Lyric tried not to laugh as Heath looked around a little desperately, as if he was searching for something he could name a comet after. Finally he said, “The Keurig Majora—”
“Keurig, like the coffeemaker?” Jeannie sat up and pointed to the Keurig in the corner. “I bet whoever named that comet really loved coffee.”
“You have no idea,” Heath agreed.
“Seriously?” Harmony asked, staring holes through Lyric. “The Keurig Majora?”
Lyric started to shrug, but Heath squeezed her hand firmly before replying, “Yes, the Keurig Majora.” He gave her sister the stink eye. “You can google it if you want to know more about it. Right, darlin’?”
It was so far from right that she didn’t even know where to start, but what the hell. She nodded and did her best to look like a woman whose love for a man had actually made her brain cells liquefy and leak out her ears. It was hard, especially since she had to mash her lips together to keep from blurting out that comets didn’t shift. They orbited the sun.
Why couldn’t he have chosen an actual comet, like Wild 2 or Wolf-Harrington, anyway? Then again, it wasn’t like anyone was going to fact-check his sure-to-be-ridiculous story. Nobody but Harmony, and it wasn’t like her sister hadn’t already copped to things. Besides, Lyric was counting herself lucky he hadn’t named the comet Labia Majora.
“Anyway, that night, she was out recording the shift of the comet, and she was staring up at Keurig Majora when she noticed that the lava flow of the Pu’u ’O’o vent had suddenly changed course. Now, let me tell you something about lava—it’s the slow, silent killer. It sneaks up on you and then BAM, you’re on fire. Forty-seven people are killed in lava-related accidents every single year.” He nodded like that absolutely absurd, little-known, and completely made-up fact was gospel truth.
She was pretty sure no one had died in a slow-moving-lava-related accident since Vesuvius had swallowed Pompeii. And even then, it would have been the cloud of ash that killed them. But who was she to contradict the Deuce?
“So Lyric trained her telescope on that lava, following the new path down the side of Kilauea. The lava was headed for a field, and she thought, hey, no big deal, right? Until she noticed a troop of Boy Scouts camping in that field.”
Oh God, not the Boy Scouts. She loved the Boy Scouts. And why would Boy Scouts be camping on the side of an active volcano anyway? That troop leader must be the most irresponsible person ever.
Oh crap, even she was starting to buy his bullshit.
“And that’s when my brave, brave Lyric sprang into action. She hightailed it down the side of the volcano and woke up all of the Boy Scouts. She made sure every single one of them got to safety—or so she thought, until she found little Mikial.” Heath paused for dramatic effect.
Lyric couldn’t help wondering what was coming next. Was this the place where Mikial gotten eaten by a pterodactyl? They did film Jurassic World on Kauai, so it was possible that one stray pterodactyl flew on over to Oahu and gobbled up little Mikial. Or was this where a huge tsunami came up and washed him away? It was a choose-your-own-disaster story, and she didn’t know which way it was going to go.
“Poor little Mikial was the youngest and the smallest of the Boy Scouts. He’d always dreamed of being a Boy Scout, and he’d finally found a troop that accepted him, wheelchair and all.”
There were several sharp inhalations of breath around the room.
Wheelchair? Oh no. Please let little Mikial have something curable. Lyric felt her eyes welling in horrified sympathy.
“No one minded that he’d been hit by a drunk driver last year and had already had sixteen surgeries to fix his bad leg. And everyone loved Vlad, his three-legged service dog.” Heath put his hand over his heart. “That dog was so special.”
Okay, wait a minute. Sixteen surgeries … in the last year? And a three-legged service dog named Vlad? Lyric looked around the room. Out of all of these highly trained medical personnel, no one was calling bullshit on this story? How was that even possible?
“Thank God I was out doing sprints with my trainer,” he patted his left knee, “when I heard the screams.”
“Oh no … poor Mikial.” A nurse in teal scrubs white-knuckled the armrest of her chair.
