Trouble Don’t Last Always (8 page)

Like it or not, they were inexplicably tied to each other, for better or worse. She could only pray she had left the worst behind her in Little Elm.

The next morning she found out how wrong she was.

“Dr. Wakefield, please unlock the door.” Lilly twisted the brass knob again. The unsettling result was the same. “Please, Dr. Wakefield. I have your breakfast and I need to clean the room.”

She heard the pleading note in her voice and briefly shut her eyes. A man used to having people jump when he spoke wasn’t going to listen to her if she whined. The sad fact was that she was more used to taking orders than she was to giving them.

She glanced down at the untouched tray of food she had left outside his door last night. “You have to eat something or you’ll get sick.”

Her forehead fell against the solid oak door. “Very good, Lilly. Like he’s concerned with getting sick,” she muttered to herself.

Using the flat of her hand, she banged against the door. “I have to take care of you. Please.”

Silence.

She banged again. “Please, Dr. Wakefield. If I could just come in. I’m supposed to take care of you. Dr. Delacroix and your mother will be calling tonight. What will I tell them?”

More silence. He wasn’t going to open the door. All she was going to get was a sore hand. “I’ll be back later.”

Weariness in every step, Lilly went to the kitchen with the breakfast tray, then returned for the dinner tray. After all the thought she had given to preparing food he wouldn’t have to worry about cutting or falling off his fork, he hadn’t touched the veal cutlet or green beans.

Shaking her head over the wasted food, she fed it to the garbage disposal. There had to be some way to get him to open his door and listen to reason.

The ringing of the phone made her jump. Cleaning her hands on a dish towel, she slowly crossed the room and picked up the blue wall phone. “Hel— Hello—Wakefield residence.”

“Good morning, Lilly. How are things?”

Lilly leaned heavily against the counter. She hadn’t expected his mother to call so soon. Last night Lilly had asked Mrs. Wakefield to call her Lilly since she worked for the Wakefields. It might be the shortest job in history.

“Lilly, is everything all right?” Mrs. Wakefield asked anxiously.

She opened her mouth to say, “Yes,” but the lie wouldn’t come. Keeping her marriage a secret harmed no one. His mother deserved the truth. “He…he locked me out,” she admitted, sure she was going to be fired.

“I knew my instincts were right.”

“Ma’am?”

“If you had said things were fine, I’d have known you were lying,” Mrs. Wakefield said bluntly. “Adam wouldn’t have succumbed so easily.”

Lilly was too overjoyed that she wasn’t being fired to be concerned with Mrs. Wakefield’s subtle bit of trickery.

“However, I didn’t think he’d use his old tricks,” Mrs. Wakefield continued, not sounding the least bit disturbed.

“He’s done this before?”

“A couple of weeks after he came home from the hospital.”

“What did you do?”

“Got an ax and broke his front door in.”

Lilly smiled, settling on a padded high-backed stool by the phone. Picking up a pencil, she doodled on the notepad on the counter. She liked and envied Mrs. Wakefield’s assurance. “I bet that got his attention.”

“It did. You have to take a firm hand with Adam.”

Her hand tightened around the pencil. “Dr. Wakefield has a mind of his own.”

“I realize that, and unfortunately for you, he thinks he has the upper hand.” The sigh that came through the receiver was long and deep. “He’s aware what I’d do if that happened.”

Lilly sat up straighter. She had to moisten her lips before she spoke: “You want me to take an ax to his door?”

“No. He has to feel he’s in control of something. Besides, I don’t think force will work this time.”

“Then what?”

“I wish I knew. Love and patience certainly haven’t. I’ll let you try for another day. If you’re unable to get him to open up, I’ll have to hire someone else. Good-bye.”

Slowly Lilly hung up the phone. She didn’t want to leave. There was no way she’d find another job that paid as well and offered a place to live. Determination glinted in her eyes.

Adam Wakefield wasn’t running her off. She’d run from her last man. Going back to the sink, she flipped the garbage disposal on. She’d figure out something. She had no choice.

Adam paced the floor at the foot of his bed. Five steps forward; five steps back. He was in a foul mood. His beard itched, he needed a bath, and his shirt would probably stand by itself. So would his linen slacks. He’d always been fastidious in his dress and in his person, changing shirts sometimes twice a day. His jaw tightened. How the mighty had fallen. He was afraid the fall wasn’t over.

