Chapter 4
Sophie might still feel like her lungs had been used as a punching bag, but she’d never been the type to sit around and do nothing, and she wasn’t doing well with the prospect now.
She was going flipping nuts lying in this hospital bed. Going on forty-eight hours so far, and frankly, she was shocked they’d kept her this long. The nausea and headache were mostly gone, and the worst thing was pain in her throat and lungs, but lying here wouldn’t make them get better any faster.
She longed to be home in her small beachfront condo.
Craved the familiarity and security of it as she never had before, even though she was a homebody through and through.
It, too, would be quiet, but at least there she could move.
Do something. Really, she wanted to be pretty much anywhere but stuck in this lonely, suffocating hospital room with nothing to do but watch daytime TV or think.
She’d never been much of a TV person, but compared to the thoughts knocking around in her brain, soap operas and talk shows didn’t seem so bad today.
She’d had the television on for most of the morning, and though she had trouble concentrating on it, due to drifting off to sleep periodically, being hazy from pain meds, and having her mind wander when she was awake, the sound at least filled the room and made it less lonely.
Punching the volume up a couple levels, she tried to get interested in the dramatic woman on the screen’s diatribe, but within moments, Sophie’s mind was back on what she’d been trying to ignore for hours: she’d come this close to dying in a fire.
Dying.
How did someone even process that?
Had the fire department not found her at the exact moment they had, she likely would’ve lost consciousness in a matter of minutes and then died of asphyxiation. And then … what?
If she’d died, what would’ve become of Green Systems?
Her company that specialized in making old, often historical structures more efficient and environmentally friendly?
Her blood, sweat, tears, and livelihood for the past three years?
What would have happened to her creation had she burned to ashes in that fire?
Yeah, she knew the answer. Nothing.
Green Systems would’ve gone away. Her name would live on in a couple of trade magazine articles from the recent past, for jobs she’d already done and awards she’d won, but the company itself… Poof. No more. And no one would likely miss it.
Her tastefully decorated two-bedroom condo would’ve been sold, her SUV sold, her personal belongings liquidated or trashed, since there was no one who’d be interested in them. No one who’d find any sentimental value in any aspect of her life.
And her funeral … that would’ve been a joke.
Her assistant, Iona, would’ve shown up, and her hair girl, Lotti, if her schedule wasn’t booked solid with highlights and cuts.
There were a few business associates Sophie had formed professional relationships with in the three years since she’d started Green Systems, but most of them were not local, and she doubted many of them cared enough to pay their final respects.
God. Enough of those thoughts. Enough what-ifs.
She had survived. The firefighter had found her in time. And though she’d never asked his name, his concerned eyes and his warm voice had been imprinted onto her brain. She’d have to make a point, after she was released, to track him down and thank him. Somehow.
How in the name of God was it possible to thank a person for saving your life?
She shuddered, and her head pounded harder. She wasn’t accustomed to being indebted to anyone, for small things, even, let alone such an enormous one.
Work was a much more comfortable thing to ponder, more routine, and sometimes when things were too vast and mind-blowing to grasp onto, routine was a good place to default to.
At four a.m., when she’d awakened mostly alert for the first time since the fire, she’d started a list of everything she could remember that was likely destroyed in her office.
Hello, depression. Now she turned to a new page on the pharmaceutical-ad notepad the nurse had found for her and wrote the heading: To Do.
Much less disheartening than To Replace.
It was a fight, but she managed to write down a couple of client names she knew she owed information. Her brain wasn’t cooperating because, no matter what she tried, it was kind of caught up on the whole if she’d died crap.
“Hey, you.” Iona spoke at the same moment she tapped on the open door and poked her head around the corner into Sophie’s room.
“Oh, thank God,” Sophie said, smiling for real for the first time since the fire as she took in her assistant’s familiar, shoulder-length, sand-colored hair and her pink, round cheeks. “Save me from the quiet.”
“Thank God is right.” Iona set down her bag and rushed to the side of the bed to hug Sophie. “Thank God you’re okay. You look good.”
“Is lying to me part of your job description?” Sophie asked, her smile fading to a grimace. “Because I look like I got dragged by a freight train.”
“You look better than a dead girl. Scared the stuffing out of me when I heard what happened! And then they wouldn’t let me in to see you. They’d only connect me to your room phone, which you didn’t answer. I should’ve told them I was your sister from the beginning.”
“I was out of it all day yesterday. Didn’t even hear the phone.”
The nurse had told her the firefighter had camped out in her room for hours while Sophie had slept, and she’d clung to that knowledge all day.
The thought that he’d stayed for so long should make her uncomfortable but instead, it made her feel safe.
Like someone out there cared. Two someones — her rescuer and her assistant.
Though letting people in wasn’t her norm, it felt good to have those two in her corner, especially while she was down.
“I’ve got a replacement iPhone on its way,” Iona said. “I had the business number temporarily forwarded to my cell so we wouldn’t miss any calls, and I brought your home laptop, like you asked.”
“You’re a godsend, Iona. Thank you.”
Sophie felt her antsiness seep out of her as she realized how lucky she was. Lucky to have such a capable, reliable woman on her side, among other things.
Maybe it was time to make Iona, who’d earned her environmental engineering degree a year ago while working for Sophie part-time and had been working full-time ever since, a junior partner.
Someone who shared in the company’s successes and challenges officially.
In a tangible way instead of just as glorified support staff.
Then if, God forbid, anything ever did happen to Sophie, the thing she’d put so much effort into would live on, at the very least.
Sharing didn’t come easy for her, but she could see now why it would be a good idea. She thought, for the first time, maybe she was ready to try sharing.
