Ronnie nodded. “Good to know. I hope to look out for her some myself.”
“Have you two finished marking your turf yet?” Dana Sue inquired testily. “We need to get going.”
Erik laughed and Ronnie chuckled with him.
“Maybe we’ll compare notes another time,” Ronnie said.
“I don’t think so,” Dana Sue said tersely. “Not if either of you expect to live.”
Erik shrugged. “She’s the boss.”
“Always was,” Ronnie agreed.
In the car, he met her gaze. “Must be nice to have a fierce protector like that around. He’s half in love with you.”
She stared at him incredulously. “He is not. He’s a friend and he works for me. It’s bad policy to date an employee.”
“Wouldn’t stop some women.”
“Well, it would stop me,” she said flatly.
Ronnie hid a relieved smile and said, “Yet another thing that’s good to know.”
He figured he’d made significant progress in discovering the dynamics of Dana Sue’s life these days, including who her friends were—besides Maddie and Helen, of course—and where her loyalties lay. At this rate, it wouldn’t take all that long for him to decide where he could fit in.
* * *
At the hospital, Dana Sue sailed down the hall ahead of Ronnie, determined to get to Annie’s room before him. She knew it was ridiculous to be so competitive over something so small, but ever since he’d declared his intention to stick around town, he seemed to be bringing that out in her. She didn’t want him to have the upper hand at anything, no matter what it cost her to best him.
When she opened the door to Annie’s room in ICU and saw an empty bed, a gasp escaped before she could stop it. She whirled around and latched on to Ronnie’s arm. “She’s gone!”
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” he demanded, peering past her.
“Look,” Dana Sue said. “She’s not in her bed. The room’s empty. Ronnie, if something happened to her while you and I were away, I will never forgive myself.”
Stepping back, he grabbed her shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. “Calm down, Dana Sue. Annie was perfectly fine when I spoke to the nurse less than an hour ago. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. Let me check at the nurses’ station.”
“I’m coming with you,” Dana Sue said, right on his heels. If there was bad news, she wanted them to hear it together. She didn’t want it filtered through Ronnie.
A thin, blonde nurse with pouty pink lips was behind the desk. Naturally, Ronnie managed to give her one of his trademark crooked smiles in an obvious attempt to charm her. Did the man have to flirt with every woman who crossed his path? Dana Sue wondered irritably. Especially now?
“Where’s our daughter?” she demanded before Ronnie could speak.
The nurse—Brook, according to her name tag—beamed at both of them. “Good news,” she reassured them. “The cardiologist saw her a little while ago and decided she was ready to be moved to a regular room.” She glanced at a paper on the desk. “She’s down on the second floor, room 206.”
Dana Sue sighed with relief. “Thank goodness.”
Ronnie draped an arm around her shoulder. “See, everything’s fine. Let’s go see our girl.”
Dana Sue let his arm remain where it was for a full five seconds, drawing strength from the contact. Then she shrugged away from him. “You go. I want to call Helen and Maddie and let them know to look for us downstairs when they come by later.”
He regarded her with a vague hint of disappointment in his expression, then said, “If that’s what you want.”
She watched him head for the elevator. Only after he was gone did she take a deep breath and relax. She caught the next elevator and went outside to place her calls. Neither of her friends was home, so she left messages, then tried to gather her composure before going back inside to see Annie.
Dana Sue sat on a bench near the fountain that splashed water into the small pond, and let the sound soothe her. The rustling of the breeze through the palmetto trees added its own lulling music. That was where Helen found her a few minutes later.
“Everything okay?” Her friend dropped onto the bench beside her.
“I just left you a message. They moved Annie to a regular room.”
“That’s great,” Helen said. When Dana Sue didn’t respond, her gaze narrowed. “Isn’t it?”
“Something tells me there’s still a long way to go before anything’s great again.”
“With Annie? Or does this have something to do with Ronnie?”
Tears welled up in Dana Sue’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “It’s everything,” she whispered, swiping ineffectively at the tears.
“Hey, come on now,” Helen soothed. “Annie’s going to be okay. Focus on that. Everything else will fall into place.”
“Sure,” Dana Sue said skeptically. “That implies that my ex-husband will go back where he belongs, which, according to him, isn’t going to happen.”
Helen winced. “I was afraid of that. I could take some steps to limit your contact with him. I could probably keep him away from Annie, too.”
“And have her hate me?” Dana Sue responded. “Forget that. I just have to find some way to deal with this.”
“I could talk to him and tell him he’s making things worse,” Helen said a little too eagerly. “I imagine I could persuade him to rethink his plan, at least once the crisis is past.”
“Same problem,” Dana Sue said with regret. “Annie would never forgive either of us.”
Helen looked disappointed at not being allowed to use her considerable skills of persuasion. “I suppose you’re right,” she finally conceded. “It certainly backfired last time I managed to get him out of Annie’s life on a daily basis.” She studied Dana Sue. “So, what will you do?”
“I wish I knew. Maybe I just need to stop obsessing about it.”
“Sounds like a start,” Helen concurred. “And if you change your mind about letting me do something official, all it takes is one word from you and it’s done.”
Dana Sue gave her a watery smile. “Thanks. Let’s
