Lost & Found Love (21 page)

Joseph Taylor blushed scarlet, and Evan laughed. “I think you can take that as a no. Good thing, too, because now she’s my little sister, I’d have to strangle you.”

Joe coughed a couple times, and suddenly Jenny saw every eye in the room zero in on him with expressions that ranged from understanding to the desire to hang him by his toenails. “We—uhh…” Joe stopped awkwardly.

Jenny tapped her cell phone and called down the hall. “Pregnancy test my OR patient before you X-ray.”

Joe swallowed, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“It’s okay,” Jenny tried to soothe him.

Simultaneous growls erupted from Stoner and Evan. Jenny smiled at them, and both men calmed down, though Stoner continued to frown at Joe.

Evan sat next to Jenny and stroked her hair off her face. “How are
you
?”

She bit her lip and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Better now. Better with you and Peter here.”

Stoner walked away, out of the room. He returned a couple of minutes later with some orange juice and handed it to Jenny. Her initial instinct was to refuse it, but seeing the anguish and fatigue—the humanness—in his expression, made her pause.

“I thought you might need this,” he explained stiffly. “Surgery takes a lot out of you. So does nursing a baby.”

Jenny focused on the juice, removing it from his hand without meeting his gaze.

“Thanks, Dad,” Evan said as Jenny drank it.

Sam Barnes stuck his head in the door, his eyes searching for Stoner. “I need to get you back, Senator. The state folks are giving me hell.”

Before Stoner could say anything, Evan snapped. “I’ll take responsibility.”

Sam looked around at everyone, then back to Stoner before his enigmatic gaze eventually settled on Evan. “You call ’em then and let ’em know what you’re doing. If you take responsibility, he has to be in your custody until he returns home.”

Evan glared. “I know the law, Sam.”

“Just sayin’, buddy.” Sam saluted him and disappeared back through the door.

“Prick,” Evan and Stoner said together. Then they amazed Jenny by smiling ever so slightly. It served to cut at least some of the tension in the room.

* * * *

Tabby floated in and out of awareness. She’d heard Joseph while she still lay on the road and would swear she’d heard him again later, but that didn’t make sense. She remembered Jenny’s voice and a confusion of images. Joseph, people at a party. A big house. The operating room. Always the operating room and that horrible buzzing in her ears as she faded in and out of consciousness.

There was a different doctor in the surgery now with Jenny. He was tall and abrupt with quick, clever hands that found delicate muscles, ligaments, and tendons while he barked orders to the nurse assisting. He straightened and looked at Jenny. “If you’ll close her thigh, Doctor Richardson, I’ll take care of the shoulder. Any other injuries?”

“No. She was lucky.”

Tabitha fought the drugs trying to pull her back into that pain-free haven of sleep.

The tall surgeon looked at Jenny. “Damn lucky that Senator Richardson had the God given good sense to find that artery and pinch it. Otherwise, she would have bled out before the ambulance could get to her. She looks like him.”

Tabby imagined herself with her artist’s eye. She did look like Stoner. For the first time in her life, peace filled her, not borrowed peace, but peace of her own. She knew who she was. She had a place to belong. Time slipped away from her again….

“Tabby. Can you hear me? Come on, honey. Wake up for me.”

It was Christmas, and Tabby wasn’t sure which gift to open first. She had Joseph. She had a family. She had Jenny, and there were more people, but she couldn’t remember all of them. They were family. Why couldn’t she remember? It had all been so clear in her dream.

“Tabby! It’s Jenny. We need you to wake up now.”

She blinked in the dimly lit room. “Jenny.” Her voice sounded funny, and her throat hurt. “Did Daddy beat me?”

“No, honey. How old are you, Tabby?”

How old was she? Tabby had to think. She remembered high school. College. “Twenty-three.”

“Where are you?”

“In bed.” Tabby coughed when she tried to laugh.

Jenny sighed in disgust. “God help us.”

The red-haired surgeon scowled from beneath thick blond brows. “Is that supposed to mean something I’m missing, Doctor?”

Jenny looked over her shoulder. “Tabby, this is Dr. Jarrett Campbell, the orthopedic surgeon.” To the other doctor, she said, “It means she’s fine. She’s being a typical Richardson—smart asses, all of them.”

“Don’t cuss.”

Campbell’s brows rose. “And giving orders. Just like a woman.”

