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“She’s fine!” said Scott quickly, as Brendan shut the office door behind him. “Well, kind of. But she’s mostly fine, I promise.”
Brendan let out the breath he’d been holding and sank back into his chair.
“What happened?” he asked again, this time more controlled and far less panicked, a conversation starter rather than a command.
“Okay, so, long story short,” said Scott, sounding as if he were settling down into a chair himself. “Nicole passed out in the sheds a few days ago.”
“Oh, God,” said Brendan.
“Yeah, so I made her go to the hospital, and she’s got the all-clear to work again but…” Scott sighed. “I’m supposed to be back in Nashville tomorrow; I’ve already stretched out my leave from work as long as I can and, God, I know this is such a huge ask, man, but I really don’t want Nicole here on her own.”
Again, morbid worst-case scenarios flashed through Brendan’s mind. Nicole fainting and crashing the ATV into a tree or a fencepost, unconscious in a field and getting trampled by the whole herd of cattle by accident, with no one for miles around to come to her aid. It was making him sick…
But Scott was still talking, unaware of Brendan’s own turmoil.
“She’s way too stubborn to ask for help, and farmhands are impossible to find right now, so I thought what the hell, I’ll take a chance and see if you’d pick up my call.”
“Do you know what caused it?” Brendan asked, thinking of Nicole and Scott’s mom dying of cancer, their dad dying of a stroke.
“Uh…” Scott hedged, clearing his throat a little. “Yeah, that’s… well, you know, patient confidentiality and all that. Don’t really want Nicole mad at me for blabbing about her business. You know how scary she can be.”
Brendan couldn’t help it and huffed out a laugh. “I certainly do.”
“It’s fine, I promise, but also not at the point where she should be throwing around hay bales in the midday sun, you know — but good luck tellingherthat. Look, I know it’s, like, borderline inappropriate asking you, but I just didn’t know who else to call—”
“I’ll be there by tomorrow afternoon,” said Brendan, interrupting Scott’s ramble.
Scott sighed, and the relief in his voice was audible even through the bad reception. “Thank you,” he said. “Man, thank you, I really appreciate it. But if it’s cool with you, I maybe won’t tell her that you’re coming because I kind of like my head still attached to my shoulders.”
Brendan laughed, a weird feeling when he was still so worried about Nicole.
“Don’t worry,” he reassured Scott. “I think that’s a wise decision; I don’t blame you.”
Among a whole slew of gratuitous thank-yous, the call ended. Brendan had barely hung up before he was calling his sister, the phone on speaker so he could look up plane tickets to get across the state as fast as possible. If he’d been waiting for some sort of sign to get over himself and get back in touch with Nicole, then this was it and he wasn’t going to pass it up. Not to mention the whole clearing-the-air thing might be easier in person…
“Hey,” he said as soon as Tina picked up.
“Hey. You all right?” One word and she could already tell something was up. Sometimes Brendan wondered if Tina was psychic or if he was just that obvious.
“I’m going to be reckless again,” he said, not bothering with any other context or explanation. That could come later. “How do you feel about taking charge of the firm again?”
There was the smallest of sighs from the other end.
“Go get her, lover boy,” she said with a mixture of fondness and exasperation.
Brendan’s hands hovered over the keyboard, stopping mid-word. “What?”
“I’m guessing this is about Nicole.”
“How did you know it was about Nicole?”
“Because this is the most lively I’ve heard your voice in weeks — and why else would you be running off to do ‘something reckless’?”
Tina was far too smug for her own good; it was practically dripping out of the phone speaker. But Brendan didn’t really see the point in denying it when she was completely and entirely correct.
“I’m booking a flight right now,” he said as confirmation.
“Good. And I don’t know what happened between you two, and frankly it’s none of my business, but, like, maybe bring her flowers or something?”
