Twisted Arrangement 4 (14 page)

His sculpted lips pressed into a thin white line as he stared down into her face. Emma watched the struggle in his eyes. As hands-on as Josh was, something like this – his film’s star getting injured – was something he’d want to handle himself. Under normal circumstances she would never try and take the reins from him. But these were not normal circumstances. Emma clutched his shirt tighter. “Please.”

His broad shoulders tightened, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he gritted his teeth. He gave her a short, jerky nod and spoke into the phone. “I’ll be right there, Mom. Just... I’ll be right there.”

Emma paid no heed to the rumble of voices surrounding them, concentrating only on Josh. When his eyes met hers, they were full of too many emotions to read. Emma tried for a reassuring smile. His mouth twitched, not into a smile, but as if he’d attempted one and had forgotten now. Her heart squeezed.

“It’s Dad. They took him to UCSF Med Center. It’s... I don’t know. Mom wasn’t very coherent.” He shoved his free hand through his hair. Glancing around, Emma scanned the crowd for the sight of her brother’s sandy brown hair. When she glimpsed him on the fringes of the throng near the equipment trucks, she whistled and waved.

“Todd!” Emma didn’t know if he could see the expression on Josh’s face, or hers, but Todd darted quickly around the edge of the frantic group and reached her side in an instant.

“What’s up, Ems?”

She gripped his bicep tightly. “Todd, I need you to get the car for Josh. Now.” Thank god he was used to her no-nonsense ‘do it or else’ tone of voice, and knew not to argue. With a quick salute, he darted back toward the far side of the set, leaving her to turn back to Josh. “Go with Todd. I’ll see what’s going on with William.”

“Emma –”

“Don’t worry about it, Josh. Concentrate on your parents right now. We’ll be fine here.”

Josh gave her a quick, one-armed hug and an equally brief, hard, and entirely surprising kiss, and then loped after her brother. “Call me with news!” she shouted after him, and tried not to feel a twinge of hurt when he didn’t respond. He had more important things on his mind. And he might not have heard her over the craziness still going on behind him.

It felt as if an hour had passed since William’s cry of surprise and pain, but glancing around, Emma realized it could not have been more than a minute or two. Morse, who had been farther from the carriage than her and Josh, still hadn’t reached him.

“Let me through!” Emma wasn’t shy about using her elbows to get through the mass of gawkers, who were doing little more than craning to see what was happening.

A big hand snaked around her wrist and she glanced up into the pale blue eyes of Dean, one of the cameramen. He was massive, but his face was kind. “Come on, Mrs. O.” Using his superior bulk, he pushed through the crowd, towing her along.

She breathed a small sigh of relief as they broke through the crush. Cleo and a medic, easily identifiable by the patch on his shoulder, knelt at the older actor’s side. Dean pushed her forward. Emma hurried to the medic and dropped to her knees, heedless of the dirt and the small stones digging into her bare legs.

“What happened? How is he?”

The medic had slipped a neck brace onto William and rolled him onto his back. At the moment, the young man – Emma didn’t think EMT was much older than her – was carefully examining an oozing laceration on William’s forehead. Cleo was stroking the actor’s hand, though whether to comfort him or herself, Emma didn’t know.

“The steps broke,” the exotically beautiful make-up artist said. She pursed her lips. “He tripped and fell. Warren says he doesn’t think he broke anything, thank god.”

Emma guessed Warren was the medic when he raised his dark eyes to hers. “I don’t feel any breaks. I’m hesitant to move him, but if he doesn’t regain consciousness in the next –”

“Fucking hell.” William’s groan of pain made all three of them catch their breath. Emma studied his face as he blinked his eyes open. Relief bubbled through her blood like champagne.

“Don’t try to move yet.” Warren whipped out a small light and shone it in William’s eyes. The actor flinched and grumbled, but didn’t try to move. Emma chewed her lower lip as she watched the medic examine their movie star.

Warren asked William some questions in a low, calm voice. William answered each one, his tone pained and snippy but coherent. Emma quashed the worry that coiled low in her gut. Worry for William, and the future of the film. But mostly worry for Josh. The utter panic she’d seen on his face had sliced right through her heart. She wished she could have gone with him to the hospital, even if just to offer moral support. To hold his hand or something. Knowing Josh, he’d be acting strong, for his mother’s sake. But who was Josh going to lean on?

You’re not
really
his wife, you know
, the sly voice reminded her. For once, it didn’t bother her so much.

True, she wasn’t his wife. But they were at least friends. Sort of. Which reminded her that there was someone better suited to helping Josh than her, as much as that thought hurt. While Warren and Cleo helped William to his feet – to the clapping and cheers of the other cast and crew – Emma found Heidi in the crowd.

As she’d anticipated, the perky intern wasn’t far. Since Emma’s first day on set, when the young girl had given her a ride to the gate, she’d stuck close to Emma’s side if at all possible. She could be bit overwhelming at times with her boundless enthusiasm and eagerness to help, like earlier when she’d insisted on holding Emma’s cell phone while she was on set, amazed that ‘someone of your stature’ didn’t have an assistant. But Emma quite liked her. And she was grateful for the tenacity of the intern’s hero worship right now. She motioned Heidi forward.

“Heidi, get me Mr. Cummings on the phone ASAP, please. It’s important. And Martin Kellar too, if you can, but ask him to hold for me.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Owens! I mean, Emma!” Heidi beamed, already scrolling through Emma’s contacts.

Emma turned to Warren, brows raised. “How is he?”

