Her Mother's Shadow. Diane Chamberlain

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СКАЧАТЬ he thought as he turned the key in the ignition. I win.

       4

      FAYE COLLIER WALKED INTO THE HOSPITAL GYM and climbed onto her favorite elliptical trainer machine, the one positioned in the middle of the wall of windows, so she could have an uninterrupted view of the San Diego hills while she worked out. Judy and Leda, the two physical therapists in the chronic pain program and her workout buddies, took the elliptical trainers on either side of her. Faye wondered briefly how the three of them looked from the rear. She was Judy and Leda’s supervisor and had a master’s degree in nursing. She was blond, while they were both brunettes, yet she was twenty-five years older than either of them, and when it came to the backs of their thighs, she had no illusion that the physical therapists had her beat.

      “What do you think of that new patient?” Judy pressed some buttons on the console and started moving her legs and arms in a long, smooth stride.

      “The young guy with bone cancer?” Faye asked. “I think he needs—”

      “Hi, Faye.” Jim Price was suddenly next to her, standing between her elliptical trainer and Leda’s. The sight of him put an instant smile on her face. She hoped she wasn’t blushing.

      “Hi,” she said, slowing her pace on the machine. “I didn’t know you worked out during lunch.”

      “I don’t,” he said. “But I just finished the paper you gave me to read and wanted to compliment you on it. Excellent.”

      “I’m glad you liked it,” she said. She could feel perspiration, the result of the workout and a poorly timed hot flash, running down her throat and between her breasts. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

      “I made a few comments on it,” Jim said. “I’ll show you tonight, okay?”

      She was blushing now. Judy and Leda had grown very quiet. They both slowed their machines to soften the noise from the flywheels, and she knew they were hanging on every word of her conversation with Jim. “That’ll be great,” she said. In the light from the window, his eyes were a delicate bronze color. She had not noticed that about him before.

      Jim motioned for her to lean down so he could whisper in her ear. “You look terrific,” he said, his breath soft against her skin.

      She straightened up again, smiling, and mouthed the word “thanks.”

      He left her side, and Faye was grateful that Judy and Leda had the presence of mind not to say anything until he was well out of hearing distance.

      “So,” Judy asked. “When’s your next date with him?”

      “Tonight,” she said. Even though she had slowed her pace significantly, the monitor showed that her heart rate was the highest it had been since she’d climbed on the machine. She could not believe she was allowing a man to have that sort of effect on her.

      “You are so lucky,” Leda said.

      Faye knew that many of the women—and some of the men—working in the hospital had a thing for Jim Price. Even the young women wanted him. A widower for two years, Jim had left his surgery practice to take care of his wife during the last few months of her life, and nearly everyone found that sort of love and sacrifice laudable. He had money, looks that were rare for a man of fifty-five, and he was kind to patients and staff alike. Faye had known him for years, since he often referred patients to the pain program she had created, but he had not truly seemed to notice her until a few weeks ago, when her book on treating chronic pain was published. Someone must have told him that she had also lost a spouse, and his interest in her had been doubly piqued. In their first real conversation, they’d discovered another commonality: they had both grown up in North Carolina. That fact seemed to seal their fate as two people who should get to know one another better.

      “Is it getting serious?” Leda asked.

      “Define serious.”

      “Have you slept with him?”

      “Of course not. Not that it’s any of your business.”

      “But this will be the third date, right?” Judy asked.

      “Yes. So?”

      Leda laughed. “So you’d better shave your legs.”

      “Why?” She felt dense. Old and dense. She was also a little breathless and couldn’t help but notice that Leda and Judy seemed to be having no problem talking as they pedaled the machines.

      “The third date is when you do it,” Leda said.

      Faye laughed. “Who says?”

      “That’s the rule these days, Faye.”

      Faye pulled her water bottle from the holder near the machine’s console and took a drink. “Well, he probably doesn’t know the rules any better than I do,” she said. As their superior, she knew she was crossing a boundary by talking to Judy and Leda about her love life, but this was one area in which they were more knowledgeable than she was and she wanted their input. “We talked about that, actually,” she said. “About dating being new to each of us.” She hoped no one was filling Jim in on “the third-date rule.”

      “It really depends on what those first two dates were like, though.” Judy let go of the handlebars to pull the scrunchie from her dark hair and stick it in the pocket of her shorts. “Where did you go?”

      “Starbucks the first time, and out to eat the second.” Their first date had been a casual, impromptu sort of thing. He’d bumped into her in the hospital corridor, told her he’d read her new book and been impressed by it, and asked her if she wanted to get a drink after work that evening. They’d ended up at a Starbucks instead of a bar, and the coffee date lasted four hours. He did most of the talking, and that had been fine with her. As a matter of fact, she’d asked him questions nonstop to keep him from asking any of her. She was not good at sharing her life story. He had opened up easily about his, though, telling her about his North Carolina childhood, his marriage, his two daughters. He was so open that she’d felt guilty for all she was keeping to herself. But he didn’t seem to mind. He wanted someone’s ear to bend, and she’d been very willing.

      “Starbucks doesn’t really count.” Judy took a swig from her own water bottle.

      “How long did you stay there?” Leda asked.

      “Four hours.” They probably would have stayed longer, but Starbucks had been closing.

      “Oh,” they both said at the same time, nodding.

      “That counts, then,” Leda said. “That’s totally a first date.”

      “And do you talk on the phone a lot?” Judy asked.

      “Not really.” He had called her a couple of times and e-mailed a couple more, but nothing lengthy or deep.

      “Because a lot of phone calls count as a date.”

      Faye laughed. “You two …”

      “I would say that four hours on the phone equals one date,” Judy said.

      Faye СКАЧАТЬ