He finished just as the mother turned away from the receptionist and started searching for a place to sit.
“I’m going to take these back to the desk now. You stay put,” he said, scanning her face for signs of mental distress.
“Tom. Thank you. You’re being very kind about all this,” she said, self-conscious, wanting him to know how she felt in case there wouldn’t be another chance to tell him. “You’re a very patient man.”
“Not always, but I’m glad you think so.” He smiled at her.
She was amazed for a second or two that she hadn’t noticed how long his dark lashes were. And his eyes were so blue. She wondered if he’d noticed that people were being called away, disappearing behind a set of metal doors and not coming back.
“Will you be okay here for a minute?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said automatically, not knowing if she would be or not, as she watched the woman with the child seat herself two chairs away.
The woman literally had her hands full. With the baby in her arms, a diaper bag, her purse, and the clipboard, she seemed uncertain as to which to set down first.
“Is your baby terribly ill?”
The woman glanced up in surprise at Sydney’s question.
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business,” Sydney said, fixing her stare on her hands as they tied knots in the tail of Tom’s shirt.
“Oh, that’s okay. I don’t mind,” the young woman said cordially. “To tell you the truth, he probably isn’t ill at all. I panic too easily.”
“You do?” Sydney was impressed. It was a comfort to know that she wasn’t the only person losing her mind.
“Sure. The last time I brought him here in the middle of the night with a fever, he was teething. Boy, did I feel stupid. I’d even given him some Tylenol at home, and by the time we got here, it’d kicked in and his fever was gone. I’m sure they all thought I was crazy, but I don’t care. I have two other children, but I only have one Andrew. Isn’t that right, pal?” she asked the baby, tapping his nose with the tip of her finger, making him smile at her around his thumb. “And I was just as crazy with the other two, wasn’t I? Yes, I was.”
“He’s awfully red,” she said, sounding concerned enough that the woman didn’t take offense.
“It’s the fever. I gave him medicine at home, but it doesn’t look as if he’s going to make a liar out of me this time. Feel how hot he is.”
Sydney glanced from mother to child and back again, startled by the invitation. Still, she couldn’t think of a reason not to touch the child, so she stood up and walked closer to them. Tentatively, she pressed the back of her hand to the baby’s overly rosy cheek. He was the hottest human she’d ever touched. She’d had sunburns that were cooler than Andrew. The phenomenon was quite disconcerting.
“He’s so hot,” she murmured.
“Scary, huh?” the woman said, although she wasn’t giving the proper impression of a frightened mother as she set her purse and diaper bag on the seat beside her. Frankly, Sydney thought her a master of understatement. The heat emanating from Andrew was more than scary.
She watched the woman fumble with the clipboard and the baby, trying to find a free hand. “I could fill that out for you, if ... if you tell me what to write,” Sydney said.
They were both astonished by her offer. She had no idea why she’d tendered her services, except maybe for Andrew. If Tom was right, and she was trusting with all her might and every frazzled nerve in her body that he was, people often got well in hospitals and were released. At that moment, she wanted more than anything else to see that happen for Andrew.
His mother handed the board and pencil to Sydney and settled back to cuddle him in her arms. She viewed Sydney with a kind but speculative eye, and when she’d answered all the questions, she nodded at Tom and asked, “Is that your, ah, friend? You’re not wearing a ring, so I assume you’re not married.”
She looked over her shoulder at Tom and gave the question some thought. She smiled at him and watched his expression light up as he repaid her the favor.
“Yes. He’s my friend.”
“I thought so. You two look as if you were in the same wreck. Are you in a lot of pain?” She lowered her eyes to Sydney’s left arm, held protectively close to her chest.
“Less than when it first happened,” she said, wondering exactly how much like an accident victim she looked. She hadn’t thought about her appearance in hours and could only dimly recall the pleasure she’d known earlier at being dressed to perfection for her big game-show date. “I guess I’m lucky that Andrew hasn’t screamed at me. I must look a fright.”
She felt even luckier that Tom hadn’t screamed yet.
When he stood and took the clipboard from her hand and walked it to the reception desk for them, the woman quickly leaned over Andrew and whispered, “He’s been watching you ... with that expression in his eyes. And he’s sooo cute. You’d better nail him down before he gets away.”
She nodded absently as she watched Tom returning to his seat. He was someone special, she decided, aware of a deep, penetrating warmth surging through her. Did she know anyone as kind or thoughtful as Tom? Had she ever met another man as understanding or patient with her faults as Tom? Certainly his wit and his broad base of knowledge set him apart from her other dates. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he had the sexiest blue eyes she’d ever seen. Nor had anyone ever excited her emotions and made her feel so much herself before.
Sydney sent the young mother a woman-to-woman grin as she stood to go back to her place beside Tom. He took her right hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“Sydney Wiesman?” A nurse stepped out from behind the metal doors and called again. “Sydney Wiesman?”
“Here,” Tom said, standing to go back to the treatment rooms with her.
The nurse took one look at Tom and grinned from ear to ear.
“Come on, Sydney. We can do this together,” he said, his eyes bright with confidence.
“You’re next,” the nurse said, glancing at Sydney with a much smaller smile.
