He threw the towel onto the counter behind him and took her hand. With one hand holding hers and the other at her waist in the traditional waltz hold, he moved her around the box step his mother had taught him years ago. Then in a moment of confidence, he spun her out, then pulled back in and stepped on her foot.
“Youch!” Skye hopped back.
“Sorry.” He grimaced. “That was so much smoother in my mind.” Toe to heel, he kicked his shoes off and held out his arms. He had a better feel for things without shoes.
She backed away, and gave him a dubious look.
“Come on. It’s a slow dance. Nothin’ to it.”
Skye took another step back and frowned.
“You can lead.”
“Okay.” She moved into his arms, and he held her loosely as they rocked back and forth.
Skye’s soft breasts pushed against Mark’s chest and he felt soft puffs of breath on his open collar. The light scent of her perfume filled his senses making his head swim. Mark released the arm at her back and bent down to nuzzle the tender skin under her jaw, just as he tripped on her foot.
“Ow!” Skye yanked her foot back.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Come here.” He reached for her.
She scowled.
Mark dropped to one knee and held out his hand. “I’ll kiss it and make it better.”
Skye put a hand on his shoulder for balance and offered him her foot. He untied the sneaker, tugged it off her foot and tossed it aside. He massaged her small foot, that was barely bigger than his hand, then lifted it to kiss her toes.
He looked up into her serious face. “That the spot?”
She shook her head.
“Here?” he pointed further up her foot.
She shook her head again.
He frowned. “Where?”
“Higher,” she said in a raspy voice.
He lifted her foot and slipped an index finger inside her sock to caress the soft skin of her arch, while kissing her ankle.
Her hand clenched his shoulder, hard enough to feel her nails through his shirt. He wouldn’t mind her leaving more marks on his body.
He looked at her. “There?”
She shook her head, then pulled her foot away and gestured for him to stand. She cupped his face between her hands, reached up on tiptoes, closed her eyes, and melded her soft lips with his in a tender kiss. “Here,” she whispered.
Mark swallowed hard, and his heart galloped into overdrive. With just that sweet husky voice and soft lips, she had him hard and wanting and panting like a kid.
Wanting what you can’t have. Not til you tell her about Ed.
He captured her wandering hands, stepped back, and held them between them. Pushing out a deep breath, he tried to ignore his growing erection while looking her in the eye. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“I know.”
His eyes grew wide. Really? And she wasn’t angry? “You do?”
She nodded, then laced her fingers through his. She kissed the back of his hand. “It’s hardly a secret.” Then kissed the back of his other hand. “That you can’t dance.”
She leaned forward and pressed her hot lips to the opening of his shirt just below his collarbone, making him shiver in delight and anticipation of where she’d plant those sweet little lips next. His pants grew tighter. He knew one part of him that was begging to be kissed…
Skye wound her arms around his neck, stepped on his feet, and slid her body up his. “My turn to step on your toes.”
Mark closed his arms around her and groaned. God damn, she felt good. She’d feel even better with no clothes between them. “You can step on my toes any time you want if I can take you to bed.”
She chuckled and shook in his arms.
He groaned and tightened his arms so she couldn’t pull back and see the flush he felt climbing his neck. “Said that out loud, didn’t I?”
“Yes. Yes, you did.”
“Damn,” he whispered.
He lifted his head and tasted her soft lips. Skye pushed closer. With a little whimper, she pressed and rubbed her hips against his erection. “What’re you waiting for?”
Mark bent and hooked an arm under Skye’s knees, and swung her into his arms. She stiffened and clutched his neck. “Wait! You’re not gonna drop me, are you?”
He smiled. “Not a chance.”
After hours of loving, Mark lay sprawled across his bed, deeply sated and sleepy. He stretched out a questing hand, seeking bare silky skin. He found only cool sheets. Groggily, he pried one eye open to find Skye sitting on the end of his bed, dressed in her bra and panties. She shoved one leg into her jeans, then the other.
