Page 22 of Meet Me at the Christmas Cottage (Jonathon Island #6)

“Oh. my. goodness. My name is Marla, and my book club is never going to believe this.” Marla flapped her hands in front of her.

“The Pike Family Saga is our favorite series ever. We’ve been to every midnight release since book two, and we were first in line at our movie theater when the movie released. ”

“Thanks.” Wait. She should have said something different. “I’m glad.” Did that make her sound pompous?

“Are you her boyfriend?” Marla asked Jonah before turning back to Bronte and wiggling her eyebrows. “Good job, B.L.”

While relieved Marla didn’t seem concerned by her lack of enthusiasm, Bronte would rather talk about anything but her love life. Of course, there were worse guys Marla could have mistaken for Bronte’s significant other.

“No, he’s…he’s not my boyfriend,” Bronte managed to get out around the panic climbing up her throat. But Marla didn’t appear to be listening, nodding along and digging around in her bag.

She held up her cell phone. “Could we get a picture together?”

Bronte just stared dumbly at the woman. It was like she’d forgotten what words were.

“How about I take it for you?” Jonah offered, stepping up and taking the phone, saving Bronte the embarrassment of becoming one with the sidewalk.

“You’re sweet too. Wherever did you find him?” Marla batted her hand playfully at Jonah as she moved to stand next to Bronte.

Bronte remembered to lean in and put a smile on her face—at least, she hoped it was a smile and not a grimace. Normally, Lexi was behind the camera and would clue her in if her face was too…scowly. Surely Jonah would have said something if her face hadn’t looked right.

“I guess you could say that I just snuck up on her.” Jonah winked, settling Bronte’s nerves into a warm pool in her belly. “Okay! Three, two, one, smile!” Jonah’s thumb pressed the face of the phone multiple times. “All done. These are great.”

“Are you a celebrity?” A woman in a bright-pink coat stepped between Jonah and Bronte and her fan.

“No, I—” Bronte tried to say, but before she could get anything out, Marla cut in.

“Yes, she’s the famous author B.L. Parker.”

“Stan, get over here,” the bright-pink-coated lady yelled. “There’s some famous author over here.”

“A famous author? Where?”

“Is it Jane Austen?”

“Jane Austen? She’s been dead for two hundred years.”

“I want to see.”

“Where is she?”

Before Bronte could blink, there were twenty people pushing and shoving in front of her. “Jonah?” Bronte yelled, standing on her tiptoes to see if she could catch sight of where he’d disappeared to in the crowd.

She needed to get off the street. Away from the crowd, who didn’t even know it was her they were looking for. Someone just screamed “famous author,” and it was as if they’d turned into a mob.

Turning quickly before anyone realized she was the famous author, Bronte tried to figure out which shop was most familiar that she could duck into. Of course, at this point, she would take any shop.

To her left stood a dark, empty storefront, and to her right, the realty, which was close to the street that had led up from the ferry. Maybe if she could make it there, she could sneak around back and figure out the back way into Martha’s. At least, she assumed there would be a back way in.

Mind made up, Bronte headed in the direction of the street, hoping that it wasn’t too crowded since there didn’t look to be any booths set up that way.

She could see the light at the end of the tunnel—or rather, the opening at the end of the overpacked street.

Pushing past the last throng of people, Bronte stepped into the almost-empty street.

“Bronte!”

Bronte hated the relief she felt when she heard Jonah calling from behind her, but she’d unpack that later, when she was away from the crowds of people.

She spun on her heel, but instead of seeing Jonah, her feet slipped.

Her arms swung like pinwheels as she tried catch her balance.

The ground came up fast, and she put her hands up to break her fall, but all that accomplished was a scraped-up palm.

When her forehead hit the concrete and she saw stars, the only thing she could think of was that the old cartoons had it right.

Stars really did spin around one’s head if they hit it hard enough.

* * *

Everything stood still.

He heard the thunk as Bronte’s head hit the street, and he urged everyone to move out of his way. It felt like it was taking him forever to reach her.

Had anyone else seen her fall? He didn’t know how everyone didn’t hear it. It was a sickening sound, like a watermelon hitting a hard surface. He tried not to think about what happened when a watermelon hit the ground. Prayed that it wasn’t as bad as he knew it could be.

