Wishes and Stitches (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-five

R
ig woke to disappointment that felt like a giant storm swell rolling under his bunk. Naomi wasn't there next to him, she wasn't curled in his arms like she had been all night. It wasn't that much of a surprise, honestly—he should have guessed she'd run at the first light of dawn, but he'd hoped that he'd awaken with her, and that he'd be able to convince her to stay a little longer.

Instead, all trace of her was gone save for the lingering sweet scent that still hung in the air like a ghost.

Oh, and the bra that was stuck under the door between the bedroom and the bathroom.

Rig laughed and gently pulled it free. Red lace, with that underlining of black . . . was it silk? Whatever it was, the bra was pretty, but looking at it, Rig could only think of what had been inside it last night. What he'd taken out of it.

The thought hit him like a punch.

Slow down, Keller
. It had been a really long time since he could think of a girl he wanted to wrap back up like a sexy package—the bra, the panties, the long red silk shirt—just so he could take them off and start touching her again.

Danger. The signs were obvious.

Now was about reconnecting with his family. Taking the time to rebuild his relationship with his brother. To be a good son and uncle. To help the Keller men with their grief. Someday he'd find his own soul mate and settle down, but it wasn't time for that yet. And Naomi wasn't his soul mate. Obviously. She was a highly driven professional career woman, a little too tightly wound for him to consider anything more than a dalliance of the sort they'd had last night.

She also made tiny mewling whimpers of pleasure when he stroked her with his tongue, noises that made him harder than he'd ever been. She hadn't seemed highly driven or wound tight last night. God, he ached right now, just thinking about it.

For a little while, maybe he'd continue to ignore the signs. It was like driving in a foreign country—you didn't need to understand the directions just to stay on the road. He left the house, shutting his door with a click. Had Naomi kept her shoes off while she flitted through the garden to the street? Or had he just slept through the noise of her leaving? He checked to see if Shirley was in the garden, as she sometimes was early in the morning, but she wasn't, and her car wasn't in the driveway. She was working at Tillie's, then.

He felt a half smile on his face. He touched the lace of Naomi's red bra in his coat pocket. It was going to be a great day, and he had the best job in the world.

When he stepped into the office, chaos swirled like a storm. Three people were in line, two of them looking furious. Anna was behind the reception desk, her hands up in the air as if she was being robbed. Naomi was scuttling around behind her, filling her arms with files, setting them down, then grabbing more papers. She looked out and met his eyes. For a moment, he felt her remember the night before—he saw a flare of heat in her emerald eyes—and then her face went blank.

“You're late,” she said. “We need you back here,
now
.”

“Coming,” he said. And then to the woman in line who looked the angriest, he said, “Good morning. Yellow's a great color for you.”

The woman's shoulders relaxed and she smiled. “Well, thank you.” She ran her hands down the velour jumpsuit she was wearing.

He pushed through the door into the back area. Naomi stopped in her tracks and stared at him.

“I thought
I
was going to be late, but you're even later than I was. You know it's nine thirty already? And we've had patients since before nine? I've been doing everything I can, and I've seen two so far, but Anna is so far behind in what she has to do that I'm afraid nothing's going to get done at all. She hasn't even started phoning in prescriptions, or sorting lab results, and if Bruno was here everything would be fine, but he's not—” Her voice broke off, and she frowned even harder. “And that's your fault. So is hiring Anna. We are
better
than this here.”

“You were in such a good mood last night.”

A hint of rose crept across her cheeks that made him long fiercely to cross the room and kiss her senseless.

“Yeah. I was.” Her voice was softer. “I was even in a good mood this morning, but not since the office exploded.”

“I'll help. You take a patient back, and I'll help Anna sort it out.”

Naomi puffed air out of her cheeks. Then she said, “That's very reasonable. Thank you.”

He laughed. “That looked like it hurt to say.”

Her eyes looked wounded. “No. Your idea is a good one. I'll go get Mr. Cruz.”

Damn. He hadn't meant to hurt her feelings. Maybe he could make her laugh instead. “Oh, Naomi?”

She stopped, one hand on the door to reception. “Yeah?”

“You left something at my house.” He pulled just the strap of her bra out of his pocket so that she could see it.

“Oh! You shouldn't have . . .” Naomi stammered. “Dammit. Give it to me,” she said, crossing the room in three quick steps. She snapped it out of his pocket, ran to her office, opened the door, and threw it in. He pictured it landing on her desk, draping from her lamp, and smiled.

“Do I get a reward?” he asked as he went to help Anna.

