by Diana Palmer
The man nodded. “There was a shoot-out when the terrorists made a break for it. One of the men had an Uzi automatic. Kate was behind a sign. The bullets penetrated. We had her taken to the hospital.”
“She’s still alive?” Jacob asked from behind Tom, his voice odd.
“She was when the ambulance left,” the policeman continued. He searched Tom’s white face. “I’m sorry. I think it was a gut wound.”
Tom stared at him blankly, but Jacob didn’t. His hands were clenched at his side and he exchanged a look with the policeman that was all too knowing.
“I’ll drive you to the hospital,” Jacob said quietly.
“Yes…if you would.” Tom turned to thank the policeman.
“I’ve only known young Kate for two years,” the grizzled veteran said. “But she’s quite a girl. If you tell her something in confidence, she’ll keep it to herself. Not a lot of people in any profession can do that—especially reporters. I’m sorry. I liked her.”
He nodded and left them to follow.
“Why put it like that?” Tom growled as Jacob locked the door behind them, his heart like lead in a body that had gone numb with shock. “Why use the past tense?”
“You don’t know what a gut wound means,” Jacob said dully. “I do.”
Tom looked at him and seemed to go even paler. “No,” he whispered. “Oh, no.”
“Maybe he was mistaken,” Jacob said. His hopes lifted faintly at the thought. “Let’s go and see.”
“If you know how to pray, we might try that,” Tom murmured.
Try it? Jacob hadn’t stopped since the ordeal began. He led the younger man down to the elevator, thinking blindly that if Kate died, he didn’t want to go on living. The thought was as shocking as what had happened to her.
Chapter 5
Kate was just going into surgery by the time Tom and Jacob got to the hospital. Tom thought privately that they might have done better to take a cab. Jacob’s driving was none too confidence inspiring even on good days, and the older man had almost wrecked the car twice getting there. Nothing showed on that impassive face, but Jacob’s eyes were terrible to look into. For a man who had vowed never to let any woman get a hold on him, Jacob looked for all the world as if Kate had a good grip.
Tom went to the emergency desk to ask for news while Jacob sat numbly on a vinyl-covered sofa. The waiting room was filled full with ragged-looking young men, and a few babies crying miserably while their mothers shifted them and looked resigned and worn. Jacob glanced at one of the babies, a chubby little one with a smile on its face, and found himself smiling tenderly at it. He’d always thought that one day he’d have a child, but he’d never been able to commit himself to marry anyone. And then it occurred to him that he might have made Kate pregnant.
He’d tried to protect her, but it was a halfhearted measure at best. It suddenly occurred to him that if he had given her a baby, he might have cost two lives with his misguided desire. He got up abruptly and stared toward Tom.
The younger man was talking to a man in green cotton pants and shirt. The older man looked grave and shrugged when Tom asked a somber question. He patted Tom on the shoulder, smiled reassuringly and walked away.
“Well?” Jacob asked quickly, his eyes dark and haunted.
“That was the surgeon,” Tom mumbled. He leaned against the cold wall and stared ahead at the opposite wall. His eyes were wet. “They’re going to do an emergency exploratory to see how much damage the bullet did. We won’t know anything for about an hour.”
“How is she?” Jacob’s dark eyes narrowed with worry.
“In pain,” Tom replied tersely. “It hit a rib and punctured her lung. The lung collapsed.”
“Poor little thing,” Jacob said, closing his eyes.
“I feel sick all over,” Tom said blankly. “Jacob, she’s all I’ve got.”
Jacob stared at him. “What about the man who did it?”
“Two of the terrorists were killed, the rest are in custody. It could have been any one of them. Nobody knows.” He folded his arms across his chest and sighed restlessly. “I still don’t understand how it happened. Kate’s never been interested in doing police news. She hates that sort of thing, but apparently she requested the job.”
Jacob turned away, his face expressionless. He knew why she’d taken the job, all right. Kate had been looking, consciously or subconsciously, for a way out, an escape from the guilt she surely must have felt. Her sense of anguish had been compounded by his own callous treatment of her. That hundred-dollar bill was going to haunt him for the rest of his life, whether she lived or died. He’d never felt so sick or frightened, and there was absolutely nothing he could do.
