by Dianne Drake
Suddenly it was all so clear to her. Mistakes from the past…mistakes she wouldn’t repeat. She had to do this because she didn’t want the regrets, and in a life filled with them what she felt for Michael wouldn’t be turned into another. Bending down to his ear, she whispered, “I do love you, Michael. I don’t know what that means yet, but I think I’ve loved you almost from the moment I collapsed in your arms.”
It felt good. Amazingly good. And right. Sitting back, pleased with her decision, she was dipping the washcloth in the basin to sponge off his chest again when Ina ran into the cabin, followed by a brigade of purple-hat volunteers pushing the gurney. Because Michael was a large, robust man, it took every woman in the room to lift him onto the gurney, but once they had, they whisked him away to the hospital, leaving Sarah behind to close up his cabin. As she started to pull the door shut, she took another look at his prosthetic leg. It didn’t make him less of a man, didn’t make him anything other than who he was. And it didn’t matter to her. But she had a disturbing feeling that it mattered to Michael in more ways than she could understand. Maybe more than he could understand, too.
In a life full of ups and downs with her past relationships, she was fully aware of why she held back from getting involved in another one again. But was she looking at the reason Michael held himself back? That might have been part of it, she decided. Somewhere deep down, though, he had other demons. She was sure of it. Someone with her fair share of demons knew the symptoms when she saw them.
“Michael, you’re in the hospital.”
Of course he was. That’s where he worked, and it was time to get up from his nap and get back to it.
“You’re going to be just fine. Your temperature’s come down now, your vital signs are stable, and there’s no sign of any permanent damage.”
Damn, he hated taking naps. Normally he felt worse afterwards than he had before. That’s why he didn’t nap very often, because he always came out of it feeling like hell. Like he did now.
“They found the source of the legionella bacteria. It wasn’t on the ship after all. It seems that the hotel where so many of the passengers and crew stayed the night before the cruise launched had the bacteria cultivating in their ventilation system. Everybody who stayed there breathed it in.”
He’d stayed there, but apparently he’d escaped the effects. Opening his eyes to Sarah, Michael wondered how she’d gotten into his cabin. “How long did you let me sleep this time?” he muttered, raising his hand to visor his eyes from the bright light overhead and for the first time noticing the IV in his wrist. “What’s this?” he sputtered, now trying to sit up.
Sarah laid a gentle hand on his shoulder to keep him down. “Normal saline now, with a piggyback of an antibiotic in another three hours.”
It didn’t make sense. He’d gone to take a nap. Just a few minutes off his feet then back to work. But he’d heard Sarah’s voice waft in and out. He remembered that. Had it been in his dream? And why the IV? “What happened?” he asked, fighting to remember, to clear the fog that had settled over his brain.
“You got sick. The cultures were positive for legionnaires’, and you came down with it. You’ve been sick with low-grade pneumonia these past couple of days, lapsing in and out of consciousness. But the pneumonia’s cleared and you’re on the mend.”
“Am I still on the ship?”
“You’re in Miami. You were transported with the other patients. Everything’s under control now.”
Under control. He was lying flat on his back in a hospital again after he’d vowed that no matter what happened to him he’d never go back to another hospital as a patient. “When can I leave?” he asked, turning slightly sideways to take in his surroundings. It was a private room, not a critical-care unit. That was good.
“If you keep responding to treatment, maybe in a week or so.”
“You’ve stayed here with me the whole time?”
“I promised I would.”
He vaguely remembered that promise. Or he thought he did. “And everybody’s fine? All the people who contracted…” Glancing up at her face, he knew the answer she was fighting desperately to hide. “How many?” he choked.
“We can talk about that later.”
“No. We can talk about it now. How many people did we lose?”
Drawing in a long, ragged breath, Sarah took hold of Michael’s hand. “Just one. I’m sorry, Michael, but it was…”
“Reese Allen. The bacteria lodged in his heart, didn’t it?”
She nodded. “The medical examiner said that he did have a weak heart and that was the easiest thing for the bacteria to attack. He also said he didn’t believe Dr Allen was aware of his heart defect.”
“And I came close to dying?”
Sarah nodded again. “Because you’ve had so many surgeries in the recent past. They weakened your system and the legionella bacteria love to attack a weakened system.”
He didn’t know what to say, and even if he had, he didn’t have the energy. So he shut his eyes and drifted back to sleep, but not before something flashed through his mind. I’ve loved you almost from the moment I collapsed in your arms. Had he dreamt that? Dreamt that in Sarah’s voice? “Go away,” he murmured as he drifted off. “Go away, Sarah.”
He was sick, grumpy, probably frustrated by the inconvenience of being confined to bed, which was why she wasn’t taking his mood personally. In her experience she’d dealt with much worse. So taking a break was good, and in a while, after she returned to Michael’s room, maybe he’d feel better. Maybe he’d be in a better mood, too.
Both Ina and Martha had been at her side almost constantly these past days. They’d become friends she’d never expected to find in a life she’d never expected to find. Bright spots in so much uncertainty.
“I think he’s waking up again,” the nurse on duty said three hours later as she poked her head into the doctors’ lounge, where Sarah had practically taken up residence this past week.
