Page 20 of Just for Him
“Well, my brother Nick was in the Marines for a while. My other brother, Paulie, is a lawyer downtown, specializing in family services. My sister Sofia is an ER doc, and my baby sister Gina does graphic design.”
“That’s a lot of brothers and sisters. You have a big family, huh?”
“Pretty big,” he agreed. “How about you?”
“Just me and Joel.” I didn’t go into more detail. I would much rather hear about his family than mine, especially since they seemed so ... traditionally normal.
Thankfully, he seemed to pick up on that and didn’t ask any more questions. We drove the rest of the way in silence, but it was a nice, comfortable silence, not an awkward one.
“Haven! Thank God! Are you okay?” Wanda jumped up from one of the chairs in the waiting room the moment she spotted us. Like me, she still wore her waitress uniform, smudged and dirty from the ordeal. Looking at her, I realized I didn’t look any better.
“Yeah, I’m fine. How’s Cal?”
She cast a quick, assessing glance at Vinnie, then turned back to me. “I don’t know. They won’t tell me anything because I’m not family.”
“Wait here. I’ll see what I can find out.”
Vinnie walked right up to the reception desk and leaned forward to speak to the woman there. I didn’t miss the way her eyes lit up. I imagined mine looked just like that whenever Vinnie focused his attention on me, too.
A sudden wave of jealousy rose up, but I forced it back down.
“So,” Wanda said, breaking through the green haze. “You called him, huh?”
“Yeah. Or rather, his brother did. His brother was the fireman who pulled us out.”
Wanda’s eyes widened. “Damn. Are all the men in that family hunkalicious or what?”
I managed a small, tired laugh. “That’s what I asked him.”
“You did not.”
“I did. Well, I said hero instead of hunkalicious, but you know, tomayto, tomahto.”
We were prevented from continuing along that vein when Vinnie returned with information.
“They’ve taken Cal upstairs to get some CAT scans. My sister was on-call last night, and we lucked out, because she’s on break. Come on. If I know Sofe, she’s carb-loading in the cafeteria. We can grab some coffee and get you ladies something to eat while we’re there.”
He grabbed my hand, not giving me the chance to voice my concern over my appearance.
The gesture wasn’t lost on Wanda. She raised her eyebrows, smirked, and tagged along.
“Hey, Vin.” A beautiful young woman dressed in scrubs gave him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey, Sofe. These are my friends, Haven and Wanda. They were hoping for information on a man who came in this morning—Cal Lindelman.”
Sofia didn’t seem surprised by the request. She looked at Wanda, recognition dawning in her tired eyes. “You came in with him, didn’t you?”
Wanda nodded. “Yes. They won’t tell me anything, though.”
Sofia nodded. “That’s protocol. Patient privacy and all that. But I can tell you he’s stable. We’re running a few tests and will probably keep him overnight for observation. He’ll be sore for a while, but he’s pretty tough, and I expect him to make a full recovery.”
“Thank you.”
I felt my eyes growing moist again. I knew I was running on empty when a simple kindness like that was enough to bring me to tears.
Her phone started beeping. She pulled it out of her pocket and frowned. “I’ve got to run. It was nice meeting you, Haven, Wanda. See you at Ma’s on Sunday, Vin!”
Sofia hurried off to do her thing.
