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He almost started to smile, but the movement in his face caused another wave of pain to shoot through his cheeks and up into his broken nose. “I don’t want to complain,” he said, “but I’ve still got that splitting headache that just won’t go away. And it really hurts when I laugh.” Not that he’d actually laughed. Nothing was very funny since he’d regained consciousness. They wouldn’t give him any painkillers until he passed the safety time zone that would signify there were no complications to his concussion.
“What time is it?”
Russ sighed, then gasped at the stabbing sensation in his ribs. He cringed and wrapped his arms around himself to support his cracked ribs, but it didn’t help. Pushing on the bruises and sore ribs made him see stars.
“The clock is right there behind you on the wall if you want to know,” he said.
The nurse tapped the pen on the top of the clipboard. “Quit trying to be funny. We have to do this.”
“Okay. It’s 5:33 a.m., which means it’s almost time that I should be waking up and starting to get ready for work. So if you’ll just give me that prescription for the headache, I’ll be on my way.”
“You know I can’t do that. You can leave after forty-eight hours, provided that the doctor okays your release.”
“Then how about if you tell me what you’ve done with my clothes? You won’t be back for another hour, right?” He gritted his teeth, trying to block out the pain. If he left now, no one would ever know. Thankfully, because he had no identification with him, they hadn’t called his mother or sister. Soon, he could be back to work like nothing ever happened.
The nurse made a tick mark on the chart, not taking his hint. Then she lowered the clipboard and looked him in the eyes. “We’ve increased the sarcasm factor. That’s good, it means you’re alert. Do you know where you are?”
“Let me guess. I’m not in Kansas anymore?”
Her answering scowl almost made Russ laugh, but he knew the pain wouldn’t be worth it. “I’m in Wake-ville, Washington, at Memorial Hospital, and unless you moved me when I wasn’t watching, I’m in the South Wing, room 347, bed C.”
“More sarcasm.” She made another tick mark on his chart and smiled sweetly at him. “You’re doing fine. I’ll be back in an hour and we’ll do this again for the last time. Then the doctor will see you. If there are no changes, he’ll give you that prescription, and you can rest until tomorrow night when we can let you go home. I’ll lower the bed again now, and you can try to get some sleep.”
“Oh, sure,” he grumbled. The pain of the headache and the jabbing ache in his lungs every time he inhaled didn’t allow him to relax, never mind actually sleep. Besides, it was morning. He’d never been able to sleep in daylight no matter how tired he was. His current level of discomfort and noise of the hospital as it woke up would make sleep an impossibility. The only way he would fall asleep would be in the familiarity of his own bed—and heavily medicated.
“Then would you like to read the morning newspaper? I can hear the cart coming down the hall.”
Russ opened his mouth, about to ask what day it was, but fortunately thought better of it, just in case Nurse Drill Sergeant thought it was a bad sign. Yesterday, the day of his accident, had been Monday. He’d been unconscious only a few hours, so today must be Tuesday.
“I can’t buy a paper because I don’t have any money. My wallet never made it here. Remember?” Also, as much as he did want to read the morning paper, he feared that straining to see the small print would make his headache worse.
The nurse nodded. “You’re right, I remember now. But it’s okay, because you have a visitor. Keep it under twenty minutes, please.”
A woman now stood in the doorway. “Hello? Russ? Can I come in?” Without waiting for a reply, she walked in as the nurse walked out.
Russ’s head swam. He didn’t recognize her.
He knew he’d received quite a blow to the head, not to mention the rest of his body. But now, rather than simply being annoyed with his current condition, he experienced a touch of panic. Was he in worse condition than the nursing staff had led him to believe?
The last thing he could remember was sitting at his desk, working, fighting with the new program he was trying to install on his computer. The next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital and a doctor rushing over to him. They had told him it was within normal parameters that he couldn’t remember the details of the fall or the trauma leading up to it, but if he’d sustained a permanent brain injury, he didn’t know if he could deal with that.
The woman pulled a chair to the side of the bed and lowered herself into it without taking her eyes off him. “How are you feeling?”
He stared into her face, struggling for recall. She appeared to be a couple of years younger than him, in her late twenties. Her hair was in a blunt cut, medium brown and sporting a streak of bright red on one side—something he definitely should have remembered. Her green eyes bordered on gray, and they were bright and alert, and curious, fixed on his face—compelling him to maintain that eye contact rather than check her out.
When she’d walked into the room he’d seen that she had a slender build, yet when studying her face, he thought she had rather round cheeks. She was pretty, despite the strange hair color. She wore a little makeup, just enough to highlight full lips, along with a bit of mascara that added length to the longest eyelashes he’d ever seen.
She appeared to know him, but he didn’t remember her.
“I—I’m sorry,” he stammered. “Do I know you?”
