Nine
Diana walked briskly down the wide hospital corridor.
Katie was at her side, being pushed in a wheelchair by the nurse who’d met her at the emergency entrance.
The eight-year-old sobbed pitifully, and every cry ripped straight through Diana’s soul.
She hadn’t needed a medical degree to recognize that Katie had broken her arm.
What did astonish Diana was how calmly and confidently she’d responded to the emergency.
Quickly she had protected Katie’s oddly twisted arm in a pillow.
Then she’d sent Joan and Mikey over to his house with instructions for Shirley to contact Valley General Hospital and tell them she was on her way with Katie.
“You’ll need to fill out some paperwork,”
the nurse explained when they reached the front desk.
Diana hesitated as the receptionist rose to hand her the necessary forms.
Katie sobbed again and twisted around in her chair. “Mom . . . don’t leave me.”
“Honey, I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
It wasn’t until Katie had been wheeled out of sight and into the cubical that Diana began to shake. She gripped the pen between her fingers and started to complete the top sheet, quickly writing in Katie’s name, her own and their address.
“Could . . . I sit down?”
Now that her hands had stopped trembling, her knees were giving her problems. The entire room started to sway, and she grabbed the edge of the counter. She was starting to fall apart, but couldn’t. At least not yet, Katie needed her.
“Oh, sure, take a seat,”
the woman in the crisp white uniform answered. “There are several chairs over there.”
She pointed to a small waiting area.
A middle-aged couple was sitting there watching the Noon News.
Somehow Diana made it to a molded plastic chair.
She drew in several deep breaths and forced her attention to the questionnaire in front of her.
The last time she’d been in Valley General was when Stan had been brought in.
Her stomach heaved as unexpected tears filled her eyes, blurring her vision as she relived the horror of that day.
Three years had done little to erase the effects of that nightmare.
Her throat constricted under the threat of overwhelming sobs, and again Diana forced her attention to the blank sheet she needed to complete.
But again the memories overwhelmed her.
She’d been contacted at home and told that Stan had been in an accident.
Naturally she’d been concerned, but no one had told her he was in any grave danger.
She’d left the girls with Shirley and rushed to the hospital.
Once she’d arrived, she’d been directed to the emergency room, given a multitude of forms to complete and told to wait.
There’d been another man who’d just brought his wife in with gall bladder problems, and Diana had even joked with him in an effort to hide her nervousness.
It seemed they kept her sitting there waiting for hours, and every time she inquired, the receptionist told her the doctor would be out in a few minutes.
She asked if she could see Stan and was again told she’d have to wait.
Finally the physician appeared, so stiff and somber.
His eyes were filled with reluctance and regret as he spoke.
And yet his message was only a few, simple words.
He told Diana he was sorry.
At first, she didn’t understand what he meant.
Naturally, he was sorry that Stan had been hurt.
So was she.
It wasn’t until she asked how long it would be before her husband could come home and seen the pity in the doctor’s eyes that she understood.
Stan would never leave the hospital, and no one had even given her the chance to say goodbye to him.
Diana had been calm then, too.
So calm. So serene. It wasn’t until later, much later, that the floodgates of overwhelming grief had broken, and she’d nearly drowned in her pain.
Katie’s piercing cry cut sharply into Diana’s thoughts.
Her reaction was instinctive, and she leaped to her feet.
The hospital staff hadn’t let her go to Stan, either.
She stepped to the receptionist’s desk. “I want to be with my daughter.”
The woman took the clipboard from Diana’s numb fingers and glanced over the incomplete form. “I’m sorry, but you’ll need to finish these before the doctor can treat your daughter.”
“Please.”
Her voice cracked. “I need to be with Katie.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Collins, but I really must—”
“Then give her something for the pain!”
The sound of someone running came from behind her, but Diana’s senses were too dulled to register anything more than the noise.
“Diana.”
Cliff joined her at the counter, his eyes wide and concerned. “What happened?”
“Katie . . . they won’t let me be with Katie.”
Tears streamed down her face, and Cliff couldn’t ever remember seeing anyone more deathly pale.
It was then that he realized that he’d never imagined that Diana could be so unnerved.
One look at her told him why he’d found it so urgent to rush here.
Somehow he’d known that Diana would need him.
Until a half hour ago, his day had been going rather smoothly.
