Imaginary Lover

by Sandra Chastain

  Nick had nodded and promised to use his influence to hurry the treatment. But he no longer had any influence, and after surgery that had been too late, all he could do was sit beside her and wait, listening to the drip of the fluid in the bag connected to her arm, like the ticks of a clock. He’d buried her three days ago.

  Now he was bone tired, too tired to worry about some homeless woman who’d decided to take up residence on Hattie’s porch. Hattie might have invited her in, but Nick had been told to keep out any intruders. He pacified his conscience by telling himself that even though it was October, it wasn’t a cold night. She had a backpack and, from the shape of it, a sleeping bag as well. Hattie wouldn’t want him to have her arrested. He’d just leave her alone.

  Hattie’s attorney would be at the house in the morning to talk about what was to be done with her things. He’d promised to carry out her wishes. Any other lawyer would handle the details from an office, but Hattie always made people come to her, and this would be her last command performance.

  Stripping off his clothes, Nick turned on the shower and waited for the water to get hot. In the darkness he stepped inside and let the heat pepper his body. Showering in the dark was as much a defense mechanism as an economy. If there was no light, he couldn’t see. But even the darkness didn’t keep him from feeling the sunken place at the site of the wound on his leg or the scar on the side of his face.

  And the darkness didn’t stop him from hearing Hattie’s voice. “Nick Elliott, you might not be ready to play major league ball, but you’re still a doctor. So you can’t stand up and operate. Find a stool and sit down!”

  But he couldn’t even do that. When the hospital staff had invited him to assist in Hattie’s case, he’d refused. “She’s like family,” had been his excuse. “Doctors don’t treat their own family.”

  Nobody else had to know that he couldn’t trust his memory. Nobody but his own physician knew how much medical knowledge he’d lost in the accident. “Selective amnesia,” his friend and colleague had explained. “Your memory will likely come back, when you’re ready to remember.”

  For now, he’d keep his secret. If Hattie’s will called for her house to be sold, he’d buy it. The larger home overlooking the golf course, where he’d once lived, was still empty. He hadn’t been back except to get his clothes and his secondhand car, the one Lois had refused to drive.

  This Victorian house had become his hiding place, his security blanket, his haven from pain. The world didn’t need to know that the surviving half of the most exciting couple in Atlanta, the most brilliant young surgeon in town, had quit practicing medicine.

  Even if the accident hadn’t stopped him, Hattie’s death would have done it. He’d loved two women in his life. Both of them had died, and he hadn’t been able to do a thing about either. One death he’d caused, and the other he couldn’t stop.

  With his hair still wet and his body thrumming with heat from the shower, Nick fell across the bed and pulled up the covers. Exhaustion swept over him, and moments later he was asleep. But the accident, the pain, and the woman from his past were blotted out of his mind by dreams of a shadow woman sleeping on the porch.

  From her spot in the swing, Dusty had heard his footsteps moving back and forth. Then came the sound of water running through a pipe in the floor overhead. After a long time it hushed, and she heard him walk back. Then she heard a creak followed by silence.

  Who was this intense man who slept in her aunt’s house? And where was her aunt? Dusty hadn’t necessarily expected to be welcomed with open arms, but she hadn’t expected Hattie to be gone either. Granted, Hattie hadn’t known she was coming. Hell, Hattie hadn’t even known where Dusty had been for most of the last five years. Dusty had disappeared the first time because of misplaced anger, but that had been replaced by guilt, then shame, and finally necessity.

  Dusty changed her position, then tried moving to the floor where she climbed into her bag. The temperature was growing cooler and the silence was beginning to close in on her. She’d spent too many nights in the kind of silence that echoed off the walls and pressed against her. Even the crickets had stopped chirping.

  Finally she got up and sat on the step. “I live here,” the man had said.

  Dusty let out a long sigh. She wished she had a cigarette. She wished she hadn’t given up smoking. But she’d been a police officer, and if there’d been anything in Dusty’s life she’d wanted, it was to be a good officer, to be a good example for those she’d tried to help. And, dammit, she had been.

