“I usually am.” She smiled.
“Am I interrupting?” His brother pushed open the door to the hospital room.
Mike leaned his head back against the stack of hospital pillows and groaned. “Come on in,” Carly called out, saving him the effort. She turned to Peter. “I was just leaving.” She squeezed Mike’s hand once and headed for the door without meeting his gaze.
* * *
Mike leaned back against the uncomfortable pillow and waited while Carly slipped out the door. A floor nurse walked in behind Peter. “Hey, Pete.”
His brother grinned. “Looking better. I have to admit you scared the living daylights out of me.”
“Doubling over in the airport wasn’t my idea of a good time either.” He waited while the nurse did her thing—temperature and blood pressure.
“All set, Mr. Novack.” She jotted notes in his chart and walked out.
“If I had known about those good-looking nurses, I would have checked myself in here,” Pete said, his eyes following the attractive nurse’s departure.
“You’re one of a kind, little brother.” Mike eased himself higher in the bed, ignoring the pain as well as the painkiller the nurse had tried to force on him. He preferred having a clear head.
“I am, aren’t I?” Pete chuckled. “When are they releasing you?”
“Not soon enough,” Mike muttered.
“What’s your hurry?” His brother glanced back toward the closed door, but no voluptuous blond nurse answered his silent plea.
Mike laughed, then clenched his teeth at the accompanying pain in his side. “I can’t get my life together from a hospital bed.”
Carly had visited him twice yesterday and once already today. Each time she had stayed longer but left as soon as the questions turned personal.
“She playing hard to get?” Pete asked.
“She just needs some coaxing,” Mike said, deliberately vague. He had no intention of discussing his relationship, or lack thereof, with Pete.
His brother paced the room. “I know she’s worth the effort,” he said at last.
“Having second thoughts?”
“Hell no.” Pete laughed. “She’s all yours. Carly and I wouldn’t make each other happy,” he said.
Mike raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Since when does happiness count?” he asked his work-devoted brother.
Pete sat himself on the chair next to Mike’s bed. “Since I nearly destroyed someone who was nothing but good to me. And since Regina expected to marry the newest litigation partner on her way up the corporate ladder.”
“Didn’t like being on the other end of things, huh? There might be hope for you yet, little brother.”
“Don’t get carried away,” Pete muttered.
Mike laughed. “Well, you did good letting Carly know after the hospital notified you.”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “It was the least I could do. You’re my brother, after all.”
Mike nodded. It was something Carly had reminded him of time and again. He needed his brother, something he wouldn’t have been able to admit prior to his return to the Middle East. He could face that truth now.
Along with many others. He only hoped it wasn’t too late.
* * *
Carly stepped out of the bathroom to the sound of an insistent ring. “I’m coming,” she called to her impatient visitor. She’d just gotten out of the shower and finished blow-drying her hair, probably missing the first couple of rings. Whoever was out there had his finger permanently attached to her doorbell. She opened the door a crack and glanced beyond the chain lock.