He’d been eating a sandwich at his desk, thinking about a case he was about to review, when his secretary had stuck her head in the door and announced that someone named Joan was crying on the phone and asking to speak to him.
By the time Cliff had lifted the receiver, the eleven-year-old was almost hysterical.
In between sobs, Joan had told him that Diana had taken Katie to the hospital.
She’d also claimed that her mother couldn’t afford to pay the bill.
Cliff had hardly been able to understand what had happened until Shirley Holiday had gotten on the line and explained that Katie had broken her arm.
Cliff had thanked her for letting him know, then had sat quietly at his desk a few minutes until he’d decided what he should do.
After a moment he’d dumped the rest of his lunch in the wastepaper basket, stood and reached for his suit jacket.
He’d tossed a few words of explanation to his secretary and crisply walked out the door.
A broken arm, although painful, was nothing to be worried about, he’d assured himself.
Kids broke their arms every day.
It wasn’t that big a deal.
Only this wasn’t just any little kid, this was Katie.
Sweet Katie, who had tossed her arms around his neck and given him a wet kiss.
Katie who would sell her soul for a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Diana’s Katie—his Katie.
He hadn’t understood why he felt the urgent need to get to the hospital, but he did.
Heaven or hell wouldn’t have kept him away.
It was a miracle that the state patrol wasn’t after him, Cliff realized when he pulled into the hospital parking lot.
He’d driven like a crazy man.
“Mrs.
Collins has to complete these forms before she can be with her daughter,”
the receptionist patiently explained for the third time.
Diana’s hand grasped Cliff’s forearms, and her watery eyes implored him. “Stan . . . never came home.”
Cliff frowned, not understanding her meaning. He reached for the clipboard and flipped the pages until he found what he wanted. “Diana, all you need to do is sign your name here.”
He gave her the pen.
“I’m sorry, but I will have to ask Mrs. Collins to fill out all the necessary—”
Cliff silenced the receptionist with one determined look. “I can complete anything else.”
Diana scribbled her name where Cliff had indicated and gave the clipboard back to him.
“Take Mrs. Collins to her daughter,”
he stated next in the same crisp, dictatorial tone.
The woman nodded and stood to walk around the desk and escort Diana to where they’d wheeled Katie.
Cliff watched Diana leave, reached for the clipboard and took a seat. It wasn’t until he read through the first few lines she’d completed that he understood what Diana had been trying to tell him about Stan. The last time she’d been in the hospital was when her husband had been brought in after the airplane accident. From the information George Holiday had given him, Cliff understood that Stan had been badly burned. On the advice of Stan’s physician, Diana had never seen her husband’s devastated body. One peaceful Saturday morning, Diana kissed her husband goodbye and went shopping with her daughters, while he took off in a private plane with a good friend. And she never saw her high-school sweetheart again.
Less than an hour later, Diana appeared and took a seat beside Cliff. She’d composed herself by this time, embarrassed to have given way to crying as she had.
“They’re putting a cast on Katie’s arm,”
she said when Cliff looked to her. “She’s asking to see you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, Cliff, you.”
They stood together. Diana paused, feeling a bit chagrined, but needing to thank him. “I don’t know who told you about the accident or why you came, but I want you to know how much I appreciate your . . . help. Something came over me when we arrived at the hospital, and all of a sudden I couldn’t help remembering the last time I was here. I got so afraid.”
Her voice wobbled, and she bit into her bottom lip. “Thank you, Cliff.”
“No problem.”
He was having a hard time not taking her in his arms and offering what comfort he could. His whole body ached with the need to hold her and tell her he understood. But after their last discussion, he didn’t know how she’d feel about him touching her. He buried his hands in his pants pockets, bunching them into impotent fists. “I’m here because I want to be here—there’s nothing noble about it.”
Although he made light of it, Diana knew he’d left his law office in the middle of the day to rush to the hospital. His caring meant more than she could ever tell him. She wanted to try, but the words that were in her heart didn’t make it to her tongue.
“Cliff!”
Katie brightened the minute he stepped into the casting room.
“Hi, buttercup.”
Her face was streaked with tears, her pigtails mussed with leaves and grass and a bruise was forming on the side of her jaw, but Cliff couldn’t remember seeing a more beautiful little girl. “How did you manage that?”
He nodded toward her arm.
“I fell out of the apple tree,”
she told him, and wrinkled up her nose. “I wasn’t supposed to climb it, either.”
