by Arlene James
He shot Kaylie an amused glance that eased a small measure of her concern. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“How you’ve suffered!” Odelia clucked. “We’re so happy to have you back again.” She patted his good hand. “Don’t you worry a bit. We’re going to get you well, no matter how long it takes. Isn’t that so, Kaylie dear?”
Kaylie didn’t even have time for a limp nod before Hypatia said, “For pity’s sake, Odelia, sit down.” Her tone could not be construed as anything but an order.
Unperturbed, Odelia trotted over and dropped down beside Magnolia, her sweet smile in place. Hypatia then turned to Stephen, offering him a more formal welcome.
“It is good to see you again, Stephen dear. May we offer you a refreshment?” She leaned forward, reaching for the teapot. “Cream or sugar?”
“Uh…” Stephen shook his head. Taking his response as a repudiation of the condiments, not the tea, Hypatia began to pour. Meanwhile, Ophelia popped up and piled a trio of dark, fragrant muffins on a delicate Limoges china plate, along with a slice of cantaloupe and a delicate silver fork. She handed him that plate just as Hypatia passed him a cup of black tea on a matching saucer. Stephen tried to accept both, but the muffin plate wound up in his lap.
Kaylie lurched forward and caught the plate and the muffins. The fork and cantaloupe hit the floor. Aaron laughed, but Ophelia went into paroxysms of apologies and reassurances.
“Oh! Oh, oh, oh! How clumsy of me! Your fruit!” She grabbed a heavy linen napkin, hiked her skirt and gave every evidence of intending to drop to her knees. Kaylie managed to head her off.
“Here, let me.” Placing the muffin plate on the seat of her chair, Kaylie took the napkin from Odelia, bent and swept up both fork and cantaloupe slice, setting them aside on the tray.
“Kaylie to the rescue,” Aaron chortled. “Getting to be a habit, huh, Stevie?”
Stephen winced but made no reply.
Magnolia shoved a plate of muffins, sans fork and fruit, into Aaron’s hands as Hypatia reached once more for the teapot, asking in a strained voice, “Cream or sugar?”
Oblivious to any awkwardness, Aaron took both. Hypatia managed to prepare his tea while shooting daggered glances at Odelia, who returned meekly to her place on the settee.
Magnolia tsked and helped herself to a plate of goodies while Auntie Od bounced numerous regretful looks around the room. Kaylie selected another slice of melon for Stephen, spearing it with a clean fork. She placed it on his plate that way and returned the plate to his lap, within easy reach. She then filled another plate and passed it to Odelia with a sympathetic smile.
Subsiding back into her chair, Kaylie took Stephen’s saucer from him, allowing him to use his good hand to handle his tea. He gave her a slight nod in thanks but failed to meet her gaze as he raised the cup and sipped. A muscle quivered in the corner of his eye, but his face remained expressionless, even as Aaron exclaimed, with a full mouth, over the muffins and slurped his tea. The muffins, Kaylie knew, were delicious, so she offered Stephen the saucer. He placed his teacup on it, and she set both aside as he reached down to take a muffin from the plate on his lap.
“Kaylie, dear, would you like a cup of tea?” Hypatia asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
“And muffins?” Magnolia suggested, passing her a fresh napkin.
Considering that she only had two hands, Kaylie declined. “I’ll share with Stephen.”
Stephen smiled at her and bit off a hunk of a muffin. An instant later, bliss relaxed the muscles of his face and widened his eyes. “Mmm.” He chewed and swallowed. “Wow. Even my oma’s gingerbread isn’t this good.”
Kaylie snatched one of the muffins from his plate as the aunties erupted into expressions of delight at Stephen’s praise. The sugar-crisped crust protected the moist insides, rich with golden raisins and pecans. While Kaylie nibbled and Stephen gobbled, the Aunties explained in minute, and often conflicting, detail how Hilda prepared the luscious treat.
The subject quickly exhausted itself, at which point Odelia smiled at Stephen and said, “Perhaps Oma would like Hilda’s recipe.”
“She might,” Stephen replied with a tired smile.
