Heartbreaker (10 page)

“I’m not giving up Bella,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “And chasing after me like this isn’t going to get you anything except the wrong side of my temper. Don’t do it again.”

“J.B.!”

He closed the door. “Go to work,” he said shortly, and turned away.

Of all the arrogant, assuming, overbearing conceited jackasses, she thought as she reversed out of the parking space and took off toward town, he took the cake. She wasn’t chasing him, she was trying to tell him about Marge! Well, she could try again later. Next time, she promised herself, she’d make him listen.

She walked in the front door after work, tired and dispirited. Maybe Marge was better, she hoped.

“Tellie, is that you?” Dawn exclaimed from the top of the staircase. “Come on up. Hurry, please!”

Tellie took the steps two at a time. Marge was lying on her back, gasping for breath, wincing with pain.

Her face was a grayish tone, her skin cold and clammy.

“Heart attack,” Tellie said at once. She’d seen this all before, with her grandfather. She grabbed the phone and dialed 911.

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She tried to call J.B., but she couldn’t get an answer on his cell phone, or on the phone at the office or his house. She waited until the ambulance loaded up Marge, and the girls went with her, to get into her car and drive to J.B.’s house. If she couldn’t find him, she could at least get Nell to relay a message.

She leaped out of the car and ran to the front door. She tried the knob and found it unlocked. This was no time for formality. She opened it and ran down the hall to J.B.’s study. She threw open the door and stopped dead in the doorway.

J.B. looked up, over Bella’s bare white shoulders, his face flushed, his mouth swollen, his shirt off.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded furiously.

Six

T ellie could barely get her breath. Worried about Marge, half-sick with fear, she couldn’t even manage words. No wonder J.B. couldn’t be bothered to answer the phone. He and his beautiful girlfriend were half-naked. Apparently J.B. wasn’t much on beds for his sensual adventures. She remembered with heartache that he’d wrestled her down on that very sofa when she was eighteen and kissed her until her mouth hurt. It had been the most heavenly few minutes of her entire life, despite the fact that he’d been furious when he started kissing her. It hadn’t ended that way, though…

“Get out!” J.B. threw at her.

She managed to get her wits back. Marge. She had to think about Marge, not about how much her pride was hurting. “J.B., you have to listen…”

“Get out, damn you!” he raged. “I’ve had it up to here with you chasing after me, pawing me, trying to get close to me! I don’t want you, Tellie, how many times do I have to tell you before you realize that I mean it? You’re a stray that Marge and I took in, nothing more! I don’t want you, and I never will!”

Her heart was bursting with raw pain. She hoped she wouldn’t pass out. She knew her face was white.

She wanted to move, to leave, but her feet felt frozen to the carpet.

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Her tormented expression and lack of response seemed to make him worse. “You skinny, ugly little tomboy,” he raged, white-hot with fury. “Who’d want something like you for keeps? Get out, I said!”

She gave up. She turned away, slowly, aware of the gloating smile on Bella’s face, and closed the door behind her. Her knees barely gave her support as she walked back toward the front door.

Nell was standing by the staircase, drying her hands on her apron, looking shocked. “What in the world is all the yelling about?” she exclaimed. She hesitated when she saw the younger woman’s drawn, white face. “Tellie, what’s wrong?” she asked gently.

Tellie fought for composure. “Marge…is on her way to the hospital in an ambulance, with the girls. I think it’s a heart attack. I couldn’t make J.B. listen. He’s…I walked in on him and that woman…He yelled at me and said I was chasing him, and called me horrible names…!” She swallowed hard and drew herself erect. “Please tell him we’ll all be at the hospital, if he can tear himself loose long enough!”

She turned toward the door.

“Don’t you drive that car unless you’re all right, Tellie,” Nell said firmly. “It’s pouring down rain.”

“I’m fine,” she said in a ghostly tone. She even forced a smile. “Tell him, okay?”

“I’ll tell him,” Nell said angrily. Her voice softened. “Don’t worry, honey. Marge is one tough cookie.

She’ll be all right. You just drive carefully. You ought to wait and go with him,” she added slowly.

