John glanced down the hallway to a pair of red double doors with a sign reading “ER Trauma Room” posted above them. “I’ve got to get back in there and make sure he’s taken care of. You’d better get his family here as soon as possible.” His bleary eyes searched mine and then he said, “When things settle down, you and I will need to talk about this.” John turned away and headed quickly through the red double doors.
* * *
Hoping to avoid the inevitable confrontation with John, I had turned down his offer to wait for Jean Marc in the empty doctor’s lounge, and instead opted to remain among the myriad of sick and injured in the noisy emergency room waiting area.
It was well after midnight and I had been sitting on the floor next to a little girl who had broken her arm while playing in an abandoned house, when a pair of black leather shoes stepped before me.
My insides melted as my eyes beheld Jean Marc, leaning over me and wearing a tailored dark blue suit. His black hair was disheveled and his muscular body looked leaner than I remembered, but his dark brown eyes still had the same mesmerizing glow.
He reached down and helped me from the floor. “I was at the airport, getting in from a business trip, when you called. I got here as soon as I could. Where is he?”
“He’s still being worked on.” I surveyed the waiting area. “Where’s Ms. Marie?”
“I haven’t called her yet,” he replied, and then lowered his gaze to my body.
I quickly realized that the blue jeans and T-shirt I had on only accentuated my weight loss. By the time his eyes returned to my face, the worry in them was riveting.
“I’ll get John.” But before I could turn away, Jean Marc grasped my hand.
His touch sent a shockwave up my arm. Squeezing his hand with all my might, I raised my head and our eyes locked.
“Is this the brother?” John asked, appearing beside us.
“John!” I instantly let go of Jean Marc’s hand. “Ah, yes, this is Jean Marc Gaspard.” I motioned to Jean Marc. “Jean Marc, this is my fiancé, Dr. John Blessing.”
The two men curtly nodded at each other.
“Mr. Gaspard, your brother is being transferred to the intensive care unit,” John stated in an impersonal tone. “We’re still not sure what he took, but the seizures have stopped. He’s still not awake, and may not be for several hours yet.”
“Do you have any idea what happened?” Jean Marc questioned.
“He was leading some kind of cult in the Quarter, Jean Marc,” I reported, my voice barely audible above the din of people around us.
Jean Marc’s eyes flashed with fury. “A cult? So that’s what he’s been up to.”
“That would explain the strange drugs in his system,” John mumbled. “It could be a form of Peyote used by the American Indians to induce hallucinogenic trips.”
Jean Marc furrowed his brow. “You mean like LSD?”
“Similar to it, but we may never know for sure,” John conceded. “We had a small sample of the stuff your brother drank sent to the crime lab. But it could be weeks before we get any results.”
Jean Marc ran his hands over his face. “What will happen to Henri?”
“Until he comes around, we can’t determine the extent of damage his brain may have suffered because of the prolonged seizures.”
“Are you saying he may have brain damage?” Jean Marc cursed and shook his head. “This is going to destroy my mother,” he said under his breath.
“I would still like to know what you were doing at this little cult fest, Nora,” John whispered to me as he leaned over my shoulder.
“I told you earlier. I stumbled on the meeting when I went to Steve’s home in the Quarter. When I saw Henri as the head of the thing, I knew it was some sort of scam.”
“Then why did you stay?” John demanded, raising his voice to me.
“I wasn’t even there five minutes when he drank that stuff. Then he started seizing, and what was I supposed to do?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jean Marc listening intently to our conversation.
“You are not to go on any more jaunts to the Quarter without me, Nora.” John ordered.
My anger came boiling to the surface. “Don’t tell me what to do!”
He pointed at the floor. “I work here, Nora. I can’t afford to have people think I have a cult follower for a fiancée.”
“Hey, wait a minute.” Jean Marc came up to John. “Look, John, Nora is—”
“Stay out of this,” John barked, turning to Jean Marc.
Jean Marc pointed at me. “Don’t you speak to Nora that way!”
“Jean Marc, please,” I implored, putting myself in between the two men.
