Night Fires

by Sandra Marton

Gabrielle had filled a pan with milk and put it on the stove.

  There wouldn’t have been any doubts a year ago. ‘My innocent Gabriella,’ her father had called her once, and she knew it was true. She’d led a sheltered life. The Vitale compound was quiet and secure, and insulated from the world.

  In the real world, people were not always what they seemed. The authorities who were sworn to uphold the law hadn’t hesitated to coerce her into co-operating. Reporters had lied to get her story. And the man she called Uncle Tony was…

  Was what? A union boss, that was all he was.

  Suppose—just suppose there was more to it than that. Suppose there was substance to the ugly charges levelled against him. Suppose her testimony, simple as it was, might damage him.

  Vitale’s not going to let you just walk away, young lady…

  The milk had hissed as it boiled over the rim of the pan, and she’d snatched it from the stove, drawing in her breath as the pot handle burned her fingers.

  No. That was ridiculous. Uncle Tony wasn’t—he wouldn’t…

  Besides, if James had been sent to hurt her, he could have just let the truck run her down that first morning. And they’d been alone for hours last night.

  Unless he was toying with her. Or waiting for his orders. Or…

  Gabrielle drew in her breath. The past months had turned her brain to mush. She wasn’t in any danger, not from Tony Vitale. It was the authorities who’d turned her life upside-down, not he.

  The rain had lessened by morning. She’d put on a sweat-suit and her running shoes and started towards the shop. She had almost been there when thunder rolled across the sky and the rain turned into a downpour. Gabrielle had lifted her face to the drops and let them cool her flushed cheeks. Suddenly, what had happened with James had seemed very simple to understand.

  He didn’t really know anything about her. Steaks, baked potatoes and green salads were standard American fare, red wine was a charming romantic touch.

  Her cynical reaction to the evening was what didn’t fit the picture. She’d been riding an emotional rollercoaster for so long that it had twisted her view of life.

  Her past was still with her, and until she managed to put it aside, until she could look at life without seeing shadows where there were none, the best kind of relationship was no relationship at all, and never mind the way her body had seemed to turn to warm honey in James’s arms.

  ‘Gaby?’

  She turned, startled, as Alma stepped through the beaded curtain, her pretty face wreathed in frowns.

  Gabrielle sighed. ‘Don’t tell me. The cactus plants have decided to mount all-out war and…’ Her teasing words drifted to silence. ‘Alma? What’s happened?’

  The other woman swallowed. ‘It’s—it’s the hospital, Gaby. They asked for you.’

  Gabrielle’s mouth went dry. Wispy memories rose like smoke from a dying fire; she felt herself spinning back to a time when a call from the hospital could only be a harbinger of tragedy.

  She brushed past Alma and pushed through the curtain. Her hand shook as she snatched up the telephone.

  ‘This is Gabrielle Shelton,’ she said.

  The disembodied voice was the same as the ones she’d heard so many times before—cool, efficient, and determined to give nothing away.

  ‘Ms Shelton, this is St Francis Hospital. Do you know a James Forrester?’

  No. No!

  Gabrielle sank back against the door-jamb. ‘Yes, yes, I know him.’

  ‘There’s been an accident, Ms Shelton.’

  ‘An accident?’ ‘

  ‘An automobile accident. Mr Forrester had your name and phone number on his person. We thought, if you were a friend or a relative… ?’

  There was a questioning silence. ‘No, I’m not. Not really. I…’ She drew a deep breath. ‘Is he… is he… ?’

  ‘The doctor is with him now. I’m afraid you’ll have to ask your questions of him.’

  ‘But I’m not…’

  Gabrielle closed her eyes. She remembered how lonely a place a hospital could be, how little human warmth there was amid all the life-saving machinery.

  More than that, she remembered the way she’d felt when James had held her, the slow heat that had penetrated the thorny exterior within which she hid. Suddenly, the decisions of a moment ago were meaningless.

  She grabbed for her coat, then pulled a notepad towards her.

  ‘Tell me how to get there,’ she said.

  Seconds later, Gabrielle flew out of the door.

