Key to Love (14 page)

She pulled the phone from her purse and spoke in a disgruntled tone to match his. “You know it would be easier if I had a car and you had a phone. You wouldn’t have to stand around waiting for me like a moping pain-in-the—”

“Okay, okay! I know, I know.” Oh, how he knew. He touched the screen to her phone and opened the number pad. “I’m taking care of the car right now. I intended to stop by the garage and get one. A shipment came in today from Atlanta. To save time I’ll have it delivered to the house instead. I also promised your dad I’d stop by the hospital, so we’ll have to swing by there first.”

“Dad never mentioned it to me.” She stared at him with a puzzled gaze.

“It probably slipped his mind, like Pedmo did yours.” He opened the door to the Trans Am and retrieved a spare set of keys from the glove compartment. “Here, take these. I have an errand to run myself.”

“You know, Lucas, it’s not a terrific idea to keep the spare keys locked inside.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t make it a habit.”

He didn’t want to tell her there wasn’t a car built he couldn’t access. Hell, he had learned how to break into an automobile when he was only thirteen. He checked his watch. “Go...get moving! You have thirty minutes to come up with the Russian blue blanket.”

She let out a quick unladylike snort. “
French
, Lucas. French blue bedspread.”

His hand plowed through his hair impatiently. “Cripes, we’re not holding an international summit here. Just buy the damned thing and get back here. Pronto.”

She took the keys he thrust at her and looked in the direction of the bar and grill. “Don’t even think about it,” she warned. “The last thing I need is for Dad to see you with a buzz on.”

Lord, the woman had mental telepathy along with her interior design skills. He punched some numbers into her phone. “Hurry up, or the food in the trunk is going to cook before we get it home.”

“I hope so. I’m tired of kitchen duty. When is it going to be your turn?”

He grinned at her. She was wearing a yellow tank top with a pair of snug-fitting, faded blue jeans that made his mouth water. “Listen, Frenchie, I’m willing to negotiate. I’ve got the yard work, laundry, and garbage duty.”

She groaned and held up a palm. “Forget it, just forget I asked.” She took off down the sidewalk, her sandals slapping on the hot pavement.

He waited until she was out of sight before he spoke briefly on the phone, opened the car and laid it carefully on the passenger seat. Lizzie Springer was in for a delightful surprise. He couldn’t wait to see her face when they arrived at the farm and she saw the car he had chosen for her. Whistling merrily, he locked the door and strode up the street and into the bar.

****

Elise promised herself she wouldn’t let Lucas Fisher aggravate her, but fifteen minutes later, it took all of her willpower to ignore the empty Coors can he’d flung behind the seat when she slid into the Trans Am with her purchases.

“Maybe I’d better drive.” She held out her hand, palm up.

“One beer, Liz, that’s all I had.” He shoved the key in the ignition and smiled as the engine roared to life.

She turned and peered behind the seat where a brown paper bag and a nicely wrapped small rectangular box were wedged between the heaps of packages they had collected all afternoon. Unless she was sorely mistaken, it looked like it held a six-pack. “What’s in the bag?”

“Coke. Plain ol’ cola, Miss Curiosity.”

“Yeah, cut me a break.”

He heaved an exhausted sigh. “Why don’t you ever believe me? It’s soda, I tell you. See for yourself.”

She reached back and retrieved the bag. True to his word, it held six cans of carbonated drink and a package with two plastic snap-on lids.

“It’s for your dad,” he explained, his face registering pleasure at having bested her.

“My dad? I can’t believe he can’t get cola at the hospital.” She eyed him skeptically. “Did he ask them for some?”

He shrugged. “What do I look like? Anton Springer’s personal dietitian? I imagine the only thing he can get in the hospital is some ginger ale which, by the way, looks like cattle urine and is usually served flat to boot.”

When they reached the hospital, they parted while Lucas parked the car, agreeing to meet shortly in her father’s room. She was surprised to find her father looking incredibly better. He sat upright in his bed, foot propped on some pillows, reading a copy of
Stock Car Racing
. One leg of the new pajamas she had bought him had been cut open carefully on the seam to allow room for the cast covering his lower leg and ankle.

