Kiss Me Awake (16 page)

“This is crazy, Auggie.”

He stared her down, challenging her, daring her to argue. “Okay. All right.” She would do it, but he was wrong. 

Jaida moved toward the door then hesitated. What about Lance’s meeting with Spencer? Should she bring that up? Deciding against it, she reached for the doorknob.

Auggie stopped her with a hand to her arm. “Promise me you’ll do as I say.”

“I promise.” 

“Good girl.” He chucked her chin, and she jerked her face away.

“I hate it when you do that.”

Auggie grinned. “I know.”

                                        *

Jaida turned the knob. Lance’s office was locked and the lights were off. He must have left for the day. She would come back tomorrow. It was just as well. She had something important to do.

Spencer handed Taryn Nichols, an aide at the nursing home, the white paper sack he brought with him.  

“I think you know what to do with these,” he said.

“Delicious. It’s like an orchard in a bag. I could smell these peaches the second you walked through the door.”

He could impress her further by telling her he’d picked them himself from the tree in hi
s backyard, but he only said, “Just have the cook pit them and cut them up for her like last time.” 

She set the peaches down on the desk and wrote the instructions on a sticky note then stuck it to the bag. “Your mom sure loves these.”

“Yes, she does,” he said, noticing the gray blouse she wore and the way it flattered her figure. Her auburn hair was pinned up in a twist. Tiny tendrils rebelled, sprouting from the smooth coif at the nape of her neck. “You look nice today.”

“Thank you.” She looked down at her hands, the pink of her cheeks deepening at his concentrated attention. He cleared his throat and looked away when he realized his gaze lingered longer than was appropriate.

“Your mom is in the dayroom,” Taryn finally said. It was a polite way of glossing over his lapse. “Jai…I mean, your wife, was in earlier, but I think she left.”

He nodded and headed for the east corridor.
You blew it, Spencer.
He just made sure all future visits would be uncomfortable for both of them. The attraction was there. They both knew it, but he never encouraged it, and neither would he act on it.

His defenses were low after being taken down a notch by Jaida. It was more than a piece of paper that bound him to her, but he was human, and he was lonely. 

He rounded the corner and stopped when he saw her. She was still here. He ducked his head and did a one-eighty, the edge of the wall concealing his presence. He didn’t want to see her, didn’t want to get into it with her. Not here. He half laughed at his excuse for avoiding her. Who was he trying to kid? It was her rejection he hoped to dodge.

Maybe he should leave, let her have her time, and come back later. He glanced at his watch. He had an appointment scheduled later this afternoon. He would take care of that first if he could get Paul Norton to bump up the time.

Spencer turned to leave, but something held his feet to the floor, kept him from rushing away. He lowered his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. What was the hurry anyway?

His ears perked at the familiar laughter; laughter that floated with the weight of a feather, soft and feminine. It had been such a long time since he’d heard it.

He leaned his shoulder against the wall and watched his family—what was left of it anyway—fragmented and with pieces that no longer fit. When Dad passed away, his mother became the only existing link between the two of them. When that was gone…

He watched Jaida cup Laurel’s hand in hers. Her face was luminous, almost angelic, her eyes soft and full of love that was too genuine to doubt. How could this be the same woman from yesterday? She must save her congenial side for the people she liked.

She smoothed the twisted yellow collar on his mother’s blouse then rearranged the blanket spread across her lap. Jaida talked the whole time and his mother listened. But what did she talk about?

He watched her turn in her chair and look down the length of the hall. What was she looking for? Spencer took another step back, but not before he glimpsed the frown forming at her mouth and between her brows. Was she expecting someone? Lance Palermo, perhaps?

He had managed to keep the sorrow at arms length, but suddenly the weight of his loss was suffocating, crushing the breath from his lungs. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. She loved him once. Or had he mistaken need for love? His throat tightened. Love or need, whatever it was, she’d severed their connection and the artery had been bleeding out ever since. 

A sharp wail split the air. His heart jolted, and he pushed up from the wall. A few quick strides and instead of heading out the way he came, he wedged himself between the two women. “It’s okay, Mom.” He stroked her arm, soothing and comforting while he quietly prayed. The crying began to ease.

With a nurse at her side, Taryn rushed toward them, but Spencer held up his hand. “Everything’s under control. She’s fine now.” He pulled away from her enough to see her ashen face. “Aren’t you, Mom?”

Her eyes still glistened from the outburst, but a trace of a smile crept to her thinning lips, and she patted his cheek with a chilled palm. He sank back on his haunches with a sigh glad he’d been there, and relieved that it was over.

Taryn seemed uneasy almost reluctant to leave. “Let us know if you need anything,” she said. “We’ll be right down the hall.”

He nodded. “I’ll do that.” He eased Laurel back in the chair, adjusting the lap quilt that had slipped to the floor.

Spencer glanced up at Jaida. She stood beside him frozen in place, her complexion stark white, holding a square of neatly cut newsprint that trembled in her hand. He rose and reached for it. He slipped the yellowed paper from her fingers, recognizing it before he even read the headline.  

“So, you still want to find her?” he asked. This must have been what set his mother off. He looked up from the paper when she didn’t answer.

A flicker of remorse crossed her face, and she lowered her eyes. She nodded, telling him what he already knew. She looked like a scolded child the way her teeth worried the plump flesh of her lower lip. He handed the clipping back, disappointment a lead ball in his stomach.

