The server moved quickly to open the passenger door for him, and Everett flashed a grateful smile at her. “Thank you.”
The server waited until he buckled Lila into her seat, then handed the purse and the dinners she was holding to him.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call the paramedics for you?” she asked one last time, eyeing Lila.
“Very sure,” Everett answered. “I’m a doctor. She’s been out in the field, visiting sick people for the last two days and it looks like she came down with the flu for her trouble.” Closing the door, he looked at the young woman and tried to set her mind at ease one last time. “Thanks for all your trouble—” he paused to read her name tag “—Ruth.”
The young woman grinned broadly when he addressed her by her name. “My pleasure, Doctor.” With that, she quickly hurried back into the restaurant.
Everett’s attention was already focused on Lila. She was still unconscious. How the hell could he have missed all those signs? he thought, upbraiding himself again.
“I’m sorry, Lila. I should have realized what was wrong this morning in the parking lot.”
And then it suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea where Lila lived. Getting her purse, he went through it until he found her wallet with her driver’s license in it. Looking at it, he repeated her address out loud in order to memorize it.
“Let’s get you home, Cinderella.”
Chapter Ten
Everett was able to locate the development where Lila lived with only a minimum of difficulty.
Finding her house was a little trickier. Driving slowly and trying to make out the addresses painted on the curb, he finally drove up toward her house.
Pulling up into her driveway, he turned off his engine and then sat in the car, looking at Lila. She hadn’t come to once during the entire trip from the restaurant to her house.
“Okay, I got you here. Now what?” he wondered out loud. “The logical step would be to get you into the house, wouldn’t it?” Everett said as if he was carrying on a conversation with the unconscious woman sitting next to him. “But for that to happen, I’m going to need either a roommate who’s living in your house or a key to the front door.”
He looked back toward the house. There weren’t any lights on, which meant that either Lila lived alone, or if she did have a roommate—which she hadn’t mentioned—the roommate was out.
He opened her purse again. This time he was rummaging through the purse looking for her keys. He found a set of keys at the very bottom of her purse. There were five keys on the ring.
“You sure don’t make things easy, do you, Lila?” he asked.
He decided he needed to find the right key and open the front door before carrying her out of his car. If he was lucky, she might even wake up by the time he discovered which of the keys fit the front door lock. And awake, she might be able to walk—with some help—to the house. That would eliminate some complications, like nosy neighbors, he thought.
Everett went up the front walk to her door and patiently started trying out keys.
The very last key turned out to be the one to open her front door.
“It figures,” he murmured.
Everett went inside the house and flipped on the first light switch he found. The darkness receded.
At least he could find his way around, he thought.
Leaving the front door standing open, he pocketed the key ring and went back to the car.
Lila was still unconscious.
Unbuckling her seat belt, Everett found that the clothes she was wearing were all practically soaked.
“You’re sweating this flu out,” he told her. “As a doctor, I know that’s a good thing. But I’d still feel a lot better if you opened your eyes.” He looked at her, half hoping that the sound of his voice would somehow make her come around. But it didn’t. “Nothing, huh?” He sighed.
The next moment, Everett took her purse and slung the straps onto his shoulder. Then he lifted her up carefully and carried her to her front door.
“If any of your neighbors are watching this, Lila, we should be hearing the sound of police sirens approaching very shortly. For both our sakes, I hope you have the kind of neighbors who keep their curtains drawn and mind their own business, at least this one time.”
The wind had caused the door to close a little but he managed to shoulder it open.
Like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold, he carried Lila into the house. Once inside, he closed the door with his back, making a mental note to lock it as soon as he found some place to put Lila down.
Looking around, Everett found himself standing in a small, sparsely decorated living room.
“You never were one for a lot of possessions,” he commented, scanning the room.
He saw a tan sectional sofa facing a medium-size flat-screen TV mounted on the opposite wall. Crossing over to it, Everett gently placed Lila on the sofa, leaving her there for the moment. Going back, he locked the front door and then walked around the single-story house, orienting himself. Like the living room, everything was in place and neatly arranged.
“Anyone here?” Everett called out, although he took the darkened state of the house to indicate that it was empty.
He continued to make his way through the house, looking into each room. There were two bedrooms located in the back across from one another. One was larger than the other. He took the smaller one to be a guest bedroom. Looking into it, he found that it was empty. There were no clothes in the closet.
Apparently, Lila did live alone.
His smile vanished after a moment. This wasn’t good, he thought. She was sick and she needed someone here to take care of her.
With a sigh, he went back to the living room. She was right where he’d left her—and still unconscious. He thought of his medical bag in his trunk.
“First things first,” he told himself. Picking Lila up again, he said to her, “I need to get you out of these wet clothes and into bed.” He caught himself smiling as he carried her to what he had determined to be her bedroom. “There was a time that would have meant something entirely different. But don’t worry, I’ve got my ‘doctor hat’ on and you have nothing to worry about.”
