“I’m sure.”
I groaned, as I carefully pushed her down onto the bed. I leaned over her and studied her face, wanting to memorize every inch of it.
“I don’t want to know,” she said softly, as if answering a question I didn’t remember asking.
“Want to know what?”
“About the women you were with before me. I used to think it was important to know those things. But now…I don’t want to know.”
“Okay.”
“I just want you to always be mine.”
“I am yours, Harley. I have been since the moment I first saw you.”
***
“This will take some time,” Dr. Caliendo said for the third time. “The process is slow. And when she wakes, she may be confused. Disoriented.”
“Okay,” I said, as I watched him insert a needle into the catheter in her IV line.
“Don’t be surprised if she’s slightly combative when she starts to come out of it. That’s normal.”
“Okay.”
“Call the nurses if you’re concerned.”
I nodded, wishing he would just get it over with.
Dr. Caliendo looked at me one more time, then slowly pushed in the plunger. Nothing happened. He said it wouldn’t, but part of me expected her to open her eyes the moment the medication began to flow into her body.
She didn’t. She just remained peaceful.
My own Sleeping Beauty.
Chapter 4
Harley
I was dreaming. At least, I thought I was. I was back in Texas, standing in the center of my art studio, staring at a huge canvas that was larger than anything I’d ever worked on before. There were flowers—I hate flowers!—everywhere. Red roses. Yellow roses. Irises. Carnations. Daisies and mums. So many flowers that they were even in the painting, hidden in the lines of a woman’s dress, the angles of a man’s jaw. It was the strangest thing I’d ever seen.
And then it changed, the room itself becoming larger, brighter. There were skylights, the kind I’d always wanted in my studio, and gorgeous built-ins that were big enough to hold all the paints I could ever use. My studio had metal shelves that’d come in a box from the local Wal-Mart.
I didn’t understand where I was or why I felt heaviness in my chest when I looked around. It was all so familiar, but it was tied to some sort of betrayal. Why would I feel betrayal in my studio?
And then the dream shifted again. Now I was in a bridal store, looking at wedding dresses. A dark-haired woman was there with me, but I didn’t know who she was. She seemed familiar. She felt like a friend. But, again, that sense of betrayal crept through me, telling me something I didn’t understand.
I tried to walk away, but my right leg began to ache deep inside. And then my chest hurt, the pain fresh, but coming from a place I didn’t quite understand. I tried to touch myself where the pain was the worst, but my arm wouldn’t cooperate. I could move my fingers, but my arm just wasn’t having anything to do with it.
“Harley?”
The voice was warm and deep, vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite figure out why I knew it. I wanted to wake up, but I was still stuck in that bridal store, my body refusing to cooperate when I tried to walk, to run, to even step down from the pedestal where I was showcasing a ridiculously hideous dress I would never wear. It was something out of one of my mother’s Southern Bride magazines, a bell skirt that flared ridiculously wide around the hips and ankles. I would prefer an A-line design with a sweetheart bodice and tulle back. That is, when and if I were ever to get married.
Philip had yet to ask, though he’d been hinting at it for a while.
“Wake up, Harley,” that deep voice said again.
It was so familiar, but I still couldn’t place it. It was like an itch you just can’t scratch. The answer was right there on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t quite catch it.
“The doctor said it would take time,” another voice said, this one female. “You have to be patient.”
“It’s been three days.”
Three days? What’s been three days?
“I’m sure she’ll wake up soon. Just have patience.”
She? Were they talking about me? Who were these people? Where was I?
I felt a hand on mine. I looked down, but the dream had begun to lose substance. My hand was just a sort of blur now, lost in the fabric that was beginning to disappear. I moved my fingers, but I couldn’t see them move. But they must have because that deep, warm voice said, “See that? I told you she was starting to come around.”
It sounded like a nice voice. Reassuring somehow.
I moved my fingers again.
“That’s it, Harley. Wake up, baby.”
Baby? Was it Philip?
But that didn’t feel right. Philip had never called me baby. He called me things like “darling” and “sweetie.” But never “baby.” “Baby” was too common for someone like Philip. His father, as he kept reminding me, was a Harvard man who planned to be a member of the U.S. Senate someday. Harvard men don’t call their women “baby.” And neither do their sons, apparently.
A sharp pain suddenly burned through my right leg. I moaned, twitching my hand in an effort to touch that space, to see what was causing the pain. But my right arm was tied up somehow, trapped against the side of my body. And when I tried to move it, more pain burst through me, but this was pain high in my chest. My collarbone.
What had happened to me?
I was afraid to open my eyes. But the dream was completely gone and I was aware of other things now. The beep, beep, beep of some sort of monitor. It reminded me of Grey’s Anatomy, the monitors they used on the patients in the deep, emotional scenes where someone important to the storyline died.
Was I in a hospital?
My head hurt. My chest. My leg.