Nothing was working out as he had planned. He hadn’t packed enough clean clothes. Worse, he hadn’t had a decent bath since he came here. He sat in a couple of inches of water, afraid he’d slip trying to take a bath in the deep, oversize tub and further injure his eyes.

He’d yet to get the hang of adjusting the water temperature in the shower. Unlike the one-knob head shower at his house in Sausalito, this shower had two. Then there was the soap that he’d carefully put in the dish, then knocked out when he reached for it again. Down on hands and knees he’d go until he found it again. He’d chased his last soap!

He paused and scratched the stubbled beard on his face. He’d always been clean-shaven and preferred a regular razor to stay that way. After he’d come out of the hospital, he’d switched to an electric shaver when he kept nicking himself with the razor. It hadn’t given him as close a shave, but now he didn’t even have that. He’d packed in such a hurry he’d forgotten it, along with half of his other things.

All for nothing. His mother, Kristen, and Nicole had been on the plane. Of course, no one had said anything until it had taken off. Afterward none of them could understand how stupid or betrayed that had made him feel or how angry and worthless it felt to control so little of his life anymore.

He had thought once he reached the estate he’d be in control again. That had been his biggest mistake so far.

He hadn’t calculated that he had been here only five times in the last five years, whereas he had lived in his home in Marin County outside San Francisco for six years. Since he was fairly neat, in his mind’s eye he already knew the placement of furniture and his possessions there. Here he had to become acclimated with his family and Nicole hovering. In his anger, he had made things worse by barging in and overturning furniture. He should have planned better.

The sudden ringing of the phone startled, then annoyed him. It could only be one of four people. One of the four people he had sent hastily from here yesterday. He could almost detect who the caller was from the persistent ringing of the phone. Nicole. His mother or Kristen might have wished he’d answered the phone, but after eight rings they would have respected his desire for privacy.

Not Nicole.

Her aggressiveness was what had taken her from an unsatisfying career as an accountant to president and CEO of her own temporary agency. That trait was what had attracted him to her in the first place.

In his profession he didn’t have time for needy, clingy women. Nicole’s assertiveness meant she wouldn’t be dependent on him to make her happy, that she understood that there would be many times when his work would make him unavailable. When time permitted, they had enjoyed each other’s company in and out of bed. Now he couldn’t even give her that.

His mouth flattened as the phone continued to ring. “Let it go, Nicole. Just move on. Please, for both our sakes.” Blessedly the phone stopped.

His pacing continued. How he wished he could be left alone. At the same time, he wished he could clutter his mind with so many thoughts that he couldn’t think. His laughter was rough and rusty. Perhaps Jonathan hadn’t been far off in wanting to declare him incompetent.

His stomach growled. In the midst of the turmoil his life was in, it seemed incongruent that he could be hungry, yet he was. Perhaps he should have eaten. Only the woman would see what a horrendous mess he had made. Food invariably ended up on his shirt or in his lap. He’d lost count of the number of times he had put an empty spoon or fork into his mouth.

He abruptly halted on step three, pivoted, sniffed. He recognized that smell. Fried chicken. An artery clogger if ever there was one. His stomach didn’t seem to care, nor his salivary glands. His stomach growled. His mouth watered.

He’d never realized his sense of smell was so acute. If anyone suggested that it was because his other senses were heightened due to his loss of sight, he’d tell him that was a crock. There was nothing scientific to back up such a claim. Still…he smelled fried chicken.

She’d knock on his door soon, he was sure. Maybe he’d accept the tray this time. He’d already shown he was in charge by locking her out. Carefully, his hands outstretched, step by humiliating step, he made his way to the door, a straight twenty-one-step path from the foot of his bed.

Time passed. How much he couldn’t tell.

Another irritating thing about his blindness was the complete lack of comprehension of the passage of time. The cuckoo clock Nicole had given him a week after he came home from the hospital had driven him crazy. He really had accidentally knocked it off his bedside table and broken it, just as he’d told her. He just wasn’t sorry he had.

Becoming annoyed with the woman’s tardiness, he pressed his ear against the door. The two-story house was built solid, but he was positive he heard some kind of droning sound. His stomach growled. Where was his dinner?

