“That was something Friday night,” Charity said.
“Listen, Char, don’t get discouraged.” Nina cradled the phone on her shoulder so she could put the milk back in the fridge with her free hand. “I looked at the book again last night, and it’s not going to take that much to fix it.”
“I know,” Charity said. “I’m not discouraged. But I’ve been thinking. And I think Norma’s right, about both of us.”
“Us?” Nina echoed, butter in hand.
“Us,” Charity said, and Nina sighed and slid the butter in the fridge before she shut the door. “We don’t believe in unconditional love,” Charity went on. “I keep thinking I have to be sexy and funny and sweet, and then I get mad because I’m never myself, and I figure out some flaw in the guys I’m with and use that to get out so I can be myself for a while. And then I get lonely and go out and play that dumb game again.”
“Wait a minute.” Nina stopped with a bowl of macaroni and cheese in her hands. “That’s not true. Look at some of these guys, the ones who cheated or who had mother complexes or—”
“I know,” Charity said. “I know some of them deserved to be left. But some of them didn’t. Like Alex.”
Nina shoved the mac and cheese bowl in the fridge and slammed the door. “How did Alex get into your book?”
“The only thing wrong with Alex is that he’s ten years younger than you are,” Charity said. “That’s a stupid reason not to love him, Neen.”
“There are a lot of other things wrong with Alex,” Nina said. “He’s immature and unfocused and—”
“You’re making up excuses,” Charity said. “The real problem is that you don’t believe Alex could love you because your body is forty years old and your face has some wrinkles. Norma hit it right. You don’t believe in unconditional love.”
Nina swallowed. “It’s not that easy.”
“Just because you don’t believe in yourself doesn’t mean that Alex doesn’t believe in you,” Charity said. “And you won’t even give him a chance.”
“He doesn’t want a chance,” Nina said. “He—”
“Trust me,” Charity said. “I’ve seen the two of you together. He wants a chance.”
“Charity, you’re being romantic,” Nina said. “This is real life.”
“Real life doesn’t have to suck,” Charity said. “And that’s how I’m going to rewrite this book. I feel good about the book, Neen. I’m excited about this. And I believe things will work out for us if we just believe in ourselves.”
“Good.” Nina closed her eyes and wished she believed that, too. “I’m glad, Char. I can’t wait to read the rewrite.”
“That’s what I’m working on now,” Charity said. “I just wanted to let you know that I was okay. And that I think you should give Alex a chance.”
“Goodbye, Charity,” Nina said, and Charity sighed and hung up.
Give Alex a chance. Alex had had plenty of chances and he hadn’t taken them. All right, she hadn’t been exactly welcoming, but he’d had his chances.
He just hadn’t wanted them.
Nina got a glass out of the cupboard and jerked the refrigerator door open to get some ice. The door stuck, and she jerked again, annoyed and frustrated over more than the door, and then it opened at the same time the Crock-Pot fell off the top of the fridge and onto the glass in her hand, breaking the glass neatly into four pieces before it crashed onto the floor, the glass lid smashing at her feet.
Nina stared at her hand, nonplussed, still holding the largest bottom piece of the glass. Her hand hurt, but there were no marks on it. How had she managed to drop a Crock-Pot on a glass and not cut herself? She shut the door and moved slowly to the counter, crunching glass underfoot, to put the rest of the glass down. She swept the glass up one-handed, moving it into a corner and dropping a towel over it so that Fred couldn’t wander into it accidentally. Then she flexed her hand, and a thin red line appeared, running down the side of her thumb and into her palm.
She’d cut herself, after all. It couldn’t be too bad, though; it was barely bleeding. Just that thin red line. Even as she had the thought, blood began to seep from under the cut, and she realized that it wasn’t a cut as much as a slice, and that it was deep, and that there was going to be a lot more blood. She moved to the sink as her palm turned red and watched in stunned disbelief as the blood began to ooze from her hand, slow, but steadier than she believed possible.
Blotting it with a towel didn’t help. Pressure made it bleed faster. There weren’t enough Band-Aids in the world to help this cut. Still too stunned to think, Nina looked in the sink and saw red splashed everywhere. She was going to have to get help.
