Skinny Dipping (26 page)

“How do you know?” she asked.

“I read it in several of the books Prescott has on dog psychology and pack dynamics.”

She glanced at the dogs. No one was cringing. She didn’t see any welts. “Hm.”

“You’re unconvinced. Let me show you. The dogs really eat this up, and the little buggers are fast. Watch.”

He pulled his poles out of the snow and tipped forward. “Hie on!”

The dogs sprang to life, hurling themselves against the lines as Joe skated forward on his skis. He skated for about ten more yards before the momentum shifted to the dogs. Then they flew, and Joe flew right behind them.

Mimi watched in fascination. The dogs, tails whipping around like eggbeaters in a doggy delirium of joy, barked and scrabbled, pushing for more speed. She heard Joe laughing. And damn it, she couldn’t help but like him for it. And just when she was so close to being able to write him off as a pompous, self-important demagogue. He probably still was, but he was a really nice demagogue.

She watched, smiling now, noticing idly that if they kept going the way they were, they’d be skirting awfully close to the big tanning rock near Chez Ducky’s beach. Normally, it stood far enough out of the ice not to be a threat to snowmobilers, but the recent snow had covered it with—Oh, dear.

“Joe! Joe! Turn the dogs. Turn!”

Joe, hearing her shouts, turned to look at her. He raised one ski pole over his head and waved. The dogs veered to the side of the mound, but Joe didn’t. He hit it dead center. Then he
really
flew.

“Another Tierney?” Bob, the ambulance driver, asked, wheeling the gurney up the ramp toward the Oxlip Memorial Hospital emergency entrance. He hadn’t been in the ambulance that had arrived at Fowl Lake to transport Joe, but he’d met them in the parking lot with the paperwork. Apparently Bob wore many hats.

He punched a code into the double-wide glass doors, regarding Mimi across Joe’s prone form. “You got some sort of vendetta going against these guys? Gonna pick ’em off one by one?”

“I didn’t do anything to this one or the last one,” Mimi said, offended. She damn well ought to be getting brownie points for saintliness rather than listening to some would-be mystery writer with a lurid imagination cast doubt over her selfless act.

After thankfully being able to connect to 911 with her cell phone, she’d hustled back to stay with Joe, who, as well as having a goose egg on his head, had all too obviously dislocated his shoulder and God knew what else. She’d left his side only when the ambulance arrived. She’d then shepherded the dogs into the house and been on the cusp of going back to Chez Ducky when Joe had requested—actually it had been more of a beg—that she follow the ambulance in the Prius so that as soon as they’d checked him out he could leave, a possibility made more likely if he had someone to drive him. He’d said “please” with nothing short of desperation.

It wasn’t too hard to figure out why. No place on earth could be more psychologically torturous for a germaphobe than a hospital.

“How’d you lure this one out onto the ice?” Bob asked. “Pretending to have another fit?”

“What?” Joe roused himself to say. “She was pretending to have a fit? When was she having a fit?”

“She
says
she was just rolling around on the snow, a woman her age—”

“Hey!” Mimi interjected.

“—a woman her age,” Bob repeated with satisfaction, “and that your son mistook her snow-angel making for a seizure and called us.
She
says your son just happened to fall into his own swimming pool in the process of racing down to the lake to help her.”

Bob eyed Mimi dubiously. “
I
think the whole thing is fishy is what I think,” he said. “Though I will admit she doesn’t look much like a black widow. Sharon Stone, she ain’t.”

“Hey!” Mimi said again.

“How’d she get you?” Bob asked Joe.

“She didn’t,” Joe said. “I was showing off and I ran into a boulder.”

“On an Arctic Cat?” Bob said, interested.

Joe looked at Mimi for translation.

“That’s a snowmobile.”

“No,” Joe said. “Behind some dogs.”

At this Bob shook his head, embarrassed for Joe. “Man your age playing with dogs. You guys growing something funny up there on Fowl Lake?”

“Hardly,” Joe said.

“So, you were stone-cold sober and just showing off to her,” Bob said as the door finally swooshed open. “What sort of dark spell has she got over the men in your family?”

“You spend a lot of time watching cable, don’t you, Bob?” Joe asked.

Bob flushed.

“Did Prescott say she’d ‘lured’ him out?” Joe demanded.

“Nah-uh,” Bob said in disgust. “Fact, he couldn’t stop moaning about how wonderful she was. I had to listen to a half an hour on what a perfect woman Mignonette Olson is.”

“Really?” Mimi asked, preening a little. She hadn’t realized Prescott had a crush on her. Oh, she knew Joe thought he did, but Joe had also thought she was scamming Prescott by delivering bogus messages from his dead mother. Prescott was obviously much more perceptive than his father.

