Stone had already called tonight, however, so I checked the phone display.
Recognizing the number, I grabbed the phone, fumbled the receiver. "This is Jules."
"Who else would it be," said Doctor Ramsey. She'd promised to call when Sam recovered, and I'd worn out my nerves waiting, as two nights turned into ten.
I paused, still needing to choose my words carefully. "So, everything check out?"
"Of course. You should count your blessings."
My lungs released and resumed pumping air. "All clear then. That's great. I'm indebted. Tell your husband I promise not to take in any more strays."
"I'm glad to hear that. See you in an hour."
"Here?" I looked through the curtains at the cop car parked below on the street.
"You heard me. Your stray dog, your problem. He's driving my staff nuts. Barking at nurses, not eating unless we prepare his food the way you do. Like I have time for this crap."
I hung up the phone and a wave of anxiety washed over me. Sam was coming back to me.
Now what the hell was I going to do?
***
Despite a frigid breeze, my hands grew damp as Doctor Ramsey's Mercedes pulled through the rolling gate of my building's back lot, an unsupervised parking area for tenants. Any second, Stone or one of his minions would pounce on the scene.
I waved. With my Cal baseball cap over my eyes and my black wool overcoat doubling the size of my shoulders, I doubted anyone could recognize me.
Ramsey's window lowered, and the breeze sent her hula girl dancing wildly. "I see you just fine, Julie Larson. Like anyone else would be out here at this hour." Her hair was slicked with gel, looking blacker than usual and making her skin seem paler, if that was possible.
From under my coat I pulled the envelope of cash, feeling the urgency of a drug dealer making a payoff. Two thousand bucks was cheap for a no-tell stay at her clinic, a deal she'd cut on behalf of her friendship with my aunt. But it burned through the rest of my cash. Eventually, I'd have to go to Idaho, beg for a stipend increase from my trust fund manager, or hit my secret accounts, which remained secret for a reason.
"You can count it, if you like," I said, unable to see anyone beyond her tinted windows.
Her lips pursed and she snatched the envelope. "See to your patient." The trunk popped.
"You put him in the trunk?"
She gave me her thin-eyed look. "Just get the chair out."
I struggled to free the wheelchair from her trunk and crashed it onto the cement, just shy of her taillights.
"Don't break it," she called, as she opened Sam's door. "You already bought it."
Sam rose from the car with cautious moves. With his wet hair neatly combed, face cleanly shaved, he looked ruggedly handsome despite the hospital robe covering his pinstriped pajamas. A smile brightened his eyes. A different man than I'd met that first awful day. And several pounds lighter.
"Your chariot, sir." I unfurled the wheelchair and he considered the ride with a groan. Clearly a step down for a tough cop, not that his hospital slippers were any morale boost. "Beats falling on your face."
"Take the reunion upstairs, please," called Ramsey. "I have a life." She dropped into the driver seat and slammed her door.
Groaning, Sam reached for the white plastic bag with my Cal sweats and my grandpa's coat, the clothes he'd been wearing when we'd parted, but I grabbed the bag first. He sat and spun the chair, but I took control and pushed him toward the building as Ramsey zoomed out the back gate. Inside the freight elevator I reached for the button.
Sam slapped my hand away. "You're going to drive me nuts treating me like an invalid," he said and pushed the button himself.
"Thought I already drive you nuts."
The door closed. The ride up was jerky, silent, forever. Sam was close enough that I could smell his minty toothpaste, his hospital-clean robe, his damp hair. Yet the space between us felt wide and cold.
"You're quiet." Reaching behind his head, Sam found my fingers on the chair handle and pulled them free. He drew my hand to his lips. My fingers curled, and he released my hand. More like he tossed it aside. "Relax, Jules. Just saying thank you."
The anticipation of seeing him had kept my stomach knotted. Now his touch made me want to run ten miles. In the opposite direction.
"The recording," he started.
"Safe," I said, rolling him off the elevator.
I swerved around the corner and grabbed my secret key from behind the fire extinguisher, which was set into a wall hollow big enough for a life-size statue, another hallmark of the glory days of this building and its artifacts long since removed by modern-thinking landlords.
Sam shook his head at me.
