Saving Allegheny Green (4 page)

“It’s not that I can’t get a man,” I retorted. “I don’t have time to date, not between taking care of you and Mama and Denny and Aunt Tessa. My social calendar is a little full.”

“Nobody ever asked you to play martyr, Ally, but it’s your favorite role.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Take it any way you want.”

My pulse quickened, anger surging through me. Okay, the anger was born of hurt. I sacrificed so my family could survive, and I get accused of being a martyr. Nothing would please me more than if they’d take care of themselves and I could have my own life.

“I’m going to see Rocky whether you come or not.” Sissy rose to her feet and swayed. I reached my arms out, prepared to catch her if she fell, but Sissy righted herself and headed for the elevators.

“Wait,” I said. “I’ll come with you. But we’ve got to be back here at seven to catch a ride home with Glenda or you’ll have to find your own way home.”

“Whatever,” Sissy mumbled.

Whatever indeed. I was only five years older than my sister but right now, I felt like a hundred. Most of the time I had no idea where she was coming from. I imagine I confused her as much as she confused me.

We rode the elevator in silence. A man in a lab coat pushing an EKG machine got on. He smiled and nodded. I smiled back. Sissy stared unblinkingly at the elevator door.

We got off on the third floor. The day-shift crew had arrived. Groggy nurses carrying foam cups of bad coffee made their way to the report room. Since I occasionally worked here
part-time on the weekends, I knew most of them. I smiled and called out greetings but kept walking, reluctant to stop and have a conversation. With my hand at Sissy’s back, I pushed her down the corridor.

The door to Rocky’s room stood ajar.

Abruptly, Sissy halted.

“What is it?” I snapped, still smarting from her martyr comment.

“Wait.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not ready.”

“Come on, you were so hot to see him.” I plucked her shirttail between my fingers and hauled her through the door.

Big mistake.

Rocky was not alone.

Nor had we given him advance warning by knocking. If we had, perhaps the blonde in the bed might have stopped kissing him. As it was, Rocky and the blonde were welded together, arms around each other in a deep embrace, mouths joined hungrily as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks.

Sissy stared in disbelief.

I got mad for her. My sister drives me buggy, but I wasn’t about to let anyone else treat her badly.

“What is going on here?” I demanded.

Rocky and the blonde broke apart quicker than two dogs getting hosed.

“S…S…Sissy,” Rocky stammered, not even bothering to address me. “What are you doing here?”

“She came to finish off the job,” I said, unable to resist. “Where’d you put that pistol, Sissy?”

Rocky’s arms flew up to cover his head. “Wait a minute, Sissy, it’s not what it seems.”

“Is she the one?” the blonde asked, shaking a cigarette from the package of Marlboro Lights she pulled from her pocket. She wasn’t a real blonde, up close you could see her dark
roots. Her face was pitted with old acne scars and she wore too much makeup in an attempt to hide them.

“No smoking,” I said. “In case you haven’t noticed, this is a hospital. And by the way, who are you?”

The bleached blonde shrugged and stuffed the cigarette back in the pack before jerking an oversize thumb in Rocky’s direction. “I’m his wife. What’s it to you?”

Ah, Mrs. Dirtbag.

I glanced over at Sissy. She was pale as a corpse. Except for the black eye.

Rocky had lowered his hand and was staring at Sissy, too. “Hey,” he said. “What happened to your eye?”

Sissy didn’t answer. Her bottom lip trembled. I had the strongest big-sisterly urge to tuck her under my arm and spirit her out the door.

“Come on, honey,” I soothed. “Let’s get out of here.” I reached for her but she shied away and instead walked closer to Rocky’s bed.

“I can’t believe I ever thought I loved you,” she said, her voice full of hurt.

“You, too?” the blonde snorted.

Sissy sent Mrs. Rocky the evil eye and the woman clammed up. “See this?” Sissy touched the black-and-blue ring beneath her eye. “The beating was meant for you.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Your friend. The one you borrowed money from to make your demo.”

“You
do
know the guy that assaulted you,” I interjected. “Tell me his name, Sissy. I’ll have Conahegg arrest him.”

My sister paid me absolutely no attention. She was too intent on boring a hole through Rocky with her glare. “Your
good pal gave me a shiner because I refused to pay your debt. He said to tell you this is a warning. That he’s going to give you ten times the pounding if you don’t have his money by Monday.”

