Soul Caress
Kim Shaw

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Kennedy gently pushed her favorite compact disc of all time, Wynton Marsalis’s All Rise, into the vehicle’s CD changer. Instantly, the quiet car was filled with the soulful wail of a solitary trumpet. Nothing else in this world spoke to Kennedy’s weary spirit after a grueling day at work like Wynton’s artistry. She could always count on his music to massage her senses and transport her to a serene place.

She turned the knob of the wipers so that the blades moved faster across her car’s windshield. The driving rain made it difficult for her to see more than five feet on the sleek black road ahead. It had been raining without pause for the past two days, the skies wrapped in foreboding darkness night and day. Although, even if there had been brilliant sun, Kennedy would not have known it. She spent all of her daylight hours in the office for the past two weeks. Nestled against the butter-soft beige leather of her Mercedes Benz sedan, Kennedy attempted to relax and to will her body to release the day’s tension. She did not regret the fact that she had been pulling down long hours at Morgan Stanley, and while it was a major coup for a second-year analyst to be second in command on a client as prestigious and world-renown as Otman Hotels, it was the most mentally and physically exhausting challenge she’d ever faced. She couldn’t help but snicker with self-satisfaction, however, as she counted the zeros on the huge bonus that would be waiting for her at the end of the deal. She’d had her eyes on a piece of investment property and now was the perfect opportunity for her to buy something for herself without the help or interference of her parents.

Kennedy was no stranger to hard work. She’d always been driven. As far back as she could remember she had been striving to be the best. In the first grade, she’d built a volcano for the science fair. She hadn’t been able to rest until she could make the thing explode and spew hot lava three feet into the air. Twenty years later she showed no signs of lightening up. A laundry list of things to do loomed ahead of her in the coming weeks. Between the Otman deal at work and assisting with the planning of her parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary celebration, she had a lot on her plate.

Right now all Kennedy wanted to think about was the hot bath she planned to take as soon as she got home. She couldn’t wait to curl up with the latest Eric Jerome Dickey novel as she sipped a glass of Merlot.

The crunch of shattering glass was the last sound Kennedy heard. One minute she was driving down the slick asphalt of King Street, just a bit over a mile away from her two-bedroom duplex in Falls Church, Virginia. Suddenly, the tires of her car skidded and to no avail, she pumped the breaks, attempting to regain control. Her brain raced as she tried to remember the things you were supposed to do to avoid a wreck, yet everything seemed to be happening faster that her recollection could keep up.

The car entered into a forty-five mile per hour spin and Kennedy gripped the steering wheel, the skin taut across her knuckles. The last thing she saw before her eyes closed and her grip on consciousness fractured was a flash of lightning that zipped across the sky.

The sleeping beauty caused quite a stir at the otherwise quiet Annandale Hospital that night. It was a Tuesday evening and emergencies had taken a break for a while. As she was wheeled into the trauma center, the doctors and nurses sprung into action, determined not to lose her. While all patients received the same dedicated care at Annandale, there was something about the almost lifeless woman, whose regal beauty was still apparent even in her unconscious and battered state, that tugged at their core, causing adrenaline to surge throughout the emergency room. Her skin was burnished bronze, and her slim curvaceous figure was captivating even in crises.

Evening gave way to night as the medical staff fought to restore her. In the wee hours of the morning, shortly before dawn, Kennedy awoke from the car accident feeling as though her skin were on fire. Every inch of her 5’9” frame hurt as every muscle seemed to be torn to shreds. She attempted to open her eyes but found them tightly bandaged with a thick and endless stream of gauze and tape that had been wound securely around her curly, matted hair and throbbing head. She tried to lift her right arm, but discovered that it had been set in a cast, weighing it down and rendering it immovable. Her left arm remained under her control, but as she lifted it, a searing pain shot through her shoulder and followed a path directly to the very core of her brain.

She lay still for several minutes, her mind blurry and confused. The air held a sickening smell that was a mixture of blood, which was caked in her nostrils, and antiseptics. Nothing made sense to her, as though she were in a vacuum of suspended time and space. For a moment, she considered remaining there, lost and unknowing. Yet soon panic filled her, as her mind raced to find its way out of its solitary confinement.

Feeling as though she were trapped inside of a horror movie, Kennedy’s fear mounted steadily until she began to scream in her mind at first and then attempting to let that scream out. Her voice was initially barely a whisper. Her lips felt like they were twice their normal size as she slid a thick sandpaper tongue across them. She swallowed the stickiness coating her throat and tried again. With each attempt her voice grew louder, changing from a whisper to a cracked, strangled sound. She tried again and again until finally there came a loud piercing wail of agony.

The intensive care unit door burst open and all of a sudden Kennedy’s room became a mass of activity. Doctors and nurses charged in and began talking all at once, or so it seemed to her confused mind. Kennedy tried her best to make sense of what they were saying as they checked her over, reviewed her vital signs, removed, replaced and tightened bandages, but it was as if they were speaking Greek.

“Kennedy…Kennedy Daniels, I’m Dr. Moskowitz. Ms. Daniels?” a deep voice called, reaching her ears from a distance it seemed.

The voices asked her a myriad of questions, wanting to know if she knew her name or could tell them where she was. Kennedy answered slowly, trying to be as coherent as she possibly could. Each word was painful to articulate, her burning throat and vocal chords refused to cooperate with her. She knew the day of the week and the date. She recited her name and date of birth. She was even able to provide an oral history of her day, right up to Wynton Marsalis and the drive home. Everything after that was a mystery to her.

She begged and clamored for them to tell her what had happened to her. When the clatter in the room finally died down, all but one of the voices faded away.

“Kennedy, I know this must all be very confusing and upsetting to you, but I need you to try to calm down,” the stranger said soothingly.

He introduced himself again as Dr. Moskowitz, head of emergency medicine, and advised Kennedy that she was no longer driving toward her home but in fact at Annandale Hospital. She was in the intensive care unit where a team of doctors and nurses had been working through the night to take excellent care of her.

Kennedy could hear his voice but nothing he said made any sense to her. All she could think was that none of this could possibly be happening to her.

“Kennedy, we’ve contacted your family…the police found their phone number in your cell phone…they’re on their way,” Dr. Moskowitz said.

Kennedy could feel the doctor’s hands on her, cold hands that checked her pulse again. While Dr. Moskowitz’s voice was soft and composed, his hands felt rough against her bruised skin as he touched her.

“Kennedy, you are one fortunate young lady to have come out of that car wreck, and let me reassure you that you are going to be okay.”

By the time the doctor departed, his confident words that her prognosis for a full recovery remained fair ringing in the air, Kennedy had begun to scream again. This time the anguish resonated on the inside, her voice reverberating against the walls of her brain. A heaviness settled in the pit of her stomach like a boulder at the bottom of a creek. She cried a river of tears that soaked her bandages as she prayed for God to make what was happening not be happening to her. However, it was definitely real and she never felt more alone, or more vulnerable in her entire life than she did at that moment. The once fiercely independent young woman cried like a baby for her mother to come and kiss the pain away.

