Blue Clouds

by Patricia Rice

  She hoped to divert Seth from his hysteria with that last statement. Instead, it drove Seth over the edge into other, murkier waters.

  He swung toward her. “If he hadn’t been exposed to other children, he wouldn’t have caught the damned flu in the first place.”

  She refused to flinch under the blow of guilt directed at her. “You want to keep him in a plastic bubble? Casting blame never solves problems. Go beat up a gopher and let me do my job.”

  The doctor appeared taken aback by the reference to a gopher, but once he realized Seth had backed off on his demands, he rattled off a list of instructions. Pippa jotted them down in a shorthand she had taught herself long ago. It took every ounce of her training and experience to concentrate on medical procedures and not the boy lying fevered and tossing beneath the covers. His cough had worsened. With Chad’s weak lungs, that wasn’t a good sign.

  “I’ll have the oxygen and IV sent out as a precaution, so they’re available should you need them. Have you got all that, Miss Cochran? Any questions?”

  Pippa finished her last note and stabbed the pen behind her ear. “I’ve got it. Did you leave your pager number? And will you call his regular doctor or shall I have him call you?”

  Chad cried out. She gritted her teeth and concentrated on the doctor’s reply while Seth rushed to his son’s side. She was a nurse, dammit. She would behave like one.

  “I’ll call his physician. Mr. Wyatt has my number, but here’s an extra card, just in case.” He jotted a number across the bottom of the card before he handed it to her. “I’ll call in the prescriptions, too. Do you want them delivered?”

  “I’ll get ’em. They’ll likely leave ’em waiting otherwise.”

  The doctor jerked his head up in surprise at Doug’s booming voice from the doorway, but he nodded agreement once he recognized Seth’s bulky chauffeur. “All right, then. Miss Cochran, do you have anyone to share shifts with you? I can have someone sent out tomorrow if you like, so you can get some rest.”

  “I’m not likely to sleep anytime soon, Doctor, and he’s only one little boy, not an entire ward. I’ll let you know if we need reinforcements.” She said it automatically, knowing the chances of her sleeping while Chad lay ill were little to none, not at this stage of the game.

  After Doug and the doctor departed and she’d sent Lillian off to fetch ice water, Pippa finally gave herself permission to stand beside Chad’s bed and touch him, if only to check his pulse.

  “You should have told him to line up several nurses. You can’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day.”

  Seth’s words caught her by surprise. Finishing her count without reply, Pippa lifted Chad’s head and slipped another pillow beneath him. Heat emanated from his pale forehead, and she stroked his moist brow with cool fingers.

  “Have him call someone else if you don’t trust me,” she finally replied as coolly as she could. “Any reputable nurse can monitor his pulse and breathing and administer medication. There really isn’t much else we can do, except pray. If we’ve caught it soon enough, it may not affect his lungs. He could be up and around in a few days.”

  Pippa didn’t mention any of her other concerns. Chad hadn’t vomited since her arrival. Generally, pulmonary flu didn’t involve vomiting. Maybe it wasn’t in his lungs. Or maybe he’d coughed so hard, it had induced vomiting.

  Or had Chad somehow eaten one of those toffees?

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, his face haggard with worry, Seth brushed a lock of hair from his son’s face, apparently just for the sake of touching him. “I’ll trust your prayers over a stranger’s, but you don’t owe us that kind of duty. If you want help, I’ll hire all you need.”

  Another bout of coughing prevented immediate reply, but Seth’s thoughtful response reinforced Pippa’s badly eroded self-confidence. The hospital firing and Billy’s beating her up in a single day had damaged her more than she’d realized. Seth’s reassurances repaired some of that damage.

  Lillian appeared with a silver coffee urn filled with ice water on a silver tray adorned with white linen and crystal water glasses. Nervously, she adjusted and readjusted the tray on the side table.

  “I couldn’t find the Waterford pitcher,” she complained querulously. “You don’t take care of things, Seth. That pitcher belonged to my grandmother. Nana’s getting too old—”

  “This is wonderful, Mrs. Wyatt,” Pippa interrupted the litany of criticism. “Chad will feel like a celebrity when he wakes up. Thank you.”

