“You were lucky.”
“Lucky?” She nodded, stroking the satiny interior. “Sometimes I am, you know.”
His heart was damn near breaking. “You were lucky to meet Lucy.” Or was he the lucky one, because she’d brought Lucy into his life?
“Do you know Lucy?” His mother gazed at him in surprise. “She has me to lunch often. We’re good friends.”
“I know you are.” He smiled at her. “Lucy said she’d be by for a visit this afternoon, between her lunch and dinner crowd.”
Her face brightened. “Have you eaten her soup? It’s very good.”
Adrian agreed that he had. He got her talking about meals she’d eaten at the café, and told her he’d met Father Joseph. His mother confided that she didn’t really like to listen to sermons, but she did enjoy the children. “And they need me,” she told him with simple satisfaction. Her forehead creased. “This isn’t Sunday, is it? Because they count on me.”
“No, it’s Saturday. And they know you won’t be there tomorrow, since you’re in the hospital. Some of the other mothers are filling in.”
“Oh.”
Back and forth. One minute she remembered, the next she was confused. Adrian was handicapped by not knowing what she’d been like before the accident. She hadn’t remembered her past, or had professed not to. So, okay; that part might be normal for her. But he guessed the present had been in clearer focus for her, or she wouldn’t have remembered the classified ads for garage sales and which started on Friday and which on Saturday, that this day was Sunday and she needed to be at the church, and so on.
Slater did show up and examined her, then talked to Adrian privately in the hall.
“Her mental acuity is actually quite remarkable considering.” He shook his head in apparent admiration, his cherubic face glowing with delight.
“She’s still pretty confused.”
“Wouldn’t you be?” the doctor said simply. “And yes, I feel confident she’ll be back to herself in no time, champing at the bit to be out of the hospital.”
Remembering her panic, Adrian said, “She doesn’t like hospitals.”
“If your father did commit her…”
God, yes. This bed, with the railings that looked like bars, might feel like prison to her. “Lucy says that most of the time she refused the offer of places to stay.”
“Because she didn’t like being obligated?” Slater rocked on his heels, thinking. “Or because she feels trapped if she’s indoors for any length of time?”
Adrian shook his head, mute. His own mother, and he knew next to nothing about what was going on in her head.
“Perhaps this is a good time to evaluate her mental-health issues,” the doctor suggested. “She might make further improvement on an appropriate drug regimen.”
Adrian nodded numbly. “Yes, in a few days.”
Slater clapped him on the back. “Give her time before you make any decisions.”
Watching him stride down the hall, Adrian thought bleakly, What choice do I have? She obviously couldn’t take care of herself.
Lucy came again and went, as did Father Joseph, whom she’d called with the news. Adrian used his visit to have a hurried dinner in the cafeteria before returning to his mother’s bedside. The nurse greeted him with relief.
“She’s agitated when you’re gone.”
“I keep having to explain again who I am.”
She gave him a gentle smile he would once have interpreted as pitying. “But I think maybe, deep inside, she knows.”
Lucy came for him after she closed the café. By then his mother was sleeping. He stood wearily, and they both looked down at her.
Lucy’s hand crept into his. “Today felt like a miracle,” she said softly.
Did it? He moved his shoulders to ease knotted muscles. Maybe. His mother had remembered him, if only through the haze of a great distance.
He couldn’t claim his memories of her were much sharper. Bits and pieces kept coming to him, but he’d been dismayed to realize how much he had shut out, either to please his father or in self-defense. Most recalled memories were good, but today, as he had patiently explained yet again who he was, he’d suddenly remembered walking in the door from school one day, just like any other day until then, to have her start violently at the sight of him and stare at him with wild eyes. She’d cried, “Go away! I won’t listen to you! You’re not there. You’re not! You’re not!”
“Mommy?” he had whispered in fright. “It’s me. Adrian. Who are you talking to?”
“Nobody! I won’t listen!” Clapping her hands over her ears, she had whirled and run from the kitchen, shutting herself in her bedroom. He had gazed longingly at the phone, wanting to call his father and say, “There’s something wrong with Mom.” But he hadn’t, because…He didn’t know why, just that his job was to shield his mom from everyone. Even Dad.
Especially Dad, Adrian thought now, in the hospital. He wondered whether she’d been on medication in those days. Whether she’d resisted taking it. Whether his father had been scared for him, coming home after school to her. In his own way, had he thought he was doing the right thing?
Maybe, Adrian thought again. If only his father had talked to him, if not then, later.
“You’ll follow me home?” Lucy asked, her hand still in his as they rode the elevator down.
He studied her face. In the harsh white hospital lighting, she looked like she had bruises beneath her eyes. Freckles stood out in heightened relief. Neither of them had slept much last night, and the phone call from Slater had come early this morning.
“You look exhausted.”
“I am tired, but—”
“I checked in to the B and B,” he reminded her. “My stuff’s there. Samantha will expect me.”
She frowned at him. “Why did you do that?”
“Because I was trying to protect you from gossip. I’d made the reservations last week, you know.”
