His shrug reduced him to the shy boy who used to fumble the butter when I asked him to pass it to me.
“Ma coccinelle.” Odette swept into the room with her arms wide open, dressed in baggy jeans and a white tank top. Sandals peeked from under the hem she’d had to roll up a few times, and a scarf in seafoam blues fluttered behind her. “Must you insist on fraying these old nerves?” She pulled up short when she noticed the nurse’s incredulous expression. “Why are you looking at me like something you scraped off the bottom of your shoe? Are private physicians not allowed their private time?” Her haughty glare made me chuckle. “Perhaps I should have worn a white coat for the occasion?”
“Apologies, ma’am.” The nurse paled. “Ms. Woolworth is cleared to leave as soon as she’s ready.”
“I’m ready.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed then slid until my toes brushed the floor. A cool draft across my backside had me bunching the fabric closed in my hands. “Okay, so pants first. Then we hit the bricks.”
“Your clothes were ruined,” Linus informed me. “I asked the staff to dispose of them.”
The whole outfit might have been worth ten dollars, but dang it, those clothes were comfy.
“I didn’t want to leave you here alone.” He lifted a bag with the hospital’s logo emblazoned on the front. I hadn’t noticed it in his hand. “I bought these to get you home.”
My mouth seesawed until deciding on a smile. Comparing Linus to Boaz was the same as comparing apples to oranges. The apple might have stood watch over me and bought me new clothes to wear home, but the orange had made certain Woolly knew not to fret, and he had taken time away from his family tragedy to ensure I was okay. So, yeah. There was really no comparison. No matter how my brain scrabbled to tally each of their deeds like friendship was a contest to win or lose, it was a tie.
“Do you need help?” Odette shooed the nurse from the room, and Linus left with her. “Sit, sit. Let me do this.” I dutifully turned around and let her work the ties free on my gown. “You’re so thin. Bony. Do you eat air?”
“Not you too,” I groaned. “Last I checked, my name was Grier, not Gretel. Stop trying to fatten me up.”
“Save your cheek for one of your boys.” She popped my bare bottom, and I yelped.
“Yes, ma’am.” I accepted the sweatpants she passed me and pulled them on under my gown before letting it slide down my arms. An oversized T-shirt came next. Its front was emblazoned with a drawing of the hospital, but that was it for clothes. “Panties I don’t mind going without, but I have no bra.”
“You’re like me.” She smoothed her hands over her small breasts. “We have knots on a wooden plank.”
“Hey,” I protested. “I have boobs.” I glanced down at jutting ribs and protruding hipbones. “Okay, so I used to have boobs.”
Damn it. I missed having curves. Skeletal was not a great look for me. In my line of work, the last thing I wanted was to be mistaken for a corpse.
After tugging the shirt over my head, I finger-combed my hair. The final item in the bag was a pair of mesh shoes, almost like slippers with a flexible sole. I tugged them on, grateful for the barrier between my feet and the chill linoleum.
A knock sounded at the door followed by Linus’s muffled, “Are you decent?”
“Yes.” I crossed my arms over my braless chest. “You can come in.”
He entered, pushing a contraption unlike any wheelchair I had ever seen. Flowering vines crawled down the sides, engraved into the silvery metal I suspected might be sterling. Each lush petal was accented in gold so rich I suspected they were twenty-four-karat inlays. Those touches I could stomach slightly better than the honest-to-Goddess red velvet cushion for my sitting pleasure, complete with gilded tassels. This chair screamed High Society, and I wondered how my transportation would have looked had I not been Maud Woolworth’s daughter.
“It’s not that bad.” Linus crossed to me, cupped my elbow, and helped me get into position. He also palmed the brass button so I could grip the armrests and lower myself. “You only have to survive the ride down two floors.”
“This chair is ridiculous,” I grumbled. “Riding in this is embarrassing.”
“Then you’ll love this.” He leaned over me and spread the matching red velvet lap blanket across my knees. His icy fingers skated over my nape, and I started at the unexpected contact. “I also bought you this from the gift shop. It cost me ninety-nine cents. I’ll add it to your tab if I must.”
The necklace was a length of black rubber cord with a brassy clasp that almost matched the antique button dangling between my nonexistent boobs. I closed my hand over the talisman, and suddenly the throne on wheels wasn’t so bad. Still, I couldn’t resist adding, “You couldn’t have splurged on a hoodie?”
“Hoodies were thirty-six dollars. The T-shirt was only fifteen.” He took position behind me while Odette held the door open for us. “I decided it was safer to buy a lot of cheap items than invest in one expensive one.”
Thirty-six dollars was pocket change to him, to me too, really. But I appreciated that he honored my budgetary restraint. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.” I reached up to brush his fingertips with mine where they gripped the handle. “Thanks for being here.”
Odette looked on with a twinkle in her eyes I chose to ignore. Whatever she was seeing, or had seen, ignorance was bliss as far as I was concerned. And with Odette, there was always more to the picture than the rest of us saw.
Once we hit the hallway, I propped my elbow on the armrest and braced my forehead against my open palm. I hoped people would assume I was shielding myself from the harsh overhead lights and not trying to hide my mortification over riding in a gilded throne pushed by the equivalent of a High Society prince.
“The night birds are calling, calling, calling,” Odette sang softly. “The princess she’s falling, falling, falling.”
I twisted to better see her from the corner of my eye, but wherever her vision had taken her, she was no longer with us for all that her body kept pace with the wheelchair. She snapped out of her fugue as we exited the sliding glass doors and placed a hand over her heart. Though I had been taught it was rude to ask, I couldn’t help wondering. “What did you see?”
“A hard road and worn shoes at the end of it,” she murmured. “Poor little feet.”
As usual, I was sorry I’d asked.
Until we hit the circular drive out in front of the hospital, it hadn’t occurred to me to ask how we were all getting home. My tender gut roiled as I waited for the familiar Lincoln Continental Linus favored to pull around, but it was a white van that stopped in front of us. The driver was a grungy young man dressed in pajama bottoms and a dirty tee. He leaned across the passenger seat and flashed us his phone. “You guys call for a lift?”
“We did.” Linus worked to suppress the curl of his lip and mostly succeeded as he wheeled me closer. “Let’s get you settled in the back.” He pulled open the sliding rear door, and a sigh moved through his shoulders. Pizza boxes and empty soda bottles littered the floor, but he swept them aside then helped me climb onto the bench seat where he fastened me in as snug as a bug. “Where do you want me?”
The rear seats had been removed to make room for stereo equipment, so that was out. There was room on the bench seat beside me, or the front passenger seat was empty. “I hate to do this to you, but can Odette sit with me?”
“Of course.” He eased out of the van and took her hand, helping her settle in beside me. “This was the right thing to do?”
Unsure which of us he was asking—himself or me or even Odette—I answered, “Yes.”
I couldn’t believe it. Linus Andreas Lawson III had downloaded a ridesharing app and used it to get me home.
This latest thoughtfulness had spared me from stepping into his hired car. I would take pizza stains on the seat of my gift-shop pants and gunk on the bottom of my water shoes over that misery any day.
Seventeen