Sleeping in Eden (20 page)

The morning dragged for Lucas, and though he longed for a reprieve, for a call from Jenna, Alex, anyone, to lighten the heaviness of his day, none came. People circled in and out of his office, and yet he descended into a loneliness that stretched as long and far and empty as a world without end. Even his moment with Jenna—her stolen kiss, and his—wasn't enough to make him forget the long lists of women. The way their stories ended mid-sentence with nothing more than a smudge of ink and a hundred questions.

By the time lunch rolled around, Lucas was so agitated, he decided to make a meal out of leftovers from the refrigerator in the lab. He was too shaken up to tiptoe around conversation at Blackhawk's only café, and too rattled to go home, in case Angela was still lounging on the couch looking all sexy and disheveled in his favorite shirt. Thankfully, behind a half-empty box of influenza immunizations, he unearthed an everything bagel and a tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!. Better than nothing, even if the bagel was stale.

Mandy met him on the way back to his office. She was wearing a red, belted jacket that seemed incongruously stylish paired with her baby-blue scrubs and sturdy, white vinyl shoes. Fashionable or not, Lucas couldn't help but love her, because her lips were upturned in a hesitant smirk that told him she had already forgiven his earlier snappishness. Though she didn't say the words, everything about her demeanor asked, Are we okay? His smile in response was dim but unmistakable.

“Staying for lunch?” Mandy indicated the bagel with a tip of her head.

“I've got lots of paperwork,” he lied. “Just lock the door behind you.”

“Want me to pick something up?”

“When I have this delectable thing?” He tapped the edge of the bagel on the tub of margarine. It made a hollow, bopping sound that proved just how old it was.

“Yum.” Mandy arched her eyebrows. “Too bad there's not two.”

“I'd share.”

“No thanks.”

“Your loss.”

“Mm-hmm.” Mandy slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder and turned to go. “I'll be quick.”

“You've got an hour; don't rush.”

She laughed a little. “If I didn't know better I'd think you want a little alone time, Dr. Hudson.”

He waved her out the door with a sweep of his hand and lumbered to his office like the old man he was convinced he was. The front door bumped closed and then he heard the dull click of Mandy's key turning the dead bolt. Silence. Peace. Solitude. Lucas sank into his chair and dropped his forehead against his desk. It was hard and cool. Somehow the clean line of the wood against his brow was soothing. But in the quiet, his mind began a frantic race in a dozen different directions.

Before he could sort out a single trail of thought and follow it, Lucas was startled by the sound of a key in the lock and the front door being opened. He sat up quickly, took a steadying breath and called, “Forget something?”

Mandy didn't answer.

“In case you've changed your mind, I decided not to share my bagel,” he said a little louder.

The carpet in the reception room muffled the sound of footsteps, but Lucas could tell that Mandy was still on her way to his office. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes and pushed back from his desk to meet her at the door. It had to be her car. Dead battery? Flat tire? He wasn't in the mood to play mechanic, but the rules of chivalry required his compliance.

“FYI, I haven't changed a tire since college,” Lucas threw over his shoulder, snatching his coat from the back of his chair.

“I don't want your bagel, and if I'm supposed to be impressed by your lack of tire-changing skills, I'm not.” Angela materialized in his doorframe with all the audacity of a guest who knew she was unwanted but decided to come anyway.

All Lucas could do was stare.

“Nice office,” she commented, raking her eyes over the bare walls of his dungeonlike space. The insincerity in her tone was completely unmasked.

“What are you doing here?” Lucas demanded, finding his voice.

“Oh”—Angela fanned her fingers in the direction of the front door—“the nurse in the red coat let me in. She remembered me. Probably figured we have a lot of catching up to do.”

“That's not what I asked.”

For the first time since she appeared outside his office, Angela looked directly at Lucas. “You don't have to be so defensive. I brought you lunch.”

All at once he noticed the greasy paper bag in her hand and caught a whiff of what could only be kung pao chicken. It's probably poisoned, he thought. But his mouth watered all the same.

