “See, and it interfaces with my contacts and calendar.”
Emily took the iPad from her and studied it. “Really?”
Look at them, bonding over software for the terminally anal. Pippa bit back a grin. “I use the reminder feature a lot.” Pippa showed her mother.
“Well.” Mom glanced down at her notebook. “It seems I am horribly behind the times.”
“It’s the list that matters,” Pippa said.
“Yes, it is.” Mom smiled at her. A soft light shone in her mother’s eyes, tender and hopeful. “Do you think you perhaps get that from me?”
“I’m sure of it,” Pippa said.
“All right, then.” Emily nodded and put her notebook away. “Do you organize your closet?”
“Like a boss.” Pippa grinned. “By item and then by color.”
“No.” Mom’s eyes widened. “Short-sleeved shirts first.”
“Then long-sleeved.” Pippa nodded. “Followed by pants, skirts, short dresses, and then long dresses.”
“Outerwear, coats and jackets at the end.” Her mother laughed.
Pippa grinned back at her. “Because you put those on last.”
“And one never hangs one’s knits.”
“Never.”
Mom went silent, fiddling with the seam of her jeans. “How did I not know this about you, Pippa?”
“I don’t know.” Pippa shrugged, but she did know why. Mom and Laura, the dynamic pair with Pippa on the outside. She didn’t want to fight and ruin this rare moment like all the other opportunities they’d let go winging past. “Maybe partly because I didn’t tell you.”
Mom nodded, an unguarded look of sadness pulling at her face. “But mostly because I never took the time to notice.” She grabbed Pippa’s hand in a clench and brought it to her cheek. “I can do better, Pippa. I can be more than this angry woman.”
“We all can.”
The nurse entered the waiting area. “We’re done.”
“Good,” Emily said. She took a deep breath and released Pippa’s hands. When she stood, Impenetrable Emily was back in place.
* * *
Phi woke up late into the evening. Her breathing hitched a couple of times, her eyelids flickered and then opened. She would have been disappointed in the lack of drama.
Her mother and Pippa pressed closer, grabbing Phi’s hands.
“Mother,” Emily said. “You’re in the hospital. You had a bad turn.”
Phi frowned at her. She closed her eyes, and opened them again. Her gaze darted from Emily to Pippa and around her.
“What am I doing in a hospital?” Her voice was croaky from the tubes and Pippa brought her a sip of water. She guided the straw to Phi’s mouth.
Phi’s eyes fixed on her face. “You look fatigued and as if you have been weeping. Was that for me?”
“You know it.” Pippa smiled and took the straw away.
Phi glanced at Emily. “Am I dying?”
“Not yet.” Emily touched Phi’s cheek. “But you scared the life out of me.”
Phi grunted and glanced around the room again. “How do I look?”
“Like a woman who’s had a brush with death,” Emily said.
“Good God.” Phi raised her hand to her temple, stopped, and stared at the drip. “Will you do something about that?”
She asked Emily and not Pippa, a strange vulnerability on her features.
Emily blinked rapidly. “Of course I will. Pippa brought you some things.”
“Darling.” Phi glanced at her and beamed. “You always did know what I would like.”
“I’m sure Pippa could help you.” Emily folded her hands in front of her and stepped back from the bed.
“Indeed she could,” Phi said. “But in times like these, a woman needs her daughter.”
Emily blinked. Her mouth dropped open and she shut it quickly.
Phi glanced at Pippa, a world of meaning in one brief flash of her eyes. Pippa wasn’t hurt, and she smiled back at Phi. Her grandmother wasn’t rejecting her. But this was a time she needed to be with her daughter, because her daughter desperately needed it to be so. “I’ll wait outside until you’re resplendent again.”
* * *
Pippa might have convinced herself nothing had happened to her grandmother.
In forty minutes, her mother had worked magic on Phi. How they persuaded the hospital to let them do it, Pippa was clueless. She shrugged it off. When you lived with Phi long enough, you got used to strange things happening around you.
Phi reclined in her hospital bed, resplendent as only a diva can be. Her hair was coiffed, her makeup flawless—well, flawless for Phi, which meant far too much glitter and color—and she was swathed in nasty green velvet. It seemed unkind to call it cat-vomit green, given the danger Phi had just faced, but cat vomit came closest to that ghastly color.
And her mother and Phi had their hands clasped.
Pippa had never seen her mother look so . . . peaceful. Her striking face lovely in its serenity.
