Intimate Exposure

“Was that your husband on the phone?”

She turned and wrenched open the kitchen door, which gave side access to his father’s garage and, beyond it, the broad driveway. “That was my sitter. My baby’s worse. Her fever’s a hundred and four.” She slipped through the doorway and into the darkened garage.

He hurried to keep up with her. “Where’re you going?”

Her look made him feel as if his IQ didn’t graze eighty. “I’m taking her to the hospital.” She twisted, looking for the garage light, the better to see her way out. He found it easily and clicked it on.

“Let me rephrase that. How are you getting there? Yvan said—”

“I heard what Yvan said. I’m walking to the bus stop.” “But there aren’t any—”

“Night buses that pass through Belmont. I know.” He could see her legs flash in the floodlights, hear her heels click on the driveway. “I’m walking to Ventura.”

“That’s two miles away!”

She didn’t even glance in his direction. Her determined mouth barely moved as she told him, “Then I better get to walking.” A stiff, late-September wind stirred her hair. She didn’t have a coat on, and that dress of hers, what passed for a dress, barely brushed the tops of her thighs.

Elliot watched as she hurried away, her hips rolling in her haste, legs moving swiftly past each other. Seeing a mother so concerned for her child’s well-being that she was willing to trot across town on heels too high for waitressing stirred something in him. “Shani, wait!”

She half turned, frowning at him for interrupting her pace.

He ran down the path, grasping her by the arms.

“Wait.”

She looked down at the hands he’d placed on her, brows together, and when he read on her face the indignation at being restrained by a second Bookman in one night, he let go. The lady had already proved she didn’t mind biting—and not in a good way.

“I have … to get … to my daughter,” she explained carefully. “Fast.”

The fear in her eyes made his heart constrict. “It’s too late. Too cold.”

“I don’t have a choice.” She resumed walking as though her pace had never been interrupted.

He wasn’t explaining himself right, dammit! “Wait!” As he stopped her again, she sucked in a breath. He was sure she was about to scream, so he talked fast. “Just give me ten seconds, all right?”

“Why?”

“I’ll take you.”

“What?”

He left her standing there and sprinted back to the kitchen. The Triumph wasn’t the best mode of transport for what he had in mind. He snagged his father’s car keys without a second thought and darted back outside.

The burgundy Lexus chirped a friendly welcome as he unlocked it. He rammed the keys into the ignition with less respect than such a machine deserved and, not even bothering to let it warm up, slammed it into gear and nosed it down to where she was waiting. As he drew alongside, her already-arched brows lifted just so much higher. He leaped out, opened the passenger door and bundled her in. She complied, more bewildered than anything else, letting him click her seat belt into place before he leaped back into his seat again and hit the gas.

She was staring at his face, still puzzled. “Why’re you doing this?”

Why, indeed? “Just trying to help,” he explained lamely. “I’d hate to know a child was sick and I didn’t do anything about it.”

“Oh.” She was still examining his face, but whether she was looking for an ulterior motive or asking herself what she’d done to deserve the random kindness of a stranger, he couldn’t tell. “Thank you.”

Again, that strange ache inside him, for her. What kind of sad creature was this, so unaccustomed to receiving kindness that it took her by surprise when she found it? And where was her husband, anyway? Shouldn’t he be doing this? “Besides,” he added, joking to relieve his tension, and hers, “I need brownie points in heaven. God knows I’ve racked up enough for the other team.”

She smiled weakly and relaxed into her seat. “Thank you,” she said again. It came from somewhere deep inside her.

“So, where to?” “Catarina.”

He nodded. They were already approaching Ventura, a pleasant neighborhood that formed a buffer between the genteel suburbs and the busy city. From there it was just a minute or two to the highway on-ramp. On an ordinary day, it would take maybe forty minutes to get to the heart of Santa Amata. But it was well after midnight on a Saturday, and, after all, this was a Lexus, not a station wagon. They made it in twenty.

He looked covertly over at her. Her eyes were taking in every detail of the custom interior of the vehicle, the lovingly polished wood finishing, the muted glow of the array of dials and screens that illuminated her face. He saw her extend one finger and slowly stroke the leather on which she was sitting, and he smiled. It gave him an irrational, childish pleasure to share this little luxury with her. He had a feeling her life wasn’t filled with much of that.

