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“There was a moment I thought that, too.”
Molly knew the nun was not talking about her leaving the order, something they’d discussed on more than one occasion. Each time Molly had dared to profess doubts about a true vocation, Sister Benvenuto had assured her that such thoughts were not only normal, but expected. That such reflection would ultimately make her even more committed to her religious calling.
“It’s going to be difficult to deal with,” the nun predicted. “But you’ve always been strong, Molly. And with God’s help, you’ll survive this test of faith just as you’ve survived every other trial in your life.”
Although she didn’t believe that God would have deliberately caused her to be brutally attacked, to test her as he had Job, Molly saw no point in arguing. Even during her teens, when she’d been an angry young girl, rebelling against the myriad rules the sisters who ran the Good Shepherd Home for Girls had expected her to obey without question, Molly had admired the nun’s seemingly unwavering faith. So unlike her own, which always seemed to question everything.
“What would I ever have done without you?”
“God only knows. Although there’s always the possibility you could have ended up on the street, like those poor girls I pass every day,” the no-nonsense nun said briskly.
“Being sent to Good Shepherd was the best thing that ever happened to me.” What at first had seemed to be punishment, had in the end proven a blessing. The home for girls had been a sanctuary, the first Molly had ever experienced. “I wish Lena could have had the same security.”
Molly had often thought it ironic that Lena, who’d tried so desperately to fit in, was the one who’d suffered the most by being constantly shuffled from foster home to foster home.
“Lena is going to have to learn that true strength comes from within,” Sister Benvenuto said sagely.
Unable to argue with that, Molly was grateful for Yolanda’s interruption.
“I vant to suck your blood,” she said in a ghoulish voice. The sight of the gag store fangs gleaming white and red in the nurse’s dark face made Molly laugh. When you worked in a world where the bizarre and horrific were commonplace, sometimes laughter truly was the best medicine. And the only way to stay sane.
“This is the first in the series of HIV tests, isn’t it?”
“Now, aren’t you a clever girl. Anybody’d think you were a health-care professional, or something.” Yolanda took the fangs out of her wide mouth, put them in her pocket and pulled out a rubber tourniquet. “Hold out your arm.”
Molly did as instructed.
“Lordy,” Yolanda complained, shaking her head as she studied Molly’s freckled arm. “You call those veins? Those are purely pitiful, girl.” She wrapped the tourniquet around Molly’s upper arm.
“Lucky thing you’re in the hands of an expert. Health services tried sending up one of their lab vampires, but I cut him off at the pass. They tend to spatter the stuff all over, and with that pale white skin, I figured you didn’t have any blood to spare.”
When she took a needle out of another pocket and uncapped it, Sister Benvenuto rose. “I believe it’s time I let you get some rest, dear.”
Molly didn’t blame the nun for escaping. Hating having blood drawn even more than she disliked drawing it, Molly would have left if she could.
“I’ll return during visiting hours,” Sister Benvenuto assured her. “Sister Joseph is making those fudge brownies you used to enjoy. She’s making enough to bribe the medical staff into giving you preferential treatment.”
“As if anyone would have to bribe us to take care of our own,” Yolanda muttered after the older nun had left the room.
“She means well.”
“I suppose so. Although she reminds me an awful lot of that harridan who used to rap my knuckles whenever she caught me chewing gum at Sacred Heart Academy.”
The needle slipped into the vein as smoothly as a hot knife through butter. Although accustomed to the sight of blood, seeing her own filling the cylinder was an entirely different matter.
“All done.” Yolanda capped the cylinder and released the tourniquet. “I have to ask you if you do IV drugs.”
“You know I don’t.”
“Just following procedure. So, how about safe sex?”
Molly laughed at that, but the sound held no humor. “Before or after Christmas Eve?”
“Point taken. I’ll have the lab rush this and either Reece or I will let you know as soon as the results come in. You’ve got three more of these over the next nine months. When you test negative on the third one, you’ll be home free.”
“Thank you for saying when and not if.”
“Positive thinking is a powerful thing. Sister Crack-the-Whip who just left might call it praying, and existentialists might call it meditating, but the way I see it, it’s all the same thing.”
Although she knew Sister Benvenuto would probably have her down on her knees saying an Act of Contrition and countless rosaries for such heresy, Molly decided she’d be willing to pray to God, all the saints, Mohammed, Buddha, the Dalai Lama, even some ancient druidic pagan oak tree if only she could dodge this deadly bullet.
“If I get AIDS, I’ll just die,” she muttered, more to herself than to Yolanda.
She and her longtime friend exchanged a gloomy look. Then burst into laughter.
