by Susan Wiggs
“To be honest, I don’t give a shit about her except where you’re concerned. Level with me, Granddad. How did you happen to decide on this girl?”
He took out a small notebook. “Well now, let’s see. I started with a list of qualifications—age twenty-five to thirty-five. Female, of course. Someone with a positive attitude and a sense of adventure. Heterosexual. Must love children of all ages. Must be open to relocation. No emotional baggage. Nursing skills a plus.”
“I don’t get what you were thinking. This doesn’t sound even remotely like a notice for a nursing position.”
“How so?”
“I think when you specify age, gender and marital status, it’s more like a personals ad.”
“I had certain requirements. And those were some of them. You know I have nothing against homosexuals. But for this position it had to be a woman.”
Ross grabbed the list. “Nursing skills a plus?” he read. “A plus? Like it’s optional or something?”
“It’s secondary to the other attributes,” Granddad said. “Not to get too graphic on you, but as this business progresses, my needs are not going to be terribly complicated.”
“You can’t know that.”
“She’s available, you know,” George pointed out.
Ross stared at him, incredulous. “Did I hear you right?”
“Indeed you did.”
“What the hell do I have to do with any of this?”
“A great deal. Now, you’re not going to like hearing this, but it has to be said. I’m all you have, son, and I’m not enough family for you.” He raised his hand to stave off the objections he clearly anticipated. “I know you, Ross. Your heart is big, the way your father’s was. You were made for the kind of life filled with family. And it’s not a weakness. It’s a gift. And introducing you to Claire—that’s a gift. Perhaps my final one to you.”
“I don’t need—Granddad, she’s the last woman I’d want to date.”
“Why? She’s lovely. Intelligent, soft-spoken—”
“Whoa. I’m here for you, okay? Can you just please remember that?”
“As you wish. I do want you and Claire to get along, though. She’s not going anywhere, so you’d best plan to make an effort.”
Ross took a moment to absorb what Granddad was saying. He needed a moment. It wasn’t every day he encountered someone who saw him so clearly. George had always possessed that ability, Ross reminded himself. He could see into Ross’s heart. It was one of the reasons they’d always been so close and why he trusted his grandfather so much. But this…
“Let me get this straight. You hired Claire based on the fact that you thought I’d be attracted to her.”
“Yes,” George admitted.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“That’s quite possible. I might be, yes. This disease is notoriously unpredictable.” He studied the board. “I’m still giving you a schooling at chess, though.”
“You’d better send her packing, because it’s not going to work.”
“On the contrary. I saw the way you looked at her. You’re intrigued.”
“And this comes as a surprise? Christ, you’ve seen her. Of course I’m intrigued.”
“Excellent. And the good news is, she’s going to be entirely smitten with you.”
“Did she say that?”
“Of course she didn’t say that. You just met.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Good question. She hides it well. She’s a complicated creature. Your favorite kind. You are wearing that confounded expression again, Ross.”
He let out a sigh, steepled his fingers together. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“I agree. I hope we’ll have time for plenty of talk this summer.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world,” Ross told him. “It’s crazy, going from having every minute of the day spoken for by my Dustoff unit to having nothing to do.”
“Nothing but trying to figure out the whims of a dotty old man suffering from a diseased brain.”
“Not funny,” Ross pointed out.
“It wasn’t meant to be.” Granddad’s smile was thoughtful. “You look wonderful, Ross. Soldiering agreed with you, just as it did your father. You look so much like him, I nearly forgot who I was talking to. Thank you again for coming.”
“I’m here for you,” said Ross. “I’m here for whatever you need from me.”
“Now, that is music to my ears. Precisely what I was hoping to hear.” He nudged a pawn into position, putting Ross’s queen in dire straits. “Your move,” he said.
Ross sacrificed his queen, as George must have known he would do. Then he hid behind the balloonlike brandy snifter to take a sip. He was lying through his teeth, of course. He was here to take his grandfather back to the city and persuade him to save his own life. He finished his brandy and set down the empty snifter.
George reached over to do the same. He missed the side table and the glass shattered in a shock of brilliant crystal shards.
“Occasional intermittent blindness,” Claire explained to Ross Bellamy in a low voice. They had brought George back to the lake house and helped him to bed. Now she stood with Ross on the porch. She was trying to keep her professional facade in place, but it was hard. The guy looked like he’d stepped out of her best fantasy—tall and fit, a chiseled face, soulful eyes. Dimples. “That’s likely why he dropped the glass. I’m afraid disorientation and lack of coordination are also common symptoms.”
At the moment, standing in the moonlight and gazing out at Willow Lake, it was Claire herself who felt disoriented, and Ross Bellamy was the cause. The last thing she’d expected was…him. Sure, George had sort of prepared her by explaining that Ross had been in the service, that he was tall like George and shared the Bellamy blue eyes, but still, she hadn’t been prepared. The guy was like some kind of action hero come to life, even in civilian clothes. When he’d approached her and George on the dance floor, she’d been caught off guard—and being caught off guard was a dangerous thing.