  How could things have gone so wrong?

  Dusty wished she could take a shower and find a real bed.

  She wished she’d called Aunt Hattie and told her she was coming. Why was she sitting outside in the dark when she could be inside, sleeping on a soft bed? Part of being a good police officer was learning how the bad guys worked. And Dusty had been the best. She could get into the house if she wanted to, and suddenly she did. She needed to feel like she belonged.

  A few minutes later, thanks to some training by one of her parolees, Louie the Rat, she was in the kitchen. Dusty stood still and listened. Instinct told her that there was nobody in the house but the unpleasant man upstairs and herself. It was too quiet.

  That being the case, she’d just help herself to a snack before she found a soft place to sleep. The refrigerator was practically empty, which was not the way Dusty remembered it. Her aunt had always kept plenty of food on hand. There ought to have been all kinds of exotic leftovers carefully labeled and put away. Of course, she’d been a lot more impressionable the last time she’d looked, and so had her aunt.

  Standing there, drinking straight from a carton of orange juice, she remembered how she’d felt when she first came to Aunt Hattie’s—warm, grateful, and adequately fed. Hattie always had stories to go along with the picnics they’d had on the kitchen table. Dusty had been entranced by the woman who’d eaten Greek food on Malta and sushi in Japan.

  Hattie had been a modern-day Auntie Mame to a young girl whose mother was dying. Afterward Hattie had pronounced that she’d never had a niece, and Dusty was forever assigned to play that role. That was a long time ago, before Dusty had run away and discovered the bad things in the world.

  As a child Dusty had been told by her mother that there were two kinds of people, the haves and the have-nots. And you were assigned a number at birth. You might be allowed a little taste of the good life along the way, just enough to make you want it, but in the end, your die had already been cast.

  Dusty emptied the juice carton and felt her way to the living room. The overstuffed couch was still where it had been all those years ago. Unfolding the ever-present afghan, she lay down and spread the crocheted throw over her. At least it was better than the ground.

  In the morning she’d find Aunt Hattie and the man with the haunting dark eyes. Her last waking thought was that the man was right; he wasn’t just any fella. If she had to give him a name, she’d call him Merlin.

  TWO

  “It’s about time you got here.”

  Dusty heard the voice, yet it didn’t seem quite real. It was more like a warm, comfortable dream. From some faraway smoky place a path had appeared, and she’d dashed forward toward a familiar warmth.

  “Aunt Hattie?”

  “Of course,” the voice said with a chuckle. “Who else did you expect? Joan Crawford was busy and Ethel Merman has a terrible case of laryngitis. Serves her right for taking that last role from me. Of course, she can sing and I can’t, but her acting was lousy.”

  Dusty sat up. She’d forgotten her aunt’s ongoing feuds with other actresses. They’d been mostly a figment of Aunt Hattie’s vivid imagination, but none of Hattie’s friends had ever pinned her down about them.

  “Aunt Hattie, who is that man upstairs?”

  “Nicky? Nicky is a dear friend. He came to me the same way you did. He needed love and a place of refuge.”

  “Nicky?”

  “Well, I am the only one
who calls him Nicky.”

  “I can believe that. He isn’t the most lovable man I’ve ever met.”

  “Oh, but he is, or he will be. Trust me, Dusty. Have I ever lied to you?”

  Dusty held back a laugh, turning her face toward the voice coming from the corridor. “You? Lie? Of course not. But you do exaggerate now and then. Remember the wizard?” It was the voice of Dusty as a little girl that admonished with a pout, “You promised I’d meet him one day, Aunt Hattie. You said—”

  Dusty broke off. There was no one there. Even in the soft darkness, Dusty could see that the corridor toward the kitchen was empty. “Aunt Hattie?”

  There was no answer. Only the eerie sound of Dusty’s voice echoed down the vacant hallway.

  Still half-asleep, Dusty came to her feet and walked back to the kitchen. The door to the yard was closed. There was no sign of Hattie. Only a creak of the upstairs floor reminded Dusty that she wasn’t alone.