* * *
“She’s going to be all right,” Reece assured Lena once again as they drove home from the hospital together. Although he never would have wished such horror on Molly, he couldn’t deny being grateful for the change seeing her sister victimized seemed to have made on his wife these past days.
“I know.” She put her hand on his leg. “Thanks to you. If you hadn’t done all that you did…”
Her voice drifted off and she stared out at the brilliant lights of the city as they drove up the curving road to their Pacific Palisades home. The house, situated on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway and the ocean beyond, was more expensive than a resident could afford, but Reece was independently wealthy. He’d inherited a generous trust from his parents, who’d died in a plane crash when he was a boy.
He slanted her a sideways glance. “How are you with all this?”
“Strangely, although I was panic-stricken when you first called, I’m doing pretty well.” Lena shook her head. “All my life, even when we were separated, I knew that Molly would be there for me if I ever needed her.”
“In a heartbeat,” he agreed.
“I think, although she meant well, her protective behavior kept me from growing up.”
Since there was no way he was going to get trapped into agreeing that the woman he adored was immature, Reece didn’t say anything.
“Then, of course, I married you, who took over where Molly left off.”
He laid a hand over hers. “I think it’s only natural for a man to want to protect his wife.”
“I suppose.”
Lena thought back to the tarot card reading. Amazingly, the destiny foretold that night seemed to be coming true. Out of apparent evil, she remembered the young woman saying sagely, much good can come.
“What happened to Molly made me realize I can’t always count on other people taking care of me. It’s time I learned to stand on my own two feet.”
Something inside Reece went still. And cold. “Are you saying you want a divorce?”
“A divorce?” Shocked, she looked over at him. “Of course not.” Turning her hand, she linked their fingers together. “You’re the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me, Reece. I just think it might be a nice change if you were to discover that you were married to a woman. And not a girl.”
Reece thought about that and decided she was right. As much as he adored his bride, there were times when he found being the sole focus of her life—along with her desperate desire for a child—more than a little wearying.
“You certainly don’t have to change on my account. I love you just the way you are.”
“I know. And I thank God for that every day. And I’m not changing for you. I’m doing it for me.” Lena smiled, pleased with the plan she’d come up with while drinking far too many cups of that toxic waste the hospital cafeteria tried to pass off as coffee. “Although I think you’ll find some side benefits.”
There was something in her voice. Something lush and sensual, an impression that was heightened by the way she’d begun trailing her fingernail up his thigh.
“Why, Mrs. Longworth,” he murmured, “are you trying to seduce me?”
She laughed at that. A silky, womanly laugh designed to get beneath a man’s skin. “I am going to seduce you, Dr. Longworth.” Her fingers trailed higher. “And you’re going to love it.”
The sound of his zipper lowering was the sexiest thing Reece had ever heard. Or felt. When she freed his erection from his jeans, blood rushed from his head straight into his groin.
“Jesus, Lena.” The words clogged in his throat, his breath was trapped in his lungs. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to make me run off the road.”
“Don’t worry, darling.” She bent her head and pressed her lips against the tip of his penis. “I promise to be very, very careful.”
Her breath was like the Santa Ana winds that blew in from the desert, fanning flames he’d banked for too long. From the first night of their honeymoon, wanting to prove himself different from all the users she’d gotten involved with before him, Reece had gone out of his way to treat his bride with consideration and respect. Their lovemaking, while enjoyable, had remained restrained.
After she’d become obsessed with having a child, the only times they made love were on those days when she was most likely to conceive. And although he adored her to pieces, lately he’d begun to feel more like a stud bull than a husband.
“Lord, Lena,” he groaned as she took him fully into her ripe wet mouth. “You’re going to get us both killed.... Let me…” He managed, just barely, to turn into the half-moon driveway and cut the engine.
On the verge of exploding, Reece grabbed hold of a fistful of thick silky hair and yanked her head up.
“Let’s go in the house.” His voice was harsh and guttural. “I want to take my time. And do this right.”
The silvery moonlight streaming through the windshield illuminated her face, letting him see the sexual fever burning in Lena’s eyes.
“You can take all the time you want.” She unfastened her seat belt and straddled him. “Later.”
“What the hell did you do with your panties?” he gasped as she teased the tip of his throbbing cock with hot female flesh.
“I tucked them away in my purse before we left the hospital.” She put her hands on his shoulders, her mouth on his.
That she’d planned this seduction made it even more exciting. Reece’s fingers delved beneath her sweater, digging deeply into the bare skin of her waist as he forced her down on him at the same time he slammed up to meet her.
Their teeth clashed as their mouths ate into one another’s, their tongues tangled. The ride was hard and fast, their slick damp bodies slapping against each other in a ruthless need for release. When she cried out his name, then shuddered violently, Reece gave in to his own white-hot, explosive climax.
