Lilian Darcy – A Doctor in His House (страница 4)
Lord, he didn’t enjoy some of those memories …
Which was good, because memories weren’t relevant right now.
“I’m going to wait with you until your brother arrives,” he told her, making a decision he didn’t intend to change.
Scarlett didn’t reply.
They made it up the steps and through the door. “Where do you want to go?” he asked.
“Couch.” Apparently because she didn’t think she could make it any farther, even though he was carrying her again.
He helped her to lie down, finding a red silk pillow for her head. “Could you close the drapes?” she asked weakly. “The light is so bright.”
It wasn’t.
Not to his eyes, anyhow.
But he did as she’d asked, and it seemed to help her. She lay with her eyes closed, still wearing her sunglasses, and less tension stiffening her thin frame. She’d had more weight on her six years ago, for sure. He remembered how her body had felt in his arms, and it hadn’t been scarecrow thin like this, it had been lush and soft, almost plump in places. Recognition might have come sooner if she hadn’t changed so much.
“Can I fetch you the water you wanted?”
“Bottle or tap, I don’t mind. A big glass. It’ll help.”
He went through the adjacent dining room and into the kitchen and ran the faucet into a glass he found upturned in the dish rack, not wanting to check in the refrigerator or open the kitchen cabinets in someone else’s house. When he brought the filled glass back to her, she said in a thready voice, “Is it okay if I don’t try to sit?”
“It’s fine.” He brought the glass awkwardly sideways to her mouth, and it was such a personal action it gave him the jitters. Would she want this from him?
She seemed to prefer the drops spilled down her cheek to the thought of movement. “Thanks. You can go now. Please. Don’t feel you need to stay.”
Did she know who he was?
There was no reason for it to matter, not when she could barely move, and he wasn’t going to ask, or tell her. Not yet. Not unless it seemed truly necessary.
“I’m not leaving.”
She stayed silent for a long moment, as if assessing his determination, and whether to protest. Finally she told him, “Thank you.”
And then they just waited.
This was Andy now, thank heaven. Scarlett heard his car, then the thump of hurried feet up the steps and onto the wide, wraparound apron of the porch. He barreled through the door and into the front room. “Daniel, thanks so much for staying. Scarlett, how’re you doing?”
“A little better,” she said, putting some chirp into her voice. “My vision is the main thing. Really can’t see.”
“Can I take a look?” She heard him sit on the coffee table in front of the couch. Daniel must be hovering in the background. She couldn’t hear him. They’d been silent together for probably fifteen minutes or more before Andy had showed up. She hoped Daniel put it down to the fact that she was feeling so bad. Hoped he still didn’t know who she was. But really she had no idea. She wasn’t in a position to discern anything about what he was thinking or feeling. He’d never been a man of easy words.
Right now, she was just glad that Andy was here.
“Open your eyes,” Andy ordered.
She did so, to be greeted by blurring and multiple images and blinding light.
“Your pupils aren’t contracting,” Andy said. “That’s why it feels so bright. You’re not focusing at all.”
“Tell me about it!”
There was a pause. “Still biting your nails, Scarlett?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” But she hid her raw-tipped little fingers in the curl of her hand, self-conscious.
“Migraine can be stress related.”
To head off a lecture, she just blurted it out. “I resigned, okay?”
“You
“I resigned from the hospital.” She had to talk carefully and quietly, or her head hurt too much. “Dad doesn’t know. He thinks it’s just a vacation break. I’ll have a month here, as planned, but I’m not going back to City Children’s.”
“When will you tell him?” Andy knew as well as Scarlett did that Dad wouldn’t approve the decision.
“When I’ve worked out what I’m going to do next.”
“And you haven’t, yet? You have no idea?”
“That’s what the next month is about. I know he’s going to kill me. Or not speak to me for five years.”
“Wow.”
“What?”
“I didn’t think you’d actually do it. Thought you should. Didn’t think you would.”
“Neither did I.” She was a little scared about it, too. Was she giving up medicine completely? Giving up pediatric oncology? She didn’t know. All she knew was that being the smartest one in the family wasn’t making her happy, the way Dad was so sure that it should.
“Is a month going to be long enough?”
“Don’t know that, either.” Who was she, if she wasn’t a doctor? Who did she want to be?
He wasn’t going to let the subject go. “Do you have any concrete plans for how you’re going to spend your time up here?”
This one, she could answer with confidence. “Woodwork.”
“Woodwork?”
“I want to learn to do something with my hands, something practical and creative.” Something sensual, almost, but she didn’t feel comfortable using this word out loud. Wood? Sensual? It sounded weird. She went on, “But I’m not—you know, much into fabric or yarn. I’ve been in contact with a man up here, Aaron Bailey, who makes fine furniture and he’s happy to have me as an unpaid intern for as few or as many hours a week as I want.”
“Scarlett, that’s great!”
“I know.”
“Seriously, Scarlett, I think that’s a really great idea!”
“Thank you,” she drawled at her brother. “I do have them occasionally.”
She registered that Andy had said her name a couple of times now, and that this time Daniel Porter couldn’t possibly have misheard, as he was standing in the room, probably looking right at her. Even though he hadn’t said it, he must know who she was, despite the fact that she was thinner and had long ago abandoned her brief exploration of short and blonde.
Did he know that she knew him? Did he know that she knew that he knew that she knew?
It was more dizzying than the state of her brain.
It was weird.
“I’ll get a stronger painkiller for your head,” Andy said. “And what do you feel like eating? I can go to the store.”
“You’re driving down to the city this afternoon,” she reminded him. “I’m supposed to be moving in next door, to your vacant rental, not collapsing on your couch and having you take care of me.”
“I can postpone the trip till you’re feeling better. I’ll head down tomorrow or Saturday.”
“I’m not letting you do that. Claudia is expecting you. She needs you. She
She knew how important the trip was to him. He’d worked the past two weekends in a row, covering for colleagues who would in turn cover for him, for the next six days while he went to New York to spend time with his girlfriend, Claudia.
Claudia was starting back part-time at work this coming Monday, three days a week, and despite this reduction from the full-time hours she’d once planned, she was very jittery about leaving her three-month-old baby in day care. Andy wanted to be there for her, there for baby Ben, and then they would both come up here again next Thursday before Claudia needed to head back to the city the following Sunday afternoon.
Yeah, it did sound overcomplicated.
Since Claudia was the best thing that had happened to Andy in a long time and he was quite adorably in love with her, if you could ever consider an older brother adorable in any context, Scarlett absolutely did not intend to ruin their plans.