“I’m fine, thanks.” William grumbled. He furrowed his brow at her, and then hissed as the expression tugged the now-bandaged skin of his forehead. Emma ignored him.

“It looked worse than it is,” Warren replied. “Just a bad bump on the head. He’s going to need to rest for at least a day. Someone should stay with him, in case he develops any signs of concussion. But I think he’ll be fine.” Warren gave her a reassuring smile. Or, it might have been reassuring if he didn’t look as if he’d graduated school this morning.

Emma frowned, tapping a finger against her lower lip. Heidi bounced on the balls of her feet, cell phone held in one small hand. “I’ve got Mr. Cummings, Mrs... Emma! Martin’s holding!”

Honestly, every sentence the girl spoke seemed to end in an exclamation mark. She would have thought it would be annoying at a time like this but, strangely, Heidi’s optimism lifted her whirling spirits. Emma smiled. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

Josh paced the corridor outside his father’s room. They’d taken Cam for yet more tests. Josh had finally convinced his mother to go stretch her legs, and get some coffee or something. She’d been sitting at his father’s bedside, freckled skin splotched with red from crying, for the last four hours.

Apparently, his father had been in his office at Berkeley when he’d collapsed. They had no way of knowing how long he’d been unconscious before one of his students found him and called 911. The school had, thankfully, thought to call and inform his mother that his father was being taken to UCSF Medical Center. She’d arrived only half an hour before Josh. Cam had regained consciousness in the ambulance, but passed out again as they brought him in.

So far, the doctors didn’t seem to have any idea what was going on. All they knew was that his dad’s blood pressure kept dipping and spiking dangerously. Despite worrying about that first and foremost, Josh’s brain couldn’t keep from wondering what was going on with Ransler.

Maybe it was just his mind’s way of distracting him, but all it was doing was adding to his anxiety. Given the way his heart was hammering in his chest, he’d be in the bed next to his father soon if he wasn’t careful.

The sight of Ben striding swiftly down the hospital corridor, suit coat flapping in the breeze, was a welcome one. Josh stopped his pacing and took a deep breath as his friend reached him and clasped his shoulder.

“Hey, man. Emma called, said your dad was brought in. What’s the news?”

Josh’s shoulders slumped at the solid feel of Ben’s big hand. “They don’t know. Dad passed out at work. Alone, in his office. They’re running a bunch of tests. He’s... I guess he’s been in and out of consciousness.”

Ben steered him toward a bench beside a vending machine. “Where’s your mom?”

Josh slumped onto the seat, elbows on his knees. He lowered his head into his hands. “I sent her down to the cafeteria when they took Dad for more tests. She was just sitting there like... a statue.” His mother’s pale skin had gone paler than usual, her blue eyes blank as she’d stared at Cam’s empty bed.

Ben sat beside him, stretching out his long legs. “Okay, so they don’t know what it is yet. Have they ruled anything out?”

“What?” For a second, the words made no sense to Josh. Then he blinked. “Yeah. It wasn’t a heart attack. They seem pretty sure about that. And not an aneurysm either. But it could be a stroke.” The word stuck in Josh’s throat like a chicken bone. His dad wasn’t old enough to have a stroke. He was in decent shape. Josh’s mom saw to it that he ate well and engaged in physical activity. He might not be buff, but he wasn’t unhealthy either.

“Okay, so not a heart attack or an aneurysm. That’s good, right?” Ben clapped him on the back gently. “This is a great hospital. I’m sure they’ll figure it out. All these tests they’re running are going to help.”

“I just hate not knowing.” Josh scrubbed his hands over his face. Sure, he had always been a bit closer to his mother than his father, but Cam Owens was a great dad. He’d always encouraged Josh’s passion for movie-making, even back when it involved little more than making stupid flicks with his friends.

He swallowed heavily. Ben kept patting his back. “Emma asked me to tell you that everything is under control on set and you’re not to worry about it for a second.”

Some of the tension eased from his shoulders. Josh took another breath, deeper this time. He was grateful to Emma for staying behind to deal with whatever clusterfuck was developing on set. She’d though to call Ben, too. Seeing his friend was exactly what he’d needed, and he hadn’t even known it. Emma was scarily efficient. And kind too.

Though she’d been resistant to the idea of their arrangement from the beginning, she was still taking care of him... Bringing a mug of mocha to his office in the afternoon for him, making sure Martin kept a copy of Josh’s schedule on her phone so she could remind him about the appointments he had the next day over dinner, finding Emilie’s contact information and passing it on to him.

And today, there hadn’t even been a flicker of hesitation in her eyes when she’d told him to go. She’d known he was torn without needing him to even explain the situation to her.  She’d just immediately done what she could, so that he could do what he needed to do. He lifted his head from his palms, his mouth pulling sideways in a halfway smile. “Thank god for Emma. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

Ben’s brows climbed slowly as the words fell from Josh’s lips. As soon as Josh heard himself, his own eyes popped wide. He felt a splash of heat in his cheeks and his jaw wagged, briefly unhinged. He blinked quickly, though his brain still felt sluggish.

“She’s pretty special, alright.” Ben chuckled, obviously picking up on Josh’s discomfort at the outburst.

A warm zing twirled through Josh’s chest, but he shoved it away. The feeling that had possessed him when he’d uttered those words was not one he felt equipped to examine right now. He just had too much on his plate. He could see the expectant expression on Ben’s face – dark brows lifted, head cocked to the side – but he gazed past his friend, toward the elevators.