  Shaking her head, she headed back to the couch. It must have been a dream. Sweet Jesus, she’d had enough of them through the years, but never quite so real. Pulling the afghan back over her, she closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

  But all she could remember was the wizard. He’d been a character Aunt Hattie had met on the Orient Express. She’d sworn that he’d stepped right out of a James Bond movie, mysterious and elegant. He’d been tall and thin, Aunt Hattie had said, with eyes that burned in their sockets.

  Eyes filled with fury.

  Like the man upstairs.

  Dusty shuddered and pressed her eyes tighter. She tried to remember why she and Hattie had wanted the wizard to reappear, but the rest of the tale escaped her. Gradually Dusty felt the tension slip away as she fell asleep once more. It had been years since she’d thought of the wizard, though once he’d been her imaginary secret friend. She couldn’t recall any more of the details of the story, only her name for Hattie’s mysterious companion. As a child, she’d called the wizard Merlin.

  A jarring sound brought Dusty awake again, this time into a crouching position on the balls of her feet. She automatically reached to her hip for her gun, only to remember that it wasn’t there any longer.

  “Hey, it’s only the doorbell,” a male voice said, “not a firing squad.”

  Dusty jerked around, trying to orient herself to the strange surroundings. Her gaze fell on the man coming down the steps.

  He was whipcord thin, with great dark eyes and heavy brows. But it was the hypnotic effect of those eyes that she couldn’t turn away from, the same mesmerizing effect that she’d felt when she’d been assigned to the unit protecting the magician David Copperfield at his Miami appearance.

  The doorbell rang again.

  Dusty forced herself to come back to a standing position as he descended the stairs. He was holding a mug in his hand. “I don’t know how you got in here, but I guess I’m not surprised. There’s coffee on the stove. Pick out whatever you’re interested in, and if it isn’t valuable, you can take it along when you go.”

  He walked past her as if finding a strange woman asleep on the couch was an everyday occurrence.

  Dusty’s “When I go?” was drowned out by the sound of the door opening. A man in a suit carrying a briefcase entered. An attorney, Dusty realized; she could smell one a mile away.

  “Good morning, Nick,” he said, giving Dusty a curious glance, then moving into the living room and taking a straight chair next to the couch. “Who is your guest?”

  “Another curious fan. They’ve been coming out of the woodwork.”

  The attorney continued to stare at Dusty. “You look familiar.”

  “So do you,” Dusty answered. She could have said she’d seen enough attorneys in the last year to recognize one from a hundred yards.

  “Nick, I know that Hattie’s request that I come here must seem a little strange to you,” the attorney said. “I’m just following her wishes.”

  “I know. She told me to expect you. I’m just not sure why I’m involved.”

  “I’ll get to that.” He looked once more at Dusty. “This is confidential,” he began. “What is your name, young woman?”

  “Dusty O’Brian, and don’t worry, I’m out of here.”

  The attorney came to his feet. A broad smile curled his lips. “Dusty. Of course! So you finally came back.”

  “Yeah, that mean something to you?”

  “I just wish you could have made it sooner.”

  “Believe me, fella, if I could have made it sooner, I would have.”

  “I’m John Ralston Reynolds, Jr., your aunt’s attorney. I suppose you have proper identification?”

  “Don’t worry, J.R., all the necessary information has already been forwarded to the local authorities. I’ll be a good girl and follow orders. I won’t make any trouble for Aunt Hattie.”

  Mr. Briefcase looked puzzled. “I beg your pardon?”

  Dusty was listening to the attorney’s strange conversation, but she couldn’t get past the man sipping his coffee by the staircase. He was studying Dusty as if she were a frog about to be dissected. No, not a frog, a butterfly, pinned to a specimen board and unable to move.

  “When will Aunt Hattie be back?” she asked, drawing her attention back to the attorney. “I ought to tell her why I’m here.”

  Ralston frowned and took a step toward Dusty. “You don’t know?”

