her chest, this time having nothing to do with her broken bones. She had tried to dig out the root of Caitlin’s anger toward her aunt, but this was one thing the girl wouldn’t share with her.
Oh well. It probably wouldn’t be an issue. She doubted Olivia would be able to come home. Her daughter was far too busy and successful and happy in the life she had created away from Cape Sanctuary. It was for the best anyway.
“I will call one of my friends to be here during the surgery. Maybe Stella or Jane could come while I’m in surgery. I understand that you might not want to stay at Sea Glass Cottage by yourself tonight. Let me call Henry and see if he can pick you up and let you stay at their place tonight.”
Caitlin lifted her chin. “Stop worrying about me. I don’t need a ride and I don’t need a babysitter because I’m staying here tonight.”
Some part of Juliet was grateful for her granddaughter’s loyalty. Caitlin could be the sweetest thing, affectionate and helpful, eager to please.
She could also be as stubborn as a mule with a canker sore.
“You have school tomorrow,” she repeated. “You can’t stay here all night. I appreciate the offer, honey. Truly I do. I’ll be okay. I can press a button if I need a single thing and the nurses will be here soon.”
“How are you going to stop me?”
She narrowed her gaze at the defiant tone, so familiar. When she spoke like that, she looked and sounded just like her mother had in the last few years when Nat had been so troubled. Slipping out at night, going to wild parties, coming home drunk or stoned.
She had learned some bitter lessons through the experience of being Natalie’s only remaining parent in the last three years of her oldest daughter’s life. She wasn’t about to make the same mistakes: passivity, inertia, acquiescence. Forget that.
“Young lady,” she said sternly. “You are still a minor and I am still your grandmother, not to mention your legal guardian. I might be in a hospital bed but that doesn’t make me completely helpless. You are not staying at this hospital tonight. I will make that clear to the entire medical staff if I have to. You don’t have to stay with Henry and Jake if you don’t want to. I can call another of your friends. Maybe Emma or Allie. It doesn’t matter to me. You choose. But you’re not staying here.”
Caitlin looked slightly shocked at her fierce response. “I just don’t want you to be alone.”
“I’m in a hospital full of people who will be coming in and out at all hours of the night to check my vital signs and take my blood and roll me this way and that. By the time they release me, I’ll be desperate for some alone time.”
Caitlin still looked as if she wanted to argue, but before she could, a knock sounded at the door.
“Come in,” Juliet called, grateful for the interruption.
It wasn’t a nurse with another dose of pain medicine, as she was hoping. Instead, Henry Cragun and his son Jake pushed open the door.
“Hey. You up for visitors?”
Juliet fought the urge to pull the hospital blankets over her head. How ridiculous, when she was injured and in pain, that she could worry about vanity right now, but she hated the idea of Henry Cragun seeing her like this.
Wounded, frail, broken.
Old.
She sighed. While she didn’t particularly want Henry here, perhaps he and his son could talk some sense into her stubborn granddaughter.
“Hi,” she said, aware she sounded slightly breathless. With any luck, Henry would merely assume she was in pain. He could never guess that lately she always felt this way whenever he was around.
While Jake went immediately to Caitlin to give her a hug, Henry headed to her bedside. He was carrying a vase full of flowers, big lush pale pink peonies she knew probably came from his garden. They looked feminine, almost sensual in the hands of such a tough, hardworking man.
“Those are gorgeous,” she managed, her voice squeaking. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He set them on the table beside her bed, then gave her a long look. “Oh, Juliet. What have you done to yourself now?”
She felt old and clumsy and stupid. “I broke the cardinal rule of ladders and now I’m paying the price.”
“I hear you had quite a nasty fall.”
“She has two broken ribs, a concussion and a broken hip,” Caitlin offered,