The Heart of the Matter (7 page)

She folded her arms and held his gaze, her voice clear. “No. I was bringing the boys a carrot cake. And I saw them.”

“The blondes.”

“Yes.”

He studied her for the space of one second. “They’re my sister and my niece.” He spoke without raising his voice, but the air around him almost hummed with anger.

She stared at him a moment, wondering if that could possibly be. Then she decided it couldn’t. “Nobody’s sister and niece look like that.”

He indicated her with a jut of his chin. “You do. And Patsy’s one of you. An exercise freak. Only she has a Nautilus. And Nickie’s a phys ed major at Boston College.”

Could it be? It sounded logical, but then excuses always did. “Daddy has to work all weekend, Laura, so I can’t come and get you,” her father had said, then she’d run into him on Saturday afternoon with a blowsy brunette when she went to the theater in Boston with a friend’s family.

Then there’d been the doctor who’d told her he was on call the weekend he’d spent with the nurse, and before him the marathon runner who’d loved her only for her nutritional advice.

At this point, she guessed it really didn’t matter. If she was right, then good riddance to him. If she’d been wrong, then after her attack he probably considered it over, anyway. Love, apparently, was not for her.

She angled her chin and tossed her hair. “Never mind. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Good night, Jason.”

She started off and got nowhere. He had hold of the
strap on her athletic bag, and he pulled her back with it. He slipped it off her shoulder along with her purse. Then he held her before him with two firm hands on her upper arms. His eyes were still flaming.

“Oh, yes it does, Laura. It matters a lot. Now I get to make accusations.”

She remained still, refusing to struggle when she knew she couldn’t get away.

“I know what’s wrong with your relationships,” he said quietly. “You admitted it yourself. You’re looking for something you can control. And love is all about holding
without
controlling. It’s about believing and trusting so completely that your lover remains even when your arms are open.”

“And how often,” she asked cynically, “does that happen?”

He studied her in exasperation. “All the time!”

“Not in my experience,” she disputed.

“Have you ever tried it?”

“I stopped trying it six months ago.” She explained about the doctor and the runner before him.

He nodded as though he understood. “And because of them and your dad, you’re convinced that’s the way men are.”

The anger seemed to dissipate in him suddenly, and in its place was a curiously suspicious good humor. “I’m sorry, Laura. I guess that was your bad luck. Or maybe, with the doctor and the runner, some not very wise choices. I, however, am not like that. Seems to me I told you that, but apparently you’ve decided not to believe me. So, I guess that’s it. It’s clear you’re not going to change, and I’m sure as hell not going to be under suspicion all the time. But I want you to think about something.”

“What?” she asked grimly, trying to cope with how
very
over
it all was. It occurred to her later that she should have been more alert.

He wrapped an arm around her, splayed his hand between her shoulder blades and pulled her to him so that she was literally slapped against him. There was no pain involved, just the agonizing sensation of having every sexually sensitive part of her body in touch with every sexually responsive part of his.

“I want you to think,” he whispered, leaning over her until their lips were just a centimeter apart, “about what you’re missing.”

Then he kissed her, and it was harder, deeper, even more powerful than yesterday’s kiss, because this one was prompted by anger rather than by affection. She struggled to return it, not to be swamped by it, but he was telling her how it could have been, and she already knew how strong that was.

So all she could do was hold on as he plundered her mouth, slid a hand over her hip and held her to him so that she could know the intensity of his reaction to her. He moved his hand slowly in a small, agonizingly erotic circle, and kissed her emphatically one last time.

Then he picked up his bag and was gone.

A child should come with an owner’s manual, a maintenance schedule and 10,000 miles’ free service. It would be so much easier on a parent to turn him over to a friendly, grubby mechanic than to a cool, taintless doctor who takes him away and closes doors between you.

—“Warfield’s Battles”

L
aura looked up from chart notes and stared at the wedge of chocolate cake with cream cheese icing that one of the nurses had placed on the corner of her desk. It was one of the other nurses’ birthday, and Laura had been unable to reject the cheerful delivery.

