Laurel gave her daughter a brief, grateful smile. Marcia nodded in return. Then Laurel put a gentle arm around Miss Callie’s waist and nodded to Mita. They stepped past the nurse and into the hallway.
He lay on the bed looking stalwart and mahogany-dark against the white sheets, in spite of the paleness of his face. He was alive—the equipment that surrounded him, beeping and humming, said so. But his eyes were sealed shut and his breathing so shallow that it scarcely stirred the hospital gown that covered him. Beneath it, the bandage on his shoulder was bulky and laced with tubes that ran down the strongly turned perfection of his arm and disappeared over the bed’s far edge.
Miss Callie sighed, a tremulous sound. “Thank God, oh, thank God. I could not have borne it if…if it had turned out like Gregory.”
“No,” Laurel said in soft agreement. Her gaze met Mita’s dark eyes, so like Alec’s, before she turned back toward the bed.
A lengthy silence fell as they watched him. Alec slept on, oblivious under whatever anesthetic they had given him while they repaired his chest.
After a time, Miss Callie stepped closer and touched his hand in a gentle, soothing gesture. Shoulders drooping with tiredness, she turned toward the door. As Laurel hesitated she lifted a hand. “No, no, I just need to sit down a moment. Mita can come with me. You stay, so someone will be here in case—that is, when he wakes up.”
The door closed soundlessly behind the two women. Laurel turned back at once to the bed. This time she stepped right up to it and took Alec’s hand in hers, wrapping her cool fingers around their lax strength. It was there, that strength, whether he was conscious or not. In some curious fashion, he still dominated the room, making it appear small and barely able to hold him.
How long she stood there, she had no idea. Sounds penetrated from the outside—the voices of visitors leaving, the rattle of a wheelchair, announcements on the public-address system. Once she heard an ambulance. Later on, she recognized the noise and activity of the nurses changing shifts. She didn’t move, but stood rubbing her thumb gently over the bones and veins of Alec’s hand.
One moment he was comatose. The next he was watching her with cogent thought in the rich chocolate darkness of his eyes and a frown between his brows.
She’d had a great deal of time to consider what she would do if and when this moment came. Smiling slightly, she said, “Hello. Will you marry me?”
His gaze was abruptly opaque. He directed a slight nod at his shoulder as he said in husky consideration, “That bad, is it?”
She should have known it wouldn’t be so easy. Stifling a sigh, she said, “There are other reasons for marriage besides deathbed grandstanding—which you don’t need. Or pity.”
A dark brow lifted. “Gratitude, then.”
“As Marcia so nicely put it just a little while ago, if you saved my life, I also saved yours. Where does the gratitude come in?”
“Your children are here?” The words were steady, if not particularly loud.
She nodded. “Supporting their mother as children should.”
“And they don’t…mind?”
“If they do, they aren’t saying so since they know it will do no good.” As his gaze held hers, unwavering, she gave a small laugh. “Actually, I don’t think they dare. It seems we have become a formidable pair in the eyes of Hillsboro. Our reputations will no doubt grow with the telling, come daylight.”
Brief amusement came and went across his face, which was so pale under its layer of bronze. “It was you.”
“Not alone. Which is the way I want it from now on.”
“You don’t need me.”
“You’re mistaken.” She said the words with deliberate emphasis. Then she went on quickly, in part to save him from the effort, but also because she was afraid she would lose her courage otherwise. “You asked me to marry you, and I refused you. I’m sorry if I hurt you, but there were reasons that I thought were important at the time. Now they are gone. But if your pride demands that I beg, well, then, where would you like me to start?”
“It doesn’t!” His revulsion at the idea showed in the curl of his upper lip.
“Then you’ve changed your mind.”
“No, but…”
“But I seem suddenly older and more decrepit than you thought, and you’ve decided you would rather find some young thing to share your swing?”
“God, no! You don’t fight fair.”
Brightly, she said, “Who said this was a fair fight? But what was it that got to you? The swing, I think? I could as easily have mentioned sharing your shower. Or your moonlit garden.”