"You can lecture me on security issues after dinner." I pushed toward my apartment, but he held up his hand when I opened my door.
"I'll take it from here." But as Sam started to roll forward, Max jumped onto his legs and the male bonding began. I couldn't help but snicker as Max left Sam's face so wet he asked for a towel. Wiping his cheek dry, Sam sniffed the warm, moist air. "You've been cooking."
"You like Greek food, as I recall." My high-heel boots drummed the floor as I crossed to the stove and stirred a steamy pot. "Ramsey said the antibiotics really screwed up your appetite. So I figured lemon soup is easy on the stomach."
"Oh, from the restaurant." His smile dropped.
"No, from scratch."
Sam's eyes traveled from the stove to the lemon rinds on the chopping board to the sink full of dishes.
I shook off my overcoat and hat.
Sam turned back to me and cocked his brows. "You're all dolled up tonight."
"Had company." I figured he didn't need to know about Stone's visit, the stiff cocktail, or my crisp goodnight handshake that Stone held too long.
Sam frowned as his sights ran down the hall to where the back bedroom door stood open. "Good company or bad company."
Without comment, I escaped to the front room. I could have told him I'd spent the last hour cleaning the room for him, changing the linens, opening the windows for fresh air, fresh energy. But I wasn't sure that was the whole truth.
My black slacks felt as stiff as my nerves. Straightening myself in the bathroom door mirror, I saw a stranger brushing hair out of her eyes, pinching lipstick from the corners of her mouth, shifting her blue silk blouse that reflected the lamplight like an ocean under a fading sunset. Sam didn't need to know I'd changed into these clothes
after
Stone had left. Already he was changing me: this ridiculous outfit, this phony makeup. My quivering hands. Wanting Sam back wasn't the same as
having
him back.
Something tapped my leg and I jumped. "Jesus, Sam."
"Stealth on wheels." He cocked a smile as he rolled backwards, giving me space to exit the bathroom. "I'll take the couch this time."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I need to stay in the front room to stand guard."
"Fine, but the sofa's not long enough for Max, let alone you. You can have my bed again." I crossed to the bed, pulled back the duvet, fluffed the pillows into a neat pile and generally kept my nerves busy.
He laughed. "Bit much, don't you think?"
"Ramsey said you should sleep sitting up to keep fluid from building up in your lungs again. Pneumonia's nothing to mess with. It nearly killed you already." I turned to find his bright eyes engulfing me, those parentheses rising on his cheeks. I swallowed. "I'll get your dinner."
As I slipped past his chair, he set out his fingers, brushing my blouse, drawing invisible lines across my waist. My skin quaked.
When I returned, Sam sat on the edge of the bed, peeling away the shirt of his pajamas. A hint of bruises behind his chest hair provided the only evidence of his traumas. My fingers burned under the steamy mug as I watched him sink against the pillows.
"Ah, how I missed this bed." He rolled a happy face toward me. "I'll need my gun."
"The bad guys are all gone." I hadn't told him Troy was still alive, because if I did he'd never sleep. "Besides, what kind of pillow talk is that?"
As I set the mug on the nightstand, Sam reached for my hand, and I snapped it back.
"I'm done with being grabbed, Sam. Or pulled or pushed or manhandled in any way."
From the look on his face he couldn't believe I'd said it. Neither could I.
"I'm not trying to overpower you, Jules."
"No, but a little bullying doesn't bother you either."
Like a chided schoolboy, he let his head fall back and he stared at the ceiling, like I'd feel sorry for him. I flung open the nightstand drawer, and he turned to look. Bottled water, airplane pretzels, and energy bars filled the drawer.
"For when you get your appetite back," I said. "Got your pills?"
He patted the pocket of his pajama bottoms.
"Good. There's water to swallow them." I slammed the drawer shut. "Call if you need anything."
I gathered the stiff wool blanket from the sofa and headed out. Sleeping in the same room felt too close to him, too vulnerable. The shape of his body had imprinted into my skin during his fever, but I'd no excuse to touch him now. And certainly no hope of sleeping in his vicinity.
When I reached the doorway, Sam called me name. Damn if I didn't stop.
"We both know you can't sleep in that bedroom," he said.