“I don’t care what my family thinks.”
They’d reached her car and stopped. Running his hands up and down her arms, which were bare despite the cool night air, Adrian said roughly, “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” she snapped, just vehemently enough he didn’t believe her.
“We’re both tired,” he said. “Why don’t you come to Sam’s for breakfast in the morning?”
After a moment she dipped her head, her expression still sulky. “Oh, fine.”
He kissed her, feeling extraordinary tenderness. It heartened him that she was prepared to defy her family for him, although he was discovering that he didn’t like the idea of their disapproval. He didn’t want her to lose more than she had to, only because she’d made the decision to love him.
He drove behind her—stupid as it was, considering she’d been getting herself home without his protection for years—then pulled to the curb until he saw her unlock her front door, give a wave and disappear inside. He looped back to her sister’s, where it appeared everyone had gone to bed. A note taped to the stair newel told him about the snack he could help himself to in the kitchen if he was hungry.
A tired grin pulled at his mouth as he turned that way instead of starting up the stairs. The Peterson sisters did like to feed people.
THANK GOODNESS the café was closed the next two days. Lucy spent most of them at the hospital with Adrian.
She liked that he’d brought the conch shell to his mother. It was something she’d loved, and was better than flowers, although he did bring those, too. Sunday he called a florist in Port Angeles and had a huge bouquet of peonies delivered. The hat lady cried. When she grabbed her son’s hands and pulled him close until his forehead rested against hers, Lucy eased out of the room. She waited for several minutes then wiped tears from her eyes before she went back in.
He did come home with her Sunday and Monday nights both, but wouldn’t stay to sleep.
“Sam won’t know,” she protested one night.
“Yes, she w
ill. She leaves me a snack every night.”
“Maybe you weren’t hungry. Maybe you got up and left early.”
He laughed. “Who’d turn down anything either of you have cooked? And there’s no way I’d get up earlier than she does. I swear she’s already in the kitchen baking by six.”
Lucy made a face. “She always liked mornings.”
“But you don’t?”
They hadn’t actually had a chance to find out things like that about each other, she realized. She didn’t know if he was usually grumpy in the morning, or unbearably cheerful, whether he normally needed six hours of sleep a night or nine.
“My alarm never woke me. When I was in high school, Mom always had to yell until she got mad to make sure I was up.” She grinned at him. “You notice I don’t make breakfast at the café.”
That was one of the nice things about those couple of days. His mom tired easily, then the two of them could talk, sometimes quietly at her bedside, sometimes in the cafeteria.
Monday morning Lucy overheard part of a terse phone call he made. He sounded unhappy, and she was a little chilled by his remote expression when he turned and saw her.
“Work?” she asked.
He gave a short nod. “This is not a good time for me to go missing in action.”
“Is there ever a good time?”
Adrian grimaced. “No.”
Then he changed the subject, and she didn’t try to pursue the question of when he would have to go back to Seattle.
The hat lady was better each day, more herself. Of course she was weak from being in bed so long. First she made it shakily to the bathroom; by Monday evening, she was able to walk slowly up and down the hall. She was eating, and even reading after the librarian visited and left her a couple of books.
Lucy could tell Adrian was frustrated that she was remembering her life in Middleton but not much about before. He wanted to know where she’d been in the intervening years. He wanted her to remember him better than she did.
Tuesday morning he came to Lucy’s house for breakfast, then they drove separately to the hospital. When they walked into his mother’s room and he said, “Hi, Mom,” she gave him a surprised glance.
In an upper-crust British accent, she asked, “Who are you?”
He swore under his breath. “I’m your son, Adrian. Don’t you remember? Last night you told me what my first word was—”
“Yes, I answered you last night. No, this morning, sir, I say.”
He stared at her, baffled. “What in the hell?”
Lucy squeezed his forearm and murmured in his ear, “I think she’s Elizabeth Barrett Browning again. The poet?” she said, when he stared uncomprehendingly at her.
“My God. She’s crazy.”
“Don’t say that in front of her.” Lucy turned and marched out of the room, aware when he followed. She swung to face him. “I told you what she’s like.”
“Damn it, even though she’s been confused, she’s been herself,” he all but yelled at her. “Why this? Why now?”
“Because she’s getting better.”
He shook his head and kept shaking it. “This is better?”
“It’s who she’s been for a long time,” Lucy tried to explain.
Intense frustration on his face, he said, “I don’t have time for this. I’ve got to get back to Seattle today.”
“Back to Seattle?” Lucy echoed. “You didn’t say—”
His expression changed. “I got another call on the way over here. I don’t have any choice. I’ll try to make it back Friday.”
“But…what if she’s ready to be discharged before then?”
He gave a short, harsh laugh. “You’re kidding, right? I’ve talked to Slater. I’ve told him I’ll be making arrangements for her.”
It was the way he said arrangements, so chilly, so…final.
Something heavy settled in Lucy’s chest. She felt stupid. She’d built some kind of castle in the air where he was concerned. He’d never been the man she thought he was; he couldn’t be if he could stick to a decision he’d made back at the beginning before he’d known his mother at all.
