Chapter Two

If He Gives You the Bed While He Takes the Couch…

The emergency room in rural Vancouver Island was much less busy than the emergency room in Metro Vancouver. Exactly three people were sitting in the waiting room. They were clearly all together and only one of them was waiting for medical attention. Lindsay had never spoken to a triage nurse so quickly in her life. They didn’t even let Oliver sit down in the waiting room before they hauled him to the back and ordered X-rays for him.

Lindsay was left alone with Gavin, who looked like a yeti that had evolved just far enough to pass for a human. He was very hairy under his toque. His taffy-colored hair was loose and mingled with his beard which was long enough to hit the top button on his shirt. That piece of clothing was made of green plaid and layered under a jean jacket. His hands were rough and he said so little, it made him seem more like a yeti.

Lindsay was spared from having to make conversation with him immediately as a doctor showed up to take a look at her. Other than the scratch in her eyebrow, which had made her bleed like a pig, she was not concussed, nor did she need stitches. She was given a chair next to Oliver’s bed while a nurse went to fetch a second chair for Gavin.

It was nice behind the curtain in the emergency room. It was past eleven, so the lights over the bed were off. The curtains dimmed the lights from the nurses’ station. It was a muted light, perfect for someone whose head still hurt.

Oliver was very unwell as he rested on the bed. For one thing, he had stopped making jokes, a sure sign of trouble.

Oliver wasn’t the kind of man who made a good first impression on Lindsay. For one thing, he was too cheerful and she usually went for more sullen types. However, sullen types had not treated her well, so she decided to try Oliver’s wide smile, thick cheeks, and hands big enough to make a girl follow when he led her on the dance floor. Well, he hadn’t exactly danced with her, but their improv class gave him plenty of opportunities to lead her.

For the first time, Lindsay wondered if he might not be all right.

She glanced over at Gavin, his eyes glinting from between the hairy line of his eyebrows and the beginning of his beard. She finally found a moment to introduce herself to him. She turned to him and stuck out her hand, but quickly retracted it when she realized how much blood was still caked on it. “Sorry for the poor introduction,” she said. “I’m Lindsay Thomas.”

Gavin looked at her and said gruffly, “I’m Gavin Grantford.”

The only thing she could think of to say was, “That’s a good name. G is the loveliest letter in calligraphy.”

He paused for a moment. “No one has ever told me that before.”

“It’s because the cursive capital G is one shape and the typeface capital G is a completely different shape. You know what the prettiest shape is?”

He looked at her strangely from under his toque and over his beard.

Normally, a look like that would have discouraged her from saying anything further. Except, they were stuck in an emergency room for who knew how long, so she continued. “It’s a circle or a sphere. Think about it. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than Europa or Enceladus?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t have if I knew what you were talking about.”

Lindsay explained, “Europa is a moon of Jupiter, and Enceladus orbits Saturn, but that’s not the point. The point is that a circle is the most beautiful shape and a G is a circle with a beautiful gap and line to it. A Q can be very enchanting as well, except that when you bring the capital Q into cursive, it looks like a fancy number two, which is not very appealing. A cursive capital G on the other hand is so pretty. Don’t you think it looks sort of like someone swishing their cloak out with one hand? Don’t even get me started on how fascinating a lowercase g is.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said blankly.

Lindsay considered that as an open invitation to shut her mouth and promptly did so. She was naturally very chatty and did not enjoy silence in general, but annoying a stranger who had driven her to the hospital was not on her list of things to do that night. Obviously, it was already a difficult night for Gavin, who had not planned on spending the wee hours of his night babysitting his baby brother in the emergency room. It wasn’t easy for Lindsay either, but she was used to everything in her life flying out of her control.

The silence broke when Gavin seemed to realize that he had been unfriendly, though not outright rude. He turned to her and said, “Oliver hasn’t told me much about you other than your name. Where do you come from?”

Lindsay’s pulse quickened. She loved being asked questions. “Vancouver.”

“And how do you know Oliver?”

“We went to acting classes together.”

“And you’ve always been from Vancouver?”

“Yes, there and around there. Have you always lived here?”

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“Yes.”

She was disappointed the questions had stopped. The silence stretched out again, and then the doctor pulled the curtain back. They had already met him when he had examined Lindsay’s head injury.

“Well,” he said, with his calm doctor's voice. “His right wrist and arm are broken, but I’m more worried about the bump on the back of his head.”

The long and short of it was that the doctor was going to keep Oliver in the hospital overnight and run more tests in the morning. There was no reason for Gavin and Lindsay to hang around. The hospital would call them when they had more news.

“Where was Oliver taking you for the night?” Gavin asked as they walked back to the truck.

“He said something about an apartment over a clothing store that was empty.”

Gavin groaned quietly. “I wish he had told me that was what he wanted because if he had I would have reminded him that it is unfurnished.”

