No way did she have an ulcer. Kate comforted herself with that thought, and the image of how foolish Byron was going to look for rushing her to the hospital with a case of nervous heartburn.
Ulcers were for repressed wimps who didn't know how to express their emotions, who were afraid to face what was inside them. Kate figured she expressed her emotions just fine, and at every opportunity.
She was simply dealing with more stress than usual. Who wouldn't have a jittery stomach after the two months she'd just had? But she was handling it, she told herself, shutting her eyes tight against the incessant burning pressure. She was handling it her way.
The minute Byron stopped the car, she would explain yet again, calmly, that Kate Powell took care of Kate Powell.
She would have, too. If she could have caught her breath. But he jerked to a halt in front of the emergency room, slammed out of the car, and plucked her out of her seat before she could so much as squeak.
Then it was worse, because she was inside, with all the sounds and scents of a hospital. Emergency rooms were all the same, everywhere. The air inside was thick with despair and fear and fresh blood. Antiseptics, alcohol, sweat. The slap of crepe-soled shoes and the whisper of wheels on linoleum. It paralyzed her. It was all she could do to keep herself from curling into a ball in the hard plastic chair where he'd dumped her.
"Stay," he ordered curtly before marching over to the admitting nurse.
She didn't even hear him.
Flashes of memory assaulted her. She could hear the high, desperate scream of sirens, see the red lights pulsing and spinning. She was eight years old again, and the dull throb deep inside her ached like a wound. And blood - she could smell it.
Not hers. Or very little of her blood. She'd barely had a scratch. Contusions, they had called them. Minor lacerations. A mild concussion. Nothing life-threatening. Nothing life-altering.
But they had wheeled her parents away, even while she'd screamed for her mother. And they had never come back.
"It's your lucky night," Byron said when he came back to her. "Not much going on. They're going to take a look at you now."
"I can't be here," she murmured. "I can't be in a hospital."
"That's the breaks, kid. This is where the doctors are." He lifted her to her feet, surprised when she went along like an obedient puppy. He passed her off to a nurse, then settled down to wait.
Kate told herself the more she cooperated, the quicker they would let her go. And they had to let her go. She wasn't a child now who had no choice. She stepped into the narrow examining area, shuddering once at the sound of the curtain being drawn closed behind her.
"Let's see what we've got here."
The doctor on duty was young and pretty. A round face, narrow eyes behind wire-framed glasses, dark hair scooped back at the side with simple bobby pins;
It had been a man before, Kate remembered. He'd been young, too, but his eyes had been exhausted and old. Mechanically, Kate answered the standard questions. No, she didn't have any allergies, she'd had no surgery, she was taking no medication.
"Why don't you lie back, Ms. Powell? I'm Dr. Hudd. I'm going to check you out. Are you having pain now?"
"No, not really."
The doctor lifted an eyebrow. "No or not really?"
Kate closed her eyes and struggled to steep herself in the here and now. "Some."
"Tell me when it increases."
Soft hands, Kate thought as they began to probe her. Doctors always seemed to have soft hands. Then she hissed as the doctor applied pressure under her breastbone.
"That's the spot, huh? How often does this happen?"
"It happens."
"Do you find the discomfort occurs after a meal, say, an hour or so after a meal?"
"Sometimes." She sighed. "Yes."
"And when you drink alcohol?"
"Yes."
"Is there any vomiting?"
"No." Kate swiped a hand over her clammy face. "No."
"Dizziness?"
"No. Well, not really."
Dr. Hudd's unpainted mouth pursed as she pressed her fingers to Kate's wrist. "Your pulse is a little fast."
"I don't want to be here," Kate said flatly. "I hate hospitals."
"Yeah, I know the feeling." The doctor continued as she made notations on a chart, "Describe the pain for me."
Kate stared up at the ceiling, pretended she was talking aloud to herself. "It's a burning in the torso, or an aching." She wouldn't stay here, she reminded herself calmly. On this table, behind these curtains. "More like sharp hunger pains in my stomach. They can get pretty intense."
"I bet. How have you been dealing with it?"
"My heartburn," Kate said dully. "Mylanta."
