by Ann Mcintosh
There was a high probability she wouldn’t even take the job at all. After all, no one needed to know whether she was going to, or not. She just had to turn down the job here, and tell them she was going back, once she’d fulfilled her obligations to the hospital.
How was she going to manage for the rest of the time she was on the island, without doing or saying something to Kiah they’d both regret? As angry as she was with him, she knew she’d get past it, but nothing would ever be the same. She’d have to hide behind a mask of friendly laughter, so as not to upset Charm, or get Miss Pearl on her case.
It all felt untenable, made her want to run away. Just curl up somewhere alone, like she’d done after the divorce and the loss of her hand.
But that wasn’t an option.
She was committed to staying on St. Eustace, at least for a little longer, and not even Kiah’s foolishness was going to stop her from doing what she’d promised.
If there was one good thing about the situation, she thought, as she made her way out of the stall and over to the sink to wash her face, it was that it no doubt put paid to the physical relationship with Kiah.
She couldn’t share her body with a man who couldn’t trust her when the chips were down. Couldn’t trust her to be a good custodian of his niece’s life.
No matter what arguments her wayward libido and her breaking heart might come up with.
Bracing herself to see him again, Mina went back to Charm’s room. Kiah wasn’t there and Charm was asleep under Miss Pearl’s watchful eyes.
The older lady got up as soon as Mina came in, and pulled her in for a hug. How was it that Miss Pearl suddenly felt frailer than she had before, as though the fright of Charm’s illness had sapped the strength from her body?
“Mina, child, thank you for being there for Charm,” she whispered. “And for acting so promptly. I’m so glad you were with her, although I know it must have been hard.”
Mina hugged her back, thankful that at least someone appreciated what she’d done, and been through.
“It wasn’t easy, but she’s going to be all right, and that’s the important thing.”
Miss Pearl leaned back and cupped Mina’s cheeks, her gaze searching.
“It is, child. It is. But you must be exhausted from all this drama and excitement. Hezekiah hasn’t come back yet, and I’m going to stay with her for a while. Why don’t you go and get some rest? You can come back later and sit with her, if you want.”
Glad for the excuse to go, Mina nodded.
“Call me and let me know what time my shift is, and I’ll come back. I’ll take a cab and leave the car here, so Kiah has it to use.”
“You drove yourself and Charm here?” The expression of shock on Miss Pearl’s face would normally be comical, but Mina had no energy left for laughter.
“Yes. I didn’t want to wait for a cab or an ambulance,” she said, fishing the keys out of her bag and putting them on the table.
“Well,” said Miss Pearl quietly, as Mina bent to kiss her cheek, prepared to take her leave. “What doesn’t happen in a year happens in a day. You’re well on your way to full recovery, and it makes my old heart glad to see it.”
As Mina walked toward the door, Miss Pearl said, “Mina, do me a favor before you go?”
Mina paused, almost too weary to turn back, but doing it anyway. “Of course.”
The elderly lady hesitated for an instant, and then said, slowly, “Hezekiah said he was going to get Charmaine something to eat, but I’m worried about him. Could you check on him, please?”
Tears threatened, but Mina held them back. “I saw him. I think he’s okay. Just angry, I guess because of the lumbar puncture.”
Miss Pearl shook her head. “No, child. That’s not why he’s angry.” She sighed, lowering herself back into the chair. “Ever since his father died, he’s taken the weight of this family onto his shoulders. That mother of his blamed him for not saving Benjamin—his father—and for everything else she could come up with. Kiah’s probably blaming himself for not being here with Charm, and for putting the burden of her care onto you.”
Legs suddenly weak, Mina reached out and held on to the doorjamb to hold herself up. “His mother did that? He never told me.”
Miss Pearl nodded, her eyes solemn behind her glasses. “I thank God every day that Kiah turned out as well as he did, but he takes on more responsibility than he should, because of that woman and her bad ways. And when things frighten or hurt him, he gets angry, like a lot of men do. It’s the only way he knows how to let it out.”
And Mina knew how his mother’s anger had scarred Kiah, both physically and emotionally. He’d said, more than once, when they were teens, how much he feared turning out like her, bitter and abusive.
Did he still feel that way? Get frightened by his reactions, instead of realizing they were natural and not dangerous?
Had he walked away not because he was angry with Mina, but because he fighting his inner demons, and was afraid he’d take them out on her?
There was only one way to find out.
She straightened, determination giving her back her strength.
“I’ll find him, Miss Pearl, and make sure he’s all right.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHE SEARCHED THE hospital for Kiah, finally finding him pacing back and forth in the sanctuary garden behind the chapel. The sun was setting, roseate color tinting the sky and the water in the little fountain, but Kiah was clearly oblivious to it all. Head down, he walked back and forth, his hands clenched into fists, each stride taken as though he was trying to push his feet through the earth’s crust.
