“Probably.”
“So I’m doing the close-to-perfect gentlemanly next best thing by making sure you don’t fall.”
She reached up and resumed her work. “You mean you’re taking the opportunity to ogle my butt.”
“And what a lovely butt it is,” he said with a satisfying amount of appreciation in his tone. “But to be fair, it’s right in front of my face. Otherwise I’d be much more circumspect about it.”
“Cute.” She spread another foot or so of tape and needed to climb down to shift the stepladder. Lewis kept his hands on her waist until she reached the floor. Once there she stepped back and held the tape out to him. “If you want to do the ceiling, go right ahead. I’m not some crazed feminist who won’t accept a man’s help when it’s offered.”
He smiled. “Upon further consideration I decided I’d rather be in charge of safety while you do it.”
“Of course you would.” She liked this flirty side of him way too much. Rather than argue and banter and have to stare at his naked chest for one minute longer, she climbed back up and finished the job as quick as she could.
When she was done, Lewis moved to tape the other side of the wall. “Jessie mentioned your parents died in a car accident a few years ago.”
A topic she had no interest in discussing. “If you don’t like working in quiet, maybe you could turn on a radio. I like everything but rap.” But she’d happily listen to it to avoid discussing her parents.
“So you don’t want to talk about it.”
“What’s with the sudden interest in my past?” A past she’d worked hard to put behind her and rise above.
“Just making conversation.”
“How about those Mets?” she joked. “Beautiful weather we’re having, don’t you think?”
“Very funny,” he said. “I was thinking more along the lines of meaningful conversation. You know, the type friends have when they want to learn more about each other.”
None of her other friends pushed her to talk about her parents, and she had no intention of sharing how she’d found out about their accident days after it’d happened, in an FYI type of e-mail from one of the ‘cousins’ she used to occasionally keep in touch with, the night before the funerals. An afterthought. She slid him a sideways glance. He’d stopped working and stood there staring at her. So serious. “Fine.”
She walked over to get the drop cloth to protect the floor. “You want the dirty details, here they are. My parents were both killed in a single car motor vehicle accident. They died instantly, or so I was told. I hadn’t talked to them or seen them in years. It didn’t affect my life one bit.” Except for the sick day she’d taken to attend the double funeral—love and happiness aside, they had given her a place to live and provided for her basic necessities. While there, the attorney for the estate had given her the news, “They left everything to dad’s brother and mom’s sister. You know, to keep it in the real family.” She ripped open the plastic wrapper with a little more force than necessary. “Which was fine with me since I didn’t need or want their money.” But it’d served as one last reminder that she didn’t belong in their family, in any family.
While it wasn’t good form to think poorly of the dead, Lewis couldn’t help thinking Scarlet’s parents had gotten what they’d deserved. “Wow.” He found it difficult to fathom how two people could be so callous toward the daughter they’d made the conscious decision to welcome into their lives. “Hard to believe someone who turned out as good as you was raised by such a heartless couple.”
Her stiff posture softened and her smile returned as she tilted her head and said, “Why, thank you.”
That smile made his insides feel light and airy. “You are most welcome.”
Scarlet went down on her hands and knees and began to tape the edge of the drop cloth to where the wall met the floor molding. After entertaining a brief thought of covering her, easing down her scrub pants and taking her from behind, because damn she had a beautiful body and even after all they’d done last night he still hadn’t gotten his fill of her, Lewis forced himself to look away and get back to taping.
“Truth is,” she said. “Getting pregnant changed my life.”
“I bet it did.”
“Not in the way you might think.” She spread out more of the plastic sheeting by his feet, working as she spoke. “It made me a better person. Having a baby growing inside of me, while petrifying at the time, taught me to put someone else’s needs ahead of my own. It gave me someone to love and hope for a happier future. It made me want to be more mature and responsible.”
She tapped his foot and he stepped onto the drop cloth so she could tape it into the corner.
“My baby is the reason I decided to become a nurse. I had some great professors who taught me empathy, caring and compassion.”
“Those things can’t be taught,” Lewis said. “Either you have them or you don’t.” And Scarlet most certainly had them.
“Then I must have some genetic predisposition.” She tilted her head up and shouted. “Thank you birth parents wherever you are.”
He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to not know the parents responsible for your birth, to not know your heritage. “Your birthparents must have been pretty special people.” To have created someone as special as Scarlet.
“Except for the fact they gave away their daughter.” She stood. “Oops.” She covered her mouth playfully. “Did I say that out loud?”
She sure had.
“My bad,” she said.
“Maybe they were trying to do the right thing. Maybe they gave you up because they thought it was in your best interest to be raised by another family.”
She looked over at him. “If something is important, you find a way to make it work. If I was important to them, they should have at least tried rather than casting me out as a newborn.”
Not everyone was as strong and determined as Scarlet.
“Or a note would have been nice,” she said. “To explain why. Maybe a birthday card or a holiday card to let me know they hadn’t forgotten about me,” she added quietly, looking so sad. Then she shook it off. “Enough about me. How about we dissect your life for a while?”
