Avoiding Maddie, however, turned out to be the easy part. She’d forgotten how quickly the Serenity grapevine worked with the general population.
“What’s going on with you and the new town manager?” Drew Ann Smith inquired just as Jeanette began her facial. “Everybody’s talking about it.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Jeanette said evasively.
Her response made Drew Ann laugh. “You kissed the man in the stands at the football game. Everyone was amazed the girders holding up the bleachers didn’t melt.”
“Just trying to prove a point,” Jeanette said blithely.
“And did you?” Drew Ann asked. “Prove the point?”
Jeanette thought about it. “Oh, I’m pretty sure I did.” Unfortunately, she’d also stirred up a hornet’s nest with the discovery that kissing Tom and being kissed by him were addictive.
“Heard you two were going at it again in front of Sullivan’s today,” Drew Ann said, her voice muffled by the towel that Jeanette had deliberately draped over her mouth in a futile attempt to silence her.
“Why is everyone so interested in what’s going on between Tom and me?” she asked plaintively.
Drew Ann chuckled. “This is Serenity. Most of our lives are fairly routine and boring. Keeping up a steady play-by-play on the hot romances in town is what we do.”
“Tom and I are not having a hot romance.”
Drew Ann yanked away the towel and stared at her. “Are you crazy? If a man who looks like that and kisses like that wanted me, he wouldn’t have to ask twice.”
“I imagine Wendell would have something to say about that.” Jeanette was referring to Drew Ann’s husband, who ran one of the town’s two insurance agencies.
Drew Ann chuckled. “Wendell would probably be relieved to have a break.”
Jeanette’s gaped. “Drew Ann!”
“Well, it’s true. Ever since I hit menopause, sex is on my mind all the time. I guess it’s because I don’t have to worry anymore about getting pregnant.”
Jeanette wasn’t sure which made her more uncomfortable, discussing her own relationship or Drew Ann’s. Listening, though, came with the territory, so she let Drew Ann chatter on, murmuring appropriate comments on cue and trying to keep the image of Drew Ann and Wendell going at it like rabbits out of her head.
By the time she got back to her office, though, she had to fan herself to cool down from all that talk about sex. She sipped from her glass of tea and was about to get to her next client when the phone rang. She grabbed it because she knew the receptionist wouldn’t have put it through if it wasn’t important.
“Jeanette?” The quavery voice was her mother’s.
“Mom? Is everything okay?” Jeanette asked, a knot of dread forming in her stomach. Of course everything wasn’t okay. Her mother never called her. Only an emergency would have her doing so now.
“It’s your father,” she said. “He’s in the hospital. I just thought I should let you know.”
Jeanette sat down hard. “What happened?”
“He had an accident on the tractor. He ran it into a ditch and it fell over on top of him. That was about a week ago and—”
“A week ago? And you’re just now calling to tell me?”
“We didn’t want to worry you,” her mother said. “Now, though, he’s got pneumonia and one of those staph infections that people get in the hospital. The doctor said it could be serious and that maybe I should call you.”
“Which hospital, Mom?”
She named a Charleston hospital that Jeanette was familiar with. He wouldn’t have been transferred from the small regional hospital if it wasn’t very serious.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can get away.”
“You don’t need to rush,” her mother protested.
“If Dad’s sick, I need to see him,” Jeanette said, trying hard not to scream at her in frustration. A week? He’d been in a tractor accident a week ago and she was just now finding out about it. What did that say about their family? “I’ll be there in an hour. Two, at the most.”
She hung up and bit back a curse. Once again, she’d been an afterthought. If her dad hadn’t developed complications, if the doctor hadn’t suggested that her mother call, she might never have known he was injured in the first place. Her mom was probably already regretting having called.
She hurried down the hall to Maddie’s office and quickly explained the situation. “I can do Maxine’s treatment, but then I really need to go. Can someone call and cancel the last two appointments on the schedule?”
“I’ll do it,” Maddie said. “If you want to cancel Maxine, just tell her you have a family emergency.”
“She’s already here. She has to drive nearly an hour to get here. I can do it,” Jeanette said, then realized she was shaking and that her eyes were welling up with tears. Maddie was around her desk in a heartbeat.
“Sit down,” she ordered. “Don’t even think about going anywhere till I get back. I’ll talk to Maxine and see that those calls are made. When you’re back you can give Maxine a free facial if you want to, to make up for the inconvenience of her driving all this way.”
“Yes, please. Do that,” Jeanette said.
After Maddie left, Jeanette let the tears flow unchecked. Some were for her father. Given her mother’s tendency to downplay everything, who knew how serious his condition really was? Mostly, though, her tears were for a family that no longer seemed to exist, the one of her childhood that had been loving and close and filled with laughter.
When the door to Maddie’s office opened, she mopped her eyes with a tissue and looked up to find Tom there.
“Maddie called me,” he said. “I’m driving you to Charleston.”
“No,” she said fiercely. She could not deal with him right now.
“You’re in no condition to drive yourself. Everyone else is tied up, so I’m a last resort. Don’t argue. You know you won’t win, not against