With her new perspective, just watching him made her heart hurt. His pain was obvious in each step he took, the pallor of his face unmistakable.
Not wanting to startle him, but knowing he hadn’t noticed her, Mina stepped onto the stone path and walked toward him. His head came up at the sound of her first footfall, and there, in his eyes, she saw his agony before he had a chance to mask it.
“Do you remember the professor at university who told us to make sure we took up a hobby?” she asked.
Kiah gave her a blank look, and then, blinking as though just awaking up, he nodded. “Professor Brathwaite, wasn’t it?”
Mina snapped her fingers. “Yes, that’s the one. Anatomy.”
His brows came together. “What made you think of him?”
She shrugged, stopping at the neat little stacked-stone wall surrounding the garden and sitting on it. “I guess it was watching you marching back and forth like that. If pacing were a sport, you’d be a shoo-in for an Olympic medal.”
The sound he made wasn’t quite a laugh, but it was close. Then he immediately sobered. “Is Charm—?”
“She’s fine. Sleeping, with Miss Pearl standing guard over her. We were worried about you. I wanted to check on you before I left.”
“I’m fine.” It came out a little like a growl, but then he repeated it, in a softer tone. “I’m fine. I just need some time to...”
“Decompress?”
“As good a word as any. Mina, I can’t—”
She held up her hand, forestalling his words. “You can, Kiah. You can tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”
His lips twisted, and he shook his head. “No, I can’t. Not right now.”
“Why?”
Kiah turned away, fists clenched again, and she saw the tension in the stiffness of his back, the taut line of his neck.
“Leave it, Mina. We can talk about it later.”
“I think we should deal with it now.”
He didn’t reply, just took a couple steps away from her, as though distancing himself from the conversation.
From her.
Trying not to be hurt by that, she didn’t move, although it was clear he wished she would just go away. It was
up to her to get him to open up, and she wasn’t sure how.
So she said the first thing that came to mind. “I was scared, when I realized how ill Charm was, and angry. Even now, I’m still pretty angry.”
He froze, his shoulders bowing, and Mina rushed into speech, before he could start taking the blame for that, too.
“I’m angry because she’s ill, because no child should have to go through what she’s gone through. But the one thing I’m not is angry at you. Are you angry at me?”
That brought him around to face her, and his expression was so anguished she could hardly bear it.
“No! God, Mina, I never wanted you to think that.”
“Then what are you angry about, Kiah?”
He spun away and then back, as though he couldn’t help himself.
“Everything,” he said, his voice gravelly, as though he held the volume down by sheer will. “That Charm was ill, and I wasn’t here to help her. That you had to be the one to make that call, and stay with her during the spinal tap. That—”
He stopped. Cursing, he turned away once more.
She got up, needing to be on her feet, caught somewhere between anger and pain—both for him. All for him.
“Don’t turn away from me, Kiah. Face me and tell me the rest of it.”
“Stop it, Mina.”
It was a plea, but one she had to ignore. For him and, she suspected, for her, too.
“Stop what? Stop trying to be your friend, or trying to help you? Is that what you want, Kiah?”
“No.” He still had his back to her and threw the word over his shoulder, as though he couldn’t stop it from emerging from his throat. “I never wanted to hurt you, Mina, and yet I did, by asking you to take up a responsibility that was mine.”
Moving a little closer, she said, “You didn’t hurt me, Kiah, by asking that of me. I love Charm, and I was honored you’d put her care in my hands.”
“But I shouldn’t have.”
“Why not?”
“It wasn’t your burden to bear!” He almost shouted it, making Mina jump, startled. “It was mine, and I sloughed it off onto you and made you deal with it, hurting you in the process.”
He stopped, and she could see his chest heaving, as though he’d run a mile, rather than been standing still.
“Is that it?” she said, infusing as much annoyance into her voice as she could, when all she wanted to do was go and hold him. “I’m this fragile little flower you have to protect from the vagaries of life?”
“You know I didn’t mean it that way...”
“Really? Because that’s how it sounded.”
That made him face her, and she saw the anger still shimmering behind his eyes.
“I am trying to protect you. Can’t you see that? I’m angry, Mina. Furious. And I just need a little time to get myself back together so I don’t explode. Can you give that to me?”
“No...” She shook her head, seeing his eyes widen, as though that were the last thing he expected. “I’m your friend, and I’m here to listen to you rage, to scream with you, if that’s what you want. To hug you, if you need me to. Keeping it all in won’t help, Kiah. It’ll only hurt.”
The look he gave her was incendiary, and made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. But there was no way she was backing down.
“I don’t want you to do any of those things.” It sounded as though his throat was tight, the words harsh. “I can manage this on my own.”
She nodded slowly, holding back the pain of his rejection, not letting it weaken her resolve.
“So as not to take it out on anyone else?”
“Yes! Dammit Mina, just leave me to it, won’t you?”
Instead of walking away, she stepped closer to him, saw the way he stiffened.
