“You can come back to me, Eleanor. Always.”
“I can’t.” She shook her head. “They need you more than I do. I can’t rip your life in half.”
“It is my life,” he’d reminded her. “You tore my life in half the day you ran from me.”
“Don’t,” she said, and the tears burned bright in her eyes. Her chest heaved and she clung to him so hard her fingernails bit into his skin. “Don’t say I ran. I didn’t run. It wasn’t running and you know it. You know I didn’t want to leave you. I no more ran from you than I’d ever run into a burning building. I could never run from you.”
He laughed at her vehemence.
“Then what would you call it if it wasn’t running, little one?” He pressed his lips to her forehead.
“I crawled.” She tried to smile for him. “It’s what I’m good at after all.”
He wrapped his arms even tighter around her. She prayed he’d chain her to his bed and make her stay there the rest of her life. But she knew he’d let her go at dawn. He wouldn’t keep her against her will even if against her will was what she wanted.
“When you come back to me—” he began and she pulled back to meet his eyes.
“I won’t.”
“If you come back to me,” he said, making a rare concession, “will you run or will you crawl?”
Nora had pressed her whole body into him at that moment. Resting her head on his strong shoulder, she watched as a tear forged a river down his long and muscled back.
“I’ll fly.”
To Søren she knew that night was proof that she still belonged to him. But to Wesley it was a waking nightmare when he’d seen the welts and bruises, her cracked lip, her purpling cheek. It took her a solid hour to convince him she didn’t need to go to the hospital. For some reason telling him she’d had worse didn’t seem to comfort him. For the second time in twenty-four hours, she’d had to beg.
“It’s not violence,” she’d tried to tell him. “It’s love. Some loves only come out after dark, Wes.”
“Not with me, Nora. Don’t pull that writer romance crap on me. He beats you and you let him. And if this is love then he shouldn’t love you anymore,” Wesley had said on his way to the front door, his clothes in a duffel bag and his guitar case across his back.
“I wish he didn’t. For his sake and mine. For yours, too.”
Something in her voice changed his mind. He’d dropped his duffel by the floor and set his guitar down. He’d walked back to her and wrapped his arms gingerly around her. He’d been so careful not to hurt her. She’d cried then for the pain she’d caused him. Wesley had gone with her to her room and helped her take her shirt off. She lay on her stomach in her bed while he iced her bruises and put antibiotic ointment on her welts. They hadn’t talked while he helped her. But when she was finally comfortable enough to sleep, Wesley had told her his decision. He couldn’t stop her from working, but if she ever went back to Søren again, ever let him hurt her again, Wesley was gone. It was like asking her to close her eyes and never open them again, but for Wesley, she’d agreed.
Nora drove home and put her regular clothes back on and decided that once and for all she was cutting off all contact with Søren. She knew it would be hard considering that they ran in the same circle but she would find a way. She would never talk to him again. Not after he’d tricked her into seeing him.
Nora paused in her bedroom and took slow, deep breaths. She checked the clock—6:36. Wesley should have been home from the library half an hour ago. She went to his bedroom—no backpack, no keys. She called his cell phone and no one picked up. She waited another half hour thinking he was just pissed at her for answering her hotline. But she knew Wesley—he wasn’t the vindictive type. She called his cell phone again. No answer. By seven-thirty she was scared. By eight-thirty she was terrified. At nine she gave up and called the only person besides Wesley she trusted completely.
The phone rang only once.
“Søren, I need your help,” she said as soon as he answered. The fear clutched at her throat like a claw. “I can’t find my Wesley.”
8
At nine-thirty Zach still remained in his office reading through Nora’s rewritten chapters. Going with third person had opened the book up. The prose was more atmospheric in third person. He needed to talk to her about the end of chapter three, however. She was sliding into self-reflection when what she needed was a strong plot element.
He picked up his phone and dialed her number. She answered on the first ring.
“Nora, it’s Zach.”
“Dammit, Zach. I can’t talk right now. I’m busy.” She sounded angry for some reason. Angry and out of breath.
Busy and breathless…he knew immediately what she was busy doing.
“You’re on my time now, Nora. I don’t care what you’re doing. The book is more important.”
“Fuck the book.”
“Nora, I went out on a limb to work with you. If you think—”
“You don’t want to know what I’m thinking right now.”
Zach sat back in his chair. What had happened to the Nora he’d shared cocoa with just a few days ago? She’d been so passionate about her book then, so interested in all of his ideas.
“I’m thinking you obviously don’t have your priorities in order.”
He heard Nora take a hard breath.
“Then fuck you, too, Zach.” She hung up.
