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“Shhh, baby,” she crooned, pulling him close. “I’m right here.”
Sarah didn’t need a child psychologist to tell her why Matty was suddenly having nightmares. His whole world had been turned upside down. He didn’t understand the gravity of her condition, at least she prayed he didn’t, but he knew something was wrong and the uncertainty of his new life scared him.
“He goes right back to sleep if you rock him,” she whispered to Nate. Matty had stuck his thumb in his mouth as he snuggled tight against her. “Just take his thumb out of his mouth when you put him back down.” She heard the quaver in her voice and fell silent.
“I’ll remember,” Nate said, and the words sounded like a promise. “Do you want me to hold him?”
She shook her head. She knew his suggestion made sense, but she couldn’t let go of her baby. Not now, not even for a little while. There were so many things to teach Nate about Matty but she couldn’t trust her voice any longer. “I need to hold him.”
“Why don’t you try to sleep? I’ll wake you at four. Mom will be here to watch over him so we can leave by four-forty-five.” Her surgery was scheduled for seven but they needed to check into the hospital an hour earlier.
“All right.” She laid Matty down on his pillow and curled up beside him. She closed her arms around him and felt the quick, light beat of his heart against hers.
Nate stepped into the room and pulled the sheet over them both. He didn’t say anything more, urge her to sleep, or wish her pleasant dreams. It would have been a waste of breath. But she thought she felt the merest brush of his fingers in her hair, and then he was gone and she was alone with her son in her arms.
IT HAD BEEN the longest day of his life and that included those he’d spent in battle, Nate thought, watching the last of the orange and gray sunset fade from the night sky. He turned away from the window. He and his parents were alone in the waiting room.
It was small and tucked away at the end of a long hall.
The kind of room they put you in to give you bad news.
“What time is it?” Arlene asked, looking up from the magazine she’d been pretending to read for the last half hour.
“Almost six,” Tom responded. Nate had thought his father was asleep he’d been quiet for so long, his long legs crossed at the ankles, his chin resting on his chest, as he sat slouched in a brown tweed chair.
His parents had shown up at the hospital about an hour after Sarah’s surgery had started. “I know I promised Sarah we’d watch look after Matty,” Arlene told him with the stubborn look on her face that all of her children had learned at an early age not to argue with. “He’ll do fine with Joann and the boys. You need us more than he does right now.” They hadn’t left his side for a moment since.
“Only six o’clock and it’s dark already,” Arlene sighed.
“It’ll be dark even earlier when daylight savings time ends.” Tom straightened from his slouched position and stretched his arms over his head. He was a couple of inches taller than Nate, although they favored each other in looks.
Arlene dropped the magazine and stood up, walking to the door and looking out into the hallway. “How much longer do you think it will be?”
Nate shrugged. “Six to eight hours. That’s what the surgeon said.”
“And the surgery started at noon?”
“Yes,” he answered patiently. It was the third time she’d asked.
He and Sarah had arrived at the pre-op suite right at six. But from then on nothing had gone as planned. The doctor was in surgery, an emergency, an apologetic nurse had informed them. Sarah’s operation had been moved back on the schedule. There was a room they could wait in, she’d explained, while Sarah filled out forms. She knew what Sarah was facing and she did her best to put them at ease.
Later another nurse had taken Sarah away to undress and change into a hospital gown, leaving him to cool his heels in the windowless cubbyhole of a room. He stared at the gauges and tubing affixed to the wall above the empty space where Sarah’s bed would be. Oxygen, blood pressure cuff, monitors that he couldn’t read. He switched his gaze to the TV and pretended to watch the early morning weather report. A few minutes later they brought Sarah in. She looked small and lost in the high bed with its stark white sheets and pillowcase. She wore a worn-looking white surgical gown and her hair was hidden beneath a paper cap.
“They didn’t shave my head if that’s what you’re wondering,” she said with a ghost of the smile that still had the power to make his heart beat harder. “The incision will be here.” She touched the back of her neck.