A balding older man with a cane hobbled toward them, pale and anxious. He went right past Tom and Jacob to the information clerk. “Kate Walker,” he began breathlessly, “how is she? Do they know anything yet?”
Tom and Jacob glanced at him. “That must be the reporter whose place she took,” Tom began. “He hurt his ankle—”
Jacob’s eyes flashed black murder. With an economy of motion he went for the older man.
“Jacob, no!” Tom burst out. He dived toward the taller man, yelling for assistance. Two other men from the waiting room helped, and it took all three of them.
The reporter stared at Jacob, aghast, his face going even paler. “Let him loose, boys,” he said quietly. “God knows I deserve it. I never should have called her to go in my place.”
Jacob shrugged off the other men, but he stood quietly, breathing heavily.
The man hobbled closer. “You must be her brother,” he said to Jacob. “I’m Bud Schuman. Kate works with me. I’m so damned sorry—”
“I’m her brother,” Tom interrupted, moving forward with a faint smile and a wary glance at Jacob. “And Kate wouldn’t blame you, Mr. Schuman. You’re a hero of hers. She talks about you all the time.”
“I hope she’ll talk about me again, even if she cusses a blue streak the whole time,” Bud said miserably. “I’m just so sorry. I never think about the risk, you see. I’ve done this most of my life. And Kate, forgive me, is just one of the boys at the office. We never think of her as a woman. That’s why Winthrop gave her the police beat.”
Even as he spoke, Morgan Winthrop came storming through the emergency room door. He needed a shave and he looked as if he’d been dragged out of bed.
“Why the hell didn’t you call Joey Bradshaw?” Winthrop demanded. “He was sitting home watching reruns of My Three Sons, and he carries a piece. At least he could have shot back! So help me God, I ought to slug you, Schuman!”
“Wait your turn,” Bud Schuman mused miserably. “There’s already a line forming.” He indicated a still-smoldering Jacob and a quiet, anguished Tom.
Winthrop glanced at them. “Family, I gather? What can I say?” He jammed his big hands in his raincoat pockets. “Do they know any more now than they did five minutes ago?”
Tom shook his head.
“Sergeant Kovic told me she’d been hit in the abdomen,” Winthrop continued gravely.
“Rib cage,” Tom countered. “They’re taking her into surgery now to see how much damage there is. The bullet passed through a sign, but it came from an automatic Uzi—an illegal weapon with apparently strong velocity. We don’t know how bad it is, but the least she’s got is a collapsed lung.”
Winthrop grimaced. “Poor kid. She’s a hell of a reporter, you know. Does features, politics, even the police beat with a flair. Cops like her, too. They’ll tell her things that Schuman here can’t pry out of them with a fork.”
“That’s a fact,” Bud said. “They like her because she never lies to them. She does exactly what she says she will. Kate never lies.”
Jacob turned away. He’d known Kate for eleven years, and strangers knew her better than he did. It was a sobering, painful fact.
“Who is he?” Schuman asked Tom when Jacob was out of earshot. “My God, I thought my number was up before you sl
owed him down.”
“Jacob Cade,” Tom replied. “He’s a neighbor of ours back home.”
“Thought I recognized him,” Bud murmured. He smiled sheepishly. “Kate keeps a photo of him in her desk.”
“Kate keeps photos of him everywhere.” Tom sighed. He stared at the taller man. “I never expected it to hit him this hard. I thought he hated her.”
“Hate and love are first cousins,” Winthrop said philosophically. He studied the rigid back of the pacing man. “I know how he feels. I’ve been there.” He lifted his shoulders heavily. “How about some coffee? It looks like a long night.”
For another hour, Jacob paced while Winthrop and Tom and Bud Schuman sat and reminisced about Kate. And then, all at once, the waiting was over.
They gathered around the surgeon quickly.
“She’ll make it,” the surgeon told Tom, smiling. “The bullet broke a rib and went through the lower lobe of her lung, where it tore some tissue—we had to remove that lower lobe, but she’ll never miss it. We put in a drainage tube to reinflate the lung and drain it and we’re giving her blood. Amazing.” He shook his head. “Two inches lower and it would have been fatal. Two inches to the outside, and it would have missed her altogether. But she’s a pretty fortunate young lady, just the same.”
