Unexpected Ride (6 page)

“Matt, can you take your brother into the bathroom and wash his face, while I talk to Greg… Mr. Sanders?” Carla asked.

When the boys and Gretchen were out of sight and out of earshot Carla turned to where Greg and Chuck stood and said, “You need to have that arm examined again to be sure it didn’t cause even more problems.  Let me get my purse… Meredith can you stay with our guests, please?”

“We can take him over to the ER and have his arm checked out, Carla.  We will keep you posted on what they say… you stay here with your boys,” Dickie said.  “I know Chuck and Meredith have plans later and besides, I think that boy of yours needs reassured or else he may not realize just how good of a hit that really was.”

Dickie laughed when Greg smiled weakly and nodded his head in acknowledgment of Ben’s great tackle.  Several of the other men joined in laughing as well.  Seeing that being the one to take Greg to the emergency room was an argument she was unlikely to win, she said, “Okay, but you let me know if you need anything.”

Once Dickie, Becca and Greg left for the hospital, several other people prepared to leave as well including Bobby, Lilly, Edna, Sherri and Carla’s father.  With the house fixing to clear out she went in search of the kids and found Matt in the bathroom with his arms across his chest looking irritated.

“My mom told
me
to wash his face… not you, Gretchen!” Matt sighed in frustration.

“You should have listened when I told you to stop running in the house,” Gretchen said to Ben who sat on the edge of the bathtub while the tiny girl used a wet washcloth to wipe his face off.

“You’re not the boss of him, Gretchen!” Matt stated, though his previous comment had been completely ignored.

“Yea… you’re nobody’s boss, Gretchen!” Ben muttered his agreement.

“I
should be
the boss… because you’re both too big and you act crazy about stupid football and see what happened?” Gretchen lectured them both.

Matt and Ben glanced at each other as though to silently admit that Gretchen was right.  As worried as Carla was that Greg’s injuries might have been made worse by Ben’s horse play, watching the tiny little girl effectively curb any arguments from either one of her two boys brought a smile to her face. 

She felt Dana approach from behind her and they stood in silence watching Gretchen wipe off Ben’s face and then make him blow his nose into a tissue while Matt looked even more annoyed.

“Why don’t I watch them and you go on over to the hospital?” Dana offered quietly.

“Oh no… I couldn’t ask that,” she replied.

“You didn’t… I offered.  You can return the favor sometime.  You’re obviously worried about him and I can tell you care… you should go,” Dana suggested.  “I’m sure having you there would greatly ease his discomfort… at least it did after his surgery.”

“He has Becca and Dickie with him… he doesn’t need me,” she said.

A frail hand grasped her forearm and Edna said, “Take some advice from an old woman?”

She looked over at the elderly woman who had somehow appeared silently beside her and Dana and nodded.

“There is no set time limit for grief but don’t spend so much time grieving that a lifetime of joy passes you by and you miss seeing it because of the tears in your eyes.  When my husband died I vowed I’d never love again… and I didn’t.  Problem is now I wonder if that promise was worth keeping since no one ever asked it of me… especially not my Robert,” Edna said.  “That crippling pain will become a permanent injury if you let it.”

“That’s the problem,” she sniffed.  “I never had
time
to grieve for Doug… until now.”

“Nonsense… you’ve been grieving every day since… and healing too.  If you hadn’t then your heart wouldn’t have even noticed a handsome man like Greg Sanders.  You wouldn’t have been able to see him at all… because of the tears,” Edna offered quietly.  “Much like the pain that eventually dulls and is replaced with an ever present tightness when you think of someone you lost… the guilt over moving on will also ease in time.”

Edna was right because up until recently the pain over losing Doug had made it impossible for her to even visit his grave.  Every waking moment had been filled with a pain so sharp she often couldn’t breathe… let alone cry.  She had wrapped herself so tightly with the responsibility of caring for the boys and Meredith it had become a cocoon of pain and loss.

Glancing between the two women she said, “I won’t be gone long.  I’ll just check on him and then come right back home.”

