This Very Moment (25 page)

“Thank you so much.” Mr. Rivers took Bill’s hand and pumped it up and down. “We can never repay you, but I know God will bless you.”

Bill glanced at Kylee. “He might at that.”

“Pardon me?” said Mr. Rivers. “I didn’t hear you.”

“Nothing. I’m glad to have been able to help.”

Bill was paged, and he reluctantly left Kylee and Mr. Rivers. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but he didn’t know how to begin. Was what he had felt during the surgery real? He needed to find that out for himself. Most of all, he needed to know if Kylee really loved him.

* * * * *

Minutes ticked slowly into hours. Bill didn’t return and Kylee wondered what he was doing. Would he be back at all before she had to leave?

At last a nurse came into the waiting room. “Your grandson is awake,” she said to Mr. Rivers. “Would you like to see him?”

“Yes, of course.” The old man rose quickly to his feet.

“Can I come?” Kylee asked, hoping that as at Anna’s surgery the family-only policy would be waived. Especially since Anna was anxious to see Jeffery and have her first real friend.

“Yes. I’m sure he’d like to see you, too.”

They were led into the recovery room. Bill wasn’t present yet, though Kylee heard Barbara tell Mr. Rivers that he was on his way. Kylee and Mr. Rivers waited on each side of the bed as Jeffery’s eyelids flickered. The left side of his face was completely covered with bandages, making him appear small and helpless. Kylee leaned closer to him, taking his thin hand as Mr. Rivers had done on the other side of the bed. The little boy opened his eyes sleepily, then blinked and focused on Kylee, looking confused and more than a little alarmed.

“It’s me, Kylee. How are you?”

“Oh, Kylee. I thought you was an angel. Like on TV.”

“She is an angel, Jeff.”

Kylee turned at the voice and saw Bill in the doorway.

He smiled at her with an expression she had never seen before, one she couldn’t name. “It’s because of her persistence that we were able to do your surgery today,” he said to Jeffery. “I think that qualifies her to be an angel—at least to you.”

“Her hair looks like a halo,” Jeffery murmured

“Yeah, it does,” Bill agreed.

Kylee laughed softly. “That’s reflection from the light.” Whatever mood had struck Bill, Kylee was enjoying it. He was different somehow. Softer.

Jeffery’s attention was diverted by the tears falling from his grandfather’s eyes. “What’s wrong, Gran’pa?”

“Nothing, boy. Nothing at all.”

Kylee decided to leave them alone. She excused herself and left the room, her heart thumping erratically when Bill followed close behind.

“Bill—” she began at the same time he said, “Kylee.” He nodded for her to go first.

“We need to talk.”

“I agree. But my next patient’s waiting and has been for the last half-hour. Could we get together later tonight?”

Kylee was relieved that the hurt and anger she had seen in him the night before was no longer apparent. “I’d like that.”

“Your place or mine?”

“I have some work to do out your way for Children’s Hope, so I could stop by your condo. Tell me a time.”

“Six?” He led her to his office and pulled a set of keys from the drawer. “Better take these in case I’m late. Sometimes my appointments run over.”

“I’ll make us dinner.”

“You don’t have to.”

She touched his arm. “I know.”

With no warning, his arms went around her and pulled her tight. “I love you, Kylee Stuart.” He kissed her hard on the mouth before drawing away. “See you tonight.”

Kylee watched him leave, her senses reeling at his kiss, at the strength of their mutual attraction. So much for being friends until she could help him find his faith. What would she do if that never happened? She couldn’t imagine living without him, or without sharing a belief in God. Yet she sensed a difference in him. Maybe she simply had to exercise her faith as she had at Emily’s death. Back then, her terrible loss and pain had been transformed into hope and joy. Maybe it could be so again.

The thoughts should have brought her peace, but instead she was filled with a sense of unease. She had not felt such a tangible dread since Raymond packed his bags and left.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Kylee let herself into Bill’s condo at five and began dinner preparations, glad that Bill had taught her how to program the oven. As the roast was cooking, she wandered around, looking for signs of Bill’s real self, something that would tell her what was in his heart. But everything she saw could belong to anyone, except for the Christmas decorations she had put up and the crude drawing of his parents on the wall in the sitting room.

The drawing reminded Kylee of the others Bill had shown her before. She went upstairs and into the exercise room where the drawings were still spread out on the floor. There were more this time, new ones she had never seen. In two, Bill had drawn Anna and Jeffery as they had looked at the TV station. Anna was clinging to a hand, presumably her mother’s, and Jeffery stared at his lap, his face slightly turned as though to hide his burns. With each stroke of the pencil she could see into Bill’s heart, and she understood why he had agreed to help the children. Somehow it meant a reemerging of the old Bill, the Guillaume Debré who had fled France with such vengeance. The children had given him a way to heal the past.