Angela must have interpreted his silence as permission to enter, because she suddenly swept into the room, carrying with her an air of entitlement that mingled with the cloying scent of her perfume and the spicy tang of takeout Chinese. “Don't worry about me,” she said, dropping the paper bag on his neat desk. “I'll find myself a place to sit.”

Lucas felt a twinge of guilt as he watched her lift a stack of medical journals off the only other chair in the room. His own padded, ergonomically correct chair was a throne compared to the rusted, folding contraption that housed his extra junk, and he knew that he should offer it to her. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do. But he couldn't move. Her startling presence in his office rooted him to the ground. What had Mandy been
thinking? Why on earth had she let Angela in? Not even a word of warning . . . Angela could be very convincing, but Lucas made a mental note to have a serious talk with his reckless nurse.

The metallic screech of the folding chair brought Lucas back to the moment. Angela pulled up across from him and reached for the bag as if she intended to serve a fast-food picnic right there on his paper-littered desk. Lucas was too stunned to protest, and accepted a carton of something hot and aromatic when she offered it to him.

“I got kung pao chicken and moo goo gai pan,” she said. “I was going to let you pick, but I want the moo goo.”

“Moo goo? I thought you only ate healthy food.”

“It's vegetarian.”

“It's from the Golden Dragon.” His grimace betrayed the questionable reputation of the greasy dive.

Angela's eyes flashed to his. “You're not complaining, are you? Because I could always leave you with your bagel if you prefer.”

Lucas blinked at her. Then he shifted his attention to the bagel and scraped it into the garbage can with one fluid motion. He added the tub of margarine for good measure.

“A thank-you would be nice.”

He rolled his eyes. “Thank you.”

“I only want your gratitude if it's sincere,” Angela told him icily. One eyebrow was arched in threat, and Lucas imagined she could loose arrows from her steely green gaze. It was a good thing she couldn't; he would have been six feet under in seconds.

It couldn't be helped. The laughter he tried to contain erupted in a sudden, unattractive snort. At first he tried to quell it, but when he saw the corner of Angela's hard-set mouth tremble a little, he burst out laughing. Lucas watched as she covered her lips with a shapely, manicured hand, hiding the grin that she didn't want him to see. But though she didn't join in, her eyes danced above the white-tipped points of her square-cut nails.

“I'm sorry,” Lucas sighed when the strange fit passed. “This is just . . .”

“Weird?” Angela offered. “Awkward? Unexpected?”

“All of the above and more,” Lucas admitted. “And it's completely unprecedented. I don't know what to do with you, Angela Sparks.”

“I go by my mother's maiden name now,” she said. “I'm Angela Webb.”

“That would explain why we never found you.”

She stared at him. “I didn't realize you looked.”

It seemed like an innocent comment, but it inverted Lucas's mood in an instant. He glared at her. “Are you kidding me? No letter, no call, no explanation? We thought you were dead.”

“As you can see, I wasn't. I'm not.”

Lucas leveled a finger of accusation at her. “It nearly killed Jenna when you left. You were like a daughter to her.”

“She's not old enough to be my mother,” Angela whispered into her lap.

“It doesn't matter. She loved you like a daughter, and you just disappeared into thin air.”

“I'm sorry.”

The apology sounded sincere, but once it was voiced, Lucas knew that it was not enough. It would never be enough. He doubted that Angela could ever make up for the agony that she had caused. All the sleepless nights, misplaced blame, tormenting questions that always ended in what if? Lucas couldn't begin to imagine how different his life would be if Angela had not run away and broken his wife's heart.

“You should apologize to Jenna, not to me.”

He pushed a heavy breath between his teeth. It would be cathartic to skewer her here and now, without Jenna's steadying presence to remind him that Angela was a scarred woman, fragile. She didn't seem fragile, she rarely had, but as much as he wanted to accuse her of all the things that had gone wrong after she left, he wouldn't let himself. He still had some self-control. So, instead of laying into Angela, Lucas laid his hand palm up
on the desk. “Got a fork?” he asked, forcing himself to change the subject.

“Just chopsticks.” Angela produced a pair wrapped in white paper and attempted a crooked, placatory smirk. “You still know how to use chopsticks, right?”

