Midnight Hour (13 page)

“Not quite,
chère
,” Nick pronounced after he’d tasted the gumbo with the same intensity of a wine connoisseur sampling a fine vintage. “This is adequate, but not spectacular.”

“I disagree,” Mercy told him as she took another quick bite. “You could not improve on this.”

“A clove of garlic would have been nice.”

Mercy shuddered. “Garlic? In this house? Perish the thought. Think of my reputation! Vampires around the world would never speak to me again.”

Smacking his forehead with the palm of one hand, Nick apologized, “How foolish of me not to have realized.”

“Don’t mention silver bullets around here either,” Mercy lectured him with a grin that ruined the effect.

“Yes, ma’am. I forgot for a moment that this is Haunt, Kentucky. I assume every house has a ghost?”

“Every one but mine.”

“What? No ghosts!”

“Ghosts cost extra,” Mercy explained as she wiped the corner of her mouth. “I could barely afford Haunt’s Creaky Noise Package.” After pausing to take a bite, she continued, “Local television personalities are not rolling in dough like most people think. When I bought this place, I had to give up expensive restaurants, vacations that involved airplanes, and my apartment in the city.”

“Are you sorry?”

“Absolutely not.” Mercy shook her head for emphasis. “Not many towns have an atmosphere like Haunt, Kentucky.”

Nick shook his head. “Halloween around this place must be a regular ghouls’ night out.”

Dropping her spoon, Mercy cried, “That’s it!”

“That’s what?”

“Ghouls’ Nite Out. That’s the benefit.” Mercy doubled her fist and pounded the table. “That’s our theme!”

Nick enjoyed the animation in her face. In fact, he’d enjoyed the change in Mercy since she’d come
downstairs. She seemed more at ease with him, more willing to let down her guard and treat him like a friend instead of a dangerous adversary. He wasn’t sure what had caused the change, but he enjoyed it.

“Well, say
something
!” she ordered as she scraped a bite of gumbo from the bottom of her bowl.

“I think it’s a great idea.”

“We can promote it as an evening of black ties and black stalkings.” Mercy spread the fingers on her hand and swept it through the air as though envisioning a theater marquee.

Laughing out loud, Nick pushed his chair back from the table. “
Dieu!
But you’re quick! Does everything always fall so easily into place for you?”

Self-conscious, Mercy took a swig of iced tea before she answered. “Things like this? Yeah, but usually I have to wait two beats for someone to get the joke, or even worse, explain it to them.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “Except with you.”

“Same wavelength.”

“That’s a scary thought!” Mercy laughed, but groaned inwardly. Sharing a sense of humor with Nick was one more crack in the invisible wall that kept her from crossing the line between friendship and relationship. The last thing she needed was another crack in her wall. Since Nick arrived on her doorstep and pulled off his sunglasses, the damn thing was crumbling faster than she could repair it.

“More gumbo?” Nick asked as he got up to take his bowl to the sink.

Mercy hesitated. “First tell me if it’s still going to taste this good if I warm up some later.”

“Even better,” Nick promised.

“Then I can wait.”

“Patience. Another trait we share,” Nick commented as he held out his hand for her bowl. When Mercy gave it to him, she made very sure their hands didn’t touch. Nick kept his next suggestion very innocent, hoping she wouldn’t instantly recognize it as a ploy to delay his departure. Which of course it was. “What do you say to setting this pot of gumbo in the refrigerator and taking a walk? We can brainstorm about the benefit some more.”

As soon as he said “walk,” Witch materialized from under the table. Her front feet did a Gene Kelly tap dance on the checkerboard linoleum.

“Is this like the tennis ball thing?” Nick asked dryly.

“Yeah.” Mercy nodded as Witch spun in a tiny circle. “You said the magic word and now one of us is going to have to go around the block.” Her expression made it clear exactly which one of them would be going.

“I’m scared of the dark,” Nick lied as he met her amused gaze. “Someone will have to come with me for protection.”

Mercy got Witch’s leash from a hook in the pantry and handed it to him as she said, “You don’t look like you need protection, and you don’t look scared. Besides, you’ll have Witch with you.”

“Oh, but you’re wrong,
chère
. Sophie Jensen scares the hell out of me, and I don’t think Witch is gonna be much help.”