“And who is Oma, dear?” Magnolia asked. “Your cook?”
“My grandmother. Oma is Dutch for grandmother.”
“How lovely!” Odelia exclaimed. “What’s the Dutch word for aunt?”
“Tante.”
“Tante. I like that. Tante Odelia.”
Stephen polished off his second muffin and went to work on the melon, holding the slice suspended on the fork. He put it down without finishing it, and Kaylie noted the signs of fatigue in the droop of his shoulders and eyelids.
She interrupted a chummy discussion between Aaron and the Aunties to say, “I think Stephen should get upstairs now.”
That presented a problem that Kaylie had mulled over off and on for the past two days. Grandpa Hub had depended on Chester to carry him up and down the stairs, but Chester had been a decade younger then, and at ninety-two Grandpa had been little more than skin and bones. Aaron honed in on the issue at once.
“Hey, next time I’ll bring along some of your teammates,” he joked to Stephen. Looking at the aunties, he explained, “The Blades have a couple of Swedes and a Russian who make Stephen look like their baby brother.”
“Maybe Chester and Mr. Doolin can get Stephen up the stairs by turning the chair backward,” Odelia suggested.
Kaylie didn’t see how that would be possible, given the fact that Stephen’s leg stuck straight out and blocked access to the front of the chair so no one could lift from that side. She doubted that anyone could lift Stephen up so many stairs, anyway. Nevertheless, they would likely need Chester’s assistance. Magnolia went to get him while Kaylie maneuvered Stephen’s chair to the foot of the stairs. They both looked up that broad, gracefully curving staircase and knew that he was getting up there only one way.
“Do you think you can do it?” she asked him quietly as the aunts and Aaron arrived to offer support.
He snorted. “Do I have a choice?”
“We’ll take it slow, rest along the way.”
He nodded grimly. Chester arrived, and without any further discussion Stephen pushed up to his feet, or rather, foot.
“You sure about this?” Aaron asked, realizing what Stephen was about to do. “Maybe we could rig some sort of ramp.” It would take a team of oxen to pull Stephen up such a steep slope, and everyone knew it.
“Just get over here and give me a hand,” Stephen ordered.
Aaron pushed past Kaylie and slipped his shoulder under Stephen’s good arm. The aunts worried aloud, but Chester merely remarked that he would take up the chair. Hoisting the contraption, he began to climb the stairs with it. Behind him, Stephen hopped up onto the bottom step, his bad leg held out at an awkward angle. Kaylie rushed to lend what aid she could.
It was a grueling, lengthy process that brought Kaylie to tears and both Stephen and Aaron to the brink of exhaustion. By the time Stephen dropped down into the chair again, he was moaning, Aaron’s chest pumped like a bellows, and Kaylie had to surreptitiously wipe her eyes. She quickly wheeled the chair along the landing, through the sitting room of Stephen’s suite and into his bedroom, where she, Aaron and Chester got him into bed.
While Chester went back downstairs and Aaron sagged against the bedpost, Kaylie quickly administered an injection of painkiller.
“And I thought I was tough,” Stephen murmured, his eyelids sagging.
“You are unbelievably tough,” she told him softly. “I don’t know another man who could have managed that, not even my brother Chandler.”
His light gray eyes opened, delving deeply into hers, and he whispered, “I was afraid you wouldn’t come back.”
“Of course I came back.”
His eyelids drifted down again, and he breathed the words, “I need you to come back.”
“I did,” she said. “I will.” She realized then jus
t how true that was. “I’ll come back for as long as you need me.”
How, she wondered, as Stephen’s hand sought and gripped hers, could she do anything else? She supposed it meant that they would have to discuss that kiss, but oh, how she wished they could pretend that it had never happened.
Aaron’s cell phone rang just then, and he dug it from his jacket pocket, looked at the caller ID and winced before showing it to Stephen, who moaned low in his throat.
Kaylie glimpsed the photo of a mature, smiling woman with a long face and straight, shoulder-length, pale blond hair just before Aaron put the phone to his ear and exclaimed, “Hannah! How is mijn favoriete meisje?”
