Read Amanda's Blue Marine Online
Authors: Doreen Owens Malek
Karen shrugged. “I just wanted to make sure you understand the risks here. I have never felt about anyone the way you feel about him, so I have no personal experience to offer, only observations. I could be wrong.”
Mandy gasped dramatically. “You’re never wrong, are you?”
“On rare occasions,” Karen said airily. “Comet passing, blue moon, second coming. That type of thing.”
Mandy hugged Karen quickly. “I honestly don’t know how to thank you for this.”
“What are friends for, right? You’re lucky I just got my full license last month. Otherwise I could have been censured for issuing scripts outside the ER.”
“What do you want in return?” Mandy asked, teasing.
“I’ll figure out something,” Karen said dryly. “First born child, lifetime annuity, something. Listen for the doorbell, the meds should be here in about an hour. I’ll order them stat. Give me a call if there’s a new problem.”
“I will.” Mandy hugged her friend again and shut the door after Karen left. Then Mandy sprinted back to the bedroom. Kelly still appeared to be sleeping and she slipped onto the bed next to him, touching his exposed neck, which still felt very hot. He turned toward her, murmuring, and she got under the sheet next to him. He fell silent and she lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what else she could do to help him.
She was so tired, but she couldn’t go to sleep. She had to stay awake to watch Kelly, and she had to answer the door when the pharmacy delivery arrived. But if she just closed her eyes for a few minutes, a little rest might help. She should have asked Karen to stay, but Karen was exhausted herself and had done enough.
Kelly stirred and Mandy smoothed his hair back from his brow.
He had to be all right. It was just a bad case of the flu.
That was the last thought she had before she fell asleep.
11
Mandy heard a buzzer and thought it was her watch. Then she sat up and realized the sound was too loud. The apartment doorbell was ringing.
She looked at Kelly sleeping beside her and stumbled to her feet, padding barefoot to the door and accepting the delivery. She gave the driver a tip and then ripped open the white bags, holding the little plastic bottles up to the light and reading the directions. She got a glass of water and ran into the bedroom.
Kelly pushed her hand away when she tried to give him a pill. A short wrestling match ensued until he realized that it was Mandy struggling with him and then he did what she wanted. He swallowed both meds and fell back on the pillows as she shut off the light and said to him gently, “Go back to sleep. You’ll feel better soon.”
Mandy lay down beside him and was dozing in seconds.
She came awake some time later in the day when she realized Kelly was trembling violently.
He was having chills. She had to keep him warm. Mandy got up groggily and found extra blankets in the bedroom closet. She draped them over him and then crawled under them with him. When he was still moving restlessly she fitted herself against his back and clung to him like a limpet. She wrapped her arms and legs around him tightly. He finally settled down and then sighed as her breath fanned the back of his neck. She felt his tension ebbing and she pressed her lips to the back of his smooth shoulder, thinking that under other circumstances she would really have enjoyed this moment. His fit body was trim and well muscled and as always he smelled just like himself, intensified by the perspiration caused by his temperature.
All she could think about was getting him well.
He’ll be fine, Mandy told herself, trying not to notice how hot his skin still was. It was a fever and it would pass.
Some time later she went to the bathroom and took a quick shower, redressed in the same clothes and then set her watch to go off in six hours so she could give Kelly his medications.
* * * * *
The watch alarm woke her and she got up to get Kelly to swallow the next dose of pills. He opened his eyes when she roused him and took the white capsule and pink horse spansule obediently. Then he folded his arms around her waist as she stood next to the bed.
He put his head on her shoulder and whispered, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Mandy replied, stroking his damp hair.
“Am I sick?” he murmured, still holding on to her. The skin of his exposed arms and chest was warm, but not fiery, as it had been earlier.
Yes, you are,” she replied. “But I’m taking care of you. Just like you took care of me.”
He nodded, his eyes still closed. Then his eyes opened.
“I have to go to work,” he said.
“Shh, it’s Sunday. You’re off this weekend. I want to get you a drink, I’ll be right back.”
Mandy returned with a large glass of iced orange juice and he drank it as quickly as she would let him, then looked around dopily, his gaze unfocused. “Was somebody here? I heard voices.”
“I called my friend Karen. You said I could. She’s a doctor, remember?”
His lips formed slight smile. “She thinks I’m bad news,” he said softly.
Mandy felt a twinge of alarm. Had he overheard their conversation?
“She thinks you’re hot,” Amanda said.
“Today she’s right,” he replied dryly, his voice barely audible.
“That reminds me. I have to take your temperature, okay?”
“Okay.” He sat patiently while she did and sighed when she said happily, “It’s come down, the meds are working. Just go back to sleep and when you wake up again you’ll feel better.”
She pushed his shoulder gently in the direction of the bed and he slipped back into sleep easily.
Mandy lay down next to him and pulled the blanket over both of them. She set her wristwatch alarm again and closed her eyes with relief.
He had turned the corner. He would be back to normal shortly.
Soon he would be better.
* * * * *
When she woke up next time he was not better. He was stretched out next to her, his eyes closed. He was still pale beneath his fading tan and he looked drawn and spent.
Mandy sat up in alarm and said aloud, “I have to call Karen.”
Kelly roused slightly and murmured, “What is it?”
“I think your fever has gone back up. I’m getting Karen on the phone.” She started to climb out of the bed.
Kelly grabbed her arm and said, “Hey, wait a minute.”
