“You’re absolutely right, Ginna. I’m not sitting in judgment of your actions. I’m only hoping that what you and Neal did in the pool house didn’t bring on this attack.”
“If it did, it was worth it,” she muttered under her breath.
Dr. Kirkwood smiled. “Let’s get you ready to go to the hospital now.”
“I don’t want to go!” She raised her voice this time.
The door opened and Neal came in just in time to hear her protest. “Oh, but you
will
go! The doc said I could borrow his car. I’ll drive following the ambulance to the hospital and bring you back here, once they’ve done their tests.”
She turned to Dr. Kirkwood. “Do I have to?”
“I think it’s best, Ginna. Just to be on the safe side.”
Neal came over to the bed, leaned down, and kissed her. “You’ll be fine, darlin’. And I’ll be right there with you. We’ll be back here before you know it.” He looked into her eyes and said, in the sweetest voice she had ever heard, “I love you, Ginna. Let me take good care of you.”
Just then, they heard the wail of the ambulance siren, as it came up the drive. Ginna finally gave in. How could she not when Neal pleaded so tenderly?
Things did not
go fine
, as Neal and Dr. Kirkwood had promised. After the electrocardiogram, Ginna was informed that she would have to spend the night in the hospital, while they ran some further tests and observed her.
“Don’t worry,” Neal told her. “I’ll stay right here with you all night.”
But Dr. Kirkwood needed his car back, and the head nurse told Neal that he couldn’t stay in her room, anyway, because he was not immediate family. Reluctantly, Neal kissed Ginna goodbye and left.
Sometime after midnight, the hospital’s pokers and prodders finally finished with Ginna. She was returned to her room and tucked into bed. The nurse gave her a sleeping pill and stood by, while Ginna placed it in her mouth and faked a swallow. Once the woman left, Ginna quickly spit out the nasty-tasting pill. As exhausted as she was, she didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to think, to plan, to weave lovely dreams about her life with Neal. She had waited so many years to find the right man. Didn’t she deserve a little happiness? Her childhood had been bleak and lonely. Her adult life until now hadn’t been much better. Now, at last, she had her chance to grab the brass ring-only this ring would be made of gold. A wedding band!
Her thoughts turned suddenly to Virginia Swan. She, too, had been in love, had planned to marry. But those plans had gone awry, because of the war. Ginna wondered what Virginia’s life had been like after she lost Channing. The two of them had been so happy and so much in love during their time in New York.
When had the blow come? How had Virginia handled it? There was so much Ginna still wanted to know about Virginia Swan and Channing McNeal.
“Tomorrow,” she whispered, her eyelids growing heavy. “Neal and I will go back to the greenhouse tomorrow. I have to find out more about Virginia—
everything.”
Neal’s drive back to Swan’s Quarter seemed excrutiatingly long and painful. This was his fault. He shouldn’t have put so much pressure on her. If he loved her as much as he claimed he did, he should have been willing to give her time to think things through. He should have just cooled it, popped the question, then let her take all the time she needed to think things through.
“Damn!” He banged the steering wheel with his clenched fist. “Just rush in like a bulldozer! When are you going to learn, Frazier?”
He made up his mind that the best thing to do was back off. Give Ginna some space. Maybe he wouldn’t even go to the hospital to pick her up tomorrow. Let them bring her back in an ambulance. It was driving him nuts being away from her, but he would have to get used to it, for the time being, anyway. She would be going back to her home—wherever that was—after tomorrow. He wouldn’t mention marriage again. No more pushing! No more pressing!
By the time he pulled into the drive at Swan’s Quarter, he was grim with resolve. The old blackness was creeping back into his soul. For a time this afternoon, he had allowed himself to believe that he had been saved from the plane crash to find Ginna, to love her and make her happy. Now that seemed to Neal no more than a cruel joke. He hadn’t been saved for anything. It was just an accident. One of Fate’s pointless little twists.
Leonard Kirkwood met him at the door. “Where’s Ginna?”
Stupid question!
Neal thought. But he managed to keep a civil tone when he answered, “They kept her at the hospital for observation. She’s supposed to be released in the morning.”
“Did they tell you anything about her condition?”
“Not a damn word! Seems, since I am not
immediate family—
only the guy who’s in love with her—I’m not entitled to any information.”
“That’s routine hospital policy, Neal.”