Lucas couldn't stop the sad smile that sprang to his lips. The truth was, he had taught her to use chopsticks, and the bittersweet reminder unearthed a vault of buried memories. Thankfully, it was a fond recollection, one of the only pure, unadulterated moments between the three of them. Before Angela grew up too quickly and began to use her God-given assets to manipulate, there had been times worth remembering. They had been like a family. An unconventional family, for sure. But weren't they all?

Looking at her as she sat with her face downturned, Lucas had to remind himself that Angela was a victim. As much as he wanted to vilify her, he had to admit that her life overflowed with a sort of sorrow that he couldn't begin to comprehend. The young woman who had giggled at his kitchen table as she struggled with a pair of cheap, unwieldy chopsticks that left miniature splinters in her soft hands was the same woman who was across from him now. Flaws, faults, foibles, and all.

He steadied himself and reached for the chopsticks. “I think I still remember how to do it.”

But the last time Lucas and Jenna had made the trek to the Golden Dragon—the nearest Chinese restaurant to cloistered little Blackhawk—was a few months before Jenna decided they needed a separation. In the time since then, Lucas's right hand had all but forgotten how to loosely hold the willowy sticks, and in the end he had to forage around the reception desk until he found a plastic spork to eat his kung pao chicken.

Angela, brandishing the chopsticks like a pro, was gracious enough not to say a word.

It was only after they'd eaten in silence for a few minutes that Lucas broke the stillness. “I have a few questions for you,”
he began. Angela tensed visibly, but before she could argue, he continued, “I'm sorry, but you owe me that at least. I'm not taking no for an answer.”

She swallowed and reached for the bottle of water that she had taken out of her purse. Gulping half of the liquid, she was finally able to look him in the eye. “Three,” she said without explanation.

“Excuse me?”

“Like three wishes. I'll grant you three questions. Freebies.”

Lucas smiled. “And then what? I have to pay?”

Angela lifted a shoulder in coy nonchalance.

“Okay, I can deal with that.” Lucas took another bite and chewed thoughtfully as he formulated his queries. If she was going to play games, he'd have to be careful what he asked. “I know why you left,” he mused. “Or at least, I think I do. So I guess my first question is, Where have you been?”

“California.”

When she didn't elaborate, he tilted his head in annoyance.

“Okay, okay. Sob story. Here it comes.”

Lucas nodded in encouragement.

“I left when Jim got drunk one night and threw a bottle of whiskey at my head. At the last second I moved and the glass smashed into the wall behind me. I found a shard in my cheek.” Her eyes went blank for a minute. “The blood ran down my jawbone and dripped on my T-shirt. I had blood on my shirt like splotches of paint.”

He didn't dare to push her, even when she paused so long that he wondered if she'd be able to finish her story.

“You know, I could feel that bottle brush past my head.”

Lucas could tell that the memory was hard to relive, and he was tempted to give her an out, to let her know she could stop. But he had to know.

When she'd gathered herself enough to go on, Angela said, “That was the last straw for me. I packed a duffel bag that night and hitched a ride across the country.”

“You hitched? You were eighteen years old!”

She flattened him with a scathing look. “What are you, my dad?”

The barbed irony of her disguised accusation wasn't lost on Lucas, and he shook his head mutely.

“If you want me to answer your questions, you'd better learn to shut up.”

He glared at her, but ducked his head and filled his mouth with more rice, hoping it would help him to stop adding commentary to her story.

“So I got a ride with some trucker who was on his way to Coeur d'Alene. Don't worry,” she assured him with a patronizing shake of her head. “He was a new grandpa who said I reminded him of his daughter before she got married. The guy was a saint. Drove me as far as Idaho and then hooked me up with a friend of his who was doing a leg to L.A.”

Lucas didn't realize his spoon was suspended in midair until a chunk of saucy brown chicken plopped on his desk.

“I didn't want to go to Hollywood,” Angela said. “So he dropped me off near this fantastic little town north of the So Cal madness. San Luis Obispo? Ever heard of it?”