Zach set his phone down and stared at it. He expected to feel furious but instead his heart dropped. Apart from J.P. and Mary, Zach hadn’t felt any connection with anyone since coming to New York. Then he’d met Nora and as exasperating as she was, she was also funny, beautiful and made him feel alive again. And she had been the first person who’d seemed to care about him. Now she’d yanked away from him, away from the book. He knew they wouldn’t and couldn’t ever be lovers. But he’d thought they might be able to forge something like a friendship while they worked together. What the hell had happened?
The phone rang again and Zach answered it immediately, hoping to hear Nora on the other end. Instead the chief managing ditor of Royal West in L.A. started speaking. Zach had only spoken to her once or twice after he’d been offered her job once she retired. Now she was telling him he could come out sooner if he liked since she’d heard he didn’t have much to hold him in New York. She wouldn’t mind sharing her office for a couple of weeks while he got acclimated. Might ease the transition for the staff. Still reeling from his fight with Nora, Zach promised her he’d think about it.
After all, he agreed, there really wasn’t anything keeping him in New York.
He hung up the phone again and pulled on his coat. Glancing down, he saw Nora’s manuscript sitting on his desk. He picked it up and tossed it into the recycling bin.
“Fuck you, too, Nora.”
* * *
Nora paced the hallways of her house with her private cell phone in her hand and her hotline phone in her pocket. Wesley didn’t have her hotline number but she knew either Kingsley or Søren would call her back soon. Søren had connections at every hospital within eighty miles, and Kingsley had half the judges, attorneys and police chiefs in the tristate area in his back pocket. Between the two of them, one of them should be able to find Wesley.
She’d gone into his room and dug through his desk trying to find any of his friends’ phone numbers. But they were all programmed into his cell phone and his cell phone was with him, wherever he was. She tore through his closet, his dirty clothes hamper, and found nothing to help her hunt him down.
Nora sat on the edge of his bed and opened his nightstand. She knew Wesley would be less than thrilled she was digging through his things. He’d probably get quite the shock if he saw what she kept in her nightstand. But she didn’t find anything helpful or incriminating—ChapStick and a spare set of keys to his car. Under the file of his medical stuff she found a small photo album. Pulling it out she smiled through tears when she flipped it open and found it full of pictures from last summer.
Leafing through the pages of photos she remembered…
At first she’d been suspicious when Wesley had woken her up early on a Saturday morning in May and told her to get up and put on jeans and boots. He’d driven that day in his beat-up yellow VW bug, and they’d listened to weird music the whole way there. “Who is this?” she’d asked. “Wilco.” “Who’s this?” “The Decembrists.” Finally he’d demanded to know what the last album she bought was. She thought for a good five minutes before remembering—Ill Communication, the Beastie Boys, 1994. Wesley would have been a toddler and she’d been fifteen or sixteen years old.
After a long drive they’d arrived at a farm—a horse farm. Wesley had told her that he’d grown up around horses. From what he’d said it sounded as if his father worked as a horse trainer and his mother did the books at a horse farm in Central Kentucky. But that was the first day she’d actually seen Wesley around the big animals. For someone as blessed by Mother Nature as he was in the looks department, he often seemed nervous and unsure of himself. But the second they hit the stables he became a different person. Walking right up to them, he slapped their sides with sure hands. For a good forty-five minutes he took a turn on three or four different horses, saddling them, and riding them around the paddock.
“Being a little picky, aren’t you, kid?” she’d asked him. “Just get a horse for yourself and let’s go.”
“I’m not picking one for me.” He dismounted nimbly from a large Appaloosa. “I can ride anything. I’m trying to find one for you. You need something tame since you’re a rookie.”
“I’ll take anything but a gelding,” she’d told him.
“What’s wrong with geldings?”
“We won’t have anything to talk about.”
Wesley had laughed then, open and easy, and for a moment she saw the man he would become in ten or twenty years—strong and kind, growing a little more handsome and a little less innocent with every year that passed. She envied the woman he’d end up with. Lucky lady indeed. Finally, after the fourth horse, he’d found her a young buckskin mare named Speakeasy.
“She’s smart and submissive—perfect for a first-timer.” Wesley handed her the reins.
“Smart and submissive—I should introduce you to Søren,” she whispered in Speakeasy’s twitching ear. “Do you like riding crops, too?”
Nora remembered following him back into the stables to watch him pick his horse. A teenage girl walked with Wesley giving him suggestions. Nora watched as the pretty girl cast adoring glances at Wesley while Wesley had eyes only for the horses.
“He’ll do.” Wesley picked out a large heavily muscled sorrel. “What’s his name?”
“Bastinado,” the stable-girl said. “The boss named him that. Don’t know why.”
“Is he bad about stepping on your feet?” Nora had asked.