“Technically, we’ve met before, but I can’t blame you for not remembering me.” She dug through her purse and placed his wallet on the small table beside the bed. “I found this stuck in the slot where the windshield wipers are when I got home last night. I guess it got stuck there when you fell. I hope you don’t mind that I looked inside. I had to know your name so they would let me in. My name is Marielle McGee, and that was my car you landed on.”
His vision lost focus as he struggled to remember details. All he knew was what the nurses had told him—that he’d fallen out a window and, instead of landing on the hard cement, he’d landed on a car, which had made the landing less serious than it might have been. While short-term memory loss was common for the injury he’d sustained, it still worried him.
“I don’t know what to say. You probably saved my life.”
“Oh… Well… Speaking of that, do you want to talk about it? I’m a good listener.”
“It’s okay,” he said as he brushed his index finger over the bandage that covered his nose. “I’ve been told that no permanent damage was done.”
Her tone softened. “Don’t worry. I’m a volunteer counselor at my church. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger about things like this.”
“About things like…what?”
“Problems. Depression. Despondency. Things that would drive a person to acts of desperation.”
“Desperation?” The pain in his head worsened as he realized what she meant. “Please don’t worry. I don’t remember what happened, but I’m not suicidal. My life is good. I have a good job, a nice home, and I can assure you that I didn’t do anything that drastic because of a broken heart. I’ve been much too busy to get involved in a relationship—”
His voice caught. Thinking of work, a shadow of a memory flashed through his mind. For some reason, he’d gotten up and walked to the window. He couldn’t remember why. But all jokes aside, he knew that he wouldn’t kill himself out of frustration with his computer. Besides, statistically, jumping out of a window wasn’t usually fatal unless it was the seventh story or higher.
“Do you believe in God, Russ?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“I mean as more than just the Creator of the universe. Do you believe in God, who loves all the children He’s created, including you?”
“Yeah.” He just hadn’t been to church lately. Actually, he hadn’t been to church for a long time. On a few occasions, he’d weakened and gone back, but he didn’t know why. Going to church or not going to church didn’t make any difference. Nothing got better, nothing changed. He’d struggled and worked hard, and he had been faithful, but God hadn’t given him any breaks in his youth, and God didn’t give him any breaks now. God made him work, and work hard for everything he had. It seemed God never considered his debt repaid.
He cleared his throat. “Please don’t worry. I’m fine. In fact, I’m anxious to get back to work. I’m a Web designer, and I’m in the middle of designing a big interactive Web site for an important client.”
“Oh.” She paused, then shuffled something in her hand. “It’s just that, well, the newspaper…” Her voice trailed off.
“The newspaper?”
“The newspaper is saying something very different than what you’re telling me right now.”
Russ gulped. “You mean there was a reporter there?”
Marielle nodded. “Yes. And it appears they’ve done quite a bit of research, first on the history and infrastructure of the old building, and also…on you.”
She held the newspaper out to him, and Russ’s hand trembled as he accepted it. Was it possible the newspaper knew more about what had happened than he did?
Chapter Two
Marielle watched Russ’s eyes widen, then squeeze shut after he read the front-page headline: Near Death at Downtown Office.
“I don’t believe this….” He opened his eyes and continued reading. “I’m not nearly dead. It was only the third floor! And they’re being really vague about whether I jumped or fell. I don’t remember what happened, but I certainly didn’t jump.” He reached up to touch the bridge of his nose, but stopped when his fingers brushed the bandage. “They even quoted a few people I work with as saying they didn’t know what happened.” He lowered the paper to his lap. “In one sentence the reporter insinuated that I jumped, and then in the next says it’s unconfirmed. How can they print this?”
Marielle looked into his face. All the training and courses she’d taken for her position as volunteer counselor at her church told her that he was sincere. He really hadn’t jumped, and she’d been worried about him for nothing. It was simply an accident.
“Because sensationalism sells, I guess.”
“I suppose. The truth is often boring.”
A silence hung between them for a few minutes.
“I guess you’re here to make arrangements for your car. I probably left a pretty big dent. May I see your estimate?”
Marielle felt her cheeks heat up. “I haven’t got an estimate yet. I was busy last night, and I’m on my way to work right now. I actually came just to see how you were, and to return your wallet. I had better get going or I’m going to be late.”
“Let me give you my phone number, then, and call me as soon as you know. Would you give me your phone number, too?”
“Sure.”
“I want you to know that if you hadn’t been there, I would have been seriously injured, maybe even permanently disabled. I know your car was damaged. I don’t want to be more of an inconvenience to you than I’ve already been. If you go to your insurance agent and this raises your rates for the next few years, I want to know, and I’d like to pay the difference.”
Marielle stood and smiled. “Thanks. That’s really nice of you.”
