There were at least ten nurses waiting for them when Lizzie screeched to a halt in front of the emergency room doors at Clarkston Medical Center. Payton wouldn’t have known that except that on their journey there he’d found a small hole in the blanket Lizzie had commanded he put over his head as a precaution to preserving his eyesight. Since he was a stubborn man he decided against the doctor’s orders and looked through his peephole the entire way down the main corridor of the hospital.
Funny, he didn’t seem to notice any signs of imminent blindness forming.
Funnier still was that all the nurses seemed to be covering their mouths with their hands and doubling over in some sort of hysterical spasm, all the while pointing at him.
“What’s going on out there? I can’t see anything.”
After clearing her throat, Lizzie responded in a noticeably peculiar voice. “Ah, yes, we’re almost to the isolation room where we’ll need to keep you while we run a few extra tests just to confirm if my diagnosis is correct.”
“Isolation room?” Payton sounded rather alarmed. “You think it’s that bad then?”
“Oh, yes. If it’s what I think you have then this is quite serious, indeed.” She had that smug doctor’s voice perfected by now, and Payton was almost certain she was enjoying a rather large joke at his expense. Since he’d figured that out about thirty minutes too late, he needed to find a way to level the playing field. Underneath the blanket he smiled.
“So then, doc, exactly what is it that you think I have?”
A pause. “Well, I’m not one hundred percent certain, yet, so I’m going to wait until I know for sure to tell you.”
He set his voice in to that good ole boy twang he reserved for times when he wanted to get the upper hand back. It was a voice that would have made Bo and Luke Duke proud. “Gee, Lizzie, I sure am glad that I decided to come on over and have you check me out.” He didn’t want to play it up too much, considering they both knew he wasn’t really sick, but he gave the tiniest cough and slowed his pace a little. “I’m starting to feel a bit weak. Say, you never told me, but what do you think my chances are for recovery?”
“Not good, Payton. Not good.” That’s exactly what he’d been hoping for. “Here you go, coach. We’ve reached the isolation room. Now reach out your hand nice and slow and you’ll feel the edge of the bed. Take a seat and I’ll be back to run a few tests in a minute.” Through his peephole he saw that instead of a private isolation room they’d put him smack dab in the middle of one of the back hallways of the hospital. A perfect place to pull a prank with plenty of viewing room for all of the staff to watch.
Apparently it was a slow night for critical injuries. Payton smiled underneath his blanket. This might work out better for him than he could have hoped.
He grabbed her hand before she walked off. “Lizzie?”
Her pulse jumped through the delicate skin at her wrist. “Yes?”
“Don’t be gone too long.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m getting a little bit scared and I need you here with me.”
Her pulsed hammered a little faster. “Sure, Payton. I’ll be right back.”
All the nurses stifled a giggle as they walked away with her and left him alone on a gurney with a wool blanket over his head in the middle of the hallway. They didn’t know it, but he was laughing at them just as hard as they were laughing at him.
A solid fifteen minutes later, Lizzie returned with her entourage that had grown by at least five curious nurses. He watched her hush them as they approached him.
“I’m back Payton.”
“Okay, good. I was starting to get a little nervous.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure that we’ll solve this little problem right away. Now, Nurse Ford and I want to go over your list of symptoms one more time before we run these tests just to make sure we’re on the right track. It’s just the two of us, and we’re in a strictly professional setting, so you can feel comfortable to answer as honestly as possible.”
“It’s just you and Nurse Ford?”
“Uh-huh. Now, Payton, would you mind listing all the symptoms you’ve noticed so far.”
“Well, there was that red spot you said you saw on my throat, and the swollen lymph glands, and that failed Von-“
“VonWilliker’s Response Test.”
“Yeah, that. And I’ve been feeling sort of weak the past few days, and a little tired. Oh, and that heart-“
“Mumur. I’ve got that on the list. Are there any other symptoms because if not we really should get to those tests now.”
He scratched at his head through the blanket. “None that I can recall.”
“Okay. Lie back on the bed and we’ll get started. Now this is a fairly large needle and we need to puncture your knee joint to gather some synovial fluid for this test. Just lie still. If you need to scream it’s all right, because remember it’s just Nurse Ford and I in here.”
He held very still and watched through the blanket. “This might feel funny, it’s a newly designed needle that doesn’t cause any pain. Lucky for you I suppose.” He noticed that she was holding up some sort of pen. Probably to write some inappropriate comment on his knee, he decided.
“Oh, wait,” he yelped just before she touched it to his leg. “I just remembered one other symptom that I should probably mention to you.”
“What’s that?”
“I need to sit up to tell you.”
A pause. “Alright, fine.”
“Are you sure we’re alone?”
“Yes, Payton. Trust me. Now what is it?”
“Well, it’s just that… how do I say this? When we were doing that role play thing the other night and you were dressed as that Italian sex slave and I was the King of the Roman Empire, I felt this-“
He was smiling from ear to ear, his brilliant green eyes full of mischief, when she whipped the blanket off his head. Her scowl only served to make him roll on the gurney laughing. The nurses behind her started laughing as well.
