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“I’ve got to go,” she said to Kyle. Balancing on her left foot, with one hand on the railing, she bent to pick up her purse and briefcase with the other. She looked so sad he actually felt bad for her. “Let me help you,” he offered, reaching for her briefcase.
She clutched the strap to her shoulder. “I don’t need your help.” She mumbled something under her breath that sounded like “Not anymore.”
“At least let me examine your ankle. You may need an X-ray.”
“I don’t.”
He watched her limp to the door leading to the fourth floor. “It’s unsafe for you to drive.”
“Go back to work, Kyle.”
“I’m done for the day. How are you going to press on the gas and brake pedals? Let me take you where you need to go.” Give him a chance to make amends.
The little color that remained in her cheeks drained out. “No.” Her voice cracked. “Really, I’m fine.”
They entered the half-full elevator.
Looking straight ahead, Victoria asked, “Shouldn’t your dog be wearing a vest or something to make him look … more … ?”
“Service dogs wear vests,” Kyle explained. “She’s …” he reached down to pat Tori’s head “ … a therapy dog. Therapy dogs are meant to be petted and cuddled. A vest interferes with that.”
When the doors opened, Kyle and Tori followed Victoria out. As she hobbled through the lobby, Kyle noticed she didn’t acknowledge one person she passed, and no one went out of their way to acknowledge her.
In the parking lot she stopped next to an old black Camry that looked a lot like the one her Aunt Livi had bought a few weeks before he’d left town.
He made one last attempt to convince her not to drive. “So, who’s this Jake and why’s he so important you’d risk your life to pick him up rather than accept a ride from me?”
CHAPTER TWO
OKAY. That’s it.
Victoria tossed her briefcase on the back seat of her car, slammed the door shut and waited to the count of five before turning on Kyle. She spoke slowly, fought to maintain an even tone. “Jake is none of your business. My life is not your concern and I’ll thank you, in advance, to stay away from me for the short time you’ll be in town.”
“Like it or not, most of my patients are on your floor and, once my therapy dog program is approved, I plan to accept the full-time staff position I’ve been offered.” He leaned toward her. Challenging. “The next time I leave town it will be on my terms.”
“You make it sound like approval for you to bring your dog to work is a given. It’s not. We’re firm at three for and four against. I’m against.” As was her mentor, the director of nursing.
“We have four weeks to change your mind.” He patted his dog’s head, looking unconcerned.
“No one can be as good as the two of you are touted to be. The patient outcomes and lengths of stay will speak for themselves.”
“Oh, we are that good, honey,” he said confidently.
“Don’t call me …”
“Come on, Tori,” he said as he turned to walk away. His dog trailed after him.
She sucked in an affronted breath. “You named your dog after me?” she called out.
He glanced over his shoulder. “She was a stubborn little thing when I started working with her. Reminded me of a girl I used to know.”
Victoria resisted the urge to scream. Having Kyle Karlinsky around was going to be an exercise in self-control. And secrecy. At least until she decided whether to inform Jake that his father, who she’d promised to help him search for when he turned sixteen, had returned to town eight years ahead of schedule.
Using the utmost care not to bang her now throbbing foot, Victoria slid onto the cold leather driver’s seat.
No doubt Jake would be thrilled to finally meet the man whose picture sat on his night table. He deserved a chance to get to know his dad. At some point. Was now, when he was so young and impressionable, the best time? Until she could learn a bit more about Kyle, where he’d been, why he was back, and maybe gauge his reaction to having a son, she would not risk Jake getting hurt.
Although the drive to school turned out to be a bit more difficult than anticipated, Victoria avoided any major problems. Thank the Lord two pedestrians crossing at Third Street saw her in time to jump out of the way.
The second she got out of the car and set her right foot on the ground for balance, pain exploded in her ankle, the intensity on a par with labor contractions. She eyed the distance from her parking spot to the door of the cafeteria. It may as well have been the length of a football field rather than the twenty or thirty feet it actually was.
Eleven minutes late, she couldn’t afford to be any later. Clenching her teeth hard enough to crack a filling, she made a limping dash towards the school. Halfway there Jake exited the building, in the process of pulling on his hat, and without looking at her walked directly to the car.
The afterschool program teacher—Mrs. Smythe—followed.
The temperature dropped a few degrees.
“I had to take care of a choking patient. Then I twisted my ankle rushing to leave,” Victoria explained.
“If it wasn’t that it would have been something else,” the evil woman replied. “I have a life outside my job, you know.”
Was it common knowledge that, aside from Jake, Victoria didn’t? “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said as she, too, walked past Victoria without looking at her. “Be on time.”
She would do better, Victoria decided when she climbed into the car, glimpsed into the back seat and saw the unhappy pout on her son’s precious face. Jake, the most important thing in her world. “I love you,” she said.
He stared out the window.
“I’m sorry I’m late.” Victoria started the car and changed the radio to Jake’s favorite station.
He lunged over the front seat and turned it off.
Except for the heat blasting from the vents, a tense silence filled the car.
She looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Put on your seat belt.”
He didn’t.
“Jake, I said I was sorry. You understand why Mommy has to work so hard, don’t you?”
Nothing.
It was going to be a long night.
“I’m talking to you, Jake Forley. And we will not leave this parking lot until you answer my question.”
“Because it’s just the two of us,” he said, still looking out the window. “And you need money to pay bills and send me to a good college.”
“And so you can play baseball in the spring.”
He jerked his head, his eyes went wide. “Really?” He scooted to the front edge of his seat. “You’re going to let me play?”
An impromptu, anything-to-cheer-him-up decision she would likely live to regret but, “Yes. And you’re going to need baseball pants, a bat and glove, and shoes.”
