by Diana Palmer
Ramon went back to her and sat down on the bed, grasping one of her hands and holding it firmly in his big, warm one. “Forgiveness is never easy, Noreen,” he said. “But without it, wars would never end. We all have to stop living in the past and start again.” He searched those sad eyes. “Let it start here, with us. Can you forgive me?”
She felt his hand contract around her fingers. “Of course,” she said, not able to meet his eyes. “I never really blamed you for the way you felt.”
“You never knew how I felt, Noreen,” he said quietly.
She lifted her gaze to his and searched the dark softness of his eyes. “Everyone knew. You hated me.”
He shook his head. “I only tried to. It never really worked.” His eyes narrowed as if in pain. “Have you ever heard the saying that sorrow carves a deep place in us to hold the happiness that comes afterward? Perhaps it will be like that for you. I hope so. It would please me to see you happy. It would please your aunt and uncle, too. Don’t push us away.”
He was a powerful advocate. She closed her eyes and grimaced at the discomfort where the stitches were. “All right,” she said after a minute. “I’ll try, if they will.”
He lifted her hand to his mouth, turned it and kissed the palm with breathless tenderness. She actually flushed at the action.
He smiled as he gave her hand back to her. “I have some reading to do and then I have to make rounds. But tomorrow night, if you like, I’ll read to you.”
Her heart jumped at just the thought. She smiled back, fascinated by this complex man. “I would like it.”
He got up from the bed and studied her with amused indulgence. “So would I. I’ll check on you later.”
She watched him leave the room and felt as if her life had just taken a sixty-degree turn. Her only real concern was his motive. He felt an attraction to her, he felt sorry for her, she knew that. But there was something else in his eyes lately when he looked at her. And there was the exquisite, tender care he took of her. She could never remember seeing him so careful of Isadora’s comfort, not even in the early weeks of their marriage. All of these things together formed a puzzle she couldn’t quite solve. But being in the cocoon he made for her was so sweet that she couldn’t force herself to give it up. Not just yet.
Before he went to bed that night, he paused in the doorway of her room and stood just looking at her for a long moment.
“Will you want to go back to work, when you’re well again?” he asked abruptly.
“Of course,” she said, curious about the question and the somber look on his face. “I enjoy my work, Ramon.”
“I know that. But, if you had other duties to occupy you…?”
“I don’t understand.”
He sighed deeply. “No, I don’t suppose you do. Let it drop. It’s too soon, anyway.” He smiled at her. “Sleep well.”
“You, too,” she replied. “You never seem to get enough rest,” she added without meaning to.
Her concern was like a warm hand on cold skin. He smiled gently. “It never mattered,” he said. “Work was my salvation, all the long, lonely years.”
“You had a hard life when you first came to this country, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “Very difficult. You’d know about hardships and poverty, too, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes. My parents were very poor. There was never enough money.”
“For some people, there never is,” he said bitterly. “Isadora had ten times as much as most women of her class, and nothing she had ever really pleased her. She found poor people annoying.” He stared at her warmly. “I remember standing beside you in the soup kitchen, watching your face as you dished up food. All those cold, hungry, frightened people, Noreen. And so few people who give a damn.”
“I know.” She searched his tired face silently. “I know a lot more than that about you,” she added slowly. “You’ve taken several cases that you never got paid for, because the people didn’t have money for surgery, or insurance.”
“What skill I have comes from God,” he said. “A gift. One learns eventually that all gifts come at a price, part of which is sharing with the less fortunate.” He searched her eyes. “I thank God even more for that skill now. You might have died.”
“It wasn’t my time, apparently.”
“You’ll never know how I felt when I saw your face without the oxygen mask, in the recovery room. All the cruelty came back to haunt me.” He leaned heavily against the door facing. “We hurt you terribly at Isadora’s funeral. I’ll never forget the things I said to you. One day, I hope you can truly forgive me for saying them. I was eaten up with my own guilt, you see. She said she’d get even if I didn’t take her. She wasn’t that bad when I left.”
She took a slow breath. “No, she wasn’t. But she sat out in the freezing rain in a negligee for several hours. Deliberately. That was why she became so ill. The maid had to leave and I was already feeling sick. I should have phoned someone right then.”
His breath caught. “Good God, why didn’t you tell me?”
“You wouldn’t have listened,” she said simply. “She must not have known how dangerous a thing a lung infection can be. The power went off and I stumbled around trying to find the staircase, desperate to get help for her. The last thing I remember is trying to catch my balance…”
His eyes closed. “Coals of fire,” he whispered harshly. “Dear God, Noreen!” He pushed away from the door and left her, so sick inside that he couldn’t even face her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, but there was no one to hear. All the same, she thought as she laid back on the pillows, perhaps it was just as well that he finally knew the truth.
Chapter Nine
The next afternoon, Miss Plimm helped Noreen into the shower. It was difficult to take a bath at all, and tub baths weren’t yet allowed. She had several incisions; one in her groin where the heart catheter had been inserted, two where the drainage tubes had been in her chest, and one in the center of her chest where the incision had been made for the actual heart surgery.
