Still the One (34 page)

“Case closed, I’d say.” Dave chortled.

“You seem awfully amused.”

“Come on, Nettie.” The use of his old pet nickname disconcerted her. “Two grown-ups sneaking around their teenager, instead
of vice versa.” Dave shook his head. “Remember how we caught Paul sneaking in at three in the morning when he was sixteen?”

As if she could ever forget. They’d been waiting for him in the dark. When he’d stepped inside the house, they’d flipped on
the lights and given him the scare—and the lecture—of his life. She smiled.

“That Gracie—she’s a pistol.”

Annette nodded. “That she is.”

Dave looked over at her as he pulled into his driveway. “I have to say, I liked her suggestion that you remarry me.”

Annette’s heart pounded. “She’s the queen of the outrageous statement.”

“Do you really think it would be so terrible?” He glanced at her as he shifted the car into park. His hand moved from the
wheel to the back of the seat, close to her neck.

“Yes.”

“I think you feel duty-bound to treat me badly.”

There was probably some truth to that. “Well, you deserve it.”

“You’ll get no argument from me.” His hand lifted off the seat, and his finger touched her hair. The follicles suddenly seemed
electrified, sending little crackles of energy down her spine. “Did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?”

Annette’s pulse fluttered in her throat, fast as hummingbird wings. “No. And I don’t want you to now.”

“Why not?”

“Because it makes me uncomfortable. It’s too personal.”

“It’s just an observation.”

“It’s the sort of thing a man says to a woman when he’s trying to get on her good side.”

“It’s also a thing a man says when he looks at a woman and thinks, ‘Wow, she’s really beautiful.’ ” He turned off the ignition,
throwing them into acute silence. Outside, tree frogs and cicadas trilled their evening serenades. “You
are
beautiful, Nettie. I didn’t tell you often enough when we were married.”

Her heart was pounding, and she didn’t like it. She felt breathless and confused and out of her depth. “Well, it’s too late
now. ”

“It doesn’t have to be.” His finger moved to her ear.

Her breath caught. He knew that her ear was sensitive, knew that the slightest touch to it gave her goose bumps. He was doing
that on purpose. She should move her head or swat his hand away—and yet for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to do
it.

“Nettie—I’d like to start over.”

“No.” The word was a reflex.

“Why not? We could date, like two people who’d just met each other. We could go to dinner and talk—all the stuff we’re doing
now. And who knows? Sooner or later, we might even kiss.”

“I don’t want to kiss you.”

“Are you sure?” His fingers moved against her ear again. He leaned in closer, close enough that she could smell his Aramis,
close enough that her brain grew muddled and her thoughts got loopy. “I sure want to kiss you.”

All of a sudden, it was flooding her—all the old attraction, all the old tenderness, all the old, sweet memories. He was circumventing
her brain. He was getting to her on a primal level.

“Just relax and let it happen,” he murmured, moving closer.

The words were oddly un-Dave-like. He wasn’t a relax-and-let-it-happen kind of guy. Those sounded like the words of someone
else.

And she knew just who.
Her body went rigid. “Is that what she used to say?”

“What?”

“ ‘Relax and let it happen.’ Is that something Linda said to you?”

He dropped his eyes.

Oh, God—she was right! Annette struggled to open the car door. She was so stiff with anger that her fingers wouldn’t fold
around the handle.

“Wait,” Dave said. “Sit tight. Let me come help you.”

“I don’t need any more of your help.”

“Yes, you do. I’ll get your cane, then I’ll help you into the house.”

Damn it. She was still a week away from being able to walk and climb the porch stairs herself. She closed her eyes and pressed
her lips tightly together, furious at him, at herself, at the whole damned situation.

She hated that she needed him. Being physically dependent on him was bad enough, but God help her, she was getting emotionally
dependent on him, too.

Let it happen
, indeed! He was the one who’d let it happen, who’d let the stranger into their marriage, who’d broken their wedding vows.
He was the one who’d ruined things.

He held out his hand. It stung her pride to take it, to have him help her out of the car. It burned her ego to feel his arm
under her hand as she walked stiffly to the house.

So help her, as soon as she could go up and down stairs safely on her own, she was out of here.

Dave’s pace slowed as they neared the house.

“Damn it, Dave, hurry up. Don’t make me hang on to you any longer than I have to.”

To her annoyance, his speed slackened still further. “Annette, as soon as we get to the porch—grab the railing.”

“What?”

His steps were now mere shuffles. “Grab the railing.” He put his free hand on his chest.

That’s when she realized something was wrong. “Dave?”

He inched forward, up to the edge of the steps, then doubled over.

She reached for the railing—just as he tumbled over and fell into the flower bed.

“Dave!” Panic surged through her chest. Casting aside the cane, she used the railing to lower herself to the ground beside
him.

He lay on his side, crumpled in the cypress mulch, his hand over his chest.

“Dave! Dave!” She knelt over him on her good leg, grabbed both of his shoulders, and turned him on his back.

In the porch light, his face was a mottled, bluish purple. “Can’t… breathe,” he gasped. “Nitro. Pocket. Pants.”

She reached into his left pocket and pulled out a cell phone. Dropping it on the ground, she stuck her hand into his right
pocket and found a bottle of pills. Her hand shook as she struggled to open it. The lid finally flew off, spraying pills into
the mulch, where they landed like flower seeds. Three pills remained in the bottle. She put one under his tongue, then grabbed
his phone and dialed 911.

“What’s the nature of your emergency?” asked a maddeningly calm male voice.

“My husband.” The word was out before she had time to think about it. “I think he’s having a heart attack. We’re at…” She
looked up at the house numbers on the porch. “Forty-two-oh-nine Cypress Way.”

The man repeated the address in a robotic fashion. “He has a heart condition,” Annette said. “I gave him nitroglycerin.”