“Monday?” Rocky’s Adam’s apple quivered.

“I’m not taking any more beatings for you or from you, Rockerfeller Hughes,” Sissy said, looking madder and braver than I’d ever seen her. I could barely contain myself from bursting into applause. “Next time, I’ll tell him where to find you.”

“Sissy…” Rocky whined.

“Oh, and for the record, I’m glad I shot you.” Then Sissy whirled on her heel and marched out the door.

“Darlene,” I heard Rocky ask the blonde as I hurried to catch up with my sister. “You got three thousand dollars I could borrow?”

N
O MATTER HOW
I
CAJOLED
, Sissy refused to tell me the name of the guy who’d beaten her. She said it was none of my business. How’s that for gratitude?

On Sunday, I worked the three-to-eleven shift in Labor and Delivery at the hospital. We had only one patient and she didn’t deliver on our shift, which gave me plenty of time to snoop around and see what had happened to Tim and Rocky.

Tim, I discovered, had been treated the night before for a moderate laceration to the knee, then carted off to county lockup. Rocky was scheduled for a debridement of his toe early Monday morning but was being dismissed after the procedure.

I didn’t go up to see him again, although there were a few things I wanted to tell him. Sissy had made me promise to stay away.

What did surprise me, however, was a visit from Conahegg.

My coworker and best friend, Rhonda Smithy, and I had medicated the plodding mother-to-be and left her with attentive relatives. We were unenthusiastically looking forward to our Lean Cuisine frozen dinners when lo and behold Conahegg appeared with a pizza.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, eyeing the pizza.

“Thought I’d see if you were hungry.” He set the box down on the table.

“You expect me to believe you brought me a pizza out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got a suspicious mind?”

“All the time.”

Conahegg grinned and ran his gaze over my body. It was a quick perusal but he was checking me out. I wished I was wearing something sexier than shapeless hospital scrubs.

“How did you know I was working at the hospital tonight?”

“I went out to your house.”

“Did you need to speak to me about something?”

Conahegg’s eyes darkened and he cast a glance at Rhonda.

Sharp as a hypodermic, Rhonda peered at her watch. “Oh, excuse me for a minute, I think it’s time to change the IV on the patient in room one.” She scurried from the lounge but not before giving me an exaggerated wink.

“Have a seat.” I nodded at the chair Rhonda had vacated.

Conahegg sat, his long-limbed frame drawing my attention. Good gawd but the man was built. The quality of light in the room suddenly sharpened. I blinked in wonder. The fluorescent bulb flickering, surely. But I couldn’t stop myself from staring at Conahegg.

“I think I know who attacked your sister,” he said. “I drove over to see her but she won’t talk to me. I get the feeling she’s protecting Rockerfeller Hughes, but I don’t know why.”

“Me, either.” I sighed. “Who do you think attacked her?”

“Loan shark by the name of Dooley Marchand. Do you know him?”

I shook my head.

“He works as a bouncer at the strip club out on I30. Your sister’s boyfriend owes him a lot of money. Dooley doesn’t like to wait for his due. We’ve arrested him before for working people over. One of my deputies saw him at the station right before your sister was beaten.”

“Scumbag.”

“I can’t arrest him if your sister won’t press charges. Could you talk to her?”

“Me?” I laughed. “She never listens to me.” My Lean Cuisine dinged in the microwave. I gazed longingly at the pizza.

Conahegg opened the box. The aroma of garlic, onions and oregano filled the room. “Have a slice,” he invited.

Pepperoni. My favorite.

“Is this a bribe?” I asked.

“Why, Ms. Green, what you must think of me.”

If he only knew!

I took the pizza.

“Listen,” Conahegg said, his eyes on my face. “The truth is, I wanted to warn you about Marchand. Don’t mess with him. If you see him on your property call me immediately.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.” He laid one hand across the top of mine.

I froze in midchew. Holy Toledo, what the man could do to me with a single touch. To hell with Dooley Marchand. I was in danger of spontaneous combustion from close bodily contact with Conahegg.

“Hear me?”

I swallowed. Hard. “All right.”

“And tell your sister to watch out for Mr. Hughes’s wife.”

“Oh? You know about Darlene?”

Conahegg’s pupils widened. “I know about everything that goes on in town.”

“I’ll consider myself warned.”

“Darlene Hughes has been in prison for the last thirteen months. Three weeks ago she was paroled.”

I hated to ask. “What for?”