It wasn’t just that she hadn’t expected him—which she hadn’t, not tonight. The thing that truly caught her off guard was her own reaction to him. The attraction had been as instantaneous and powerful as heat lightning. Sure, she’d been attracted to men before; just because she lived a borrowed life didn’t mean she was immune to sexual chemistry. This was even more intense. It didn’t matter that the man clearly resented and distrusted her. It didn’t even matter that he’d come with his girlfriend. From the moment he’d drilled her with that “who-the-hell-are-you” glare, she’d been spellbound.
She focused on the issue at hand. “There’s nothing to be done about it,” she told Ross, “except to keep an eye on him and help him with his mobility.”
In the glow of the porch light, she could see Ross’s jaw tighten with anxiety. She stifled an urge to take his hand; she sensed he’d find no comfort in her touch. She felt for him, though. The broken glass was probably Ross’s first concrete evidence that George’s illness was no fiction, but something real and inevitable, an enemy he couldn’t fight.
“Is that your medical opinion?” Ross asked. “Or personal?”
“Medical,” she said. “I’ve spent hours familiarizing myself with his case.”
“His case. Yeah, I guess he’s just a case to you.”
“He’s a man who needs me. He needs you, too, and all those who love him. George deserves to find a sense of peace and closure. As horrible as this is, there will be unexpected gifts, too. Not everybody gets a time like this—to spend or waste however he likes. For some people, everything is snatched away in an instant.” She stopped, wondering if she’d revealed too much of herself in that statement.
Ross stared at her. “What he needs is a damn team of doctors. I put my faith in surgeons and scalpels. That’s the way lives are saved.”
“On the battlefield, that’s true,” she said.
“He told you about me?”
> “He told me you were a medevac pilot in the army.” Claire could feel the tension rolling off Ross, and she sensed he was suppressing a lot. It was not uncommon, but it wasn’t good for her patient. He couldn’t be fully present for his grandfather if he was bottling up real feelings. There were things that needed to be let out. “I can’t imagine what it was like for you.”
“You don’t want to imagine it. Nobody does.”
“You saved lives,” she said. “And every life you saved was connected to countless others. Your grandfather is extremely proud of that, rightfully so. I hope knowing what a difference you’ve made brings you peace.”
He shrugged. “Guys like me, we don’t keep score. We don’t know how many people we’ve saved or how many we lost. None of the crew ever knew—or wanted to know—what happened to patients after they were airlifted.”
“You never had a follow-up? Never wondered about someone?”
“There’ve been a few guys who figured out how to get in touch with me,” he admitted. “A couple of e-mails to say thanks.” He pushed the tips of his fingers together, and his eyes looked lost in memories. “I’m one of the lucky ones, you know? I went to war for two years and never had to kill anyone. Going out flying and bringing guys back—it was a hell of a job.”
The less he said, the more her mind filled in the details. She tried to create a mental image of Ross at the controls, piloting a helicopter through the firestorm of battle, but it resembled a scene out of a movie. Maybe it was his movie-star looks, which shone through his grief and anger.
“As for wondering about someone—hell, yeah,” he admitted. “I wonder about every single one of them. And then I leave it at that. Trying to follow up on everything makes you crazy.”
“Your grandfather calls you a hero.”
“Maybe I was just an adrenaline addict.”
“Did you always want to be a pilot?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Never quite knew what I wanted to be, so for a long time, I was an asshole.”
She kind of wanted it to be true, so she could stop feeling so drawn to him. “Your grandfather didn’t tell me that part.”
“Yeah, he wouldn’t. I partied my way through college and a couple of jobs I didn’t much like. Enlisted almost on a whim, and it turned out to be the right thing for me.” He rubbed his jaw, looking weary. “Deployment wore me down, though, two years of it. I thought I’d come back to the States and work as a civilian in medevac. Everything’s on hold now.”
“I know it must be hard, coming home to this.”
He paced the length of the porch, stopping a few feet from her. “Listen, the last thing I need is for some hired New Age nurse to be doling out platitudes to me. I’ll tell you what’s hard. Coming home from a war to the news that my grandfather’s dying—that’s hard. Finding out he’s given up on getting better—that, too. Oh, and realizing this is all going to go down in a strange place, surrounded by strangers—that’s pretty damn hard.”
She watched the way his hands gripped the porch rail in a fury of tension. Though she couldn’t tell him the truth, she was painfully familiar with the aftermath of trauma. One day, she’d been a high school girl; the next she was a fugitive. Though it wasn’t quite the same as surviving a war, she could recognize the lingering stress in Ross.
He subjected her to a penetrating stare, and a part of her almost wished he recognized that lonely girl, hiding inside her.
She wished his contempt was more of a turnoff. But it wasn’t because she recognized his rage for what it was—a shield against the terror of losing someone he loved. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have said that right off the bat. I’m so very sorry. George is too nice a person for this to be happening to him.”
“I guess we agree on one thing.” He turned away to stare out at the lake, a mirror of ink in the darkness, where the reflection of the moon created a shimmering silver disc. “Damn, it’s quiet here. Kind of like night ops, only we’re not being shot at.”