No. His life was not a topic open for discussion. He felt that same old twinge of anger laden disappointment and resentment that accompanied even the briefest thought of his childhood. “I think I’ll go get that radio now,” he joked, while seriously considering running to his room to grab the one by his bed.
“I don’t think so.” Scarlet jabbed a paint roller in his direction. “It’s your turn to contribute to our meaningful conversation.”
Maybe so, but Lewis never shared his past, with anyone. Some memories were better left buried. “It’s time to paint,” he said. “I need to concentrate or I’ll ruin Jessie’s purple wall.” On the plus side, maybe that’d mean they could repaint it another, more muted color. Like eggshell.
“Afraid you’ll make me feel bad with tales of your perfectly happy, loving childhood?”
Not a chance.
“You won’t.” She carried over a can of paint. “But unlike you.” She sent him a playful glare, at least he took it as playful. “I will respect that you don’t want to talk about it and move on.”
A woman who didn’t push and push until she received the answers she sought was an unusual thing. He watched her, the head of one of the largest and most highly regarded NICUs in the nation, unconcerned with the flyaway hairs that’d escaped her pony tail, squatting on his floor, with a screwdriver in her hand, prying open a can of paint.
Beautiful. Confident. Smart. Helpful. Caring. Fun. Sexy. Hard-working. Dedicated. There was not one thing he didn’t like about Scarlet Miller.
She caught him staring. “You like what you see?” she asked seductively.
Oh yeah. “Very much so.”
“Good.” She held up the top of the paint can and turned the awful lollipop purple covered side toward him. “I told you it was an ama
zing shade. Jessie is going to love it.”
“I wasn’t talking about the paint.”
Without comment she turned and bent over to pour the hideous color into a roller pan, not before he’d seen her smile.
Lewis gathered up the rollers and brushes, opened both windows and they started to paint. As time dragged on, his guilt grew. Scarlet had been so open about her difficult past, and when she’d given him the opportunity to reciprocate, he’d changed the topic. And she’d let him.
She deserved more, but where to begin and how much to tell?
He continued to paint. The silence closed in around him. Pressure to share…something started to build until he couldn’t stand it any longer. “My mother suffered from undiagnosed bipolar disorder throughout my childhood,” he said, concentrating on each thick purple stroke. “Every day I navigated her mood swings like a soldier traversing a deadly minefield. I’d wake up each morning never knowing what to expect.”
He bent to get some more paint on the roller. “Would she be manic and energized, exhibiting grandiose expressions of love? Or would she be depressed and short-tempered, impossible to please and blaming me for every little thing?” Unfortunately for him and his sister, she’d tended toward the depression more than the mania. And even though once he’d started to drive, staying away from the house could have easily been arranged, he’d refused to leave his younger sister unprotected.
“I’m assuming she stabilized with treatment or you wouldn’t have sent Jessie off with her.”
Per usual Scarlet’s first concern was Jessie. He liked that. “From what my sister tells me, with medication, for the last fourteen years my mom has been the perfect parent, in-law, and now grandparent to my two nieces. Not that it matters to me because I rarely speak to my mom and dad.” He couldn’t forget years of neglect when his mom had been too depressed to shop for food or prepare meals or do laundry or clean. Nor could he forgive a dad who’d left at dawn and returned home after they’d all gone to sleep, under the mistaken impression a few twenty dollar bills tossed on the kitchen counter each night made up for his absence, made up for the verbal abuse he wasn’t there to stop, for the responsibility of practically raising his sister, of existing on edge, of missing parties with his friends, missing out on his childhood.
Yet he’d accepted their offer to take Jessie away for the weekend out of total desperation.
“What prompted treatment?” she asked.
“Suicide attempt. A cry for help dad could no longer ignore. One that necessitated he stop seeking escape in his work as a surgeon and pay attention to his family for a change.” The old rage and resentment started to rise. He inhaled. Exhaled. Would not let it take over.
In his peripheral vision he saw Scarlet stop painting and turn to him. “How terrible.”
She didn’t know the half of it since, at the young age of seventeen, Lewis had been the one to find her…naked…in a bathtub half-filled with bloody water…both wrists slit. And lying on the white tile floor, covered in his mom’s blood was the Boy Scout pocket knife he’d cherished, one of the few gifts his father had given him.
His mother had known when he’d be home from school, an hour before his sister. She’d known his routine, had known he’d go straight to the hall bathroom. She’d planned for Lewis to be the one to find her. And that Lewis could not forgive, because no child should ever…ever have to experience the overwhelming helpless panic…the confused desperation…
Scarlet appeared at his side and placed her hand over his on the handle of the roller, lifting it from where he held it pressed up against the wall. “You don’t have to talk about it.” With a few adept strokes, she fixed the drippy mess he’d made.
But now that he’d started talking he wanted her to know, to understand. “Living with my mother was…awful.” Times one million. He looked down at her. “When Jessie moved in with me, all angry and sulky and difficult, and month after month went by with no improvement in her behavior, it started to feel like history repeating itself. I had no control over my life. Confrontation after confrontation. Trying so hard but never being able to get it right. Never knowing what would set her off. Never knowing what each new day would bring. At the thought of living on that unpredictable rollercoaster again I panicked.” To the point he’d actually considered sending Jessie to live with his parents. “But the more I fought to take back control, the worse things got between Jessie and me.”
