“And the . . . rest of me?” Casey had to know. “My hands?”
“You’ll have full use of your hands. No tendons were cut.”
“But the scars ...”
“They’ll fade a great deal in time.”
Casey realized there was a different look in his eyes. He was impatient with her. But dammit! He used his hands to make a living, the same as she did!
“You probably think I’m vain, Doctor, but my hands and face are important in my line of work. I’m a demonstrator for a cosmetic firm and ...” She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say aloud that seven years of work had ended.
The doctor stood. “I understand, Miss Farrow.” His eyes were kinder, now. “Mr. Murdock insisted we bring in Dr. Clemons, who comes well recommended as one of the top men in his field. You may want to talk to him about your breast. He—“
“My breast?”
“We did the best we could, but—“
“But, what?” The even tone of his voice was driving her crazy.
“It was cut deeply by the flying glass.”
“Oh, God! Oh, God, what else?” Casey turned her head from side to side in a sharp frantic motion. She retched as though to throw up, but nothing came.
“You’re very lucky to be alive. Murdock got you here just in time or you’d have bled to death.” His voice was very professional, as if he was trying hard not to compare her loss with that of the girl who’d lose her leg in the morning.
“Thank you for telling me . . . everything,” Casey said in a softly resigned voice. It didn’t occur to her to ask about the man who saved her life. That thought would come to her later.
The lights in the room were dim. The nurse sat in the chair beside the door, quiet after Casey refused to be drawn into conversation. She had been given a pain pill, but refused the medication that would make her sleep. She had always been very health conscious. Good food, exercise and as few drugs as possible were the basis of her philosophy for keeping fit.
When the light tap on the door reached her, Casey didn’t bother to turn her head. She had watched the sky gradually darken and now lights from the street below reflected on the window. That time of day between sundown and dusk was a depressing time of day for her. It was the time of day that families gathered. She had no family except Eddie, her father. He came and went with a constant succession of women, but she learned to turn a blind eye, realizing that neither they nor anything else meant more to him than the pleasure of the moment. The twilight hours signaled that the day was over. Casey hated the ending of anything.
The door closed softly. She turned her head. The nurse had stepped outside. Good. She had told her repeatedly during the last few hours that she didn’t have to stay with her, but the woman had stated firmly that she had been instructed not to leave the room. Casey had responded with the fact that her insurance didn’t cover private nursing. The woman had shrugged her heavy shoulders and refused to argue the point.
The door opened and Casey groaned inwardly. Her moments alone had been few. A man came into the room and closed the door behind him. Casey’s eyes focused on the tall, dark-haired figure that came to stand beside the bed.
There was a curious silence as though neither of them knew what to say, he staring down at her, she up at him.
Casey slowly absorbed his height, his wide shoulders, the soft white, open-necked shirt tucked neatly into dark trousers. It was difficult for her to decide if he was handsome or not. He might have been, at one time, before he had done whatever it was that rearranged his features into the rugged, slightly battered pattern. His hair was nearly black and so were his eyes, a dark, dark gray—dark as flint Casey decided. They looked right into her as if to read her every thought. He looked more like a lumberjack than a doctor, yet he must be one.
“Are you the doctor who’s going to put me back together?” she asked at last.
“No. I’m Dan Murdock.”
The voice jerked her to attention before the name registered. This was the voice that soothed her, brought her back from panicsville when she awoke with her eyes bandaged. She lifted her large velvety tawny-gold eyes, the thick dark lashes curling back from them and leaving them very wide.
“Who are you?” she asked without inflection.
He looked at her thoughtfully. “May I sit down?”
She nodded, surprised that he asked. Her eyes followed him when he went to get the chair beside the door. He really was a monolith of a man, she thought. Everything about him fit perfectly—his voice, eyes, the way he moved.
He treaded softly across the room with the chair placed it beside the bed and eased his bulk down into it. He sat there, a knee crossed over, one booted foot swinging in her angle of vision. He was waiting with a patience that was deliberate, tangible.
“Are you going to tell me who you are?” Casey said in brittle tones. “No. Let me guess. You’re my insurance adjuster.”
“Wrong. I’m the man who ran into the back of your car and pushed it into the truck carrying windows.” The gray eyes watched her for some sign of an emotional upheaval.
“What am I suppose to say? Thanks for ruining my life?” she said evenly.
“I want you to know, Casey, that I was driving carefully that night, and that I didn’t see your car until seconds before I hit it. There must have been a cloud of dense fog that blotted out the taillights on your car.”
“The fog was terribly thick,” she said in a careful tone. “I was just creeping along.” She had been warned to stay off the highway, but in spite of the warning she had driven down to Newberg to speak to a class graduating from beauty school. “It wasn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have been on the highway. But neither should you.” Dammit! From the looks of him he’d come out of the accident without a scratch. Let him carry some of the blame.
