“He didn’t rock my world,” Tracy protested, trying her best to sound dismissive of the very idea. She had a feeling that she wasn’t being very successful.
“Oh, no?” Kate seemed to keep from laughing at the denial. “Then why do you look as if you’d have trouble remembering your own phone number if I asked you to recite it quickly?”
Tracy released a noise that sounded almost like a hiss as she looked off into oblivion—the same place that her mental faculties had run off to. But then, as if to show Kate that she was wrong, she recited the aforementioned phone number.
But Kate shook her head. “Honey, don’t fight it so hard. Trust me. This is a good thing,” she assured her friend.
“He’s a client,” Tracy lamented.
“Yes,” Kate allowed, “he is that. But he’s also a man,” she emphasized, then added, “and a hunk, from the one time I did see him. No shame in reacting to a good-looking man.”
“But he’s a client.” Tracy stressed the word as she repeated herself. There was more than a faint note of distress in her voice. Distress at her behavior and more than that, distress over the way she felt. The man made her want to run barefoot through a field of clovers, but at the same time, she knew she was asking for trouble. And setting herself up for a huge and exceedingly painful fall.
“Yes,” Kate agreed, “he is. But he’s not always going to be one.” Her eyes were kind as she continued. “Look, I’m trying to give you the benefit of my experience because I care about you. If it’s a choice between the man and the client, pick the man, give up the client. You won’t regret it.”
Tracy blew out a long, draining breath. “Easy for you to say.”
“Actually, it’s not,” Kate contradicted. “But I don’t regret what happened for a minute. And, as it happens—” her eyes crinkled, sharing the satisfied smile that was on her lips “—I got to have my cake and eat it, too.”
Tracy rolled her eyes. “I’m not even going to ask what that means.”
“I’m perfectly willing to share,” Kate said.
Kate might have been willing to share, but right at this moment, she didn’t know if she was up to being on the receiving end of that “sharing experience.” She had things to work out in her head first, not the least of which was that maybe Micah would be better served with another attorney, one whose judgment couldn’t be viewed as compromised.
Tracy rose. Grabbing her oversized purse out of the bottom drawer, she slung it over her shoulder.
“Can’t spare the time right now,” she told Kate, hiding behind her schedule. She glanced at the pink piece of paper on her desk. Any port in a storm. “I’ve got an appointment to keep.”
Kate was on her feet, as well. “You go, girl,” she said with an approving laugh.
* * *
For the third time in the last thirty minutes, Tracy told herself to stop chewing on her lower lip. It would get mangled by the time she got to her destination.
Her nerves were square-dancing over this first post-sleepover meeting with Micah. Then there was the fact that she hated being late and she was going to be. Not terribly, just enough to annoy her.
She should have gotten this message sooner, she thought as she turned right and finally drove into her development. That way, she would have felt more prepared.
An uneasiness ate away at her, an uneasiness that something was wrong, although she couldn’t put her finger on it. But to start with, he asked her to come to his house. At this time in the afternoon, he shouldn’t be in his house, he should be at work.
Why wasn’t he at work? Was something else wrong? The man already had more than enough piled on his plate. Questions filled her head, colliding with those nerves in her stomach. The anticipation and uncertainty didn’t help.
Okay, so she had elected to stay away, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t supposed to try to get in touch with her. But he hadn’t. She hadn’t heard from him in three days and didn’t know if it was because he was busy with work, or busy regretting what had happened between them.
Most likely, this meeting was to tell her that he’d decided to engage another lawyer, one who could keep her priorities straight and her clothes on.
That still didn’t explain what he was doing home at this hour.
She could feel her cheeks beginning to burn again and quickly talked herself into a calm state. Or at least calmer than she’d just been.
But her heart was still in her throat as she pulled up at his curb. Getting out, she noticed that his aunt’s car wasn’t in the driveway or anywhere to be seen for that matter. His was the only vehicle in the driveway. Was that a good sign or a bad one?
What did it all mean? she silently demanded, driving herself positively crazy.
Reaching the front door, Tracy hesitated. For one second, she came very close to just turning around and going back to her car, making a beeline for her house. But that would have been hiding and cowardly, something that would have haunted her for a good long while.
So instead, she rang the doorbell before anything else stopped her. And then she waited. And did her best to brace herself for this first encounter after their night of passionate lovemaking.
It probably meant nothing to him, she reasoned, evaporating from his brain the moment it was over. For her, it was a whole other story.
She could hear the boys calling to their father, loudly announcing that there was someone at the door. She listened to them calling back and forth a couple of times and then she heard the rather loud click of the lock. The sound probably meant freedom to so many people. To her, it was the cell door closing.
The front door opened and she was face-to-face with Micah. The quandary she’d been dealing with, trying to decide what first words to utter, vanished. His complexion was pale, there was sweat on his forehead and his watery eyes looked as if he’d encountered a severe allergen.
“Are you all right?” she asked, then gave weight to her question. “You’re as pale as a ghost.”
He would have waved away her comment if it hadn’t taken such strength to lift his arm. “Probably the lighting,” he mumbled.