Even Kaylie knew that his accent was deplorable, though she had no idea what the phrase even meant. That it was Dutch, however, she did not doubt.
“Yeah, well, there have been a few developments,” Aaron said reluctantly, glancing at Stephen. “Fact is, we just got our boy back here to the mansion from another little hospital stay.” He emphasized the word mansion.
He listened for several moments before saying, “Uh, right, right! Thing is, I guess we were just too busy to think of it, little issue with his leg.” Then, “Naw, naw, it’s gonna be fine. Surgery was a complete success.”
He glared at Stephen and pointed at the phone, but Stephen shook his head adamantly, turned away and closed his eyes. Aaron bowed his head, balancing his forehead against the palm of his free hand, his arm wrapped around the bedpost. “Yeeaah,” he drawled, “the thing is, see, he’s asleep. His nurse gave him a shot, and he went out like a light, let me tell you.” He straightened, looked at Kaylie and pointed to the small phone nestled against his ear, as if to ask that she confirm his assertion.
Kaylie spread her hands, glanced at Stephen and shook her head, silently indicating her confusion and reluctance to get involved.
Aaron smoothly shifted gears, his jocular mien sliding over him like a second skin. “Hey, you ought to see this place. It’s really something, an honest-to-goodness antebellum mansion. They’ve got a dumbwaiter out on the landing, murals on the ceilings and enough crystal hanging around to bury a fellow if it should fall. Why, your boy’s resting on rare antiques, or so I’m told.”
He suddenly stood upright, eyes wide. “Uh, uh, let’s wait on that a few more days.” Turning to Kaylie, he churned his hand, silently asking her for help, but what help? “U-until the, um, doctors o-okay him for visitors.” Grimacing, he showed his teeth to Kaylie. “No, really. It’s j-just a precaution. Yeah, yeah, of course I’ll tell him you called.” Aaron laughed in that practiced way of his and went on. “Now, don’t worry about him. He’s in good hands, and I’m sure he’ll be well enough to speak to you in, uh, soon.”
After a few more seconds, Aaron ended the call and slumped against the bedpost once more. “Whew! Thought for a minute there that she was about to jump a plane.”
“She’d better not!” Stephen growled, flopping onto his back.
Kaylie parked her hands at her hips and demanded, “What is going on? Who was that?”
Stephen clamped his mouth in a hard line, but Aaron seemed surprised that Kaylie didn’t know. “Hannah Scherren, Stevie’s mom.”
“His mother!” Kaylie bent toward the bed. “You don’t want your mother here? Why ever not?”
Stephen rubbed a hand over his face. “I just don’t, that’s all.”
“But she’s your mother.”
“Listen,” Aaron said suddenly, “I gotta run.” He started off, then paused and turned back to shake a finger at Stephen. “The thing is, if you would just talk to her, it might do you both a world of good.”
“Stay out of it, Aaron.”
Aaron sighed. “Been four years since you last spoke to any member of your family, Stevie.”
“I said to stay out of it!”
“Not since the funeral.”
Kaylie gasped. “What funeral? Whose? What are you talking about?”
Aaron shook his head and made for the door again. “You want to know that, you gotta ask Steve.”
Kaylie turned back to the bed, but Stephen’s glare warned her not to press the issue. “Don’t,” he said when she opened her mouth.
Curiosity and concern burned within her, but she knew that it would be a mistake to become further involved with Stephen Gallow’s personal life. She closed her mouth and sat down in the wheelchair next to the bed. Stephen closed his eyes, and after a moment, his hand groped for hers. Kaylie did her best not to reach out, but somehow their palms met, and their fingers intertwined. She sat with her head bowed, asking herself what she was doing with this man, until the pressure of his fingers slowly eased. Finally, she slipped free and left him sleeping peacefully.
Moving out into the sitting room, she lifted a hand to the back of her neck and then turned her eyes heavenward. The mystery of Stephen Gallow had just deepened, and the differences between them had never been more painfully obvious, and yet…and yet…
“Show me Your purpose in this, I beg You.”
