A puddle was forming where he stood and yet the despair in her voice kept him pinned to the spot.
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Only me.I was selfish… thoughtless.I promise it won’t happen again.”
Why did that not make him happy?“Just let it go.”
“I laid out some fresh towels.The bed is turned back.From this night on, we’ll take turns sleeping in the bed.”
The thought of her, bruised and aching and waiting up for him to come back from trying to outrun his devils made him angry, more with himself than with her; however, she caught the force of his guilt.
“Like hell.Go to bed and close your eyes.I didn’t get mowed down by a truck.I don’t have a busted lip or a black eye, and if I hurt, it’s of my own making, not yours.”
“But this arrangement isn’t fair to you.”
He almost laughed.“Hell, honey, there hasn’t been two minutes of fair in my life in so long I wouldn’t know it if it stood up and slapped my face.”His voice softened.“Go to bed… please.”
It was the please that did it.She stood, moving past him in the dark like a pale ghost.Only after she was safe in bed with the sheets up to her chin did she sense him coming through the room.He paused at the bathroom door.
“If I’m gone when you wake up, call Tilly.She’ll bring you some breakfast.”
“I’ll need a ride to work,” she reminded him.
“No, you won’t.I think you need another day of rest.Tomorrow is Friday.That will give you a long weekend to recuperate.”
She totally ignored the fact that he’d just told her what to do, but at this point, it made no sense to argue with a sensible suggestion.“Where will you be?”Casey asked.
“Checking on your car that was towed.Contacting your insurance company.”This time he managed a chuckle.“You know, doing stuff.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For doing mystuff.”
This time, he really did laugh, and the sound carried Casey off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
* * *
Miles fought the covers beneath which he was sleeping as his dreams jumped from one crazy scenario to another.One minute he was flying high above the ground without a plane, flapping his arms like a gut-shot crow and trying to find a safe place to land, and the next moment he was standing in the middle of the intersection where Casey had had her wreck, watching in mute horror as her black sports car and the one-ton truck with which she had collided kept coming at him over and over from different angles.Each time he would escape being crushed between their vehicles, the scene would rewind and replay.On a nearby street corner, his grandmother kept pointing her finger and shouting, “I told you so!I told you so!”
He awoke bathed in sweat, only then aware that it was pouring down rain and the electricity was off.He cursed the bad taste in his mouth and got up with a thump just as the power returned.He could tell because his digital clock started blinking and the security lights outside came on all at once, returning a familiar pale glow to the curtains at his window.
He shoved them aside, looking down through the rain to the lawn below, and knew that the weather tomorrow would be miserable.The air would feel like a sauna and the bar ditches would be filled and overflowing.
“What the hell?”
There, through the rain, he thought he saw movement!He watched, staring harder, trying to focus on the shape.Just as he was about to reach for the phone to call the police, the figure moved within a pale ring of a security light and Miles froze, his hand in midair.
“Him.”He stepped forward, all but pressing his nose against the glass for a better look.There was no mistaking who it was below.It was Ryder, half-dressed and moving at what seemed a desperate pace.He watched until the man disappeared from view before settling back down in his bed, his drink of water forgotten.
Long after it had stopped raining and he was back in bed, he kept wondering what would drive a man out of his bed and into a night like this?Had he and Casey fought?A twinge of guilt pushed at the edge of his conscience.She had gone through some hell of her own today.Tomorrow he’d send her some flowers.Having settled that, he turned over and quickly fell back asleep.It didn’t occur to Miles that Casey would ultimately wind up paying for her own flowers, and if it had, he wouldn’t have cared.To Miles, it was the thought that would count.
* * *
Lash awoke with a curse.Water was dripping from the ceiling and onto his left cheek.He got up to push his bed to a new location and stubbed his toe in the dark.The roof leaked.What else was new?The real problem lay in the fact that he was sleeping on the ground floor and it was still coming in through the ceiling.He didn’t even want to think how the upper two stories of Graystone would be suffering tonight.Cursing his wet bed and sore toe, he crawled back between the sheets, turned his damp pillow to the other side, and lay down.
Only sleep wouldn’t come.No matter how hard he tried, his mind refused to relax.He thought of the phone call he’d had this afternoon from the police.Just for a moment before they’d completely explained, he’d thought they’d been calling to inform him of Casey’s death, and then he realized that because he was the family lawyer, they’d called to tell him where they’d towed her car.