He stayed deep inside her as they enjoyed the aftermath of passion. “I can feel you,” he murmured against her throat as the rhythmic tightening of her inner muscles continued to caress him like silken gloves.
“Mmm.” She tilted her head and outlined his mouth with the tip of her tongue. “I can feel you, too. And you feel so good inside me, I don’t think I’ll ever move.”
“We’d get arrested for indecent exposure.”
“I’m willing to risk it if you are. Besides, we have friends on the police force who’ll vouch for us.”
Reece felt his body beginning to warm again, but became aware of the chill of the December night. “I want you again.” Shoving her sweater up, he took her breast in his mouth, suckling deeply in a way that made her body involuntarily clutch at his. “But this time I want to do it with all our clothes off. Inside, where no one can hear you scream.”
As she felt him growing hard again inside her, Lena shivered with anticipation. And just a touch of erotic fear. “Are you really going to make me scream?”
He bit her nipple, not harshly, but with a dark sensual intent that caused excitement to curl in her belly. “You bet.” His tongue soothed the tingling flesh. “And you’re going to love it.”
Reece proved to be a man of his word. He did wonderful, wicked things to her. And then, when she was positive there couldn’t be more, he’d proven her wrong.
But this time it was different, Lena mused as she lay wrapped in her husband’s arms, luxuriating in the feel of him still buried deep inside her. Because for the first time since they’d been married, she’d given him more than her body. She’d given him her heart.
And that, she thought with a soft smile as she drifted off on gentle wavelets of sleep, made all the difference.
Chapter Five
Molly had always suspected she wouldn’t make a very good patient; she was too restless to lie in bed all day. Daytime television was a revelation, filled with programs about women who loved men who murdered, mothers who slept with their daughter’s boyfriends, husbands who got their wives’ best friends pregnant. Since her work had given her an up-close and personal look at society’s ills, none of the subjects shocked her. What was surprising was that viewers would be interested in watching all these depressingly dysfunctional relationships.
She tried to read, but every time an ambulance cut its siren outside the ER doors, or a code came over the loudspeakers, she wanted to jump up and return to the battle. If her days were boring, her nights were anything but. Her sleep was interrupted at regular intervals by horrifying nightmares in which she was forced to suffer the rape, which she now remembered, over and over again.
From her talks with the psych resident, Alan Bernstein, Molly understood the night terrors were her subconscious mind’s way of struggling to deal with the trauma she’d suffered. She also became convinced that as soon as she was allowed to return to the routine of normal daily life, the nightmares would stop.
Yolanda remained sympathetic, but refused to do anything to help Molly escape what she’d come to view as her imprisonment.
“Reece says if you’re a good girl he may sign you out tomorrow.”
“I’ve already been here five days.”
“So, you’ll be here six.”
Molly muttered something that while not exactly a curse, wasn’t exactly nunlike, either. “At least tell me what’s happening down in The Pit. I never thought I’d miss that place, but I do.”
“Taking religious vows doesn’t prevent you from becoming hooked on the adrenaline rush, just like the rest of us.”
Molly couldn’t argue with that. She’d be the first to admit that the impatient streak that had once resulted in her being disciplined as a child with depressing regularity, now made her a natural ER nurse.
“Oh, there is some news,” Yolanda said. “About Benny.”
Molly’s own petty frustration was instantly forgotten. Benny Johnson was a five-year-old boy who’d suffered more than any child should have to. He’d been born a crack baby on Molly’s first day in the ER. His near-fatal withdrawal had been excruciatingly painful, making more than one battle-hardened ER nurse cry.
Social Services had taken Benny from his mother. Unfortunately, they’d turned him over to his grandmother, who was no model of maternal expertise, either. By the time he was six months old, Benny had suffered a broken arm and possible head injuries from being shaken.
He’d been put in a crisis nursery, only to be released to his mother again when she was released from a drug-abuse treatment program. Two days later, Benny was back with mysterious burns.
The cycle had continued for five years. And each time Benny showed up in The Pit for treatment after another one of his accidents, Molly was more tempted just to take the poor little boy and run away.
“What now?”
“He came in this morning all bruised, with cracked ribs. The court’s toughened up. He’s going to be released for adoption over his mother’s consent.”
That should have been good news, but unfortunately, Molly knew better.
“Older children are difficult to place,” she murmured. She also recalled, with vivid clarity, that long ago day when she’d eavesdropped on a conversation between the Mother Superior who ran the orphanage and prospective parents.
The well-dressed couple who thought Lena “sweet” and were prepared to overlook the fact that Molly could be “a bit of a handful,” had been reluctant to adopt the sisters because of their background.
