Kent’s mother exhaled. A sudden flash of anger made his vision narrow. But he focused forward and led the way into her room. Cara’s eyes were closed but when he walked over and touched her, she opened them and smiled at him, leaving him breathless.
“Welcome back. Nice drama.” He had to work to keep the tremor out of his voice.
She looked past him, frowning, and he wished he’d told Kent’s mother to stay in the waiting room.
No, not your place anymore remember?
“Yeah,” she croaked. “Sorry. Just keeping you on your toes.”
His mother shoved him aside and patted her shoulder. “You did that and then some. We wanted to check in real quick and see for our own selves that you were all right.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off Cara. He wanted to be the one here for her. It made him ache deep in his gut knowing he couldn’t be.
“Where is she?” An unfamiliar male voice bellowed down the hall. “Where the hell is, oh thank the Lord.” Kent Lowery rushed in and went straight to her side, crouching down and putting his lips near her ear. “Honey, honey, my Cara,” he crooned. “You’re fine. Everything is fine.”
Kieran pulled his mother out of the room with him. Once they were down the hall a ways, she yanked her arm out of his grip.
“You are a stone cold fool,” she declared while glaring holes in him.
“Why don’t you tell me something I don’t know?” He whirled away from her and kept moving out the door to his car, getting in behind the wheel before recalling he had to get her home, too.
Lindsay took her time following him, likely chatting with every single hospital employee and patient, asking after their mamas and daddies and grandbabies. He gritted his teeth and sat behind the wheel, waiting her out. She finally climbed into the passenger’s seat of the vehicle he’d been allotted from the Love family collection, buckled her belt, and looked straight ahead. They traveled in silence for about ten minutes, her only comment about the weather.
Grunting a rude, Lindsay-unacceptable reply he pulled into his family home driveway, got out, and walked around to assist her. Before she opened the front door, she turned and the accusatory expression on her face was so familiar from his life as a boy and teenager, he wanted to yell.
“Kieran Francesco, that baby....” He tried to turn away from her, which earned him a whack to the back of his head. “Don’t you dare walk away while I’m speaking to you, young man.” Her voice dipped lower, indicating seriousness. He shook his head and suppressed his need to state the obvious, moot-point nature of that question.
His father appeared in the doorway. Lindsay turned to him, irritation making her face flush red. “What are you doing home? Love Brewing not open for business today?”
Kieran’s father opened his mouth to speak.
“Oh be quiet,” she snapped at him. “You are both...so...so....” She sighed. “Move out of my way.” She smacked her husband’s arm. Kieran stepped back, eager to get the hell out of Dodge.
“Son,” his father intoned, ignoring his wife’s outburst.
“Sir?”
“What’s going on with that girl?”
“Nothing that concerns me. I happened to be there, getting Mama from her appointment when she....Anyway, her fiancé is with her now. I gotta go.”
“Thanks for managing Dominic.”
The temptation to tell his father the truth and force him to face the extent of Dominic’s issues gripped him hard. But Kieran decided to stay with what worked for the Love family—handle it, don’t talk about it more than necessary, move on to the next crisis, and hope the previous one disappears. “You’re welcome. Wish me luck. I have a job interview tomorrow.”
“Oh? Where?”
“Pussycat Lounge, over by the airport.”
“Pussycat...uh...oh, right.”
“They need bouncers.” Kieran took a small bit of satisfaction letting his father’s imagination run for a few seconds. He was certain Anton had been to that place before it had been bought out and facelifted by some corporation. But slap lipstick on a pig all you want. At the end of the day, the Pussycat Lounge remained a sleazy, down-market, small town strip joint. And he, Kieran Francesco Love with his B.A. in history, a one-time NBA star, was praying the place would hire him to deal with rowdy clients getting too friendly with the girls.
“I see. Well, good luck. I’d best check on your mama.”
“Yeah. Tell her thanks for me. She was a big help.”
Kieran climbed into the car and fired up the rebuilt engine. The partial payment from the insurance company had floated him rent and a phone payment and he’d banked the rest, after tossing the credit card people a few bucks. Thankfully, the Love family had a small stable of cars collected through the years, so one had been assigned to him.