Mark rolled over and looked at the bedside clock. Eleven p.m.
Skye smiled. She came around the bed and sat next to him. “Sleepy head.”
Mark wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down onto his chest. “Come back to bed.”
He kissed her long and deep as he worked the clasp on her bra.
“I can’t.” With a little laugh and a wistful smile, Skye captured his hands and held them close. She pressed a tender kiss to each finger before resting her smooth cheek on their clasped hands. With a sigh, she released him, snatched her shirt from the floor, and finished dressing. “This was great. Thanks.”
Great? Thanks? Mark got out of bed and wrapped her in his arms. He brushed the hair from her face and nibbled on her soft, juicy lips. “I can be greater.”
Skye laughed and spun out of his arms. “Another time.”
“You’re really leaving?”
“I’ve got to get to work early tomorrow.”
“I’ll set the alarm. Stay.”
“We won’t get any sleep if I stay.”
“Sleep is highly overrated.” He reached out to snag her arm.
She smiled and darted out of reach as she buttoned her shirt. “This girl needs her beauty sleep. I’m a brute if I don’t get enough.”
Skye turned him and pushed him back toward bed. He took a little satisfaction in the way her caressing hand lingered on his bare ass—clearly she was tempted. Mark couldn’t believe she was leaving. He wanted to cuddle her close. He wanted her warm body in his bed. He wanted her intoxicating scent on his pillows.
“Really? You’re going to make mad passionate love to me and then take off?” He wrinkled his brows, pretending to be hurt. “I feel so used.”
Skye chuckled and paused at the bedroom door. “I’ll call.”
And then she was gone.
She’d call? Mark plopped back against the pillow. “I’ve heard that before.” Only he was usually the one saying it.
* * *
Skye shrugged into her coat, slung her purse over her shoulder, and headed out the newsroom door into the cold afternoon air. She drew in a deep breath and smiled. Someone was burning leaves. What was it about the smell of burning leaves that made her happy? She didn’t know, it just did, or maybe she was just having a good day. She headed down the sidewalk toward her car, when her phone rang.
She fished the phone from her pocket and looked at her brother-in-law’s handsome face on the screen. “Hey, Pete. What’s up?”
“Got that information you wanted about Hastings. Sorry kid, but there’s no story.”
“Really?” Skye frowned, not really surprised, but disappointed. “Then what happened to the babysitter and her mother?”
“They disappeared—legally. Turns out the father, Gifford Downing, had an anger problem and was taking it out on his wife. Police went to the house several times on domestic disturbance calls, and the mom was treated a couple of times at St. Francis for suspicious ‘accidents,’ but she refused to press charges.
The girl went to Hastings for advice. When the father found out about it, he beat her up pretty good. When Hastings confronted him, Downing went to the press with some bogus story accusing Hastings of having an affair with his wife and the whole love-child thing. That was the last straw for the mother, but rather than pr
ess charges, they ran.”
“So Hastings hid them in a hotel?” She asked, remembering the article claiming he was seen going into the Crowne Plaza with them.
“And helped expedite the divorce, name change, and move. My guy says he went above and beyond.”
“But he didn’t lock the bastard up.”
“Not much anyone could do without their cooperation. However, Downing’s girlfriend was having none of it. Sent him to jail for puttin’ her in the hospital. Didn’t last more than two years before his temper got him killed.”
“Good.” He got what he deserved. “But why’d Hastings go to such lengths for the babysitter?”
“I asked myself the same question. Eve Hastings, your senator’s mom, is one of the neighbors who called in one of the older complaints. They were neighbors.”
“Not my senator,” she muttered. Doing a neighbor a favor, that explained it, but why the secrecy? Some would consider him a hero for helping them. Why didn’t he use it when campaigning? Something tickled her brain. “Thanks, Pete. You’ve been a big help.”
Skye rushed home and pulled out her file on Hastings. Within half an hour, she had a copy of Edward Hastings’s birth certificate, and suddenly everything began to fall into place.
