by James, Sandy
Deepika stirred from where she’d curled up in a chair. “She’s going to be fine,” she said in a hushed voice.
Ross nodded in appreciation. “The nurse told me,” he whispered. “Thanks for staying with her. Where did Andrew and Alex go?”
“Andrew headed home to catch a nap before he goes back to the clinic. He’ll have to do double duty or reschedule Laurie’s patients for now. And Alex?” She shrugged. “That wanker. He disappeared right after I told him about the CAT scan results. What did you find at the house?” She pushed the blanket off her shoulders and stretched.
Ross stood at the foot of the bed and stroked Laurie’s calf through the blanket. “This was deliberate. Someone trashed her room. Just like her car and her office. I’ll bet she caught him in the act and he shoved her down the stairs.” He tried to keep his voice at a whisper, but it was hard with the myriad of feelings coursing through him.
Deepika looked livid. “Who would do something like that?”
Ross shook his head. “I don’t know, but I’m damn well going to find out. I swear.” He took a few steps over to stand closer to Laurie. Watching her chest rise and fall gave him some comfort. He reached out, brushing a stray lock of blonde hair from her bruised cheek. She murmured in her sleep, something he couldn’t understand. French. She was speaking French.
“I need to get to work. Can you stay with her? I don’t want her to wake up alone. People with concussions get confused. She was perseverating.”
“She was what?” Evidently French wasn’t the only language he couldn’t comprehend. Medical eluded him as well.
“Sorry. She keeps repeating the same things,” Deepika explained. “It’s not unusual with a concussion.”
“What did she say?”
Deepika folded the blanket and dropped it on her chair. “I couldn’t tell you. French is one of the languages I don’t speak. When she used English, she kept saying ‘I’m sorry’ and mumbling something about her name. I take it you know her identity.”
Like her lie even mattered now. Ross sighed and rubbed the back of his knuckle against Laurie’s cheek. He wanted to beat the shit out of whoever did this to her, wanted it enough his blood boiled. He tried to keep his voice calm and quiet. “Yeah, I do.”
“She didn’t mean to hurt you, you know.” Deepika’s concern was plain in her voice.
Ross kept staring at Laurie, willing her to be well again.
“Will you at least give her the chance to explain? If you’d just listen to what she has to say, you’ll understand.”
Heaving another long sigh, Ross said, “She doesn’t need to explain anything. It’s not important now.”
“I know things aren’t quite that simple. But you two are going to have to work through this yourselves.”
Ross hoped now that he knew the truth, perhaps Laurie would share her whole story with him. He also hoped Deepika was right, that he’d understand, that he’d be open enough to accept who she was despite her life of wealth and privilege.
Deepika glanced at her wristwatch. “I need to head to work soon. Will you stay with her?”
Ross looked down at Laurie and realized nothing could tear him away from her side. “I’m not going anywhere.” He took the empty chair and scooted it over next to the bed as Deepika whispered her farewell, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and quietly left the room.
Ross sat down and finally let his tension begin to ease. He reminded himself several times that Laurie was going to be fine. Fatigue drowned him. Gently picking up her hand, he brushed a quick kiss over her knuckles and cradled her long fingers with his. He leaned forward, let his arms and head rest on the bed next to their joined hands, and did something he hadn’t done in a good long while. Ross prayed, whispering his thanks that she would get better before he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 14
I’m going to have a baby. I’ve known for a few weeks, but I just couldn’t find the courage to tell T.J. I was afraid he wouldn’t want to be a father, but when I finally confessed my secret, he was so happy.
T.J. wants to take me away with him—away from Chicago. Ellie wants to go too. She says her parents won’t welcome her back to Greenwood, and she has nowhere else to go and no money. T.J. just wants me to be safe. He told me Ice is going to get him killed. He’s going to get what money he can together and we’ll leave in two days. Ice owes him so much, but T.J. only wants enough to get us on the road. He says Ice can keep the rest. T.J. doesn’t want the money Ice has skimmed. T.J. doesn’t want any of the diamonds at all. He calls them “cursed.”
