Dying For You (4 page)

Then Cathy hissed, “9-1-1!”

While Nikki grabbed for her cell phone, Cathy crossed the room, seized Ken by his shirtless shoulder, and hauled him over on his back. His eyes were open, staring at nothing. His chest didn’t rise and fall. There was blood on his face, blood had foamed from his nose, but it wasn’t moving, wasn’t leaking. It was just there.

Cathy did not pray—she believed in God, but felt He had a strict “every man, woman, and child for themselves” policy—but she had time to think, Please God, not another ghost in this place. Then she started mouth-to-mouth and CPR.

“Well, he was clinically dead for a good minute,” the doctor told her an hour later. “Lucky for him you were there, Miss Wyth.”

“I don’t think he’s gonna see it exactly that way,” Nikki cracked. Cathy shot her a look and the taller woman immediately stuffed the rest of the Hershey’s bar in her mouth. “Gmmf nnnf unnf.”

Cathy took a deep breath and faced the resident. “How long will he be here, doctor?”

“Well, we’ll keep him overnight for observation,” she said. She was a short woman who was probably twenty-five but
looked forty-five. Sleep-deprived didn’t begin to cover it. She blinked at Cathy through glasses that made her look like a tired owl. “But you can take him home in the morning.”

“
I
can?”

“Yes, he’s listed you on all his forms.”

“But I’m just his neighbor!”

“Well, now you’re his home health aide, as well.” The doctor must have noticed the way her eyes were bulging out of her head, because she added, “You’re surprised.”

“That’s one word for it,” Nikki said with her mouth full.

“But Ken seemed very sure that you—”

“Have my friend here right over the proverbial barrel.” Nikki started to laugh. “And to think,” she added with typical irrepressibility, “I almost stayed home to watch the
Seinfeld
marathon!”

“So how’s your stud-in-a-bed?” Nikki asked. She was standing with odd respectfulness outside Cathy’s screen door.

“He’s sleeping,” she replied shortly. “What are you doing out there? Come in.”

“Well, you
did
kill the last guest who took you by surprise,” Nikki said, opening the screen door and stepping inside. “I’m the cautious type.”

“My ass,” Cathy said rudely.

“Oooh, more profanity! A new and, may I say, dark side of you. So, how’s Shirtless?”

“Asleep. Don’t you have a job?”

“And miss all this? No chance, Killer.”

“Do
not
start calling me that.”

“Okay, okay, don’t get mad, Psycho.”

“Oh, God…Nikki…”

Her friend—ha!—took pity on her and set a bag bulging with bakery goods on the table. “Brought breakfast! And seriously, Cath, I thought you might need a hand the first day or so. So, I told work that my grandma died—”

“Again? Nikki, they’re bound to do the math one of these days—”

“Minor details. So here I am, with three days off at your disposal. Paid!”

“God help me. I mean, thank you.” Cathy pulled the bag toward her and opened it. Ah. Cream puffs, éclairs, smiley-face sugar cookies. Bakeries were divine. The one down the street, Rosie’s, in particular. “I guess this works out nicely. I had some vacation time I needed to burn or I’d lose it, so I’ve got the rest of the week off, too.”

“To play nursemaid?” Nikki asked, reaching for an éclair and decimating it in two bites.

“I…guess so.”

“Mm innfff afff oo, y’mmmmf.”

“I know, but what could I do? Abandon him at the hospital? He almost
died,
Nik. He did die, actually, for a few minutes.”

“Zzz mmm nnnt.”

“I know, I know, but I think the punishment was quite a bit worse than the crime, don’t you? And I’m
not
being taken advantage of,” she added sharply as Nikki opened her mouth to drool custard and make another point. “He might have put my name on the forms, but it was still my choice to have the ambulance drop him off here. In fact, don’t you think that’s sad? That out of all the people in the world, he listed a neighbor?
Not even an old neighbor. A new one. I just—I just hope everybody’s okay with it.”

Jack hadn’t made a sound since the accident. No helpful plates of cookies, no materializing car keys, no knocks. Nothing. Zip. It was funny how something initially scary had gotten comforting. His silence was making her distinctly nervous.

“Well, shoot, Cathy, I didn’t think my opinion mattered so much,” Nikki joked. “Hey, the only one who has to be okay with this is you. Me, I think you’re nuts. But I’ve thought that since the seventh grade.”

“Continuity,” she mused. “How comforting.”