She picked up her phone. “Hey Jenny, have you ever hired a PI?”
* * *
Saturday evening, Skye pulled into the hospital parking lot. She parked and eased out of the car, careful not to muss her upswept ’do. She’d gotten her four letters answered in a record three hours, reviewed the PI’s initial report, and had time left over to fit in a manicure before her hair appointment.
Under a black velvet, silk-lined cape, Skye wore a stunning bare-shouldered black satin dress, complemented by her mother’s pearl earrings and necklace. She felt positively regal. She was going to knock Mark’s socks off.
Skye slammed the car door shut, locked it, and swept through the parking lot and into the lobby. Head held high, she ignored the stares. Cinderella had gotten all dressed up to go to the ball, and Faith had wanted to see her. What was a little staring?
Skye stood waiting for the elevator and shivered, still giddy over the intriguing information the PI had uncovered. She’d had to ask him to dig a little deeper, which might have her eating macaroni and cheese for the next several months, but if he confirmed her suspicions, it’d be worth it. If she was right, Skye wasn’t quite sure how to capitalize on it, but at least she had ammunition to make the senator pay for what he’d done to her family.
Grinning, she stepped into the elevator and pushed the black button. She couldn’t wait to see Hastings’s face when he realized she knew his secret.
But she had to be clever about it. She rocked back on her high heels. She’d have to find a legitimate, reasonable way to divulge his secret. If it wasn’t done just right, her masterpiece would be written off as malicious gossip, or worse yet, it’d generate sympathy for Hastings.
And if Karen found out she was investigating the senator when she’d been told to leave him alone, she’d fire Skye in the blink of an eye. But, maybe not if she thought Skye was writing a feel-good piece on him as an apology of sorts. Lord knew she’d uncovered enough material to write a hokey piece on Hastings—even if it killed her—guaranteed to earn her way back into Karen’s good graces.
At the dinging bell, Skye left the elevator and strolled onto the second floor. Following up on Mark’s suggestion of getting to know the senator better, she decided to ask for an interview with the senator. An interview would hopefully give her inspiration for the perfect way to use his secret to bring him down.
Tomorrow she’d call Hastings’s office for an appointment, but tonight Cinderella was going to the ball.
Skye waltzed into Faith’s room with a light heart. Not even her sister’s gloomy cave could ruin her good mood this evening. She stood in the doorway, blinking at the soft glow from streetlights streaming through the open blinds.
Faith must’ve been doing much better to be allowed back into the light, like a POW released from solitary confinement. Seeing a moving shape silhouetted on the other side of the privacy curtain, Skye grinned and rounded the bed. “Sprung from the dark, eh?” she quipped.
A heavy-set, dark-haired pregnant woman froze. With one arm stretched through her blue-striped gabardine robe, she stared over her shoulder at Skye through wide, startled eyes.
“Oh, sorry. I must have the wrong room,” Skye muttered, as she backed away.
How could she have gotten it wrong? She’d been coming here every day for almost ten days. Skye frowned and mentally retraced her steps. Left off the elevator, and third door on the left just past the picture of the Mackinac Bridge was Faith’s room. Left and left. She glanced at the framed print of the bridge, then again at the room number. 236. Faith’s room. They must have moved her.
Skye spun around and went to the nurses’ desk. A very pregnant nurse she knew from previous visits looked up at her approach. “Hi Stacy. Where’s Faith? She wasn’t discharged, was she?”
“Faith had an emergency C-section this morning. The babies are in NICU and Faith…” She frowned and bent toward a computer monitor. “I believe, is in ICU. If you want to wait a minute, I’ll call up there to confirm.”
ICU? Skye’s good mood evaporated in an instant. She clutched her evening bag. “What happened?”
“I’m not exactly sure—it happened before I came on.” She returned her attention to the phone and quietly spoke to the nurse on the other end, before turning back to Skye. “Yup, she’s there.”