“Routine or not, it sucks! I’m half out of my mind, and those jokers are treating me like I’m some bum off the streets who just happened in to ask nosey questions.”
“Come on to my office, Neal. You look like you could use a drink.”
“Don’t mind if I do. It’s been a long night, and it looks to get longer yet.”
Once they were settled in the doctor’s comfortable office, both sipping bourbon-and-branch, Kirkwood broke the silence. “Ginna told me you’ve asked her to marry you.”
Neal nodded. “I did, and she said yes.”
“You don’t think the two of you are rushing this a bit?”
“What if we are?” he snapped, not wanting to hear it.
“Well, you
are
here for treatment, Neal. Do you think you’re ready to deal with a new situation, when all your old doubts and guilt are still unresolved?”
Neal put down his glass and leaned forward toward Kirkwood, his eyes narrowed, his face grim. “Listen, Doc, you got two choices here—assign me to a loony bin or let me live my own life. Sure, I’ve got problems, probably some that will never get resolved. But I can deal with them as long as I have Ginna. I love that woman like I’ve never loved anybody in my life. I am going to marry her!
Understand?”
“I only wanted to make sure you had thought this through.”
“What’s to think through? We’re in love. We want to be together.”
“And Ginna feels the same way?”
“I can guaran-damn-tee it! We’ve both been drifting around all our lives, trying to find each other. Now, at long last, we have. This is the real thing, Doc, no doubt about it.” Neal wished he could be as certain as he sounded.
The doctor smiled. “It’s nice, isn’t it? Love, I mean.”
“Best medicine in the world.”
“I envy the two of you. I’m still looking for that special someone.”
Neal brightened. “Then you won’t stand in our way?”
Kirkwood offered his hand in congratulations. “Of course not, Neal. I couldn’t, even if I thought you two were making a mistake. I don’t think that. Ginna’s a special lady. I’ve hoped for a long time that she could find happiness with someone. I’ll admit that for a while, several years ago, I thought—or hoped—I might be the one. But she never felt anything for me. I gave up on that long ago. I wish you both a happy life together and all the luck in the world.”
“Thanks, Doc.” Neal grinned and pumped Kirkwood’s hand.
“If you want to borrow my car again in the morning to go to the hospital and pick her up …”
Neal waved the offer away. “No. It’ll be better if she comes back in the ambulance. I don’t want to crowd her. My pushing may be what brought on her fainting spell. See? I think I have this thing figured out. It’s like an escape mechanism for Ginna. When she doesn’t want to face something or be rushed into something, she just tunes out. Faints. And, I admit, I was pushing her pretty hard for an answer. A woman needs time. I realize that now. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
“Well, if you’re sure.” Kirkwood wasn’t so certain that Neal was making the right choice. Ginna was bound to be disappointed when he didn’t show up to bring her back to Swan’s Quarter.
“I know what’s best for the woman I love. You can count on that.”
“Very well.” The doctor rose. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”
After Neal left, Kirkwood sat back down at his desk. He had found out what he wanted to know. They
were
planning to get married. There was no doubt that Ginna would be good for Neal, snap him out of his depression and back into the normal world. He only hoped that Neal’s love could heal Ginna as well.
“What do you mean, I have to go home in an ambulance?” Ginna was fit to be tied. She had had a terrible night, filled with worries and self-doubts. Her one ray of hope had been the thought of seeing Neal, first thing this morning. Now they were telling her he wasn’t coming.
“I’m sorry, Miss Jones, but Dr. Kirkwood called and said Mr. Frazier wouldn’t be coming this morning. He said to send you on back to Swan’s Quarter the same way you came.” The nurse, a kind-faced, chocolate mountain of a woman, gave Ginna a broad smile. “That’s some fine looking young man you got yourself, if you don’t mind my saying so, ma’am. And he is crazy about you! He pitched himself one royal fit last night when the doctor told him he couldn’t stay in your room ’cause he wasn’t family.”
The nurse’s chatty tone calmed Ginna. “We’ll be family, soon enough. We’re getting married.”
“Oh, my, that’s nice! When’s the big day?”
“We haven’t set a date yet, but it will be soon.”
