“I was admiring the pool.”
“They did an amazing job, didn’t they? Lynda and her friends used to be in it all the time, but then she started high school and got into cheerleading and was hardly ever home. Maybe now…” She looked up at Rick. “I wish I knew what to expect. So far everything I thought she might do or feel has been wrong.”
“Such as?”
“Cutting herself off from her friends. I used to tease her that I wouldn’t recognize her without a phone pressed to her ear.”
“Have you talked to the counselor?”
She shook her head. “I wanted to see if she would come around on her own. But she’s running out of time. She’ll be home next week and there’s no way I’m going to lie for her if someone calls or shows up at the front door.”
“Do you want me to talk to her?”
She looked at him. “I’m desperate. I’ll take all the help I can get.”
Just as Rick started to answer, he caught a hint of a faint, flowery fragrance. Catherine must have put on perfume when she went to get her purse. Drawn by the captivating smell, he had to consciously keep himself from leaning closer. For an instant his imagination led him where he had no right to be and he pictured what it would be like to hold her in his arms, to fill his lungs with her essence.
The transition of his thoughts startled him. He needed time to think, to reason through his feelings.
Time to get his head on straight again. If there was one sure way to screw up his work as a volunteer with the Burn Association, this was it. But it was more than that. The work and reputation of the entire organization was on the line with every volunteer.
He moved away from Catherine and folded his arms across his chest for added insurance. “What Lynda’s feeling is natural. All kids go through it to one degree or another. In her mind it doesn’t matter how we see her, or how her friends see her, it’s how she sees herself. Sometimes that image comes from a mirror, sometimes it comes from an unguarded look from a clerk in a store.”
“Thank God for Brian. At least she knows there’s one person her age who isn’t turned off by her burns.”
Rick felt her looking at him and chanced looking back. Her eyes were filled with the hope he’d come to recognize in parents of burned children. They desperately needed to believe everything would work out, that the scars wouldn’t be as bad as they were told to expect, that the plastic surgeon would work miracles on missing noses and ears and eyebrows and lips, and that strangers wouldn’t look at their child with dread.
Acceptance came in small, seemingly inconsequential miracles: the first joke, a tear shed over a sad movie instead of pain, anger at an injustice that had nothing to do with being burned. These were the moments when the scars became secondary to the personality, when the lost child was, at last, discovered again by her parents.
“Lynda thinks Brian comes to stay with her because he feels sorry for her,” Rick said.
“She told you that?”
“In a dozen different ways. Just like she lets me know that she thinks I’m there because it’s my job and that you and the rest of the family come because you have to. Right now it’s what she believes in her heart and there’s no way we’re going to convince her any differently.”
“Then how do I help her?”
“You keep doing exactly what you’ve been doing. When she’s ready we’ll arrange for her to talk to someone neutral—someone who’s been through what she’s going through, who she can spill her guts to or yell at or feel sorry for herself around and not have to worry about apologizing to later.”
Catherine studied him for a long time. “I’m embarrassed to say this, but I think I finally understand what you do and why I need you. More importantly, why Lynda needs you. Why we all do.”
Rick smiled. “I told you it would take a while.”
“There’s so much I don’t know about helping her to become whole again.”
“I don’t have all the answers, and some of the ones I do have could be wrong for Lynda. What I do know is how to find someone to help her or you if you need it.”
“I know you told me once, but I’ve forgotten—how long is your tour of duty with us?”
There was something about the way she asked that made him feel hopeful and concerned at the same time. “A year.”
“That’s a big chunk out of your life.”
“You’ll be surprised how fast it passes.”
The phone rang. Catherine ignored it. “I suppose we should get going. I had Tom arrange for a rental car in Roseville so you wouldn’t have to take me all the way downtown.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
She looked at him, not the quick glance reserved for acquaintances, but one that was long and warm, for a special friend. “Do you know the expression that nothing is ever taken away without something given in return?”
“I’ve heard it.”
“It was one of my father’s. Not original. None of his sayings were. He collected them instead of baseball cards and had one he could whip out for any occasion.” She stopped talking long enough to smile. “I’m not sure I understand it yet, but I believe you’re our blessing, the balancing weight on the scale for me and Lynda and what she’s going through.”
Rick had been called a lot of things in his life, but “blessing” was a first. “Thanks.” He hesitated. “But if you don’t mind, could we keep this blessing stuff between us? I wouldn’t want something like that getting around the department.”
She flushed. “Sorry—I was thinking out loud again. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“I’m not embarrassed.” But he was. Compliments always embarrassed him.
“No more so than a cat that misses a jump and tries to act cool about it?” she teased.
“Okay, maybe a little.”
She dug through her purse for her keys. “After all the kids and parents you’ve taken through the program, I find it hard to believe you still blush when someone says something nice about you.”
This teasing was a side of Catherine he hadn’t seen before. “It’s just that I haven’t had time to prepare. Most people save the outrageous compliments until they know me better.”
She laughed. “That’s encouraging.”