“I can crash on the floor,” Lindsay offered. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to let you do that.”

“I don’t need much. Anything is an upgrade from a chair in a hospital. Do you have a couch?”

Gavin huffed, making his disgust clear. He opened the door for her, helped her up into the high-seated truck, and closed the door. “I’ll take you to the hotel,” he said once he joined her on the other side.

“Aren’t you renovating it?”

“Yes, but some of the rooms are still being rented out. The single bedrooms need repair, but the suites are ready to be used.”

Lindsay huffed, making her disgust clear. “I can’t take up a whole suite.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m broke. Even if you give me the room for free, I can’t afford to tip housekeeping. Isn’t there somewhere I could crash quietly until we can talk to Oliver and see what plans he made?”

“You don’t have to worry about tipping housekeeping or the cost of the room. I’ll cover both. It’s just for one night and I’ll get Oliver to pay me for it later. Feel better?”

She chortled. “You think Oliver has any money? You think we came to renovate a hotel because we’re swimming in cash?”

“Okay. Okay. Okay. I have a guest room at my place. It is absolutely free for you to stay there. I just didn’t think you’d want to stay alone in the same house with a man you don’t know.”

“I’m not precious, okay?” she said, wrapping her finger around her red-brown ringlet. “And I have never once, in my entire life, been the only person sleeping in a room.”

“Well, you’re going to try it tonight.”

“It’ll be a fresh experience for sure. Make sure to bump around in the next room, and tell your girlfriend not to mind me when she gets up in the morning. She can make all the noise she wants. I can’t sleep when it’s too quiet.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said tightly.

“Hmm… I thought Oliver said you did.”

“Yes. I did.”

His voice was like a door slamming in her face, the single word demanding that she stop asking questions. Lindsay decided to let it go without another word. He’d already arranged for a place for her to sleep. He didn’t need to do any more for her that night.

Twenty-five minutes later, they pulled up in front of a log cabin. Lindsay had seen places like it in her travels, but she’d never stayed in one before. Gavin got her bag and led her around to the back of the house.

“This is the way in?” she questioned as she followed him.

“No, I’m leading you to the way out.” If it hadn’t been said with good humor behind it, she probably would have left him there, but it was said the way Oliver said things. He and his brother were the kind of men who said ‘no’ when they meant ‘yes’.

Inside the cabin was a staircase that led up, but Gavin took her forward past the stairs and through a sitting room into a private room. With the light switched on, it looked like a hunting lodge. The logs were bare and there were antlers on the wall. The bed was made up with a bedspread of red and black plaid.

“Is it really okay for me to sleep here?” Lindsay asked quietly. “It looks too nice.”

“It’s not too nice,” Gavin said from beneath his beard. “The suite at the hotel would have been nice.”

“Thanks. Where’s the bathroom?”

He showed her. He was about to leave when he suddenly turned back and asked, “Is there anything else you need?”

She thought about the gnawing ache in her stomach. She was hungry, but she’d been hungry before. She smiled and told him she had everything she needed.

After he closed the door between them, Lindsay peeled her clothes off one sweaty alarmed piece at a time. Each item of clothing felt tragic as she freed herself from it. She realized that even though she especially liked the clothes she had worn that day, she was never going to be able to wear them with the same carefree spirit she had when she put them on that morning. Forever onward, they were the clothes she had worn when Oliver crashed the car and ruined their romance. They would be clothes that had been taken off in a strange room in a strange man’s house.

She tried to look at the experience in a positive light. Tried to remember that it was the first time she had slept in a log cabin, which was something she’d always wanted to try. It was her first night sleeping in a room by herself…

That felt luxurious.

Starlight shone through the window.

She thought of all the times in the past when it had been possible for her to sleep in a room by herself. The opportunity had come up, but she had always opted to sleep alongside one of her sisters, or a friend, or an aunt, or her mother. Her life had always been abuzz with friendly faces, though never a man she could trust.

She thought about the gruff woodsman outside the door. They had driven deep into the forest to come to the log cabin. It was a little like a comedy about BigFoot. A beautiful young journalist goes with a mysterious stranger on a quest to find a sasquatch when, in a bizarre plot twist, the mysterious stranger turns out to be the beast she was hunting for.

Lindsay chuckled and pulled a long silky nightgown over her head. She lifted the blanket to get between the sheets and found they were made of flannel. That was a surprise for her. She’d never slept on flannel sheets before. She imagined herself a character on a piece of felt stuck to the flannelgraph with a kindergarten teacher telling the story of how you should never judge a person by how they looked.

Her head hit the pillow and again she was reminded of that feeling she always had when she was with Oliver like she had come home. But why was she feeling it in his brother’s guest room? It wasn’t an important bed or an important pillow. This was where he housed strangers when he couldn’t put them up in the hotel. It shouldn’t have felt like home, but it did.