by Brenda Novak
Focus on something else.
The numerals on the digital clock on the nightstand flipped from 2:48 a.m. to 2:49 a.m. It was almost time to test Max. He wasn’t sure exactly why he’d volunteered for the job. Except that he couldn’t imagine how Emma dealt with the constant worry, and wanted to ease the burden if he could.
Climbing out of bed, he retrieved the black pouch and went into the bathroom to get everything ready. While he hoped Max’s blood sugar wasn’t low, he hoped it wasn’t high, either. He wanted Emma to be able to sleep.
When he returned with the meter and lancet, he knelt at the side of the bed and stared down at her son. Max’s eyelashes rested against his round cheeks, and his small hand retained the dimples-for-knuckles of a baby’s. Dallas’s hands had been the same way.
The similarities between the two boys ended there. But Preston still felt guilty, almost disloyal for liking Max. One child wasn’t interchangeable with another. And yet he knew there was nothing to be gained from resenting Emma’s son. Dallas was gone. Nothing could change that.
With a frown, Preston pricked Max’s finger, but he couldn’t get any blood out. Apparently, he hadn’t gone deep enough. He squeezed, but there wasn’t sufficient light to see where he’d made the hole. A moment later, an error message on the meter told him he’d have to use a new test strip.
Fortunately, Preston’s second attempt met with more success. The test strip soaked up the drop of blood he’d extracted, and the monitor beeped to show it had enough. Preston gave a sigh of relief as a dark line raced around the screen. After a series of beeps, a digital number appeared.
Preston held it closer to the light streaming out of the bathroom. Forty-six? How could Max be so low?
Trying not to remember the terrifying incident at the pool, he rushed into the kitchen, where he found a snack can of peaches and a spoon. But when he returned he couldn’t get Max to wake up.
“Come on, Beast. I’ve got something for you,” he murmured, dragging Max’s limp body up against his chest.
Max’s head lolled but didn’t rise.
Preston glanced nervously at Emma, who, surprisingly, hadn’t stirred. Was her son typically this difficult to rouse? Or had he gone into a coma or something?
“Max?” he whispered harshly.
Max didn’t respond or even lift his head. But as soon as Preston put the spoon to his lips, he opened his mouth, chewed and swallowed.
Thank God.
When he’d finished the whole can, Max rolled away without saying a word, as if everything was fine. But Preston still couldn’t sleep. He worried that maybe he hadn’t fed Max enough. The numbers didn’t add up. If Emma gave her son a small can of peaches when he was, say, seventy, she probably had to feed him more when he was only forty-six. That can of peaches had been so small.
He hated to wake Emma, but after thirty minutes of worrying about it, Preston decided he’d better check with her.
Kneeling by her side of the bed, he shook her shoulder. “Emma?”
Her eyelashes fluttered open. As soon as she saw him, she jerked further awake. “Oh, no. Max! Did you test him?”
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I tested him, but he was only forty-six.”
“Did you feed him?” She tried to sit up, but he pressed her down.
“Of course I fed him. I gave him a can of peaches. I just want to be sure one can’s enough.” He told himself to stop touching her shoulder, but he liked the feel of her bare skin beneath his hand and let it linger. The warmth of her body seemed to spread up his arm like a slow-moving dye, bringing back the memories of a few hours ago.
Slowly the tension he sensed in her dissipated. “It should be enough.”
Preston finally let go of her as she pushed the hair out of her face.
“I’ll have to test him again in a couple of hours,” she said.
“Okay, I’ll set the alarm.” Their eyes met and he smiled. Preston wanted to kiss her, to carry her out into the living room where they could have some privacy. But tomorrow was their last day together. He knew he should leave her alone. “Go back to sleep for now.”
“Preston?”
“What?”
“What’s in Iowa?”
He thought of life as he’d once known it, full of love and laughter and family. Emma seemed to offer him everything he used to have. But Vince was in Iowa. And the past wasn’t finished yet. “An old…friend,” he said bitterly.
“A woman?”
Preston detected a slightly proprietary tone in her voice and felt strangely gratified. Taking her hand, he threaded his fingers through hers one at a time. “No.”
She responded by pressing her palm flat to his.
He stared down at their interlocking fingers. He hadn’t reached out to another living soul since his son died, and he knew better than to form any attachment to Emma. But they were in such a similar place—cast adrift, living a life they’d never expected to live. That connected them already, like two strangers holed up in the same cave to wait out a thunderstorm.
“Can you tell me what happened to your son?” she asked softly.
He didn’t want to talk about Dallas; he never wanted to talk about Dallas. That was partly why he’d alienated himself from almost everyone he’d ever known. There was too much self-recrimination mixed in with his son’s death, recrimination for allowing someone he knew, someone he loved and supported as a close friend, to hurt Dallas. It wasn’t logical. He’d had no idea Vince was the kind of man he’d turned out to be. But that didn’t change the fact that, if Preston had only caught on sooner, he could have changed Dallas’s fate, Christy’s fate, his own fate….