Cringing at the images that sprang to mind, Mercy agreed, “All right. I’ll come with you. God only
knows what scheme you and Sophie would come up with if I left you alone.”

The twilight ebbed into night as they made their second journey around the block. They trailed behind Witch, who drifted along in a zigzag pattern, investigating each edge of the sidewalk. Simultaneously, porch lights and night stars winked on. Nick listened to the familiar cadence created by the opening and shutting of doors, barking dogs, children’s laughter, and a father’s shouted reminder that it was time to come in.

All around him was the sound of community, something he hadn’t even realized he missed. Children’s laughter was one sound he had avoided at all costs since the accident. It reminded him of his sister, Catherine. She had rarely laughed, but when she did, she laughed with such joy and abandon that one by one the rest of the family joined in. Sometimes without ever knowing why, or caring.

Most children acquired nicknames early in life, but his little sister had been Catherine since the day she was born. It fit her the way a ’
tit nom
never could. He’d been fifteen years old when she was born, and he remembered it like it was yesterday. He remembered pretending to be too cool to fuss over a baby, and then talking nonsense to her when no one else was in the room.

From the time she could walk, she’d followed him around like a gentle puppy. No one ever doubted how she felt about her big brother. No one had been prouder than Catherine that he was going to be a
doctor. He missed her. He missed his parents, but losing Catherine had been like losing a child.

He’d been able to put aside the memories during medical school, internship, and residency. The incredible work load had been a blessing, but eventually he’d had to face the real world again. Four years ago, he’d forced himself to go back to New Orleans, and then the insomnia started. He couldn’t deal with the memories. So he withdrew, creating a safe, sterile existence without nosy neighbors, close friends, or laughing children. And the silence woke him up at night.

Nothing surprised him more than to hear the noises of Haunt, Kentucky, and realize he wanted noise back in his life.

“I could learn to like this place,” he said, shortening his steps to match Mercy’s slower pace.

Mercy pulled in a deep breath of summer air, warm and ripe. “Hmm, I know what you mean. I fell in love with this place the moment I saw it. Narrow streets, big trees.”

“Sounds like the perfect place to put down roots.”

“It has been.”

“Must not be very strong roots. You’re already planning to move to Pittsburgh.”

“Who said I was?”

“You did,” Nick reminded her.

“Oh, that. That was
career
talk.” Mercy rubbed her arms and gave a deep sigh. “I’ll go if Dan pushes me to it, but I don’t think he wants me to go any more than I want to go. I suspect we’ll come to an agreement of some sort. Right now we’re only circling each other, getting ready for the big negotiation.”

Startled, Nick looked at her long and hard. “Excuse me, but I thought
career
opportunities this good were few and far between. You’re telling me that you’re gonna pass up a chance at the big time to stay in Louisville?”

“Sure. If it doesn’t work out, I can always go to medical school.” Mercy’s grin teased him.

“Oh, I got a picture of that,
chère
!”

“Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t. I sure didn’t like it the first time.”

Nick stopped dead in his tracks and stared. Witch ran out of slack and turned to investigate why her leash had grown suddenly short.

“Yeah, you heard me right.” Mercy grabbed his arm and pulled him along. “I didn’t actually make it to medical school. I jumped ship my sophomore year of college and switched all my premed classes to journalism and communications.”

“Too bad. You’d have made a wonderful doctor,” Nick told her as they waited for one of Mercy’s neighbors to back out of the driveway. Nick waved right along with Mercy as he said, “I can see you in family practice or maybe pediatrics. You have a way with people. I saw it when you put that orderly at ease and when we toured the ER.”

“Well, all my parents could see was a surgical residency. Dad was really leaning on me to persue neurosurgery, but Mother had pretty much decided on my being a heart surgeon,” Mercy said when they started walking again.

“What changed your mind? Couldn’t be the blood and guts. You’ll see more of that watching horror films than you’d ever see in an operating room.”

“Funny.”

“Thank you.” Nick grinned. “Come on, Mercy. Why did you back out?”

For some reason, Nick’s word choices were beginning to bother her. Mercy reached to unsnap Witch’s collar as they walked into the yard. “I didn’t back out. I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

“For lots of reasons.”

“Like what?”

A little exasperated, she said, “You don’t want to listen to old history.”

