The Long Way Back

by JoAnn Ross

  “I suggested Maggie enter a hospice program so she can stay at home, instead of spending her last months in the hospital.”

  “She’d hate being stuck in some dreary hospital room,” Caine said glumly. “So is she in this program?”

  “She hasn’t made up her mind yet. Perhaps you can help convince her.”

  Caine nodded. “I’ll give it my best shot.” He gave her a long, probing look. “What’s the prognosis?”

  “I told you—”

  “I know.” He cut the air with a swift slice of his hand. “You’ve convinced me that my grandmother is going to die, Nora. I want to know when. And how.”

  She’d seen that expression on his face before. When he’d been waiting for word of their critically injured son. Immersed in her own fear, Nora had refused to acknowledge his pain. This time, she found it impossible to ignore.

  “It’s hard to say,” she said softly. “She could have a heart attack, or a stroke, or some other type of seizure. Or she might simply fall asleep one of these times and not wake up.”

  “Not a lot of nifty options, huh?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He looked at her, taking in her neat blond hair, her starched white jacket, the little rectangular name tag above her right breast. She seemed both familiar and foreign at the same time. Caine wondered if Nora realized that the severe tailoring of her professional clothing made her appear all the more feminine by contrast. Softer.

  “I never could really think of you as a doctor.”

  “I know.” It was one of the things they’d fought about on a regular basis.

  “But you’re pretty good. I’m impressed.”

  The faintest of smiles played at the corners of her full, serious mouth. “Thank you. I needed a kind word today.”

  He glanced over at the light box she’d left on. “Trouble with one of your patients?”

  “A seven-year-old boy. His mother brought him in with burns she said he’d gotten from pulling a pan off the stove.”

  “I hope they’re not too bad.”

  “Actually, they probably won’t even blister. But I had a funny feeling about it, so I ordered some X-rays.”

  “And?”

  “See these?” Nora picked up a pencil and began pointing to various faint lines on the gray film.

  Caine pushed himself off the couch and came over to stand beside her. “Those wiggly lines?”

  “Those are old fractures left to heal by themselves.”

  “The kid was beaten?”

  “Apparently. And there’re more.” Nora turned off the light. “There were scars about the size of a pencil eraser.”

  “Or a lighted cigarette.” Caine felt suddenly sick.

  “Or a lighted cigarette,” Nora agreed flatly.

  Caine wondered how it was that he and Nora, who’d loved Dylan so much, had lost him, while some other parents could deliberately hurt their child.

  “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

  She looked up into his face and read her own troubled thoughts in his pained gaze. “Yes.” Her voice came out in a whisper. “It does.”

  They stood there, only inches apart, looking at each other, bittersweet memories swirling in the air between them.

  “Nora.” He ran his palm down the silk of her hair and watched the awareness rise in her eyes.

  “Oh, Caine.” It was little more than a whisper.

  He leaned closer.

  “This is a mistake,” she warned.

  “Probably. But no worse than any of the others I’ve been making lately.” His knuckles caressed her cheek in a slow, seductive sweep. “And I’m willing to bet it’ll be a helluva lot more enjoyable than most.”

  CHAPTER 7

  As his lips touched hers, the intervening years spun away and all the reasons why this was a mistake dissolved like mist over the treetops.

  Holding Nora brought not the pain of lost love he would have expected, but a rightness—almost a contentment—Caine hadn’t expected to feel. How could he have forgotten how sweet she was? And how responsive.

  He felt her sigh against his mouth—a slow, shuddering breath that echoed his own pleasure. Time tumbled backward, taking them past the pain to a passion that had been even more exquisite because it had been so liberally laced with love.

  “God, I’ve missed this.” Caine drew her closer, then closer still, until the rising heat threatened to fuse their bodies. “I’ve missed you.” Although he’d never realized it, it was true.

  “Don’t talk,” she whispered breathlessly. “Just kiss me. And hold me.” Her arms wrapped possessively around him; her lips fused with his, again and again. “Tight.”