She grabbed a clean blue-checked dish towel and wrapped it around her aching hand. “You stay here,” she said to Fred, and grabbed her keys and headed downstairs to see Alex.
She knocked twice, but there was no answer, and she realized he was on duty. At the hospital. Two blocks away. The towel was stained red now, and her hand ached harder, and she pressed it into her stomach, hoping the pressure would slow the bleeding until she figured out what to do. Call 911 and say what? “I cut my hand?” Not for 911. That was for emergencies. Heart attacks. Car accidents. All she had was a cut on her hand. The hospital was only two blocks away.
Pulling her scattered thoughts together, Nina headed for the stairs.
Later, Nina couldn’t remember much of the walk except the ache and the throbbing and the dizziness mixed in with how pretty Riverbend was in the twilight. If she had to bleed to death, at least it would be on a nice evening. But once she was at Riverbend General’s ER, elbowing her way in the door, trying not to get blood on everything she touched, the calm evening turned into a madhouse filled with more people than she’d ever seen in her life, all talking at once. She found her way to the admitting desk and leaned against the counter, keeping her hand low and tight to her stomach so she didn’t get blood on anything, hoping the pressure would ease the sharp ache that was turning into pain, a little overwhelmed and a lot woozy and very close to throwing up.
“I cut myself,” she told the weedy little desk clerk when he asked what she needed. She meant to show him her hand, but she would have had to raise it above the counter to do that, and it seemed like a bad idea.
“Do you have insurance?” he asked.
Nina blinked. “I don’t even have my purse.” She bit her lip. “I know a doctor here. Alex Moore. He can vouch for me.”
The desk clerk sniffed. “We’ll see. Wait here. I’ll get a nurse.” He marched off, and a minute later a little dark nurse came down the hall and stopped to stare at Nina’s stomach.
“What happened?” she asked, gently pulling Nina’s throbbing hand away from her T-shirt.
“I cut my hand,” Nina said.
“Not your stomach?” the nurse said, still supporting Nina’s hand, and Nina looked down and saw that her T-shirt was soaked with blood.
“No,” she said. “Just my hand.”
“Don’t move,” the nurse said, and grabbed a wheelchair. “Sit.”
“I can walk,” Nina protested. “I just need a few stitches.”
“Humor me,” the nurse said, and Nina collapsed into the chair, suddenly grateful.
Her head was swimming a little, and her hand hurt, and when the nurse unwrapped the towel, it hurt more.
“It’ll be okay,” the nurse told her. “It’s deep and it hurts, but you’ll be fine.”
“Oh, good,” Nina said, and sat dazed while the nurse helped her put her bloody hand in a bowl of disinfectant and pulled out a tray with evil-looking things on it. Nina wanted to say, “Is this going to hurt more?” but she didn’t have the energy and she didn’t want to seem like a wimp. It was bad enough she’d cut herself in such a dumb way. Alex had told her over and over—
Then she heard his voice in the hall. The desk clerk said, “Some woman was asking for you. Zandy has her in two,” and Alex’s lazy voice said, “All the women ask for me, Andrew. Whe
n will you learn?” He came through the door, somehow taller and broader in his doctor’s greens, and said, “What have we got, Zan?” and then he saw her and stopped and said, “Nina!”
“I’m okay,” she said, but he was beside her, his hand on her stomach, gently peeling up her T-shirt while she tried to tug it down. “It’s not my stomach, it’s my hand,” she told him. “I just bled all over myself.”
He stopped and swallowed and said, “Nice job, dummy,” and the nurse looked at him oddly, which was the way she’d been looking at him ever since he’d said, “Nina!”
He turned to the nurse and said, “Let me see it, Zan,” and she stepped back while Alex took Nina’s hand from the disinfectant. He sighed and said, “Very nice job,” and sat down, pulling the tray closer to him. “Flex your fingers for me,” he told her, and she did, wincing. “I know, it hurts. Can you make a fist?” She did, and he put his hand against her fingers, and she was comforted by the warmth there. Then he told her to push against his hand, and it hurt again, but she did it anyway because this Alex, this new Alex, wasn’t someone anyone would say no to.