“Very bad about it.” The girl looked at Nora for the first time. “How did you know?”
“Bastinado—it’s a fancy term for foot torture.” Both Wesley and the stable-girl had stared at her with wide eyes. “What?”
Wesley saddled his horse with effortless proficiency. Nora watched his knowing fingers as they tightened the stirrups and adjusted the rigging. He swung up into the saddle, shoved his straw cowboy hat on his blond head, shifted his hips and took the leather reins as though he’d been born on a horse. Nora took a slow breath and silently repeated her Wesley mantra.
Look but don’t touch…look but don’t touch…
They’d gone easy that day since it was her first time on a horse. The sprawling farm had miles of trails connected to it. Wesley led them down paths that meandered all over the scenic hillside. They stopped every few minutes and took pictures. Nora flipped through the album and remembered when they’d passed over a small creek. Wesley must have sensed her apprehension because he took her reins and led both their horses easily through it.
Nora turned to another page and found her favorite photo. Wesley had bent over the saddle to pat Bastinado on the neck when Nora had snapped the picture. Wesley looked up just in time to flash her his million-watt smile. Nora closed the album and started to slide it in the drawer when she noticed another photo—this one in a frame and hidden all the way at the back. “Wes…” Nora breathed, looking at the picture of her and Speakeasy alone together. She remembered the moment the photo was captured. She had dismounted and was rubbing her horse down after they were done riding. She thought Wesley was taking a picture of the rolling pasture behind her. She’d pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and pressed her forehead to Speakeasy’s. Tendrils of her hair had gone loose and wild around her face. Her eyes were closed in the picture and she wore a smile of pure happiness. She couldn’t believe Wesley had framed the photo. She looked so silly in it.
Nora put everything back in his nightstand the way she found it and stretched out on Wesley’s bed. She ran through every possible scenario in her mind—was he sick? Car accident? Lost his phone? Lost his mind? Did he have his insulin pen with him? Did he have his med-alert bracelet on? She knew Wesley. He’d call her if he was going to be five minutes late. Another college boy she wouldn’t have worried about. Any other college sophomore was surely out at a party or a bar or back in some girl’s dorm room. Not her Wesley—apart from occasionally sleeping in on Saturdays, he woke up at the same time every day, came home at the same time every day. He had to keep his meals regular because of his insulin injections. He had to get plenty of sleep. He worked out at the school gym every day. He didn’t drink, didn’t do drugs, didn’t smoke, didn’t have sex. He went to class, he went to church, he went home for Thanksgiving and Christmas…he was the most boring teenage boy alive. Alive…please let him be alive.
Nora closed her eyes and turned onto her side. She could smell Wesley’s warm, clean scent on his pillows. For the first time in a long time she prayed with everything within her.
God, I know You’re probably still pissed about Søren, and I really don’t blame You. But please don’t take Your wrath out on Wesley. Flog me all You want. He doesn’t deserve it.
At 4:30 a.m. she was still wide-awake and staring at his ceiling when her red hotline phone rang. She sat straight up and found her hands were shaking so much she could barely hit the answer button.
“King, please tell me you know something.”
“Oui, chérie. Your intern is a most interesting young man.”
“Just tell me where he is. Is he okay?”
“He’s in the hospital, but he is unharmed if rather the worse for wear.”
“What happened?” Nora ran a hand through her hair. She leaned over and breathed through her fear and relief.
“A comely little nurse took a peek at his chart for me. Something called DKA? Is that familiar to you?”
Nora’s hands went numb at the initials. “It’s diabetic ketoacidosis. It can be fatal.”
Kingsley rattled off the story sliding in and out of French as he did so. From what she gleaned from his hasty bilingual recitation, Wesley had gotten sick at the library and passed out after throwing up several times in the bathroom. He’d been admitted to the hospital in full-blown DKA.
“Which hospital?” she asked. “What room? Please tell me he’s at General.”
“Oui. I’ve already called Dr. Jonas.”
“Tell him I’ll give him the freebie of his dreams if he can get me in.”
“No freebies, mistress. He’s already promised to help any way he can. He would never cross La Maîtresse.”
“Great. Wonderful. Where is he? ICU?”
“PICU,” Kingsley said and laughed. Nora laughed a little, too. They’d put Wesley in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. “Mais chérie, you cannot go.”
“Fuck you. Of course I can.”
“His parents flew in. They’re with him.”
Nora swore. Wesley would kill her if she turned up at his bedside with his parents sitting right there. He did everything he could to keep her a secret from them. His parents would yank him back to Kentucky so fast his head would spin if they discovered he was living with an infamous erotica writer—especially one who worked as a Dominatrix. Jaded New York parents wouldn’t let their kids near her much less these conservative Southerners.