He glanced at his clock. “It’s nearly 3:00 a.m.,” he said, his voice still hoarse from sleep. “Where did you get my number?” He vaguely remembered giving her his card, but he believed she’d thrown it away.
“It’s in the yellow pages under righteous,” she quipped.
“What’s wrong, B.J.? Why are you calling me so late?”
“I’m moving out of this place,” she said. According to his fuzzy calculations, he had been visiting her every few days for nearly four weeks.
“Well, that’s great. They’re letting you go. You must be making good progress. How’s the arm?” Although she’d never appeared to accept his offer of friendship, she’d never followed through on her threat to have the hospital staff remove him.
“Arm’s getting better all the time.”
“Where are you going?”
“I get to pick the place.” He sensed a warning in the way her voice lilted up slightly on the last word, and he tried to shake off the fog of deep sleep that clouded his thoughts.
“So, have you made a decision?” he asked, wishing he could think clearly.
“I thought maybe you’d drop by and help me with that.”
“When?”
“In about an hour, preferably.”
“No more games, B.J. It’s nearly three in the morning. What’s the problem?”
“The problem is, there is no problem!” she cried. “It’s all cut-and-dried, all decided! The medical profession is turning me loose. They’ve given me all these wonderful places to choose from for the next phase of my life. Beautiful places. One of them even has a swimming pool.”
“I don’t understand,” he mumbled, pinching his eyes closed, wanting to know what was causing her distress.
“You wouldn’t. I don’t even know why I called you. See you around, Hamish.”
“Wait!” He was afraid she would hang up and he couldn’t allow that. He forced his mind to work, threw the covers back and turned to sit with his legs over the side of his old four-poster bed. “Give me time to dress. It’ll take me half an hour to drive—”
“No…that won’t be necessary,” she said, but her voice was suddenly soft and hoarse.
“What?”
“Forget I called.” He thought he heard a slight warble, but he couldn’t be sure. “Go back to sleep,” she said, clearing her throat. He closed his eyes again and stood on the cool hardwood floor, rotating his shoulders to stretch his muscles as he dressed. “Hamish?” she questioned when he didn’t answer.
“I’ll be there,” he said.
“No. I didn’t mean it. Really, 1 didn’t mean it. I was just…it was stupid…I’ll never forgive you if you embarrass me by coming down here in the middle of the night. Besides, they just gave me a sleeping pill, and I won’t even know you’re here.”
“You wouldn’t have called if you weren’t in trouble,” he replied.
“Trouble?” she chided, but he detected a lack of force in her words. “You know me better than that. Now, go back to sleep. I’m going there myself.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Please,” she whispered. “Please don’t be so damned…serious. I swear I’ll never forgive you if you come down here at this time of night. I swear it.”
He was torn with indecision, and then she hung up, saying, “I’m getting very sleepy,” slurring her words slightly. “Very…sleepy.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the cool draft on his feet. He was now wide-awake, agitated because once again she had tied him in knots, and wondered what he should do. He knew in his heart that she had been desperate to call him. She had never called him before.
He dressed quickly and slipped out of the house into the pre-dawn night. As he drove to the hospital, he blamed her stubborn, prickly pride for how she had reached out in despair with one hand while insulting him and pushing him away with the other. Then he thought about her early life, the. trauma of her mother’s death, being neglected by an insensitive father. He remembered the fear he had seen in her eyes and suspected there were probably very few people she had learned to trust in her life. And yet she had become a strong, accomplished woman. He understood why she had wrapped her pride around herself like insulation from a hurtful world.
He fought a sense of foreboding while he drove to the hospital. He had a sickening feeling in his gut. She needed him. She must, he realized, to have called him like this.
He prayed for serenity and guidance while he hastened to her room. When he strode through the door, he found her sitting on the side of her bed, dangling her feet over the edge. She was beautiful, her hair tousled from sleep, the scar on her face fading to pink.
She wore one of those ugly, thin hospital gowns pulled off one shoulder, her legs bare to midthigh. Her muddy green eyes looked up at him. “You came,” she whispered, and then her eyes closed, and he knew he was in trouble. He wanted to touch her. He wanted very badly to touch her. “There,” she rasped, pointing to a messy array of colored pamphlets.
He reached out and picked up several, then glanced quickly through them. They were promotional brochures, glossy and brightly colored, featuring modern buildings, Victorian mansions, sterile bedrooms and lots of people in residence—people in wheelchairs, most of them with white hair, wrinkled skin and empty eyes.
He looked questioningly at her, fanning the brochures out in front of him. She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “Nursing homes,” she confirmed. “I get to choose one.”
“Oh, my God,” he gasped, dropping them onto the bed. He picked her up impulsively, as if she were a child, and when he felt her good arm go around his neck, he held her against him, her legs dangling free over his thighs, her face nestled in his neck. He turned in a slow circle, burying his face in her hair, and he let his heart ache while his body reveled in holding her. Absently, he pulled her gown closed over her back and held it there with his arms clasped around her. She felt frail and soft. Helpless. Warm. “Am I hurting you?” he whispered into her tangled hair. She shook her head a little wildly, and he felt wetness on his neck. “They can’t send you away. You’re going to get well,” he whispered. “I won’t let them do this to you. I won’t let it happen.”
Lost in comforting her and not wanting to let her go, he failed to notice how much time had passed until his arms felt the strain, and he finally returned her to the bed.
Her mouth was open slightly in obvious bewilderment, and he noticed how very kissable it looked. She had felt good pressed against him. She had felt damned good in his arms. He might have intended to give her comfort, but there was something deeper going on, and he recognized it all too well.
Quickly, he went to the closet and got her robe. He helped her get her injured arm into it. She kept her face lowered, obviously unwilling to let him see the tears she had likely fought not to shed in the first place.
“I have money,” she said finally in her husky voice. “But I have nowhere to go. I can’t take care of myself yet.”
“Your father? Another relative? A friend?”
“No. No, I can’t Nobody would want me. I can’t.”
“We’ll think of something, dear lady,” he said, sitting alongside her on the bed. “We’ll think of something.”
“There’s a convalescent center nearby, but it’s all old people. They’re all old. And I’m young, damn it. I’ve never needed anyone to take care of me. Never. I don’t know what I’m going to do