The only thing Lisa really enjoyed was Linda’s height. Going from five feet two to five feet nine was a joy. Even stooped over on crutches, Lisa could reach things she would never have been able to before the accident, and it was wonderful to not always be looking up people’s nostrils when you spoke to them. Now they looked up hers.
She was nervous about leaving the hospital and its routine. Nervous about leaving Nancy and Chris and the other nurses whom she’d come to know so well. Nervous to be going home with a strange, silent man who considered her to be his wife even if he did go out of his way to not touch her. Dan had never once touched her with the casual affection most husbands and wives shared, although a couple of times lately she had caught him looking at her breasts with what could only be called a distinctly male look of appreciation on his face. But the only time he ever voluntarily touched Lisa was when she had been upset or needing help. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that all had not been well in the Brogan marriage. And the brief exposure Lisa had had to Linda in the waiting room after the accident had revealed that Linda hadn’t been the sweetest of individuals.
Lisa had, for the time being, given up trying to convince people she wasn’t Linda Brogan. After all, she did want to get out of the hospital, and even oddballs like Craig Fergusson probably weren’t too keen about releasing patients back into the community who seemed to be barking mad. Not to mention Dan Brogan’s air of calm reserve, which hadn’t fooled Lisa for a minute. The man was shrewd and extremely observant. There might not be any fireworks when he was around—but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any fire.
Dan had collected up the last of his wife’s cosmetics, shampoos and lotions on the Thursday night before he was due to take Lisa home. ‘What do you want me to leave for tomorrow?’ he asked, standing amid the last of the multitude of bags he had brought in over the past couple of weeks.
Nancy and Lisa had been aghast when it just seemed to keep coming, but Lisa suspected Dan was as confused as the next man when it came to the mysteries of female grooming and had simply emptied the entire bathroom cabinet. How could he know Lisa was only a couple of steps ahead of him when it came to understanding which pot of gunk went where? Sherry was the one who was big on cosmetics and stuff.
She looked at the smart Louis Vuitton makeup case and bulging plastic bags stacked against the opposite wall in bewilderment and shrugged. ‘Beats me. Take your pick.’
Whenever she made comments like this, Dan would give her one of his penetrating looks that always made her feel extremely nervous. It was as if a buzzer indicating an incorrect answer in a game show went off in her head. BA BAH!
‘Um…you can take that one!’ She pointed at random. ‘And…that one!’
Dan watched her narrowly before finally hooking his fingers through the handles of some of the carrier bags. Still staring at her, he nudged one of her selections with his foot. ‘This one?’
Lisa nodded brightly. ‘Yes. Fine.’
BA BAH!
‘That’s your hairdryer, Lisa,’ Dan said.
Lisa looked at him cautiously. ‘My hairdryer?’
He nodded. ‘Uh huh.’
She reconsidered. ‘Yeah, maybe you’re right—it’s great for blowing down my cast when it gets itchy.’
He stared at her.
BA BAH!
Lisa stared back anxiously. Wrong answer.
‘What about those?’ He nodded at the pink roses on the locker.
A second bouquet of roses had arrived, once again without a card, and once again Dan’s response to them had been stony.
Lisa shrugged. ‘See if the nurses would like them.’
‘You’re sure?’
She nodded.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow evening around six,’ he said at last, and left, juggling bags and the vase of roses.
After he’d gone, Lisa hopped along to the television room on her crutches and tried to lose herself in an episode of Shortland Street. Her fellow patients, who now considered themselves experts on the hospital system, gathered together at night to criticize or praise the medical soap as they saw fit.
‘Call that an enema?’ one elderly woman cried scornfully as soon as Lisa sat down beside her. ‘What good would that little thing do?’ She glared at the television screen. ‘The one Chris gave me this morning was twice the size of that.’
Lisa only just stopped herself from telling everybody that Chris had only ever given her a couple of little suppositories and they had worked just fine. Clamping her mouth shut, she began to shuffle her bottom to the edge of the battered, floral sofa whilst feeling about for her crutches. Institutionalized. That’s what she’d become and she hadn’t even noticed it.