  Why was traffic always at its worst when you were in a hurry?

  Rain drummed against the windscreen of Gabrielle’s little Toyota as she sat waiting for a traffic light to change. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard, then slapped her hand on the steering-wheel.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ she muttered.

  The light turned to green and Gabrielle stepped on the accelerator. The car dashed through the intersection, skidding lightly as she turned down Bienville Road. She had to be close to the hospital by now—the woman on the phone had given clear directions. Of course, she hadn’t written them down half as clearly. Apprehension had made her handwriting suddenly cramped and spidery. But surely she’d followed all the rights and lefts and…?

  Yes! There it was, St Francis Hospital, an old redbrick building rising out of the mist. Her heart thudded as she pulled into the car park and found a space for the Toyota. Soon, she thought, stepping out into the rain, soon she’d know.

  She’d tried not to think about what awaited her while she drove. Experience had taught her that that kind of speculating only made things worse. But by the time she’d got halfway across the city, a cold knot of anxiety lay heavy in her breast. Please, she’d kept thinking, please.

  The hospital lobby was like an aquarium tank. Rain drummed against the windows and washed down the glass. Bright lights cast unrelenting illumination on the cold plastic furnishings.

  Gabrielle’s footsteps faltered as she neared the information desk. Please, she thought, please…

  The receptionist’s smile was as false as her hair colour. ‘Yes? May I help you?’

  Gabrielle cleared her throat. ‘James Forrester,’ she said in a papery whisper. ‘I—I had a call about him a little while ago. I wondered if you could—if you knew…’

  ‘Regular or Emergency?’

  ‘I don’t…’

  ‘Did he come in through Regular Admissions or Emergency?’

  ‘I don’t know. They said—they said he’d had an automobile accident.’

  The receptionist nodded. ‘Emergency, probably. Go straight down that hall and then turn left. You can’t miss it.’

  Her heart was racing by the time she reached the swinging doors that led to the emergency clinic. Easy, she told herself, easy. She took a last deep breath and then pushed open the doors.

  The sights and smells of the clinic rolled over her like a wave against a sandy beach. Memories rushed back and an all-too familiar nausea rose in her throat. She swallowed past it, then swallowed again until she’d conquered it.

  Easy does it, she told herself. You’ll be no use at all if you let this happen.

  She moved slowly into the room, breathing shallowly, trying to ignore the feeling of deja vu that accompanied being in a hospital again. James had to be here somewhere—the only question was how to find him. That was what she’d concentrate on.

  The room was overflowing with people and noise. Babies wailed in their mothers’ arms; the melodic chimes of an electronic pager insisted on being heard. Voices rose and fell, the soft sounds of the south mingling with the strangely strident tones of downtown New Orleans.

  Gabrielle’s nostrils flared at the sting of the pungent antiseptic, rejecting the darker smells she knew lay just beneath.

  Ordered lines of metal chairs faced another admission desk. A woman seated in one of the chairs looked up, her eyes dark with exhaustion. Beside her, a man coughed apologetically into his handkerchief.

&n
bsp; Gabrielle’s gaze swept past them, still searching for James. There was a double-width doorway beyond the chairs, through which she glimpsed examination cubicles, and she took a hesitant step in that direction.

  ‘Out of the way, miss. Cornin’ through.’

  She scrambled back as a gurney trundled by. A sheet-covered figure lay on it, face turned aside, bottles and tubes snaking from beneath the sheet.

  Gabrielle’s legs turned to jelly. ‘James?’ she whispered.

  The face turned to her and she breathed a sigh of relief. No. Not James, thank God. Not…

  ‘Gabrielle?’

  The voice was low, tight with exhaustion, but she knew it at once.

  ‘James,’ she whispered, spinning towards the sound.

  All the doubts she’d harboured about himsuch a short time ago fell from her like petals from a flower. He looked the way he sounded—weary, in pain, almost defeated. He was sitting on a metal chair, his left leg stiffly elevated on a low stool. His trousers were ripped to the knee; she glimpsed tape or plaster, white as bone, lying just beneath. A pair of crutches leaned against the wall beside him.