The same thoughts had been whirling through his head for twenty-four months. He was sick of them, sick of the debilitating guilt. Tonight he just wanted to feel—feel Emma close to him, joined to him once again, assuaging that ache in his heart.
Preston didn’t realize he’d squeezed his eyes shut until she tugged on his hand. When he looked up, she slid into the middle of the bed and pulled him toward her.
He could tell she wasn’t offering him anything sexual. But it was crazy for all three of them to be in the same bed. What if he started dreaming and woke up in another cold sweat? Or what if he forgot about Max being there and let his hands wander?
“Preston?”
Her open, honest expression begged him not to say no.
Succumbing to the exhaustion that had settled into his bones several hours ago, he lay down next to her. He’d move to his own bed in a few minutes he told himself, and faced away from her so he wouldn’t be tempted to take more than she was offering.
He assumed he’d be too distracted and cramped to sleep. But when her smaller body cradled his, and she wrapped her arm around him, pressing her cheek to his back, he wasn’t uncomfortable at all. Soon he grew so relaxed, he was incapable of thinking about anything beyond the soft warmth that enfolded him. She held him fast, kept him from drifting, from dreaming, from tossing and turning. By blocking the memories and the past, by keeping him safe from himself, she gave him refuge.
Finally he slept.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE ALARM WAS about to go off. Emma wanted to catch it before the noise could disturb the other two people in her bed. But she was sandwiched between her son and the man she’d made love with in the bathroom last night, and even though she barely had room to breathe, she liked being where she was. Cocooned in their warmth, she felt strangely content—considering the state of her life.
Thinking back to the mornings she’d faced every day in her house in San Diego, with empty hour piled on empty hour, and only Manuel’s unwelcome, probing calls to break the tedium, she could scarcely believe she’d managed to flip her life around so completely. No more mansion. No more Jaguar. No more days spent lounging by the pool. But she didn’t miss any of it, because there was also no more Manuel. No more isolation. No more helplessness. Manuel had told her so many times that she could never get by with
out him. Wouldn’t he be shocked to see how happy she was!
She didn’t need anything. Just her son and—
She turned over to stare at Preston’s whiskered jaw. She hated to admit it, since they’d be separating in Iowa, but he was an integral part of the peace she felt at this moment. She could smell the fabric softener in his freshly laundered T-shirt, hear the steady thump of his heart, and was grateful for the opportunity to snuggle closer to him without his knowing. She’d slept deeply for the first time in a long while, and it was because he made her feel safe despite everything.
Max began to stir. “Mommy?”
Emma rolled over to scoop her son into her arms and kiss his forehead. “What, baby?” she whispered.
His eyebrows knit together when he realized they weren’t alone in the bed. “Did Preston get scared in the night, too?”
Emma laughed at the thought of Preston needing that kind of security and couldn’t believe how carefree it made her feel. How long had it been since she’d found humor in anything? Too long. She’d become old far too soon. But things were going to change.
Her smile lingered as she followed her son’s gaze. She, Preston and Max might be a ragtag bunch of misfits, but together they did okay.
“I knew a beast like you could protect me,” Preston muttered, letting them know he was awake.
Emma’s happiness immediately turned to an acute awareness of the muscular legs entwined with her own, the strength of the male body so close to hers. Waking up with Preston after a night in his arms felt almost as intimate as what had happened between them….
“I’m strong, huh, Preston?” Max said. “I have big muscles. See?”
Preston raised himself on his elbows to watch Max do his flexing. “That’s good. Now I can rest easy.” He flopped back onto the pillow and closed his eyes. Emma thought he was drifting off again until he nudged her. “Have you tested him yet?”
“I was about to.”
“I’ll do it.” As he got up, Emma’s eyes skimmed over his T-shirt and boxer briefs. With his square, unshaven jaw, enigmatic blue eyes and sleep-tousled blond hair, he looked incredibly sexy. And he had the body to go with the face. Even someone as conscientious about lifting weights and eating right as Manuel couldn’t make a pair of boxers more appealing.
Emma especially loved how unconcerned Preston seemed to be about his physical assets. Outward appearances, things, didn’t seem important to him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be driving that van. Or dressing the way he did.
He yawned as he returned, and Emma focused on watching him test her son. Ogling him wouldn’t help them get through the day—without winding up back in the bathroom—but she was relieved to know she could actually desire someone. Because Manuel had wanted to make love much more often than she did, he’d occasionally accused her of being cold. Once he’d even called her frigid. But she doubted anyone could call her frigid after last night.
“One thirty,” he said.
She frowned at him. “One thirty?”
Preston was obviously surprised by the question. “Max’s blood sugar. He’s one thirty.”
“Oh, right.” She smiled to cover her embarrassment. Her mind had been drifting back to the way he’d parted her robe.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re turning red.”
She cleared her throat. “One thirty is perfect. I guess we could’ve slept a little longer.”
The look on his face told her he was probably remembering the same thing, and caused a tremor low in her belly.
“Or maybe it’s better to get back on the road,” she said, knowing she couldn’t survive another session like the one last night and still expect to go on as if he was simply some nice man who’d helped her.
“We can cross Nebraska in one day if we get started soon.”
