No Regrets (18 page)

Molly had suspected this wouldn't be easy. “What kind of compromise?”

“You have three months left on the contract we signed with the BIA. I could, of course, replace you with another nurse practitioner, but you've already established yourself as part of the community, so you may as well finish your work there.

“Then, after you've returned to Los Angeles, allow yourself another three months to spend time with the other sisters. Help me with the postulate training, which may put you back in touch with all those feelings that you first had when you chose to join us.”

“I'm not certain it really was a choice made of free will.”

Sister Benvenuto's brow creased in a frown. “I never realized you'd felt obligated to join us.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean it the way it sounded.” Molly clasped her hands together tighter. “It's just that the order was the only safe home I'd ever known. You and the others offered me a haven and I'll always be appreciative. But it's occurred to me lately that what I believed to be a vocation was instead, a crutch.”

Sister Benvenuto gave her another long look. “Yet something else to pray on during these upcoming months of contemplation,” she murmured. “If, after that time, you still feel the need to leave, I'll be the first to wish you well and Godspeed.”

Six months. It seemed like a lifetime. Then again, Molly knew it was a fair suggestion. Not that she had any intention of changing her mind.

“I suppose I could agree to that.”

“Fine.” This time the nun's satisfied smile brightened her eyes. “That is all I can ask.”

 

Two days after Molly's meeting with Sister Benvenuto, Lena woke early and spent several enjoyable moments watching Reece sleep. How fortunate she was to have found this wonderful man! Growing up in the revolving door of the Los Angeles County foster care system, she'd never, in a million years, dared dream of such a perfect family. In Reece, she had the most caring, handsome, sexiest husband on earth. And there wasn't a day that went by she didn't thank God for Grace.

But Lena wasn't thinking of her daughter at the moment.

No, the thought filling her mind as she drank in the sight of him, sprawled on his stomach, was what a magnificent body her husband had. Sunlight streaming in through the slanted slats of the blinds danced on his bare skin like laughter. The smooth play of muscles in his back fascinated her and created a familiar ache deep inside her.

Unable to resist touching him, she reached out and trailed her fingers down his back, slipping them beneath the sheet below his waist. He murmured something inarticulate, but his steady breathing revealed he was still asleep.

Enjoying herself immensely, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against the tanned flesh.

His resultant moan reminded her of a deep-throated lion's growl. He rolled over, kicking off the sheet. He was fully, rampantly erect.

Reece woke as she curled her fingers around his heavy warmth. “I was hoping that was you.”

“Who else would be in your bed?” His penis stirred in her hand as she stroked it from base to straining tip. “Were you dreaming of some sexy woman?”

His lips quirked. “You caught me.”

“What?” She was about to release him, but he covered her hand with his and resumed the slow, stroking caress.

He flashed her a sexy grin she knew would have the power to thrill her when she was a hundred. “I was dreaming of you.”

“Oh.” It was her turn to smile. “That's nice.”

“It's the truth.”

Since he'd never lied to her, Lena believed him. “Happy birthday.”

This time his groan had nothing to do with desire. “Boy, do you know how to ruin a great start to a day.”

Laughing, she rolled over on top of him. “You're just lucky I'm attracted to older men.”

“Older men?” His long fingers wrapped around her waist and lifted her up, then lowered her onto him. Their bodies fit together with a warm silky ease that was more perfect than anything Lena had ever known.

“You
are
thirty-one,” she reminded him as she began to move her hips in a slow, sensual rhythm.

“There you go, reminding me again.” He cupped both her breasts in his hands. “Guess I'll just have to prove I'm not over the hill.” He raised one aching breast to his mouth.

All it took was the tug of his teeth, the wet touch of a tongue against a nipple to make her climax. She cried out as she felt herself shattering like fine crystal shattering at high C.

“That doesn't count,” she gasped as she collapsed on top of him after her shimmering implosion. “I had a head start because I was fantasizing about your making love to me while you were still asleep.”

He laughed, a rich bold laugh of masculine pleasure that vibrated from deep in his chest. “I'm just getting started.”

He deftly rolled them over without slipping out of her. Indeed, as her pulsating body continued to clutch at him, Lena felt him growing even fuller. Harder.

“Lord, you feel good,” he groaned.

Lena shivered as he lifted her hips to meet him. She wanted to tell him that he felt better than good. That he was perfect and she loved him more than life itself and always would.

