Authors: Stephanie Fournet
“Hell no! I can make it up the stairs just fine, and I can handle everything else, thank you very much.”
Lee felt his brows meet and pull down. “Were you listening when the nurse talked about straining the surgery site and risking another hemorrhage?”
“That won’t happen,” she said evenly.
“I’ve seen it happen. It isn’t pretty.”
Wren stared at him, stone-faced. “Let me at least
try
the stairs.”
“Fair enough.” The stairs weren’t his biggest concern. Sure, they would hurt, especially when she used her hip flexor on her right side to mount each step, but Lee was most concerned about her lifting, reaching, and pulling — exactly what she’d need to do if she had to change her bedding. “But I’m helping.”
“Yeah, you’re good at that,” she grumbled. But when he offered his hand to help her down from the cab of the Jeep, she accepted. Even with his aid, she winced as she stretched her legs down to reach the ground.
They made their way slowly to the foot of the stairs, and Lee looked up at the top before glancing back down at her.
“You sure about this?”
Her answer was to grip the banister with her left hand. Lee grabbed her right elbow as she ascended. And she was smart. She went up slowly, using her left side to mount each stair and then just letting her right leg catch up. Even though he gave her a boost with each step, by the time they reached the top, her jaw clenched tight, and he could feel her trembling.
“Shit…” she sighed, catching her breath. “That truly sucked. I’m never leaving the house again.”
Lee laughed. “You’ll feel better in a few days. I promise.”
Wren unlocked her door, but before she opened it, she looked up at Lee with a stern expression.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He started to ask what she meant when she swung the door open, and Lee took in the front room of her apartment. Hips. Thighs. Backs. Buttocks. Breasts. Photographs of every conceivable body part hung all over the room — all of them covered in intricate and astounding tattoos. Scores and scores of them.
“Wow.” And a moment later, “Did you do all of these?”
“Ha. I wish,” she said. “Most of these are inspirations. But I did the ones in the black frames.”
Lee scanned the walls. He counted fourteen, and they were among the most striking. In one, an inverted Chinese fan spanned the lower back on a woman with generous hips. She’d captured the color, the grain, even the sheen of the fan’s silk, and a riverside town sprawled over the bamboo ribbing. It looked real enough to touch. In another, Wren had tattooed a pair of black lace underwear across a young woman’s entire pelvis. Lee found himself staring in order to find her cleft, but it was so well camouflaged among the lace pattern it was almost impossible.
“Those are incredible.” He hoped she could hear the awe in his voice. He’d never seen anything like it.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, stepping up to her coffee table and bending to clear sheets and sheets of sketches.
“What are you doing?” He tore his eyes from the wall and frowned at her.
“It’s such a mess. It’s embarrassing.”
Lee reached forward to stop her. “First of all, it’s not a mess. Clearly, this is your workspace, and you are damn good at your work. Secondly, you aren’t supposed to be doing chores,” he scolded. “You need a good five days of rest.”
He watched her brush her bangs out of her eyes again. She obviously wasn’t comfortable having him in her space, and it showed. And why should she be? He was pretty much a total stranger.
Even if I am her doctor
. Scratch that.
Especially
since he was her doctor.
Lee needed to get out of there. The trouble was he wasn’t in any hurry to leave.
“Sit down and put your feet up,” he said, gesturing to her couch. And then he did a double-take. It was a vintage camel-back sofa with glossy ball claw legs and scrolled arms. The gold fabric was a little worn, but, otherwise, it was in excellent condition.
“What are you staring at?” She sounded edgy.
“Is that a Chippendale?” he found himself asking. Lee didn’t need to ask. He’d spent enough Saturdays as a kid going to antique shows with his mom to know. Before she’d gotten sick, of course.
“Yeah, so?”
“It’s just
really
nice,” he said, knowing immediately that he sounded too surprised.
Wren folded her arms across her chest. “Dr. Hawthorne, correct me if I’m wrong,” she said, throwing his words back at him. Her green eyes flashed. “But it sort of sounds like you’re judging me.”
“No… I-I… know a little about antiques,” he stammered before recovering. “It’s a great piece.”
