My mouth spreads into a sly grin. “I think you like this guy, Maria. You should ask him out.” I can tell she’d love that. “You should!”
Woman to woman, she rolls her eyes. “Oh he doesn’t want me. He kept mumbling Annie while he was sleeping. Oh well. Mine will come someday.”
She turns and leaves me alone and stunned, staring at the door.
Chapter Seven
Brendan
Room 323.
I feel my hand being picked up by feminine fingers, the top of it caressed lightly. Struggling to open my eyes, the room blurs into focus and the outline of her head becomes distinct lines and curves of her nose, her chin, her long neck, her dark hair. “Hey.”
“Hi. How’re you feeling?” She’s wearing a different outfit and her hair smells nice. “I got you a cactus since you’re so prickly.”
I glance over to see a small cactus in a clay pot sitting on the only table in the room. The table is metal and cold, and the needles of the cactus remind me of the one in my arm. She means well, but it wasn’t a great idea.
“You’d think hospitals might put better furniture in these rooms for all the money they’re making on the sick,” I mumble. “Thank you for the cactus. You look like you got some sleep.”
She nods, eyes filled with concern and tenderness. “I did. You?”
“Not at all. They keep waking me up.”
A frown creases her arched eyebrows. “Oh and here I went and woke you.”
“No. I want the company,” I mumble, reaching for the button to make the bed rise so I can get vertical. “This is going to sound awful, but can you help me to the bathroom?”
She smiles like a mother would, but I won’t tell her this. “Of course.”
“I think Maria will think I’m hitting on her if I ask her,” I say with an amused secret smile.
She asks me if Maria’s my nurse as we navigate me out of the bed. I don’t let her come in with me; I just wanted to make sure I didn’t fall and pull these damn things open. I’m feeling a little stronger, but I’m not chancing staying here any longer than I have to. I want to see Le Barré and get ahold of Annie. Plus, I’ve got to work. I bet Tommy is loving my absence. I wouldn’t be surprised if I get back and he’s taken over my office.
When my baby steps get me out of the bathroom, Rebecca’s reaching for her phone as it rings. She frowns into it.
“What’s up?” I’m trying to see. Part of my curiosity is jealousy. I feel naked without my fucking phone.
Her thumbs key in a response and her head is down. “One of the ladies I’m doing a charity auction with has questions and I…” she stops explaining, lost in the text reply. I wait.
Chapter Eight
Annie
Room 315.
Barefoot and in my hospital gown, I peek out the door of my room. Off to the left is the nurses’s station where a male and female nurse talk to each other behind the counter, with only their shoulders and heads visible. He has on dark blue scrubs and she’s got pink. I guess they all get to choose their own style? Huh. That’s pretty cool. Maria joins them, holding a plastic salad container, pieces of dark green lettuce stuck on her fork. She says something to them that’s too far away to hear, and just as she begins to turn her head, I duck back inside, my heart slamming.
C’mon Annie. Be cool. Be smart. Be a stealth ninja.
Frankly, my being here is the one good sign I’ve seen toward me and Brendan since he walked into my bar. I wasn’t going to come here, and yet –here I am. Maybe my guardian angel knocked me out cold and forced them to call an ambulance to get my ass to see him. But I know he has a girlfriend. I just want to see his face. See if he’s okay. Side-eyeballing the empty bed, I consider getting back in it and leaving well enough alone. But that’s just not possible.
I tighten my grip on the IV pole, tube and needle still in my arm, the plug-cord around it to make me mobile. Waiting a few more seconds, my pulse is going nuts. I peek back out and don’t see Maria. Whipping my head to the right and the left, there’s no sign of her. I sneak out a step to see my room number: 315. I’m on the same floor as him. This is supposed to be happening. It has to be.
Stepping out on the balls of my feet so as not to make a sound, I walk out a bit, always looking around me. A voice up the corridor ahead makes me duck inside Room 317.
“Hello?” a raspy voice says behind me.