John glowered at Jean Marc, expanding his chest like a proud peacock as he spoke. “She is my fiancée. Don’t tell me how to talk to her.”
“John, shut up,” I snapped.
“Your fiancée?” Jean Marc shouted. “You treat all women like that, or only the ones you’re engaged to?”
“Hey, where do you get off?” John called out.
Jean Marc motioned to me. “What have you done to Nora? For Christ’s sake, look at her. She looks sick! Is that how you like your women?”
“You son of a bitch.” John pulled back his arm and threw the first punch.
But Jean Marc was much quicker on his feet and ducked, avoiding John’s fist. Jean Marc bounced back to his feet and was able to land an expert blow right on John’s left jaw.
Someone in the waiting area shouted, “Fight,” and before I knew it, an audience of at least ten people stood beside me, egging John and Jean Marc on to kill each other. By this time they were rolling around on the floor, trying to pound each other with their fists. I screamed for the two men to come to their senses, but I had seen enough fights in my life to know that once testosterone went into overdrive, all a woman could do was stand aside and watch, or find an even bigger guy to break it up.
The bigger guy came in the form of a mammoth security guard stationed in the waiting area. He immediately pulled Jean Marc off John’s chest. The thick guard pinned Jean Marc to him with arms the size of small tree trunks.
“You okay, Doc?” the security guard asked as John rose from the floor.
John’s left eye was already swelling and his lower lip was dripping blood on to his green scrubs. I noticed that Jean Marc did not have a scratch on him.
John held his hand to his lip. “Let him go, Vincent. It was just a misunderstanding.”
I was scrambling to think of something to say when a uniformed police officer stepped out from behind John. He was a scrawny man with a long, pointy face and intense green eyes.
“I’m Sergeant Yeager of the NOPD, Homicide Division,” the policeman announced as he spied John’s bloody lip. “You Henri Gaspard’s brother?” he inquired, turning to Jean Marc.
Jean Marc stepped forward “Yeah. What is it? Am I under arrest for hitting a doctor?”
“No. Not my department.” Sergeant Yeager smirked. “I need to speak with you about your brother, and if you knew of any relationship he had with a….” Sergeant Yeager glanced down at a notepad in his hands. “Carrie Ann Wendell.”
“Who?” I asked.
“The girl I told you about,” John stated, while wiping his bloody lip with the back of his hand. “The one with the muscles cut away around her eyes that came into the ER last month. She was wearing a white robe and medallion like Henri’s. She was admitted in almost the same drug induced state as Henri.”
“Except she died,” Sergeant Yeager chimed in. “We think your brother may have had something to do with her death.”
“Ah, goddamn it,” Jean Marc muttered.
“Do you know anything, Mr. Gaspard?” Sergeant Yeager probed.
“No, my brother and I haven’t spoken for years. I didn’t learn about this cult business until tonight.”
Sergeant Yeager nodded and then turned to John. “We’ll need to talk to him when he comes around. I’ve got your
statement. Thanks, Doc.” He looked over at Jean Marc. “We’ll be in and out while your brother is here. If you think of anything, let us know.” He quickly walked away.
John leveled his gray eyes on me. “You need to go home, Nora. We’ll talk later.”
Jean Marc came up to my side. “Nora, I’d like you to stay.”
As my gaze drifted from Jean Marc’s dazzling, dark eyes to John’s expressionless face, I heard my mother’s voice in my head, begging me to make the right decision. But what was the right decision? Did I listen to my heart or my head? Then I recalled the thrill of dancing in Jean Marc’s arms, and my indecision rapidly evaporated.
“I’ll stay, Jean Marc,” I declared.
John gave me one last outraged scowl and walked out of the emergency room waiting area. My eyes followed his tall figure as he passed through a pair of electric glass doors and disappeared into a sea of people dressed in green scrubs.
Somewhere in the deepest reaches of my soul, I knew I had made an inalterable choice regarding my future that night. I just didn’t realize at the time how monumental that decision would turn out to be.
