My family and I are making plans to get away for a few days. Beach, here we come. And in thinking of the beach, I’m pondering what to read while basking on my favorite lounge chair.
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Gretchen has had a crush on Greg Fairchild for a long, long time. And destiny is about to drop him right in her lap.
Chapter Two
Gretchen shut her front door and sighed. Worn out after a long day wrestling with kindergarteners and cold from an unseasonably chilly April day she dropped her purse on the entry table, tossed her coat onto a hook, and took in her oh-so-colorful appearance in the mirror. Her khaki skirt had a bright red hand print on her left hip.
Lovely.
Little monsters. Try to give the munchkins a fun Friday despite the rain and cold temperatures and they decided to finger paint her favorite skirt.
She’d just poured herself a glass of wine when her cell phone rang. Glass in hand, she fished the phone out of her purse and glanced at the number. JJ.
“Hey,” she answered, glad to have an adult to talk to.
“Gretchen, thank God!” The connection cut out. “―’s been in an accident. And my dad’s ―ing ―an’t get a hold ―rothers.”
The words tumbled out of her friend’s lips so quickly it took Gretchen several moments to make sense of them. Trevor’s deep voice was there in the background, offering JJ support.
Gretchen frowned at the crappy connection, and put the wineglass down on the entry table.
“Say that again. Who’s been in an accident?” Not Trevor since he was with JJ or her father or brothers. That left Cindy or Baby…
“Greg.”
Gretchen’s knees buckled but she caught herself against the table. Her body flushed with adrenaline and she gripped the phone tighter.
“What happened? Please tell me he’s okay.”
There was more crackling on the line, stupid phone. She rushed out the front door, hoping for a better connection.
Without her coat the cool air seeped through her skirt and top but at least JJ’s voice came through crystal clear.
“I don’t know much. My dad’s fishing. We’re trying to catch a plane back to—”
“What can I do?” Gretchen interrupted.
“I—” The anguish in her best friend’s voice unravelled Gretchen’s last nerve.
Despite her turmoil since the Super Bowl party and her stern words to herself right after, she was scared for Greg. Far more than she should have been considering her vow to forget about him. But in her heart of hearts she wanted to believe that there was a happily ever after in her future and that nothing had really happened between him and Baby.
Perhaps it was time to face facts. After half a dozen dates and three rounds of speed dating in the last two months, she still wasn’t over Greg Fairchild. And she was starting to think she never would be.
“What hospital is he at?” She needed to be proactive, for her sake and for JJ’s. Now was not the time to give in to her emotions, especially not her fear.
She heard JJ parrot the question.
“Northeast Georgia,” Trevor answered in the background.
“I’ll go see what I can find out. You keep trying your brothers.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering.”
There was a long pause. “Thank you.”
“I’m heading out now. I’ll call you soon.”
Getting a second wind, she clicked off, grabbed her purse and coat, and then jumped back in the car. It wouldn’t do to let her mind worry and wander to the worst case scenario. But she couldn’t stop wondering what had happened. And why JJ had called her instead of Cindy or Baby.
Maybe JJ hadn’t been able to get a hold of Baby. Maybe Gretchen was, once again, the second choice.
Don’t go there, Gretchen.
There was no use torturing herself, especially while she was zipping up 985 twelve miles per hour over the speed limit. She felt like her little Honda Civic was about to take off and fly the rest of the way there.
After parking, she jogged into the ER entrance and approached the desk. Winded and imagining the worst case scenario, all she could get out was “Greg Fairchild…”
The curly haired blonde looked up from a computer screen. She was straight-out-of-school young. “The hunk.”
She grinned and Gretchen felt a wave of jealousy come over the top of her head. Blonde, although she thought based on the woman’s eyebrows that her hair color was compliments of a bottle, big blue eyes, and a pert little nose. Plus there was a friendly, if not knowing, air about her.
But Gretchen couldn’t fault the other woman’s eyesight. Greg was a hunk so she obviously knew which patient Gretchen was referring to. That gave her heart a moment to calm. He was here.
“Are you family?”
Gretchen glanced from the blonde to the other voice. A tall, painfully thin brunette stared down at a clipboard as if she were performing brain surgery.
Right. There were rules about visitation and such.
The woman lifted her gaze from the clipboard and staked Gretchen with a stare. “I don’t see a sister listed on his chart.”
Sister? Did she look like his sister? She had brown hair and brown eyes, not to mention she was like a foot shorter than him… Oh.
The woman meant Gretchen couldn’t possibly be Greg’s girlfriend. Gretchen gathered all her conviction and lifted her chin. She wasn’t going to be kowtowed by a woman who looked like she’d sucked on a lemon for lunch. Not today.
She put as much authority into her voice as she could and let the lie roll off her tongue. “That’s because I’m his fiancé.”
There was a load of disbelief in the slight twist of the woman’s mouth and the crinkle between her brows.
“I’ll take her,” Blondie said, pushing away from the desk.
“Thank you.” The response was automatic but wooden.
“Don’t worry about her,” Blondie whispered when they were halfway down the hall. “She gets her panties in a twist any time she has competition.”
Gretchen’s bruised ego lifted a bit at the idea that the other woman actually considered her as competition, size sixteen skirt and all. Must be the breasts that men were so fond of and less endowed women longed for. They honestly didn’t realize what a pain in the back big boobs were.
Hands clutching her purse, she followed the nurse through a set of swinging doors and to the left.
“Your man is super lucky. Sad to hear about his friend though. I can understand why he’s brooding. But I bet he’s gorgeous when he smiles. You’ll make him smile again I bet.”
Gretchen didn’t say a word to the chatty nurse, afraid she’d give away the truth. Luckily, a heartbeat later the other woman knocked on an open door.
“Mr. Fairchild, your fiancé is here.”
Gretchen stepped past the nurse, unable to wait a second longer. The man she loved lay in the bed, propped up with several pillows. He turned his head slightly and focused on her. A heartbeat passed and she gently bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying out at the sight of him.
There were small scratches down the right side of his handsome face. A white bandage covered the side of his forehead and his beautiful blue eyes softened with recognition.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he murmured in that heavenly voice, sounding pleased to see her. The corner of his mouth tugged up and she felt her knees go weak for the second time in an hour.
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