The phone rang again. Rick was amazed at how easily she ignored it. “How do you do that?” he asked, following her to the front door.
“I gave the hospital my private number. It’s the same one the family uses when they have to reach me. If I answered all the calls that come in on this line, I wouldn’t have time for anything else.”
She locked the front door and, as they made their way to the truck, Rick asked, “You’re not going to set the alarm?”
“It isn’t connected. It used to go off on its own all the time so I had it disarmed when Jack moved out. I’d rather take my chances with a thief than have that thing scaring me to death in the middle of the night.”
“I have a visiting dog that takes care of my place on a sometime basis. The way I figure it, I’m safe as long as the thief shows up in a rabbit suit and tries to steal dog food.”
Catherine laughed. “We had a dog like that when I was growing up. My father bought her to take pheasant hunting. They went out one time and somehow that dog convinced a man who’d spent his entire life killing birds that it was a dumb idea. Dad stunned us all when he came home and sold his guns and kept the dog.”
Rick held the truck door for Catherine, then went around to get in his side. Where before he’d appreciated the truck for its heavy-duty springs, powerful motor, and large hauling capacity, all he saw now were the dents and scratches.
By the time he was backing out of the driveway he wasn’t sure whether he was more upset with himself for caring how the truck looked or for caring what Catherine thought about it.
The traffic on Douglas Boulevard was worse than usual with boaters headed for Folsom Lake and an ambulance responding to an accident at one of the intersections in front of the
m. Rick cut off on Barton and then over to Olive Ranch. He pointed north on Barton as they turned. “That’s the way to my place.”
“How far?”
“Couple of miles. I’m off Laird.”
“I looked at some property up there a couple of years ago when I was thinking about moving,” Catherine said. “I had it in my head that I wanted to be someplace where I could step outside and not see my neighbor looking back at me.”
“With me it’s cars. I wanted to get away from the sound of them.”
“And did you?”
“For a while. But I knew it wouldn’t last. Auburn’s creeping down the hill and Roseville’s creeping up. I’m right in the middle with large tracts of undeveloped land on all four sides. They just subdivided some high-dollar lots down the road, so it won’t be long before we hear the sounds of building instead of birds.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“Yeah, I hate like hell to think I have to give up my little corner of paradise just so someone else can have theirs.”
She laughed. “Well put.”
Rick turned left on Sierra College Boulevard and then right on Douglas again. The rental agency was behind a video store. Catherine had her door open before Rick turned off the engine.
She turned to him. “Will I see you later?”
His immediate thought was to tell her yes. He had his mouth open to do so when it hit him that he had no reason to see her again that day—at least no reason that had anything to do with his work with Lynda. “Probably not. I have some things I’ve been putting off that I should get done.”
If she was disappointed, it didn’t show. She got out and lifted her purse strap over her shoulder. “Tomorrow then.”
Hot, dry air swept through the cab, a giant hand stealing the air-conditioning, warning him it was not a day for a sane man to be pounding nails. “I’m working.”
“Oh…I must have misread that calendar you gave me. I thought you didn’t go back to work for four days.”
“Normally I wouldn’t. I’m paying back a guy who took a shift for me last year.”
She looked confused. “I just found out this morning that Lynda’s friends are planning a surprise party for her when she gets home on Friday. I know she’d like you to be there. Can you come?”
He wanted to say yes, told himself to say no, and answered, “Maybe. I’ll have to let you know.”
She nodded. “Well, thanks again.”
“You’re welcome.” He waited until she was inside, a stupid, expectant smile on his face in case she happened to turn around one last time. Once safe, he let out a string of profanity that would have made his crew blush.
After ten years and more bad dates than he wanted to remember, he’d finally happened across a woman who made him smile just thinking about her, one who made him think of possibilities instead of roadblocks.
Shit, how could he have been so stupid? How could he have let this happen? Catherine Miller was less than twenty-four hours out of a relationship with a man she’d loved enough to agree to marry. There was no way she was ready to start dating again, even if it were possible for him to ask.
Which it wasn’t.
She needed time. Lots of it. And he would have to be completely detached from the Burn Association before he could let her know how he felt. To do that now would mean leaving her and Lynda without the help they needed, just when they needed it the most.
Hell. Some choice. Walk out on Catherine now, on Tom’s heels, and come back later telling her it had been so they could be together in the end; or stick it out for a year and try to pull off a cool, strictly professional interest. To do that he would have to back off—way off—her personal life. He’d already spent too much time at the hospital. His role in this process was as conduit for the parent, not interactive participant. At least that was the way it was supposed to be. The way it had always been. Until now.
Damn. A whole year? No way. He’d never pull it off. He was only a little better at hiding his emotions than Blue. Give him a tail and he’d be wagging it every time he saw Catherine.
15
LYNDA STOOD IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR AND adjusted the collar on her shirt for the tenth time that morning. When the collar stayed up, it hid the bandages at the back of her neck; when it fell down, it looked like she was wearing a really ugly turtleneck under her shirt. Only crazy people wore turtlenecks in the middle of summer in California. Or burned people. But who would know something like that?
