by Beverly Long
“Where was your car today?”
“Where it is every day. We park next to the dry cleaner’s.”
“Any cameras in the lot?”
“I have no idea. There could be, I suppose, but it’s a really small lot. Probably only space for six or eight cars.” She pushed herself up in the bed. She winced, and he absolutely hated that she was in pain.
“Should I get a nurse?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m just a little sore,” she said. “I think I got tossed around a little when my car was spinning. Why the questions about where I park?”
He hated that they had to have this conversation, but she needed to understand that the situation had changed today. Until he knew otherwise, he was going to assume that somebody had deliberately tried to harm Carmen. That meant that she needed to be on high alert, cautious of everything and everybody. “Brakes can fail on a car, Carmen. They can. But when brakes go bad, it’s usually more of a gradual loss, they get sort of spongy. What you’re describing, where there is a total loss of responsiveness, makes me think that there’s something else going on here.”
“You think somebody messed with my brakes?” She spoke so fast that her words were almost clipped.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But we will know. Your car got towed to one of our impound lots. I’ve already talked to somebody about getting it looked at, to figure out what happened.”
“This is crazy,” she said.
He couldn’t argue that. “Sawyer is going to go talk to Frank Sage.”
“But—”
He shook his head, stopping her. “And if we find out that someone messed with your car and he can’t account for every damn minute of his day, we’re going to arrest him.”
She didn’t try to protest again. He figured that was as good an indication as anything that the past hour had taken a toll on her.
“Why don’t you just rest for a few minutes?” he suggested.
She nodded and closed her eyes. He sat by her bed, continuing to gently hold her hand. After a few minutes, her eyes opened again. “Why didn’t you go see Frank Sage?” she asked.
He considered what he should tell her and decided to go with the truth. “Because I need to be here. Close enough to touch you, to feel your warm skin, to see the pulse in your neck beat, to hear your breath, to know that you’re really okay.”
Her eyes widened. He’d surprised her.
He wanted to say more, to explain that he realized it had been just a few days that they’d been spending time together, but that he knew that this was something different. Something that he’d never had or felt before.
He wanted to pull the ring out of his pocket, get down on one knee and beg her to marry him.
But he didn’t want to have that conversation with her lying in a hospital bed, in a room that anybody could walk into at any minute.
Fortunately, she didn’t press. She simply closed her eyes and within a few minutes, her breathing was such that he was pretty sure she’d drifted off to sleep.
He continued to hold her hand, tracing the shape of the delicate bones with the pad of this thumb. It was forty-five minutes before the door opened again. It was the charge nurse. She ignored Robert and gently roused Carmen.
“Ms. Jimenez,” she said. “The results of your CT came back normal. No internal injuries.”
Carmen smiled, and Robert felt the relief flood his body. She was okay.
“Your ribs are probably going to be sore for a few days so I’d suggest you take it easy. Take some ibuprofen. It’s best to try to stay ahead of the pain.”
“I can go home?” Carmen asked.
“I’ll go get your discharge paperwork ready,” the nurse said.
“Thank you,” Carmen said. “Everyone here has just been wonderful.”
“You’re welcome,” the nurse said. “I’ll be back within fifteen minutes.” She left the room.
Carmen smiled at Robert. “Good news,” she said.
“Great news,” he corrected.
“Yeah.” With her free hand, she plucked at the thin sheet that covered her legs. “Time marches on,” she said.
“I suppose it does,” he said, not sure where she was going.
“Where do you live?” she asked.
He hadn’t seen that one coming. “I’ve got an apartment in one of the high-rises on Lake Shore Drive.”
She smiled, a little half smile. “Does it face the lake?”
“It does. On a clear day, I can see fifteen miles out onto Lake Michigan.”
“I’ll bet that’s pretty. Even when it’s all iced up, I’ll bet it’s nice. You know, I used to ice-skate when I was younger.”
He got nervous. The CT of the abdomen may have been fine, but maybe they’d missed something. She thought that she’d blacked out for a minute. Was it possible that she’d hit her head? He leaned close and looked at her eyes. Both pupils were the same size.
“I used to do a lot of things. And then I stopped. I got cautious. Told myself that Raoul had lost so much already, that he shouldn’t have to lose anything else.”
“Honey, I’m not sure—”
“But I think I was just kidding myself. You ever do that, Robert? Kid yourself?”
He was still holding her hand and as unobtrusively as possible, he shifted his hold, then rested his thumb on the inside of her wrist, testing for her pulse. He counted and watched the second hand on the clock for fifteen seconds and multiplied by four. Seventy-two and steady. Skin was warm but not hot. Still, he was just about to call for the nurse to come back. “I’m not sure I’m following you.”
“I’d like to see it.”
“What?”
“Your apartment.”
