Midnight Promises (5 page)

“You were like no wreck I’d ever seen before,” he said. “You were beautiful and vulnerable and I wanted to be a part of making you strong again.”

She lifted an arm, flexed her biceps, then sighed. “Still not so strong.”

He tapped her chest. “It’s your heart that’s strong again.”

“You can say that after the way I freaked out today?”

He smiled. “You stood up to me, didn’t you? You said your piece, insisted on answers. You didn’t back down.”

“Not until you got me into this bed, anyway,” she said.

“We’re not here just so I can distract you,” he said. “If you have more questions, I’ll answer them until you’re satisfied.”

She grinned at that. “The questions can wait,” she told him. “I’d rather you satisfy me again the way you did a little while ago.”

His eyes darkened at once. “With pleasure,” he murmured. “Always with pleasure.”

3

F
rances could not for the life of her recall where she’d left her apartment keys. They weren’t on the hook by the kitchen door where she usually left them, or on the counter, none of the obvious places. If she was late getting to the senior center, Flo and Liz were going to worry. She’d always been the most punctual of all of her friends.

She searched high and low, digging in the bottom of her purse, under the sofa cushions, checking in the bathroom, on her dresser. She eventually found them in, of all places, the freezer. She must have put them in there when she’d been getting her lasagna dinner out.

Holding the ice-cold keys in her hand, she frowned. Didn’t they say that one of the first signs of Alzheimer’s was leaving things in odd places? Just the thought was enough to frighten her.

“Stop it this minute,” she told herself sternly. “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. It’s not as if you do something crazy like this every day.”

She tried to put the entire incident out of her mind, but over cards at the senior center, she mentioned it to Flo and Liz, forcing herself to laugh about her absentmindedness. To her shock, neither of them seemed to share her amusement. In fact, the look they exchanged was clearly worried.

Liz, who was only a few years younger, reached for her hand. “Frances, I don’t want to alarm you, but maybe you should get this checked out.”

Frances bristled. “How many times have you forgotten where you put your keys?”

“Plenty,” Liz conceded. “But I haven’t once found them in the freezer, or anyplace else particularly odd, either.”

Frances regarded her oldest and dearest friend with dismay. “What are you trying so hard not to say? This isn’t just about the keys, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” Liz said. “You’ve said and done a few things lately that haven’t made a lot of sense. I’ve noticed. So has Flo.”

Flo nodded.

“And you’ve been talking about it behind my back?” Frances asked, knowing that her indignation was misplaced. They were her friends. Of course, they’d be concerned. Of course, they’d compare notes, rather than risk offending her by mentioning some incident that might mean nothing.

“Neither of us was sure it amounted to enough to say anything to you,” Liz said gently. “We agreed just to keep a closer eye on you. Now that you’ve noticed yourself that something’s not quite right, well, maybe it would be best to see a doctor.”

Frances felt as if the bottom of her world had just fallen out. Alzheimer’s? Not a one of them had mentioned the word, but it was clearly the elephant in the room. It was the cruelest of all diseases in so many ways. She’d seen it rob friends of their memories and, worse, take them away from their families long before they were physically gone. She’d always thought it heartbreaking.

“Don’t panic,” Flo said, now holding tightly to Frances’s other hand. “We’ll go with you to the doctor. And I’ve been reading up on Alzheimer’s on the internet. There are new medicines that can help. That is, if you even have it. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’re all getting more forgetful every day. Maybe this is nothing more than that.”

“Absolutely,” Liz said, then gave Frances a sympathetic look. “Whatever you’re dealing with, we’re here for you. That’s a given, okay? You’re not in this alone.”

“Will you promise me that whatever the diagnosis, you won’t say a word to anyone in my family?” Frances pleaded. “I’ll decide when the time is right for that. I don’t want them worrying unnecessarily or rushing over to Serenity to have me locked away in a nursing home.”

Neither of her friends agreed immediately.

“What?” she demanded. “Have you already spoken to Jennifer or Jeff?”

“Absolutely not,” Liz said. “But if I think the time has come that they must know and you haven’t told them yourself, I can’t promise that I won’t. I’ll push you to do it first, of course, but I won’t allow something terrible to happen to you because of negligence on my part.”

Frances turned to Flo. “And you?”

“I’m with Liz on this,” she said. “We’ll respect your wishes as long as you’re doing well and are safe. And it’s not just about you, you know. Your daughter, son and grandchildren would want to know if there is a problem. They’ll want to have as much time with you as possible.”

Frances sighed. They were right, as usual.

“Fair enough,” she said reluctantly. “But we’re probably worrying over nothing. Sometimes putting the keys in the freezer is just a sign of having too much on my mind, not a sign that I’m losing it.” She thought of her conversations earlier with Elliott and Karen, her deep concern for these two young people who mattered as much to her as her own children. That probably explained it. Her mind had been on their problems, nothing more.

“Of course,” Liz agreed as Flo nodded.

