Carol Grace – Falling For The Sheik (страница 8)

Amanda had no intention of spilling any of her secrets to him. If she did, she could just imagine what he’d think of her. She couldn’t believe he’d share any secrets with her, either. Maybe he didn’t have any. Although there was that issue of his suffering “emotionally.” The remark he’d made was only to get her goat. At first he’d succeeded, now she realized she could talk back and he liked it. She liked it, too. If all went well, they might become friends. Friends. Was it possible to be a friend to a man like that? Time would tell.

He’d probably guessed she wasn’t engaged or married. That was going to come out in the wash anyway. But that was the extent of the secrets she was sharing. Period.

Rahman mumbled something in his sleep. Amanda bent over his bed to listen but he didn’t say any more. Only inches from his face, she brushed his dark thick hair back. She laid her hand on his forehead and kept it there. She told herself she would make him get well. She could do it. She knew she could. She willed him to sleep well, to sleep peacefully. She didn’t know how long she stayed there. She only knew his breathing slowed and sounded normal.

Some time later she stood and found her leg muscles stiff and cramped. She walked slowly back to the nurse’s station.

The nurse looked up at Amanda, glanced at her watch and frowned. Amanda set the bag with Rahman’s dinner on the counter and told her it was for her. The woman looked startled, then suspicious, then she grudgingly accepted it. Amanda muttered, “you’re welcome,” to herself as she walked out the front door of the hospital feeling frustrated and sorry for the overworked nurse and even sorrier for Rahman.

She went back out into the cold mountain air and drove to her motel room, took a hot bath, lay on her queen-size bed and stared at the ceiling. Tomorrow night she’d be under the same roof as Rahman. Would he soon turn her into a crabby, cranky nurse, annoyed and resentful every time he rang for her on the house intercom? Or would she get too emotionally involved in nursing him back to health? She couldn’t let that happen. It was better that she turn into a hag who barked orders. He wasn’t the only one who needed to be nursed back to health.

As Rahman noticed, she didn’t have a ready smile except for rare occasions. But she’d come here to make a fresh start. She’d do what she could within the bounds of her profession and then send him back to San Francisco. And then what? What would she do? She didn’t see herself working at that hospital. Was it too small after living and working in the fast lane? What about Rosie and her life? How could Amanda have what she had? A career, a husband and two adorable children.

She reminded herself that her goals were much more modest than that. To fall asleep at night without dreaming of the arrogant doctor she’d left behind. To face each day with some kind of enthusiasm instead of dread. To regain the joy of helping others get well, to remember why she’d become a nurse in the first place. If she could accomplish that much, the trip would have been worthwhile.

She repeated these goals like a mantra and finally she did fall asleep and she did not dream at all. That in itself was a blessing and worth the price of the airline ticket.

The next day, there was so much activity at the hospital that Amanda didn’t have time for second thoughts about this unusual assignment. Rahman’s family was there and greeted her warmly. They hovered over him in his room while Amanda conferred with doctors and nurses, the pharmacist and the therapist. She spoke to everyone in sight except for Rahman. She saw him only briefly and only from a distance. She felt his eyes on her. She saw him frown. She knew she owed him an explanation about dinner. She wanted to apologize, but she never got a chance. She went around and make appointments with the therapist and his doctor to come to the house. An orderly pushed Rahman in his wheelchair to the curb where an ambulance was waiting.

He wasn’t happy to see the ambulance. She could tell by the way he said, “Where’s the car…? What the hell…” in an angry voice that carried to where she was standing at the glass doors to the hospital.

There was continued chaos at the house they called their ski cabin. Workmen were building a ramp to the back door like the one in front. The therapist was installing a massage table in the ballroom along with some parallel bars. The housekeeper introduced herself and said that dinner was at seven. Family members wandered in and out, conferring with each other in hushed voices as if they were at a wake.

Amanda and the orderly maneuvered Rahman into his hospital bed in the room that used to be a study. Two whole walls were lined with books, the other two had windows with views of the lake and the mountains. There was a fireplace with a fire already laid. How could Rahman object to staying there? A view, a fireplace and a housekeeper, too. But Amanda knew what he wanted. What every patient wanted. To get back his old life, the one he’d had before the accident.

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