“It beats goin’ home and staring at the ceiling,” Nick informed her as he took her hand and led her up the steps. “Insomnia and I are old friends. You wouldn’t want to be responsible for another sleepless night?”

“No,” Mercy answered faintly, climbing the steps, her attention focused on the warmth of his hand clasping hers. Friends hold hands, she told herself. His touch meant nothing. The tingling meant nothing. The tiny charge of electricity could be explained by the laws of everyday, ordinary physics or chemistry or something. Just like the shock people got from walking across a carpet and touching something metal.

Then why did holding his hand feel like a dangerous thing to do?

The abrupt halt of their progress brought her attention back to the real world. She noticed two things immediately: One, she hadn’t turned on the porch light before they left the house, and two, Nick clearly waited for a response to something he’d said. Since she hadn’t heard a word out of the last dozen or so, she had to ask. “What?”

“I said—” Pleased, Nick saw the way her eyes kept straying toward their entwined fingers, which meant she must have noticed the perfect fit. He settled himself on the wooden swing without letting go of her hand and then pulled her onto the seat beside him. He would rather have pulled her into his lap, but he didn’t want to jeopardize the progress he’d made tonight. “I said that I’d much rather sit in this old-fashioned swing and listen to ancient history than go home. There’s nothing there anymore except designer cobwebs.”

Carefully, he pushed against the porch with his foot, gently rocking the swing. As the air swirled around them, the scent of the potted nicotiana set along the railing teased his senses. The faint glow of the streetlight illuminated Witch as she found a spot by the screen door and curled up. Nick smiled to himself as Mercy relaxed enough to let her thigh touch his. “You gonna tell me about your brush with medical school or am I gonna have to drag every detail out of you?”

Mercy self-consciously disengaged her hand from his, which rested much too intimately on his leg. “There aren’t any details. It’s not much of a story, really. I had an incredibly shy college roommate who was in love, from afar of course, with one of the graduate assistants in the journalism department. So she talked me into taking this television news lab that was offered as an elective for nonmajors. She needed moral support since the grad assistant was teaching the class. One thing led to another, and suddenly I was having to explain to my folks why I dropped out of the premed curriculum.”

She shrugged to signal the end of the story. “When I got out of college, I snagged a job doing a midnight recap of the news before the movie came on. I love movies, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“That’s it?” Nick chided in disappointment. He adjusted his body and ran his arm along the back of the swing as he leaned toward Mercy, not coincidentally pressing his thigh more intimately against hers. “Aren’t you leaving something out?”

“I don’t think so.” Warily, Mercy stiffened. “I told you it wasn’t much of a story.”

“But what about the roommate? Did love conquer all?”

“Oh, her!” Stifling a giggle, Mercy relaxed against his arm. “Turns out the grad assistant was married and a very proud papa, who’d lost his wedding ring down the kitchen sink. My roommate dropped the course after the second class.”

“How many classes did it take before you realized you wanted this career more than medicine?”

“Oh, I never wanted to be a doctor. That’s what my parents wanted for me. You know how everybody asks you what you want to be when you grow up?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, in my house, it was never a question. It was a statement. You know: ‘This is our daughter. Mercy wants to be a surgeon.’ How about you? When did you decide to become a doctor?”

Nick slowed the swing’s motion to a gentle sway. “I was young. I think I was ten. Ten or eleven. Hell, I don’t remember, it’s been so long.” He laughed softly
and shook his head as if surprised by how much time had passed. “I was a kid, playing where I shouldn’t have been, and cut my leg.” He drew a line on his thigh. “Twenty-four stitches. I remember watching the doctor magically close up that wound. I remember thinking that sewing up people was the coolest job in the world.”

“And that’s when you decided on emergency medicine,” Mercy guessed immediately.

“No, not then.”

“Then why did you pick the ER?”

Nick didn’t want to lie to Mercy, but he wasn’t about to tell her the real reason he chose emergency medicine either. Even in his own mind the reason often sounded like a gutless cop-out, so he gave her the same glib answer he gave everyone. “I fell in love with emergency medicine the instant I found out that ER schedules are flexible. Of course, the bad news is that I don’t make the kind of cash I would have made if I’d gone into the big-money specialties. Especially at Mercy Hospital.”