“Everything okay?” Pippa glanced from one to the other of them. That must have been some makeover session they’d had.
“Everything’s fine.” Phi waved her hand. Not with quite as much energy as normal, but enough to warm the cold place in the pit of Pippa’s belly.
“What happened?” Pippa looked at her mother.
“We—”
“Never you mind.” Phi glared at her. “That is between Emily and me. Suffice it to say, we had a long overdue conversation.”
“You need to rest.” Emily stood and smoothed the covers. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
“Thank you, sweet girl.” Phi caught her daughter’s hand. “I do love you.”
Emily flushed a little and shifted her feet. “And I love you.”
“Mom.” A familiar voice intruded from the doorway.
Pippa snapped her head round. Laura, at long fucking last.
Her sister looked as composed as ever. Perfectly dressed in linen pants, a beautifully tailored blouse with just a pop of color in her shoes and accessories. “Is everything all right?”
“We left messages for you.” Emily’s mouth tightened.
It felt kind of good not to be on the receiving end of the disapproval for once. “Everything is fine.” Pippa took pity on her sister. “Phi seems to be making a miraculous recovery.”
“Good peasant stock.” Phi beamed from the bed. “None of this interbreeding to weaken the genes.”
In fact, Phi looked altogether too well and too pleased with herself. Maybe Pippa would take that young doctor aside and ask him some more questions.
Laura frowned slightly as she glanced at Pippa. “What happened? The messages were hard to decipher. One minute she’s collapsed, then she’s had a stroke.”
“Stroke.” Phi snorted. “I had an episode. It is to be expected from one of my artistic temperament.”
Ah, hell yeah. A little heart-to-heart with Baby Doctor was definitely in the cards. “They’re not sure,” Pippa said. “All her tests came back fine, but she was definitely unconscious when the paramedics found her.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Laura tossed her purse onto the sole chair beside the door. “I thought she was dying.”
“She is right here,” Phi sang out. “And she does not like to be referred to in the third person.”
Laura wedged her skinny hips in next to her purse. “I got such a fucking fright.”
“Laura!” Emily blinked at her oldest daughter.
“Well, I did.” Laura raised a shaking hand to push back a strand of hair. “All those messages.”
That had to be bad. Pippa wasn’t sure what hers had said, but she’d been in shock at the time and not exactly minding her words. “Where were you?”
“At the spa.” Laura straightened her spine. “I make it a point to do something for me, once a month. Patrick insists on it.” She glared at Pippa as if daring her to contradict her statement.
Pippa was all for women taking the time out to treat themselves. She shrugged and turned back to her mother. “Matt’s waiting outside to take us home, do you want to stay a bit longer? Now that Laura’s here.”
“I can give you a ride home,” Laura said.
“I have my car here, but I think I’d like to stay, for a bit.” Emily perched beside Phi on the bed.
Pippa leaned over and kissed Phi’s forehead. Patchouli oil wafted up and over her. The smell of Phi, and comfort. She almost lost it then. Phi was going to be all right. It was almost too much to take in. Exhaustion slammed into her. “I love you,” she whispered past the tears gumming up her throat. “Don’t you ever pull this shit on me again. I need you. I forbid you to die on me.”
Phi patted her cheek with a naughty grin. “Why do you need me, when you have a handsome stud outside waiting to take you home?”
Oh, yes indeedy, time for Doctor Not-Quite-Old-Enough-to-Shave to ’fess up.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said. “Don’t give them too much crap. They’re busy here. This is a hospital, they have sick people who need attention.”
Matt straightened from where he leaned against the wall outside Phi’s room. He jerked his chin at her. “You ready?”
“Yup.” Pippa slid her hand into the one he held out. “I’m not sure we haven’t all been had. She looks great.”
Matt raised a brow and narrowed his eyes in the direction of Phi’s room. “You think she faked it?”
“We’ll never know for sure.” Pippa let the warm, rough clasp of his fingers enfold her hand. Their hands fit, like a lock and a key.
They talked a bit on the way home. But it was all small talk, nothing of what was really going through her head.
A knot tightened in Pippa’s belly as they got closer and closer to the Folly. This new development in her life was all fresh. Where did that leave her and Matt? Would he find out she was staying, start mumbling excuses, and back out the door? She didn’t want him to leave. Tonight. Or maybe any other night.
He pulled up outside the front door, and got out to open her door.
Pippa hopped to the ground.
