Ten Years Later...

by Marie Ferrarella

  But all that was in the past.

  Before he had left her to deal with things on her own.

  “Do you like it?” he asked. “Being a nurse,” he added in case she’d lost the thread of the nearly stillborn conversation.

  “Yes,” she admitted with a smile, then said for good measure in case he thought she was just paying lip service to the sentiment, “Yes, I do.”

  “Why?” he prodded, curious about how she felt about the career that seemingly had found her instead of the other way around.

  The simple question took her aback and made Brianna think for a second. Back when they’d been together, she’d never had to explain anything to him. More often than not, Sebastian could literally intuit the way she felt about things.

  But back then, they could end almost all of each other’s sentences.

  God, had she ever really been that young and innocent?

  “Why?” she repeated, almost in disbelief that he should have to ask the question. “Because I like helping people. I like knowing that because of me, someone feels better, either in general or even just about themselves. That because of me, they’ve become more determined, or more hopeful.” She smiled, more to herself than at him. “I guess working with my dad, bullying him into fighting his way back from despair and getting to a place where he could walk again and do what he did before the accident, showed me what a difference one person can make in another person’s life.

  “That was,” she freely admitted to him, “enough to get me hooked. I really want to make that kind of a difference in other people’s lives.”

  She stopped talking as her words echoed back to her. Brianna flushed ruefully. “I guess I must sound pretty full of myself to you.”

  After all, they no longer had that connection, that one-on-one way of communicating where each knew what the other was thinking. This man across from her was now a stranger.

  “No,” he contradicted her, “you sound like just what I need.”

  Only rigid control kept her mouth from dropping open. “Excuse me?”

  He realized what that had to sound like to her. He didn’t want her thinking he was trying to pick up where they’d left off years ago—even though he had to admit, if only to himself, that part of him was trying to do just that.

  “I mean just what my mother needs,” he amended, his eyes on hers to make sure she understood.

  “Your mother?” She didn’t understand. “Exactly why does your mother need me?”

  His mother was a warm, outgoing person, but she was also a private person and he was fairly certain that she didn’t want him broadcasting her recent change in condition. But this wasn’t exactly the same thing. After all, Brianna was a medical professional as well as a woman of integrity. He knew she could be counted on to be discreet.

  And he needed help.

  “Well, I told you that my mother had a stroke recently....” His voice trailed off.

  When he’d mentioned it last night, she’d just assumed from the way he talked that everything was under control. And since the severity of strokes had such a broad range, from the almost unnoticed to the debilitating, she had thought that his mother had been lucky.

  Maybe not.

  Brianna was aware of what havoc a bad stroke could cause, how one could ravage a person, reduce her to a shell of her former self. Was that the case, then? Had he just not wanted to talk about it until they were somewhere more private than a high school reunion?

  “How bad was it?” she asked in a hushed voice. “Was her vision affected?”

  He shook his head. “No, not that she mentioned.”

  “Thank God for that.” And then she thought of another common symptom. “How about her speech? Does she have difficulty speaking?”

  He thought for a moment, carefully reviewing their conversations, both over the phone and when he’d arrived. “No, that seems to be fine, actually. She’s not slurring her words or anything close to that,” he added with relief.

  Okay, so far, so good, she thought. “Was there any paralysis? Face, arms, legs?” She recited each part as it occurred to her.

  In response to each, Sebastian shook his head. As the gravity of the possible outcomes of his mother’s stroke hit him, he realized just how large a bullet his mother had actually dodged. The wave of relief that came over him was enormous.

  “I guess my mother was really pretty lucky,” he concluded.

  “Yes,” Brianna agreed with feeling. “Yes, she certainly was.” But now that the conversation had taken this route, she still had more questions. “What does the doctor say?”

  He thought back to what his mother had said when he’d asked her the same thing. “That she’d had a stroke.”

  They obviously both already knew that. Brianna was looking for more than just that one terrifying piece of information.

  “But you have talked to him, right?” she prodded. Brianna left the question up in the air, as if she took an affirmative answer for granted.

  Frustrated, Sebastian was forced to shake his head again. “She doesn’t want me fussing over her, or having to bother talking with doctors on what is supposedly my vacation. She told me that having me here for a visit was the best medicine in the world for her.” A self-deprecating laugh left his lips. “I really wish I could stay indefinitely—”

  She already knew where that sentence was going. “But your job isn’t here,” she concluded for him, doing her best not to sound dismissive. After all, this wasn’t what he’d chosen to do with his life.

  The moment she said that, their eyes met and she could see by the look on his face that he remembered when that sort of thing—finishing each other’s sentences—happened on a regular basis.

  But that was then and this was now, she reminded herself, struggling to maintain strict control over her emotions, because now had a completely different set of parameters.