“You knew! You sneaky bastard. You knew all along and were just playing me!”
He held up his hands to fend off her attempts to smack him. “Of course I knew.” When he’d had enough he simply reached out and snagged her wrists, holding them together with ease. “I may be a jock but I’m not a dumb one. How long did you think it would take me to figure it out?”
“I don’t know,” she wailed. “Long enough for me to pay you back for making it look like you were hooking up with Lou Ann to try and make me jealous!”
He grunted. “That obviously backfired.”
“Obviously.” She noticed that all the nurses were still lurking behind her catching there fill of the scene. “Okay, okay, show’s over. Everybody get back to your duties.” They all groaned and moved away.
Chapter Thirty-two
The trail leading down to Granny’s pond had recently been freshened up, and all the overgrowth that blocked the way cut back to reveal a cozy little dirt path. Lizzie took her time getting down to the water’s edge since she didn’t have any urgent reason to be there or anyone special to meet. The sun, warm and bright, was setting behind the mixed forest of pines and hardwoods on the opposite side of the lake, and Lizzie enjoyed its play of colors that danced across the rippling surface of the pond.
Not only had the path been cut back, but it seemed someone had also put in a short little dock that jutted about ten feet out into the water, ending in a widened area that was perfect for a small, rounded picnic table. Lizzie took off her shoes at the edge of the dock then made her way to where the water lapped eagerly at the posts on the other end. She let her lower legs dangle over the side and her toes dabble in the water as she watched the evening stars begin to take over the sky.
It had been a little over a week since her little adventure with Payton and she hadn’t seen him a single time since then. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed, but she suspected that if she had to choose she would side on disap
pointed.
An image of Payton sitting on that gurney in the middle of the hospital hallway flashed in her mind, and a spurt of laughter gurgled in her throat.
She’d tried her hardest to pout the whole way home from the hospital, but Payton was having too much fun, at her expense no less, for her to be upset with him for too long. And to be honest, she was so relieved that she’d figured out that he and Lou Ann were just a silly hoax that she was giddy with excitement more than anything else.
Lizzie burrowed down further into the thick sweatshirt she’d worn down to the pond and tried to force her brain to think. For so long after the wedding she had allowed her mind to become a blank screen with nothing coming in or going out except what she needed to recall to do her job. She hadn’t wanted to face the prospect of starting over and making a new life for herself. And she especially hadn’t wanted to consider that her new life might consist of just her, and possibly a little pooch like Skipper Jr.
For all the wooing and pleading Payton had done, Lizzie had been scared to death that if she let him get too close again he’d simply end up ruining her life a second time around. Then she’d seen him with Lou Ann and something inside of her had snapped.
As long as he was alone that was fine, but the minute he was with her all these crazy images of the way things should be would pop into Lizzie’s head. She and Payton walking down Main Street holding hands as they made their way to Gilchrist’s for a milkshake. Payton mowing the grass on a Saturday afternoon while she sat on their big wooden porch swing rocking a little dark haired, green eyed baby. She and Payton making love together, growing old together, watching their grandchildren grow up together.
And that’s when she’d known that she couldn’t let her stupid mind force herself to be afraid of doing the thing that could quite possibly hurt her the most: loving him.
She was going to wait another night, maybe two, just to let this new reality sink in, and then if he didn’t make a move, she would. Lizzie was nervous, and excited all at the same time, and a million excuses popped into her head why she shouldn’t do this. But just as quickly she batted them all away, and she forced herself to think up the way she would make her first move. She wondered if guys had to think about their first moves as much as she was for Payton.
A rustling in the bushes snapped her back to her surroundings at the lake. Not long after she heard footsteps on the freshly lain boards of the dock and she tilted her head further back so she was looking upside down at a pair of legs making their way toward her. Payton’s legs.
“Were your ears burning?” She asked as she watched him, long and lean and more gorgeous in the last remnants of the setting sun than she could ever recall him being before.
“No. Were yours?”
“Now that you mention it, yes.” She winked at him.
“What reason did my ears have for burning?” He sat next to her and rolled up the legs of his jeans before dangling his legs over. “Yow, this water is cold.”
“You’ll get used to it in a minute. That or your toes’ll go numb. Don’t worry, though, I’ll make sure you get excellent medical attention.”
Payton grunted. “Yeah, I bet.” He fell silent, and Lizzie could see him watching the sky through her peripheral vision.
“It’s pretty. The night, I mean.” She paused for a beat. “Did you come out here to watch the stars?”
“No.” He turned to study her, then. “I had a feeling you would be out here.”
When he reached out his hand she let him take hers and the pair fell between them so it rested on the rough wood of the dock. She didn’t know how long they stayed that way, maybe ten or fifteen minutes, but she liked it: calm, peaceful, serene. Not much later, Payton sat up and pushed his pant legs down so he could stand.
“Come with me, Lizzie. There someplace I want to show you.”
“And that concludes the tour of my place.” He stopped in the big, newly renovated kitchen on the side of the house.