“Amen,” Nikki said, and selected a cream puff. “So, is he asleep or what?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “He was sleeping when the ambulance dropped him off. I’ve…I haven’t gotten around to checking on him yet. The doctor said he needed lots of rest.”

“Is he burned?”

“Not too badly. The shock was pretty quick. He’s got some second-degree burns on the tips of his fingers and his feet and that’s about it.”

“He’s likely to be a sucky patient. You know how men are. Okay,
you
don’t, but take my word for it, they’re total babies when they need to be taken care of.”

“That’s a cliché.”

“For a reason, honeybun. Trust me, this guy’s gonna be a pill.”

“I suppose,” she sighed.

“Well.” Nikki popped the top off her cream puff, like
taking the cap off a mushroom, and carefully licked out the whipped cream. “Go check. Get it over with.”

Cathy drummed her fingers on the table and glanced at the stairs. “I suppose. The alternative is watching you eat.”

“Hey, I got a bag full of cream puffs, honey. I could do this all morning.”

Cathy got up to check on her new patient.

She rapped softly on the guest room door, heard nothing, and carefully eased the door open. Shirtless Ken was sitting up in bed, smiling at her. The fact that it was a genuine smile and not a leer was startling in itself, but there was something different about him. Not just the smile. Some fundamental change in his appearance, something she couldn’t quite put her finger—

“Nice shirt,” Nikki observed from behind her.

Ah-ha!

“Good morning, Nikki.” Ken’s smile widened, showcasing laugh lines around his gorgeous dark eyes. “Good morning, Cathy. I’m sorry to be so much trouble.” His voice was deep and soft, and gone was Shirtless—er, Ken’s—usual sneery whine.

“No problem,” Nikki said, staring.

“I’m just so sorry you got hurt,” Cathy added. Ken was wearing a scrub top, doubtless loaned to him from someone at the hospital. His dark hair was mussed, and stubble bloomed along his jawline. “I feel…I feel…I feel…”

“Terrible,” Nikki supplied helpfully.

“That is simply ridiculous, ladies,” he said. “I can assure you the accident was entirely my fault. Why, I’m fortunate you’re allowing me to stay here at all!”

Nikki stared at her watch. “How long has he been asleep?” she muttered. “What year is this?”

A fine question. Cathy was having a terrible time not staring. Not drooling, to be perfectly blunt. If Shirtless Ken had been ridiculously good-looking, Polite Ken was mesmerizing. Those dark eyes…almost knowing in their intensity, their—

“Really,” he was saying, “I can’t thank you enough.”

“D’you want me to run over to your place, pick up some clothes or something?” Nikki offered.

“I couldn’t put you to more trouble, Nikki.”

Cathy cleared her throat. “Can I—would you—are you hungry?”

“Starving,” he said softly, looking her straight in the eyes.

“One, two, three, swoon,” Nikki said under her breath.

“I’ll…I’ll bring you some soup.”

“Perhaps I should get it,” Ken suggested. “I feel I’m imposing on you enough as it is.”

“Don’t be a dumbass,” Nikki said. “You’re supposed to rest. We’ll be back in a second. Don’t so much as twitch out of that bed.”

For a second, before she shut the door, Cathy thought she saw Ken blush. But that was ridiculous. The man threw epithets around like he was being paid for them.

“Oh my God,” Nikki was rhapsodizing on the back stairs. She clutched her chest and wheezed like an asthmatic on the first day of spring. “Talk about turning over a new leaf! You should kill people more often!”

“Maybe he feels bad. What kind of soup do you think he’d like?”

“Maybe you have a helpless hunk in your bed and should stop babbling about soup. Those eyes! That hair! Ooh, the sexy unshaven look! God, he looks like an escapee from Studs and the Women Who Make Soup For Them.”

“Tomato?”

“Cathy, I swear to God…” Nikki slumped into the closest kitchen chair. “Did you see the way he looked at you? All earnest and yummy?”

“Earnest and yummy?” she repeated, laughing in spite of herself. “Actually, I’m relieved. I thought he was going to be…ugly. Very ugly.” In fact, she had been dreading the confrontation. “It makes logical sense; he was unpleasant
before
I accidentally killed him.”

“Ken couldn’t be ugly if you drew a mustache on him in black marker. Hell, red marker. I’m gonna go up and see if he needs a sponge bath.”

“Nikki…”

“I was only going to do his testicles,” she whined.

“Nikki, make yourself useful.” Cathy tossed her friend a sponge. “And it’s not what you’re thinking. The dish soap is under the sink.”