“Course the kid was half delirious, but still,” Bob said, “that’s when I figured out something was not on the up ’n’ up. Kid like that oughta be drooling over Angelina Jolie, not”—he must have read a budding threat in her narrowing eyes because he said only—“her.”

“Watch it, fella,” Joe said.

Mimi gave Bob an exultant smile. Joe, white knighting for her. Of course, she knew enough about Joe to realize he’d white knight for anyone. He was white-knight prone. Still, it felt nice to be championed. So she decided not to remind him that he had entertained equally unflattering notions about her.

Then they were in the hospital’s emergency room. A girl with red-rimmed eyes and sweaty skin sat in a chair, and a green-nosed toddler ran around hurling picture books at the walls while his mother filled out some papers at the desk. Joe blanched as Bob wheeled him down a short open corridor with three curtained bays on one side. Two were open but the farthest one was occupied by someone doing heavy mouth breathing. Bob rolled him into the first bay.

A plump but pretty pediatric nurse—she had to be a pediatric nurse; no one else would wear little-yellow-ducky print scrubs—moseyed up with a clipboard. “This the guy from Fowl Lake?”

“Sure is, Karin,” Bob declared like he’d just pulled in a trophy-sized fish.

“This the same woman that was out there last time?” the nurse asked, nodding at Mimi.

“Yup.”

The nurse looked Mimi over. “Ah-huh.”

“Look, do you think a doctor could see Mr. Tierney?” Mimi surprised herself by saying. But since no one else seemed to be willing to get this show on the road and Joe seemed to be stricken mute with germ dread, she didn’t see she had much choice. It was almost the dogs’ dinner time.

“He’s not dying?” The nurse directed this laconic query at Bob.

“Nope.”

“Then we got paperwork to do first. Now”—she leaned over Joe—“you got insurance?”

“Yes.” He rolled to his side, gritting his teeth as he fumbled for his wallet in his back pocket. He thrust it at the nurse. “The card’s in there. Can we please hurry?”

The nurse opened the wallet and retrieved the insurance card inside. “Hold on, there, sport. We’ll get you patched up soon enough. First things first.”

A grubby little hand reached over the side of the gurney and gripped the rail, followed by the top of a small round head sprouting tufts of wispy blond hair. Then came a pinched, red-cheeked face, the most predominant feature being a very snotty nose.

Wide brown eyes met even wider blue ones. “Oh, God,” Joe breathed.

“Wha’ wong wid yo?” the small creature asked.

“Justin Bjorkland, you get right back to your momma, you hear me?” the nurse said, plucking the child from his perch on Joe’s gurney and swatting his baggy behind.

Mimi looked down at Joe. His eyes were closed. It looked suspiciously like he was praying.

“Your shoulder was dislocated, Mr. Tierney,” said Dr. Youngstrum, a tired-looking woman in her fifties. “Your wrist is not in good shape. You wrenched that knee pretty severely. I don’t care if you actually lost consciousness or not, that’s still a nasty bump on your head. You should stay overnight for observation. Besides, I don’t know how you’re going to get around without a wheelchair for the next few days. You can’t grip crutches with that hand and your opposite leg isn’t going to bear weight for a while. The nursing home—”

“No!” Joe surged forward, banged his bruised knee, and yowled.

The doctor regarded him stoically. “I was going to say, the nursing home attached to the hospital has an extremely good physical therapist. A couple days there and you’d be—”

“No!”

“A couple days there,” the doctor went on as if the interruption had never occurred, “and you’ll be much further along in your recovery than if you just go back to your son’s place.”

“I don’t care,” Joe said, his head wagging back and forth like a truculent child’s.

Mimi supposed she shouldn’t be amused, but she was. Joe would have been aghast at his behavior if he was in his right mind, but he wasn’t. The Demerol they’d given him before popping his shoulder back into place had sent him straight to the land of no impulse control, where every thought is given voice and the foremost thought in Joe Tierney’s mind was that he didn’t want to spend one more minute than necessary in what he’d a few minutes ago described as a “pestilence-ridden heap of virulence,” known to the rest of the world as a hospital.

“Fawn Creek doesn’t have any private nurses or home care. We have a nursing home. You need someone with you for at least the next forty-eight hours.”

“She’ll stay with me!” Joe said.

Mimi, who’d been picking diligently at a hangnail, looked up to see whom Joe was pointing at. He was pointing at her.

“Huh?”

“If she’ll stay with me, I can leave, right?”

The doctor shrugged. “Sure. I can’t keep you here against your will. Well, actually I can, but—”

“Nuh-uh,” Mimi said.