  Only slightly mollified, Lillian backed away, twisting her hands and glancing anxiously at her grandson. “What else can I do? I want to help.”

  Seth looked incredulous, but Pippa discreetly pinched his arm before he could speak.

  “Why don’t you get some sleep now so you can spell me for a while in the morning?” she suggested, crossing her fingers behind her back where Seth could see them.

  Lillian looked uncertain, but casting a glance at her son’s implacable expression, she nodded hesitantly. “All right, but you’ll call me if you need anything, won’t you? He’ll be all right, won’t he? It’s just the flu. All kids get it. I remember when Seth...”

  Gently, Pippa eased her from the room. “He’ll be just fine. We’ll have a devil of a time keeping him in bed shortly. Did you make notes of all the things we discussed at the meeting this evening...?”

  With Lillian otherwise occupied and out of the way, Pippa closed the bedroom door and returned to the bed. She ignored Seth’s openly questioning look as she took Chad’s temperature. The shot had lowered it a degree or two, but not enough.

  “He won’t be fine in the morning, and my mother isn’t a nurse by any stretch of the imagination,” Seth said bluntly.

  Maybe those charming, smiling chaps had their advantages, Pippa thought sourly as she took the chair beside Chad’s bed. Sweet-talking men could lie to themselves as easily as to everyone else. Blunt men like Seth expected honesty.

  “He could be fine in the morning,” she hedged. “Children have remarkable recuperative qualities. Do you have any plastic cups?”

  Seth stood and opened a cabinet in the bookshelves, removing several McDonald’s jumbo plastic drink cups, filling one with ice water and removing the crystal to safety. “He’s coughing.”

  So, he’d figured out that danger by himself. “Flu affects the lungs. It can’t be avoided. But we can hope it won’t go into pneumonia or bronchitis or anything more severe. Did he get his flu shots last year?”

  Now it was Seth’s turn to flinch with guilt. He winced and stroked his son’s brow. “He got sick last time he had the vaccine.”

  Pippa nodded wearily. “It may not even be the same strain. It’s kind of late in the year. We make choices based on the facts we’re given and that’s all any of us can do.”

  When Chad stirred and opened his eyes, she smiled at him, lifted his head, and helped him sip some water.

  “Ugh,” he grunted. “It’s not Coke.”

  “Drink this, and you can have Coke,” she promised.

  “My stomach hurts.”

  He turned away and buried his face in the pillow.

  “A straw?” Seth suggested, hope lighting his eyes.

  Pippa shook her head. “Maybe later. Right now, he needs rest more. He aches all over.” Gathering her courage, she added, “Why don’t you get some sleep? He may need entertaining come morning.”

  Seth snorted and paced to the floor-length uncurtained windows overlooking the night sky and the dark silhouette of the hills. “I’ve watched his every breath from the day he was born. Do you know what it’s like to get out of bed in the middle of the night to watch an infant sleeping, just to make certain nothing’s happened to him in the few hours since he woke you last?”

  Pippa shook her head, wishing she could say she understood, that she’d experienced the miracle of childbirth, but she couldn’t. The children she’d watched over had always been someone else’s.

  She didn’t know if he could
see her reflection in the glass, but he continued without waiting for a reply.

  “I was there when Chad took his first step. He wasn’t even nine months old at the time, but he saw his favorite toy on the table and he was determined to have it. He pulled himself up and marched right over as if he’d been walking all his life. He hit the seat of his pants as soon as he got what he wanted, but he didn’t cry.”

  She didn’t know why he was telling her this. She doubted if Seth Wyatt ever talked to anyone—really talked. Chad seemed to sleep more peacefully within the sound of his father’s voice, so for both their sakes, she let him ramble.

  “The car accident severed his spinal cord the next day.”

  Shock flooded her eyes with tears. She’d read Chad’s medical history but never asked for details on the actual accident. Hadn’t wanted to know. It was always easier that way, she had learned. Now, the horror of the boy’s devastating accident shot through her.

  Her gasp must have given her away for Seth turned toward her.