The nurse started an IV and gave Sarah the first of her pre-op medication. A few minutes later she seemed to doze off. Nate stared at the TV and the clock, not paying attention to the one and wondering if the other was broken since the hands didn’t seem to move. Nurses came and went with more medication for the IV. Sarah woke up and turned her head to look at him. “I forgot to tell you,” she said, swallowing against the dryness in her mouth. They’d probably given her atropine to do that. Nate knew more about pre-op medications than he wanted to. “Matty wants to be Shrek for Halloween. He’s excited about it. Do you think you can find a costume for him?”
Nate stood up and walked over to the high bed. He leaned both hands on the rails the nurse had put up when she started the IV. “I’ll make sure he has a Shrek costume,” he promised.
The answer seemed to please her. A faint smile curved her mouth and her words took on a dreamy tone. “Spoken like a true father. See, I told you you’d be good at the daddy thing. Thank you, Nate. For everything.”
He’d reached down to take her hand in his at the same moment the surgeon appeared in the doorway. She was young, with chocolate-colored skin, a serious demeanor, and an excellent reputation in her field. “It’s time to go,” she’d said.
Sarah’s fingers tightened around his. “Try to learn to love him, Nate. That’s all I ask.”
His last words to her were spoken directly from his heart. “I won’t have to try at all.”
“Someone’s coming.” Arlene’s voice broke into his thoughts. She took a couple of steps backward into the waiting room and turned to face him. “Is Sarah’s doctor a very pretty, young black woman?”
“Yes. Dr. Jamison.” He curled his hands around the back of one of the brown tweed chairs so his parents couldn’t see them tremble.
Tom rose, too, as the neurosurgeon entered the room. She was wearing rose-colored scrubs and green surgical booties, her short, dark hair still covered by a white paper cap like the one they’d put on Sarah. She carried a clipboard and a large envelope in her hands, looking down at her notes as she walked. Nate searched her face for signs of the bad news he was certain she’d come to deliver. She looked up and saw them watching her, and smiled.
Not the polite curve of her generous mouth that Nate had seen earlier, but a real smile that reached her eyes and banished the weariness from her face. “I’ve got good news,” she said. Nate had been preparing himself for the worst, and if he hadn’t been watching her so closely he would have thought he’d heard her wrong. “The surgery was a complete success. Sarah is going to be just fine.”
“A miracle,”Arlene whispered, and sat down in her chair with a thump, as though her legs would no longer support her. Nate felt weak in the knees himself.
“Well, not exactly a miracle, but very close to one.” Dr. Jamison pulled a sheet of X rays out of the envelope and snapped them into the light box on the wall by the door. “These are your wife’s pre-op scans.” She pointed to a spidery web of lines curled over and around the vertebrae of Sarah’s neck and then indicated the second X ray, where there were no more lines. “The growth was advancing very rapidly. Another few millimeters, and it would have been too late.” She stared at the scans for a moment with a satisfied smile, then snapped off the light. “But we don’t have to go there anymore. It was touch and go for awhile, but I think I can safely assure you the chance of a recurrence is less than five percent over the next—” her smile grew a little wider “—fifty years or so.”
Nate felt as if a bomb had at last gone off in his face. Blood roared in his ears and for a minute he forgot to breathe. She was going to be all right. And she was his wife again. How were they going to deal with that? Automatically, he held out his hand. “Thank you for everything, Doctor.”
“I’m so pleased to be able to give you such a good prognosis. I don’t have to tell you I didn’t think the outcome would be so favorable.” She glanced down at Arlene, who was staring up at her. “Maybe your mother is right. Maybe there was a little bit of a miracle worked in the mix.”
“A miracle,” Arlene repeated, turning her eyes to Nate.
“Sarah should make a complete recovery over the next couple of months, Mr. Fowler. She’ll need some therapy for the nerve damage to her arm and leg, but I believe it’s completely reversible. The therapy will all be out-patient, of course. Barring any unforeseen complications you can take her home in seventy-two hours.”
“IS THERE ANYTHING I can get for you?”
“No, thank you.” At the last moment the constriction of the brace around her neck reminded her not to try and shake her head. “I’m fine. Just a little tired. Matty—?”
“He’s with Tessa, remember.”
