Susan Kirby - Your Dream And Mine

Thomasina smiled and tucked the last flower into the vase. “You and Milt—the poster kids for matrimonial bliss,” she said, and swept the trimmed stems into the trash.

“You’re a sweetheart,” said Mary, patting her hand. “May you find Mr. Right and live happily ever after.”

“Mr. Right? What’s that got to do with it?”

Mary laughed. “Lord preserve us from Saint Self-Sufficiency!”

“Of course if we’re talking wish trees, I’d adore a man who adored me. So long as he likes kids and has tons of patience, or he’ll be at odds with the other wishes on my tree,” said Thomasina with a cheeky grin. “And speaking of trees, what’s this I hear about the oak in your front yard?”

“The kids think this house needs a deck, and the tree is in the way.” Mary met Thomasina’s eye over the rim of her coffee cup.

“It’s a beauty, though,” said Thomasina.

“Yes,” agreed Mary. “But a deck will be nice, too. It’ll stretch halfway across the front of the house, and wrap around the corner. There’ll be a sliding glass door off the living room and a second door leading right out of the bedroom. It will link up with the brick path to the garden. Will promised to build a ramp to give Milt easy access.”

Suspecting that Mary’s willingness to let them take the tree down was born of a lifetime of putting her loved one’s needs ahead of her own, Thomasina asked, “Have you asked if there’s a way they could spare the tree?”

“And throw a monkey wrench in the works?”

“Stick up for yourself,” quipped Thomasina. “Isn’t that what you were just telling me about the air-conditioning?”

Mary peered at her over the rims of her glasses. “That’s different.”

“Tell you what, I’ll mention to Milt that you’re attached to that tree, and maybe—”

“Please don’t,” Mary cut in. “Milt’s just beginning to get over the kids hiring nursing care against his wishes. I don’t want him getting his back up over this. Promise me you won’t say anything.”

“All right, then, if you’re sure,” said Thomasina, chagrined at alarming her. “Your tree cutter is waiting, by the way.”

“Trace is outside? Why didn’t he come in?”

“I asked. He declined.”

“He did, did he? We’ll see about that!” Mary angled for the front door.

Thomasina folded the pad of time tickets into her pocketbook, slung the strap over her shoulder and started for the bedroom, the vase of flowers in hand.

“I thought I’d give you the flowers so you can give them to Mary in person,” she said as she breezed into Milt’s bedroom. “You’ll get more brownie points that way.”

Milt spread a lap quilt over his lower torso with a hasty fumbling hand. “You ever hear of knocking?”

“I’m sorry. I’ll go out and come in again.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Milt. “Go out and keep going.”

Milt was fully clothed beneath the lap robe, so it wasn’t modesty motivating him. That was pretense, anyway, when she’d spent the past few weeks nursing him.

Milt closed the nightstand drawer with a snap, and met her searching eye, bold as brass. “Well? What’re you waiting for?”

“Compliments,” she said, and set the flowers on his nightstand with a flourish.

“Nice,” he said. “Now beat it.”

The damage was long since done. If he wanted to sneak a smoke, was it any of her business? But the ever-present danger of the oxygen compelled Thomasina to warn him. On the other hand, she didn’t want to accuse him, then find out she was wrong.

Deliberating, Thomasina moved in front of the mirror and freshened her lipstick with one hand while she opened the nightstand drawer with the other. It held a few pencils, a marble, some toothpicks and some matches. No cigarettes. But the odor of tobacco wafted from the drawer. She nudged it closed and glanced at Milt’s lap robe. The sharp edges of a book showed beneath it. Meeting his steely-eyed glare, she sucked in her cheeks and tried to make him laugh, making dimples and duck lips.

He snorted. “Trying out for the talent show?”

“Sure. I thought we’d be a team. What’re you reading?” she asked.

“None of your beeswax,” he said.

Thomasina flipped back the corner of the robe and squinted. “‘Hymns of Praise.’ Are we singing a duet?”

“Who’s we, rose lips? You got a frog in your pocket?”

“Let’s see the book,” said Thomasina.

“I haven’t swiped one of your kissy-face books, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

Overlooking his jab at the paperback poking out of her shoulder bag, she said, “Did I ever mention a boy I once knew who liked to carve the center out of books? I admired his ingenuity, but it made the story lines a little hard to follow.”

“What’re you getting at?”

Thomasina held out her hand in silent entreaty.

Milt coughed and blustered in a half-strangled voice, “How’d a gal with such a suspicious bent get in the nursing business, anyway?”

“The same way an ornery critter like you got a sweet wife like Mary—I bamboozled my way into it,” countered Thomasina.

“Mary’s like God. She looks on the heart.”

“Yes, and she’s going to be disappointed to hear you’re chasing after that old mistress of yours again,” said Thomasina.

“All right, all right!” Milt slapped the book into her outstretched hand. “You’ve got a snakish way of putting things, Tommy Rose. I’ll bet you get put out on your fanny job after job.”

“ Au contraire! My last case proposed. He was the one with the triple bypass. A real sweetheart of a guy. No complaints from the gent before him, either.” Thomasina slipped the pack of cigarettes from the hollow book into her pocket. “But you’re still my all-time favorite.”

“You’re pulling my leg, right?”

Thomasina smiled. “That’s what I like—your crusty charm.”

“You and Mary.”

“Yep, you and Mary,” chimed Thomasina. “Still on speaking terms after all these years. That’s what makes you my favorite case.”

“Careful, you’re losing your snakish edge,” said Milt, grinning.

“Save your sweet talk. I’m busting you, mister, on your cigarette charades.”

Milt gave a bark of laughter.

Pleased she’d defused the situation without making him mad, Thomasina swung around to go, then pulled up short. Trace Austin stood in the door, two cups of steaming coffee in one hand. She surmised a gleam of admiration in his eye, and she flushed. So did he.

Trace moved to let her pass through the door, and sloshed his coffee doing so. But it wasn’t the brew dripping over his well-shaped hand she noticed so much as his eyes. They were startling blue. Her gaze dropped to his left hand—ringless.

Whatever had made her look for a ring? Thomasina chalked it up to sleep deprivation, returned his nod and called a farewell to Milt on her way out.

“Mornin’, Trace. You’re out bright and early,” Milt said, after Thomasina had left the room. “Got a cigarette?”

“Like I’d give it to you if I did!”

“It’s not bad enough I’m trembling over my grave. Now you and Tommy Rose are conspiring against me.”

“Tommy Rose now, is it?”

“It suits her, don’t you think? Or didn’t you notice?”

“I was busy burning my hand on your coffee.”

“Just as well,” said Milt, reaching for the cup. “Tommy isn’t the kind you can woo with your callow charm.”

“Says the guy who set me up. Tommy this, and Tommy that!” Trace grinned. “I should have known a male nurse wasn’t your style.”

“Why, thank you, Trace. You make me feel seventeen again. Which reminds me, I hear your old flame Deidre’s coming home on furlough.”