by JoAnn Ross
They remained that way, Caine leaning against the tree, Nora standing straight and tense, like a skittish doe, poised to flee at the slightest threat of danger.
"Hello, Nora." His voice was deep and gruff and achingly familiar.
"Hello, Caine." Her voice was low and guarded. "How are you feeling this morning?"
"like I've been run over by Harmon Olson's Peter-bilt, then drawn and quartered. But, since I figure I probably deserve every ache and pain, I'm not complaining."
Caine looked, Nora considered, almost as bad as she felt. Which meant he looked absolutely terrible. His face, normally tanned, even in the dead of winter, was ashen. Lines older than his years bracketed his rigid, down-turned mouth.
His eyes were red-rimmed, his jaw was grizzled by a rough beard and his clothes looked as if he'd slept in them.
"Did you take the pain pills I prescribed?"
"Not this morning." He managed a faint smile. "The way I look at it, so long as I feel the pain, I know I'm still alive."
"That's an interesting philosophy. But I'm not certain it'll catch on."
"Probably not. I hope you don't think I'm following you."
She shrugged and slipped her bare hands into her coat pockets. "Are you?"
"Actually, I've been here about an hour."
"Oh. I didn't see your car."
"I walked." He'd hoped the fresh air would clear his head. It hadn't.
"But it's at least three miles."
"My arm might be giving me a little trouble, but the day I can't walk a few measly miles is the day I hang up my glove."
A thought flickered at the back of her mind, was discarded, then returned. "You brought the flowers."
"Guilty."
Part of her wanted to go back and snatch the wild-flowers from her son's grave; another part reminded her that Dylan was Caine's son, too.
"That was very thoughtful of you."
"They were growing all around the cabin."
He pushed away from the tree with a deep sigh and moved across the brown grass until he was standing in front of her.
"I came out this morning and when I saw them blooming, I thought about the time we had that picnic—one of our few summer Sunday afternoons together—and how when I went back to the car to get the portable playpen, you turned your back for a second to get the potato salad out of the cooler, and when you turned around again, Dylan was gnawing on that handful of wildflowers."
Despite her medical training, she'd been frantic, worried the blossoms might be poisonous. It had been Caine who'd calmly taken the wilting flowers from their son's grubby fist and offered a favored teething cookie in return.
"I've never been able to look at wildflowers again without thinking of how pleased he looked with himself, with yellow pollen all over his nose, his mouth ringed with dirt, and that enormous smile of his," Nora murmured.
"All four of his baby teeth gleaming like sunshine on a glacier." A reminiscent smile softened Caine's features. "That was a pretty good afternoon, wasn't it? If we'd only had a few more days like that, we might still be together."
"Caine, don't..
She combed a hand through her silky hair in a nervous, self-conscious gesture he remembered too well; Caine caught hold of her hand on its way back to her pocket. It was, he noticed, ice-cold.
"We have to talk about it, Nora."
"No." She shook her head, sending her hair flying out like a swirling ray of sunshine in the shaft of shimmering morning light. "We said everything we had to say to one another nine years ago. There's no reason to rehash painful memories."
"We were both hurting," he reminded her, his voice as tightly controlled as hers. "And we both said things we didn't mean." His pained eyes looked directly into here and held. "Don't you think it's time we settled things?"
She jerked her hand from his and stiffened—neck, arms, shoulders. A thin white line of tension circled her lips. "As far as I'm concerned, things were settled when you got into that new flashy red Corvette the insurance company gave you and drove away and left me all alone."
To deal vrith our baby's death. She hadn't said the words aloud, but they hovered in the air between them.
"You didn't ask me to stay," Caine reminded her.
"Would you have?"
For some reason he would have to think about later, Caine chose to tell the absolute truth. "No. Probably not."
"I didn't think so."
"Let me put the question another way," he said. "If I'd asked you to come with me, would you have?"
Years of controlling her expression while examining patients kept Nora from revealing how the unexpected question startled her. "And leave medical school?"
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there are medical schools in California."
He had her there. Realizing that he'd just pushed her into a very tidy comer, Nora hedged. "It's a moot point. Because you never asked me to go to California with you."
"If I had, if I had said, 'Nora, I'm so heartsick about everything that's happened, come with me to Oakland and let's try to start over again,' what would you have said?"
"I might have gone."
It was a lie; she never would have left friends and family and her lifelong ambition to go chasing after Caine's dream. But she'd blamed him for so many years that old habits died hard.
Caine's wide shoulders slumped visibly. Nora had been unrelentingly, coldly angry after the accident, after their child's death.
She'd told him so many times, in both words and actions, how much she hated him, that Caine had never suspected that he might have, with extra effort, been able to break through all her pain and fury.
But at the time, even if he'd wanted to, he wasn't sure he would have had the strength to try. Because, although he suspected she'd never believe it, he had been numb with unrelenting grief and guilt.
"I guess I really blew it, then."
When he dragged his wide bruised hand over his face, Nora felt a distant twinge of guilt for lying to him and ignored it. His dark eyes were those of a man who'd visited hell and had lived to tell about it.
"I told you, Caine, it's in the past. Let's just let it stay there."
