Meeting at Midnight (3 page)

That hit too close to home. When I heard the snick of the door opening I turned to face it, relieved. Someone probably wanted more of my blood, or to see how “we” were doing, but that was okay. Better than looking at the concern in Gwen's eyes.

“You up for some visitors?” Duncan asked.

Even better. I smiled. “You're not a visitor, you're a…” My voice trailed off. I forgot what I was going to say.

He'd found her. Duncan had found my angel.

Only she wasn't, of course. Not mine, and certainly not an angel. A Valkyrie, maybe. Or an amazon. The top of her head was level with my brother's, and Duncan hits a fraction over six feet.

Her sweatshirt was blue and sloppy beneath a worn yellow parka, but couldn't disguise beautiful, half-moon breasts. Faded denim stretched tight over a couple miles of legs—firm, rounded, muscular legs. Her hair was a messy riot of brown curls tumbling well below her shoulders. She was built long and lush, strong and stacked, every inch of her pure woman.

It was a body that made quite an impact on a man. I blinked a few times before I got my gaze back to her face. That looked the same as I remembered…except, of course, she wasn't glowing.

“I don't think you two were ever introduced,” Duncan said. “Ben, this is Seely Jones. Seely, this is my brother Ben—Benjamin McClain—and my wife, Gwen.”

I had no idea what to say. I hadn't thought beyond finding her, seeing her again. I cleared my throat. “Unusual name.”

“My mother is an unusual woman.” She turned her smile on Gwen. “You have a very persistent husband. Nice, but persistent.”

Gwen and Duncan exchanged one of those private smiles. “Yes, I do. I hope his persistence hasn't inconvenienced you too much. I'm very glad to meet you.”

“You're okay, aren't you?” I said. “I heard you were treated and released, but no one would tell me what you'd been treated for.”

“Oh, that. I'm afraid I scared the police officer who was taking my statement by fainting, so they felt obliged to bring me in.”

I'd never seen a woman who looked less likely to faint in my life.

My expression must have given my thoughts away, for she laughed. “Absurd, isn't it? I've done it all my life, though. Not often, thank goodness, and no, it is not a symptom of some dreadful underlying health problem—though I did have some trouble persuading the E.R. doctor of that. You seem to be doing well.”

“Thanks to you. I, uh…that's what I wanted. To thank you.”

She smiled that slow, sweet smile I remembered. “Daisy says everything happens for a reason, but I never thought I'd be grateful to Vic.”

“Vic?” I frowned. “You don't mean Victor Sorenson.”

“Don't I?” Her eyebrows went up in elaborate surprise. “I thought I did.” She ambled up to my bed,
click-click-click.

I glanced down. She was wearing high heels. My own eyebrows went up. Got to respect the moxie of a tall woman who chooses to wear three-inch heels. “Sorenson's a worm,” I mentioned, in case she hadn't noticed.

“I'll agree with you there.” She spoke the way she moved—slow and easy, as if she'd never hurried in her life and didn't intend to start. “He fired me last night. That's why I left the resort so late and ended up finding you. Which is a roundabout sort of gratitude, but there you go. Roundabout is probably the only kind of appreciation Vic's likely to get.”

“I didn't know Vic kept a paramedic on staff.”

“I was working as a waitress, not a paramedic.” Her voice didn't change but her eyes did—as if she'd closed a door, gently but firmly, on that subject. “Vic and I disagreed about the
fringe benefits of the job. He thought he was one of them. I didn't.”

The thought of Vic putting his hands on this woman made me furious. “I'll talk to him,” I promised grimly.

Duncan gave me a level look. “Don't do anything I'd have to arrest you for.”

“You should consider filing suit against him,” Gwen said seriously. “Sexual harassment is wrong, and firing you for failing to agree to his demands—well, it sounds like you'd have a good case.”

“Oh, he didn't fire me because I wouldn't go to bed with him. I think it was the cannelloni,” Seely said thoughtfully. “It didn't go with his suit. Or maybe it was the chicken-fried steak. There was all that cream gravy, you see. He was not happy about the gravy.”

A laugh took me by surprise. It hurt, so I stopped. “Dumped a tray on him, did you?”

Her mouth stayed solemn, but her eyes laughed along with me. Extraordinary eyes. Not the color—they were blue, pretty enough, but nothing unusual. Maybe it was their shape, sort of elongated, with a flirty tilt at the corners. Or the way they seemed to offer confidences, as if she and I were old friends who didn't need to put everything into words.