T.J. asked me to marry him, but he wants to wait until we are away from this horrible city. He doesn’t want any record of our real names left behind. He wants no chance of someone ever finding us.
Ice had a fortune laid away
to use on some new rainy day.
But One was left on such thin Ice,
and couldn’t seem to escape him twice.
For bearing pain, One swore in time
that Ice’s fortune would be mine.
Laurie could feel the pain pounding in her head and thrumming through her body before she came fully awake. She wanted to fight against the sensation and sink back into the blessed darkness, but her logical mind wouldn’t allow it. Pain or not, the time had come to regain some control.
She blinked for a minute until her eyes adjusted. The room was thankfully dim, but for a panicked moment she couldn’t figure out exactly where she was.
I’m not home. Nothing registered as familiar. She searched her memory and found nothing. Where the hell am I?
Glancing around the room, Laurie took an inventory of her surroundings. A television was mounted high on the wall. Only one window, but the curtain had been pulled closed. A halo of light surrounded the glass. Daytime. A clock declared ten-thirty. A small blue pump stood mounted on a shiny pole next to her bed, clicking softly every few moments to drop more fluid into its tubing. An IV.
I’m in a hospital room. Why?
She tried to pick up her right hand to rub her throbbing head, but it was being held firmly by Ross. Ross? Was that really Ross sleeping in the chair next to her bed and holding her hand? God, I want to remember.
Laurie lifted her left hand. An IV was taped to the back of it. What in the hell happened to me?
“Ross,” she croaked through her parched mouth.
He immediately came awake and raised his head to look at her, blinking the sleepiness from his eyes. “Laurie. You’re awake. How do you feel?”
“Is there any...?” The effort to speak came too hard with her mouth so dry. She pointed to the small water pitcher and pink plastic glass sitting on the rolling table near her bed.
“I’m so sorry. I should have known you’d... Let me get that,” Ross said as he quickly poured some water, stuck a straw in the glass, and brought it to Laurie’s lips.
After a few sips, she started to feel like her mouth no longer rivaled the Sahara Desert. She pushed the glass away and ran her shaky fingers across a large bandage on her forehead. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
She started to shake her head, but the movement caused her pain. “No, I... I don’t... remember.”
A middle-aged nurse clad in cartoon character scrubs came breezing in and flipped on the light switch. Laurie closed her eyes against the overly bright invasion.
Ross scowled at the brunette nurse. “Do you need the light? It hurts her eyes.”
“Just let me get her vitals. How you feeling, Sweetie?” she asked Laurie.
“Like I got run over by a freight train.”
The nurse happily chatted with her patient as she took Laurie’s temperature and blood pressure before noting her respiration and pulse. Then she looked at Ross. “Did she drink any water?”
“Yeah, but not much.”
Turning back to Laurie she asked, “On a scale of one to ten—one being a mosquito bite, ten being the worst pain you’ve ever had—how bad’s
your pain?”
One, two, ten? Five, ten, fifteen... Things seemed so confusing. Laurie had to think about the question for a few moments. Ah. That’s it. One to ten. “My head’s...a five. My body’s a...a four.”
The nurse grabbed a cord dangling from Laurie’s IV pump and handed it to her. “Just push this button if you want something for the pain. It won’t let you give yourself too much medicine. You rest for a while. The doctor will be in soon. Just push that red button on the bedrail if you need me.” She flipped off the light and disappeared down the hall.
Ross went over and closed the door. “It’s awfully loud out there. Too much going on at the nurses’ station.” He came back to sit in the chair next to her bed and just stared at her. “You’re gonna be fine. Really, you’re gonna be fine.”
Is that supposed to convince me, or is that supposed to convince him?
Laurie closed her eyes and tried to make sense of her scattered thoughts. She could remember what happened to her clinic, and the recollection made her angry. Why would someone trash her office?