“You’re all right,” he told her. “No nerve injury. We can put you back together here.”
Nina nodded, tired from the pain. “Oh. Good.”
Alex touched her cheek. “It’s almost over. Hang in there.” Then Zandy handed him a syringe full of something and Nina closed her eyes. “It’s going to sting like hell, babe,” she heard him say, and then her hand stung with the needle prick just the way he’d said, and a few moments later, the pain eased away.
She opened her eyes, and Alex said, “You don’t want to watch this,” so she closed them again, and tried to ignore the tugging sensation on her hand that she was pretty sure was thread being pulled through her skin. Instead, she concentrated on the pressure of Alex’s fingers on her hand and the sound of his voice and the warmth of his body close to hers.
“How’d you do it?” he asked her while he tugged at her hand.
Nina winced, knowing she was going to hear “I told you so.” Well, she deserved it. “The Crock-Pot fell on a glass I was holding.”
Alex let his breath out. “That’s my fault.”
Nina’s eyes flew open. “How is that your fault?”
He kept his eyes on her hand. “I knew that damn thing was going to fall, and I didn’t move it.”
Nina rolled her eyes, exasperated. “I could have moved it, too, you know.”
“Yeah, but you’re dumb,” Alex said, and she leaned forward to glare at him and caught sight of what he was doing.
What he was doing was pulling the edges of the wound back together, quietly, efficiently, almost without paying attention, she thought, until she looked up at him and realized he was intent even while he teased her. He knew exactly what he was doing.
“You’re good at this,” she said, and the surprise was in her voice.
He put the last suture in and sat back. “Don’t sound so amazed. I have a med-school diploma and everything.”
“I’m sorry,” Nina said hastily. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
He turned to her and looked down at her T-shirt and closed his eyes for a moment. “You look like you’ve been in a knife fight,” he told her. “Get rid of that, will you? Zan will give you a scrub shirt.”
“Sure,” Zandy said, looking surprised again.
Alex stood up. “I can’t stand looking at that. You scared the hell out of me, woman. Next time you show up here, break a leg or something. The sight of all that blood on you makes me want to throw up.”
“I thought doctors weren’t supposed to get sick at the sight of blood,” Nina said.
“That depends on whose blood they’re seeing,” Alex said. He opened his mouth to say more, but then there was commotion in the hall, and he and Zandy went to look, and then he was gone.
“I’ll be back,” Zandy told her. “Don’t move out of that chair. You could still be woozy from the blood loss.”
“I’m fine,” Nina said, but Zandy was already gone, so Nina stood up and moved to the doorway to see what was wrong.
The girl on the gurney that an orderly was shoving down the hall made Nina look like a piker in the spilt-blood department. She was sobbing, and there were people all around her, but all Nina could see was Alex, striding along beside her, giving orders that sounded like Greek in a voice that carried without shouting, calm, focused, completely in control while people scattered to do what he’d said. The whole time, he smiled down at the injured girl, interspersing comfort with command. “You’re going to be all right,” he told her as the gurney went past Nina’s doorway. “We’ve got you now. I know you’re scared, but you’re going to be all right.”
By the time the gurney was out of Nina’s sight, the girl had stopped crying, and Nina felt like starting.
She went back and sat down, trying not to cry, close to it anyway because he’d been so wonderful, first to her and then to that girl, feeling stupid because all she’d ever seen him as was a good time and a body to fantasize about. She’d been as bad as Tricia. Norma was right; she’d been blind. She might be too old for Alex, but Alex was definitely not too young for her.
Zandy came back in a few minutes later.
“Is that girl going to be all right?” Nina asked her.
“Sure.” Zandy picked up Nina’s hand and began to swab the bloodstains off. “She’s on her way to surgery now, and they’ll put her back together.”
Nina swallowed. “Alex is good, isn’t he?”
Zandy stopped swabbing. “He’s the best. Are you okay?”
Nina nodded. “I’m a little rocky. It’s been a rough night.”
“I brought you a shirt.” Zandy handed her a green bundle. “Alex was right about that. You’ll be back to normal as soon as that T-shirt is history.”