She hadn’t eaten bakery cake with icing in years, and it wasn’t precisely that it appealed to her in any way, but she wanted it. It fed a sort of self-destructive inclination she’d been experiencing since her argument with Jason the night before.

She remembered every detail of the kiss. It had been given in anger, but had reached inside her and touched every dark little corner and filled it with the tender nature of the man. The point of it, she remembered, had been to
show her what she was missing. He’d be gratified, she was sure, to know how well it worked.

She’d thought about him continuously, remembered how special he’d made her feel Saturday night, how being touched by him made her feel that her whole life was about to change.

She’d considered calling him but couldn’t imagine how she would explain her behavior. From the distance of almost twenty-four hours it seemed outrageous-even to her.

A light rap on her door made her toss her pen down and lean back in her chair with a groan. She didn’t want to see anyone, but in a hospital that wasn’t a practical position to take.

“Open!” she called.

Barry Driscoll walked into her office, a red licorice stick protruding from the pocket of his lab coat, a stethoscope looped around his neck. He was tall, and his rich brown hair was just beginning to gray at the temples. Bright blue eyes that had soothed and charmed many a patient frowned at the drawn shades at her windows.

He fell into the chair near her desk and looked from the cake on the corner of her desk to her face.

“I’m surprised that hasn’t self-destructed in this office,” he said. “It must be disgusting to you.”

She gestured toward it. “It is. Please. Make it disappear.”

“Thank you.” He took the paper plate and the little plastic fork resting on its side and began methodically to save her from the sight of it. “What are you doing in the dark?” he asked between bites.

“It’s three o’clock in the afternoon,” she said. “It’s hardly dark. Closing the shades helps shut out the noise from the street.”

He gave her a skeptical look as he dipped the fork into the cake. “You usually have them open and something classical blaring from the disc player.”

“Classical music doesn’t blare.”

He sighed, stabbed the fork into the cake and left it there, then replaced it on her desk. “Okay, let’s forget the chitchat. What have you done to my friend?”

Her first instinct was to pretend innocence, but Barry had worked every avoidance angle himself with women and with work and she knew he’d see right through her.

“Why?” she asked instead.

“Because I called him this morning to see how he was doing with your class since I haven’t been able to make it in weeks, and he told me to mind my own business and hung up on me.”

Laura put a hand to her forehead. “He’s doing very well,” she said, hating herself for having turned the reigning lord of laughter into a grump. “He has natural grace and a lot of stamina. It’s hard to believe he has any health issues.”

“Well, let me tell you that he now has some serious politeness issues. What did you do to him?”

“Nothing.” She watched as he picked up a small porcelain angel a client had given her, then she reached across the desk to snatch it from him and put it back. “Except—” she looked into his waiting eyes and pushed away from her desk “—I…acted like a jerk.”

He studied her, seeming to have difficulty understanding that. “How, specifically?”

She told him about the aborted carrot cake delivery. “I mean, they were both so
gorgeous.
Who’d believe they’re actually related to him? I was just not going to mention it and not see him again, but he pressed me and I came on like Leona Helmsley in high gear.” She stood and
turned to the window, yanking the pull cord on the shade to open it. “I adjusted to my past years ago. Or I thought I had. What’s the matter with me?”

“You’re probably a quart low on sugar and oil,” Barry replied.

She turned to him, indignation battling with amusement.

He shrugged. “What? You try so hard to keep the junk out of your life—food- and peoplewise—that you don’t recognize the good stuff when it comes along.”

“Dr. Driscoll to the ER,” a firm voice said over the intercom. “Dr. Driscoll to ER, stat!”

Barry pushed himself out of the chair and reached for the rest of the cake. “Looks like this is lunch. Thanks.”

“Sure.” Laura watched him walk away, annoyed by his swift and probably on-target assessment of her situation.