  A feeling of anguish swept through her, followed by a relief so intense that it made her dizzy. He’d been injured, but he was all right. A smile lit her face.

  An answering smile curved across his mouth as she hurried towards him, but it only accentuated the weariness that lay stretched over his face like a mask.

  Her smile dimmed as she drew nearer. It wasn’t just his leg that was injured. A delicate tracery of stitches angled high across one cheek to vanish in his dark hair, and there was a bruise the colour of a storm-cloud along his jaw. He looked awful, she thought with a swift intake of breath, and it took monumental effort to keep even a remnant of the smile on her face.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Gabrielle.’ His mouth twisted. ‘I didn’t ask them to call you. I had no idea until they told me.’

  She shook her head, cutting off his apology. ‘Never mind that. Are you all right? They wouldn’t tell me anything on the phone.’

  ‘I’m just fine,’ he said, smiling, and then his smile turned into a grimace as he shifted his leg. ‘It’s the car that’s wrecked. I’m afraid I’m not going to be one of Hertz’s favourite customers after they get a look at their Ford.’

  ‘What happened?’ Her eyes moved over him, coming to rest on his leg. ‘Is it—did you… ?’

  James sighed. ‘My fault entirely. I was going too fast and I took a corner too quickly. The car ended up with its nose tucked into a telephone pole.’ He grimaced again and cupped his hand over his knee. ‘And my knee ended up in the dashboard,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘They tell me that wasn’t the best place for it, especially since I’d already done a number on it playing college football years ago.’

  ‘It’s not broken, then?’

  ‘No, no broken bones. I was lucky.’

  Relief swept through her again, this time followed by annoyance at herself that he should matter so much to her. It sharpened her tongue when she spoke.

  ‘Why is it that grown men think they have to prove themselves by driving too fast? Of course you were lucky—but they say God watches out for drunkards and fools.’

  James’s eyes narrowed. ‘OK,’ he said tightly, ‘I suppose it was dumb. But I’d made up my mind that I wasn’t going to have a pointless chat with your assistant.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It isn’t very complicated. As charming as the lady is, I’d run out of things to say to Miss Harwood.’ His breath hissed between his teeth as he moved his leg again. ‘I decided the only way I was going to talk to you was by catching you in your shop.’

  His words tore into her. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, but she did, and her guilt was sharp as a knife-edge.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You did get my messages, didn’t you?’

  She swallowed. ‘Yes.’

  He nodded. ‘Are you going to tell me why you refused my calls?’

  She stared at him helplessly. How could she tell him the truth? She couldn’t; she wasn’t even sure what the truth was.

  ‘I—I was busy. Didn’t Alma tell you? We’ve been very lucky, taking lots of orders for mardi gras balls and dinners and…’

  James lowered his leg to the floor and twisted towards the crutches. ‘Come on, Gabrielle, I wasn’t bom yesterday.’

  His voice was rough, and she thought it was irritation until she saw the sudden whiteness around his mouth. Eagerly, she grasped at the chance to redeem herself.

  ‘Here,’ she said quickly, ‘let me get those for you.’

  But he had already snatched the crutches and was rising to his feet. ‘You wouldn’t have taken my calls if you’d been watching your spider plants grow.’ He grunted as he jammed the crutches under his arms, and his eyes met hers. ‘I want to know why.’

  Gabrielle ran her tongue across her lips. ‘This really isn’t the place to talk about it.’

  ‘Mr Forrester?’

  They both looked at the nurse striding briskly towards them. James’s expression changed and he smiled.

  ‘Ah,’ he said lightly, ‘my angel of mercy.’

  ‘Your jailer, if you don’t watch out,’ the nurse said sternly, and she turned towards Gabrielle and pressed a sheaf of papers into her hands. ‘Instructions,’ she said. ‘How to apply compresses to Mr Forrester’s knee and jaw. And a prescription to fill, if aspirin isn’t enough to ease any discomfort.’

  Gabrielle looked at her helplessly. ‘But I’m not ’

  ‘See to it he gets enough fluids. And he needs a proper diet. He’s to keep off that leg, doctor says. No weight on it at all until the swelling goes down. Have you a cane at home?’

