Moonlight on Butternut Lake (23 page)

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing's
wrong,
” she said, out of breath. “But, Reid . . .” She shook her head, as if to clear it.

“I'm sorry. I said one kiss. And I wanted you to remember it. I wanted to make it count.”

She didn't say anything. She couldn't. So she tried, instead, to restore some order to her hair, and to her thoughts, both of which were chaotic and wild. Her hair was tangled on her shoulders, and her thoughts, her thoughts were running something like this:
That was cutting it
way, way
too close.
One more minute of a kiss like that and she would have followed him anywhere. Though the most logical place for her to have followed him, of course, would have been to his bedroom. Or, more specifically, to his bed. And
she saw an image then of her sundress, bra, and panties in a little heap on the floor beside Reid's bed.

“I think I . . . I think we'd better call it a night,” Mila said now. “I'm really tired. And I know you must be too.” It sounded lame, even to her, but Reid only nodded. She stood up to go inside, and Reid followed her. And after she'd closed and locked the sliding glass door, and set the alarm in the kitchen, she walked with him as far as his bedroom door and said good night to him.

“Good night, Mila,” he said, with the same seriousness with which he'd asked if he could kiss her.

She headed down the hall to her room, and Reid went inside his room and started to close the door, but she had a change of heart and turned back.

“Reid?” she called.

“Yes?” he said, coming back out into the hallway.

“That kiss? You made it count. Trust me. You
really
made it count.” She went into her room then, closed the door, and leaned back against it. She could still feel his hands in her hair, and his mouth on her mouth, and she was reminded of what she'd overheard that teenager say in the drugstore earlier that day, about having the feeling that “something might happen” that night.
Oh, something had happened all right,
she told herself.
Something had definitely happened.
But now that it had, there was no way to make it
un
happen. And standing there, she reminded herself, as she had that afternoon, that it was impossible. Getting involved with each other would be unprofessional on her part, and dangerous on his. Still, it was hours before she stopped reliving his kiss, and hours before she stopped making a map of all the places his lips had touched.

A
re you all right?” Mila asked, leaning over Reid's bed in what by now had become a familiar ritual.

“I'm fine,” he started to say, but he stopped himself, since the condition he was in would seem to contradict that statement. His heart was pounding, his adrenaline was spiking, and his throat . . .
uh,
his throat was so parched and rough he could barely swallow. He knew he'd been screaming tonight, probably for a long time.

“I'm sorry,” Mila said.

“
You're
sorry?”

She nodded. “I don't think I woke up right away,” she said. “Usually, I'm a light sleeper, but . . .”

“But you're exhausted,” Reid finished for her. “And you should be. You've spent the last three nights sleeping in a chair, Mila.”

She shrugged. “It's not me I'm worried about, Reid.”

He drew in a real breath now, the first since she'd woken him up, and felt his heart rate begin to slow.

“I'll get the pillow and the blanket,” Mila said. But Reid stalled, wanting her to stay close to him.

“This is new,” he said of her nightgown, which was a sleeveless white cotton one, with an edging of lace at the neckline, and a pattern of tiny pale pink roses on it. It was both modest and lovely, he decided, taking a little of its material between his fingers. It was just like Mila.

But Mila, watching him, removed his hand gently from her nightgown and looked at him as if to say,
We've been over this already
. And they had. They'd been over it at the breakfast table a couple of days ago, the morning after their kiss on the deck. Lonnie had gone outside to collect one of her packages, and Mila had said, a little formally, as if she had already rehearsed it, “Reid, last night was a serious breach of professionalism on my part. And I can't allow it to happen again. Not if I'm going to continue to live here and work here.”

That was all she'd had time to say before Lonnie came back inside, but it had been enough. Because Reid's worst fear, it turned out, was not that that kiss wouldn't happen again, and happen again soon, it was that Mila would leave. So he said nothing, and he was careful to observe the new distance she'd put between them. Personally, though, he was skeptical about how long they could maintain it. Their attraction, it seemed to him, was like a rubber band stretched tight and ready to snap at any moment.

But Mila wasn't feeling that attraction right now. Right now, she looked tired, her pretty brown and gold eyes shadowed by faint circles.

“You don't have to stay,” Reid said. “Really, go back to bed. I'll be fine.”