“I hope you won’t again,”
Diana interjected.
Katie’s young brow crinkled into a tight frown. “I don’t think I will. This hurt real bad, but I tried to be brave for Mom and Joan.”
“I broke my leg once,”
Cliff told her. The thought of Katie having to endure the same pain he’d suffered produced a curious ache in the region of his heart. He watched as the PA worked, wrapping her arm in a protective layer of cotton. Then he dipped thick plaster strips in water and began to mold them over Katie’s forearm and elbow.
“I’ve missed you a whole lot,”
the little girl said next.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
Cliff discovered that wasn’t a lie. He’d tried not to think about Diana and her daughters since the night of their talk. The past couple of days, he’d been almost amused at the way everything around him had reminded him of them. He’d finally reached the conclusion that he wasn’t going to be able to forget these three females. Somehow, without his knowing how, they’d made an indelible mark on his heart. What Diana had said about Becky and him had been the truth. Funny, he’d once told Diana to wake up and smell the coffee, and yet he had been the one with his head buried in the sand.
“Mom missed you, too—a whole bunch.”
“Katie!”
“It’s true. Don’t you remember you were cranky with me and Joan, and then you told us you were sorry and said you were still missing Cliff and that was the reason you were in such a bad mood.”
A hot flush seeped into Diana’s face and circled her ears. With some effort, she smiled weakly in Cliff’s direction, hoping he’d be kind enough to forget what Katie had told him.
“Don’t you remember, Mom? Joan thought it was Aunt Flo again and you said—”
“I remember, Katie,”
she said pointedly.
“Who’s Aunt Flo?”
Cliff wanted to know.
“Never mind,”
Diana murmured under her breath.
“Will you sign my cast?”
Katie asked Cliff next. “The only boys who can sign it are you and Mikey.”
“I’d be honored.”
“And maybe Gary Hidenlighter.”
“Who’s he?”
The name sounded vaguely familiar to Cliff, and he wondered where he’d heard it.
“The boy who offered her a baseball card if she’d let him kiss her.”
“Ah, yes,”
Cliff answered with a lopsided grin. “I seem to recall hearing about the dastardly proposition now.”
“Kissing doesn’t seem to be so bad,”
Katie added thoughtfully after a moment. “Mom and you sure do it a lot.”
Cliff lightly slipped his arm around Diana’s shoulders and smiled down on her. “I can’t speak for your mother, but I know what I like.”
“I do, too,”
she responded, looking up at Cliff, comforted by his feathery touch.
Getting Katie out of the hospital wasn’t nearly as much a problem as getting her in had been since Cliff was there to smooth the way. While Diana filled in the spaces Cliff had left blank on the permission forms, he wheeled Katie up to the hospital pharmacy and had the prescription for the pain medication filled. By the time they returned, Diana had finished her task. As the two came toward her, the sight of them together filled her with an odd sensation of rightness.
“Can I ride in Cliff’s car?”
Katie asked once they were in the parking lot.
“Katie, Cliff has to get back to his office.”
“No, I don’t,”
he countered quickly, looking almost boyish in his eagerness. “While we were waiting, I phoned my secretary and told her I was taking the rest of the day off.”
“Oh, goodie.”
Katie’s happy eyes flew from her mother to Cliff and then back to Diana again. “Since Cliff isn’t real busy, can I go in his car?”
Diana’s gaze went to Cliff, who acquiesced with a short nod.
All the way into Kent, Katie chatted a mile a minute. The physician had claimed that the pain medication would make the little girl drowsy, but thus far it had had just the opposite effect. Katie was a wonder.
“I used my new lucky lure the other day,”
Cliff said when he was able to get a word in edgewise.
“Oh, good. Did it work?”
“Like a dream.”
His change in luck had astonished him and had amazed Charlie, who’d wanted to know where Cliff had bought that silver lure. Cliff had sailed back into the marina that afternoon with a good-size salmon and a large flounder, while Charlie hadn’t gotten so much as a curious nibble.
Katie let out a long sigh of relief. “I was real afraid the new one wouldn’t have the same magic.”
“Then rest assured, Katie Collins, because this new lure seems to be even better than the old one. In fact, you might have done me a favor by losing the original.”
“Really? Are we ever going to go fishing on your sailboat again? I promise never to get into your gear unless you tell me I can.”
