Keith (Hathaway House #11) - Dale Mayer Page 0,2

and shapely they were too. He called out to her suddenly, “Thanks for coming by. Sorry I’m a bit of a bear today.”

She looked at him in surprise, and then a gentleness crossed her face. “You’re entitled, you know? Everybody gets to be dark and dangerous for a little while. Only when it goes on for a long time does it get to be too much.” She lifted a hand, saying, “Later,” and walked out. Dani stopped, turned to look at him, and whistled. “Ilse doesn’t come out of her kitchen very often, so obviously you are special.”

“Nah,” he said, “that’s just my sister. She’s forever dragging people into my world. I think she’s trying to save me or something.”

“I wonder why that would be such a surprise,” Robin said with a laugh. “There’s only the two of us.”

“I’m fine, you know?” he said slowly. In fact, they had more in the family, but the rest were half siblings that he didn’t know—along with his father.

She looked at him, and her smile fell away. “No, honey, you’re not. The doctors can only do so much to fix the outside, and I don’t even know how to begin to fix the inside.” And she squeezed his fingers again.

“I’m doing what I can do,” he said, “one day at a time.”

“And you can do that,” she said, “but don’t expect me to walk away. You can get as dark and as deep and as ugly as you want, but I’ll still stand right here at your side. It’s just the two of us, and I’m not letting you go. I’ve come close to losing you too many times, and, now that you’re on the other side of all those surgeries, no way I’ll let you go down that pathway just because we can’t figure out how to heal your heart. Yet.”

“I’m not suicidal or anything. I’ve told you that,” he said firmly.

“Good thing,” she said, “or I’ll put you in a padded cell and lock you up for life. You might not like it, but you’d still be alive, and I won’t lose you.” With that, she bent down, kissed him hard on the forehead, and stormed off.

But he still wasn’t alone.

Dani studied him with a tiny smile playing at the corner of her lips. “You’ll liven things up around here,” she said smoothly.

“Well, that’s not usually what somebody says to me,” he said, in surprise.

“Oh, I’m sure,” she said. “But Robin is a pretty active person around here, and, now that she’s with Iain, she’s even more involved.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting him,” he said, “but I’d much rather be on my feet.”

“Well, you can probably try crutches,” she said, tapping the tablet in her hand. “But that may have to wait until you’ve recovered from your travels and after the team has worked up a full assessment.”

“The last place did one assessment after another,” he said. “Why does there have to be a new one all over again?”

She chuckled again. “Don’t be so cranky,” she said. “It’s all good.”

“It’s all good from your side of life,” he said. “It doesn’t look so good from mine.”

Ilse Wistbury walked back into her kitchen, feeling the double doors close behind her with a sense of relief. She was so much more comfortable here in the kitchen than out there. She’d rather deal with food problems, cranky cooks, and temperamental equipment any day. Dealing with patients and the general public? Not so much.

This was her domain, and she was comfortable with every aspect of it. She could handle it alone if she had to, but she’d have to get up pretty early and limit the options a bit. Instead, she had seven full-time staff and another three who came in part-time, plus somebody who managed all her orders.

Speaking of which, Ricky came racing toward her, crying out, “There’s no lamb. There’s no lamb.”

She looked at him in surprise. “And?”

He stopped, took a deep breath, and said, “They shorted us on the lamb.”

“Well, the lamb wasn’t intended until tomorrow,” she said. “When is the next order coming in?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, “because they won’t have lamb tomorrow either.”

“Okay. Then we don’t have lamb,” she said, shrugging.

“But they did give us extra cream,” he said proudly. “The use-by dates were a little off, so I got them to knock the price in half and to add another four gallons.”

“Good,” she said with a smile. “Not exactly a replacement for lamb though.”

“No,” said Gerard, one of her