The Color of a Memory (The Color of Heaven Series) (2 page)

* * *

Over the next five hours, I kept abreast of Alex’s case. The X-ray images revealed that he had broken two of his metatarsals, which are good-sized bones in his foot. This surprised me because most people are pasty gray and do a fair bit of moaning and complaining when they arrive in the ER with even the smallest fracture.

But Alex was a trooper and managed to get through all the poking and prodding with a sense of humor, pouring on the charm to all the nurses, even the older ones. Especially them. After a while I began to relax and stopped assuming he was just trying to pick me up. In fact, it lifted my spirits to see the older ladies blush.

When at last he was discharged with a cast boot
on his foot, I was just finishing my shift, so I volunteered to push him in the wheelchair onto the elevator to take him down to the front lobby.

“You never answered my question,” he said when the elevator doors closed and we were alone.

“What question was that?”

“I asked if you had a boyfriend,” he reminded me.

For a long moment I stared at the floor indicator above the doors and watched the numbers count down. When the display flashed L and I knew it was time to get off, I said with a sigh of defeat, “No, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

The doors opened. I pushed the chair forward.

As we were rolling out, he tipped his head all the way back to look up at me, and I found myself smiling down at his face, which was no less handsome from that angle.

“You’re a good nurse,” he said. “I’m glad it was you today.”

“I’ll bet you say that to all the girls,” I replied with a smile.

“Nope, just you. So how about you let me buy you dinner?”

“I don’t think so.”

“At least tell me your last name. Or give me your phone number.”

I grinned down at him. “Not a chance.” Then I briefly glanced up to make sure I wasn’t about to steer him down a steep flight of stairs. That wouldn’t be good.

He faced forward as well. “Then don’t be surprised if you see me again next week with some other random ailment. Maybe I’ll develop a pain in my side that will take hours to diagnose.”

“Didn’t you ever hear the story about the boy who cried wolf?” I asked. “That didn’t end well.”

He tilted his head back again. “Then maybe you should just give me your number.”

I laughed and shook my head at him then realized we were about to collide with a woman who was standing directly in our path to the door.

I pulled the chair to a halt and Alex jolted forward.

“Melanie,” he said, seeming startled to see her.

“Hey.” She glanced at me suspiciously, then adjusted her purse strap on her shoulder. “Who’s this?”

“This is Audrey,” Alex replied. “She’s my nurse. Audrey, this is Melanie.”

“Hi,” I casually said, waving a hand.

Melanie was tall and supermodel-skinny with blonde hair, full lips and big eyes—eyes that glared at me with venom.

“I thought David was picking me up,” Alex said to her.

“I told him I’d do it,” she replied. “Why didn’t you call me earlier? I would have come right away. Is it broken?”

He lifted the cast boot to show her. “Yeah. Guess I’ll be off work for a few weeks.”

“Bummer,” Melanie said. “Are you ready to go? I can bring the car around.”

“That would be great. Thanks.”

Melanie hurried off, leaving Alex and me alone to wait inside. I set the brake on the chair and sat down on the window ledge to face him.

“Who’s Melanie?” I asked point blank. “Your sister? Cousin? Housekeeper, maybe?”

His eyes were fixed on the view of the parking lot outside the glass. “She’s not my girlfriend,” he said. “Well, she sort of is. She
was
.”

I held up a hand. “Don’t bother to explain. It’s none of my business.”

We waited in silence for a moment.

“So I guess dinner Friday night is out of the question?” he asked, turning his head to look at me.

“Yep. Totally out of the question.”

His chest rose and fell with a heavy sigh, and he nodded his head, as if he wasn’t surprised.

Melanie came speeding up to the entrance in a sporty little lime-green Volkswagen convertible. She pulled to a halt and got out to open the passenger side door.

I rolled Alex outside, set the brake again, and he hobbled out of the chair and into the front seat.

“Thanks, Audrey,” he said as I backed up and rolled the chair out of the way.

“No problem. Take care, now.”

He shut the car door and Melanie hit the gas. They sped off into the hazy evening sunset. For a moment I stood alone, watching the car grow distant, then I returned inside to grab my stuff and go home.

* * *

Over the next few days, I thought about Alex Fitzgerald more often than I cared to admit and it bothered me how much he was on my mind. I hardly knew the guy, and he certainly wasn’t my type because he was too much of a flirt. I had seen dozens of patients that day. Why should I be thinking of
him
?

Because he looked great shirtless?

Needless to say, I made sure I worked hard to purge him from my mind, but I also felt sorry for Melanie who was clearly devoted to him while he was asking other women out on dates.

I decided I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes. Not in a million years.

Looking back on it, I wish I had mentioned the encounter to someone, because that’s when the phone calls began. It would have been helpful to have had a record of everything.

Chapter Three

The first call occurred when I arrived home from the movies on a Saturday night. The call display said “Private Caller,” so I picked it up. “Hello?”

My greeting was met with a few seconds of silence, which made me think it was a telemarketer. I was about to press the end call button, but the unknown caller hung up before I had a chance to.

It happened again the following morning at eight o’clock, waking me from a very deep sleep. I flopped across the bed and answered groggily, “Hello?”

Again I was met with silence on the other end, then
click
. The line went dead.

“Thanks a lot,” I replied as I ended the call and tried, unsuccessfully, to go back to sleep.

How foolish I was to think it was a wrong number, but my night shift hours that week had left me in a daze.

