the way and stay silent. She’s sleeping and needs her rest.
Once they’ve moved her, three of them leave and a nurse stays to take her vitals. She writes the stats on a dry erase board bolted to the wall and punches them into a tablet.
Her gaze falls on us. “It’s okay to talk, you guys. She’s sleeping, but she’s out good. She’s on a post-surgery drip.”
I read the stats on the board, but they’re gibberish to me. I don’t speak medicine. I veer my head toward the wall and point.
“Those numbers. Are they good or bad?”
The nurse studies the wall, then meets my eyes. “They’re about what you’d expect for a woman in her seventies who just got out of surgery successfully. In other words, nothing to worry about.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“No problem. If she needs anything, just push the call button.” She walks out of the room.
Nick watches Grandma sleep for a minute, her small chest rising and falling.
“Where’s Paige?”
“Huh?”
“She was with us. Now she’s just...gone,” Nick says, a bewildered look on his face.
Oh, hell. I forgot all about her after the coffee run.
I look at my smart watch. We’ve been in this room for half an hour, and she hasn’t texted. Is she still here?
“Hang on,” I tell him. “I’ll go find her.”
“I can do it if you need to stay with Grandma since you’re the POA.”
“Yeah, in case there were any hard feelings, I didn’t know about it until the doctor told us. She probably just had to name someone and—”
“You’re the oldest,” he finishes for me. “I shouldn’t have freaked about it earlier.”
I nod. “I’ll find Paige. I need to talk to her.”
He grins. “Yeah, whatever, dude. Bet you feel bad for trying to talk Grandma into axing her before she started now. And you should.”
I say nothing, just dart him a glare.
Few things suck more than admitting your little brother might have a point, so I’m not giving him the pleasure.
I exit the room. If she hasn’t caught a ride with Reese, she’s probably in the waiting room, but I don’t need to search far.
When I open the door, Miss Holly stands beside it, arms crossed neatly across her ample chest and wobbling.
I look down at her feet.
Of course, she’s wearing six-inch heels today.
“You could never be a model without dying.”
She wrinkles her nose and lets out an annoyed huff. “Smooth, Wardhole. Do you say that to all the girls?”
I grin. “You’re gorgeous, and I’d never tell you otherwise. You just can’t walk in heels. I’ll give you a hundred dollars to take those off right now.”
“You’re joking, right?” Her arms fall to her sides. “Uhh—they’re three-hundred-dollar shoes, for one, and I’m not walking around here barefoot. That’s gross. I could catch hepatitis or something.”
“Fine. Four hundred bucks. Also, I’m fairly certain you don’t get hepatitis from walking around a hospital floor barefoot. Do you have any clue how much they sanitize these places?”
“Do you, Doctor Grump?” She turns up her nose and then shakes her head. “It’s still gross.”
Wrong. The only grossness is all the filthy things I want to do to that mouth.
“Look, I’ll buy you slippers from the gift shop and pay you five hundred dollars for your stupid shoes. Deal?”
She cocks her head, fixing me with a stare that questions my sanity.
“You’re joking? Why do you want my shoes so bad?”
“I don’t. I’m worried you’re going to break your neck, and I’ve had enough damn ER visits for one day,” I grind out.
“Psssh. I wonder when you’ll get your fill in sniping at me over ridiculous things?”
I came outside to apologize, so I’m trying not to bite her head off, but seriously. The girl’s exasperating.
“I don’t know, but I still think you should apologize to the floor in my lobby.”
She sighs and turns her head. “Fine, but buy me the slippers first, jerk. And I guess since you have time to harass me, Beatrice is okay?”
I’m bristling an iota less. She’s such a sweet girl, her eyes shimmering like an emerald forest with worry.
I shouldn’t be such a Wardhole all the time.
“She’ll be cooped up here for a few days, but she’s fine, thanks to you. I came looking for you because I wanted to thank you again.”
She gives me a long, wondering look and then shrugs. “Well, no need. It’s what any normal human being would’ve done. I had to help her.”
“And I’ve been a little bit of a hardass on you,” I say.
“A little?” Her eyes flash.
“A lot, are you