One Night with the Best Man. Amanda Berry

be here for him now. Not even after what happened in the closet. They weren’t anything more than exes thrown together at a wedding. She didn’t have to be nice to him.

      She settled next to him, pulling her feet up under her and leaning her head against his shoulder. “Being like what?”

      He looked down at the top of her auburn head. “It doesn’t matter.”

      She shrugged. “When should we call Maggie and Brady?” A yawn followed as she squirmed herself into a more comfortable spot.

      “It’s late. We’ll wait until morning and give them a call. No reason to disrupt their wedding night. As long as Sam remains stable, there’s nothing they could do but worry anyway.” Sam was only thirty and relatively healthy, but fainting was serious...especially with an unknown heart condition. Luke needed to get up and do something, but he couldn’t without disturbing Amber. His leg started to bounce.

      Penny kept hold of his hand in her lap. He should ask to look over Sam’s chart and figure out if they were doing all the necessary testing. EKG, echocardiogram, CBC. Maybe he should talk to the doctor about a transfer to the nearest medical school hospital. He wondered if they could Life Flight him to his hospital in St. Louis.

      “I hear you got into one of the better programs for med school,” Penny said.

      “What?” He pulled his gaze from the doors the doctor had vanished behind recently.

      “Med school. Good program?” Penny repeated and looked up at him.

      “Yeah. It took a lot of cramming, but I got the grades to get in.” If he could figure out a way to slide out from under Amber without waking her, he would go through those doors that said “Authorized Personnel Only.” Surely they missed something on the chart. Most hospitals generally had rules against working on family. But they probably didn’t have a cardiologist on staff.

      “I was glad to graduate high school with a C average,” Penny scoffed. “You always were the smarter of the two of us.”

      “That’s not true. You were just a misguided youth.” He smiled at the memory.

      “Remember when we were studying for my final in Geometry? If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t still have the useless phrase SOH CAH TOA in my head.”

      Luke chuckled. “Do you even remember what it means?”

      Penny screwed up her nose. “Of course not. If it had been useful, then I definitely would have remembered it. I bet I haven’t used half of what they forced us to learn in high school.”

      “You probably use more than you think.” Luke sank farther into his chair. His legs relaxed out in front of him. “If we’d been together longer, I bet you would have received straight As.”

      “You definitely made studying fun.” She rubbed her thumb across the back of his hand. “Do you remember that one night we walked all the way to Owen to The Morning Rooster to have breakfast at 2:00 a.m.?”

      “I remember heading back and having to carry you piggyback half the way.”

      “I didn’t know we were going to walk eight miles each way when I decided on my shoe choice for the evening. Most nights I didn’t even need my shoes.”

      “I remember talking about everything that night. Philosophy, love, family, sex, shoes.” He squeezed her hand. “We were quite the rebels.”

      “More like trendsetters. Apparently it’s a new dare among the kids in Tawnee Valley. How far are you willing to walk to breakfast?”

      Luke laughed. “Not like there was much else to do on Saturday nights. Especially when Sam would take away my car privileges.”

      “And my car was in the shop. You know, I kept that old beater until it finally coughed its final gas fumes into the air about five years ago.”

      “I’m surprised it made it that long.” This was the part of Penny he’d missed the most. The quiet times when it was just the two of them talking. That piece of her that only he got to see.

      The doors swung open. Dr. Sanchez came into the waiting area and walked their way. “Don’t get up.”

      Luke had automatically started to rise without thinking about Amber and Penny leaning on him. She smiled down at the three of them. Penny released his hand and he missed her warmth.

      “So far the test results have been promising. It doesn’t look like he suffered from cardiac arrest, but we can’t rule out a future one. We’d like to keep him overnight for observation.”

      Luke breathed out as if he’d been holding his breath for days. No cardiac arrest was good, but Sam wasn’t out of the woods yet. “What’s the plan once he’s released?”

      “Until we have a few more test results, we won’t know for sure the type and extent of damage. I can’t give you any more information until tomorrow.”

      “But he’s going to be okay?” Penny asked, straightening in the chair.

      “We’ll know more tomorrow.” Dr. Sanchez smiled that doctor smile Luke was all too familiar with. The one that said we don’t know all that much and all we can do is hope for the best. “For tonight, I suggest you go home and get a good night’s sleep. We’ve already given Mr. Ward something to help him sleep.”

      “Thank you,” Luke said. Because of privacy laws, the doctor wouldn’t tell Luke much more, so he didn’t push. Besides, until the tests were completed, the doctor wouldn’t know any more than he did.

      Dr. Sanchez disappeared behind the doors again.

      “Why don’t I drive us all out to the farm?” Penny stretched like a cat. “It’s closer to the hospital and Amber won’t pitch a fit if she wakes up there. I asked Bitsy to look in on my dog when she left the reception.”

      Luke hesitated. It felt odd to invite Penny back to Sam’s house. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer—”

      “I wasn’t doing it just for you.” She stood and looked down her nose at him. “Maggie is family to me. That makes Brady family and Sam by extension. I need to take care of Amber and make sure things go smoothly so those two can take their daughter to Disney World on their honeymoon and make me more babies to take care of. I’m tired and I just want to crash and be there when Amber and Maggie need me in the morning.”

      Luke stood and picked up Amber. Thinking of Penny with babies did something strange to his heart. “I just didn’t want you to think that I needed you—”

      “Trust me. I know you don’t need me.” He saw a flash of hurt in Penny’s eyes. “Maggie and Amber need me.”

      “I’m sorry, Penny. I didn’t mean...” Oh, hell, what did he mean? If it meant avoiding a fight and not disappointing Amber, who was he to care whether they stayed here or went to the farm? They could work out the details when they arrived. Right now, he just wanted to look at something besides these four walls. “Look, we’re both tired. Why don’t I drive us out to the farm and we’ll work on it from there? It doesn’t look like I’ll be flying out tomorrow.”

      “If you are talking about staying for Sam, maybe I can help.”

      Help? She was the reason he hadn’t been out there to help Sam in the first place. His brother might have been showing signs that he could have picked up on if he hadn’t been too busy making eyes at the pretty woman in front of him. “He’s my family. For now, let’s go home.”

      “He’ll be okay.” Penny rested her hand above his heart.

      Penny’s touch comforted him in a way he’d almost forgotten. For a long moment, he searched her eyes. With Sam’s condition unknown, Luke couldn’t just leave. Depending on what was wrong, he might need surgery or just bed rest. His mind shuffled through all the possible diagnoses, but he didn’t have the chart to see what they’d uncovered when they’d