How could it be that she kept catching Everett’s scent on her?
She blinked heavily, fatigue weighing her down. She wasn’t thinking properly. The lingering effects of the anesthesia, the fever, or both were making her have strange experiences and memories. Like how she could have sworn she’d woken up in the middle of the night and opened her eyes with extreme effort, only to see the oddest sight—men’s white-and-silver running shoes with orange stripes stacked one on top the other and pressing against the footrest of her hospital bed. She strained to recall what was attached to those shoes, but nothing came.
Very odd. Why should that unlikely memory make her want to weep? Was it because she’d seen how many times not only Seth but Everett had tried to call her between last evening and when she’d checked her cell phone on the cab ride home? She couldn’t find the energy to listen to the messages Everett had left her. It’d make her sad. It’d fill her up with more longing than she knew what to do with in her moment of weakness.
She’d barely had sufficient energy to call Seth, who was at the St. Louis airport. He’d been so frantic with worry that she hadn’t called him earlier that he’d been in the process of changing his flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. She’d assured him that she was fine and explained about the fever delaying her discharge. By the time she’d gotten off the phone with him, he seemed mollified.
She willed her exhaustion and ragged emotional state to the periphery of her consciousness and gingerly stepped into the hot spray. It was a blessed thing. She showered mechanically, taking special care in regard to the small incision on her neck, cleaning it as the discharge nurse had instructed. After she’d stepped out, she affixed another bandage, ran a comb through her hair, took her medication and brushed her teeth, her legs growing weaker and weaker by the second.
She dressed in a tank top and sleeping shorts, padded to her cool bedroom and threw back the comforter. It’d been after five o’clo
ck by the time she’d finally been discharged. It was past six now. Pale evening light peeked around the closed drapes. She sagged into the mattress with a sigh of relief. Despite her exhaustion, she couldn’t immediately sleep. It was as if she was forgetting something . . . some important detail.
She kept searching through her sluggish brain, anxious for some clue. Sleep claimed her before she could locate the crucial, elusive thread.
* * *
She swam languidly in the in-between world between sleep and wakefulness. Someone touched her lower lip, stroking her. She opened her mouth wider, granting permission for the intimate caress.
“Everett,” she whispered.
“Your lips can actually read fingerprints, can they? I shouldn’t be surprised; they’re so sensitive. They’re still chapped, though. Poor thing.”
A memory trickled into her sleepy awareness of someone gently applying an emollient to her lips while she lay in the hospital bed.
Her eyes popped open.
Her bedroom was almost completely bathed in darkness, save a dim light emanating from above the kitchen sink in the far distance. It cast enough glow for her to see the shadow of a man leaning over where she lay. She saw the bill of a cap.
“Everett,” she said through a raw throat.
“Shh,” he soothed.
Pressured-stored emotion frothed and boiled in her breast, threatening to erupt—fear, regret, shame, longing . . . love.
Love, most of all.
He cupped her jaw with his hand and put his cheek next to hers, his forehead next to her on her pillow. Did his tears mingle with her own? She wasn’t sure, because when he next spoke, his voice sounded sure and even.
“Let me get you some water. Can you use any throat spray or anything?” he asked quietly.
She nodded and croaked the word bathroom. She was overwhelmed. Everett was here. It wasn’t a dream. She touched the side of his rib cage and felt his lean, warm torso through his T-shirt as he sat up. He paused at her caress, sitting on the edge of the bed. He leaned down and kissed her on the lips very gently.
“I told you in that letter I didn’t think we should see each other again,” she said miserably when he lifted his mouth.
“I decided that really meant you were falling in love with me and running scared.”
She smiled despite the fact that her cheeks were soaked with tears. “That was a bold interpretation,” she whispered, wincing at the effort.
“Accurate, though?”
The familiar anxiety pressed on her chest, but Everett’s hand gently stroking her arm seemed to ease it.
“Yes.” A few more tears fell silently down her cheeks.
He kissed her again, quick and heartfelt. She watched his looming shadow recede as he left the room.
“You were there . . . in . . . in the hospital?” she managed when he returned just seconds later. Her throat felt like it’d undergone a pounding with a meat tenderizer. It had already been sore, but the insertion of the breathing tube during the surgical procedure had worsened matters. He sat on the edge of the bed as she pushed herself up on the pillows. He found her hand in the darkness and placed a cool glass into it. The icy fluid felt heavenly sliding down her throat.