Forever Spring (13 page)

“Besides which,” Karen said, gently prying Mark from Rand’s amazingly fierce embrace, “the doctor said we may go in to see your dad, and you don’t want him to see you crying, do you?”

“No.” Mark sniffed. “Can we go now?”

“In a moment,” the doctor said. “But first let me brief you.” As he’d expected, he received immediate attention. “Your mother is quite right, young man.” He smiled at Mark. “You don’t want your father to see you crying. It might upset him, and though his condition is much improved, he must not be stressed.” His gaze shifted to Karen. “The preliminary test results are favorable. The attack was a warning, and though I won’t go into detail at this time, I will tell you it was a warning that must not be treated lightly.” Pausing, he stared steadily into Karen’s eyes.

Karen experienced a shivery sensation of intuition or premonition; she wasn’t sure which it was, but she didn’t appreciate either. She wanted to shake her head in repudiation of whatever it was she felt. However, pinned by the doctor’s intent regard, she nodded.

Satisfied, the doctor smiled. “Now then,” he said briskly, returning his gaze to the boys. “I must urge you not to be frightened by your father’s appearance.
He
is a very sick man, and it shows. Also,” he continued, unperturbed when Mark blanched, “I don’t want you to be alarmed by the assortment of machines and tubes attached to him. Though they are somewhat uncomfortable, they are necessary.” He raised his heavy eyebrows. “Do you think you can handle it?” “Yes, sir,” Rand said at once.

“Yes, sir,” Mark echoed, if waveringly.

The strength of his smile eased the strain on both boys’ faces. “Good.” He nodded sharply. “Now, regulations allow only two visitors at a time, but in this instance 1 will countermand the rules.” He looked at Karen. “Ms. Mitchell, you may take your sons in to their father for ten minutes, no longer.”

“Very well.” Grasping one of each of the boy’s hands, Karen moved to obey. She halted when he continued to speak.

“I will consult with you later, while Randolf and Judith are visiting Charles.”

The chill of premonition shivered through Karen again. For one instant, rebellion sparked. Then the spark died, and she nodded once more. “Of course, Doctor.” She managed to meet his eyes; she even managed a faint smile. He returned the smile, then escorted her and the boys into the coronary unit and to the door of Charles’s room. As she crossed the threshold, Karen heard him give instructions to the nurse hovering near the door.

At the sight of his father, looking pasty and gray against the white pillow, Mark began to tremble; Karen could feel the tremors ripple the length of his arm and through the hand clasped in hers. Rand sucked in one sharp breath. A cry of denial rose to her own suddenly unsteady lips.

This could not be Charles Mitchell! The protest rang in her mind in a loud attempt to refute the evidence before her stricken eyes. This man who appeared so lifeless, so bloodless, in no way resembled the Charles Mitchell she knew and had once loved! Everything vital inside Karen rejected the validity of this man’s identity. The man himself confirmed it.

“Karen?”

Having believed him asleep, Karen started. The voice was not—and yet strangely was—the voice she remembered. Her fingers tightening convulsively on her sons’ hands, she walked to the side of the bed.

“Yes, Charles.” With a tiny part of her mind, Karen recognized that her voice was not the same, either.

“Thank you for coming.” Charles moved slightly, restlessly. The movement brought the boys into focus. “Rand, Mark?” A smile feathered his pale lips.

“Yes, Dad?” Rand’s voice cracked just a little.

“Daddy?” Mark whimpered for a word of assurance.

Even ill, there was no way Charles could miss the abject fear his sons were feeling. For an instant, he appeared mildly annoyed, as if put-upon. Then a hint of compassion flicked in his eyes, and his lips twisted into a wry smile.

“Helluva way to get sprung from school, isn’t it, guys?”

By the time she crawled into bed near midnight, Karen felt as if she’d been awake for a solid week. A variation on a tired joke ran persistently through her equally tired brain.

I spent a week one day sitting in a hospital with an ex-mate.

Ta da dum dum.

Muffling a sob, Karen buried her face in the unfamiliar pillow. Jokes. She longed to rant and rave and wail in frustration, and her weary mind was recounting jokes.