She spoke only to give directions, and he was grateful. Sometimes when you offered a person a ride, they felt obligated to make conversation, to fill the air with irrelevant chatter. She wasn’t the type to indulge in that nonsense, and he liked her for that.

Catarina was on the other side of Santa Amata, a slightly … more lived-in side of town. A few blocks beyond Independence Avenue, the city’s main artery, the streets grew narrower, the buildings just a shade shabbier. It was chilly—which reminded Elliot he didn’t have his coat on, either—but many of the bars had their doors thrown open, and he could hear music spilling out. Trees were beginning to shed their leaves; the wind danced with them in the street as cars swooshed past.

“Left on Bagley,” she told him, and he turned onto the street without a word. It was lined with brownstones and shop fronts. Most of the houses had small family businesses downstairs, with living quarters upstairs. The occasional building that rose past three or four floors looked out of place next to the squat two-story houses beside them.

“Here.” She pointed, and he pulled smoothly to the curb in front of one of the older buildings on the street. The bottom floor was occupied by a restaurant that was still open. A flickering sign above the door said Old Seoul in English, and, presumably, the same thing in Korean. The clinking of glasses and the sound of laughter spilled through the doors and open windows, and the scents of hot oil, fish and spicy meat reminded him that he’d turned up five hours late for dinner, more out of a desire to get on his father’s nerves than anything else. He was beginning to regret that decision.

Shani took out a bunch of large, cumbersome metal keys and unlocked a gate that was barely visible at the side of the restaurant. She let herself through it without a word to him, but he followed closely, up a flight of stairs that would have been better lit, if he’d had anything to say about it. They’d barely reached the first landing when there was a shout from below.

She stopped so fast he almost stumbled into her from behind.

“Shani!” The voice was below them but coming up fast. Elliot stopped shoulder to shoulder with Shani as she leaned over the rusting banister to see a small Asian man taking the stairs two by two. He was dressed in a colorful embroidered tunic with long square sleeves, way too elaborate for someone who was just kicking it on a Saturday night, so he guessed the man worked in, or more likely owned, the restaurant downstairs. “Special Delivery letter for you!”

She looked puzzled, and for a few moments she didn’t hold out her hand to take the proffered letter. She eventually did, turning it over so she could see the return address … and then the night went quiet. He knew that, logically, the music, laughter and chatter were still rising from downstairs. He knew the night owls were still hooting and cars were still rumbling past, but he couldn’t hear them. Because for the second time in less than an hour, he was seeing the blood leech out from under this sad woman’s dusky skin, and he didn’t like it.

The middle-aged man standing two steps below squinted at her through thick glasses. “You well?”

She nodded, but just barely. “I’m fine, Mr. Pak. Thank you.”

The man waited, Elliot waited, for her to tear open the envelope, to do something, but she held it in both hands and stared at it, weighed it, ran her fingers along the address label as if they were sensitive enough to feel the indentations of the printed letters, but she didn’t open it.

Eventually, Mr. Pak nodded and returned downstairs. After he was long gone … it could have been seconds, it could have been minutes … Shani still hadn’t made any move. Elliot watched her, not even pretending not to stare, taking full advantage of the fact that she was barely aware of his presence. Her dark skin had that mellow smoothness that came from good genes, although he could tell, too, that she groomed herself carefully. He was sure she did everything carefully.

She’d nervously licked off most of the frosty lipstick she’d been wearing, leaving her lips bare. The lower one was full, almost pouty, making him think of moist fruit. Her dark, straight hair had been neatly pinned up at the start of the evening, he guessed. Now it fell in wisps about her face. He found himself wanting to reach out, wind it up at the crown of her head and pin it back into place for her. He had to put his hands into his pockets to quell the impulse.

He brought his head close, stifling his curiosity to read the envelope that so mesmerized her, more interested in reading her eyes. But in them, he could see nothing. Gently, he called her name.

She looked up, startled to find him still there. “Huh?”

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

“Open what?”

He tapped the heavy paper object in her hands. “Your letter.”