The hell it was, she thought. He was deliberately avoiding her eyes. Something was definitely wrong.
“Is the lighting making you perspire, too?” she challenged.
He shrugged, thinking to appease her with a partial surrender. “Okay, I’m feeling a little off today,” he admitted.
“You didn’t feel good yesterday, either,” Gary piped up, reminding him. The little boy looked at Tracy. “He said he couldn’t give us our piggyback ride to bed,” Gary told her. “He said he was giving us a check in the rain,” he added solemnly.
Not to be left out, Greg told her, “Daddy’s tummy hurts.”
This didn’t sound good, Tracy thought. Turning to look at Micah, she frowned. The man was definitely sweating.
“Would you like to amend your original statement?” she suggested.
He looked from one son to the other. So much for filial support. “I live with stool pigeons.”
Greg’s eyes grew huge. “Where are they, Daddy?” he asked excitedly, his head sweeping from side to side as he scanned the area. “Where are the pigeons?”
“We don’t have pigeons, dummy,” Gary informed his brother with a haughty, older and wiser air.
Greg was not that easily dissuaded. “But Daddy said that—”
Tracy decided to come to the rescue before this devolved into an argument.
“Your dad was just making a joke, honey,” Tracy told him. “A very weak joke,” she added, looking pointedly at Micah. She tried again. “Now, want to tell me what’s wrong?”
He had never been one who enjoyed being fussed over and he definitely didn’t like admitting he was feeling as weak as a broken pipe cleaner.
“Nothing,” he insisted, but it came out more like a murmur. “I probably ate something I shouldn’t have. Or maybe it’s the flu,” he speculated, giving her a large spectrum to work with that wo
uld hopefully get her off his back.
She doubted it was either, but she played along for a moment. “Have you taken anything for it?”
“No. What’ll you give me?” he asked, forcing a weak smile to his lips. It faded almost instantly.
Her eyes narrowed. This wasn’t the time to play games. “A hard time if you don’t tell me what’s going on,” she warned.
He closed his eyes for a moment. The room had tilted and he was definitely feeling sick. “Can I take a rain check?” he asked seriously. “I’m not up to matching wits with you right now.”
That came as no surprise. “I’d say you weren’t up to matching wits with an amoeba right now.” She touched his forehead with her fingers to confirm her hunch. “You’ve got a fever.”
Micah did his best to smile mischievously. “You have that effect on me.”
She wasn’t listening to his feeble attempts to distract her. Her concern was turning into worry. “What else are you feeling?”
Sick to his stomach and unsteady on his feet, but he didn’t want to admit that, especially not when his sons were within earshot.
“Just tired.”
He was a damn poor liar. “Anything hurt? Specifically, does your lower right quadrant have any pain?”
He would have laughed if he could. She’d zeroed in on the pain. “Want to play doctor?”
Instead of answering him, Tracy began to press her fingers slowly along the area in question. Each time she did, she saw him wince and heard him suck in his breath, struggling not to cry out.
Okay, that did it. She was convinced.
“What’s your aunt’s number?” she asked him out loud. They were going to need the woman.
Micah didn’t understand. And the room was beginning to tilt. Again. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I need her to come over to watch the boys.” She flashed a quick, reassuring smile at his sons. The last thing she needed or wanted was to have them panicking. It was bad enough that she was worried.
“But I’m here,” he protested.
“But you won’t be for long,” she countered. “I’m taking you to the E.R.”
“No, you’re not. I just need some rest. I’ll be fine in the morning. I shouldn’t have called you.” He’d done it in a moment of weakness, thinking that perhaps if she was around, he’d be distracted enough not to feel this sick. In essence, he was using a distraction to distract him, he realized.
Micah saw the stubborn expression on her face and told her, “You’re overreacting.”
She knew, after their night together, that he had no scars. Which meant that he still had all his organs intact. And that in turn, along with his wincing, told her all she needed to know.
“And you’re having an appendicitis attack.”
Chapter Twelve
Micah stared at her as if she’d just suggested that he was coming down with Dutch Elm’s disease. Both, to him, were equally unlikely since he was neither a teenager, nor a tree. Besides, he didn’t get sick. Ever. Not even last year when those around him in the office were dropping like flies from the flu. The fact that he felt weak and nauseous, and this searing pain slashed through him, was irrelevant.
“No,” he said firmly, “I’m not.”
If he thought that was the end of it, he should have known better. He was beginning to learn that Tracy had the tenacity of a junkyard dog when she latched on to something.
She looked at him pointedly and asked, “Did you have it removed when you were a teenager?”
He wanted to say yes, because that would end her assault, but he didn’t want to lie in front of Gary and Greg. “No.”
His stubbornness was setting her teeth on edge, but to play fair, especially since his sons were listening intently, Tracy reviewed the facts.
“You’re running a fever, you look pale and sweaty, you admitted that you feel sick and your lower right quadrant hurts to the touch. If I press a little harder—” all she had to do was stretch out her fingertips and he instantly moved back, out of range “—I’ll probably find that it’s swollen, as well.” She looked at him, an attorney who had just delivered her summation. “You have appendicitis and it’s not something you want to fool around with.”
