Suddenly Last Summer (O'Neil Brothers 3)

To take her mind off Sean, she busied herself making a large chocolate cake, icing it and then carrying it over to Sam’s family’s lodge.

The door was answered by Sam’s father. Judging from his white face he was suffering the same what-if flashbacks that tormented her.

“Hi.” The buttons on his shirt were unevenly fastened, as if he’d dressed in a hurry and hadn’t bothered looking in the mirror. He opened the door wider. “I was going to find you later to thank you.”

“Is that Élise?” Sam’s voice came from the living room. “Can I see her?”

Receiving a nod from the boy’s father, Élise stepped over a pile of toys in the hallway and found Sam tucked up on the sofa with a blanket over him watching cartoons. He was pale, but smiling.

“How are you doing, mon petit chou?” She bent down to kiss him on the forehead. “I brought you a cake. It’s chocolate. Your favorite. I made it myself.”

“Oh, wow, that’s enormous. Mom! Come and see my cake. It’s the same one I had for my birthday.”

Élise was relieved to see him so energetic. “So how are you feeling?”

“A bit weird, but Sean says that’s normal. He’s not worried.” Sam stretched his hand out toward the cake just as his mother walked into the room with the baby in her arms.

“Sam, no! You can’t have cake before you eat your breakfast. And it’s Dr. O’Neil to you, not ‘Sean.’” Her face was pale, the dark circles under her eyes announcing that she’d had no sleep the night before.

Sam’s eyes went huge. “He told me to call him Sean.”

“I’m more comfortable with Dr. O’Neil.”

“I’ll let you be guardian of the cake.” Smiling, Élise handed the cake over to Sam’s mother and sat down next to the boy. “So you must be so tired after your night in the hospital. Did you come home this morning?”

“No. I didn’t stay in. Sean—I mean Dr. O’Neil—drove me home last night.”

Élise hid her surprise. “You mean he drove back to the hospital to pick you up?”

How had she not known that?

Why hadn’t he mentioned it?

Because she’d pushed him in the lake and thrown a candleholder at him.

“He never left,” Sam said proudly. “He stayed with me the whole time, just like he promised. When they told him to go home, he refused. And one of the doctors tried arguing but Sean, I mean Dr. O’Neil—” He grinned sheepishly at his mother. “But he just stood there with a funny smile on his face saying he’d leave when I left and not before. It was so cool. Like he was my personal doctor or something. And the man who fixed my leg said that Sean saved my life.”

His mother turned a shade paler and this time she didn’t correct him. “We owe him everything.”

“I’m going to be like him one day. I want to save lives.” Sam peered at the cake. “Is it chocolate frosting?”

“Oui. Yes.”

“You can speak in French,” Sam said generously. “I’m learning it at school. Je m’appelle Sam. And I know sang because you taught me that.”

Remembering, her stomach turned. She never wanted to see sang again. “Super, you have a very good accent! So you are saying Dr. O’Neil never left the hospital?”

“Not once. And then he gave me his private phone number and he said I could call it anytime I felt weird. Isn’t that right, Dad?”

“We owe him a great deal, that’s for sure.” Sam’s father looked exhausted. “Can I get you a drink, Élise? Something cold? Coffee?”

“No. Thank you. I have to get to work.” Still absorbing the fact that Sean hadn’t broken his promise at all and had, in fact, stayed with the child not only until he woke up from the anesthetic but until he’d been discharged and safely driven home to his cabin at Snow Crystal, Élise stood up. “I’m going to send over lunch so that you don’t have to leave your lodge this morning. Are you tired of pizza?”

“No!” Sam’s face lit up. “Cheese and tomato, but not with slices of tomato. That’s yucky. They do it like that in the village. I like the way you always do it with that thin sauce. It’s better than back home.”

“Pizza it is, and no slices of yucky tomato in sight. And chocolate cake for dessert.” She walked to the door, her head spinning. Sean hadn’t left. He hadn’t broken his promise. How could she have gotten it so wrong? “I’ll put together a few extra bits for the adults.”

“We appreciate that.” Sam’s father walked with her to the door and once they were outside he caught her arm. “I wanted to say thank you for yesterday. I was panicking so hard I don’t know what would have happened if you two hadn’t shown up when you did.”