She looked down at it again, contemplatively, and then shook her head. “I don’t have to. It’s from my attorney. I know what it says.”

Why was it that letters from attorneys never bore good news? How come nobody ever got a letter from an attorney saying congratulations, you just inherited three million dollars from an uncle you never knew you had?

He asked with a chill of anticipation, “What’s it say, then?”

Her eyes held his, and the agony in them kept him riveted. “It says I.” She tried again. “It says my divorce is final. My marriage is over.”

Chapter 3

No job. Sick daughter. And now … this. Shani read and reread the names and addresses on the envelope, both hers on the front and her attorney’s on the back. Inside it were the shredded, tattered, decomposing remnants of the past five years of her life. Knowing it was coming didn’t soften the blow any.

And a blow it was; a sucker punch to the gut that obliterated any fancified notions she might still be holding about Christophe and the love she’d had for him. Where was he anyway? Back home in Martinique, most likely. And, if she knew him—and she did—out celebrating his freedom in a Fort-de-France bar, or in the bed of some young Martiniquaise with more libido than sense.

She felt the cold rails of the balcony under her fingers, steadying her as she swayed. Aching so deep inside she wished she could reach in and tear out the organ that was causing her so much hurt. Her wedding band, a little loose these days since she’d lost a few pounds, constricted. If the vein in the fourth finger led directly to the heart, as the ancients believed, she wouldn’t need to rip her heart out. It would shrivel and die all on its own for lack of blood flow.

There was a movement next to her, a light hand on her forearm and a voice in her ear. “Shani.”

Elliot. She knew he was there, but his touch and voice startled her anyway. She tried to focus on his face.

“Yes?”

“Maybe you should go inside. Have a glass of water. Sit for a minute.”

Her rattling thoughts aligned themselves in some semblance of order. Inside. Right. She nodded. She patted herself down for her keys before she remembered they were clutched in her hand. She tried to fit the key in the lock, but it wouldn’t go. Wrong one. She tried again, the soft scratching sound of metal against metal amplified ten times.

“Let me.” Elliot’s cool hands pried the keys from her incompetent fingers and he slid them into the lock. Easily. As though he was used to it.

The tumblers rolled over inside the lock, but he didn’t have the chance to open the door. It was snatched from his hand, startling them both. Gina Pak was standing there in the minuscule hallway, panting a little. She was even tinier than her father, glossy hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a red T-shirt and jeans, both of which were damp.

“Shani!” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry I didn’t get the door right away. I was giving Béatrice a sponge bath. She’s up to a hundred and five. And she threw up, twice.”

Bee! Panic and shame. For a full five minutes, Christophe had managed to shove her poor baby from the forefront of her mind. Did he still exert such a power over her, that on a night as awful as this, she could forget she was on a rescue mission?

“Where’s she?” she asked, even though she knew.

Gina pointed. Without looking at the wretched envelope again, she threw it to the floor and hastened to the bedroom, which she shared with her daughter. The room was decorated more like a child’s nursery than a room in which an adult slept. It was bright yellow, her daughter’s favorite color, and strewn with enough bee motifs to make Sting himself gag. A bee mobile swayed over the bed, cartoon bees smiled down from the walls and bee suncatchers dangled behind drawn curtains. Bee lived up to her name.

She was lying on her back. Her thick hair, which usually sprang up all over in a cheery mop, was damp from the bath. She had nothing on but a pair of panties and a yellow cotton Winnie the Pooh T-shirt. Her limp limbs were carelessly sprawled, her small, dark, pointed face slack. Eyes fire-bright. Bee spotted her and managed a smile. “Mama!”

Shani reached to smooth the hair from Bee’s brow, but Elliot was in the way, on his knees at the child’s bedside, lifting each eyelid with his thumbs and examining her eyes, then her nostrils and mouth, tilting her head to each side to look into her ears, too.

Shani was too stunned and confused to move.

“How old is she?” he asked.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“How old is she?”

Not wanting to be left out of the conversation, Bee piped up. “I’m three and a half!”

“You are? You’re a really big girl!” Elliot was soft-voiced, indulgent, his hands still working on her.

Bee watched him with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, her bleary eyes trying to focus. “You a doctor?”

