"No, No!" she protested. "Not that! This isn't about some stupid accident. It's about my bakerymy whole" she paused, then said sadly, "the only thing I had left to look forward to."

"I don't understand," Brennan said quietly--still confused.

I, however, didn't have the pleasure of ignorance. I realized exactly what I'd done. I put my hand on top of hers, trying to be comforting, but she pulled hers away.

"s.h.i.+t, Charley!" I said, "I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking about that. I was just...I was so worried."

"Dammit!" Charley said, tossing her head back against her pillows. She winced from the pain, and her eyes started to fill again. I didn't know if it was from pain or frustration. I a.s.sumed it was both.

"Seriously?" She asked the sky, "My fiance cheats on me , I get hit by a car, and I'm still being punished? Was I a rat in a past life?"

"I'm sorry," Brennan cut in. "Maybe this is none of my business, but why does Matt's cheating on you mean--"

Just then, Brandy shot back in the room, giving each of us a skeptical look. "Got awfully quiet in here," she said as she approached Charley's bed. "Sounds like ya'll are up to no good."

We all sat silently. How much had she heard?

She quietly gave Charley her medicine and told her to use her remote if she needed anything. She walked out, shaking her head and mumbling some more.

"Do you think she--" Brennan started "It doesn't matter," Charley said cooly. "She knows."

"What?" I choked out. "What makes you say that?"

"I told her." Charley said with a nonchalance that I'd never heard from her before.

'Why did you do that?" I asked her pointedly. "In fact," I added, "When did you do that?"

"Right after I got here I guess. While you were sleeping. There was a call from a man claiming to be my fiance, so naturally, Brandy had questions. She wouldn't release any information to him, but she did come in to ask me what was up."

"Oh," I said, hearing the surprise in my own voice. It hadn't occurred to me that Matt would call the hospital and not me.

"Is she going to" I began, still wondering why Charley hadn't said anything before.

"No," she said, answering my unfinished question. "I explained everything. She thinks Brennan's my angel," she said, smiling. "Her exact words were, 'Baby girl, G.o.d sent you an angel with that one right there.'"

Charley gave Brennan a sweet smile. I knew Charley, and I knew that smile was her way of saying everything she wanted to say to the kind stranger who had tried to help her.

Brennan blushed. As tall and strong as he was, when he was embarra.s.sed he had an "aww shucks" look about him. He was smiling back at her. Charley didn't notice, and maybe he didn't either, but I saw something in that look. It wasn't love-but it was a look that love could be built from. He cared about her, and he barely knew her.

Seeing Brennan, a total stranger, look at Charley that way made me angry. I wasn't angry at him-I was angry at Matt. Matt was the one who was supposed to be looking at Charley that way. Matt was the one who was supposed to love her. Instead, he wasn't even here. Instead, he had a stand in and didn't even know it.

The two of them must have noticed me staring at them because when I finally tuned back into the conversation, they were both looking at me.

"You okay?" Brennan asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I tried to regain a normal expression, having no idea what my face had looked like a moment before. Then, I realized that Charley had been distracted from the bakery issue. I waited, hoping it would last.

"Okay," Brennan said after a few minutes, "But, I still don't understand your problem, Charley."

So much for that, I thought.

"My grandmother was an amazing baker," she started. "She left me some of our family recipes in her will-like trade secret, copyrighted, no-one-knows-but-her-and-her-mother recipes; but when she died, I was too young to do anything with them, so my mom kept them."

"Okay," Brennan said encouragingly.

"Grandma Lylah also left me an inheritance. Enough to open my bakery, and cover most of the expenses for the first three years. She thought if I had enough to make it through those years, it would increase my chances of success," she explained.

"That's awesome," Brennan said.

"But, then she added other stipulations," Charley explained. "She said I couldn't have the money or the recipes until I went to business school. So I did. I double majored in Business Management and in Marketing. Then, the rules changed again, and I couldn't have them until I got married. Finally, when Matt proposed, she relented, and let me have everything early, finally allowing me to get things started. Once she gets here, and realizes it's over between Matt and I, it's over for me and the bakery, too." She sounded so sad. So let down.

I felt horrible. Charley had been dreaming of this the whole time we were in college. She had only become a marketing major because she wanted to market her bakery. Every paper she wrote, every project she did--it had all come back to baking. A few weeks ago, she'd even driven me pa.s.sed the shop she wanted to buy.

