Kiss Me Awake (31 page)

It wasn’t the sensual leer she’d become accustomed to, but an adoring gaze that reflected the high value he placed on her. Her heart swelled with love for this man. A love she didn’t believe was possible.

Seated in a wing-backed chair, Laurel looked regal in her knee-length ginger-colored dress. Jaida set a hand on her shoulder. “Happy Birthday,” she said then planted a kiss on her cheek.

Laurel reached up and squeezed her hand. Though her words were still shapeless and unformed, she responded to her presence, more alert and aware than she could recall.

The progress they were seeing was something the doctors kept telling them was impossible, but they couldn’t dispute the proof sitting in front of her now. With all of their combined years of training and experience, something greater had taken place and proved them wrong.

Spencer seated her first then took the chair beside her. She reached up and smoothed the lapels of his charcoal hounds tooth jacket. Austin Reed—it had to be. He always looked impeccable. Even in a hospital gown.

She bit her lip and gave him a mischievous smile, wondering what he would say if she told him that.

“What?” He grinned back at her.

“I’ll tell you later.”

“Am I late?” Mrs. Childers, Rebecca, joined them. She carried a small wrapped parcel. Mary followed behind bearing a bouquet of pink, yellow, and orange balloons and a smile that lit up the room.

Spencer jumped up and turned on the video camera mounted on a tripod in the corner. “Actually, you’re just in time,” he said then started the first few bars of the traditional birthday song.

Rank amateurs, they
all joined in, their rendition off-key, but Laurel seemed to enjoy the attention. Inside she was probably having a good laugh at their expense. The final note was dragged out and slaughtered at the finish. Laughter filled the room.

Spencer offered up a prayer of thanks then slid the knife into the center of the cake. The blade sliced through the yellow fondant and chocolate devil’s food, but spared the edible butterflies and rosebuds.

Working as a team, Jaida picked up the paper plates stacked at the end of the table and laid them out while Spencer came behind and filled each one with a hefty slice of cake.

She took the one with the largest butterfly and set it in front of Laurel. “For the birthday girl,” she said. Then she offered a plate to each of their two guests.

“This is so moist. What bakery did you get it from?” Rebecca reached for a napkin and dabbed at her mouth.

Jaida ladled some punch into a cup. “No bakery. My friend Aimee does this on the side.” She handed it to Spencer.

“I want her number,” Mary said. “My daughter is getting married, and this is the best I’ve tasted.”

“Write down your email address and I’ll send it to you.” With such rave reviews, maybe Aimee should quit Baseel and do this full time.

Laurel lifted a bite to her mouth. Jaida set her plate down and filled Laurel’s cup, topping the plastic with a lid and straw. She set it in front of her.

“You’re messy.” Jaida grabbed Spencer’s hand and licked the smear of cream filling from his knuckle. “Mmm, that’s good.”

“You think so?” He smeared a slab of frosting across his lips and puckered. “Have at it.”

Jaida laughed. “Behave or they’re going to kick us out of here.” 

He looked down at her, his gaze warming her clear through. “It would be worth it.”

Rebecca clucked her tongue. “You two are incorrigible.”

Spencer grinned at her and wiped the frosting from his mouth with a napkin.

Mary said, “I am amazed at how well Laurel is doing. Even the doctors marvel at her improvement. It’s unprecedented.” She looked from Jaida to Spencer. “And I think it has everything to do with the change in your relationship.”

The room fell silent, and Jaida pressed her fingers to her lips. Mary’s observation had been a theory of her own, but to hear it expressed by someone else only served to confirm it.

A small part of the afternoon was spent eating cake and sharing stories. Laurel’s eyes drooped. It was time for a nap. Rebecca left, and Mary went back to work leaving the three of them alone.

Jaida sat back in the chair, and Spencer stood. He stacked the soiled plates and dropped them into the lined trashcan then collected the gift-wrap strewn across the table and tossed the wadded paper in the can.

Jaida picked up a ribbon that had slid to the floor and handed it to him. He gripped her fingers and kissed the back of her hand.

“You’re hopeless,” she said as though she disapproved, but she was learning to let her guard down, to let him love her. And in truth, she wouldn’t have him any other way.

Jaida rubbed at the tickle above her elbow then turned when she felt it again. It was Laurel. She set her hand on Jaida’s arm. “I m-m-missed you,” she said, the
m
held out in one long hum. It was a complete sentence and nearly perfect.

Stunned, Spencer laughed, it was soul deep, exultant. He kissed Laurel’s forehead then squeezed Jaida’s hand. “Stick with me, and we’ll have her back to normal in no time.”

But then she realized what Laurel had said, and her joy quickly faded. She looked up at Spencer. “But, what about…I’ve been coming to see her all this time, and she doesn’t remember.” Her speech was returning, but what was becoming of her mind, her memory?

Spencer set a warm, reassuring hand on her back and she relaxed into it. It would be all right, she told herself. It was improvement. Maybe it would come a little at a time.

“Mom, Jaida’s been here every week,” Spencer said. “Don’t you remember?” Would her response be as coherent as her statement a few seconds ago, or was that shining moment a flash in the pan, a singular event?

Laurel’s fingers tightened around her arm. “N-n-not the same. Different,” she said, her voice trembling.

Jaida’s worry fell away, and a smile pulled at her mouth.
Different
. She said she was different. Laurel saw the new…well maybe it was the old Jaida—the youthful, idealistic one, but all grown up and shaped by a fresh worldview.

“Knock, knock.”