“Please, Mimi.” Joe was gripping the bed rails with white knuckles and his eyes reminded her unpleasantly of the ones from Eduard Munch’s
The Scream.
“You were already watching the dogs. Just for a couple days. Just until I can stand.”

The dogs. She thought of Blondie’s sweet face, and Wiley’s clownish one, and Bill…She thought of Blondie and Wiley. Someone would have to take them for walks and feed them. Besides, it might be nice to watch Joe Tierney choke a little on his pride once he came out of his drug-induced panic.

“Please,” he said, his panicked gaze shooting toward the sound of someone hacking in the waiting room.

“Okay,” she said graciously.

On the drive from Fowl Lake, Joe sat in the back of the Prius with his leg propped up over the back of the passenger seat. Crowding next to him was a folded wheelchair. He didn’t say much. Mimi assumed he was dozing, but occasionally, when they hit a rut, he moaned.

When they arrived at Prescott’s, Mimi got the wheelchair out and opened it on the drive. She then let the dogs out and returned to the passenger side to help Joe. She found him already halfway out the back, stuck.

“Let me help you,” she said, reaching in to lift his leg down.

“Did you wash your hands when we left the hospital?” Joe asked.

“What?”

“You’re touching me and you were touching things all over that hospital. I saw you touch the rail where that kid was. I just want to make sure you washed your hands when we left.”

Telling herself to make allowances for his drug-addled state, she smiled reassuringly. “Of course I did. I don’t want to get sick, either. Now, do you think you can swivel your legs out the door? Then all we have to do is stand you up, pivot you on your good leg, and dump you in the chair. Do you think you’re up to that?”

He gave a manly snort of disdain.

“Okay, put your arms around my neck.” She bent down and smiled invitingly.

“Can’t. They strapped my left arm to my side.”

“Right. Okay. Here’s how we’ll do this: first, stick your good leg out and put your foot on the ground. Thatta boy. Now, I’m going to get my shoulder under your good arm and then we’ll stand up together.”

Dutifully, Joe lifted his good arm, allowing Mimi to put her shoulder under it. She wrapped her arms tightly around his chest, tucking her head under his chin, and prepared to stand.

“Your hair smells good,” Joe said.

“You know, if you didn’t sound so surprised I could almost take that as a compliment. Now, on the count of three—”

“I mean, it’s really nice.”

“It’s Jo Malone. Whenever you’re ready.” His body felt very solid and very warm pressed next to hers. Even drugged up and laid low he managed to exude polished masculinity.

“Really? You don’t seem like the expensive-shampoo type,” Joe said.

Of course he’d know who Jo Malone was. His girlfriends probably wore it.

“I got it on eBay,” Mimi said. “Ready? One. Two. Three.”

She heaved, pulling him toward her. Together, they wobbled upright. Joe’s good arm shot out and he braced his hand on the Prius’s roof, steadying them.

He looked down into her upturned face. “You also have spectacular eyes,” he said, relevant of nothing.

“You do, too.” And he did. Black Irish good looks were killer.

“I know you didn’t try to con Prescott,” he blurted out.

She hesitated a second, amused. This probably wasn’t the best time to have a heart-to-heart. She had all her wits about her, and Joe was wacked out on Demerol. On the other hand, too bad for Joe. She was interested in hearing what he thought without a safety net of good manners and cosmopolitan polish to fall back on.

“Really?” she said. “How do you know?”

“I called him and asked him about you. I was very crafty. He had no idea you were…what do you call it?”

“A spiritual conduit?”

“Bull.” Joe didn’t seem at all averse to standing on one leg, the two of them wrapped in each other’s arms. He seemed quite content, in fact. But then, so was Mimi. It felt oddly comfortable chatting like this. She suspected it wouldn’t have been nearly so comfortable if Joe had been more himself.

“That’s what it says on our Web site.”

“Sounds pretentious.” Thus Ozzie’s best commercial efforts were damned. Privately Mimi agreed, but loyalty kept her mouth shut. “Anyway, Prescott didn’t have a clue that’s what you do. He thinks you’re a widow bravely facing destitution and fending off despair through sheer optimism and courage.”

“Why am I despairing?” Mimi asked curiously.

“I dunno. The widow thing I suppose,” Joe said. “You have to know he has a crush on you. Even the ambulance driver knows.”

“Well”—Mimi lowered her eyes modestly—“it is kinda obvious. I suppose that worries you. I mean, just because I haven’t taken advantage of him doesn’t mean I won’t.” He didn’t deny it. “And yet, it didn’t keep you from asking me to stay with you for a few days while you recuperate. What does that tell you, Joe?”