“You know you’re not your mother, don’t you?”
He stepped back, his head tilting away, as though she’d slapped him.
“What did you say?”
It was barely above a whisper, but he might as well have shouted it, for the emotional punch it packed.
“You’re not your mother, Kiah. You don’t hurt people because you’re angry. You don’t throw things, threaten people, lose your cool and intentionally say hurtful things. You have a temper, but you control it and, at times like this, you need to let the anger out with someone who cares, who understands and isn’t afraid to stand with you while you do.”
He stepped back again, the movement jerky, instinctive. She followed, keeping pace with him.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Really?” Mina stepped even closer, so they were only a couple feet apart. “I was there, at school, when you came in with that cut on your head. You told everyone you’d fallen, but I got you to admit your mother threw a bottle at you. I asked you what you did, when that happened, and you said you locked yourself in the bathroom. You didn’t hurt her back, although you could have, easily.”
“Mina...don’t.”
Again she ignored his pleading tone, knowing it all needed to be said.
“And when you were on the football field, senior year, and the opposing player was calling you nasty names, trying to get you to fight, I saw how angry you were, but you wouldn’t give in to it.”
“I destroyed a garbage can.” He said it as though making an important point, but she waved it off.
“After the game, outside, when it was just the two of us around. Did you hurt anyone? No, you didn’t. And there was the time in university, when those two guys jumped you. You fought back, but once they were down, you walked away. You could have kicked the hell out of them, but you didn’t.”
“Stop.”
He sounded so tired suddenly, beaten, but she wasn’t sure she’d gotten through to him yet.
“I’ll stop when I think you understand what I’m saying. The people who love you know the man you are. We’re not afraid of your temper, and while we love how protective you are, we don’t need you to feel as though you’re responsible for our lives, because you’re not.”
She moved closer, so as to put her hand on his arm, and his muscles, already tight, hardened even further under her fingers.
“And sometimes you have to accept that someone other than you is going to do the protecting. I was glad I was the one who made the decision about Charm today, so that you didn’t have to. I knew how much it would hurt you to have to agree to the lumbar puncture, how it would tear you up to see her go through it, so I did that for you, out of love.”
“I don’t like to see you hurting.”
“I know,” she said softly, raising her hand to place it against his cheek, meeting his still-anguished gaze. “But sometimes it’s inevitable, and you know that, as a human, a doctor, a man. You just have to accept it.”
Turning his head to kiss her palm, he closed his eyes, and her heart ached to see him so vulnerable.
He took a deep, shuddering breath. “What am I going to do without you, when you’re gone?”
Everything she felt for him swelled inside her, and she knew she had to find the courage to speak her truth, no matter the consequences.
“You don’t have to find out, if you don’t want to.”
In a blink she found her gaze captured by his, and the tenderness of the previous moments fled before the intensity in his eyes.
But he didn’t speak, didn’t ask what she meant, just froze, almost as though he’d even stopped breathing.
“I love you, Kiah, more than I ever thought I could love anyone, and I want to stay here with you. But you have to decide whether you want me to, or not.”
She almost stopped, too afraid to continue, but she was stronger now than she had been, and she needed him to know she accepted and loved him, just the way he was. So she inhaled and found the courage, even though her hand was shaking and her knee
s were watery.
“It scares me, Kiah, loving you this way. You’ll never lose my friendship, but we could be so much more, and I can get past the fear because I know our lives would be better, together. I want you for my own, to help you raise Charm, even if we never have any children of our own, since that’s not something you want. Be there for you through good times and bad, just like we’ve always been there for each other since that first day in Mrs. Nowac’s class. All I want, all I need, is you.”
He still hadn’t moved, or spoken, so Mina rubbed his cheek lightly, savoring the warmth of his skin on her palm, then she pulled away.
“Or I can go back to Toronto, and we salvage what we can, from a distance.”
It was up to him now, but she thought her heart would break when she turned to leave, and he didn’t call her back.
* * *
Kiah tried to take in all the things Mina had said, as he watched her walk away, but her words swirled in his head, until he could hardly make sense of them anymore. His heart pounded, and his chest felt tight, so he could only draw shallow draughts of air into his lungs.
This was what love did to a man. Tied him in knots, scrambled his brains, left him without the wherewithal to know his head from his butt.
She’d always had this effect on him. Even when they were bantering back and forth, he’d been awestruck that Mina was his friend, that she actually liked him enough to stick around.
And from the first day they’d met, he would have done anything for her, up to and including laying down his own life.
She’d said she loved him, wanted to be with him, and then, in almost the same breath, said she was willing to leave and go back to Toronto.
The memory of her saying it slashed through the fog filling his head, even as his stomach twisted with emotions too numerous to categorize.
She’d said she was willing to give up on her dream of having a family of her own, just to be with him, but did she really mean it? He’d heard what she said—about his temper, about him not being like his mother—but did he believe it?