“If I got in a car with him right now, I’d kill him,” Tellie said through her teeth. Helpless tears were rolling down her pale cheeks. “See you later, Nell.”

“Tellie…”

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It was too late. Tellie closed the door behind her and went to her car. She was getting soaked and she didn’t care. J.B. had said terrible things to her. She knew that she’d never get over them. He wanted her to stop chasing him. She hadn’t been, but it must have looked like it. She’d gone to his office this morning, and to the house this afternoon. It was about Marge. He wouldn’t believe it, though. He thought Tellie was desperate for him. That was a joke, now. She was sure that she never wanted to see him again as long as she lived.

She started the car and turned it. The tires were slick. She hadn’t realized how slick until she almost spun out going down the driveway. She needed to keep her speed down, but she wasn’t thinking rationally. She was hearing J.B. yell at her that she was an ugly stray he’d taken in, that he didn’t want her. Tears misted her eyes as she tried to concentrate on the road.

There was a hairpin curve just before the ranch road met the highway. It was usually easy to maneuver, but the rain was coming so hard and fast that the little car suddenly hydroplaned. She saw the ditch coming toward her and jerked the wheel as hard as she could. In a daze, she felt the car go over and over and over. Her seat belt broke and something hit her head. Everything went black.

J.B. stormed out of the living room just seconds after he heard Tellie’s little car scatter gravel as it sped away. His hair was mussed, like his shirt, and he was in a vicious humor. It had been a bad day altogether. He shouldn’t have yelled at Tellie. But he wondered why she’d come barging in. He should have asked. It was just that it had shamed him to be seen in such a position with Bella, knowing painfully how Tellie felt about him. He’d hurt her with just the sight of him and Bella, without adding his scathing comments afterward. Tellie wouldn’t even realize that shame had put him on the offensive. She had feelings of glass, and he’d shattered them.

Nell was waiting for him at the foot of the staircase. She was visibly seething, and her white hair almost stood on end with bridled rage. “So you finally came out, did you?”

“Tellie was tearing up the driveway as she left,” he bit off. “What the hell got into her? Why was she here?” he added reluctantly, because he’d realized, belatedly, that she hadn’t looked as if she were pursuing him with amorous intent.

Nell gave him a cold smile. “She couldn’t get you on the phone, so she drove over to tell you that Marge has had a heart attack.” She nodded curtly when she saw him turn pale. “That’s right. She wasn’t here
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chasing you. She wanted you to know about your sister.”

“Oh, God,” he bit off.

“He won’t help you,” Nell ground out. “Yelling at poor Tellie like that, when she was only trying to do you a good turn…!”

“Shut up,” he snapped angrily. “Call the hospital and see…”

“You call them.” She took off her apron. “You’ve got my two weeks’ notice, as of right now. I’m sick of watching you torture Tellie. I quit! See if your harpy girlfriend in there can cook your meals and clean your house while she spends you into the poorhouse!”

“Nell,” he began furiously.

She held up a hand. “I won’t reconsider.”

The living room door opened, and Bella slinked into the hallway, smiling contentedly. “Aren’t we going out to eat?” she asked J.B. as she moved to catch him by one arm.

“I’m going to the hospital,” he said. “My sister’s had a heart attack.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Bella said. “Do you want me to go with you and hold your hand?”

“The girls will love that,” Nell said sarcastically. “You’ll be such a comfort to them!”

“Nell!” J.B. fumed.

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“She’s right, I’d be a comfort, like she said,” Bella agreed, missing the sarcasm altogether. “You need me, J.B.”

“I hope he gets what he really needs one day,” Nell said, turning on her heel.

“You’re fired!” he yelled after her.

“Too late, I already quit,” Nell said pleasantly. “I’m sure Bella can cook you some supper and wash your clothes.” She closed the kitchen door behind her with a snap.

“Now, you know I can’t cook, J.B.,” Bella said irritably. “And I’ve never washed clothes—I send mine to the laundry. What’s the matter with her? It’s that silly girl who was here, isn’t it? I don’t like her at all…”

J.B. reached into his pocket and pulled out two large bills. “Call a cab and go home,” he said shortly. “I have to get to the hospital.”

