Felicia's Fling, page 16
Nate nodded in understanding, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach at the idea of Samantha having to undergo treatment for rabies. He pushed the thought aside as he called out for a towel. Meg’s husband Bill rushed forward with one and helped wrap the arm.
Meg said, “We’ll take her in our car. Jonathan, will you … see to things here for us?”
Nate’s dad nodded. “Of course. Don’t worry about a thing. We’ll get everything cleared up and meet you at the hospital. Go on now.”
Meg’s eyes teared up. “Thanks so much.”
Bill quickly picked up the little girl and moved around the side of the house with his precious burden, Meg and Felicia following closely behind. Nate stepped forward, but his father put his hand on Nate's arm. He took the kitten from him. “Someone has to find out if that dog has had its shots. It belongs to the Hendersons. You remember where they live?”
Nate nodded, wanting to go to the hospital to be with Felicia and Sam, but not able to explain why to his father. He also knew that it was vital that they find out about the dog so that the doctor would know best how to treat Samantha. Fuck, fuck, fuck! He was about to blurt out the truth when Adam walked up beside him.
His dad spoke again. “Please, do that for me, okay? I’m going to get all of the guests cleared out and I’m going to the hospital, too.”
Adam stepped forward. “I’ll help. We’ll find the Hendersons, Mr. Evans.” The worry for his little cousin was clear in his voice. “As soon as we know anything, we’ll call.”
While his father nodded and moved off to begin arranging everything, he and Adam cut through the house to the front lawn. Nate stopped as soon as the door closed behind them. “Dammit, Adam, I should be at the hospital with Samantha and Felicia.”
“I know, Nate. I know. I want to be there, too. But we need to do this. You’ll be more help here than you would be sitting inside some emergency waiting room.”
He knew Adam was right. When he strode forward, Nate fell in beside him. “Okay, let’s do this.”
Thirty minutes later, he and Adam had finally located the Hendersons, who had been out visiting friends. With the important information in hand, they tried to phone his mom’s cell phone and Felicia’s, but no one answered. “Fuck. Why aren’t they answering?”
Adam shrugged. “Let’s just go. We can be there in a few minutes.”
He cranked the engine of his truck and put it into gear. It was probably the fastest he had ever made it across town, but his worry for Samantha and his need to be with Felicia overrode any other concern. Nate screeched to a halt in the parking lot, and they rushed inside only to be told that Samantha had been taken into surgery. They were directed upstairs to the surgical waiting room.
Nate tried not to let his imagination run away with him, but he was very disturbed that they were operating on Sam. Dammit, she was so little. At least he had some good news to give her mother.
When they entered the waiting room, Felicia spotted him immediately. Her face was streaked with tears. Meg’s arm was wrapped around her waist, but as soon as she realized it was him, she pulled away. “Nate. Oh, thank God you’re here.” She ran across the room and threw herself into his arms. He enclosed her in a tight embrace, his hand coming up to cup the back of her head and press it against his chest. Over her head, he saw his father standing frozen, a look of stunned realization on his face. Beside him, Felicia’s sister’s grave concern was also momentarily replaced by surprise.
He shook his head as his father started to step toward them. He hesitated, and Adam walked over to Jonathan and began talking in a low tone. Nate pulled Felicia over to an empty sofa and sat down with her, keeping her body close against his in a comforting hold.
*
Felicia was so relieved when she saw Nate coming through the door that she didn’t pay attention to anyone else. She was acting purely on instinct when she raced toward him, needing the strength that she felt only in his arms. With him beside her, she felt calmer, more able to cope with the nightmarish situation she found herself in.
“Tell me, Felicia. Sweetheart, what’s going on? How is Sam? Why are they operating on her?”
Drawing a deep breath, she explained. “They gave her some blood because she had lost so much. And the doctors said that the break … it was bad. They had to take her into surgery so that they could set it properly.” She grabbed at his shirt. “The rabies? Did you find out…”
His hand closed over hers. “The dog’s shots are up to date. There’s no worry about that.”
She leaned her head against him. “Oh, thank God. Thank God. I don’t think I could have stood it if she had to…” She couldn’t finish. Just clutched him closer against her. “I’m so scared, Nate. She’s so little…”
He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Shh … she’ll be fine, love. You know what a little tiger she is? She’ll be all right.”
“Do you really believe that, Nate? Really? You aren’t simply saying it because…” She so wanted it to be true that she couldn’t trust herself or her own judgment.
He nudged her chin up so that they were eye to eye. “I really do.”
She nodded at the confidence in his tone and moved closer to him.
They sat there for several minutes in silence. The tension in the room was almost unbearable. She could see him gesture toward the other occupants of the room. “You know the cat’s out of the bag, right, love? From the look on your sister’s and my father’s faces when you ran into my arms, I’d say you aren't going to have to do that explaining you were so dreading.”
A wan smile tilted her lips slightly as she shook her head, unconcerned now in the face of recent events. “Somehow, that doesn’t seem to be quite as important now as it was a few hours ago.” She gazed up at him, knowing that he was trying to take her mind off of Samantha and what she was going through. “It seems so silly now, how worried I was. Now…” she shrugged, “…now all I want is for my daughter to be well so that we can take her home with us.”