“Assault with a deadly weapon.”

“Why am I not surprised?” I thought of the hard-eyed, bottle blonde with a penchant for Marlboros.

“She stabbed Rocky’s last girlfriend in the neck with a rat-tail comb. Be careful, Ally, there’s a lot of unsavory characters hanging around your sister.”

Be careful? Did that mean he cared? Oh, why was I torturing myself? What was happening to me? I didn’t pine over guys.

“I know,” I said. Could he tell how I was feeling? Could he read desire in my face? Did he have the slightest clue that unflappable, sensible Allegheny Green was losing her perspective because of him?

He leaned forward. “Sissy is in over her head.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Drugs.”

“Oh come on. Aren’t you exaggerating a bit? So she smokes some pot.”

Conahegg shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s more than that.”

“I don’t follow.”

“We had the hospital do a drug screen on Hughes and it came back positive for cocaine as well as marijuana. We also suspect he might be dealing to supplement his career as a musician.”

“What career? As far as I know he’s never played professionally.” I polished off the slice of pizza, dusted my fingers on a napkin.

“Exactly. How does he survive?”

“Mooches off Sissy.”

“And your sister paints artificial nails for a living.”

“When she’s in the mood,” I said.

“Not much money in part-time work like that.”

I definitely didn’t like where the conversation was headed. “My sister is not involved with drug dealers.”

“How do you know that for certain?”

I didn’t want to dwell on my sister and her problems. At
least not with Conahegg. I wanted to eat pizza and gaze into his granite-gray eyes and imagine what it felt like to be held in those strong, masculine arms. Great. Since when had I been reduced to romance-novel fantasies?

“How’s Tim?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Tim?”

“You know, the naked guy you hit with your squad car.”

“He posted bail.”

“That was quick. Who sprang him? He’s broke and he doesn’t have much to do with his own family.”

Conahegg shrugged. “I’m really not at liberty to discuss it.”

“Oh.”

So much for our chummy little conversation. I thought he’d come to see me but apparently he’d only been pumping me for information about Sissy and Rocky. Disappointment turned the pizza crust to sawdust in my mouth.

Conahegg got to his feet. “Enjoy the pizza.”

“I will,” I responded, feeling irritated with him.
If I have to choke down every last bite.

He stopped at the door. My treacherous heart skipped a beat. Was he going to ask me out? Would I say yes if he did?

“Allegheny…”

“Please, call me Ally.”

“Ally.” He smiled.

“Yes?” I held my breath. Waited.

“You’ve got cheese on your chin.”

“I
HATE THAT MAN
.”

“You like him. A lot.”

“I do not,” I denied hotly a few hours later as I sat hunched over the computer signing out my charting. I was still smarting over the mozzarella on my chin incident.

The graveyard shift nurses had arrived, and they were in
the process of assessing our lone patient. Rhonda and I manned the phones and waited for eleven o’clock.

“You’re obsessing, Ally.” Rhonda blew on her freshly painted fingernails. Pretty in Puce, was the name on the bottle, as if it were physically possible to be pretty in puce. Rhonda was polishing her nails in anticipation of a midnight date, and I was still second-guessing Sheriff Sam Conahegg.

“What? Because I can’t figure out what he’s up to?” I said. I felt sheepish that for a few minutes I’d actually believed that Conahegg had come to the hospital simply to see me.

“He’s pretty cute.”

“He’s okay.” I shrugged.

Cute didn’t begin to cover it. I thought of his flint eyes, those muscular thighs, that powerful voice.

Don’t forget the arrogant attitude,
I reminded myself. The cocky way he looked at me made me want to bop him over the head and pop him into my bed all at the same time. Rhonda, however, did not need to know about the last part.

Rhonda heaved an exaggerated sigh. “I swear, Ally, sometimes I think you’re dead from the waist down. The guy’s a major hunk.”

“Define
major hunk.
”

“You’re hopeless,” she muttered. “Absolutely hopeless. If that man doesn’t melt your butter, it’d take a million years of global warming to thaw you out.”

“Oh, all right. He’s good-looking, I’ll grant him that.”

“And?”

“And nothing.”

I didn’t like liking Conahegg so much. Especially when I didn’t know if he liked me or not. What was it about him that caused me to behave in the manner of a fifteen-year-old with a crush on the most popular guy in high school? Although as
I recall, in high school all the girls had had a crush on him, me included.