Chapter 2

Kennedy’s parents, Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Daniels, along with her sister, Madison, arrived at the hospital late in the morning following the accident. They imperiously descended upon the intensive care unit and demanded the full attention of the hospital staff. Joseph Daniels quietly, yet firmly requested that the doctors treating his daughter be paged and sequestered for a meeting at once. His wife of thirty years, Elmira Ellington Daniels, stood by his side, apparently used to watching her husband take command.

“Oh, dear Jesus,” Elmira bellowed upon seeing Kennedy as they entered her room.

Elmira crumpled against the stout frame of her husband. Kennedy was stirred awake by the unmistakable sound of her mother’s smoky voice. She turned her head in the direction of the noise and immediately felt the smooth, beefy hands of her father wrap themselves around one of hers.

“Elmira, calm down. She’s going to be fine,” he said reassuringly. “Sweetheart, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Dad,” Kennedy croaked, her throat still hoarse and hurting.

Suddenly, Elmira was overcome with sobs and, without the ability to see her mother, Kennedy was sure she was dramatically fanning herself to ward off one of her infamous fainting spells. Right on cue, Joseph issued a familiar phrase.

“Elmira, you don’t look very well. Why don’t you go outside for a while? Have yourself a cup of coffee or tea,” he added. “I saw a café right near the security desk in the lobby.”

Kennedy was used to scenes such as this one, but for once she was just not up to playing her part in it. Joseph and Elmira had a perfunctory marriage in which the pampered Elmira was shielded from any discomfort or uneasiness. Kennedy had fallen into the habit of echoing Joseph’s sentiments in many instances. This was not one of them.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Elmira said in a reluctant tone that was worthy of an Oscar award.

Elmira rose from her perch at the side of Kennedy’s bed. She smoothed the front of her brown tweed flare-legged pants. At fifty-two years old, Elmira Daniels looked more like a pampered celebrity than a housewife, married to a cosmetic surgeon. Today’s designer outfit, pantsuit, chocolate-brown patent leather platforms and handbag, was what could be called dressing down for her. Her attire alone could be priced at over three thousand dollars, and that figure tripled if one were to assess the four-karat pear-shaped diamond ring set in platinum, the two-karat diamond earrings or the solid gold watch on her dainty wrist. Kennedy inhaled her mother’s signature scent and the familiar feeling was both comforting and disturbing.

Elmira’s thick wavy hair was cut in a short bob, shaved in the back circa 1986 Anita Baker, dyed dark brown with blond highlighted bangs sweeping her forehead. The only sign revealing her age were the tiny crow’s-feet visible near the outside corners of her hazel eyes. That minor flaw was no match for the meticulously applied cosmetics in which she lived. Her buttermilk complexion was as beautiful today as it was when she was half her present age. Her face wore a dual expression today, the first of which was concern for her eldest child. The second expression—slightly masked, yet apparent to those closest to her—spoke to the indignation she felt that such a tragedy could have befallen one of the Daniels.

Madison rolled her eyes, sickened by her mother’s constant dramatics and her father’s characteristic indulgence. If Kennedy could respond in the same manner, it was no doubt that she would have because as solicitous as her sister was, today’s behavior was extreme.

“Hey, sis, are you hanging in there?” Madison asked, moving closer to the side of the hospital bed after Elmira exited the room.

“Maddie? Yeah, I’m okay,” Kennedy lied.

Kennedy’s heart warmed at the sound of her sister’s high-pitched voice. With the aid of the pain medications she’d been given, which had the effect of making her mind a fuzzy place where happy images of her life rested, she fondly remembered when Madison, three years her junior, had first begun to talk in complete sentences. The family had been certain that she’d grow out of her voice or that the highness of her tone would deepen as she got older, but it never really did. Kennedy used to tease her when they were little, telling her she sounded like a cartoon character. Madison, never one to care what people thought of her, would giggle and imitate Minnie Mouse. As Madison grew older, every part of her changed and developed except the tone of her voice. That voice set her apart from the other girls and the boys flocked to it and to her like kittens to warm milk. Madison learned to use her voice, and all of her other attributes, to get the things she wanted. She was shorter than Kennedy, closer to her mother’s height at only about five-seven in heels. Her complexion matched Elmira’s, while Kennedy had inherited a shade closer to their father Joseph’s golden-brown skin tone. The sisters shared the same high foreheads and wide, dimpled smiles, making it clear to anyone who saw them that they were related despite the other physical differences. If there remained any doubt that they were sisters, those doubts were silenced when anyone attempted to mess with one or the other.

One hot summer day when Kennedy was nine years old and Madison six and attending Elko Lake sleepaway camp for the first time, Kennedy had been down near the lake with the older campers, learning how to build a raft out of bamboo and vine, when all of a sudden one of the kids from Madison’s group ran down yelling that Madison was getting jumped by a group of campers. Kennedy took off before the words were fully off of the girl’s tongue. She ran uphill, around the cluster of cabins to the arts and crafts area. Through the storm of dust that was being kicked up, she saw three girls surrounding Madison, a sea of arms and hair tangled together. Madison was holding her own against the trio of troublemakers, but she was in a no-win situation, especially since one of the girls was big, bucktoothed Liza, who was the size of two six-year-olds put together.

Kennedy snatched one girl from the back of her head and literally tossed her through the air, the girl landing in a loud thud five feet away. She grabbed Liza by one arm, spinning her around to face her and before the girl knew what was happening, Kennedy had clocked her in the jaw. Liza’s hands went up to protect her face and Kennedy seized the moment, raising her Pro-Ked-clad foot and kicking the girl in the abdomen as hard as she could. Liza dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Kennedy looked over her shoulder and saw that, now that Madison was in a fair fight, there was nothing to worry about.

Madison had her last opponent on the ground and was a whirlwind as she sat on her knees wailing on the girl’s upper body and face. The first girl Kennedy had attacked was sitting on the ground holding the spot on her head that was oozing blood from where it had struck the side of one of the craft tables when Kennedy had tossed her. Liza attempted to get up and Kennedy took that as a sign that she hadn’t received enough of an ass-whipping. She pounced on the girl, her fists balled, seeking to teach her never to mess with a Daniels again. By the time the counselors were able to separate and subdue Kennedy and Madison, all three of their victims were blubbering mixtures of blood and tears. From that day on, wherever they went, the story followed them and it was a rare brave soul who’d even think about confronting one of them.

In recent years, Kennedy had felt as though her once inseparable relationship with her sister had grown distant. The older Madison got, the more she rebelled, while time had the exact opposite effect on Kennedy. Madison seemed to get pleasure out of going against their parents’ wishes, rocking the boat as turbulently as she could. It put a strain on the camaraderie she and Kennedy once shared, as Kennedy was the one who followed their parents’ instructions to the letter. At twenty-five, Madison had become wild and impulsive and she heeded the advice or words of caution of no one, including her onetime ally, big sister Kennedy.