“Okay,” he assured her. “We can make that happen sometime.”
“Tonight. Now.”
He let go of her hand. “I’m not sure I understand.”
She smiled at him. “I’d like to get dressed, get out of here, go to your apartment and finish what we started in the hallway yesterday morning.”
He gripped the bed rail. Her pulse was fine, but his was bucking and heaving. “You’ve just been in a car accident,” he said. “You need to go home and rest. Have some chicken noodle soup. Take a warm bath.”
She shook her head.
“What about Raoul?” he asked. Lord, he wanted what she was offering with a vengeance, but the last thing he wanted to face was morning-after regrets.
“He knows nothing about this. He was already expecting me to be home late tonight because I thought I had late clients. I called him a little while ago and told him that I’d be a little later than I expected. He’s home, safe, and expects to see me around ten. I’m not planning on spending the night with you, Robert. I thought a couple hours might do it.”
He was wound so tight that a couple minutes might take care of it.
“You’ve thought of just about everything, haven’t you?” His voice cracked at the end.
For the first time since he’d seen her lying in the hospital bed, her smile reached her eyes. “You’ve heard the extent of my ideas. From here on out, we’ll have to wing it.”
He’d been told he could wing it with the best of them but it had never mattered more. “You’re sure? What about your ribs?”
“Maybe we’ll need to be inventive?”
He turned and strode to the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m getting that nurse and we’re getting the hell out of here.”
Once he was safely in the hallway, he took a minute to compose himself. Then he called Sawyer.
“How’s Carmen?” his friend asked.
“She’s going to be okay,” Robert said.
There w
as a pause on the other end. “How are you doing?”
He forced himself to chuckle. “I’m okay. You know, if not for the circumstances, I bet you’d be laughing your ass off. Robert Hanson has himself plumb undone over a woman or some other equally nutty Southern saying.”
“Plumb undone,” Sawyer repeated. “Naw. Smitten. More excited than a hen in a frying pan. Now, that’s Southern.”
“I’m a little freaked out.”
“Of course you are. You’re going to be even more freaked out when I tell you that there was a puddle of brake fluid found in the parking lot.”
Robert gripped his cell phone. “Sage?”
“I don’t think so, buddy. I found him at home, sitting in his easy chair, drinking a beer. I got in his face pretty good until he produced a receipt from his doctor’s office. Guess he had to stop in and have some blood work done after work. I was able to verify the time he left his work and when he arrived and left his doctor’s office. He wouldn’t have had time to disable Carmen’s car. I think it was someone else.”
“Maybe he paid someone else to do it?” Robert said, unable to forget the animosity he’d seen in Sage’s eyes.
“Maybe. But then he’s a pretty good actor. I got the feeling he didn’t have a clue why I was so interested in his day. I really think it might have been someone else.”
That meant that someone else had deliberately tried to hurt Carmen. Why? Who?
He was going to have to tell her. He would.
After.
Chapter Fourteen
It was forty long minutes before an aide came with a wheelchair to escort her out of the emergency room. When they got to the door, Carmen stood up and felt wonderful. She was taking charge of her life.
“How long will it take to get there?” she asked, once she’d gotten settled in his car.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said. His jaw was tight.
“Traffic seems pretty light,” she said.
He nodded.
“Looks like it might snow again. The nurses were talking about a possibility of four inches.”
He didn’t answer.
“Is everything okay, Robert?”
“Yes,” he said without looking at her.
He was definitely acting odd. “Are you sorry we’re doing this?” she asked.
He turned to look at her. “Hell, no.”
She smiled. “You seem preoccupied.”
“Thoughtful,” he said.
Was it possible that she’d put the sexy, confident Robert Hanson off his stride? That was, quite frankly, rather empowering. Exhilarating, really.
But she was going to need a lot more than that to get her through the next couple of hours. “There’s something you should probably know,” she said.
She didn’t hear him sigh, but his chest went up and down in silent anticipation or perhaps, apprehension.
Both might be in order.
“I...uh...haven’t had sex for some time.”
He nodded and kept his eyes on the road.
“Quite some time, actually,” she said.
He turned to look at her. “I don’t need details, Carmen.”
“Yeah, well, maybe they might be helpful. You see, it’s been about thirteen years.”
The car jumped forward in a burst of speed. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
Sorry I’m a bad driver or sorry I ever agreed to this?
“I guess I just wanted you to know in case...in case I’m not very good at this.”
He glanced in his rearview mirror, cut across a lane of traffic and made a sharp left. Then he took a quick right into an underground parking structure. It was dark, and Carmen was grateful for that. Could this get any more embarrassing?
“I’ll do my best,” she said. She was babbling. Knew it. Couldn’t seem to stop. She was so nervous.
“Carmen,” he said, his tone kind. “Shut up. Please.”