  Dear Lord, he was lost in her. In her touch, her taste, her scent. Nora was everything he’d been wanting, without even knowing he’d been wanting it. She was everything he’d been needing without knowing he’d been needing it. She was heaven.

  She was home.

  Home. The word, which once had represented unwanted strings and unwelcome commitments, now seemed like a prayer.

  Caine skimmed his lips along the line of her jaw, then up her cheek to linger at her temple. Desperate to know how her body had changed during their years apart, he slipped his hands inside her lab coat. When his wide hand cupped her breast, a ragged moan escaped her parted lips.

  He tugged her blouse loose, then her camisole, inching his way beneath the ivory silk. “You feel so good.”

  His fingers moved upward to stroke her breasts, finding them as smooth and firm and fragrant as he remembered.

  He wanted to take those taut peaks in his mouth. He wanted to feel her body, hot and eager and open against his. He wanted to possess her, mind and body and soul, as he’d done on so many nights so long ago.

  He was actually considering the logistics of making love to her here and now in her office, when her intercom buzzed sharply.

  Like a man immersed in a sensual dream, Caine was aware of the intrusion and fought against it.

  The intercom continued to buzz.

  “I have to answer that.” Her flat tone told him it was not her first choice.

  Without removing his hands from beneath her camisole, he tugged her pearl earring off with his teeth and dropped it onto the desk before nibbling at her earlobe. “Don’t tell me this hospital will come to a halt if you don’t answer your intercom?”

  “No, but the E.R. clerk has a habit of just barging in.”

  Knowing that the idea of being caught in a heated clench with her ex-husband was more than Nora could handle, Caine reluctantly released her, then reached out to steady her when she suddenly swayed.

  “You okay?”

  “Of course.” But her hand trembled as she finger-combed her sleek hair.

  “Remind me to stop by Richie Duggan’s hardware store and get a Do Not Disturb sign for your office door.”

  “Please, Caine.” She struggled to tuck her blouse back into her waistband. “Don’t do this.”

  They were on familiar turf again: Nora backing away, Caine pressing her for more than she wanted to give.

  “I didn’t do it alone.”

  “I know.” Her eyes, her voice, revealed her regret.

  There was a sharp knock on the door. A moment later, Mabel entered the office.

  “Is everything all right, Dr. Anderson?”

  The elderly woman’s gaze reminded Caine of a curious bird’s as it flicked from Nora to him and back to Nora.

  “Everything’s fine,” Nora answered in a tone that was not nearly as strong as her usual professional voice.

  “You sure?” Knowing eyes searched Nora’s flushed face.

  “Of course.”

  “You didn’t answer the intercom.”

  “Mr. O’Halloran and I were discussing his grandmother’s case,” Nora said.

  Mabel turned back toward Caine, who was standing with his arms crossed over his broad chest. “I thought I recognized you.”

  “Mabel Erickson, Caine O’Halloran,�
�� Nora introduced them reluctantly. “Mabel runs the emergency room.”

  “No wonder everyone looks so efficient,” Caine said. “Believe me, Ms. Erickson, I’ve been in a lot of emergency rooms over the years and I could tell right away that yours is one of the best.”

  “Call me Mabel.” She beamed. “I’ve got your Vanity Fair issue in my locker,” she surprised Nora by revealing. “If I go get it, will you autograph it for me?”

  Caine grinned. “I’ll stop by your desk on my way out.”

  Mabel’s fleshy, smiling face was the hue of a late-July raspberry. “Don’t you dare leave this hospital without signing it.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” Caine said easily.

  “Mabel?” Nora called out to the receptionist’s back.

  The clerk stopped on her way out the door and glanced back over her shoulder. “Yes, Dr. Anderson?”

  “What did you want?”

  “Want?” Mabel’s gaze slid back to Caine.

  “The intercom,” Nora reminded her. “You buzzed.”