“Take your time, I think Gretchen has it under control,” Dana laughed.

The boys adored Gretchen and were always excited to go to outings where she would be.  Within minutes of being around each other though, they were all usually arguing.  Typically it was two against one but it wasn’t always the boys against Gretchen. 

At a considerable size difference from either of Carla’s boys, Gretchen didn’t let that stop her from placing herself in charge and the quicker Matt and Ben figured that out, the faster they could get down to playing. 

This should bother Carla as a mother but it didn’t because Gretchen was always fair and was just as willing to play along with whatever the boys wanted to do as she was to make them play what she wanted.  They always had fun and usually begged to ‘camp in’ which was what they called a sleep over.  At their ages she didn’t have a problem with it and neither did Dana.  To her boys, Gretchen was just one of them… and the only one who could make Chuck do her bidding.

Entering the ER Carla was met by Dickie who stood and offered her his seat next to Becca since the waiting room was full and there were no other chairs available.

“We must have been the first of many holiday accidents… this place was almost empty when we got here so they took him right back for an x-ray.  If we had waited any longer to ‘screw around until someone got hurt’ the wait might have been a whole lot longer,” Dickie said. 

“He was pretty upset at even having to come here and insisted he was fine, so thank you for suggesting it.  Had the idea come from me, he would probably have refused outright,” Becca said when Carla sat down next to her.

“I feel just terrible about what happened and I know Ben does as well,” Carla said.

“There is no need to feel bad.  Greg
told
Ben to tackle him and by the time Greg realized the error of his ways, the boy had nailed him a good one,” Dickie said, smiling.  “Chuck’s right… that kid is a natural.”

They talked for a bit longer until Greg came out into the lobby area and upon seeing her sitting there, he frowned.  He walked over with some papers and handed them to her.  Was he angry at her for making him come here? 

If he hadn’t yet again interfered with her decisions where the boys were concerned, there wouldn’t have been a need to visit the emergency room.  She could feel her own anger over the situation mounting.

Becca looked between them and said, “Did it cause more damage?”

“No, it just hurts like hell,” Greg replied.

“We were going to take the girls out for dinner this evening so we need to get going.  Did you want us to take you to the beach house?” Becca asked him.

Greg glanced at Carla and she could feel the return of the tension that had been building between them since yesterday when she had washed his hair.  The feeling was urgent, needy and a little overwhelming but his anger over the situation didn’t give him the right to constantly butt into her business.  The image of Gretchen bossing the boys around came to mind… maybe the little girl had the right of it.

“I can drop him off or take him back with me.  You guys go on ahead and have a good evening with the girls,” she replied in place of Greg.  Somehow being bossy sounded better coming from Gretchen but Carla squared her shoulders just the same and braced for his refusal to allow her to help.

To her surprise Greg nodded his acceptance to Becca who leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.  Then taking Dickie’s hand, she led him outside to the parking lot. 

When the big automatic double doors closed behind them, Carla turned back to where Greg stood and all the anger she felt over this whole incident rushed into her face, heating it to the boiling point.  Angry or not her eyes were again drawn to his mouth which now contained a lopsided grin.

“You know if you’d listened when I told you no football for Ben, this wouldn’t have happened.  I expect it out of Ben… he’s six!  Even from Matt I could understand it, but from you?  I do not need anything… any
help
from you so please,” she started, but quit when he grabbed ahold of her arm with his good hand.

“I am not one of your kids whose behavior needs corrected so you can just stop mothering me.  If you want to help me then I’ll tell you what you can do to help… but this coddling me has to stop,” he said.

“Fine… what do you need then?  Are you hurting?” she asked a little breathless from her agitation and the feel of his hand touching the bare skin of her arm. 
Stop staring at his mouth!

“My arm is fine but God I ache… even worse than last night… and all I need from you is just a little… taste,” he whispered before pulling her to him and capturing her mouth with his incredibly soft lips.