Seeing Kennedy bandaged from head to toe and lying in a hospital bed having nearly escaped death, obviously paused Madison. She quickly swiped at the tears that were swimming on the rims of her eyes, turned up her dazzling smile and stroked the only space on Kennedy’s face that didn’t seem bruised, bandaged or purple with pain.

“That’s good to hear. Girl, for a minute there I thought you were trying to leave me alone with that crazy woman!” Madison joked.

“Maddie,” Joseph warned, although he secretly got a kick out of his youngest daughter’s ability to ruffle his wife’s feathers.

“Come on, Dad. I sat behind you guys on the flight down here and all she did was talk your ear off the whole time about going after the manufacturer of Kennedy’s car. Then what’d she say? Oh yeah, she thinks somehow the state of Virginia is responsible for this. As if something they did or didn’t do to the roads caused Kennedy’s accident. I am surprised she doesn’t want to sue Mother Nature for the rain. I swear, she is a piece of work,” Madison fumed unapologetically.

Joseph held his tongue, unwilling to go toe to toe with his daughter, especially when she was speaking the truth.

“Madison, don’t upset your sister,” was all he said.

“Oh, Dad, there’s nothing I can tell Kennedy about her mother that would shock her.”

She had taken to referring to Elmira as only Kennedy’s mother as the two of them argued more and grew ever more distant. Kennedy’s attempt at a laugh came out as a wince as the ever-present pain intensified. Madison called for the nurse, who came in and turned the dial on the machine that released morphine into Kennedy’s system intravenously. Madison sat silently, holding her sister’s hand while sleep overcame her.

Joseph looked on for a few minutes and then slipped out of the room to go and tend to his wife. Madison shook her head, keeping her thoughts to herself. For the remainder of that day, while their father returned periodically to sit in silence near Kennedy’s bed, their mother could not bring herself to return to the room. Madison knew that her discomfort came more from the unwillingness to accept that one of her children could possibly have a permanently damaged face and distorted body than any other reason their father tried to gesticulate. In the world of Elmira Daniels, there was no such thing as imperfection.

Chapter 3

Kennedy spent days in and out of consciousness, flying high on pain medication. As she slept, her dreams were filled with images of twisted metal and broken glass. The sounds of her screams combined with the whining screech of tires on wet pavement reverberated in her brain despite her desperate efforts to escape them. She held the taste of blood in her mouth and each time the pain relievers dissipated from her bloodstream, her bones ached and her skin stung as if she’d been dipped in acid. When alert, in the moments before a new dose of medication took control, Kennedy tried to remain positive, praying for the will to grow stronger.

Her parents and Madison were staying at a Hilton Hotel about ten minutes away from the hospital. Madison jokingly whispered to Kennedy when they were alone, that while their parents loved her very much, there was no way Elmira would be caught dead in the Best Western directly across the street from the hospital. Kennedy laughed for the first time since the accident.

“It’s so good to hear you laugh again, sis. Dad and I went to the auto body shop to check on your car. I hate to tell you this, but it’s totaled.”

Madison laughed when Kennedy groaned at her news.

“Hey, look at it this way—the fact that you walked away from the twisted wreckage of that car, figuratively, anyway, is a miracle. Let’s just count our lucky stars. Besides, when you get better, we’ll squeeze Daddy to buy you a cute little Aston Martin.”

Joseph, Elmira and Madison stayed by Kennedy’s bedside in shifts for the first few days. Kennedy’s emotions were split between feeling an overwhelming need to have their presence at all times and wishing she could have a few moments alone, without her family, doctors or nurses surrounding her. This experience taught her that a hospital beat a mall for most crowded, hands down.

“What happened to her?”

Kennedy heard a deep voice rise above the usual hospital noises, but she lay still beneath the white blanket. It was very early in the morning and her family had not yet arrived for the day. She was being returned to her room after having a CAT scan performed, the second since her accident. The doctors were attempting to rule out any possibility of injury to the brain that may have gone undetected when she was first examined.

Malik Crawford was working with a transport team from Stillwater Rehabilitation Center. They were at Annandale picking up a patient who was being discharged and delivered to Stillwater for continued care. Their patient, a wealthy magazine editor who’d suffered partial paralysis from the waist down as the result of a skiing accident, was waiting to receive discharge papers from his doctor.

Malik had gone down to radiology to say hello to a buddy of his while he waited and was now waiting for an elevator back upstairs. His eyes were drawn to the woman lying on the gurney, her eyes wrapped in heavy white bandages. Long auburn hair framed her face like a halo and one of her smooth bronze-colored arms rested peacefully at her side. The other was bent at the elbow and covered by a pink cast. The rise and fall of her chest was the only sign that she was alive. Her body was long and slender and he immediately had the vision of a tall, shapely woman with the legs of a dancer. She was incredibly beautiful and instinctively, his heart went out to her.

“Car accident,” the orderly said. “She’s doing much better than when she was first brought in, right Ms. Daniels?”

Kennedy did not respond, hating the fact these people were talking about her as if she were some laboratory rat devoid of distinguishable feelings. Statements like his reminded her in no uncertain terms that, all in all, she was lucky to be alive. Of course, none of these people were living the physical and emotional hell she was living, but they still held the uniformed opinion that she should be grateful.

“Her leg looks like it’s positioned a little too high…this can’t be very comfortable for her,” the voice said.

Genuine concern echoed in his words, as if he felt somehow responsible for her comfort and care. She wondered if he were a hospital worker.

Kennedy felt a strong hand under the bend of her knee. As the metal bar above the gurney from which her broken leg was suspended was adjusted, bringing her leg about ten degrees lower, she concentrated on the softness of the wide palm against her skin. The warmth from his touch remained on her leg after he removed his hand.

“Godspeed on your recovery, Miss,” the voice said, just as her gurney began rolling off of the elevator.

The sincerity in his tone struck her, yet still she offered no response. She felt the urge to say something to the man but was still so far from being sociable that she couldn’t make herself talk. She was thankful, however, because she did feel more comfortable after his adjustment. His voice stayed with her, its soothing timbre ironically finding its way into her soul when the pain was at its worst.

Five days after the accident Kennedy was removed from the intensive care unit and transplanted into a private room. The fire in her skin had all but vanished by then and slowly she had begun to feel sensations other than the raw pain that had been her constant companion since the accident. The nurses and orderlies settled her into her new room with all of the machines and tubes still connected. When they left, her head and eyes still bandaged and taped shut, Kennedy believed that once again she was alone. She had grown accustomed to not being able to see anything through the thick bandages and had begun to learn to listen for sounds of life around her. Suddenly, she heard breathing and turned her head sharply in the direction from which it came.

“Why didn’t I think to bring a camera? Darling, you look positively wretched.”

The voice came from a corner of the room.

“Skyy?” Kennedy cried.

“It’s me…in the flesh,” Skyy answered, moving to Kennedy’s bedside and plopping down on the bed next to her.

She took Kennedy’s non-bandaged right hand in hers.

“I would have been here sooner, sweetheart, but would you believe there was not one empty seat on one stinking plane until last night?”

Skyy leaned down and pressed cool lips against the side of Kennedy’s cheek.

“How are you?”

