Suddenly Starstruck (Shower & Shelter Artist Collective Book 4) Read online

  The lady beamed from ear to ear nervously as she typed Izzy's name into the system. She pointed at the screen with a somewhat confused expression. "It looks like she was in the ER, but they moved her to…" She trailed off, and picked up her headset, calling for assistance.

  A young man in scrubs came to the desk, and the lady explained the gravity of the paparazzi situation and asked if he could take us back to the ER to see what they had done with Isabel.

  The guy was nice enough, but he asked Ethan some awkward questions about being on TV as we walked, and Ethan did his best to answer them graciously. It took nearly ten minutes to finally find my sister and Isabel, and when we did, we found them sitting in a recliner—Tabitha in the chair with Isabel on her lap. It was one in a whole line of recliners that had been set up in a hallway behind the emergency room. There were light blue hospital curtains between each chair so that each one had their privacy, and we had to walk by ten or twelve of them, glancing inside each one, before we found the little cubical that contained my sister and niece.

  "Hey!" Tabitha said.

  Isabel had her head on her mother's chest. She tried to return my smile when I gave her one, but I could tell she had been crying and was scared. "I'm sorry you got hurt, peanut," I said, stooping down to touch her leg.

  "We didn't see the doctow yet," Isabel said sleepily.

  I glanced at the guy in scrubs who smiled at Ethan. "This is a holding area for when we're over crowded in the ER. We normally don't let more than one guest back here. But in this case…" He winked at Ethan, obviously considering him special enough to break the rules.

  "This isn't going to work," Ethan said in a matter of fact tone, gesturing to the recliner.

  "I'm sorry?" the guy asked as if he hadn't understood Ethan.

  "Can you take me to your supervisor?" Ethan asked.

  The guy nodded and bowed. "Sure."

  Ethan made eye contact with me. "Stay with them; I'll be right back."

  Chapter 20

  I'd like to believe that everybody receives equal treatment in the world, but that's simply untrue. We would have been sitting in that overcrowded emergency room for who knows how long if Ethan hadn't stepped in and taken care of it. As it stood, I stayed with Tabitha and Isabel for about five minutes, maybe less, before Ethan came back with two excited-looking nurses trailing behind him.

  "Let's get you to a room Ms. Isabel," one of them said quietly.

  Tabitha put Isabel to her feet, and we all followed the nurses. "You should have told us you were Ethan Prescott's niece," the younger nurse said as we walked down the hallway toward the elevator. She had turned and was obviously talking to Isabel who looked up at Tabitha with confusion.

  "Am I Efan's knees?" Isabel asked, looking at her mom with big brown eyes.

  "Of course you are, silly," Tabitha said, stroking her daughter's hair. She was so calm and serious that Isabel easily went along with it, nodding and smiling.

  "We all love your show," the nurse said with a glance over her shoulder at Ethan.

  "Thank you for watching," he said. "I appreciate it."

  "I think they're calling the orthopedic surgeon for you guys," the shorter, older nurse said. "I'm sure he'll want to get X-rays, but we'll get you in a room and wait to hear from him."

  We rode the elevator up to the third floor where they showed us to a private room. The nurses thanked Ethan for the autographs, which I assumed he'd given when he had gone to get them. One of them asked if he wouldn't mind signing the clipboard, and he signed it with both his name and Dr. Morgan Craig. They got a big kick out of that, and left the room laughing.

  Tabitha glanced at me with wide eyes when they walked out. Isabel got settled in the middle of the single bed, and Ethan went to a chair on the other side of it and began changing the channels in search of some cartoons.

  I returned Tabitha's wide-eyed expression, saying a whole bunch of stuff to each other without uttering a word, the way sisters do. She moved to stand on the near side of Isabel's bed, and I walked around the foot of it to join Ethan on the other side.

  "You need to thank Ethan for helping us get this nice room," Tabitha said.

  "Thank you," Isabel said, lying back on the bed with her hurt arm cradled against her belly. "Mom said we might have to sleep in that chaiw all night," she said.