“Sure, while you tempt him with soup, you whore!”

“That’s the plan,” she replied smugly.

“Really, Cathy, I can feed myself,” Ken teased. He gently took the spoon from her, and she nearly tipped the bowl over at the shock of his warm fingers on hers. “I feel terrible to be putting you to so much trouble. The least I can do is dribble soup down my own chin.”

“It’s…it’s no trouble.”

“Well, I know you must have a job to worry about.”

“I took some time off.”

“Now I feel even guiltier,” he said softly, but he smiled at her and she nearly drooped into a puddle beside the bed.

“They’ll…they’ll just have to get along without me at the office for a couple of days.”

“This is very good, by the way.”

“It’s just…it’s just from a can.”

“Homemade chicken soup is overrated,” he said, and
laughed. Laughed! A deep, booming laugh that made her smile. She’d never heard him really laugh before. Sneer and chuckle nastily, yes. But a true laugh? “I used to hate my mother’s chicken soup. She’d take a perfectly good chicken and wreck it with vegetables and overcooked noodles.”

Cathy pounced. “Should I call her? Do you have
anybody
you’d like me to call?”

Ken’s smile faltered. “No. No, there’s no one. I’m the last of my family line.”

“Oh. I am, too. Except for my father and his wife. I’m…I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Cathy. You’ve got to stop apologizing for events you can’t control.”

“Okay.” She took the plunge. “But, um, but the fact that you’re here flat on your, um, back for the week is very much my fault, and I—”

“Now, Cathy, we’ve been over this. I was stupid, and I paid the price. I’m grateful for the use of your guest room, and promise I won’t be a burden on you much longer.”

“You’re not a burden,” she said truthfully. She couldn’t believe she was thinking it, much less saying it, but she added, “It’s nice to have company. I’m still not used to living in such a big house by myself.”

“You weren’t really by yourself, though.” He scraped the last of the noodles from the bottom of the bowl, then handed it to her.

“What?”

“Old houses have stories,” he clarified. “Histories. It’s hard to feel alone when you’re in the middle of history.”

“Oh. Hmm. Uh-huh. Ken, are you on any medication that I, as your hostess, should be made aware of?”

“Gosh,” he said, handsome brow knitting in thought. “Not that I know of. Maybe some, what do you call them, antibiotics? You can check the bag the hospital sent me home with, if you like.”

“Because you don’t seem yourself. At all.” Thank goodness! Still. Very odd. She’d been bracing herself for Sullen Shirtless Lawsuit Ken. This smiling, pleasant stranger in Ken’s body was a complete shock. Argh. She shouldn’t say shock.

“I know I seem different, Cathy,” he was saying. “But there’s a reason for it.”

“There is?”

“Yes, of course. You’ve given me a second chance at life. I don’t plan to waste it this time.”

“Nikki helped.”

There was something warm on her leg. She assumed he was experiencing a moment of incontinence, then realized he had rested his hand on her knee. “You’re lucky to have a friend like Nikki,” he was saying, “but she’s not really my kind of girl.”

“Oh yes? You mean the tall, gorgeous, fearless type? A real turn-off, huh?”

“I like them smart and petite, with cheekbones you could cut yourself on.”

Totally weirded out, she moved her now-sweaty knee away from New and Improved Ken. “Oh. Well. That’s, um, nice. Would you like more soup?”

“I think I’ll rest now, if you don’t mind.”

“Okay.” She stood. “Just, um, yell or something if you need anything.”

“Of course. Thank you again for the fine lunch, Cathy. But it’s Cathleen, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“That’s what it is, for real.”

“Nobody…I mean, everyone calls me Cathy.”

“Yes, but Cathleen suits you better.”

“Okay. Have a nice nap.”

Completely mystified, she walked out, feeling his gaze on her until she closed the door.

“Okay,” Nikki was saying as Cathy not-so-ceremoniously shoved her toward the door, “
I
have an annoying neighbor, too, and while he isn’t quite as yummilicious as Ken, he’s definitely got potential, so if you could just come over and kill him—” She teetered on the steps, and Cathy gave her one more gentle shove. Arms pinwheeling, Nikki went down. “Aigh! All right, all right. At least think it over, willya?”

“Good night, Nikki.” She shut the screen door, then locked it for good measure. Friends, she added to herself. The ultimate mixed blessing.

And speaking of friends, she’d been missing one lately.