“I can’t believe this used to be the old Weatherby farm,” she said in amazement. She took the beer Payton handed her and followed him when he pushed open the screen door that led to the front porch.
“I know. Mr. Weatherby’s son passed on not too long after I moved back home and, well, I just had to have it.”
“I can see why.” She sat in one of the rockers and watched him as Payton leaned against the same thick, white column as he had when she’d been there cleaning up toilet paper. He turned to face her, and that old, familiar spark that somehow had always been between them jolted her.
“Can you?” He asked, his eyes studying her intently.
Lizzie swallowed. Somehow this wasn’t a plain and simple question, she could tell. She was fairly certain the answer had something to do with the night they’d shared on that campout, but she was still too afraid of this new thing that was between them for her to jump right out and say it. “I-I think so,” She said hesitantly.
When he closed the space between them and stopped in front of her, Lizzie wasn’t sure if she should be afraid or excited. She knew he would never physically harm her, but still, old wounds ran deep. Payton kneeling in front of her on two bended knees was the last thing she expected. He took her hands and wrapped them between his broad, roughened palms like a sandwich, and when he spoke his voice was just as rough, and raw with emotion.
“I’m tired, so tired, of playing this game, Liz. My heart, my body, my mind: they’re all ready to rest easy knowing you’re in my life again. I’m not going to ask you now, because I can see in your eyes that you’re not ready, yet. But I don’t know how much longer I can wait.” He took a deep breath. “At night, when I wake up for the twentieth time and reach out through that emptiness, I’m reaching for you. I miss you. I want you. I need you.”
He held his body stiff allowing the only emotion to shine from his eyes, the window to his emotions she had always been able to see the most clearly. Her body was shivering, more from the way his words had affected her body, but Payton’s forehead crinkled and he gathered her up.
“You’re cold, aren’t you?” Still speechless, she nodded. “Come on, let’s get you inside and warmed up.” She held on when he stood and pulled her up in his arms, carrying her into the house and on to the den.
The den had been added to the house after Payton moved in, and Lizzie liked the way he had chosen to use ancient logs from an old log cabin for the walls. On the far side of the den there was an old stacked stone fireplace that Payton had newly renovated and placed gas logs inside. He flicked on the flames of the fire with the remote control as he put Lizzie down on one of the two dark chocolate leather sofas and disappeared into the kitchen. On top of the old wood flooring an imitation bear rug sat in the center of the room between the sofas and the fireplace.
Payton returned a few minutes later with two mugs in his hand. “Here.” He handed her one. “It’s hot chocolate to warm you up.”
“Mmm, this is nice,” she said, sipping the cocoa as she finished surveying the room.
“The hot chocolate or the room?”
“Both.”
“Yeah, this is my favorite room in the house. It reminds me of an old pioneer’s house.”
“So what do you do for fun around here?” She asked, changing the subject.
“You’re looking at it. When I’m not coaching football or wrestling with the PTA ladies I’m usually here working on the house.”
“So you don’t have a string of ladies over here to entertain on your nights off?” She couldn’t believe that she’d actually asked that question. She’d only meant to think it, but since it was out she waited for him to answer.
“What, you mean besides you and Lou Ann?”
“Not funny.”
And then his look suddenly became very not funny. “Do you know what I dreamed last night?”
She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like this. “No.”
“It’s the same thing I’ve been dreaming since the night I kissed
you at that barn party. I finally manage to get you out on a date, and we come home late that night all happy and satisfied from our dinner out. You look at me across this room like you still think I’m the greatest man on earth. That’s when I slowly undress you and lay you down on the bear rug and make love to you all night long.”
Her eyes had gone all big and wide on him, and from her expression he knew that while it wasn’t the exact same dream, she’d definitely been letting some hanky panky between the two of them bounce around in her head as well. He lent her a small, reassuring smile and reached out a tentative hand to touch her lightly on the arm.
“I miss you so much, Lizzie. I made a terrible mistake in the past, and I want to make it up to you.” Slowly, he leaned in and lightly caressed her lips. He watched her eyes flutter shut and felt her shudder.
“And you think sex will do that?” She asked as he paused to watch her.
His voice was husky and deeper than usual. “No. No, I don’t think sex will make it up to you.” Then he smiled that same bone melting smile he used on all the girls in high school. “But I was hoping that maybe making love to you would help you see how much I need you.”
Lizzie groaned, and despite that she tried her hardest not to cave in, she felt herself bending under that ruthless smile. “You sound more like a horny teenager trying to get some action.”
“Maybe I’ve just been around the football players too long.”
“Did they teach you anything useful?” She put a strategically placed hand over her mouth when he glowered at her.
“Are you suggesting that some of my skills are lacking?”
She pretended to buff her fingernails. “I’m not suggesting anything.” She opened her mouth to say something else when she felt his body make contact with hers. In a flash she had been upended over his shoulder and then body slammed onto the bear rug in such a way that it didn’t really hurt when she made contact. She blinked and suddenly he was over her, and she knew her time for playing had come to an abrupt end.
The Heart Will Lead You Home Page 35