Jenny smirked. “Also just like a Richardson. Okay, sis. Dr. Campbell’s finished and I have a whole line of people outside waiting to see you. Who do you want first?”

No hesitation. “Joseph.”

“He’s a good man, Tabby.”

“I know.” She wished her voice sounded stronger.

She closed her eyes until she felt Joseph’s touch. Without opening them, she smiled. “Joseph,” she whispered.

He leaned his forehead against her hand and murmured a prayer of thanks.

“You were right,” Tabby said. “I didn’t trust you enough.”

She opened her eyes to find him searching her face.

“Do you now?” he asked.

“Yes.” She wanted to apologize, but Joseph laid his finger against her lips.

“We can talk about it more later. You have others to see.”

The surgeon touched her hand from the opposite side of the bed. “I’ll be staying a few days. We’ll talk. For now, take it easy.”

After he left the room, Tabby drank her fill of Joseph’s beautiful face.

“Are you sure you’re up to seeing everyone?” he asked.

“Just Stoner.”

“You scared me for a while there, Tabby. But it’s not your time. You have important things still to do.”

He motioned over his shoulder to someone beyond Tabby’s sight. As he backed from the room, soft footsteps brought Stoner to her bedside. His gray eyes were dark with concern as he looked her over, and Tabby realized he was trembling.

“Daddy,” she whispered and touched his hand with the fingers of her good right arm.

“You knew?” Her father’s expression showed an uncertainty it was difficult to reconcile with his reputation. However, Tabby had always seen a different side of him.

She shook her head. “I heard.”

“Oh, Tabby,” he groaned, sitting in the chair next to her. “I didn’t know, honey. Please believe me. I would never have given up trying to find her…you… I didn’t know.”

Tabby gazed at him steadily. “It doesn’t matter. I loved you before I knew. I still do.”

He stroked her hair and touched her face. His eyes were red-rimmed and his face pale. He had never looked dearer to her. “I was so afraid. When I saw the blood, and I couldn’t get the pressure to stop it.”

“But you did. Just because I was your friend,” she whispered to him. It was slow and halting, but she had to get it said. “I used to dream I had a different daddy. After he beat me, I would dream I’d be Cinderella, but my fairy godmother would bring me a new daddy. Then I met you. I told Evan I would give an arm and a leg to have a father like you. I guess I nearly did.”

He half laughed, half sobbed. “Oh Tabby. That’s not even funny.”

“It is. Admit it. Laugh.”

He held her hand against his face as his laughter built from an awkward chuckle into a deep rumble that shook his powerful frame.

* * * *

What Joe really wanted was to be out of the hallway and inside the room where Tabby was. Instead, he was practicing the patience he had spent years cultivating as Jenny explained to Evan and him that Tabby’s recovery could be a lengthy process. She would have to rehab both her shoulder and her leg. “It will be difficult for her to stay in her house. She will need someone who can give her almost constant care.”

From behind the slightly cracked door of Tabby’s room, Joe heard Stoner Richardson laugh. Tabby laughed, too, but it was followed by a groan.

Jenny pushed open the door so they could see inside. Stoner held Tabby’s hand against his cheek as he murmured, “I love you.”

Jenny pulled the door quietly shut again and looked first at Joe, then at her husband. “Have we entered the Twilight Zone or an alternate universe? That cannot be the same man who is serving a sentence for conspiracy in my gang rape and another for conspiracy to commit murder…again mine. Please tell me I am hallucinating.”

Catherine Richardson stepped forward with the sleeping Peter in her arms and smiled. “No,” she said softly. “You’ve entered Tabby’s world.”

Evan looked at his mother. “Does this mean we’ve found our solution to Tabby’s living situation while she recovers?”

Catherine smiled. “Of course. I’ve already called the decorators to redo your room. It will make a splendid studio with its northern light and with the connecting bathroom into Erin’s room.”

Evan raised his brows. “Throwing both of us out?”

Catherine arched one brow. “You’ve both been gone for years. I’m not keeping shrines.”

Jenny laughed.

The door opened, and Stoner looked at them all huddled outside, but his gaze rested on Joe before moving to Jenny. “Tabby wanted to know if it would be okay if the preacher sang to her?”

“Are you asking me?” Jenny put a hand on her heart. She closed her eyes briefly. “It is the Twilight Zone.” She looked at Joe. “Are you up to it?”

“Sure.”