She moved to the sofa and sat, but she eyed him the whole time. “Well, I like beautiful things,” she said with a defensive shrug.
He hoped he could undo whatever offense he’d given. “You have excellent taste.”
“Thank you." Her tone was a little stiff. Wren picked up her feet and toed off her black ankle boots, one at a time. As soon as the second one hit the floor, a black, white, and orange blur shot out from under the couch and streaked through the room.
“I take it that was Agnes.”
Wren smirked. “Yeah, she’s suspicious of strangers.”
“I wonder where she gets that?” Lee said, unable to help himself.
Wren gave him the stink-eye, and he laughed. Loud mewling issued from the next room, which Lee guessed was the kitchen.
“If you tell me where to find her food, I’ll try to get on her good side.”
She gave him an amused look. “Good luck with that,” she said, settling back against the arm of her sofa. “Her food is in the cabinet under the sink, and her bowl is in the corner by the fridge. She’ll probably hide under my bed until you leave, but she’ll eat eventually.”
“Okay.” Lee turned and made his way to the kitchen. As soon as the cat saw him, she darted away through the opposite door, but when she heard him open the cabinet and shake the bag of Meow Mix, she ran back to her bowl. When Lee started to pour, Agnes did two, quick figure-eights through his legs before diving in.
“Oh my God, is that her eating?” Wren called from the living room, clearly surprised.
A grin broke across Lee’s face. “Yeah, I guess she’s a good judge of character.”
“Or she’s starving.”
He didn’t miss the dry tone in her reply. Lee picked up the cat’s water dish and brought it to the cast iron sink. He looked around the kitchen. Like most houses in the Saint Streets, Wren’s little duplex was old school. He guessed it had been built around the 30s or 40s. The cabinets were narrow and spare. There was no dishwasher, but the space was big enough to eat in. The enamel-top chrome rim table with its black vinyl chairs looked right at home. If it weren’t for her appliances, Wren’s kitchen could have made an authentic mid-century portrait.
He set down the cat’s water dish and popped his head back into the living room. “Don’t get up. Permission to do a perimeter sweep for poop bombs.”
Wren’s eyes went wide, and she seemed to suppress a laugh. “You’re serious about that, aren’t you?”
“I am. I just want to make sure you don’t hurt yourself, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
Wren gave a sigh. “Fine. If you must.”
“I must,” he confirmed before stepping back into the kitchen.
Agnes swished her tail as she ate, and Lee crossed to the other doorway, which led to a short hall. A utility room stood to his left and a bathroom to his right. The hall ended at Wren’s bedroom door.
Again, it was like stepping back in time. A Victorian iron bed with a long center spoke and brass
S
scrolls stood in the middle of the room. Pink rosebuds covered the quilt that lay across the mattress, and half-a-dozen pillows stuffed into vintage lace shams were stacked neatly against the headboard. The bed had been made with precision, and there wasn’t a cat turd in sight.
Lee found that he had the urge to step inside the bedroom, but, instead, he made himself turn toward the utility room where he’d spotted the litterbox. It needed emptying, so he cleaned it and bagged up the garbage. An exterior door in the utility room led to a second set of stairs, and Lee took them down to dump the trash. When he came back inside, he heard Wren calling from the front room.
“I’m scared to ask what you are doing.”
“Agnes was good,” he assured her. “I’m just taking care of a few things.” He poured fresh litter into the box and crossed the hall to the bathroom to wash his hands. A pair of tortoise-shell glasses rested next to an empty contact case. Lee smiled. She was nearsighted, too.
He walked back into the kitchen and began opening cabinets. When he found the glassware, he grabbed a tumbler, went to the fridge, loaded it with ice, and walked to the tap. As the glass filled, he tried to think of anything else he could do to make Wren’s next few days a little easier.
Lee admitted to himself that he’d never done anything like this for a patient. He’d never even
thought
of doing anything of the sort. But he also knew that helping Wren in this moment was something he really
wanted
to do.
He carried the water glass back to her living room. “What are you going to do for dinner?” he asked. As soon as the question was out, Lee froze.
Sushi. Marcelle.
Shit.