Most of the additional drawings were of Kylee, and again the lines told of his deep sorrow for hurting her and of his love. There was something eternal in the drawings, something almost celestial. A reason to live, a reason to believe.
If I had seen these, I would never have doubted him,
she thought. The road before her might not be easy, but he was worth it.

She gathered the drawings, old and new, and carefully arranged them in the box. Though cumbersome, the box wasn’t too heavy for Kylee to carry downstairs. She placed them on the coffee table in the sitting room and began to thumb through them again, feeling close to Bill and more in love with him at every moment.

A timer went off and she wandered into the kitchen to check on dinner. It was nearing six, but Bill still hadn’t arrived, so she decided to watch a little TV. Returning to the sitting room, Kylee settled on the couch and flipped on the TV with the remote. There was a blanket folded neatly on the couch, and she spread it over her. Before long, her eyes grew heavy.

The phone rang, jerking her out of sleep. “Hello?” she asked breathlessly when she had finally found the source of the noise.

“Kylee, it’s me.”

“Hi, Bill.”

“You sound different. Have you been sleeping?”

Kylee yawned. “Yes, actually. I guess I didn’t realize how tired I am. It’s been a long month. So when are you coming?”

“I’ve been delayed by an emergency. Nothing too serious, but I have to stay and take care of it. I’ve got at least another hour here, plus the twenty minute drive. I should be there by at least seven-thirty, eight at the latest. Will you wait for me? I wouldn’t ask, but I really need to see you.”

“I’ll wait. I’ve already been to see Chantel’s parents—you know, the baby with Apert syndrome—to talk with them about scheduling a surgery, and beyond that I had nothing else to do. Dinner will be cold, but I’ll reheat it. I’ll just doze on your couch until you get here.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“No.” She paused and swallowed hard before adding, “And, Bill, I love you, too.”

“You don’t know what that means to me to hear you say that.”

She picked up one of the drawings he had made of her dressed in her bronze and gold evening dress.
I think maybe I do.

They said goodbye, and after turning off the oven, Kylee curled back up on the couch and was soon asleep.

In what seemed only a short time later, she heard the shrill cry of the fire alarm. Groggily she climbed to her feet. She could smell the smoke as it began to fill the room, black and billowing, blotting out the overhead light. How long had the smoke alarm been sounding? And where was the fire? She looked around but the smoke made it difficult to see, and the darkness increased with every moment.

Her sleepiness vanished. She needed to get out—now. She was nearly to the sitting room doorway when she remembered Bill’s drawings. Knowing they were all Bill had left of Nicole, she took a few steps back and grabbed the box before rushing to the entryway. There were no flames that she could see, but the area was filled with black smoke that stung her eyes and throat. Blinking to ease the stinging, she held her breath as she ran to the front door.

There was no one outside, but she could hear human screams coming from a neighboring apartment. She watched, stunned, as people began stumbling from the surrounding condos in a seemingly endless chaotic stream. Flames flickered in windows of the two condos directly to the right of Bill’s, and smoke surged from five or six others.

Kylee placed Bill’s box of drawings on top of her car, and leaned against it to collect her scattered wits. It was then that she remembered the drawing Bill had made of his parents and his poignant expression when he told her it was the only picture he had of them.

Kylee ran back into the condo. The entryway and sitting room were still dense with smoke, but this time she noticed flames dancing on Bill’s entertainment center and the surrounding wall, crackling as they eagerly devoured everything they touched.

Must have spread from the neighbor’s,
she thought. Even as she watched, sparks jumped to the couch where she had been lying only minutes earlier.

Hastily, she grabbed the drawing on the wall and made for the door. The thick smoke entered her lungs, and she coughed and tripped over the blanket she had left on the floor. Her head hit sharply against the coffee table, filling her head with pain as she fought to remain conscious.

* * * * *

The clock in his BMW told Bill it was after eight. He drove rapidly through the dark streets as he headed for home and Kylee. She would be waiting for him. After the long day, she might be asleep, but she would be waiting.

With a smile he recalled the last time he had seen her sleeping on a couch. He had loved Nicole at the time, as he would always love her, but something about Kylee had touched him even then. In the almost two months since she’d come back into his life she had changed him, had given him a reason for living. She had created happiness in his life when he had thought that emotion was gone forever. He had been wrong about a lot of things.

As he approached the block of his gated community, he saw a dark cloud rising in the air, lit by a strange light that didn’t come from the street lamps. A chilling dread fell on his shoulders, reaching out a claw-like hand for his heart. For an instant, he saw Nicole again, black in his arms.

Shoving the agonizing vision aside, he drove like a man possessed through the gate and over to his street. Horror flooded his senses as he saw the whole row of condominiums where he lived awash in flames.

Kylee!

The scream ripped silently through his head and heart and soul. When he’d last talked to her she had been nearly asleep on the couch. Was she still there? Had her dinner caught fire while she slept?

He remembered the dream of holding a burned Nicole in his arms, only to look down on her face and find that it was Kylee. In that same dream he had dropped her and run away.