Renee Simons Special Edition (28 page)

The rail was still down. She took Ethan's hand, fully intending to keep watch until Drew returned, but fatigue hit like a blow. She laid her head down on her free arm and watched the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest.

The rhythm of his breathing proved as irresistible as a lullaby. The tranquility of the moment invaded her battered mind and she surrendered to it. Her eyes closed on the thought that being near him would have been comforting if only he hadn't nearly died saving her.

After what seemed like only a few moments, she felt the gentle touch of a hand resting lightly on the crown of her head. When she turned, it traveled down the side of her face caressing her cheek. She kissed the open palm and straightened to find Ethan examining her.

"Take a break," he whispered hoarsely.

"When Drew gets here."

"I'm out of it most of the time. Get some rest. We can talk later." She shook her head. "I'll be here when you return." He caressed her cheek once more. "Promise."

  For several days after, she and Drew took turns keeping watch. Each struggled with the desire to do "something" to help Ethan, even if that something meant providing nothing more than their presence and more patience than either of them could muster. They wanted Ethan well, and they wanted him well NOW.

"I'm being irrational, but I can't help it," Drew said. "It helps to know I'm not the only one."

"Maybe we'll feel better when the tubes come out."

He nodded. "That will show progress."

The following morning, she found Ethan awake.

  "I wanted to be here when you came around."

"I knew when you were here. I knew you'd be back. How's Andy?"

"A bump on the head but otherwise fine. How do you feel this morning?"

"Like bloody hell," he said. A smile lit his eyes and touched the corners of his mouth.

She examined his features, taking in the pallid skin that not even his tan could disguise, his sunken cheeks and the shadows beneath his eyes. "You look like bloody hell."

"Thanks, love, I needed that."

"Damn you, Ethan, you're always lecturing me about being careful..."

He took her hand and gave her a pleading look. "I know I am, but could you wait a little longer to return the favor? I'm still thanking the gods you and Andy are okay, instead of lying mangled in a heap of metal and concrete."

"I hoped you hadn't heard the crash."

"After you left, I finally remembered what I wanted to tell you - that the MG had been tampered with." His breath caught and he coughed.

"I know what happened. Close your eyes."

"Don't leave right away?"

"I'll stay until you fall asleep."

Within seconds, his eyes closed and his breathing became deep and regular. She watched him for a moment or two, then left.

Eventually, her headache cleared, allowing her to think. She felt stronger, but each time she considered the madwoman up on the girder, she broke out in a cold sweat. What had gone wrong up there?

When Dr. Torino paid a visit he didn't seem to think anything at all had gone wrong. After they caught up on the months since they'd last seen each other, she told him what had happened at the building site and what had led up to it. "How could I have lost control that way?"

"Interesting that you should interpret expressing your anger and pain as losing control."

"What would you call it?"

"Letting go."

"Semantics, Doc. Just semantics."

"How have you been sleeping?"

"Peacefully."

"And how do you feel?"

That took some thought. "Empty, I guess, but satisfied, too." She took a breath. "A bit of both."

"Maybe now you'll have room for love."

"No man is going to want me...and my imperfections."

"The right man will."

"I wish I could believe that."

"This man you love put his life on the line for you.

Would he have done that unless he cared deeply for you?”

Jordan
shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

He left after they’d agreed to talk again soon.
Jordan
went to the window and stared down at the parking lot. Was Dr. Torino right? Was she simply afraid to acknowledge what she already knew? After years of denying that she needed warmth, love and companionship, was she afraid to accept what Ethan seemed to represent? What was within her grasp, if only she could bring herself to reach for it?

After three days in the hospital she was released to the tender mercies of Mrs. Willis, who fed her, pampered her and catered to every casually expressed whim and some she hadn't even imagined. The TLC worked like a tonic. Nights of sleep uninterrupted by the wolf dream that had plagued her for years completed her recovery, telling her she'd turned some kind of corner away from the past.

Ethan was awake and sitting up now when she visited. "We have to talk, you and I, before I leave for the
Cape
."

"What about?"

His blue eyes, now clear and without pain, locked with hers. "As soon as this thing is over, I'm going back home, to Oz."

"Why?"

"I lived too much of my life there. I miss it - the rhythms, the people, the contrasts. I want to get back to the land, to work with my hands again."

"I'll miss you."

"You wouldn't have to if you came along."

"I couldn't do that." Definitely not, she thought, no matter how tempting the thought might be.

"Why not? What do you have to keep you here?"

"This is where I belong - not this city necessarily, but just here." She shrugged. "I can't explain except to say that maybe whatever is sending you back to
Australia
would keep me from leaving."

"Too bad. You'd like my country and it would bring out the best in you. I'm sure of that. It's filled with opportunities to test yourself, a place where you could challenge yourself in ways limited only by your imagination. And you wouldn’t have to put your life on the line, like you’ve done these last few weeks."

"Are you implying I have a death wish?"

"Not exactly, but you do - how did that bloke Wolfe say it - 'push the outside of the envelope?' You court danger, testing the limits of each situation, as if you wanted to see how far you could go before some thing or someone gave way. I've hated that, hated that you always insist on getting in the line of fire. But you can't help it, I guess. It's part of who you are. And that's why my country would be right for you.