“Then she’s doing okay?” Skye said, almost afraid to ask. If Faith was allowed visitors, she must be okay. Or visitors could be saying goodbye, but Skye refused to think that way.
“She’s better. Since the delivery, the seizures have stopped and her blood pressure seems to be responding to the medication. That’s all I know. Sorry.”
Skye managed a brief smile. “Thank you.”
“Hey, nice dress.”
Skye hurried back the way she’d come. Why hadn’t Peter called her? Standing in front of the elevator, it occurred to her that she didn’t know the way to ICU. Skye turned back to the helpful nurse, but the nurses’ station was empty.
The elevator doors glided open and several people stepped around her to board. Skye automatically followed them. She looked at the stainless steel panel dotted with a dozen black buttons next to the white disks that lit up as they passed floors, hoping to find a plaque to direct her, but no such luck.
Beside her, an elderly volunteer was transporting an ancient patient with an IV in one arm and chin drooping to her chest. The volunteer looked to be in his late sixties—probably a retiree usefully filling his time. Skye considered the way his charge hunched in her seat like a living, wrinkled comma.
Translucent, loose skin revealing complex roadmaps of dark purple veins loosely sagged over the brittle bones of a flaccid arm and hand that supported her balding head. She looked so utterly miserable that Skye turned to study the crisscrossing pattern of the elevator floor. How horrible to be toted around the hospital on display for everyone to witness one’s misery. Didn’t they have a separate elevator for patients?
When they stopped at the next floor, Skye touched the volunteer’s arm to get his attention. “What floor is the ICU on?”
“You passed it. It’s on three.”
“Thank you,” she called out as he wheeled his charge off the elevator and the doors closed behind them.
Returning to the third floor, the elevator doors silently slid open. Skye stared through the wide opening, as if afraid to leave the security of the box. Inside this tiny room, she only moved up and down. People came and went, but her world, her truth, never changed. She was safe.
Skye snapped out of her reverie as the elevator doors began moving together. She darted through the narrow opening and slowly approached the steel doors guarding the ICU. She hadn’t been there since Dad died. Skye took several deep breaths to quell her
quivering core. Her vibrating stomach felt like it was filled with dozens of slushies freezing her from the inside out.
She pushed the automatic door opener disk and swept through. Wisps of air rushed past her. Skye imagined them to be escaped spirits of those who died there. Rooms with walls of large glass windows circled the nurses’ station where medical personnel could easily monitor their patients on the plethora of machines and computers.
Wandering around the desk, Skye found Peter in the second room on her right. As she approached, she was happy to see Faith lay curled on her side facing Peter. The room was absent of many of the humming, terrifying instruments hovering over other patients she’d seen. Faith only had an IV and wires attached to leads monitoring her heart.
Skye snuck in the room and nudged Peter’s arm. With a quick look at Faith, he rose from the chair and guided Skye out into the hall.
“She okay?” Skye asked.
“She’s doing all right. She had some seizures and suffered a mild stroke. I left a message on your voicemail and your answering machine this morning. Don’t you check your messages?”
“Stroke?” Old people had strokes, not young, healthy women.
When Dad had the heart attack, his hospital roommate had been an elderly gentleman who had suffered a stroke after having had a very mild heart attack. Half his body had been paralyzed, and he totally lost his ability to speak.
The nurse tried to coax him to eat. When at last he’d consented to open his trembling mouth, the food had dribbled out of the paralyzed side of his lips as his uncoordinated tongue tried to swallow the soft dinner.
A loan tear trickled from his unblinking eye, over his weary, wrinkled face at the new indignities and changes he now faced. And when that one had dripped off his slack jaw, another rapidly took its place. His misery had ripped at Skye’s heart. Was that how it would be for Faith?
“Can she speak?” Skye took a deep breath and pulled her shoulders back, ready to hear the worst. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Well, she’s uncomfortable from the Cesarean of course, but the stroke left her with some right-sided weakness, too.”
The Lives Between Us Page 11