Scarlet set down both rollers, stepped in close and hugged his waist. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.” She squeezed him tight. “It will get better,” she said confidently.
Lewis wrapped his arms around her shoulders and held her tight, relieved by her confidence, wanting to believe her, needing to believe her.
“And I’ll help in any way I can,” she added.
She’d already done so much. It calmed him to know he didn’t have to go it alone, that he could count on Scarlet to be there for him and Jessie. They stood there in each other’s arms, her cheek pressed to his chest, and Lewis had never felt closer to another human being.
“We’re quite the screwed up pair,” she said.
To him they felt like the perfect pair. But they’d taken a sojourn from real life. Once Jessie came home everything would change.
“You want to know what’s even more awful than growing up with your mother?” Scarlet asked, looking up at him, her eyes serious. Apparently that wasn’t a question she wanted answered because she continued on without giving him a chance to speak. “That you haven’t moved past it, that you continue to fear it and let it impact your relationship with your daughter and women in general.”
Lewis opened his mouth to shout out an affronted, “That’s not true.” But the words wouldn’t form, because as humiliating as it was to admit, after more than a decade of avoiding his parents, and in the process, suppressing unwanted destructive emotions he had no desire to re-visit, she was right. Not that he’d let her know. “You think you have me all figured out, don’t you?”
“Don’t worry,” she said with a wink, stepping out of his embrace and picking up her roller. “Your secret’s safe with me.” She returned to her side of the wall.
Even though he’d much prefer holding Scarlet in his arms for a few more hours, he picked up his roller and resumed painting. “Why do women think they have all the answers?” he asked.
“Why do men think they’re too complex for women to figure out?” she countered.
“Touché.” Scarlet was not easy. She challenged him. And it turned out he was starting to like being challenged.
“Here’s a bit of Scarlet trivia for your inquisitive mind.” She stopped painting and looked over at him. “At the insistence of my parents, I trained with the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center, the official training academy for the New York City Ballet, for seven years and performed in four productions of The Nutcracker.”
He’d be in awe of that accomplishment later. Right now he couldn’t get the image of Scarlet the ballerina out of his head. Her hair pulled back into a tight bun, a pale pink bodysuit hugging her thin frame, graceful arms, strong legs and her chin held high. And toe shoes. Spinning.
“You’re imagining me in a leotard, aren’t you?” she asked with a smile.
“I am not.” What was a leotard anyway?
“You are so easy,” she laughed.
And simple as that she’d lifted his mood. Lewis took the opportunity she’d provided to steer the conversation in the more fun, flirty, and sexy direction he preferred. “Yes I am,” he walked toward her and turned her to face him. “So easy that all you have to do is blink and you can have me.” He stared into her eyes. “Any way you want me.”
She blinked.
“That is not fair,” she protested. “Blinking is involuntary. I can’t stop myself from blinking.”
“A blink is a blink,” he goaded her.
“Fine,” she said, like he knew she would. He had yet to see her back down from a challenge. “I want yo
u up against a wall.”
Doable. He slid his thumbs into the elastic waistband of his pants preparing to lower them.
“That wall.” She pointed to the one they’d almost finished painting.
He removed his thumbs and studied the wall, weighed his options: Sex with a post coital purple staining on his back, butt and hair vs. no sex and no purple staining. A tough decision.
“Come on, Lewis.” She did a little goading of her own. “A promise of any way you want me is a promise of any way you want me.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Time’s up,” she said. “And since you worry about me working on top of the stepladder, and all that’s left is the top portion of the wall, I’ll leave that to you to finish.”
They’d completed the painting a lot quicker than he’d anticipated. Now he’d have to think of a way to convince Scarlet to stick around and go out to dinner with him. He wasn’t ready to let her go, not when they could have one more night together. “I have a couple of guys coming at four o’clock to help move the furniture down from the loft.”
“You don’t need me here for that.”
“I know we won’t be able to position the bed up against the wall or hang anything on it until the paint is completely dry, but don’t you want to be here to set the room up? To hang the curtains and put on the new bedding and position the wall hangings on the other walls? Don’t you want to make sure the room turns out exactly as you’ve envisioned it?”
She didn’t answer right away.
Good.
He went on, “Then I have a special evening planned, a thank you for your help.”
“A simple verbal thank you will suffice. And when did you have time to plan a special evening?” she asked, full of suspicion.
“This morning while you were out.”
“You expect me to believe between the hours of eight and ten on a Saturday morning you managed to make special plans for this evening?”
And his friend Clark, who owned a hot new restaurant just off Central Park, had not been at all happy about the early call. But after he stopped complaining about the hour, he’d been happy to accommodate Lewis’s request for a table at seven o’clock. “I most certainly did.”
NYC Angels: Tempting Nurse Scarlet Page 12