  “I’m not a doctor,” she prefaced, verbalizing the disclaimer mechanically, “but I could take a look at her for you, talk to her and maybe assess the situation a little further for you if you’d like.”

  The broad smile on his lips gave her his answer before he even opened his mouth.

  “That would be great,” he told her. It was the first step in getting someone—preferably her—to stay on as his mother’s companion/caretaker. But for now he wasn’t going to push her. Instead, he said, “It would go a long way to putting my mind at ease about her condition, as well as helping me make decisions about what to do next.”

  She didn’t want to ask what that meant, afraid that would make her think less of him. These days, so many people treated their parents like toys that had lost their usefulness, their appeal. After years of useful service, they were put out to pasture, so to speak.

  “Like I said, I’m not a doctor,” Brianna reminded him.

  “No, you’re not,” he agreed. “But you worked a miracle with your father, using nothing more than your sheer determination—”

  They’d both gotten lucky there, she couldn’t help thinking—she and her father. She knew that he wouldn’t have been able to accept facing life from the inside of a wheelchair. He had to walk again. There’d been no other alternative.

  “But you just said that none of her limbs were affected by the stroke,” Brianna pointed out. What kind of a miracle did he need for his mother? Had he omitted telling her something? Or were things worse than he’d initially let on?

  “They’re not,” he agreed. “But anyone who can work the kind of miracle that you did on your dad is the kind of person I’d be more than happy about having around my mother. And don’t forget that my mother already likes you.”

  This was going a little too fast for her liking. Somewhere along the line, she’d lost control of the situation.

  “Wait, are we talking about just a p
lain visit, or is there something more extensive on the table that you forgot to mention?”

  He looked at her with the soul of innocence, and she almost laughed out loud at his expression.

  “Nothing on the table but just some French bread right now,” he told her.

  It just so happened that she made her living as a private-duty nurse rather than one who worked long shifts at the hospital, or in a doctor’s office. And, as a private-duty nurse, she was on call over the course of the entire day. That was one of the reasons why she generally moved into the home of the person she was taking care of at the time. That way, she was assured of having Carrie with her in the evening.

  Her father usually took care of the little girl during the daytime and then he’d drop his granddaughter off where she was staying after six. For now that worked out well for both Carrie and her. When it ceased to work, she would rethink her choice of nursing venue.

  But Sebastian didn’t know any of this. At least, she hadn’t told him that she was a private-duty nurse. At the moment she just assumed that Sebastian was asking her opinion on things, and that included whether to make use of a private-duty nurse.

  Their waitress approached discreetly, waiting for a lull in the conversation. It occurred the moment Sebastian became aware of her presence. Since the menu hadn’t really changed in all these years, making up their minds took almost no time at all.

  Once the waitress left to give the chef their orders, Brianna asked, “When would you like me to come over to see your mother?”

  He refrained from eagerly saying, “Now,” and instead diplomatically inquired, “When would you be available?”

  As it happened, her last assignment had just ended several days ago. Rather than accept the next assignment that the nursing agency offered, she’d opted to take a little time off. She wanted to spend some quality time with her family, especially the girl who seemed to be harboring feelings of neglect despite the attention Brianna’s father was lavishing on her.

  In addition, she just needed to have her batteries recharged. She’d been pushing too hard these past few months, doing too much, and it was draining her.

  Seeing Sebastian had sufficiently recharged them—and then some.

  In all honesty, it was now three days into the self-imposed “vacation” and Brianna was pretty much ready to get back to work. She’d never been one who was able to kick back for long stretches without feeling as if she was in the throes of nursing withdrawals.

  Caring for children was an entirely different story, however. In general, she was accustomed to doing at least two, if not three, different things at once.

  Even doing just one thing felt as if she was slacking off.

  “I could clear some time tomorrow if you’d like,” she offered.

  “I wouldn’t be taking you away from your work?”

  “I consider it all part of the job,” she told him, “and this would actually be mixing business with pleasure.”

  Then, in case he thought she was trying to revisit something they’d had in the past, she quickly told him, “I’d love to see your mother again.”

  “She still talks about you,” he told her, leaving off the part about the fact that his mother viewed her as the one he allowed to get away.

  “We kind of lost touch when...when my father was hurt,” Brianna finally concluded, substituting that for the real reason she and his mother were no longer in communication. They’d lost touch because Brianna had been the one to break contact. Being around his mother had reminded her too much of him, of what she no longer had. Because, even then, she’d known in her heart that he wasn’t coming back to Bedford after graduation.

  And that had meant that he wasn’t coming back to her.

  The few conversations she and Sebastian had had after he’d left for college had been short, painful and exceedingly awkward, with far more left unsaid than was said.

  And, just like that, the love of her life had become a stranger she had nothing in common with. Maybe they’d never meshed to begin with.