Jaida turned. Auggie stood in the doorway. Their eyes connected. His were soft and hopeful, hers…well she could only imagine what he saw considering what she felt. She glanced at Spencer and then down at the table, at the crumbs that had fallen from her plate. Why was he here?

Her cool reception didn’t deter Spencer from playing the gracious host. He shook Auggie’s hand warmly and introduced him to Laurel.

Her eyes brightened when she saw the bouquet he carried. They were her favorites, lavender delphinium and yellow daffodils, the stems tied together with a limp white ribbon. Spencer must have told him. Must have invited him too.

“These are for the birthday girl.” Auggie set the flowers in her arms, and from the look on Laurel’s face he’d scored some major brownie points.

She’d hardly spoken with him since that night at the hospital, the rift between them carved wide by her struggle to get past his offense. She believed in him, put her trust in him, and he’d betrayed her.

Just like you betrayed Spencer
. The truth that set her free now snared her. Sharp and piercing, shame at her lack of mercy sunk its teeth into her soul. She was a hypocrite.

Forgive him.

I’ve tried.

Forgive him.

She closed her eyes, swallowing the knot in her throat. Auggie turned and landed a peck on her cheek. Why was this so hard for her?

“It’s good to see you, Jaida. Real good.” He was tentative, almost meek. Two characteristics she never would have used to
describe him. But he’d been in the fire, and its heat had a way of burning away the dross. She knew that firsthand.

“You too,” she said, almost meaning it. He lingered at her side as though he might say more but then moved away from her.

She
was
different, just as Laurel said, but the change in her was incomplete. She had so far to go, and her reaction to Auggie proved it.

Spencer offered Auggie a chair and handed him a piece of cake, a fork stabbed into the top. The two men talked and laughed like old friends catching up. This was a good thing. Wasn’t it?

She watched Auggie from across the table. Gone from his eyes was the pride that once rivaled her own. He’d been broken by his circumstances and looked as fragile as she felt. Sympathy swelled in her breast.

She rolled her lip in and bit down on it.
Move forward, Jaida
,
and let Auggie do the same.
She reached across the table and clasped his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He glanced down at their joined hands looking surprised and pleased. “I’m the one who owes you an apology. More than an apology.”

Spencer slid his arm around her shoulders and leaned close. “Now that that’s out of the way. How is everything coming along on the legal front?”

“I have a good attorney,” Auggie said. “We’ll see where things go. But I do have some news.” His attention shifted to Jaida. “Palermo was hired by Gale
and
by Baseel. You were right, he was with internal affairs.”

He’d been telling the truth, half of it anyway.

“He was working both ends and using his position at Baseel to locate Gale’s cash and the tape.”

“
He admitted to taking it?” To stealing it right out of her house?

Auggie’s head wavered back and forth. “Not directly. But according to my sources, he said enough.”

“
He goes down, but once again Gale comes out unscathed,” she said. It wasn’t right.

Auggie cracked a smile. “Don’t be so sure. Charges are being brought against Gale as we speak. Palermo is working with us in exchange for leniency. Oh, and the police picked up prints from your house. They matched the ones on the glass. It was one of Gale’s punks who trashed it.”

“What do they have on Lance?” she asked. No one could prove he was the one who took the evidence, and using her to get it was hardly a criminal offense.

A bit of the former cockiness returned. “I told you I’d been checking him out. I don’t care how good someone is at what they do, sooner or later they slip up, and he left a decent trail of chargeable offenses.

“There’s also talk of reopening an investigation over the death of a young woman Gale was involved with years ago.”

Her mother? “Sofia Carlisle?” she asked.

“Yeah, that was the name. How did you know?” Carl didn’t tell him? But then she hadn’t told him that William Gale was her father. Not yet.

She shook her head, her stomach sinking. Her instincts had been right about Sofia’s death. “That is a story for another day,” she said.

“I wasn’t going to give you this, but…” Auggie pulled an envelope from his shirt pocket. Tossing a guilty glance at Spencer as he handed it to her.

“It’s from Palermo. He asked me to see that you got it.”

Spencer’s eyes darkened, and he looked away. She handed it back. “I don’t want it,” she said then reached for Spencer’s hand and squeezed. “I have everything I need right here.”

Auggie crumpled the paper in his fist as though he enjoyed it then went on with the update without missing a beat. 

“The dates for Kevin and Carina’s trials have been set. Are you up for testifying? It’s going to get ugly.”

Spencer had protected her, kept her out of the limelight and the fray, but soon she wouldn’t have a choice in the matter, and she would have to face these people standing on her own two feet.

Instinctively Spencer’s arm went around her. Provided by God, it was a wing, a shield, a buffer from everything evil, and Jaida welcomed it.

“I’ll be ready.”

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth— For your love is better than wine.”

~Song of Solomon 1:2

Th
e roar of shattering whitewater, the squawk of circling gulls, and the distant tinkling of windblown chimes, the medley was God’s opus. And the woman curled up snugly beside him, her head cradled in his lap, was His gift.

Spencer stroked gentle fingers over the curve of her brow, sweeping wispy strands of hair from her face
.
In this finite moment, everything was right in the world. Jaida shifted and burrowed in, snuggling closer.
Keep needing me, keep loving me.

His gaze traveled from one delicate feature, perfectly shaped and formed, to another, and wondered at how beautifully made she was; more beautiful than he remembered. But then he was partial.

A breeze rolled over the water ruffling the short sleeves of her white blouse. He loved watching her sleep. She was so peaceful and content.

He didn’t want to wake her, but the day had gone on without them, absconding with the sun it was sneaking into another part of the world, leaving theirs dusky and damp.