“Laurel.”
The sound of her name on his lips, the look in his eyes, were enough to stop her cold. And freeze-dry her heart. Against the pain, she cried, “What more do you want? I told you I love you.”
“Under duress. Like a final meal for the condemned, or a last request.” He waited.
“Oh, is that what you think?” she asked, breathing again in a sudden rush. Then she frowned. “Of course, I could take it that all the stuff you said was last-chance business, too.”
A slow smile curved his mouth and he turned his head from side to side. “You aren’t going to give me the satisfaction of hearing you say it by yourself, are you?”
“Again? Well, yes, in between.”
He sighed. “Between what?”
“Swinging and showering, maybe. But I’m really not being fair. Suppose I told you that marriage to me means becoming a grandfather overnight?”
“What? Oh, Marcia, I guess. Bribes will get you nowhere.”
Her voice a little strained, she asked, “You really don’t mind?”
“I like babies, but I’ve never been a grandfather, never really had one for a role model. You’ll have to show me how to go about it.”
“I’ve never been a grandmother, either,” she informed him in pretended annoyance.
“Then we’ll learn together. Maybe bribes will work, after all.”
“I’ve got more,” she said, her eyes bright with something besides laughter.
“Do you, now?” He paused. “Well, are you going to tell me or not?”
She swallowed and nodded. “I need a gardener. It will be a long time before Maisie comes back to work, if ever, so I’ll be too busy in the house to manage the outside.”
“For how long?”
“The position is open-ended. I also need a model for my sculpting, since I’ll be going back to it as soon as I can have another shed built. Which reminds me…”
“You need a carpenter.”
“Are you any good at that?” Her gaze was hopeful, but not quite focused.
“I,” he replied, “am a master with a hammer. And a few other things.”
“Good. Because I don’t really like staying by myself at night, so I’ll need a night watchman. Yes, and as long as you’re there, you can make yourself useful warming my cold feet…and other things.”
“You’re going to drive me crazy,” he said with conviction.
She turned her head a little, not quite certain he was joking. “Why would you say that?”
“Because there are so many things I’d like to do to you right now, and I can’t move.”
“Oh.” Her smile was only a little fractured by tears. “That was something else. I don’t think I can live without finding out exactly what your poor dragon is going to look like when he comes out from under the cover.”
“Come here,” he said, his eyes sparkling like jet, “and maybe I’ll give you an advance peek.”
She looked over her shoulder. “I don’t know. There was a nurse earlier who didn’t even want me coming in here, much less climbing into bed with you.”
His grasp on her hand tightened. “I’ll take care of her. Come here.”
“Well, but you haven’t said you’ll marry me.”
“And I’m not saying it—not until I hear a lot more about what’s in store for me.”
She put one knee on the bed, the
n took it down. “You haven’t even said you’ll be my gardener.”
“Didn’t I? We can discuss that, too. Along with job incentives. And bonuses. Also the hours that I can give you after I find myself a position as an engineer somewhere within reasonable driving distance.”
“You’re a hard man, Alec Stanton,” she said, sighing in defeat as she climbed up beside him.
He opened his good arm and used it to lock her against his side as she eased down to face him. “Indeed, I am,” he murmured against her cheek. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Not much just now, but I suppose we can talk about that, too.”
“Talking,” he countered, “is what got me into this fix in the first place.”
“I thought it was gardening,” she said, closing her eyes as she absorbed the hard, healthy strength and sure power of him.
“It’s all the same,” he replied with some distraction as he tried to figure out how to touch her without hurting himself. “Both are never-ending affairs.”
“Like loving,” she suggested, solving his problem by moving closer.
He sighed in satisfaction and lightly brushed her lips. As he moved in for a deeper kiss, he whispered, “Exactly like loving.”
ISBN: 978-1-4603-0502-7
GARDEN OF SCANDAL
Copyright © 1997 by Patricia Maxwell.
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