Turning my head fast, I lay eyes on a much older woman lying with tubes everywhere. She’s squinting at me with a curious expression creased into the deep lines of her face under a shock of short white hair.
I wave with my free hand. “Oh, hi. I’m just taking a walk. How’re you?”
“I’ve been better.” There’s humor in her voice and her eyes twinkle.
“What’re you in for?” I ask, like we’re doing time for a crime.
“Gall bladder.” She straightens her blanket a bit and I look up to see she’s got the news on. As usual, it’s horrible. Why do people watch that crap?
“How’s the gall bladder?” She shrugs and I face my body more toward her, the door behind me. “Let me ask you a question.”
“Yes?”
“You’ve got life experience. If you had to, say, choose between two men. One was in Italy and one was here but has a girlfriend, but he’s been dreaming about you and talking in his sleep saying your name. What would you do?”
Squinting more and more in concentration as she listens, she thinks on it and leans back when she’s done. “You have two men who want you?”
“Now that you put it like that… maybe?”
Both her spotted hands slap the blanket. “Take ‘em both! Trust me, when you get to be my age, that’s the stuff you’ll wish you’d have done.”
“Good point. Thank you.” Sticking my head slowly out the door, the coast is clear. “I have to run. Thanks for the advice. Oh, and here’s some from me – turn that off. It can’t be good for you.”
She glances to the news. “Then how will I know what’s going on?”
My mind is already on making an exit. “Read it on the Internet and scan past the bad stuff. They’re just showing fear-based stuff on T.V. to keep their audience.”
I tiptoe out, with a wave thrown behind me as I go.
Chapter Nine
Brendan
Room 323.
“Rebecca, have you had breakfast?”
She looks up from her phone. “What?”
“Breakfast. Have you eaten.”
Blinking a few times, she searches. “No. I guess not.”
I take her phone from her hands. “Remember when you did this to me?”
She smiles, recognition lighting up her brown eyes. “We were at the movie theater and you wouldn’t stop working.”
“About two years ago, I guess, wasn’t it?” My hand falls to my lap, fingers wrapped around the phone. It was like I wasn’t here when she was on it.
“Yes, almost that. What movie were we seeing?” She leans in with that look you get when you’re searching for something just out of reach.
Moving the pillow back up to a comfortable position, I say, “I don’t remember. Why don’t you go get breakfast and answer your emails there and come back in a bit. I need to sleep.”
Embarrassed, she takes her phone from me, landing a quick kiss on my lips before she stands. “Of course. I’m sorry. You sleep. I’ll be back.”
Before she gets to the door, I call out quickly, “Rebecca. I’m really glad you’re here.”
She turns and looks at me. “Thank you, Brendan. I’m glad I’m here, too.”
“I mean it. Mark’s in New York and if you weren’t here, I’d be really fucked up. This isn’t a great place to be alone.” I laugh, but my smile isn’t real and she knows it.
She nods, and walks over to me, leans down and kisses the top of my forehead. “Get some sleep. I’ll be back soon.”
“Okay.” I watch her walk to the door, the picture of elegance in a pencil skirt, heels and a s
ilk blouse. She turns and smiles one last time, and then leaves, pulling out her phone as she goes. She couldn’t even wait until she cleared the door.
Chapter Ten
Annie
3rd Floor Corridor.
Have them both, she says. I wish I could. Smiling to myself, I step quickly across the cold, hard tile about to pass Room 321 when the door to 323 opens. Shit! It’s Mrs. Wells with her head in her phone. Pulling quietly on the rolling IV pole, I duck into Room 321. This time I’m ready to see a person inhabiting the bed – a stranger I’ll have to explain myself to. I brace myself for the inevitable and look over, my mouth open and about to speak. The bed is empty. I stare at it, relieved and trying to catch my breath. With one hand on the pole and the other on my racing heart, I rest on the door to gather myself together.
