Blue Clouds (24 page)

“I believe you,” she stated with the conviction of her heart. “You would never drink and put Chad in the car with you.” Still, no matter what her heart said, doubt lingered in the back of her mind. Seth was a dangerous man. What did she know about men like that? She hadn't even understood the workings of Billy's mind.

The shadows accented the harsh planes of Seth's face. “I pay you well enough to believe that,” he said cynically.

This time, Pippa snorted. “No, you don't. If I thought you were that kind of careless idiot, I'd be out of here and visiting your wife's lawyer so fast your head would spin.”

“Now,
that
I believe.” With a heavy sigh, Seth slumped into an armchair on the other side of the bed. “There's no point in both of us wearing ourselves out watching him breathe. Why don't you get some sleep?”

“For the same reason you won't,” she answered placidly. “I'm comfortable here. I'll doze off while he's quiet. I'd advise you to do the same. I suspect he'll make a miserable patient come daylight.”

“You're a hard woman to argue with,” Seth grunted from the depths of his chair.

“Then don't.”

Silence descended again. Rain pattered against the window. The Big Ben toy clock with the revolving figures whirred a silent midnight, its clamor turned off at some earlier hour.

“Don't let him suffer, Pippa,” she heard Seth say through her light doze. “I can't bear to see him suffer.”

Startled awake, she opened her eyes to discover Seth leaning over her, his hands propped on the arms of her chair. Instinctively, she reached out and brushed a comforting hand against his stubbled jaw.

He grabbed her wrist and held her hand to his face for a blinding second, closing his eyes as if in prayer. Then, with a reluctant sigh, he turned into her small caress, brushed his lips against her palm, and pulled away.

Pippa watched in shock as he strode from the room.

On the third day of Chad's confinement to the sickroom, Meg reported two children in town with flu, though milder than Chad's. Chad simply didn't have the resistance the other children had developed.

Pippa stubbornly refused to feel guilt. Checking the oxygen monitor, listening to Chad's ragged breathing, she prayed as hard as she could, and wished things were different, but she wouldn't lay the blame on herself any more than she would put it on Seth.

She could hear the fluid building in Chad's lungs without need of stethoscopes, knew the sound well. Fighting the tears that constantly welled in her eyes, she checked the IV medication, jotted notes on her chart, performed as efficiently as she had been taught. But this time, the habits of years couldn't erect the wall that blocked emotion. She'd become much too attached to this obstinate little boy. Her tears washed away the mortar and dissolved the brick of her carefully constructed defenses. The little boy who only days ago had turned his bed into a Martian cave now lay so still and silent, he could have been a stuffed doll among the toys.

He'd never ridden a bike or a roller coaster, never gone on a picnic, never cavorted through the green grass, laughing at the clouds and screaming for the sheer exuberance of it. Every child should know those pleasures at least once in their lives. Or the challenges: the first day of school with shiny new pencil gripped firmly in hand, boy scout camp-outs and rubbing sticks together to make a fire, kissing a childhood sweetheart. He hadn't yet begun to live. She wouldn't let him die.

Like a wraith, Seth appeared silently on the other side of the bed. He didn't bother sending her questioning looks anymore. He simply picked up the chart she'd finished, scanned the notes showing no improvement, and turned away.

He looked like hell. He hadn't shaved or changed his clothes since that first night. She'd threatened him with an IV if he didn't eat, so he munched whatever anyone put in front of him as he sat by his son's side. Sometimes, when Chad seemed restless, he read aloud. Most of the time, he said nothing.

Since that first night, when there'd still been a little hope that the illness wouldn't turn serious, Seth had not come within arm's length of her. She rejected any memory of that brief touch. It opened too many questions, too many hopes and fears she hadn't the fortitude to address right now.

Pippa knew Seth must be choking on misery, but he sat stoically beside the bed, day in, day out, monitoring everything she did, holding Chad's hand, occasionally falling asleep in the chair, a thick lock of hair falling over his eyes. In another day or two, she'd have him for a patient also.

But she couldn't fault his bad habits when hers weren't much better. Occasionally, Pippa let Lillian sit beside the bed while she went to her quarters to shower and change, but she ate and slept beside Chad. Could she find anything humorous in the situation, she might have teased Seth about their living together and never exchanging a word like an old married couple. She didn't think he'd appreciate the humor.

She set up a temporary office at Chad's small desk, answering the more important phone messages Lillian or Nana brought up. Lillian had turned out to be surprisingly helpful in handling the filing and answering letters. Seth wouldn't even look at his correspondence. Pippa approved Lillian's replies for him. Some things she couldn't handle, but once apprised of the situation, most of Seth's staff figured out how to deal with their problems on their own.

Every so often, she would mention a phone call to Seth that would drag him briefly from his torpor. Usually the questions pertained to one of his books. He even raised himself to the point of cursing at an error on the cover for a paperback, but he told Pippa to call his editor about it rather than doing it himself.

Pippa knew what he was doing. She'd done the same thing when her mother lay dying. He was telling himself if he never left Chad's side, everything would be all right, that if he hung in there, feeding Chad his prayers and promises in the same way the IV fed him medication, maybe Chad would recover through sheer willpower alone. For all she knew, it might work. Maybe his willpower was stronger than hers. But Seth was killing himself in the process.

Had Seth ever learned to roll in the grass and laugh for the sheer joy of hearing himself laugh?

She didn't think so. The more she saw of him and this mausoleum he'd incarcerated himself in, the more she understood the bleakness of his life. She doubted if he'd ever been a child. He'd probably been one of those little automatons, stiffly trying to please the conflicting desires of both parents, until one day, he blew apart trying. And no one had bothered putting him back together again.

