Ransom Canyon. Jodi Thomas

room cubicle, drifting off now and then, only to wake to the same nightmare.

      She knew Tim was in the first bed. Everyone had rushed toward him when the emergency room doors opened, which told her he was in danger. Funny Tim O’Grady, whom she’d known all her life, might die! No one she’d ever been close to had ever died. Thinking about it wasn’t funny at all, she realized.

      A nurse had helped her onto the examination table when she’d first arrived and checked her leg. At least she thought she was a nurse. Without her glasses she couldn’t read any of the name tags. For all she knew, she was the janitor. For a while she worried that Pop would be mad that she’d lost another pair of glasses, but decided that was so far down the lecture list it didn’t matter.

      The nurse was back.

      “You’re going to need a few stitches and a few shots,” no-name in white said. “You’re lucky. That first boy looks like he took a Humpty Dumpty fall.”

      “Can they put him back together again?” Lauren smiled at their nursery-rhyme code.

      The nurse frowned as if she’d crossed some line in protocol. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s getting the best care here.”

      Lauren nodded, but she didn’t feel very lucky, and she wasn’t at all sure Tim would be fine. If she were lucky, she wouldn’t have gone into that haunted house. Following Reid Collins was the dumbest thing she’d ever done. He might have twice her muscles, but he only had about half her brain cells. If his dad wasn’t rich, Reid would be lost. As it was, he’d probably run for Crossroads mayor in another twenty years. First he thought he was a football star because he had the jacket, and now he considered himself a hero.

      No-name carefully pulled the curtain closed as she vanished. Lauren waited, fighting the need to slip under one of the fabric walls and escape. In her mind she kept backtracking all the way to the church, thinking of every wrong turn she must have taken to end up here. If she could get do-overs, she’d have stayed with Mrs. Patterson to talk about all the things the old lady thought were on Lauren’s mind.

      As time dragged by, her father dropped in twice to glare at her. She was in major trouble. During his first one-minute visit, he said he had to call Tim’s and Reid’s parents and get them out of bed. The second visit, an hour later, was to inform her that Tim was going into surgery. After that, Lauren just acted as if she was asleep when he made his hourly rounds.

      He said the word surgery as if it was something terrible she’d done to Tim, but Lauren couldn’t bear to think about it. Somewhere in this very building someone was cutting into Tim.

      She wanted to ask about Lucas Reyes. Her father seemed to have forgotten about him. Or maybe he was still angry, thinking that somehow this was all Lucas’s fault.

      When the nurse finally came back, she was with a doctor who looked as though he wasn’t old enough to be out of college. The nurse did all the talking, and the young doc just nodded and signed the chart. As Lauren had suspected, her injury wasn’t worth much attention. A few stitches, just like the no-name nurse had said. Within minutes both the nurse and the doctor were finished. They had that why-are-you-wasting-our-time look about them. The emergency room had been busy for hours, and she’d been shoved to the back of the line several times.

      About the time Lauren wondered whatever happened to bedside manner, the nurse poked her with an injection and announced, “Tetanus shot going in.”

      “Do I get a sucker?” Lauren asked, and to her surprise the nurse smiled.

      Encouraged, Lauren continued, “How are the others?”

      The nurse patted her hand. “They’ll all be fine. Two will be released this morning, but the boy they took upstairs to surgery will have to stay a few days.”

      “You mean Tim’s not going to die?”

      The nurse shook her head. “Not from a broken leg. They’re doing X-rays to make sure he didn’t break a rib.”

      Lauren was so relieved that Tim wasn’t headed for the afterlife she didn’t feel the second needle. He might be dumb as a rock, but if his brain ever caught up to his imagination, who knows, he could make something of himself, other than being Reid’s sidekick.

      “What about Lucas?”

      “Lucas Reyes?”

      Lauren nodded.

      “He’s fine. Lost some blood, but we stitched him up. I think he’s already been released. I saw him sitting in the lobby about half an hour ago.”

      “And Reid Collins?” Lauren was so mad at him she really didn’t care. First, he’d gotten them into this mess, and then, when help showed up, he took all the credit for saving everyone.

      “The Collins boy sprained his ankle. He was really complaining about the pain until the doc told him he’d have to use crutches for a few weeks. He seemed to cheer up after that.” The nurse grinned. “He might have been cured if they’d offered him a wheelchair.”

      Lauren smiled, knowing that Reid would make the most of his injury. She thanked the nurse then closed her eyes, deciding that now that she knew all the guys were all right, she might as well sleep awhile. Her dad wouldn’t be by to take her home until Reid and Lucas were released and Tim was settled into a real hospital room.

      She almost drifted into a dream when she felt someone take her hand. The touch was gentle, comforting, and for a moment she smiled, thinking that her Pop was finally showing her how much he cared.

      But when she opened her eyes, Lucas was standing beside the examining table.

      “How you feeling?” he said quietly, so low no one on the other side of the curtain could have heard.

      She rose to her elbows. “I’ll survive.”

      “I gotta go. Half my family came to pick me up, and I think the hospital is worried about the mob scene. I just wanted to say goodbye. Despite all that happened, I liked being with you tonight.”

      “Me, too,” she said, wishing that she could think of something clever to add. But fighting down nervous giggling seemed to be the limit of her communication skills. Lucas was at least a year older than her, good-looking, and he was holding her hand.

      “You ever been kissed?” He flashed a smile.

      “No,” she answered. He could have probably already figured that out. Glasses, sheriff’s daughter, homely, brainy type. How many more strikes against her did she need? Oh, yeah, and flat chested.

      Without a word, he leaned in and touched his lips to hers. As he pulled away he winked. “How about we keep this to ourselves?”

      She nodded, deciding one kiss and her brain cells must be dying. Now she couldn’t even talk.

      “See you around.” He backed away.

      As he vanished through the curtain door, she whispered, “See you around.”

CHAPTER SIX

      Staten

      STATEN DROPPED BY his grandmother’s house, but she didn’t have any chores for him. It seemed the cluster of retirees at Evening Shadows had hired a handyman to run the place. In truth, he’d never seen the community looking so good. The swimming pool had been cleaned out, the fence fixed and the porches painted, every house a different color.

      “Yancy says,” Granny shouted over the news blaring from her TV, “if each door is a different color, some of the folks won’t get confused and keep going in the wrong house.” She shook her head. “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life than when I saw Leo naked.”

      Staten stood, his fists clenched. He didn’t care how old the little man was, he wasn’t putting up...

      Granny continued, “It was my fault. I must have miscounted. I thought I turned into