Love - From His Point Of View!: Meeting at Midnight. Maureen Child

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      Three

      Outside, 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. СКАЧАТЬ