She shouldn't waste her time psychoanalyzing a man who could afford the best shrinks in the country, but she had time aplenty on her hands and had never found a more fascinating subject. She could only check pulse and temperature so often. If she didn't occupy her mind somehow, she would go insane listening to Chad's raspy breaths and praying she'd heard improvement.

Pippa threw open the French doors and let the fresh evergreen scent filter through the room. She rearranged Chad's books, repaired his stuffed toys. She actually sat down and read through Seth's entire manuscript, making notes in the margins. The written word couldn't be as horrifying as the sight of a six- year-old child laboring for each breath.

She dropped the chapters in Seth's lap. He threw her one of his murderous looks, though his lined face was too haggard to carry it off well. After a while, his curiosity drove him to glance at her notes. His fury took over from there.

He didn't like criticism, but she'd take the furious Grim Reaper over a hollow-eyed zombie any day. She watched him jerk a red pencil over one of her notes and almost smiled for the first time in days. With a little practice, she could get as good at making people angry as she was at uttering pleasantries.

Chad gasped for breath and Pippa dropped everything. Beside the bed in seconds, she checked the oxygen gauge, raised his pillow, listened for any liquid in his lungs. Unconscious, he grumbled and twisted his head from side: to side. His temperature had shot up again.

Trying not to panic, and praying hard, Pippa hit the memory button on the cordless she'd programmed with the doctor's pager number. Fists clenched, Seth stood at her side, watching her every move.

“The medicine isn't working,” she replied to his unspoken question. “There is no known effective treatment for viral infections. The body has to get rid of it on its own.”

“He's not strong enough,” Seth stated flatly. “If his temperature rises any higher, he'll go into convulsions. Do something.”

She could. A cool bath would bring a decline in temperature.

Instinct screamed against logic, however. And the instinct flowing through her veins now told her bringing down Chad's temperature would only worsen the problem.

How could she explain that feeling to Chad's father? She knew she walked a fine line. He was entirely right. If Chad's temperature shifted another degree, convulsions were quite likely. Brain damage could occur in that lively mind. Chad didn't need another strike against him. She played with fire if she went against all accepted rules and practices.

She bit her lip and choked on the confidence she had lost. Not so long ago she would have said to hell with the doctors, she knew what she was doing. Maybe it was just the maturity that came with age instead of the recklessness of youth, but she didn't have that confidence any longer.

Pippa glanced out the window at the setting sun. Already, the breeze through the open doors was cooler. For some reason, the crisis in cases like these often came at dawn or sunset.

Despairingly, she raised her eyes to Seth's. “I can give him a cool bath to bring the fever down.”

“Then do it,” he demanded.

She expected him to explode at her hesitation. Instead, the demanding glare faded, replaced by cautious curiosity. “What is it? Why are you waiting?”

He was listening. He wasn't bullying her around, flaying his arms in futile fury. He'd heard what she hadn't said and respected her enough to listen.

With a lump in her throat, Pippa tried to explain in a manner that might make sense to him. “People run fevers for a reason. High temperatures kill infection.” She saw the objection in his eyes and nodded reluctantly. “High temperatures also affect the brain, I know. It's a fine line. But think about it—-he has pneumonia. He has fluid in his lungs. Which treatment sounds more logical: high temperatures or cool bath?”

The doctor hadn't responded to her page. The room remained eerily silent as Seth contemplated the problem she posed. Chad lay still again. Pippa could almost feel his temperature soaring. The flu would have worked its way out of his system by now, leaving him weak and drained. Pneumonia thrived on weakness.

They hadn't turned on the lights. As the sun slipped behind the hills, shadows spilled across the room, casting corners into darkness, hiding the bright colors of the toys on the shelves behind layers of gray. As shadowed as the room, Seth's face mirrored uncertainty.

“I can't do it,” he finally whispered. “I can't make that decision. If I killed him, I'll have killed myself. Why doesn't the damned doctor call?”

“It's Saturday night. He may not be near a phone. I have to decide now, before Chad's fever climbs higher.” Pippa pressed her hand to Chad's flushed forehead. “He's holding steady,” she half whispered. “I can't do it.”

“Can't do what?” Seth asked instantly, sharply.

“Can't put him in the bath. Let's wait.”

Returning to the bed, Seth watched his only child lying still beneath the plastic tent, his small face even smaller against the stack of pillows. If he could somehow lay his hands on hot, dry skin and pour his own life into the boy, he would, without even thinking about it. He'd never known love until Chad was born.

Unconditional, irrefutable love was a damned painful condition, but he couldn't live without it. He'd meant what he'd said to Pippa. Chad's death would kill him, even if the shell of his body continued to live and breathe. His own lungs ached with the pressure in Chad's, and tears welled in his eyes.

Surreptitiously wiping at them, Seth watched as Pippa used the ear thermometer to check Chad's temperature. For the last three days she'd remained calm, cool, and efficient, always looking crisp and fresh in her tailored dresses and pantsuits, as if she were on the way to an office. The: vomiting and diarrhea of the first day hadn't fazed her. She could make a bed in the flick of a sheet. She'd monitored phone calls, medicines, his nervous mother, and a worried Doug. And him. She'd been managing him since she arrived.

But right now, as she literally held Chad's life in her hands, those hands were shaking. A fat tear rolled down her cheek and splashed against the bright blue sheet.

That tear terrified Seth more than anything else. He'd never seen Pippa Cochran cry, and he didn't want to now, not while he was so close to breaking down himself. He wanted her cheery smile and one of her asinine aphorisms. He wanted her to say everything would be just fine, because if Pippa said it, he could believe it.