by Karen Fenech
“Maybe tomorrow, but for tonight, I really can’t release you into your own care in your present condition,” Beverley said. “An ambulance attendant will be in shortly to transport you to Columbia. I don’t anticipate any complications. You should be well enough to be discharged in the morning.”
“I’d prefer to be discharged now, Doctor.”
“I’d prefer that you weren’t alone for the next twenty-four hours.”
“You can stay with Sammie and I, Clare,” Jake said. “As long as Joe doesn’t think you need more care than I can provide.”
Dr. Beverley was scribbling something on a page on a clip board, and humming. “That should be fine. I can talk you through what she’ll need, Jake. Mostly, you need to wake her every two hours tonight, just to make sure she’s lucid. No strenuous activity. That shouldn’t be too much of a problem with her ankle in a cast. If she has someone to observe her tonight, I’m willing to allow her to forego a night in the hospital.”
Clare chewed her lip. It was either Jake’s place or the hospital in Columbia.
“I’ll stay with you, Jake,” she said softly.
* * * * *
On the way to Jake’s place, she asked him to stop by the rented house. She’d wanted to see for herself how extensive the damage was. She intended to spend no more time than was absolutely necessary at Jake’s—preferably this one night—and planned to sleep in her own, albeit rented bed by tomorrow night, if possible.
But one look at the place and she knew that wouldn’t be happening. She recalled seeing the house collapse, and hadn’t been sure if it had been real or if she’d imagined it before she’d blacked out. She hadn’t imagined it. Fire had gutted the house. All that remained were charred, random pieces of the wooden frame. Clare shivered at seeing the devastation, and realized just how close she came to losing her own life.
Jake gave her time to look her fill and when she nodded to him, they drove on to his house.
He pulled up and parked in his driveway. The hospital had provided Clare with a crutch. Jake came around to the passenger side of his vehicle.
He crouched. “Put your arms around my neck.”
Clare would have preferred to walk, but even turning her head caused it to swim and a wave of dizziness swamped her. She swayed against Jake.
“Easy,” he said softly.
She placed her arms around him and Jake carried her into the house. He took her to his bedroom. Clare braced, expecting a fresh assault to her pounding head from bright ceiling light when Jake flicked the light switch. Instead, he made his way across the room guided by moonlight and light from street lamps that filtered in through a separation in the taupe curtains.
He set her on the bed then switched on the lamp on the nightstand. The room was bathed in a soft glow. The room was furnished with the pieces he’d had in his apartment in New York—heavy dark wood armoire, nightstand, his massive bed.
Clare settled slowly onto the mattress. The bed was unmade, but the sheets were fresh and cool. The mountain of pillows looked as fluffy as clouds, but she refrained from resting against them. She and Jake had a history in this bed that Clare found intimidating.
“I can sleep in the spare room,” she said.
Jake went to the window and lowered a blind. “This room’s bigger. You’ll have more room to move with the crutch.” At the armoire in a corner of the room, he removed a T-shirt. “You can sleep in this, if you like.”
She was wearing green hospital scrubs, the only clothes available to her, since her own shorts and tank shirt were torn and filthy from the fall and the fire, and all of her other garments had perished along with everything else in the house. The nurse who’d provided them had also shown Clare where to bathe, so the stench of smoke from the fire no longer clung to her.
She didn’t want to sleep in the hospital scrubs and accepted the T-shirt from him.
“Do you need help changing?” he asked.
The skin on her palms, torn and abraded from the trellis, was coated with salve and covered with gauze that made her hands as awkward and stiff to maneuver as catcher’s mitts. Regardless, she shook her head, refusing him.
It wasn’t modesty that had her rejecting the offer; it was a bid to retain a fragment of her independence in a situation that had made her dependent on him.
“Need anything before I go?” Jake asked.
What she wanted was another of the little blue pills Dr. Beverley had prescribed for pain, but she wasn’t due for more medication yet. “I’m fine.”
Jake nodded and left the room.
* * * * *
She looked good asleep, Jake thought. At peace. He remembered thinking the same on other occasions, times when they’d shared a bed and he would lie awake just looking at Clare while she slept. He’d thought that whatever had been haunting her wasn’t present when she slept. He’d always known that something was driving her—dogging her. He hadn’t wanted to pry, hadn’t been invited to ask questions, to share her worries, her concerns, her hurts, and he’d kept his distance.