But instead, as he thrust deeper, touching her in places he knew she liked to be touched, kissing the breath out of her, all she could do was moan and whimper and gasp and beg him never to stop. Which it seemed he had no intention of doing.

Only after she'd lost track of how many times she'd come, did he finally give in to his own explosive release, shouting out her name as he emptied into her, filling her. Loving her.

As they lay entwined, moist bodies cooling in the golden aftermath of pleasure, he kissed her. A kiss so soft and sweet and so different from the earlier passion they'd shared, it seemed a benediction.

“May I ask a favor?”

Lena smiled up at him. “Anything.” It was the absolute truth. There was nothing she wouldn't do for this man she adored.

“Can we make this a birthday tradition?”

She laughed, her heart practically bubbling over with joy. “Absolutely.”

He grinned back, his eyes shining with shared humor. “Then I guess I won't mind getting older.” He ran his hand down her back, from her shoulder to her bottom. “Although this might get a bit dangerous when I'm a hundred.”

His words caused a sudden chill to skip up her spine. There were times when she feared that this glorious oneness she'd found with Reece was too perfect. That it was dangerous for any two people to be so happy. That they were risking the jealousy of the gods. Deciding that she was being ridiculously superstitious, she firmly closed her mind to the icy fear.

“Don't worry.” She pressed a kiss against his stubbled cheek that had scraped against every inch of her burning skin like the finest grade of sandpaper. “After you turn ninety, I promise to do all the work.”

He pretended to consider that. “You've got yourself a deal, sweetheart.”

Later, as she recalled their uninhibited lovemaking in vivid detail, Lena decided that making love to Reece that morning had been like drowning, over and over again, then being reborn in joy. Although their lovemaking was always wonderful, this had been different. She knew she would remember this birthday for the rest of her life.

 

“How's this, Mommy?”

“What, dear?” Realizing that her mind had been drifting, Lena turned away from the cookbook and observed the flowers Grace had just finished arranging. They'd cut the bright blooms together, Grace selecting the flowers, Lena wielding the scissors.

The tulips had been jammed into the vase. Grace had chosen too many, but Lena had no intention of throwing cold water on her childish enthusiasm. “They're perfect.”

“I picked the tulips because you said that they're the happy flower. I thought it would make Daddy not feel so bad.”

“Daddy doesn't feel bad,” Lena assured her daughter as she took the vase into the dining room and placed it in the center of the table that was already draped in the ivory lace that had belonged to three generations of Longworth brides. Theo had given her the tablecloth to welcome her into the family, and as exquisite as the
hand-tatted Irish lace was, it was the meaning of the gift that had meant so much to her.

“I was watching him shave this morning and he said he didn't like birthdays because it meant he was getting old.”

“Your daddy says that every year.” Lena ran a reassuring hand down the springy jet curls. “But he's not old at all.”

“That's what I told him. I told him that Mary Beth thinks he's handsome.”

“She does?” Lena glanced down at her daughter with surprise.

Mary Beth Williams, the little girl next door, was only a year older than Grace. Surely they wouldn't have to start worrying about boys so soon?

Grace misunderstood her frown. “Daddy
is
handsome. You tell him that all the time.”

“That's true. I just didn't realize Mary Beth would have noticed.”

Grace shrugged. “Mary Beth is boy-crazy. She kissed Jimmy Young last week on the playground.” She giggled. “He was wiping his mouth all day.”

Dear Lord, Reece would undoubtedly want to lock his little girl in a closet until
her
thirty-first birthday. Not that it was such a bad idea, Lena considered as she imagined some pimply faced lothario trying to talk Grace into the back seat of his car.

Lena returned to the kitchen a bit shaken by the conversation, and was trying to decide whether or not she should have a little talk with Mrs. Williams, when she realized she was missing a vital ingredient for tonight's birthday celebration.

“Damn.”

Grace, who'd returned to coloring at the kitchen table, looked up. “What's wrong, Mommy?”

“I forgot to buy the buttermilk for your daddy's cake.” German chocolate was Reece's favorite and Lena knew he'd be expecting it. “We'll have to run to the store.”

“Maybe we can get Daddy a balloon while we're there,” Grace suggested. “In case the tulips don't make him smile.”

Lena's irritation eased as she gazed down into her daughter's beautiful, earnest face. “Want to know a secret?”

“What?”

“Daddy doesn't need tulips or balloons to make him smile. All he has to do is look at you.” Something moved over her heart, a cold shadow of premonition, much like this morning's chill, that shook her to the bone. She knelt down and gathered her daughter into her arms, holding her close.