A small group of people had gathered around Bronte by the time he reached her, but Jonah let out a breath of air when he saw her sitting up. An older man Jonah didn’t recognize knelt beside her, a hand on her arm, trying to brush snow from her face.

“Just take it easy,” he told her. “You took quite a nasty fall.”

“Bronte?” Jonah slid next to her, bending over to see her face.

She spat snow and grime from her mouth before turning her head slowly to face Jonah. She winced. “Ouch.”

“You might want to get your girl to the med station,” the old man said, helping to steady Bronte. “I just sent my grandson to see if he could bring someone back this way.”

“I will. Thank you for helping her,” Jonah said, eyes still on Bronte, not bothering to correct his assumption that Bronte was his girl.

Pulling out his phone, Jonah toggled over to the flashlight. He held the phone’s light in front of Bronte’s face and moved it back and forth in front of her eyes. “It doesn’t seem like you have a concussion, but you have a massive goose egg.”

Bronte started giggling. That couldn’t be a good sign.

“What’s so funny?”

“You know in the old Saturday morning cartoons, how whenever a character hit its head really hard, they’d have stars circling around their heads?” She held up a finger and made a circling motion.

Why was she talking about cartoons at a time like this? “Yeah?”

“I can confirm that is real life. Hit your head hard enough and you’ll see stars.”

Shaking his head, Jonah carefully lifted Bronte’s beanie where it had slipped down over her forehead. A hematoma the size of a golf ball had formed on her forehead. Jonah winced, reaching up to gingerly touch it. “Our friend here is right. We need to get you to the med station.”

“A really good doctor just said I didn’t have a concussion,” Bronte teased. “I’ll be fine.” She tried to catch her breath, wincing instead.

Jonah didn’t like the look of the goose egg either. Just because he’d checked the dilation of her pupils didn’t mean there weren’t other things that needed to be checked out.

“I said it doesn’t seem like you have a concussion, but I’d still like to get you to the clinic so we can officially rule it out. You also need an ice pack and some ibuprofen. Let’s get you up.”

Putting his hands under her arms, Jonah hauled her to her feet. Bronte grabbed his arms, her breathing quickening.

Jonah dipped his head, stepping closer to her to support her weight better. His heart squeezed seeing her obvious pain. “You good?”

“Just give me a minute,” Bronte whispered back. Jonah laced his arms around her, clasping his hands on the small of her back.

“Do you need me to carry you to the med station?”

Bronte huffed out a laugh. “I do not want to bring any more attention to myself than I already have. At least it seems like the fan club is gone.”

“Aw, come on. It could be fun. Everyone will think we’re filming a Hallmark movie or something.”

“Jonah White, you and I have two very different definitions of fun .”

“Jonah? Bronte? Oh my goodness!” Jordi appeared from the crowd. “A kid came by the Tourism Bureau, where the med station’s set up, and said someone fell and hit their head. I never thought it’d be you.”

“You’re working the med station?” Jonah asked.

“No, I just stopped by to see if Dr. Nova needed anything to eat. She’s been pretty busy all day but mostly with headaches and dehydration. Nothing like this. She’s on her way.”

“Help me get her to the med station? We’ll meet the doctor on the way.” Jonah shifted, still not letting Bronte go but instead keeping an arm around her.

“You got it.” Jordi spun on her heel and clapped her hands. “Okay, people, make a path. We gotta get to the med station!”

Bronte winced. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind when I said I didn’t want to draw any attention.”

Jonah chuckled and tucked Bronte even closer into his side. “I’ll hide you, and we’ll make it there with no one noticing you.”

They met up with Dr. Nova Lake, her thick black hair in a braid draped over her shoulder, and followed her the rest of the way to the clinic.

Finally, inside the warm Tourism Bureau, where Jonathon Island Medical Clinic had set up a temporary med station, they made quick introductions and Jonah explained what had happened.

Dr. Nova had Bronte sit in a folding chair while she got her an ice pack.

Dr. Nova whistled, seeing the goose egg on Bronte’s forehead. “That’s quite the bump you have there.” Taking a penlight out, she bent only slightly to shine it in each of Bronte’s eyes. “Are you dizzy at all?”

Bronte started to shake her head but stopped with a grimace. “No,” she said instead.

“That’s good. Did you black out at all?”

“At this point, I kind of wish I had. It would have saved me from having to experience the embarrassment.”