Chapter 3
Three
Ted was surprised to discover Caroline could more than keep up with him as they settled into a steady pace on Harrison Avenue.
On the way into the state park at Fort Adams, Ted pointed out Hammersmith Farm, the summer White House during the Kennedy Administration.
All the while, he tried to figure out why this woman—and not any of the hundreds, if not thousands, of others he had known in his life—had stolen his heart.
Why did it have to be her? Why did it have to be someone his beloved friend, who had led a hard-luck life, was clearly taken with?
He mulled over these and many other questions while they jogged to the far end of the Revolutionary War-era fort and circled around to a well-worn path on the Narragansett Bay side of the tan brick fort that formed one side of the entrance to Newport Harbor.
The bay was already filled with boaters enjoying the summer day.
“I’m impressed,” Ted said.
“With?”
“I rarely run with anyone who can keep up with me.”
She laughed. “A little full of yourself, aren’t you?”
“I guess that did sound kind of arrogant, but I run every day, so I guess I’ve earned it. It’s the one thing I make sure I do.”
“Me, too. I keep trying to get Smitty to go with me, but he hates to run.”
“He always has, but he kicks ass at football.”
“I can picture that,” she said. “Did you play sports in school?”
“Just club soccer and intramural baseball at Princeton, but I’ve always been a runner. I did cross country in high school. How about you?”
“Field hockey and lacrosse.”
They moved in companionable silence for several minutes before Ted asked, “So what’s your next project? You said you just finished something big, right?”
She nodded. “I’m going to take a break for a couple of months.”
He wanted to stop her on the path, tell her how he felt, and beg her to run away with him.
They’d go somewhere that no one knew them.
He’d give up everything—his life, his friends, his work, his family—if only she’d agree to go with him.
Startled by that realization and the knowledge that he’d do it in a second if it meant he could have her, he forced himself to refocus on the conversation. “Any special plans?”
She glanced over at him, hesitating. “Sort of. I haven’t said too much about it to anyone in case it doesn’t happen.”
“Okay, now I’m dying of curiosity.”
“And I’m dying to tell someone,” she confessed.
Oh how he wanted to be the one she told all her secrets to. “Perfect,” he said with a grin.
“Well, I’m thinking about . . .”
Ted saw her stumble before she fell and was unable to stop himself in time to grab her.
“Oh,” she moaned, cradling the ankle that had twisted violently in a small grass-covered hole on the path. The knee on her other leg was bleeding.
Ted squatted down beside her. “Let me take a look.”
Her face was pinched with pain and all the color had drained from her cheeks. “Hang on a sec,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Okay. Go ahead.”
Ted put a comforting arm around her shoulders and untied her running shoe.
She winced when he eased the sock over her already swollen ankle. “Oh, that hurts!” she cried as he did a perfunctory exam.
“I can’t tell if it’s broken without an X-ray, but if it isn’t, it’s a bad sprain.” He tucked the sock into her shoe and handed it to her before he lifted her into his arms.
She sucked in a deep breath when her cut knee bent around his arm. “What are you doing? You can’t carry me.”
“Sure I can.” He tried not to notice how perfect she felt in his arms. “You’re light as a feather.”
Her smile was weak as her arms encircled his neck. “Whose big idea was it to leave the phones at home?”
Ted had to remind himself to breathe as her scent surrounded him. “I never run with a phone or a pager.” He carried her back the way they had come. “It’s the one hour of every day I’m completely unreachable. Keeps me sane.”
“I hope we can borrow a phone when we get back to the parking lot,” she said, biting her bottom lip.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure something out.”
Caroline rested her head on his shoulder, probably because it was easier than holding it up.
Her soft, fragrant hair brushed against his cheek. “How you doing?” he asked.
“Hurts,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Are you okay? I’m too heavy for you to carry me this far.”
“I just told you what a big jock I am,” he joked. “You’re insulting me.”
“Will they know where to look if we don’t come back?”
“Not really. I kind of mix it up every weekend. Elise usually runs with me, but I don’t go this far with her.”
“Sorry to mess up your run.”
“I’m sorry you’re hurt.”
When they reached the parking lot, Ted eased her onto a bench. “Hang on for just a second while I find a phone, okay?”
She nodded as she stretched her aching ankle out in front of her.
Ted found a young family eating a picnic at one of the nearby tables, explained the situation, and asked if they had a cell phone he could borrow.
The husband handed Ted his phone while the wife took a bag of ice over to Caroline to put on her ankle.
As Ted dialed the house and then Smitty’s cell phone, he watched Caroline nod with gratitude to the woman who had returned with a wet napkin for her cut knee.
“Did you reach your friends?” the man asked.
“No answer anywhere.” Ted rubbed the stubble on his face as he tried to think of what to do next.
“Can I give you guys a lift somewhere?”
“Would you mind? Our house isn’t far from here.”
“Of course not.” After telling his wife he would be right back, the man pointed Ted to his car.
Ted carried Caroline and the bag of ice to the backseat of the SUV and gave their new friend directions to the house.