He hadn't the right to know me so well, I told myself. Fortunately, he couldn't see my fingers clawing into the blanket.
"Why can't you sleep in here, with me? Like before."
Nothing was like before, I wanted to say, especially not us. "You're not on death's door for one. Besides, I thought you advocated me facing my demons."
"Sure, but..." He glanced toward the back bedroom, like he could see through the walls, see through time to the coupling that had taken place in that cocoon with Luke, see through me and all my disappointed hopes and renewed fears. "Just not tonight."
He patted the mattress. After a long, hesitating beat, I stepped to his bedside, tightening my grip on the blanket.
"Tonight," he said, playing with the hem of my silk blouse, "let's pretend that I'm not a big bad bully. And that you're not neurotic as hell."
He glanced to where my hands had burrowed into the blanket. I laughed and withdrew them, resting a hip on the mattress and the blanket on my lap, my casual posture not fooling either one of us.
He squeezed my hand. "Tonight, let's pretend we're old friends."
Rejecting his proposal would have been a lot easier had he not looked so serious, like his own veneer would crack if I said 'no.' Friend was a loaded concept for both of us.
Max jumped onto the bed, and we both reached to pet him. My fingers smoothed the gulf between Max's golden eyes while Sam's hand scrubbed Max's ears. Those parentheses on Sam's face grew wider, capturing me between them.
With Max serving as glue between us, Sam drank his soup and we talked of pranks we'd pulled in college, first crushes, where we thought we'd be in our careers by now, terrible bosses and worse paychecks. Details were kept vague, but I gathered that he had a few near-misses with the ladies. Some guys were meant to stay single, he said, which sounded like bullshit. Nothing in my life had proved predictable, I confessed, to which he subscribed readily. He promised to repay me for the clinic bill, and I pretended there wasn't one. I'd never laughed so hard, and lying never felt so freeing.
Then Sam drew us back to the mystery of my vocational choice and why photography had both failed and saved me.
"Spent my whole career looking for that moment," I said, explaining the elusive chalice all photographers sought: their one defining shot. "When all the years of study and sweat come together, and the purpose of your work feels crystal clear, like a flashbulb set off. That one moment, and it's all worth it. That one true shot." With my hands in a square formation, I framed the window like I was going to take its picture. Then I dropped my hands, laughing at my artistic prattling with a cop.
"One true shot, huh? A girl could wait a long time to find one of those." Sam reclined, hooking his hands behind his head and stretching the muscles of his chest and abdomen so my eyes shied away. "Most never do."
"A girl can hope."
The air grew dense, difficult to inhale evenly. He was no longer a dying man, and I no longer a witless victim. We were adults. And here he was, lying in my bed, half-naked and open-armed, a man I'd kissed. And would again despite myself, if he pressed the issue.
I called it a night.
Sam sat up. "No TV?"
"Not at two in the morning." I pointed Max to his bed.
"Best time for movies. Or professional wrestling." Sam bobbed his eyebrows to entice me.
I held back my laughter. "We both need our beauty rest, Champ."
"But I'm not sleepy." Sam reached his arm behind his head. His game pose. His other hand landed low on his belly, scratching where the pajama pants' elastic dug into his skin.
"So pretend." I snapped out the light, and then I curled on the sofa, the last image of him making me a bit heady. I'd agreed to stay close only till he fell asleep.
Sam whispered, "Why are you wearing your clothes to bed?"
"Early appointment. I want be ready."
Truth was, removing my clothes felt vulnerable, especially when I imagined Sam doing the removing. When he fell asleep, I'd get up, change into my sweats and crash on my office floor. He was right; I'd never sleep in that bedroom again. Not alone.
"Finally, I get to meet this Howard guy," he said.
"No, Stone. We're having breakfast to discuss your demise. Now go to sleep."
Sam mumbled something distasteful to himself. Then his upbeat voice returned. "Teach Max any new tricks while I was gone?"
Like pacing the room, worrying about you
. "Behave and you can teach him to bite cops."
"Fair enough. Wait, how do you define 'behave'?"
Not stare at me, not touch me. "Go to sleep, Sam."
"I'll probably snore."
I sighed. "Then I'll smother you with my pillow and put us both out of our misery."