Listen to Your Heart - Fern Michaels [40]
“Now, Mr. Brouillette, you know we can’t do that. Rules are rules. Germs are germs. How’s the headache?”
“I still have it. What are the chances of me going home today?”
“About the same as me going to Hawaii when I get off duty. We’ll ask the doctor when he makes rounds. In case you forgot, you have a severe concussion, Mr. Brouillette. Do you need someone to make phone calls for you? If you hire a private duty nurse, the doctor might consider discharging you a little early. It’s something to think about.”
Paul suffered through the sponge bath, his teeth clenched in frustration.
“This is just an off-the-wall question, Mr. Brouillette, but do you know how to relax?”
“Of course I know how to relax. Why do you ask?”
“Because you’re much too tense. The headache might ease up if you’d loosen up.”
Paul closed his eyes. She was probably right. As Jack would say, he was wired to the nth degree. And why shouldn’t he be wired? He’d been mugged and left to die in the park. He made a mental note to ask for the name of the nanny so he could call and thank her for her intervention. He’d have his secretary send her a nice gift of appreciation.
He thought about Josie Dupré and the dogs. A tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. She was nice. Pretty even, with that wild bush of hair. The smile got wider when he thought of the baseball cap he’d bought her and how pleased she’d been. He remembered her reaction when he dumped her in the rain puddle. What was she doing right now? Was she sitting in her pretty breakfast nook with the dogs at her feet drinking her early-morning coffee? He wished he could sprout wings and fly out of the room.
Paul’s eyes started to burn. He knuckled them. When he opened them, he noticed a beautiful woman in a pink dress glance into his room. He sniffed when the faint scent of lily of the valley wafted into the room. The same visitor from yesterday. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was back in the courtyard in the French Quarter. He was ten years old and he was crying because he didn’t understand what was happening to his family. Everyone was crying. He could see them through the doorway. All he knew was what the housekeeper told him and what he had seen with his own eyes. The white truck with the flashing lights had taken his sixteen-year-old sister away and she was never coming back. Just the way Jackie never came back. He’d run to his mother shouting, “Mère, Mère, what’s wrong?” His mother had pushed him away and he fell. She didn’t care because she was crying so hard her shoulders were shaking. She never stopped crying. She never looked at him again either. She looked over his head, at his feet, or to the side of him. At night he waited for her to come to his room to kiss him good night or to tell him a little story about what happened during the day. She never came again. Never. Old Réné came, though, waddling down the hall in her slippered feet. She’d hug him, smooth back his hair, listen to his prayers, and ask him if he had brushed his teeth. And always, the last thing she’d say before she turned off the light was, “Someday when you are older, you’ll understand.” Someday was a long time coming and when it had come, he no longer cared that his mother didn’t love him and didn’t want anything to do with him.
His name was Bushy and he was a little dog Réné smuggled into the house for him. It was their secret. God, how he loved that little dog. After Bushy there was Quincy and then Basil and Corky. All loved and adored.
Paul’s eyes snapped open when the scent of lily of the valley wafted into his room again. He stared at the open doorway and saw a pale swish of pink. He wished he was the patient the woman was visiting. He wondered who she was and if someone she loved was seriously ill. He hoped not.
Paul rang the bell attached to the rail on the side of his bed. A candy striper came on the run. “I need someone to make a phone call for me.”
“I’ll be glad to do it for you,