Fear burst through me and almost immediately the steady beep of the monitor sped up.
“Harley,” that voice said, that voice that dripped with masculinity and affection and fear all at the same time. “Harley, you’re okay, babe,” he said. “You’re in the hospital.”
Well, I’d already pretty much figured that one out.
“You were in an accident,” he said, his voice filling with grief on the word accident. Funny how you can catch the small nuances in someone’s voice when you were trying really hard not to join reality.
“My leg,” I mumbled. Not sure why I went for that one first. Maybe because it hurt the worst.
“It’s broken,” he said. “Are you in pain?”
No. Just thought I’d complain for no reason.
A hand touched my face. It was gentle, kind in a way I don’t remember anyone ever touching me. There was a certain amount of intimacy about that touch that suggested we knew each other quite well. But I still couldn’t put a name or a face to the voice.
Maybe if I opened my eyes.
“Harley?” another male voice said. This one was stiffer and a little indifferent. I definitely did not know this person. “Could you open your eyes for me, Harley?”
If I could, I would have. And I would have much rather have done it for the other guy, thank you.
Another hand on my face. My eyes being pried open, a bright light flashing in them. I turned my head away.
“That’s good, Harley,” the second voice said.
“She’s coming out of it?” the first asked.
“Yes. She’ll probably be fully conscious within a few hours. Then we can assess her condition a little more accurately.”
Condition? What was wrong with me?
And then the world slipped away again, and I was back in those weird dreams where everything was altered in some, strange way.
Chapter 5
Xander
The doctor left, followed closely by Alicia, but not before Alicia dropped a wink in my direction.
She was coming out of it. I couldn’t even begin to express how excited I was. And scared. She’d been in this coma for a total of fifteen
days now. What did it mean that it took so long for her to wake up?
I picked up her hand and pressed it to my lips.
“You have to wake up, baby,” I said. “I know you can do it. You have to keep fighting. You have to come back to me.”
That’s all I wanted. I wanted her to come back to me. Nothing else mattered.
***
“Move in with me.”
“Where? Are you planning on getting a house out here?”
“No. But I have a perfectly good house in Los Angeles.”
“You want me to move to L.A.?”
I ran my hand over her bare belly and watched as her nipples tightened and puckered at that simple touch.
“I want to wake up every morning with you beside me.”
“Then move here.”
“I would, but I have this business that is taking off in Los Angeles, and it still needs my attention eighty percent of the time.”
“Can’t you relocate it to Texas?”
“It’s still in its infancy, Harley.”
“What about my career?”
“Do you know how many art galleries there are in Los Angeles County? How many art dealers just dying to find new talent?”
“Do you know how many artists there are starving on the beaches in Malibu?”
“You wouldn’t starve. I make pretty good money.”
“So you want me to be a kept woman?”
“I want you to be my woman. I don’t care what label you give yourself.”
She slapped my shoulder even as she laughed at my lame joke. “You’re awful,” she said through the laughter.
“And you love it.”
She suddenly sobered, her eyes moving over my face slowly, drinking in every inch. “Yeah,” she finally said. “I think I do.”
I leaned close and stole a kiss. “I love you, too.”
“But that doesn’t mean I want to pull up stakes and move a few thousand miles to live with you.”
“What if I introduced you to Margaret Wallace?”
Harley’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know Margaret Wallace.”
“I do, actually. She’s my—”
“I don’t want to know if she’s some woman you dated.”
“Then we’ll just call her a friend.”
“I can handle that.”
I kissed the tip of her nose. “Margaret’s got a project going on in West Hollywood, fixing up some old warehouse to turn into a community center for the local kids. She’s looking for a talented artist to do a mural in the main room.”
“Really?”
“It’s right up your alley, babe. A huge mural featuring local children. And if I know Margaret, she’ll have all her friends there for the great unveiling, along with the local press. Thousands will see it. Whoever paints it will be a household name in a matter of hours.”
I could see the light come on in Harley’s eyes. “Do you really think she’d consider me for the job?”
“I’ve already shown her some photos I took of some of your work. She’s interested.”
“Don’t lie to me, Xander,” she said, sitting up a little. “Did you really show my stuff to her?”
“I did.”
“And she really liked it?”
“She wants to meet you. I told her you could meet her for dinner on Friday.”
She squealed and threw her arms around me, raining kisses over my face. “You’re the most amazing boyfriend a girl could ever have!”
“Remember that when I forget to put the toilet seat down.”
***
“Still unconscious,” I said with something like a sigh.
“What did the doctors say?”
“That we have to wait. That’s what they’ve been saying since the day of accident.”
“Then I’m sure they’re right,” Margaret said. “That’s what they went to school for a billion years for, right?”
“Yeah, well, I just wish something would happen. I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that just gets worse with every passing hour.”