Maybe, he’d known all along that if he breached that distance, he’d lose her. As it turned out, he’d lost her anyway.
His plain blue T-shirt never looked that good on him, he mused. A stray lock of hair lay against her cheek. Jake had to resist the urge to brush it back from her face, resist touching her.
A small frown marred her brow. Caused by pain? Or a residual affect from the experience she’d just had?
She’d been drinking. In the time they’d been together, he’d never known her to drink much. He thought it was her need to be in control at all times that had her swearing off booze. Something had set her off. He wanted to know what that was, but now wasn’t the time to ask her.
It was time to wake her.
“Clare.” He tapped her cheek gently with the back of his hand. “Clare.”
Her frown deepened. She mumbled something he didn’t catch. Out of annoyance he thought, and smiled. The first smile he’d had tonight. The call about the fire had scared ten years off his life.
“Clare.”
She batted his hand away and opened her eyes, squinting at him through the light coming from the bedside lamp.
“Jake?”
“Yeah. Time for your wake-up call.” Her eyes were heavy, but the pupils weren’t enlarged. He held up two fingers. “How many?”
“Two. What time is it?”
“Early. Three a.m. How’s the head?”
“Mmm,” she mumbled with a frown.
He took that to mean it hurt.
“Have you been to bed at all?” she asked.
“I’m not tired.”
The truth was he was too wired to sleep.
“Is that coffee I’m smelling?” she asked.
He was holding a steaming mug. “Yeah.”
Clare pushed against the mattress, trying to hoist herself into a seated position.
“Hold on,” he said. “Let me give you a hand.”
He placed the mug on the bedside table and put an arm around her waist, bringing her close. He smelled her, that sexy blend of whatever fragrance she wore and Clare herself, that never failed to make his mouth go dry.
He arranged the pillows behind her with the arm that wasn’t holding Clare, then set her back against them.
She held out her hands. “Can I have a sip of your coffee?”
He handed the mug to her, waited until she had a firm hold before releasing it. She had a deep gash on one elbow and bruises on her arm, visible now as she raised the mug, and his T-shirt fell away exposing the skin.
“You scared me tonight,” he said.
“Me, too. How did you find out anyway?”
“Jonathan from the office called me. He’s married to the nurse who treated you.”
Clare nodded at his response. She rubbed her temples. “I’m ready for another couple of pills.”
Jake handed them to her. She chased them with the coffee then closed her eyes. She didn’t resist whe
n he took the mug from her.
She lay back against the pillows. Jake sat, listening to her breathing.
He’d been crazed to reach her after receiving the call about the fire—crazed to see for himself that she was alive. He wanted to climb into bed beside her and hold her close and safe. Hold her as he hadn’t in three years.
He rubbed a hand down his face, then rose to his feet and left the room.
* * * * *
Clare opened her eyes. The small, round face of Jake’s niece was a few inches from her own, gazing down at her. Clare jerked back, startled.
“Hi,” the little girl said. “Uncle Jake said not to wake you.”
Daylight lit the edges of the blind. Another sunny day, by the level of brightness.
“I’m Samantha Josephine Sutton,” the little girl said. “Everybody calls me Sammie. Uncle Jake said your name is Clare and that you slept over. I like when we have sleepovers.”
Clare blinked at the monologue.
“I asked Uncle Jake if we can get a puppy,” Sammie went on. Her copper-colored ponytail bounced as she nodded. “Do you like dogs? I do. If we got a dog, I’d name her Annabelle. Do you like that name?”
Clare had relatively no experience with children and certainly didn’t know how to uphold her end of a conversation with one. The little girl didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, to mind that the conversation was one-sided.
Jake appeared in the doorway. “Sammie, I asked you not to wake Clare,” he said gently. He joined them at the bed and faced Clare. “How do you feel?”
“Better.”
She still had a headache, but a mild one. Her injured ankle, the muscles she’d strained and the skin she’d bruised were making themselves felt, but it was pain she could handle.
“I’m making breakfast. Are you up to eating?” Jake asked.
She was surprised that she felt ravenous. “Yes.” It occurred to her that Jake should be at work. “Aren’t you going into the office?”
“Stan and Jonathan can manage without me for today.”