“I think I’ll head home now,” Frances said, suddenly more exhausted than she’d been in ages.

“I’ll drive you,” Flo said at once.

“I can still walk a few blocks,” Frances said irritably. “I’m not likely to get lost in a town I’ve lived in all my life.”

Liz gave her a chiding look. “She’s taking me home, too. It’s right on our way.”

Frances gave Flo an apologetic look. “Sorry for overreacting.”

“It’s understandable,” Flo said. “Any of us would be scared to even consider something like this might be happening to us.”

Frances knew that was true. As they’d aged, she and her friends had discussed every illness known to man at one time or another, but it seemed the greatest dread centered on this one.

But while she appreciated their empathy, there was one thing they could never comprehend. It was happening to her, not them. And theorizing was very different from the blind panic that had set in tonight.

* * *

It was morning before Elliott finally set aside the time to lay out the detailed plans for the gym for Karen. They’d definitely gotten sidetracked the night before.

He’d called his first two clients to push back their appointments and was in the kitchen making breakfast when Karen wandered in wearing one of his old shirts and nothing else. His mouth went dry at the sight of her. He wondered if she’d always have the power to take his breath away.

She wrapped her arms around him from behind. “Do you know how sexy you are when you’re standing in front of a stove?” she asked, resting her cheek against his back.

“You’d be attracted to anyone who fixed you a meal after you’ve spent your days in the kitchen at Sullivan’s,” he teased.

“Nope, it’s you. You’re this gorgeous guy who looks like a cover model with abs of steel and here you are, all bare-chested and wearing one of my aprons. You just can’t get much sexier than that.” She grinned. “It takes quite a man to go with the ruffles, you know.”

He laughed. “One of these days I need to buy one of those manly barbecue aprons,” he replied. “If our friends ever catch me looking like this, I’ll never hear the end of it. There’s fresh orange juice in the refrigerator, by the way.”

“You really do pamper me,” she said, releasing him. She poured two glasses and set them on the table. “When was the last time we had a quiet breakfast, just the two of us?”

“Before we got married, I think. It’s been way too hectic since then.”

“How’d you pull it off this morning? You’re usually long gone by now.”

“I rescheduled a couple of clients.”

“Were they furious?”

“No, which was a good lesson for me. I can make more time for us if I put my mind to it.”

“So can I,” Karen said. “We need to do it more often. It’s good for the soul.” She poured herself a cup of coffee, took a sip and winced.

“Too strong?” he asked.

She laughed. “You can’t help it. I think it’s in your genes that coffee’s no good unless it makes your hair stand on end. I’ll dump in half a carton of milk and it will be fine.”

When he’d set their plates of healthy egg-white, veggie omelets and whole-grain toast on the table, he sat down across from her. “Okay, here’s the deal on the gym. It’ll be a division of The Corner Spa. In addition, there will be six partners, all of us with equal shares.”

“Who?” she asked.

“Cal, Ronnie, and Erik, plus Travis and Tom McDonald, and me.”

“How much money do you have to put up?”

“We’re still finalizing all that, but I’ll be making only a minimal financial investment compared to them,” he said. “My contribution will be mostly sweat equity. The way I understand it, that’s the way it was when Maddie went into partnership with Dana Sue and Helen on the spa. I’ll run day-to-day business operations under Maddie’s oversight—at least initially—and continue seeing my personal-training clients.”

Karen looked surprised. “You’re willing to let Maddie boss you around?”

Elliott chuckled. “What do you think she does now?”

“It’s not the same. You’re an independent contractor, not a spa employee. If you got ticked off at her, you could take your clients to Dexter’s. And speaking of those clients, are you just going to abandon them?”

“No, of course not. I’ll still do the senior classes at the spa and see my regular clients. I’ll just have to lighten the number of hours I spend there, so I can spend the bulk of my time at the gym. And they’re talking about hiring someone to be at the gym whenever I’m not, so the place can be open longer hours. It’s a win-win, Karen. We stand to make out nicely financially with a share of any profits, plus I’ll be able to handle more clients since I can work with men there and still keep the women clients I have at the spa.”

“So, there’s no real financial risk at all,” she concluded, looking relieved.

Elliott knew he could let her go on thinking like that, and, in his mind, it was mostly true, but after what had already happened, he knew he couldn’t let the comment pass.

“I do have to put up some money,” he reminded her. “An initial, short-term investment to get things off the ground.”

She frowned. “So there
is
a risk?”

“Come on. You know none of us would be doing this if we thought it was risky, but sure, any new business can face unexpected pitfalls.”

“How much money, Elliott?”

“We’re still working that out.”

She held his gaze. “How much?” she repeated, obviously sensing that he was being deliberately evasive.

“Ten thousand, maybe fifteen,” he said eventually, then watched as alarm registered in her eyes.

“Our savings for the baby?” she asked, her voice shaking. “All of it?”

“I know to you it sounds like a lot.”

“It
is
a lot. It’s all we have.”

“But the payoff,” he began, only to have her cut him off.