“Lyric and I found him at the same time. His wheelchair had gotten stuck in a patch of mud and turned over. He’d crawled five feet to a tree, Vlad under one arm. The lava was barreling down on him. The poor little guy didn’t stand a chance.”
Lyric pinched the bridge of her nose, not sure how much longer she was going to be able to keep quiet. New lava flowed at the rate of one-third a mile per hour. True, it went quite a bit faster in established lava tubes, but lava was hard-pressed to barrel down on anyone. Well … outside of a horror movie. Or a football player’s tall tale.
“I looked back at his wheelchair just as the lava melted it into a pile of molten metal.” A shudder went through Heath, as if the molten wheelchair was right there in front of him. “It was terrifying.”
“If we’d been any later…” He shook his head, then reached up as if to wipe a tear away. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
Jesus. Acting was his true calling, not football. His agent should really try to get him a role in the next big action movie. With the right stuntman, no one would even notice his knee.
Visibly moved, Heath took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “In the time that it took us to get to Mikial, the lava changed course again. We were cut off from the trail to safety. The lava was practically nipping at our toes. I thought … this is it … our earthly journey is over. I was certain that it was my destiny not to win another Super Bowl, but to die there, on Kilauea. So I pulled Mikial and Lyric into a hug, and we all prayed that God would take us quick.” He bowed his head.
Thank God he’d finally mentioned God. Lyric would have hated to have left him out, what with the kitchen sink and everything else he’d thrown into this story.
“Just when all hope was lost, the whooshing of helicopter blades had us all looking up. A helicopter tour buzzed around the volcano.” He made whooshing helicopter noises.
“The Lord was smiling on you … yessir, he surely was.” An elderly woman in a red tracksuit with a huge “volunteer” badge pinned to her left breast nodded solemnly.
There were murmurs of assent all through the room. Everyone, including Lyric’s mother, was buying this terrible story.
“At first the helicopter didn’t see us, so quick as lightning, Lyric whipped a branch off of the tree we were standing under, stuck it in the lava so that it caught on fire, and waved it back and forth like it was the checkered flag at NASCAR.” He patted Lyric on the knee. “My Lyric’s so cool under pressure. I don’t think we would have made it if she’d hadn’t been so clearheaded.”
She didn’t know how she felt about being “his Lyric.” Even if it was just for pretend.
“In a daring maneuver, the helicopter dipped low and picked us up. They didn’t have room for us inside, so we hung onto the rails. We made it to safety just as the tree was engulfed in flames.” Heath sat on the edge of his chair and gestured with his hands.
Between the burning tree and the lava, where exactly had the helicopter landed? Or had they just sent down a rope so that Heath, Mikial, and she could all climb to safety?
Lyric kept waiting for someone to ask, but they all seemed spellbound by the story. Even Harmony looked like she had mellowed. It was the most ridiculous thing Lyric had ever seen.
A nurse in pink scrubs swiped at the tears running down her face. “I’m so glad you and Lyric were there to save those boys.”
“I know.” Heath glanced heavenward, like he expected an angel to descend and thank him personally for saving Mikial. “God’s grace. In fact, if God hadn’t been with us and led us to Mikial—things could have been much worse.” His eyes swept around the room. “It turns out that Mikial is Vladimir Putin’s favorite nephew. Mikial’s father is the Russian ambassador to Haw
aii.”
Okay, there it was. Heath had totally jumped the shark, and someone was going to call him on it. Why would Russia even have an ambassador to Hawaii? Not to mention, how the hell had Heath managed to turn their meeting into an international incident?
“Oh Lordy, Lordy. If that little boy had died, it could have started World War Three,” said a man in a gray janitor’s uniform sitting in a chair beside his cleaning cart. “Deuce, the two of you saved the United States from what could have been the bloodiest war in history.”
“Well, sir, I am a patriot, and so is my Lyric. It was our duty as Americans.”
Cue “The Star-Spangled Banner” and red, white, and blue fireworks.