“Oooh!” Naomi sounded both angry and amused, like a child being teased with a toy just over her head. He liked it that he could make her sound like that. She needed to relax more, obviously, and good God, if that wasn't a worthwhile way to spend some time, he didn't know what was.

Chapter Thirty-six

N
aomi stretched and looked out her office window. Once Rig had jumped into the fray, the rush had eased, and the work flow had been manageable. No matter what, it would have been a busier day than normal, a summer cold going around that had every mother worried. It would play itself out, and in the meantime, Naomi took a lot of temperatures and discussed the color of sputum with concerned parents. She herself was fighting a stomachache, probably from the way it tightened up every time she saw Rig. Just one time, as they'd passed in the hallway, she'd met his dark eyes. Instantly, she'd felt that deep, internal heat flare to life, and the amused look on his face told her he knew what he was doing to her.

She'd made an iced coffee in the break room and retreated to her office, dousing her feelings with chilled caffeine.

Anna had finally caught on to the rhythm—that, or instead of filing things, she was just throwing them out. Naomi doubted the latter, though. She knew her sister was smart. She'd just never been . . . very focused. Now that Anna was sitting at the desk, Naomi found it more difficult not to get her hopes up that she would stay. But she had to remember: this was temporary. It always was with Anna.

Naomi tilted back in the chair

Her heart still ached for the baby. God, what kind of life was her sister going to give an infant? Why couldn't Anna have used birth control, like a sensible, sexually active woman? Abortion this late was unthinkable, of course, but earlier on? When she was only a month or two along? Surely her sister had considered it?

Outside on the sidewalk, a tiny old woman moved at what must be slower than a snail's pace, leaning on her walker. At one point her head dropped onto her chest, and she stood there, swaying. Naomi stood up halfway, ready to run outside if the woman dropped, but after what appeared to be a micronap, she raised her head and moved on, one inch at a time.

What kind of life had that woman had? Was it one full of love and laughter, kids and grandchildren? A husband who adored her? Or was Naomi looking at her own future, alone, slowly making her solitary way down a concrete sidewalk?

She ran her fingers along the arms of her father's office chair. As always, touching the pleated, worn leather soothed her in a way usually only knitting did. When she was a child and begged to be taken to her father's office, he'd perch her in his chair when he left the room to see patients. He'd let her draw on his prescription pads with the thin blue pen he favored. “Sit there. Draw me something.”

“What should I draw?” she'd ask.

“Something good. Something you like.”

She'd draw a stick figure in a white coat and dress, a gigantic stethoscope around her neck, and high heels.

Her father would laugh when he came back and pretend to misunderstand. “I don't wear a dress! I don't wear heels.” He was waiting for her answer, and she knew the correct one.

“No, Daddy, that's
me.
I'm going to be a doctor, just like you. And sit in a chair like this one. And have a nurse and my own thermometer.” Thermometers, with the way the mercury slid up and down, had been magical to her.

“You shall have as many thermometers as you like, my little monkey. Now, scoot over and let me sit there.”

Naomi brought herself back to the present, her fingers still tight around the leather arm of her chair, and checked on the woman moving outside again. She'd gone another seven feet, and Naomi hoped she didn't live more than another block or so away or she'd be out there all month.

At least he'd known that was what she wanted, to follow in his footsteps. He'd done everything right, and damned if she wasn't still trying to live up to him. The chair, and a few of his old medical texts, were all she had left of him.

And God knew, he'd never had an office romance. He'd be horrified if he'd ever known that was exactly what she was doing.

Was last night just an aberration? Naomi could try to think of it as that. She'd had a plan—it hadn't been a good one, and it hadn't worked.

Why, then, was she completely unable to stop listening for Rig's boots in the hallway? Being with him had scrambled her circuits, and electricity was zapping around, but charging the wrong areas. Well, she supposed they were the
right
areas, sometimes . . . Spinning a pencil in her fingers, she watched as the old woman finally turned the corner and was out of sight.

Rig
. She sighed again, knowing she sounded like a crushed-out teenager. Sinking farther into the chair, she spun the pencil so hard she lost control of it, knocking herself in the chin with the lead.

She stood quickly, crossing the room to the bookcases, and, randomly, pulled out her father's
New England Journal of Medicine,
from the week of September 9, 1984. This was where the game had begun, so many years ago. This was why she'd kept such out-of-date magazines for so long.

Late at night, as a child, waiting for her father to come home from work, unwilling to phone her mother who was so busy with Buzz and the new baby, she'd flip through the pages of his medical journals while asking a question in her mind. If the divined passage answered it, then she'd done it right. If it was a garbage answer, she'd have to study the section and learn it, to make up for playing such a silly game.