"It would let you, even force you toward those limits by the distances, the open space and the extremes. You'd need all your resourcefulness, strength and determination to make a life and a living. Those are the worthwhile struggles, as far as I'm concerned, that leave you with concrete results at the end of the day."

"I'll see concrete results here, too, Ethan."

"If you manage to survive." She started to leave. "Don't do that."

"What?"

"Don't run away. Stay and face me. And yourself."

"How can I face you while telling you the opposite of what you want to hear?"

"Try."

Anger sparked in her eyes for a moment and her cheeks flushed, but she held her place. "Knowing that you still care for me, even after finding out what you have, means the world to me. But you deserve better and more than I can give. There will come a time when what I can give won't be enough. And to tell you the truth, that scares hell out of me." Tears filled her eyes and she added, "So maybe we'd just better call things off right now."

"Do you love me?" he softly asked.

"Yes."

"Do you know that I love you?"

"I know."

"Well, know this, too. You have everything it would take to make me happy. Anything you can't bring to a relationship, I'll supply or do without. The only thing I can't supply for you is the courage to give it a go. That's something you're going to have to find somewhere inside of yourself. I've seen plenty of proof it's there. All you have to do is tap into it, the way you have over and over in order to survive."

He ran this fingers through his hair and leaned back against his pillow. "I won’t ask again. There's a limit to how much punishment I'm willing to take.”

There seemed little to say when he'd finished, so
Jordan
left. His words stayed with her, haunting her, because they echoed what she’d already thought in the quiet moments without distractions to keep her from facing her true feelings.

His invitation to "come along" to
Australia
contained an implicit hope that they would eventually become more than friends. Wracked with doubt and insecurity, with the fear that letting someone get as close as he wanted to be would end in more pain than she could handle, she had no answers for herself or for Ethan. Worse yet, she couldn't predict when she would.

Chapter 15

Vito met her at the nurse’s station. "Could you come with me, Miss?"

"Why?"

"The boss wants to see you before he goes on the stand tomorrow."

Why not, she thought with a shrug. "Sure, I've got a few minutes."

Vito pointed to the closed door whose sign read "Private," ushered her inside, then left them. Terence stood with his arm around a woman as they looked out the window.

She cleared her throat and the couple turned toward her. "Candi, this is Melissa's daughter."

The woman walked toward her, a tall, slender and serene looking champagne blond with large eyes in a thin face. She held out a hand. "I'm Candi Conlon. Your mother and I were good friends many years ago."

Because of what she'd heard about the woman's physical and emotional state,
Jordan
was surprised to see her.

"Candi knew I needed her, so she left the sanitarium and came here to be with me." Once again, Terence put an arm around his wife and held her against his side. "We're going away together as soon all this is over. Maybe we can have a few good years."

"So you've been granted immunity." He nodded. "Will you go into the witness protection program?"

"No. We'll find ourselves a secluded villa somewhere and put in a good security system. We'll do fine on our own."

"I refuse to live as a prisoner any longer than I already have," Candi said.

"I don't understand,"
Jordan
said.

"First we lived in dread that Terry would be exposed as a government agent, like your poor father was. Then we feared the government would go after him for switching sides and finally that Tony would turn against him. I've never known true freedom in all the years we've been married. Enough's enough."

"Why did you switch sides, Terence?" He didn't answer. "If that's too personal, I'll withdraw the question."

"He was protecting me," Candi said. "I was a regular at a private gaming club run by your Uncle Dino." Tears filled her eyes. "I got in so deep the mob threatened to go to my father. Terry convinced your uncle to be patient, that eventually, I'd repay my debts.

"Terry appointed himself my personal knight errant, repeatedly putting himself between me and the bosses. By the time my father passed away we were too firmly entrenched in mob business to break away."

"You're not afraid Tony’s people will come after you?"

"If there are any left after the Feds mop up, the security system will take care of them."

"But won't that be like being a prisoner living under guard?"

"Not when we've picked them and we make the rules."

"It's all over, then?" she asked with a sigh. "Our job is done?"

"Yes, my dear. So you can go on with your life. I hope it will be with
Caldwell
."

"How will I know you're okay?"

"I've hired Wallace Patterson to handle our legal affairs. He'll know how to get in touch with us."

"Would you tell me why my uncle turned his anger against me? I was an innocent bystander, and an innocent child. What happened to the code of honor that should have protected me - as well as my mother?"

A strange expression passed over Conlon's features, one she couldn't identify. After a long silence, he replied, "You were not a child but a symbol of his humiliation. Your mother became his enemy by introducing a viper into his nest. Your parents' betrayal cut so deep he saw it as a threat to his position and power. Therefore, you all had to be punished, quickly and so thoroughly no one would ever again attempt to undermine him. It worked."

Jordan
’s eyes filled with tears at his dispassionate recital of her family's destruction, but she could find nothing to say.

"I'm sorry to be so blunt," he said. "But it's time you knew it all." He reached out and passed his hand gently down the side of her cheek. "Now you can move on. That's what we plan to do."