Jenny glanced around the darkened hallway of the ICU. “This is so against regulations. Everybody go in. And Joseph? Don’t sing too loudly.”

Tabby smiled tiredly as she saw everyone, but her eyes were for Joe alone. He leaned over to kiss her gently on the forehead. He’d come so close to losing her, yet now he felt as though he’d been given an incredible gift.

“What do you want me to sing, Tabby?”

“‘Thankful,’” she whispered. “Sing ‘Thankful’, Joseph.”

He smiled. “It’s perfect.”

His eyes never left hers as he sang, but he still saw what was happening around him. Evan had his arm around Jenny as they cradled their son. Stoner stood behind Catherine and smiled down at her as she looked up at his face with a renewed tenderness. As the lyrics flowed from Joseph’s throat with the added depth of his own immense gratitude that Tabby was still there, still loving him, Evan exchanged a long look with Stoner. While it wasn’t exactly loving, there did seem to be an offering on both ends to open the door to communication.

Tabby smiled and closed her eyes. Joseph bent and kissed her forehead when he finished, thanking God with every breath he took that they had a second chance.

They left quietly. Stoner stared at Joe as if he’d never seen him before. “Son, that voice is truly a gift from God,” he said quietly.

Joe smiled softly. “It’s the first song I ever sang to her. The day she asked me to pose for her.”

Evan chuckled, drawing everyone’s attention. “The painting’s done. It’s on your porch, but you could very well be the last person to see it.”

Joe laughed. “What makes you say that?”

“I talked to Jake a little while ago, and he said there’s been a steady stream of church ladies sneaking a look at it all day long. Well, I did too.”

Joe swallowed nervously. “Please tell me I’m decently clothed.”

Evan and Stoner both looked at him expressionlessly, but it was Stoner who finally asked, “Is there some reason you would wonder, Preacher?”

“Uh…”

Jenny glared at father and son. “Stop it. There is none so pious as…”

“…a reformed whore,” Catherine finished.

Evan grinned. “Don’t worry, Pastor. You’re fully clothed and angelic enough that no one would ever think you could be anything but fully clothed.”

Jenny looked at her in-laws. “On to more important things for the moment.” She paused for a heartbeat. “Stoner and Catherine, please stay with us until Tabby can go home with you. You’ll be closer to her, and—and Evan and I both insist.”

Stoner studied Evan’s serious expression. “Can you swing that with the state?”

“Yes. You’re in my custody.”

Stoner nodded at Evan and Jenny. “Thank you.”

Joe wondered exactly what it had cost Jenny to extend that invitation to Evan’s father. As far as everyone knew, Stoner had masterminded a vendetta against Jenny that had kept her and Evan apart for more than a decade.

When Joe arrived at the parsonage a quarter hour later, the first thing he saw was the cloth-covered frame. She had set the frame here. His eyes drifted to her third floor window. Something had happened. Something besides her accident. She had needed to get her emotions out, deal with something that had upset her enough she felt she had to completely remove his portrait from the house. It must have been bad, but Tabby was a survivor. The scars on her back were proof of that.

Joe carried the painting inside. When he came back out for his duffel bag, Katie was on his porch, rubbing between his legs and crying pitifully. As soon as he opened the door again, she darted inside his house. He started to shoo her back out, but found a can of tuna for her instead. “Think of it as comfort food, but don’t get too used to it.”

The cat meowed, then purred while she sniffed the can.

Restless, he made himself a sandwich and poured a glass of tea before he sat down to listen to his messages. The sheer number of them was not a good sign.

“Pastor, this is John Gatewood. It’s Thursday evening. Just got off the phone with Dennis Underwood. He’s getting ready to fire Miss MacVie for violation of the morals clause in her contract. He saw you coming out of her house early last Friday morning. You and I have already talked about this, but Underwood isn’t willing to let it go. I tried to talk him out of it but couldn’t. We need to discuss possible ramifications for you and the church.”

Heaven help them. This was going from bad to worse.

Beep.

“Pastor.” Joe started at the obviously disguised woman’s voice. “The Lord has seen fit to cast that harlot from our schools. Now you must cast her from your bed!”

Oh for heaven’s sake.
Beep.

“Joe—It’s Jake. If you get this message before you get home, you need to head this way. Dennis Underwood’s gotten Tabby suspended for a violation of her morals clause. She’s going to need our support. Maybe you should talk to Evan too.”