Once More With Feeling (15 page)

"If I did, you could have me committed." She
was tiring quickly, and she lowered herself to the sofa beside him,
propping her crutches at the sofa's end.

The apartment was surprisingly small. Gypsy
had been able to afford a top location, but not much space to go
with it. This room, which looked over the park, was the largest,
ideal for a small cocktail party. But no dinner parties loomed on
the horizon because the kitchen was the size of a postage stamp and
poorly laid out. She doubted anyone ever did more there than warm
up food.

There was a small library, filled, as one
might expect, with DVDs instead of books, and a small room beside
it that Perry was moving her things into while Casey kept Gypsy
company. Gypsy's--her--bedroom looked as if it had once been two
smaller rooms before remodeling. Now it was medium-sized with an
opulent bath. If the rest of the apartment was
Out of
Africa
, the bedroom and bath were
Arabian Nights
.

"Come here, Gyps." Casey put an arm around
her shoulder and pulled her to lean against him.

She had little choice. The leather sagged
with their combined weight and she slid into his arms as if the
sofa had been made for this purpose alone. She was wary of being
close to Casey, particularly now. Her life was in turmoil; her
already questionable sanity was hanging by a thread. She had just
said the oddest goodbye on record to a husband of twenty-five
years.

Yet despite everything, the unmistakable
sexual attraction that Casey and Gypsy had shared was still lodged
somewhere in the very molecules of her youthful new body. She
buzzed like a hive of hyperactive honeybees whenever Casey got
within ten feet of her.

And he was much closer than that right
now.

"Relax. . ." His voice was soothing--and
very close to her ear. "Come on. Lean back. I don't expect anything
out of you. You just got out of the hospital, and Perry's in the
other room. Give me credit for a little sense."

It had never occurred to her to be worried
about him.

She leaned; he adjusted. She relaxed one
anxious inch at a time.

His breath was warm against her cheek. She
was out of conversational hooks. She was out of energy, out of hope
and possibly out of her mind. I don't feel like myself, the words
she most longed to say to him, were a masterpiece of
understatement. And what could he say in return? That she would
feel like herself soon enough?

Wrong.

"You're much cuddlier since the accident."
His voice rumbled against her ear. His right hand began to massage
her hipbone.

"Am I?" She filed that piece of information
away in the mental drawer with his name on it, and cross-referenced
it with Gypsy's sexual preferences and personality quirks.

"Yeah. Used to be you'd be all over me by
now."

She feigned disbelief. "I can't remember
why."

He nuzzled her neck. "Can't you?"

She was beginning to think there was more
than one kind of memory. There was the kind that replayed pictures
and words, and there was another kind she was just discovering.
When Casey touched her it felt familiar. Not because she had been
touched by another man. Casey felt familiar. The heat of his body
was familiar. His scent was familiar. Even the low growl deep in
his throat when his lips touched her bare skin was familiar.

The warm ripples of desire lapping at her
misery were familiar, too.

He drew up one knee and settled her more
intimately against him. "You're the most uninhibited woman I
know."

"Maybe that's changed, too. Maybe I'm not
the same at all. Maybe you can't count on anything about me
anymore."

"Let's try counting and see. One, you're
still the most desirable woman I've ever known. Two, you're
essentially the same woman with a little memory unaccounted for.
Three--"

"What if that's not true? What if . . .
whatever made me Gypsy is gone forever?"

"I don't see any signs of that."

"Don't you?"

"Look at that stunt you pulled this morning.
Nothing could be more typically you. Except that you were a lot
more polite than I would have expected you to be under the
circumstances."

"You think going to . . . Mrs. Whitfield's
room was a typical stunt?"

"I don't know why you went. But it's the
kind of thing you'd do. Go right to the source, never mind who it
pisses off. Find out whatever you want to know and then get the
hell out before you're forced to do any cleanup. Typical Gypsy
Dugan."

"You think so highly of me."

"I know you. I know exactly who and what you
are."

If he thought that was true, he had a big
surprise coming. She asked a question she really needed an answer
to. "If I'm that obnoxious, why do you put up with me?"