As attracted as he still was to her, his first thought was about her health. He wanted to get Lila well again.
Bringing Lila into the larger bedroom, he managed to move aside the comforter and put her down on the queen-size bed. He took off her shoes and then began going through the drawers of her bureau, looking for a nightgown or something that looked as if she wore it to bed.
Moving a few things aside, he froze when he came across an old college jersey.
His old college jersey.
He remembered when he’d given it to her. He’d told her that when she wore it, she’d be close to him. Taking it out now, he looked at the jersey for a long moment, then at her.
“You actually kept it,” he said in disbelief. “And judging by how faded it is, you’ve been wearing it. Maybe this isn’t as hopeless as I thought,” he murmured under his breath, referring to his plan to get back together with her.
Moving quickly, Everett removed the rest of her clothes and slipped the college jersey on her. Done, he tucked Lila into bed as if he was tucking in a child. He refused to allow himself to become distracted. Right now, Lila was his patient, not the only woman he had ever loved.
“I’ll be right back,” he told her even though she was still unconscious and couldn’t hear him. “I’m going to bring in the food and get my medical bag out of the trunk.”
He was back in a few minutes, leaving the to-go bags on the kitchen table for the time being. He had something far more important on his mind than food, despite the fact that his stomach kept rumbling in protest over being neglected.
Opening up his medical bag, Everett took out his stethoscope and sever
al other basic instruments he never went anywhere without. Then he gave Lila a quick but thorough exam to confirm what he pretty much already suspected.
Her pulse was rapid, her temperature was high and, at one point, as he conducted his examination, she began to shiver.
“Chills,” he noted. “And you were already displaying signs of fatigue this morning. You, Lila Clark, are a regular poster child for the flu,” he concluded. Setting aside his stethoscope, he frowned. “I bet with all that running around you were doing, you forgot to get yourself immunized for the flu, didn’t you?”
Mentally crossing his fingers, he looked through his bag and found that he had thought to pack some extra acetaminophen. Taking out a fresh syringe, he removed the plastic casing and gave her an injection.
“That should help lower your fever,” he told Lila. He frowned thoughtfully. “But you still can’t be left alone, not like this.”
There was a chair over in the corner by the window and he dragged it over to her bed. Sitting down, Everett studied her for a few minutes, reviewing his options. He was due back in Houston tomorrow, but there was no way he was about to leave her in this condition.
The injection he gave her should lower her fever, but things didn’t always go the way they were supposed to. If Lila took a turn for the worse, there was no one here to take her to the hospital. Or do anything else for her, for that matter.
Even if he didn’t feel the way he did about her, he couldn’t just abandon her.
Everett made up his mind. He might not have been there for Lila thirteen years ago, but he could be here for her now.
Stepping out into the hallway, he took out his cell phone and placed a call to one of the doctors he worked with. He found himself listening to an answering machine telling him to leave a message. He’d hoped to talk to the other man directly, but that wasn’t an option right now.
“Ryan, it’s Everett. I’m in the middle of some sort of flu epidemic here in Austin and I’m going to be staying here a few more days. I’m going to need you and Blake to cover for me at the office. I appreciate it and I owe you—big time. Any questions, you have my cell.”
With that, he terminated the call.
Coming back into the room to check on Lila, Everett called Schuyler next. His sister answered on the second ring.
“Schuy, it’s Everett. I’m going to be staying in Austin a few more days.”
“Oh?” Schuyler really didn’t sound all that surprised, he thought. “Did you and Lila manage to patch things up?” she asked.
He wasn’t about to get into that right now. That was a personal matter and it was officially on the back burner until Lila got well.
“It’s not what you think,” Everett was quick to tell his sister.
“Okay, if you’re not trying to romance Lila into taking you back, then why are you going to be staying in Austin a few more days?” Schuyler wanted to know.
“You know that flu epidemic I came here to help treat?”
“Yes, I got my vaccination, Ev,” she told him, thinking that was what her brother was going to ask her.
“Good, but that wasn’t what I was about to tell you,” Everett said.
“Okay, then what were you going to tell me?” Schuyler asked gamely.
“Lila came down with the flu,” he told his sister simply. “She lives by herself and there’s no one to take care of her.”
“My Lord,” Schuyler cried. “If I saw this story on one of those movie-of-the-week channels I’d shut off the TV.”
“I didn’t ask for your evaluation,” Everett told her impatiently. “I just wanted you to know that I was still in town—and why.”
After a moment, Schuyler said, “You’re serious. Then she’s really sick?”
Did Schuyler think that Lila would pretend to be ill—and that he’d just blindly fall for it?
“Schuy, I’m a doctor. I know what ‘sick’ looks like. Right now, Lila’s not only displaying all the signs of the flu, she’s unconscious.”
Schuyler’s tone of voice changed immediately. “Anything I can do?”