Matt stayed where he was, wedging her between himself and the truck. His eyes glowed gold as they lingered on her face. “You okay?”
“Tired.” She dredged up a smile. She really wanted him to stay. Needy was new to her. She didn’t much care for it, but that didn’t make it go away.
He brushed the back of his fingers over her jaw. “Get some rest.”
“Actually . . .”
“Yes.”
“I’m not that tired.” She shrugged and tried to keep it light. “Have you got time for a cup of coffee? A glass of wine?”
“No.” He shook his head and curled his fingers through her hair to cup the back of her head. “I don’t want coffee. Or wine.”
“Beer?”
His breath fanned along her bottom lip. Heat radiated off his powerful body and set up an answering pulse low in her belly.
“Uh-uh.” He shook his head. His fingers tightened on her scalp. “Am I an ass for hitting on you right now? Given everything—”
“No.” Hitting on her was good. It meant he wanted to stay. She gripped his belt on either side of his hips. There was far too much distance between them. “Stay?”
The word hung in the tiny wisp of air between the mouths.
“God, yes.” He crushed the words between their lips, his tongue plunging into her mouth, slick and wet and demanding.
Pippa’s knees melted under the rush of heat. Her nipples peaked and she pressed them against him, wrapping her arms around his neck to make sure he stayed where he was.
He edged her away from the open car door. His mouth hot and hungry.
The door slammed.
“You sure?” He leaned back, his color high, his eyes hot and hard.
Was she sure? Sure about the future, no. What this meant? No goddamn idea. But sure that she needed his body on hers, driving into her, surrounding her with his heat? Hell, yeah.
They stumbled through the door, locked at the mouth and shedding clothes as they went. Somehow, they made it up the stairs, Pippa’s nerve endings throbbing with need.
Her back hit the bed and he came down on top of her, big, strong, and hot to the touch. His chest pressed into her breasts, the hard jut of his cock through his pants resting between her thighs.
“It seems indecent.” He tore his mouth from hers, sat back, and toed off his boots.
Pippa giggled as she followed his sight line to the dancing butterflies on organza. “Phi would have changed it into bordello red years ago if I let her.”
His boots hit the floor with a thunk and he was back, his weight pushing her deeper into the bed. “Don’t let her. It’s kind of kinky, like deflowering the virgin.”
Pippa arched into him as he slid his fingers between her thighs, locking on the wet heat throbbing at her core.
Grabbing her wrists, he raised her hands to either side of her head. “Keep those there. Let me love you.”
Oh God, please, let him love her.
A searing trail of wet kisses marked his passage down her neck, nibbling lightly over her sensitized skin as he homed in on her nipples.
The hot suck of his mouth had her writhing against him.
Pippa wrapped her legs around his hips, and dug her heels into his ass. She needed him closer. His cock throbbed thick and hard against her, and Pippa shifted against him, restless to have him inside her, filling her.
He swirled his tongue through her navel.
Pippa jacked to a sitting position and giggled. She tried to cover up her belly button, but he snagged her wrists again. He raised one dark eyebrow over his glowing gold eyes. “Where did I say these go?”
Pippa dropped her arms up beside her head again.
“Good girl.” He continued his slow kiss down her belly and into the tight nest of curls covering her sex.
Pippa’s thighs dropped open. Sparks of anticipation shot through her body as he looked at her for a moment, blowing softly on her wetness, before lowering his head to feast.
She rocked and writhed against his mouth as he wedged her legs apart with his shoulders. His tongue dipped and swirled, first over her opening and then up to flick against her clitoris. He took it slow and easy, working her over with tongue, lips, and teeth until she was a hot, panting mess under him.
Her orgasm hit her fast, hard, and dirty, driving her body right off the bed.
Matt sat back on his heels, his glowing gaze on her. “I love making you come.”
“Do it again.” Pippa’s laugh came out low and raspy.
Matt crawled up her body. “Yes, ma’am.”
She needed him inside her, and Pippa wrapped her legs around his hips.
He took a moment for the condom and then he was sliding inside her, slow and sure.
Pippa’s body welcomed him home, holding him tight inside her.
He took his time, deep, slow thrusts that wrapped her in a slow, steady build. Her climax started way down inside her, sweeping her along as it crashed over her. Matt was right there with her, riding the wave down again.
Tears pricked the back of her eyes as he shifted to her side and got rid of the condom. She couldn’t pretend this was just sex anymore. With Matt, it was a soul-deep connection, a celebration of life that she needed like her next breath.