Tom sighed. “Can I see her?”
“She wouldn’t know you were there,” the surgeon replied. “She’ll be in intensive care for tonight, and if she does all right, we’ll move her into a private room tomorrow. You can come back in the morning and see her.” He clasped the younger man’s arm. “Go home and sleep, if you can. I imagine it’s been a bad time for you.”
“It has. Thanks for all you’ve done,” Tom said with a weary smile. “And I’ll go home, but I won’t sleep.”
The surgeon smiled and walked away.
“Thank God,” Bud Schuman sighed. “My God, when they said she’d been hit in the stomach, I thought she was done for. Obviously, she doubled up when the bullet hit…” His mumbled remark was interrupted by an accidental shove from his boss, who saw the horror in Tom’s young eyes. Shoptalk wasn’t for outsiders. Newsmen got an education in forensic medicine along with a good basic knowledge of clinical details from working with police and coroners.
“Say good-night, Schuman, and let’s go. I’ll even drive you.” Winthrop shook hands with Tom. “I’ll keep in touch. Try to get some rest. Call me if I can help.”
“Thanks,” Tom said.
Winthrop and Schuman left, and Jacob moved to the waiting area, half-empty now.
“Let’s go,” Tom said. “I’ve left the phone number with the desk. They’ll call if there’s any change.”
Jacob turned, his eyes dark and full of pain. “I did that to her,” he said numbly.
“Listen, you can’t love to order,” Tom said with blissful ignorance of what had really happened between Kate and the man standing near him. “Life isn’t that simple. Kate will get over you, and she’ll be fine. She just needs a little time.”
“I hope she has it,” Jacob said quietly. “Oh, God, I hope she does.”
“I’ll make us an omelet,” Tom offered as they left the hospital. “Good thing I can cook, or we’d starve by morning.”
Back in the apartment, Jacob paced some more. Restlessly, he glanced around the room, learning new things about Kate all the time. He saw what she liked to read, that she did handcrafts, that she loved gardening, that she fed birds outside her window on the small ledge. He learned about the people she’d helped and the affection her neighbors had for her by the bits and pieces of her life scattered around the apartment. And there was no resemblance at all between this woman and the shadowy figure of her he’d built up in his mind.
“Stop worrying, will you?” Tom asked after they’d eaten and he’d watched Jacob push food around on his plate. “Nothing is going to change what happened. We need some sleep. I’ll take the guest room and you can sleep in Kate’s bed.”
“No,” Jacob said shortly. He turned away, lowering his voice. “No. I’ll stay in the guest room.”
“All right,” Tom said, trying to figure out the older man’s odd reaction. “No problem. I’ll set the alarm in time to have breakfast before we leave for the hospital.”
“Yes.” Jacob walked out of the room, grateful that Tom couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. Sleep in Kate’s bed, with those memories all around… Hell couldn’t have been more unwelcome. He hadn’t noticed that she’d replaced the bed.
But he didn’t sleep. By five o’clock in the morning, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He dressed, scribbled a note for Tom and left the apartment.
The nurse in the intensive care unit was a crusty old veteran named Gates, but Jacob got to her. Despite the fact that it wasn’t visiting hours, she allowed him ten minutes, without really knowing why. It was something in those dark, tortured eyes. This was a man who wanted absolution, and that young woman he’d come to see wasn’t responding as well as Nurse Gates would have liked. Sometimes there was a healing power in a caring voice—the philosophy wasn’t based on medical evidence, but it was often true. So she broke a lifelong rule and let him into the small cubicle.
Jacob had only been in a hospital twice—once when his mother had died, and once to visit Kate’s grandmother just before she died. But those visits had been nothing like what he was now facing. Kate was hooked to a dozen tubes and wires, and machines made humming, throbbing, whispering noises around her pale, quiet body.
She was stretched out under crisp white sheets in a regulation hospital gown, her hair short now and unwashed, her face pinched and white, her eyes closed, long lashes against pale skin. He looked down at the soft mouth he’d kissed so hungrily, at the body his had possessed, at the slender hands that had clung to him, adored him. He drew in a shuddering breath. Kate.