"life would probably be a lot easier if the past could be forgotten, Nora," he said. "But I think we both know it can't be."
Before she could answer, the dock in the village square tolled again. "I'm sorry, Caine, but I can't discuss this right now. I'm going to be late for work, as it is."
Caine glanced down at the Rolex sports watch he'd never been able to afford when he'd been married to her. "It's not even seven."
"I know, but it's a long drive to Port Angeles, and there are a lot of trucks on the road this time of morning."
"You have another clinic in Port Angeles?"
"No, I'm working in the hospital emergency room three days a week in order to fund the Tribulation clinic."
"The emergency room?"
How can you bear it? The words were unspoken, but they hung in the air between them just the same.
The memory of those hours they'd spent outside the hospital emergency room, at opposite ends of the small, smoke-filled waiting room, anger and fear and hurtful pride keeping them from comforting one another, came flooding back.
"During my internship at Columbia Presbyterian, in New York City—"
"I know where Columbia Presbyterian is," Caine broke in. "I lived in New York, remember? Before the Yankees cut me."
She remembered being afraid she would run into him. She also remembered reminding herself that New York was an enormous city; the odds of seeing her former husband were astronomical. But that hadn't stopped her from getting an ulcer that had mysteriously cleared up after she'd returned to Tribulation.
"Well, anyway," she said, shaking off that uncomfortable memory, "when it came time for me to do my ER rotation, I was sick to my stomach all night. I'd been dreading it for weeks. In fact, I was seriously thinking of dropping out of medicine."
She fe
ll suddenly silent and stared up at him, wondering what on earth had possessed her to tell him something she'd never admitted to another living soul.
She took a deep breath that should have calmed her but didn't. "Anyway, thirty seconds after I managed to drag myself into the ER, an elderly woman who'd been attacked in her bed by a man with a machete was brought in. She had put her arms up to protect herself and there was blood everywhere.
"We must've pumped in a ton of blood, but eventually she stabilized enough to be sent up to surgery."
"Did she make it?"
"Oh, yes. But I didn't find that out for weeks, because all day patients just kept pouring in: knife fights, bullet wounds, heart attacks, rapes...
"The triage nurses had the patients stacked up like planes over Kennedy airport and by the time I got to stop long enough to have a cup of coffee, I'd been on the run for eighteen hours and had another eighteen to go, but— and this is hard to explain—I felt really, really good."
"Adrenaline tends to do that to you," Caine agreed absently. He was trying to come to grips with the idea of cool, calm and collected Nora covered with a stranger's blood, surrounded by the bedlam that was part and parcel of a city-hospital emergency room. Nora treating bullet wounds? Ten years ago he would have found the idea preposterous. Obviously he'd underestimated his former wife.
"I suppose so. But it was more than adrenaline. I loved being part of a team and I loved the action. It was fantastic!"
A smile as bright as a summer sun bloomed on her face and lighted her eyes. Caine tried to remember a time she'd smiled like that at him when they'd been married and came up blank.
"You should do that more often." Unable to resist touching her, he reached up and ran his palm down her hair.
It was only a hand on her hair. An unthreatening, nonintimidating touch. So why did it make her mouth go dry and her heart skip a beat?
"Do what?" "Smile. You have a lovely smile. No wonder your patients love you."
It was happening all over again. When she felt herself falling under Caine's seductive spell, Nora took a step backward. Physically and emotionally. "I really do have to go."
"You haven't finished the story."
"What story?"
"About your first day in the emergency room."
"Oh. Well, as I said, the rush was amazing. I was hooked. I applied for a residency, got it, and I've been working in emergency departments ever since."
"I wish we'd been living together that day," Caine surprised both of them by saying. "I would have liked sharing it with you."
"Please, Caine—"
"I'd like to hear more about your work, your life. Could I take you to dinner tonight?"
"I'm sorry, Caine, but I have paperwork to catch up on tonight."
"Tomorrow night, then."
"I'm sorry, but—"
"All right, how about lunch?"
"I'm sorry, but the answer's still no."
"Breakfast?"
"No."
"I want to see you again, Nora. Just to talk. That's all."
She combed her hand through her hair again and was appalled to find it trembling visibly. "I really don't think it's a good idea, Caine," she said gently, but firmly.
"Why not?"
"Because it would be too painful." She flared suddenly, causing the birds perched on the branches overhead to take flight in a loud flurry of wings.
"Perhaps that's all the more reason to talk about it," Caine suggested mildly. "If we can get everything out in the open once and for all, perhaps we can put it behind us."
"Do you truly think that's possible?"
"We'll never know if we don't try."
For a brief, foolhardy moment, Nora was honestly tempted.
"No," she decided. "I don't want to see you again, Caine. Not for dinner, or lunch, or breakfast, or just to talk."
Unaccustomed to failure, but not knowing how to salvage the situation, Caine decided he had no choice but to back away. "I guess I'll just have to wait and see you in a couple of weeks."
"Really, Caine—"
"So you can take the stitches out," he reminded her. "Unless you'd rather have me go to a doctor in Port Angeles."
"No." Her cheeks were flushed. "Of course I'll take them out. There's no reason for you to drive all that way."