“Thank you.” It was tough, not knowing whether she should go back to him now or leave him alone for a while longer. The last couple of times he’d woken up he’d just told her to go away. Nothing else. And, frankly, that’s what she expected this time. Ina said it was because he wasn’t ready to face the truth. But was it the truth he feared? Or did he fear her? Did he really love her, the way he’d said he did every time he’d woken up these past few days. He’d told her, he’d told Ina and Martha, he’d told any number of nurses… But that had been delirium, and, as much as she wanted to believe it was something else, she wasn’t going to allow herself to believe it. He was a very sick man. That’s all it was.
But it had been nice to hear, nevertheless. Now she wondered if he remembered some of the things he’d babbled, and that scared him if they were true. Or made him feel guilty if they were not.
Why were the deepest personal feelings, like loving someone, the hardest to admit to? Why were they the ones that scared you the most? Rather than making life better, they became a complication, which didn’t seem right. Vulnerability, she decided. The hardest thing to do was to make yourself vulnerable to someone else. But it was also the nicest, because that’s where the true bond started—a bond she’d thought about over these days sitting at Michael’s bedside. A bond she truly wanted with him. But now she was scared, too. Which took her right back to her original question. Why were the deepest personal feelings, like loving someone, the hardest to admit to?
“You should go to him,” Martha prompted. “He needs you now more than ever.”
“And be kicked out again.”
“It’s not personal, sweetie. You know that.”
Sarah signed wearily. “But what it if is? I think he either remembers some of the things he said…”
“Or he’s afraid of some of the things you said. Is that what’s bothering you? That you opened yourself up to him so much? Made yourself vulnerable?”
“You heard?” How could that be? Yes, she’d told him she loved hi
m, told him that several times. But she’d been alone. So how could Martha have known?”
Martha chuckled. “No, I didn’t eavesdrop on your conversations with him. But it’s in your face, Sarah, in the way you look at him, the way you respond to him, the way you touch him when you’re taking care of him. So, tell me, how could you not sit at the bedside of the man you love without telling him that you love him?”
Martha was right about that. She couldn’t. “Do you think he heard me, and he doesn’t want to deal with me now?”
“I think he doesn’t know how to deal with you, sweetie. He’s a lot like you, the way he tries to keep to himself and push everybody away. If you want my opinion, though, I think you pierced his armor and he doesn’t know what to do about it. The way he pierced yours. Only he changed the rules by getting sick. He needed you and you were forced to give in to your feelings for him in order to help him.” She smiled. “Which gives you an advantage he hasn’t had. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how sometimes the worst situations bring out the best truths?”
Truths she didn’t know what to do with. Sarah took two steps toward the door, then turned back to Martha. “Falling in love shouldn’t be so hard. I thought if I ever did it again it would be…I don’t know. Maybe without problems? You know, something simple.”
“If it’s without problems, or simple, then it’s not true love. And what you feel for Michael is true love, isn’t it?”
“True love. That can’t work itself out.” She shook her head. “It’s so complicated, Martha. I don’t handle true love as well as it should be handled. I let people down, do the wrong things for what I believe are the right reasons, and end up just making a mess of it. I’m not sure I’ve got it in me to do it again.”
“Which is why you keep to yourself. Not trying is easier than taking a plunge into the great unknown. Well, I don’t know what happened with your late husband, sweetie, or that other gentleman you told me about, but from what I’ve observed with the way you’ve been with Doctor Sloan, I’d say you’ve done everything perfectly and the greatest unknown should be how you’ll survive without him and not how you’ll let him into your life. I think you’re the hardest critic of yourself, even though you’ve got no call to be that way now. Yet words aren’t going to make you believe that, Sarah. It’s going to take time, and patience, and the love of a good man that lets your heart truly trust again…and that includes trusting yourself. So you’d better go to him while he’s awake and tell him you’re not going anywhere.”
Sound advice, except running away would have been the easiest thing to do. Leave, and never come back. Her heart was fully committed, though. And she was so tired of running. So very tired…
“Michael,” she said quietly as she slipped into his room and took her regular seat by the side of his bed.
His eyes fluttered open to her. “Have I told you that I love you, Sarah? Have I told you yet?”
“Yes,” she said, realizing he was on his way down again. “And I love you, too.” Her love wasn’t the blear that comes from a spiking fever either.
“Good,” he murmured, as he slipped away. “I’m glad you do.”
* * *
“He’s gone?” Sarah stared at the empty bed, still not believing what she was seeing. “Michael’s gone?” He wasn’t ready. Wasn’t well enough yet.
“Checked himself out an hour ago,” the nurse said. “AMA.” Against medical advice. “We tried to convince him to stay, but he refused, and there was nothing we could do to stop him. Dr Sloan called a private hire to take him, then left.”
She couldn’t believe it! “Do you know where he went?”
The nurse shook her head. “All he said was that he’d consult a doctor when he arrived at his destination. No word where that destination is, though.”
