follow him anywhere.
Fifteen minutes later, Brady had veered off North George Street, down an alley and into a small parking lot in back of a flower shop.
“Are we window-shopping for flowers?” she asked, not understanding at all what they were doing here. She’d heard of Blossoms, a shop with a wonderful reputation, especially for providing wedding flowers. Last year on her aunt’s birthday, she’d had a small arrangement delivered to her.
“It’s my mother’s shop,” Brady explained with a hint of pride.
“Your mother owns Blossoms?” His mom had talked about working with flowers, but Laura hadn’t realized she owned her own shop.
“Yep. But it’s not the flower shop we’re interested in today. Come on.”
He was out of the car and around to her door before she could even open it. When he took her hand, she followed him to the back door of the store, thinking they were going inside. But they weren’t. Instead they started up the stairs to the second floor. On the small porch, he produced a key and opened the door.
When they stepped inside, Laura saw trellises and plant stands. Then she noticed the sink, small refrigerator and gas range. “It’s a kitchen.”
“This apartment was here when Mom bought the shop. She rented it for a few years but then decided the renters were more trouble than they were worth. She’s been storing odds and ends here. So when I told her about your aunt kicking you out because I brought you home too late—”
“Brady, that’s not the reason. She’s just using it as an excuse.”
“I know that, but I wanted to keep things simple. Anyway, I asked Mom if she’d consider renting it to you. She said she would if—” he stopped and gave her a mischievous grin “—if I convince my brothers to help me move everything out of here.”
“But where will you put it all?”
“Mom’s going to pick out what we should take downstairs to her storage room. The rest she said she might donate to the Salvation Army. The apartment isn’t very big—just a kitchen, a bedroom with a sitting area and a bath….”
As Laura peeked into the other room, her chest felt tight. “Brady, it’s wonderful. But I’m not certain I can afford this.”
“Mom said you could pay whatever you were going to pay for the room in that boardinghouse.”
That wasn’t nearly enough. “Maybe I could help your mom in the shop when I’m not working at the store.”
“I’m sure she’d like that, especially during her busy times. It really gets crazy at Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter—most of the holidays.”
Jubilant over the idea of having an apartment of her own, she threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me.”
His fingers laced in her long hair. “I think I do.”
When Brady’s lips captured hers, she melted into him, wishing they could start a life together right now…wishing the war waiting for him would simply go away.
A nurse came through the sliding glass doors into the OHICU cubicle, bringing Laura back to reality again—the reality that Brady wasn’t breathing on his own and seemed too ill to ever recover.
“Time’s up,” the woman informed her gently.
Laura had so many questions. How soon would it be before Brady could breath on his own? What did she need to know to make his recuperation successful? Would he look better tomorrow? Would he really be ready to go home in a few days?
Yet she understood the nurse couldn’t answer those questions. She realized that for now she’d have to take one hour at a time. For certain, she wasn’t going to let Kat or Sean visit their dad. Kat would fall apart, and Sean, even though he’d pretend to handle this scene, really couldn’t.
There were so many tubes and lines and electrodes attached to Brady she couldn’t give him a real hug. She didn’t even realize she was crying until she leaned over him to kiss his cheek and a tear landed on his jaw. The terror of seeing him like this built inside her until it was clawing at her chest to break out.
After she squeezed his arm, she said close to his ear, “I love you, Brady.” Then reluctantly she let go of him and left the cubicle.
Tears from fatigue, from worry about Brady, blurred her vision. Exiting his room, she ran into a nurse, murmured, “Excuse me,” and headed for the shelter of the hall. She had to be alone. She needed to cry out the weakness inside her so it was gone and she could deal with the rest of this.
“Mrs. Malone, are you all right?”
Having spoken with Dr. Gregano a few times now, she recognized his voice. She swiped her tears away with her palms. “I’m just—” she finally raised her gaze to his “—tired.”
“Stay here a moment,” he ordered, his brow drawn.
Where was she going to go?
To her dismay, the tears kept coming, and she scrubbed at them like a small child who didn’t want to be caught crying.
Suddenly Dr. Gregano was back, carrying a box of tissues. He offered them to her. “Here, blow your nose. Then you have to listen to me.”
She felt like an idiot, blowing her nose in front of him, but she did, and wiped her tears and stuffed the tissues in her pocket. “I’m sorry, I—”
He was already shaking his head. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about. The first visit is tough. I saw my father like that. I thought I was prepared. I knew how he’d look. I knew what the machines would be doing. But to visit a loved one like that is devastating. I’m here to tell you, though, the next visit will be better and the one after that better still. Your husband’s color will improve. He’ll begin breathing with the respirator. He’ll be more alert and realize where he is. In a few hours, we’ll get rid of that tube down his throat and he’ll really start the road to recovery.”
“I’m so scared,” she admitted. “This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. We have some family issues and—”
“Every family does. But as far as being at the worst time—” he shook his head “—this shake-up can let everyone reevaluate what’s happening in their lives.”
This doctor might be years younger than she was, but he had experience she didn’t have and there was a maturity about him. Maybe it came from dealing with life and death every day.
“How old are you?” she asked boldly.
At first he was taken aback, and then he smiled. “Forty-seven. How about you?”
“Fifty-eight,” she admitted with a sigh. “But feeling a lot older right now.”
“At times I feel a hundred and four,” he confided. “But fortunately, once I get out of this hospital, work out at the gym and eat a breakfast that counteracts everything I’ve done, I feel middle-aged again, ready to come back in here and start the war all over.”