“I found Miss Jones at the bus station,” Duncan said. “She was buying a ticket to Denver.”

A frown snapped down. “You're leaving town?”

“Why not? I lost my job.”

“But you have a car. What were you doing at the bus station?”

She pulled a face. “The stupid thing decided to die on me. The mechanic says it's either some gasket or the whole motor, and he can't say which without taking everything apart, which
will cost a fortune. You'd think he could tell the difference, wouldn't you?”

“Head gasket, sounds like,” I said, my brain clicking away on an idea. “Or the heads themselves. You must have lost compression.”

“You do speak the lingo,” she said admiringly.

Duncan asked her who she'd taken the car to, then assured her that Ron was a good mechanic. Gwen was looking fidgety.

“But your things!” she burst out. “I can understand leaving your car if it wasn't worth repairing, but surely you couldn't take everything with you on the bus. Even if you didn't have furniture, there's clothes, dishes, bedding…oh.” An embarrassed flush sped over her cheeks. “It isn't any of my business, is it?”

Seely turned that lazy smile Gwen's way. “Probably not, but we can't help being curious about people, can we? I don't have much stuff, being more of a wanderer than a nester. No dishes or bedding. A few keepsakes and some clothes, yes, but not that many. Susan seemed happy to accept what I didn't want to take with me.”

“Susan?” I said, only half my brain on what she was saying.

“Another waitress at the resort. I'd been rooming with her, but I don't think she minded my sudden departure. She's had her eye on Vic for a while. Well.” She shrugged, a graceful movement that did lovely things to her breasts. “No accounting for tastes, is there?”

Things were falling into place. “You decided to leave more or less on impulse, then?”

“I do a lot of things on impulse.”

“Then there's nothing waiting for you in Denver? No reason you need to be there right away?”

She used her eyebrows to ask where I was going with all this.

“My brother and sister-in-law think I'm going to need some help after I leave the hospital tomorrow.”

Gwen interrupted. “
Not
tomorrow, Ben.”

“They can't do anything more for me here. Besides, hospitals are unhealthy. People get staph infections in hospitals. Now, Gwen and Duncan might be right about me needing a little help—”

Duncan snorted.

“So I was thinking maybe you'd be interested. You need a job, right? And a place to stay while your car gets fixed.”

“I…” For the first time, her composure was shaken. “Weren't you listening? I wasn't planning to fix my car.”

I brushed that aside. “Look, if you're worried about staying with a man you don't know, I'm not in any shape to give you a hard time.” Gwen muttered something about my being able to give people a hard time on my deathbed. I ignored that. “Not that I would hassle you, anyway, but you couldn't know that.”

She shook her head. “That's not it.”

“What's the problem, then?” I used my left elbow to prop myself up.

Everything went gray. The next thing I knew, Seely was depositing me efficiently back on my pillows. I'm not sure how she got there before Duncan, who isn't exactly slow off the mark, but she did.

“There's a line between stubborn and stupid,” she said, looking down at me. “Something tells me you cross it now and then.”

Duncan grinned. Gwen giggled. I scowled. “I moved too fast, that's all.”

“Uh-huh,” Seely said. “I can see you'll undo everyone's work, given half a chance. All right. I'll take the job.”

Hot damn. “Good. That's good.”

“On two conditions. First, you stay in the hospital until the doctor releases you. Second, you'll do as I tell you while you're under my care.”

“Now, wait a minute—”

“He agrees,” Duncan said firmly. “Don't you, Ben?”

Seely's lips twitched, but she looked at me steadily, waiting. With a sigh, I nodded. “Within reason.”

Gwen spoke. “I hate to put a stick in the spokes, but you really should tell her about Doofus.”

Seely did that question-thing with her eyebrows. “Zach's dog,” I explained. “My son. He lives with me. Doofus, I mean.” Relief had hit, followed by a wave of exhaustion. It was hard to get words lined up right. “Zach's in kindergarten. He comes over after school some days.”

“My point is that Doofus is a puppy, not a dog,” Gwen said. “You should be aware you're not just taking on one large, slightly snarly man. The man is at least housetrained. Doofus isn't.”

“Thanks a lot, Gwen.”

Seely's lips tipped up. “I think I can handle a puppy, as long as Ben can handle being bossed around.”

“Within reason,” I repeated. When she nodded, I breathed a sigh of relief. “All right, then. We've got a deal.”

Duncan was amused, Gwen was relieved, and Seely…I couldn't tell. Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth smiling, but her eyes seemed distracted, like she was taking a serious look inward.