Then she remembered Ross, recalled him walking away and leaving her. Her eyes flew open and she looked hard at him. Why is he here?
Laurie put her hand to the bandage on her forehead again. She’d been injured. But she couldn’t remember where she’d gone after she caught the taxi in Joliet. “What happened?”
“Deepika warned me that you might repeat yourself.”
That was confusing. “I’m repeating myself?”
“Yeah. A little.”
She tried to grasp some thread that would lead her to a memory, but everything eluded her. “So are you ever going to tell me what happened? I’d hate to ask again and have you think I’m going nuts.”
He smiled at her for a moment then he started to frown. “You fell down the stairs. Do you remember any of it?”
“A little. Maybe. I fell down the stairs? I can’t remember that.” She knit her brow as she tried her best to concentrate, but that made her forehead hurt. Laurie finally found something tangible she could remember. Her office. “Did someone destroy my office?”
Ross nodded. “Yeah. And someone broke in your house. Ring a bell?”
“No. My memory’s not... I... Nothing. There’s nothing. Merde. My memory’s kind of like... like...” She felt stupid.
“Kind of like Swiss cheese?” Ross said before he gave her a wry smile.
“Yeah.”
“Sucks, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she replied with a weak smile, remembering Ross’s difficulty after being rescued from the blizzard. That she could remember. Then she turned serious. “Why are you here? I thought you... I remember you... You left me.”
“Not now, Laurie. We’ll talk later. Right now you concentrate on getting well.”
Laurie tried to push herself up higher on the bed and cringed at the pain shooting through her body. Ross jumped up and helped push a pillow behind her back as he pressed the button to raise the head of the bed. She favored him with another smile and settled back on the pillows.
“Thanks. I’m as weak as a...” Her heart skipped a quick beat.
With a grin, Ross finished her sentence. “Kitten.” He tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear.
While she desperately wanted to take consolation from his intimate gesture, Laurie couldn’t feel anything except confused. Her memory was faulty at best.
Why is he here? Why is he being so caring?
Laurie didn’t want to hope too much that he had truly forgiven her lie. When she realized he was talking, she had to concentrate hard on his voice. Things were just too foggy. “I’m sorry. What did you ask me?”
“Have you had any problems with patients? Any threats? I’m trying to prod your memory.”
“No problems. Not really. Why?”
“I think someone pushed you down those stairs.”
That notion took her entirely by surprise. She wasn’t sure if she’d even heard him right. “Why would someone push me?”
Ross pulled the blanket a little higher up and fluffed her pillow. “I don’t know, but I’m damn well gonna find out.” She watched his face grow hard. “I’ll take care of this. I promise. Someone’s going to pay.”
The phone next to her bed rang, and Ross answered it. He listened for a few seconds. “Hang on. She’s here.” He handed the phone to Laurie. “I think it’s your mother.”
“My mother?” she asked as she took the phone. She should have known, her intuition should have kicked in. Maybe the head injury had taken away her gift. Can’t think about that.
“Doesn’t she speak French?”
Laurie took the phone and proceeded to explain to her frantic mother she was fine. Of course, her mother already knew that, but Laurie’s words did little to calm her mother’s intuition that told her there was still the possibility of danger, that all was not well. She wondered for a moment if her mother’s panic meant she’d been hurt worse than Ross had told her. She quickly dismissed the notion. Her mother’s imagination was just working overtime. As usual.
“Je t’aime aussi. Au revoir, Mama.” Laurie handed the phone to Ross, and he hung it up. “She wants to come.”
“Would you like to have her here? I can have Sheila book a flight for her,” Ross offered as he picked up the phone and readied to dial.
“Thanks, but it’s too far. Seems kind of silly to have her fly over here just because I hit my head. Do you know how long I was out?”
Ross hung up the phone and sat down in the chair as he explained what he knew about her situation. Laurie didn’t remember her room and wasn’t exactly sure she even wanted to. The idea of her personal things being trashed in the manner of her office made her heart ache. She wondered if she would ever again feel safe at either place.