She stretched her injured legs out in front of her and leaned back against Ted with a sigh.
“I haven’t forgotten the secret you were about to tell me when this happened,” he whispered, hoping to get her mind off the pain.
“I’ll get back to you on that.”
“I’ll hold you to it.” He told himself that reaching for her hand was a gesture of comfort and not capitulation to the overwhelming desire to touch her. Reminding himself yet again that she was Smitty’s girlfriend, he reluctantly pulled back when her fragrant ponytail brushed against his face.
The car hit a bump, and she squeezed Ted’s hand in a reflexive response to the pain.
“Almost there,” he said.
At the house, they thanked the man who had driven them. Ted lifted her out of the SUV and deposited her in the passenger seat of his car.
“Where are we going?”
“To the E.R. You need to get that ankle checked.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t want to.”
“Doctor’s orders,” he said with an empathetic smile as he fought the urge to brush the tears off her cheeks. “Let me just run inside and leave a note for the others. I’ll be right back, okay?”
She wiped her eyes and nodded.
“Keep the ice on it.”
Inside, he found a note from Smitty: “We went to the store to get stuff for lunch. Meet us at the beach.”
Ted ran upstairs to grab his phone, keys, and a clean T-shirt.
“They’re already at the beach, which is why I couldn’t reach them,” he told Caroline when he returned to the car. “There’s no signal out there.”
“Smitty didn’t wait for me?” she asked with annoyance.
“He went to the store to get lunch and then to the beach. He knew you were in good hands.” Ted felt a stab of guilt as he said the words. Maybe she wasn’t in such good hands, but judging by her pained expression, she didn’t care at the moment.
“Well, I guess that’s okay then.” She leaned back against the headrest with her eyes closed as Ted drove them to the emergency room at Newport Hospital. On the way, he left messages for his friends to let them know where they were.
“Do you think they’ll get the message?”
“One of them will check in with me when we don’t show up, so don’t worry.”
“I feel so bad,” she groaned. “I’m totally screwing up your day. The last place you want to be is in a hospital.”
“It’s no problem. Let’s get you fixed up and on something for the pain. Then we can party.”
“Yeah, right.” She grimaced when she tried to move her swollen ankle. “Thanks for being so great. I can see why your patients love you.”
He looked over at her, wondering if he should read more into her statement, but found only friendship in her green eyes. He chastised himself for being so foolish. She wasn’t interested in him. She’s Smitty’s girlfriend. The words echoed through his mind like a chant.
Ted carried her into the deserted emergency room where he introduced himself as a doctor to the nurse at the triage desk.
They took Caroline right away, and Ted pushed her wheelchair to the X-ray department. The films showed a fracture, so the E.R. doctor called in an orthopedic guy.
Ted sat with her while they waited for the specialist to arrive.
“I’m not usually such a crybaby.” She wiped new tears off her face. “I just can’t believe this happened right at the beginning of summer. What a drag.”
Without a thought about the implications, Ted reached for her hand. “Lucky for you, you’re dating the green giant, and he can carry you anywhere you need to go until you heal.”
She laughed through her tears. “That’s true.”
When an hour had passed with no word from the specialist, the nurse gave Caroline something for the pain, and she drifted off to sleep.
Ted took advantage of the opportunity to study her, while wishing with all his heart that he had met her first. Her face had lost its lustrous color, but even pale from the shock of her injury she was gorgeous.
She was petite but not tiny, athletic in an attractive way, and easy to talk to.
His eyes wandered to the rise and fall of her chest, and he wondered if her full breasts were as spectacular as they appeared in the tank top she had worn to run in.
Jesus Christ, Ted. That’s enough. But he couldn’t seem to look away.
He was jolted out of his thoughts when he heard Smitty’s loud voice in the hallway.
“Where is she?”
Ted got up to lean out of the cubicle doorway. “Pipe down, will you? She’s in here sleeping.”
Smitty’s eyes were big as he came into the room to find Caroline in the hospital bed. “What the hell happened?” he asked in what he considered a whisper.
“She stepped in a hole on the path at Fort Adams. Broke her ankle.”
“Shit. Are they keeping her?”
“Just until the orthopod gets here. After the swelling goes down, she’ll probably be in a cast for six weeks, the first few on crutches.”
Smitty groaned. “She’ll hate that.” He squeezed Ted’s shoulder. “Thanks a lot for getting her here, buddy. You don’t have to stay.”
Ted glanced over at Caroline who was still sleeping. “I don’t mind hanging out.”
“No need,” Smitty insisted. “Go salvage your day. Parker’s got your board at the beach.”
He wanted to wail. He wanted to tell Smitty there was nowhere else he’d rather be. “If you’re sure . . .”
“I’m positive. You’re off duty, Dr. Duffy.”
“She’s going to be in a lot of pain,” Ted warned him.
“No worries. I’ll take good care of her.”
“Okay. I’ll see you back at the house.” Ted walked out of the emergency room with a heavy heart, wishing he could stay with her. He wondered why it was that when he finally found a woman who made his gut ache with desire she had to be dating his best friend.