Carla Neggers: Night’s Landing

He hadn’t called the sister back. He couldn’t-her number was on Rob’s cell phone.

Someone must have contacted her by now.

Twins. Nate couldn’t remember Rob ever saying much about her.

The image started replaying itself, like a movie, but Nate pulled himself out of it and sat up straighter. He tried to smile at his family. “I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. All I need is Toto to show up. They let you all in here at once?”

His white-haired uncle, built like Nate, grunted. “It’s Antonia’s fault. She told your doctors you could handle all of us.”

Nate eyed his out-to-there pregnant sister, wearing what at a guess was one of her husband’s shirts. “I can handle the stress, but can you, Antonia? You look like you’re going to have that baby any second.”

“Not for a few more weeks.” Always the doctor, she picked up his chart and scanned it, sighing. “How’s your arm?”

“Anesthetized. I can’t feel a thing. Rob Dunnemore’s the one in rough shape.”

She nodded. “So I understand.”

Tyler North, Carine’s air force pararescueman husband, spoke up. “A wound like that. Chances are he’s either going to make a full recovery or he’s going to die. There’s not much in between.”

Antonia winced. “Ty, for God’s sake-”

But North wasn’t one to pussyfoot around. They’d all been friends since childhood, and Nate appreciated his straightforward assessment. Carine leaned over his bed, the stress of the past hours evident in her drawn, pale look, in the blue eyes all three siblings shared. Carine was the youngest. Her auburn hair was lighter than Antonia’s, Nate’s own hair so dark the red streaks were barely noticeable. Carine had been shot at. She knew what it was like. “I’m glad you weren’t killed,” she whispered.

“Me, too.”

Hank Callahan, Antonia’s husband, slipped an arm around his wife and eyed Nate. “Is there anything I can do?” Once a helicopter rescue pilot and now a junior senator from Massachusetts, Hank, like the rest of them, was used to taking action.

“Get me a shirt. I feel like an idiot in this gown.”

Antonia hissed. “I knew you’d be impossible. Didn’t I tell you, Gus?”

Their uncle stared out the window with its view of the street. He was in jeans and a hiking jersey. He was one of the best outfitters in the White Mountains, content to stay home in Cold Ridge and hike, cook and redecorate the house he’d inherited from his older brother. But Gus had been shot at more than any of them. He’d served a year in combat in Vietnam before coming home, only to end up raising his orphaned nieces and nephew.

He glanced back at Nate. “Why don’t you drive home with me? The mountain air’ll do you good.”

Nate shook his head. “Last time I was home, you served orange eggs.”

“They’re not that orange. You’re just used to New York eggs.”

“I’m used to yellow eggs.”

“It’s what Moon feeds them.”

Moon. Moon Solaire. She was a newcomer to Cold Ridge. People called her the egg lady because she had dozens of chickens in a variety of breeds. She and Gus had been seeing each other for a couple of months. “Moon’s really into chickens, isn’t she?”

Nate was starting to feel sluggish and achy, some of his earlier adrenaline rush wearing off. Or maybe now that his family was there, he could allow himself a letdown.

“Who knew there were that many different kinds of chickens?” Gus said. “I thought she might be one of your people, with a fake name like Moon Solaire.”

“What do you mean, one of my people?”

Gus shrugged. “You know, some lowlife you’re protecting so they can testify against some bigger lowlife you’re not protecting.”

He meant WITSEC. The Witness Security Program. Gus’s rendition of its mission of protecting government witnesses and their dependents was oversimplified and biased, but Nate was in no mood to argue. “Not all protected federal witnesses are criminals, and I’d be surprised if we ever gave one a name like Moon Solaire-”

“I know, I know. She made it up. Ex-hippie. Real name’s Linda.”

Nate didn’t know about the ex.

Antonia touched their uncle’s arm. “We should go.”

Gus didn’t budge, his blue eyes pinned on his nephew. With just a thirteen-year age difference between them, Gus was in some ways like an older brother to Nate, in other ways like a father. “I turned on CNN before the marshals called, and I knew it was you. I’m telling you. I just knew.”

“I’m sorry, Gus. It’s my job-”

“It’s not your job to get shot by some asshole in Central Park.”

Antonia groaned. “Gus! Now’s not the time.” She shifted her attention to her older brother. “You’ll do what your doctors say, won’t you? And don’t be stingy with the pain medication. Take what you need.”

“Got it.”

She wasn’t convinced. “You do not. You’re itching to get out of this bed and go find who shot you.”

“And you wouldn’t be?”

She didn’t answer. No one did, because his uncle, his sisters and the men they’d married were all cut from the same cloth when it came to waiting patiently for others to do what they wanted to do themselves. They simply didn’t.

Nate felt bad about what they’d been through today. He knew what it was like-he remembered how he’d reacted when he learned about the close calls his sisters and brothers-in-law had had last fall. “Where are you guys staying tonight?”

No one wanted to answer that one, either, but finally Ty did. “Your place. Hank and I are heading out tonight, but your uncle and sisters are staying. Gus took a lasagna out of the freezer and brought it down.”

The thought of Gus’s rich, uncompromising lasagna made Nate nauseous. Spending the night in the hospital suddenly didn’t look so bad. Armed guards and medical types hovering over him-or his family.

When his nurse entered the room, his entourage retreated, but Nate could hear them out in the hall. If his bandaged arm hadn’t forced the reality of his situation to sink in, their presence did.

He’d been shot.

He’d damn near been killed.

And Rob Dunnemore-it could go either way with him.

After the nurse left, Nate tried to get the deputy at his door to find who he needed to see about checking himself out.

No dice.

He’d just have to wait.

Juliet Longstreet made herself dump the last of her latte in the water fountain next to the elevator that had dropped her off on Rob and Nate’s floor. It was her seventh latte of the day, and she had acid burning up her throat. Not a good sign.

She ran the water to clean the drain but didn’t take a sip. She didn’t like drinking out of hospital water fountains.

She didn’t like anything about this whole damn day.

The chief deputy had turned the care and feeding of Rob Dunnemore’s sister over to her, probably because they were both female and blond. Any comparison ended there. Sarah Dunnemore was just about the prettiest woman Juliet had ever actually met in person. Long honey-colored hair streaked with pale blond highlights, gray eyes, slim build, elegant even in her jeans and dark gray silk twin set. She wore two delicate little rings on her fingers. Juliet still had Band-Aid scum on her thumb after jamming it in the weight room. She was a lot taller. And her hair. Nobody could do a thing with it. A friend had dragged her to a trendy New York salon, and she’d learned about hair wax and identified every one of her cowlicks-she’d spent a fortune and looked good for about three days.

Christ.

Rob was in there dying, and she was thinking about her hair.

“Dr. Dunnemore?” Faking a calm professionalism, Juliet pretended her throat wasn’t burning and motioned toward the waiting room recently vacated by the Winter family. “Let’s go in there. It’ll be quiet.”