"The day after Christmas!" she'd exclaimed, "I'm going to buy it!" I hadn't ever seen her that happy--not even after Matt proposed.

I couldn't believe that I was the reason she wasn't going to get her dream. Her mom had called a few weeks back to cancel her visit. She told Charley that since it was her fault for canceling, she'd just s.h.i.+p Charley the check and the recipes. Now--she was going to be here, and she was going to see there was no more Fiance--and no more bakery.

"Dammit!" Charley said again.

"Couldn't you just tell your mom the wedding is still on? She doesn't have to know the wedding is off yet," Brennan suggested.

I was starting to feel sick as Charley's expression turned hopeful. She saw my face and hers fell to match mine.

"Dammit, Sara!" She spat "I'm SORRY," I yelled "What didn't you tell her?"

"I'm so so so so sorry, Charley! I was upset. I was just rambling. You know how I am. Sometimes I don't have a filter!"

Charley sighed, "I need to lay back down. I've got to figure something out...but I can't think straight right now."

She was back to looking exhausted. This conversation had taken it out of her. It was my fault. How was I ever going to make this up to my best friend?

"I'm really sorry, Midge," I said again as I helped her adjust her pillows, "I'll help you figure something out. I pro-mise."

"It's fine," she said quietly. "I guess I could always just forgive him and get married anyway."

She must have seen the looks on our faces.

"I'm joking," she said dryly, and closed her eyes.

"She cut me off before," Brennan whispered. "Her mom said her sisters would be coming out to visit, too. That's got to be better news, right?"

Charley groaned. "Please just kill me now," she said, her eyes still closed.

CHAPTER 5 CHARLEY.

"Charley! Charley!....Char-ley!" Someone's panicking voice broke through the fog of my sleep.

"What?" I choked, my voice cracking.

I looked at the clock. I couldn't have been asleep for more than an hour. I tried to sit up in my bed. It was hard--I was so tired, and my entire body was stiff and aching. Every breath hurt. And now they weren't even letting me sleep.

"We've got it!" Sara's excited voice was just the trick for waking someone up.

"Got what?" I asked her sleepily. I loved Sara, but her voice was really harsh to a swollen brain. It was like Brennan sensed my discomfort.

"We figured a way for you to keep your bakery," he explained softly. "All Sara remembers telling your mom was that the wedding was off--not why--just that you were upset because the wedding was off, and that somehow lead to your accident."

"Yeah," I looked at each of them expectantly. "That's pretty much enough to ruin it."

Sara looked sad for an instant, then she chirped up. "Yes, but what did you say right before you fell asleep?"

"Sara, can you get to the point a little bit. It's kind of hard to fight meds. I'm really trying to stay with you, but I have no freakin' clue what I said before I fell asleep."

Brennan laughed at this. "You said something about taking Matt back-forgiving him-marrying him anyway."

Were these two nuts? It had to be the medication. Weren't they both the ones who had a.s.sured me that I could do better, that I , in fact, deserved better? And now they wanted me to just take him back? Surely I was hallucinating.

They must have seen the confusion on my face because Sara chimed in again. "We're not suggesting you actually take Matt, back, Midge!"

"Then, what?" I asked, having no idea what they were getting at. They were making absolutely no sense, and my ability to stay awake was diminis.h.i.+ng quickly.

"Brennan!!" Sara shouted exasperated.

I looked at Brennan, thinking her shout had meant for him to take over. "So" I said, still incredibly confused and wis.h.i.+ng they would hurry this up.

"Brennan!" Sara said again, this time slightly softer. "Brennan can be your fiance for the week."

I started to say something, but Sara cut me off.

"No, this is perfect, Charley. Perfect. We'll make up some stupid reason why you guys were calling it off-some misunderstanding. Just tell them it's all cleared up, and the wedding is back on! Your family will love Brennan, who, of course, will be playing the part of Matt. You will get your recipes, and your bakery money, and then, later-in like the spring or something, just tell them the wedding is off. By then you will already have your bakery up and goingwhat are they going to do? Take back your money?"

I sat staring at my best friend, trying to process what exactly she had just said. Finally, I looked at Brennan.

"Don't you have like, a thousand better things to do? It's almost Christmas."

"Yeah," he said quietly, "Most of my family is pretty far away. It's just me and my brother here. It'll be fine." He looked down for a minute. I guessed he was thinking. After a moment he said, "This is up to you, though, Charley. We don't know each other very well. If you aren't comfortable, or, just don't want me to, I won't. I just want to help however I can."