She would never succumb to sugar, but she did have a weakness for peanuts. She comforted herself with the knowledge that they were at least a natural food. She needed something to help her combat this feeling of deprivation—self-inflicted though it was.

She dug two quarters out of her purse and went to the candy machine near the reception desk, but it was out of order. She headed resolutely for the machine near the emergency room. She was about to put her quarters in when she spotted Adam and Eric Warfield in the ER waiting room. Eric was pacing, and Adam was trying to bring in a clearer picture on the television.

She felt a rush of fear, remembering how she’d worked her class last night. And how Jason, new and suffering from high cholesterol, had kept up.

“God,” she thought. “I’ve killed him.”

She rushed into the waiting room. Both boys came to
greet her. She hugged them. “Is something wrong with your dad?” she demanded.

“Matt,” Adam said. “He fell off his bike. He was showing off for Nickie.”

“Nickie? “

Adam pointed behind her. “This is my aunt Patsy and my cousin Nickie.”

Laura turned to find herself face-to-face with the two blondes she’d seen on Jason’s lawn on Monday. The taller of the two looked up from a magazine and smiled. Laura guessed her age at about nineteen. She was as beautiful up close as she’d seemed from a distance.

The other was just as beautiful, though a closer look showed that she was older than she appeared-particularly from a distance. Laura wondered if Jason had told her what she’d thought about her.

But the woman offered her hand, not indicating any hostility.

“Hi,” she said. “Jason’s told me about you.”

Before she could decide if there was innuendo in that simple statement, Adam pointed through the waiting room window toward the ER. “Dad thinks his leg’s broken. They took him back there and called Uncle Barry.”

Laura smiled at the concern in their faces. “Okay, I’ll go see what’s happening and come back and let you know. Slap the top of the TV for a better picture.” She ran across the hall and past the ER admitting clerk into the room with two empty gurneys and one at the far end bearing a loudly protesting Matt who repeated over and over that it hurt.

Jason leaned over him, holding his upper body down while Barry and another man in a lab coat took X rays with a portable machine.

Laura went around to Jason’s side, unconcerned at the
moment about a hostile reception. All she could think about was the little boy with many fears. She leaned past Jason’s shoulder to smile into Matt’s face.

“Hi,” she said, taking one of the hands Jason held down.

The boy’s eyes widened and his screams quieted to simple sobs. “Hi, Laura,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I fell off my bike.”

Jason straightened to allow her closer. She glanced up at him with a smile of appreciation, ignoring for the moment his quiet surprise. Then she turned her attention back to the child.

“I’m sure it hurts a lot,” she said, squeezing his hand, “but your uncle Barry will have it fixed for you in no time.”

Barry turned away from studying the X ray and smiled at the child. “That’s right. I’m going to take you upstairs, cover you with a warm blanket, you’re going to fall asleep, and when you wake up, you’ll have a cool purple cast on.”

Matt did not seem fooled by the careful handling of the bad news that he was going to be anesthetized while his bone was set. His face crumpled again.

“And you’re going to get crutches!” Laura said excitedly.

He drew a breath and blinked away a tear. “Crutches? Really?”

“Really.”

He smiled cautiously. “Will you stay with me? In case there’s monsters up there.”

Laura turned to Jason.

“Please,” he said. “If you can.”

“You bet,” she promised Matt. “I’ll stay with you until you go to sleep.”

Matt sighed and relaxed, though he had a death grip on her hand.

“Is it a simple fracture?” Jason asked Barry.

“Yes. No problems. But he’ll be on crutches for six weeks without a walking cast. At his age, we don’t like to put any weight on a break. But he’ll be fine.”

“That’s all I care about,” Jason said.

“And you know I’m going to do an excellent, unparalleled job on him.”

“Of course.”

“Then breathe, for God’s sake. And try to relax. Why don’t you go make sure the boys and Patsy and Nickie are okay while I finish up what we have to do down here?”

Jason leaned over Matt and smoothed his hair back. “Will you be okay for a few minutes while I check on your brothers?”

