Exposed to You (26 page)

Her facial muscles tightened. She moved her mouth, speaking with no sound. Her head jerked slightly, and she tilted her chin in his direction. Her lips were dry. He reached across her, mindful not to disturb the IV tube, and grabbed the Chapstick. He rubbed some of the emollient onto his fingertip and carefully outlined her lips with it. Again, her mouth moved.

“Shh,” he soothed, slicking the emollient along her lower lip.

“Everett,” she said with what appeared to be great effort.

A muscle leapt in his cheek at the sound of her saying his name in a rough, hoarse whisper.

“I’m here. Go back to sleep,” he murmured, although he wasn’t sure she’d ever really awakened. Her facial muscles slackened, and once again her breathing grew even.

He recalled how she’d kissed his thigh and said his name before she’d come so sweetly back into his arms.
Was that really just last night?
he wondered, amazed. That memory of her saying his name while she dreamt had been what he’d clung to after he’d gotten the letter where she’d said everything was over. Joy might be convinced it was best for her to be alone during the waking hours, but her sleeping self thought differently.

He just lay there, alert and unmoving, looking his fill of her face.

*   *   *

When her mom had first been hospitalized, Joy had been twelve. When she sat next to her mother’s bed, gazing at her while she slept, she was small enough that she did so through the metal guardrails. They had reminded her of the bars of a prison cell.

Suddenly, someone stepped forward and lowered the rail, the metal hinges squawking. She could see her mother clearly now, sleeping peacefully. She glanced up to thank her uncle Seth, but instead saw Everett standing there, wearing his ragged plaid cap, his jaw no longer clean shaven, but darkened with whiskers.

He smiled at her—that flash of pure brilliance. Her heart began to beat erratically. Why did her eyelids feel so heavy? She wanted to see him, more than anything.

But she
was
seeing him. Wasn’t she?

“I know how much you cherish your privacy,” he said, suddenly sober.

“I know,” she said. Her throat was so sore, it was laborious to talk. “You said so—on that talk show.”

“You saw that? You knew I was talking about you?”

To nod took all of her effort, and she still wasn’t quite sure she’d managed it.

“It was the only real part of the interview,” he said confidentially as he sat on the edge of her bed—for suddenly it was she who was lying there, not her mother. Everett’s body was a welcome weight on the mattress. She wanted desperately to tell him how glad she was he was there, but it felt like her larynx had been tied in a painful knot. Her mouth felt so dry.

She drifted.

Everett touched her upper lip. Her body responded to his touch and scent: her breath quickened, her nerves tingled, her nipples tightened against the cloth covering them. He slid his fingertip along her lower lip. She wanted so much to thank him for lowering her prison bars and freeing her, but her eyelids and her throat and her voice were failing her. Then she couldn’t remember what she’d meant by
prison bars
and she had to narrow the focus of her willpower even more in order to utter the name of her desire.

She did so with terrific effort.

“Everett.”

“I’m here. Go back to sleep,” she heard his gruff voice say. But was it real? Or was she dreaming?

She felt the weight of his head on the pillow next to her. He covered her breast softly with his hand, and she felt her nipple press against his warm palm. He was here.

He was real.

She relaxed, surrendering her struggle, and sank back into the dark, peaceful realm of sleep.

*   *   *

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Everett started at the sound of the harsh female voice. His eyelids popped open. He stared at the blue-and-white print on the hospital gown Joy wore. He’d fallen asleep with his head on the pillow next to her. He immediately looked into her face, concerned, but Joy continued to sleep.

“Get your damn hand off that girl!” the scandalized voice said.

Everett blinked and gazed first at the large shadow looming on the other side of Joy’s bed.
Edna Shanoy,
he thought with a sense of dread, remembering what Nathan had called the fearsome eighth-floor night nurse. He glanced to where she was glaring with large, protuberant eyes. His hand lay on Joy’s breast.

He removed it hastily. “If you could just keep your voice down,” he said groggily. “I don’t want to wake her.”

“You know . . . I think that’s . . . I would swear that’s Everett—”

“I don’t care if it’s Everett
Hughes
!” Edna hissed, interrupting the soft, incredulous female voice. Her square jaw quivered with indignation. “No one sneaks onto my unit and paws at my patients.”

Everett clambered out of the bed, snatching his cap from where it’d fallen behind Joy’s pillow. Behind the boulder-like body of Edna Shanoy, he saw the slight figure of the young, auburn-haired nurse staring at him with wide eyes.

“All right, I’m going,” he said in a hushed tone, clapping his hat on his head. Edna bared her teeth at him menacingly as he rounded the bed. “I’m not some kind of degenerate,” he snapped. “I happen to be in love with her.”