“Will you be getting married at Swan’s Quarter? There hasn’t been a wedding there that I know of, since Miss Agnes Willingham married Mr. Rodney Swan back before the war. My great-great-auntie worked for the Swans back then. Story passed down in my family says that was the grandest wedding ever held in Frederick County. I reckon it was a sad day, too, though.”
“You know it was supposed to be a double wedding?” The nurse, Rosene, nodded solemnly. “Everybody around these parts has heard the tale of poor Miss Virginia and her grave disappointment. She must have been one sad lady on that day.”
Rosene’s comments piqued Ginna’s curiosity. “I don’t know the whole story. What happened to Miss Virginia after that?”
“The story goes, she stayed on at Swan’s Quarter with her mama and some of the other relatives, all through the war. I reckon she figured once the fighting was over, she and Mr. McNeal might get to marry after all, if he made it through the war alive.”
“And did he?” Ginna asked breathlessly.
Rosene narrowed her eyes. “I don’t rightly know, ma’am.”
“Then you don’t know what happened to Virginia Swan, either?”
The nurse shook her head. She was about to say something, when the orderlies came for Ginna. Rosene waved goodbye and disappeared with a swish of white nylon, as they wheeled her patient away to the waiting ambulance.
All during the fast ride back to Swan’s Quarter, Ginna pondered the fate of Virginia Swan. Again, she vowed to revisit the greenhouse and find out more about the couple, who seemed the mirror images of herself and Neal from out of the past.
Dr. Kirkwood was on the veranda when they arrived, along with Pansy, Elspeth, Sister, and Marcellus Lynch. Ginna looked all about, but there was no sign of Neal.
“Land sakes, we were worried about you, child,” Elspeth said, stroking Ginna’s hand.
“We didn’t sleep a wink all night,” Sister added.
Then Pansy, beaming and dabbing at happy tears, leaned over Ginna. “Is it true?” she whispered. “Are you and that nice Mr. Neal Frazier really getting married?”
“Ladies!” Dr. Kirkwood interrupted. “Please let these men get Ginna to her room. After she has rested from her ride, you can visit her.”
Ginna reached out and gripped the doctor’s sleeve. “Where’s Neal?”
The frown on Kirkwood’s face told Ginna what the answer would be. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him around this morning.”
“Tell him I have to talk to him,” she begged.
“After you’ve rested.”
“No!
Now!”
she insisted.
“Stay calm, Ginna. I’ll find him and send him up to see you.”
With a sigh of relief, she lay back on the stretcher and motioned that she was ready to go inside.
She had been in her bed, alone and restless, for nearly a half-hour before she heard a soft knock at her door.
“Who is it?”
“Neal. The doc said you wanted to talk to me.”
“Oh, Neal!” she cried. “Come in!”
She was propped up on her pillows, her arms outstretched for a hug when Neal slipped in the door. But he made no move to embrace her. Instead, he stood across the room, looking solemn and a little uncomfortable.
“How are you feeling?” he asked at length.
“All right, I guess.” She started to tell him that she would feel a lot better if he would come hold her and kiss her. Something about his expression stopped her from saying that, though.
“I was really worried about you last night, Ginna. They wouldn’t tell me anything.”
She forced a laugh. “I don’t think there was much to tell, Neal. I fainted. You know that. As far as anyone told me, all the tests were normal.” Now she chuckled out loud. “Tell me, when was the last time you had a woman swoon in your arms from sheer ecstasy?”
“Well, it won’t happen again?”
She wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but the words stabbed like a knife through her heart. Was he merely saying that he didn’t want her to faint again? Or did he mean he had no intentions of making love with her a second time? Or,
worse yet
, had Neal decided that he didn’t want to marry her, after all?
“Neal, come here.” She patted the bed beside her. “Come sit with me, please.”
He did as she asked, albeit hesitantly. When he was perched on the edge of the bed next to her, she reached out and took his hand. For a few moments, neither of them uttered a word.
“Tell me what’s wrong, Neal. If you’ve decided that last night was all a big mistake, tell me now. Don’t lead me on. It will only hurt more.”
He turned and stared into her eyes, his face a mask of misery. “Is that what you think, Ginna? That we made a mistake?” He looked away. “I should have figured. A nice lady like you and a bum like me. You deserve better.”
She brought his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. “You fool!” she said softly. “I told you I love you. I do! That’s not a phrase I use lightly. Nothing’s changed about the way I feel. If anything, I’m more sure than I was last night”