Chapter 3 #2
“Hi Kara.” He then stood straight and said to the family in general, “I’m going to run out for some food for lunch. Any requests?”
“The sandwich shop on the corner is good. It’s today,” Francesca said.
“Done. Shana, send me a text with everyone’s orders.”
Shana collected all the orders and texted Roarke. Even Kara reluctantly agreed to a sandwich.
Roarke was back half an hour later with two large bags filled with subs, chips, and drinks. Kara was grateful. Her stomach was empty, and even though the thought of eating was completely unappealing right now, if she didn’t eat, she’d get nauseous and have a headache soon.
A short time later, a nurse came into the waiting room and informed them that Angelo was awake and ready to see visitors. The parents went in first, followed by Dante and Alessia, then Shana and Roarke. After a few minutes, Roarke came out alone and sat next Kara to eat his sandwich.
“I heard you were the hero of the day,” he said.
Kara shook her head. “More like the cause of the problem. He was trying to help me. It was stupid. I should’ve just let that man steal my purse.”
“It was instinct. You couldn’t help yourself. As for Angelo, someone has to stop people from doing what’s wrong. Angelo is that sort of person. Then you saved him. That means a lot,” he confided.
They ate in silence until Shana returned and ate her own sandwich, looking more relieved than when she’d left to see him.
By the time they had finished, the rest of the family had returned to the waiting room.
Shana and Roarke said goodnight to everyone and prepared to leave, but Shana hugged Kara unexpectedly just before they left.
“Thank you for saving him,” Shana whispered in Kara’s ear, then she and Roarke left the hospital.
“Kara, you haven’t seen Angelo yet. Do you want to see him now?” Francesca asked.
Numb, Kara nodded, and the nurse came to escort her back to Angelo’s room. She was going to have to explain what had happened, what she’d said to his family. The weight of her lie only grew heavier with each step. But she lifted her head and followed the nurse.
Angelo hurt all over, his body felt like he’d been hit by a car, and that car had then backed up over him. But he was alive. Alive. Who knew that single word would matter so much today?
His parents, Dante, Alessia, even Shana and Roarke had all come to see him. There was just one thing he didn’t understand after he’d woken up. Something that made him wonder if he’d somehow slipped into an alternate dimension.
When he’d fallen down in that alley he’d been a single man, a lonely one. Now everyone was talking about his fiancée.
But I don’t have a fiancée.
His mother kept talking about a woman named Kara, and how excited she was about the beautiful nipotini they would soon have. All he could do was wonder why his mother was confused. No one in his family had corrected his mother… so he had no real way to explain what he’d woken up to.
The only Kara he knew was the woman from the soup kitchen.
He remembered chasing after her because she’d forgotten her scarf and hearing her scream for help.
A man had tried to rob her in an alley, and he’d gotten between them.
He hadn’t known until after the man fled that had been stabbed.
He hadn’t felt the pain at first, not until Kara had mentioned the blood.
After that things got hazy. He thought he remembered a man asking him if he could feel his fingers and toes, then other questions, but it was all a blur.
He remembered someone holding his hand and a feminine voice…
but it was all a whirlwind of sound, pain and fear.
But that was over. What he wanted to know was if Kara was okay.
Had he said something in his painful moments of delirium to her that had led to this engagement story?
He thought… although it was a dim, hazy memory, he’d asked her to stay with him. But that could have been a dream.
He found himself starting at the clock. It was half past two o’clock and given the sunlight coming in the windows, it was the afternoon. Christmas day afternoon? He felt like he’d lost so much time between last night and now.
One of the nurses came in to check his vitals and asked how he was feeling.
“Sore.” He gratefully accepted a sip of water from a cup she held up to him that had a straw. “Should I be sore…everywhere?”
“That’s to be expected. When you have surgery in the abdomen, they have to get in and mess with your muscle wall.
Try not to sit up or move your upper body for a while.
” She set the cup on the table beside the hospital bed.
“Are you ready for another visitor? Your fiancée is right outside, but I don’t want to tire you out.
It’s just… the poor woman looks like she’s been through almost as much as you have.