“You can tell the officer about it,” Edna said, tilting her head smugly toward the hallway.

“But Miss Shanoy, I think it really is him. I saw that sketch next to the patient’s book when I was pouring her water earlier and I thought it looked like Everett Hughes,” the young nurse said breathlessly, “and now here he is—”

“Shut up, Cheryl,” Edna Shanoy growled.

Cheryl’s spine stiffened angrily, but she didn’t retort. Everett looked past both of them, hoping to see Nathan’s kindly face in the hallway. Instead, he saw a tall, burly outline dressed in black. His gaze skimmed the letters on the bulletproof vest.

Shit.
Chicago PD.

“Our night duty officer from the ER, here to take care of you, pervert,” Edna said, giving him a beady, triumphant glance.

“Twisted cow,” he muttered. He ignored Edna’s snort of disbelieving fury and glanced back at Joy. Her eyes didn’t open, but her head moved on the pillow and her expression was anxious. He shot an annoyed glance at Edna and stalked out of the room. He didn’t want the woman shouting any more accusations and waking her. He rolled his eyes when the cop grabbed his elbow.

Could this night get any worse?

“You’re under arrest,” the police officer said.

Apparently, it could.

Twenty

Joy entered her apartment on Tuesday evening feeling like she’d just gone a couple rounds in the ring with a prizefighter. Except for the soreness at her throat, her aches had nothing to do with the procedure. Her fever had flared again this morning, delaying her discharge and causing her muscles to throb in protest. She felt like an eighty-year-old woman as she entered her bathroom and removed her clothing, the Band-Aid that covered where the IV had been and the bandage on her neck.

She hesitated before she stepped into the steaming water. Part of her wanted nothing more than to wash off the clinging remnants of the hospital from her skin, yet there was that other fragrance that she caught sporadically when she tilted her head to the right—spicy and complex, male and delicious.

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’clock 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.

“I was there. Fat lot of good I did you. That witch nurse Edna Shanoy had me arrested when she found me in bed with you.”

“What?”
Joy asked, spilling some ice water on her chest.

“Why do you think I wasn’t there this morning?” he murmured. “Thanks to Edna, I was sharing a luxury suite in a communal holding cell with nine of Chicago’s finest citizens. Edna made me out to be a prime pervert for lying in bed with you after visiting hours. Of course, her interpretation might have had something to do with the fact that I fell asleep with my hand on your breast, but—”

“Oh, no,” Joy muttered, her voice a little stronger. She actually remembered that—his hand on her breast. How could she have forgotten it? Strange, the effects anesthesia had on the mind. She set the glass of water down on the bedside table and reached for a box of tissues. She wiped her cheeks dry. “Why didn’t they wake me up and ask me if I wanted you there?”

“I didn’t want them to wake you. Besides, Edna ended up not pressing charges. The other nurse she worked with finally talked her out of it, according to the officer. Of course, Edna wasn’t entirely convinced I wasn’t the Crazed Groper of Northwestern Hospital until she’d forced me to sit in that holding cell for the night and most of the day. Jimmy K., Mad Louis and that lot were pretty nice guys, but they didn’t really smell too great. Neither did I, by the time they finally let me go this afternoon, come to think of it.”

She’d caught a whiff of him earlier when he’d lain by her side and hugged her. “You smell wonderful.”

“After I found out you had already been discharged from the hospital, I checked into a hotel and showered before I came over. Didn’t want to make you sicker with my smell. Here,” he said, giving her the throat spray. Joy used it, thankful for the numbing sensation. She set down the bottle next to the glass of water.

“Better?” he asked, his voice like a rough caress in the darkness.

“Yes, thank you.” She blinked, the reality of his presence finally fully penetrating her consciousness. “How did you get in my apartment?”

“Picked the locks,” he said matter-of-factly. “I had one of the most notorious cat burglars in Europe teach me for
Cat
. He’s completely reformed now,” he added, as if he thought Joy was worried about his morals.

“Everett, there’s something I want to tell you,” she said.

He came down next to her on the bed, lying on his hip, his front pressed against her side. He put his arm around her waist and caressed the exposed skin between her shorts and tank top. She shivered, not knowing if the reaction was from anxiety or his touch.

“Then tell me. I’m ready to hear whatever it is. I’m not going anywhere,” he said quietly.

Her throat swelled, making her pause for a moment before she continued. She took comfort from his stroking hand at her waist.

“Last year, I was diagnosed with PMBL. That’s a type of lymphoma,” she said in a rush. She’d only said these words once before—to Seth. This time it felt even more difficult. “It’s cancer,” she added, not sure how much sense she was making.

