Misplaced Innocence (29 page)

She took one more deep breath before turning away from the view. Things were far from perfect, but at least this would be a good start.

~*~

The linoleum squeaked unsettlingly beneath Charisma’s pumps. The overhead fluorescent bulbs washed out the few people she passed. Everything was drab; an insistent reminder of unpleasantness. The drone of the lights was enough to drive her crazy. Thankfully she wouldn’t need to be here long.

She gripped the flowers more tightly. She wasn’t sure which ones he would have liked. They had never talked about it. It was such a simple thing too. It left a bitter taste in her mouth that she didn’t know something so personal, so intimate. One of those little things that whispered of attachment and devotion. She had gone with the daisies. Pretty white ones that were only just cultivated, mostly just a reminder of how beautiful wild things were. Something hardy. Something she thought he would have been able to relate to, identify with.
 

Now, in the interior lighting, they seemed a more sallow version of what she had thought they would be. They didn’t add that much needed splash of color or hint of life. They didn’t add what Charisma thought was desperately needed, and for a moment she hesitated and thought about going back. No one would ever know anyway.

A racking cough urged her forward. It was too late now and there was no point in going back. She chewed on her lip. A little more damage wouldn’t do it any harm. Everyone was busy looking at the black mark, just now beginning to turn green, that arched across the side of her face and encapsulated one eye. They weren’t going to notice the gentle teeth marks or the raw skin.

She had spent her first day formally released from the hospital by his bedside, just waiting. She kept vigilance on his face, waiting for the flicker of eyelashes and the upward climb of the eyelid. She waited for the sound of his breathing to change, for some indication that he would soon be awake. She had clutched his hand in hers, studied it until she was almost certain she could recreate it with a pad and pencil while her eyes were closed. She knew every crease, every freckle, the old scar that ridged through the pad of his thumb and would ruin the pattern of his print. She could almost create a story of his whole life from that one hand, and it had left her empty to realize how little she actually knew. How little she knew of his past and yet how very much he meant to her.

The nurses had bustled around her, ushering her to her own room, providing her with enough pain killers and anti-inflammatories to make her life a little less miserable. It was fluids this and rest that and an endless supply of Italian icies. As soon as they had returned her to her little cubicle she would plot her next escape.

In the end she hadn’t seen his eyes open.
 

And now here she was, with these useless flowers in a black dress that was too big for her and shoes that squeaked on the linoleum floor. She took one last breath before opening the door.
 

The room was as unappetizing as the hallway. Light filtered in through the window, but outside the sky was overcast and brick buildings blocked what light might have crept in. The room smelled of disinfectant and cleaner, the faint metallic odor of blood and fear. It was a hospital room through and through.

“Hi,” he said, and she felt the weight of his gaze sweep over her body and settle somewhere near her hips, right where the bunch of flowers were clutched.
 

“Hi,” she returned, suddenly losing all the pretty words she had pinned down ahead of time. All the things she had meant to say, that had seemed so important they not go unsaid were words she couldn’t bring herself to say out loud. Instead, she stood there awkwardly for a moment before lamely nudging the flowers in his direction. “I brought you these.”

A smile split his face, and it was the same face she had been thinking about for days and the same smile she had spent time wishing would etch its way into his expression and suddenly she smiled back. For the first time, she really felt like things were coming together.
 

“Those are beautiful.” His hand gestured toward her in what might have been an invitation forward. His voice had that rusty, unused, quality to it that let Charisma know he hadn’t spoken in a while.
 

“They made me think of you.” Her feet were moving in his direction almost of their own volition. She held the flowers out in front of her as if they would somehow protect her; a gift and a shield all at once. When she relinquished them into his hands she felt naked before him, totally exposed. “I was hoping I would be here when you woke up,” she said after a long moment of rapt silence.
 

He smiled anew. “That’s alright. It’s better this way. I had time to brush my teeth.”

She laughed at that. “How are you feeling?” Her pretty brow furrowed with concern. Now that she was here, she didn’t want anything more than to crawl beside him and look into his eyes. She was certain she could do that for hours. Of course, she reasoned belatedly, that could also be completely and totally unnerving for Jared and so she was willing to refrain from doing it.
 

“Pretty much like I’ve been run over by a truck.” He winced. “A big truck. One with lots of cargo.”
 

It was a joke, but neither one of them could bring themselves to laugh. The air between them radiated with something heavy and ripe. “I’m sorry this happened.” Her gaze fluttered down to the ground, obscuring the rich darkness of her eyes with a fan of black lashes. “Especially because it was for me. I hate that part.”

His hand reached out toward her, grabbed her wrist and gave the smallest of tugs to pull her close to him. “That’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’d do it again in an instant. It wasn’t like I didn’t know what I was getting into. Trust me,” she did laugh then, “every possible scenario was considered, and this was, by far, one of the better ones.”

“Okay. Okay.” She finally brought her eyes back to his, and they locked for a minute before she continued. “Well, thanks. I’ve never been so happy to see someone.” Something about the sentence seemed to catch her attention. “Did you…I mean, Scruffy was in the truck…?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry. I got her. As soon as I got your note I went to your place. I thought I might catch you there. I thought I had, when I saw your truck and Scruff inside.” He shook his head as if to dispel the memory of the destroyed house. “She was fine. Nothing a little love and some water couldn’t fix. Your keys were right by the cab.”

Charisma rolled her eyes. “It was so stupid. I thought I couldn’t leave without that stupid photo album. I should have just asked you in the letter to pick it up for me and keep it –”

“Actually,” he interrupted, “You shouldn’t have written me a note at all. You should have stayed right where I left you so I could keep an eye on you. Maybe this all could have been avoided.”

