by Alicia Scott
“There’s nothing more for you to do here, Cagney, so you might as well go home. Marina will be worried about you by this time.”
“But…look at him, Suzanne. He’s still sweating away every damn drop of moisture we can get into him.”
“Dr. Jacobs says the fever might be breaking now. We got the IV in him, Cagney. It’s the best we can do. One of us at least ought to get some rest. Go home, Cage. I can take it from here.”
Garret opened his eyes to see them standing in the doorway. Cage was running his hand through his black hair and his face looked tight. Suzanne’s brown hair had escaped in long strands from the knot on top of her head. She looked tired, too. How long had it been? He didn’t know and found he still couldn’t move.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“Now, Cagney, we’ve had this conversation before.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Cage sighed as his hand went through his hair yet again. “I’ve never seen him look like this before, Suzanne,” he whispered quietly. “He was always the big one, you know? I still remember him taking on the bullies on the playground and thrashing every last one of them. Hell, do you remember what he did to Tank Nemeth?”
“I know, Cage. I know. He’ll get better, just you wait. And one morning, we’ll both come to check on him and he’ll simply be gone as suddenly as he came. You know Garret.”
Cagney grinned but it looked strangely sympathetic. “Yeah, I know. I was just wondering if you knew.”
“Fifteen years is fifteen years, Cagney Guiness. You’ve told me that enough times yourself. Now get home to Marina. This is no way to treat your fiancée.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of being right?” Cage started to head for the doorway, and Garret struggled to reach out his hand. At the last moment, Cagney stopped. “In three weeks, I’m supposed to be in New York, you know. Marina wants me to meet her folks. Think I should cancel?”
Suzanne shook her head. “Even if Garret’s not healed enough to go, he’ll still be healed enough not to want anyone’s help. ’Sides, I hear Marina’s parents are real nice.”
Cagney grimaced. “They have a cappuccino maker.”
Suzanne patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll do just fine.”
He grabbed his black cowboy hat from the peg next to the door and placed it on his head. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“You’ll be back in the morning,” she told him firmly. “And then only for a short while. You start spending too much time here after just getting engaged to the prettiest girl in town and people are gonna talk. We don’t want that, now do we, Cage?”
“Damn it, Suzanne, do you always have to be so practical?”
“It’s the only way I keep up with you. Now give Marina my best, and get out of my house. I’ve got things to do.”
“Eight a.m.?”
“Whatever works best. I’m going to cancel my meetings for the next couple of days. I suppose I can lie and say I’m sick. It’s for a good enough cause.”
“Thank you, Suzanne. You’ve always been the best.”
He turned away, and for just one moment, her practical, efficient demeanor slipped. “Cagney?” she asked hesitantly, her easy smile slipping for just a minute. “Why do you suppose that after all these years he came here? Why not your parents’ porch? Why not yours?”
Garret saw Cagney square his shoulders, the sheriff’s face composing into the quiet, steady expression for which he was known. “Mitch thinks someone may come looking at Mom and Dad’s,” he said evenly. “But there’s no reason for anyone to investigate here.”
Suzanne nodded, her chin still high in the air. “I figured it must be something like that.”
“Well, hopefully, we’ll know more once he comes around.”
“Of course. Take care, Cage. And remember, I’ll call if there’s anything to report.”
Cage disappeared through the doorway, leaving Suzanne alone in the bedroom, her rich brown hair curling in gentle tendrils around her face. Garret continued to stare at her, willing his throat to work, but no sound escaped.
Perhaps she felt the pull of his gaze instead.
She turned, and her large hazel eyes connected with his black, glittering gaze.
“Garret?” she asked immediately. He opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. Quickly, she crossed the room to the pitcher of water next to the bed. With slightly trembling hands, she poured half a glass and raised the cool plastic mug to his full, cracked lips.
