LITMIR.BIZ

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No excuses.”

      “He’s a trauma surgeon. He can’t just walk away from his job at the drop of a hat. Not unless it was an emergency. There was nothing John could do to help.” Or so he’d bluntly told her when she’d mentioned him coming with her. Logically, even if his crassness had hurt, he’d been right. She hadn’t pushed for him to drop everything to come with her. But she’d wanted him to do just that, even though, goodness knew, the emergency room would be crazy enough with her unexpectedly gone, much less her and one of the trauma surgeons.

      But they would have gotten by… No, she wasn’t going to let those thoughts in. John would be here if there had been anything he could do. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to spend time in Bloomberg when he didn’t absolutely have to. He loved city life even more than she did.

      “Yeah,” Julie tsked. “Nothing he could do, except hold your hand, comfort you and keep you from being alone during your father’s funeral.”

      Well, there was that.

      Cara didn’t want to be having this conversation. Not right now. Not ever. Because as much as she told herself she understood, she also acknowledged that she would have gone with John had their roles been reversed. That he hadn’t even considered it hurt more than a smidge.

      Ready to end their conversation, Cara managed a tight smile toward her friend and was grateful to see another familiar face waiting to give her sympathy. “Um, okay, I’ll keep that in mind, Julie. Thanks for your condolences. Good to see you.”

      “You do that, and, yes, Cara, it’s so good to see you home, but I hate that it’s under these circumstances.” Her friend squeezed her tightly, filling Cara’s nostrils yet again with honeysuckle and another wave of memories. “Your dad will be missed by everyone in Bloomberg. For that matter, so are you.”

      She chose to ignore Julie’s mention of her being missed. Yes, her father would be missed by Bloomberg, but even more so by his daughter. She may not live in Bloomberg, but she did talk to her father several times a week. Usually their conversations had consisted of what new restaurant or show she had gone to that week or she’d recount some odd case that had come into the emergency room. On her father’s end, he’d talked about Bloomberg and Sloan.

      She’d gotten to where she’d dreaded their next Sloan the Wonder Boy session. Now, she’d listen to her father read the phone book just to hear his voice.

      A fresh wave of moisture stung Cara’s eyes and she squeezed them shut. She would make it through the next couple of days and then truly leave Bloomberg, better known to her as Gloomberg, the name she’d given the town during high school.

      Eventually, the funeral-home crowd began to thin.

      Thank God. Sloan felt exhausted. As if being at Preston’s visitation wasn’t trying enough, Mrs. Goines’s fall and Cara’s words had zapped what little adrenaline he’d still been operating on.

      As the last visitor, who’d just finished talking with Cara, gave their condolences to Sloan, the funeral director came to him to clarify the next day’s arrangements.

      “I’ll check with Cara to see what she prefers,” he told Irving Greenwood, the pudgy, balding third-generation funeral-home director. The Greenwood’s Funeral Parlor had been serving Bloomberg for more than a hundred years. Lots of Bloomberg’s businesses could boast such a rich heritage. That deep sense of family and belonging was what had drawn Sloan to Bloomberg.

      That and Dr. Preston Conner.

      Bracing himself for whatever Cara threw at him, Sloan’s heart picked up pace. Every breath he took sounded loud, forced as he crossed the room to where she sat, hands in her lap, eyes cast downward. She looked lost, alone, elegantly fragile.

      Her emotions were everywhere. Understandably so. After all, she’d lost her father unexpectedly. No wonder she was upset. Although he seemed to be the only target of her negative emotions.

      “Hey.” Sloan gently called her attention to where he stood in front of her. He wasn’t sure if she’d been lost in her own thoughts or if she’d purposely been ignoring him. “Mr. Greenwood asked how you wanted the flowers and such handled. I told him I would discuss the matter with you and let him know.”

      Complexion pale, she blinked up at him as if she’d forgotten he existed, as if their encounter with Mrs. Goines had never happened. “I don’t understand. What about the flowers?”

      He motioned to the room that could currently have doubled as a florist shop. “They’re all yours. Do you want everything not left at the graveside delivered to Preston’s house tomorrow afternoon?”

      She glanced around at the room that overflowed with flowers, ceramic statues, blankets, bibles and other sympathy mementos. Her expression became confused. “Please, no. What would I do with them?”

      Good question. What did a person do with flower arrangements and such following a funeral? Sloan had no idea. He’d never known his parents, had grown up in foster-homes and had certainly never experienced a funeral from this perspective. “I could help you go through everything. There might be a few items you want to keep. We could take the live flowers to the nursing home or hospital, distribute them amongst the patients and staff there, and hopefully add a smile to their day.” He smiled, hoping Cara would do the same, even if only a small curving of her lips.

      She didn’t.

      Obviously considering what he’d suggested, she toyed with her bottom lip. “There’s nothing I want to keep. It could just all be delivered there to begin with and we wouldn’t have to go through anything. Give them to Dad’s nursing-home patients, the nurses or whomever you think best. All I ask is that a running list of items and who gave them be kept so I can send appropriate thank-you notes.”

      Her expression pinched and she rubbed her temple. “Or does the funeral home do that? I’ve no idea.” Fatigue etched on her lovely face, she ran her gaze over the abundance of tokens sent in Preston’s memory. “I’d asked that everyone make a donation to the local heart association rather than send flowers. That would have been much easier to deal with, really.”

      Sloan would have liked to have sat down next to her in the pew. He felt ridiculous towering above her. Despite her momentary politeness, she wouldn’t welcome him sitting next to her. He didn’t need a genius IQ to figure that one out. Still, he attempted an empathetic smile.

      “I’m sure lots of donations have been made, too. The town’s people want to show their love and appreciation for all that your father has done for them over the years. No one has given so much of himself for the benefit of others as your father did for Bloomberg.”

      She nodded absently, glanced around the room, now empty except for them and the coffin. Her face paled to a pasty white and her knuckles threatened to burst through the thin layer of skin covering them. A sob almost broke free from her pale lips. She managed to stop it, but not before Sloan realized what she’d done. His heart squeezed in a painful vise-like grip.

      “Are you okay?” That was a stupid question. Of course she wasn’t okay. She’d bury her father in less than twenty-four hours.

      But rather than blast him for his ridiculous question, as he’d expected and braced himself for, she just shook her head. “No. I need to get out of here. Please. Just get me out of here.”

      He wasn’t sure what she intended him to do, and there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do to ease the strain on her face. When she didn’t move, he reached for her hand. “Let me help you.”

      Still looking drained and a bit panicky, she put her hand in his.

      Several things registered all at once. Her hand sent chills through his entire body, probably from their sheer frigidness, although he couldn’t be sure because there was something electric in the feel of her skin against his, too. Second, she shook. Again, this could be from how cold her hands were but he suspected it had more to do with the situation. Another was how fragile she felt in his grasp. Preston’s daughter was a strong, independent

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