  "Yep," Tabitha said. "But now we're probably gonna get in and out of here and be sleeping in our own bed by midnight."

  "Awe you my knees?" Isabel asked, looking straight at Ethan.

  He hadn't heard her. He had been preoccupied settling on a cartoon, but he glanced at her when he finished. "What'd you say, sweet girl?"

  "Awe you?" she asked.

  "No," Tabitha said.

  "Am I what?" Ethan asked.

  "You knees."

  "My knees?" he asked, glancing at me for confirmation.

  I couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across my face. He was such a sweetheart.

  "He's not," I said, answering her question.

  "What is she asking?" Ethan asked, still not getting it.

  "She's asking about telling the nurses she was your niece," Tabitha said, digging in her purse to make the moment less awkward. "Iz, did you see how they were so nice to us and they gave us this big ole room?" Tabitha asked.

  Isabel nodded. "Well, they did all that because they like Ethan. He was helping us out by telling them a tiny little story that he was related to you."

  "My niece," Ethan said. "And it wasn't a story, really, because that's what you'd be if me and your aunt get married."

  I slapped my hands to my face in a silly way like I was embarrassed to be hearing any of that, and my antics served their purpose in making Isabel laugh. It was great to hear her giggle, and I stepped closer to Ethan, which put me closer to the side of her bed.

  My movement caused Ethan to reach out and grab me, and just like that, I was toppling into his lap. I settled on his knee, staring at him for a long second. It was all I could do to keep myself from reaching out to run my thumb over that little patch of hair that grew under his mouth. He smiled at me for staring at his mouth, and I smiled back.

  "Are you two—" Tabitha didn't get to finish the end of her sentence, but I knew by the way she said those first three words that she was trying to ask what was going on between us. She couldn’t, however, finish her question because there was a knock on the door, followed by the entrance of a doctor. He introduced himself to Isabel as the best bone doctor in the whole world and had her smiling and looking forward to the X-rays.

  Within a matter of minutes, Tabitha and Isabel left with a different nurse, and I stayed in the room with Ethan. I adjusted on his knee so that I was facing him more fully, and he turned his cheek to the side and pointed to it, indicating that I could put a kiss there if the idea suited me.

  I smiled and leaned in slowly to kiss his cheek. "Thank you for doing this," I whispered before I let my mouth hit his skin. (Kiss.) "It's fun to see her get the royal treatment." (Another kiss.) "So thank you."

  Ethan tugged me, making me fall further onto his lap. He scooted to the side, helping me settle in next to him, kind of half on his leg and half on the chair. There was no greater feeling in the world than snuggling up with Ethan.

  "I'm so thankful you came with me," I said. "They're being so nice to her because you're here."

  "I don't feel right about it," he said.

  My ear was close to him, and I loved the deep rumble of his voice.

  "Why not?" I asked picking my head up to look at him when his words registered. "Why don't you feel right about it?"

  He smiled at my genuine concern.

  "I hate lying," he said.

  "You lie for a living," I said, squinting.

  Ethan squinted back at me. "Not the same thing," he said.

  "You did it for a good cause," I said. "They would have been put through the ringer in here tonight."

  "I still don't feel right about it," he said.

  "
Well, we're not telling them," I said.

  "Then, we'll have to get married."

  I wrinkled my nose and stuck my tongue out at him for a split second, causing him to grin and poke at my ribs. I squirmed, and he adjusted, pulling my legs onto his again.

  "You're being serious," I said. I phrased it as if it was a statement, but we both knew I was asking a question.

  "I'm being a hundred percent serious, Macy." He pulled back a few inches so he could stare down at me. "I think lots of people have gotten married with a lot less in common and have good lives together. It's not something I take lightly, and it's not something I feel forced to do. But I seriously would do it if you want to." He gazed at me with his head resting against the back of the chair. The corner of his mouth turned upward in a slow, almost sleepy grin. "All I'm sayin' is that if we're telling the nurses she's my niece, we should at least have the decency to think about getting marr—"

  "Yes," I said. "Why not. After all, people who have known each other way less than us go on to have happy marriages all the time."

  "I already said that," he said.