“I know,” he said, his hand not faltering as he caressed her.

“Oh, okay. So, well . . . anyway, I went through treatment—chemotherapy and radiation. I was told last winter I was in remission. I’ve been okay until last weekend, when I got sick. And I got the swollen glands and the fever, and . . . and those are possible signs of a reoccurrence of the cancer.”

His hand continued to stroke her, and the words just kept spilling out of her mouth.

“And the doctor in Prairie Lakes said I should have a lymph node resection done. He thought it was just a virus, but he wanted to make sure. So I came up here to see my oncologist, Dr. Chen, and he wanted to make sure, too. I had to do the surgery inpatient, though, instead of an outpatient biopsy.”

“How come?” Everett asked.

“They had to do this kind of procedure where they can resect a lymph node near my lungs. They have to cut my throat and insert this instrument down in between my lungs. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to gross you out,” she said apologetically.

“You’re not grossing me out,” he said evenly. “Go on.”

“Well, it requires general anesthesia, so I had to spend the night.”

“That’s why you weren’t here. I waited out on the street for hours. Seth said you weren’t supposed to go in until Tuesday morning.”

“I sort of—”

“Told him it was an in-and-out procedure so he wouldn’t worry. I know,” Everett finished for her, his matter-of-fact tone easing her embarrassment. He opened his hand along the side of her waist and grasped her gently. She could feel the pulse at his wrist next to her naked skin. Why was his heart beating so fast when he sounded so calm?

“Joy?”

“Yes?”

“Before you go on, I think it’s only fair to tell you that Seth already told me about your cancer diagnosis.” He must have felt her stiffen. “Please don’t be angry with him. He was desperate. He didn’t know how to break through to you.”

“Break through to me about what?”

“He wants you to know that he knows you’re scared. He’s worried about you. He doesn’t want you to suffer alone. He feels as if you’ve shut him out, and he turned to me with some thin, crazy hope that you’d hear my plea when you wouldn’t—or couldn’t—hear his.”

The silence seemed to swell and press against her eardrums. Anger at Seth’s betrayal of her trust mingled with a profound sense of shame. She wanted to hide . . . to run. Yet she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Everett again. She felt like she stood at the edge of a cliff while a terrifying monster quickly approached from behind, her heartbeat racing as if she truly believed it was taking its last beats.

“I won’t let you go through this alone,” he said. “I will
not
. Even if you decided you just want to be friends instead of lovers, even if we hear that your cancer has returned and you have to go through another round of treatment, even if it reoccurs five times or ten times.”

A shudder of emotion went through her. She’d never felt so naked, so exposed. She covered her face in her hands, but Everett gently removed them, kissing her cheek and then her clenched eyelids. Bitter tears escaped, scattering down her cheek. He pressed closer against her, his body absorbing her anguish.

“I will be here. Right
here
.” He firmed his hold on the side of her body and shook her slightly for emphasis. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Joy. No one and nothing will keep me from you if you need me. Not thousands of miles, or some cow like Nurse Shanoy, not God himself. But the thing of it is,” he added in a low, pressured whisper, “you have to say you need me. There’s no sin in needing another human being. Not when that person wants more than anything to be at your side, offering support, offering love.”

She shook, trying to keep the avalanche of emotion from free-falling out of control, straining so hard to contain it—to keep herself safe. It’d been so long, though, that she’d held it down. She didn’t know until that moment how hard she’d worked to protect herself from feeling.

Everett came down over her, his lips pressed against the swell of her left breast, both of his arms encircling her.

“It’s okay,” he whispered gruffly, his breath warm next to her skin. “Don’t fight it. I’ve got you.”

Everything hurt. She couldn’t stand the pressure a moment longer. An anguished cry erupted from her throat, the harbinger to a rush of terror, confusion, helplessness and love.

She couldn’t stand the thought of Everett suffering because of her.

“I wouldn’t
want
it for you.” Caught in a ruthless, grinding grip of emotion, she only distantly realized what she’d said.

“I wouldn’t want you to suffer,” he said with calm deliberation. “Who would ever want that for someone they care about? We can’t choose our fates, though. We can only choose how we respond to them. I would choose to be with you. I want to celebrate your existence, Joy. Every day that’s available to me, I want it. I’ll cherish it.”

She felt like she wanted to howl as the tidal wave of emotion rushed over her. She wept and shuddered for—she didn’t know for how long. When her sobs finally slowed, Everett still held her fast, his cheek against her breast, his hands moving soothingly at her waist and back. She felt like a hollow, spent vessel.