A man who would not even speak to his own mother could not be for her.
But could she be for him?
Chapter Nine
Alone again.
That was Stephen’s first thought when he woke. Alone and in pain, considerable pain, more than he’d expected, but nothing he couldn’t manage until Kaylie came again.
I’ll come back for as long as you need me.
He had carried her whispered promise off into exhausted, thankfully peaceful slumber, but he couldn’t forget now how appalled she had been that he wouldn’t speak to his mother. How could he tell her why? She would likely despise him then, as his family must.
I’ll come back for as long as you need me.
Yet, she’d thought that he hadn’t needed her in the hospital, and she had stayed away. Now she had to know that there was much wrong in him. Would she break her promise? Or would she simply go away for good?
The sound of her voice came to him, growing louder as she crossed the sitting room toward his bedchamber.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I know I’ve been gone more than usual today, but this is a special case.”
Pleased and surprised, Stephen opened his eyes and strained to hear every word.
“You know that he just got out of the hospital.”
Pushing up onto his elbow, Stephen looked into the sitting room, listening shamelessly, but Kaylie must have come to a stop just out of sight.
“I’m sorry you had to make your own lunch, but I came home as soon as I could to put a casserole in the Crock-Pot, didn’t I?”
A pause followed, then, “I can’t be sure when he’ll wake up, but don’t feel you have to wait to eat until I get there.” And finally, “Okay, fine. I’ll come as soon as I can. I promise. Bye.”
Stephen eased back down on the bed, calling out, “Kaylie?”
Just as expected, she stepped into the doorway, her old flip phone in her hand, a smile on her face. “You’re awake! You must be hungry. You slept straight through lunch.”
“Did I?”
He licked his lips, aware now of his hunger and thirst. As if she could read his mind, she walked to the bedside table, pocketed her phone and poured him a glass of water, saying, “I brought this up fresh just a little while ago.”
Turning onto his side, he took the glass in his good hand and managed a long drink before collapsing back onto his pillow. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. So how do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been beat up.”
“The leg’s starting to ache, isn’t it?”
“How’d you know?”
“I’m surprised the nerve block hasn’t worn off already,” she said, smiling down at him. “Do you want something for pain before I go down to get your meal?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to go back to sleep. What time is it, anyway?”
“Nearly four.”
He nodded, and she turned away, but he called her back. “Kaylie?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for staying.”
“I wasn’t here all the time.”
“I know, you went home to put on dinner for your dad, but you were here most of the time, weren’t you?”
She looked down at her hands. “I thought you might need me.”
“I do.”
She said not a word to that; neither did she meet his gaze.
“Will you stay while I eat?” he asked tentatively.
She nodded. “Someone has to take down your tray when you’re done.”
“Thanks,” he said, but then before she could get out of the room, his big mouth got the better of him and he halted her again. “Kaylie?”
She stopped and turned her head, gazing at him over her shoulder. “Yes?”
He was having second thoughts, but the idea had been uppermost on his mind since she’d walked into his hospital room that morning, and the sooner it was out, the sooner they could honestly address it. And the sooner he would know where she truly stood on the matter. Last night he’d thought she was done with him; then she’d walked into his room this morning. He tamped down his misgivings and said, “I hope you don’t regret that kiss. Because I don’t.”
She froze for several heartbeats, but then she turned, her body pivoting at the end of her neck, and calmly asked, “Why won’t you speak to your mother?”
He must have looked as if he’d been poleaxed, because that’s how he felt. She flipped around and walked out of the room. He stared at the empty door for several long seconds, but then he had to smile, even as his stomach sank.
Oh, man. Talk about giving as good as she got! Her message couldn’t have been more clear. If he tried to discuss the one subject, she would insist on discussing the other, and that was the last thing he wanted. The very last thing. Mercy, his gentle little nurse had just backed him into a corner and forced a standoff. These, he understood perfectly, were the conditions under which they would proceed: the kiss hadn’t happened, no estrangement from his mother. He supposed he’d just have to live with that, whether he liked it or not.