Sophie took several swallows of water to soothe her still-raw throat. “Pull up a chair.”
“Do you know how long you’ll be here?” Iona asked as she dragged the chair the firefighter had used close to the bed again and sat down.
“I should go home tomorrow.” Sophie raised the head of her bed more so that she was fully upright. “In the meantime, I’m losing my concussed mind in this place.”
Iona pulled out two laptops from her bag and set the Mac Air with the floral-patterned skin in pinks and oranges across Sophie’s lap.
Iona opened the other computer and powered up. “Before I forget, I talked to Jack. Your test is postponed indefinitely—”
“To get my black belt,” Sophie said, wondering how she’d forgotten the event she’d been training for for years. “It was supposed to be Saturday. What day is this?”
“Today is Thursday. You’re not testing anytime soon.”
As much as Sophie instinctively wanted to argue, there was no denying she wouldn’t be ready by the weekend. She’d have to ask the doctor how soon she could return to krav maga. “I’ll call Jack later to set a new date.”
“He’ll be happy to hear from you. He sounded more than a little freaked out.
” Iona paused while she typed something in.
“So, we need to get the bid out to Herman Brandt ASAP. The final, proofed version is in your inbox, waiting for you. I’ve contacted Mr. Brandt to let him know what happened, and he said not to rush, but if he wants to meet the timeline his museum board set, we need to push it. ”
Herman Brandt. In Massachusetts. The bid was for greening up a grand, Italianate-style house built in 1843 that now served as a small museum.
Sophie reclined her head onto the mattress, feeling at once exhilarated as details of the heating and cooling system overhaul filled her mind and leery of the strong pull to dive right in to the project again.
Her work was almost like a drug … one hit and the nurses down the hall probably saw a change in her vitals. Maybe not such a good thing.
“Thanks. I’ll look at it. Soon.” She made a silent vow to herself not to do it until she was home — which would be doable only because there was no Wi-Fi at the hospital.
She’d always suspected her extreme dedication to her work was borderline unhealthy but had never let herself take time to worry much about it.
But was that the person she wanted to be?
If she were to die tomorrow — or two nights ago — would she be able to say she’d lived a full life?
“We also need to check in on the Lexington job,” Iona said as she undoubtedly read off one of her many super-efficient checklists on her screen. “As well as follow up with Bill MacLevich, email the people from Leeds, talk to—”
“Iona?”
Iona turned her head toward Sophie, her mouth still open. “Yes?”
Sophie handed her the Mac from her lap and shifted onto her side, toward her assistant. She extended her arm, her hand hovering close to Iona’s, and hesitated. Then she lowered it and rested her fingers on the back of Iona’s wrist. “That stuff can wait.”
Iona straightened, looking alarmed. “Of course. God, I’m sorry, Sophie.” She hit a few keys, then closed the laptop. “How insensitive am I? I just assumed—”
“You assumed that, since I’m normally all business, I would want to get right down to it,” Sophie said with a self-conscious smile.
Iona grinned back and squeezed Sophie’s hand. “Maybe a little. You’re not generally one to waste any time, and when you asked me to bring your laptop—”
“No need to explain. I totally understand.”
Sophie studied her assistant’s practical-length fingernails, painted in a mellow pink that matched the color in her cheeks.
She’d always kept a certain distance between herself and Iona.
While they made an amazing, ass-kicking team professionally, she’d made a point of not letting it cross over too far into friendship.
But Sophie suddenly needed a friend. More, she wanted one.
Head injury be damned.
“I trust you to hold down the fort, Iona. I thought I wanted nothing more than to dive in and get back to work, but … I’m tired. And I have you. Right?”
“Absolutely. Whatever you need.”
“Right now, it’s nice to just have someone here. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. Let me…” Iona slid the two computers back into her bag and rustled through the outer pocket of it. She pulled out a plastic baggie of…
“Trail mix?” Sophie said, sitting up. She went through homemade trail mix like a junkie went through crack cocaine. “Oh, my God, you are the best!”
“Figured the food here sucked.” She handed the homemade mixture of nuts, coconut flakes, and raisins to Sophie, who dug in and then shared.
Sophie threw a handful in her mouth just as she remembered how much it hurt to swallow anything harder than a milkshake.
“Mmm. The taste is divine.” She chewed and chewed, long after she normally would have swallowed.
Finally, she forced the food down, and tears sprang up in her eyes.
“I think I’m going to have to save it for later. But thank you. So…”
Sophie took a drink to wash down the pain.
Then she endeavored to push all things work-related out of her mind, even though those seemed the easiest to talk about.
She’d told Iona to put away work for a reason—even if she didn’t know much about this friend thing her injured brain seemed to be set on.
“I’m so glad you came. Turns out hospitals are crazy quiet. ”
“Lonely,” Iona said. “I remember from when I had my appendix out in college. Even though it’s always so noisy when you want to sleep—”
“Exactly! Although I didn’t have any problem sleeping yesterday, I guess.”
“That’s good. You needed it.”
“My timing was not good, actually,” Sophie said, thinking about the nameless firefighter and trying to get up the nerve to tell Iona about him. She longed to tell her, but … this sharing concept. It didn’t come naturally to her.
“Oh? What’d you miss?”
“Well, you know I was carried out of the burning building by a firefighter, right?”
Iona nodded and leaned closer, her eyes widening expectantly.
Sophie took a steadying breath, closed her eyes for a moment, and saw … him. “Turns out he’s … oh, my God, he’s so good-looking. And he hung out in my room yesterday. All day. While I slept…”