Prima Donna (23 page)

“She’s going to want to know they called,” he said, ignoring Rossick when he asked who. “Give me half an hour? Fish and chips?”

He didn’t wait for Rossick to agree, just grabbed his stuff, hustled out the door, and a couple minutes later, he was at Edith Goodsen’s apartment.

“I’ll get it.” Regan’s voice, muffled, from the other side of the door. “You let me know what Barry found in that trunk.”

The door whipped open and there she was, his old UBC T-shirt looking a hell of lot better on her than it ever did on him.

“You, uh, forgot your phone,” he said, holding it out to her.

“Who is it, dear?” Mrs. Goodsen called from somewhere inside.

“Thank you.” Regan frowned down at the phone for a second, then called back over her shoulder. “It’s Carter Scott, Mrs. G.”

“Well, invite him in!”

“I can’t stay,” Carter murmured, even as Regan waved him through. “But Hillcrest’s number came up on your screen, so I thought you might want to check your messages.”

Regan’s face paled slightly as she gripped the phone and slid the door shut.

“Go,” he said. “Call them back and I’ll sit with Mrs. G till you’re done.”

She swallowed hard, nodded, and stepped out into the hall, so Carter headed straight into the apartment.

“Hiya, Mrs. G,” he laughed, pressing his hand gently against the pink spongy curlers all over her head. “You’re looking good.”

“Oh, you!” Her crepey hand was feather-soft when he took it in his and kissed her knuckles. “What brings you here?”

“Regan left her phone at work, so I thought I’d drop it off for her.”

“That’s a nice boy. Come, sit.” She waved him toward the brown leather wing chair and sighed. “Regan’s so sweet, but she works too much. She needs to slow down a little.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he sighed. “I know it.”

“Well, can’t you do something? You’re her boss, for goodness’ sake.”

“Technically, I’m not,” he said. “I’m not a partner at the clinic, I just rent space from my friends.”

“Oh.” For such a fragile-looking little thing, she could snort with the best of them. “Well, I must say, Carter, I thought you Scotts were made of sterner stuff than that.”

It took him a second to respond, and when he did, it was more of a sputter.

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean you’re a grown man, for goodness’ sake. If you’re not sure you want to be a doctor, then don’t you think it’s about time you figured out what it is that you
do
want?”

“I
do
want to be a doctor.” Carter had no idea what she was on about. “I love working at the clinic.”

“Yet you don’t love it, your patients, or the people you work with, enough to commit to them. What does that say about you, dear?” She tipped her head in that way only grandmothers could, and raised her eyebrows in expectation. “You need to either shit or get off the pot, young man. Pardon my language.”

If the sweet little old woman, with pink spongy curlers in her hair and a fancy tea cup in her hand, hadn’t kept a perfectly straight face, he would have laughed out loud, but she was serious.

And she was hitting a little close to home, too. Partnering up with Jules and Rossick was something he’d been thinking a lot about lately, but was he ready? Part of him thought yes, but another part of him wasn’t convinced. Signing on with them would mean he actually believed he’d be around long enough to make it work; that he was moving past the fear of getting sick again and all that would entail.

But was he past it? He didn’t know. What he did know was that ever since a certain redhead came into his life, he hadn’t thought about it nearly as much as he used to, and that was no doubt because most of the time he was thinking about her instead.

The front door opened and Regan slipped back in. “Thanks, Carter. Did you want a cup of tea?”

“Uh, no thanks,” he said. “I gotta get going. Mrs. G, always good to see you.”

“You already know what you want,” she said with a lift of her teacup. “So stop being so namby-pamby and just do it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Namby-pamby?” Regan frowned as she walked back to the door with him. “What was that all about?”

“Nothing,” he muttered. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Regan.” It had been a while since she dropped the F-bomb on him.

She paused, blew out a slow breath. “Tina thinks we should try for another visit this week.”

“Good, I’ll go with you.”

“No.”

“Regan?” Mrs. G called. “Is everything okay, dear?”

“Yeah, I’ll just be a second,” she called back, then lowered her voice to a firm whisper. “I can do this on my own, Carter.”

“I know you can, I just don’t think you should.”

“Thank you, but she wants to do it on Thursday, and we both can’t book the day off.”

“ ’Course we can. My receptionist is a whiz at rescheduling patients.” He pulled the door open, stepped into the hall, and grinned back at her. “Besides, I’ve got an overdue appointment with my barber in the city, so we can kill two birds with one stone. Set it up, Red, and let me know.”