The doctor wandered in and gave Laurie a short neurological exam by asking her questions and making her sniff different little bottles. Explaining what complications she could have from the concussion, he patiently answered several questions Ross asked about her care. The doctor ended up talking more to Ross than her, which she found a relief.
After the neurologist left, Laurie looked around. “Where’s the nurse call button?”
Ross pointed to it. “What do you need?” Her hot blush must have told him she had some personal business. “Want me to help you to the bathroom? Deepika said you could get out of bed for a few minutes if I stayed close. And she said the IV can go with you if I unplug it.”
“Ross, you can’t—”
He rolled his eyes. “For pity’s sake, I had a younger sister. I can help you.”
Not wishing to be a bother to her nurse and not even wanting to consider a bedpan, Laurie nodded. Ross unplugged the IV pump and helped her stand. Her legs were still shaky and her head throbbed for a few very long moments. Ross wrapped an arm around her waist and used the other arm to steer the rolling IV pole. Once she was in the bathroom, he turned his back to give her some privacy. She thought she’d die of embarrassment.
By the time he helped her make her way back to her bed, Laurie was exhausted and terribly sore. Ross plugged the IV back in and sat down in the chair next to her bed.
Taking inventory of her injuries, she noted that her left knee had swollen and her right arm was badly bruised. Various tender places were scattered literally from head to toe. She really wanted to push the magic button to banish the pain, but she knew narcotics had a tendency to knock her out. Because she wasn’t sure what had brought Ross back to her side, she didn’t want to waste the time she had with him.
Ross must have seen the pain etched on her face. He handed her the button. “You need this?”
“I don’t wanna use it.”
“Why the hell not?” She heard a quiet count of ten. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“I am. But I don’t want to sleep.” She looked at his frowning face. “And you don’t have to scowl at me.”
Ross ran his hand through his hair like he always did when he got
frustrated. She thought it was an endearing habit. “I don’t understand. You’re obviously in pain. Why wouldn’t you use the morphine?”
Laurie closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to control the stabs of pain in her head. She was having a hard time concentrating. Things seemed disjointed, confused. She knew she didn’t have the wits to guard her feelings too carefully, so she stopped trying to measure her words and just said what she was thinking. “If I go to sleep, you might not be here when I wake up.” A tear fell from her lash and landed on her cheek. She tried to wipe it away with her hand, but the IV stopped her. Ross reached out and brushed the tear away with his thumb. “I don’t want you to go, Ross. Please. I can’t...I can’t lose you again. I couldn’t bear it.”
Taking her hand in his, Ross sat down next to her. “I’ll still be here, Laurie. I promise. I’m not leaving you again. Ever.” He handed her the painkilling button again.
“You promise?”
He nodded.
Laurie stared at the trigger for a second before she took it from him. She pushed the button and let the medication slowly wash away her pain. She fought the sleep-inducing effects for as long as she could, but finally gave up.
After Laurie fell asleep, Ross called Sheila to rearrange his schedule. She demanded a lengthy explanation of everything that had happened the last twenty-four hours, and he let her know that he would be out of the office for several days.
“You’re not even coming in at all? Really?” she asked with the surprise evident in her voice.
Ross figured if he was standing near her, Sheila would probably be faking a heart attack in reaction to his decision. He smiled at the amusing image. Sheila and Bruiser were the closest things he had to friends. “Nope. Not coming in at all. Reschedule all the appointments. Or better yet, give them to some of the other idiots there who call themselves lawyers. You can messenger anything really important to me here.”
Sheila seemed to understand exactly what was happening more than Ross probably did himself. “I’ll swing by your place and pack a bag. I’ll bring it to the hospital after work. Don’t worry about this place.” She laughed. “Shoot, I can forge your signature if I have to. You’re on vacation until you tell me otherwise.”