He drank like a forty-day drought victim, and she poured him half of a second glass, forcing him to take it more slowly this time. At last he leaned back, the sweat still beading up on his forehead and rolling down his cheeks. Without another thought, she picked up a damp cloth and began to wipe down his forehead in quick, efficient strokes. It was much better to keep moving, she decided. Anything was better than the force of his eyes upon her face.
“Roses,” he whispered.
She jumped at the unexpected sound, then laughed a little self-consciously at her own nerves. She patted his forehead with the cloth a couple more times, then glanced down to find his burning eyes still locked upon her own.
“Roses,” he told her again, the words rasping. “I couldn’t figure out why there were roses amid all the stones.”
Before she could move, his hand abruptly touched her cheek. The feel of his finger, dry and hot, caused her to flinch, and his hand fell down.
He sighed, the sound like a desert wind upon loose rocks. “I always knew you would still be here.”
She jerked upright at that, the spell broken by her immediate outrage. She picked up the damp cloth and resumed her efficient movements. “Of course I still live here,” she said primly, her chin up as she dabbed the cloth around his hairline. “This is my house, my home. I will always live here.”
He seemed to smile, but his eyelids were already beginning to flutter down. Just as well, she told herself. She didn’t want to talk to the insufferable bastard anyway. She nursed him for Cagney’s sake and because she always helped the downtrodden—it was her civic duty. But she’d be more than happy for him to get well and leave. After all these years, she certainly didn’t want anything to do with Garret Guiness.
She wasn’t some sixteen-year-old fool anymore.
He winced, and she realized her movements had grown rather brisk. Immediately, she relented, redipping the cloth in the basin while she took another look at his flushed face. The cloth stilled in her hands, and her expression froze just for one instant.
He did look so sick, and the lump on the corner of his forehead had turned a putrid shade of green.
She wrung out the cloth and returned it to his closed eyes.
“Rest up now, Garret,” she told him softly. “You hear me? You’ve got to get well for Cagney and me. There’ll be plenty of time to raise hell then.”
“Mrtavi,” he groaned suddenly, thrashing his head to the side. The movement hurt him. She saw his lips curl back with the pain and the muscles cord on his neck. “Mrtavi,” he yelled, thrashing to the other side. His hands clenched into fists, the knuckles turning white, the one scar standing out in rigid relief. “Mrtavi!”
“Shhh,” she tried, abandoning the fallen cloth to place her hands on his shoulders instead. “It’s over now, Garret. It’s over.”
But the words didn’t penetrate, and as she felt his body bow with unbelievable tension, she felt a moment of fear. He’d always been such a powerful presence.
“Garret—” she began.
He snapped, his body suddenly sinking back into the mattress like a marionette whose strings had been abruptly cut. His head rolled limply to the side, and she knew he’d fallen unconscious once more.
Gingerly, she collected herself, finding her hands trembling violently against his shoulders. Fifteen years ago, she’d stood in awe of him. Because he was tall, dark and powerful, and because he could do things to Tank Nemeth she never would. Somehow, with the passing of time, she’d gotten he
rself to believe the impressions were only the exaggerated memories of a sixteen-year-old girl. After all, once she’d thought he was her white knight, as well. She’d dreamed that he would come back to save her from her dreary, lonely life.
How mistaken she had been.
But it appeared some things about Garret remained true. He was still huge, and he could still make her hands tremble. And he still left her with more questions than answers.
She laughed suddenly, a small, rueful sound, as she dampened the washcloth again and spread it on his bruised forehead. So here was Garret Guiness, shot, feverish and unconscious.
Leave it to Garret to actually return but give her no satisfaction in it whatsoever.
Chapter 2
As usual, Suzanne woke up with the daybreak, the first few strands of the sun’s glimmering rays peeking through the simple white eyelet curtains on her window. She lay there for a long moment, feeling unusually groggy and disoriented. Abruptly, the memory surfaced: Garret was back.