She was in his room. Of course she was. If it were me, I would never leave his side. I wouldn’t let him sleep alone a night in this cold, unfriendly place. Not knocking the nurses. Maria was great, but they only pop in and out, staying for half a second. That’s not enough. A person needs more.
I push on the door and peek out to the left. She’s all the way down and turns to the elevators, out of sight. A little past my room, the nurse’s desk has grown to a number of five. None of them are looking for the escapee, so I steal out of Room 321 and walk to see Brendan in the flesh for the first time, alone.
No girlfriend. No gunman. Just us.
I hope he wants to see me.
Chapter Eleven
Brendan
Room 323.
I stare at the door, wondering if we’re as addicted to our phones as I think we might be. Slowly the door opens as I watch a Strawberry-blonde head ebb in, followed by nervous blue eyes. Like a thunder-clap, I yell out, “Holy shit! You came!”
Annie reacts, her eyes blinking at the volume. She stares at me and then looks to her right. “Hi. Can I come in?” she whispers, like someone’s chasing her.
Waving her in, I say loudly, “Yeah! Come in! Come in.”
The door opens wider and she’s in a hospital gown, too, dragging along a clunky IV pole on wheels. “God, it’s good to see you,” she says, scanning my body like she can’t believe I’m alive.
“Wait. I don’t understand. I heard you were okay. Why are you here as a patient? Did he hurt you? I’m going to fucking kill that guy if I ever find him.” I start to get up, but the pain in my side throws me back again and I cringe under it and yell out.
Annie rushes forward, letting go of the pole and yelping when the tube pulls at her skin. “Shit!” She steps back and grabs the pole, pushing in at the needle in her arm. “It’s okay. It didn’t come out.”
She looks up and meets my eyes. We both start laughing. Grinning, she sits on the sliver of bed by my hip. Her eyes shine brightly as she smiles at me. The sight of her here makes a knot grow in my throat. It must be the drugs or the pain, but I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes dry when she picks up my hand and looks at it, held tenderly between hers. “I’m so glad you’re not dead,” she whispers. She blinks away her own emotions and puts my hand down, stands up and moves to the chair, looking at the floor.
I’m watching everything she does. The way she self-consciously moves her hair off her shoulder. The way her feet point to each other as she covers her knees with her gown. There are so many thoughts going through her head that her eyes are flitting around like she’s reading an invisible book. “Annie. Seriously. Why are you in the hospital?”
She looks up at me and a flood of words fall out. “I got admitted last night because I fainted at the bar when we were cleaning up only I don’t remember it. They say it’s stress.”
Relieved, I nod. “Oh. So he didn’t hurt you?”
She shakes her head.
“I guess the place was a mess, huh?”
“Yeah. We have to close until the window gets fixed.”
“Window?”
She looks concerned. “Do you really want to know this stuff, Brendan?”
“Do I want to know? It’s all I’ve been thinking about since I got here. Yes. Don’t leave anything out. I want to know exactly what’s happened.”
She tells me all of it. Even about the Sergeant cleaning the money for her. As I listen, I can see it like it’s happening all over again. We’re both talking about things no one else could understand, not unless they’d been there, too. I ask her questions and she explains, and when it’s all on the table, we’re silent, staring at each other, at the memory, at nothing. Soaking it in, in our own time and feeling raw as hell. After awhile, she looks down and plays with the tube sticking out of her arm again. She glances at me like she wants to say something. I don’t feel the need to push her so I wait until she’s ready. I’m just happy she’s here with me. I feel better now.
After maybe a minute, she finally says, “Thank you.” Her eyes are filling up.
I think the last time I cried was when Sara left me, and that was years ago. And no one knew I did it. I’m definitely not going to cry in front of Annie. I push the persistent lump down in my throat and struggle to say, “For what?”
She rises and sits next to me again, looks down and picks up my hand. Holding it, her eyelashes rise up. If a person could see inside another’s soul, then I’m looking at hers. “For saving my life,” she says, softly. “Thank you for saving my life, Brendan.”
