“You’d better. Or I will fly back there and make you regret it.”
I laugh lightly. “Don’t worry. I don’t plan on this ever happening again, if I can help it.”
“I have to ask… How is it you came to be with Josephine? I thought, after last summer, the two of you weren’t speaking. I thought, after her parents…” She clears her throat, nervous to even broach the subject of Blair and Vincent Valentine. “Have things changed?”
“No. It was just…” Jo’s words from the island come back to me. “A freak twist of fate. That’s all.”
“Oh.” Ma’s voice is softened around the edges by a deep sadness. “That’s too bad. I was hoping you’d found your way back to one another.”
“You know that’s not going to happen.”
“But—”
“Look, I’m exhausted. I need to get some sleep now. I’m sorry for worrying you and Pa. I’ll call you tomorrow and give you all the details, okay?”
“Mijo—”
“Night,” I cut her off before she can say another word about my relationship with Jo, terminating the call with a sharp jab of my finger. Falling back against my pillows with a deep sigh, I stare up at the water-stained ceiling. My mind is awhirl with all that’s happened in the past few hours. Exhausted as I am, I know I’ll never be able to fall asleep. There’s an electricity in my veins; a shockwave surging like an overextended generator through my every nerve ending.
For the first time in a long, long time… I realize I don’t feel numb. Not at all. My heart, which has spent the past twelve months encased in solid ice, is pounding with emotions so strong, I think my ribcage might burst.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the catalyst.
Not with her face burned into my retinas like a brand.
FIFTEEN
josephine
The thin blue curtain pulls back with a sharp yank. A middle-aged nurse steps up to the side of my hospital bed, her pale pink scrubs a cheerful counterpoint to the rest of my current surroundings. She shoots me a fleeting smile as she checks the sensors monitoring my vitals for the zillionth time, making small notes in the margins of my chart.
Since I arrived two hours ago, the ER doctors at Beverly Hospital have put me through a full gamut of tests. Electrocardiograms and X-rays, blood work and pulse oximetry. I’ve been poked, I’ve been prodded and, ultimately, I’ve been provided with information I already knew.
I’m totally fine.
“Can I go home now?”
“Just waiting on those final lab results. We want to be sure everything is ship-shape before we send you out that door.” The nurse — Laura, according to her name tag, though she never formally introduced herself — pins me with a steely look. “You had quite a scare today. I still think you should take Dr. Pinkerton’s advice and stay the night.”
“I just want to be home, in my own bed. Preferably after I’ve taken a hot shower to wash away all traces of this day.”
She holds up her hands in surrender, then passes me a clipboard full of paperwork. “Fine, fine. In that case, we should have you out of here within the hour. Just fill out this discharge information and we’ll get you on your way.”
“What time is it, anyway?”
“Nearly midnight.”
I settle back against the thin pillows with a sigh, fingers curled tight around the clipboard. The ER is buzzing with activity, even at this hour. The hospital staff blames Independence Day — “Fireworks turn grown men into teenagers,” Nurse Laura confided earlier — for the slew of traumas rolling through their doors tonight. So far, I’ve seen two blown-off fingers, four drunken teenagers in need of stomach-pumping, and one man with a BBQ fork stuck in his thigh.
Comparatively, my near-drowning is downright boring.
“Looks like you need the bed space, anyway,” I point out, jerking my chin toward the automatic doors where two paramedics are wheeling someone new inside on a stretcher. I can’t see much of the man, except a bloody bandage wrapped around his head, but I can certainly hear him — he’s hollering loud enough to shake the walls, his words slurred into a drunken, indecipherable jumble.
“Jeeze,” I mutter, eyes widening. “He’s having quite a night.”
“And we’re the ones who’ll pay for it.” Laura shakes her head. “Drunk as a skunk, trying to shoot off a roman candle… Stupidity. Sheer stupidity. Lord, I hate this holiday.” She hustles away to help, stopping after a few steps to call back to me, “Oh, I forgot to mention — you have a visitor coming. They should be on their way in here any minute now.”
My heart lurches inside my chest. “Who? Who is it?”
But Laura is already long gone, off to help the paramedics restrain the inebriated man struggling to escape the confines of his gurney.
Who could possibly be here?
My mind filters through every possibility of who is about to walk through those waiting-room doors, fixating on one distinct option with a disproportionate amount of hope — even though I know, deep down, there’s no chance in Hell it’ll be Archer. He wouldn’t come here. Not in a million years. He couldn’t wait to get away from me, earlier.
He spent the whole boat ride to shore talking to the Coast Guard officials, detailing everything that happened to us. When we reached the docks, where an ambulance was waiting to bring me here, he kept his eyes averted from mine as they loaded me onto a stretcher and into the back. I thought he might expire on the spot when the paramedic innocently asked, “Will your boyfriend be riding to the hospital with you?”
Given my own response — namely, shouting “NO!” with far too much volume from inside the vehicle — I’m surprised they didn’t drive me straight to the nearest psychiatric ward.
I wince at the memory. Hours later, the embarrassment lingers in my system, palpable and paralyzing. I try not to think too much about Archer, but I’m haunted by the memory of my last glimpse of him, just before the doors slammed shut between us — standing in the darkness of the docks, his face flashing blue-red-blue-red-blue in the silent siren lights, his dark brows pulled together in an unreadable expression. We drove away, and just like that…
Archer Reyes is out of my life again.
The sound of kitten heels clicking against the linoleum floors jerks me out of my reverie. Glancing up, I see a familiar gray-clad form crossing to my bedside, her expression pinched as ever beneath the fluorescent hospital lighting.
“Mrs. Granger.” I sit up more firmly in bed. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? I think the better question, Miss Valentine, is what are you doing here?” Her voice is practically quivering with indignation. “And why did I have to hear about your being here from a very distressed Spanish woman in the middle of the night who claims to be your emergency contact?”
“Flora?!”
“Yes, Flora. Flora Reyes. At least, that was the name she gave when she called the estate earlier this evening, frantic to get in touch with your parents or any other responsible adult.” She clutches her purse tighter. If she was wearing pearls, I’m sure she’d be clutching them too. “I won’t even get into the impropriety of listing a former housekeeper as your primary point of outreach during a life-threatening scenario such as this, but I do urge you to, at the very least, select someone within the continental United States, who is actually able to be by your side.”