“I… um… I was thinking of ordering Chinese.” She tilted her chin down and gave him a sidelong look. “Would… you… like to stay?”
Her obvious discomfort made him laugh. What else could he do? He found a coaster and set down the glass of water on her coffee table, realizing as he did that it was a Queen Anne piece. Probably mahogany.
“Actually, I need to go.” He stood and dried his hands on his slacks, ignoring the fact that eating Chinese with Wren Blanchard sounded better than anything he’d done in a long time. “I just wanted to make sure you had everything you needed.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, nodding. “But thank you — for everything." This time she held out her hand, giving him a view of her black bird flock one more time.
He took it and pressed his palm against hers. The hand was small and slender in his grip and, unlike the night before, it was warm and strong in his.
“You’re very welcome.”
“I mean it, Dr. Hawthorne,” she said. “I don’t know many doctors who would go so far out of their way to help a patient.”
“It’s Lee,” he said, squeezing her hand once more before letting it go. “And it was my pleasure.”
“Lee,” she repeated, nodding. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the apples of her cheeks blushed a little. He may have been wrong about that, but he wasn’t wrong about the feeling that ran down his chest when she said his name.
It was time to leave.
“Goodnight. Get well soon, Wren.”
He opened her door, turned the lock on her knob, and stepped out into the night.
Lee pulled out his phone to find three text messages, the first at 6:18 p.m.
Marcelle:
Okay, we’ve got a table at 7:30. Your dad and Barbara are joining us. I’m getting ready at your place.
The next message was logged at 6:26 p.m.
Marcelle:
Are you on your way? If you get home soon, you can shower and shave before we leave.
Then thirteen minutes later…
Marcelle:
Where the hell are you???
LEE DUMPED HIS
keys on the kitchen table and started pulling off his tie.
“Where have you been?” Marcelle called from across the house. “It’s almost seven!”
“I… I was helping a patient." He unbuttoned his shirt. “I’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”
He walked into his bathroom to find Marcelle standing at his vanity in lace panties and a strapless bra, running a flat iron through her strawberry-blonde hair.
“Well, hello,” he crooned, approaching her for a kiss.
She scowled and pointed a finger in his face.
“Don’t even think about it. We don’t have time.”
“You’re no fun,” he said, swatting her on the bottom. He turned on the water in the shower stall and adjusted the temperature. “I bet you won’t even join me.”
She whipped her head around and looked at him as if he were crazy.
“I’m straightening my hair, Leland.”
Lee dropped his shirt on the floor and unzipped his pants.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
When he stepped under the near-scalding shower stream, his muscles turned to soup. He grabbed his shampoo bottle and got to work. If he stayed in the hot shower too long, he’d be good for nothing but bed.
“How was your day, Marce?” he called.
“It was good. I got the job on Beverly. We’ll start tearing out the parquet floors next week,” she said, hardly pausing to breathe. “I can’t wait to tackle the bathroom. Of course, I need to find a new plumbing sub.”
“Congratulations. You sound excited,” Lee said, rinsing his hair and grabbing the soap. At twenty-seven, she’d already made a name for herself in interior design. They’d met more than eighteen months ago when she headed up the kitchen renovation at his dad and Barbara’s house.
“I am. I’d love to snap up a few more clients in Bendel Gardens,” she said. “If fix-up fever takes hold there, I might need to get an assistant.”
Lee did a final rinse and turned off the taps.
“So, why are Tom and Barbara coming with us? Did they call to see what we were doing tonight?” he asked.
When she didn’t answer, Lee raked open the shower curtain to find that he was talking to an empty bathroom.
“Marcelle?”
“I’m in here. It gets too steamy in there when you come out of the shower.”
He couldn’t help himself. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Lee heard her
tsk.
“I
mean,
it’s too humid. It’ll frizz my hair.”
“Why don’t we call my dad and Barbara for a raincheck, and I can find another way to frizz your hair.”
“Leland!”
He chuckled and scrubbed the towel over his head. Then he wrapped it around his waist and turned on the hot water at his sink.
“You have exactly twelve minutes to shave and two minutes to get dressed,” she scolded.