“No. I told you that first night I would stay after you had a dream like that, and I meant it.” She started to head for the closet to retrieve the pillow and the blanket, but he said quickly, “Look, Mila, there's a bed right here that you can sleep in.”

She stopped and turned back. “You mean the bed that you're already in?”

“Well, I'm not taking up the whole thing,” he said, amazed at his own audacity.

She was amazed at it too. “Reid, you
cannot
be serious.”

“Why not? I don't . . . want to be alone,” he said, conscious of the effort it still cost him to admit this. “And you don't want to spend the rest of the night sleeping in a chair. And besides, this bed is huge.” Indicating the hospital bed that he didn't really need anymore but that the medical equipment rental company hadn't picked up yet, he added, “Really, there's more than enough room in it for the two of us.”

“Reid, I'm not sleeping in your bed with you,” she said, crossing her arms across her chest.

“Even if it really is to sleep? Even if I give you my word that that's all we would do?”

“It's not that,” Mila said, in a way that made Reid think it was, at least partly that.

“Then what it is?”

“It's that it would be completely inappropriate for me to sleep in the same bed as a patient.”

“Even if it contributed to that patient's overall sense of well-being?” Reid asked, knowing full well that he was pushing the envelope here.

“Even then,” she said, her eyebrows quirking up again in a way that seemed to say,
Nice try, Reid
.

She retrieved the pillow and blanket, turned off the bedside table lamp, and settled into the armchair. And Reid stared at the dark ceiling. He knew he'd overstepped her boundaries with that suggestion, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't think about it, about the two of them being in the same bed together. He did
think about it. He thought about it all the time. Not necessarily
sleeping
together, though the sleeping would be nice, too, once they were both exhausted enough to sleep. He sighed and wondered what it would take to deliver Mila into his bed with him right now.
A miracle,
he decided. Which was why he was so surprised when, a minute later, Mila got up, turned on the bedside table lamp, and said, without any preamble, “How much do you want me to sleep next to you tonight, Reid? And I do mean
sleep
.”

He blinked. “A lot,” he said.

She studied him, her expression intense and speculative. “All right,” she said finally. “I'll do it. I'll sleep next to you, in your bed, on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“That you'll see a doctor that I've heard about.”

“What kind of doctor?” he asked, instantly tense.

“A psychologist, actually, and he comes highly recommended. He's very experienced treating people with PTSD.”

He groaned audibly. “Not this again.”

“Yes, this again.”

“I told you. I don't have that.”

“That's a matter of opinion. But if we can't agree on it, I can always go back to the chair,” she said, reaching for the light switch.

“No,” he said hastily. “Don't do that. I'll . . . I'll see him, okay?”

Her hand stopped in midair.

“I'll see him
once,
” he amended.

“You'll see him once
and
you'll keep an open mind about seeing him again,” she countered.

“I don't know about that.”

“Okay, then you'll
try
to keep an open mind about seeing him again.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” he said.

She shrugged, almost imperceptibly.

“All right,” he said grudgingly.

“All right?” she repeated, her eyes suddenly alight.

He nodded.

“Well, move over then,” she said, with a smile.

And Reid, trying to contain his delight, moved over, dragging his uncooperative leg with him. Mila retrieved her pillow from the armchair, started to get in beside him, and then stopped. “Reid, if you think tonight is going to pick up where the night on the deck left off, you're going to be disappointed.”

“I don't think that,” he assured her. “Really, it's not going to be a problem for me. I'll stay on my side of the bed and you'll stay on yours.”

“Good,” she said, satisfied. She laid her pillow next to his pillow, and then she slipped in beside him. As he'd predicted, there was plenty of room for both of them. More than enough so that they could lie beside each other without actually touching each other. But still, the very presence of her in his bed was exotic, and strange. He tried to seem nonchalant, though, as she plumped up her pillow, pulled the covers over her, and, after reaching to turn off the bedside light, settled into the bed, facing him in the darkness.

“Good night, Reid,” she said, and he thought he could hear a trace of humor in her voice.

“Good night, Mila,” he answered.

