Page 25 of Wanting You

“Okay, okay,” she said shakily. “I’m on my way!”

“Is it your mom?” he asked, and when she nodded but couldn’t seem to talk, he knew what he had to do. “Let’s get your stuff, and I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

“What? No,” she objected, but there was very little fight in her. “I’ll call Ash to come and get me. You don’t have to…”

“Chloe, don’t be ridiculous. I’m right here and I’m done for the day. We can be in my car in less than two minutes. Please. Let me do this for you.”

She nodded, but still didn’t seem thrilled about it. “Thanks. Just…let me go get my purse from my room.”

“I’ll meet you by the front door,” he told her and watched her leave. After locking up his room, Tanner quickly jogged to the front office and told Susan what was going on.

“Oh my goodness! I hope everything’s alright!” Then she paused. “And it’s very nice of you to offer to drive Chloe to the hospital. If you’d prefer, I can do it. I know the two of you don’t know each other very well…”

“No time like the present to rectify that,” he said, spotting Chloe standing outside the office. “I’ll keep you posted on what’s going on.”

“Thanks, Tanner!”

Stepping out of the office, he gently placed his hand at the small of Chloe’s back and guided her out the door. “You ready?”

“I think so.”

In the parking lot, he helped her into his Toyota SUV before jogging around to the driver’s side and climbing in. “Tell me the address and I’ll plug it into the navigation app.”

“That’s not necessary. Just turn left when you pull out of the parking lot, and then right at the light. The hospital is on that road. It’s a fairly straight run.”

With a curt nod, he pulled out of the parking lot and did as she said. He wasn’t sure if he should try to start a conversation or not and decided to follow her lead.

He just hoped it wasn’t going to be a silent drive.

Chapter Five

Trembling, Chloe sat in the passenger seat and tried to calm herself down. If she had called Ash, she’d probably be feeling stronger right now. But with Tanner sitting beside her, it just made her feel…awkward.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked after they’d made that right turn. “You don’t have to. I just thought that maybe…” Then he shrugged and added, “If you’d rather me just sit here quietly, I can do that too.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she seriously doubted that, but she probably should talk to him so she didn’t run into the hospital and completely freak out on everyone.

Letting out a long breath, Chloe forced herself to speak calmly. “My older sister called because our mom had a seizure. Actually, she had two of them.” Pausing for a moment, she let that sink in. “She’s never had one in her life and the doctors are saying it’s because of the accident.”

Beside her, Tanner nodded.

“Last night, they said she had a concussion, but no one mentioned that something like this could happen. So now they’re worried that there’s a more significant brain injury than they originally thought, and…it’s terrifying. I mean…I can’t believe this is happening.”

“That’s totally understandable,” he said softly before going quiet for a moment. “When I was in my early twenties and competing, I had a teammate who had an accident while skiing downhill.” He paused, and Chloe saw him swallow hard. “He’d done that run a hundred times and used to brag he could do it with his eyes closed. But that day…something went wrong. He lost his balance or just…I don’t know. All I know is I was waiting to follow him down on our practice run and he just fell and then kept falling. Our coaches and pretty much everyone held our breaths for what felt like forever because we didn’t know if he was alright. When he finally came to a stop…”

Unable to help herself, Chloe reached over and placed her hand on his thigh. He didn’t have to say what happened; she could already tell.

“At some point in the fall, he’d hit his head on a tree and…” The breath he let out was shaky before he glanced over at her. “The recovery was rough and there were so many times we all swore he wasn’t going to make it.” The smile was small, but it spoke volumes. “But I can tell you that miracles are real because Benny is still here. He doesn’t ski competitively anymore, but he is skiing. There were dozens of us on the slopes the day he first came back, and I don’t think I’ve ever cheered so hard in my life when he reached the bottom. It was…it was amazing.” His voice cracked and she felt tears stinging her eyes.

“Thank you for sharing that,” she said quietly. “It gives me hope that my mom can overcome this. I know it’s too soon to really know, but…this really helped.”

They stopped at a traffic light and Tanner turned his head and smiled at her and she felt that same fluttery feeling in her belly that she felt that morning at Books & Beans.

So not the time for this…

“We don’t have to just talk about trauma stuff,” Tanner said after a moment. “Tell me what the first day of school is going to be like. What’s your favorite part of it?”

That was the perfect distraction question.

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