He flashed her a wink and pulled the door closed behind himself, then stood on the other side for a long moment, his hand pressed flat against the wood. He’d been called a lot of things in his life, but namby-pamby was a first. As he turned to go, Mrs. G’s voice made him stop in his tracks.

“He’s the one, isn’t he, dear?”

“The one what?” Even with a distance of thirty-odd feet and a wood door between them, Carter could hear the waver in Regan’s voice.

“The one you said makes your kneecaps melt; that’s him.”

Carter strained to hear, even pressed his ear against the door, but no matter how much he wanted her to, Regan never answered the question.

Damn it. He would have waited longer, but his phone buzzed in a text from Rossick, which put him back on track.

Jules was sitting next to Rossick when Carter finally arrived at the restaurant.

“How’d the delivery go?”

“Excellent,” she smiled. “Happy to report Mom and baby are both doing fine.”

“Good.” Thankfully Rossick had preordered drinks, so as soon as the waitress set down his beer, Carter chugged a good long guzzle before sitting back in his chair.

“Oh God,” Jules groaned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Carter frowned and took another swig of his beer, but Jules kept blinking at him until he shrugged. “Just trying to figure out a couple things.”

“Can we help?”

He almost said yes; almost told them he wanted to partner up, but the words froze on the back of his tongue and stayed there until he washed them down with another swallow of his beer.

“Thanks, but I got it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” There was no point talking about it until he was absolutely certain it’s what they wanted, and part of that meant showing them he could be a stand-up guy.

Problem was, he’d never tried to be one before and he wasn’t entirely sure he could do it.

“I’m a nice man.”

Han Solo,
The Empire Strikes Back

“I really appreciate this,” Ellie said, climbing into the passenger seat of Regan’s car. “There’s no way Jayne would ever let me borrow her car.”

“Gee, I wonder why.” Regan shot her friend a warning look, followed by a smile. “Just remember, it’s a Honda, not a Ferrari.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Probably do the car some good to blow the carbon out of it once in a while.”

“Cars don’t get carbon buildup anymore.”

“Oh, really?” she laughed. “And when did you become a mechanic?”

Regan just grinned and turned down the highway toward town.

“Are you sure this is a good idea going in with Carter?” Ellie asked. “I still think one of us should take you in, not him.”

“I don’t think any of you should take me in,” she muttered. “But since he’s already talked to her, at least he has some idea of what we’re in for. It’s easier this way.”

Ever since she’d set up this appointment, she’d tried to brace herself for what was to come. It was one thing for him to talk to her mother on the phone, but to see her in person, to be there if—when—she started going off on Regan, that was something else entirely.

Outside of work, this could very well be the last time Carter would want to have anything to do with Regan, and she knew it; she expected it.

“Screw what’s easy,” Ellie growled. “Any one of us would be happy to go with you.”

“I know.” Regan nodded slowly, forcing her voice as steady as possible. “I do, thank you. But Carter’s a guy—he won’t get all emotional and shit like you all would.”

“Well Jayne and Maya might, but I wouldn’t.”

Regan grinned at the forced gruffness in Ellie’s voice.

“Right,” she said. “Because you’re such a hard-ass.”

“Damn right.”

They rode in silence the rest of the way until they pulled in behind Ellie’s store and got out.

“Don’t forget to pick me up in the morning!” She tossed Ellie the keys and hustled across the empty lot to the front of the clinic where Carter was waiting, leaning against his car casually as if they were going to get groceries.

Ooooh, this was a bad idea. She needed to be strong today, needed to brace herself, to leave any soft, emotional weakness right there in the parking lot. But seeing him standing there, with his warm slow smile, only made her want to walk right into his arms and stand there all day instead.

“Ready?” He opened the car door, but Regan stopped a few feet back.

“M-maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” she said. “It might be better if I—”

“Get in, Red.”

“But—”

In one step he was beside her, his hand pressing gently against her back. “You can tell me why it’s such a bad idea while we drive. Let’s go.”

And before she could either nod or shake her head, she was buckled into the passenger seat of his car and he was clicking the door closed behind her. By the time he climbed in behind the wheel, she was all but vibrating.

“When we get there,” she said, twisting her hands in her lap, “maybe you should wait in the car.”

He didn’t say anything, just pulled the car away from the curb and headed toward the lights.

“Or in the lobby I guess; it’ll be cold sitting outside and I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

It didn’t feel like he was speeding, but somehow they’d already made it out onto the highway.

“What time are you getting your hair cut because you can just leave me at Hillcrest and I’ll get a cab back. I could meet you on the north shore or wherever’s convenient for you.”