And me? I was satisfied…for now. “Don't you want to know how much the job will pay?”

“Money's not a big issue for me.”

“Uh—you aren't rich or something, are you?”

Gwen made a choked sound that she turned into clearing
her throat. Seely laughed and tucked her hair back from her face. “I've been accused of a number of oddities, but rich isn't one of them.”

The movement drew my attention to the long dangles of multicolored glass hanging from her ears. They reminded me…I glanced at her wrist.

Yes. That was the bracelet I remembered. “Pretty bracelet.”

Her eyebrows lifted gently. “Thanks. The stones represent the chakras. I'm guessing by the look on your face that you know what chakras are?”

“I read.” Bunch of New Age nonsense, but I wouldn't say that to the woman who'd saved my life.

Everyone wanted me to rest then. I was willing to let them have their way as soon as I'd passed on some instructions for Manny, who was going to have to run things at McClain Construction for awhile. They were right—I was tired.

And I'd gotten what I wanted.

I'd stay here one more night, then I was going home. Not to an empty house, either. Seely would be there. I didn't think Dr. Miller would give me grief over leaving the hospital once he knew I'd have trained medical help around. And I wouldn't have to come up with any more reasons not to stay with Duncan while I was recovering.

Don't get me wrong. I love my brother. Unfortunately, I also love his wife.

O
utside, the birds were making a fuss about morning. It was a familiar sound, even this late in the year. There were always a few who wintered over. But usually I didn't listen to their chatter from a hospital bed in the den.

I sat on the edge of that bed and glared at my knee.

I had no idea how it had gotten hurt, no memory of it bothering me during my crawl up the mountain, but it was swollen to twice its size. Soft-tissue damage, according to the doctor. The swelling should go down in a few days. I was to stay off it as much as possible.

The downstairs bathroom was two rooms and half a hallway away.

All the bedrooms in the house were on the second floor, which is why they'd parked me in the den when I came home yesterday. The den was an addition, tacked on at the very back of the house. The bathroom was opposite the laundry room.

I'd put up with using a plastic basin to brush my teeth, but I was damned if I was going to pee in the stupid urinal they'd sent me home with.

Besides, I wanted more coffee. And something to
do
. There was a TV in here, but I wasn't much for television. I like to read, but not all day. The table by my bed held sickroom paraphernalia—water, a glass, pain pills, the stuff Gwen had brought me in the hospital. My laptop, though I'd practically had to sign an oath in blood that I wouldn't use it to work yet. A little bell I was supposed to ring if I needed anything.

I grimaced at that bell. Last night I'd barely managed one game of solitaire on my laptop. Seely had come in to refill my water and see how I was doing. I'd fallen asleep so fast I wasn't sure I'd answered her.

I'd done nothing but sleep yesterday. I was sick of it.

On the floor next to the bed, Doofus was growling. He'd sunk his sharp little baby teeth into a dangling corner of my blanket and was killing it. In the kitchen, the radio was playing softly. I could hear quiet, moving-around noises, too…water running at the sink. The refrigerator door opening and closing.

That would be Seely, clearing up after breakfast. She'd brought me eggs and toast in bed.

Damned if I know why people consider breakfast in bed a treat. Even with a bed you can crank to a sitting position, it's a pain. Besides, I'd had enough of beds. I wanted to shave. I wanted a shower and real clothes, not wrinkled pajamas. I needed to talk to Manny, and my loving family had persuaded Seely not to leave the phone by my bed.

First things first. I stood slowly, having learned that I got dizzy if I tried to move too fast. It was nice, I decided, to hear a woman puttering around in the kitchen. I wondered how
much of a squawk Seely would make when I joined her there. A grin tugged at my mouth.

Funny. I was in a pretty good mood, considering I'd smashed my truck and put some major dents in several body parts. But it was good to be home…good to have survived to come home.

I started across the room. Contrary to my family's fondly held opinion, I know my limits. I'd lost a lot of blood, which meant I was going to be weak, sometimes dizzy. Combine that with a knee not inclined to take much weight, a shoulder that kept me from using crutches and a body that was stiff and sore everywhere but my left big toe, and falling was a real possibility. Especially with that fool puppy running circles around my feet.

I took it slow and careful. I wanted to make a point. I also wanted coffee and conversation, maybe some answers. I limped into the dining room, frowning.

In any contest between memory and logic, logic ought to win. Women don't glow. I knew that. I'd been in bad shape when Seely found me, my perceptions skewed by a system on the verge of shutting down. I couldn't trust my memory.