A thought struck. What if she didn’t come back? What if she was downstairs taking it easy, watching the soaps, eating his fried chicken? What if she planned to do nothing, just pocket the money? What was the going rate to take care of a helpless man? Two hundred, three hundred dollars a week? Whatever it was, there was no one in the house to report her if she didn’t do her job.

Except him!

Incensed, he jerked open the door. She wasn’t getting away with it. “If you don’t bring my lunch, you’re fired!”

Lilly barely kept from clapping hands together. She did grin and turned over a drumstick in the electric fryer she’d been tending in the hallway. “You’re sure you’re ready to eat?”

His attention shifted downward. “What are you doing on the floor?”

She scrambled to her feet, almost knocking over the small electric fan positioned on the other side of the skillet to blow the aroma of frying chicken to Adam’s room. “Your tray took all the space on the side table and I–I set mine on the floor.”

“Well, bring mine inside. Now.”

Lilly picked up the tray. “Certainly, Dr. Wakefield.” Entering his room, she was prepared for a bigger mess than the day before. She felt a small measure of relief that it wasn’t. The chairs and tables were upright; so were the lamps, their bulbs burning, their shades slightly bent. “I’ll get the table from the hall and put it by the window. The sun is shining and you can hear the blue jays in the oak trees outside.”

His mouth tightened a fraction. He hadn’t moved from the door. “No, just put it on the bed. Then you can leave.”

“I need to clean up your room.” She paused, her hands firmly on the tray.

“Later. Now leave.”

Somehow she didn’t trust him. “You give me your word.”

“Don’t question me!” he bit out, but his growling stomach negated the force of his stern order.

Lilly caught back a chuckle. He was human.

His head jerked sharply toward her. “What was that?”

“Nothing, Dr. Wakefield. I’ll be back later for the tray and to clean the room.” Setting the tray on the rumpled bed, she started from the room, then made a quick detour. “I’ll just grab your laundry from the bathroom.”

A cursory glance in the room that was bigger than her bath told her she had her work cut out for her. Towels were strewn everywhere. The black tile in the shower could use a good scrub, and so could the tub.

His clothes in her hands, she edged past him. “Meat at twelve, potato salad at three, green beans at six, roll at nine, brow—”

The door closed firmly in her face.

Lilly jerked back, then went down the hall smiling. She had done something right. Gotten Dr. Wakefield to open his door.

Adam caught himself sucking on the chicken bone and tossed it in the direction of his plate. Since he heard a thump instead of a clatter, he set the tray on the floor beside him and felt around on the Persian rug until he found the discarded bone. This time he made sure it reached the tray.

With his back pressed against the footboard of the bed, he sipped his lemonade from the thermos spout. It wasn’t one of the reds he would have chosen to complement his meal, but fried chicken wasn’t his usual meal, either. However, he had to admit the food was good and so was the lemonade.

Ice cubes clinked as he lowered the thermos. Lots of ice, just the way he liked his beverages. This time he hadn’t had to worry about knocking the glass over or ice sliding down into the glass and splashing the liquid up his nose as had happened in the past. Maybe she had possibilities. If she kept out of his way.

“Dr. Wakefield. It’s me, Lilly.”

Speak of the devil. He found his brownie again and took another generous bite. “I haven’t finished.”

“Did you have enough?”

Adam grunted. Four drumsticks, potato salad and green beans in little bowls so that he didn’t have to chase the food over his plate, and three gooey but delicious brownies. She must be used to feeding truck drivers. “Yes.”

“What would you like for dinner? I was thinking chicken-fried steak?”

Apparently she hadn’t heard of the dangers of too much cholesterol. He took another bite of his brownie. “Whatever.”

Outside the door, Lilly wrung her hands. Maybe she had celebrated too early. Although Mrs. Wakefield had been just as excited and had actually congratulated Lilly on her scheme. “I washed and ironed some of your clothes.”

“What?” He scrambled to his feet. “Those shirts were silk and the pants linen.”

“Not the ones I washed. I–I checked the labels in the shirts and washed them on Delicate. It’s all right.”

“Bring one to me now,” he ordered. He didn’t have any clothes to waste. He wasn’t about to ask that traitor Jonathan to bring him more or admit that he wasn’t prepared to care for himself. Getting his bearings, Adam went to the door and jerked it open. “Incompetent—”