Rule of Three

Chapter Ten

Kassidy was just coming out of a meeting Friday afternoon, laughing at a joke her boss had made, when Chris appeared in the hall. It was unusual for him to be on her floor; they usually didn’t see each other during the day.

“Hi,” she said with a smile, walking toward him, her steps slowing at the expression on his face. “What’s wrong?” Her heart gave a jump in her chest. “Dag…?”

“No. It’s your mom.”

Kassidy frowned and Chris took hold of her upper arms.

“She had an accident. A car accident.”

“Oh my god. Is she okay?” Her legs started to shake.

“She’s in the hospital. I’m going to take you there.”

“But…I have a meeting…”

“Come on. We’ll tell Paul.” Kassidy’s boss, Paul, had just disappeared into his office.

“Chris…she’s alive, isn’t she?” Fear held her in a tight grip, made it hard to breathe.

“Yes.” His grim mouth didn’t reassure her, though, and she stumbled along after him down the carpeted hall and into Paul’s office.

Chris told him what had happened.

“Go,” Paul said immediately. “Call me later.”

Kassidy nodded, unable to put thoughts together. “Tell Julie…the project folder’s on my desk…my purse…” She turned to Chris and he took her hand, his warm and strong.

“We’ll get it. Come on.” He led her next to her own cubicle, found her purse and the suit jacket she’d draped over the back of her chair.

“What hospital is she at? What happened?”

“I don’t know much,” he replied as they rode down the elevator to the underground parking garage. “Your dad called me. He sounded…upset.”

“Oh god. He’s not good at stuff like this.” Kassidy pressed a hand to her stomach. Please, please, her mom had to be okay. She wiped her mouth and stared into space. The elevator stopped on the eleventh floor, then the ninth floor, the fifth, the fourth… God! Didn’t these people know they were in a hurry!

Her skin crawled with impatience and nerves tightened her stomach. She licked her lips and glanced at Chris.

“It’ll be okay,” he said, rubbing his hand up and down her back.

She nodded tightly. Finally they were in the garage and she wanted to run to their car, her high heels clicking and echoing in the concrete structure.

Traffic got in their way, even though it wasn’t rush hour yet. “Dammit, move!” Kassidy shouted futilely at a car driving slowly in front of them. Chris reached out and took her hand again.

“Sssh. It’s okay, Kass. We’re just a few minutes away.”

She squeezed his fingers, closed her eyes and tried to focus on breathing. What if her mom died? She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t die. But she could be paralyzed or brain damaged or…

“I’ll let you out here,” Chris said, pulling up in front of the emergency entrance. “I’ll find somewhere to park and come right in.”

“O-okay.” She wanted him with her, but she stepped out of the car and hurried into the building. The unmistakable odor of hospital antiseptic stung her nostrils and turned her stomach as she ran up to the desk.

“I’m looking for Hope Langdon.”

The woman clicked through some screens on a computer. “Are you family?” She looked at Kassidy over her black-framed glasses.

“Yes,” she said in a rush. “She’s my mother.”

The woman glanced over her shoulder. “Tess, can you take this woman back to exam room three? It’s the daughter.”

The daughter. The daughter. Kassidy followed the nurse. There were two daughters. Where was Hailey? Her dad probably hadn’t even called her. But what if Mom…

Stop. It was going to be okay.

The nurse held the door open and Kassidy walked in, her heart fluttering, afraid of what she was going to see. Her dad stood there beside the hospital bed while a nurse checked some monitors or something.

“Dad. I’m here.” She rushed over to her father.

“Kassidy.” He turned to her, his face pale and anxious.

“Is she okay? What happened, Dad?”

“I’m okay.” Her mother spoke, her words a whisper, and relief poured through Kassidy, weakening her knees. She leaned on the bed, trying to stay upright.

“Mom. Oh, thank god.”

Her mom looked worse than her dad, her face so pale the blue veins in her temples looked like bruises. And she did have bruises…and cuts, a gash across her nose, scrapes on her cheekbones, and Kassidy could see an angry red mark on her left collarbone. She reached for her Mom’s hand lying on the bed.

“She’s got a broken pelvis,” Dad said. “They did an x-ray and they’re still going to do a CT scan. She might have internal injuries. And she might need surgery. Depending on what type of fracture.” His mouth trembled. Kassidy hated seeing her dad, always big and strong and dependable, so shaken like this.

The nurse spoke up. “If it’s a type A, she won’t need surgery,” she said. “She’ll just need bed rest. Type B or C are more serious.”

Kassidy nodded and swallowed through a dry throat. “Okay. When will she have the CT scan?”

“Should only be a few minutes and we’ll take her in.”

“Okay.” Kassidy looked back at her mom and smiled. “Does it hurt, Mom?”

“Like hell,” her mom said with an attempt at a smile. “They’ve given me some drugs, though.”

“That’s good.” She squeezed her hand then looked up as Chris came charging in, eyes flashing. He seemed to take up a lot of space in the exam room, his presence solid and reassuring. Kassidy held out her other hand to him. He strode over, laying one hand on Dad’s shoulder and taking Kassidy’s with his other.

“Dave,” Chris said. “How’s Hope?”

Kassidy’s parents loved Chris and he liked them too, which made life much easier than for friends Kassidy knew who hated their in-laws.

“She’s okay, we think,” Dad said, straightening his shoulders in the presence of another man. He repeated what Kassidy had just learned.

“Well, apart from a few bruises and scrapes, you look as gorgeous as ever,” Chris told Hope, earning another wisp of a smile from Mom.

Kassidy went warm inside and squeezed Chris’s fingers. Thank god he was there. Now she felt like everything really might be okay.