She turned sideways to see how fat the tube bandages made her look. They went all the way around her, from her neck to her thighs, but the shirt and pants were so big she could have been a size twenty and no one would know the difference.
Leaning closer to the mirror, she pulled on one side of her bangs and fluffed the other. Then she adjusted her cap and her hair went back the way it had been. It was funny how fast she’d gotten used to her hair being short. Not the shaved part, but the bangs. The rest was past the spiky stubble stage and growing into a soft fuzz that her physical therapist said should be long enough to curl by Christmas.
She didn’t care about the curling part. She just wanted her hair long enough to hide the scars on the back of her neck.
A now familiar double tap on the door let her know Brian was outside. He waited a few seconds, giving her time to cover up if she needed to, and then came in.
He had on a new shirt, at least one she’d never seen before, and was wearing chino slacks instead of his usual jeans. “You look nice,” she said.
“Thanks. So do you.”
“Yeah, right.” She held out her arms to show him how big the shirt she’d borrowed from her father was on her. “Straight out of Cosmo.”
He grinned. “Maybe more GQ, but still pretty cool. Who knows, you could be starting a new fashion trend.”
She smiled back, which ruined her attempt to look put out. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to stop by the house later.”
He sat on the metal frame chair next to her, hanging one leg over the side, the other straight out. “I had to drop some stuff off for my dad. His usual gopher moved to another hole—one with better benefits.”
“So you’re working for your dad now?” she asked carefully. She knew he’d have to find an excuse for not coming to see her when she left the hospital and was curious what it would be. At least being tied up with a job was reasonable, something she could talk herself into believing.
“I tried that last summer. Mom said there was no way she’d ever let one of us kids work for Dad again. I’m just helping out until he can find someone else.”
“When did you say football practice started?” If he couldn’t come up with a reason on his own, she would help. Anything was better than a lame excuse that she couldn’t pretend was true.
“Not for a couple of weeks yet.” He stared at her, his eyes soft and warm, as if he could read her mind. “You wouldn’t be looking for a reason to get rid of me, would you?”
“Why would I do that?” she asked defensively.
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Postponing her answer, she arched her back and shifted her shoulders, going through familiar motions he understood. For days now her back and arms and neck felt as if she’d become the permanent food source for a swarm of mosquitoes. Everyone she asked told her it was part of the healing process and would go on for eighteen months or more.
“The itching thing bothering you again?” Brian asked.
“Driving me crazy.”
“You want me to get the nurse?”
She shook her head. “They already gave me a Benadryl.”
He shifted forward, his hands on his knees. “I got you a coming-home present.”
“You did?” She was more pleased than she should have been. Brian was always doing things like that for her, the way she imagined a big brother would do if she had one. Or a really good friend. Like Wendy. Only Wendy wasn’t just a good friend, she was Lynda’s best friend. Or at least
she had been before Lynda had acted like such a shit and refused to see her or even talk to her on the phone. She missed Wendy. And she really, really needed to talk to her. There were just some things you didn’t tell a guy, even a guy like Brian. Like how sometimes, when she was alone at night and all she could hear were the machines that spied on her and the nurses gossiping about stuff that didn’t interest her, she let herself imagine what it would be like if Brian were more than a friend.
“It’s in the car,” Brian said. “I’m saving it for when you get home.”
“At least give me a hint.”
“It’s round. And that’s all I’m going to say, so don’t even try to get me to tell you anything else.”
Her heart in her throat, she let herself believe for one sweet second that he’d bought her a ring. Not an engagement ring, she wasn’t that desperate or dumb. But something simple, something that said they were more than friends. The impossibly crazy second over, she played along. “Should I guess?”
“Guess all you want.”
“Will you tell me if I get it?”
“Nope.”
“Not fair.”
He laughed and reached for her hand. “What wouldn’t be fair is if I let you ruin the surprise.”
He’d never taken her hand before. He’d touched her cheek when she was crying, and messed with her hair when it was first cut, and he’d played around with her cap, helping her find where it looked best, but he’d never purposely done anything this intimate. Lynda didn’t know what to do. Should she just stand there with her hand in his or take it back and mess with her hair and pretend it never happened?
Brian caught her gaze. “I need to tell you something about today. I’m not sure—”
The door opened and her mother came in. Lynda let go of Brian’s hand as if they’d been caught doing something wrong. She didn’t know whether she was grateful or furious with her mother for the interruption.
“Ready to get out of this place?” Catherine asked cheerfully.
“I thought you wanted to say good-bye to everyone.” Her mother had spent half of last night telling her about the presents she’d bought for nurses, therapists, doctors, and social workers, describing them in detail and wondering aloud if she’d made the right choices. She’d asked a lot of questions like that since Tom had left, and Lynda didn’t know what to do about it. Her mother used to think she had all the answers. For everything.
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