'Tine. Well, I guess I'll be seein' you."
"Yes."
He knew it was the last thing she wanted, but some perverse impulse made him put his hand against the side of her cheek in a final, farewell caress.
"Goodbye, Nora."
"Goodbye, Caine."
Caine gave her one long, last look, and then he turned and walked back toward the gate.
He had only gone a few paces when she called out to him. "Caine?"
He turned back toward her. "Change your mind about breakfast?"
"No." She reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out the silver ballpoint pen and a small yellow pad. "But I thought you might like the name of a doctor at Seattle Samaritan who specializes in your type of injury."
"I've gone to more damn specialists than you can shake a bat at, Nora."
"One more opinion couldn't hurt." She wrote the name on a piece of paper and held it out to him. "And Dr. Fields is really very good."
Although he wasn't at all eager, Caine took the paper and shoved it into his pocket. "Thanks. I appreciate your concern."
She searched his tone for sarcasm and found none. "You're welcome. Good luck."
"Thanks."
A maniac was operating a chain saw behind his eyes and his stomach was roiling from the can of warm beer he'd tossed down for breakfast.
Hell, Caine thought as he crossed the cemetery. Maybe I shouldn't have come home, after all.
In small towns, time had a habit of standing still. When he'd made the decision to return to Tribulation, that trait had seemed a plus. With his career in shambles, he'd found himself instinctively drawn back to the one place where he was still a larger-than-life hometown hero.
But dammit, he hadn't counted on Nora having returned home, as well.
"Nothing's changed," he muttered, jamming his hands so hard into his pockets that they tore. Loose change fell to the still-brown grass underfoot and went ignored. "Not a goddamn thing."
Feeling more alone than he'd ever felt in his life, Caine walked back through the wrought-iron gates. Away from his son. And his wife.
5
One WEEK after HER unexpected encounter with Caine in the cemetery, Nora pulled her car into her reserved parking space outside the Mount Olympus Hospital and realized that she couldn't remember a single mile of the just-completed drive. It was not a propitious omen for the day ahead.
Ever since Caine's return, her mind had been mired in the past, rerunning old scenes from her marriage like some late-night cable-television movie.
Marrying Caine when she'd discovered she was pregnant had seemed a logical, practical solution. The problem was, she'd never planned on falling in love with the only man who had ever had the power to break her heart.
The sim had risen, the sky was as bright as a washtub of the Mrs. Stewart's bluing her grandmother had always favored. Walking toward the hospital, she waved at a gardener who was energetically clipping away at the rhododendron bushes flanking the sidewalk. He grinned and waved back, his own enjoyment of the perfect spring weather obvious. The double glass doors of the emergency department opened automatically at her approach. Nora took a judicial glance around the well-lighted waiting room. The only persons there this morning appeared to belong to the same family.
An exhausted-looking woman rocked a cranky baby in a stroller; at her feet, a young boy ran a toy car across the green vinyl die while making loud roaring sounds meant to emulate a Formula race car. Beside the woman, a red-haired girl sat reading a children's book of fairy tales.
The woman and the girl didn't bother to look up as Nora passed; the boy glanced at her with a decided lack of interest, then began running the plast
ic car noisily up the wall.
After exchanging brief greetings with Mabel Erickson, the emeigency room clerk, Nora went into the doctors' locker room, changed into a pair of unattractive but practical unpressed green scrubs, and clipped on her ID.
"You're starting out slow," Dr. Jeffrey Greene, the doctor going off the night shift said, flipping through the aluminum clipboards. "We had a relatively quiet night. Some hotshot took a comer too fast on his Kawasaki and I spent two hours picking pieces of asphalt and gravel out of his arms and chest. His girlfriend took him home.
"EMS brought in a drug overdose." He frowned at this latest problem to have worked its way to the peninsula from the Puget Sound cities. "We stabilized him and sent him upstairs to ICU. The only patient currently in the place is a kid with night asthma who should be off the breathing machine any time. His mother's in the waiting room, waiting to take him home.
"And, for comic relief, just when the pizza guy showed up with dinner, a frantic mother brought in a three-month-old with spots. She swore he had measles." He shook his head with disgust. "I'll never figure out why people bring their kids to the emeigency room at three in the morning with diaper rash."
"She was probably scared." Nora certainly remembered her own middle-of-the-night parenthood fears.
In medical school she'd been constandy reading about life-threatening diseases, then fearing that Dylan had contracted one of them whenever he became ill. One of the more embarrassing incidents had been when he'd come down with a high fever and wouldn't stop crying.
Positive that her son had meningitis, Nora had driven alone—Caine had been out of town on a road trip— through the dark streets to the hospital at two o'clock in the morning.
The doctor on call had examined the three-month-old baby, patted Nora patemalistically on the head and diagnosed an ear infection. An hour later, Nora had returned home with a bottle of antibiotic and a sense of relief mingled with an enormous dose of professional embarrassment.
"The pizza was cold by the time we got around to it," Dr. Greene complained. "At the next staff meeting I'm asking Administration about that microwave they've been promising us. What kind of ER doesn't have a microwave oven, this day and age?"