“I’m feeling a lot better than I look, I’m sure,” Kennedy answered weakly.

“Mmm, hmm. Well, my dear, judging from the slur in your voice, I’d say you’ve made friends with the Percocet fairy. That’s probably why you’re feeling so good.” Skyy giggled.

“Actually, it’s Vicodin now and we are on a first name basis,” Kennedy said, a pained smile pushing through her lips.

Skyy and Kennedy had been best friends since seventh grade at the all-girls boarding school they’d attended. They had been more like sisters than friends ever since they’d been paired together as lab partners in biology class. In a social circle that consisted of the Who’s Who in Young Black America, Skyy was the most real person Kennedy had ever met.

Unlike most of Kennedy’s other friends, and herself for that matter, Skyy was not part of a legacy of doctors, lawyers and social debutantes. Her father was a self-made man who had made friends with the right people, and clawed his way into a brotherhood of the moneyed folks of North Carolina. No matter how hard he tried, however, there was lingering in him, his wife and their only child, an element of roughness of the Southside of Chicago, from which they had fled as soon as he could afford it when Skyy was twelve years old.

While Skyy adapted to their new lifestyle of Bentleys and private schools, she never accepted or adopted the arrogance of the wealthy. When she and Kennedy first started hanging out together, Kennedy had attempted to draw her into her circle of friends, who were the prettiest, most popular of the girls, both black and white, in school.

Seated in the cafeteria enjoying chef-quality meals of broiled salmon and steamed asparagus tips, the girls were whispering and teetering over one of the new additions to the school, a girl who was there on scholarship, whose hand-me-down outfits and GAP jeans made her stick out like a sore thumb amongst the rest of the Lacoste-wearing, diamond-studded young girls. Skyy had remained quiet, studying the girl who sat alone, eating her lunch beneath the cloud of adolescent snubs. All of a sudden, Skyy rose from her seat, picked up her tray and marched deliberately across the cafeteria. She stopped at the girl’s table, said something to her and then sat down. Kennedy and her crew were stunned and after that day, Kennedy had been told in no uncertain terms that she had to make a choice. It was Skyy or them. Today, she turned to face her friend’s voice, glad at the choice she’d made.

“Where are your folks?” Skyy asked, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

Kennedy wished she could see Skyy, wondering what transformation her friend had gone through during her latest jaunt overseas. Skyy had been in Italy for the past three months. The firm she worked with, Samage Designs, had landed one exclusive hotel or restaurant after the other and Skyy’s fresh eye and youthful approach to design was a large part of the equation. Travel was the thing that, once bitten, Skyy had yet to be able to shake. She loved packing up and hitting the road and for her, the farther the distance, the better. Before Italy, she’d been home in North Carolina for only a couple of months, having spent the prior nine months in Japan designing and implementing the construction of a five-star hotel in Tokyo.

Each time she came back to the United States, Skyy was a different person. Once, there was a short, fiery red hairstyle, that, despite the shocking effect it had, actually looked fantastic on her. Another time, after a visit to India, she came home with her head shaved bald. These days, her hair having grown back to her shoulders, she rocked a permed layered style, colored jet-black. Her copper-penny brown face, with its slanted eyes and pixie nose, was sun-kissed and vibrant, bespeaking her strict vegan diet and rigorous exercise regimen.

“They left yesterday. Daddy had to get back to his patients and Mother, well, you know Mother. She can’t stand living out of a suitcase,” Kennedy laughed.

She didn’t need to let on to Skyy that she was glad that her parents had gone back home. Having them around worrying over her was as intense as the physical discomfort she was in, if not more. Skyy knew better than anyone how trying Kennedy’s parents could be.

“What about Maddie? What’s she up to?” Skyy asked.

“You know Madison…nothing new there. She was here, too, and was fighting with Mother as usual. Once I assured them that I was going to be fine, she hopped in her car and headed up to New York to visit Liza Penning.”

After the young Daniels sisters had kicked Liza’s butt all over the summer camp that year, Madison and Liza had become best friends. Liza was now a stand-up comedienne living in New York City.

“I’m sure Elmira was thrilled about that,” Skyy laughed.

“Yeah, well, what can she do? Madison is a grown woman now.”

“Yeah, grown and still living at home, sponging off of Mommy and Daddy. I don’t know why your parents don’t just cut her off. I bet you that would make her straighten up and fly right.”

Kennedy considered Skyy’s words for a moment, and one moment was all it took for her to dismiss them. First, there was no way her parents would ever cut Madison off. The Daniels would walk through hell with gasoline cans strapped to their backs before they ever allowed one of their own to have to make do without or depend on others for their survival. Secondly, as much as Madison rebelled against them, she and Elmira were so much alike that not accepting her and her behaviors would be the equivalent of her mother turning against herself. No, Madison had yet to find that thing, if it existed, that would push her parents to the breaking point, although she’d come very close once or twice.

“She promised that she’d stop back in to check on me by the weekend. If you’re still here, maybe you can talk some sense into her.”

Both Kennedy and Skyy erupted with much-needed laughter at the absurdity of that one.

“Yeah, well I’ll still be here by the weekend, but I damned sure won’t waste my breath talking to your sister about anything other than shoes and men.” Skyy smirked.

Skyy stayed in town for the remainder of the week, spending the days seated by Kennedy’s bedside, reading to her. They finished the Eric Jerome Dickey novel Kennedy had been planning to read before the accident, as well as a half a dozen gossip magazines and the latest issues of Ebony and Essence magazines. They listened to the news on television every evening and the daily talk shows in the afternoon. Skyy fed Kennedy the nutritious, yet tasteless hospital meals that were delivered three times a day, and snuck in cheesecake and other sweets in between meals. It was also Skyy’s job to deliver the twice-daily medical updates to Elmira and Joseph, who threatened to fly back up to D.C. in a moment’s notice. At Kennedy’s request, Skyy kept them at bay with glowing reports of the patient’s progress.

Kennedy was, in fact, improving. The bruises on her skin had begun to scab over and peel away. She could now move her left arm without feeling any pain, although she was somewhat limited by the full arm cast extending from the center of her right hand up to her elbow.

Her shattered right knee was still held immobile, sealed tightly in a cast made of fiberglass and hanging from a trapeze above her bed. Skyy gave Kennedy a French pedicure, after sponging and applying lotion to her size nine feet. She did the fingers on both of her hands to match, trimming and shaping the nails first. Finally, she made her way to Kennedy’s hair, using a sponge and the aloe-scented latherless shampoo she’d purchased at a local beauty supply store. She combed the once glowing mane, freeing it of its tangles and dry patches where various liquids had settled since the accident. Carefully avoiding the bandages that were wound around the nape of her neck and across her forehead and eyes, Skyy parted Kennedy’s hair into small sections and wiped the shampoo through. Next, she brushed it until it began to shine again, braided it into a long, tight French braid and wrapped a ponytail holder securely around the end.

She helped Kennedy change out of the ugly blue hospital gown that had been placed on her damaged body by the nurses into a pale pink, Victoria’s Secret nightshirt made of pure silk.