“Relax,” he said, his voice so warm, so gentle, she almost did relax, and that was the last thing she could afford to do this morning. “Whatever happens, happens. If you want to stay all day, that’s what we’ll do. If you want to leave two minutes after we get there, that’s what we’ll do.”

“Yeah, but you have things to do today, so you can’t be waiting around with me—”

“Why can’t I?”

Regan looked up, fully expecting him to be grinning back at her, but he wasn’t. He was serious.

“Because,” she said slowly, wishing she had a better reason than her usual one.

“Oh, right, okay,” he groaned, pulling out to pass a fully loaded dump truck. “Let’s get it all out of the way right now; tell me again how this is your problem, you’ll handle it on your own, no point worrying anyone else, nothing they can do anyway…”

Regan’s stomach tightened and churned like acid was eating away at her nerves. Anxiety wasn’t anything new to her, but having him make fun of her only made it worse, made her angry.

“That’s not funny, Carter.”

“Do you see me laughing?”

“You have no idea what it’s like.” She took a few seconds to breathe before she went any further, hoping it would help keep her fear and anger from spewing out. It didn’t. “You don’t know what it’s like to have your own mother scream horrible, vile things at you, you have no idea what it’s like to have all your ‘friends’ leave when they find out what she’s like, and you have absolutely no idea what it feels like when people look at Mom—or me—like we’re contagious or something, and if they get too close, they’re going to catch it. So until you’ve lived that, until you’ve seen their faces and heard their whispers, you’ve got no right to judge me or how I deal with it.”

“I’m not judging you, Regan. You can deal with it any way you like, just let me help.”

Silence filled the car, and while a big part of her felt guilty and horrible for bitching him out like that, the other part of her felt justified. She knew she’d have to find a way to open up to Jayne, Maya, and Ellie more about her mom, but she would do it her way, when she was ready. She wasn’t going to let anyone—not even Carter—bully her into dealing with it any other way.

Clouds hung thick and low, reaching down toward the dark churning waters of Howe Sound as the wind howled through the crooked red branches of the arbutus trees. It was almost like Mother Nature was painting Regan’s mood for the whole world to see.

Forcing long, even breaths in and out of her lungs, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. In as much as she needed to be prepared for this visit with her mom, being tense as she was now wasn’t going to help; it was only going to make everything worse, and if this was going to be the last time she got to be with him, did she really want it to be like this?

“Okay,” she finally sighed. “If you’re so keen on helping me…then talk.”

“About what?”

“Doesn’t matter, so long as it has nothing to do with where we’re going, or how I…” She sniffed quietly and grunted out the rest over a slightly shame-filled laugh. “How I tend to get a little uptight about people being up in my business.”

Fact was, despite her minor meltdown a second ago, and as much as it freaked her out to know he was about to witness firsthand what it was like with her mom, Carter could have sat there and read her the entire Canterbury Tales in Old English for all she cared. The mere sound of his voice would be the soothing balm her fraying nerves needed.

What the hell was wrong with her? Before she let him into her life, this wouldn’t have even been a problem; she would have been emotionally armed, and ready to take whatever came out of her mother’s mouth. But with him sitting right beside her, wanting to go with her, wanting to stay through whatever happened…
shit
! How was she supposed to brace herself against that?

A slow smile tugged at Carter’s mouth, the tension in his face eased. “Did Jayne ever tell you about the summer we spent scrubbing out the church?”

“The church?” Regan repeated. “No.”

“It was back when Nick and I used to be altar boys and this one time—”

“Whoa whoa
whoa
!” Regan’s eyes almost bulged out of their sockets as she twisted in her seat so she could see his face. “You were an altar boy?
You?
”

“Ouch,” he laughed. “And yeah.”

“Do you still go to church?”

“Christmas, Easter, and any Sunday I happen to wake up at Mom’s.”

“Wow.” Mouth hanging open, she couldn’t stop grinning at the image of Carter…
Carter
…wearing those long white-and-red vestments. “My mind has been effectively blown.”

“Yeah, well, wait for it.” He pulled into the other lane, sped past a couple cars, then pulled back over. “We weren’t exactly…pious…if you know what I mean.”

“Shocking,” Regan snorted loud enough to make Carter laugh.

“Anyway,” he went on. “This one time, we were fourteen, I double-dared Nick to put a Whoopee cushion on Father O’Keefe’s chair.”

“Not during Mass…” She knew what his answer was even before he spoke.

“ ’Course.”

“Carter!”

“Yeah, I know, I was a little shit back then. Father wasn’t stupid, though, he saw it before he sat down.”

“What happened?”

