She had already pulled in next to Josie’s wagon and headed for the door when something struck her as odd. She slowed down, then turned around in a circle, trying to figure out what was so out of place that it made her spine crawl. Something was terribly wrong.
“Maria!” Dee practically exploded from out of the house, his boots thundered across the wood porch and he didn’t bother with the two stairs, he just jumped them. “I’ve been trying to call you for the last hour.”
“Dee? What’s wrong?” Maria asked. Just seeing Dee so wild eyed and frightened made her heart race even as her mind went through every scenario.
“Josie. She fell sick last night. I tried to get her to go to the hospital but she insisted she was fine. Then this morning, she couldn’t breathe. Oh, God, Maria. She was as white as my momma’s sheets and she looked like death. I’ve never seen that woman scared of anything until this morning. I called the ambulance and they took her, but I couldn’t go with her.”
“Rowan and Rob?” Maria asked.
“Yes.” Dee ran his hand through his hair, it was already wildly tangled and he only made it look worse with the nervous gesture. “I tried to call Stacie, but she must have gone for the day already. The kids know and trust you. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I need someone to stay with them. I need to get to Josie, to make sure she’s okay.”
Unspoken fears made his voice crack. If she knew the man at all, she knew he had been holding his fears in check in front of the twins, and the stress was starting to show.
“Don’t worry, I’ll stay here with them.” Maria gave the big man a quick hug, which surprised both of them, then pushed him away. “Go, take care of your wife.”
“Thank you. If you see Stacie, tell her she’s at Memorial Hospital. She’ll want to see Josie.”
“I will,” Maria agreed, even though she didn’t expect it to happen. Still, she would try. This had nothing to do with them—this was about Josie.
Rob and Rowan were happy to see her, but she could tell they were scared. She let them choose what they wanted for breakfast and tried to call Stacie while they fought over their cereal. There was no answer.
“Hey, how’d you two like to go for a walk after breakfast?” she asked, ignoring the sugar coated mess they had chosen for their breakfast. At least they were happy and distracted for a while.
She, on the other hand, had to write a note to Stacie and hope that the woman would actually read it. Every other invitation to join them at the house had been ignored. As much as it hurt to think she had read them and chose to ignore them—right now that was preferable to having not even bothered to open them at all.
Other than that, all she could do was wait and see.
Chapter Eleven
“You’re an idiot.”
“Excuse me?” Stacie asked. This wasn’t the reception she was expecting. Her beeper had been exploding all morning, but she had been too busy with a particularly difficult gelding to check it. The damn horse wouldn’t give in to the sedative and by the time he did, he was so stoned he fell over on his neck and damn near broke it, and that was after he bounced off every wall trying to fight her. Pure adrenaline in that “oh, shit” moment gave her the strength to yank on his lead line hard enough to pull his head around. After that, she had worked quickly to relieve him of the two things that were making him such a testy creature in the first place. Some stallions were better off geldings, and this one was a prime example.
Dee snorted in amusement from the corner he was hiding in.
“You gonna help me out here, or just pretend you’re holding up that wall?” Stacie asked, shooting him a desperate look.
“Nope. I know better than to get between you two. And for the record, I think she’s right.” Dee shrugged off her glare with a passive smile. “I think this is my cue to head out. I’ll be back to pick you up tomorrow morning, sweetheart,” he said, then leaned over and gave his wife a kiss.
“See you later Stacie, try not to get too much of your hide chewed out.”
“Thanks a lot, Dee.”
“Don’t mention it, always there for you,” he said, deflecting her sarcasm with an apologetic grin, then headed for the door before he could get drawn any further into their conversation.
Stacie turned her attention back to Josie. The woman was hopping mad at her and wasn’t doing anything to hide it, not if the rate of the annoying bleeping noise running in the background was any measure. It had sped up the minute she walked in the room, then popped into overdrive when Josie started yelling at her. She glanced at the door, half expecting a nurse to show up and almost wishing they would.
The doctors had reassured them that Josie was doing better. Supposedly good enough to go home in the morning, but she couldn’t help noticing all the monitors, wires and tubes hooked up to her best friend. In her opinion, doing better didn’t include needing so much hardware hooked up to you.
“Look, I already apologized for avoiding you this week. Don’t you think I feel bad enough about that? You should have told me you were sick.”
The accusation hung between them for a long, painful moment. Somewhere