  “What’s the matter, Miss Cochran? No uplifting comments for the occasion? No cheerful insight? Want to hear the really juicy details? Everyone does, you know.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “I don’t need to know anything but what is now and how it affects the future. He’s a healthy, brilliant little boy with all the years of his life ahead of him. Be glad of that. Some have much less.”

  Seth knotted his hands into fists and looked away. “Don’t you ever wonder about all those calls from my lawyer? Or why my ex-wife is challenging my parenting abilities when it’s obvious I can do more for Chad than most?”

  “I wondered why you wouldn’t share Chad with his mother. Children need to know their mothers.” Cautiously, Pippa walked on what she thought was firmer ground.

  The noise Seth made in response caused Pippa to wince.

  Facing a bookshelf littered with children’s classics, Seth clenched his fingers around the wood and bowed his head. His voice echoed hollow as if hauled from the utmost depths of his soul.

  “My ex-wife claims I was drunk the night I picked Chad up from my mother’s house. My mother wasn’t there to deny it. She’d left Chad with a maid who was apparently asleep when I arrived.”

  Stunned by what she thought he was saying, Pippa replied carefully. “I’ve never seen you drink to excess.”

  “Tell that to the tree I smashed into at sixty-five miles per hour.”

  Silence smothered the darkened room, broken only by Chad’s strangled breathing. Pippa could imagine the whining tires, crashing metal, and breaking glass of the accident. She had seen so many limp and broken bodies carried into the emergency room—tiny creatures too helpless to protect themselves, thrown away like bits of trash in the wind by the forces of human cruelty or stupidity. A boy with the intelligence, courage, and background Chad possessed could have been an Olympic champion one day. And one moment’s carelessness had severed him in two.

  She’d never seen Seth drink more than wine at dinner, never seen evidence of a liquor cabinet or wet bar. If there was a wine cellar, she’d only seen samples of it at dinner. But he must have imbibed at one time for his wife to throw such charges at him.

  “Was your wife right? Were you drunk?”

  Seth’s shoulders slumped as he twisted back to face her. “I don’t know. I can’t remember a damned thing of that night. I can remember every single detail of the day before, but absolutely nothing of that night.”

  “Shock, trauma, and denial could cause memory loss, I suppose.” She tried to remain logical, removing herself from her patient’s emotions as she’d been taught. It didn’t do to get involved. But she was involved, and Seth wasn’t her patient. Her heart wept for this bitter man who so obviously loved his son. She didn’t want to believe a man who so proudly remembered his son’s first footsteps would be callous enough to drink and drive with that child in the car. But people did strange things, and she’d already proved she was a poor judge of men.

  Taking a deep breath, she went on. “I don’t remember hearing that alcohol in general impairs memory in accident cases. Alcoholics have occasional blackouts. Are you an alcoholic?”

  Seth stepped into the ring of light thrown by Chad’s Mickey Mouse night-light. Even through the shadows, Pippa recognized the twisted upturn of his lips. Just watching his mouth, recognizing the emotion there, tightened something deep inside her. It was the intimacy of the situation, she supposed. He couldn’t be feeling this tension, too.

  But his voice held a note of warmth that hadn’t been there earlier. “No, I’m not an alcoholic. I have an occasional glass of wine or beer, but I avoid hard liquor. I wasn’t drunk that night. I would swear it.”

  “I believe you,” she stated with the conviction of her heart. “You would never drink and put Chad in the car with you.” Still, no matter what her heart said, doubt lingered in the back of her mind. Seth was a dangerous man. What did she know about men like that? She hadn’t even understood the workings of Billy’s mind.

  The shadows accented the harsh planes of Seth’s face. “I pay you well enough to believe that,” he said cynically.

  This time, Pippa snorted. “No, you don’t. If I thought you were that kind of careless idiot, I’d be out of here and visiting your wife’s lawyer so fast your head would spin.”

  “Now, that I believe.” With a heavy sigh, Seth slumped into an armchair on the other side of the bed. “There’s no point in both of us wearing ourselves out watching him breathe. Why don’t you get some sleep?”