“One day? How far is it?”
“I think it’s about five hundred miles, but I’m not sure. I’ve got to do a few things on the computer. I’ll double-check while I’m on the Internet.”
She stretched, pretending not to notice the way Preston’s biceps flexed beneath his smooth skin as he set up his computer. “Should I find a little store and get us some groceries for breakfast?” she asked.
“Order room service,” he said. “It’ll be faster.”
“Okay.”
After turning on the television for Max, she carried the sack containing her new clothes into the bathroom and closed the door. A shower would help her wake up, she decided, but as she peeled off the pajamas she’d worn to bed, she couldn’t help studying her naked body. Preston had told her she was too thin. But he didn’t seem disappointed last night.
She turned to one side and frowned at her reflection. Maybe he liked women with fuller figures.
“Mommy, I’m hungry. What’s taking you so long?” Max called.
Feminine insecurity, at a time when she could least afford it. “I’ll be out in a few minutes,” she called.
She turned on the shower and stepped beneath the hot spray, telling herself she was stupid to become so obsessed with Preston. She’d barely escaped Manuel. But chastising herself didn’t do much good. The water sluicing over her body soon became Preston’s hands and mouth.
The image of him naked and in the shower with her made Emma feel giddy, breathless. She imagined the slickness of his skin against hers, his lips tracing a drop of water down her body….
Closing her eyes, she arched her back and imagined several different variations of last night. Then she smiled. “Take that, Manuel,” she thought. “I’m not frigid.”
PRESTON FELT more rested than he had in months, which was a definite improvement over most mornings. But being rested didn’t alleviate a certain…uneasiness. He suspected Emma had something to do with that uneasiness, but he didn’t want to think about it.
Tuning out the sound of the shower and the television, he focused on the list of e-mails filling his computer screen. He’d been so preoccupied with Emma and Max and getting to Iowa, he’d done little on the computer for the past few days. Spam cluttered his in-box, along with several securities newsletters, stock tips from various people he’d met on the Net, and a message from Gordon Latham containing Joanie’s new contact information.
Preston was reaching the bottom of his mailbox when he came across an e-mail with the subject header: Maybe you should know. Assuming the attached message would start with “Expand your penis size by three inches,” or something similar as most spam messages did these days, he nearly deleted it. But the return address caught his eye.
MellyD8. He recognized that address. It belonged to the Deets family. Their daughter, Melanie, had been a patient of Vince Wendell’s when he lived in Lockwood, Pennsylvania. Vince had mentioned the family a couple of times, but Preston had learned most of what he knew by going through the archives of the Lockwood Gazette, where he’d stumbled upon an article heralding Dr. Wendell as a local hero. Dated three years prior to the Wendells’ move to Half Moon Bay, the article praised Vince for hospitalizing little Melanie when she was showing only flulike symptoms. As it turned out, Melanie didn’t have the flu; she had septicemia, the illness that had killed Dallas. But she didn’t present the rash that sometimes accompanied the disease, so it was a marvel to most everyone that Dr. Wendell had possessed the foresight to get her the help she needed.
It wasn’t a marvel to Preston. He thought Vince should know what was wrong with her, since he’d given it to her in the first place.
The article had ended by saying that the city was naming a park after Dr. Wendell. It featured a photograph of a very distinguished looking Vince—a self-satisfied Vince who was obviously at the height of his glory. That picture now served as Preston’s screen saver, as a constant reminder that he might stand alone but he would never give up.
When Preston first contacted the Deets to ask about Melanie’s illness and recovery, they weren’t very forthcoming with the details, even though there was a little boy from the same town, also Vince’s pa
tient, who hadn’t been as lucky as Melanie. Mere months after Melanie’s miraculous recovery, Billy Duran had come down with the same flulike symptoms. His illness turned out to be meningitis, caused by the same bacteria as septicemia. Only Billy went into shock and died of heart failure on his way to the hospital.
Vince’s voice played in Preston’s head: One of my patients died. It happens, you know. Being a doctor, it’s something I have to deal with. But afterward it just…haunted me.
Preston hoped to hell Billy’s death still haunted Vince.
He clicked on the Deetses’ message. What did they have to say after so many months? The last flurry of e-mails they’d exchanged had gotten pretty heated. Jim Deets had insisted that Vince would have no reason to harm their child. Why would a doctor, a young man with a beautiful wife, a man who had it all, purposely make one of his patients sick?
That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? A normal person couldn’t understand it. But Preston thought he knew why. He’d seen Vince strutting around their house when Dallas fell ill, telling Christy she’d done the right thing by calling him, assuring them they had nothing to worry about now that he was there. Preston had known Vince liked to impress others, that he was trying to impress them, but he hadn’t realized how far Vince might go in order to accomplish that.
Closing his eyes, Preston shook his head. He should’ve seen it sooner. Vince lived for praise, fed on attention, craved the limelight. Since Dallas’s death, Preston had read about people like him. The disorder appeared more often among arsonists, who started fires to set themselves up as rescuers, but it was their intense need to be perceived as a hero that drove them, and Vince had that same craving.