Nowadays it worked a little better with Eliza's books. But this was all she had here at the office.

Closing her eyes, Naomi flipped the pages of the journal.
What would Daddy have thought of Rig?

Carefully, carefully, she let her finger trail down a page, and then stop. She opened her eyes.

A knock came at the door. Rig entered, wearing a green button-down shirt and jeans. His stethoscope was shoved halfway into his back pocket instead of being hung neatly around his neck, and his hair stuck up as if he'd just run his fingers through it.

Oh dear. That
was
what her father would have said. But he'd never had to deal with anything like this. She slid the journal under a pile of files on her desk.

Thank God she'd put her bra back in her purse after lifting it from the desk where she'd flung it.

“Hi,” she said. Would he be able to tell she'd just been thinking about him? Thinking about last night?

“Hey.” His voice blew on the coals she'd thought she'd banked inside. She wanted him to say more.

But he didn't. Rig kicked the door shut with his boot, and came around the desk. Without preamble, he threaded his fingers behind her head, bringing his mouth down to hers. He kissed her hard.

Hot.

Long.

When he finally drew his head back, Naomi's spine had somehow gone to jelly, as if the dura matter had heated, just like the space between her legs. She felt as if she was flying, but at the same time, the spinning sickness at the pit of her abdomen was back, too.

Rig growled, “I've been wanting to do that all day.”

Naomi looked up into Rig's face. She wanted to press her cheek against the long curve of his jaw, now faintly stubbled. She wanted to say something that would stun him. That would let him know that she was still in control, something sexy that would prevent him from noticing that he undid her with every touch.

She opened her mouth to speak.

And instantly threw up, barely leaning over to make it into the trash can in time.

Chapter Thirty-seven

T
wo nights later, at his brother's home, Rig wondered for the fiftieth time how Naomi was doing. It was hard to keep his mind off her—she'd been so instantly sick yesterday afternoon, and so damn horrified. He'd offered to take her home, but she'd refused. He thought he'd seen the sheen of tears in her eyes, but she hadn't given him a second chance to look as she'd run out of her office carrying her purse. She was gone in what felt like seconds, and she'd been out sick today. He and Anna had handled it in the office, but just barely, and Anna had said she'd been in her bathroom most of the night.

Frank was obviously waiting for an answer from him, and Rig tried to focus. “Dad,” said Rig, “Milo barely reliably ties his shoes. And you think he's going to be able to play chess?”

Frank humphed as he thumped the pieces of the heavy old chess board that he'd dragged out of his bedroom into the backyard to the picnic table. “He's already five. He has to learn sometime. I showed him the basics the other night and he seemed to get it. We'll play after dinner.”

Milo dropped off the branch he hung from and raced over to his grandfather. “I can play! I can play!”

Rig laughed and looked down at him. “You can? Can you tell me the rules?”

Milo shrugged. “It's just like checkers only the pieces jump crooked. Duh.” He zoomed away again, his arms up in the air. Screeching, he turned the corner to run to the front gate. He'd be back in a minute.

Rig took a deep breath and let it out. The sun was dropping in the west, and he could see, just over his brother's fence, the fog bank approaching. It wasn't here yet, but he could feel a hint of cool mist being pushed in his direction. In the yard, two robins hopped on the edge of the perpetually empty birdbath; Megan had loved birds, but Jake always forgot to fill the bath with water. Maybe a nice gift would be turning it into a fountain—Rig bet Jake would like that, and Milo would love being able to splash his hands in it.

He should check on Naomi. Did she need anything? Being sick sucked.

Jake came out from the kitchen carrying two boxes. “Pizza tonight. I'm too tired to grill.”

“Pizza's always good,” said Rig as he looked at his brother. Two dark blue circles were pressed under his eyes, the kind that used to be there for months on end after Megan died.

“Milo!” Jake yelled. “Dinner!”

Another screech followed by maniacal laughter was all they heard.

“He wants to be the Joker this week,” Jake said. “It's his new thing, but all he knows how to do is the laugh. It's creeping me out.” As he handed Rig a beer, he smiled, but it didn't seem real—it looked like one of those that he'd had for the first two years after Megan died, the smile that never reached his eyes.

Frank grabbed a piece of pizza and leaned back in his deck chair. The piece of ham he grabbed with his teeth fell onto his shirt. Shrugging, Frank kept eating.

“Dad, you've got—,” Jake started, waving his finger.

“Saving it for later,” said Frank. “Mind your own business. Now if you'll excuse your old man, I have to listen to Rachel Maddow's podcast. I missed it this morning.” With that, Frank stuck the cords of his iPod into his ears, and climbed into the hammock, leaning back in the thin evening sunlight. He closed his eyes, chewing all the while.