“Now, you’re beginning to look human again,” she remarked when she had finished her spa treatment.

“What do you mean?” Kennedy exclaimed.

“Girl, I hate to say this about my one and only best friend, but you were extremely torn up when I got here. Crusty, ashy and wild don’t even begin to describe the way you looked,” Skyy replied.

As much as Skyy rejected the attitude of the bourgeois black class to which her parents wholeheartedly subscribed, she did appreciate the finer things in life. She was a woman of taste. The standards she set were high, but they were her own. She believed a woman should look her best at all times, but rejected the belief that good looks could only be achieved with a lot of money.

“Oh, great Skyy. Way to kick a sister when she’s down,” Kennedy lamented.

The hardest part of the past week had been the fact that she didn’t have the use of her eyes. She couldn’t wait until the bandages were taken off so she could get a good look at herself—her body and her injuries. From touching her face, she could tell that it was no longer swollen and with the exception of the gash on her forehead, which the doctor had told her had required twelve stitches to close, there were no other injuries to her face.

Skyy had told her that the bruises to her arms and legs, as well as the scratches that had come from the broken glass, were all healing well. Despite this, she longed to see herself for herself. She was impatient for the moment she could look into a mirror, stare into her own eyes and confirm that she was really all right. She needed to see for herself that she had really made it through the worse ordeal of her entire life. However, she’d have to wait a few days longer. The ophthalmologist had conferred with Dr. Moskowitz, reviewing the initial X-rays and optical images taken of her eyes. They agreed that Kennedy’s eyes simply would need time to heal and that no medical interventions were warranted.

As promised, Madison returned to D.C., although it was Sunday afternoon when she finally made it back down from her jaunt in New York City. A mere ten minutes in her presence and Skyy shook her head dismally, excusing herself from the room. The next day, with Madison on the road again, headed home to North Carolina, Skyy finally voiced what had been eating away at her brain.

“Kennedy, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your sister is headed for a fall. Now, let me know if I’m overstepping here, and I’ll just shut my mouth.”

“Of course you can say whatever you have to say, Skyy. You know you’re family. And, if I don’t like it, I’ll just curse you out…like family.” Kennedy smiled.

“I just don’t understand why your parents allow that girl to rip and run, not working or going to school…doing whatever the hell she wants. She looks like crap and she dresses like a five-dollar hooker.”

Kennedy winced at Skyy’s words, but every part of her told her that they were true. Skyy was the one person in this world who she could count on unequivocally to tell her the truth, no matter whether she wanted to hear it or not.

“Does she get high?”

Skyy’s question was raised in a tone that suggested that she already had her own beliefs on the matter.

“I think she’s dabbled a little in the past, but I don’t think it’s heavy. I mean, you know that Liza girl she hangs out with and the rest of those spoiled rich kids playing artists up there in New York they associate with.”

“Well, she looks like she’s doing more than dibbing and dabbing. Look, girl, I know you’ve got enough to deal with here, getting yourself healed and whatnot. However, the next time you go home to Carolina, I suggest you sit that girl down and have a talk with her. She needs to get her butt back into school or something constructive and in a hurry. She’s too old to play the rebellious teen role. It isn’t cute anymore.”

Madison had dropped out of Spelman College after her first year. This had been especially shocking since she had begged her parents to allow her to go there, although they had expected her to follow in Kennedy’s footsteps and attend Princeton.

They’d relented, unable to deny the fact that although Spelman was a historically black university—and in their minds accessible to all types of people who were of questionable backgrounds—it had graduated countless successful African-American women of high caliber and social standing. When Madison had returned home after her freshman year, having maintained a low B average, and announced that she wasn’t going back, it was puzzling. It eventually occurred to Kennedy that the only reason she’d wanted to attend Spelman in the first place was to piss her parents off and now that the thrill of that was gone, she was ready to make a fast exit.

Madison had spent the past three years finding herself, whatever that meant. From Kennedy’s standpoint, all she’d managed to find since leaving Spelman was more and more trouble for her parents to bail her out of.

First it was the apartment she begged them to rent for her, and then was summarily kicked out of after breaching the complex’s rules with wild parties and unregistered overnight guests. Then there was the time she was detained in a jail cell in Mexico after getting into a bar fight in Cozumel, Mexico, with the daughter of an elected official. Her father had paid dearly to make that little indiscretion disappear. The girl blew through more money than a category five tornado through Kansas in the height of storm season.

Kennedy agreed with Skyy, promising that as soon as she’d recovered enough to travel, she’d head home to spend some quality time with her baby sister. In the meantime, she had to concentrate on getting herself out of that hospital bed. The sooner she got on her feet, the better off she’d be. When Skyy finally left, planning to make a quick pit stop in North Carolina to see her parents before returning to her work—and the distinguished Italian gentleman she was dating—in Rome, it was a tearful farewell. Each woman realized how much they relied on their friendship and the truth of the matter was that they had come very close to losing that, had Kennedy’s accident been worse than it was. Skyy left with the promise that she’d be back in another couple of months to check on her girl.

Chapter 4

Kennedy spent the days convalescing in solitude. The thought of having visitors, other than her parents, her sister and Skyy, sent her into an unexplainable panic attack. She received a dozen bouquets of flowers from coworkers at Morgan Stanley, from her parents’ bridge partners, the Thompsons, and from her condo neighbor, Victoria, with whom she occasionally shared a cup of morning coffee over their adjoining balconies. The cards, the flowers, the phone calls all wishing her well, were appreciated, but after only a few days, she could not take any more. She wanted to be left alone, to wallow in self-pity at the unfairness of it all. While Kennedy was not the type of person who stayed down for long, she felt like she deserved some quality time in melancholyville. She reasoned that after a good, uninterrupted dose of the why me’s, she could concentrate on the business of getting better and healing her body and mind.

She had the phone, which her parents had turned on in her room, turned off again and asked that visitors be refused by the hospital staff. Anyone who called the nurses’ station to inquire about her recovery was directed to call her parents. In the days that passed after Skyy left, Kennedy replayed the accident over and over in her mind, kicking herself for not having had her brakes checked weeks before when they’d first begun squeaking. She questioned why she had been driving so fast, headed home to an empty apartment and a book. She tried her hardest not to cry, not wanting to soak the bandages that still covered her wounded eyes. Yet the morose thoughts that clouded her mind brought with them a deluge of tears that struggled against her sealed eyelids.

The nurses and doctors checked in on her regularly, poking, prodding, changing bandages and recording her progress. Two weeks to the day after the accident, Dr. Moskowitz, conferring with ophthalmologist Dr. Pitcher, informed her that it was time to remove the bandages that sealed her eyes and to perform a comprehensive examination of her vision.

Both doctors had cautioned that there might be some damage to her vision, although they remained optimistic that the scratches that were observed immediately after the accident were superficial. Kennedy’s excitement and anxiety were at odds within as she prepared herself for the unveiling. Her hopes remained for the best, as she was more than ready to get out of the hospital and get back to her life.

