by Anna Howard
“No…” I shake my head as tears, tears I have no idea why I am shedding, pour from my eyes. “No. There is no one.” I whisper.
“Why are you so upset?” He questions, handing me a tissue. “Why has my question made you cry?”
“I…I-I don’t know.” I mutter as I blow my nose while the tears keep falling. “It just makes my heart ache.”
“Where you thinking of something—someone perhaps—when I asked my question?”
The image of Keith Winthrop had crossed my mind. I twist the tissue until it breaks in two. “Keith.” I finally answer while the doctor patiently watches me.
“And you don’t remember him.”
“No.”
More scribbling. “Tell me what your first impression of him was.” The doctor asks.
“He frightened me.” I answer honestly. I frown, wondering why someone who scares me so badly makes me ache to be with him.
“What about a second impression? What was your first thought of him then?”
I bite my lip and blush. “That he was incredibly sexy…He raised a brow when I was distressed about finding my hair shaved. It was almost…Sardonic, I guess. He laughed and I hated him for making fun of me. For still scaring me.”
“Hate is a very powerful emotion to feel for someone you don’t even know, Kari.” Dr. Hayes comments. “Do you still feel hate?”
I close my eyes. “I don’t know.” I tell him honestly. “There is a part of me that keeps whispering to me that I should. While another part of me just keeps hurting whenever I think about him.”
The doctor scribbles more before standing. “I think that I will let you get some rest now, Kari. You seem tired. Can I get you anything before I go?” I shake my head. “Okay then. Will you be up to talking to me again in the morning?”
“If you want.” I mumble, not thrilled about sharing my feelings any more with this man.
He smiles down at me. “Good. I will see you around ten, then.”
I don’t watch him leave. I am so tired and my head is aching so badly. I just lay there and try to forget about my dream from earlier. But it is so hard when I want Keith Winthrop, a complete stranger, laying beside of me.
I hear the door open again and suddenly the harsh light over my bed is forcing my eyes open. “Please.” I whisper as I shield my eyes with my hand. The light is making my head throb and I am starting to get nauseas.
“Kari!” The unmistakable voice of Bianca does something to me. My head suddenly feels as it is going to explode as I slowly lower my hand and find my bestie standing at the end of my bed.
My ex-bestie!
And I open my mouth and scream as the blinding pain from my head sends me into total darkness.
Chapter 14
The past swarms in on me as I slowly blink open my eyes. Thankfully the overhead light is off, replaced by the softer glow of the lamp by my bed. But the harsh voices at the foot of my bed do nothing for the throbbing pulse in my head.
I moan. Trying to focus on the loudest of the voices and glare at him. “Keith my head is killing me. Can you please just shut up!”
Heads snap around to gaze dazedly down at me. There is Dr. Hayes who seems concerned and anxious for me. Dr. Shelton beside of him as he stands between Bianca and Keith, as if he has been trying to keep the two from coming to blows. I glare at them all. “There are two of you that don’t belong here. Take a quick guess who they are.”
But Keith seems so shocked that I have spoken to him to realize he was one of the two I wanted out of my room. “Kari...?” He moves to my side and clasps my hand. His fingers are trembling ever so slightly, but I am too mad to care. “Kari, you remember me?”
I pull my hand away from his. “Yes. I remember everything!”
Those emerald eyes darken with something that looks like pain and regret. “Kari…Please. I know this isn’t the time, but we need to talk.”
I ignore him to glare at my ex-best friend. “Get out.”
She flinches as if I have hit her and all the color drains from her face. “Kari, please don’t send me away. It isn’t what you think. I swear it isn’t.”
“So you didn’t take my boyfriend? Didn’t announce to every gossip hungry dick, bitch and ass-hole in the Manhattan area that you were going to marry him right before he kissed you like he has never kissed me?” The pain in my heart is numbing the rest of my body. It eclipses any other pain, but it is so harsh, so incredibly bad that all I can allow myself to feel just then is pure hate. “Is that what you are trying to tell me, Bianca?”
“Yes. No.” She wrings her hands together. “You don’t understand. Please, just let me explain.”
“I have had enough explanations from you to last a life time. Now all I want is for you to leave.”
“Kari…” Dr. Hayes and Dr. Shelton seem concerned by something on the heart monitor but I pay them no attention as I continue to glare at the one person in the world I have always trusted.
But she has betrayed me in a ways I never would have thought to do to her. “I don’t ever want to see you again, Bianca.”
“Kari..!” Tears stream down her pallid face and then she turns and runs out of the room.
Once the door is closed behind her I turned my hate filled gaze on the man I had thought I would always love. “You too.” I whisper.
“No.” He grasps my hand tighter. “Not until you listen.”
“Kari…” Dr. Shelton is once more concerned with the monitor. “Mr. Winthrop…”
“You were sneaking around with Christian.” Keith says, refusing to accept that I want him to leave. “I thought you wanted him.”
I feel as if I am in a movie as I look up at him and watch his mouth move. It is the most peculiar experience. I am numb from everything except for the excruciating pain in my heart. And even as I lay there, and the doctors are suddenly pushing Keith out of the way and calling a code blue I wonder if this pain he has caused will ever fade.