Yet that one memory bead remained so clear…the curves of her face as she smiled at me, the tilt of her eyes, the way her breath had puffed out, ghostly in the cold air. And the gentle luminescence of her skin, like moonlight on snow. Not at all like a flashlight. Just as clearly I remember the warmth, a heat that had sunk itself into me instead of sitting around on the surface.

I had questions, and I couldn't let them go.

I managed to avoid tripping over Doofus as I left the bathroom, but had to pause in the doorway to the kitchen, one hand on the jamb to steady myself. The sling supported my shoulder, so it wasn't hurting too much. Unlike my knee.

Seely was wiping down the counter, humming along with the radio. She wore jeans and a blue sweater today, and her denim-clad hips were swaying to the music in a cute little be-bop that yanked my attention away from my sore knee.

Then I noticed what was playing on the radio: Kenny Chesney singing “How forever feels.” The song Gwen and I had danced to five years ago, on the night we'd ended up in bed together.

The night before I left her.

All the fizz drained out of the day. I took a deep breath and limped on into the room. Doofus yelped happily, announcing our arrival.

Seely spun around, her eyes wide. “How do you do that?”

“What?” Doofus had found his water dish and was thrilled by the discovery, lapping away as if he'd been in the desert for days. I'd have to put him out soon. Or ask Seely to, dammit. I didn't like depending on others for every little thing.

“Sneak up on me when you can barely walk,” she said.

“No shoes.” I decided to rest a bit before making for the oak table in the center of the room. “I came out for a cup of coffee.”

“I would have brought you coffee. That's what that little bell by your bed is for.”

“I didn't want to drink it in bed. Besides, I thought it would help if you could see that I'm able to move around some now.”

“Help what?”

“I don't want to sleep all day today.”

One of her eyebrows lifted. The woman had the most talkative eyebrows I'd ever seen. “Okay. You thought I needed to be notified of this?”

Yesterday I'd dozed off every time she checked on me. That had to be coincidence…didn't it? “We have a deal. I do what
you say, within reason. I wanted to show you that it wouldn't be reasonable to keep me in bed all day.”

Her mouth kicked up on one side. “Well, since you're already here, you may as well sit down and have that coffee. No, wait—I'd rather you didn't go splat on the floor. Let me get on your good side first.”

I didn't have much choice. She reached me before I'd taken more than a couple of halting steps and slid an arm around my waist. The warm strength of her body felt good. “How can you move so fast without seeming to hurry?”

“Long legs. It helps when my target is crippled and can't escape.”

My mouth twitched. The top of her head was only a few inches below mine. If I'd turned my head, it would have tickled my nose. Her hair smelled nice—a green smell, like herbs.

We made for the table at a half lurch, and I had to admit it was easier with her help. More pleasant, too. My body started entertaining ideas I could have sworn it wasn't ready to consider yet. I sure couldn't do anything about those ideas, even if I'd been free to.

Which I wasn't. She was an employee, off-limits.

We reached the table. I spoke abruptly. “The first time I saw you, you were glowing.”

“Amazing the sort of thing a mind in shock can conjure, isn't it?”

“Is that what it was?”

She let me go as I lowered myself carefully into a chair, then looked me square in the eye. Her eyebrows were expressing skepticism. “I don't know. Do you often see people glow when you aren't in shock?”

“Hardly ever.” Common wisdom holds that people won't look you in the eye if they're lying. This is stupid. Since
everyone knows this, someone who intends to lie to you will be sure to meet your eyes. I guess people who expect liars to look shifty haven't been around teenagers much. “That E.R. doctor was sure baffled by my shoulder.”

She laughed and headed for the coffeepot. “The one you kept calling an idiot?”

“Yeah. Harry Meckle. I knew him in school.” Was she dodging the subject? Or was I being given a chance to avoid looking like a fool? I drummed my fingers on the table. “I want you to tell Gwen it's okay for Zach to come over after school today.”

“Uh-uh.” She set a steaming mug in front of me. The multicolored stones in her bracelet glittered.

“Do you wear that all the time?”

“Hmm? Oh.” She sat down, keeping another mug for herself. “The bracelet. Yes, pretty much.”

“So why won't you talk to Gwen for me?”

“I never step between dueling exes.”

“Gwen and I aren't dueling. We aren't even exes. We were never married.” I held myself ready for the questions that were sure to come. People were invariably nosy about me, Gwen, Zach and Duncan.