Please God,
she prayed, as she did so often,
don't let anything ever happen to this perfect miracle.

“Mommy?” Grace was wiggling. “You're hurting me.”

Realizing that she was practically crushing her daughter, Lena loosened her hold. “Sorry, sweetie.” Her voice was bright, her smile feigned. “Sometimes Mommy forgets how strong she is.”

She laughed, trying to make a joke out of what had been a moment of icy fear. Unfortunately not the first. Ever since Theo's wedding, when she'd seen the unmasked yearning on Molly's face when she'd looked at
Grace, Lena's fears about losing her daughter had returned to haunt her.

Grace looked up at her. “You look like you need tulips, too, Mommy.”

This time Lena's laughter was genuine. “You may be right, darling. When we get home, maybe we'll just pick some more.” She stood up and clapped her hands. “Now, run get your shoes so we can get back to creating the best birthday party your daddy's ever had.”

As she watched her daughter run from the room, Lena reminded herself that such grim thoughts were foolish. They were nothing more than a psychological fear left over from having lost her parents—and her baby sister—at such a tender age.

Just because you loved someone didn't mean you were going to lose them, she reminded herself. She'd never been happier than she'd been these past years with Grace and Reece. There was no way she was going to let old knee-jerk feelings take hold of her.

Her spirits renewed, Lena strapped her daughter into the passenger seat, preparing to back the family minivan—that had replaced the Jaguar—out of the garage.

A
s Lena maneuvered the minivan around the curves leading down from the cliffside home, her mind was on tonight's party. Did Reece have any idea? She'd only let Grace in on the preparations a few days ago, and except for a few suspicious giggles, she didn't think her daughter had let the cat out of the bag.

No, she decided, he didn't know.

Would he be upset when he found out? After all, he had insisted that he wanted to ignore the event. As if thirty-one was over the hill. He'd certainly proved this morning that wasn't the case. Just remembering all the things he'd done to her, all the things they'd done to each other, warmed her blood and turned her cheeks red.

Lena laughed. Imagine, an old married woman—a mother, for heaven's sake—blushing.

She turned a corner and was treated to a dazzling
view of the sun-gilded ocean. A plane, taking off from LAX, left a puffy white vapor cloud in the clear blue sky. The sight of the jetliner caused a faint stirring of memory. Then suddenly, Lena understood all too well why her husband was reluctant to celebrate his thirty-first birthday.

The senior Reece Longworth had been only thirty when he'd died, along with Reece's mother, in that plane crash when Reece was only a child. Obviously he was having problems with the fact that today he'd outlived his own father.

“I should have figured it out.” She hit the steering wheel, frustrated with herself. “I'll make it up to him,” she vowed. “After the party.”

Her thoughts focused on what she could do to ease this difficult time for Reece, she didn't notice the approaching car until it had crossed the center line.

Lena had no time to react. There was the sickening sound of metal slamming into metal, glass shattering.

And then…nothing.

 

It was turning out to be just another typical day in the ER. There were the usual drunks, crackheads, minor traumas, shooting victims, sprained joints, lacerations and homeless, but nothing to really get the blood pumping. By early afternoon, the patient flow had dwindled to a trickle.

Although Reece had insisted he didn't want anyone to make a big deal about his birthday, he was not overly surprised when he was called into the doctors' lounge near the end of his shift for a consult with the senior resident and discovered all the trappings of a party about to happen.

Latex gloves filled with helium bounced against the ceiling, he was hit with a cloud of metallic confetti he knew he'd be brushing out of his hair for weeks, and in the center of the table was a cake in the shape of a woman's torso, the white frosting hospital gown open to reveal rounded breasts topped with maraschino cherry nipples and a skimpy, coconut G-string.

“It's a good thing Lena's not here,” he said with a grin. “Because I'd hate to try to explain this to my wife.”

“Who do you think found the dirty cake baker in the first place?” Yolanda challenged, drawing more laughter.

Reece looked at the nurse who'd been off the schedule today. “I assume there's a reason you're dressed up like Big Bird.”

“Why, Dr. Reece,” she drawled, looking out through the eye holes in the oversize hood covered with bright yellow feathers, “surely the memo about the hospital blood drive didn't escape your attention?”

“I seem to remember reading something about it.” Since becoming attending physician three months earlier, Reece spent his days dodging a virtual blizzard of memos from the suits upstairs in Administration. He was vastly grateful the powers that be hadn't yet mastered the intricacies of e-mail.

