Suddenly Last Summer (O'Neil Brothers 3)

Sean breathed deeply. “Gramps—”

“And you were home. Your family likes having you home from time to time. It doesn’t happen enough. It’s done you good to slow down a bit and spend time at Snow Crystal. I’ve been watching you. You’ve been enjoying the lake and the forest.”

Sean gave a disbelieving laugh. “You didn’t really have a heart attack, did you? The whole thing was an excuse so you could sit on the deck with your feet up sipping Élise’s lemonade while I work my butt off.”

His grandfather sent him a look. “You can finish up here at the proper pace, put those tools back where Zach can find them and see what you can do to help Élise before she runs herself into the ground being in two places at once. That girl does the work of ten.”

That was something he wasn’t going to argue about. And her dedication still puzzled him. “She’s obsessed with making sure the Boathouse opens on time. She’s worried about letting Jackson down so she wants everything perfect. She puts a lot of pressure on herself. He’s damn lucky to have her. She could get a job in any restaurant she wanted. Or open her own place.” Seeing Sam paddle his way into the weeds at the edge of the lake, Sean eased himself upright, ready to intervene, and noticed his grandfather was watching, too.

“The boy is fine. Brenna is there. She’s got him.” He glanced over his shoulder to the Boathouse. “Élise wouldn’t leave. She loves it here. This is her home. The Boathouse was her idea, did you know that?”

“Yes.” He remembered the conversation they’d had on the first night, when they’d walked together and she’d told him about growing up. She’d talked about her mother. “But it’s still a job. Staff move on. It’s a fact of life. Why would someone with her talent stay in one place? Experience is valuable. Every hospital I’ve worked in has taught me something different.”

His grandfather kept his eyes on Sam. “I guess sometimes a person needs more out of life than just a job.”

“That’s rich, Gramps, coming from you.”

“This place is more than my job. It’s my home. Maybe Élise feels the same way.”

“It’s not the same. You were born here.”

“You’re a man who likes fixing things, so tell me this—” Thoughtful, his grandfather ran his hand over the smooth surface of the railing Sean had finished the day before. “When someone comes into the hospital after an accident, can you

tell just by looking that some part of them is badly broken?”

Sean wondered why he was changing the subject. “Sometimes, not always.” It seemed a strange question to him, especially from his grandfather who was skilled at first aid. “You can’t assess the extent of internal injuries by just looking, you know that.”

“So it’s possible for someone to look perfect on the outside, but have a lot of damage under the surface? Damage you can’t see just at a glance?”

“It wouldn’t be a glance. We’d do a thorough examination and there might be signs. Sometimes the nature of the accident would make us suspect there might be internal damage. We’d do a bunch of tests, use X-rays or other types of imaging to—” He broke off and stared at his grandfather. Then he glanced over his shoulder and looked at Élise who was still finishing off work inside the Boathouse.

It’s possible for someone to look perfect on the outside but have a lot of damage under the surface.

His grandfather eased away from the railing and reached for the walking stick Alice had insisted he keep with him. “Good thing you moved around all those hospitals and picked up all those skills. It would be easy to miss something like that unless you were very skilled. That fancy hospital in Boston is lucky to have you. Now I need to get back. If I don’t lie down, your grandmother worries about me. I do it to please her.”

“No, wait a minute—” Sean was still looking at Élise. “Hell, Gramps—what are you saying?”

“You’re the one with the medical degree and after the hours you’ve spent in that hospital since you left home, you should be good at what you do.” He rapped his stick on the deck. “Figure it out.”

* * *

ÉLISE HAD HER head full of a million different things and the moment she looked up and saw Sean leaning against the door frame, all of them vanished.

She’d spent the past few days trying to pretend he wasn’t working half-naked on her deck. It had taken almost superhuman effort.

“Can I do something for you?” Oh, God, she shouldn’t have said that. Of course, there was something she could do for him. And there was plenty he could do for her. If she’d let him. Which she wasn’t going to.

“I’m finished.” He put Zach’s toolbox down at her feet, giving her a perfect view of wide shoulders.

“I thought you were going to try and make it last another day.”

“Not much point. Turns out my grandfather was on to me right from the start. We talked.”

“You mean you fixed things?”

“No.” He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “We didn’t talk about that. But other things.”

She felt a pang of disappointment. “So you still haven’t tackled it?”