I looked at Brennan, then at Sara.

"Whose idea was this?" I asked them.

"It was ajoint decision," Sara said.

I looked at Brennan, starting to understand what was going on. "Hey Brennan, could you excuse us for a second?" I asked him, trying to sound as sweet as possible.

"No problem," he said easily, and breezed out the doorway.

"Sara!" I scolded once I thought he was out of earshot. "Did you bully him into this? You can't just boss everyone in the world around, you know! He doesn't even know me! I'm sure he has better things to do--"

"Charley!" Sara interrupted me, "It wasn't even my idea."

I looked at her skeptically. "Really?" I asked.

"Yes, really," she a.s.sured me. "He really wants to help you out. He seems like a pretty decent guy. I really think he's just trying to help." She said the last of this in a confused tone. Sara didn't like when people disproved her theory that the world was full of a.s.sholes.

I sat for a few minutes without saying a word. I was trying to figure out a different way to get what I wanted. If I wasn't engaged to Matt when my mom got here in a few days, my perfect building downtown would be gone-along with my perfect wedding to my perfect fiance, neither of which had actually been perfect at all.

Surprisingly, it wasn't the lying to my family that worried me. They'd been holding this money over my head for years-using at as leverage to make me do whatever it was they wanted me to do, all the while knowing I would because of how important Lylah's recipes and the bakery were to me. Lylah had been the best thing in my world for so many years. I didn't want to wait another 5 or 6 years-or, with my luck, maybe more, waiting to get what should have been given to me years ago.

Lylah had never put a stipulation the things she left me in her will. She, unlike my mother, trusted me, and really wanted me to be happy. She would have been happy to see me get even with my mother this way. Any bit of spite I had in me, I got from Lylah Evelynn Vaughan.

With that, I sighed, knowing what I had to do.

"Do you think it will work?" I finally asked Sara. "Because if it doesn't, I can kiss all of it good-bye. I'll never get it, and there's no lawyer in the world-even if I were willing to hire one-who could get it for me."

Sara thought about this for a moment, and finally said, "It will take some effort, Midge, but I think we can pull it off." She added, "And the sooner you agree, the sooner we can get Brennan back in here and start working on the details of it all."

"Okay," I said, still reluctant. "Can I just rest a little first? I'm so tired."

"Of course, Midge." Sara said sweetly. "We'll come back later." She leaned over the bed and kissed my forehead. "I really am so sorry I made this mess for you. I promise I will do everything I can to help fix it."

I smiled at my friend. "I guess I forgive you, big mouth."

"I love you, too!" She said as she pranced out the door.

"Grandma Lylah," I said, looking up at the sky, "If you could help us out, I promise I'll name my first child after you-boy or girl."

I laid my head back on the pillows and sighed, hoping she heard me.

For the next two days, Brennan, Sara, and I spent every minute that I was awake talking and planning. Matt didn't call Sara back, so we didn't know if he was aware of what happened or not. It wasn't strange for him to not call her, but it was weird that he hadn't called me. Even if he hadn't gotten the message about the accident, I guess I had just imagined he would have fought a little harder to get me back. It made things a little easier for me when he didn't. It also made me sad. It hurt to realize how little I must have meant to him.

The day before my family arrived, Dr. Sutherland came in and had a talk with Brennan, Sara, and I. I was making great improvements, he said. New complications had arisen, though. I couldn't stand for long without getting dizzy, and some of the swelling from the concussion wasn't improving as quickly as he'd like. He didn't think that I would be well enough to be released by Christmas, but he was hopeful that I could be out of the hospital by New Year's Eve.

Sara, of course, began planning the grandiose festivities that would take place to celebrate. She was good about that-always being able to find a good reason, or bad reason, to throw party. It was good for her. She needed a distraction. If she wasn't worrying about the party, she was bugging me about how I felt, if I was in pain, or if I needed anything. I loved her, but her relentless fussing over me was beginning to take its toll.

By my fourth day, the nurse's would at least allow me to go to the bathroom without using the wheelchair. It was difficult, but I would have rather been in pain than had one more second of nurse-a.s.sisted bathroom visits. Sara, of course, jumped in and insisted on helping me.

"Charley!" She protested, "Just let me HELP you!"

I was going to just give in-at least she wasn't a nurse-- when Brennan came to the rescue.