“Well, I've been out drumming up business.” She flapped her wings. “Don't be a chicken.” She squawked. “Donate blood.”

Even as Reece joined in the laughter, he thought about the dedication it took for a single working mother to spend her day off making a fool of herself in order to save lives. He was suddenly deeply moved. By
Yolanda's sacrifice, which she'd never consider extraordinary, and the party.

“There's not a service at any hospital in the state as special as Mercy Sam's ER team,” he said with feeling. “I really love you guys.”

A sudden silence fell over the room as everyone seemed embarrassed by his emotional response. Reece was wishing he'd just kept his mouth shut when Yolanda came to his rescue.

“Why, Dr. Longworth, we all love you, too,” she said. Knowing how to milk a performance, she gathered him up in her yellow wings and with her beak, gave him a big peck right on the mouth.

Everyone roared with laughter, the moment passed and the party began.

Reece had just cut into the cake when the trauma radio squawked from the other room. “Squad 64, Code Three, auto accident, severe head trauma, full arrest. Female patient comatose, blood pressure sixty, two large-bore needles going full speed, clean abdominal tap. ETA two minutes.”

The trauma team began to assemble. The junior resident donned a lead jacket to protect against the X rays he'd be taking. The senior resident prepared the ventilator. Reece, as attending physician, stood by to ensure that everything was done according to procedure. In a teaching hospital, the adage was Watch A Procedure, Do A Procedure, Teach A Procedure.

And, although it wasn't as simple as that, he was of the belief that the only way to learn was by doing. Which was why he allowed his residents more practical experience than they'd get at some hospitals. At
least when a doctor left Mercy Sam, he'd be prepared to tackle real emergencies, not just textbook cases.

He glanced up at the clock on the wall and sighed, wishing the hapless victim had waited another fifteen minutes to have her accident. No telling how late he'd be now. Which would, of course, screw up the surprise party Lena had planned for him at home. He smiled inwardly, thinking back on all the whispering that had been going on between his wife and daughter the past few days.

With any luck, the incoming accident case would be cut-and-dried. They'd either stabilize the patient, then send her up to surgery or the neurological ICU, or, she'd flatline and he could go home on time.

Reece was wondering if he should have the clerk call Lena and warn her that he might be late, when the ambulance suddenly pulled to a stop, the pneumatic doors hissed open and the paramedics ran into the ER with a gurney, one holding the IV bags in the air, another pumping away at the patient's heart. She was, Reece noted, already on a ventilator.

They rushed her into trauma room A. Not wanting to crowd the team, Reece stood in the doorway, watching as they performed as they'd been trained.

“Christ,” the senior resident said, “the back of her head is nothing but a spongy mass.” That explained the blood all over her head and face, Reece decided. The blood that continued to flow, despite the large bandage the paramedics had wrapped around her crushed skull.

“Pupils fixed and dilated,” the resident called out. “Skull unstable.” He lifted the supine body up and reached a gloved hand behind her. “I can feel the bone fragments.”

While more IVs were begun and blood started, a nurse took a towel and wiped her face. “Facial fractures on the right cheekbone,” the resident said as he continued his examination.

“Oh, my God,” the nurse suddenly gasped.

“What?” the senior resident asked, obviously irritated by her outburst.

“What?” Reece demanded when she didn't immediately answer. He entered the room, then stopped in disbelief as he viewed the patient on the gurney.

“No.” He shook his head. “It can't be.” Looking at how beautifully serene his wife looked in the midst of all the turmoil, Reece told himself that this had to be a mistake. She couldn't be hurt. Not really.

“What the hell?” the senior resident demanded.

“It's Lena,” the nurse said in a voice that sounded like a robot.

“Lena?” The young doctor looked down at his patient, as if seeing her as a human being for the first time. “Christ.”

Later, looking back on this, it seemed to Reece that everyone in the room froze, presenting a nightmarish tableau of the most horrifying moment of his life. Time seemed to have frozen, as well.

And then, suddenly, the EEG monitor screeched.

“She's crashing!” While the first-year resident began pumping away at her chest, the senior resident prepared the paddles.

“No!” There was a brief struggle as Reece grabbed them away.

“Goddamn it, Reece,” the younger man yelled, heedless of rank, “you shouldn't even be in here.”

“She's my wife.” He turned toward the nurse, barking out the setting. “I'm not going to let her die… One-fifty… Clear!”