That did it. I can’t speak. She gently lays my hand back on the bed to get up.
I reach for her. “No.” I grip her arm like she’ll leave if I don’t. And maybe she would, but I really don’t want her to. She’s the only one who gets it. “You don’t need to thank me. Looks like you paid me back. Getting the gun away from him. Calling 911. And I remember you holding me here, where he shot me. I remember the sirens.”
“Do you remember jumping in front of the bullet?”
“Yeah. I remember every second of that. Like it was slow motion.”
Her lips form a thin line and she looks away. “God help me.” She closes her eyes, “I have to go. I’ve stayed too long.” She pats my hand, looking away and not meeting my eyes. I’m looking at her like I don’t understand, but when she gets up again, I don’t stop her. What am I going to do, hold her hostage?
But as she gets to the door, I call out, “Why? Stay with me.”
Annie turns her head. She holds my eyes like she wants to stay but can’t.
“Look, I feel better with you here, alright? I’ve been having nightmares and I thought you were hurt, or that I wouldn’t see you again, didn’t know how to get ahold of you. All I had was pieces of what happened. And they cut into me and sewed me back up and here I am with nowhere to go and the only one who gets how I feel, is leaving.” I close my eyes. “If I could, I’d get up and go over and block the door.”
“Wow.”
I look over from the corners of my eyes. “Yeah. I said all that.”
Chapter Twelve
Annie
Room 323.
What he just said to me melted everything, and almost my integrity, too. But I remember too clearly what Corinne did to me and I will never – and I mean never – do that to another woman. I slept with him, yes. But I didn’t know he was taken. Now that I know he is, it will never happen again. Even though I love him. Even with the hospital gown and laid up in bed with a blanket around his waist, he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. Is this the ear you can’t hear out of, Brendan?
“Thank you for saying all of that. It means a lot. Really. But I can’t stay because you have a girlfriend. She seems very nice and I can’t hurt her more than getting you shot already has.”
For Lord only knows what reason, he laughs. And not just chuckles, but a building laugh that makes him yelp in pain and hold his right side. With a smile gleaming in his dark blue eyes, he says, “Stay a little longer, Freckles.”
A knife twists in my heart. “No.” I turn and walk out the door, pulling my IV fast.
“Wait! She’s not my girlfriend!�
�
The door closes completely. I freeze, staring at Maria, caught. Her face says everything. My head is doing flip-flops, looking at her, hearing what he said, knowing what she’s about to say. “Hi. Um. He was in the robbery with me. He’s my… friend.”
With two pillows in her hand, she looks at his room number, putting it together like perfectly matched puzzle pieces. “Annabelle O’Brien… you’re Annie.”
I nod. “I guess so.”
She cocks her chin to his door and says, “Well, what are you waiting for. I didn’t see anything.” Woman-to-woman again, she smiles and continues walking, humming loudly for the fun of it.
She’s not his girlfriend? Why did she say she was? He didn’t lie to me? I open the door and see him with his head in his hands. He drops them as he looks up.
“She’s not your girlfriend?”
He slowly shakes his head, a smile spreading. “No. She’s just a good friend. But you called her my mother so she got a little upset.”
Covering my mouth with my hand, I laugh, embarrassed and happy. “I should have said sister. She doesn’t look old enough to be your…”
He stops me. “I know. Come here.” He points to the side of his bed.
I walk to him, glancing to my metal appendage and maneuvering it so I can sit on the edge of his bed again. He’s serious, but his eyes are gleaming and connected. He reaches up and touches my cheek. I hold my breath as his thumb caresses it, because it reminds me of when I did this to him when I was drunk and twenty-three. Did my eyes look like his, the care apparent?
His fingers slip into my hair and he pulls me to him until we’re inches apart, looking into each other’s eyes. “I don’t have girlfriends. You need to know this. I won’t settle down.” He searches me for acceptance and understanding.
Reaching Hearts: Hearts Series Book 2 Page 4