“I am grateful every day for the chance I had to serve my country. And for the divine intervention that led me to my Lyric again. I finally found a keeper, and I’m holding on to her with both hands.”
Without waiting to hear how his latest proclamation had gone over, Heath put his arm around Lyric and pulled her in for a kiss. His mouth moved against hers with an unhurried gentleness that had her toes curling and her breath catching in her throat. For long seconds, she forgot about the crowd around them—and it seemed like he did too. At least, until someone cleared his throat from the doorway.
Heath pulled away, and Lyric came back to earth just in time to see the surgeon walk up to her mother and say, “The surgery couldn’t have gone any better.”
# # #
“How are you feeling, Daddy?” Lyric asked, leaning down to kiss her father when it was her turn. He was out of recovery but still a little groggy from the anesthetic and all the pain meds he was on, but he was lucid enough to reach out for her. Thanks to Heath, Jeannie was bending the ICU rules one more time and allowing all four of them in to see him, but only for a few minutes.
“I’m okay, sweetheart. You can stop worrying about me now. This should be a joyful time.”
“Umm, joyful?” She’d never considered open-heart surgery particularly joyful, but maybe her daddy wanted to celebrate the fact that he had made it through the tough part. That he was still alive. And if that was the case, she was totally down with that.
“Of course, joyful.” He tried to move a little, then broke off with a groan.
“Now’s not the time, Bull,” her mother said, shooting Lyric a glare. “You need to rest.”
“I am resting, my love. But I want to make sure my Lyric’s mind is at ease. I’m going to be up and out of this hospital bed in plenty of time to walk you down the aisle, sugarplum.”
“The aisle?” she asked, completely confused now. “What aisle?”
She glanced around for an aisle. Should he be up and walking this soon after surgery?
Heath stepped on her foot, hard, then started talking loud enough to cover up her yelp of pain. “Don’t you worry, Bowman. You know Lyric. She’s so untraditional. She keeps talking about skydiving to the altar, but I promise I won’t let that happen.”
“Altar?” she demanded. “What altar?”
She was pretty sure the hospital had a chapel, so why did they need an altar in here?
“Now, now, darlin’, this really isn’t the time to fight about our wedding. But I do want everyone to know that there will be an altar. I’m willing to negotiate on a lot, but I’m going to insist on that.” Heath was dead serious.
“Wedding?” She was beginning to sound like a parrot, but she couldn’t see to help herself. It was like the stress of her father’s surgery had made everyone go stark raving mad. “What wedding?”
She looked around for the happy couple.
“Lyric Wright, I know you don’t think you’re the romantic sort,” Heath told her with a glare, “but I am, and there is no way we are running off to city hall to elope. I don’t care how much you beg. We are going to do this thing the right way. ” He elbowed her in the ribs. “And the Wright way, as I know your momma and daddy agree with me.”
Why did she need to go to city hall? Maybe she was still asleep, and this was some weird dream? She almost slapped herself across the cheek, but that was what she would have done in a weird dream.
“We certainly do,” her father said, but his voice was a little weaker than before. The pain medicine was dragging him under, and he was fading fast. “I am walking you down that aisle, sugarplum, so I don’t want to hear any more talk of elopement.”
Umm, she was pretty sure she wasn’t the one who had brought it up. In fact, she wasn’t the one who had brought any of this up—including parachuting to the altar. That was all Heath. But he had such a way of spouting bullshit and making it believable that even she was wondering why she wanted to elope instead of have a big ceremony.
“Wait, I’m missing something here.”
Heath put his arm around her and pulled her close. “I let them in on our little secret.” What ridiculous lies was Heath Montgomery spouting now?
She cut her eyes over to him. She had a very bad feeling. “What secret?”
To her knowledge, they didn’t have any secrets—well, that he knew about.
“The wedding, of course.” He kissed her cheek. “I told them all about how you proposed to me and I said yes.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but no words would come out. He’d told her parents they were engaged? Was this some sort of joke? She checked his pupils for signs of drug use or possibly head trauma, but all she saw were mirth-filled pools of muddy brown.