Before he’d known Middleton, and Lucy.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SHE’D BEEN AWARE from the beginning that Adrian had some kind of nursing home in mind. Of course if his mother hadn’t come out of the coma she’d have had to be cared for. Why, Lucy asked herself, hadn’t she realized he was going ahead with his plan even as the hat lady recovered?
Still standing there in the hospital corridor, she said, “You’re not going to let her stay in Middleton?”
“Living on the street?” He looked at her as if she were crazy.
“She did okay,” Lucy mumbled. Maybe it wasn’t the best solution, she could see why he balked, but she hated the other possibilities, too.
“She won’t have you anymore,” he said, in the tone of an adult pointing out the obvious to a child. “Wouldn’t you rather she was in Seattle where you can see her?”
The pain in her chest was so great, she could hardly breathe. This man staring at her with such impatience seemed like a stranger. Could she really leave Middleton and everyone else in the world she loved to share her life with him? The fact that he hadn’t given any thought at all to what would make his mother happiest bothered her terribly.
Would he make decisions like that for her, too? Lucy wondered. Yes, he was taking responsibility. Yes, he was doing what he considered right. All without the slightest hint of compassion or understanding. Was he more like his father than he would admit to being?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” His attention was torn away when the cell phone she hadn’t even realized he was carrying rang, and he flipped it open to read the caller’s number. Snapping it shut, he said, “I’ve really got to go. We can talk about this later.” He nodded toward the elevator. “Walk me down?”
“You aren’t going to say goodbye?”
His jaw flexed. “Miss Browning doesn’t even know who I am. She isn’t going to miss me.”
Lucy lifted her chin. “No, I think I’ll stay here with her.”
That frustration flashed across his face again. “Think about it. You’ll see that I’m right.” When she didn’t respond, he added a clipped, “I’ll call.”
Lucy took a step toward the room so that he didn’t try to kiss her. Right this moment, she couldn’t bear to have him touch her. “Drive carefully.”
“I know this isn’t ideal….” He frowned, looking like the man she’d first met when she tracked him down in Seattle: impatient, emotionally distant, prepared to dismiss her.
I didn’t like myself without you around. He’d paused, then added with seeming reluctance, I was angry all week.
Maybe, she thought in a kind of horror, that’s who he really is.
He said something else; probably repeated, “I’ll call.”
She stood there and watched him walk away, very likely already putting her and his mother out of his mind.
No, that wasn’t fair. He’d said, “I love you.”
Tears burning in her eyes, Lucy whispered, “What if I don’t see that you’re right?”
FOR ONCE, HER MOTHER had knocked. When Lucy answered the door, Helen said rather tentatively, “May I come in?”
“You don’t have to ask.” She tried very hard to wipe all signs of unhappiness from her face. It was bad enough that her mother would ask about the dark smudges under her eyes. She’d hardly slept at all last night.
“I’m not the one who usually barges in.” Her mom followed her in and they headed toward the kitchen. They always talked in the kitchen; that’s where Martin women felt the most comfortable. “That’s your aunt Marian.”
“And Aunt Lynn. And Aunt…”
Laughing, her mother said, “Okay, okay! We don’t stand on ceremony in this family.”
“Tea?”
“Please.” She pulled out a kitchen chair and sat.
Lucy couldn’t help reme
mbering what she and Adrian had done on that very table. Biting her lip, she turned her back as she ran hot water into the teakettle. Some things, parents didn’t need to know.
“So what’s up?” she asked casually, once she’d set mugs out on the counter.
“I think that’s my question.” Her mother’s gaze took in the exhaustion on her face, and more. “I’ve been worried about you.”
Adrian had left only yesterday. How could her mother know to worry?
“Why?” Lucy asked.
“You haven’t talked to me at all lately. Even your father guessed you’d fallen for Adrian. The fact that you haven’t said anything has made me wonder—”
“Wonder?” she echoed, faintly.
Her mother’s voice was gentle. “Oh, whether he reciprocates your feelings. Or whether you’re afraid he doesn’t.”
Just like that, tears were rolling down her cheeks. With shaking hands, she swiped at them. “Oh, Mom!”
Her mother was out of the chair in an instant and had her arms around Lucy, holding her as she cried. “Oh, sweetie,” she murmured. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry.”
Lucy sobbed until the teakettle whistled, then went to the bathroom to wash her face and compose herself while her mother poured the tea. She’d already carried the mugs to the table and was waiting when Lucy returned.
“How can he be such an idiot?” Helen said furiously, the minute Lucy had sat down. “Not to love you the way you deserve.”
“Mom, that isn’t it.” So quickly, tears threatened again. By sheer force of will, she managed to hold them back. Or perhaps she’d run out of tears. “He says he loves me.” She hesitated. “He asked me to marry him, Mom.”
Her mother gaped at her. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“Everything happened so fast. It was the next morning that his mom came out of her coma and—”
Helen’s eyes narrowed. “And you weren’t sure you were going to say yes.”
Someone Like Her Page 18