  But sitting here opposite him now, she knew that all those things she’d told herself in those long, empty months after they had parted were just so many poor excuses. She hadn’t stopped caring about him. There were still feelings, still longings pulsating between them. And most likely there always would be, until she was laid to rest six feet under.

  And maybe even longer than that.

  Chapter Eight

  When he looked back on it later, Sebastian felt as if the majority of the evening had been spent in a singular space in time, divorced from any recriminations from past behavior.

  Oh, once or twice—possibly even more—he’d caught himself wondering, “What if...?”

  What if he hadn’t left?

  What if her father hadn’t been in that accident?

  What if she’d come with him and gone to the same college? They’d made plans to move in together and their goal from there had been marriage....

  But wondering didn’t make it so and didn’t answer any of those questions.

  At the end of the evening, as he walked Brianna to her door—the way he had walked her so many times in the distant past—he could have sworn they were moving in slow motion. Heaven knew it certainly felt that way to him, felt as if each moment was drawn out, stretched to the absolute limit.

  Which might have explained why it seemed to take forever to reach her doorstep.

  Yet, conversely, they found themselves there all too soon. Suddenly, there he was, looking down into her face, battling a myriad of emotions, all of which had popped up, dust and all, right out of the past. A past they’d once shared in the belief that it was just the first step toward an incredible future.

  And one desire dominated it all.

  He wanted to kiss her.

  Wanted it so badly that he could all but taste it on his lips.

  He knew he could murmur something like “For old times’ sake” before he kissed her, but she wasn’t a fool. She’d see through that in a heartbeat and more than likely ask him why he felt it was necessary to make an excuse for doing something that had once come so naturally to them.

  “I had a very nice time tonight,” Brianna said as she turned to face him on her doorstep. “To be honest, I really didn’t think I would,” she confessed. Not that it had exactly been a walk in the park. There’d been a third companion at the table with them. The ghost of summers past, when things had been so close to perfect and she’d thought that it would always be that way.

  “Yeah, me, too,” Sebastian responded. Was it his imagination, or was she even lovelier in moonlight? All he knew was that there was a strong, all but overpowering ache in his gut right now.

  “Which part are you agreeing with?” she asked, curious. “That you didn’t think you were going to have a nice time, or that you actually did had a nice time?”

  “Both,” he answered.

  The temptation to kiss her continued growing and getting stronger. So strong that, without thinking, he reached out to touch her hair, tucking a reddish strand behind her ear just the way he used to.

  The tips of his fingers glided ever so lightly along her cheek, sending electric currents zapping along her sensitive skin.

  She drew in her breath as her pulse began to beat faster.

  Run! her brain pleaded.

  If she let him kiss her, Brianna knew that any hope she had of keeping him at arm’s length for his short visit would go up in flames.

  With shaky knees, Brianna forced herself to turn away from him. She said something along the lines of “I’d better go in before my father sends out search parties to find me. I told him I’d only be gone a couple of hours.”

  And from where she was standing, it felt as if she’d been gone close to a decade.

  Sebas
tian knew that if he pushed, even just the slightest bit, he could get her to stay out here with him a few moments longer. Knew, too, that if he lowered his mouth to hers, Brianna would be there to return his kiss.

  But he also knew that it wasn’t fair to either of them—especially to her—if he pressed his advantage. There was no point in starting something that had no hope of a future.

  So, even though deep in his soul he didn’t want to, Sebastian forced himself to step back. He inclined his head as he did so and said, somewhat amused, “Wouldn’t want your dad grounding you on my account.”

  Was he laughing at her?

  Brianna grasped at the feeling of indignation, knowing it was the only thing that might remotely save her from making a serious mistake and kissing him good-night.

  “I’m not ‘afraid’ my father’s going to ground me—I’m just being thoughtful. I told him I’d be back by a certain time and I like keeping my word no matter what it’s about.”

  Was that a dig? he wondered. A veiled reference to the fact that he’d once promised her that he would love her forever?

  He couldn’t fault her for thinking that he’d broken that promise—even though, now that he thought about it, he really hadn’t. Because there was still a part of him that cared about her.

  Cared a great deal.

  So much so that the emotion in question might be called love by those who were still innocent and believed in such things.

  “Well, I still wouldn’t want to be responsible for that,” he told her, then paused before asking, “Are we still on for tomorrow?”

  Dazed, relieved to have survived tonight, she looked at Sebastian and echoed quizzically, “Tomorrow?”

  “You were going to come over to see my mother and tell me whether or not you thought she needed to have some extra care for a while.” He’d ad-libbed the last part, doing his best to inch closer to the real reason he wanted her seeing his mother—to decide whether she could take her on as a patient.

  “Oh, of course. Sure. I’ll come by,” she assured him quickly. “Is two o’clock all right?”