She turned to go, but she’d only taken one step when a man of average build and height who looked to be in his mid-forties appeared in the doorway. When he saw her standing beside the bed, he quickly turned his head to check the number on the door, then continued inside. His polite smile, easy demeanor and friendly brown eyes immediately made Marielle feel relaxed.
When he turned to Russ his smile faltered, but he recovered quickly. “Hi, Russ. You’ve looked better.”
“Thanks. I needed to hear that. I’ve felt better, too. Grant, this is, uh, Mary Ellen, is it?”
“You’re close. It’s Marielle. But don’t worry about it. It happens all the time.”
“I’m so sorry. Grant, this is Marielle, the woman whose car I landed on. Marielle, this is Grant, my boss.”
Grant immediately grasped her hand. “I’m so glad to meet you. I asked about you when the ruckus died down, but no one knew who you were, or where you came from. You were like Cinderella, disappearing at the stroke of midnight. You were in the paper with your statement—but then things get so busy. And the calls…”
Marielle smiled sympathetically. “I’ve had lots of questions about yesterday, too.”
“I want to do something to make it up to you. After all, Russ is my best employee. But now that we’re face to face, I wish I knew what to suggest.”
“I was simply put in the right place at the right time. If you have to thank someone, then thank Brittany. It was because of her that I had to park to answer my cell phone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to work. It was nice meeting you both.”
Russ and Grant looked up at the clock on the wall. “It’s not even six o’clock,” Russ said. “You have a very early start to your day. What do you do?”
“It’s just an office job. I work in accounting. I start at six and get off at two-thirty. But I start early because I go someplace else afterward.”
“You mean you have a second job?”
Marielle froze. Second job? Not anymore.
She shuffled her purse under her arm, pretending she needed to concentrate on it so that she didn’t have to look at the two men while she spoke. “It’s not a job. I volunteer for a youth program that teaches underprivileged kids computer skills so they’ll know how to use computers for more than just memorizing the cheat codes from the latest online games.”
Grant nodded. “Well, good luck, and it was nice meeting you. I hope we can…” Grant’s voice trailed off.
Before Marielle could walk away, he wrapped his fingers around her arm, preventing her from leaving. “Wait. If you won’t take anything personally for what you did, can I make a donation to your organization?”
Marielle looked up at the clock again. “That would be great. We’ve had a bunch of new members join the group. We need to get more equipment and there’s never enough money.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking of upgrading some of my office’s computers. Instead of trading them in, how about if I donate them to your group? It sounds like you could really use them. Let me give you my card so we can set up an appointment.”
Marielle wanted to be on time, but at the mention of the donation, she knew her boss at her day job would excuse her for being a few minutes late. At times Marielle brought in some of the older and more promising teens for summer relief work or other odd jobs at her company. More computers at the youth center meant that down the line she could bring in more experienced helpers—a definite bonus for her boss.
She smiled. “That would be great.”
“Think of this as my way of making things up to you.” Grant turned to Russ as he reached into his back pocket. “I think the first computer that we’ll replace will be yours.”
Russ grinned in response. “I won’t argue with that. When I get back to work, I’ll make sure all my backups are current.”
Grant froze, his hand resting on his pocket. “You’re not coming back to work anytime soon. You need some time off.”
“I thought you came here to take me back to work, since I don’t have my car here.”
“I came to check on you, then tomorrow I’ll return to drive you home—and leave you there.”
“But what about that project?”
The two men stared at each other as if she weren’t there, which she wished were true. She wanted Grant’s card, but she needed to get to her own job.
Grant’s hand remained motionless on his back pocket as he spoke. “You’re my best employee, Russ, but you work too much. Everyone needs some time off, and you’re taking yours now.”
“I can’t just sit at home and stare at the walls all day, knowing my work is piling up. I’ll go insane.”
“Then, tell you what. If you’re really up to it, why don’t you help the nice young lady out at the youth center? Help her make room for the new computers—starting with yours.”
“But…”
Marielle had to interrupt. “Excuse me. I hate to be rude but I really have to get to work. If you can give me your card, I’ll call you later today.”
“Of course. Sorry.” Grant pulled his wallet out, removed the card and handed it to her. “Call me anytime.”
“I will. Thanks.”
“Wait. You didn’t give me your card.”
“I don’t have cards. But don’t worry, I’ll call you.”
Marielle quickly left the room, but as she walked out she heard Grant say, “Marielle, huh? Interesting name.”
Marielle’s feet skidded to a halt.
“Yeah,” Russ replied. “It’s different.”
“This is just like how she left yesterday.” A trace of laughter colored Grant’s voice. “Except you sure don’t look like our Cinderella’s Prince Charming with your face like that. Are you ever going to be handsome again?” Grant broke out into a full laugh.