An elderly man with a Zimmer frame and a hip replacement piped up from the corner. ‘I remember when I had my bowel resection in the ’eighties,’ he told them with relish, a competitive light in his milky eyes. ‘Those were the days when they really gave you a good clear-out. They had me hooked up to a drip through my nose.’ He pointed at his beaky nose in case anybody wasn’t sure what he meant. ‘They flushed bags and bags of that saline stuff through me while I sat on the commode for the entire afternoon.’
The woman sitting next to Lisa looked pissed off at being outdone. ‘Haven’t put you off, have we, dear?’ she asked as Lisa tried to beat a hasty retreat.
‘No, no, just tired,’ Lisa lied, exiting as quickly as she could.
‘That’s youngsters for you,’ she heard the elderly man remark as she hopped away. ‘They’ve got no stomach for things.’
By six o’clock the next evening, when Dan finally came to collect her, Lisa was sitting in the television room with the last of her bags packed on the floor beside her. Her hair was pulled back in a long, shiny ponytail. She wore a simple, pale-blue long-sleeved peasant-style top with a scooped neck over a matching muslin skirt of the same colour. Lisa was no expert on clothes, but even she guessed what she was wearing cost a small fortune.
She had been seen that morning by the orthopaedic surgeon, who professed himself happy with her progress, and her plaster cast had been replaced with a much lighter acrylic one. There was a variety of colours to choose from, and Rob, the plaster technician, had talked just about everybody waiting for a new cast into having a bright-blue-and-white one to show their support for the Auckland rugby team.
Lisa, whose family were all mad keen Blues supporters, suddenly realized she’d forgotten all about the Super 14 competition. ‘How’re they doing?’
‘Great!’ Rob exclaimed. ‘They’ll win the competition this year.’
‘I’ve been in here so long I’d forgotten all about it.’
‘Well, you don’t want to miss the game tonight,’ Rob continued as he wound a cobalt-blue acrylic bandage around her leg. ‘They’re playing away to Canterbury. Should be a good game. Do you have SKY?’
‘I don’t know.’
Rob looked at her oddly, but seemed willing to forgive her for being weird because she was a fellow supporter. Being so pretty didn’t go against her either.
Dan raised his eyebrows when he saw the cast. ‘Were they all out of purple-and-green?’
‘Don’t you like it? I thought it went with my outfit nicely.’ Lisa turned her leg from side to side to admire her new cast. ‘Anyway, who cares? Go the Blues!’
Dan blinked. Linda not caring about how she looked? ‘Go the Blues?’ he echoed.
‘Of course!’ she exclaimed. Putting his confusion down to not being a local, she began to explain patiently, ‘They’re the Auckland rugby team in the Super 14 competition.’
Dan continued to look at her oddly. ‘I know who the Blues are, Lisa.’
‘Oh.’ She checked the clock on the wall of the television room while Dan disappeared to find a wheelchair. Her nerves were jittering and clanging like an orchestra tuning up. She was leaving the hospital at last and she was terrified. It was far easier to concentrate on something familiar and safe like the rugby match.
&
nbsp; Dan returned with the wheelchair. ‘I’ll take your things down first and then come back for you.’
She nodded, trying to ignore the knot of tension in her belly. ‘OK. Er…Dan?’
He looked up at her questioningly as he transferred bags onto the seat of the wheelchair.
‘Do you have SKY?’
‘Yes.’
Lisa looked at the clock again. ‘We should make it back to your place by seven-thirty, shouldn’t we?’
Dan paused, stung by the way she referred to home as ‘your place’. ‘What’s so important about being back by seven-thirty?’
‘Uh…well…the rugby match starts at seven-thirty on SKY.’
He sighed, wondering not for the first time who the hell this woman was. She looked like Linda, but that’s where the resemblance ended. Linda had never been interested in men’s sport and certainly not in the sports of a country she was visiting under sufferance.