“So what's up?” Rig asked.

“Nothin',” said Jake. “How 'bout you?”

“Don't give me that.” Rig took his first, perfect, ham and pineapple bite. It had been a good week for pizza eating, that was for sure. “Something's wrong, and you'll have to tell me or I'll give Milo two of the candy bars I have in my car for just these kinds of emergencies.”

He didn't see or hear Milo approaching but he felt the tug at his elbow.

“Candy bar, please.” He tilted his head back and to the side, grinning a patently fake grin.

“Is that the Joker look? Because it's freaky,” said Rig. “Not now, buddy. Get some pizza.”

“Candy bar, please.” He rocked his head back and forth, the same enormous smile plastered on his face.

Jake snapped, “Knock it off. Eat pizza or go to your room.”

Milo jumped, his smile falling. His shoulders slumped. “Fine,” he whispered. “Candy later?” This was said more hopefully, and Rig could see him inhaling slowly, just in case a fit was required.

Rig nodded hurriedly. “One piece of pizza equals a candy bar if your dad says it's okay.”

Jake raised one shoulder and dropped it. “Fine. Whatever.”

After Milo had whooped and run to sit under the oak tree with his slice, Jake finally sighed and said, “Don Barger's wife died last night.”

“Shit, Jake. Was he on duty?”

Jake nodded. “He'd grabbed Milton's shift—he's been looking for overtime lately. Medical bills. The hospice nurse was with her.”

“Shit,” was all Rig could say.

“They didn't call 911, obviously, because it was hospice, but they called Don on his cell. We took the rig out of service and spent the morning there with him. Bunch of us stayed over after the shift. Left there about five, just as her mom got there.” Jake's voice cracked. “They have two kids. Ages seven and nine. Girls. And oh, God,” he leaned forward, pushing the pizza box away, putting his elbows on the table and burying his eyes in his palms. “The girls are old enough to know what happened. I don't think I've ever seen anyone cry that hard in my life, and their dad could only hold one at a time.”

A tremor rocked Jake's body. “I held Lacy, the seven-year-old. For an hour, I held her and told her it would be okay. But it won't be, Rig. It's never, ever going to be okay again. And she has to learn that the hardest way possible.”

Rig slid forward on his chair, holding his pizza in one hand, the other outstretched. Fuck. Of all the calls for his brother to go on . . . “Jake—”

His brother sat up and rubbed his eyes, hard. They shone brightly, but the wetness was gone. “All I could be was as tough as I could be. I told him the truth, though. He wanted to hear it. I told him it was going to be awful. He just looked relieved someone was telling him something he could believe. I think everyone had been telling him it was going to be fine, that she would miraculously recover or something. Damn, Rig. His eyes . . . were the worst I've ever seen. I wonder if I looked like that?”

It sounded rhetorical, so Rig didn't answer, just took another swallow of his beer. Yeah, Jake had looked exactly like that when Megan died. It had been almost unbearable for Rig to look at him. He glanced at Frank to see if his father had heard any of this, but he still had his earbuds in and his eyes were closed.

“I'm sorry,” Rig finally said. “But I'm glad you were there for him. Not many other people could go through that with him, not like you could.”

Jake nodded. “I guess I've been pretty fucked up for the last few years, huh?”

Rig almost laughed. It was an understatement. But who reacted well to the loss of a love? No one, that's who. “You've been doing just fine.”

From under the tree, Milo made a
whoop-whoop
noise, like a fire engine clearing its throat. Jake looked startled and turned in his chair, ready to run toward his son. Then Milo kept eating. Jake's shoulders relaxed.

“He's fine,” said Rig.

Jake picked up his beer bottle and drank. “Yeah, but for how long is he going to be fine?”

It must be hell to feel that scared, all the time. But that's what love did to people.

He wondered if Naomi was okay. If he should check on her.

Jake cleared his throat. “Changing the subject. You got your eye on your office partner?”

Rig took a bite of pizza to put off answering and ended up biting the inside of his mouth so hard he tasted blood. “Shit.”

“What's your problem?”

He used his tongue to prod the wound. He'd live. “Bit my cheek. And yeah. I guess I do.”

“Have you slept with her?”

“Easy, Trigger.” How much should he admit to the man who hadn't gotten any in three years?

“Because I bet Dad five bucks you'd already slept with her. Am I right?”

“You had a
bet
on me?”

“Hell, player, if you've got it, use it. Dad actually agreed, but he was mad at me for using the last of the toilet paper without changing the roll, so he bet against me.”