“But I should go with you,” she argued.

He looked down at her with bridled fury. “Go home.”

She shifted restlessly. “Well, all right, J.B., you don’t need to yell. Honestly, you’re in such a bad mood!”

“My sister has had a heart attack,” he repeated.

“Yes, I know, but those things happen, don’t they? You can’t do anything about it,” she added blankly.

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It was like talking to a wall, he thought with exasperation. He tucked in his shirt, checked to make sure his car keys were in his pocket, jerked his raincoat and hat from the hall coat rack and went out the door without a backward glance.

Dawn and Brandi were pacing the waiting room in the emergency room at Jacobsville General Hospital while Dr. Coltrain examined their mother. They were quiet, somber, with tears pouring down their cheeks in silent misery when J.B. walked in.

They ran to him the instant they saw him, visibly shaken. He gathered them close, feeling like an animal because he hadn’t even let Tellie talk when she’d walked in on him. She’d come to tell him that Marge was in the hospital with a heart attack, and he’d sent her running with insults. Probably she’d come to his office that morning because something about Marge had worried her. He’d been no help at all. Now Tellie was hurt and Nell was quitting. He’d never felt so helpless.

“Mama won’t die, will she, Uncle J.B.?” Brandi asked tearfully.

“Of course she won’t,” he assured her in the deep, soft tone he used with little things or hurt children.

“She’ll be fine.”

“Tellie said she was going to tell you about Mama. Why didn’t Tellie come with you?” Dawn asked, wiping her eyes.

He stiffened. “Tellie’s not here?”

“No. She had to go over to your house, because you didn’t answer your phone,” Brandi replied. “I guess the lines were down or something.”

“Or something,” he said huskily. He’d taken the phone off the hook.

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“She may have gone home to get Mama a gown,” Dawn suggested. “She always thinks of things like that, when everybody else goes to pieces.”

“She’ll be here as soon as she can…I know she will,” Brandi agreed. “I don’t know what we’d do without Tellie.”

Which made J.B. feel even smaller than he already did. Tellie must be scared to death. She’d been with her grandfather when he died of a heart attack. She’d loved him more than any other member of her small family, including the mother she’d lost more recently. Marge’s heart attack would bring back terrible memories. Worse, when she showed up at the hospital, she’d have to deal with what J.B. had said to her. It wasn’t going to be a pleasant reunion.

Dr. Coltrain came out, smiling. “Marge is going to be all right,” he told them. “We got to her just in time.

But she’ll have to see a heart specialist, and she’s going to be on medication from now on. Did you know that her blood pressure was high?”

“No!” J.B. said at once. “It’s always been low!”

Coltrain shook his head. “Not anymore. She’s very lucky that it happened like this. It may have saved her life.”

“It was a heart attack, then?” J.B. persisted, with the girls standing close at his side.

“Yes. But a mild one. You can see her when we’ve got her in a room. You’ll need to sign her in at the office.”

“I’ll do that right now.”

“But, where’s Tellie?” Dawn asked when they were alone.

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J.B. wished he knew.

He was on his way back from the office when he passed the emergency room, just in time to see a worried Grange stalking in beside a gurney that two paramedics were rushing through the door. On the stretcher was Tellie, unconscious and bleeding.

“Tellie!” he exclaimed, rushing to the gurney. She was white as a sheet, and he was more frightened now than he was when he learned about Marge. “What happened?” he shot at Grange.

“I don’t know,” Grange said curtly. “Her car was off the road in a ditch. She was unconscious, in a couple of inches of water, facedown. If I hadn’t come along when I did, she’d have drowned.”

J.B. felt sick all the way to his soul. It was his fault. All his fault. “Where was the car?” he asked.

“On the farm road that leads to your house,” Grange replied, his eyes narrowed, suspiciously. “Why are you here?”

“My sister just had a heart attack,” he said solemnly. “The girls and I have been in the emergency waiting room. She’s going to be all right. Tellie came to tell me about it,” he added reluctantly.