"Obnoxious? You're a good reporter, that's
all. You don't let sentiment stand in your way. I'm exactly the
same. That's why I'm not reporting dogfights and watermelon eating
contests at some affiliate in Podunk, Iowa."

His hand rubbed her thigh, a practiced
rotation of the fingertips and palm that was as provocative as it
was comforting. She could feel whatever fight was in her draining
away. She had sat this way with Owen in the early days of their
courtship, sat this way and let him put his hands anywhere he
wanted. He had been her first lover. Her only lover. Sometimes she
had wondered if that had been a mistake. Had she let Owen Whitfield
take over her life because she had been so grateful for the
pleasure he had given her? Perhaps if she had been sure that kind
of pleasure was possible with another man, perhaps then she would
have strived for more independence. Taken more chances.

Reaped more rewards?

Her head had fallen back to Casey's
shoulder. She turned it a little. Just a little.

His lips touched hers, firm, warm lips. She
sighed against them. Owen's kiss was very different, more patient,
less. . .

"Gyps, are you crying?"

She was, and the moment she realized it and
tried to stop, her body began to shake with great, gulping
sobs.

"Are you trying to tell me I've lost the
knack for this?" He rubbed his stubbled cheek against hers, like a
man who wanted to give comfort and wasn't sure how. His tone made
it clear he had a sudden yen to be somewhere, anywhere, else.

She could only think of Owen. Right now he
was probably taking or planning to take his own comfort in the arms
of Anna Jacquard. She was as dead to him as if he had buried both
her body and that indefinable essence that was now Gypsy Dugan.

"You're exhausted. Done in. And well you
should be. I've overstayed my welcome." He wrapped his arms around
her, and she sobbed harder. "Gypsy, don't cry. This really isn't
like you. You're scaring me."

"I'm scaring . . . myself."

"Do you want me to get Perry?"

"No. I'll be all right." There was nothing
in her voice to indicate that she really would be.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do here.
I want to make you feel better . . ."

On the rare occasions that Elisabeth had
cried, Owen had taken her in his arms and hummed tunelessly in her
ear. And at that moment, she would have given anything, anything at
all, to hear his mind-numbing rendition of "Surfin' USA."

She cried harder.

"Shhh. . ." He held her tighter. "You've
been so brave. You've come so far. You've just got to give yourself
time to get everything back. But we're all here to help you.
Everyone wants to help. We're not going to let anything or anyone
hurt you."

"Hurt me?" She sniffed loudly.

There was just the slightest hesitation. "A
figure of speech. I just wanted you to know we're all on your side.
And if you need anything, we'll be there to get it for you."

She wanted Owen. And she doubted that anyone
could get him for her. He was no longer hers for the getting. She
was no longer herself.

The world tilted crazily on its axis.

"Gyps, let's get you to bed." He pulled away
from her and stood. Then he held out his arms. "Come on, brave
girl. A nap will fix you up. Let's get you to bed."

Nothing was going to fix her up, but that,
too, was something she couldn't tell him.

She managed to get to her feet, but her legs
felt as weak as an airline martini. "Have . . . have you seen that
bedroom?"

"Intimately."

"Don't expect any renditions of Salome and
the Seven Veils tonight."

He smiled his sexier-than-Depp smile. "I can
wait for that."

"I hate this apartment. I hate everything
about it!"

"You can move. You can redecorate. Hell,
Desmond will be so glad to have you back at work that he'll
probably redecorate for you."

"All the poor animals that died for this!"
One hand swept the room and fresh sobs shook her. "They were meant
for better things."

"For Christ's sake, Gyps, most of it's
imitation fur. Perry!" Casey bellowed the name once, then again for
good measure.

Perry stuck her head into the hallway and
cocked a brow.

"Help," he said succinctly.

The bed was as wide as the River Jordan.
Someone, Gypsy hoped it hadn't been she, had pitched a tent over
it, a tent with tassels and garish satin panels. The apartment
ceilings were high, and the tent reached its peak a foot below
them. There was just enough room above the peak for a small gold
pennant--to match the pennants that flew from spears anchored where
the tent met the floor.