  ‘A cane?’ Gabrielle repeated in bewilderment.

  ‘Well, no matter. You can purchase one at the surgical pharmacy when he’s ready to trade in the crutches for something lighter. Doctor says we’ll see him again in ten days to remove the sutures.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s been some mistake. I’m not ’

  ‘You’re going to frighten Miss Shelton off with all those directives,’ James said smoothly. ‘I promise she’s not going to have any difficulty with me. I’ll behave.’

  The nurse nodded. ‘You’d better, or you’ll end up in the orthopedics ward, where you probably should be right now.’

  James smiled charmingly. ‘Not to worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll be good.’

  A smile twitched at the corners of the nurse’s mouth, then vanished. ‘I doubt that,’ she said, and then she turned and hurried back towards the examining-rooms.

  Gabrielle turned slowly towards James. ‘What on earth did you tell them?’ she asked warily.

  ‘Only what I had to so I could get myself out of here,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t look so panicked, Gabrielle. Your responsibility to me ends at the gate. Just look solicitous, walk me out of the door, and that will be the end of it.’ He shifted the crutches beneath his arms, then glanced at her. ‘You can manage that, can’t you?’

  ‘But—but shouldn’t you stay in the hospital? Your knee…’ She watched incredulously as he began hobbling off and then she hurried after him.

  ‘I told you, the knee’s an old injury. I know how to care for it.’

  Gabrielle sprang past him and pushed open the swinging doors. ‘Did you tell them I’d take care of you? James—you did, didn’t you?’

  He sighed. ‘I told you, I didn’t ask them to call you. But once they said they had… Look, I’d have promised them the moon to get out of here. But you don’t have to worry about it—it’s not as if anyone’s going to check.’

  ‘But you heard what the nurse said. You need rest. And care. Medication. You can’t get all that in a hotel.’ She fell silent as James looked at her. For a moment, she thought she’d seen something flare to life in his eyes, something that was triumphant and almost frightening in its intensity. But then he turned away, and, when he looked at her again, whatever she’d imagined was g
one.

  ‘I’ll managee. Just play along until we’re out of here.’

  The rain had lessened to a drizzle. As they stepped out of the door, tendrils of fog curled around them. Gabrielle shivered and pulled up her coat-collar.

  ‘There’s a bench over there,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you sit down while I get my car?’

  James shook his head. ‘You don’t have to bother. I’ll walk out to the street and find a taxi.’

  He began moving across the circular drive that fronted the hospital, his crutches swinging steadily. Drops of water caught in his dark hair, glistening there like tiny jewels.

  Gabrielle watched him go and then she hurried after him. ‘Don’t be silly, James. I’ll drive you to your hotel.’

  The rhythmic swing of the crutches stopped and James looked at her.

  ‘You spent the day avoiding me,’ he said flatly. ‘The last thing I want to do is force myself on you now.’

  Colour pinkened her cheeks. ‘You’re not,’ she said quickly. ‘And I didn’t try to avoid you today.’

  His eyes met hers. ‘Didn’t you?’

  They were back to that, and she still had no answer. At least, she had none she wanted him to hear. Guilt stirred within her again. Maybe she hadn’t been driving his car, but wasn’t she at least partly responsible for his accident?

  ‘James,’ her voice was low but steady, ‘I’d really like to help you. Please, let me take you to your hotel and help you settle in.’

  Again, she thought she saw that flash of something in his eyes before he turned away from her.

  ‘You said you were very busy.’

  ‘Alma can handle things.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘Please. I’d like to do it.’

  When he looked at her this time, he gave her the same boyish grin he’d offered the nurse.

  ‘All right. Thank you, Gabrielle. I’d be very grateful.’

  She winced as she watched him settle into her little car and carefully stretch his injured leg as much as the cramped space allowed.

  She drove more slowly than usual, avoiding the more obvious bumps in the road, holding her breath each time she caused an inadvertent lurch.

  Not that James complained. She thought he was asleep, at first; he’d put the seat back as far as it would go, and he sat with his head resting against the cushion, his eyes closed.