She tried to picture him in uniform. She had issues with guys in uniform, but for some reason, she felt okay around Ross Bellamy. “Night ops?”
“Mandatory exercises,” he said. “You have to learn to do everything in the dark. That’s when the worst part of war happens.”
“And there’s a best part of war?”
“It’s known as boredom. In my line of work, there were two modes of operation—boredom or full-on adrenaline. Not much in between.”
She wondered about the memories he carried inside him. “This is a big adjustment for you. If you need to talk to someone about it—”
“What, you’re a shrink, too? Jeez, lady, you’re one-stop shopping.”
“I was going to say there’s a vet center in Middletown.”
“Shit, sorry. I know you’re trying to be helpful. I’m okay for now. During demobilization, they gave us info about PTSD. Last thing I want to do is have a meltdown when I’m supposed to be taking care of my grandfather.”
“Then we agree on two things,” she pointed out.
“No, we don’t. I’m here to help him get better, and you seem fine with letting him get sicker, out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’m not ‘letting’ him do anything,” she said. “He’s here by choice, and the things that are happening to him can’t be helped or stopped.”
“You claim you’re some kind of nurse,” Ross said. “Isn’t it your job to help people?”
“I am a nurse, and yes, that is my job.”
“So where does the dancing come in? Is that part of my grandfather’s treatment, dancing in restaurants? What the hell was that about, Nurse Turner?”
“It was about taking care of my patient. He said he always wanted to dance.”
His shoulders sagged just the slightest bit. “I guess you’ve noticed—my grandfather is everything to me. He’s the best man I know. And what’s happening to him…” His voice broke off on a rough note. “We need to stop it, Claire. Please.”
It was the first time he’d addressed her by her first name, and it signaled a slight shift. She wanted to weep for him; she probably would later, in private. “There’s no stopping it,” she whispered. “The best way to help your grandfather is to give him as many good days as you can, for as long as you can.”
Ross shook his head. “It’s like he’s giving up on himself. What’s worse, he came here to see some guy who hasn’t given him the time of day in what, fifty, sixty years. He’s going to get his heart broken, and he doesn’t deserve that, either.”
Even through the gloom, she could see the brightness of tears in his eyes. “Please listen. There’s no easy way to say this, but try to understand. This is his life and he gets to choose. Now, you can either support him and wish him well, or you can begrudge him this time and criticize the choices he’s making.”
“So if he wishes to jump in the lake wearing cement boots we should let him because he wishes it?” Ross demanded.
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“For wanting my grandfather to seek treatment for an illness so he can get better? Come on, Claire. Help me out here.”
“Help you out?”
“I have to persuade him to come back to the city. I’m sure there are more doctors he can see, more courses of treatment to explore.”
Claire’s heart ached for him. She wished things were different, that she could agree with Ross. Instead she said, “Don’t you think he’d treat this if there was a possibility of a decent outcome? There’s not. I hate to be so blunt, but there’s not.”
He winced. “Look, all I’m asking is for him to keep an open mind. Or for God’s sake, to listen to reason. To actually seek treatment for his condition instead of giving up and retreating to some obscure hideaway like a wounded animal holing up to die.”
Claire placed one hand in the other, quelling the urge to touch his arm, or the back of his hand. “He’s here with his doctor’s blessing, did he tell you that?”
“Then he needs to find a new doctor.”
“He’s been working with a whole team. Any one of them will be glad to go over the case with you. And what they’ll say, with the deepest of regret, is that surgical resection is not an option. Chemo and radiation are strictly palliative measures, and the side effects are so severe, they’d strip away any quality of life he might have. Your grandfather’s doctors will tell you there’s no further surgical or medical intervention for this. Not a single one will say that any life is better than death. I’m employed by your grandfather, and he’s made his choice. This can’t be about you, Ross. It has to be about George. Can you allow that? Please?”
He said nothing, but it was an angry silence.
“You don’t have to like me,” she said, struggling to keep the barriers in place. “I don’t need for you to like me. But the sooner you figure out a way to be okay with your grandfather’s wishes, the better it’ll be for him.”
“Right,” said Ross. “Got it.” He fell silent again and stayed that way awhile longer. She waited, listening to the rustle of night creatures in the underbrush, the lapping of the lake on the shore. Finally he said, “Has he contacted the brother yet?”
The brother. She sensed Ross wasn’t too happy about that development and wondered how much of the background he knew. “Not yet,” she said. “I think, actually, he’s been waiting for you.”
In the lake, a fish jumped, and something slipped into the water from the shore. Ross continued to survey the scene for a moment. Then he said, “I’m going to turn in. If he needs anything at all, you come and get me.”
“Of course.”
He turned and walked away, striding across the compound to an A-frame cabin.
Claire stood on the porch in the moonlight, peering into the darkness, feeling a crazy jumble of emotions. The guy’s moods changed like the swing of a pendulum, which was not uncommon in ex-soldiers. He was the last guy she expected to feel attracted to. It made absolutely no sense. He was freshly back from war, he was her client’s grandson and he had shown up with a woman named Natalie—a girlfriend?