Kennedy sat impatiently in the cushioned chair while Dr. Moskowitz slowly snipped away the bandages round her head. As he unwound the strips of gauze, he talked to her in a soothing voice, explaining what he was doing each step of the way. As the layers of gauze diminished, Kennedy anxiously awaited a glimmer of light or her first sightings. Anything that came into view would be welcomed after residing in darkness for so many agonizing days.

“We taped your eyelids down to help with the healing,” Dr. Moskowitz stated as if in answer to Kennedy’s thoughts.

Finally, when all of the bandages had been removed, Dr. Moskowitz prepared to peel back the thick adhesive that kept Kennedy’s eyes closed.

“Before I take away the tape, I just want you to be prepared for changes in your vision. There may be blurriness or distortion. The corneas may not be completely healed yet. I don’t want you to be alarmed. Just relax and describe to me what you are able to see as things come into focus.”

The tissue around her eye sockets felt sore and Dr. Moskowitz reassured her that this was due to the fact that the lids had been held shut and bandaged for so long. There had been no damage to the bone or tissue surrounding her eyes. Kennedy took a deep breath as Dr. Moskowitz glided a wet piece of gauze across both of her eyelids to moisten the adhesive. Then he quickly pulled away the tape, freeing first the left eye and then the right. Kennedy took another deep breath to steady her racing heartbeat and slowly opened her eyes. The ever-present darkness that had surrounded her for the past two weeks remained.

“Dr. Moskowitz?” she called, her voice a whisper. “Dr. Moskowitz?”

“Yes, Kennedy. I’m right here. What can you see?” he asked.

“Nothing. Dr. Moskowitz, why can’t I see you? Everything is dark and…blurry.”

Kennedy reached both hands outward, her palms slapping against the doctor’s chest. Her breathing became rapid as panic seized her heart. Her fingers groped until she made contact with the doctor’s lab coat. She clutched the fabric harshly, pulling at it.

“Kennedy, Kennedy. Calm down, please. I need to examine you,” Dr. Moskowitz said.

He pulled a small penlight from his breast pocket, shining it into Kennedy’s eyes, first the left and then the right. Her pupils remained wide and unseeing, save for blurred shadows of objects around her. Not one thing was discernable to her eyes and there existed only the most minimal snatches of light.

“Kennedy, it is too early to determine anything concrete about your vision. You have to remain optimistic. These things sometimes take more time and patience than we’d like them to.”

Further examination showed that the deceleration of her brain during the crash had caused Post Trauma Vision Syndrome. The prognosis was mixed and it was uncertain if Kennedy’s sight would ever return.

Tears pooled in Kennedy’s brown eyes instantaneously, engulfing her sockets and sliding down her honey-brown cheeks. Dr. Moskowitz suspended his examination and attempted to comfort her with words that fell upon deaf ears. She could not hear anything nor could her mind register a coherent thought. She had awakened from the singularly most harrowing incident of her life and despite the pain and anguish, had sincerely believed that with time, things would get back to normal. Now, the realization that nothing would ever again be normal for her smacked her in the face and she crumbled from the weight of the blow.

Chapter 5

“Bonjour,” Nurse Crosby beamed as she burst through the door to Kennedy’s private room.

Her shoes squeaked as she crossed the carpeted floor, bustling toward the window. Nurse Crosby snatched the curtains back in one quick motion.

“There. Let’s let a little sunshine in here,” she quipped. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

Kennedy did not respond nor did she move. She wanted to ask what difference it made whether the room was sunlit or not. It wasn’t as if she could see it. Curtains open or closed, the room was still a dungeon devoid of color and light. She didn’t say this, however. There was no reason to annihilate Nurse Crosby’s cheery disposition with her sour one. Besides, she’d rather sulk silently in her stew of despondency.

“It’s a beautiful day out there, Ms. Daniels. What do you say I help you get ready for your walk?” Nurse Crosby asked, as she pulled back the blanket that covered Kennedy’s lower body.

Kennedy leaned forward abruptly.

“Walk? I’m not going for a walk,” she replied.

Obviously, Nurse Crosby had had one too many cups of caffeine this morning. Either that or Kennedy surmised that she was as blind as Kennedy was if she couldn’t see that, not only was Kennedy’s leg up in a trapeze with a cast from foot to thigh, but that she could not see her hand in front of her face. There would be no walking today.

“Of course you are, dear. This is a rehabilitation facility, you know, and we certainly can’t get you back up on your feet if we leave you lying on your backside all day. Now, one of the client assistants will be by in just a few moments to take you out to get some fresh air. He’ll escort you all over the grounds. Just wait until you see the place. It’s to die for. Oh, Stillwater spared no expense when it came to landscaping this beautiful property. Just you wait.”

By now Nurse Crosby had removed the hooks that had kept Kennedy’s leg suspended one foot off of the bed. She carefully lowered Kennedy’s leg until it rested on the bed. Kennedy listened to the squeak of her orthopedic footwear as she moved away from the bed toward the bathroom. Kennedy listened as the nurse ran water into a basin, turned off the faucet and squeaked her way back to the bedside.

“I’ve brought you a warm wash towel so that you can wipe your face. Here you go.”

Kennedy reached out, moving her fingers tentatively in front of her until she touched the towel. She grabbed it, bringing it to her face. When she was finished, Nurse Crosby took it away from her.

“Here is your toothbrush. The paste is already on it.”

Kennedy felt in front of her again until she located the toothbrush and clumsily directed it to her mouth. She brushed her teeth for several moments and then took the cup of water offered by Nurse Crosby. She rinsed, gargled, spit into the basin and rinsed again.

“Now, that’s better. Once you’ve had your wheelchair lessons, you’ll be able to do this in the bathroom all by yourself. Won’t that be great?”

Kennedy slumped back against the pillow without responding. It was taking every ounce of reserve that she possessed not to go off on the nurse. Normally, she was not what you would call a combative person. She hated conflict and discord, preferring to find less confrontational ways in which to work out disagreements. Unless she felt backed into a corner with no alternatives—as in the case of the rumble at summer camp back in the day—Kennedy was mild-mannered and diplomatic. Her patience was running low these days, however, and the last thing she was prepared to deal with was an overzealous nurse who’d swallowed one too many happy pills.

“Do you feel like pink or blue today?”

“What?”

“Pink or blue? I’ve taken the liberty of making two selections from your closet—the first is a blue denim dress and the other is a pink skirt and matching sweater. What will it be?”

“I don’t care,” Kennedy responded tersely.

“Well, let’s go with the denim.”

Without another word Nurse Crosby helped Kennedy remove her gown and slip into the denim dress. After her arrival the day before, she’d been left alone pretty much to rest until evening, when another nurse had helped her bathe in a special shower designed for people with casts on their legs. Within the shower stall there stood a metal closet in which Kennedy placed her plastered leg and then the nurse closed it, thereby keeping it sealed and protected from the water.

“All right, dear, I’ve got other clients to tend to,” Nurse Crosby announced as if Kennedy had been keeping her there.

