Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
For a by-the-book guy, Mark sure felt like he’d been bending the rules in excess lately. Mostly it’d been during that single incident when he’d driven straight to Billings to help Val, but part of him felt as if he’d been slipping. He simply didn’t care as much about dotting every I and crossing every T. Any chance he got to spend time with Val Bernard, no matter for how long or in what capacity, he would take.
And that was something he’d never found acceptable for anyone but his family.
He couldn’t feel too bad. Val had been in a tough spot. She’d needed him, so he’d come to her aid. She was going through so much right now, and he wouldn’t be a decent human if he ignored her. They’d developed this bond with each other, one he didn’t know how to describe or define.
He honestly wasn’t sure what to call their connection.
He couldn’t refer to it as neighborly since they weren’t technically neighbors. Nor could he fall back on this being something he did as a law enforcement officer executing his rounds. There was so much more to his interactions with Val, but since they were hardly ever in the same physical location as the other, it was hard to determine what that might be.
With her being not quite but almost within arm’s reach for a few days, however, he’d made a concerted effort to visit with her. His office worked on a rotating shift that included nights, weekends, and even holidays, but since it meant that after that morning he’d be off the following day, it worked out in his favor.
Thinking he’d surprise her, he drove over to Billings unannounced, only to discover her pacing back and forth in the waiting area in a frenzy. Her gorgeous long hair appeared tangled, and as he watched her drag her fingers through it, they caught, making her flinch.
“Val?” He couldn’t have prevented himself from inquiring after her if he’d tried. And he didn’t plan to try any such thing.
“Mark? What are you doing here?”
“Thought I’d surprise you with some moral support. Is something going on?”
“Dad’s incision is infected. At first, they just gave him some different antibiotics, but now they’ve taken him back to surgery.”
Seriously? Talk about her and her dad having to endure too much.
“What can I do?” he asked, and that was when she registered what he’d been holding.
“What’s all that?”
Before heading up to the third floor, he’d made a side trip into the gift shop. He’d picked out some Get Well balloons for her dad and the biggest bouquet of flowers they had for her. The spray had a collection of all sorts of flowers, but the only ones he recognized were the roses and tulips. Tulips were his mom’s favorite.
“Something to cheer you both up.”
He handed them over, and she took a whiff of several of the blooms. They were astonishingly colorful for a hospital gift shop, and the mixture of fragrances made him think of spring gardens even though it was now full summer.
“Why are you so thoughtful?” she asked, sounding distressed. “I don’t understand.”
Bewildered, he held his ground as she began pacing again, this time holding the bouquet out in front of her as she walked. “What don’t you understand?”
“What are we to one another, Mark?”
He could’ve been a statue. He’d never had such a discussion with a woman before. Not with any woman. He’d never been serious enough with a woman to get to this point, but he knew it had to be handled with a bit of delicacy.
“What do you want us to be?”
“We’re friends, I think.” She spoke as if in some stream of consciousness. As if he wasn’t standing there. “But we also feel like more than that. Or at least, like we could become more than that. Maybe.”
She glanced over at him, then approached, setting the bouquet on a chair beside him. He felt like she’d hit the ball into his court. “What are you asking me, Val? Are you asking if we can be more than friends?”
“No,” she said, sitting next to the flowers and patting the seat on her other side. His heart sank, but he sat as she clearly intended him to. “But what if I did?”
Treading carefully, he said, “If you did, I think I’d like that.”
They were now sitting side by side with their shoulders touching, their heads facing forward. They sat there for a long time, neither speaking, but Mark felt perfectly content to sit here with her, relishing her presence.
Staff members came and went. Patients were wheeled by. Family members filled the opposite side of the waiting area, only to depart again to traipse further into the hospital. Val didn’t follow up on their conversation. It seemed unnecessary. Like they were speaking with telepathy rather than having a more traditional talk.
That might be a bizarre thing to think, he knew, but it didn’t hit him that way. Her father was having his second surgery that week, and the result of that remained unclear. Maybe she’d only brought up such a charged topic to distract herself from worrying.
Yet somehow, Mark didn’t think so.
Or maybe that was wishful thinking.
All he and Val did was perch there together over the subsequent hour. It passed far more rapidly than he would’ve thought, but it wasn’t at all awkward. Not between them. There was something about her, even under these high-pressure circumstances, that seemed to mesh with him without effort. And if he was helping her by being here, if this was all he would ever be able to offer her long-term, he’d take it and appreciate the opportunity.
With every intake of breath, he detected her rain-like perfume. Or maybe it was her shampoo or bodywash. Whatever it was, he loved inhaling it. Only after sitting there like two lumps on a log for an amount of time that became limitless did they twist toward each other.
They did it at the same moment, as if the motion had been synchronized. When her amber gaze linked onto his, suddenly he didn’t want to look away. In fact, he didn’t think he could, not even if he’d wanted to.
No one else remained in the waiting area. It grew suddenly quiet. They were alone despite this being a public place. Not only in this room but seemingly in all the world.
As they continued their intense eye contact, the space around them became electrified. He said nothing, afraid to move even by a millimeter as she closed her eyes and ever so slowly leaned toward him. It might’ve seemed far more inappropriate if Mark hadn’t been so enveloped in Val. But it was like being sealed within a sensory deprivation tank. The only thing he could see, hear, feel, taste, or touch was her.
The distance between their faces was reducing, and they were within an inch of their lips meeting when a disembodied female voice from what might’ve been another universe ripped them apart.
“Ms. Bernard?”
Mark rocketed backward, stunned. It was like being dunked into an icy cold lake in January. That had happened to him once as a kid. He’d been skating—playing hockey with some friends—and lucky for him, he’d been close enough to the shore that the water had only gone up to his knees.
A nurse had appeared. Where’d she come from?
“Ms. Bernard?” she repeated, and Mark absorbed how Val’s eyes widened as she registered that the nurse was real.
“Yes?”
“Your father’s out of surgery.”
“Is he all right?”
“He is. He’s in the recovery room. You’ll be able to go see him in about an hour. Would you like me to come and get you then?”
“Please.”
The nurse left, but the moment between Mark and Val had broken. In fact, Mark wondered if it’d even happened the way he remembered it. Had it been some deranged fantasy of his? Or if it hadn’t been, might it have simply been a way for Val to keep her mind focused on something other than how her father’s life was at risk all over again?
Even if that was what had occurred, Mark couldn’t blame her. If he was in the same position, might he not engage in something similar?
With what had transpired with his own dad, if that had been his mother or sister in there… No, he couldn’t stand to even think about it.
He scrutinized the seats around them, watching as two groups of visitors joined them.
“Do you need something?,” Mark asked her. “There’s a cafe on the first floor. They have coffee.”
She peered at his chest rather than meet his gaze. How had he missed those smudges of gray beneath her eyes? She looked exhausted as she replied, “A coffee would be great.”
“Great,” he parroted back at her, feeling like an imbecile. “A coffee. Two coffees. Strong ones. I’ll be right back.”
And with his task to complete, Mark hoofed it out of that waiting room as fast as he could.