“I'm not answering the question.” His brother didn't need to know the details.

“Sweet. That's a yes. Was it fun?”

Rig leaned back so that he rocked on the back two legs of his patio chair. He couldn't help admitting, “Yeah.”

His brother frowned. “If that back leg slips, you'll crack your head wide open.”

Thunking back to the ground, Rig sighed. “I'm fine. I'm not going to hurt myself.”

Jake looked like he was going to say something else, then he shook his head and finished his beer.

“What?” asked Rig.

“Nothing.”

“I swear to God, Jake, leaning back in my chair is not the same as jumping out of an airplane with no parachute. I'm fine.”

“It's not that,” Jake said.

“Then what?”

“You think she could be your Megan?”

Rig sucked in his breath. “What?”

“I saw the way you looked at her in your office. Naomi's not just a good time, am I right?”

“You and Dad have another bet?”

“No.” Jake's voice was softer. “I was just wondering. If she could be that one for you.”

“No way, dude. Megan was good at everything. Naomi is . . . She can barely speak to people unless she's in the office. She hides, and I don't know why. Her house is cluttered . . .” Rig's voice trailed off. He could list the reasons he couldn't be with Naomi, but they didn't seem to matter when he said them out loud. Each bullet point, actually, was tugging a smile from him. Sometimes she wasn't able to string two sentences together, and he'd seen magazines on her floor that were four years old.

But she was so warm. So lovely. She just didn't know it.

Nah.

Naomi wasn't his Megan.

That was the party line, anyway. The one he was working really fucking hard to remember, the one he forgot whenever Naomi was near.

“Nope,” he continued lamely. “She's just going to be a friend. Coworker. Hell, she's my boss, if it comes to that, until Pederson's out and I buy in.” He needed to change the subject, fast. “What about you and Anna? How was your burger run the other day? I didn't have a chance to grill her at work today. Get it? Grill? Burger?” He grinned toothily at his brother.

Jake didn't smile. “You want to know if she's
my
next Megan?”

“No!” Rig hadn't even considered that she might be. “She's pregnant. Not sure if you noticed that.”

“Only when her stomach got to the Smokehouse five minutes before the rest of her did. But you know what? It was nice being around her. Made me remember what Megan was like when she was carrying Milo. Remember how she loved those butterscotch shakes? She used to have two or three a day of those from the Smokehouse. Anna had one, and while Milo and I ate our burgers, she went and got another one. Eating for two, I guess.” Jake smiled.

“Uh-uh. No way. You're not dating a woman about to give birth.”

“Who said anything about dating? I'm not dating.”

But Jake's voice wasn't convincing.

Frank chose that moment to pull out his earbuds and join the conversation. “What about that girl Anna you took to get burgers? A girl and a burger sounds like a date.”

Jake said, “It was just food, Dad.”

“You couldn't even help me teach Milo chess, you were so amped up.”

Rig watched, fascinated, as his brother turned red.

“He's too young for chess,” said Jake. “Gonna give him migraines or something. Stress.”

“It's all right for you to date, son.” Frank rubbed the gray stubble on his chin and then passed his hand over his eyes. “Just because I don't doesn't mean you shouldn't.”

“You loved Mom,” said Jake.

“You said she was the only one you could ever love,” said Rig. “You couldn't get out of bed for almost six months.”

“Your mother was a saint,” Frank snapped. “But that's not the point. The point is, life goes on. We'd all do well to remember that.”

Rig looked at Milo, who was now lying under the tree, looking up into the branches. “So are you telling us you're going to start dating? Should I make a profile for you on Match.com?”

Frank shot him a sideways look but didn't answer him. “Jake, someday you'll find someone you can love again.”

Jake shook his head. “There won't ever be anyone like Megan.”

“And I'll never find another woman like your mother.” Frank scowled.

There was a silent moment when Rig could feel tears in the back of his throat, threatening to break through. “Well, it's a good thing I'm not going to end up like you two.”

Dammit, he could tell by the look that passed between them that they didn't believe him.

He wasn't sure he believed himself.

Time to change the subject. “So,” said Rig. “
Die Hard
tonight?”

“Yeah.” Jake stood, collecting the paper plates they'd eaten off of. “That'll do.”

Frank stood slowly, holding on to the ropes of the hammock for support. “I like that Bruce Willis kid. He's gonna be someone, I think.”

Rig rolled his eyes and then smiled at his father. “Yep. Bet you're right.”

Milo, who'd been in the house, slid open the back door and yelled, “Hey! I got a lady here!”