Dan took a deep breath, determined to remain calm like Craig Fergusson had advised him, but he was finding it increasingly difficult. Linda didn’t appear to be regaining any of her lost memory; in fact, she was just getting more and more weird.
‘Sorry,’ Lisa muttered, unnerved by his unflinching grey stare and ominous frown. ‘If you don’t want to watch it, that’s OK. Forget it.’
Seeing the wariness in her wide, blue eyes, Dan cursed inwardly. The last thing he’d meant to do was frighten her. This had to be a hell of a lot harder for her than it was for him. She was going home with a complete stranger. But then, he reminded himself, so was he. ‘It’s OK,’ he said gruffly. ‘I was going to tape it and watch it later. We can watch it together if you like.’
Lisa clung to Nancy when it was finally time to leave, unable to prevent the tears falling.
‘You’ll be fine, possum, just fine,’ Nancy murmured, patting Lisa’s back soothingly. She had become very fond of the strange American girl in the past couple of weeks. She was sweet and funny and, in Nancy’s opinion, incredibly brave. She glanced at Dan Brogan waiting patiently a discreet distance away and lowered her voice further to say, ‘You have a good man there to take care of you, and your memory will come back, love.’
Lisa couldn’t speak for the tears clogging her throat. The nurses were all buzzing about the nurses’ station exclaiming over the huge bunch of flowers and food basket Dan had brought them as a thank you.
‘Thank you,’ she said to him when she finally detached herself from Nancy and hopped over to join him. ‘That was a really nice thing to do.’
‘It was the least they deserved,’ he said simply.
‘We’ll miss you, Linda!’ Mary the ward clerk cried, staring all the time at Dan while she spoke. Of all the staff on the ward, she was the only one who still sometimes called her Linda. And the only one who made no effort to hide her crush on Dan.
Yeah, sure you will, Lisa thought, exchanging a wry look with Nancy, who rolled her eyes and laughed at her over Mary’s head. Dan as usual seemed oblivious to the female interest he generated.
The old man on his Zimmer frame and the elderly lady from the previous evening stopped to admire the flowers.
‘Good luck, luvvie,’ the woman said. ‘Do you have far to go?’
‘The North Shore.’
‘Oh, good. You’ll be home in time for Shortland Street.’
‘Yes,’ Lisa agreed, trying not to laugh. ‘Get me out of here!’ she told Dan as she watched the pair limp away.
‘Why?’ he asked, relieved she was no longer crying.
‘I’ll tell you later.’
She refused to use the wheelchair. ‘No. I want to walk out.’
‘It’s a long way to the car,’ Dan warned.
‘Never mind!’ Mary piped up girlishly. ‘You can always carry her if she gets too tired!’
Lisa went bright red, while Nancy and Chris made gagging motions behind Mary’s back.
Dan laughed.
When they reached the lower ground floor, he led her to a wooden bench by the entrance and sat her down with her crutches propped beside her. ‘Will you be OK to wait here while I get the car?’ he asked.
Lisa listened to him with half an ear. She was too busy looking about her. It was a beautiful evening, darkness just beginning to fall. She had been in hospital for an entire month. After weeks of being inside, she shivered and lifted her face to the gentle breeze. The air smelt fresh and clean, not air-conditioned and lifeless.
Dan hesitated. ‘You’re cold.’
‘A little bit,’ she admitted and closed her eyes, lifting her face again to the wind. ‘But it’s OK.’
‘What are you doing?’ he asked curiously after a few moments of watching her rapt expression.
‘I haven’t felt the wind on my face in so long.’ She sighed and opened her eyes to smile at him. Dan saw they were bright with tears. ‘It’s good to be alive,’ she whispered.
He swallowed; the simple words moved him. ‘I’ll get the car,’ he said at last and headed off towards the car park.
Lisa was impressed when a sleek, silver Diamante pulled up. She whistled when Dan came to help her in. ‘Nice wheels, Doctor.’
He concealed his surprise well. Linda had always called his choice of cars boring. She much preferred Jack Millar’s bright-blue convertible that she’d been driving the night of the accident. She had never understood that Dan’s height and convertibles were not compatible. He didn’t know what prompted him to speak up—perhaps it was just one surprise too many for one night. ‘You always thought I pick boring cars,’ he retorted. ‘You much preferred the blue convertible.’