“Cleats, Mom,” he said with an eye roll and an air of eight-year-old disgust at her ignorance of sports lingo. “Baseball players wear cleats.”
“After dinner we’ll go online and do some research.” To figure out what cleats were. “Sound good?”
“Sounds great! Thanks, Mom!” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “I love you, too.”
“I know.” But she’d never tire of hearing him say it.
The next morning, her purplish, swollen right ankle elevated on an overturned garbage can and propped up on a pile of folded towels, her neck stiff, and her right knee almost twice its normal size, Victoria felt like she’d been selectively beaten by one of the dozens of baseball bats she’d viewed on the Internet the night before. With everything she needed to consider—barrel, taper and grip size, length and weight, as well as material makeup: wood, aluminum, or composite—choosing the correct bat was more complicated than calculating a biochemical equation. On the plus side, she now knew baseball cleats were little more than fancy sneakers with molded rubber studs to increase traction on the field.
She smiled. After a difficult start, she and Jake had had a super-terrific—his words, not hers—evening together. He was now an officially registered little-leaguer assigned to a team in the Madrin Falls Baseball League, practices to start next week, the season opener three weeks after that.
It would require creative scheduling, but she’d find a way to squeeze in everything. Work. Jake’s school. Her school. Religious school. And now baseball. Her stress level spiked up a notch just thinking about it.
“Knock, knock,” a familiar male voice said from her office doorway. “How’s the ankle?”
Victoria turned her head in that direction, forgetting her neck felt fine as long as she didn’t try to move it. “Go away.” She lifted her hand to the stabbing pain and tried to work out the cramp.
Kyle walked in, towered over her, filled her tiny office. He set two cups of coffee on the desk, and squeezed into the small space behind her. His body pressed against her back, pushing her ribs into the desk. She couldn’t move. “Wait.”
As if his fingers had the ability to shoot potent muscle-relaxer beams deep into her screaming elastic tissues, the spasm lessened with the contact of his big, warm hands on her skin. A pleasant tingle danced along her nerve endings, made her wish he’d branch out a bit. Lower.
Heaven help her, she still loved the feel of his hands on her. Strong. Knowing.
She forced her eyes open. This had to stop. But it felt so good. She let them drift closed, again. One more minute. Maybe two.
But, on the cusp of total relaxation, Victoria’s memory kicked in and transported her back in time. Something had her wedged in place. Confined. Squished. She couldn’t expand her chest. Couldn’t breathe. Could not pull air into her lungs. Please. Not again. She needed to get away. Escape this place. She was an adult, refused to be imprisoned. Never again.
“What’s wrong?” Kyle’s concerned voice sounded far away. His face appeared in front of hers. Kind. Searching.
She returned to the present standing on both feet, the garbage pail lying on its side. She shifted her weight to relieve the pressure on her right ankle, the move so quick she lost her balance and grabbed on to the desk for support. Her chest constricted, floaters dotted her vision, a wave of dizziness threatened to tip her over.
“You’re okay.” A strong arm wrapped around her upper arms and basically held her up. “Come on. Breathe. In and out. Move my hand.” Which he’d placed over her diaphragm. “That’s it.”
“I need …” She tried to push away from him.
“You need to sit down for a minute.”
Not again. Not now. It’d been nine years, for heaven’s sake. Why was his voice, his touch, sending her back in time?
He guided her into her chair. “Here.” He handed her one of the cups of coffee he’d brought. “Drink this.”
In a daze she lifted a cup to her mouth.
“Careful. It’s hot.” He removed the lid and blew on it like a parent cooling his child’s hot cocoa. Like he would have done for Jake had he been around for the past eight years. Clarity returned.
“I’m fine.” She took the cup from him, even though she didn’t drink coffee. “Thank you.”
He picked up the other cup, took a careful sip and watched her. “What just happened?”
Rather than answer, she countered with a question of her own. “Where’s your dog?”
“In with a patient.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be with her at all times?” Per hospital protocol developed specifically for his and Tori’s probationary period.
“Patients open up to Tori. Part of what makes me so good at my job is knowing when I’m in the way.”
“Typical man,” she said, feeling back to normal, “letting the woman do the work while you go for coffee.”
“I brought the coffee up with us. Do you have panic attacks often?”
Not recently. She took a sip of coffee. “It wasn’t a panic attack,” she lied. “More like an allergic reaction to a new irritant in my life.”
He smiled, unperturbed by her verbal jab. “Guess I’d better start carrying around some antihistamines in my pocket.”
“I have things to do. Did you come here for a reason?”
“To check your ankle.” He squatted down, picked up her right foot in his hand, and slid off her shoe.
“Impressive colors. But look at these.” He pointed to depressions in her edema. “Your shoe is too tight.”
“No, it’s not.” But, boy, it felt good to have it off.
He gently rotated her foot watching her face as he did. “Decent range of motion. Moderate discomfort. How’d you sleep?”
Woke up every time she’d changed position. “Like a baby.”
“Keeping it elevated?”
She pointed to the garbage can. “As much as I can. I’m a nurse, I know how to treat a sprained ankle, Kyle.”
“You’re sure that’s all it is?”
She hoped. “Yes.”
A loud bang followed by frantic dog barking echoed through the hallway.
Without a word, Kyle placed her foot on the floor and ran from the office.
Victoria slipped on her shoe and followed.
Kyle slammed into room 514 where he’d left Tori with Mrs. Teeton, a fifty-four-year-old female, ten days post-op radical abdominal hysterectomy for treatment of stage II cervical cancer. Undergoing combination chemotherapy and radiation. Suffering from severe adjustment reaction to her diagnosis, debilitating fatigue, and deconditioning. Completely dependent for all ADLs—activities of daily living.