“Is he conscious?”

“Just barely. He’s having trouble breathing.”

“Annette.” Dave called her name. It came out as a low, inhaled rasp. “You were the best part of my life.”

“Stop talking like that!”

“Tell him not to talk. He needs to lie still and take deep breaths,” said the insanely calm operator.

“Dave, you’re supposed to lie still and take deep breaths,” Annette relayed.

“Got to say this,” Dave gasped. “May never get another chance.”

He thought he was dying. Terror filled her.

“Dave, just lie still.”

“No. You need to know. Annette—love you. Always loved you.” His breathing was labored. His face looked like unbaked bread
dough. “That’s why Linda left. Because I’d never love her like I love you.”

He was dying. Oh, God—if he died, she’d die, too.

“Don’t you dare die on me, Dave Charmaine.” She shook him. On some back burner of her mind, it occurred to her that it was
probably a bad idea to shake a man having a heart attack, but she couldn’t help herself. “Do you hear me? Don’t you dare check
out after making me fall for you again.”

“Ma’am?” The operator’s voice sounded through the phone on the ground beside Dave.

Tree frogs and cicadas burst into a loud chorus. Dave went limp in her arms.

Annette picked up the phone, frantic. “He’s unconscious! I need help!”

“Is he breathing?”

She bent down and put her ear to his mouth. Nothing.

“Ma’am? Are you there?”

Ignoring the operator, she fit her mouth over Dave’s. He tasted like home. Oh, God, she loved this man. She’d never stopped
loving him. He was the best and the worst of her. Together they’d made and lost a son—unspeakable joy, unfathomable grief.
She loved him. Why hadn’t she fought for him when Linda had tried to lay claim to him?

Damn it, she’d fight for him now. Despair morphed into desperation, desperation into determination. She blew into his mouth,
willing him to breathe. She pulled back, stacked her hands on his chest, and pumped on his stubborn heart, willing it to beat.
“Damn it, Dave, I’ll kill you if you die on me!” She dipped her head and filled his lungs again, then pumped his chest again.

She repeated the cycle for what seemed like forever, until the wail of a siren cut through the night. She continued alternating
the chest compressions with hard huffs of air into his mouth, until a medic took her by the shoulders.

“We’ve got it, ma’am.”

Another medic rushed up with a stretcher. She stood back and watched them set to work, her hand over her mouth, her heart
splitting apart along seams she hadn’t even known had mended.

“Mrs. Charmaine?”

Annette felt Katie grip her fingers as the surgeon called her name in the surgery waiting room at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital
in Baton Rouge. Actually, it was both of their names. What a weird thing to notice—but then, a person tended to notice weird
things when she’d been up all night, worrying and praying and bargaining with God.

Annette had phoned Katie seven or eight hours ago and told her that Dave had been helicoptered here for emergency open-heart
surgery. Katie had immediately driven to Baton Rouge to join her. She’d said that Zack had wanted to come, too, but Katie
had insisted he stay home with Gracie.

Annette looked up at the scrubs-clad surgeon, trying to read his face, her heart quaking. “Yes?”

The lines in the doctor’s face shifted into a smile. “Your husband came through just fine.”

It was a good thing she was seated, because otherwise her legs would have buckled. “Oh, thank God.”

“We ended up doing a triple bypass,” the doctor said. “He should have had the surgery when we first recommended it.”

Annette frowned. “When was that?”

“About eleven months ago.”

Dave had known he’d needed surgery for eleven months, and he hadn’t done it? He hadn’t even told her. It took an effort to
pull her focus back to the doctor.

“There was very little damage to his heart. He was fortunate.”

“Fortunate,” she echoed.

“He’s going to be in intensive care for the next forty-eight hours. You should go home and get some rest.”

“No. I’ll stay here.”

“Are you sure? You can only go in to see him once every two hours, and then only for ten minutes at a time.”

“That’s okay. I don’t want to leave him.” Ever. Ever again.

The doctor nodded. “He’s in recovery right now. We’ll let you know when we transfer him to ICU.”

“Thank you.”

The minutes ticked by like hours. At length, a nurse came and got her. “Mrs. Charmaine? You can see him now.”

She hobbled in, leaning on the cane and Katie’s arm.

Oh, God—he looked like death. A tube protruded from his throat, connecting him to a machine forcing air into his lungs. “Dave—I’m
here.” He didn’t move. Annette lifted his hand. It was cold and limp.

“I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.” She leaned down and spoke into his ear. “And damn it all, you’d better not go anywhere,
either. We’ve still got a lot of living to do.” His fingers moved in her hand. He opened his eyes for a second—just long enough
to look at her. The ventilator was taped over his lips, so he couldn’t have moved his mouth, yet she could have sworn he smiled.
He closed one eye, and then the other.

The nurse gasped. “It looked like he winked at you!”

“He did,” Annette said. She squeezed his hand, her heart light—light and buoyant and floaty, free of the anger and resentment
that had weighed it down for so long.

Gracie:
Remember the guy who runs the book store who’s kinda like my granddad? He had a heart attack 3 days ago.

Megan:
OMG Is he ok?

Gracie:
Yeah. He’s in the Baton Rouge hospital for a week or so. Katie and Annette r staying at a hotel there 2 be with him.

Megan:
So ur living alone?

Gracie:
Nah. Zack is here.

Megan:
How is that?

Gracie:
OK. He lets me drive his car. Mine won’t be delivered for another 2 weeks.

Megan:
Bet U can’t wait! How’s school?

Gracie:
Totally sucks, except for biology and chemistry. How’s yours?

Megan:
Awesome. John Rogers invited me 2 the homecoming dance.

Gracie:
OMG!

Megan:
I know. I’m going 2 the mall with Jana 2 shop for a dress.