“All the same.”
“I’m okay. I just need to drink some water and lie down.”
He was torn by a level of uncertainty and indecision that didn’t happen nearly so often anymore, but which had once been very familiar. How much to give away? How much to trust? What to offer? What to say?
He’d been twenty-four years old when he and Scarlett had known each other before. Six years on, twenty-four seemed like it was just a couple of years beyond boyhood. In so many ways back then he’d been older than his years. In other ways, far out of his depth, with his emotions so powerful and simple that they frightened him.
Lord, he didn’t enjoy some of those memories …
Which was good, because memories weren’t relevant right now.
“I’m going to wait with you until your brother arrives,” he told her, making a decision he didn’t intend to change.
Scarlett didn’t reply.
They made it up the steps and through the door. “Where do you want to go?” he asked.
“Couch.” Apparently because she didn’t think she could make it any farther, even though he was carrying her again.
He helped her to lie down, finding a red silk pillow for her head. “Could you close the drapes?” she asked weakly. “The light is so bright.”
It wasn’t.
Not to his eyes, anyhow.
But he did as she’d asked, and it seemed to help her. She lay with her eyes closed, still wearing her sunglasses, and less tension stiffening her thin frame. She’d had more weight on her six years ago, for sure. He remembered how her body had felt in his arms, and it hadn’t been scarecrow thin like this, it had been lush and soft, almost plump in places. Recognition might have come sooner if she hadn’t changed so much.
“Can I fetch you the water you wanted?”
“Bottle or tap, I don’t mind. A big glass. It’ll help.”
He went through the adjacent dining room and into the kitchen and ran the faucet into a glass he found upturned in the dish rack, not wanting to check in the refrigerator or open the kitchen cabinets in someone else’s house. When he brought the filled glass back to her, she said in a thready voice, “Is it okay if I don’t try to sit?”
“It’s fine.” He brought the glass awkwardly sideways to her mouth, and it was such a personal action it gave him the jitters. Would she want this from him?
She seemed to prefer the drops spilled down her cheek to the thought of movement. “Thanks. You can go now. Please. Don’t feel you need to stay.”
Did she know who he was?
There was no reason for it to matter, not when she could barely move, and he wasn’t going to ask, or tell her. Not yet. Not unless it seemed truly necessary.
“I’m not leaving.”
She stayed silent for a long moment, as if assessing his determination, and whether to protest. Finally she told him, “Thank you.”
And then they just waited.
Chapter Two
This was Andy now, thank heaven. Scarlett heard his car, then the thump of hurried feet up the steps and onto the wide, wraparound apron of the porch. He barreled through the door and into the front room. “Daniel, thanks so much for staying. Scarlett, how’re you doing?”
“A little better,” she said, putting some chirp into her voice. “My vision is the main thing. Really can’t see.”
“Can I take a look?” She heard him sit on the coffee table in front of the couch. Daniel must be hovering in the background. She couldn’t hear him. They’d been silent together for probably fifteen minutes or more before Andy had showed up. She hoped Daniel put it down to the fact that she was feeling so bad. Hoped he still didn’t know who she was. But really she had no idea. She wasn’t in a position to discern anything about what he was thinking or feeling. He’d never been a man of easy words.
Right now, she was just glad that Andy was here.
“Open your eyes,” Andy ordered.
She did so, to be greeted by blurring and multiple images and blinding light.
“Your pupils aren’t contracting,” Andy said. “That’s why it feels so bright. You’re not focusing at all.”
“Tell me about it!”
There was a pause. “Still biting your nails, Scarlett?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” But she hid her raw-tipped little fingers in the curl of her hand, self-conscious.
“Migraine can be stress related.”
To head off a lecture, she just blurted it out. “I resigned, okay?”
“You what?”
“I resigned from the hospital.” She had to talk carefully and quietly, or her head hurt too much. “Dad doesn’t know. He thinks it’s just a vacation break. I’ll have a month here, as planned, but I’m not going back to City Children’s.”
“When will you tell him?” Andy knew as well as Scarlett did that Dad wouldn’t approve the decision.
“When I’ve worked out what I’m going to do next.”
“And you haven’t, yet? You have no idea?”
“That’s what the next month is about. I know he’s going to kill me. Or not speak to me for five years.”
“Wow.”
“What?”
“I didn’t think you’d actually do it. Thought you should. Didn’t think you would.”
“Neither did I.” She was a little scared about it, too. Was she giving up medicine completely? Giving up pediatric oncology? She didn’t know. All she knew was that being the smartest one in the family wasn’t making her happy, the way Dad was so sure that it should.
“Is a month going to be long enough?”
“Don’t know that, either.” Who was she, if she wasn’t a doctor? Who did she want to be?
He wasn’t going to let the subject go. “Do you have any concrete plans for how you’re going to spend your time up here?”
This one, she could answer with confidence. “Woodwork.”
“Woodwork?”
“I want to learn to do something with my hands, something practical and creative.” Something sensual, almost, but she didn’t feel comfortable using this word
