His Frozen Heart (40 page)

One of the nurses commented that Libby
must have been some sort of a local celebrity because they’d never
seen so many people all looking for one patient. It was selfish of
me to believe that only I loved Libby. People we had gone to high
school with, played pool with, gone to bonfires with, and even her
coworkers all popped in to check on her. When one of the nurses
gently reminded us that visiting hours were over fifteen minutes
ago, Dave took my hand and led me toward the door.

Libby hadn’t asked me anything about
what had happened to her. I assumed Larry had filled her in. Libby
motioned me back toward her bed, took my hand, and asked, “Are you
okay?”

I wasn’t sure if she had seen the
scratches on my hands, the bruise on my neck or what, but I
answered without a moment’s hesitation. “I have a lot to tell you.
Thanks for waking up.”

She leaned in conspiratorially toward
my ear, “Have you seen my doctor?”

Worry crept into my voice when I
answered, “No, do you need me to go get him?”

“
I’m pretty sure Larry
would never forgive me if I asked for his number, but holy crap, he
was an eyeful when I woke up.” Libby was back. Only she could come
through an ordeal like this and notice the hotness wearing a
stethoscope and a lab coat. I gave her a gentle squeeze and
whispered into her ear, “Don’t worry, if things don’t work out with
Larry, I got his phone number.”

Chapter 29

(Two months later)

Libby stood in the doorway of the
kitchen, resting up against the thick wooden frame. “I got paid.
You want me to pick up anything at the store?”

Shaking my head, I didn’t look up from
the pot on the stove. I had made jambalaya, and it was ten minutes
from perfection. Cooking had never been my thing, but lately I’d
been hitting Rachel Ray’s website for recipes. “We just went
yesterday; I think we’re good on everything.”

“
Well, here,” she handed me
a wad of twenties, “at least let me chip in on the
rent.”

I waved her money off, “We’re already
paid up through next month. Keep it.”

She wore a sorrowful look when she
pleaded, “Candy, I can help.”

I shook my head as my eyes went to
where her hair was finally growing back. In the hospital, the staff
had shaved the side of her head so they could put the tube in to
drain fluids from her brain. Libby had had long blonde hair for as
long as I had known her – naturally blonde, nothing she had to
touch up every couple months. She ended up getting a short cut to
try to camouflage the fact that it had been bare skin from her ear
to her temple. The style looked cute on her, but each time I saw
the thin patch of hair on one side of her head, guilt washed over
me all over again.

It wasn’t until after she had been out
of the hospital and home for over a week that I could ask her if
she remembered what had happened the night she was attacked. Her
memory was blotchy. She remembered answering a knock at the door,
Grey forcing his way into the house, but she didn’t remember the
attack. Neither one of us knew how Grey learned where I worked, but
we concluded he must have still been in the house when I left in a
rush for work, and he followed me there.

Libby concluded that my abrupt
departure probably saved her life that night. Her doctor told her
one more hit to the head would have been a death blow. I shared
that had I not been sleeping like the dead, I should have heard the
attack going on in our living room.

Her hand still held the folded
twenties she had offered. Instead of accepting them I reminded her,
“That was the deal, Libby. You fought back and didn’t die: I told
you I’d get another roommate to help cover the bills.”

“
I never agreed to it. I
was unconscious, remember? Let me help.”

“
A deal’s a deal.” I meant
every word of my promise to her that night. I didn’t want her to
shark anymore, or if she did, I didn’t want her ability to con some
guy to be the means for us to eat. I had kept up my end of the
deal. She still went to the bars and played, but nowadays she had a
new partner. She never told him to wear skirts, either. “When’s
Larry going to be here?”

She shrugged her shoulders, “Soon. He
got off at five. He was going to stop off at his place and change.”
She leaned up against the table watching me for a second before she
asked, “So what’s your deal? Larry doesn’t make your skin crawl
anymore?”

Her question caught me off guard.
Before the assault I had been very vocal about how little I liked
him. I had even done a happy dance in the kitchen the day she told
me they had broken up. “Nope. He’s okay.”

“
Did you two bond or
something?”

Larry never left her side. He slept in
the waiting room of the ICU for almost a week, then camped out in
her hospital room for three days after her condition had
stabilized. He went so far as to try to set up payments with the
hospital before she had been discharged, though not needed: the
bill had been paid in full by an anonymous benefactor. He loved her
and nothing short of a crowbar would have removed him from her life
after she recovered. “Yeah, I guess so. I still think you could do
better, but if you’re happy with him, then I’m happy for
you.”

“
Wow, Candy, that was
almost an endorsement. Why the change of heart?”

Libby had talked to her doctors, so
she knew how lucky she was to be alive. What she didn’t get was how
much her attack had affected all of us. Larry took a leave of
absence from his job because he couldn’t stand to be away from her
for any length of time, not just while she was in the hospital but
throughout her recovery.

Henry popped in at least once a week
since she’d left the hospital. This was strange, because I’d now
seen him more since her accident than I had the whole time we were
in high school. She had carefully avoided him before, but seemed
excited about each of his visits.

Mrs. Bavcock stopped by at least three
mornings a week for coffee and had recently begun dropping off
cookies, too. Her family was in the area, but after everything we
had been through together, she decided to take on the role of
Honorary Mom to both Libby and me.

I called Mom and Dad after Libby was
out of the hospital and told them what had happened. Mom was on a
plane the same night – she wasn’t the least bit upset about the
carpet or sofa. Mom spent the weekend with us and was pleased to
see the floor deadbolts Mr. Kravitz had installed. She was pretty
happy to see Larry and Dave keeping an eye on Libby and me,
too.

