He may have even slept because the next thing he knew there was a new nurse pestering him.
“So, how old are you, George?” she asked him.
George squinted at her. “Too old to be playing games. When can I go home?”
“When you’ve played our games,” the nurse said drily.
He cracked a smile at that. “I’m going to be thirty-five. It’s October. I had oatmeal for breakfast this morning. Unless it’s tomorrow already.”
“It is,” she told him.
“Then I can go home.”
“Not until Dr. Harlowe agrees.” She didn’t look up while she checked his blood pressure. When she finished she said, “I understand you’re a hero.”
George squinted at her. “Not likely.”
“You didn’t save a boy’s life?”
“I knocked him across the street.”
“So he wouldn’t get killed by a truck,” the nurse said. “That qualifies as ‘saving’ in my book. I hear he just got a few scrapes and bruises.”
“Which is what I’ve got,” George pointed out, about to nod toward the ones visible on his arm. “So I should be able to go home, too.”
“And you will,” she said. “But head injuries can be serious.”
Finally, blessedly, she—and all her persistent colleagues—left him alone. As the hours wore on eventually the hospital noises quieted. The rattle of carts in the halls diminished. Even the beeps and the clicks seemed to fade. Not the drumming in his head, though. God, it was ceaseless.
Every time he drifted off, he moved. It hurt. He shifted. Found a spot it wasn’t quite so bad. Slept. And then they woke him again. When he did sleep it was restlessly. Images, dreams, memories of Jeremy haunted his dreams. So did ones of the truck. So did the grateful, still stricken faces of Jeremy’s parents.
“We might have lost him,” Jeremy’s mother, Grace, had sobbed at his bedside earlier.
And his father, Philip, had just squeezed George’s hand in his as he’d said over and over, “You have no idea.”
Not true. George had a very good idea. There were other memories and images mingling with those of Jeremy. Memories of a baby, tiny and dark-haired. A first smile. Petal-soft skin. Trusting eyes.
She was Jeremy’s age now. Old enough to run into a street the same way Jeremy had…He tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about her. It made his throat ache and his eyes burn. He shut them once more and tried desperately to fall asleep.
He didn’t know how much sleep he finally got. His head was still pounding when the first glimmers of dawn filtered in through the window.
He’d heard footsteps come into the room earlier. There had been the sound of a nurse’s voice speaking quietly, another low murmured response, then the sound of the feet of a chair being moved.
He hadn’t opened his eyes. Had deliberately ignored it all.
All he’d thought was, please God they would go away without poking him or talking to him again. He didn’t want to be poked. He didn’t want to be civil.
He wanted to go back to sleep—but this time he didn’t want the memories to come with it. The nurse left. The conversation stopped. Yet somehow he didn’t think he was alone.
Was that Sam who’d come in? Was he standing there now, staring down at him in silence?
It was the sort of juvenile nonsensical thing they’d done as kids to try to psych the other out. Surely Sam had grown out of it by now.
George shifted—and winced as he tried to roll onto his side. His shoulder hurt like hell. Every muscle in his body protested. If Sam thought this was funny…
George flicked open his eyes and his whole being—mind and body—seemed to jerk.
It wasn’t Sam in the room. It was a woman.
George sucked in a breath. He didn’t think he made a noise. But something alerted her because she had been sitting beside his bed looking out the window, and now as he stared, dry-mouthed and disbelieving, slowly she turned and her gaze met his.
For the first time in nearly four years he and Sophy—his wife—were face-to-face.
Wife? Ha.
They might have stood side by side in a New York City judge’s office and repeated after him. They might have a legally binding document declaring them married. But it had never meant anything more than a piece of paper.
Not to her.
Not to either of them, George told himself firmly, though the pain he felt was suddenly different than before. He resisted it. Didn’t want to care. Sure as hell didn’t want to feel!
The very last thing he needed now was to have to deal with Sophy. His jaw tightened involuntarily, which, damn it, made his head hurt even worse.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. His voice was rough, hoarse from tubes and dry hospital air. He glared at her accusingly.
“Irritating you, obviously.” Sophy’s tone was mild, but there was a concern in her gaze that belied her tone. Still, she shrugged lightly. “The hospital called me. You were unconscious. They needed next of kin’s permission to do whatever they felt needed doing.”
“You?” George stared in disbelief.
“That’s pretty much what I said when they called,” Sophy admitted candidly, crossing one long leg over the other and leaning back in the chair.
She was wearing black wool trousers and an olive green sweater. Very tasteful. Professional. Businesslike, George would have said. Not at all the Sophy of jeans and sweats and maternity tops he remembered. Only her copper-colored hair was still the same, the dark red strands glinting like new pennies in the early morning sun. He remembered running his fingers through it, burying his face in it. More thoughts he didn’t want to deal with.
“Apparently you never got around to divorcing me.” She looked at him as if asking a question.
George’s jaw tightened. “I imagined you would take care of that,” he bit out. Since she had been the one who was so keen on it. Damn, but his head was pounding. He shut his eyes.
When he opened them again it was to see that Sophy’s gaze had flickered away. But then it came back to meet his. She shook her head.
“No need,” she said easily. “I certainly wasn’t getting married again.”
And neither was he. He’d been gutted once by marriage. He had no desire to go through it again. But he wasn’t talking about that to Sophy. He couldn’t believe she was even here. Maybe that whack on the head was causing him to hallucinate.
He tried shutting his eyes again, wishing her gone. No luck. When he opened them again, she was still there.
Getting hit by a truck was small potatoes compared to dealing with Sophy. He needed all his wits and every bit of control and composure he could manage when it came to coping with her. Now he rolled onto his back again and grimaced as he tried to push himself up against the pillows.
“Probably not a good idea,” Sophy commented.
No, it wasn’t. The closer he got to vertical, the more he felt as if the top of his head was going to come off. On the other hand, he wasn’t dealing with Sophy from a position of weakness.
“You should rest,” she offered.
“I’ve been resting all night.”
“I doubt you had much,” Sophy said frankly. “The nurse said