“Oh, yes, of course. I…I forgot.” She missed Matty terribly. She’d never been away from him this long before, although in reality it had only been four days. Ninety-six hours that had changed her world.
“It’s normal. The anesthetic, the pain medication. Your brain won’t feel like such a block of wood after you get some sleep.” Nate wasn’t looking at her as he spoke, but was hanging their coats in the postage-stamp-size closet beside the door.
“I imagine you’re right.” He was talking from experience, she reminded herself. How many surgeries had he undergone to reconstruct his knee and ankle? It hadn’t been a subject that had come up during the few days they’d been together before the wedding. Odd, not to know something that at one point in her life would have been of the utmost significance. Even now she couldn’t bear to think of him hurting and in pain. Her palm itched, so she absently rubbed the tips of her fingers over the skin. It was another sign the surgery had been successful, this uncomfortable, almost annoying return of sensation to her nerve-deadened hand and leg. She kept her eyes on the lake. Gray clouds scudded overhead changing the surface of the water from blue to pewter as swiftly as her moods seemed to swing between light and dark, happiness at being alive and near despair at the dilemma she’d created for Nate and herself.
She had been prepared to die.
Not to live.
She had believed wholeheartedly that she wouldn’t survive the surgery. She’d made him believe it, too, or he wouldn’t have agreed to her mad scheme. But she had survived. Yet in her fear and anxiety to provide for her son what had she done?
To Nate?
To the two of them?
The thought made her head swim. Her knees felt weak and rubbery. She put her hand out to steady herself on the arm of Nate’s huge recliner. It was a man’s chair, wide and overstuffed. David had had one much like it. She’d sold it along with all her other furniture before she left Texas.
Immediately Nate was at her side, helping to lower her gingerly onto the seat. She steeled herself not to jerk away from his touch. To have him so close made her wary of her reactions. He was so big and warm and safe. It would be wonderful to give in to the temptation of being taken care of again. But she didn’t dare allow herself the luxury of such yearnings for even a moment. She and Matty were on their own, or would be again soon enough. “Thanks,” she said, “wobbly knees.”
“Your blood sugar’s probably low. I’ll make you some tea and toast. Then you can get some rest.”
“Please, don’t bother. I’m fine. I ate everything on my tray before we left the hospital.” And the food, bland as it was, was still sitting like lead in her queasy stomach.
Unheeding of her words, he moved into the small kitchen. Nate was a good cook, she remembered. All the men in his family were—it was a competition of sorts between them at holidays and parties. “While you’re resting I’ll go down to the barn and check the answering machine before I head over to Tessa’s and bring Matty home.”
Bring Matty home. Another of the phrases that sounded so right but was so wrong.
“We need to talk—” she repeated stubbornly.
“I’ve put you two in the bigger bedroom.” He spoke over his shoulder. “There’s more room for your things. Matty helped me move your stuff.”
“We can’t force you out of your bedroom.”
“I’m fine in the small room. I think I’ll have a cup of coffee before I go to the barn. Are you sure you don’t want something? Tea? Cocoa? I make great cocoa.”
“So Becca told me.” She wished her head didn’t feel like the block of wood Nate had described, but it did. She’d gotten little sleep in the busy teaching hospital the past three nights. She was so tired that she couldn’t keep a clear line of thought in her head. The pain-killers she’d taken before she checked out of the hospital weren’t helping her concentration, either. But the truth was she needed them, at least for the time being.
“You know, cocoa sounds good now that I think of it. I’ll make us both a cup.” He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a gallon of milk and filled a saucepan on the stove with the deliberate, efficient movements and total concentration on the task at hand that Sarah remembered from their time together. That way of working, of moving, had been drilled into him in the military. When you dealt with explosives, impatience and carelessness were two traits guaranteed to get you, or someone else, killed. He’d told her that early in their relationship when they’d had no trouble talking about what was important to them.