“Ah ... actually, I think this lady and her baby were here before us,” she said. True, her heart was pounding with fear, but she would have taken her turn without protest if Andrew hadn’t arrived—she’d prepared herself for that eventuality when Tom hadn’t shown any signs of backing away from the idea that she needed medical attention. But Andrew was a baby. She was sure she could hold out longer against the clutches of death than he could. “Maybe you should help them first.”
The nurse made an impatient gesture and muttered something Sydney couldn’t hear, but she flipped her clipboard back onto the counter and searched through the others until she finally found Andrew’s.
“Andrew Reilly,” she called.
“Thank you,” the young woman said, gathering up Andrew and her paraphernalia and standing to follow the nurse. “This usually takes hours.”
Sydney watched as they disappeared through the doors, and then turned to Tom to find him watching her.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, pink cheeked from the pleasure and appreciation she saw in his eyes.
“Will you marry me?” It was the third time he’d asked her that night, and the third time he’d caught her off guard.
“What?”
“Beautiful, bright, and compassionate. I don’t think I can live without you.”
She smiled in spite of herself. Marriage was no joking matter at this point in their relationship.
“That was a nice thing you did,” he whispered in her ear, tickling the sensitive skin below the lobe.
“How do you know I wasn’t just being a chicken? Making that poor baby go before me, so I could put it off a little longer?”
“Because I saw the way you were looking at him,” he said, billowing the loose hairs that curled along her cheekbone. “I liked it. And if you marry me, you could look at our babies that way anytime you wanted to.”
“W
ill you stop?” she said, feeling immensely uncomfortable, though not so much so that she couldn’t enjoy the picture he was painting for her.
“Why? I think it’s a great idea. We could go straight from here to the airport and catch the first flight to Vegas. We’d have to return Rex Swann’s money, though, because I couldn’t take the two-week waiting period to start our honeymoon.”
“Do you know we haven’t spent a dime of the money yet?” she asked, aware that he was teasing her, trying desperately to change the subject.
“We could use it on the honeymoon suite at the Sands.”
“Sydney Wiesman?” With an odd mixture of relief and disappointment, she looked over at the nurse who had called out her name. “Is it your turn yet?”
Aside from a small group of people waiting for a man who’d already gone back to be treated and a man with a mop and bucket from housekeeping, Sydney and Tom were the only people left in the room.
“I guess so,” she said, swallowing hard. Her stomach shifted into her throat. She felt a flash of heat engulf her body. It made her palms sweat and her skin feel clammy all over. She wondered if Andrew’s fever made him sick to his stomach too.
“It’s okay, Sydney,” she heard Tom say as if from miles away. He took her arm and helped her to stand. “I’ll be right there with you. I won’t leave you for a second.”
“Are you a relative?” the nurse asked Tom when they’d reached the metal doors.
“I’m her husband, and she’s not feeling herself. Rough night. I think I should stay with her,” he said, without the slightest quiver of a hesitation.
Sydney looked at him, but his quelling grimace kept her from denying his words.
The nurse shrugged and led them into a hallway exactly like the one Sydney had pictured in her mind. There were stretchers lining the walls, some occupied, some not. There was—stuff—all over, medical things such as wheelchairs, plastic canisters, blue and white boxes of gauze, tape, syringes, and tubes; color-coded paper, charts, coffee mugs, and an endless array of machines, gadgets, and doohickeys. A blackness closed in around Sydney, cutting off much of her view. She seemed to be looking at everything through a tunnel.
“Sydney?” It was Tom’s voice again. “She wants you to get up on this stretcher here.” She could see his hand patting it. “You need to take off your jacket and top and put on this gown.”
That was when time and events began to blur and run together. Hands and faces came and went, but the only ones she recognized were Tom’s. There was no pain, no fear. She existed in a vacuum. Tom would bend over her and speak, but she wasn’t sure if she answered. She traveled as if on air, lights coming and going at irregular intervals. And then, abruptly, she was standing outside the big glass doors with a bright blue sling on her arm, cold in the early light of dawn.
“Here, this’ll keep you warm till the cab comes,” Tom was saying, as he wrapped his navy blue sport jacket around her shoulders. The jacket still retained his body heat, numbing the chill almost immediately. “I could tell you were nervous from the look in your eyes, but no one else saw it, I’m sure. I’m so proud of you. You acted as if the whole thing was a lark. They were in stitches. We all were, actually.” He staged a scolding frown. “And you said you’d used up all your good jokes in the elevator.”
“I did?”
“When you started in with a bigamist being an Italian fog and Camelot being a place to park camels, I was worried. But obviously you were just warming up. I laughed so hard, my face hurt.” His heart had hurt too. He’d never been prouder of anyone in his life.
“You did?”
“Damn right. It was the best time I’ve ever had in a hospital.”
“Me too.” It was also the only time she’d ever been in a hospital, she thought, disgruntled. It annoyed her that the one time in her life when she was the life of the party would also be the one time her memory failed her. It didn’t seem fair, considering the anguish she’d put herself through earlier.
