Home Again

He gave her a grin that was so quick and white, she felt stunned by it. “It didn’t used to be, but neither were afternoons driving around in a Volvo.” He shuddered dramatically.

She couldn’t help laughing. “Let’s go inside.”

They got out of the car and came together at the end of the walkway. Angel stumbled. Without thinking, Madelaine curled an arm around his waist and let him lean against her.

She realized a split second later that she was holding him. Her breath tangled in her throat and she turned slowly, meeting his questioning gaze. They stood that way for an eternity, neither one of them saying anything.

“I never told you thanks,” he said finally.

She felt a fleeting disappointment, but didn’t know why. “No need,” she answered.

“Not true,” he said, staring into her eyes so intently that she wondered what he saw. “I’ve learned there’s always a need.”

Impulsively she reached up and brushed a lock of hair from his eyes. She realized a split second later that she’d done it because he’d sounded so much like his brother. It was exactly the kind of thing Francis would have said in a moment like this. At the thought, she felt a pang of loneliness. “He would be proud of you right now.”

There was no question of who he was. Angel grinned and looked down at her. “Because I’m holding his best girl?”

She saw a transformation in his eyes—this time there was no trace of Francis and his gentle, caring soul. This time there was only Angel, fiery-tempered and brutally honest, and he was looking at her as if she mattered. Her heartbeat sped up. Suddenly she felt as if she were sixteen again, standing in the arms of the boy who loved her.

She told herself not to care, not to want anything from this man who’d broken her heart, but she knew even as she had the thought it was too late, and the knowledge scared her to death. “No. Because you’re changing, Angel. And we both know how hard that is to do.”

He laughed and pulled away from her. Turning back to the log cabin, they started up the pathway together. Halfway there, Angel reached down and took Madelaine’s hand in his.

The next morning, when she got to work, the parking lot was full of news vans. Reporters had descended on the hospital like a pack of ravenous hyenas, flashing photographs of anyone who walked up to the front door, barking questions at everyone they saw.

Madelaine was winded and irritated by the time she pushed through the crowd, muttering “No comment” a dozen times. When she got to her office, Sarandon and Allenford were waiting for her.

Madelaine sighed and tossed her suede coat over the back of her sofa. “Angel knew this was coming. He was seen yesterday just before we discharged him.”

“Must be that lovely woman I saw on ‘Hard Copy,’” Sarandon said calmly, taking a sip of coffee.

“What does Angel want us to do?” Allenford asked.

“Confirm with the press that he had cardiac surgery. Say that the surgery was successful and he was discharged. Beyond that, he wants a no comment.”

“That won’t last long.”

Madelaine heard the edge of eagerness in Chris’s voice, and she supposed she understood it. The surgeon wanted the world to know about his great work. “No,” she said. “It won’t. But it’ll buy him a little time.”

“Okay.” Chris pushed to his feet, and Sarandon popped up beside him. “Let’s go … the three of us.”

They strode out of the office and turned the corner, coming down the hallway of Intensive Care like the astronauts from The Right Stuff, Chris was in the middle, with Sarandon on his left and Madelaine on the right.

In step, they pushed through the front doors and marched down to the parking lot.

“I have a statement to make regarding Angel DeMarco,” Chris said.

“Just a second,” someone screamed.

Reporters and camera operators zoomed up to the three doctors, formed a tight circle around them. Microphones shot into Chris’s face.

He looked calm and unruffled. “Mr. Angelo DeMarco was recently a patient at this hospital. Following his much-publicized collapse in Oregon, he was transferred here for cardiac surgery. The surgery was completely successful, and Mr. DeMarco has been discharged.”

“Does he have AIDS?” someone yelled.

“No, he does not.”

“When was the surgery?” someone else wanted to know.