Advice of Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 1) (30 page)

“Oliver?” Maddie called out.

“Mommy!”

Oliver fought his way through dozens of legs to get to us.  I
let go of Maddie and she dropped to her knees and Oliver ran into her arms.

“Mommy’s here.  Everything’s okay.  Everything’s okay,” she
said, rocking him in her arms.  “Are you okay?”

Oliver’s face was wet with tears, but he nodded his head.  “I’m
okay.”

“You were very brave up there and I am so proud of you,” Maddie
said.  “That was scary wasn’t it?”

He nodded again.  “Were you scared?” he asked her.

“I was scared,” she said.

Oliver looked at me.  “Were you scared?”

“I was scared,” I admitted.

Maddie picked up Oliver and brought him over to me.  “You’re
face is big and fat,” he said.  He pointed to a spot by my eye.  “Does that
hurt?”

“Everything hurts,” I told him.

Maddie pulled Oliver’s hand back.  “Don’t touch it sweetie,”
she told him.

Maddie called out to no one in particular.  “Is there an
ambulance here?  My friend needs to get to a hospital.” And that’s the last
thing I remember until I woke up in the hospital the next day.

I woke up with my arm strapped to my side, one eye swollen
shut, and with a pounding headache.  My whole body seemed to be throbbing, and
I was so stiff I could barely move.

“Good morning.”

I turned my head towards my mother’s voice and a stabbing pain
shot down my arm.  “Hi mom.”  She came closer to the bed and leaned down and
kissed my cheek and I thought of Maddie in the elevator.  “How long have I been
out?” I said, trying to sit up.

“You’ve been in and out for the last 12 hours.  The doctor said
it’s the pain medication.”

“It’s not working,” I said, giving up the effort to sit.

“Well, you took quite a beating.  You’ve got a concussion. 
Plus, you were shot.”

“I know,” I said irritably.

She was holding the morning’s newspaper and the picture on the
front caught my eye.  “Can I see that?” I said, but I knew better than to try
to reach for it.  My mother placed the paper on my chest and I took it and held
it up.  “Great,” I said grumpily, and I dropped it back down on my chest. 

It was a photo of me and Maddie getting out of the elevator and
I looked like I’d been beaten to a pulp.  The caption under the picture read: 
“
Local attorney Samuel Collins helps save neighbor’s abducted child.
” 
Two days in a row.  My reputation was ruined.

“How are Maddie and Oliver?” I asked.

“They’re both fine.  Maddie has already called twice this
morning to check on you.  Your dad is outside getting us coffee,” she said
smiling. 

“You haven’t been here all night, have you?”

“Of course we have.  When you have children of your own, you’ll
realize that it doesn’t matter how old your kids are – they’ll always be your
babies,” she said, and she brushed my hair back with her fingers like she used
to do when I was a kid.  Part of me wanted to slap her and the other part
wanted to hug her.  The door opened and my father walked in before I could do
either.

“Hey!  How’re you feeling?” he said, surprised to see me awake.

“Not too bad.” I gritted my teeth and shifted around trying to
get comfortable. 
Mistake
.  I moved something that I shouldn’t have and
I yelled out involuntarily at the pain.

Mom looked like she could cry, which would really suck; and Dad
looked pissed.  He looked like he wanted to beat the shit out of one Larry Roeberts.

“It’s okay,” I said, holding up my good arm.  “It was just a
bad position.”

I leaned back against the pillow and both of them relaxed.  I
needed to get rid of them so I could quit pretending to be fine.

“I’m going to get the doctor to bring you some pain pills,” Mom
said, and as she was leaving the room, I called out, “Strong ones!”

My dad took up her position beside my bed.  “Want some coffee?”
he offered.

“Yeah.  Thanks.”  I found the bed control and raised the back
so that I was in a sitting position and my dad gave me my mom’s cup, but before
I could take a sip, the door opened and Maddie poked her head in.  When she saw
that I was awake, she got a big smile on her face.

“Hi!  Oh Samuel,” she said, walking straight over to the bed,
“You look terrible!  Bless your heart.   Look at your face.  It’s a lot worse
than it was yesterday.”

She was running her fingers over the different places on my
face that were hurt, and every time she touched me it sent a shudder through my
body. 
This was not good
.  I thought that my feelings for her in the
elevator stemmed from what we had just been through together.  Sort of an
aftershock reaction to the crisis.  But the feeling had gotten worse overnight,
not better.  I wanted to kiss her more than ever.  And that wasn’t all.  If I’d
had my way with her right then, there would have been no stopping.  Damn it to
hell!