  “For the same reason you won’t,” she answered placidly. “I’m comfortable here. I’ll doze off while he’s quiet. I’d advise you to do the same. I suspect he’ll make a miserable patient come daylight.”

  “You’re a hard woman to argue with,” Seth grunted from the depths of his chair.

  “Then don’t.”

  Silence descended again. Rain pattered against the window. The Big Ben toy clock with the revolving figures whirred a silent midnight, its clamor turned off at some earlier hour.

  “Don’t let him suffer, Pippa,” she heard Seth say through her light doze. “I can’t bear to see him suffer.”

  Startled awake, she opened her eyes to discover Seth leaning over her, his hands propped on the arms of her chair. Instinctively, she reached out and brushed a comforting hand against his stubbled jaw.

  He grabbed her wrist and held her hand to his face for a blinding second, closing his eyes as if in prayer. Then, with a reluctant sigh, he turned into her small caress, brushed his lips against her palm, and pulled away.

  Pippa watched in shock as he strode from the room.

  Chapter 19

  On the third day of Chad’s confinement to the sickroom, Meg reported two children in town with flu, though milder than Chad’s. Chad simply didn’t have the resistance the other children had developed.

  Pippa stubbornly refused to feel guilt. Checking the oxygen monitor, listening to Chad’s ragged breathing, she prayed as hard as she could, and wished things were different, but she wouldn’t lay the blame on herself any more than she would put it on Seth.

  She could hear the fluid building in Chad’s lungs without need of stethoscopes, knew the sound well. Fighting the tears that constantly welled in her eyes, she checked the IV medication, jotted notes on her chart, performed as efficiently as she had been taught. But this time, the habits of years couldn’t erect the wall that blocked emotion. She’d become much too attached to this obstinate little boy. Her tears washed away the mortar and dissolved the brick of her carefully constructed defenses. The little boy who only days ago had turned his bed into a Martian cave now lay so still and silent, he could have been a stuffed doll among the toys.

  He’d never ridden a bike or a roller coaster, never gone on a picnic, never cavorted through the green grass, laughing at the clouds and screaming for the sheer exuberance of it. Every child should know those pleasures at least once in their lives. Or the challenges: the first day of school
with shiny new pencil gripped firmly in hand, boy scout camp-outs and rubbing sticks together to make a fire, kissing a childhood sweetheart. He hadn’t yet begun to live. She wouldn’t let him die.

  Like a wraith, Seth appeared silently on the other side of the bed. He didn’t bother sending her questioning looks anymore. He simply picked up the chart she’d finished, scanned the notes showing no improvement, and turned away.

  He looked like hell. He hadn’t shaved or changed his clothes since that first night. She’d threatened him with an IV if he didn’t eat, so he munched whatever anyone put in front of him as he sat by his son’s side. Sometimes, when Chad seemed restless, he read aloud. Most of the time, he said nothing.

  Since that first night, when there’d still been a little hope that the illness wouldn’t turn serious, Seth had not come within arm’s length of her. She rejected any memory of that brief touch. It opened too many questions, too many hopes and fears she hadn’t the fortitude to address right now.

  Pippa knew Seth must be choking on misery, but he sat stoically beside the bed, day in, day out, monitoring everything she did, holding Chad’s hand, occasionally falling asleep in the chair, a thick lock of hair falling over his eyes. In another day or two, she’d have him for a patient also.

  But she couldn’t fault his bad habits when hers weren’t much better. Occasionally, Pippa let Lillian sit beside the bed while she went to her quarters to shower and change, but she ate and slept beside Chad. Could she find anything humorous in the situation, she might have teased Seth about their living together and never exchanging a word like an old married couple. She didn’t think he’d appreciate the humor.

  She set up a temporary office at Chad’s small desk, answering the more important phone messages Lillian or Nana brought up. Lillian had turned out to be surprisingly helpful in handling the filing and answering letters. Seth wouldn’t even look at his correspondence. Pippa approved Lillian’s replies for him. Some things she couldn’t handle, but once apprised of the situation, most of Seth’s staff figured out how to deal with their problems on their own.