“You mean after our mothers got through with us?” Carter winced, but his grin never faded. “Father O’Keefe was a good guy, but as penance, he made us scrub the whole building; every pew, every kneeler, every stained glass window.”

“And Jayne helped?”

“If Nick was there, Jayne was there.” He glanced over at Regan with a shrug. “She did most of the work.”

“That’s awful!”

“Best summer of my life.” Another shrug, this one slower as his grin faded. Something about that memory wasn’t as fun as he was letting on, but Regan didn’t get a chance to ask about it because he went right on with more stories.

He’d never been allowed to have a dog because his mom always said she was allergic, and he was halfway through high school before he found out she’d been lying to him the whole time. She wasn’t allergic, she was terrified.

“Once I figured that out,” he said ruefully. “I really felt like shit ’cause I must’ve dragged at least nine or ten strays into the house over the years, figuring if she saw how cute they were, she’d let me keep them up in my room and they wouldn’t bother her.”

He told her about his dad, how he’d died of a heart attack when Carter was ten, and how Nick’s folks had stepped right in and helped Carter’s mom out. How Nick’s dad had put him in braces, free of charge, and made damn good and sure he got into the university of his choice.

There were stories about Nick and his first wife, Abby, stories about Julia and Rossick, and how the three of them met during the first week of university and had been together ever since.

“Poor Jules couldn’t win,” he laughed. “She finally quit bringing guys back to the apartment because Rossick and me would either scare them off or hook them into whatever Xbox game we were playing.”

“Why did she stay?” Regan laughed. “I’d have ditched you idiots and found my own place to live.”

“ ’Cause we’re like family; we stick.”

Regan’s insides warmed at how easily he said that.

“If she’d ever brought home a guy we thought deserved her,” he went on, “we wouldn’t have been such pricks, but you should’ve seen some of the guys she went out with.”

“From what I hear,” Regan snorted. “Your track record’s not much better, Sparky.”

A slight blush crept up Carter’s cheeks as he ran his hand back through his hair, but he didn’t respond, just wheeled the car into an empty parking spot and shut off the engine.

Hillcrest Psychiatric Home, with its vast hedged-in yards and grand pillared entrance, looked more like an old Southern plantation than anything else. The parking lot, never full at the best of times, only had about a half dozen cars in it when they arrived, and Regan guessed that half of them were probably staff vehicles.

“You ready?” Carter’s voice was quiet, warm, and steady.

Regan didn’t answer, just huffed out a breath as she slowly unbuckled and stepped out of the car. Chin up, shoulders back, she chewed her bottom lip for a second, then nodded.

“I’m serious, Carter. You don’t have to stay; it’ll be fine, really.”

“I’m staying.”

“But—”

“Staying.”

It was almost the exact same conversation they’d had the day she closed her shop, and almost the exact same feeling fluttered through her belly. Terrified, relieved, oddly thankful, and not entirely sure it was a good idea.

Tina met them at the front door and ushered them into her office, where she sat them down and went over the rules as she did every time Regan went in.

Tina folded her hands on her desk and swallowed. “Even though New Year’s Eve went pretty well, and she spoke to you without incident, we were all surprised when she said she wanted to call you again so soon afterward.”

“Yeah.”

“She hasn’t mentioned either call, and hasn’t asked to do it again, but it’s been a long time since she’s been this calm for this long, which is why we’re hopeful that today will be different.”

Regan nodded silently. They could hope all they wanted, didn’t mean she was going to go in there braced for anything but the worst.

“Anyway,” Tina went on. “The rules are the same. Don’t try to touch her, let her come to you when she’s ready. If she’s ready.”

“Mm-hmm.” Regan nodded again, knowing full well she’d never get to touch her mother again. Not today, not any day. And it didn’t matter how old Regan got, or how long it had been since the last time, the one thing she missed most was getting to hug her mother.

“Don’t wander around the room, and try to keep the conversation light; weather, her dress, that kind of thing. If she brings up your dad, we won’t ignore her, but we’ll try to steer her back to something else.” She turned her gaze to Carter. “Will you be going in with Regan?”

“Yes.”

His answer was out before Regan had time to form the word
no
on her tongue. If it went badly, as it usually did, was that something she really wanted him to see? No. But having him there beside her in Tina’s office was more comforting than she ever would have imagined or was willing to admit, so when Tina looked at her for confirmation, Regan honestly didn’t know what to say.

So she took the coward’s way out.

“It’s up to him,” she said, then had to repeat it because neither one of them heard her.

Carter’s eyes, so dark, so steady, softened when Regan finally looked up at him. Holding her gaze, he smiled ever so slightly. “I’m in.”