The Summer Deal (Wildstone #5)(3)

“See? She says she’s fine,” Olive said.

“I am,” Brynn said, rubbing her chest and the impending freight train in it. “Totally fine.”

Olive slowly shook her head. “You’re right, Raina. She’s not okay. She’s not working and her promise ring is no longer on her finger, which means that after their eight months together, Alan was a huge ass-plant and she’s moving back in.”

“Ashton,” Brynn whispered.

“None of those things came out of her mouth,” Raina said, sounding distressed.

“They would, if she’d talk.”

Raina frowned. “She’s clutching her chest and looking like she’s going to hyperventilate. Honey, are you in pain?”

If by pain she meant the feeling that her ribs were being cracked open by a sledge hammer, then yeah. She was in pain.

Raina crouched in front of her. “On a pain scale of one to ten, where are you at?”

Fifteen sounded about right.

Raina whirled to Olive. “Oh my God, I think she’s having a heart attack!”

“No, I’m not.” Brynn pulled off her glasses and dropped her face into her hands. “But everything else is all true. The not working thing. The coming home to stay for a bit thing. The leaving the asshole boyfriend thing.”

“I’m going to kill Ashton,” Olive murmured.

Brynn managed a mirthless laugh at her mom finally getting his name right.

“Oh, honey,” Raina whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“The school I was working at closed its doors. And the Ashton thing, it’s for the best.” An understatement . . . Brynn shook her head. “But I’m okay. Really. I’m just”—bonkers. Completely unhinged. Homeless—“A-okay.”

“She’s whiter than you,” Raina told Olive. “And clammy, but also chilled.”

“I see it. Sweetheart, breathe,” Olive said calmly to Brynn. To Raina, she said, “Call 911.”

“No!” Brynn said. Or tried to. But of course now she really was hyperventilating.

Raina was on the phone with 911. “Hi, yes, my daughter’s having a heart attack.”

“I’m not!” Brynn wheezed, as little black dots danced behind her eyelids.

Olive held both of Brynn’s hands. “Breathe,” she said again. “Breathe with me.”

She was trying. But she couldn’t seem to draw air into her lungs, which was now intensifying the sharp throbbing in her chest. Ripping her hands from Olive’s, she pressed them against her rib cage, trying to ease the pain.

“Oh my goddess,” Raina whispered helplessly, and ran to the door. “What’s keeping EMS?”

A few minutes later, two uniforms stood over Brynn, now on a gurney, putting an oxygen mask over her face. She no longer had her glasses on and couldn’t see past her own nose.

“Honey,” Raina yelled, as Brynn was stuffed into the back of an ambulance. “We’re going to be right behind you, okay? I’ve got your glasses.”

Brynn held out her hand, but couldn’t reach them.

“Just relax,” one of the paramedics said. “Your only job here is to keep breathing.”

“I’m fine!” Brynn tried to yell through the mask.

But no one was listening. So she gave up and stared up at the interior roof of the rig that was a blur and did the only thing she could. She breathed.

Forty-five minutes later at the hospital, a doctor and nurse were standing at her cot.

“Looks like it was a panic attack,” the doctor said.

Brynn sighed. “That’s what I tried to tell everyone.”

“We had to be sure. Your moms were adamant you were having a heart attack.”

This was true. They’d been unbudgeable. Brynn had finally made them go to the waiting room because they’d been driving the hospital staff nuts. She sighed. “It doesn’t matter. They needed an excuse to cry because I’m home and they missed me.”

“It’d have been a lot cheaper to just say that to you,” the doctor said.

“Yeah.” Like the entire five grand of her insurance deductible cheaper . . .

Half an hour later, she was cleared from her little cubicle in the ER. Her moms had been told the good news and were still in the waiting room while she changed back into her clothes. Winding her way down the white hallways toward the waiting room, she stopped in front of a vending machine, catching sight of her reflection in the glass.

She was clutching the bag the nurse had provided for her to stow her personal belongings. Everything was pretty blurry, but even she could see that she was indeed very pale, and her light-brown eyes seemed huge in her face. Embarrassment and humiliation did that to a person.

A freaking panic attack . . . Gah. She now needed a chocolate bar more than she needed her next breath, and considering she’d almost died from lack of oxygen due to panic, that was saying something.

A tall, leanly muscled guy stood in front of the machine, hands on either side of it as he gave the thing a hard shake.

A candy bar shook loose and he caught it, shoving it into one of his cargo pants pockets.

Pockets that looked already quite full.

She couldn’t see well enough to know which kind of candy bar he got, but it didn’t matter, because she liked all the candy bars in all the land. “Hey,” she said. “Save some for the paying customers.”