Paula plunged to her haunches beside Colt. “Colt! What happened?” she bleated.
“This blamed leg.” Colt lifted his chin off the plush carpet and winced in helpless frustration.
“Are you hurt? How’d you fall?” cried Paula.
“My medicine bottle rolled under the bed. I tried to fish it out with my crutch.”
“I’ll get help.” Paula sprang to her feet.
Colt gripped her ankle to prevent her from doing so. “That’s not necessary. I can get up. Just get a hand under my shoulder and the other one under my right hip and help me roll to my side, would you please?”
Paula’s eyes dimmed with doubt. “Are you sure?”
“Trust me. All I need is a hand up,” insisted Colt.
Reluctantly, Paula assented and got her hands beneath him.
“That’s right. Are you ready?” asked Colt.
At her nod, Colt rolled to his left side, curled and planted his right leg behind his outstretched left leg. It served as an anchor to keep him from rolling on over to his back.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” hedged Paula.
“It’ll be fine. Nothing hurt but my pride.” Fearing she would change her mind and back out, Colt prodded, “Get your arms under mine, would you please?”
Paula ceased protesting. She got behind him and used her arms like scoops.
“Don’t lift, I’m too heavy for you,” cautioned Colt. “Just help me keep my balance.”
With Paula steadying him, Colt moved from his side to a seated position with his legs stretched out in front of him. “Now get me a chair.”
Paula fetched a sturdy wooden relic from beneath the window. She set the chair down against the bed, parallel to his upper body with the chair seat facing him.
“Perfect.” Colt gripped the seat, preparing to lever himself up. But Paula’s hands shot out to delay him.
“Wait a second! I’m not sure I can catch you if you start to go down.”
“No, and don’t you try,” he warned. “Just stand back, okay?”
One moment, Paula was hovering over him, worried. The next she hunkered down behind him, her arms around his waist, sending little shock waves through him.
“I said—”
“I heard you.” Her sudden sharpness cut through his objections. “If you’re going to ignore common sense precautions, then just do it and be done with it, would you please?”
Colt set his jaw and marshaled his strength, wanting to spare her. But beneath all that feminine softness, she was strong and steady. With her help, he went from his forearms to his palms in one fluid motion, then straightened his arms and pulled himself upright and onto his good leg. Balanced there, strength rapidly waning, he rasped, “Shove the chair out of the way, would you please?”
Paula shifted with one arm still around him, and pushed the chair aside with her foot. Leaning on her shoulder, Colt eased around and gingerly lowered himself to the edge of the bed.
“Your color’s dreadful,” Paula said flatly. “You’re in pain. I can tell just by looking. I’m calling the hotel’s doctor.”
But Colt intercepted her hand as she reached for the bedside extension. “My leg’s complaining a little, that’s all. No need to panic. It’ll quit, once I get my foot up.”
“Then lie down. We’ll prop it up and if that doesn’t do the trick, I’m getting some professional help.” Paula tossed the pillows to one side and turned back the bedcovers. “Ready?”
Colt set his jaw, hesitant to tell her that he wasn’t sure he could lift his own foot. His leg felt as if it were on fire. But Paula anticipated his need. Her gentle hands supported his injured leg. It minimized the jostling as Colt stretched out on the bed. He wiped cold sweat from his brow and eased out a sigh of weary relief. “Good thing you came along.”
“You should go to the hospital just to be on the safe side,” she chided.
“No need. A good night’s rest, and I’ll be good as new.”
His trumped-up confidence did little to lighten her concern. But she stopped short of insisting, and put a pillow under his foot.
“Better?” she asked.
“Yes, thanks,” said Colt. In truth, the throbbing in his leg was now synchronizing with his swift-beating heart.
Paula retrieved a second pillow for his head. “Up you go.”
A lock of her hair brushed his face as she eased the pillow beneath his head. He lifted a hand as if to capture the tress, then caught himself and arrested the motion midair.
Her cheeks blazed a brighter hue. Her blue gaze held his, a light burning there, too. Something old, something new. But tenuous and vulnerable, like a fragile shoot trying to find its way around a garden stone.
Colt guarded his own reaction and said, “I owe you one.”
“Actually, I came to thank you,” she murmured.
“You did? For what?” He pushed past his own dazedness at her hovering face and soft rosy hue.
“Taking Joy in hand. About Shelby’s book,” Paula added.
“Oh, the story-gifting.” It was the furthest thing from Colt’s mind. He watched her lashes come down.