She had to bathe the incisions gently with a bacterial soap. They couldn’t yet be submerged, although she’d noticed that Ramon had a huge whirlpool bath with brass fittings in the master bathroom, like something out of a Roman fantasy. Noreen had eyed it covetously on one of her walks around the large apartment with Miss Plimm and longed to soak in it. But she was at least able to take frequent showers now that she was a little steadier on her feet, and while she was in the shower, Miss Plimm helped her wash her wealth of hair.
She was back in bed, in one of her pretty embroidered white gowns, when Ramon came home early. Miss Plimm was holding the hair dryer for her, and it was taking a long time to dry the thick golden length of her hair.
“I’ll do that,” Ramon told Miss Plimm as he took the hair dryer from her. “You might tell cook to do something Latin for supper. I’m in the mood for fajitas or tamales. How about the two of you?”
“Sounds great to me,” Miss Plimm said with a smile, and Noreen nodded her assent. “I’ll see what she can rustle up. And I need to run to the store, if I have time before we eat. We’re low on bacterial soap.”
He reached into his wallet and handed her a bill. “Get a hair band,” he added. “Or a ribbon. Something to tie up her hair with.”
Miss Plimm chuckled. “I’ll do that.” She went out, closing the door behind her.
Noreen searched his drawn face. “Are you all right?” she asked, because she’d worried most of the day about his reaction to what she’d told him of Isadora’s last hours.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I wish I’d known sooner. And not only about Isadora’s final act of revenge,” he added, searching her eyes. “No wonder you were so bitter.”
“Yes, I was,” she agreed. “But as you said before, we can’t live in the past. Isadora is dead. Nothing will bring her back.”
“I know that. We were mismatched from the beginning, but a man is often blinded by desire.”
He searched Noreen’s eyes. “You blended into the woodwork.”
“Deliberately,” she mused. “I didn’t like the way Isadora got even when I made myself noticed, especially around men.” She laughed coolly. “Not that anyone noticed me. And you hated me.”
He didn’t smile. “No.” His dark eyes narrowed. “You never realized the truth. Isadora did. She accused me of being obsessed with you, did you know?”
She caught her breath. “I beg your pardon?”
He laughed. “You don’t understand? I taunted you to keep you at bay. What I felt was violent. It still is.”
“You still dislike me?” she asked, trying to comprehend what he was telling her.
“Good God,” he breathed heavily, and just shook his head. He sat down close beside Noreen on the bed and turned on the hair dryer. One lean hand feathered her hair while the other held the dryer to blow warm air through it. He was very close. His jacket was off, the top buttons of his spotless white shirt undone, his tie off. He smelled of cologne and soap, and the nearness of that lean face, with its smooth brown surface so close, was a temptation to her lips. He had the blackest hair and eyes she’d ever seen, and the thickest eyelashes…
He sensed her scrutiny and turned his head, just the slightest bit. His black eyes searched her gray ones at such close range that shivers of pure electricity ran through her body. Her lips parted under the rapid force of her breath.
The hair dryer blew on, forgotten, until he realized he still held it. He cut it off and laid it aside, his own breath unsteady. Slowly his lean hands gathered in the length of her thick hair and savored it. He lifted it to his mouth, his eyes closed, in a silence that was all but tangible.
“I used to dream of your hair,” he whispered into the stillness. “I was glad that you wore it on top of your head, because the temptation to touch it was so violent in me.” His lips touched it again, almost reverently. “I thought how it would feel to hold that exquisite weight in my hands, against my lips…”
Her gasp brought his head up. He released her hair with obvious reluctance and searched her eyes slowly. “You didn’t know that I was eaten up with desire for you, did you?” he asked gently.
“No,” she faltered, surprised. “I…I had no idea!”
He drew in a long breath before he picked up the hair dryer and stared at it. “I could never have told you, of course,” he said after a minute. “But that was why I became so sarcastic and unkind after my marriage. Making you uncomfortable kept you from getting too close.” His eyes narrowed as they met her shocked ones. “In one way or another, Noreen, I seem to have spent the past six years making a torment of your life.”
She stared at him with open curiosity, almost with fascination. “Are you letting me stay here as a sort of penance?” she asked.
His shoulders rose and fell. “Perhaps it began that way, but it isn’t so simple a motive anymore.” His eyes moved over her slender body and back up to her drawn face. “I’ve lived in shadows for so long, I’d forgotten how it felt to lift my face to the sun. Suddenly I enjoy coming home.”
“To another patient.” She laughed nervously.
“You aren’t a patient. You’re a treasure. I keep you under lock and key and hate sharing you with other people.”
She looked up. He wasn’t teasing this time. His eyes were dark and very possessive. He made her nervous, because she still didn’t quite trust him.
He saw that mistrust and smiled. “All right. I’ll act with more decorum, if that’s what you prefer. But when you’re back on your feet again and completely healed, look out,” he threatened softly. “I won’t give you up easily.”
She frowned slightly, curious, but he’d already moved away.
“Feel like seeing your aunt and uncle?” he asked.
She grimaced. “I suppose so.”
“You’ll find them vastly changed,” he promised. His gaze slid over her face in its setting of long, dark blond hair. “What a picture you make, like that,” he murmured huskily. “I have to keep reminding myself of how fragile you still are.”