Chapter 16
Henri spent the night in the intensive care unit, and on Saturday morning his eyes opened. Jean Marc and I were waiting in the family lounge next to the ICU, along with Ms. Marie and my Uncle Jack, when a short, fat neurologist in a dirty white coat came to tell us the miracle had finally happened.
“Now he’s awake,” the neurologist, a man called Binder, explained as he sat with the four of us in a corner of the family lounge. “But his motor skills are not where they should be,” Dr Binder confided as he sighed and lowered his eyes to the blue carpet beneath his chair.
“What does that mean?” Ms. Marie asked as she held on to Uncle Jack’s hand.
Dr. Binder sighed again. “It means we may have a long haul before us. I think your son, Mrs. Gaspard, may have some brain damage from the effects of the seizures. His speech is very slow, and he has some right-sided weakness in his hand and foot that may resolve with therapy. As of right now he remembers nothing about the night of the incident.”
“Nothing at all?” Jean Marc questioned.
“He doesn’t remember what brought him to the hospital to begin with.” Dr. Binder went on. “But he is aware of being in a hospital, and the year, and recalls a lot of details about his life. That’s good news. It means most of his memory is intact, which would just leave us the physical difficulties to deal with.”
Ms. Marie stared at Dr. Binder. “When can my boy come home?”
“We will transfer him out of the ICU tomorrow and start him on physical therapy to see what kind of level we can get him up to,” Dr. Binder evasively responded. “But your son will have to go home with special care, Mrs. Gaspard. There will be therapy and nursing visits to help him get his strength back.” Dr. Binder sighed yet again, a habit I was finding quite annoying. “But whether your son will ever be as he was before the seizures, I cannot say. Only time will tell.” He stood from his chair. “I wish I could be more hopeful, but we will just have to wait and see.”
Jean Marc stood up next to the physician and held out his hand to the short man. “Thank you, Dr. Binder.”
After Dr. Binder left, Jean Marc’s eyes went from me to his mother, who was still sitting in her chair, holding on to Uncle Jack’s hand.
“Come on, Ms. Marie,” I said, leaning over her. “I’ll take you back to my house so you can rest.”
“Good idea,” Jean Marc affirmed. “I’ll stay here and see if anything new develops.” Jean Marc eyed Uncle Jack. “Why don’t you go, too, Jack? You look exhausted.”
Uncle Jack let go of Ms. Marie’s hand and stood up next to Jean Marc. “Perhaps I’d best be gettin’ back to Manchac, Jean Marc. Sounds like I’ll have things to do to get ready for when Henri comes home.” He glanced over to Ms. Marie. “We’ll have to move a bedroom downstairs, and make a wheelchair ramp for him.”
I watched my uncle’s face as he went through a list of changes needed for Henri’s return home. Then I remembered how Uncle Jack had nursed Aunt Elise through the last two years of her life after her stroke. He knew better than Ms. Marie and Jean Marc what was ahead for all of them.
“Jack, why don’t you take Momma home to Manchac with you?” Jean Marc suggested. Ms. Marie opened her mouth to protest, but Jean Marc stopped her. “Momma, there is nothing more you can do here today. I’ll call you if there’s any change.”
Ms. Marie stood defiantly from her chair. “I must be with my son.”
Jean Marc’s eyes pivoted to me, pleading for help.
I rested my hand on her arm. “Ms. Marie, Jean Marc is right. Tomorrow when Henri is out of the ICU and settled in his hospital room, you can visit with him. You should go home with Uncle Jack and rest.”
“You need to save up your strength, Marie,” Uncle Jack assured her. “When that boy comes home, he’ll need lots of help. We should get ready for that.” He took her hand. “You come home with me, and we’ll plan Henri a new bedroom in the small parlor downstairs, close to the bathroom. You come help me get everythin’ ready, all right?”
Ms. Marie slowly nodded her head.
“Take care of Jean Marc,” she whispered to me. “Don’t let him work himself into a state.”
After kissing her son on the cheek, Ms. Marie took my uncle’s arm and left the family lounge.