  “Oh, that. The Children’s Services social worker is here. About that little boy. I put her in waiting room B.”

  “Thank you.” But Mabel had already bustled off toward the staff locker room, leaving Nora talking to air.

  “You’ve obviously made another conquest,” she snapped.

  Her withdrawal was as familiar as her smoldering sexuality. Caine remembered all too well how Nora had never grown accustomed to having her husband surrounded by baseball groupies. Not that she’d ever needed to worry.

  Recalling her passion that Midsummer Eve in the cabin, Caine hadn’t been terribly surprised when their first encounter as man and wife six months after their marriage confirmed his long-held belief that they were a perfect sexual match.

  What had come as a distinct shock that afternoon years ago, before their son was born, was the realization that somehow, when he wasn’t looking, he’d fallen head over heels in love with his wife.

  “I don’t think this is the time or the place to get into another argument about my alleged infidelities, Nora,” Caine said now. His mouth set in its grim line again; all the heated emotion he’d displayed in his kiss had disappeared from his eyes.

  “It’s a moot point,” Nora said between clenched teeth, “since it’s over between us. I gave up worrying about all your other women a very long time ago, Caine.”

  She brushed her hands down the front of her jacket, smoothing the wrinkles that remained as damning evidence of her uncharacteristically unprofessional behavior.

  Caine rubbed his jaw. “You know, I thought it was over, too. But I’m beginning to have my doubts.”

  She tilted her chin. “I haven’t any doubts.”

  “Not even one?”

  “None at all.”

  He could have murdered her for unleashing so much raw emotion, then behaving as if that shared kiss had never happened. He could have dragged her onto the couch, her desk, hell, the floor, to prove to her how very wrong she was.

  “Well, then, if that’s really the case, we shouldn’t have any problem getting along while you’re treating Maggie.”

  Maggie. Caine couldn’t accept the idea that his grandmother was dying. It was something he would have to think about later. When he was alone. Or better yet, with his new best friend, Jack Daniel’s.

  “No problem at all,” Nora agreed stiffly. “I really do have to leave.” Unwilling to look directly at him, Nora focused on the wall thermostat beside the door.

  “Before you go, can I ask what happens next?”

  “With us? I told you, Caine. Nothing.”

  Caine saw the lingering reluctant desire she hadn’t been able to hide glowing in her eyes. That she wanted him was obvious. That she didn’t want to want him was also all too apparent.

  It was just as well, he decided grimly. He had enough problems right now without getting involved with the only woman he’d ever met who could make him willing to beg.

  “Actually, I was referring to that little boy.”

  “Oh.” Embarrassed that she’d misunderstood him and surprised by his obvious concern for someone other than himself, she said, “Children’s Services will begin an investigation. I could release him this afternoon, but I’d rather keep him here and avoid the risk of the social workers deciding to leave him with his mother while they conduct the investigation.”

  “Can you do that?” Caine asked. Concern for the unfortunate child temporarily overrode his concern for Maggie. “When there really isn’t anything wrong with him?”

  “You can always find something wrong with a kid if you’re creative.”

  “Sounds as if you’ve had some experience with this.”

  “More than I’d like.” She picked up the file, prepared to leave the office. “I really do have to leave.”

  “Sure.” Caine stepped aside. “Do you think it’d be okay if I dropped in on the kid?”

  “That would be terrific. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.” She rewarded him with a faint, appreciative smile. “He’s upstairs on the pediatric ward. Perhaps you could go up now while I talk with the social worker.”

  “Great.” He frowned. “I just wish I had a baseball or something for him.”

  “I think meeting you will be tonic enough.” The smile reached her eyes as she put her hand on his arm. “Thank you.”

  “No thanks necessary, Doc.” Caine covered her hand with his own. “I’m just happy to be able to help out.”

  He decided, for discretion’s sake, not to admit that if he were to go home to that lonely cabin to think about Maggie, and face his undeniable role in the failure of his and Nora’s marriage, he’d give in to the need to get very, very drunk.