The midnight quiet was shattered by the trill of a giggle. Her eyes widening, Karen flopped onto her back and clapped her hand over her mouth. She was giggling! The thought contained an edge of hysteria. She was giggling, for God’s sake! Grown-up women didn’t giggle! Babies giggled; teenagers giggled! Mature adults did not giggle!

I don’t want him in my home!

The silent protest screamed in Karen’s head and defined the reason her mind was skipping along the edge of hysteria. She was tired—no, she was emotionally exhausted. Her response had been a delayed reaction to everything that had happened, beginning with Judith’s phone call the previous morning and ending with her astonishing consultation with the heart specialist, Dr. Rayburn.

The good doctor had given her a concise description of Charles’s present condition based on his examination of both patient and tests. In the doctor’s opinion, the attack had been a definite warning. He had then concluded on a note of hesitant optimism for the future. Karen’s tension had eased and she had been beginning to relax when the doctor had tossed a verbal bomb at her. Karen was still reeling from the explosive reverberations.

As clearly as if he were standing beside her bed, Karen could hear the even tone of Dr. Rayburn’s voice, relaying to her Charles’s suggestion that he could recuperate very well in her house in Maine. Now, as then, she cried out in protest.

“No!”

Karen’s cry in the quiet room had as much effect as it had earlier in the small consulting room in the hospital. The doctor had offered her a chiding smile and a full measure of disapproval.

“Surely you would not deny your husband the ideal location in which to get well?”

The doctor’s softly spoken charge echoed inside her head.

“Charles is not my husband,” she had retorted immediately, reminded of the fact that Ben Rayburn was not only a physician but a close friend of the Mitchell family.

“But he is still the father of your children.”

It was an irrefutable fact; there was no argument against his statement. “Yes, of course,” Karen conceded. “But—”

Rayburn verbally closed in for the kill. “Don’t you agree that the boys would feel relieved to know that their father is safely installed under your roof and under your care?”

“But what about Charles’s parents?” Karen had demanded, recalling the comfort of the elder Mitchells’ spacious suburban home and the guest room she now occupied. “Won’t they want him close by?” “Perhaps.” The doctor’s smile was too wise, and wry with understanding. “But Randolf is still very actively involved with his company, and Judith, though charming, is frankly quite helpless in a sickroom situation.” He smiled again. “As I’m sure you know.”

Having had firsthand experience, Karen did know how very useless Judith was in an emergency. Against her will, Karen had relived the time Rand had been thrown from his first two-wheeled bike. Karen had been at her shop, Charles had been out of town, Judith had been baby-sitting. Karen would never forget the sheer panic in Judith’s voice when she’d called, begging Karen to tell her what to do. As calmly as possible, Karen had advised Judith to get Rand to the hospital, while assuring the older woman that she’d meet her there to take over. Karen had arrived at the hospital to find a pale but calm Rand and a devastated Judith.

Oh, yes. Karen knew exactly how useless Judith was in a sickroom situation. She had had little option but to nod her head, both in agreement with Dr. Rayburn and in defeat. Should she remain steadfast in her refusal to house Charles while he recuperated from the effects of the attack, and her sons learned of her refusal—which they most definitely would—they would never forgive her. Karen knew that she was well and truly trapped. She might, and did, rail silently against Charles for placing her in such an untenable position, but she had no choice but to offer him succor.

The deed was done; the plans were formulated. Upon release from the hospital, Charles would accompany Karen back to her home in Maine where, it was fervently agreed upon by all but Karen, he should fare well in the quiet atmosphere.

Now, hours later, Karen wanted to scream her frustration aloud. She was literally surrounded by people, yet she was very much alone. Unlike the night before, her bed was cold and empty.

Karen moved restlessly; she couldn’t, wouldn’t, think about the night before. Remembering Paul’s fiercely tender possession would only undermine her dwindling store of strength, and she needed her strength for the days and weeks ahead. Yes, she wanted to scream her frustration, but she wouldn’t. She was too tired, too susceptible, too close to tears. And she couldn’t afford to give in to tears because she feared that if she allowed herself to start crying she might wail the house down.

But in the midnight quiet of the guest room in her former in-laws’ home, with her children asleep in the room next to hers, Karen silently cried out in protest and desperation.

Paul.