“Harley’s strong. She’ll be fine. Besides, she needs to get down here and finish this mural.”
“I think the mural is the least of her problems at the moment. When she wakes up, the orthopedist says she’s got months of physical therapy to look forward to with that broken leg.”
“What about the two of you? What do you think—?”
Something made me turn as Margaret spoke. I knew what she was going to say, so I was only half listening. Maybe she made a sound. Or maybe it was just a change in her breathing. But something had changed.
Harley’s eyes were open. And she was staring right at me.
“Margaret, I have to go. Harley’s awake.”
Chapter 6
Harley
I watched him move the phone from his ear and slip it into his pocket. And then he came toward me, a smile of such pleasure on his lips that I couldn’t help but stare.
“Hey, babe,” he said so softly that it was almost like a physical caress. “How’re you doing?”
I stared at him, taking in the dark hair, the five o’clock shadow on his wide, sexy jaw. He had blue eyes that were dark and deep, like a swimming pool late in the summer. And that smile…
“Who are you?”
The smile disappeared, as he tilted his head and studied me, looking for something that I was pretty sure wasn’t there.
“It’s me, Harley,” he said. “Xander.”
“Xander?”
“Xander Boggs. Your fiancé?”
I shook my head, scooting back a little against the thin pillow under my head. “I don’t know you.”
“Harley…”
I shook my head again, and this pain shot through my skull. I reached up and…what happened to all my hair? And why were there bandages on my bare head? And my leg, my arm…panic was beginning to build in my chest.
“What happened to me?”
“You were in an accident.”
I shook my head again, even as the evidence told me he wasn’t lying. There was a huge cast on my leg, and my right arm was in some sort of sling. I tried to pull it free, but pain sliced through my chest when I did. I lifted the sheet that covered my body and discovered a whole host of wires and tubes and strange things snaking under the hospital gown that was barely covering my body.
“I don’t understand.”
“You were out for a jog. You were hit by a car.”
But I didn’t remember that. Shouldn’t I remember that?
The door to the room burst open, and a heavyset woman walked in, a big smile on her face.
“Hello, Harley! It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Alicia Franklin. I’m one of your nurses.”
She moved up beside the bed and began fiddling with the tubes and wires, doing something I didn’t understand. I grabbed the IV tube and pulled it out of her reach.
“It’s okay, darlin’,” she said. “It’s very disorienting to wake from a long coma.”
“Coma?”
“You hit your head,” the man—Xander—said. “They had to put you in a coma while your brain healed.”
“Dr. Caliendo is on his way,” the nurse said, as though that made things all better.
Who is Dr. Caliendo? I didn’t understand what the hell was happening to me.
And then this short, handsome man walked into the room, his eyes glued to an iPad in his hands.
“Everyone out,” he said in a commanding voice without looking up.
The man—Xander—hesitated, his eyes on my face. But then he slowly walked away, the nurse moving up to his side and taking his arm, offering him support for reasons I didn’t quite understand.
Why was he upset? I was awake. Isn’t that what he wanted?
“Hello, Ms. Alistair,” the doctor said, as he came to my side. “I’m Dr. Caliendo. I’m the neurologist who has been treating you.”
“I d
on’t understand what’s going on.”
“I realize this can be very disorienting. I’m sure they told you that you were in an accident.”
“They did.”
“You were hit by a car and the impact drove you into a solid object, head first. You fractured your skull in several places, causing bleeding in your brain. That caused pressure that we needed to reduce as quickly as possible. To do that, we placed you in a medically induced coma. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” I reached up with my left hand to touch the bandages on my head. “You cut my hair.”
“We did. It was necessary to place the subdural screw that allowed us to monitor the pressure on your brain.”
“And my leg’s broken?”
“Your leg, a couple of ribs, and your collarbone. You were actually quite lucky in that there were no internal injuries other than the head injury.”
Lucky? Lucky for whom?
The doctor pulled out a flashlight and began flashing it in my eyes. It was annoying, but I didn’t say anything.
“Can you tell me the last thing you remember?”
I had to think about that for a minute. The last thing I remembered was the dream I’d been trapped inside of, but I didn’t think that was what he wanted to know. I closed my eyes and thought about it for a minute.
“I remember going to class with my roommate, Amber.”
“Class?”
“Yes. Figures IV.”
The doctor tilted his head slightly. “What city were you in?”
“Austin, of course. I’ve lived in Texas all my life.”
He touched my wrist lightly. “I’m going to have them do a CT on you. Just to make sure everything’s healing right.”
“Okay.”
“You try to get some rest right now.”
I watched him go, not sure what to say or do. I could see that man standing just outside the door, a worried frown on his face when the doctor stepped out. I wondered what the doctor was saying to him. I wondered what he was saying back.
I wondered where my parents were and why they weren’t here.
Chapter 7
KYLE: A Mafia Romance (The Callahans Book 4) Page 19