“If you’re staying home because of me, don’t, I can manage fine.”
He gave her a level look. “Breakfast in fifteen minutes.”
Moving slowly, Clare went into the bathroom that adjoined Jake’s bedroom. Her face reflected back at her in the mirror. Her eyes looked heavy from the pain killers. A bruise darkened her jaw. If she’d been less limber on the ledge last night, or less lucky . . . she shuddered. She forced the thought from her mind.
She washed, then dressed once again in the only clothes she had, the hospital scrubs. She was going to have to see about getting a few things to wear.
A few minutes later, she joined Jake and Sammie in the kitchen and they sat down to breakfast. Though Clare would have preferred to pass on the family breakfast, she had balked at the suggestion that a tray be brought to her.
Clare stretched out her left leg, shifting until she found a comfortable position for her injured ankle.
The clown face clock in the kitchen showed the time to be a few minutes before nine. With Sammie assisting him, Jake made pancakes and eggs. When the pancakes were done with a platter of them on the table, Sammie carefully transferred one to a plate then gripped the maple syrup dispenser and poured syrup on a pancake, drawing a happy face. She gave the pancake to Jake, then proceeded to do the same with another one for Clare.
“Ah . . . thanks,” Clare said, at a loss, as Sammie slid the plate to her.
“You’re welcome.” Sammie smiled, showing what looked to be her entire mouth full of teeth.
“Uncle Jake, can I go over to Heather’s and play?” Sammie asked as she decorated her own pancake.
“If it’s okay with Heather’s mom.”
“Heather asked, and her mom said okay.”
While Sammie spoke on about Heather, and Heather’s cat Fluffy, who was about to have kittens, Clare took a careful bite of the pancake and discovered to her surprise that it was good. At some point in the last three years, Jake had learned to cook.
“I’m going to be a peach in the Farley birthday parade next week,” Sammie said. “Want to see my costume, Clare?”
Clare was forking up another piece of the pancake and glanced up at Sammie, only just realizing that the girl was addressing her.
Without waiting for a reply, Sammie bounced up from her seat. “I’ll get it!” She hit the floor running.
The telephone rang on the counter. Jake left the table and went to answer it. From Jake’s side of the conversation, Clare gathered the caller was the mother of the aforementioned Heather, confirming the girls’ plans for the day.
By the time the call ended, Sammie was back, dragging a puffy, plush outfit behind her. She held the costume up for Clare.
“I have leotards that match and shiny shoes that make noise so you can hear me dancing.” Sammie said.
“Tap shoes,” Jake said, his gaze warm on Sammie.
“Tap shoes,” Sammie repeated with a brisk nod.
“Heather’s mom called,” Jake said. “You can go next door anytime.”
“I have to go to Heather’s now, Clare, but I’ll see you later.”
Sammie bounded out through the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the living and dining rooms.
Jake trailed after his niece. “Be right back.”
He left the door open, affording an unhampered view of the front of the house, and Clare watched him watch Sammie make her way next door.
When Jake returned, he went to the coffee maker and came back to the table with the pot. “More coffee?”
Clare nodded. While Jake poured, she asked, “What are you doing in Farley? Last I recall, you were in line to head up one of the Bureau’s field offices.”
Jake returned the pot to the warming plate, then leaned back against the kitchen counter.
“That’s right. After you and I stopped seeing each other, I’d accepted a post to Washington Headquarters.”
A prestigious appointment. “And you came here?” Clare was certain her surprise was mirrored in her expression.
“You remember me mentioning my brother, Dan, Sammie’s father?”
She nodded.
“Right after you and I split up, Dan and his wife Marly were in a car accident. Marly died in the wreck. Dan lingered. He died a month after the accident.”
The pain of that was still evident in Jake’s voice. She wasn’t immune to it. Shaking her head slowly, she said, “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah,” Jake said softly. “Dan wanted me to be Sammie’s guardian. He met Marly in college. She was from Farley and intended to move back home after school. So after they got married, they moved here. Sammie was born here. When Dan and Marly died, Sammie was three years old. Marly is an only child. Her only remaining relative is her father who lives in the same nursing facility as Gladys Linney. That’s how I happened to be at the place when you were visiting Gladys. I was picking up Sammie who was spending the afternoon with her grandfather.