She’d been gone four hours. That’s all. Four lousy hours because she’d needed to take a walk, get some fresh air. So she’d gone back to the hotel in which she hadn’t slept, taken a shower, then had a stroll on the beach. Four hours, and he’d taken full advantage of the time! “How was he, physically?”
“Weak, but coherent.”
He’d been coherent for the past day and a half. Coherent and totally unresponsive to her. Every time she’d gone to his room he’d spent his time staring out the window or faking sleep. She’d known he was improving, and she’d hoped that his attitude would improve too, but apparently that had been nothing more than wishful thinking on her part. Obviously, he’d planned on leaving, on walking away from her the first chance he got.
“He did leave you this note.” The nurse handed Sarah a sealed envelope, but Sarah didn’t want to open it there because she knew what was inside would make her go to pieces. She wanted to be alone for that. Alone, the way she should have stayed all along.
Sitting on a bench in the lush tropical garden outside the hotel, with the scent of gardenias and salt water in the air, Sarah stared at the ocean just across the way for nearly twenty minutes before she finally tucked her little finger under the envelope’s flap and ripped it open. Inside she saw the white sheet of paper, and it took her another ten minutes to pull it out and open it up.
Dear Sarah, it started.
She drew in a deep breath, bracing herself for the pain that was inevitable.
Sometimes, these past few days, I’ve heard myself telling you, telling everyone else that I love you, and I do. I want you to know that it wasn’t crazy talk from a man who was out of his head. You said you loved me almost from the moment you collapsed in my arms and I’ve held onto that through my delirium. And, yes, it’s true what they say about how some people, when they’re unconscious, can hear what’s going on around them, because I did hear you. Everything you said to me. And here’s the funny thing. I fell in love with you almost at the same time you did, when you collapsed in my arms. You looked up at me with so much trust, and you were so beautiful, how could I not?
You had such a wall around you, though, which kept you safe. But it kept me safe, too, from the very same things you didn’t want in your life. Except we had that chemistry, didn’t we? Nothing to deny there. Which made it so tough for me, because I can’t have a relationship with you…and it has nothing to do with you.
You have such a good, kind heart, Sarah. There’s so much to give deep inside you, and I would love, with all my heart, to be the one to take what you want to give, but I can’t. My life isn’t worked out, and I can’t drag you into it.
You need to live your life for yourself now, Sarah. I don’t think you’ve done much of that because you are such a dutiful, faithful woman. But to the wrong man this time. Please know that I won’t stop loving you even though, with a small piece of my heart, I do hope that you can find it in yourself to stop loving me.
Let your heart tell you what to do. Listen, Sarah. It won’t let you down.
Too numb to cry, too numb to even breathe, Sarah stared at the ocean for another hour, clutching Michael’s letter to her chest, before she finally got up and returned to her hotel room. Then she packed, and finally went home to Boston. Home, for the first time in a year.
CHAPTER TEN
IT WAS a nice cabin, and she’d been sitting in her parked rental car, down the road from it and out of view, for the past hour, trying to gather up the courage to do this. It had been a month now, and she had to. He’d had his space, she’d had hers, and with every breath she’d drawn during those long, empty days she’d come to realize just how much she wanted him in her space. That’s all there was, and if Michael was worth loving the way she did, he was worth fighting for. This time it was different, though. Her future wasn’t slipping down a drain the way it had while Kerry had been dying, or while her relationship with Cameron had been ending. With Michael she had no future unless she went after it. And she wanted to go after it. Give herself that chance to fight for it and, if nothing else this time, walk away knowing she’d done everything she could.
But that scared her, because she didn’t count on him havi
ng a change of heart. And this would be the very last time. If he succeeded in pushing her away this time, he’d never let her get near him again. She was sure of it.
He loved her, though. She knew that more than she knew just about anything else. Michael Sloan did love her. Which was what made this the most important thing she’d ever done in her life. So now it was time to prepare herself for all the things that had to be said, and do whatever it would take to fight for them. For Michael and herself as a couple.
Gritting her teeth with the resolve she’d been working on this past month, Sarah turned the key in the ignition and headed down the road after what she wanted.
“I like it here,” she said, stepping up to the porch rail where he was perched, looking out over the lake. He looked good. Rested. Healthy again. “It’s peaceful.”
“It’s not mine,” he said flatly. “I don’t need a home, with the way I live. Borrowing one is just fine. Better than owning, as you don’t have any permanent ties.”
She chuckled on the outside even though she winced internally. He was so hard now. Pulled so far into his emotional scars she wasn’t sure she knew how to break through. “You sound like me. No need for permanent roots. Just go wherever the urge takes you.” Except her urge took her only one place now. No matter how this turned out, her days of wandering were over.
He didn’t respond to that. Neither did he make a move toward her. Didn’t even look at her, but, then, she didn’t expect him to. Although she’d really hoped for something else…open arms, maybe? It would have been a nice start, she thought on a sad note. “How are you, Michael?” she finally asked, breaking the icy silence between them. “I’ve been worried.” He hadn’t returned her phone calls, but she’d never quit calling so he’d had to expect this…expect that at some point she’d come here. She’d half expected to find that he’d moved on without leaving a forwarding address. So maybe his still being here was a good sign. She desperately hoped so.