He grinned at her and gave her an affectionate but careful squeeze. “I guess it’s true that everyone responds to fear in a different way. I work on an ulcer, and you get hilarious.”
“You have ulcers?” she asked, knowing that he felt and reacted to more things than he let himself show.
“Not yet. But I was working pretty hard on one back in the waiting room. I didn’t know what you’d do, or whether or not I should have forced you to go in there. I was so afraid that I’d made the wrong decision and that I might be causing you some serious damage—mentally, I mean. I thought I was going to die.”
In his face she saw the remnants of his fear and strife—and the great tenderness he had for her.
“You were wonderful,” she said, sure that he had been from his initial behavior—and from his manner throughout the entire disaster of an evening.
“You are wonderful,” he said, turning her slightly for better aim as his mouth came to rest over hers. He was a man with deep feelings and a great need. He let his kiss tell her that they were for her.
She returned his passion ounce for ounce. She took and treasured what he offered her and gave back in kind. She reveled in a sense of having found her niche, of having the jagged, irregular edges of her life smoothed and contoured, of fitting pieces of who she was together and making herself whole.
She aligned her body against his, and he tightened his embrace. His hands worked their way down her back to her buttocks, where he held her firm, impressing his desire against the wild ache near the juncture of her legs. She grew languid with longing and raised both arms to cling to him, wincing at the pain in her left shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said, distressed that he’d hurt her.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said, feeling her arm and noting for the first time that it hadn’t been put in a cast.
“We were lucky that it wasn’t broken. A couple of weeks in the sling, and you’ll be as good as new,” he said. And then, inspecting the top of her head, he added, “Course, your hair might be another story.”
“What?” she exclaimed, her right hand flying to explore the damage.
“Well, they washed all the blood out, so you don’t look as if you spent the night with Freddy Krueger anymore. But the antiseptic they used turned the whole top of your head orange. You look like a punk rocker.” He grinned.
“Swell,” she said, thankful that her light-colored hair was short and grew quickly, wondering what they would say at the office when she showed up wearing a hat—and wore it all day long.
“Are you Mr. Ghorman?” They both turned at the sound of the voice. The receptionist who had taken all the information from them earlier stood in the doorway rubbing her arms to ward off the early morning chill.
“Yes?” he called back, perplexed.
“There’s a police officer by the name of Bobby Trent on the phone. He says he dropped the two of you off here earlier? He’d like to talk to you,” she said.
Sydney groaned. What now? she wondered.
“I’ll be right there.” His gaze swept the vicinity quickly. “We’d better not push our luck,” he said, grinning. “I can watch you through the window, and I shouldn’t be long. You don’t need to go back inside if you don’t want to.”
“Good. I’ll wait for you here. Do you suppose this has something to do with the accident?”
He shrugged and began to walk away. “He might need to know how badly you were injured for his report. I’ll be right back.”
Sydney turned to the sunrise as the doors swished opened and closed behind her. There was something about a sunrise that inspired hope and renewed the spirit. It had an air of fresh starts and new beginnings. She was glad to see another day dawn, feeling positive that the night had come to an end.
Frankly, it was becoming harder and harder to find the good in all that had transpired. Aside from meeting Tom, of course. In ten or fifteen years, she was sure she’d laugh at the entire episode. But at the moment, she wanted it to be ove
r, a part of her past, a nebulous memory. All of it, except for Tom.
It didn’t seem fair to Sydney that her happy thoughts of Tom were marred in the recollection of nearly every moment they’d spent together. Although it did seem to be the way of things, that good and bad came together. She thought of all the days when nothing too disastrous happened but nothing very exciting occurred either, and compared them to the ups and downs of the night she’d just lived through.
If the Fates ruled destiny, they were three of the most poorly organized women ever created, Sydney decided with great disdain. If it were up to her, there would be good times and then bad times with periods in between in which to adjust. She would have spent a horrible night with a CPA date, adjusted, and spent a romantic night with Tom ... on his boat, she decided firmly.
Of course, if one believed in a person’s free will to choose his or her own destiny, that would mean that Sydney had made some pretty rotten choices in the past few hours.
“Don’t look so worried,” Tom said, returning to her side. “It’s good news this time.”
“No. It can’t be,” she said in jest, smiling at him.
“Truly. Honest.” He crossed his heart with one finger. “The cops have my car.”
“They found it? Where?”
“A couple of blocks from where I’d left it. They think some kids took it for a joyride, but didn’t want to get caught and tried to return it. He said a taillight was broken, but other than that it was in great shape,” he said, beaming. “The last time, they never did find the car. It just disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“See. I knew it,” she said, delighted. “It’s a new day and our luck is changing.”
“It didn’t have anywhere to go but up.” He curved his arm around her waist as he saw the cab they’d been waiting for pull into the hospital driveway. “Tell me what you need the most. Food? Or to go straight home to bed?”
Ten minutes before she would have answered that she needed to go to bed—for about two weeks. But with their new good fortune, she felt her energy and optimism returning to near normal.
“What I need most is another kiss,” she said, letting her eyes and her smile invite him to perform the honors. He didn’t hesitate to accept. He gave her a wild, wonderful kiss that made her stagger a bit when he pulled away.
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