He thought of Lila’s car. It was still at the Foundation’s parking lot where Lila had left it. He knew that Lila would undoubtedly prefer to have the car close by when she regained consciousness—if for no other reason than there might be something in it that she needed.
“As a matter of fact, there is,” Everett told her. “If you and one of your friends could swing by here tomorrow morning to get the keys, could you pick up Lila’s car from the Foundation’s parking lot and drive it over to her house?”
“I think I liked you better when you didn’t feel it was seemly to ask for favors,” Schuyler told him.
He knew she was kidding. He also knew he could count on his sister.
“I’m growing as a person,” Everett quipped.
“That’s not how I see it,” she told him. “All right, where’s ‘here’?” his sister asked.
He thought he heard her shuffling papers on the other end and then he heard Schuler say, “Okay, give me Lila’s address.”
He did, and then he said, “I assume you know where the Fortune Foundation is located.”
“You know, you can be very insulting, big brother,” Schuyler told him.
“Not intentionally,” he told her, then added, “Thanks for this, Schuy.”
“Yeah. I just hope you’re not going to wind up regretting this, that’s all,” she told him, sounding concerned.
She was worried and he appreciated that. But there was no need for his sister to feel that way. “Schuy, Lila’s sick. I’m a doctor. I’m supposed to take care of sick people.”
Schuyler barely stifled a laugh. “You don’t think this a little above and beyond?” she questioned.
“I’m an ‘above and beyond’ kind of doctor,” Everett answered, doing his best to make light of the concerns his sister was displaying.
“Not funny, Ev,” Schuyler informed him. “I worry about you,” she stressed.
“And I said I appreciate that. I also appreciate you picking up that car and bringing it back to Lila’s house for me,” he said, bringing the conversation back to what he was asking her to do.
Schuyler sighed. “What time do you want me to come by?”
There was no reason to push. “Whenever it’s convenient.” He glanced toward Lila’s room. “It doesn’t look as if I’m going to be going anywhere for at least a while.”
“I’ll still call you first,” she told Everett. It was obvious that she wasn’t going to take a chance on walking in on something.
Everett was just about to end the call when he heard his sister say his name. Bringing the cell phone closer again so he could hear her, he asked, “Did you just say something?”
“I just had a last-minute thought,” she told him.
“And that is?”
His sister hesitated for a moment. “I don’t suppose I can talk you into hiring someone to look after Lila, can I?”
He knew she was just thinking of him, but he wished she would stop. He wanted to do this and his mind was made up.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Schuyler,” he said just before he terminated the call.
Putting the phone back into his pocket, he returned to Lila’s bedside.
When he touched her forehead, it seemed a little cooler to him. Taking out the thermometer he’d used earlier, he laid the strip across her forehead and watched the numbers registering.
He removed the strip and put it back into his medical bag.
“You still have a fever,” he told her. “But at least it’s a little lower. Although not low enough,” he stressed with a frown. “You can’t go out and do your angel-of-mercy bit until that fever is gone and you’re back to your old self again.”
Lila moaned.
He knew it wasn’t in respons
e to what he’d just said, but he pretended that there was a semblance of an exchange going on between the two of them.
Lila had a small TV in her bedroom. Nothing like the one in the living room, but at least it would be something to fill the silence and distract him, he thought.
Turning on the TV, he put the volume on low, sat down in the chair next to Lila’s bed and made himself as comfortable as possible.
He knew he could make use of the guest room and lie down on the bed there, but he preferred proximity over comfort. He wanted to be there for her if Lila woke up in the middle of the night and needed him. One night in a chair wouldn’t kill him.
Besides, how many nights had he gone without sleep when he was an intern at the hospital? That certainly hadn’t done him any harm, Everett reminded himself—and neither would spending a night sitting up and keeping vigil in a chair.
Everett doubted that he would get any sleep in the guest room anyway. He knew himself. He’d be too busy straining his ears, listening for any strange noises that would indicate that Lila was awake.
No, he decided, trying to make himself as comfortable as possible in the chair. Staying in Lila’s room this way was better. He’d be right here, able to hear her make the slightest sound when she woke up. And he figured she had to wake up soon.
“I know you need your rest so I’m not going to worry about this yet. But I’d take it as a personal favor if you opened those big blue eyes of yours soon, Lila. Very soon.”
The only response he heard was the sound of Lila breathing.
Chapter Eleven
“What are you doing in my house?”
The raspy voice was hardly louder than a hoarse whisper, but it was definitely unnerving and accusatory in nature. Catching Everett off guard, it made him jump in his chair and almost caused him to knock it over.
Coming to, Everett realized that he must have finally dozed off for a few minutes.
It took him a moment longer before it hit him that it was Lila who’d asked the question.
Fully awake now, he got up and stood over Lila’s bed. Her eyes were open and she looked bewildered. Relief washed over him as he took her hand in his. “You’re awake!”
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