Winning It All (16 page)

“
Dad
. Her husband was a firefighter, and he was killed in the line of duty two years ago.”

“Oh. Oh, man.” Mitch’s heart contracted. Regret crashed over him. “I knew she was a widow. That’s all. I didn’t know….”

“It’s okay. Hang on.”

He heard muffled conversation, drowned out once by a revving engine, then Rachel was back. “Bryan and I are coming. Is anybody giving her medical attention?”

“I’m in a tent full of firefighters, honey. I got that much handled.”

“Good. And don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

Mitch signed off, then closed the phone, looking back at the medic and Darcy, lying so pale and still on the concrete floor.

What have I done?

B
RYAN CALLED
on every cell of self-control he possessed and stifled the urge to burst into the hospitality village and shout at, curse or pummel the first person he saw.

He clenched and unclenched his hands as he and Rachel rushed along the back side of the tents, dodging catering staff with trays, carts and trash bags.

No one questioned their presence and everybody—obviously noting Bryan’s coldly determined stride—got out of their way.

When they reached the tent, a nervous-looking volunteer approached them. “Right this way, Mr. Garrison.”

“A woman in a golf cart is going to pull up here any second,” he said briskly, trying to focus on the things he could control and not on what he couldn’t. Like Darcy unconscious on the floor. “Make sure she has a clear space to park until we come out.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

Then, as the volunteer laid his hand on the tent flap, Bryan heard her voice.

“I told you, I’m
fine.
I have things to do, so—”

“Ma’am, you’re sitting right here until your pulse rate is lower,” answered an unfamiliar male voice.

The medic Dad had found, no doubt.

“My pulse rate would go down if you people would stop prodding me and let me get up,” Darcy said, her voice rising in both volume and annoyance.

Bryan always heard doctors were the worst patients, but he’d bet PTs could give them some stiff competition. But angry and frustrated was much better than pale and passed out as far as he was concerned.

When the volunteer looked at him questioningly, Bryan held up his hand. He needed a second to let his
heart settle back into its normal place in his chest. For the last ten minutes, it had clawed its way to his throat.

“Bryan will be here any minute,” his dad said in a soothing tone from inside the tent.

“What’s he going to do?” Darcy asked scathingly. “You two are already holding both my hands.”

“I think I finally see the side of her that whipped you into shape,” Rachel said quietly from behind Bryan.

“She’s tough.”

“But probably embarrassed. I know I would be. Let’s get her out of here.”

“Dad still has his appearance to get through. You stay here with him. He’s shaken more than she is, I’m sure.”

A golf cart pulled up beside them. Huntington Hotels’ PR rep Emily Proctor was behind the wheel. “Is everything all right, sir?”

“I think so,” Bryan said, relieved—and not for the first time—by the efficiency of Parker’s staff. “I’ll be back in a second.” He pushed back the tent flap.

Darcy sat on the floor with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. His dad hovered on one side and the medic on the other.

“I think she needs a little air,” Bryan said.

Her gaze darted to his, then she bowed her head. “I can’t believe they called you.”

Crossing to her, he knelt beside her as his dad moved out of the way. He caught her chin in his hand and turned her face from side to side. He noted the golden sparks in her eyes—ones that only seemed to
appear when she was ticked off or aroused. “You look pretty steady to me.”

“Pulse just spiked,” the medic pointed out, still holding her wrist.

Darcy flushed, and Bryan assumed he was the cause of her sudden rise in heart rate. The idea made him smile.

“I’ll make sure it comes down,” he said to the medic. “One of the docs will see her this afternoon.”

The medic frowned. “She needs to drink her juice.”

Darcy shook her head. “Too much sugar.”

“Low blood sugar is probably the reason you passed out in the first place,” the medic argued.

Darcy glared at him. “No, it’s
not.
I told you, I had a perfectly balanced meal less than an hour ago. Now,
go away.
”

Bryan grasped her hand and pulled her to her feet before she clobbered the guy. “I’ll take charge of her,” he said to the medic. “Thank you for your help.”

Shrugging, the medic rose. “You sure she’s not a doctor?”

As Bryan led her out of the tent, he accepted the tossed-out advice from his sister and his father with a nod. Darcy’s pain certainly wasn’t physical, though he’d taken steps to make sure his instincts were true.

He’d complimented her often on the graceful way she’d handled the troubles in her past, but, looking back, he realized maybe she’d appeared to handle things
too
well. He wore the chip of resentment from
his past—his divorce, the accident—on his shoulder for all to see. Darcy had tried to bury hers along with her husband.

Neither of their grand plans had worked so well.

When she saw the golf cart, she halted. “I can walk.”

“I’m sure you can.” Sensing she’d been pushed to the point of total retreat, he plucked her off her feet and set her in the front seat. “Right now, though, you’ll like riding.”

“Let’s go, Emily,” he said once he’d settled on the bench in the back.

Emily took off.

The ride to the motor home lot was silent among the occupants of the cart. A couple of people called to Bryan, but he simply waved. He had a situation on his hands that was much more serious than the perfect balance of a race car.

The fact that he ranked Darcy above racing was more telling than any long-winded self-evaluation he could think of.

And pretty damn scary.

“Did you make the phone call?” he asked Emily as she pulled the cart to a halt beside his motor home.

“Yes, sir. ETA less than ten minutes.”

“Thanks. And we appreciate the ride.”

Darcy gave Emily a sincere thank-you, then rushed inside the motor home without even glancing in his direction.