“Getting you to talk about men is like pulling snakes’ teeth.”

“Snakes don’t have teeth.”

“That’s why it’s so hard.” Rhonda grinned. “Spill the beans. Is there chemistry between the two of you? You know, sparks.”

“There’s sparks.” I glowered. “But not the kind you mean. He’s opinionated and domineering and he embarrassed me.”

And he flushed the marijuana down the toilet instead of arresting Sissy like he could have.

Okay, so he wasn’t
all
bad.

“Come on, your last boyfriend was when…? College? Dang, Ally that was ten years ago!”

I was well aware of that fact. I was boyfriendless by choice, not happenstance. Guys clutter your life. Overall they weren’t worth the headache. They either died on you like my daddy, or used you as a crutch like my old boyfriends, or disappeared on you like Rhonda’s ex-husband, or cheated on you like Rocky did Sissy.

Yeah, okay, so maybe I had trust issues when it came to men.

“You’re an attractive woman. You’ve got a great body and flawless skin,” Rhonda went on relentlessly. “If you’d only wear a little more makeup and get a new hairstyle. That page boy might be functional but it’s not sexy. Oh, and you might consider some blond highlights.”

“I’m not going to bend over backward to attract some man.”

“No? But you’ll jump through hoops for your family.”

“Rhonda, I don’t have any choice. You know my mother. If I didn’t manage her finances, she and Tessa would be in the poorhouse within a week.”

“How do you know?” Rhonda busily applied a second coat of browny-purple-puke color to her nails. “Ever let ’em sink or swim?”

I stared at her appalled. “Of course not. That’d be like letting a baby play on the highway.”

She snorted. “And your sister. Why doesn’t that girl get a steady job and take care of her own son? Why do you have to be Denny’s surrogate mother?”

“I love taking care of Denny,” I protested.

“You should have a child of your own. A man of your own. A life of your own.”

“I have a life.”

“Oh, yeah? Never mind a boyfriend, when was the last time you even went out on a date.”

“I don’t need a man to complete me.”

“You’re not going to tell me that you believe in that stupid feminist slogan—a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle? What’s that supposed to mean anyway?” Rhonda frowned and examined her nails with narrowed eyes.

“It’s true. I have no need for a man.”

Rhonda stuck her leg out at me. “Come on, pull the other one. Every woman needs a man. Unless of course she prefers another woman.”

She was trying to get my goat and I knew it. I closed my eyes and battled the heat rising to my cheeks. “I have physical needs. Just like anybody else. But I know how to control myself.”

“There’s a fine line between self-control and shutting yourself off to your sexuality.”

Rhonda didn’t know what she was talking about. I had feelings. Lots of them. Thinking about Sheriff Conahegg brought a warm tingly sensation into the center of my body. An unwanted sensation.

Without warning my mind flashed to a startlingly clear image of Conahegg. Strong, dimpled chin. Sharp, intelligent eyes that missed nothing. Hard, honed body.

Electric shivers spiked my spine.

“Besides,” I croaked, fighting to deny what was happening inside me. “Sex is overrated.”

“You’ve never had an orgasm, have you?” Rhonda taunted.

“Shut up.”

“You haven’t! Oh my God, Ally. I had no idea. I’m so sorry.” She got up and threw her arms around my neck, careful to keep her nails splayed outward.

I backed away, eager to extricate myself. “Please, it’s no big deal.”

“No big deal?” Rhonda was shaking her head and damned if she didn’t have tears in her eyes. “You poor thing. I had no idea.”

“Stop it.” I didn’t want her pity.

“You’ve got to quit substituting your family for a real life before it’s too late. You’re thirty-one and not getting any younger.”

Thankfully, the clock chose that moment to strike eleven.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I sprinted for the door. I had to get out of here. Away from talk of Conahegg. Away from Rhonda and the overwhelming sympathy in her eyes.

O
N
T
UESDAY MORNING
, three days after Sissy shot Rocky, Joyce Kemper, the director of Cloverleaf Home Health Care, handed me two manila folders. “Here’s your new cases. The first one is a knee laceration. You’re to give IV penicillin for five days. The other patient is a twenty-seven-year-old male with GSW to the foot. Administer IV vancomycin once a week for four weeks and dress the wound thrice weekly.”

GSW. Gun shot wound. My heart sank. Cloverleaf wasn’t a big place. We probably didn’t average one gunshot wound to the foot a decade.