He pondered this for a minute, and if he didn’t realize how odd the circumstances of the conversation were, what with her arms tight around his chest and her head nested against his shoulder, her face tilted up to his like a lover’s, well, she wasn’t going to mention it.

“Either I really hate hospitals,” he finally said, “or you have really,
really
pretty eyes.”

She smiled. “You sound disheartened.”

“I am. I can’t figure you out. Most of the time you don’t seem like a nut.”

“Why, thank you, Joe,” she said solemnly.

“But you are. You’d have to be to drop out of Brown a month before completing your undergraduate degree and with a 4.0 average—”

“Don’t be too impressed. The degree was in English. And who told you that?”

“Your mother. She spoke about you a lot.”

She did? Of course she did. Hope springs eternal in a Machiavellian heart. Solange had probably seen Mimi leave the anniversary party with Joe and saw in him an opportunity to influence her.

“Ah, she says that about all her kids,” Mimi said. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

He wasn’t listening. “And rather than get a real job and do something, you prefer to live in a low-rent furnished rental—”

“It isn’t a furnished rental,” Mimi protested.

“You mean you paid
money
for that stuff?”

Okay, the honesty thing was getting old. “And I do have a real job.”

Joe scoffed. “Right. Tell me, Mimi. Do you really think you’re talking to ghosts?”

“Do you?” she countered.

“I don’t know what to think. I only know that you are odd, eccentric.”

“
I’m
eccentric?” she guffawed. “I’m not the one rushing to leave my hospital bed because of all the icky-bad germs, sport.”

She felt him stiffen. As she’d hoped, that put an end to the uncomfortable direction of the conversation. If she wanted to be harangued about her life, she could call Solange or Mary. She didn’t need a new voice added to the choir. Which reminded her; she hadn’t heard from Baby Precocious in weeks. Next time she was in Fawn Creek she’d have to hit the Brewski Coffee Shoppe and use their free Internet service to check her e-mail.

“Come on, Joe,” she said, pivoting him on his good leg and easing him down into the wheelchair. “Let’s get you inside the nice hermetically sealed house.”

She rolled Joe into the house, the dogs ambling in after them. Kicking the Navaho rug out of the way, she rolled him across the wood floors to the center of the living area.

She could tell Joe’s pain meds were starting to wear off from the way he grimaced every time he shifted. The doctor had been very pointed in saying he should stay ahead of the pain.

She went into the kitchen and returned with a glass of water, then reached into her jacket pocket where she’d stashed his prescription and took out the bottle.

“Here,” she said, twisting off the cap. She motioned for him to hold out his hand and then carefully shook two tablets into his palm. It probably said much about his level of discomfort that he didn’t kick about her handling his pills but popped them into his mouth and took a swig of water.

“Tell me, Joe,” she said, regarding him seriously. “Is it hard being perfect?”

That threw him. “Perfect? What are you talking about?”

“Perfect clothes, perfect haircut, perfectly groomed, perfectly
clean
…”

“Tell me, Mimi,” he countered. “In the morning do you walk into your closet and say, ‘Anyone who wants to go for a ride, hop on. ’Cause that’s what it looks like.”

She sat down on the sofa’s arm and leaned forward. “I’m happy how I am.”

“I’m happy how I am,” he countered.

Why did she get the sudden inkling that they were both lying? But to whom?

“Obsessing over perfection is a sure way to drive yourself crazy,” she said. “Just ask my mom.”

“I don’t obsess,” Joe declared.

Mimi regarded him silently, flatly disbelieving.

“I don’t,” he insisted. “A person’s exterior is simply a reflection of how they see themselves and those around them. Making an effort over your personal appearance tells others that you value their good opinion as well as yourself.”

Mimi looked down at her sweatpants, bagging at the knees, and the oversized flannel shirt hanging open over her faded pink T-shirt. “So, I’m guessing I hate myself and everyone else?”

He inspected her thoughtfully. “It would appear so.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. Even gorked-out Joe was fun to trade barbs with. In a perverse sort of way. “You’re good, Joe Tierney.”

“Aren’t I though?” The drug must be taking effect again, because his eyelids were sliding to half-mast. He looked vulnerable sitting there, and Mimi felt a tug inside. He’d hate this, this dependence, yet he was trying to make the best he could of it. He was trying to do the right thing by Prescott. Why? And why did she care? She usually didn’t pry into other people’s lives.

“Why’d you come, Joe?” she asked, taking the glass from his hand. “Really.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“You could have hired a private nurse. A busted leg isn’t exactly life-threatening. You didn’t need to come yourself, and I can’t imagine your employers were too keen on it, either. So, why did you come?”