“On the one hand, I didn’t want to discourage Joy’s interest in writing. But I worried it sent the wrong message, and that Shelby might come to regret her generosity,” she said carefully. “Particularly, if Joy got in the middle again. With Jake, I mean. Though that seems a lot less likely, now that you’re in her life.”
Taken aback in the most pleasant of ways, Colt inserted, “That’s good to know.”
“I caved, Colt,” she admitted with sudden abandon. “I took the easy way out. I couldn’t put myself through making her give it back. She took it much better, coming from you.”
“It’s only fair. You shouldn’t have to take the heat all the time,” he soothed.
A red tress fell across her face. Their hands collided as each reached to smooth it into submission. Her hands were quicker and better trained. His mouth lifted to see her flick the errant lock behind her shell-shaped ear.
She smiled back, lips parting in a color-washed face. Her expression was tender. Her eyes gleamed. Colt’s twittering leg pulsated, a deep bass beat in a symphony of sweet yearning. The air thickened. His throat did, too.
“Warm in here, isn’t it?” he rumbled.
“I’ll adjust the air,” she offered.
But he forestalled her with a soft sound and a square-tipped finger that came to rest in the hollow of her throat. He longed to seal that hollow with his kiss and move on to refresh his memory regarding all that he had surrendered rights to years earlier.
Her lips were an invitation, moist and irresistibly tipped. He touched his mouth to hers and wonder of wonders, found invitation. Heard it in her swift intake of breath and saw it in the eyes that met his. Lost in those morning glory pools, he rumbled, “Maybe it’s not the heat, maybe it’s the humidity.”
“You think?”
Laughter rose in him, surprised delight at her response. She answered with a sound from her throat that went over him in a throbbing tempo, scattering gooseflesh. He collected another tenuous kiss, caught his fingers in her hair. “You’re a good nurse. An angel in disguise,” he whispered. “Did I remember to say thank you?”
“Is that you or your painkillers talking?” she asked, her lips close to his.
He chuckled at her coy glance. “They’re antibiotics. And they’re still under the bed.”
“Now might be a good time for me to get them for you, don’t you think?”
His heart checked its mad race. He memorized the touch of her supple fingers, and suffered loss as she withdrew them. “Have I offended you?” he asked.
In lieu of an answer, she retrieved the pill bottle from beneath his bed. Colt forgot to breathe as he watched her set it down on the nightstand. Her fingers trailed over the framed picture resting there. It was one Joy had sent him of herself last summer. She was standing on the grassy roadside, looking up at a billboard image of a guy who bore little resemblance to the man Colt faced in the mirror each morning. A scarless fellow, inside and out, air-brushed to perfection.
Following Paula’s gaze, his voice turned to husk. “What then? Is it the scars?”
Her face clouded that he should ask. “I’d forgotten them.”
“But now that I’ve reminded you—is it something you can’t get past?” he pressed.
Hurt floated up from those bottomless pools. “Does it matter?”
The stirring in his chest seemed to tug with each labored breath. “It does to me. I’d like to think you still feel something when we touch. Or is that a lie I’m telling myself?”
Averting her face, she picked up the picture, and pressed a finger to Joy’s image. “There’s more involved than your feelings and mine.”
“Whose, then? Joy’s? The marriage doctor’s?” Almost afraid to believe that her concern for Joy’s well-being was all that stood between them, Colt entreated, “Are you kidding? She’d be over the moon if she knew we were having this conversation.”
“She’s a child, Colt. She hasn’t a clue as to the difficulties.”
“Maybe not. But she knows what she wants. She’s been pushing for this from the moment she stepped foot into my hospital room. She wanted to know did I still love you and would I like some help.” Colt heard her breath catch.
“What did you tell her?”
“To mind her own business. Or something to that effect.”
“But now you’re bowing to her wishes,” she said quietly.
Her words were clear enough, yet seemingly contradictory. Confused, he asked, “And the error in that is…?”
“If you have to ask, then maybe we both need some time to rest on this.”
She searched his face for what, he didn’t know. He knew only that it was a fruitless quest. Her eyes lost their luster. The fire cooled. Her lashes came down. Even before she moved away, hope sputtered low.
“I’ll get you a glass of water so you can take your pills,” she said on her way out.
Was she afraid? Unsure of the next step? Or simply unwilling to take it? Like a bird tearing up his nest, Colt searched for an explanation. The telephone jarred him with its shrillness.
“Do you want me to answer that?” Paula called from the next room.
“If you don’t mind.” Colt grasped at straws in hopes of detaining her that they might talk further.
He backtracked over the conversation, searching even as Paula returned with his water and the portable phone. Her gaze glanced off the extension on his nightstand within easy reach.