“If one of us had used a little more sense the accident wouldn’t have happened.”
Casey looked at him and wondered if he had ever fought for anything. Had life given him all he wanted? She wished he would leave. Tears threatened to engulf her at any minute, but under his appraisal she refused to give in to them.
“Are you wondering if I’m going to sue you?” What had made her ask such a thing?
“I hadn’t thought about it. Are you?”
Embarrassed, she closed her eyes for a moment, opened them and stared into his. “No.” Tears slid down her cheeks and she was unable to stem the flood.
“Your father will be here in a day or two. I found him in Seattle. He’d have been here today, but the Seattle airport was fogged in.”
“It was kind of you. Has my employer been notified?”
“Yes. I talked with him on the phone. He’s leaving today for Los Angeles, but said he’d be in to see you as soon as he returns.” Her lids flickered as she tried to regain her composure. “Your car was towed in, that is, what was left of it. I’m afraid there wasn’t much to salvage. We were lucky to find your purse and identification.”
“Why are you doing these things for me? You said the accident wasn’t your fault.” She stared with bewilderment at his hard-boned face. His eyes, half-veiled by heavy lids, stared back into hers.
“I’m doing it because I want to, Casey.” His bluntness surprised her. She looked at him with new interest as he pulled a soft handkerchief out of his pocket and put it in her hand. “Can you manage?” he asked softly. His voice was so like the voice that had come out of the darkness to reassure her the night she came to after the accident that she almost cried again, but she didn’t. She wiped her nose, holding the handkerchief clumsily. He took it from her hand. “Let me.” He gently wiped her eyes, then her nose, and the tenderness of the gesture caused her to feel, for a moment . . . cherished.
“The doctor said you saved my life by bringing me to the hospital yourself. Thank you.”
He smiled, his eyes faintly teasing. “You’re welcome. Did he tell you that you have ‘some of my blood in your veins? Luckily your blood type was on your ident
ification card and it’s the same as mine. It saved time.”
“I’m doubly indebted to you,” she murmured.
He bent over so that his face was close to hers. “No, Casey. I don’t want you to feel as if you owe me a thing.”
“But I do,” she said in a whisper. “Thank you. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Don’t say anything.” His voice deepened, became husky, and his face turned serious. “I knew as soon as I lifted you out of the wreckage you were someone special to me. I want us to get to know each other, Casey.” He stood and she thought again how tall he was. He would top her five foot nine frame by several inches. “I won’t be back for a couple of days, but I’ll keep in touch.” His dark eyes held hers. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”
“I don’t know,” Casey said in a voice that quivered a little in spite of her attempt at control.
“I do. I believe we meant a lot to each other in another life and I mean for us to mean a lot to each other in this one.”
He stood looking down at her while her mind tried to absorb the meaning of his words. A smile started in his dark eyes and spread to the rest of his face and then he bent and laid his lips gently against hers. There was nothing hesitant about his kiss, nothing tentative or uncertain. The pressure of his mouth was warm and firm, moving over her lips with familiar ease. When he raised his head he was still smiling.
“You’re crazy!” Casey gasped through wobbly lips. “I don’t know you . . . from Adam!”
He laughed. The sound was light and teasing and there was unmistakable admiration in his eyes.
“Somehow I knew you’d be like that.” He laughed lightly again as if, suddenly, he was very happy. “You’re not to worry about a thing. The doctors and nurses will take good care of you while I’m gone. Hurry and get well so you can get out of here.”
Casey watched him leave. “He’s not playing with a full deck,” a voice, sounding strangely like her own, muttered.
Two
Casey felt as though someone had stuck a butcher knife in her chest and was slowly turning it. She had a strong desire to run from the image that faced her in the mirror, but her legs seemed disconnected from her body. She leaned forward and stared into gold-flecked eyes surrounded by bluish-green bruises, then, with deliberation, she studied the puckered ridge that crossed her forehead just an inch below the hairline and disappeared beneath the dressing on the side of her face. She closed her eyes and gripped the washbasin as she swayed. The pain in her hands when she gripped, and in her chest when she gasped, was nothing compared to the pain in her heart.
“Oh, God!” she murmured. “Am I such a shallow, vain person that I can’t be thankful I’m alive?”
“Miss Farrow!” The nurse with the peachy complexion flung open the bathroom door. “You scared me to death! You shouldn’t be out of bed.”
Casey gritted her teeth. “I’ve lain in that bed for five days. I’m not a child. I’m the one that’s got to live with this face and I’ve got a right to look at it. Now, get out of here or 111 scream the place down!”