Kennedy listened as the nurse retreated, closing the door behind her. She covered her face with her hands, pressing her fingertips against her useless orbits. She cursed and muttered, allowing herself to release the frustration that she’d held in check while Nurse Crosby was in the room. While Kennedy’s other injuries had begun to heal, her emotional health teetered on the brink of crumbling. Her arm had been freed from the cast and despite a slight loss of muscle tone, it felt as good as new to her.

Outwardly, she had mended sufficiently enough so that the doctors at Annandale were comfortable in signing her out of the hospital and sending her to Stillwater Rehabilitation Center to begin the arduous task of rebuilding her life. However, inwardly her spirit remained fractured and she felt no motivation to even get out of the bed. The fire that had previously driven her to become the lively, energetic woman that everyone who knew her believed her to be, had been extinguished.

She took sharp, deep breaths, feeling as though she were suffocating under the unfairness of it all. She gasped for air where there was none to be had.

“Good morning, Ms. Daniels. I’m Malik Crawford and I work the day shift here at Stillwater. I’ve been assigned to work with you during your stay.”

Kennedy turned toward the door, the direction from which the baritone voice came. Two things struck her at precisely the same moment. One, the voice was vaguely familiar, although she could not place it. Secondly, whoever he was, the brother had the sexiest voice she had ever heard in all of her twenty-eight years. She wiped the tears from her cheeks, momentarily pulled from the cliff of crushing despair on which she had been lingering.

“Mr. Crawford—” Kennedy began.

“Malik, please. Just call me Malik. As I said, we’ll be working together during your stay. I will take you to all of your therapy sessions, doctor’s appointments and twice-daily trips outdoors. Outside of that, if you need anything else…if you’d like to leave your room, say, to go down to the game room or something, I’m your man. Okay? Just buzz the nurses’ station and ask them to page me. How’s that sound?”

I’m your man sounded interesting, but Kennedy didn’t say that. Had she been in another frame of mind, another place in her life, she would have allowed the heat of attraction to spill over her. Yet other more pressing things were on her mind, like the fact that she was dependent on this person for however long she was at Stillwater. Dependence was not something she did very well. She was used to taking care of herself and coming and going as she pleased. Once again, the realization that she was no longer the woman she’d once been smacked her in the face. Once again, she fought the powerful urge to cry.

Malik watched Kennedy for some reaction. He’d neglected to tell his new client that he had been part of the team who’d helped to unload her transport bed from the ambulance that had brought her to Stillwater early the day before. In part, he’d omitted this fact out of sheer embarrassment. He had been rendered speechless when he’d laid eyes on Kennedy Daniels for the second time in his life. Absent were the bruises and bandages, the intravenous tubes and the heart-monitoring devices. Gone was the poor nameless individual for whom he felt sorry.

Her jacket unzipped to reveal a white camisole that fit her torso like a glove. On her left foot she wore a pair of yellow-and-white Nike cross-trainers, and her hair was pulled back off of her face and held in a ponytail by a large barrette. Her fresh face and fit figure could easily have been that of an eighteen-year-old college freshman, yet something in her carriage even as she was rolled on a gurney out of the transport van told him that she was a mature woman in every sense of the word.

The singular thing that struck him, literally sucking the air right out of his lungs, was her smile. It had been ever so brief, but immensely potent. One of the nurses, an older woman who did a remarkable imitation of comedienne Adele Givens, said something that prompted the brief smile from Kennedy. Behind the expensive shades that covered one-third of her face, Kennedy smiled, her plump lips parting, revealing beautiful teeth and exposing a small dimple in her left cheek. Malik’s iron-man persona melted, causing him so much discomfort that he’d had to excuse himself to other duties just to get away from her before he became a staring, blundering idiot.

Twenty-four hours later, Malik had collected himself. He was confident that he would be able to handle his duties with professionalism and decorum with the light of a new day around him. Upon entering her room, he’d steeled himself against the potential of her physical beauty to stir his emotions. He was not a man for whom a woman’s physical appearance was enough to do more than cause a slight stir in his loins. What turned him on mentally and emotionally was a woman whose intellect and conversation were equally as attractive. If he couldn’t talk to a woman and share his ideas, hopes and dreams, he could not share his body with her, either. He had no way of knowing what rested inside of Kennedy Daniels, so to him she remained just another pretty woman—a client at that.

Kennedy reached her left hand out to the side, bumping it against the side of the nightstand clumsily. She moved her hand several inches up until she could feel her way along the surface of the table. When she came into contact with the object for which she had been searching, her shades, she snatched them up gratefully and moved slowly to her face, placing the shades over her eyes. Malik, having received no verbal response from her, took that as a sign that she was ready to go. He came farther into the room, pushing a wheelchair in front of him. He stopped next to her bed.

“I know movement is a little tough for you right now with that cast covering most of your leg, but we’ll help you learn how to navigate with it and trust me, as soon as you get used to it, it’ll be time to take it off,” Malik said.

He hadn’t expected a response, although he felt that at least a nod of the head would have been nice.

“I need you to try to turn your body sideways, swinging your broken leg toward me while letting the other one hang down toward the floor. I’m right here so don’t worry…I’ll catch you if you need me to.”

With Kennedy feeling less than trusting of Malik’s ability to safeguard her transfer, the transition from the bed to the wheelchair was thorny and awkward. She laced her arm around his neck, noting how strong a neck it was, but she gripped him so tightly that he had difficulty maneuvering. By the time he got her into the seat, his breath was ragged and little beads of sweat had popped up on his forehead.

“All right, Ms. Daisy, ma’am, shall we?” Malik joked as he began pushing the wheelchair of his silent new client.

The sun felt hot on Kennedy’s face. She tilted her face up toward it, allowing it’s warmth to massage her stony facade. Malik stood a few paces away from her, alternating between watching her and staring at the lagoon. This was his favorite place on the Stillwater grounds for several reasons. For starters, not many people came down here as it was quite a trek from the structure. The tranquility he found here on his daily breaks was rarely broken by chatter. He appreciated alone time, since it was something that was a rarity, especially since he’d allowed his brother to move in with him earlier in the year. At the apartment, with its small two bedrooms, a kitchen that opened to the combined living room and dining area and claustrophobic bathroom, there was rarely an opportunity to find solitude. His brother, Malcolm, who was seasonally unemployed, often had the company of some female, and no matter who the pick of the week was, they all had the same annoying giggles and the same exaggerated moans, which could be heard in every corner of the tiny place.

Here on the lagoon, Malik would sit and stare at the ducks, contemplating his life. He often felt that just like those ducks, all he was doing was floating on the same body of water, day in and day out, with no progress and without change. At thirty years old, Malik had become restless and dissatisfied. By other people’s accounts, including his parents, he had a good stable job with benefits and a pension that he’d only have to work thirty years to receive. All he needed to do was find a good woman, start a family and his life would be perfect. For Malik, however, there was so much more to the puzzle of his existence. The only problem was that even though he knew he wanted more for himself, he had no idea what else there was in store for him. Furthermore, he had even less of an idea of how to go about getting it.