He reached one long arm across the narrow counter and took a tin of cocoa and sugar from a top cupboard shelf in one smooth, unhurried motion. He made love the same way, deliberately and thoroughly. Sarah pushed herself out of the big chair and walked slowly to the banquette. She sat down then removed the neck brace and placed it on the seat beside her. She only needed to wear it when she was riding in the car or walking outside, where her weakened leg muscles might trip her up. She gingerly touched the back of her neck where the row of metal staples held the edges of the long incision together. In ten days they would be removed, and the small amount of her hair that had been shaved away would grow back almost as quickly, Dr. Jamison had assured her. After that it would be therapy twice a week for six weeks at Lakeview Care Manor across the lake, and then a follow-up visit to Dr. Jamison. If everything looked good she would be allowed to drive and go back to work in time for the holiday rush.
She would start apartment hunting then, and she and Matty could be in their own place by Christmas. Except she would still be married to Nate. She rested her head in her hands. It was all so complicated now. The financial arrangements she’d made were predicated on her death, not her living. She had very little ready cash. On top of everything else he had done for her, would she end up having to ask Nate for a loan to divorce him again?
Lord, what a mess. Her head was pounding; the incision ached. She was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open, yet she was too restless to sleep. Nate set a cup of cocoa in front of her. It smelled so delicious she opened her eyes and picked up the mug, savoring the warmth of the china, grateful for her renewed ability to correctly judge the degree of heat against her skin.
“Eat,” Nate urged.
Obediently she ate a triangle of toast, then another. Before she knew it the plate was empty. She said the first thing that came to her mind. “Toast and cocoa. Your mother’s remedy for whatever ails you.”
“Looks like it hasn’t lost its effectiveness. Want some more?”
“No, thank you. That was enough.”
“Then I’ll turn down the bed for you.”
“No.” The word came out louder than she’d planned.
“If you feel that strongly about it you can turn down the bed yourself.” He leaned back against the counter smiling slightly, indulgently.
“I don’t need a nap. We have to talk. Now.” She wasn’t going to let him steamroller over her the way he sometimes had before.
“All right, we’ll talk if that’s what you want. Go ahead.” Frowning, he folded his arms over his chest.
“We need to figure how to get ourselves out of this mess I’ve gotten us into.”
“We don’t need to do that right this minute.”
“Yes, we do.” Sarah stopped and took a deep breath. “Please, sit down. It hurts when I have to look up at you.”
He did as she asked, resting his arms on the tabletop. His forearms were dusted with dark hairs, his wrists and hands were strong, the muscles and tendons taut beneath his skin. “Go on, say what’s on your mind.”
“Our marriage is what’s on my mind. It will all have to be undone. We’ll have to contact the lawyer again, explain the situation. He’s probably waiting to hear from you so he can read my will.”
“You have a point. We should call his office and tell him you came through the surgery with flying colors. The rest of it can wait until you’re back on your feet.”
The next words were harder to say. “I—I’ll probably have to ask you for a loan to pay my share. And for a security deposit on an apartment. I’ll borrow against my life insurance policy as soon as I can make the arrangements, but I canceled my credit card so I can’t get an advance that way—”
He held up his hand. There was no longer any hint of a smile on his face or in his words. “Not so fast. Dr. Jamison said she’d let you return to work in six to eight weeks. That’s if everything is okay. You’re not going to be able to care for Matty by yourself for most of that time. How the hell do you think you’re going to manage alone until then?”
“I’ll find day care—”
He leaned back, once more folding his arms across his chest. “Good day care’s expensive. But more importantly your son’s been moved from pillar to post and back again over the past couple of months. He’s just getting used to my family. And me. There’s no need to uproot him again. Not for the time being.”
“I can’t stay here, Nate.”
Nate’s gray eyes never left hers but they allowed her no access to his thoughts. “If you want I’ll move in with Granddad for a couple of weeks so you two can have your own space. But not right away, not until you’re up on your feet again. Matty’s too much for you to handle alone.”
He had a point there, one she could scarcely argue with. She wasn’t allowed to lift anything over five pounds. Matty was a rambunctious three-year-old but he was still her baby. He needed help in and out of the bathtub, on and off the toilet. He wanted to be held and cuddled. She couldn’t do any of those things for him, at least not without help.
Nate’s help.
“I don’t want to be taken care of, Nate. Not anymore.” She had wanted exactly that once upon a time, and she had let herself slide too far into the fairy tale. Then when she tried to assert herself by insisting on a baby when he was afraid to give her one, the conflict had shattered their make-believe world, and their marriage.