His hand clasped hers in his. “I like the sound of that, sweetheart. Home. Yeah, I like the sound of that a lot. Does that mean you’re going to make an honest man of me?”
She tightened her hand around his in surprise, and she almost denied that’s what she had meant, but she relaxed. Oh, why the hell not? “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it does.”
“Good.” At the satisfaction in his voice, she almost smiled.
They settled back into their seat, the time dragging. More and more guests from the party drifted in, everyone concerned about the little girl who had been injured. Felicia noticed that she and Nate raised a few eyebrows when people saw them snuggled together on the sofa, their hands tightly woven. Surprisingly, she found that she did not care one iota what anyone was saying about them. It had taken a tragedy to open her eyes to what Nate had been saying all along.
Finally the doors opened and the doctor came through. “Mrs. Wetherly?”
Felicia stood, Nate rising beside her. “Yes?”
The doctor moved to stand in front of them, smiling reassuringly. “Your daughter is fine. We’ve set the bone and patched up the cuts on her arm. She’ll probably need some minor cosmetic surgery on the scars, but she’ll soon be good as new. Right now, our only real concern is the issue of the dog bite. Did you find out if it had had its shots?”
Waves of relief crashed over her at the doctor’s news. “Yes. Yes, he had them.” She turned to Nate who was pulling out a slip of paper from his pocket.
He held it out to the doctor. “Here’s all the information on the dog, including the rabies tag number and the owner’s phone.”
The doctor smiled, taking the paper and adding it to the clipboard that he held. “Excellent.”
She reached up to hug Nate before she shook the doctor’s hand. “I can’t thank you enough.”
She turned to see Meg at her right elbow. “Did you hear, Sis?”
Meg nodded. “That’s great news.”
“We’re all so relieved. Samantha is a wonderful little girl.” Jonathan spoke from beside her, and Felicia’s gaze met his in trepidation. What would Nate’s father think of the situation. But the affection and acceptance she saw reassured her. When Jonathan reached out to give her a hug, she knew everything was going to be fine.
The doctor continued. “If you’d like to come back and see her, Mrs. Wetherly, you can. She’s still sedated, but she’ll be coming out of it soon. She would probably like it if you were there when she wakes up.”
Felicia nodded and reached for Nate’s hand again. “Can … can my … my fiancé come with me?”
Meg gasped but didn’t say anything. Nate’s hand tightened on hers.
The doctor nodded. “Yes, of course.”
As they moved toward the door, she could hear the whispers follow them out of the room, but she didn’t care. She knew what mattered now. Sam and Nate. Anything else was unimportant.
* * * *
She stood on the balcony overlooking the wide expanse of beach and breathed in deeply the salty tang of the air. It was a beautiful night. The most beautiful night she thought she'd ever seen. The sky was filled with countless stars that were reflected in the water that lay out before her like a dark carpet. The breeze from the Gulf lifted a lock of her hair against her cheeks, and a single strand caught in her lipstick. As she reached up to brush the hair aside, her eyes were caught by the glint of her wedding ring. Staring at the ring as though mesmerized, her thoughts traveled back over the last few months.
It was hard to believe that so much had changed in such a short time. Samantha’s arm had healed, and she had come home to be petted and cosseted by not only Felicia and her aunt and uncle, but also her new step-daddy-to-be and her step-grandad-to-be. Jonathan had been so welcoming that Felicia couldn’t believe now how worried she had been about his reaction to having a daughter-in-law her age, one he'd actually dated.
They had spoken about it only once. Arm encased in its cast, Sam had been playing with Fluffy in the middle of Meg’s kitchen. Nate and his father were drinking coffee with Bill. Meg had run upstairs to get some boxes that held some items for the wedding. She had called down for some help, and Nate and Bill had gone up to bring the awkward packages down.
Jonathan’s face had been serious when he’d turned to Felicia, “Nate told me how worried you were about my reaction to the two of you together. I’m not going to tell you that this was what I expected for my son, what I wanted for him, when I pictured him married and with a family. Or that the fact that I was also interested in you didn't make me a little uncomfortable at first." He smiled and shrugged. "But I can tell you this. My son loves you. It’s as plain as the nose on his face. Loves you like I loved his mother. As far as I’m concerned, that’s that. You make him happy. No father could ask for more than that. Nobody better ever let me hear them say one wrong word about the two of you, or they’ll have me to answer to.”
Felicia smiled at the memory. She felt warm arms slide around her waist and a husky voice ask, “What’s that smile for, wife?”
She spun around to face Nate. “Oh, nothing in particular. Just happy.”
“Umm.” He leaned down to nuzzle her face. “Me, too, baby. Me, too.”
He bent down to sweep her up in his arms and carry her into their honeymoon suite. As she pulled his head down to hers in an achingly sweet kiss of promise and passion, she knew that nothing on earth would ever make her happier.
The End
About the Author:
Jolie Cain is a wife and mother of two whose home is in the Deep South. All her life she has created characters and stories, with dreams of one day bringing them to life. She finally decided to stop procrastinating and just do it! Thus, her first book was born. She has discovered that there’s much more to writing than, well…writing. But there’s nothing quite as satisfying as taking an imaginary world and turning it into reality. Jolie invites you to visit her at her website at www.joliecain.com
Jolie Cain, Felicia's Fling