But eventually, I
would
wake from it.

* * *

I didn’t work another shift until Tuesday night, which gave me time to attend a spinning class that morning and meet my friend Cathy for lunch downtown.

Cathy and I had known each other since high school and I was her maid of honor the previous summer when she married Bob, the guy she met in college.

Bob was an electrician but he was working with some filmmaker pals on a reality TV show about rewiring old houses. Bob was smart and funny and we all knew he’d make a terrific host. They just had to pitch their idea to a network willing to take a chance on the idea.

As for Cathy, she was the most generous, easygoing person I knew, and she worked part-time for an insurance company.

“Audrey, why don’t we go down to the fire station after lunch and ask how that hot firefighter’s doing?” she suggested when our soups and salads arrived. “I’m sure someone will know. Didn’t you say he brought a friend to the ER? We could ask that guy.”

“I’m not going down there,” I replied, “because I have no desire to find out how he’s doing. And why do you keep bringing it up?”

“Because you told me what he looked like shirtless and what a jerk he was for cheating on his girlfriend. You
never
talk about patients like that. Isn’t there some rule about confidentiality?”

“I also never went out with him,” I replied, “so in actuality, he didn’t cheat on his girlfriend. And confidentiality hasn’t been breached because I didn’t tell you his name.”

She wagged her salad fork at me. “But he would have cheated on her if you had said yes to the date.”

I shook my head. “I still don’t even know if she
was
his girlfriend. He was pretty vague about it.”

“There, you see?” Cathy said. “You’re still curious about him.”

I looked down at my minestrone soup. “No, I’m not.”

“You’re the biggest liar I know.”

“Maybe so,” I replied with a chuckle, “but I’m still not going down to the fire station.”

* * *

I had been manning the nurse’s station for a few hours that night when Jason, the clerk beside me, tapped me on the shoulder. “Audrey?”

I looked up from the computer screen to find myself staring blankly at Alex Fitzgerald. He stood on crutches on the other side of the desk.

“Hey,” I said, blinking my eyes to try and gain some focus. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

As if he were pulling a rabbit out of a hat, he whipped out a big bunch of colorful spring flowers and held them out. “These are for you.”

Leaning back in my chair, folding my arms across my chest, I laughed. “What for?”

“To say thank you.”

I regarded him skeptically. “I was just doing my job.”

“But you did it brilliantly.” He glanced at Jason who was standing beside me, listening to our conversation with interest. “I’m here to ask her out for dinner, but I’m afraid she’s going to say no.”

Jason nudged me with his elbow.
Hard
. “Come on, Audrey. Throw the guy a bone. He came all the way down here on crutches. The least you could do is have something to eat with him.”

“I’m working,” I reminded them both.

“You have a supper break coming up,” Jason was happy to add. “She usually eats in the cafeteria,” he told Alex.

Alex held out the flowers again. “Perfect. I love cafeteria food, and these need to be put in water.”

Jason reached across the desk to take them. “I’ll handle that.”

“You’re not helping,” I called out to Jason over my shoulder as he went off in search of a suitable container.

Alex smiled at me.

“How’s your foot?” I asked him.

“Better,” he replied. “I’m getting around okay. How’s everything with you?”

“Fine and dandy.”

We regarded each other for a long, intense moment, then I laughed softly in defeat.

“So is that a yes?” Alex asked, tilting his head to the side.

Jason returned with the flowers, set them down on the desk in front of me and nudged me again with his elbow.

I let out a breathless sigh. “I guess so. As long as you promise to keep your shirt on this time.”

Alex held up a few fingers. “Scout’s honor. At least for today.”

I tossed my pencil onto the desk and went to grab my purse, feeling quite certain that agreeing to have dinner with Alex Fitzgerald was going to be one of the worst mistakes of my life.

Chapter Four

“Just so you know,” I said as we stepped onto the elevator. “I don’t date guys who have girlfriends.” I pushed the button for the cafeteria floor.

“Perfect,” he said. “Neither do I.”

A few other people got on behind us and the doors closed. Neither of us spoke until the doors opened again and we got off.

“And she’s not my girlfriend,” Alex said, falling into pace beside me on his crutches.

“But she used to be,” I said—just to make sure I had all the facts straight.

Alex nodded. “Yes.”

I considered that for a moment. “Does she know she’s not your girlfriend anymore? Because she didn’t seem too pleased to see you flirting with me the other day.”

“If anyone was flirting, it was
you
,” he teasingly replied.

I couldn’t help but laugh softly as we entered the cafeteria and I grabbed two trays, one for each of us.

“See, you’re still doing it,” he said.

I laughed again. “And who came down here with the flowers?”

He smiled at me. “Fine. You win.”

We ordered our meals and I carried both our trays, one at a time, to a table.

“Maybe I should have waited until I got the cast off to ask you out,” he said as he sat down across from me. “I don’t think I’m making the right impression.”

“And what impression would that be?”

“That I’m a stand-up guy. Reliable. Dependable.”

“It takes more than two good feet to be dependable,” I told him. “So where’s Melanie tonight?”

“I don’t know. I told you, she’s not my girlfriend anymore.”

Looking down at my pasta, I rummaged around for the onions and picked them out with my fork. “I hope you didn’t break her heart just for me—because I’m a busy person. I’m not looking for anything.”

“It’s been over between Melanie and me for a while.”

My eyes lifted. “Does
she
know that?”