“Thanks, Nora.” Jean Marc turned to me. “She means well, but where my brother is concerned she can see no wrong in him. I don’t want her around when I beat the living crap out of him.” He shook his head. “What happens if it turns out he did hurt that girl? What will Momma do if Henri is a murderer?”
“I can’t see Henri killing anybody. John told me someone with the skills of a surgeon had worked on that girl’s eyes. Henri is no surgeon.”
Jean Marc put his hands in the front pockets of his blue suit pants. “Yeah, you’re right.” He paused for a moment and grinned. “I never did apologize for beating up your fiancé last night, did I?”
I smiled for him. “No, but you’re forgiven. Considering the circumstances, I understand.”
“When I first saw you in the ER, you looked so thin and pale. Then when John started letting into you, I just lost it.” He rubbed the heavy, dark stubble across his chin. “I guess I’m still that stringy fourteen-year-old boy chasing you all over the docks.”
“You sure didn’t fight like a stringy fourteen-year-old boy. Where did you learn to fight like that?”
“Here and there. I’ve seen my share of scrapes over the years.”
“Well, thanks for sticking up for me.” I took in Jean Marc’s wrinkled white dress shirt, tousled hair, and thick beard. “Look, it will be some time before Henri is ready for visitors, so why don’t you come back to my place? You can shower and I’ll cook us something to eat.”
“Nah, I should stay.”
“Please, Jean Marc.”
“Please?” He raised one dark eyebrow to me.
“Please take a shower.”
He chuckled. “Are you telling me I smell?”
I grinned as I reached for my purse. “What are friends for?”
He leaned over and whispered, “You’re much more than a friend to me, Nora.”
My heart plunged in my chest as I gripped my purse. “I know, Jean Marc, but I’m engaged to John.”
“We both know that won’t last.” He reached for his suit jacket on a nearby chair. “All right, let’s get out of here. I’m starving.”
* * *
An hour later, Jean Marc was in the shower while I prepared eggs, bacon, and grits in my kitchen. I puttered around, happy to be behaving so domestically for Jean Marc, something I realized I had never really liked doing before with John.
“That smells great,” a deep voice called from my bathroom down the hall.
“Ready in ten minutes.”
I heard what sounded like a key in my front door and then the thud of the heavy oak door
shutting. I placed my spatula down on the cooktop and went to the living room.
John was standing by the table next to my front door, wearing his green scrubs and two different beepers around his white coat lapel. He had a noticeable black bruise under his left eye, and his lower lip was still slightly swollen.
“John!” I exclaimed as I immediately thought of the man in my bathroom. “Why are you here?”
He gave me a quizzical look. “I thought I still called this place home, or has something changed between us?” He deposited his keys on the table by the door.
“I just thought after the fight last night….”
He came toward me. “Yeah, about that. I was out of line. I should not have started a fight with your friend.” He paused and removed his white coat. “I stopped in and saw his brother in the ICU before I left. He’s looking better.”
“John, I need—”
Jean Marc came out of the bathroom, dripping wet, barefoot, and dressed only in his blue suit pants.
He walked into the living room still toweling off his wet hair. “Ah, I’m sorry,” he said when he saw John standing in my living room.
“What’s he doing here?” John roared, throwing his white coat on my green couch.
“John, stop it. He’s here getting a shower and some food.”
John’s gray eyes turned to me. “In my house?”
I stomped my foot on the floor. “It’s my house!”
“That’s just great, Nora. Did you sleep with him, too?”
“No, John,” Jean Marc protested as he came forward. “It’s not like that. I just needed a shower. I’m here because of my brother, that’s all. When he goes back to Manchac, I’ll be out of Nora’s hair.”
John’s body relaxed, and then he shook his head. “Yeah, I know,” he grudgingly admitted. “I guess I just didn’t expect to find you here like that.” He waved at Jean Marc’s bare chest.
“I understand.” Jean Marc turned to me. “I’ll go.”
I went to Jean Marc’s side. “At least eat something before you go back to the hospital.”
“Yes,” John agreed. “You don’t have to leave because of me.”
Acadian Waltz Page 15