“No, I’m not, but I’m just gonna check you out, if you let me.” He tenderly ran his fingers along her throat then lifted her shirt and carefully looked over her torso.

“No blotches,” he murmured. “That’s good.” Strong fingers encircled the tiny wrist, and he fixed his eyes on his watch, counting pulse beats.

A scary thought crossed Bee’s mind, and she gave him a panicked look. “No shots! No shots!” She lifted her eyes to her mother, pleading for her intervention if a needle should appear.

For Shani, that was too much. Elliot looked as though he knew what he was doing; she certainly hadn’t a clue what to do herself, but her territorial instincts were aroused, her hackles up. “Elliot, I asked you a question.”

He turned to Gina, who was as puzzled as she was. “Has she eaten anything this evening?”

“Not much.”

“Drinking okay? Thirsty?”

Bee pouted, as if she suspected that any second now, one of the grown-ups was going to try to force something into her. “No! Not thirsty!”

Elliot mumbled something and patted the damp hair. Bee relaxed a little, sinking back into the pillows, but still frowned suspiciously at the adults surrounding her.

Gina shook her head. “She didn’t want her juice, or water. I made her take a few sips, but—”

That was enough. Shani shouldered Elliot aside and threw her arms around her daughter. The child’s skin was on fire. He didn’t resist, didn’t look the least bit offended.

“You said you aren’t a doctor …”

“No, but I know what I’m doing.”

“How, exactly?”

He shrugged. “Peace Corps. Two years in Haiti after college.”

She was momentarily stunned. A member of the wealthy Bookman clan, in the Peace Corps?

Without offering any further explanation, he extricated a blanket from the pile of rumpled bedding and seemed about to reach for Bee again, but then he thought better of it and held it out to Shani. “Wrap her up. It’s cold out.”

Shani did as she was told. Bee didn’t resist, which was scary in itself. Usually, getting any article of clothing onto her daughter required a chase around the bed, three or four laps at least, and maybe a foray into the living room. But Bee was as boneless and unresisting as a sleeping cat. As she lifted the hot little bundle into her arms, Bee wound her hands around her neck, face pressed against her breast.

Elliot followed her to the door. He turned to Gina, who was hovering, her expression a mixture of concern for Bee and frank curiosity over Elliot’s sudden appearance.

“This is Elliot,” Shani informed the teenager belatedly. And to Elliot, “This is Gina, Mr. Pak’s daughter. She’s seventeen. Her real name’s Jin, but, well, everyone calls her.” She was aware that she was babbling. She stopped herself. “She babysits for me.”

Elliot nodded, gravely extending a hand. Then he was all business, opening her front door and preceding her outside. “We’re going to Immaculate Heart Pediatric,” he informed Gina.

“She gonna be all right?” Gina asked.

Elliot’s eyes were on her, not Gina. “I think so. A high fever doesn’t mean anything awful on its own. It’s probably just an infection.”

Oh, thank you, Jesus. She let Elliot propel her into the backseat, allowing him to buckle the seat belt over her lap before she settled her daughter in her arms. In the absence of a car seat, it’d have to do.

He sensed her apprehension. “I’ll get you there safely,” he promised. “Both of you.”

They pulled to a screeching stop in the hospital parking lot. Elliot hopped out and looked in through the window at Shani as she struggled in the backseat with Bee’s deadweight. “How’s the baby?”

“Sleeping,” Shani answered. “Still hot.”

“Then we’d better get in there.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the entrance to the E.R.

It was next to impossible to emerge from the car holding Bee, but Elliot opened the back door and gently, as if lifting something infinitely precious, eased her daughter from her lap.

Shani got out, feeling the sting of pins and needles run through her legs as blood rushed back into them. It had gotten colder. She stamped on the ground, found her land legs again and held her arms out for her daughter. But Elliot shook his head, cradling Bee as though he’d known her since the day she was born. “Keep your strength. You’ll need it.” She couldn’t decide whether to be grateful or outraged.

Of one accord, they moved toward the doors. “You didn’t have to do this,” she pointed out.

His mouth curved, and he shrugged it off.