“I think another fishing expedition could be arranged, but let’s leave that up to your mother, okay?”
He wasn’t sure Diana would agree to seeing him again, and didn’t want to disappoint Katie.
“That sounds okay,”
Katie assented.
When Cliff pulled into the driveway behind Diana’s gray bomber, it seemed that half the kids in the neighborhood rushed out to greet Katie.
They followed her into the house, and she sat them down, organized their questions and patiently answered each one, explaining in graphic detail what had happened to her. As he looked on from the kitchen, it seemed to Cliff that she was holding her own press conference.
While Katie was hailed as a heroine, Diana brewed coffee and brought a cup to Cliff. “Do you mind if I take a look around your garage?”
he asked her unexpectedly after taking a sip.
“Sure, go ahead.”
She wondered what he was up to and was mildly surprised when he reappeared a couple of minutes later with a handsaw.
“Here,”
he said, handing her his suit jacket, and marched outside.
Katie noticed he was gone right away. “What’s Cliff doing?”
Diana was just as curious as her daughter and followed him out the sliding glass door. She paused, watching him from the patio as he methodically started trimming off the lower branches of the backyard’s lone tree.
By the time he’d finished, Cliff had loosened his tie, unfastened the top buttons of his starched shirt and paused more than once to wipe the sweat from his brow.
Grateful for his thoughtfulness, Diana started issuing instructions. Soon the neighborhood kids had gathered around him and stacked the fallen limbs into a neat pile. Diana was so busy watching Cliff and telling the kids to keep out of his way that he was nearly finished before she noticed that Joan was missing.
Diana wandered through the house, looking for her daughter. When she didn’t find her on the lower level, she wandered up the stairs.
“Joan?”
She heard a muffled sob and peeked inside the first bedroom, looking past all the Justin Timberlake posters to her daughter, who had flung herself across the top of her half-made bed.
“Joan?”
she asked softly. “Don’t you want to come and see Katie?”
“No.”
“Why not? She wants you to sign her cast.”
“I’m not going to. Not ever.”
Diana moved to her daughter’s side and sat on the edge of the mattress. Puzzled by Joan’s odd behavior, she brushed the soft wisps of hair from the eleven-year-old’s furrowed brow.
Huge tears filled the preteen’s dark brown eyes. She muttered something about Cliff that Diana couldn’t understand.
“You phoned him at his office?”
Joan nodded. “I . . . I don’t know why. I just did.”
“Do you think I’m angry with you because of that?”
Joan shrugged in open defiance. “I don’t care if you are mad. I wanted to talk to Cliff and I did . . . Katie was hurt and I thought he had the right to know.”
The realization that both girls had turned to Cliff in the emergency was only a little short of shocking to Diana. Katie had asked about him even before Diana had had a chance to tell the youngster he was in the hospital waiting room, filling out the forms. And Joan had contacted him at his office, knowing she would probably be punished for doing so. No other man Diana had ever dated had had this profound effect on her daughters. Without trying, without even wanting to, Cliff Howard had woven himself into their tender hearts. Although it hurt, Diana understood now that she’d made the right decision to break off her relationship with him. Cliff possessed the awesome power to hurt her children, and it was her duty, as their mother, to protect them.
“Mom,”
Joan sobbed, straightening up enough to hurl herself into her mother’s arms, “I was so afraid.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
Fresh tears filled Diana’s eyes at the memory of those first minutes at the hospital. “I was, too.”
“I . . . thought Katie would never come home again.”
Diana’s own fears had been similar. In all the confusion, she hadn’t considered what had been going on in Joan’s mind. As the eldest, Joan could remember the day her father had died. She had only been eight at the time, and although she might not have understood everything, she could vividly remember the horror, just as Diana had earlier in the day.
“You can have my allowance if you need it . . . .”
“I don’t need your allowance, honey.”
Embarrassed now by the display of emotion, Joan wiped the moisture from her cheek and gave her mother a determined, angry look. “That Katie can be really stupid. You know that, don’t you?”
“Cliff cut off the lower limbs so Katie won’t be able to climb into the apple tree again.”
Joan nodded approvingly. “It’s a good thing, because that Katie can be so stupid. Knowing her, she wouldn’t learn a single lesson from this. If something hadn’t been done, she’d probably break her other arm next week.”
Diana hid her smile, and the two hugged each other. “Come downstairs now, and you can talk to your sister.”