The CT scan confirmed no internal injuries, and as the fracture was a type A, there wasn’t much they could do about it, so they sent Mom home with crutches, instructions to rest and a couple of different medications including blood thinners to prevent clots from forming in her legs, which was somewhat alarming.

“We’ll follow you home,” Kassidy told her parents, shooting a look at Chris, who nodded.

At her parents’ home, Kassidy buzzed around, making Mom comfortable. Thankfully they had a den on the main floor with a sofa bed in it where Mom could sleep because stairs were out of the question. Also luckily they had a main-floor bathroom.

She made up the bed, with a quick heated memory flash of doing that with her own sofa bed with Dag just a week ago, got her mom settled in the sofa bed, brought water, magazines, the remote control for the television.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I’ll make some dinner.”

“No.” Mom sank into the pillows, eyes closed, still white as the sheets she rested on. “I’m not hungry.”

“Okay.” Kassidy bit her lip. “You rest. Sleep if you need to. I’ll go see if Dad wants something to eat.”

She hurried out into the living room with one last look at her mom. Pain had tightened her face, despite the narcotics she’d had. Kassidy hurt just to see her like that.

Chris was checking messages or emails on his BlackBerry. “Gotta call Dag,” he said. “We were going to meet for dinner.”

“Oh. Damn. That’s right.”

“Go,” Dad said. “You don’t have to hang around here all evening. I can look after your mother.”

Yeah, but who was going to look after him? “Are you hungry, Dad?” Her father had never really been much of a cook. Give him a steak to grill and he’d be happy, but he wouldn’t have a clue how to prepare the steak or anything to go with it besides a beer.

“Well…”

Kassidy smiled. “I’ll make some dinner.”

“But you have plans,” he said. “Don’t—”

“It’s okay, Dad.” She patted his shoulder before going into the kitchen. “It’s no big deal. We see Dag all the time.”

“Isn’t that your friend from San Francisco?” Dad asked Chris as she moved away. She heard them talking as she opened the door of the refrigerator. What could she make?

She studied the contents. Well, it didn’t have to be gourmet. She found some ham and eggs. Surely Mom had an onion. She slid open the crisper drawer. Yup. Denver sandwiches. Perfect.

She kicked off her high-heeled pumps and busied herself chopping onions, whisking eggs, toasting bread, keeping her hands busy so the adrenaline rush of energy had somewhere to go. Otherwise she might have just collapsed into a heap of overwrought emotions on the kitchen floor.

Her mother’s kitchen was as familiar to her as her own—no, probably more familiar, given she’d only moved into the condo two weeks ago. She easily found utensils, a skillet, plates to serve the sandwiches on. As she was assembling bread and omelets, Chris appeared.

“You okay, sweetheart?” He curved his hand around the nape of her neck and kissed her.

“I think so.” Then tears puddled in her eyes and she set down the knife and turned into Chris’s arms. “I was so scared.”

He wrapped her up in his arms and she let the tears soak the shoulder of his dress shirt. He was still dressed in work clothes, as was she. “Did you talk to Dag?” she asked with a sniffle.

“Yeah. I told him what happened. He asked if there’s anything he can do, and said to give you a hug from him.”

“Aw. Thanks. I feel bad deserting him.”

“I told him to hang out at our place if he wants and we’ll be home later.”

She lifted her head and peered up at him. “Chris…this is weird. Isn’t it?”

“What? You mean Dag and…us?”

“Yes.”

Chris pressed his lips together and lifted his hands to frame her face. “Some might think so. Does it feel wrong to you?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Me either.” He pressed her face to his chest again. “I don’t know why. I don’t really want to analyze it. Let’s just enjoy it. While he’s here.”

“He’s not going to stay. Is he?”

“I don’t know.”

She wanted to talk about it, but clearly Chris didn’t, and anyway, this was not the time. Stepping out of his arms, she turned back to the counter, and in a moment had sandwiches on plates, which they carried into the living room. They ate, sitting on the couch, her dad looking a little more like himself.

“I just checked on your mom,” he said. “She’s sleeping.”

“That’s good.” She took a bite of her sandwich, chewed and swallowed, not really tasting it. “It’s good that it’s the weekend and you’ll be here to help her.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “This is a good sandwich, Kassie.”

She smiled at his old nickname for her. “Thanks.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do Monday.” He frowned. “I have an out-of-town trip next week.”

“Can you cancel it?”

Her dad was corporate counsel for Palladium Bank.

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, then, I’ll come stay with Mom.”

“You need to work.”

“We have family sick days we can use. I’ve never used any.” Except they had this big new project they were working on, and already she felt guilty at running out today and leaving everyone in the lurch. If she had to take a few days off, that would screw things up for the whole team.

“That would be great, honey.”

She smiled reassuringly at her dad. Of course she’d be there to help them. “And I’ll call Hailey. Maybe she can take a turn.”

As if. She’d have to tell Hailey what had happened. Hailey wasn’t exactly the nurturing type, but maybe she’d come through in a pinch. Maybe she’d look after Mom during the day, since her bartending job was at night, and Kassidy could come in the evenings. That would be fair.

“I’ll text her,” she said. “She needs to know what happened.” She didn’t question her dad about why he hadn’t called Hailey, but instead had called Chris. She quickly thumbed in a message then tossed her phone back in her purse.

She did the dishes, tidied up the kitchen and spent a few minutes with her mom, a bit groggy from all the meds. “Sure you’re okay, Dad?” she asked before she and Chris left. “Call if you need anything, okay?”

“We’ll be fine,” he said. He hugged her and she breathed in his familiar aftershave, the same kind she and Hailey used to buy him for Father’s Day years ago.

“I’ll come by tomorrow,” she promised.

He shook his head, smiling. “You don’t need to, but I know I can’t stop you.”

She smiled too. “Nope.”