Nina looked down at the gore that covered her shirt. “Right,” she said, but she knew she’d never be back to normal again.
Norma would be so pleased.
Chapter Six
“I just want to take care of her for the rest of my life, and she won’t even consider it,” Alex told Max the next night as they sat in Alex’s apartment after work. “I walked into that examining room and saw all that blood and almost lost my mind just because it was her, and that’s when I knew it was all over.” He looked at Max, trying not to be pathetic. “This is it. This is the one. I’m crazy about her, but as far as she’s concerned, I’m a kid.” He took the beer Max handed him and collapsed back onto the couch, naked except for his shorts, trying to cool off from the heat of the July evening and the heat that just thinking about Nina generated in him. The second kind was the worst.
Max sat across from him, pulled another can from the six-pack he’d just dropped on the coffee table between them and popped it open. “As far as I’m concerned, you are a kid. Take those shorts, for instance.”
Alex looked down at his Daffy Duck shorts. “There’s nothing wrong with these shorts. As a matter of fact, your mother gave me these shorts.”
Max snorted. “Oh, that’s good. You’re wearing Mommy’s Daffy Duck shorts. You are a kid, Alex. Face it.”
Alex looked at him balefully. “You are not being helpful.”
“Sorry.” Max chugged some beer and closed his eyes as it went down. He finished swallowing and sighed with pleasure. “God, that’s good. Okay, let me think. You can’t ask her out on a date because you’re too much of a wuss.”
“Thank you, Max.”
“So we’ll have to cut to the chase. Have you tried just asking her to sleep with you?”
“No,” Alex said, “because she would say no. I have to get some moves here because just asking isn’t going to do it.”
“Well.” Max shifted in his chair. “This isn’t my way, of course, but have you tried hinting?”
“It’s not my way, either,” Alex said, “but hell yes, I’ve tried hinting. If I hint any more, I’m going to be one of those guys who goes ‘heh, heh, he
h,’ after every sentence. It’s not working, and she’s driving me crazy.”
Max pushed the six-pack closer to Alex. “Have a drink.”
“I have one.” Alex stopped thinking about Nina for a minute to concentrate on his brother. “Max, you’re drinking too much.”
“No, I’m not,” Max said and finished his beer.
“I’m not kidding.” Alex sat up. “For the past couple of months, every time I’ve seen you, you’ve had a six-pack in your hand. That’s not good, especially considering our genetic makeup.” He stared at the can in his own hand for a moment and then put the can on the table, still half-full. “In fact, considering Dad’s little problem, neither one of us should be drinking.”
Max picked up his second beer. “I’ve got it under control.”
“Max—”
Max held up his hand. “I’m not kidding. I never drink before work. I never drink in public. I never drink alone. And a couple times a week I buy a six-pack and come over here and relax where I know there won’t be any more booze once I’m finished with my three, and there won’t be any hassles, and I can forget all the crap and just shoot the bull with you.”
Alex stopped, dumbfounded. “This is it? This is the only time you drink?”
Max sighed. “Hell, Alex, have you seen me drinking any other time lately?”
Alex thought about it. “No. Not since Christmas, anyway. All what crap?”
Max waved the thought away. “Nothing. I just like coming over here and kicking back. Is it a problem?”
“Hell, no.” Alex leaned back into the couch again. “I’m always glad to see you. Sorry. About the booze lecture, I mean.”
“Don’t be.” Max closed his eyes. “Believe me, I know how easy it could be. I’ve been watching Dad for thirty-six years, remember? I wish to hell somebody had bitched at him before things got out of control.” He opened his eyes and grinned at Alex, and Alex felt a rush of love for his brother that was completely out of character.
“I had a bad day a couple of months ago,” Max went on. “One of many lately, and I got a six-pack on the way home and stood in the kitchen and drank the first two, and then I thought, ‘Christ, two beers, standing up, alone?’” Max shook his head. “I poured the other four down the sink, and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. That’s when I decided that unless I was with you, I wasn’t drinking. You never screw up, so I knew as long as I was with you, I’d be fine. I swear, this is it. You’re my control.”