The first-year resident backed away to avoid getting shocked. Lena's body was literally lifted off the table.

Nothing.

“Again,” Reece barked. “Clear!”

It took two more tries. After her heart was successfully restarted, they began pumping blood in as fast as they could, even as it poured out of the massive wound in her head.

Her heart stopped again. And again. But Reece refused to give up as he dragged his wife back and forth along that ragged razor's edge between life and death. With each shock, the smell of burning flesh increased.

“This is crazy,” the resident complained after they'd been at it for an hour, twice the normal length of time for a Code Blue.

“Shut up,” Yolanda, who'd changed from her Big Bird outfit into scrubs—now soaked with blood—shouted into his face. Reece, concentrating on keeping Lena alive, didn't notice.

 

“You realize,” Joe said at the end of another grueling day after Molly had returned to the reservation clinic, “we're going to have to talk about it.”

“There's nothing to talk about.”

“Excuse me for arguing with you, Sister Molly,” he corrected, an edge of sarcasm she'd never heard in his voice before sharpening his tone, “but I don't consider falling in love nothing.”

“I'm sorry.” Unreasonably nervous, she began
straightening the small cabinet, lining up the jars of tongue depressors, cotton balls, a box of latex surgical gloves. “You're right, of course. It's just that I don't know what to say.”

“How about we just agree to forget what happened? And start over again?”

“I'm not certain that's possible.”

“Okay. Then how about we just talk about the usual things people talk about when one of them has humiliated himself and the other one's feeling vastly uncomfortable within a six-foot radius of such an idiot.”

She couldn't help smiling, just a little, at that. “You're not an idiot.”

“True. The idiots are all the men who let you get away long enough to run off to the convent in the first place.”

“Joe…”

“I'm sorry,” he said again, responding to her soft warning. “But I have to admit, it's been driving me crazy, wondering how a woman like you ended up a nun.”

“A woman like me?”

“I'd cite your attributes again, beginning with your naturally passionate nature, but I believe you've already put them in the off-limits category.

“I really would like to know about you, Molly. What kind of little girl you were, where you grew up, what your favorite subjects in school were, all those normal conversational, getting-to-know-you kinds of things.”

“Like men and women discuss on dates?” Her renewed attack of nerves at the mention of her childhood made her tone sharp.

“No.” He'd returned to his usual calm, reassuring demeanor. “Like two friends.”

Molly had to ask. “Will that be enough for you? That we stay only friends? And not lovers?”

“I don't know,” he answered honestly. “But we'll never know if we don't try. And I do know that there's no way we're going to be able to work together if we don't come to grips with this, Molly. Running away from a problem only puts off the inevitable.”

Molly marveled at the way Joe had of unconsciously hitting all her hot buttons, forcing her to take a long hard look at herself. She'd obviously run away after Grace was born, when she'd found watching her daughter and sister beginning to bond too painful. Had she also run away from her forbidden feelings for Reece?

Molly sighed. “It's a long story.”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

Which was how they ended up back in her motor home, alone together once again. Wisely forgoing any more alcohol, Molly made a pot of coffee and they sat down to talk.

She was surprised that despite her initial reluctance, the words began to come easily, and before she knew it, she'd told him about her parents and that horrible Christmas when she, Lena and Tessa had been orphaned.

“So you never saw Tessa again after that night?” he asked.

She shook her head. It was one of the major sorrows of her life.

“Ever think to look for her?”

“Of course.” Molly took a sip of lukewarm coffee. “I even tried once, a few months before my Profession Day, but the adoption records were sealed.”

“There are ways of getting around that these days.”

“I know. But she was too young to know what went on in that house, Joe. I'm not certain the woman she'd have become by now needs anything triggering possibly deep-seated memories.”

Although he didn't completely agree, Joe was in no mood to argue. In truth, after his outrageous display of raging hormones, he'd feared when she drove off to her meeting with Sister Benvenuto in Flagstaff that he'd never see Molly again. Encouraged by her willingness to be open with him now, he was not about to do anything to screw things up.

“So,” he said, folding his fingers—which were itching to touch her—behind his head, “you and Lena ended up in the foster-care system. How in the world did you get from there to the convent?”

“I'd just turned fifteen.” Strange how it seemed like yesterday, she thought as she stared deep into the depths of her milk-lightened coffee. “I'd been placed with a Catholic family who had five kids of their own. The oldest son was a senior in high school and a star athlete. He was quarterback of the football team, star center for the basketball team—”