Bad Influence. Kristin Hardy

of times it wouldn’t have grabbed her attention. Now, concentrating on anything was impossible.

      To one side, a group of people who were obviously related sat around a tense couple. She wasn’t the only one who was worried about her loved one, Paige realized. From the white knuckles on the woman’s hands, there were far worse things going on that night.

      “Paige Favreau?” A nurse stood at the door to the E.R.

      Paige rose.

      Behind the door, the emergency room was a scene of controlled confusion. Nurses and orderlies bustled to and fro, carrying basins, pushing gurneys or patients in wheelchairs. Her stomach tightened.

      And then she saw her grandfather.

      Lyndon Favreau lay in the bed with his eyes closed, looking subdued and uncomfortably frail. His thick, wavy gray hair was disheveled. He’d hate it if anyone saw him looking like that, she knew, and crossed to him to straighten it.

      His eyes opened. “What? Oh, Paige. How are you, sweetie?”

      “I’m fine. What I want to know is how are you?” No IV, she saw in relief. No obvious bandages. Only his eyes looked funny, a little glassy and unfocused. “The doctor won’t tell me anything until they get the go-ahead from you.”

      “Tight-lipped bunch here.” Lyndon nodded wisely, but his head bobbled a little. “I’m fine. You know me, raring to go.”

      He giggled and Paige blinked. In the thirty years she’d been alive, she couldn’t ever remember hearing her grandfather giggle. Laugh often. Giggle? Never. What the hell was going on?

      “Are you the granddaughter?” She turned to see a tall white-coated man with tired eyes and a kind smile. He put out a hand. “I’m Rich Patterson, the staff doctor.”

      “Paige Favreau,” she responded, studying him. He was younger than she’d have expected, though judging by the lines around his eyes, he’d seen plenty.

      “Don’t mind him,” he said with a nod at Lyndon. “He’s a little out of it because we gave him some painkillers.”

      “Painkillers? What’s wrong with him?”

      “Nothing serious, we don’t think.” He had a nice voice, soothing. His eyes were hazel, she noticed. “He’s a little banged up. He’s complaining of chest pain. It’s okay,” Patterson assured her immediately. “I really don’t think it’s serious. Probably rib or cartilage damage from the accident, but we have to check it out. We’ll keep him overnight for observation.”

      Head spinning, she listened to the litany. Broken wrist, sprained ankle, CT scan to rule out head injury. “He called me from here over an hour and a half ago and he seemed fine,” she protested. And she couldn’t understand why so far nothing had been done.

      “He is fine, but we just need to be a little bit careful. He’s had to wait because we had a car flip on the highway with four kids,” he added as though he’d read her thoughts.

      The families in the waiting room, she thought immediately.

      “We’ve been busy trying to get them put back together. Now it’s Lyndon’s turn. This could take a while,” Patterson warned. “You might as well go out into the waiting room. It’s more comfortable.”

      “I’ll stay here, thanks,” Paige said, taking her grandfather’s hand. He made a sleepy murmur, but his eyes stayed closed. You did for family, especially when you didn’t have much.

      Abruptly she missed her mother as deeply as though she’d lost her the previous week instead of twenty-five years before. Pretty and light and full of fun, Caroline Favreau had been a woman who knew how to tease joy and excitement from life despite the constraints of her husband’s profession. A walk to the park turned into an adventure; Paige remembered sitting with her shoes off in a fountain while her mother charmed the Prague police officer out of disciplining them. With her natural exuberance, Caroline could always manage to get people to laugh and relax, even James.

      Then had come the aneurysm and suddenly she’d been gone. Paige’s memories had largely blended into the images she’d seen again and again in photographs. An unexpected whiff of Shalimar, though, could still take her back to walking hand in hand with her mother through the museum in Vienna.

      James loved her, Paige knew. And maybe life wasn’t as fun and full of the unexpected as when Caroline had been alive, but he’d kept Paige with him throughout the years—she had to give him credit for that. “We’re a family, you and me,” he always said to her. “We stick together.” And maybe that had meant nannies to help shoulder the load, maybe it had meant being lectured to behave, behave, behave during seemingly every minute of every day, but it had still mattered. They had stuck together, except when he’d gone on long trips or been posted to an unstable country. Her haven then had been Santa Barbara and the staunch, equally quiet affection of her grandparents.

      It wasn’t true what Delaney said about her being afraid to live. She lived. She’d just been raised in a more measured life. The habits of thirty years didn’t get thrown off overnight—particularly when there was nothing wrong with them. Perhaps she’d never chased the wild bolt from the blue, but that was because she’d seen firsthand the kind of peace and happiness that came from mutual respect, shared goals, trust. So what if it didn’t work for Delaney? It had been something solid and wonderful for Paige’s grandparents and even her parents. And Paige believed it was out there for her.

      She liked order, predictability. If she preferred guys like Rich Patterson to the Frito Bandito out in the lobby, it was because they were doing something with their lives. They were attempting to make a difference in the world. If she’d yet to find true love among the dry discussions, someone who made her pulse beat faster, that was her business, right?

      And if somewhere deep down she wondered if she was going to be sorry at the end of her life that she’d lived so quietly, that was her business, too.

      The time dragged by, with the orderlies bustling in to take her grandfather off for tests and then return, and the doctor coming back to put on the cast. When she saw the hot-pink roll of fiberglass in his hand, she stopped him. “Not that. He’d much rather have the clear kind, trust me.”

      “Sorry. We’ve kind of had a run on casting material. Central Services hasn’t had a chance to restock.”

      “Not even blue or green?” Though those would scarcely be the choice of her understated grandfather.

      “How about pink or pink? I wish we had something else to offer, but we don’t right now. He picked a bad day to break something. He can put a sock over it, though.”

      “Oh, trust me, he will,” she said.

      Lyndon’s eyes fluttered but didn’t open, so Paige gave in.

      And the doctor left and the waiting went on. Paige looked at her watch and yawned.

      A nurse appeared. “We’ve got the results of the CT scan,” she said briskly.

      “What are they?” Paige asked.

      “Good news, just like we expected. The doc says he’s healthy as a horse, outside of being banged up. Everything came out negative.”

      Relief had her feeling weak. For all that she’d been sure he hadn’t been seriously hurt, there had been that tiny bit of doubt nibbling at her. Now finally she could relax. “That’s great. So what happens now? Can I get him home?”

      “We’re going to keep him overnight to monitor the chest pain. You can come get him in the morning.”

      Lyndon opened his eyes and blinked sleepily at Paige. “I’m sorry about all the trouble,” he mumbled.

      “Hush, Granddad.” She squeezed his hand. “It’s no trouble. I’m just sorry you’re hurt.”

      “We’ll get him all fixed up,” the nurse soothed. “A nice snooze tonight and he’ll be raring to go tomorrow.”