“Our wedding?” What the hell was going on?
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t keep it from them any longer. I know you had your heart set on something small, but I want a huge wedding with ten bridesmaids, a ring bearer, and the whole deal.” He squeezed her extra hard. “Look how happy your mother and father are. I told you they would be.”
She was going to kill him. Once she got out of this room and away from her just-out-of-surgery daddy, she was going to absolutely murder him. And it was going to be painful too. Rob the Knob had insisted on taking her to that exhibit on torture through the ages a few weeks ago. She’d hated every minute of it, but at least one good thing had come out of it. She’d learned a hundred and twenty-seven different ways to make a man wish he was never born, and she was going to use every single one of them on Heath.
Well, maybe not the penis shackle. It clamped the penis to the big toe of the right foot. It seemed unnecessarily dramatic, and what man was flexible enough to touch his right toe to his penis? Plus, where would she get one this time of day? It was doubtful Amazon Prime could have one to her by tomorrow. And shipping on eBay took forever.
Oh my God. What the hell was she going to do? It was one thing to say they were together and to make up a ridiculous story about how they got that way. For the record, she wasn’t actually okay with that either. But it was another thing altogether to tell a man who was only a few hours out of open-heart surgery that they were going to get married. What the hell was she supposed to tell her father when Heath decided the joke was over? And how many years was she going to have to listen to her mother go on about how stupid she was to let Heath get away?
“I’m so happy for you, sugarplum.” Her father beamed at her. He was in awful good spirits, considering.
She smiled so hard her cheeks hurt. “Me too.”
She snaked her hand around Heath’s waist and pinched the crap out of his backside. If only she’d had a nail, she could use him as a voodoo doll.
“I’m just so damn happy.” Heath swiped fake tears from his eyes.
Yep, she was going to kill him. As soon as she got her hands on some hydrofluoric acid and a penis shackle.
* * *
Chapter 14
* * *
“What did you do?” Lyric turned mean eyes on him. Her look was so sharp, he should be missing some vital organs. At least she’d waited until they were in Cherry Cherry to bite his head off.
“What did I do?” Heath played stupid as he stuck the key in Cherry Cherry’s ignition and prayed that she turned on. He was at least
halfway sure that Lyric wouldn’t murder him as long as the car was in motion in a populated area. Mostly because she had a strong sense of civic duty and wouldn’t want to risk mowing down any innocent bystanders. And also, witnesses.
“What. Did. You. Do?” Her voice was a lot more strangled sounding than usual.
When he didn’t immediately answer, she went to snatch the key from the ignition. He stopped her, but then gave up the game with a sigh. He’d known he was going to have to face the music. He’d just hoped for more time to come up with an explanation his logical, brainy scientist would actually buy.
One that was a lot more convincing than the truth, which was that he really didn’t know why he’d told her father they were getting married. Sure, he could make the argument that he’d wanted to put a very sick man’s mind at ease. And that might even be part of it. God knew, Bowman Wright had been more of a father to him than his own ever had, and he couldn’t stand seeing the man worry about Lyric when there was something he could do to put his mind at ease.
But using that excuse was also a cop-out, because there was another reason he’d done what he’d done. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it was there in the back of his mind, niggling at him. Trying to get him to pay attention to it.
But he knew better than to pay attention to little niggles in his mind—ninety-nine out of a hundred times, they led down a slippery slope from which there was no escape. He was already lying at the bottom of one such slope, his damn bum knee keeping him from climbing back up to the top. Which was why he’d be damned if he deliberately charged down another one. Especially without knowing what lay at the bottom waiting for him.
But that didn’t solve his immediate problem, namely that Lyric was still sitting next to him, furious and fierce and absolutely breathtaking as she demanded an answer he didn’t have. And while he might not be Lyric smart, he wasn’t dumb enough to think he’d be able to put her off much longer.
“It’s one thing to tell them we’re together, but another thing to actually tell them we’re engaged. What were you thinking?” Lyric threw her hands up.