HE HEARD HIS father before he saw him, standing in front of a window labeled Reception. Like they were checking into some hotel or something. On the other side, a woman stood at a counter, shaking her head.
Oh, yeah. This was going well.
“Dad.” He put a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Calm down.”
“Calm down? You expect me to calm down when my wife’s back there and they won’t even let me see her?”
“As I’ve explained, Mr. Harper,” the woman said, color beginning to rise in her cheeks, “your wife has been admitted and is undergoing tests.”
“I need to be with her.”
“I understand. But what she needs is for the doctors and nurses treating her not to be distracted. And, to be perfectly frank, the only thing you could do back there is increase her stress, which I’m sure you wouldn’t want to do.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about us,” Ben said. “Maybe she’s worried that I don’t know. Maybe—” he swallowed, like he had a boulder in his throat “—maybe she’s afraid that she’ll die without me with her.”
“Both those scenarios are quite possible.” Seth heard a calm voice behind them and realized that Bri had parked the truck and found her way here. “And you’re right to be concerned. If I were you, I’d be frightened. But truly, the best thing you can do right now, Ben, is let the people who know what they’re doing take care of her.”
She took Ben’s hand, which was curled into a fist by his side, and gently unfolded his fingers, lacing them with hers. Amazingly, at least to Seth, his father didn’t pull away. Instead, he clung so tightly that he could see Bri’s knuckles going white.
“Hello,” she said with a smooth, professional smile meant to soothe troubled waters. “I’m Brianna Mannion. A friend of the family.”
“I know who you are,” the woman said. “You’re the mayor’s daughter. You’re fixing up that old haunted house.”
“I am. And I realize that you have a great deal to do, but Mr. Harper and I are wondering if there’s any way you could get a message to his wife, to let her know that he and her son are both here.”
“I could do that,” she agreed.
“Thank you.” The smile turned from professional to warm and grateful. Watching her, Seth realized that her former job had required more than organizational skills and a caretaker personality. It had also required acting skills. “We’d appreciate that so much, Ms. Banning. Would you be related to Jack Banning?”
“He’s my grandson.”
“Isn’t that one of the benefits of a small town? We’re all family, in a way. Jack sat in front of me in Mr. Clinton’s social studies class. He was an excellent student.”
“He’s a teacher at the college,” the woman said as Seth’s father begin to shift from foot to foot.
“Isn’t that wonderful! He was always the smartest boy in the class... And I don’t want to put you to too much bother—”
“That’s her damn job,” Ben muttered.
Brianna squeezed his hand but ignored his statement.
“Let Bri handle this, Dad,” Seth said quietly. “Trust me. She’s got it.”
“As I was about to say,” Brianna continued, “it would be so helpful if you could have someone find us a waiting room. Mrs. Harper has a great many friends and I know that you wouldn’t want all the other people who are waiting in the main room to be disturbed by the crowd that will undoubtedly show up. Especially since they have their own worries and don’t need the distraction.”
“I can do that.” She scribbled a note and gave it to a young man sitting at a black metal desk behind her. “Go tell Mrs. Harper that her family’s here,” she instructed. “And the mayor’s daughter.” She added that as if Brianna were some sort of Honeymoon Harbor royalty, which, Seth considered, in a way she was. “Then take them up to the small waiting room by the CCU.”
She turned back to Brianna, totally ignoring Ben as if he’d turned invisible. “Since the cardiac care unit was named after your family, it’s only right that you get yourselves a private waiting room.” She paused, shooting Ben a steely warning look. “As long as there aren’t any Mannion/Harper problems.”
“There won’t be,” Seth’s father said, his jaw clenched.
“Good.” The woman picked up a stack of papers, hit them against the counter to line up the edges and put them in a folder. “If you’ll have a seat, Brian will be back in a moment. But he’s only a clerk,” she said, wagging a finger at him. “So don’t be trying to get any information from him, because he’s neither medically trained nor allowed to talk to families about such things.”
“We’ll wait for the doctor,” Seth assured her.
“Fine.” She smiled at him. Then at Brianna. Once again his father had turned invisible. Which right now could only be a good thing.
* * *
CAROLINE HAD BEEN worried about Ben. Even more concerned that he’d be getting the news from Michael, who’d called 911. But the nice young orderly had assured her that her husband and son had arrived at the hospital with Brianna. And that a private waiting room was being arranged. She worried a bit that Ben might feel as if the Mannions were throwing their name around, which is certainly what she’d do if it would have made any difference, but she also decided to leave that problem to Seth and Brianna. Who, from what Sarah had told her over the years, excelled in making the impossible possible. This situation, which she’d gotten herself into by being a damn fool and not realizing that her symptoms had not been from allergies but heart problems, could well require every ounce of professional skills Sarah and John’s daughter possessed.
On the plus side, she was feeling much better. The IV and meds they’d given her when she’d first arrived were obviously doing their job. And the sense of panic that had had her in its grip during the ambulance ride down from the park had eased. Though she figured she’d have bruises from that bumpy ride. You’d think, she considered as an orderly wheeled her toward the X-ray department, where they were going to take films of her heart and give her an echocardiogram, and possibly yet more tests, that vehicles transporting seriously injured patients would have softer suspensions. She doubted that the old iron-wheeled wagons that used to go up and down those mountain roads could have been any rougher.
Her last thought, as the door to the room closed behind her, was that she was going to miss a date with her husband.