He drove to an empty parking space and pulled in. He shut the car off and opened his door. She sat.
“You can still change your mind,” he said, his voice sounding hoarse.
She reached out and opened her door. When he got out, she followed him, staying just a half step behind as he strode into the building. He got into the elevator and punched 34.
He hadn’t said another word.
His apartment was at the end of the hallway. He opened the door with a key and motioned her in. The door shut behind him with a final-sounding thud. Across the room, the drapes were open on the big windows and there was a half-moon hanging over the frozen lake. Ice caps sparkled against an expanse of darkness.
She walked across the room and looked down. Lake Shore Drive was lit up and there was still enough evening traffic to make it look interesting.
He walked into the kitchen and flipped on a light above the stove. It was lots of stainless steel and granite counters. There were bar stools with leather seats and lots of art on the walls. There was more leather in the living room and glass tables with nothing on them.
It was beautiful. So different from her apartment with the old furniture, the sagging couch, the sheet music lying everywhere.
What the hell had she been thinking? They couldn’t be any more different. He was a handsome, single guy living an upscale kind of life in an upscale kind of place. She was a tired counselor, raising her fifteen-year-old brother and over the years had adopted his attitude that they were cool if they put tomato and bacon on their grilled cheese sandwiches.
“Maybe—”
He put his finger to her lip, silently shushing her. “Would you like something to drink?” he asked. “Some wine, perhaps?”
She shook her head. He wasn’t going to get a chance to shush her a third time.
He smiled. “Would you like to see the rest of the apartment?”
This time she nodded.
He motioned for her to precede him down the short hallway. There was a bathroom that looked as if no one had ever used it. The soap was new and the towels were fresh.
Next, there was a room that looked part office, part workout room. There was a treadmill and a rowing machine and some hand weights. There was also a desk and glory be, there were actually a few files on it and a rogue stapler had found its way out of a drawer.
There was only one door left. It was partially closed. He reached over her shoulder to open it. It faced the lake, as the living room had. And here the drapes were also pulled open, letting in moonlight and the reflection of city lights.
It was a large room, yet still the bed took up a great deal of it. It had to be a king, and the padded headboard added to its overall mass. She was pretty sure that if she sat on it, her feet might not touch the ground.
It was a far cry from the little double bed in her twelve-by-twelve bedroom.
The bed was made. It had a thick gray duvet. Several gray and purple pillows were tossed on a big leather chair in the corner of the room. It made her want to smile. He was neat enough to make his bed but he wasn’t going to mess with pillows.
They’d probably been a gift from some girlfriend.
And he didn’t want to hurt her feelings so he likely tossed them back on the bed every time she visited.
She wasn’t going to kid herself that she was the first woman who’d spent a few hours here. She wouldn’t even be the last.
But tonight she was the woman who was going to lie on the gray duvet with a man who made her literally crazy with need. That was enough. She was going to celebrate life. Celebrate the ability to touch and feel.
Robert walked across the room to a door in the far corner. He flipped on a light and she could tell that it was another bath. He closed the door most of the way, allowing just a little of the light to come into the room.
“Is this
okay?”
She shrugged.
He raised one dark eyebrow but didn’t say anything. He took off his coat and gloves and tossed them over the pillows in the chair.
“May I take your coat?” he asked.
She slowly peeled her gloves off and put them in the pockets of her blue cape. Then she took off her scarf, then the cape. She tossed them all to him.
He caught them, walked over to the chair, and more carefully laid them on top of his own outerwear. He walked back to the bed and sat on it. He was facing the window.
She continued to stand near the door.
He patted the bed next to him. “Care to have a seat?”
She walked over to the bed and sat down, making sure there was a good foot between them. She was right. Her feet didn’t touch the floor. She clasped her hands together and rested them in her lap.
He didn’t say anything for a minute. Finally, he turned to her. “I’m sorry I told you to shut up.”
“I was babbling,” she said, accepting his apology. She’d wanted to tell herself to shut up.
“You were nervous,” he said. He reached out a big hand and covered her clasped hands.
“Am nervous,” she clarified.
“I am, too,” he said, smiling at her.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. I don’t think it’s been thirteen years since you had a woman stay over.”
With his thumb, he stroked her wrist. “That’s true,” he said. “And if I tell you that this is different, you’re probably not going to believe me.” He hesitated. “So I’m not going there. But what I want you to know is that I want you so much that I’m scared to death that I’m going to blow this. That I’m going to move too fast or do something that you don’t like and you’re going to be sorry that you ever came here.”
His voice cracked at the end. That, and the look in his eyes, gave her the courage to reach out, to stroke the side of his face with the palm of her hand. “I want to be here. With you.”
“Why?” he asked, staring in her eyes. “You’ve waited a long time. Why now? Why me?”