I open my eyes to find that I am in a different room. This one is not as big as the private room from before. There is a glass wall with a sliding door and I find that there is a nurses station outside.
Two nurses in scrubs are sitting behind the desk. But I am quickly distracted from them by the man seated in the chair beside of my bed. With a sigh I attempt to sit up in bed. But strong hands urge me back down.
“Please, don’t try to get up.” Keith murmurs softly. “You shouldn’t move around too much.”
“What happened?” I whisper and find that my throat feels raw again.
“You went into cardiac arrest.” He looks and sounds tortured. “I nearly lost you. Again.” He stabs his fingers through his unkempt hair. “I think that I have died a million times since Thanksgiving.” He mutters to himself.
That confuses me. “The accident happened right before Christmas.” Hadn’t it? Or am I missing some memories again?
His laugh is full of so many emotions; humor, however, isn’t one of them. “You were sneaking around with Christian. I thought I was losing you, Kari.”
I glare over at him. “I loved you. I came home to you every night, made love with you every night. How could you think I was messing around on you?”
“Why didn’t you just tell me what was going on?” His tone is soft but no less fierce and demanding as he comes back with a question of his own. “Why did you have to keep Christian’s proposal a secret from me?”
I look away, no wanting to tell him my reasons…Not wanting to tell him my biggest dream had been that he would propose to me too. And that by telling him about Christian’s plans and my excitement for my friend would make him feel like I was forcing his hand. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. Can…Can you just go?”
“No.” He sits back and crosses his arms over his chest. “I haven’t left this hospital since your father called me. I will sit here and be silent and you can ignore me all you want. But I am not leaving you.”
“Keith…�
� I sigh and close my eyes. “Fine.” There is no use arguing with him when I don’t have the energy to keep up with him.
They must still be giving regular doses of pain medication because I drift off without even trying…
I have to be dreaming because I hear Keith whispering sweet nothings to me and I want to cuddle close to him. When I reach out in my sleep I encounter…nothing. My eyes open and I find that I am in the new room with the glass wall and sliding door once more. Keith is not in the chair but outside at the nurses’ station speaking to Dr. Hayes and Dr. Shelton.
My father is talking in low harsh tones, and from what I can see of his expression he is royally pissed. I don’t know what Baxter Brandon is so angry about but it takes quite a lot to make him that mad. I can’t make out what he is saying, except for a few words here and there. Bianca’s name is mentioned several times and I grimace. My father and Bianca have always gotten along well. If he is angry at her then he must know what had happened right before the accident.
Very carefully I sit up with the help of the button on the bedrail to raise the head of the bed. The movement must catch the four men’s attention because the sliding door opens and they all come in. I push my limp, oily hair away from my face. “What is this place?” I ask, directing my question at Dr. Shelton.
“ICU.” He is already taking the stethoscope from around his neck. “How are you feeling?”
I roll my eyes at the question. “Everyone keeps asking me that. The answer never changes.”
He grins. “Must be feeling a little better if you are this snarky.” He presses the stethoscope to my chest and closes his eyes while he listens. He moves it around several times then asks me to sit forward a little while he listens to my lungs from the back. “You still have a slightly irregular heartbeat.” He comments as he steps back. “But that might be from all of the pain medication. I’m going to lower your dose and see what happens.”
“Can’t you just give me some Advil?” I mutter. “I really don’t like taking hardcore pain medication.”
“Trust me, sweetheart. You would be begging me for them if you didn’t have them.” Dr. Shelton turns to face my father. “I want her to rest most of the day. No loud noises, no stress. You can visit for a few minutes now and perhaps a little later today. But otherwise you will have to wait in the waiting room with everyone else.” His gaze goes to Keith and the two men share a hard, yet understanding look. “Understand?”
Keith gives a curt nod but doesn’t say anything. Dr. Shelton excuses himself while Dr. Hayes steps up beside of my bed. “I would have much rather have eased you back into your memories, Kari. But now that you have them I think we should still see each other regularly. There were a few things that we talked about yesterday that we should explore further.”
That confuses me. “What things?”
He glances at the other two men quickly before raising a brow. I sigh. “Don’t worry about them. They will find out one way or another. Especially Keith.”
Dr. Hayes nods. “Very well. One of the issues that I think we should explore is your experience with your stepfather.” He doesn’t elaborate, but I can feel the tension in the room coming from my father and Keith. “Also, your friendship with Bianca.”
“Okay.” I agree if only to get him to leave faster. I know a storm is brewing and I watch the doctor leave a few minutes later with a feeling of dread.
“What was he talking about?” Baxter asks.
“It was nothing.” I have never told anyone except for Dr. Hayes and Bianca what had happened with my mother’s husband right before her divorce. I don’t understand why the psychiatrist wants to ‘explore’ my ‘issues’ concerning the dirty old man when I have never given the episode very much thought over the years.
“It didn’t sound like nothing.” Keith mutters as he takes the chair beside of my bed. “Did something happen with my father?”
“No!” I can’t believe he would even think this was about his father. “I loved Charlie nearly as much as my own father. He was a great guy. Not like…” I break off before I can even say the man’s name, feeling ill just thinking about him. Okay, maybe I did have some hidden issues after all.