She kissed him on the cheek.

“Lucas coming, too?” he asked, setting the magazine aside.

“He’s parking the car.” She wandered to the window and gazed out. Below her, in a far corner of the distant playground, she watched a group of little girls play jump rope. In another corner, a group of boys was shooting hoops. “How much longer do you think they’ll hold you hostage?” she asked.

“I can go in a few days or stay until the middle of next week. I told the doctors there’s no sense in rushing this old body out the door.”

Surprised again, she turned and eyed him skeptically, pondering his reluctance to leave. “Don’t you want to come home, Dad?”

He repositioned himself on the bed. “That’s not the point, Lizzie. While I’m here, I get physical and occupational therapy sessions each day. It makes more sense to stay here a bit and get the help, right?”

Yesterday, when she had phoned the hospital to talk with his doctor, she learned the medical staff already had her father using a walker. The doctor had chuckled and said he had vehemently refused to use a wheelchair. If he had intensive physical therapy now, his doctor thought he’d be able to rely on crutches and perhaps move into a walking cast sooner than they had expected.

Elise nodded. She knew what her father was implying. He had never been a man to rely on anyone, and a wheelchair and the thought of being less than self-sufficient scared him to death. She had to admit the hospital stay was helping him. His face was pain-free, his voice was steady, and his demeanor cheerful. He was also starting to charm the nursing staff.

Casting a warm and approving glance at him, she spoke. “It’s your choice, but remember, if you change your mind and get homesick, it won’t be any problem. We’ll manage with or without a wheelchair.”

At the sight of Lucas in the doorway, Anton Springer brightened even more. “Well, well, just the man I wanted to see. Did you bring some?”

“Coke, just like you asked.” Lucas grinned and popped the tab on a can he pulled from the bag under his arm. He slid the wrapped present, done up with a bow on the nightstand beside the bed.

Anton Springer took a Styrofoam ice bucket from the nightstand and held it out to Elise. “Could you get me some ice?” he asked with a hopeful look. “I want to put a few cans in to chill for later tonight.”

She studied him a moment. He wasn’t fooling anyone. The ice was merely a ploy to get her to leave the room. And Coke? She didn’t even know what was going on with that particular craving. For some reason, she thought, he wanted to be alone with Lucas. Reluctantly, she picked up the bucket and headed for the door.

On her way back to her father’s room, she stopped at the nurses’ station to get their opinion about her dad’s progress. She was glad to hear he was healing faster than even the surgeon could imagine. Behind the counter, she overheard an older nurse telling a co-worker about her emergency room shift last week when she had taken care of one of Mary Jo Meyer’s boys, who needed stitches in his forehead. “Those children are always falling down,” she said. “Clumsy little tykes. This one was running and hit the coffee table. Now why does a mother let children play tag in the house?”

Puzzled by the very same question, Elise headed back down the hall to her father’s room where she found a gray-haired nurse hovering near the foot of her father’s bed and fussing with some charts. She handed Lucas the ice bucket.

“Now be a trooper, Lily,” Elise heard Anton Springer tell the nurse, “your charts can wait a while longer. Can’t you see I have company? I want to talk to the kids without someone tinkering with these damned machines.”

The nurse’s gaze flitted from Elise to Lucas to Anton and back again. “Maybe I could just get a temperature?” she asked hopefully.

“Now, now, Nurse Ryan, I haven’t had a dad-burned fever since I came into this knife-wielding place,” Anton replied. “Let’s not get me riled and have my blood pressure soaring.”

The nurse laughed lustily, clutching her clipboard to her ample breasts. “You win, Anton. How can I refuse my favorite patient? I’ll give you a half hour, but I’ll be back. Count on it. As soon as you finish your soft drink, I’d suggest you dispose of the can. It’s a real appealing product around here, and I’d hate for our other patients to develop a taste for it since it’s not on our menu.”

Anton Springer winked. “That’s my girl. I knew you’d accommodate an old gent.”

“Oh, go on with you,” she said, and still chuckling, headed for the door.