Seely shrugged. “So? You're obviously ex-somethings.”

I'd never thought of it that way. For some reason the notion settled me, as if some little wandering piece had finally found its spot. I took a sip of coffee. “This is good.”

“Thanks.”

“The thing is, Zach has had enough uncertainty in his life. I think it will be good for him to see that, yeah, I'm banged up but I'm basically okay.”

“I won't argue with that, but can't you just tell Gwen yourself?”

I grimaced. “My family has some funny ideas. They think I don't know my own limitations.”

She sipped her coffee, her eyes laughing at me over the rim. “Maybe you've given them some teensie-weensie reason to think that?”

“No.” I was certain about that. “Couldn't have. I've never been really hurt before. A few stitches here and there, yeah, but nothing they kept me for overnight. Never been in any kind of auto accident.”

“Never? Not even a fender-bender?”

I shook my head and thought sadly about my truck.

“I imagine you scared them, then. They probably don't realize it, but deep down I'll bet they think you're invulnerable.”

“They're annoying sometimes, but they aren't stupid.”

“Feelings don't always follow logic, do they? They probably needed you to be invulnerable when they were younger. You were all they had.”

I scowled. “Who told you that?”

“Oh, it came up in different ways. While you were napping yesterday, you had visitors. Manny Holstedder—I gather he works for you?—and two of your neighbors, and of course Duncan. And phone calls. I made a list you can look at later, but I do recall that your sister Annie called, and another brother. Charlie, I think? And Edie Snelling called twice.” She put just enough lift at the end of that to make it almost a question.

“A friend of Gwen's,” I muttered. There are worse things than an ex-lover who's determined to fix you up. Falling off a mountain, for example. But dammit, I wished Gwen would quit trying to slide women under my door.

“Mmm. Anyway, your friends, family and neighbors all wanted me to know I was taking care of someone special. You're something of a hero, you know.”

“Oh, for God's sake—”

“No, really. They all think you're pretty grand. Several of them told me about the way you took over raising your sister and brothers after your folks were killed.”

Mortified, I nearly burned my tongue on the coffee. I set the mug down and cleared my throat. “To get back to the subject—I thought you could assure Gwen that I'm up to having Zach come over. That is…I never asked. Are you okay with having a five-year-old around?”

“Sure. I like kids.”

“I guess you don't have any of your own. You said you weren't a nester.”

She tipped her head to one side. Her curls were semitamed today, caught back in a stretchy blue thing at her nape. A few strands had wiggled free. “Are you really curious, or just paying me back for having learned so much about you when you were helpless?”

That surprised a chuckle out of me.

Oddly, she shivered. It was a delicate little thing, but I caught it. “Are you cold? We can turn up the heat.”

“No,” she said absently, rubbing her left palm as if it itched. “You do have a deep voice, don't you? It sounds as if it's rolling up from the bottom of a well. Oh, look—Doofus is actually at the door, asking to go out. I'd better reward that.”

She liked the sound of my voice. That's what that little shiver had meant. I enjoyed that notion about as much as I did watching her as she ambled for the back door. The way those long legs carried her along put a nice little sway in her hips. Those legs…

She opened the back door and Doofus scampered out. “How did you pick Doofus?”

“The name or the dog?”

“Both, I guess. A bit of unique, isn't he?”

“That's one way to put it. No, leave the door open. He panics if you close it, then forgets what he went outside to do.” A man could die happy with those legs wrapped around him—whoa. A little sexual buzz was okay, but I couldn't let myself get carried away. “I got him from the pound for Zach's fifth birthday. The vet says he's a basset mix, emphasis on the mix.”

She glanced out the door. “The ears do look have the look of a basset hound. Zach comes over to play with him fairly often, I take it?”

“Two or three days a week. A neighbor's teenage daughter walks him here from the school when the weather is decent. Sometimes to Mrs. Bradshaw's, if I can't be home at that hour.”

“That's your neighbor, right? She stopped by yesterday to see how you were doing.”

“She keeps kids.” That still didn't sit too well with me. I didn't want Zach raised by anyone other than family. But Mrs. Bradshaw was a good woman, and he liked it there. As Gwen often pointed out, at Mrs. Bradshaw's he had other kids to play with, most notably a set of twins. “You never did answer my question.”

“Your…oh. About children.” Doofus scampered back in, the whole back half of his body wagging with delight over his performance. She shut the door and knelt to praise and pat. “Nope, no kids of my own. No stepchildren, nieces or nephews, either. I've never been married, and I was an only child.”