didn’t mean Dad. I meant with you.”
“Of course,” Valerie answered, forcing a casual tone. “I … just needed a good cry, and Colby lent me his shoulder.”
Norah slipped her arm around Valerie’s waist. “His shoulder, you say?” she asked, with more than a hint of a smile. “It looked like more than that to me.”
It was the following night, and once again Valerie and Norah had taken up residence in the waiting room. Several small groups of people were scattered about the area, either silent or speaking quietly.
“Dad’s been asleep for nearly twenty hours.” Valerie voiced her concern to Norah, who was far more knowledgeable about what was and wasn’t usual after this kind of surgery. “Isn’t that too long? I realize the anesthesia has a lot to do with it, but I can’t help worrying.”
“He’s been awake for brief periods off and on today,” Norah said. “He’s doing very well, all things considered.”
Her father wasn’t Valerie’s only concern. It was now after nine in the evening, and she’d been waiting since morning for some word from Steffie, who was supposed to be arriving sometime that day. But no one had heard from her, and Valerie felt anxious.
“Dad tried to talk the last time I was with him,” Norah told her.
“What did he say?”
She shrugged. “It didn’t make any sense. He looked up at me and grinned as if he’d heard the funniest joke in years and said ‘six kids.’”
“Six kids?”
“I don’t get it, either,” Norah murmured. “I’m going to ask Colby about it when I see him, but we keep missing each other.”
Valerie sat down and thumbed through the frayed pages of a two-year-old women’s magazine. It was a summer issue dedicated to homes and gardens, which only went to prove how desperate she was for reading material that would take her mind off her fears.
She glanced at photographs of bright glossy kitchens and “country” bedrooms, wicker-furnished porches and “minimal” living rooms—all of them attractive, none of them quite real. None of them home.
And she knew with sudden certainty that home was here. Here in Orchard Valley at the family house. In the upstairs bedroom at the end of the hallway. Home was curling up with a good book by the fireplace in her father’s den, and it was eating meals around the big oak table in the dining room her mother had loved.
That was home. She lived in her Houston condo in an exclusive neighborhood. She’d had a decorator choose the color scheme and select the furniture, since she didn’t have the time for either task. A housekeeper came in twice a week to clean. The condo was a place to sleep. An address where she could pick up her mail. But it wasn’t a place of memories and it wasn’t home.
She read an article in the same magazine about herb gardens. Gardening had always been her mother’s hobby, but every now and then Valerie had helped her weed. The times they’d spent working in the garden were among the fondest memories she had of her mother.
Perhaps in an attempt to recapture some of that simple happiness, Valerie had bought several large plants for her condo. But the housekeeper was the one who watered and fertilized them, since Valerie traveled so much.
Neither a home, at least not like the one she’d been raised in, nor a garden seemed to be in her future. Colby had recognized that from the beginning. Just as well, although it hadn’t warded off the magnetic attraction between them.
Valerie’s mind wandered to their exchange the night before. Their kissing was undoubtedly a mistake, but it was understandable and certainly forgivable. Both were emotionally drained, their resistance to each other almost nonexistent. Yet Valerie couldn’t bring herself to regret the time she’d spent in Colby’s arms.
It hurt a bit that he was avoiding her, because it told her he didn’t share her feelings. In those moments with Colby, Valerie had experienced something extraordinary. She’d always considered romantic love a highly overrated commodity. Dr. Colby Winston was the first man who’d given her reason to reevaluate that opinion—despite the fact that a relationship between them had no possible future.
Just when she was beginning to think he planned never to seek her out again, Colby surprised her. Norah had gone to talk with the nurse who’d been assigned to care for their father, and Valerie sat alone in the SICU waiting room, shuffling through her thoughts. Colby was on her mind just then—not that he was ever far from it.
She happened to glance up as he walked in. He was wearing a dark gray suit; she didn’t think she’d ever seen a handsomer man. Not even Rowdy Cassidy.
Their eyes met and held. “Hello,” she said, with a breathless quality to her voice. Over the course of her career, Valerie had made presentations before large audiences. Her voice carried well, yet with Colby she felt like a first-grader asked to stand before the class and confess a wrong.
“Valerie.” He paused and cleared his throat, then began again, sounding stilted and formal. “I’ve tied up everything here and I’m addressing a seminar this evening at the university. However, I have time for a bite to eat before I leave. Would you join me?”
“I’d be happy to,” she answered.
“I thought we should eat someplace other than the cafeteria.” His voice was more relaxed now. “There’s an Italian restaurant near here that serves excellent food.”
“Great.” Valerie brightened until she realized he hadn’t chosen the restaurant because he had a craving for spaghetti. He wanted to talk to her somewhere away from the hospital. Somewhere he could be assured none of his peers would be listening.
After leaving a message for Norah, they left the hospital in his car, a late-model maroon sedan. Sitting beside him, watching his strong, well-shaped hands on the steering wheel, gave Valerie a sense of intimacy, a feeling of familiarity.
The restaurant, a fairly new place she’d never visited before, was elegantly decorated in black and silver. The lighting, low and discreet, created a welcoming ambience.
“You didn’t need to pay for my dinner to apologize, you know,” Valerie said, reading over her menu. She quickly decided on a bowl of minestrone soup and fettuccine with fresh asparagus. No wine, because it would send her to sleep.
“Apologize?” Colby repeated.
Valerie lowered her menu and, crossing her arms, leaned toward him. “Not apologize exactly. You brought me here to tell me you’re sorry about what happened last night, didn’t you? I mean, it’s fairly obvious, since you’ve been avoiding me all day. But don’t worry about it,” she said off-handedly, “I understand.”
He scowled and set aside his menu. “Sometimes I forget how direct you can be.”
“I’d rather have everything out in the open. There’s no need to concern yourself with … what happened. I—needed you, and you were there for me.”
His scowl intensified. “In other words, any man would have suited your purposes?”
“No,” she said. “Only you. What we shared was very