Charisma snorted. “Right. You know it was just a matter of time…”

“Well, even if it had been, then I would have been there.”

“And that would have been great. With my luck they would have shot you then.”

He harrumphed and Charisma considered that to be some sort of assent. “Anyway, I left Scruffy with Bill. We can pick her up whenever we get home.”

She liked the sound of those words, but she didn’t want to draw his attention to them. “When can we leave?”

“A few days. The bullet was easy enough to remove. A little rehabbing and I should be back up to par. Actually, the broken ribs from the fall are what hurt the most. The shoulder will be back like it was before I know it. But now it hurts to breathe. It hurts to laugh. Pretty much just existing is painful. But it shouldn’t be too long before I’m up and running.”

“That’s good to hear.” She took the flowers from his lap and busied herself by putting them in water. “We won’t need to be back in town until the trial begins. Basically we’re free birds until then.”

He watched her as she moved around the room. A wry grin filled his voice. “Did you have big plans for us with all that free time?”

She shook her head, sending her glossy hair tumbling, “Not really. Lots of lazy mornings. Lots of Advil. I think it’s going to be great.”

“That’s good; that’s good.”

The room grew quiet, and when Charisma had turned from where she was arranging the flowers in front of the dreary window, she saw that Jared’s eyes were closed and his breathing soft. He was already asleep.

She pressed the smallest of kisses to his forehead and smoothed his hair back, trying not to pay any attention to the beeping and whirring of the machines around him. The door closed quietly behind her and she left the hospital quickly. It was too much of a reminder of how things might have been, had she and Jared not been so lucky.

But it wasn’t worth thinking too much about what might have been. They were fortunate enough to have avoided the worst of it, and they would deal with what they had been left with. He hadn’t objected to their big plans of lazy days and she took that to be a step in the right direction. She may have conveniently left out some of the other more exciting activities they could accomplish when house-bound, but that would be worth exploring together. A wicked smile lit her face, almost distracting enough to overshadow the extent of the bruise.

For now, though, she had a lunch engagement she couldn’t afford to miss.

~*~

The café’s chairs were hard. Charisma squirmed while she tried to focus on the menu in front of her. Ever fiber of her being wanted to turn away from the small text in an unappealing font and focus on the woman at the other side of the table.

It had been a long time since she had sat down to a meal with her mother.

She looked like Charisma had imagined she would. The same woman she had always been with a few more lines around her eyes. It was so eerily close to the image she had constructed of her mother that she sometimes wondered if her mother was actually there.
 

She had the same pale hair, shot through now with more silver than Charisma had remembered. The same crystal eyes that shared the same shape as Charisma’s. She was still slender and commanding and abstract and all the things mothers were. Charisma’s gut twisted inside of her. She never thought she would make it back for a meal with her mother.
 

She finally decided on some fancy sounding entrée that she knew was just a garden salad, and let herself sneak a peak across the table. Her mother had long since set aside her own menu and was watching Charisma unabashedly. When her eyes caught her daughter’s she smiled, and her eyes glazed over with a sheen that might have been tears.

“It’s good to see you, Candace.”
 

The name jarred Charisma back to New Jersey. It had been a long time since someone had called her anything other than Charisma. And before that it had always been Candy. Her mother was one of the few who took the time to say her name, and it was soft and warm and it sounded like every memory she had of growing up in her mother’s home.
 

“It’s good to see you,” she paused a long moment before continuing, “Mom.”
 

Her mother smiled and didn’t comment on the fact that Charisma had practically muttered the sentence into her water glass. She had the feeling her mother was going to be commenting on a lot less than she used to. The first twenty minutes of their initial encounter had been filled with her mother’s sobbing and a repeated litany of all the things she had thought might have happened to Charisma.

Truly, a person never needs to hear about how many dire ends loved ones can create for you.

Apparently, her mother didn’t feel the need to remind Charisma again of what horrible things she had imagined fate held in store for her. Instead she offered her another watery smile and turned to the waiter.

When she was finished ordering her grilled Salmon, she turned to Charisma. “Did you want the salad, dear?”

Charisma nodded, feeling a sudden rush of new tears.

“House on the side?” Her mother was watching her, and Charisma tore her dark eyes away from her mother’s light ones as she nodded.

It wrenched at her heart to know her mother still knew exactly what she was going to order. That not a minute of their time apart had dulled Charisma in her mind.

She swallowed hard. Coming home was harder than she had thought it would be.

~*~

Charisma signed one last release form. At this rate she was entitled to a large part of whatever inheritance Jared had. She had put up with more paperwork at this hospital than she had when she bought her house in Arizona.
 

Jared was next to her in a wheelchair. He craned his head back as though it would give him a view of the top of the counter. He was still grumbling about the chair. Apparently there was some sort of hospital policy about wheelchairs and checkout. Jared threw scowls in every available nurse’s direction. Evidently, a week in a hospital room made for a pretty unhappy Jared Williams.
 

Charisma dotted one last “i,” turned the papers over to the discharge nurse and grabbed the handles of the wheelchair. She was getting out while the getting was good, and if she had to start running over the nurses with the wheelchair, so be it. Sacrifices had to be made.
 

She found secret pleasure in ramming Jared’s wheelchair into the elevator door. He grunted at the impact, but said nothing else. Shocking, considering how much he had been saying recently. And if any of it had been positive, Charisma had missed it.

“Sorry,” she grumbled, trying not to let the smile pulling at her mouth come through in her words, and glad for the fact that Jared couldn’t see her. She was anxious to get him to the hotel, set him up, and get the hell out of there.
 

The automatic doors couldn’t open fast enough, a wash of stifling, humid air, rushed toward them, and Charisma fought the impulse to gag. She certainly hadn’t missed the weather or the pollution. Apparently, Carlton had some benefits after all.