Oh, fool!
she chastened herself mutely.
Why did you refuse his plea to come to you in Boston?

“Dammit!”

The edgy sound of his own voice echoing back at him, Paul tossed the tangled covers aside and sprang from the unfamiliar motel-room bed that had afforded him precious little relaxation or rest. The bed was not at fault. Indeed, the bed was firm and comfortable—but Paul wasn’t. He was not firm in his conviction that he was doing the right thing by leaving Karen, nor was he comfortable with the miles now separating them.

Paul was hurting, in his mind and in his body. With wry self-understanding, he acknowledged that, were Karen there to share the bed with him, the unfamiliar mattress would offer sweet surcease to his active imagination and too long denied, and now starving, flesh.

Into his tired mind danced a vision of her the night before, passionate, laughing, as hungry for him as he was for her. His body throbbing with a demand that could not be appeased, Paul muttered a curse.

Paul needed Karen, not merely in the physical sense but in every way there was. He needed her laughter as well as her impassioned murmurs. He needed her levelheadedness as well as her physical abandon. He needed her spiritually as well as physically. And the need had been growing with each successive mile as more distance came between them.

Pulling a robe over his chilled, naked body, Paul paced the inhibiting confines of the room and wished for a drink—a double. By itself, his thirst was sure sign of his mental condition. Paul rarely drank hard liquor, and then only in moderation. His tastes ran more to cool white wine and coolheadedness. Paul had not been handed his reputation as a shrewd banker and businessman; he had gained it by intelligent hard work. In his opinion, intelligence and indulgence did not coexist profitably. Nevertheless, at midnight in a lonely motel room in Connecticut, Paul wished he had a large measure of something potent and mind-divorcing.

In keen anticipation, he picked up the room-service menu. He sighed, acceptance replacing anticipation as he noted that room service was available only until eleven at night. Flipping the menu onto the desk-dresser, Paul resumed pacing.

How had it happened? he mused, cursing softly when his shinbone made painful contact with a corner of the bed. Ignoring the scrape, he concentrated on the question he’d asked himself.

How had it happened, this uncomfortable, unnerving state he now found himself in? Paul shook his head. He had exchanged a few innocuous remarks with a stranger on the beach. And from that most innocent of beginnings, he now found himself needing that stranger as a scholar needed books, as an addict needed a fix—merely to exist. But why?

Paul frowned. Why, indeed, this one particular woman? What was so special about Karen that made her different, at least to him, from countless others? And Paul had met countless other women, both socially and professionally. Yet not one of those other women had been able to catch his personal interest, although, modesty aside, he had been aware of how very hard a number of them had tried to capture his attention.

What made Karen special? Coming to an abrupt stop in the center of the room, Paul gazed blankly at the rumpled bed while he peered inward, seeking answers.

There had been an instantaneous attraction between them, he recalled, feeling a tiny thrill at the memory of her smiling up at him from her seated position in the sand. But Paul was well aware that there was more to the way he was feeling than could be explained as simple physical or chemical attraction.

Perhaps it was Karen’s levelheadedness and stability that appealed to him. Paul conceded the possibility; after the years he’d spent attempting to deal with a rather unstable woman, that quality would appeal to him. But, he reasoned, there was much more involved here than mere levelheadedness and stability.

Perhaps it was Karen’s warmth and generous spirit that charmed him. A faint smile tipped up the corners of Paul’s lips. Yes, he had been most decidedly charmed by her warmth and spirit, especially since both attributes had been sorely lacking in his wife. But warmth and spirit didn’t quite encompass all he was feeling, either.

Perhaps it was simply that Karen was, without question, a natural, down-to-earth, real person, meeting life on her own terms, with her own methods.

Into Paul’s mind crept a vision of her large, outdated house, standing foursquare before the winds raking the land and the storms flung from the sea.

Paul smiled and sighed.

Karen Mitchell was like the house she had chosen to retreat to after the failure of her marriage. With a smile on her lips and a defiant toss of her head, she had deserted the excitement of the city to stand foursquare on ancestral earth. With her principles intact, Karen lived the only way she knew how to live, embracing the moralistic doctrine that Paul knew was tormenting her conscience because of her abandon in his arms.