But he knew why Lucy had been reading aloud. The silence had to be filled. “It’s Adrian,” he said tentatively. “I missed you. I didn’t know what happened. Why you went away. I still don’t know. I’d like to hear about it, when you wake up.”
He couldn’t quite bring himself to touch her. Not surprising, given that he wasn’t much for hugs and hand-holding. Maybe he was afraid he’d find her hands to be icy cold.
“Well. Ah. I’ll be back in the morning. I’ll probably make arrangements to move you to Seattle, where you can be close to me.”
An uneasy sense that she might, in fact, not like his plan stirred in him, but what the hell else was he supposed to do? Leave her here and drive back and forth for obligatory visits? Did they even have a long-term nursing facility here, assuming that’s what she required?
He cleared his throat, said, “Good night,” and escaped.
LUCYWAS PRETTY sure she didn’t like Adrian Rutledge, but she was prepared to feel sorry for him when he walked out of his mother’s hospital room. This had to be hard for him.
However, his expression was utterly composed when he appeared. “You needn’t feel you have to feed me. If you just want to tell me the options and directions to the bed-and-breakfast.”
“I have to stop by the café and see how they’re doing without me,” she explained. “I own it. Friday evening is one of our busiest times. I’m usually there. I may not have time to sit down with you.”
He didn’t look thrilled to be going anywhere with her, but finally nodded. “Fine. Should I follow you?”
“My car’s right out front. Yours, too, I assume?”
He nodded again, the motion a little jerky. Maybe he wasn’t as cold as he seemed. Lucy tried to imagine how disoriented he must feel by now.
Be charitable, she reminded herself. For the hat lady’s sake, if not his.
Lisa Enger, the night nurse, greeted them. “I’ll keep a good eye on her,” she promised.
They rode down in the elevator silently, both staring straight ahead like two strangers pretending the other wasn’t there. Lucy was usually able to chat with just about anybody, but she was pretty sure he wouldn’t welcome conversation right now. Not until they were out in the parking lot did she speak.
“There’s my car.”
He nodded and pointed out his, a gray Mercedes sedan.
“I’ll come down your row.”
“All right.”
Her small Ford Escort felt shabbier when the Mercedes fell in behind it, and she sympathized. She felt plain and uninteresting in his presence, too. She and her car had a lot in common.
He parked beyond her on Olympic Avenue half a block from the café, then joined her on the sidewalk.
“I’m sorry you had to take the day off to drive all the way to Seattle.”
“Would you have believed a word I said if I’d just called?”
He was silent until they reached the door. “I don’t know.”
Well, at least he was honest.
He held open the door for her. Slipping past him, Lucy was more aware of him than she’d let herself be to this point. She’d known he was handsome, of course, and physically imposing. That his thick, dark hair was expensively cut, his charcoal suit probably cost more than she spent on clothes in a year and that his eyes were a chilly shade of gray. She refused to be intimidated by him. But just for a second, looking at his big, capable hand gripping the door and feeling the heat of his body as she brushed him, she felt her heart skip a beat.
He’d definitely be sexy if only he were more likeable. If he didn’t look at her as if she were the janitor who’d quit scrubbing the floor long enough to try to tell him his business.
She grimaced. Okay, that might be her own self-esteem issues talking. He probably looked down on everyone. It was probably an advantage in corporate law, turning every potential litigant into a stuttering idiot.
Following her into the restaurant, he glanced around, apparently unimpressed by the casual interior and the half-dozen remaining diners.
“Your mother ate here a couple of times a week,” she told him.
His eyebrows rose. “She had money…?”
Lucy shook her head. “She was my guest.”
A muscle ticked in his cheek. “Oh.”
For a moment Lucy thought he would feel compelled to thank her. A surprisingly fierce sense of repugnance filled her. Who was he to speak for the mother he didn’t even know?
She hastily grabbed a menu and led him to the same table where his mother always sat, right in front of the window. “I’ll be back to take your order as soon as I check in the kitchen.”
It was easy to pretend she was immersed in some crisis and send Melody out to take his order instead. Once his food was delivered, Lucy stole surreptitious looks as he ate. She was pleased to see that he actually looked startled after the first spoonful of curried lentil soup, one of her specialties and personal favorites. He’d probably expected something out of a can.
Melody was prepared to close up for her, so once she saw him decline dessert, Lucy went back out to reclaim him. Without comment she took his money, then said, “I’m ready to go if you’d like to follow me again.”
A hint of acerbity crept into his tone. “Do you think I’d get lost?”
“I pass Sam’s place on my way home. I won’t stop.”
He nodded. “Then thank you.”
It was getting harder for him to squeeze those thank-yous out, Lucy judged. Clearly, he wasn’t in the habit of being in anyone’s debt.
Once again he held open the door for her, the courtesy automatic. At least he was polite.
Outside, she said, “It’s called Doveport Bed and Breakfast. You’ll see it on the right, about half a mile from here. There’s a sign out front.”
He nodded, pausing on the sidewalk while she opened her car door and got in. More good manners, Lucy realized; in Seattle, a woman might be in danger if she were alone even momentarily on a dark street. Maybe his mother had instilled some good qualities in him, before she disappeared from his life.
However that happened.
Her forehead crinkled. How old had he been when his parents divorced, or his mother went away? Twenty-three years ago, he’d said. Surely he wasn’t more than in his mid-thirties now. So he probably wasn’t even a teenager when he lost her.
Was he bitter at what he saw as abandonment? Lucy hadn’t been able to tell. Since she’d handed him the driver’s license and photo in his office, he’d seemed more stunned than anything. She’d almost had the sense he was sleepwalking, that he hadn’t yet figured out how to react. At least, she hoped that’s what he was doing, and that he wasn’t always so unemotional. Because if he was, she hated to think of the hat lady consigned to his care.
Lucy made sure the lights of his car were right behind her until she reached Sam’s B and B. His headlights swept the sign, and his turn signal went on. She accelerated and left him behind, wondering if she’d arrive at the hospital tomorrow