“Yeah,” Matt replied. “If Laura can stay with me.”

Replaced, Jason thought wryly, by the woman who thought he was into multiple-partner sex. All in all, this had been a rotten couple of days.

Jason found that Patsy had secured soft drinks for everyone, and Adam had located a baseball game on television. But they all gave him their attention when he walked into the room.

He explained the prognosis, then suggested Patsy drive everyone home in his car. “It’s going to be a couple of hours,” he said. “And I’m not even sure he’ll be coming home tonight.” He reached for his wallet. “Call for pizza or something.”

Patsy stayed his hand. “Don’t be silly. I’ll take care of it. But I hate leaving you. I know you’re worried.”

“I’ll be fine. And I have a friend with me.”

Nickie grinned. “A girlfriend? The pretty redhead?”

He was surprised by her questions. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but Laura must have seen his family to have known Matt was in the ER.

“She ran in here in a total panic,” Patsy said with a considering smile, “thinking there was something wrong with
you.”

“She’s his exercise coach,” Eric informed her.

Patsy raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

Jason pinched her chin. “Please keep an eye on the boys and your nose out of my business.” He smiled affectionately at Nickie. “And that goes for you, too.”

Nickie giggled. “We’re just so excited that you
have
business.”

Adam patted his shoulder. “If you could see his exercise clothes, you’d be
amazed
that he has business.”

Jason looked down at him blandly. “Our insurance policy has a two-for-one deal on broken limbs,” he said. “You want to join Matt?”

Adam gave him a final pat. “Thanks, but I’ll go with Aunt Patsy.”

When Barry took Matt into surgery, Laura led Jason to an empty room where they could sit and wait.

“Thank you.” Jason wasn’t sure what he felt. Anger had ridden him since yesterday, but she’d come so quickly to Matt’s aid that it was now impossible to maintain. “It helped him a lot to see you.”

“I’m happy I could help.” She wandered restlessly toward the window, then turned and smiled. “I know where all the candy machines are. Can I get you anything?”

He looked surprised. “Did I hear you correctly? Did you offer me processed sugar, hydrogenated oils and artificial flavor?”

She made a face at him and settled onto a blue vinyl chair. “Sometimes the situation requires that you feed the
nerves before you consider what to feed the body. If chocolate would help you relax…”

He sat opposite her, stretching his long legs out and crossing them at the ankles. “Seeing him in his own bed would help me relax. Until then…” He made a small gesture with one hand intended, she guessed, to express the helplessness of parental worry.

“Barry’s the best,” she said.

“Yes, I know.”

Silence filled the small dimensions of the room. Beyond the half-closed door were the sounds of dinner rounds, but inside, Jason and Laura sat about five feet apart, looking everywhere but at each other.

“I’m sorry about Wednesday,” she blurted finally. She glanced up at him to find him studying his knee. One of his legs was propped at a right angle on the other and he plucked absently at a fold in the denim.

He looked up at her, his gaze condemning. Then he smiled suddenly and the reprimand was gone. “Good. Because that was pretty ridiculous. Any man who’d try to deal with
two
women at once would have to be out of his mind, considering how one can make you crazy.”

“Did Lucy make you crazy?” she asked gently.

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. Then he laughed lightly. “She was a commercial artist, wild and mercurial and so excited about everything you couldn’t help but be excited, too. She was never on time for anything, yet she also never seemed to miss a thing. She lost everything important-birth certificates, the kids’ immunization records, the checkbook.” His focus drifted and he sighed. “Yet she anticipated every emotional need the kids or I ever had.”

Laura sighed. “Well. She sounds one hundred and eighty degrees different from me.”

He came out of his thoughts and resettled in the chair, crossing his legs at the ankles. “Yeah. Me, too. But when you love somebody it doesn’t matter if you’re both the same or wildly different, as long as you’re working for the same thing. The little irritations mean nothing. It’s the big things that get you where you’re going.”