A noise that came from Kennedy pulled him from his thoughts. From his vantage point behind her, he could not see her face, but the heave of her back and shoulders told him unmistakably that she was crying. He hesitated, unsure of whether he should leave her alone and let her cry uninterrupted or not. He knew all too well that sometimes a person just needed a good cry. His grandmother used to say that crying was like giving your spirit a bath. Still, something pulled him to her, awaking a need in him to comfort her, even though she was a complete stranger to him.

“Ms. Daniels, are you okay?” he asked as he moved in front of her.

She’d removed her shades and they lay on her lap. When he spoke, she moved her hands up to her face, covering her eyes. Her body trembled.

“Ms. Daniels, are you in pain? Would you like me to call for one of the doctors?”

She shook her head vehemently from side to side.

“No, I don’t want anyone,” she said.

Finally, a complete sentence from her. The sound of her voice, even though it was choked with emotion, surprised him. He hadn’t expected it to sound so strong. Even though she was obviously upset, her voice held a quality of vigor that was undisturbed by her current distress. With a right hand that trembled, she slowly reached up and wiped at the tears on both sides of her face. She lowered her left hand, fingering the shades that lay in her lap. Her eyelids blinked rapidly for several seconds before fluttering to a standstill. She stared out in front of her, seeing nothing.

Malik looked at her face, for the first time seeing it in its entirety without the distraction of eyewear. His heart literally stopped beating for a moment, his breath caught in his throat. He knew that she was beautiful. He had recognized that the moment he’d rolled her out of the transport vehicle. What caught him by surprise now, touching a part of him that he had not even acknowledged in years, was the fact that despite her tears and current distress, there was a harmony of spirit that possessed her. He had never laid eyes on a woman in his entire life that made him feel like he never wanted to look at another woman—until now.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I just…can I have a minute alone?”

“Sure,” Malik said, continuing to stare at her.

It took all the strength within for him to disengage from her face and move away from her. He walked a few feet along the lagoon and sat down on one of the large boulders that lined the edge. Occasionally, he dared to sneak a quick glance in her direction. She held her head erect, her face pointed toward the water. She didn’t move nor did he. He glanced at his watch, knowing that it was past the lunch hour and that he should have her back in her room already. Yet he was unwilling to interrupt her solitude.

Although he had other duties that he was currently neglecting, he had no intentions of rushing her. He couldn’t very well leave her by herself as she was a long way from the point in her rehabilitation where she could be left on the grounds to take care of herself. He knew that there was no clear prognosis as to whether her vision loss was temporary or permanent, but that the goal was to teach her how to live as a visually impaired person just in case. That would take weeks of work with the specialists and it would also have to wait until she had the use of both of her legs again. Until then, she was dependent on him and, try as he might, Malik couldn’t help but like the sound of that.

Chapter 6

“Thank you for…for today,” Kennedy said as Malik rolled her back to her room.

It was after eight o’clock in the evening and Kennedy had just finished an hour-long lesson in Braille reading for the blind. She was exhausted, having been kept on the go all day long. After her walk with Malik, she’d returned to her room for a quick bite to eat and then, because she was running late, had been rushed to physical therapy. There she’d spent thirty minutes learning how to pull her body upright from a reclining to a sitting position. Next was a trip to the weight room where she stretched and lifted weights for another thirty minutes. Dr. Pitcher, the ophthalmologist, came in to see her later on, where he performed a brief examination of her eyes. This was followed by dinner, another walk, or ride, depending on how one looked at it, around the grounds and finally the brail lesson, her last activity of the night.

Malik knew that Kennedy was referring to her breakdown at the lagoon that morning and while he didn’t feel like he had done anything special, he appreciated her gratitude.

“Don’t mention it,” he said as they arrived at her room.

He opened the door and rolled her chair inside. There was a chill in the air and he moved toward the wall that held the thermostat for the central heating and cooling system.

“Should I turn up the heat a little bit for you?” he asked.

“Umm, no. I like it this way. I was a winter baby,” Kennedy answered.

“Uh, oh. Don’t tell me you’re one of those T-shirt and flip-flop wearing, beach buffs in November kind of people. Girl, don’t you know that black people are from the tropics—we ain’t built for the cold weather.” Malik laughed.

It happened. For the first time since she’d arrived at Stillwater the day before, or at least while she had been in his presence, Kennedy laughed out loud and directly from that place inside where people are free and unpretentious. For Malik the sound was like the ringing bells of a winning slot machine. He watched her, the way her head tilted back and her mouth opened wide. It warmed him, filling him with the happiness that comes from seeing someone else’s spirit brightened, especially when that someone was special.

Malik lifted Kennedy from the wheelchair that had become an extension of her and carried her to the beige two-seater in the sitting area of the modest room. Although it was time for his shift to officially end, he did not want to leave her and he fished for excuses to hang around even if only for a few minutes more. He moved the wheelchair closer so that it was within her reach and started explaining the different mechanisms. A less than complicated piece of equipment, it was quite a task for him to stretch out his explanation, but he gave it a shot. Kneeling by her feet, he guided her hand to the wheels, across the breaks and the footrests. He let his fingers linger a second on top of hers, tantalized by the softness of her digits. A sudden knock at the door interrupted what had to be the highlight of his entire week, perhaps even month.

Jessica Hubbard, the night shift client assistant, entered. She took over where he left off, covering the clients he’d been in charge of all day. While there was much less activity at night than during the day, Jessica’s job was to help the female clients shower and get settled in for the night. She was still around when many of them awakened in the morning and for those who preferred to bathe in the morning and needed assistance, she took care of them. By the time Malik arrived at eight o’clock in the morning, Jessica would have seen to it that the clients were dressed, fed and ready for whatever activities were lined up for them for the day. Together, they handled a caseload of between five to seven clients at a time and both of them felt as though they had lucked out in being paired to the same team.

“Hey, Malik, Marci told me you were still around. Running late tonight?” Jessica asked as she entered.

“A little bit. I was just trying to get our new client settled in. Kennedy Daniels, I’d like you to meet Jessica Hubbard. She’s on call nights.”

“Hello, Ms. Daniels. It’s nice to meet you,” Jessica said.

“Likewise. So you’re the one I’m supposed to bug in the middle of the night if I need a drink of water or if I have to potty?”

“Yep. Feel free to bug away. Sorry I wasn’t around when you got in yesterday…I had a minor family emergency. Are you about ready to call it a night? If not, I can come back in a little bit.”

“Thank you, Jessica. I’m pretty beat, so, yes, I’m ready.”

“Well, then. All right, I guess I’ll head out now so you ladies can do your thing. Kennedy, I’ll see you in the morning,” Malik said reluctantly, aware that his time with Kennedy had finally come to an end.

“Fine,” she answered, acutely aware of the fact that at some point during the course of their day together, she had gone from being Ms. Daniels to Kennedy.

Later that night, surrounded by a darkness that she believed she would never become accustomed to, Kennedy’s thoughts drifted to Malik Crawford. She wondered what he looked like and whether his smile came from his eyes. Did his stature match the deep timbre of his voice? What about his hair? His nose….

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