  Her soft smile—a portent that perhaps things might be looking up—stayed with Caine as he took the elevator to the second-floor pediatric wing.

  For a man who’d been seeking something—someone—to make him feel like a hero again, Johnny Baker proved the perfect prescription.

  But it was more than just being put atop his lofty pedestal again, which, Caine considered, wasn’t all that bad. After drowning in self-pity for months, one look at those small bandaged hands went a long way to putting things back into perspective. If what Nora suspected was true, fate had certainly dealt this kid more than his share of rotten luck.

  Although Johnny had surrounded himself with protective walls even Nora might have envied, after a few minutes of regaling the seven-year-old with tales of games past, Caine began to breach those parapets.

  Enough so that Johnny had actually begun to relax when Nora entered the room with the social worker.

  “Look who came to see me, Dr. Anderson,” Johnny greeted her. “Caine O’Halloran.” He breathed the name in the way a religious zealot might whisper the name of his god. Johnny’s eyes, which had been so flat and lifeless during her examination, gleamed with youthful enthusiasm.

  “Dr. Anderson and I are old friends,” Caine said.

  “Wow!” The boy’s gaze went back and forth between them. “You’re really lucky, Dr. Anderson.”

  “I guess I am at that,” Nora said.

  “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “He’s gonna bring me an autographed baseball.”

  “And a Yankees cap,” Caine reminded him.

  “Yeah.” Johnny Baker’s expression was that of a boy for whom Christmas had come seven months early. “A real Yankees cap. Autographed by Billy Martin and Mickey Mantle!”

  Knowing how he had revered that particular piece of baseball memorabilia, Nora looked up at Caine in surprise and received an embarrassed grin in return.

  “That’s wonderful,” she said with a smile. “Johnny, this is Mrs. Langley. She’d like to have a little chat with you.”

  The light left his eyes, like a candle snuffed out by an icy wind. “You’re from Social Services, aren’t you?” He said the words without emotion, but his flat, older-than-his-years tone touch
ed Caine more deeply than his earlier hero worship.

  A little pool of silence settled over the room. “Yes, I am,” the social worker agreed quietly.

  Thin shoulders, clad in a pair of the superhero pajamas given to all the little boys on the ward, lifted and fell in a resigned shrug. “I figured you were.”

  “Have you talked with social workers before, Johnny?” Nora asked.

  “Yeah. In Portland. And a couple times in L.A. And every time, Mama’d get mad afterward and we’d have to move again.” He sighed. “I’m gettin’ awful tired of moving.”

  “Perhaps you won’t have to,” Mrs. Langley suggested. She pulled a chair up to the side of the bed. When she sat down, she was at eye level with the boy. “Perhaps this time, things will be different.”

  He stiffened slightly, as if bracing for the worst. “That’s what they all say.”

  He was retreating, back behind those self-protective walls. Feeling the boy’s pain and experiencing a strange sort of kinship with this child whose life had started out on such a different path from his own, Caine squeezed Johnny’s shoulder.

  “Listen, sport. I’ve got a feeling that between the four of us in this room, we can make a difference. But you’ve got to help.”

  “How?” A glimmer of hope cut through the shadows as Johnny looked up at his hero.

  “You’ve got to tell the truth.” When the seven-year-old didn’t immediately answer, Caine leaned closer and whispered in his ear.

  “I’ll think about it,” Johnny replied. “But only if you promise.”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  Johnny Baker looked into Caine’s face for a long time. “I guess I can trust you.”

  “I wouldn’t let you down, Johnny. You can count on it.”

  Apparently making his decision, the boy turned back to the social worker. “So, what do you want to know?”

  “What did you say to make him change his mind?” Nora asked, as she and Caine left the room.

  She’d seen similar cases where there were obvious signs of abuse and the children, whether from fear or misplaced loyalty, absolutely refused to say a single accusing word against their parents.