Maybe it was nothing to him, a little lost sleep and a missed dinner, but she needed for him to know that to her, his small gesture meant everything. “My daughter.” As she walked, she searched for words. “Bee’s all I have, now.” She tried not to think of Christophe. He hadn’t been hers for a long time.

His expression was so compassionate, it hurt to look at him. “She’ll be okay, I promise you. And I don’t mind doing this. Really.”

Which was a good thing, because at that moment Bee was jolted out of her exhausted, fever-tormented sleep. She went rigid, threw open her startled brown eyes, flung out thin, stiff limbs and threw up down the front of his shirt.

Chapter 4

Shani reacted immediately, reaching out to help tilt Bee’s head so that most of the clear fluid spurted onto the ground.

“Elliot, I’m so—”

“It’s all right.”

She fumbled through her bag, cursing the clutter, and pulled out a packet of baby wipes. “At least let me … I’m so sorry!” She dabbed at the wet mark on his shirt, cringing at what he must be thinking. She was a mother, used to dealing with all manner of bodily fluids, but this was a single man. Baby upchuck was probably at the top of his gross-out list.

“Relax. She’s done now.”

She held out her arms, expecting him to hand Bee over as if she was an armload of contraband, but he was walking again. “Better get her inside.”

It was a choice between standing in the cold parking lot and following. She followed. “I’ll get your shirt cleaned,” she promised.

He threw her an amused, patient look over the fluffy blanket-covered bump in his arms. “The shirt’ll wash.” He stepped aside to let her get the door. She brushed past a security guard who was lightly dozing on his feet and heaved against the heavy glass door under a large sign that read EMERGENCY in white on red.

Elliot found them a space in the waiting room and let Shani sit, settling beside her with Bee on his lap. His face was beautiful in its tenderness. His faded shirt and loose jeans were an odd uniform for an angel of mercy, but Shani knew that when angels swooped to Earth, they sometimes left their wings at home. Grounded by their circumstances, they had no choice but to sit back and watch chaos unfurl. It was like a scene from Dante’s Inferno being put on by the local grade school. Children sobbed, babies wailed, worried parents held them close or paced, gulping coffee, guzzling high-caffeine sodas and rooting around in greasy packets of potato chips. Half an hour passed, then half an hour more. Heads lifted whenever a new group of names rang out over the sound system. As each sick child’s name was called, his or her parents left through the swinging doors leading into the guts of the building with a mixture of relief at finally making it inside and guilt at leaving fellow sufferers behind.

She needed to feel the warmth of her daughter against her skin and held out her arms wordlessly. Elliot handed Bee over and then stood to allow the blood to return to his legs. With a smooth movement, he pulled the damp, funky-smelling shirt over his head and tossed it onto the chair. He stroked his chest absently, looking down at himself. “Probably wouldn’t pass dress code around here now,” he commented in amusement.

She opened her mouth again, not even sure what she was going to say, and then shut it as the sight of his sleek, bare chest hit her between the eyes. The body he had on him certainly didn’t belong on an angel; according to her understanding of the heavenly creatures, they wouldn’t know what to do with it. The well-defined lines that accentuated his pecs, the glimpses of rib as he turned and abdominal muscles that plunged downward to the sharp angles of hip bones visible above his low-slung jeans were like the long, sleek lines of a sports car. She tried not to stare, but she lost the battle.

He shrugged the cricks out of his shoulder and snagged the next nurse to pass close enough. She was a fine-boned young Asian woman, probably not more than twenty-three or twenty-four, with straight black hair that escaped her little bonnet willy-nilly. Her large eyes were an unusual shade of deep green. As he stepped out into her path, she gave him a distracted glance—and then that glorious, golden expanse of bare chest stopped her in her tracks.

“Nurse, please. The baby’s very sick, and her mother’s worried. How long do you think it’ll be?”

She swallowed, trying to keep her gaze above his neck. “We’re very busy tonight—”

His voice was low, beguiling, betraying neither anger nor frustration. “I know you’re all doing the best you can.” He smiled disarmingly, one hand on her elbow, the other idly resting over his heart, like someone taking the Pledge of Allegiance—or declaring his affections. “But you look like a kind person. I’m sure you’d be willing to spare me a few seconds of your time.”