answer so she merely nodded in response.
“Okay, stay right here,” he instructed her before glancing over his shoulder at the other driver, “while I get some insurance information out of Mario Andretti over there.”
A ring of Good Samaritans and people looking for some excitement had surrounded the offending driver. No one seemed inclined to allow the man to leave. Jack quickly got the necessary information from the driver, who kept babbling his apology, claiming the sun had gotten into his eyes and could they please keep this off the record so his insurance wouldn’t go through the roof?
From the way the other man was talking, Jack got the impression that this wasn’t the man’s first offense.
It made his blood boil. Someone so careless should be kept off the road.
Maybe if you’d kept Ann off the road, she’d still be here today.
Jack blocked out the thought even as it echoed in his brain. He couldn’t go there yet. He suspected that he probably never fully could.
Jack looked at the other man coldly, feeling not even an ounce of pity. He hated recklessness and the man had clearly run the light. “My insurance agent will be in touch.”
Flipping open his phone, he called for roadside assistance. He wasn’t about to go anywhere with the air bags deployed, even if they were now in the process of deflating. Besides, who knew the kind of damage his car had sustained? There was no way he was about to take the road with an unsafe vehicle.
Pocketing the cell phone, he took a few names from the bystanders in case the insurance adjuster would require the testimony of witnesses. He’d learned a long time ago to cover as many bases as was humanly possible. The other driver was sitting moodily in his vehicle, muttering something about hard-nosed businessmen who thought they owned the road. Jack could feel his temper flaring, but he ignored him. There was nothing to be gained by stooping to the driver’s level.
What counted was that no one was hurt.
Gloria had given him one hell of a scare, he thought, looking over at her. Finished taking information, he tucked his Palm Pilot into his pocket and crossed back to the woman standing on the curb.
She looked calmer now. That wild look he’d seen in her eyes was gone. Still, he wasn’t completely at ease about her. The sound of a siren began to cut through the din. Someone had either called the paramedics or the police. Probably both.
“You want to go to the hospital?” he asked Gloria. Funny, he hadn’t thought of her as fragile until now. Like fine china about to crack.
She shook her head, trying to regain her self-esteem. It was at times like this, when everything felt so out of control, that she reverted back to who and what she’d been just two years ago. A woman too weak-willed to make it from one end of the day to the other without help.
You’re a whole new person since then. Remember that.
She shook her head as she squared her shoulders. “No, I’m all right.”
He appeared not to believe her as his eyes seemed to bore holes right through her. “Are you sure? You were screaming back there as if you were being filleted.”
That was a pretty apt description of it, she thought. Not that she had any control over her reaction. Lord knew, she wished she had.
Gloria took a deep breath and looked away, avoiding his probing eyes. She supposed she owed him some kind of an explanation. She kept it at a minimum. Her voice was hardly above a whisper as she said, “I have claustrophobia.”
Jack cocked his head as if he hadn’t heard her. “What?”
Frustrated, Gloria pressed her lips together. She’d managed to put everything else in her life in order, but this was a failing, a shortcoming from her childhood, and she hated it because there was no way she had ever managed to exercise any control over it. For the most part, she tried to think of other things when she couldn’t avoid a situation such as riding up in elevators to floors that were too high up to walk to.
But with this accident there had been no time to prepare. It had stripped her of all her little mind-diverting tricks and left her naked and vulnerable.
“I have claustrophobia,” she repeated more clearly. Her teeth were clenched as she strained the admission through them.
He passed his hands lightly along her arms and shoulders, as if her word was not enough. “So nothing’s damaged or broken,” he pressed.
“Nothing’s damaged or broken,” Gloria confirmed. And then she added in a less audible voice, “Except maybe my self-esteem.”
He surprised her by shrugging away her admission. If she didn’t know any better, she would have said he was being kind.
“Hey, everyone’s got something.” The crowd around them was dispersing. The siren grew louder. This was going to take a while. “If you won’t go to the hospital, want me to call a cab to take you home?”
She was getting her wind back. And with it, her determination. “No, I still have to show you the store location.”
He looked at her, surprised that she could think of that after what had just happened. She could have been killed. She needed time to process that. And he needed time to put it out of his mind. “We can postpone the trip.”
She squared her shoulders again, reminding him of a soldier on the battlefield determined to face his fears. And his enemy. He wondered if he fell under that category and why that seemed to bother him.
“I don’t want to,” she informed him crisply.
There were several strands of hair hanging in her face. Jack had no idea what possessed him to gently brush them back. Or why the simple gesture brought a wave of heat surging through him, beginning with his loins and radiating out. The day was inordinately cold.
Maybe he was suffering from shock and didn’t realize it. The scenario that had just transpired was chillingly similar to the one that had taken place nearly twenty years ago.
Except that then it had been Ann who was driving. Ann who had insisted on taking a joyride while still feeling the effects of an afternoon’s worth of partying. He’d gone with her when he hadn’t been able to get her to surrender her car keys. Maybe it had been the brashness of youth, the brashness that convinced every one of them that they were immortal, that nothing could happen to them because they were young and full of promise. Whatever it was, he felt she’d be safe if he went with her.
A lot he knew.
Running a light, just as this man had, she’d hit a driver. He remembered the horror that had spiked through him, the awful noise of metal crashing against metal. And most of all, he remembered Ann’s scream. The last sound she’d ever made. She and the driver were both dead at the scene. And him? He’d gotten a cluster of minor injuries that had landed him in the hospital for a couple of weeks.
Physically, the injuries had been minor. Emotionally was another story. He’d wanted to die, to be with Ann for all eternity. But all he’d sustained were things that could heal.
Other than his heart.
He
