Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [112]
Miranda squeezed his arm. “I’ll get the towels,” she said gently. She kissed Adam’s cheek on her way back to her feet, and he shot her a grateful look, the love she’d seen earlier shining bright and honest in his wet eyes. Miranda paused for a second to take it all in. She hadn’t imagined it; Adam loved her.
“What happened?” she heard Frankie ask groggily. And a half second later, in a much sharper voice: “Where’s Jess, is he all right?”
Self-recrimination was bitter on the back of Miranda’s tongue, but she swallowed it down.
She deserved every bit of it.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Whoops!” Frankie listed sideways as they led him out of the emergency room, where he’d been bandaged and deemed okay enough to go home. Grant ducked under his arm and supported him from the other side.
“Thanks, mate. Still getting my sea legs under me. That paramedic bint had great drugs. Help me reel over to Adam?”
Everyone in their ragtag little group faded but Frankie and Grant. A lump the size of a ham hock expanded in Adam’s throat.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” Adam choked out.
“What on earth for?” Grant asked, eyebrows high and perplexed. Grant had organized the efficient evacuation of more than a hundred guests, servers, and other front-of-house staff. Then he’d come back inside with the police, unwilling to leave his friends in danger any longer than he had to.
Adam was half surprised the man hadn’t told the guests to get out on their own and come back to the kitchen when Jess did. But of course Grant was too responsible for that. And, unlike Jess, Grant wasn’t in love.
Frankie was giving Adam that narrow look he reserved for idiots and madmen. The knowledge that only sheer, dumb luck was responsible for keeping that sneer in place made Adam shudder.
“Adam’s torturing himself over what happened because he thinks he’s God,” Frankie said. “Right? Shoulda seen it coming, shoulda stopped it before it started. That kind of bollocks.”
“It’s my place, my restaurant,” Adam said miserably. “I knew Rob was a fuckup from the minute I met him. I should’ve bounced him out of here then and there. It never should’ve come to this.”
“See? Woulda, shoulda, coulda,” Frankie said, all singsong and annoying. When it didn’t even make Adam want to slug him, he knew things were fucked up.
“Frankie’s right. Ineloquent and immature, as always,” Grant specified, returning to his usual full-on snark with visible relief. Even a couple hours of being nice to Frankie while he was injured must’ve been a strain. “But for once, absolutely right. You’ve got to let the crazy man with the gun take responsibility for this one, Adam.”
The lump in Adam’s throat started to dissolve. He had the best friends in the whole fucking world. If his arms weren’t made of overcooked pasta, he’d totally subject them both to bear hugs.
Frankie shrugged his unbloodied shoulder, barely hiding a wince. “And anyhow, it all turned out fine. No one the worse for wear.”
Jess shot Frankie an incredulous look. Adam was with him on that one; the ER doctor had removed Frankie’s shirt to get at his left shoulder, and that entire side of his pale, Englishman’s body was smeared with a rusty stain of drying blood.
“I’m staying with Frankie tonight,” Jess announced, glancing at his sister. “I told the nurse I’d keep an eye on him.”
Adam watched Miranda, but he couldn’t read her expression.
“I understand,” was all she said.
Jess gave her an uncertain look. “So it’s okay?”
“Christ, Bit, how much of a blessing d’you want?” Whatever the ER doc had given Frankie was making his eyes slide shut.
Jess hesitated for a moment, and Miranda touched his arm lightly.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she told him, a world of feeling in her voice. “And . . . Frankie’s going to be fine. I know you’ll take good care of him.”
“I will,” Jess said, all serious eyes and firm mouth. “And he’ll take care of me, too.”
Miranda pressed her lips together and nodded. Jess helped Frankie over