Lisa felt her light, happy mood dissolve into thin air at mention of the blue convertible. Suddenly the whole accident replayed itself inside her head. Her heart began to thump as soon as she lowered herself into the car. Her fingers fumbled ineffectually when she tried to fasten her seatbelt. Eventually giving up, she looked up at Dan with such a haunted expression on her pale face that he instantly regretted what he’d said.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I remember the blue convertible.’
Startled, he stared intently at her in the semi-darkness of the car interior. ‘You do?’
‘Yes.’ She began to shake and her breathing became light and shallow.
Dan tamped down on the excitement that her admission had caused him and reached for her hands, which she had balled into fists and pressed against her breastbone.
‘Easy, easy now,’ he said quietly, his knuckles brushing her breasts as he covered her hands with his own and gently tugged them down to rest in her lap. ‘Slow down your breathing.’
It took several minutes before Lisa got herself under control, and it would have taken her a lot longer if Dan hadn’t been so reassuring, if he hadn’t treated her just like one of his patients and calmed her down. She felt totally humiliated, right until she became aware that his large, warm hands were still holding hers and were resting right against her pubic bone with nothing but a wisp of muslin and a pair of Linda Brogan’s skimpy, lacy knickers between them.
Lisa looked up into the face so close to her own and felt a wave of such unadulterated lust and longing that she had to clamp her thighs together to stop herself from guiding Dan’s hand between them. She pressed herself back into her seat to prevent herself from reaching for his mouth with her own.
Dan dropped her hands and straightened abruptly, trying to wipe the heated feel of her from his mind. He tried not to remember how she looked nude and open to him, or how close he had come to flattening his palms and running them down the length of her long, beautiful thighs. He wondered if it was just one of Linda’s tricks when she realized she had admitted remembering something she would most likely prefer to forget and most definitely not discuss.
Reaching over, he took the two ends of the seat belt from her and clicked them in place, ignoring the way she flinched when he touched her. He ignored as well the way his gut clenched with sexual tension when he felt her soft skin and smelt the clean, floral
scent of her that was so different to the way she used to smell. She didn’t seem to like any of her favourite perfumes any more.
Just remembering what his wife had been capable of before her accident had the effect of pouring ice water on his state of arousal. Turning the key in the ignition, he headed the car out onto the road and across Grafton Bridge.
Lisa sat beside him in tense silence, her humiliation rapidly overtaken by despair that she wasn’t going home to her parents but to a strange house with this reserved, watchful, distrustful man who seemed to hide so much of himself away. For all she knew, he could be some sort of a criminal. But she was ashamed to admit that, a few moments earlier, if he had said he wanted to have sex with her right there and then, she would have agreed wholeheartedly.
As the car travelled along the road, Lisa felt her heart rate pick up for entirely different reasons, her breath catching in her throat despite Dan driving sedately, cautiously even.
‘I don’t think I can do this,’ she blurted when they stopped at the traffic lights to Karangahape Road. ‘I don’t know you! I don’t know anything about you!’ There was an edge of hysteria to her voice.
Dan glanced at her with concern. Thankfully the lights went green. He drove swiftly across and pulled to the side of the road. ‘Linda…’ he began in his calmest doctor’s voice.
‘My name is not bloody Linda!’ Lisa shouted at him. ‘I am not your wife! My name is Lisa! Lisa Jackson!’ Fumbling for the door handle, she stumbled out of the car, almost falling face-down on the footpath. Righting herself, she staggered onto the footpath and began to hop down the street.
Swearing, Dan leapt out of the car and into the oncoming traffic, earning himself several angry honks from the drivers. Slamming the door shut, he slid across the front of the car and ran after Lisa, who was making surprisingly rapid progress for a woman with a broken leg and no crutches.
‘Linda!’ he shouted. ‘Linda! For crissakes come back! You’ll hurt yourself!’
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