“Who should I make it out to?” I asked her, smiling.
“Theresa. I’m Theresa,” she said, grinning back at me.
“Theresa, you must not be from around here originally,” I told her as I signed the paper.
“How’d you know?”
I chuckled. “No one in town asks me for my autograph. They know I’m the kid who got caught one too many times in the apple orchard.”
She laughed.
“Plus, how could I forget that beautiful face?” I said, and she turned a deep red.
“Can I have one as well?” the second nurse asked, handing over the chart in her hand.
“This anything important?” I asked.
She laughed. “Oh, yes. Here,” she said, pulling a brochure on healthy eating from the wall display.
“And you are?”
“Marissa.”
I signed the paper and handed it back to her.
Marco closed the distance again. “You okay?” he asked.
The ladies noticed him for the first time, assessing him with wondering eyes before realizing he wasn’t famous as much as my bodyguard.
I nodded.
“Shall I help?” I asked, referring to the pitcher that had spilled.
Theresa turned a deeper shade of red. “No. No. I’ve got it.”
She took off again, presumably to get items to clean up with. The call button in the room behind the second nurse went off, and she sighed before going back into the room.
I turned my face toCari’s to find her squinting so hard I thought it would leave permanent marks. “Cormac. You told me your name was Cormac!”
She was pissed, or embarrassed, or maybe a mixture of both. I was just sad that the cat was out of the bag. I couldn’t put it back. I couldn’t be the person her grandmother had liked enough to leave something in her will.
“Cormac is my name. My given name,” I told her.
“I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you. I can’t believe my grandmother! That stupid mischievous look in her eyes. One last secret for her to spring on me.”Cariturned and headed back toward her daughter’s room.
“Why are you mad?” I asked.
“I’m not mad…” she said, and it felt like it was the truth, but she was still upset. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrugged, eyes going to the nurse who came out of the room with the paper I’d signed clutched to her chest and a smile still on her lips. Realization seemed to dawn on her, and she was about to say something when her eyes hit on something behind me.
A woman was hurrying down the hallway in yoga pants and a T-shirt. Her wrapped hair accentuated the high cheekbones that lingered on her dark skin. I recognized her from Elana’s store at Christmas. It would have been hard to forget someone so stunning.
“Stacy,”Carisaid, hugging the woman.
“How’s she doing?” the woman named Stacy asked.
“More upset about not being able to wear her top hat than the stitches.”