  "I know, and you were right."

  "So, yes?" he asked.

  "Yes to what?" I asked. "Saying we should do it sometime?"

  "Saying we will do it some time," he said. He widened his eyes in a silly way. "And maybe even saying the exact time."

  I gasped. "You mean pick an actual date?" I asked, innocently.

  He nodded. "We did say she's my niece. I think it's only proper."

  I brought my mouth where it was only a few inches from him. "We wouldn't want to be improper," I said. I absentmindedly traced the stitching on the front of his shirt with my fingernail. I let my eyes follow the seam of his shirt upward, scanning his neck and jaw before looking at his mouth, nose, and eyes.

  I was staring straight into the dark depths of them when I said, "Do I get you?"

  Ethan gave me a nod and almost imperceptible smile, and I kissed his mouth ever so gently just because I couldn't resist.

  "Do I get you?" he asked.

  I nodded and then cuddled up to him again, stretching my arms around him. We were quiet and still for a full minute.

  "Forever?" I asked.

  "Uh-huh."

  "All because you told the nurses that?" I asked after another extended pause.

  "Nu-uh," he said. "I could have hooked up this room without telling them she was my niece. I just did that so you'd have to agree to marry me."

  "Well, I get the last laugh, because I tricked you into the whole thing," I said. "Izzy's arm's really not hurt at. It was all a big set up to get this whole scenario to happen."

  I felt Ethan shake beneath me as he laughed. "Is it working out like you hoped?" he asked.

  "It really is. You were right on cue with the whole saving the day and calling Iz your niece thing."

  "I'm always on cue," he said.

  "We're baaack," my sister announced softly as she pushed the door open. I sat up on Ethan's lap, but didn't get up.

  "Hey there," I said as Isabel got onto the bed. "That was fast. What'd they say?"

  "The doctor still has to look at it," Tabitha said crawling into bed bedside Isabel. "They said he'll let us know something as soon as he looks at them." Tabitha picked her head up and looked at Ethan and me. "You don't have to stay," she said.

  I glanced at Ethan.

  "We'll stay till we hear about the X-rays," he said.

  "What did you do when we went in thewe?" Isabel asked, staring at me from her place on the bed.

  "We talked," I said. "And I had to give Ethan a kiss on the cheek for getting us this fancy room."

  Isabel smiled sleepily. Her cheeks and eyes were still tearstained and swollen from all the crying earlier, and I reached out and put my hand on her head, causing her to take a really long blink. When she slowly opened her eyes she was looking right at Ethan. I nudged him to make sure he saw her, and he wiggled his fingers at her in a little wave.

  She wiggled hers back at him. "Are you my knees?" she asked.

  "Yes," he said. "And you're my knees, too."

  Epilogue

  Six weeks later

  "This is my niece, Isabel," I said to Drake as we came inside his studio.

  "Hey there, Isabel," he said from across the room. He came closer and gave me a sideways hug before he stooped to his knee to say hello to Izzy.

  "Hi," she said shyly. She reached out to shake his hand, but her arm was still in a cast.

  "It's a pleasure meeting you, my lady," he said with a measure of formality that made her smile and glance at me. "What happened to your arm?" he asked.

  "I fell off my couch," she said.

  "She might get it off next week," I added.

  "Are you excited about your aunt and Ethan getting married?" Drake asked. The whole purpose of our visit to his studio was to take pictures for the invitation, so it made sense that my upcoming wedding was on his mind. "Are you getting pumped?" Drake asked, looking at me.

  I smiled and nodded. "I can't wait."

  Isabel and I followed Drake across the room where he was already set up with an all white backdrop. "Did you like the picture they chose for the cover of New York Quaterly?" Drake asked as we walked.

  "I loved it," I said. "I'm glad they chose one of him in the jacket. Those were so good, and it fit the painting."

  "I know, I loved how it came out," he said. "Karen said they'll mail me a few copies of the issue so I can forward you one."

  I smiled and nodded, thinking of my mother who would probably buy twenty copies of it just because she was so proud.

