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He stepped into the office, glancing at her desk—also small—and then looked at the posters on the walls. Not medical charts or pastoral paintings. These were basically framed memes.
I have removed all the bad food from my house, one read.It was delicious.
Another was,You are what you eat so don’t be cheap, easy or fake.
If only sarcasm burned calorieswas scripted out on the third.
“I try to make nutrition fun,” Alana explained when she followed his gaze. “I mean, most people aren’t happy when they come in here. They’ve usually been referred to me by their doctors. Or else they’re miserable and just need help. Every now and then I’ll get the super fit, no sugar, no fat eater who wants me to do a tune-up to see if there’s a tweak I can make to their already tweaked choices.”
Maybe she’d said some of that to make him smile or at least help him relax, but it didn’t work. Not completely, anyway. However, he did recall all the jokes Jack had made about Alana’s less than stellar eating habits.
“A chili cheese fries addict,” Egan murmured. “That’s what Jack said.”
“Still am,” she readily admitted, “but I had to cut back. I gained double the usual freshman fifteen when I was in college. That’s when I changed my major from English literature to nutrition. Now, I’m lucky enough to have the townsfolk be my dietary conscience anytime I eat out.”
She putluckyin air quotes, causing Egan to raise an eyebrow.
Alana had a sip of her water before she explained. “You’re the town’s hero so people watch you for heroic stuff.” Egan nearly stopped her to say he wasn’t a hero, but she continued before he could do that. “Dropping minimal f-bombs, not getting into trouble, being polite, helping little old ladies cross the street and such. Added to that you’re a Top Gun and a cowboy who still holds the record for a perfect score at bronc riding at the town’s fair.”
“I’m not a hero,” he finally managed to say. “I drop plenty of f-bombs. And I’ve never helped any old ladies across the street.”
She shrugged. “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...” Alana waved away the rest of that. “For me, there’s no hero aura. Yes, people give me some leeway because I’m Jack’s widow, but they watch what I eat. A plate of chili cheese fries will earn me some ‘behind the hand’ whispers. I heard a horrified gasp once when I ordered a banana split.” She pointed her bottle at him as if proving her point. “I’ll bet no one’s even whispered about the size of your butt because of a banana split.”
Egan had to admit that had never happened to him, and he was sorry Alana had to deal with such things. She’d glossed over the leeway part of being Jack’s widow, but he was betting she was having to deal with that, too. He was surprised she hadn’t given up on eating out. And no wonder she was trying her hand at virtual dating.
That notion, and the whispers about her butt size, lingered in his mind a moment before reality came back with a vengeance. He mentally saw the blood on Effie’s shirt and replayed what the doctor had told them. All of that smeared together, slinging him to one crappy conclusion. Right now, there was nothing he could do to help his dad. Right now, his dad’s fate was out of his hands.
Not very heroic, he thought with bitterness that tightened his mouth.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he sank down onto the sofa and stayed that way for a couple of moments. When he opened his eyes, though, he got a jolt when he spotted the photo of Jack and him on the wall of bookshelves behind Alana’s desk. In the shot, Jack and he had their arms slung over each other’s shoulders, and they were grinning around cigars clamped in their mouths.
The frame was probably custom-made since the engraving around the silver frame was one of Jack’s favorite sayings.Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead. Jack’s motto of sorts.
And a phrase that ate away at Egan like acid.
Like the photos his father had texted him earlier, Egan knew exactly when this one had been taken. Twelve years ago at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada, where minutes earlier Egan had won the Top Gun competition. Egan was in his flight suit, of course, and Jack was in BDUs and his hard-earned maroon beret that signified his special ops status as a Combat Rescue Officer. Jack had flown up just for the celebration. As he was prone to do. Even though they no longer lived in Emerald Creek, they’d made the effort to be there for each other whenever it was wanted or needed.
Ironically, that’s what had gotten Jack killed.
Another irony was that before that fatal encounter, Egan had been there for Jack and vice versa more than he had been for his own dad. It was the reason Egan was drowning in guilt right now.
“If I’d gone home more often, I might have seen that my dad was sick,” Egan muttered.
“Maybe not,” Alana was quick to say. “Sometimes, a heart attack can hit out of the blue.”
Egan wasn’t buying that for a second. There’d likely been signs, and if he’d been there, he would have at least stood a chance of seeing them.
When he didn’t open his water, Alana did that, handed him back the bottle and then sat behind her desk. Egan was thankful for that because it put some distance between them. Despite everything else going on with his dad, the rules still applied as far as Egan was concerned. The less contact with Alana, the better. Less contact held the hope of fewer bad memories. Right now, he couldn’t handle any more bad memories.
“There was blood on Grammy Effie’s shirt,” he said, the words just tumbling out before he even knew he was going to say them. “I don’t even think she noticed it, but it probably came from my dad.”
“Probably,” Alana agreed. “If he hit his head, even a slight cut would have bled. That doesn’t mean the injury is serious, though. If it had been, Dr. Abrams would have likely mentioned it.”
The doctor wouldn’t have if he’d thought Egan and Effie already had too much to handle. Or maybe in the grand scheme of things, a head injury was secondary to a massive heart attack.
Even though Alana wasn’t a doctor or nurse, Egan would have asked her if she had any idea what was going on right now in the ICU with his dad, but her phone rang. She didn’t exactly drop an f-bomb, but she did grimace more than a little.
“Tilly,” she said, taking the call.