Before she completely lost herself in the amazing feel of his lips moving against hers… that was surely going to make it hard to sleep tonight… she pulled back away from him.  She forced her eyes away from that mouth of his that felt
so good
and up to meet his gaze.  Somehow she’d known those lips would feel like that… it was the reason she stared at them.

“Are you ready to go?” she said, attempting to collect her scattered thoughts.

“You don’t feel that?” he asked with a look of disbelief on his handsome face.

“What?” she asked as her gaze slipped back to his mouth. 
God that felt good.

Those beautiful lips turned into a frown and he said, “Never mind… let’s go.”

Chapter Four

He could remember a time when he actually enjoyed being in Florida.  The thought of seeing Carla usually made it a no brainer when the opportunity presented itself to come down here but that was before his failed attempts at seduction.  At least the guys in the investigations unit of the Sheriff’s Office back home hadn’t been around to witness him being shot down.  Now the state of Florida was just beginning to grate on his last nerve. 

After his attempt to kiss Carla didn’t go so well, he’d tucked his tail and headed off to Becca’s beach house to lick his wounds.  The problem was that boredom was going to kill him.  At least at Carla’s house there had been Chuck and the boys to keep him entertained.  Here it was only the sand and beach… and solitude. 

The Administrative Sergeant over his department was encouraging him to use up some of the mass amounts of sick and vacation time he’d accrued over the years but six weeks in this state felt like ten years when there was nothing to do.  He might be able to take more than a year off between sick time and vacation but that didn’t mean he wanted to.

The one person he wanted to spend time with while he was down here had found convenient ways to avoid him.  Carla had so far sent Meredith by at the beginning of last week and then Chuck at the end of the week. 

This week it had been his sister which was even worse.  Becca was an attorney and a damn good one.  She was constantly asking him questions… mostly about Carla… like he was hiding the truth from her… which he was, but her inquisitions needed to stop none the less.  Just like with Carla… he wasn’t a child that either one of them needed to take care of. 

He wondered who Carla would be sending today to take him to his doctor’s appointment.  He could probably drive himself but between Carla and Becca telling him how unsafe driving one handed could be, he’d caved.  Maybe that was part of the problem… he was always giving in to them and instead needed to take back a little control.

When his cell phone rang and he noticed Chuck’s number on the screen, he sighed.  He felt bad that Chuck was getting the short end of the stick by having to chauffer him around though he would enjoy the reaction of the staff at the doctor’s office when they got a look at the young man. 

Getting to know Chuck was a privilege he wouldn’t change for anything but it was fun to watch people actually cross the street to get as far away from Chuck as they could.  Fear, opinions and an unforgiving society made most people very leery of Chuck. 

He had been one such person before actually getting to know Chuck and watching him step in and take care of Meredith, Carla and the two boys in an impressive way.  Hell, he wished Carla adored him the way she adored Chuck.

Perhaps if he insinuated that Chuck might be the one bringing him from now on the doctor would not only do away with the sling for good but clear him for duty as well. 

Sure his shoulder and arm still ached terribly and were a little on the weak side but not working was starting to mess with his head.  He was one of only two people in the whole Sheriff’s Office that had
actually
been shot.  A couple other deputies had been shot
at
but only he and Major Laskins had actually been shot. 

In fact over the past year Greg had been held hostage, testified in front of a grand jury regarding a high profile case involving Lilly Jackson’s first husband, and had now been shot.  All of those things had happened while in this state so perhaps he should go home and recuperate there.

“You the lucky one taking me to the doctor’s office?” he asked upon answering his phone.

“No… Carla is.  Isn’t she there with you?” Chuck asked.

“No, I haven’t seen Carla since Thanksgiving when she dropped me off at the beach house,” Greg replied.

“Hold up… she hasn’t been coming over and checking on you at
all?
  Like last Wednesday night before church and then this past Wednesday as well?” Chuck asked clearly confused.

“No… and to tell you the truth all this solitude is starting to get to me.  Do you want me to call you when she gets here?” he asked.