All They Need(86)

“I love you, Mel.”

She squeezed her eyes tightly closed. If she was a normal woman, she would turn in his arms and tell him that she loved him, too, more than anything. But she wasn’t normal. She was scared and she was more than a little broken. So she pretended she was asleep, even though she suspected that they both knew she was awake. And she lay that way for a long time before she finally nodded off.

She was woken by the shrill, urgent ring of the telephone.

She squinted at the bedside clock as Flynn fumbled for the receiver. It was nearly seven-thirty and she realized they’d overslept—Flynn must have forgotten to set the alarm last night when they came up to bed.

“Flynn speaking.” He fell back onto his pillow, the receiver pressed to his ear.

She felt his body go tense even as she heard the sound of someone shouting on the phone.

“Dad, calm down. Take a deep breath. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

He sat up in bed, the covers pooling around his hips as he listened for a few seconds. “How badly is she hurt? Can you put her on? Okay, no, don’t do that. I’m calling an ambulance now, all right? Sit tight, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Flynn ended the call and immediately rang emergency services. He requested an ambulance at his parents’ address as he flung off the covers and crossed to his closet, passing on the information that they would be dealing with a serious burn.

He tossed the phone on the bed once he’d finished and met her eyes.

“Mom’s burned herself. Something to do with the kettle. I can barely get a word of sense out of Dad. He’s totally freaking out.” His face was grim as he yanked a pair of jeans on.

Mel stood and reached for her underwear. “He couldn’t put your mother on the line?” she asked worriedly.



“He was almost incoherent. Panicking,” he said as he pulled on a sweatshirt.

Mel tugged up her jeans. “How far away are they?”

“Five minutes.”

They finished dressing in silence and she was right behind him when he headed for the stairs.

“Take my car, it’s already out in the street,” she said when he grabbed his car keys from the kitchen counter.

“Good idea.” He pocketed his own keys before getting hers and they exited into a gray, misty morning.

“She’ll be okay, Flynn,” she said reassuringly as they strode to her car.

“I know. He was just so freaked out…?. Before, Dad was always the guy you’d want by your side when the Titanic hit the iceberg, you know?”

She didn’t bother pointing out that the man his father had once been was a thing of the past. Flynn knew that better than anyone. He slid into the driver’s seat and she buckled up beside him.

It was only when he was navigating his way through the quiet, wet streets that it occurred to her that she’d effectively invited herself along on this rescue mission. He hadn’t asked and she hadn’t offered—it had simply seemed right that she be with him while he was dealing with this crisis. She didn’t want him to be alone—to feel alone. She wanted to be there for him.

It should have been a disturbing thought, given her constant battle to contain their relationship. But it wasn’t. He needed her, and she had his back. It was that simple.

No more than five minutes had passed since Flynn’s father’s call when they pulled up in front of a gracious Victorian house with a high wrought-iron fence. It was lovely, but it didn’t come even close to the grand residence she’d been expecting and it took her a moment to remember that Flynn had mentioned once that his parents had downsized recently. Flynn sorted through the keys on his key ring as they raced up the garden path. He unlocked the door and pushed it open so urgently it slammed into the wall.

“Mom!” he hollered as he entered a wide, high-ceilinged entrance hall.

“Kitchen.” It was a woman’s voice, faint but audible.

Flynn broke into a run.

Mel followed, passing a number of doorways before she entered a big, bright French Provençal-style kitchen at the end of the hallway. A woman, who looked to be in her mid-fifties, stood at the kitchen sink, her face ashen as she held her left forearm under the running tap. Beside her stood a tall, broad-shouldered man with Flynn’s bright blue eyes and bone structure. His hair was mussed, his face creased into lines of abject misery as he hovered with a helpless air at his wife’s side.