“Why?” she asked without thinking.
“Because I’d like to bend you back over the pillows and kiss your body until you moaned.”
She flushed. “Ramon!”
He held up a hand. “We both know that you aren’t in any condition for such treatment now, so don’t panic. I’m only giving you fair warning of what’s coming.”
“A threat?”
“Oh, no. A sweet promise,” he said softly. “You might start thinking about what sort of ring you’d like.”
She frowned. Perhaps she had a fever. She felt her forehead, but it was cool.
“I don’t wear rings,” she faltered.
He picked up her left hand and looked at the long fingers with their short nails. “Do you like white gold?” he murmured. “With rubies, perhaps, to match all that hidden fire in you.”
“Why should you want to give me a ring?” she asked, still drowning in confusion.
“I like having you in my life,” he said simply. “You don’t have anyone, really, except Donaldson.” His face tautened even as he spoke the name, and he slid his hands into his pockets impatiently. “And I don’t think you love him,” he added bluntly.
“I like him…very much,” she protested.
“I like him, too. But he isn’t the man for you. He doesn’t leave you shaken and flushed when he comes out of your room.”
“Why should he?” she asked bluntly.
“A prospective lover should make an impression,” he replied. “He should make you tremble with delicious, forbidden thoughts and longings. He should leave you flushed with the force of your need for him. It should give you pleasure just to look at him. You show none of these signs when Donaldson visits.” His eyes narrowed on her flushed face, and he noted the slight tremor of her hands when they touched the sheet covering her. “However, you show every one of them with me.”
She clenched her teeth and glared at him. “I’m cold,” she said doggedly, “and I think I have a fever!”
“A fever for me,” he agreed, and he wasn’t teasing. His face was solemn. “I feel the same fever for you, along with respect and admiration and tenderness and desire.”
“I won’t sleep with you,” she said shortly.
“It would hardly be possible, in your condition,” he agreed.
“I mean, ever!”
“Ah, now that is a long time and I am very persistent.”
“I’ll leave today!”
“No, you won’t.” He smiled at her fury. “You need rest. When Miss Plimm comes back, we’ll have lunch and then your aunt and uncle can visit you just briefly. Later, when night comes, I’ll read Baroja to you.”
She wanted to run, but there was no place to go.
He saw the fear and understood it, perhaps better than she did. He leaned down, his eyes filling the world. “I will never hurt you again,” he said poignantly. “Not physically or emotionally, nor will I ever lie to you.”
“What do you want from me?” she asked in a husky whisper, because it was hard to speak with him so close that she could smell his cologne, the soap he used.
“Don’t you know, Noreen?” he whispered. He bent closer and kissed her, but not with desire or lust. It was the most tender caress she could have imagined. And when he left her, she thought that perhaps she really had imagined it all.
Her aunt and uncle came just after Miss Plimm had carried away the empty soup bowl. They were pleasant, but awkward and a little nervous.
“We wanted to come sooner,” her uncle said, “but Ramon told us to wait a bit, until you were stronger.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Do you have everything you need?”
“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “Ramon’s taken very good care of me. I’m his patient,” she added quickly, so they wouldn’t think she was trying to take their daughter’s place in his life.
Mary Kensington looked older and much less self-assured. “Isadora is
dead,” she said in a quiet voice. “We made a saint of her because it hurt so badly when she died, but she was just a woman, Noreen, not a saint. We know how it was between her and Ramon, so don’t think you’re treading on anyone’s sacred memories by being here in his apartment.” She smiled sadly. “I’m only sorry that we didn’t know how dangerous your own situation was. It still hurts to remember how we treated you after Isadora’s death. It always will. I hope you can forgive us.”
“We’d like to do something for you,” her uncle added. “Anything we can.” He looked very uncomfortable. “It isn’t easy for us to admit what idiots we’ve been.”
They both looked so miserable that she couldn’t hold out against them. She was far too softhearted. “Maybe I should have tried harder to make you listen,” Noreen said after a minute, her tone warmer. “I’m not completely innocent. She did die, because of me.”
“She died because God decided it was her time to die,” Mary said quietly. “We’ve changed in the past two years. Perhaps you don’t know, but it wasn’t to stem gossip that we invited you over just before your uncle’s birthday. We were trying to mend fences.”
Her uncle flushed and couldn’t look at her, remembering the foul remark he’d made to Ramon about the present Noreen had bought him. “We weren’t trying very hard,” he admitted with a self-conscious smile. “But we are now. We’d like to have you around whenever you want to come and visit. It’s pretty lonely for us these days.”
“It is for me, too,” Noreen admitted. She looked at them quietly, realizing how tired and worn they both were. She could hardly blame them for loving their daughter to distraction. “I’d like to visit you, when I’m able.”
“We could go down to the Caribbean,” Mary suggested with quiet pleasure. “It would do you good to be lazy in the sun and relax. Your job must be a hard one.”
“It is,” Noreen said. “But it’s one that I love.”
“Still,” her uncle added, “you won’t be able to work for a couple of months, will you? Nothing wrong with a vacation in the meantime.”