  Merlin answered for her. “I haven’t told her. I didn’t know who she was. I thought when we met last night that she was either another one of Hattie’s strays or a grief-stricken fan.”

  “Know what? Cut the crap! What’s going on here, fella?”

  This time she got a response from dark-eyes, a scowl that would clabber milk. “I told you last night, my name isn’t fella. I’m Nick Elliott, and I buried Hattie Lanier three days ago.”

  Dusty’s sharp retort died in her throat. It slammed down into the pit of her stomach and sucked out all the air, drawing into a spasm of pain she hadn’t expected. It had been a long time since she’d hurt, since she’d let anything hurt her. She’d closed off the pain, but never the guilt.

  This time the guilt came out of nowhere. Hattie was gone, dead. The memory of this place and the woman who’d loved Dusty had been hidden behind tough street talk and the claim that Dusty O’Brian didn’t need anybody. Aunt Hattie had always been here if and when Dusty ever needed her. That knowledge had carried her through the bleak times. Now Hattie was gone. Dusty was too late.

  Dusty turned slowly around and walked back through the kitchen and out the door. She made her way to the big oak tree at the end of the yard and looked up. It was still there, the tree house that she and Hattie had built. Even the boards nailed into the tree that provided the steps. She climbed up and settled down with her head hunched over her knees, her eyes closed.

  She was too late. Her past was completely gone now, along with any chance of a future.

  “Who is she, Reynolds?”

  “She’s Hattie’s niece. At least Hattie claimed she was. I don’t know for certain that they’re blood relatives, but Hattie took her in as a child and raised her.”

  “Raised her?”

  “Well, until she ran off when she was fifteen. Hattie always felt responsible for that. She’d been offered a role on Broadway that would eventually put her on the road again. When Dusty found out that Hattie was sending her to boarding school, Dusty got the idea that she was being abandoned and ran off. But Hattie never gave up hope that she’d come back. From time to time there’d be a telephone call, but for the last two years, there was nothing.”

  “Odd,” Nick said, “she never mentioned a niece to me.”

  “Until she got sick, I had the feeling that you two didn’t do much talking.”

  Nick winced. Reynolds was right. As a patron of the ART Station he’d met semiregularly with the board and with Hattie. There’d been nothing special between them … before his accident. But the day he’d left the hospital, Hattie had been there to pick him u
p and bring him home with her. He hadn’t cared where he went. He knew he didn’t want to go back to the house he’d shared with Lois, so he’d agreed when Hattie had offered him a room. Another man would have been depressed, but Nick simply closed off what had happened and waited for his body to heal.

  Hattie never reprimanded him, never intruded, never tried to force him. She was simply there, ever cheerful, ever confident that time would take care of everything.

  When had he begun to relax and allow Hattie into his life? It had happened a little at a time, a request that he couldn’t refuse, a special dish that she really needed him to taste. Then as time passed he began to notice that some of her requests weren’t simply interfering. She couldn’t do the things she’d always done, and it galled her to admit that she couldn’t.

  But why had she never mentioned this smart-mouthed, street-tough woman with the long legs and flaxen-colored hair? He wondered why he hadn’t noticed her hair in the moonlight. Nick couldn’t see her body beneath the jeans, biker vest, and shirt she was wearing, but if she were nude—his breath caught at the thought of those long bare legs—if she were nude, he’d bet his last nickel there’d be a tattoo.

  And this creature was Hattie’s niece? Somehow that didn’t jibe with the stagestruck wannabees, the poets, and the costume designers that usually moved through Hattie’s house.

  Of course, those people probably thought the same thing about him. He didn’t act. He didn’t belong to the ART Station Guild, nor was he a painter. In fact, there wasn’t a creative bone in his entire body, including those that were still healing.

  Nobody in the village ever asked about his past. Nobody at the ART Station ever pried, and until Hattie collapsed in pain in the kitchen, nobody ever knew that Nick Elliott was a doctor.

  Was! That was the operative word here.

  “You’re right,” he finally said to Reynolds. “We didn’t talk much. I guess it must seem strange to you, Hattie letting me stay here for all these months.”