He closed his eyes, and the room was quiet, except for the soft, regular sound of her breathing. He listened to it carefully, as it slowly relaxed and then settled finally into the easy rhythm of sleep. After that, he opened his eyes and watched her in the faint, gray light of the room. He felt an incredible urge to touch
her then, to brush a strand of hair off her face, or to pull the slipped-down strap on her nightgown back up onto her shoulder. But he did neither of those things. He'd promised to stay on his side of the bed, and he intended to do so. Still, he savored her nearness. The faint coconut scent of the lotion she was wearing. The sweet tickle of her breath reaching him from several inches away. Never would he have believed it was possible to share this kind of intimacy with someone without actually touching them.

And then he remembered a placard on the wall of a dive bar he and his friends had frequented in college. It had said, “Never play poker with a man named Doc. Never eat at a restaurant called Ma's. And never sleep with a woman who has more troubles than you do.”

He smiled wryly to himself, knowing the “sleep” this referred to was not sleep in the literal sense of the word. In his and Mila's sense of the word. Still, it gave him pause.
Did
Mila have more troubles than he did? Well, not
more
maybe, but she had at least as many, and they weren't insignificant troubles either. She was afraid, for one thing. And since she didn't strike him as a coward, he assumed that whatever, no,
whoever
she was afraid of, was pretty goddamned scary. And she'd been hurt, too. Badly. Maybe so badly that having a relationship—a normal, healthy relationship—wasn't in the cards for her. Though, in truth, a “normal, healthy” relationship was something he himself knew almost nothing about.

Still, it was crazy for him to think about having a future with Mila. He knew that. Both of them were scarred in their own ways. Both of them were struggling to find some semblance of normality. And both of them had a long way to go before they got there.
If
they got there. Alone, they had their work cut out for them, and together . . . together they might not be the stronger
for it. Together, they might be like the drowning victim who drowns the person who tries to save them.

Lying there beside Mila, he told himself all these things. And he told himself why falling in love with her was a bad idea. A very bad idea. And he lined up all the reasons why he shouldn't get involved with her. Lined them up in an intimidating column that would have disheartened even the most romantic of men, let alone a born cynic like himself.

But none of this mattered. Because lying there with her, he had that feeling again, that feeling he had when he watched her swimming lessons. That slow, percolating happiness that bubbled up through the layers of his indifference until it burst through, finally, onto the surface of his consciousness. It was the clearest, purest, lightest feeling he'd ever felt, and it kept him awake until daybreak. It was then, as the pale morning light began to fill the room and he drifted into sleep, that he realized it had been one of the best nights of his life. No. Not
one
of the best nights.
The
best night.

A
s luck would have it, the psychologist Mila had found for Reid, Dr. Michael Immerman, had an opening the next week, and on a cool, wet afternoon in late July, Mila drove Reid to his office, in a nondescript office park outside the town of Ely. After the appointment, as they stood waiting for the elevator, Mila asked casually, “How'd it go?”

Reid, leaning on his crutches, shrugged. “He talked, a little, about what he does. I didn't talk at all.”

“You didn't . . . you didn't say anything?” Mila asked, feeling a sting of disappointment.

Reid shook his head.

“You just . . . sat there?”

He nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“So I guess you won't be going back,” she said, looking not at him but at the elevator display. She didn't want him to see how let down she felt, especially since she thought she wasn't being entirely fair to him. After all, he'd kept his end of the agreement. He'd gone to the appointment. He hadn't promised anything more, had he? Which was why she was surprised now when he said, “Actually, I made another appointment with him for next week.”

Mila stared at him. “Why?”

“Well, for one thing, he doesn't seem like a
complete
crackpot,” he said. “And for another, a good roommate is hard to find.” He smiled at her and lowered his voice. “Especially one who fits into my bed as perfectly as you do.”

Mila blushed and looked around, but there was no one else nearby. “You're going to have to say something to him eventually, you know,” she said, as the elevator doors slid open.

“Probably,” Reid agreed, as they got onto a full elevator. And Mila, working hard to seem nonchalant, didn't bring the subject up again. She knew it was important not to pressure him. She'd gotten him this far, but she couldn't get him any further. Reid, and Dr. Immerman, would have to do the rest. Riding down in the elevator, though, and driving back to the cabin, she felt so happy and so lighthearted that it was all she could do not to hum the song Lonnie had been singing as she'd washed the breakfast dishes that morning.