He drew up the single chair in the cubicle and tossed his gray Stetson onto the floor with careless indifference. He took Kate’s free hand—the one that wasn’t attached to tubes and wires—in his, and turned it over to look at it. It was cool, and the nails were short, smooth and devoid of color. It was long-fingered, strong for a woman’s hand, graceful.
“What a hell of a place for Kate Walker to be,” he said, his deep voice quiet and soothing in the mechanical orchestra around him as he spoke to her, just as if she could hear him. “You don’t even like mechanical things, do you, Kate? Bird feeders on the window and plants all over the apartment, gardening books on the shelves. No, this isn’t your kind of place at all. You need sunlight and open land and room to plant things.”
He shifted in the chair, twining her hand slowly into his, studying the way her fingers looked against his, their pale length so natural looking in his firm grasp. “I never knew you at all, did I?” he murmured. “I heard your coworkers talking about you and until then, I don’t guess I really thought of you as a person. As a woman, sure. I’ve wanted you for a long time, Kate. A long, long time. Ever since I saw you kissing Gerald what’s-his-name in my swimming pool and found you nude in his arms in the bathhouse, I’ve been obsessed with you. And once Margo was out of the picture, I figured you were fair game. I could satisfy the hunger I’ve always felt and you’d stop haunting me.”
His face hardened. “But it didn’t work out that way. I said some hard things, and you don’t even know why I was so cruel that night. It was because I sensed the truth about you. Oh, yes, damn it, I knew deep down that you were innocent, but I was so hungry for you that I wouldn’t listen to my conscience. And now it’s killing me, Kate.”
He cupped her hand in both of his and lifted his eyes to her still figure in the bed. “You see, I didn’t know that you loved me,” he said, his voice slow and tender and deep with wonder. “My God, nobody ever loved me!” he bit off. “Not like that. There were pictures of me all over the apartment….” He paused, staring blankly at her hand. Somewhere inside, pain was racking him. “Then I knew just how badly I’d hurt you all these years. Accusations,
indifference, sarcasm… And you took it all, like a lady. You loved me, and I hurt you in every way there was. That’s the hardest thing of all to live with.”
His fingers curled hungrily around hers. “Tom doesn’t even know why I feel guilty. He doesn’t know why you asked for the police beat, but I do. Anything dangerous, isn’t that how it goes, Kate? I’ve tried that route myself these past three weeks. I almost wrecked the car twice, I’ve ridden murderous stallions, I’ve started fights. It hasn’t been any easier for me than it’s been for you. The guilt is killing me. And now this. If you die, how will I go on living? And what if you’re carrying my child?” he added quietly, voicing the fear that had driven him here before dawn. “Oh, Kate, I’m…alone. I never minded before. But now…”
He drew her palm to his lips, cherishing it with his mouth, his dark head bent, the hunger in him like a living, breathing thing, and no longer only physical. “Don’t die, Kate.” His voice broke abruptly, and he paused until he could control it. His fingers tensed and he felt sick and apprehensive. “I don’t think I can live in a world that doesn’t have you in it somewhere, even if you hate me for the rest of your life.”
There was a faint movement in the hand he was holding. He lifted his dark head and looked. Yes. Her fingers had tried to close around his. He stood up slowly, his eyes on her pale, quiet face. She was breathing strongly now, with a steady rhythm. And as he watched, she stirred. Her eyes opened, but they didn’t see him. She groaned.
Before he could call Nurse Gates, she was in the room. She patted him on the shoulder. “Good man,” she said. “That was just what she needed, to know that someone wanted her to live. Go and have breakfast. She’ll be fine now. I’ve been a nurse for twenty-five years, and believe me, I know a patient on the mend when I see one. This one will go home.”
Jacob tried to speak, but he couldn’t quite manage the words. He couldn’t remember ever being so choked with emotion. Instead, he bent and brushed a kiss against the leathery old cheek and winked.
She smiled up at him, eighteen again for a space of seconds, then turned back to her patient, and Jacob went out of the unit and down the hall to phone Tom.