Her father grinned from ear to ear.
Lyric wasn’t brain-dead. This was all a show for her father. Something about her needing Heath to take care of her. That seemed to make sense to the only men in the room.
# # #
Four hours later, Daddy was in surgery while everyone else waited in the waiting room. Dr. Leamon, who had spoken to them before the procedure, said it should take between four and six hours. Only two more hours to go.
Lyric didn’t know if she was going to make it that long. Her nerves were shot. She jumped every time someone walked by. Heath held a wrinkled old back issue of Sports Illustrated in one hand and patted her knee with the other. It wasn’t soothing. It felt staged.
She wanted to ask him what the hell was going on, but they weren’t alone.
What the hell had been up with that kiss? He’d blindsided her, in front of her entire family. It made no sense.
In fact, the last thing she remembered making sense was Dr. Danzinger’s probing eyes on her cleavage. She shook her head. It was a sad state of affairs when an eye grope by an octogenarian was her baseline for normal.
Heath shifted and rested his arm on her chairback. He played with the ends of her hair as his fingers tangled in her curls. It was driving her crazy.
Harmony’s gaze went to Heath’s hand, and her eyes rolled so far back in her head that Lyric thought she might be having a seizure. “Anyone hungry?” Harmony stood and stretched her legs.
“I am.” Lyric shot up. “It’s my turn to hit the vending machines.”
“I’ll come with you.” Heath stood. “Help you carry everything.”
“No, I’ve got it. Don’t worry. I want a chance to stretch my legs. I might take a short walk outside.” She hightailed it out of the waiting room and didn’t look back.
She needed ten minutes where Heath wasn’t invading her personal space. Okay, so she might need more than ten minutes. She could walk to say, San Antonio and back. That should take her about two weeks. Maybe by then her life would make sense.
Worried, frustrated, and more confused than she could remember being in a long, long time, Lyric wandered the halls, killing time before she had to go back to the Waiting Room of Doom.
The hospital wasn’t exactly big, and she could only pace up and down the same hall so many times before security took notice. She headed for the nearest vending machines and bought sodas for Harmony, Heath, and herself, water for her mother, and the most fattening snacks she could find. Her mother was going to keel over. Too bad they were in a hospital where they revived keeled-over people.
She walked into the waiting room and stopped short.
They’d played musical chairs while she was gone.
Heath sat between her mom and sister on the biggest couch in the waiting room, smiling like he was about to be on a magazine cover—or in a straitjacket—as he tried to convince Livinia Wright that he was desperately in love with her youngest daughter.
“How exactly did you and Lyric reconnect anyway?” Harmony asked. “I talked to her last week, and she didn’t mention anything about it.”
“Well, now, we’ve been trying to keep it kind of on the down low on account of my fame. Lyric’s been in the middle of a really big project at work, and the last thing she needed was a horde of crazed sports reporters trying to get a picture or a quote from the woman who stole the Deuce’s heart.”
“A horde?” Harmony asked with a skeptical lift of a brow.
“A very large horde,” Heath told her firmly. “In some circles, I’m a pretty big deal, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” Harmony muttered with a roll of her eyes. “And if I didn’t, you would certainly remind me.”
Lyric bit her lip to keep from laughing, especially when Heath just ignored her sister in favor of rubbing his hands together like he was getting ready to tell the most exciting story of his life. Years of experience with him had taught her that it would have little to do with the truth and absolutely nothing to do with them sitting next to each other on a plane bound for the mainland.
God help them all.
“Well, the way Lyric and I reconnected … I have to tell you. It’s sweet, really.” Heath cleared his throat and glanced around the room at the other people in the waiting room, no doubt making sure that everyone in his captive audience was listening to him. “You have one amazing daughter.” He sent her mother a dazzling smile.
“Amazing is definitely one way to put it,” her mother replied.
“Not ‘one way,’ Livinia. The only way. She’s the smartest, kindest, best person I know. And if you don’t believe me, just wait until you hear
this story.”