Mandy stared at him, trying to wake up fully, confused by his forceful reaction. It didn’t make sense. He should have been torpid with the returning fever.
“I’m worried, Kel. You look wrung out,” she said.
He shook his head. “Amanda, listen to me. The fever broke a couple of hours ago. I was up for a while.”
He took her hand and pressed it to his forehead, which was damp and noticeably cooler.
“I just let you sleep while I stumbled around and bumped into things. It took me half an hour to get dressed.” He grinned weakly.
Mandy flung her arms around his neck. “I was so worried,” she whispered. “I thought you had gotten worse in your sleep.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. I had just come back from the bathroom when you sat up next to me. I probably woke you.” He held her tightly with one arm, smoothing his other hand up and down her back and lifting her hair off her shoulders caressingly.
“Take it easy, your heart is pounding,” he added quietly.
“I thought you were slipping again,” Mandy murmured.
He drew back to look at her, alarmed. “Did you catch this bug from me? Are you feeling sick?”
“No, no, I was just frightened. I had thought you were improving and then I got scared when it seemed you…weren’t. That’s all.”
He held her tightly, his grip as sound and as steadying as it had been all the times he’d come to her rescue. She closed her eyes and drank in the feeling of comfort and security that he always brought to her crises, relieved beyond her power to express it that he was himself again.
“So, you’ve been having a lot of fun here, I guess?” he said dryly, holding her off to examine her face.
“A lot of fun,” she replied. “If you consider having a twenty-four hour nervous breakdown to be fun. You really do know how to show a girl a good time, Kelly.”
“I’ll do better in the future, I promise,” he said. “I’ll be so healthy you won’t have a care in the world. No fevers, no shivers, not even a hiccup.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Mandy said. “I may not survive another session like this. You frightened me.”
“Thanks for staying with me,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I gave you such a scare. But I’m not sorry you were here when it happened. It would be tough to find a better nurse.”
“I found you a doctor,” Mandy said with satisfaction. “She made a house call.”
“I heard some of what she had to say,” he answered darkly.
“You did? We thought you were out of it.” Oh-oh, Mandy thought.
“Not completely. In and out of it. Female voices are high, they carry.”
Mandy was silent.
“Karen thinks I’m a drunk. AND a deranged hermit,” he said flatly.
“That’s not what she said,” Mandy protested.
“Tell her I’ll take the pledge and hang some Bambi portraits on the walls if it will make her happy,” he added.
Mandy stood up next to the bed and looked away from him deliberately. “She said that you were lonely.”
He pulled her into his arms again. “I was,” he said shortly.
“And now?” Mandy asked him.
“No longer,” he replied, burying his face on her shoulder. She held him, her fingers tangling in his disordered hair, as he moved his lips to her breasts and mouthed them through the thin shirt she was wearing. His mouth was scalding, wet and irresistible. She closed her eyes and swayed in his embrace.
“Kelly, you’re still running a temperature,” she said feebly.
“And it’s going up higher,” he replied, bending to scoop her up under the knees and pull her onto the bed with him.
“I don’t think we should be doing this,” she whispered. “You’re sick.”
“I’m having a miraculous recovery,” he murmured, pulling her shirt over her head. He looked at the garment in his hand. “This isn’t yours, is it?”
“My mother’s. I changed into her clothes when I stayed all night at my parents’ house after the award ceremony.”
He dropped it. “Then it can’t possibly fit you. All these clothes have to come off, right now. That’s an order.” He began to unhook her bra.
“Brendan, I can’t ravish you while you have the flu.”
“Why not?” he asked reasonably, dropping her bra on top of the shirt.
“I give you my word that I will not leave. I will stay right here while you go back to sleep…”
“I’m not going back to sleep,” he said crossly, bending to take a nipple in his mouth. She shifted her weight away from him as he moved.
“Yes, you are,” she said, slipping out of his embrace. “I am not going to make love to a barely conscious man.”
“I’m fully conscious,” he said. But this eyes were blinking.
“Come on, Kelly. Your little field trip to the bathroom wore you out, you shouldn’t even have been on your feet for it. If I had known you were up I would have stopped you. We can wait a little longer.”
“We’ve waited too long already,” he murmured, as his eyes drifted closed.
“Darling, I’m just so happy that you’re better. I don’t care if we never make love.”
“Speak for yourself,” he muttered drowsily, and she smiled.
“Okay, I care,” she admitted. “ But just rest for now and I will be here when you wake up.”
She listened for his response, then sat next to him when she thought he was asleep.
“Promise?” he whispered, after a delay, not opening his eyes.
“Promise,” she replied.
* * * * *
When Mandy awoke again she was alone in the bed. She heard steady drumming on the roof and realized after a minute that it was raining, and that was why the room was so dark. It had to be Sunday at mid-morning but the gray light filtering through the blinds made it seem like it was barely dawn.
She listened for movement and heard the rush of water in the bathroom.
Kelly was taking a shower.
Mandy fell back against the pillows, filled with a pleasant lassitude. There was no place she would rather be, with Kelly nearby. She had almost drifted off to sleep again when the bathroom door opened and a shaft of light fell into the hall. She watched through half closed eyes as Kelly emerged, a towel around his hips, rubbing his wet hair with another towel. His hair was soaked and in ringlets and as she watched he began rubbing his body with the towel from his hair, unaware of her examination. Her breath came a little faster as he moved around, dumping his discarded clothes on a chair and then looking in a cabinet without result. He obviously thought she was still asleep.