“I’ve talked to your doctor,” the nurse said consolingly, “and we can shampoo your hair tomorrow. I know you’ll feel better when you see how we can arrange it to cover . . . your forehead. Please, Miss Farrow, Mr. Murdock will be very angry if he finds out I’ve let you get out of bed.”
“What the hell does he have to do with anything? He’s just the man who ran into my car. I never set eyes on him before the accident.” Casey was so immersed in her own misery she had to lash out at someone.
“I don’t know anything about that,” the nurse said firmly. “He’s paying me to take care of you and that’s what I’m going to do.” Her voice softened. “I know how you feel. Miss Farrow.” The girl’s sympathy was apparent and would have embarrassed Casey had she the strength to feel such an emotion.
“You can’t possibly know how I feel,” Casey said crossly. “Beauty is my business! I’m supposed to be a walking advertisement for the products I sell. Look at my hands! They look like they’ve been through a meat grinder. Look at my face! I can cover up the rest of me, but not my face and hands!” Tears that came so easily rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, help me back to bed!” she muttered in despair.
Casey lay staring at the ceiling. She had never imagined that at age twenty-seven she could feel as though she had already lived a hundred years, that everything she had built her life around had collapsed in a heap. All that remained to be seen was if she had a position with the company at all. Neil had called from Los Angeles where he was opening a branch office. He told her that he would be back in Portland at the end of the week and would come to see her.
“I’m sorry you missed the regular conference,” he had told her on the phone. “Exciting things are happening. You know that- model I’ve been trying to get? Jennifer Carwilde? The one with the dark hair and the gorgeous skin? Well, I got her! She’ll make a wonderful demonstrator. The girls will take one look at her and want to look just like her. Her skin is perfect. Not a blemish, not a single blemish ...”
Not even foundation cream an inch thick would hide the blemishes on her skin, Casey thought with a fresh stab of self-pity. She lay silent, hugging her misery to her like a winter coat.
In the afternoon her father arrived with a huge bunch of flowers. In the short time Casey had known him she had become accustomed to the fact that her father never did anything in a small way. The bigger the better was Eddie Farrow’s philosophy. Big car, big presents, big apartment, big bills he was always struggling to pay. He swaggered into the room with a big smile that turned into a big frown when he looked at his daughter.
“What the hell happened to you, cookie?”
There was a weakness, a vulnerability about her father that at times tore at Casey’s heart. Eddie Farrow would never be able to stand on his own, therefore God gave him a glib tongue, a handsome face and body to attract lonesome women who had more money than brains. Casey’s long-suffering mother had understood this and set him free, but had continued to love him until the day she died.
“Hello, Eddie. Do I really look that bad?”
“Worse than I expected,” he said frankly. “That fellow Murdock said there was nothing critical about your condition, and that there was no need for me to rush to your bedside. He failed to mention that you look as if you’d been through World War Two.”
“Thanks a lot,” Casey said dryly.
Eddie turned abruptly as if just realizing someone else was in the room. He smiled at the nurse, showing rows of perfect teeth that he spent a fortune to maintain.
“How about putting these posies in a little water, sweetheart?” He handed the flowers to her and managed to lay a hand on her arm at the same time. Eddie was a toucher. He smiled and he touched and most of the time he completely charmed the females he did it to. The young nurse was no exception. A rosy glow flooded her face as he continued to stare at her as if his eyes couldn’t leave her face.
“Ill see if I can find a pretty vase to put them in,” she answered shyly as the magic of Eddie Farrow worked again. She smiled sweetly, her eyes clinging to his.
“Hurry back,” he said, the words coming from deep in his throat.
Eddie didn’t move until the nurse left the room. That was another trick of his to make a woman feel special. When the door closed softly behind her, he eased himself down onto the chair and pulled at the creases in his trousers.
“You never miss an opportunity to practice. You’re always improving on your technique,” Casey said crossly. Any other time she would have smiled at her father’s flirtation.
“Of course, practice makes perfect.” Eddie was undaunted by her sarcasm. “To be able to attract the opposite sex is an art, Cassandra. Eye contact is the main thing. I—“ He broke off when she waved her hand impatiently, then continued with determination. “I could teach you how to get any man you want, if you’d just listen. Before long—“
“Knock it off, Eddie. We
’ve been down this road before. I’m in no mood for a lecture on how to snag a rich husband,” she said bitterly and drew an unsteady breath that caused a sharp pain in her rib cage.
“I am only trying to help you, Cassandra,” he said with just the right catch in his voice to make her regret her sharp words.
He really was quite handsome, Casey reflected sadly. His face was tanned from his Hawaiian vacation with Mrs. Somebody or other, and there was just the right amount of gray sprinkling his dark hair to make him look worldly, mature. All she inherited from him was his height and the color of his eyes. She thanked God she got her scruples from her mother because he had none at all. His next statement verified that.
A Love for All Time Page 2