Fiancée. There was that crazy word again.
“I… yes… I can handle another visitor.” He had no idea who she was talking about.
The nurse offered him a fond smile. “I’ll be bright back.
She went to open the door and a young woman was standing just outside the doorway.
She glanced at the nurse who waved her into the room.
The woman’s flowing red hair was a shocking contrast to the sterile white and light grays of the hospital.
Flashes of those brief moments they’d shared in the soup kitchen when they’d been working alongside each other came back to him.
When she’d told him it was beautiful to help people like that, to offer what she could to the homeless and the hungry, all he could think was that she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Now here she was here in a room that should be toning down the brilliance of her presence, yet somehow it did the opposite. She glowed beneath the fluorescent lights. Her skin was luminous rather than pale, and those blue eyes… God those eyes…
“I’ll let you talk,” the nurse said. She checked Angelo’s IV drip and then left, shutting the door behind her.
Kara looked around in every direction but at him.
He didn’t rush her. It gave him a moment to gaze at the stranger who had saved his life.
She was shorter than he’d remembered, maybe only five foot four.
She had soft curves, with hips that called for his hands to hold, and breasts that were only half-hidden by the drape of her sweater.
Her heart-shaped face surrounded by her wild red hair and her large blue eyes made her look like a wild fairy princess, but her lips held an air of suppressed mischief, as though she longed desperately to laugh and smile, but life hadn’t let her do so in a very long time.
Maybe it was the painkillers the nurse had put him or the endorphins at play, but in that moment he was completely captivated by Kara.
Her eyes swept the room, as if looking for danger or perhaps refuge. Perhaps she’d had a hard life? A dangerous one? He felt a sudden, desperate need to fold her into his arms, to tell her she was safe. He swallowed hard. How could he feel so much for someone he didn’t know?
“Kara.” Her name came out as a rasp, but it caught her attention. He uncurled his fingers of his right hand, which was closest to her. It was an invitation, and he waited, breathless to see what she would do.
It felt like coaxing a deer in the woods to eat from his palm, a mental image that almost made him chuckle.
After a long moment she came closer and placed her hand in his.
Heat, swift, like a brilliant flash of light shot through him at the contact of their hands.
It took a moment to recover himself. He’d never been so physically aware of anyone in his life.
She turned away, as though embarrassed or perhaps afraid.
Was she afraid to tell him that his family thought she was his fiancée?
“Kara,” he began again. “Thank you. I owe you my life.” He moved his fingers up her hand, coaxing her to come closer.
Tears began to roll down her cheeks, which she furiously brushed away with her free hand.
“How can you be so nice? I almost got you killed.” The anguish in her voice tore at his heart.
Her blue eyes, shimmering with tears was going to be his undoing.
He thought about the women he’d dated over the years.
Kind women, smart women, interesting women.
He cared about all of them, but none had made him feel like his world had tilted on its axis.
He wanted to be with her, to puzzle out the mystery she presented, to know her.
Yet he didn’t know what to do or say. All he seemed to do was making her cry.
Kara was a meteor shooting across the quiet night sky of his life.
He stood there watching her burn past him in silver and gold cosmic fire.
Her waves of red hair and those deep blue eyes held oceans of secrets as she finally turned to face him fully.
It was that moment which forever changed the course of his life.
“You okay?” he asked, his hand still curled around her slender, cold fingers. He searched for signs that she’d suffered any injuries.
“I’m fine, really. But you…” Her bottom lip quivered.
Although she was a stranger to him, he could tell she was not the sort of woman to break easily.
But his being hurt had almost broken her.
Why? Why would he matter to her? He could no more matter to her than a distant star in the sky or a grain of sand upon the earth.
“I seem to be… fine too.” His last two words came out more like a grunt than he intended, but he’d made the mistake of trying to shift up on his bed and it hurt. He should have listened to the nurse.
Angelo tried to keep the conversation casual while he made sense of why his entire universe was now orienting itself around this woman.
“The nurse said the surgery went well… I was lucky. Did they catch the man who attacked you?”