Joan nodded. “All right, but don’t get mad at me if I tell Katie she’s got the brains of a rotting tomato.”
“Mom, is there room in your suitcase for my iPad?”
Diana groaned, glanced toward the ceiling and prayed for patience. “Unfortunately I need some space for my clothes,”
she said, and attempted to shut the suitcase one last time. It wouldn’t latch. “Your iPad has low priority at the moment.”
“Mom!”
Katie hurried into the bedroom. “Did you tell Cliff we were going to Wichita to visit Grandma and Grandpa?”
Diana hedged, trying to recall if she had or not. She had, she thought. “Yes.”
“How come he hasn’t come over since he brought me home from the hospital?”
The tight, uncomfortable feeling returned to Diana’s chest. “I . . . don’t know.”
“But I thought he would.”
So had Diana. She’d laid her cards out on the table, and the next move was his. He’d been wonderful with Katie that day she’d broken her arm, more than wonderful. While Katie had slept during the afternoon from the effects of the medication, he’d taken Joan out shopping. Together they’d purchased Katie a huge stuffed Pooh bear. At dinnertime he’d insisted on providing Kentucky Fried Chicken, much to her younger daughter’s delight. But after they’d eaten, he’d said a few words of farewell, and that had been the last Diana or the girls had heard from him.
Actually, Diana was grateful for this vacation. These next two weeks with her parents would help all three of them take their minds off one Cliff Howard.
“He didn’t even sign my cast.”
“I think he forgot,”
Diana said, sitting on her suitcase in an effort to latch it.
“I think we should call him,”
Joan chimed in.
“No.”
“But, Mom . . .”
One derisive look from Diana squelched that idea.
“What is it with that man, anyway?”
Joan asked next. “I don’t understand him at all.”
Joan wasn’t the only one baffled by Cliff.
“I thought he was hot for you.”
“Joan, please.”
“No, really, Mom. The day he brought Katie home, he could hardly take his eyes off you.”
Diana had done her share of looking, too. She’d wanted to talk to him, let him know how much she appreciated what he’d done for her and the girls, but he had left before the opportunity arose, and they hadn’t heard from him in four days. Now that she’d had some time to give the matter thought, she’d decided not to protect the girls from the danger of Cliff denting their tender hearts. She’d seen how wonderful he’d been with Katie and how thoughtful with Joan. He’d never intentionally hurt them.
“Cliff told me he’d take me fishing again,”
Katie said. Her cast was covered with a multitude of messages and names in a variety of colors, but she’d managed to save a white space for Cliff under her elbow. “But he said if we went again, it would be up to you. We can go, can’t we, Mom?”
Before Diana could answer Katie, the phone rang. Joan pounced on the receiver next to Diana’s bed like a cat on a cornered mouse.
“Hello,”
she said demurely, sat down and grinned girlishly. She crossed her legs and thoughtfully examined the ends of her fingernails. “It’s good to hear from you again.”
It was obviously a boy, and Joan was in seventh heaven.
“Yes, she’s recovered nicely. Katie always was the brave one. Personally, at the sight of blood, I get the vapors. It’s a good thing my mother kept her wits about her.”
Diana bounced hard on the suitcase and sighed when the latch snapped into place. Success at last.
“Yes, she’s sitting right here. She’s packing. You do remember we’re leaving for Wichita tonight, don’t you? You didn’t? Well, that’s strange . . . Mom claims she did tell you. Yes, of course, just a minute.”
Grinning ear to ear, Joan held out the phone to her mother. “It’s for you, Mom. It’s Cliff.”
Diana’s heart fell to her knees and rebounded sharply before finally settling back into place. Joan had to be joking. “Cliff Howard?”
“Honestly, Mother, just how many Cliffs are you dating?”
“At the moment, none.”
As diplomatically as possible, Joan steered her younger sister out of the bedroom and started to close the door.
“But,”
Katie protested, “I want to talk to Cliff, too.”
“Another time,”
Joan said, and winked coyly at her mother.
Clearing her throat, Diana lifted the telephone receiver to her ear. “Hello.”
“Diana? What’s this about you leaving for Wichita?”
“Yes, well, I thought I mentioned it.”
A short silence followed. “How long are you going to be gone?”
“Two weeks.”
Her answer was followed by his partially muffled swearing. “Listen, would it be all right if I came over right away?”