“Hi, Mr. Collins.  How are you doing?” Maddie asked, oblivious
to what she was doing to me.

“Much better now that Sam is awake.  I think I’ll go find his
mother,” he said, and he disappeared out the door.

I needed to concentrate on something other then Maddie, but she
climbed up on the bed right next to me and sat facing me.

“How’s Oliver?” I asked.

“Amazingly well,” Maddie said.  “We talked about everything for
a long time last night, and I’m going to take him to a counselor just in case,
but he’s doing great.  When are they going to let you go home?” she asked.

“I don’t know.  Will you feed my cat?”

“I already did.  You asked me to last night.”

“I did?”

Maddie nodded.  “Niki’s here.  I saw him down the hall when I
was coming in.”

Out of everyone to be indebted to . . . I owed the guy my
life.  How bad did that suck?

“Our picture is on the front page of the paper this morning,”
Maddie said.  “We look terrible.”

“That’s only half true.  You looked okay.”

“Only compared to you,” she said, and she smiled
sympathetically.  “Don’t worry; you’ll be good as new in no time.”

I reached out and touched her face.  “You’re a brave woman,
Madeline Griffin.”

She put her hand over mine and patted it.  “No more so than
you.  The brave part, not the woman part,” she added.  “What do you think is
going to happen with Larry?”

It was something I didn’t want to think about.  “I don’t know.”

Maddie glanced at the clock on the wall.  “Whale, I guess I’ll
get to the office.  What do you need me to do?”

“Nothing that can’t wait.  Don’t even go in, Maddie.  Take the
day off.  Penny can handle things.”

“I’ll just go in for a little while.  I need the distraction.”

I knew what she meant.  With things as chaotic as they were, a
little normalcy was good.   She scooted off the bed then leaned across and
kissed me on the cheek.

“Let me know if you need anything, okay?” she said.

I nodded.  “I will.  Tell Oliver we’ll play catch on
Saturday.”  She looked at me like I was crazy, but she didn’t say anything. 
“I’ll be fine by then,” I said, but neither of us believed it for a second.

“Oh, that reminds me,” she said.  “They checked Mrs. Howard in
here last night.  She’s having breathing problems again.”

“She’s in this hospital?” I asked, and Maddie nodded. 
“Really?  Maybe I’ll go visit her.”  It would give me something to do to kill
time before I was released.

“I’m sure she would love that,” Maddie said.  “I think she’s on
four.”  She looked me over one last time and smiled.  “I’ll call you later.”

“Thanks, Maddie.”

“Don’t thank me . . . I didn’t do anything,” she mimicked, and
I could tell she had been just waiting to throw the line back in my face. 

“Very funny.  Hold on and I’ll walk you out,” I said.

“You’ll walk me out?” Maddie laughed.  “The door’s right
there,” she said, pointing three feet away.

I set my coffee down, and I carefully moved the covers back and
swung my legs off the side of the bed, trying to keep my upper torso as still
as possible. “Okay, then you walk me out.  I need to get out of here.  I’m
getting claustrophobic.”

“Oh, brother.”

“Oh, brother?  First you mock me, and now you
oh brother
me?”

“Gosh, I’m pretty brutal, aren’t I?”

“Pretty,” I said, except I didn’t mean it how she did.

I was staring at her, but I couldn’t help it.  She had me
mesmerized.  I stood up and Maddie looked me up and down and smiled.  I was
wearing one of those stupid hospital dresses and socks, and I’m sure I looked
ridiculous.

“You look so cute,” she said.  She was making no effort
whatsoever to hide her amusement.  Hell, she was practically laughing at me. 
It was just a good thing that I didn’t humiliate easily.  “Nice legs,” she
said.

“They are, aren’t they?  I think cross-dressing suits me. 
Maybe I’ll steal a couple of these dresses.  You want me to get you one?”

“It’s not a dress.  It’s a gown,” Maddie laughed.  “Sure, I’ll
take one.”

I could just picture her from behind – the way the damn dress
gaped open with those two flimsy little ties that guaranteed to show off a
patient’s assets – or liabilities – as the case may be.  In Maddie’s case, it
would definitely be assets.

“You’re not going to walk down the hall like that, are you?”
Maddie asked.

“Hell yes!  If these people don’t want to be subjected to a
bunch of bare butts, they shouldn’t make us wear these things in the first
place.”  I had a lot of faults, but modesty was not one of them.

“In your case, I don’t think they would feel like they were
being subjected to anything, Samuel,” she laughed.

“Oh.  Well, then I’ll give them a thrill.”