“It’s Walt Snyder.” She gave him the phone. “What about the flowers? Did you call?”
“Yes, the shop down the street agreed to make up a bouquet. It seemed simpler to have it delivered to Mrs. Hilbert’s home. I was going to look up her address right after I took my pills.”
“Why don’t I just pick up the flowers for you?” Paula offered.
“You don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” she said.
Hoping to resume where they had left off and discern what had caused her to shut down emotionally, Colt accepted her offer. “Thanks, Paula. Hurry back,” he called after her.
Walt’s call proved to be good news. The police had picked up for questioning a man by the name of Lefty Banks in connection with driving the car that had struck Colt and fled the scene.
“Any priors?” asked Colt.
“A long list,” replied Walt.
“What about threatening Joy? Could he be responsible for that, too?”
“I’m afraid not, Colt. Banks couldn’t have been at the hospital that day. He was in court on unrelated charges at the time,” said Walt.
Colt massaged the dull pain radiating from his thigh. “What about the pastor in the elevator? Have the police had any luck finding him?”
“Not yet. His identity is still a mystery,” said Walt. “At this point, I’d say he’s the most likely suspect where your daughter’s concerned. Though I can’t figure out his motive in threatening her.”
It puzzled Colt, too, and had all along. Briefly Walt brought Colt up to speed on other details of the investigation. They were still talking when Paula tiptoed in and set the anniversary bouquet down on his bedside table.
“Lovely!” Colt mouthed the word, then covered the receiver with his hand, protesting, “Wait a second, Paula. Don’t run off. I want to talk to you.”
“I can’t stay. Mrs. Hilbert pulled in just be hind me.” Backing away from his bedside, Paula lifted her hand in a parting wave.
“I’ll call you later, then. Thanks!” Colt called after her.
She shot him a wordless smile over her shoulder, and let herself out.
Mrs. Hilbert was visibly delighted with Colt’s anniversary flowers. “They’re lovely. Just let me take them out to my van. I have a little something for you, too.”
Colt’s heart sank when she returned with a wheelchair. “Paula told you I fell?”
“You fell? Gracious, young man. Why didn’t you say so? Are you injured? Let’s have a look.”
A “look” became a “prod” until at length, Mrs. Hilbert concluded that Colt needed to do the very thing he had hoped to avoid. The wheelchair that she had brought to give him greater independence and mobility proved indispensable in avoiding an ambulance ride to the hospital. Mrs. Hilbert loaded him into her handicapped-accessible van instead and parked her flowers in his lap to prevent them from toppling over en route.
Joy had cleared away dinner and washed up the dishes in Paula’s absence. Paula went in to tell her good-night, and found her at her computer, writing.
“Homework?” she asked.
“No. I’m working on my story, the one Shelby gave me.”
“I see.” Paula was careful to keep her voice neutral.
“Dad said wrap it up.”
“I don’t think that’s what he meant.”
“I know what he meant. Shelby’s getting married in May, so that isn’t a lot of time to finish it.”
“A gift bag and a card would be a lot simpler,” said Paula.
“Cute, Mom. You’re almost as clever as Dad. Now if you don’t mind, I have a lot of work to do.”
“Then you are returning it?”
“I guess. We wouldn’t want to disappoint Dad, now would we?” Joy dropped her head back, and rolled her blue eyes.
Gratified that Colt had turned her thinking around, Paula celebrated a partial victory. She kissed her finger and pressed it to her little drama queen’s fresh mouth. “Good night, sweetheart.”
Pleasantly tired, Paula enjoyed a leisurely bath, then curled up with the novel she’d attempted to read that afternoon.
But once she turned the lights out, her thoughts flew to Colt. As dear as the moments they had spent together were, she wanted and needed to hear that he loved her. Or was her view self-centered?
Joy’s relationship with Colt blossomed day to day, even in correction. Maybe she could accept reconciliation on such terms. For Joy’s sake. Call it a renewed effort to keep the initial covenant they had made.
But what of hurt and wounded pride? It had proved a powerful dividing force in the past. Jealousy, too. In the depths of her heart, Paula had always feared there had been another woman in Colt’s life. That fear played a part in the negative feelings she had concerning Monique. Paula shoved her suspicions aside. But they kept popping up again.
As always, Paula circled back to the same haunting question: Why had he walked away, convinced he couldn’t live with her?
Ask him.
Paula wasn’t the author of that suggestion. Needing rest, she shelved the often-pondered why. Curling her arm beneath her, she nestled her fist to her chin and slept.