In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [41]
Was he doing it for her? Mel wondered. Or for Ed? She knew nothing of this man or his family. Only that he was Ed’s business associate and that Camelia approved of him. She was half tempted: It would be so easy to sink into a soft bed, to be looked after, to be pampered with hot tea and a cool shower; so nice to be with people who loved Ed too. . . . But then she remembered.
“Thank you, Mr. Estevez, that’s a very kind offer, but I’m okay. And when I really can’t take it anymore, I’ll just go to Ed’s place, lie down there for a while. I’ll feel closer to him, in his home.”
Estevez’s brows rose. “Ed’s penthouse? You have a key?”
“Ed gave me one.” She smiled, remembering. “And I gave him the key to my house in Santa Monica. Kind of a trade-off, though I guess he got the worst of the deal.”
Estevez was remembering the lavish share transfer, and now the key to the penthouse. This odd young woman was either a masterful schemer—or she meant much more to Ed than he had thought.
“As you wish.” He nodded gravely, then shook her hand and, with great courtesy, said good-bye.
A gentleman, Mel thought, watching him walk briskly away. A handsome gentleman at that. Her southern-belle mother would have approved of him.
Meanwhile, she was feeling like death herself— but it was Ed who was still lying there, still attached to those machines and catheters. She opened the door and peeked inside.
Ed looked just the same: pale, gaunt, propped by pillows, eyes firmly closed. The ventilator still breathed for him, and they had shaved his chest where the electrodes were attached. Shaved his jaw too, where the stubble was growing in. Odd, she thought, how the small things of life went on, when life itself seemed to be ebbing away. Quietly, she took a seat beside the bed, took his cold hand in hers. She rubbed it gently in an effort to get the circulation moving.
Ed tossed restlessly and Mel got out of the way as the nurse came hurrying, checking the machines and tubes that were Ed’s lifeline. Mel wished she were the one looking after him. She wanted desperately to do everything for him. Wash him, feed him, hold him. She would treat him as tenderly as a babe.
“He’s restless,” the nurse said, stating the obvious.
Mel caught her disapproving glance and looked away. She wasn’t going to let the nurse throw her out of there. No way. She was there for the duration, holding his hand, keeping him alive. If she took that hand away for more than a few minutes, he might die on her.
“He really should be alone, get some proper rest,” the nurse said meaningfully, but Dr. Jacobs had given the woman permission to stay and there was nothing she could do about it.
She’s staying with me, Ed thought. God bless her. But what about Riley? She must be missing her mother, I don’t have the right to keep her here. . . . The sheet felt like it weighed a ton on his legs and he shuffled impatiently. Riley, he thought. You could have been my little girl, my own child. Maybe even had a little sister and brother to keep you company. If only I had asked your mother to marry me. . . .
Why didn’t I? I love everything about her, her looks, her laugh, her child, her dog. . . . I would ask her right now if I didn’t have this tube in my throat and could open my darn-fool mouth. Tell her right now—Zelda Merrydew, I love you and I want you to be my wife. . . .
But first he would have to explain a thing or two about himself. So she knew exactly who he was. What she was getting. The reality behind the facade of the Manhattan entrepreneur. . . .
He had come close to dying twice before. The first had been planned, though not by him. The second had seemed inevitable. He had beaten both, but he didn’t know if he could beat this.
27
It seemed a long time before Ed stopped thrashing around, and each second dragged like hours . .