“I’m his dad,” Joe said, looking at her like he was sure he hadn’t understood the question because the answer was so ridiculously obvious.

“Not every dad shows up just because their kid is in a bind,” she said. Her pulse had started racing a little. It must have been harder work pushing him up here than she thought.

“Sure they do,” he said with patent certainty. A shadow further clouded his already glassy eyes. “If they can. Sometimes you can’t. Sometimes you don’t know you’re needed, but if you can and you know, you do.”

It was a little convoluted, but she got what he meant. And he really did mean it. He wasn’t right, not about every dad, but he was sincere. Well. She just looked at him a minute, growing all buttery feeling inside. “Come on, Dad. Nappy time.”

As all the bedrooms were on the main floor in a separate wing, Mimi had no trouble wheeling him into one of five guest rooms. She positioned the wheelchair next to the bed, locked the brakes, and bent over him. But when she started to slip an arm around his waist, he recoiled.

“What?”

“Nuthin’.” His face became a mask of manly endurance. “I’m ready.”

She drew back. “Is this still about me washing my hands?”

“No. Let’s go,” he said.

She didn’t believe him. She reached out and patted his knee. “Touch.” She patted his other knee. “Touch.”

He looked up at her, startled. “Stop that.”

“Touch.” She flicked her finger against the tip of his nose. “Touch.” She touched the top of his head.

“You’re being childish,” he said.

“Touch, touch.” Her hands darted out and tapped his cheek and his shoulder. “Touch, touch, touch.” Hand, chest, arm.

“Are you done yet?” he asked with heavy patience.

“Maybe.”

“Fine. I think I can make it into the bed myself.”

“Now who’s being childish?” she said, lifting a brow at him. “You’re drugged. You’ll probably hurt yourself. But if you want to prove you’re irresponsible—”

She had measured her words carefully and now got the desired effect.

“You’re right,” he said stiffly. “Would you please help me lie down?”

“Do you think you can bear having my unwashed hands on you?”

“I told you I didn’t care about your unwashed hands. Well, I do, but that’s not why I flinched.”

“Really?” she said disbelievingly. “Why did you?”

“Because you banged into my knee when you leaned over me.”

Mimi’s cheeks grew warm. “Oh.”

He saw her blush and smiled. “Did you misjudge the situation?” he said. “Don’t worry, there’s a lot of that going around.”

Did he remember everything she’d said to him? She cleared her throat. “No. Not at all. So, let’s get you onto that bed, shall we?”

Mimi leaned forward and he wrapped a long arm around her shoulders. With a groan, he pushed up and balanced on his good leg. She used her foot to shove the wheelchair out of the way and aimed him at the bed. Then, very carefully, she began easing him down. Unfortunately he was a large man and she wasn’t unusually strong for her size. He eased three-quarters of the way and toppled the rest. She landed on top of him. He gasped.

She pushed herself up with a hand against his chest, looking down at him anxiously. “Are you okay?”

“No.”

“Yes, you are,” she insisted. “You landed on your good side.”

“But you landed on my bad side.”

“Did I?” She felt terrible. “I’m sorry. I am
so
sorry.” She tried to wriggle upright but his arm held her in place.

“You know, I think I’m feeling better,” he said. His body beneath hers felt rock hard and anything but vulnerable.

“Ah!” She planted her hand and shoved solidly against his chest, freeing herself. He laughed. “Mimi, I have so many drugs in me right now the Goodyear blimp could fall on me and it wouldn’t hurt.”

Had he just likened her to the Goodyear
blimp
? “Ah!”

She scrambled off the bed.

Despite appearances, Mimi wasn’t offended. In fact, she was a little flattered by the lascivious glint in Joe’s murky gaze. If she could, er, awaken the interest of a man with that much Demerol in him, she obviously still had it. In spite of the baggy sweatpants and flannel shirt. Or maybe the “it” she had was Jo Malone bath gel. That stuff was like witchcraft. She was going to have to get more.

She peeked back in the bedroom. Joe was already conked out, stretched out on his back, one arm flung wide, snoring lightly. Good. Now she was free to enjoy an unwitnessed and generally antic reunion with the dogs.

She didn’t want Joe getting the idea that she actually liked being with the dogs because then he’d think it was no big deal that she’d agreed to take care of them—and him—and that would pretty much destroy all the nice beholdenness going on, although she hadn’t yet figured out exactly why she liked the idea of Joe owing her. There was nothing he had that she wanted and nothing he might do for her that she needed. Unlike Joe, who was a slave to
Forbes
and
GQ
and elite airline upgrades but mostly antibacterial soap, she was an island unto herself, completely, serenely independent.