“It was that damned Brice wasn’t it? Something happened.” Baxter’s eyes turn a dangerous color as he realizes the truth. “That was why you didn’t want to go anywhere near your mother that summer.”
“I…” Biting the inside of my cheek I nod. “Yes.”
“What happened?” My father whispers, as if he was afraid of the answer but had to know for sure.
I rest my head back against the pillows and frown up at the ceiling. Thankfully the lights were dim. My head was starting to throb again. “He tried to touch me.” The room’s temperature cools by ten degrees, but I don’t spare either man in the room a glance. “I was home one weekend. Mother was out somewhere and he just grabbed me…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Baxter demanded.
“You were in Dubai. And I just wanted to forget about it.” I shake my head. “But don’t think that I just let him get away with it! I made sure he would think twice about so much as looking at me, let alone touching me again.” I remember the look on old man Brice’s face when my knee made contact with his groin. The shade of red, then purple he had turned as he fell to his knees holding himself. “He walked wrong for the rest of my visit.” I assure my father.
He just stands there and glares off into space and I can see the menace churning inside of him. When he leaves a little while later I know that he is going to do something horrible to the old man and I can’t help wondering if my father will end up in jail by nightfall.
Keith continues to sit with me. I lay there, trying to ignore him and he doesn’t attempt to speak to me. I think he is afraid I will demand he leave if he does. But deep down I am glad to have him here with me. It means that he cares for me more than Bianca and that soothes something that has been aching since I first woke up a few days ago.
When the nurse comes in with a syringe she tells Keith that visiting hours are over. Reluctantly he gets to his feet and leans over to brush a kiss across my forehead. “Feel better.” He whispers in that gravelly voice I love so much.
“Keith..?” I murmur his name just as he reaches the sliding door. He turns a questioning brow raised and I falter, not sure what I had wanted to ask him. “Do you love her?” Is what I really want to know more than anything in the world. Followed by the second burning question. “Did you prefer her to me in bed?”
But I ask neither question. Instead I lower my eyes to my fingers where they are playing with the corner of the sheet and blanket. “Will you come back later?”
“Yes.” He assures me. “And I will be out in the waiting room if you need me.” His voice sounds choked and I raise my eyes to look at him, but he has already walked through the sliding door.
Chapter 15
I spend three more days in the ICU before the doctor thinks that my irregular heart beat has returned to normal. I get a private room filled with several flower arrangements and cards wishing me well. And on the bed is a stuffed brown bear with a heart in his hands.
I know it is from Keith. And even though I want to sling it’s giver out the window I cuddle it close when I am alone in my room.
Over the next two weeks I slowly get my strength back. I have to have some physical therapy because I of the length of time I had been in the coma. My legs are shaky from lack of use and I slowly have to build the muscle tone up again. My head doesn’t throb now. Instead I have a constant ache that I have learned to cope with. My chest isn’t nearly as painful and thankfully the tube that had been in my lung to keep it clear of fluid after it had collapsed has been removed.
My father, who was supposed to be in Turkey for business still comes to see me twice a day. The day after I had woken up in the ICU ward he had come to see me with his right hand wrapped in a bandage. It seems that he had found old man Brice and found the type of vengeance only a father c
ould express. Baxter was lucky he hadn’t landed himself in jail, but then again, I doubted the old man had wanted to press any charges considering my father’s reasons for beating the hell out of him.
The hardest part of it had been when my father had apologized to me. He felt like it was his fault. He blames himself for constantly being away from me on business when I was younger and not being much of a father. I hate that he should think that way. I have always felt that he has been a great father and I understood that he had to work when I was a kid. I tried to explain all of this to him but I wasn’t sure I got through to him.
Christian has come to visit me several times and each time we have avoided any talk of the accident, Bianca and Keith. Instead we focus on what is going on outside in the real world while I am cooped up in my small hospital room. He seems a little more carefree than he had been before the accident and I wonder if maybe he has been talking to Bianca, but never ask.
Hunter drops by from time to time and keeps me company while I am doing my physical therapy. I enjoy the time spent with him and he makes me laugh when all I want to do is scream at the therapist. Thankfully, for the therapist at least, Hunter is there to keep the peace.
I have already had my therapy for the day. Visiting hours are over and I am sitting up in bed going over some work from Winthrop Charities. Rachel, my secretary, has been handling everything at the office spectacularly but there are a few things that only I can deal with.
I have paperwork spread all around me in a neat mess that only I can understand the logic of, there is a pen clamped between my teeth, and I am frowning down at some estimated figures for an Easter brunch that is being planned to raise money for the homeless when the door opens. I don’t have to look up to know who it is.
Keith has developed a set routine. He sits with me in the morning and readst he paper. When I go for therapy or Dr. Hayes comes in for a chat he leaves to catch up on work. Around mid-afternoon he returns and sits by my bed with his iPhone in hand going through e-mails until my father arrives. I’m not all together sure what he does between then and seven thirty but that is the usual time he returns and camps out in the chair once more with his phone out until I fall asleep.