When I finally found Chris, I learned
that neither Grey nor Teddy had ever bothered him. Chris couldn’t
believe what had happened to Libby. He brought a vase of flowers
and a plate of chicken wings to her hospital room when he found
out. Ever since she had been discharged, Chris called every Tuesday
night to see how we were doing. At first I thought it was a little
eerie, but it was his way of letting Libby and me know he was
thinking about us. When he called last Tuesday, he told me that
Bank Shot had a new policy in place to walk female customers to
their cars in the evening. It didn’t sound like a big deal since
Libby hadn’t been attacked in the parking lot, but Chris said he
had recommended it at an employee meeting, and it was now a new
policy at the bar.

All of these people seemed like
bystanders, yet one dreadful evening proved that they were much
more than decorations in our lives.

Libby was staring at me,
waiting for an answer. “I dunno. He was there for you when you
needed him. Up until your nap at the hospital,”
nap
was the word I used instead
of
coma
whenever
we talked about her stay at the hospital, “he always seemed a
little too happy to be breathing.”

“
He’s still pretty
upbeat.”

“
I know. It’s not as
annoying now.”

The front door sailed open as a strong
spring gust nearly pulled it out of Dave’s hand. His smile was so
brilliant it could have morphed the sun. With his long strides, he
came directly to me, lifted me off the floor, and swung me in a
circle. “It’s official. Finished the papers. Should be able to open
it in thirty days.”

I beamed back at him, “Was Kravitz
with you?”

“
Yeah, he tried to bail out
at the last minute, but Emily helped me convince him to
go.”

Kravitz had told me that Dave had
outgrown the shop he was renting. A place just a few blocks from my
house came up for sale while Libby was still in the hospital. It
had six large rollup doors and was ten thousand square feet with a
fenced-in area for jobs waiting to be started. Kravitz and I both
prodded Dave to take a look, but it was Mark who told Dave he
needed to think bigger. Mark had stopped by Dave’s shop a week or
so after they reconnected and saw several of Dave’s
restorations.

Mark still lived in Kansas City. He
blew through town a couple of times per month on business. He
didn’t share with either of us what his business was. It bothered
me because I was sure whatever he did was illegal, but Dave didn’t
care. He had his brother back.

I had always had an active
imagination, so I envisioned everything from him being a drug mule
to working directly for a drug cartel, possibly even as a hired hit
man. It still nagged at me inside, but after a few visits and angry
glares from him, I stopped asking. He had saved my life, he
probably saved Libby’s life, and he assembled Dave’s missing
pieces. Whatever he was to the rest of the world, to me he was
Dave’s only family. Maybe we’d find out the truth someday, or maybe
we wouldn’t – regardless, Mark was a regular visitor and I had
never seen Dave happier.

Dave and Mr. Kravitz came to an
agreement on the expanded Bodies by Brewer, where students with
promise would have part time jobs on the weekends learning from
both of them. The two were even talking about establishing a co-op
program with the school. Dave had given up his studio apartment and
moved in with Libby and me over a month ago. It wasn’t as
convenient for him to walk down the steps for work in the morning,
but there is something to be said for closets.

To Mark’s credit, Teddy and Grey left
town. Occasionally I would see Tony, but he never said a word to me
about where either had gone. The few times I had seen him had
nothing to do with bars: once at the grocery store, once at
McDonald’s, and once while Dave and I were on a walk on Windham
Street. Dave didn’t know who Tony was and seemed oblivious to the
fear Tony wore when he saw the two of us strolling toward him. I
didn’t bother to do introductions, so I was sure Tony believed I
was walking with Mark, the same guy who had tossed Tony’s brother
out of town.

“
So, thirty days from
today?” I clarified.

Dave, still holding me in a tight hug,
nuzzled my neck with his lips. “Looks that way.” He reached over to
the stove and stirred the pot in front of me, then looked at Libby,
“Hey, can you watch this for a few minutes? I need to talk to Candy
upstairs.”

Libby took the spoon from him,
“Sure.”

As he led me by the hand, I noticed
his palms were sweating. He must have still been freaking out about
the big real estate purchase. Dave internalized everything. Over
the past two months he had opened up a great deal, but anytime
someone got on his last nerve, or he was frustrated, he would keep
it inside and stew about whatever was bothering him. I had finally
gotten him to the point that he might vent to me, but that was a
pretty tall order for someone who had spent most of his life hiding
himself from the rest of the world.

He led me into our room and closed the
door. Dave looked nervous, and I was prepared to give him the same
pep talk Kravitz and I had offered multiple times for the last
month. For a man with so much talent, he was reluctant to
expand.

Dave backed me up against the closed
door. He took me by surprise when he stepped closer to me, placed
both his hands on either side of my face and gently kissed my lips
– not one of the impassioned kisses I always hungered for, but a
sweet one that lingered.

Dave could melt me into a puddle of
goo with no effort whatsoever. I slid my arms on either side of
him, reaching up underneath the back of his shirt, allowing my
fingers to lightly caress the smooth skin underneath his t-shirt
until I elicited his “happy moan.” He let go of my face, sliding
his hands down to my hips and rested his head on my shoulder. I
could spend hours like this with Dave.

The more I learned about Dave, the
luckier I felt to be a part of his life. The first week when we
reconnected, Dave had told me about the foster kid he was helping.
The kid’s name was Byron, and he wanted to sign up for Kravitz’s
class, but didn’t have money for a car or the parts to fix it. I
thought it was great that Dave bought the stuff for him so he could
be in the class. Dave was going through classes to become a foster
parent. Once he had completed the training, he would be one of the
youngest foster parents the state had ever had.

His voice came out raspy, full of
emotion. “You know I love you, right?”

I did know. Initially, it was hard for
him to say the words. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel them, he just
had difficulty saying them. “Yeah, I love you, too.”