She frowned, and found herself staring at her motionless faded curtains while the July heat wrapped around her, warm and velvety.
Generally, she didn’t lie around in her un-air-conditioned room contemplating her decor or the warm scent of roses in the morning air. Instead, she’d wake like an arrowshot, sliding out of bed and changing quickly while she contemplated meetings to attend, chores to do and people to call. She would put on her walking clothes and spend a brisk five miles every morning walking and plotting her day. Sometimes, if the day wasn’t too hectic, after walking and showering she would take her tea out on her back porch, admire her roses and bask in the sultry morning for a rare twentyminute break.
But mostly she moved and ran and plotted. She went to bed with her list of things to do formulating in her mind, then awoke with her thoughts already halfway down the list. No one got things done like she did.
But now, she remained sitting in her sleeveless cotton gown while the morning settled hot and humid around her. Because Garret had returned. Shot up and half-dead on her doorstep. What was a woman supposed to do with that?
She’d checked on him each hour as she’d promised. And each hour, he’d responded with his name, even as the moments of cognizance had faded in and out. Sometimes, he’d looked her straight in the eye, and whispered words she didn’t understand. Other times, he’d thrown his head back and forth, the muscles on his neck cording like a wild stallion caught in the throes of a primal rage.
The few words she did recognize were something about a car in the forest and whispered warnings about his mom and dad. At least during the last hour the color had gone down in his cheeks. Perhaps today the fever would finally relinquish its hold. She hoped so; he was sweating away a dangerous amount of fluid, and there were times she was sure he would tear the fragile IV needle from his hand with his fever-induced wars.
But it appeared he’d survived the night. Which brought her, of course, to the day. She felt her stomach tighten, and a strange, light tingling filled her. Anticipation. Abruptly, she punched her pillow, and swung her feet to the floor.
Darn it, she wasn’t going to feel such things. She was going to tend to his wounds like a good nurse and see to his health as Cagney’s best friend. She was going to be a good citizen, and not think of anything else. She was practical and strong, and she’d paid dearly for both those qualities. If she ran around like some efficiency machine, then the approach had served her well through the years. Everyone in Maddensfield respected her. And no one, no one, ever mentioned her mother or all those years before.
She drew her nightgown over her head and stepped briskly into the shower. To prove her conviction, she turned her mind expediently to its lists of daily tasks. She had a meeting about the upcoming August parade at eleven, then the Maddensfield Fair at two. Choir practice began at eight tonight, and it was her turn to supply refreshments. Of course, tomorrow night she was due down at the Y as part of the literacy program.
They would all have to be canceled. She frowned in the shower, lathering her long hair briskly as the thought of lying settled low and uncomfortable in her stomach. She really wanted to curse Garret Guiness. She would have to say she was sick, she thought finally, rinsing out the last of the soap from her hair. At least it would explain why Dr. Jacobs continued to visit her house. Perhaps Cagney’s, as well.
She stepped out of the shower and quickly toweled off. With a comb, she impatiently attacked the knots in her long brown hair, her fingers working automatically while her mind wandered free. She’d never liked her hair. It was fine and straight and completely unruly. Other people with long hair seemed to have thick, luxurious strands that shone after a brisk brushing. But, she thought, hers remained dull and lifeless, a color she’d come to call dishwater brown. Ruthlessly, she gathered it up into a knot on top of her head, and pinned it into submission. Over the course of the day, strands would escape to curl hot and uncomfortable down her neck. She’d discovered there was little she could do about that, except console herself with the knowledge that at least at the beginning of each day, she’d won the battle.
She only ever wore a touch of brown eyeliner and mascara, so when she found her hand hovering inexplicably over some ancient eye shadow, she felt the first stirrings of anger. She absolutely, positively, was not going to change anything for the man downstairs. It didn’t matter that he was Garret and had once beat up Tank Nemeth for her and her sister. It didn’t matter that he’d once flashed those special grins for her and walked her home. He’d left fifteen years ago, damn it. And not once had he ever looked back.
