Have Gown, Need Groom. Rita Herron
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scanning the parking lot for her car before remembering she’d left it at her house. Mimi had driven her over. The honeymoon getaway car, a white Cadillac convertible complete with clanking cans and streamers, winked at her in the sunlight. Hannah darted toward it.
The last thought she had before she climbed inside the plush white interior was that later that night she would see herself on TV. Everyone had black sheep in their family, but the Hartwells had a whole flock of weirdos grazing the southeast. Uncle Elroy had served a stint in prison, Aunt Betty-Jo was a kleptomaniac, cousin Wally claimed he’d been an ostrich in a former life…the list went on and on. She’d spent her adult life trying to overcome her infamous family image.
But now her worst nightmare had come true—Hannah Hartwell, respected doctor and hater of public scenes, had just become another Hartwell spectacle.
DETECTIVE JAKE TIPPINS was having a terrible, no-good, very rotten day. As paramedics lowered his gurney from the ambulance to the ground outside Sugar Hill General, a camera flashed and he ducked his head. Damn. He couldn’t even hide his humiliation. He’d been shot in the butt, the EMTs had shredded the seat of his jeans, exposing his backside for the whole world to see, and now the media had jumped on the bandwagon, wanting the story. Thank God the hospital banned the vultures from entering the ER. They might blow his cover at Wiley’s.
He scrubbed a fist over his stubbled jaw, then dropped his forehead on the gurney as the EMTs quickly pushed him through the doors and wheeled him toward one of the exam rooms. Pain shot from his hip down his leg like a razor blade. Still, he reached behind him to try to cover his wound with his hand. A man had a right to a little privacy, didn’t he?
“BP high. One-fifty over ninety. Respiration twelve and even. Pulse eighty-eight and steady,” the EMT called.
The nurse pulled the sheet down around his knees and lifted the bandage. A gust of cold air hit his backside. “Still bleeding.”
He gritted his teeth as she applied more pressure to his wound, then tried to cover himself again. To think that the day had started out so simple. Most of the employees at Wiley Hartwell’s used-car lot had taken off early to attend the wedding of Wiley’s oldest daughter, Hannah. Wiley lived and breathed for his kids. He had boasted nonstop about his daughters ever since Jake had come to work for him, so Jake felt as if he knew them. But he didn’t get that whole hoopla about family stuff himself; he’d grown up being shuffled from one place to another, without a mother or father to speak of, and he was used to being alone. Weddings to him signified the death of a man’s bachelorhood, his whole identity. No wonder the groom partied the night before and wore black to the ceremony.
To avoid the uncomfortable formality, he’d volunteered to man the car lot during the wedding, hoping to take advantage of the opportunity and sneak into Wiley’s office. But after Wiley’d left, some punk kid had tried to steal a sports car right off the lot, and when Jake had tried to apprehend him, the black-leathered twerp had shot him. The reporters had dogged him from the site of the shooting at breakneck speed, calling him a hero.
A heavy-set nurse began to fire insurance questions at Jake, taking his medical history. A second nurse checked the bandage, tsking under her breath. “I need to get you another IV, sir.” He nodded as she left the room, then lifted his weary head and glanced through the glass-topped doorway on the opposite side of the room. He could swear he saw a beautiful blonde streak right past the window then dart into the room across from him—wearing a full-length wedding gown. She looked like an angel. Or maybe a princess.
Nah. No princesses or fairy tales in the real world. He closed his eyes, giving in to the fatigue. He must be seeing things.
Hell, he might even be delirious.
HANNAH BREATHED a sigh of relief to find the locker room empty. She quickly shed her wedding dress and crammed it into her locker. It actually felt good to pull on fresh scrubs and her lab jacket. That gown had felt like a straitjacket.
She grimaced. Her wedding gown shouldn’t have felt confining; it should have felt magical. She fought the tears, but they trickled down her face anyway. What in the world was wrong with her? She wasn’t the emotional type. She hadn’t cried since she was nine, not since that awful birthday when her mother had left.
Maybe she’d suffered some sort of breakdown, a post-traumatic reaction to her parents’ divorce. Maybe she needed therapy. First she’d deserted Seth. And now she’d shown up at work where she would have to explain why she wasn’t at her wedding marrying him. Why the heck had she come to the hospital?
Because it seemed like the safest place, she acknowledged silently as she searched for a tissue. Her family would be calling or dropping by her house to check on her, and Seth might show up demanding to talk. She wasn’t ready to deal with any of them.
Besides, she had heard the news of a car crash on the radio while she’d been driving around in circles trying to decide what to do. There’d been a shooting mentioned, also, although she’d only caught the tail end of that story. The hospital probably needed her. Work was the one place she’d be able to forget about her messed-up personal life and feel responsible again.
She leaned against the locker, trying to collect herself as the shock of her own actions settled in. She hoped her sisters would have explained to their father….
Finally gaining control of her emotions, Hannah inched open the door and winced at two reporters still hovering in the hallway like starved lions sniffing out their prey, ready to pounce for the kill. She hadn’t expected them to follow her to the hospital. Sometimes she hated living in a small town—the reporters would have a heyday with the story, the traditional wedding gone awry, prominent doctor jilted at the altar. She pictured the headlines and groaned—Wacky Wiley’s Wacky Wedding.
She loved her father, but he was a sucker for publicity. Unlike her, he thrived on attention and had probably already twisted the entire fiasco into a scheme to sell more cars. Poor Seth. Guilt dug into her conscience like a razor-sharp scalpel. She would never forgive herself for hurting him. He must absolutely hate her.
And his mother would probably sue her if the story appeared on the society page, tainting their blue-blood family name. As for her family, she’d simply fallen into footsteps already molded by other Hartwells. Twenty years of trying to overcome her roots down the drain because of a thirty-second decision.
She closed her eyes and allowed the regret to flow, along with the heartache she assumed would follow from losing Seth. Even if she changed her mind and crawled back on her hands and knees groveling, his family would probably never forgive her. Oddly, heartache for Seth never came—only sadness for embarrassing him. And the ball of fear that had lived within her since she was a little girl swelled inside her again. She’d inherited her mother’s blond hair and fair skin. Maybe she was like her mother in other ways, too.
Disgusted with herself, she sniffled and dried her cheeks with the hem of her jacket, reasoning the only way to avoid the press was to throw herself into work. She peeked through the door again, grateful the reporters had disappeared.
A surgical scrub hat pulled over her hair for disguise, she fielded her way to the nurses’ station. Tiffany, the big lovable nurse who ran the floor, paused near the curtained partitions and sent her a gap-toothed smile.
“What are you doing here, Dr. Hartwell? I thought you were getting married today.”
“I canceled the wedding,” she said, striving for a confident voice.
Tiffany’s chubby face reddened in surprise.
“You mean you’re not marrying Dr. Broadhurst?” Susie, one of the physicians’ assistants, hesitated over a tray of medicine. “But he came by this morning on the way to the church.”
“I know,” Hannah said. “It didn’t work out.” She shrugged and hurried over to Tiffany, unable to think of an explanation that sounded rational. “I heard about the car crash and thought you might need some help. How many victims?”
“Six.” Tiffany narrowed her eyes. “But if you’re upset, you don’t have