“Is he going to die?” Gary asked, clearly beginning to panic.
“Only if he doesn’t go to the hospital,” she told the boy in a reassuring voice.
“Go to the hospital, Daddy,” Greg pleaded, wrapping his hands around his father’s arm as if to give weight to his entreaty. “I can take you in my wagon if you can’t walk.”
“He can’t fit in your wagon, stupid,” Gary told his brother haughtily. Even so, there was real fear in the older boy’s eyes as he watched his father. He was just as worried as Greg, but trying very hard not to show it. “You’re not gonna die, right, Daddy?” His lower lip trembled slightly as he added in a hoarse whisper, “Not like Mommy, right?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Tracy said firmly. The fact that she was able to assert herself this way without a hearty protest from Micah indicated how sick he really was. It was time to stop talking and start driving. “I need Sheila’s phone number.” This time it was an order, not a request.
“I know it!” Gary piped up, excited that he could help.
Tracy gave him a wide smile. “Good man.” She pulled out her cell phone. “Tell me her number and I’ll call her. The sooner I can get her here, the sooner I can take your dad to the emergency room.”
The familiar term struck a responsive chord for Greg. He patted his father’s arm, as if to set him at ease. “Just like you do with me, Daddy. Don’t worry, they’re real nice.”
Meanwhile, Gary was reciting the numbers in his great-aunt’s phone number very carefully. Tracy hit each on the keypad.
Less than five minutes later, it was all arranged. Sheila was coming right over. Fifteen minutes later, the woman was using the key Micah had given her and came in. One look at her face told Tracy that Micah’s aunt was trying not to appear as concerned as she felt.
But her eyes gave her away.
The moment she was inside, the boys came running up to her, throwing their arms around her waist and seeking the warmth, comfort and reassurance that she had come to represent in their lives.
“Daddy’s sick,” Gary told her, wanting to be the first with the news.
“I know, honey,” Sheila replied. “Tracy told me when she called.”
Greg turned to her for the reassurance he still so desperately needed. He asked her the same question he’d asked his father. “He’s not gonna die, is he?”
Sheila hugged both boys to her, then, bending, she kissed the top of each blond head. “He’s going to be just fine. This is your dad we’re talking about. He’s always fine.” But even as she said it, Sheila’s eyes met Tracy’s, silently seeking the reassurance from her that she was giving the boys.
The moment Sheila had arrived, Tracy immediately began to draw Micah up to his feet. She wedged her slim shoulder beneath his armpit in order to give him the support he needed. Her one goal was to get him to her car, parked at the curb.
“Yes, he is,” Tracy answered in an almost alien, no-nonsense voice no one in the room had ever heard her use before.
It occurred to her at that moment that somehow, through some wild twist of fate, she had been designated to be the “strong one” and while she didn’t much care for the role—she would have liked to have had someone to emotionally lean on herself—she accepted it without complaint. All that mattered was getting Micah to the hospital before he got any worse.
“Let’s go, Mr. Invincible,” she coaxed, taking small, measured steps so as not to throw him off. Passing Sheila, she promised, “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”
For the sake of her nephew’s sons, the older woman forced a smile to her lips.
“I’d appreciate that,” she told Tracy. She didn’t need to add that she’d be waiting by the phone for her call. That went
without saying.
Gary broke away from Sheila and hurried over to the front door. Yanking on it as hard as he could, he managed to open it for Tracy and his father.
“Thank you,” she told the boy. It struck her that the little boy was acting more like a young man than a child his age. The maturity level of both boys astounded her at times. “I’ll take good care of him,” she told the little boy as she walked slowly past him, keeping Micah’s arm draped across the back of her shoulders.
“Okay,” he replied. She saw Greg’s lower lip quiver a little. He was old enough to sense that there were some things that promises couldn’t cover, no matter how well intentioned.
It felt like an eternity had gone by before she finally got Micah to the car and into the front passenger seat. The second he was in the car, she switched into high gear and quickly rounded the trunk, all but throwing herself into the driver’s seat. Glancing to make sure he was buckled up, she gunned the engine.
Less than thirty seconds later, they were pealing away from the curb, and then out of the development.
He was too quiet, she thought, weaving her way onto the main drag that ultimately led to the freeway. That worried her a great deal.
And then he spoke and she found herself missing the silence. She really didn’t want to have to argue with Micah.
“You scared the boys,” he told her, each word measured and struggling to emerge. His breathing was labored.
“No,” she contradicted calmly, silently congratulating herself on her performance, “you did. With your sweaty body and your pale face.”
Micah had his seat belt on, but he was sitting slightly hunched over rather than ramrod straight the way he usually did. Added to that, his right hand was pressed hard against the source of the radiating pain. Even so, he made a concentrated effort to lighten the mood.
“I didn’t hear you complaining the other night,” he told her.
She slanted a quick look at him. So, he wasn’t pretending that it never happened. She took a grain of comfort from that. “Well, at least you still have your sense of humor. That’s hopeful.”
He glanced down at the speedometer. “You’re going too fast.”
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