Jennifer Greene: Conquer the Memories

He’d failed to earn that trust last night.

“Craig.”

His eyes blinked open. Her sleepy ones met his, soft and shadowed, wrenching his heart.

“Good morning,” he whispered. He had to use both hands to get up from the chair, and ignored the apprentice going wild in his head at even slow-motion efforts. He leaned over to kiss her cheek. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Fine. Maybe a little sore. Everything’s…fine, except that I feel pumped full of drugs.” She smiled groggily, and then frowned. “Honey, what on earth are you doing here? You’re supposed to be flat on your-”

He motioned to the empty bed next to her, his choice of where he preferred being flat on his back totally clear.

Sonia’s smile was sleepy. “This is the women’s ward.”

“I like women.”

“You’d better not. You’re already in trouble with me, Mr. Hamilton.”

“Oh?” He made it back to the chair when he felt he could no longer stand, tugging it closer to her bed so he could touch her.

“You all but promised to make love to me last night,” she joked groggily. “Lord, what a tease. What kind of way was that to end the evening?”

“A frustrated one,” he said wryly.

Slowly, she eased herself up to a sitting position, letting the sheet fall to her waist. The hospital gown made her figure disappear; she looked ten years old with her disheveled mass of blue-black curls and huge turquoise eyes.

Totally disoriented from the sedatives the doctor had pumped into her, Sonia was finding it a monumental task to concentrate. “Craig, you have a concussion-”

“A light one,” he lied.

“Did they tape the rib?”

He shook his head. Slowly. “They don’t always do that anymore. It’s nothing, Sonia.”

It wasn’t nothing. As her vision cleared, she could see the terrible bruises, and beneath his natural tan there was a grayish pallor that terrified her. She reached over to touch his fingers. Their hands matched, forming a tent, fingertip to fingertip. “If you don’t lie down, I’m going to tickle you till you cry uncle,” she whispered.

Slowly, he raised himself up to a standing position. “You need breakfast. And coffee.”

He reached behind her to push a button near the head of her bed. She saw the tiny row of perspiration beads break out on his forehead at that small effort, and wanted desperately to force him to lie down. But how? His eyes had a strange, haunted cast to them she’d never seen before, something that was more than the physical pain she knew he must be suffering. She felt as helpless to do anything for him as she had the night before.

Of their own volition, her fingers groped at her neck.

“Where’s my…they took my opal!”

His jaw turned to stone. “I know, honey. The nurse will be here in a moment.”

“I’m perfectly fine.” But she wasn’t. Memories of last night flooded through her with sudden dizzying speed, and the sedative hangover only accented those nightmare images. “How could they? How could they take my opal?” Such a stupid thing to say, such a stupid thing even to think. It was just…she had always been a giver. No one had ever taken anything from her-no one had had to; there had never been anything she hadn’t been willing to give freely for the asking. The opal seemed a symbol of other things the blond bastard had threatened to take-although he hadn’t really touched her. He’d only touched the opal, something personal and precious to her, something that could never be retrieved.

Suddenly, she recalled all too clearly her unforgivable hysteria, the burst of uncontrollable crying that had started once she’d gotten Craig safely into the hospital the night before. Why then, when she was finally certain he would be all right? Her own loss of control had felt alien and strange, and for an instant she felt that terrible panic again.

Until Craig’s hand linked warmly in hers, until his lips came down on her cheek. The anguish in his eyes…was her fault. His touch was soothing, sensual, reassuring. So like Craig. She blinked back the tears and pressed his hand with a small smile. “They looked like a rock group. I may permanently take up classical music,” she whispered.

“Just don’t take up country.” His palm brushed her cheek, then lazily pushed back her hair. Her heart gradually stopped pounding.

“I thought you liked country music.”

“I thought you liked classical.” His fingers stopped their slow caress. One forefinger tapped her nose, then poked at the neckline of her hospital gown. “I hope you didn’t pay too much for this,” he commented.

She chuckled. “You’re forever knocking my taste in clothes.”

“You have excellent taste, and you know it.” He paused. “It’s a little different from the satin thing you tried to put on a few nights ago.”

“Whose fault was it that I never got it on?” She smiled again. “Listen, buster. I got in late last night. This was the only room in town. Degenerate place. They don’t even stock toothbrushes.”

He leaned over her, his dark eyes glinting with something beyond that haunted pain. Those eyes came toward hers slowly, until firm, soft lips touched hers. “We’ll get you your toothbrush,” he murmured, “but in the meantime you smell sweet and you taste sweet, love, even in the morning. Must be the reason I married you.”

“I thought it was my legs.” She raised her hand, ever-so-gently touching the multicolored bruises on his face. He had a Band-Aid on his nose, but that was all. Come to think of it, how on earth would they put a nose in a cast? She was not going to cry. Deliberately, she smiled, and she intended to keep on smiling until it snowed in the tropics, unaware that there was a rainbow cast of brilliant moisture in her eyes.

“Silly, it was your eyes. What on earth makes you think I married you for your legs?”

“Listen, Hamilton. I have to take credit for my legs. God knows I wasn’t built like Mae West upstairs.”

“What fun would it be being married to a life jacket?”

“Lord, I’ve trained you well,” Sonia marveled.

“ Very well. And in the meantime, I certainly hope you didn’t marry me for my nose.”

She chuckled again. “I did.” She cocked her head, studying him. “But I guess you’ll still do. It’d be too darn much trouble breaking in someone new.”

He heaved a weary sigh. “So you want to watch me tie you down and take a feather to your feet?”

When the nurse walked in, Sonia was grateful. The banter had set at a distance the horrors of the night before, but other realities were intruding with frightening speed. Craig was in pain. Serious pain. His movements were achingly slow and his color increasingly ashen. He was giving an Oscar-winning performance, trying to hide the fact that he was hurting, and she loved him with a raving, consuming frustration inside her. Give in, Craig. Taking on five men. You damn fool. If something had really happened to you, do you think I would have wanted to go on living?

“ Mister Hamilton, I really don’t believe this.” The RN’s name was Trether. A tiny white cap was perched meticulously on butter-yellow hair, and the nurse’s whites were spotless on a tall, spare figure. “You will be returned to your own bed the very instant I can get an aide in here,” she scolded firmly, setting a tray down next to Sonia’s bedside. “The doctor will be in your room to see you shortly, and in the meantime Mrs. Hamilton is going to have her shower and eat her breakfast.”

Craig didn’t even turn around. “You feel up to a shower?” he asked quietly.

“Lord, yes.” Sonia was already slipping out of bed. The floor felt cold beneath her bare feet, and so did the provocative draft that sneaked in through the back opening of the hospital gown. Just standing up caused her whole body to ache like the devil, but she knew there was nothing seriously wrong with her. Well, her shoulder was injured. But her concern was all for Craig. She bent over him. “Do what the nurse says,” Sonia whispered. “You’ll be fed gruel if you don’t.”