She was looking at me funny, kind of staring at me like I’d
been doing to her a few minutes earlier.  If I didn’t feel so comfortable with
her, it probably would have made me feel self-conscious, but as it was, I just
stared back.  It turned out she was just plotting a strategy.

“Wrap my sweater around you,” she said decisively, and she
whipped off her sweater and came at me with the thing.  Her body was right up
next to mine, touching it, as she reached her arms behind my back and brought
the sleeves around to the front.  It took all my power not to take advantage of
the situation.  Maddie looked up at me and smiled as she tied the sleeves at my
waist, then she stepped back and nodded her approval.  “That’ll do pig,” she
said.

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve never seen
Babe
?” she asked in disbelief.

I was still in a state of shock from being so close to her.  I
shook my head no, and she went into an explanation of the line, but I wasn’t
paying attention.  Her lips were moving and sound was coming out, but I didn’t
hear a word of it.  I couldn’t concentrate on anything except the fact that I
needed to kiss her.

It finally got to be too much and I reached my arm out behind
her neck and pulled her face to mine.  I brought my lips to hers and kissed her
gently, not wanting to disclose the intensity of my feelings with an urgent,
desperate kiss.  But after the initial shock of my move, Maddie returned the
kiss with such enthusiasm that I lost all self-control.  I pulled her as close
to me as I could, and bore down on her, my lips pressing hard against hers,
until I was afraid I was hurting her.  I ran my fingers through her hair and kissed
her cheek and down her neck, then went back to her lips, desperate that it
might be the only time I’d get to do it.  I felt like a kid in a candy store,
stuffing as much into his mouth as he could before he got caught.  I was
gorging on Maddie and I knew that I’d never get enough before I had to stop.

And then something happened that took me totally off guard.  “I
love you, Maddie,” I said.  The words were out of my mouth before I even had a
chance to think what I was saying.  And once they were out, they hung in the
air, lingering and impossible to ignore.  It stopped me cold in my tracks. 
“I’m sorry,” I said lamely.  I wasn’t sure what would be worse – to take it
back or just to leave it out there.

Maddie read my mind and she let me off the hook.  “Whale he
really did whack you hard, didn’t he?” she said.  She placed her palm on my
cheek and smiled at me.  “We’ve been through a lot together and I have very
deep feelings for you too, Samuel.  It’s only natural.”

“I guess you’re right,” I said, but a part of me wanted to
disagree with her.  There was nothing natural about the way I was feeling for
her at the moment, but I didn’t want to get myself into any more trouble than I
was already in so I kept my mouth shut.  But the truth was, I did love her.  As
ridiculous as it was . . . in spite of the fact that she had two kids . . .
that she was my neighbor . . . that she was my client . . . that I already had
a wonderful girlfriend . . . in spite of all that, I honest to God loved her.

Maddie cinched the sleeves tighter around my waist.  “You’re a
much better kisser than I thought you’d be,” she observed.

“What do you mean?  You didn’t think I’d be a good kisser?” I
said, offended.

“No.  I didn’t say you wouldn’t be good, I said you were better
than I thought you’d be,” she corrected.

“It’s the same thing.”

“No, it’s not the same thing,” she argued.

“So you’ve thought about kissing me before?” I asked.

Maddie blushed.  I’d busted her, but she still had the nerve to
deny it.  “I didn’t say that either.  You’re putting words in my mouth.”

“Did you not just tell me that I was a much better kisser than
you
thought
I’d be?” I said.

“Whale that doesn’t mean that I sat around thinking about it. 
If I thought about it, it was only in passing, and not necessarily in the context
of you and me kissing.”

“You’re such a liar!  You thought about kissing me before and
you thought I’d be a shitty kisser.  I can’t believe you thought that!”

“I did not!” she said emphatically.  “I knew you’d be good, but
I didn’t know you’d be
that
good.  That’s what I meant.”

“Oh.  So you did think about it before.  You admit that much?”

Maddie rolled her eyes, balled her hand up into a fist, and
looked for a place to slug me.  She finally settled on my good arm and she let
me have it.

“Ouch!  Damn you’re mean.  I don’t know why I wanted to kiss
you in the first place,” I said.

Maddie laughed.  “I’m leaving,” she said, but I pulled her back
before she could go.

“You were better than I thought too,” I said, and Maddie
laughed out loud.

I stood there looking at her, wondering how things would be
between us from then on.  The door opened and my mother and Landra walked in,
and I realized that, whatever happened, I had no regrets.

Everyone greeted each other, then Maddie turned back to me. 
“I’ll talk to you later,” she said, and she kissed me on the cheek.  I watched
her leave, conscious of the fact that both my mother and Landra were watching
me watch her.  When she was gone, Landra came over and hugged me.