Rainy Day Friends Read online

  She heard Mark’s calm voice telling Lanie to call for an ambulance, felt him take her pulse.

  “The baby,” she tried again, but Lanie was shakily telling someone to come in a hurry because there was a lot of blood.

  When River managed to open her eyes again it was because someone took her hand.

  Lanie, who smiled down at her, but it was one of those smiles that was full of fear and terror. Damn. She must look really bad. Like, on-death-row bad. “Delaney,” she said but Lanie just stroked the hair back from River’s face.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Was it, though? Because it didn’t feel okay. She’d finally started to get her life together for herself and the baby, and now she was going to die right here on the floor and never see Delaney again.

  Not that she was surprised. Karma always had been a bitch.

  ONCE AGAIN LANIE found herself standing in the hospital waiting room, staring out the dark windows into the night, only this time it was so much, much worse.

  The thing about Wildstone, there weren’t any city lights. It was so different from Santa Barbara, where she’d lived for so many years she’d nearly forgotten the beauty of the simple rolling hills, the stillness of the night, the peace and quiet . . .

  Not that the hospital was peaceful or quiet. Behind her she could feel a wave of grief and panic and fear. She had her own wave going on, and she was still covered in blood.

  River’s blood.

  God, the vision of her bleeding out all over her cottage floor was going to haunt her until the end of time, as was the way she’d left things. Just thinking about it had her closing her eyes tight.

  If River died, she’d never know the truth—that Lanie didn’t hate her. That, in fact, Lanie admired and respected her so very much.

  According to the doctor who’d come out to talk to them, River had suffered a late postpartum hemorrhage and had nearly bled out on the way to the hospital. If Lanie and Mark hadn’t gotten to her when they had, she’d have surely died. They’d found placental tissue still in her uterus and the doctor said they were giving her transfusions and he was going in to do an emergency surgical procedure to remove the tissue and hopefully stop the bleeding.

  The entire Capriotti family was here, but Lanie was only aware of one—Mark standing on the other side of the room; tall, silent, stoic.

  Another person she cared deeply about whom she’d wronged. Her last words to him kept playing in her mind.

  I don’t love you . . .

  Apparently when she decided to sabotage herself, she went big.

  Cora came up to her side. “How you holding up?”

  Since Mark hadn’t approached her at all, not so much as to meet her gaze, on top of which they hadn’t heard a single word on River from the doctors, other than she was still in surgery and it was a touch-and-go situation, she had no idea. Because touch and go? The ominous words struck terror in her heart.

  “Lanie?”

  She looked into Cora’s concerned face. “I blew up my life,” she whispered, unable to hold the words in. “Me. I did that, all by myself.” She’d lost Mark. Now River might die.

  “Mistakes happen.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I’m talking big mistakes,” Lanie said.

  “I hear you. But sometimes you just have to have courage in your ability to right your wrongs and make things right.”

  Lanie looked at her. “What do you do when you’re short on courage?”

  Cora squeezed her hand. “Courage doesn’t always roar, you know. Sometimes it’s just a quiet voice at the end of the day, saying, ‘You can try again tomorrow.’”

  Lanie was still thinking about that when a nurse poked her head into the room.

  They all froze, and Lanie felt herself stepping forward, heart in her throat. “River. Is she—”

  “We normally wouldn’t let anyone back, but she’s conscious and asking for a . . .” She consulted her iPad. “Lanie.”

  Lanie froze. “Are you sure?”

  The nurse gave her a small smile. “Yes.”

  Lanie turned to find Mark watching her.

  “She trusts you,” he said.

  She waited for a sign that he also trusted her, but his face was blank, eyes hooded from her. If he’d trusted her at one time, she’d blown that up as well. Feeling like her feet were made of cement, she followed the nurse back.

  RIVER CAME AWAKE in slow degrees, layers of sensations. Hearing came first, a dull, steady beep, beep, beeping that bounced around in her head. Then the fogginess in said brain, which told her she’d been medicated, heavily, but even through that fog she could feel feathers of pain not completely masked.

  Damn. She must’ve done something really stupid, but for a long beat it had escaped her what.

  Then she’d remembered. Blood. So much blood. And then flashes of an ambulance ride.

  And Lanie’s terrified face, her hand in River’s, her voice saying, “It’s going to be okay, it’s all going to be okay.”

  But it wasn’t. She’d had surgery. She’d heard the doctor telling the nurse it was still touch and go, had seen the look in the nurse’s eyes.

  It wasn’t going to be okay. It was why she’d asked for Lanie.

  She opened her eyes again just as the nurse brought her in and River had never been so relieved to see anyone in her life. There was something she had to do, now. So for the second time that week she grabbed Lanie by the shirtfront and held tight because Lanie was always a flight risk. “You have to promise me something.”

  “What?” Lanie gasped, clearly caught by surprise.

  “That you’ll raise Delaney.”

  “River, you’re going to raise her.”

  But she wasn’t. She could see the crazy worry in Lanie’s eyes, could tell she’d been crying.

  Lanie never cried.

  “You have to promise me,” River said desperately. “If something happens, you’ll—”

  “River.” Lanie closed her eyes. “I can’t,” she said quietly. “As in, I literally can’t. I . . . I think I hate her,” she whispered.

  River only tightened her grip. “No, you hate Kyle because he denied you a baby. There’s a difference, Lanie. And I know you don’t believe me, that you think you really do hate Delaney, but you used to think you hated me too, remember?”

  Lanie choked out a half sob, half laugh. “I do hate you.”

  River actually laughed. It was a weak, barely there expulsion of air, but it was genuine. “No, you don’t.” She softened her grasp on Lanie but still didn’t let go. “My mom always said that love’s in the actions, not the words. I’ve seen your actions, Lanie.”

  Lanie opened her mouth, but River simply tightened her grip again. “I’m not letting go until you hear me,” she said.

  “For a dying woman, you’ve got a hell of a grip,” Lanie muttered.

  “You pick up the girls from dance class on Fridays even though you sit in traffic on the way back every time. You listen to all of Uncle Jack’s stories and laugh at the same joke every time. You let me in when I gave you no reason to do so and became my best friend. Sisters, really. You’re the sister I always wanted.”

  Lanie made a soft sound, half protest, half sob.

  “You’re the one I want to take in Delaney if something happens,” River said fiercely. “You’re the only one.”

  Lanie stared at her before her eyes filled. “River.”

  That was it, that was all she said, just her name, but in that moment River knew. Lanie would do it. Which meant that deep down, she liked her again. “Thank you,” she whispered fiercely, reaching for her hand, clutching it tight. “Thank you.”

  Chapter 32

  Fashionably late? More like anxiously early . . .

  A few hours later, Mark was with the twins at home. They were lying on Samantha’s bed, where he was reading them a story and doing his damnedest to ignore the fact that his heart had been torn in two.