Amanda Berry - One Night with the Best Man

“Yeah. It took a lot of cramming, but I got the grades to get in.” If he could figure out a way to slide out from under Amber without waking her, he would go through those doors that said “Authorized Personnel Only.” Surely they missed something on the chart. Most hospitals generally had rules against working on family. But they probably didn’t have a cardiologist on staff.

“I was glad to graduate high school with a C average,” Penny scoffed. “You always were the smarter of the two of us.”

“That’s not true. You were just a misguided youth.” He smiled at the memory.

“Remember when we were studying for my final in Geometry? If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t still have the useless phrase SOH CAH TOA in my head.”

Luke chuckled. “Do you even remember what it means?”

Penny screwed up her nose. “Of course not. If it had been useful, then I definitely would have remembered it. I bet I haven’t used half of what they forced us to learn in high school.”

“You probably use more than you think.” Luke sank farther into his chair. His legs relaxed out in front of him. “If we’d been together longer, I bet you would have received straight As.”

“You definitely made studying fun.” She rubbed her thumb across the back of his hand. “Do you remember that one night we walked all the way to Owen to The Morning Rooster to have breakfast at 2:00 a.m.?”

“I remember heading back and having to carry you piggyback half the way.”

“I didn’t know we were going to walk eight miles each way when I decided on my shoe choice for the evening. Most nights I didn’t even need my shoes.”

“I remember talking about everything that night. Philosophy, love, family, sex, shoes.” He squeezed her hand. “We were quite the rebels.”

“More like trendsetters. Apparently it’s a new dare among the kids in Tawnee Valley. How far are you willing to walk to breakfast?”

Luke laughed. “Not like there was much else to do on Saturday nights. Especially when Sam would take away my car privileges.”

“And my car was in the shop. You know, I kept that old beater until it finally coughed its final gas fumes into the air about five years ago.”

“I’m surprised it made it that long.” This was the part of Penny he’d missed the most. The quiet times when it was just the two of them talking. That piece of her that only he got to see.

The doors swung open. Dr. Sanchez came into the waiting area and walked their way. “Don’t get up.”

Luke had automatically started to rise without thinking about Amber and Penny leaning on him. She smiled down at the three of them. Penny released his hand and he missed her warmth.

“So far the test results have been promising. It doesn’t look like he suffered from cardiac arrest, but we can’t rule out a future one. We’d like to keep him overnight for observation.”

Luke breathed out as if he’d been holding his breath for days. No cardiac arrest was good, but Sam wasn’t out of the woods yet. “What’s the plan once he’s released?”

“Until we have a few more test results, we won’t know for sure the type and extent of damage. I can’t give you any more information until tomorrow.”

“But he’s going to be okay?” Penny asked, straightening in the chair.

“We’ll know more tomorrow.” Dr. Sanchez smiled that doctor smile Luke was all too familiar with. The one that said we don’t know all that much and all we can do is hope for the best. “For tonight, I suggest you go home and get a good night’s sleep. We’ve already given Mr. Ward something to help him sleep.”

“Thank you,” Luke said. Because of privacy laws, the doctor wouldn’t tell Luke much more, so he didn’t push. Besides, until the tests were completed, the doctor wouldn’t know any more than he did.

Dr. Sanchez disappeared behind the doors again.

“Why don’t I drive us all out to the farm?” Penny stretched like a cat. “It’s closer to the hospital and Amber won’t pitch a fit if she wakes up there. I asked Bitsy to look in on my dog when she left the reception.”

Luke hesitated. It felt odd to invite Penny back to Sam’s house. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer—”

“I wasn’t doing it just for you.” She stood and looked down her nose at him. “Maggie is family to me. That makes Brady family and Sam by extension. I need to take care of Amber and make sure things go smoothly so those two can take their daughter to Disney World on their honeymoon and make me more babies to take care of. I’m tired and I just want to crash and be there when Amber and Maggie need me in the morning.”

Luke stood and picked up Amber. Thinking of Penny with babies did something strange to his heart. “I just didn’t want you to think that I needed you—”

“Trust me. I know you don’t need me.” He saw a flash of hurt in Penny’s eyes. “Maggie and Amber need me.”

“I’m sorry, Penny. I didn’t mean...” Oh, hell, what did he mean? If it meant avoiding a fight and not disappointing Amber, who was he to care whether they stayed here or went to the farm? They could work out the details when they arrived. Right now, he just wanted to look at something besides these four walls. “Look, we’re both tired. Why don’t I drive us out to the farm and we’ll work on it from there? It doesn’t look like I’ll be flying out tomorrow.”

“If you are talking about staying for Sam, maybe I can help.”

Help? She was the reason he hadn’t been out there to help Sam in the first place. His brother might have been showing signs that he could have picked up on if he hadn’t been too busy making eyes at the pretty woman in front of him. “He’s my family. For now, let’s go home.”

“He’ll be okay.” Penny rested her hand above his heart.

Penny’s touch comforted him in a way he’d almost forgotten. For a long moment, he searched her eyes. With Sam’s condition unknown, Luke couldn’t just leave. Depending on what was wrong, he might need surgery or just bed rest. His mind shuffled through all the possible diagnoses, but he didn’t have the chart to see what they’d uncovered when they’d examined him today. He trusted the doctor to make the right call regarding Sam’s treatment.

Regardless, his brother might be here longer than a night. What happened after tonight with Penny? They hadn’t promised more than tonight because that wasn’t an option. Maybe it still wasn’t an option. He didn’t know Penny that well anymore, but from what he heard she rarely made a habit of any man.

He needed to get out of his head. There was plenty to worry about tomorrow. First he had to get through tonight. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Five

Penny shut the door of the bedroom. Amber had taken very little coaxing to fall back to sleep in Brady’s old bedroom. Reassuring her that Sam would be okay and they’d see him in the morning was all it had taken. The old wooden stairs creaked under her feet as she returned to the first floor. It was past two in the morning, the lights were all still on and she didn’t feel tired at all.

The sound of a chair scraping across the linoleum in the kitchen drew her that way. She stopped in the doorway and leaned against the doorjamb. Luke sat at the kitchen table, his head in his hands. If she had stayed with him after high school, would things have turned out differently? Would he have made it through med school with her dragging him down? Where would she have been when he left her? Stuck in some city where she wouldn’t know a soul and Maggie would have been here all alone dealing with her mother’s illness and raising Amber.

She could play the what-if game, but she had decided a long time ago to live in the present. And presently, the weight of the world was on Luke’s shoulders. He’d always taken on too much. All she’d ever wanted to do was take some of that weight off him. In high school, it had been easy. Nothing takes a man’s mind off his problems like sex. Now they were adults with a complicated history. She had no idea of the problems he was facing in his day-to-day life, but Sam’s collapse was one more thing to deal with.