In her mind, he must seem the ogre when he was only trying to protect her. He didn’t begrudge her knowing her birth mother, but she was looking for that connection, that relationship to do the impossible. Why he concerned himself with it, he didn’t know. She was a grown woman. It was time he let go and let her find out for herself that her worth and her future wasn’t buried with her family’s past.

Spencer sighed. “For what it’s worth, looking back won’t give you what you’re searching for. Haven’t you figured that out yet? It isn’t about the past. It’s about right now.”

She pressed a tight knot of white knuckles to her mouth, and he reached for her. “Are you all right?” It was habit that drove his arm forward to offer comfort, but he pulled back before he made contact, forcefully shoving his hand into the pocket of his slacks. He could communicate without touching her.

Jaida shook her head ‘no’ then nodded. Not okay, he decided.

She lowered her fist from her mouth. “Why did she do that? She seemed fine and then…” She swallowed hard, staring at the floor. “What have I done?”

Do you want a list?

Spencer reached over and yanked a Kleenex from the lone box on the end table. He blotted at his mom’s damp cheeks and eyes. “It just happens,” he said. “Emotional lability.” That’s what the doctors labeled it.

“She’s not going to get better, is she?” 

He looked up at her then. “The doctors say she won’t.” 

“But you don’t believe them?” The hope that lit her eyes bewildered him. How was it that she could have no faith in him when it came to their marriage, but in this matter, one affirmative word from him and all would be made well?

“There’s always the possibility of error,” he said. The doctors were men, fallible beings, and if medicine or a surgeon’s scalpel couldn’t reverse the damage from the accident, God could. If it was His will.

Jaida stepped back, her body visibly trembling. Was she leaving? What did he say to run her off this time?

Spencer crushed the used tissue into a tight ball. “I can go occupy myself while you visit. I didn’t know you were still here or I wouldn’t have come.”

Her eyes met his with a flicker of pain, a flash of anger.
The coup de grace.
His innocent comment dealt a deathblow to the unseen remnant of her affection for him. A remnant he didn’t know existed.

She stiffened, a wounded soul guarding the injury. “No, I’ll leave.” Cool and distant, she gathered her things.

Spencer caught her by the arm. “No. She needs you here.” This was exactly what he was afraid would happen.

He loosened his grip prepared for her to jerk her arm away and tell him off, but her anger dissolved, giving way to vulnerability. He hadn’t seen her so helpless since he carried her home bundled in Noah Wylie’s jacket. Was he witnessing the presence of a chink, a crack in the wall that Jaida built?

She blinked and the defensive barrier was back in place. His hope bottomed out, and he released her. “Let’s take her back to her room.”

He unlocked the wheelchair and guided it toward the main hall, the rubber-bound wheels propelling the chair over the buffed floor. It was a concrete foundation dressed up with hard tile squares and several layers of wax, but it felt more like eggshells underfoot, and if he was careless and stepped the wrong way…

It surprised him that she stayed and that she followed him now at his request. He had no desire to drive her away, but her reactions were so unpredictable that he didn’t know how to respond to her or what to expect.

She walked briskly to keep up. When he noticed the discrepancy in their natural strides, he slowed down.  He glanced at her then looked ahead. Always in control she’d shut her emotions down. But that rawness he glimpsed earlier didn’t just disappear at will. Somewhere behind the controlled exterior it lived, and if she didn’t own it, one of these days it was going to own her. 

Jaida pushed the door wide enough for him to enter with the wheelchair. “Would you pull the covers back on the bed?” he asked.

She didn’t speak, but did as he asked, folding the bedspread and the matching top sheet down. Spencer removed his mother’s shoes then settled her under the covers, tucking the loose edge of the sheet under the mattress.

He pulled the drapes and turned off the overhead light. Jaida skirted him, moving to the opposite side of the bed. Was it just his imagination, or was she positioning herself closer to the door?

With a gentle touch, she swept back a strand of hair that hung in his mother’s eyes then looked up at him. “Just answer me this. How is it that, before today, we’ve never run into each other here?”

It was a loaded question, one he’d rather not answer. Spencer found a fresh pitcher of ice water and a clean plastic cup on the bedside table. He’d only done what she’d asked of him, stepped aside to give her the autonomy she desired.

He owed her the truth, but it wasn’t going to endear her to him. There was no kind way to say he intentionally avoided her. He filled the cup and offered it to her. When she refused it with a shake of her head, he drank it down. She wasn’t going to be put off.

He set the empty cup in the sink. “I have the employees let me know when you’re here along with the general schedule of your visits to make sure our paths never cross.”

Her jaw visibly hardened. It was another wound he’d inflicted. He was bombing out big time.

“What about today?” she asked.

He rubbed his jaw. “I was late, an unexpected fluke, someone dropped the ball.” He shrugged. “Maybe all three.” Or God ordained it, making his immutable plans mutable.

“I see.” She picked up the purse she left on the table and made a beeline for the door. In one long stride, Spencer moved in front of her, blocking her path with his body.

“What do you see, Jaida?”

She raised a strong chin. “I see how it is.”

“I don’t think you do, or it wouldn’t bother you. The way we’re living right now, this was your plan not mine. I’m just staying out of your way, playing things out the way you wanted.”  

“If you were trying so hard to stay out of my way, why did you show up at my house the other day?”

He locked eyes with her. He owed her no explanation, and he didn’t offer one. He took a risk and put himself out there because God told him to. Because for the life of him, he couldn’t quit on her, and because, for some insane reason he still loved her.

Putting an end to their silent standoff, a nurse arrived at the room with a chart in her hand. Spencer stepped aside to let her in, and Jaida took the opportunity to slip out.

“Good-bye, Spencer.”