Elise circled the bed and found a seat near the window. “Now, what was that all about?”

“Routine, just routine,” her father said, smiling. He took a sip from the can and smiled appreciatively at Lucas, smacking his lips. “Now, what were you saying about restoring a red ’67 Camaro, Lucas?”

It was then Elise smelled rum, or thought she smelled rum. Mystified, she stood and walked to the side of the bed.

Carefully, her father switched the can to other hand and placed it on the nightstand where Lucas was sitting by the door. Elise noticed the present on the nightstand had disappeared. Waving his hand, her father batted the air. “Jeez, don’t hover, Lizzie, you’re making me nervous. Have a seat. You must be tired from all the shopping Lucas was telling me about.”

Elise eased herself to the foot of the bed and stood there listening to Lucas and her father discuss exhaust systems and carburetors. After a few minutes, she inched up the opposite side, but Lucas’s feet shot off the ground before she could reach the nightstand beside him. He propped them on the edge of her father’s mattress, crossing them at the ankles. It was a blockade, pure and simple. She watched her father remove the can and switch it back to his other hand.

Eyes hooded, Lucas peered up at her. “Something wrong, Lizzie?”

“I smell rum.”

“Nah.” Face poker straight, he stared at her. “It must be my aftershave. It’s called...let me think...Bay Rum?”

Without warning, his feet slid off the bed and he stood, checking his watch. “Well, Anton, I guess it’s time to hit the road. I’d like to get your lawn mowed before dark.” He set another can with a snap-on lid in the ice bucket. “This one’s ready, and you don’t have to fool with those tricky tabs on the top.”

“Thanks, Lucas.” Anton Springer chuckled. “Now you two run along. Is Lizzie feeding you?”

“If our trunk is any indication,” Lucas said, “she’s planning to feed the entire neighborhood.” He grabbed Elise by the elbow and propelled her toward the door before she even had a chance to plant her usual kiss on her father’s cheek.

Outside the hospital, Elise stomped to a nearby bench in the shadows where the air was chilly for a spring day and sat down. She pointed to the space beside her. When he slouched down, she swiveled to face him. “Don’t even think of trying to come up with some fairy tale story to lull me into mental serenity. You sneaked rum into the hospital room!”

Instead of cowering, Lucas threw back his head and let out a peal of laughter. “Guess we didn’t fool you, or Nurse Ryan. Though I must say, Nurse Ryan was a tad more compassionate.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself!”

“Oh, put a lid on it and lighten up.” Smiling, he leaned back against the bench and looked up at the sky, gloating. “It was a mission of mercy, Liz. He asked for some.”

“Mission of mercy? Lucas, have you any idea what can happen when you mix pain pills with alcohol?”

He lifted himself off the seat and fished for something in his back pocket. His tight jeans, molded to his well-muscled body, barely allowed him room for his hands. He pulled out a small plastic bag. Grinning, he tossed it in her lap. “He’s been palming the pain pills for the last forty-eight hours, so he could have a couple of rum and Cokes. Come on, Liz, cut the man a break here. Fritz and I introduced your Dad to Captain Morgan when we started to play a few hands of weekly poker at the farm. It’s a change from beer. What’s the big deal? And thanks to our discriminating tastes, your dad has acquired a taste for the dear Captain’s Private Stock.”

She spoke through clenched her teeth, “I can’t believe you two were in cahoots. You’re like a couple of irresponsible teenagers.” She watched his face fade to a dark, dangerous scowl. She crossed her arms at her chest.

“Now you listen here, Elise Springer. If your father asked for an entire bottle of top shelf Kentucky bourbon, I would have driven to Kentucky to get it—and I would’ve slipped it past the goddamned nurse’s station. I owe him that much.”

“You don’t owe him a thing.”

He twisted toward her. “Your father is in the hospital because of me.”

“What? No way.” She looked at him with a confused look.

“Yes, he is. Earlier, the morning of the accident, we got into a heated fight.” He ran his hand through his hair in exasperation. “God, it was the best fight I’ve ever had with your old man. He sure can hold his own. No wonder Thomas is a lawyer.”