  Drake knew that we were taking pictures of the dolls my sister made. We discussed plans for this very photo shoot that night in the hospital when we first told Tabitha and Isabel we were getting married. We talked about the little Macy doll becoming a bride, and Tabitha said she would make a size-proportional Ethan doll and a tux and wedding gown for them to wear. Ethan gave up the Macy doll so that Tabitha could work with it, which she'd been doing for the last six weeks.

  They were in a bag, and I took them out and handed them one-by-one to Drake—first the Macy doll. An instant smile spread across his face as he took in the felt and fabric caricature of me with a head full of curly sheep's wool for hair and a white wedding dress and veil. Tabitha even made little white shoes.

  Drake turned it over in his hand and then looked at me with a smile. "This is a dead ringer," he said.

  I smiled and nodded as I handed him the Ethan doll. It was equally as funny and cute as the Macy doll with a little felt suit, complete with buttons and a bowtie. It represented Ethan perfectly, and Drake couldn’t help but let out a chuckle as he placed the little dolls next to each other.

  "These are great," he said. "I can't believe how much they look like you. Who did this?" he asked.

  "My mom," Isabel said, raising her good arm. "She has a sewing machine in ouw woom."

  Drake stared straight at Isabel. "Well your mother has a gift," he said. "Do you think she could make a Drake doll? One with a camera, maybe?"

  Isabel nodded excitedly, and I reached down to ruffle her hair. "Tab just agreed to do these because we thought of it one night, and I pretty much begged her. She doesn't make them regularly or anything. She doesn't really have time with work."

  "Well, she could sell these easily," he said, still checking them out. "I mean if nothing else but for brides and grooms," he said. "I have wedding clients who would love to have these made. They'd flip out over them." Drake smiled at me like he thought we had a great plan in the mix, but I just shook my head at him regretfully.

  "They take forever," I said. "And she likes to buy good wool. It gets expensive. By the time she gets supplies and factors the time it takes to make them, she'd have to sell them for like five or six hundred dollars a piece."

  "I'd pay five hundred easily for one of these of me with a little felt camera. Could she make a little felt camera? Could she work from a picture, or would I nee
d to meet her?"

  I laughed at Drake. "She's got a pretty good job, and she works all the time," I said. I gestured to the dolls. "Plus, she just finished these. I'll ask her if she's interested in making another one sometime, though," I added when I saw Drake's face drop.

  He smiled at me before turning to Isabel. "Tell your momma you looove the guy with the camera, and maybe she'll agree to make me one of those."

  "Oh, she will. She'll make you one!" Isabel promised proudly and without hesitation.

  "She might," I corrected.

  Isabel stared at me with a sincere expression. "I'll tell hew to make one fow him cause he willy wants one, and my mom will want to make him one if he willy wants one, she'll willy want to make him one, okay?"

  "Okay," Drake said. "I agree with this young lady." He reached out to hug her and pat her back like they were on some sort of team together now, and I smiled and rolled my eyes at both of them.

  It was at that moment that I heard a whistle as the door opened. I knew it was Ethan because we were expecting him, and he often used that same whistle on me.

  "Ethan's here," I said to Isabel who ran over to him. He hugged her and picked her up and they said something to each other in whispered tones.

  "Do I finally get to see the couple?" Ethan asked as he headed toward us, using his arm as a seat as he carried Isabel next to his chest.

  "Is this your first time to see the dolls?" Drake asked, holding them right next to each other but facing out so that Ethan could get a look.

  Ethan instantly started laughing as he leaned forward to take them in. I could smell him as he came near, and I grinned at myself for still getting butterflies around him. He studied the dolls for a few seconds before turning to me to offer me a kiss. I kissed him, feeling happy right down to my bones.

  "Hey," I said.

  "Hey. These are great. I missed having Macy at work, but it was worth it to get Ethan."

  I smiled and kissed him, agreeing that it was always good to get an Ethan.

  We took the picture after that. Ethan and I stood in the background of the photo holding hands just like the dolls were doing, only we were in the distance enough to be blurred out. Drake framed it perfectly and designed a simple but beautiful wedding invitation out of it.