His face darkened. He stood and picked up her plate and cup, turning his back as he set the dirty dishes in the sink. “I know that, Sarah. You pretty much burned it into my brain when we divorced. But the long and short of it is right now you do need someone to take care of you. And that someone is me.”
What a mess she’d made of things. “I’m sorry, Nate,” she whispered. Her hands trembled and fatigue washed over her in a black wave. She fought to keep her concentration focused on their discussion, but all she really wanted to do was go to sleep.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. We got a miracle handed to us. We can’t complain because it’s got strings attached.” He turned to look at her again, leaning his hip against the sink. The darkness was gone from his face, if not from his gray eyes. “I admit we’ve got a boatload of problems to work out, but outside of calling the lawyer with the good news none of them have to be dealt with today. You’ve only been out of the hospital for two hours. Go rest. I’ll get Matty from Tessa’s and wake you when I bring him back. We’ll form a plan of attack tomorrow.”
“You make it sound as if you’re staging a war game.”
He shook his head, smiling ruefully. “Yeah, I guess I do. Old habits die hard.”
That wasn’t all, Sarah thought as she curled herself around the oversize pillow that Dr. Jamison had recommended she use so that she didn’t lie on her back and put pressure on the incision. Old dreams died hard, too.
CHAPTER FOUR
NATE STARED at his reflection in the rechromed headlight of the Indian as he wiped a smudged fingerprint off the shiny surface. He looked like hell. He hoped it was only from the distortion of the metal and not evidence of another week of sleepless nights. He’d always prided himself on being able to sleep through anything, including mortar attacks, and the midnight shift change in a busy military hospital. But he was wrong. He’d found something that could keep him awake for hours, even though it was no louder than the sound of someone breathing. Sarah’s breathing, soft and even, in the room just down the hall.
He’d probably get more sleep if he bunked down out here on the lumpy old futon Joann had foisted on him after her last garage sale.
Hell, why was he thinking of bedtime? The sun wasn’t even down yet.
He looked at his watch. “Damn.” He was supposed to pick Matty up half an hour ago, but he’d been so focused on the restoration he’d lost track of time. Some kind of father he was turning out to be. He grabbed a jacket and headed out the door just as his sisters and their assorted offspring tumbled out of Tessa’s van.
Or to be more precise, the kids tumbled out of the van. Ty, Joann’s almost-nine-year-old, turned back to help unfasten Becca from her car seat while Matty, already released from his safety seat, raced across the parking lot only a step or two behind seven-year-old Jack. Joann strolled along in the kids’ wake while Tessa and her impressive belly brought up the rear. Both of his sisters were tall women with round, pretty features. Joann was blond and built along the same generous lines as their mother while Tessa, when she wasn’t pregnant, had the thinner build and red-gold hair that came from the Fowler side of the family.
“Hi, Nate.” Jack and Matty came skidding to a halt in front of him. “Can we see the bike? Is it done? Can I ride it yet?”
“No, it isn’t done. But I’ve got the gas tank back on, and the handlebars. It’s beginning to look like a real bike again. Go ahead, take a look. But don’t try to climb up on it.” Jack had been clambering on anything that would hold still, and a few things that wouldn’t, since he was about six months old.
His nephew made a face. “I know better than that,” he said, but his eyes didn’t quite meet Nate’s, so Nate knew he’d been planning to do exactly that.
“C’mon, Matty. Let’s go.”
Matty held back. “I want to see my mom.” He looked up at Nate with hopeful eyes.
“She’s taking a nap,” Nate informed him. “We’ll go wake her up in just a little while. Where’d you get that hat?” It was a navy blue ball cap with a big gold block M on the front.
“From Jack.”
“My dad said Matty needed to get with the program so I gave him my hat. It’s too little for me anyway.” Gus Westin, Joann’s husband, was the science teacher at the local junior high, and a former third-string kicker for Michigan. Jack was the spitting image of his father—dark-haired, small-boned and wiry tough. He wasn’t all that much bigger than Sarah’s son and still young enough to play with Matty so they got along well.