“I don’t what?”
Her blush deepened and I caught on. I lifted her hand to my mouth again, pressing my lips to her palm for a long moment.
“You are the most beautiful, neurotic woman I have ever known.”
“I’m neurotic.”
“You are. How could you think I don’t want you?”
She sat up a little straighter, her eyes shooting around the restaurant as though afraid someone had heard what I’d said. But with the noise level of the many, many conversations around us, I’d be surprised if the waiter could hear our dessert request.
“Just because I haven’t tried to stay at your place since that first night…”
Her eyes jumped to my face. “Since that first night?”
“Yes. The night you made it pretty clear you wanted to wait a while before things went to the bedroom.”
“It was our first date.”
“So?”
Her eyes narrowed in that cute way she had when she was irritated. “Do you always have sex on your first date?”
“It’s been known to happen.”
She groaned, tossing herself back against the chair like a child having a fit.
“I am so out of my league with you.”
“I didn’t think this was a competition.”
“But every time I think I know where I stand with you, you turn everything on its heel.”
“Then tell me what you want from me and I’ll be more than happy to give it to you.”
She shook her head, tears shining in her eyes. “If I knew what I wanted, I could tell you.”
“I know what I want.” I got up and moved into the seat next to her. “I want you. I want to be near you; I want to talk to you; I want sit quietly with you. I want to do whatever it is you want to do. That’s all.”
She lay her head on my shoulder. “I don’t know why.”
“I could give you a million reasons,” I said, sliding my hand along her knee until it slipped under her skirt. “And I’ll start with this.”
She reached up and kissed me. “Maybe we should go,” she whispered.
“If that’s what you want.”
***
Harley’s number continued to fall, a little bit at a time. After ten days of continuous decline, it finally slid under twenty.
“Do you think they’ll try to wake her up today?” I asked Alicia.
She looked up, her fingers wrapped around Harley’s wrist as she took her pulse. “I’d say it’s a pretty good possibility.”
I brushed my fingers over Harley’s jaw. “You hear that, babe,” I said softly. “You’re going to wake up.”
“Are you prepared for that?”
I glanced at Alicia. To be honest, I was scared. The doctor’s warning about complications played through my mind over and over again every day. I was so afraid of an infection that I was afraid to leave the room longer than it took me to take a shower and change. I was so worried about brain damage that I wouldn’t even allow myself to think about it. The idea that Harley would wake up and not be the Harley I knew was the most frightening thing I could imagine. So I didn’t think about it.
“She’ll be fine.”
Alicia nodded. “Most likely. But there is the possibility that she could have some lingering effects. I’m sure Dr. Caliendo talked to you about that.”
“He did.”
“I’ve seen patients with similar injuries wake up with no problem. But I’ve also seen the opposite.”
“Have you?”
“You have to be prepared for the worst but hope for the best.”
“Harley will be fine. You didn’t know her before this, but I did. She’s strong and stubborn. She’d never let anything stop her from what she wanted.” I ran my hand over her arm. “I don’t think anything could ever get her down, not even a brain injury.”
Alicia smiled. “She’s a lucky woman to have a man like you in her corner.”
“She would do the same for me.”
Alicia picked up her iPad and headed for the door. “I’ll let the doctor know what’s going on. I’m sure he’ll be by soon.”
“Thanks.”
I studied Harley’s face. The bruises were beginning to yellow and the swelling had mostly receded. She was beginning to look like Harley again. The bandages on her arms had been reduced, the bandage on her head cut down to just a long swath that covered the healing laceration and the space where they’d inserted the subdural screw. Her hair was beginning to grow back already, a fine, blonde fuzz that poked out here and there, all over her bruised head.
If not for the cast on her leg and the arm that was still tucked into a sling, she might look like she was sleeping off a party gone bad. I slid my hand over her cheek, loving the familiar feel of it under my palm.
“You’re going to be okay, babe. You’re going to wake up and all of this is just going to be a bad dream.”
***
“My place or yours?”
She took hold of my tie and pulled me close against hers. “Which one is closest?”
“The car is just over there.”
She giggled, but with the way she was moving her hips against mine, I’m not sure she was joking. I buried my fingers in her hair and kissed her, a kiss that made all my intentions impossible to miss. She sighed, as she slid her hand over my jaw, her nails scrapping against the side of my face in way that sent shivers of pleasure down my spine.
I broke the kiss and turned her, propelling her forward as I rushed toward my rental car. I couldn’t touch her as I watched her climb into the passenger seat, afraid that if I did I would get us both arrested for indecent exposure.
I don’t know how she could think I didn’t want her. All I could think about was her. When I was in Los Angeles, I couldn’t concentrate on my work. I couldn’t remember what was happening in the meetings I was attending, or why we were even in that stupid conference room. All I wanted was to get back to her. All I did was count down the minutes until it was time to board a plane that would bring me back to her. And when I was here, all I wanted was to be close to her.
Touching her was everything. The few, chaste kisses we’d shared these last few months were the most delicious, pleasurable kisses I had known. It took every bit of willpower I had to keep my hands off of her. But I did it because I believed it was what she wanted. I still believed it. But now? Now that she was giving the green light? I couldn’t get her into that hotel room fast enough.
I don’t even remember the ride there. All I remember is the taste of her lips as the elevator door closed on the hotel lobby.
“Are you sure?” I asked as we danced across the hotel room, clothes falling as we tore them from each other’s bodies.
“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 he
r 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.”
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