Not even all those nights she’d lain awake, and prayed that he’d come take her away at last.
The ache that appeared suddenly was rusty and deep. She turned away from it completely, and sought out her closet instead. Fifteen years was fifteen years, and so help her God, she was not going to suffer one moment of feeling for Garret Guiness.
She grabbed a skirt and blouse out of her closet without allowing herself a second to reconsider, threw them on and left without even a backward glance at the mirror. It was bad enough she’d given up her morning walk and afternoon meetings for the man. She wouldn’t give up anything more.
The resolution lasted as long as it took her to get downstairs to the guest bedroom.
Here, she’d left the window air-conditioning unit running all night, and the air remained cool, prickling light goose bumps along her bare arms. But more to the point, the climate finally seemed to have reached Garret; he now lay quiet and still amid the twisted sheets, his chest falling with the even rhythm of sleep.
As she looked at him, tanned and rugged against the pale sheets, images from the past hovered at the edges of her mind. Garret had always been larger than life, not only because of his size and strength, but also because of the crackling air of raw energy that had surrounded him everywhere. When he’d grinned at her, she’d felt her heart explode like a fresh-bloomed rose in her chest.
It had seemed to her that he’d grinned for her alone.
Sometimes, when her mother had passed out drunk on the living room sofa, and her sister had cried herself to sleep in the room next door, she’d lain in bed and replayed each and every one of those grins in her mind like a precious treasure. And that day he’d taken on Tank Nemeth and all the other kids who’d made fun-of her and her sister, she’d barely been able to sleep with the pure joy. Someone had stood up for her. Someone had actually cared.
It didn’t matter that he rarely spoke to her, after all, he was two years older and the hero of the school. It didn’t matter that the few times she saw him, she couldn’t get a single word past her lips. All that mattered was the fact that he’d grinned at her, and each grin was a spark of color firing into the black-and-white solitude of her life.
She’d loved him passionately and purely and never expected him to feel anything else in return. Until the night she’d appeared at his house to walk with him to the bus stop.
She swallowed heavily, her h
azel eyes blinking back to the present and the sight of a wounded Garret lying in her guest bedroom, an IV needle stuck in his hand.
And she forced herself to recall the other nights, the ones after the bus stop, when she’d lain wide-eyed into the early-morning hours waiting for him to appear. The nights she’d heard her mother’s drunken mumbling, and thought that this night, this night he would surely appear and take her away at last.
This night he would save her. Night after night after night. But each morning she opened her eyes to her own bed and the sound of her mother’s groans echoing down the hall.
She pushed away from the doorway, walking squarely into the room. Immediately, Garret’s dark eyes opened.
“How do you feel?” she asked quietly, automatically pouring him a fresh glass of water from the pitcher beside the bed. Her hands trembled only slightly.
He didn’t say anything, but his gaze latched onto the cold, tantalizing water. In response, she brought the glass to his lips and let him drink deeply.
His head fell back when he was done, a small sigh escaping the parched tightness of his throat. He felt like a stone, trying desperately to absorb water before it evaporated away from the searing heat. She placed the back of her hand against his cheek, and he closed his eyes against the coolness of her touch.
“Better,” she murmured, “but still hot.” A thermometer appeared in her hand and was unceremoniously stuck between his lips. His dark eyes glittered, but he didn’t say anything.
In his fever-soaked visions, he felt he’d seen her a million times and in a million different ways. He’d seen her as the serious girl, walking the halls with her hunched shoulders and long brown hair. He’d seen her at the bus stop, her hazel eyes so luminescent in the rain, her pale face accepting. She always looked sad and strong in his mind, and those eyes had haunted him across more miles and more years than he’d ever intended.
She plucked the thermometer from his mouth and held it up to the light. As her gaze found the red mercury line, she frowned and tiny lines appeared around her eyes.
