Chapter 8 #2
She was drowning in problems, up to her neck in them, sinking fast. Her father was dying, day by day.
Piece by piece. When working, Nicole tried to wipe that thought from her mind but it was there, constantly, this huge dark hole that sucked everything down into the black pool at the bottom.
It was her first thought on waking up and her last thought at night.
Helping him die was eating her alive. And eating up all her financial resources. She didn’t know which would finish first—her father or her money.
She didn’t care at all for herself, but she was terrified at the thought of her father spending the last months of his life without the comforts she killed herself to provide for him.
She’d already been to the bank to see about taking out a mortgage on the house and they’d laughed at her. Whatever resources she could use to ease her father’s life had to come from Wordsmith, the company she was struggling to keep afloat.
The terror that her father would be less than comfortable at the end of his life was like a sharp nail hammering into her head, hour by hour, minute by minute. Each time she saw a medical bill a vise tightened around her heart, squeezing hard.
Except for last night.
All of that had been utterly wiped from her mind during the hours she’d spent in Sam’s arms, all that worry and darkness replaced by heat so intense it scorched her.
Part of her was ashamed that she’d been able to simply toss her problems overboard for a couple of hours while drowning in sensuality, and part of her had reveled in it.
She hadn’t thought of any of it—sick father, money problems, trying to get Wordsmith off the ground—all the constant overload of worry that ate at her every waking moment.
Gone, like smoke. While she had a gazillion orgasms.
Nicole watched the cursor blinking on the screen. She’d translated a sentence and a half in the past hour. It was eight in the evening and the translation should have been finished.
This was crazy.
With a sigh, she closed the computer down, extracted the portable hard disk and went to the dining room that had been converted into a hospital room for her father.
The night nurse looked up from the magazine she was reading and stood. Nicole waved her back in her chair.
“How’s he doing?” Nicole asked softly, walking to his bedside, avoiding the IV tree pumping God only knew how many chemicals into him.
“Blood pressure normal, heart rate normal. He’s mildly sedated.
He’ll sleep through the night.” The nurse’s voice was low, brisk, objective.
Nicole appreciated that. She was efficient and unemotional, which Nicole needed.
Manuela sometimes broke out in tears at unexpected moments and it didn’t help. The nurse’s quiet calm was soothing.
“Good.” Nicole gently laid her hand over her father’s.
The IV line was in the other hand, where they’d finally found a vein.
The backs of both hands were darkly mottled where the thin veins broke.
It was increasingly difficult to find a strong vein for the IV fluids and medicines that were keeping him alive.
Nicole knew that the next step was a minor operation to open up a subclavian IV catheter line, which would create its own problems of bloodstream infection.
Her father’s hand was cold and still. He was always cold, no matter what she did to keep him warm. His body simply no longer had the energy to warm itself.
She looked down at him, her last living relative on this earth, the person she loved more than anyone in the world.
He was leaving her, a little each day, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Not all her tears, not all her care could halt the disease’s progress.
In the beginning, she’d read up ferociously on brain cancer, joined internet forums, talked endlessly online with patients, with the doctors.
Read everything about brain cancer until the words blurred and until finally, she could read no more.
They were past all that. There was nothing science could do for her father, and the only thing she could do for him was to love him with all her heart and make sure he was as comfortable as she could possibly make him.
Often, if she held him long enough, she was able to transfer some of her young warmth to him. It pleased them both. She’d been holding his hand for ten minutes, but his hand wasn’t warming up. So that had been taken from them, too.
“I’m going out,” she told the nurse. “I’ll be gone a couple of hours, maybe more.”
“That’s fine.” The nurse settled back in the chair with her magazine. Nicole knew that she would spring instantly into action at the first sign of distress from her father. She was a good nurse and had passed many a sleepless night with Dad.
He was in good hands.
Nicole grabbed her briefcase, quietly closed the front door behind her and headed for her car.
She stopped for a moment, breathing in the late evening air.
The extreme heat of the day had dissipated but it was still pleasantly warm.
It felt good to be outside after spending the day working. Trying to work.
It was a quarter to nine—rush hour was long over. Traffic would be light, she could make it into her office in less than twenty minutes.
Just the thought of her office, so pretty, so ordered, so silent, with no demands on her other than work, calmed her. She had a Pavlovian response in her office, focusing on work immediately with no outside distractions.
Four or five hours’ solid work there would more than make up for the lost day. She suddenly yearned for the cool calm of her office the way a desert straggler yearned for water.
She was in the car, pulling away from the curb, before she realized that something was missing. That slight edgy feeling in her gut that Creepy and Creepier would come out and harass her.
But nobody had. The two seemed to live to watch her come and go from her house but tonight there was silence.
Thanks to Mike.
Thanks to Sam.
Whoa.
No, no. She’d done way too much thinking about Sam. Tomorrow she’d have to face him, make some kind of decision about him, but today she was going in circles and had to stop.
Don’t think about Sam. Her new mantra.
The next few hours had to be about the job.
She resolutely focused on what needed to be done as she drove into town, making good time on the almost-empty roads.
She had mentally drafted her to-do list, sifted through priorities and decided which translation went to whom, by the time she pulled into her slot in the underground garage.
Being good at her job, making Wordsmith a success, had a direct bearing on her father’s well-being. She had to remember that. Stay focused.
As always, she enjoyed the ride up in the elevator. It was usually full in the mornings and evenings as the building filled up and emptied out. Tonight it was empty, a big, wood-and-brass cube with bronze internal doors so polished they were as reflective as mirrors.
She looked at herself and winced as the elevator smoothly rose.
Thank God it wasn’t office hours. She made such a point about meticulous grooming on the job, it was a good thing no one saw her.
Hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, no makeup, jeans, a white shirt and flats.
She looked at her face reflected in the doors.
She looked tired and worried. Which was as it should be, because she was tired and worried.
The elevator whooshed to a stop and pinged as the doors opened. She walked down the corridor, itching to get to work. The evening cleanup crew hadn’t arrived yet. The flower arrangements were drooping; there was a streak on the floor where someone had dragged something heavy.
Tomorrow morning it would be pristine. Nicole loved that, that there was something in her life that someone else took care of.
She stopped in front of her door, in the middle of the corridor. Though she ached to reach the sanctuary of her office, she instinctively turned left, as if compelled by a powerful magnet.
She stood before a door exactly like her own except that the little shiny brass plaque read Reston Security instead of Wordsmith.
Nicole reached out a hand to touch the cool, smooth wood.
Sam’s office. Tomorrow morning he would be behind this door.
She’d ring the doorbell and he’d open the door and…what? The next few minutes were a complete and utter blank in her mind. What would she say? Sorry?
Sorry, Sam, I just freaked. Couldn’t deal with you at all.
Would he forgive her?
She was so tired. Not just from last night and today. She was tired from wrestling with her problems day in, day out. So tired some barriers in her mind were coming down, crumbling to the floor, leaving her naked and raw and defenseless.
She stood, head bowed, hand on the door for a few minutes, coming to terms with the fact that she was looking forward to seeing Sam Reston again tomorrow. To absorbing some of the heat and strength that he seemed so happy to share with her.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow something might change in her life. But for tonight, she had work to do.
Feeling somehow better, Nicole turned back to her own door, fit her key in the lock and pushed it, feeling for the light switch as the door swung closed behind her.
Suddenly, hands grabbed her, slammed her against the wall so brutally it knocked the breath out of her. A cold steel circle ground so hard against her temple, the skin broke. A drop of blood slid down her cheek, dripped off her chin.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see.
A puff of breath against her ear and a low, vicious voice. “Scream, and I’ll blow your head off.”