She turned to Darcy. “What?”
“Do you want me to stay? Here? With you tonight? One of the nurses told me I could.” She pointed to a vinyl-cushioned chair visible in the dimness on the other side of the room. “It folds out into a little couch, I guess.”
“Oh. What time is it, anyway?”
Darcy looked at her phone. “Almost ten.”
“And you said the nurse came by around eight o’clock to check my blood pressure?”
“Yeah.”
Which means she’ll next be back around midnight. If she follows the routine.
She took both of Darcy’s hands in her own. She knew now what she had to do. She wasn’t sure how she would pull it off, but first she had to get Darcy out of here. “No, kiddo. Why don’t you go home.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” She gave Darcy’s hands a squeeze. “I’m fine. All I need is some sleep. So do you. And you’re not going to get much here, lying in a chair, with nurses waking us up every four hours to check my vitals.”
Darcy’s lower lip trembled, but she nodded, and this time her eyes remained dry. “Yeah. Okay, Ree. But … what if I want to get ahold of you? Do you have your phone?”
“It’s in my locker.” Along with the other stuff I need, including my clothes. Rita pointed to a cordless phone on a table next to the bed. Like a hotel, Turner provided each room with its own landline. “Tell you what. Go home. Call the hospital operator as soon as you get there and ask to be connected to my room. Okay? We’ll talk again then.”
“Okay.”
“Just … go straight home. Promise me, okay? I need you to be home tonight, Darcy. Promise me you’ll go straight home.”
“Okay, Ree. Sure.”
“Call me the moment you walk through the door.”
“I will. Love you, Ree.”
“Love you, too.” She kissed Darcy on the cheek, and they hugged. Darcy broke away and made her way to the door. Light and sound splashed across the room as she opened it.
“Darcy?”
“Yeah?”
Rita smiled. “No smoking in the house, kiddo.”
Darcy grinned and wiped her nose. “Right.” The door closed behind her with a gentle click, and Rita was alone.
She picked up the phone and called the operator. She told him she was expecting an important outside call from a family member and to please put the call through. He promised he would.
Thirty minutes later, she picked it up on the first ring and clutched it to her ear. Her hand was shaking.
Please let it be Darcy.
It was. She was home, and okay.
Rita promised to call her first thing in the morning—a lie, but it couldn’t be helped. She hung up and settled back, cradling the receiver against her chest, and watched the rain beat against the window.
And she waited.
SPENCER
Spencer was reclining in his favorite easy chair: a great big La-Z-Boy in front of the TV, perfectly broken in, its cushions molded to his body. Rita was standing in front of him, smiling. She was naked.
Which was nice.
She was gorgeous: thick dark hair, svelte frame, dark eyes bright above lush, smiling lips. He drank her in. He could feel his hardness pressing against the inside of his pants, so hard it was almost painful, like when he’d been a teenager.
She took a few steps toward him. He realized, then, that he was naked, too: which was weird, he could have sworn he’d been wearing clothes a second ago, but that was okay, he wasn’t going to complain or anything.
Without prelude, she wrapped her hands behind his neck and straddled him in one deft motion, as she’d done many times in this same La-Z-Boy; as she’d done that first night when, after he’d patiently (and sweetly, don’t forget sweetly) worn her down, pursuing her through two months of chaste coffee and lunch dates (never at the hospital, she was always afraid someone would see them together), she’d texted him on a Friday night to see if he was home; and when he replied that he was, had shown up twenty minutes later, admitting that she’d fallen for him. Five minutes after that, they were naked and entwined together in the La-Z-Boy, like they were now.
He slipped inside her, and her warmth and wetness enveloped him. She gasped, and he did, too.
Oh, God.
Reflexively, he lifted his hips.
Rita, he panted. I really love you. God, I love you so much.
As she started to rock up and down on him, she leaned forward and kissed him deeply, her tongue exploring his mouth; and then moved her lips to his ear, as if about to whisper in it, as if about to tell him that, yes, she still loved him, and always would.
But electronic rings, not words, came out of her mouth.
Spencer tried to ignore the rings, tried to concentrate on Rita moving on top of him; he’d missed her so much and wanted desperately to go on with what they’d started.
But the rings kept coming. The damn rings wouldn’t be ignored.
He opened his eyes. Rita was gone. He was alone in the La-Z-Boy. The ringing was coming from his phone on the arm of the chair. He reached for it, blinking away the dream.
“Hello?”