O-kay.

He’d been ornery toward her plenty of times. He supposed it was time to return the favor.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said the moment he opened the door.

“I wasn’t going to ask you about it.” He settled on the sofa. “You can give the doc all the details when he gets here.”

Standing in front of him, she planted her hands on her hips. “No doctors.”

“Too late. He’s already on his way.”

“I guess that’s who Emily called.”

“It is. Have a seat.”

“No.”

“You might as well relax ’til he gets here.”

“No.”

He wanted to drag her down to the sofa. He wanted to hold her and assure her everything was going to be all right. He wanted to hold her and calm himself. But coddling had only made her mad.

Thankfully, the doctor arrived.

Darcy sat through his brief exam without complaint. She answered his questions, and, within a few minutes, he pronounced her healthy.

“You probably just got overheated,” he said, offering her a lollipop, which she took with a scowl.

Bryan thanked him for his time, and after he closed the door behind the doctor, he turned to see Darcy tapping her foot in annoyance.

“I’ve never fainted in my life,” she said.

“It’s not a big deal,” he said, careful to keep his tone casual as he returned to his place on the sofa. “I passed out after racing dirt cars when I was a kid a couple of times.”

“That’s
passed out,
not fainting. Overexertion, heat exhaustion, blah, blah.” She raised her arms, then let them drop in a gesture of complete frustration. “I
fainted.
Like some weak-minded, weak-kneed female.”

“But you are female.”

She waggled her finger at him. “Don’t debate word choice with me, Bryan Garrison. You know what I mean.”

“But—” He stopped. Let her rant. If somebody tried to tell him he’d fainted, he’d probably slug them. “Fine. I know what you mean.”

“It was just the unexpectedness of seeing all those firefighters in one place. It reminded me of family gatherings at the firehouse, everybody joking and razzing each other.” A smile teased the corner of her lips. “Then I realized the last time I saw that many firefighters in one place was Tom’s funeral.”

Oh, boy.

“They were all dressed up, carrying his casket with such delicacy and duty.”

A lump in his own throat, Bryan watched as tears welled up in Darcy’s eyes, and he fought the urge to wring his hands. Was there a man in all of history who knew how to deal with a woman’s tears?

Parker.

He glanced at his phone, sitting on the kitchen counter.

No. He couldn’t bring Parker into this. Darcy was already angry and embarrassed enough. Besides, if they were dating, then these were the kinds of issues significant others were supposed to talk about. It wasn’t all intimate meals, kissing and not-having-sex.

“Do you want to talk about Tom?” he asked tentatively.

He really didn’t, but if it would make her feel better to get out all her deep-seated, lingering emotions of love and sorrow about her dead hero of a former husband, he was willing to—

Dear heaven, why had she tossed out all the alcohol?

A conversation like this should involve liquor and dim lights and possibly sad songs.

And somebody with way more sensitivity than him.

“No, I don’t want to talk about him,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Didn’t I say I didn’t want to talk about it?”

Good. Even if he had liquor, it was barely two o’clock in the afternoon. And stone sober, he wasn’t about to point out that she was the one doing all the talking anyway.

“They put a cold cloth on my forehead—that, apparently, was what brought me around, by the way. They brought me juice and held my hand. I am not weak.”

“I know you’re not.”

“In fact, I bet I can do more push-ups than you.”

“You probably—”

To his disappointment, she dropped to the floor. “Come on. Not chicken, are you?”

“No. Darcy, please get up.” The pain she’d been trying so hard to hide, that he’d seen only a glimmer of in all the months they’d known each other, was finally showing on her face. Her eyes glittered with tears, ones she was fighting with a desperate kind of anger that made his own heart ache in response. “Don’t do this.”

“Do what?” she asked, starting her push-ups.

“Pretend you’re okay.”

“Of course I’m okay. Didn’t you hear the doctor?” Three more push-ups. “Overheated.
Pfft
.”

He crossed to her, kneeling beside her. “Darcy, stop.”

Five more push-ups. “No.”

“Stop and look at me.”

“Don’t you have a qualifying session to go to?”

“Not right now. Darcy, it’s okay to feel sad. It doesn’t make you weak. You can—”

A sob broke from her throat. But she kept doing push-ups.

He laid his hand on her shoulder, and she jerked back into Child’s Pose, sitting on her heels, her chest resting on her thighs.

When her body started shaking, he grabbed her by her waist and pulled her into his lap. “It’s okay,” he murmured as she cried against his chest, her arms
clenched tightly around his neck. “I’m right here. You’re not alone.”

She cried harder.

He didn’t leave her. He didn’t go to qualifying. After a while, through hiccupping sobs, she asked for chocolate and confessed she had a secret stash in her bag. Later on, he convinced her to eat some soup, but she wanted more chocolate and told him about the hiding place under the passenger’s seat of the motor home.

He was so worried about the bleak look in her eyes, he didn’t comment about the sugar content.

Instead, he carried her into his room, tucked her into bed and lay beside her while she drew shaky breaths and her tears soaked the front of his shirt. He’d never felt more helpless and yet more needed in his life.

The violent weeping abated as it grew late and shadows filled the room. He rubbed her back, and the tightness he’d held in his stomach all afternoon eased slightly when she pressed her lips lightly to the base of his throat.

“I don’t deserve to be happy when he can’t even be here at all,” she said, her voice choked from crying and slurred from exhaustion.