The floor was another matter entirely. All
the floors in the apartment were laid in a herringbone design of
light oak and dark walnut that blazed across the rooms like
lightning bolts. In the living room pelts--or pseudo-pelts--of
endangered mammals littered the floor. Here the decorator had opted
for subtlety. There was only one rug, a sand-colored velvety plush
that stretched across most of the floor. Sitting at each corner of
the rug, like mythical guardians of the four directions, were stone
lions.

She had entered the lion's den. Or the
lioness's.

"Oh, God." She covered her mouth with her
hand. Had she really, once upon a time, wished for this life?

"Feeling better, sweet pea?" Perry pushed
the door open a foot and peeked inside.

"Give me a year or two."

"Nah. You're resilient. Problem is, you're
expecting miracles."

Obviously, the miracle had already occurred.
She was living proof.

Gypsy swung her feet to the floor and
reached for her robe. It was the closest thing to utilitarian that
Perry had found in her wardrobe, a navy blue silk with tuxedo satin
lapels.

"You don't have to get up," Perry said. "I
could bring your dinner in here."

"No!" She gave a wan smile. "No, thanks. I
keep expecting Rudolph Valentino to come popping out of the closet.
I'd rather eat somewhere else."

"Old Rudolph could pop out of my closet any
old day he chose."

Gypsy reached for her crutches. "Did Casey
leave?"

"As fast as he could."

"Poor man."

"Water a guy like that a few times, and he
might just grow."

"What do you mean?"

"It didn't hurt Casey to see you cry.
Reminded him you're a real person."

"What would I be if I wasn't a real
person?"

Perry lifted a brow.

"Sex symbol? Caricature?" Gypsy's voice
rose.

"Let's just say that seeing the bad with the
good gives a man perspective."

Gypsy thought of Owen. "Not always.
Sometimes it makes them look for greener, younger pastures."

"Any man like that doesn't need to store his
shoes under my bed."

"Is there a man storing his shoes under your
bed?" Elisabeth would never have asked such a personal question.
But Elisabeth was lying in a hospital bed with a significant
portion of herself residing elsewhere. Gypsy could ask anything she
wanted.

"Not storing. Renting the space on
occasion." Perry gave her heart-stopping grin on the way out of the
room to finish dinner preparations.

They ate canned soup and cheese sandwiches
in the tiny dining area at a chrome and glass table that forced
Gypsy to do the one thing she had avoided for days: stare at her
own reflection. It was a table for a narcissist--or a masochist.
Anyone having a bad hair day would immediately lose her appetite
here.

"I look better," Gypsy said. That was
relative, of course. She still looked like someone she wasn't. She
was someone she wasn't.

"Puffiness is going away. You can cover up
nearly everything with makeup now."

"What do you think of this nose?" Gypsy
wiggled it and watched it dance in the glass.

"It's the one God gave you, isn't it?" Perry
narrowed her eyes. "Or is it?"

It was the one God had given Gypsy Dugan.
"Are you asking if I had it fixed?"

"Maybe you don't remember."

Gypsy thought of the woman who had said the
rosary at her bedside. "No, I think this is mine. My mother's is
the same."

"You ever hear from her again?"

Gypsy shook her head. Mrs. Dugan--she still
didn't know her first name--had disappeared after their one
encounter. And there had been no word from her since.

"The tape on your answering machine is about
used up. Calls have been coming in all day. Maybe one of them is
from her."

"I guess I ought to listen to them." Gypsy
didn't look forward to that ordeal. The voices would be the voices
of strangers, and once again she would be confronted by how little
she knew about Gypsy Dugan's world.

"Don't have to. I can put in a new
tape."

"No. I'll do it. I have to do it sometime.
I'll make a list. Maybe the next time Casey comes he can help me
make sense out of it."

"Before long you'll be making sense of it
yourself."

Gypsy wished she could confide in Perry. She
longed to tell someone what she knew, someone who might just
believe her. But as delightful as Perry was, she was still a nurse,
and she reported to Dr. Roney. Gypsy didn't want to end up on a
psych ward searching for daisies and rocket ships on pages of
inkblots.