The doctor chuckled, patted Kate's hand. "Are you under a lot of stress, Ms. Powell?"
My father was a thief, I've lost my job, and the cops could be knocking on my door any minute. There's nothing I can do about it, nothing, that won't make it worse.
"Who isn't?" She tried not to jerk when the doctor lifted her eyelid and shined a light to check her pupils.
"How long have you been having these symptoms?"
"Somewhere around forever. I don't know. They've gotten worse in the last couple of months."
"Sleeping well?"
"No."
"Taking anything for that?"
"No."
"How about headaches?"
"No, thanks. I have plenty of them. Nuprin," she said, anticipating the question. "Excedrin. I switch off."
"Mm-hmm. When was your last physical?" When Kate didn't answer, me doctor eased back, pursed her lips again. "That long ago, huh? Who's your regular doctor?"
"I go see Minelli once a year for a pap. I don't get sick."
"You're doing a good imitation of it now. I'll follow that up with my imitation of an exam. Let's check your blood pressure."
Kate submitted to it. She was calmer now, certain that the ordeal was almost over. She imagined the doctor would dash off a prescription and be done with it.
"Blood pressure's a little high, heart's strong. You're underweight, Ms. Powell. Dieting?"
"No. I never diet."
"Lucky you," Hudd said, with a considering look in her eye. It was a look Kate recognized, one that made her sigh.
"I don't have an eating disorder, doctor. I'm not bulimic, not anorexic. No binging, no purging, no pills. I've always been thin."
"So you haven't lost any weight lately?"
"A few pounds, maybe," Kate admitted. "My appetite's been kind of sporadic. Look, I've had some problems at work and it's stressed me out. That's all. Believe me, if I had a choice, I'd rather have curves than angles."
"Well, when we solve this problem, you should put them back on. After we run a few tests - "
Kate's hand shot out, curled around the doctor's wrist. "Tests? What kind of tests?"
"Nothing that involves torture chambers, I promise. We need some X-rays, a barium certainly. And I recommend an upper G.I. These are to pinpoint and to eliminate."
"I don't want any tests. Give me a pill and let me out of here."
"Ms. Powell, it's not quite that simple. We'll get you in and out of X-ray as quickly as possible. I'll try to schedule the G.I. for first thing in the morning. Once we get you admitted - "
Panic was white, Kate realized. White rooms and women in white uniforms. "You're not keeping me here."
"Just overnight," the doctor soothed. "It's not that I don't respect your boyfriend's diagnosis..."
"He's not my boyfriend."
"Well, I'd work on that if I were you, but in any case, he's not a doctor."
"His mother is. He talked to his mother on the way over. Ask him. I want you to get him back here. I want you to get him."
"All right. Try to calm down. I'll go talk to him. Just lie down here and try to relax." The doctor eased Kate's shoulders back.
Once she was alone, Kate struggled to breathe deeply, evenly. But terror was circling.
"Still arguing," Byron began when he stepped into the room.
Kate popped up like a spring. "I can't stay here." She snatched at his shirt front with trembling hands. "You have to get me out."
"Now, listen, Kate - "
"I can't stay here overnight. I can't spend the night in a hospital. I can't." Her voice lowered to a broken whisper. "My parents."
Confusion came first. Did she expect him to call the Templetons in France to back her up? Then he remembered - her own parents were dead. Had been killed in an accident. Hospital.
And he saw that what he had taken for pain and bad temper in her eyes was sheer terror.
"Okay, baby." To soothe her, he pressed his lips to her brow. "Don't worry. You're not going to stay."
"I can't." She felt her breath hitch, felt the simmering hysteria start its greasy rise.
"You won't. I promise." He cupped her face until her swimming eyes met his. "I promise, Kate. I'm going to talk to the doctor now, then I'll take you home."
Hysteria receded, replaced by trust. "All right. Okay." She closed her eyes. "All right."
"Just give me a minute." He stepped to the other side of the curtain with the doctor. "She's got a phobia. I didn't realize it."
"Look, Mr. De Witt, most people don't like spending time in hospitals. There are times I don't like it myself."
"I'm not talking about ordinary resistance." Frustrated, he dragged a hand through his hair. "That's all I thought it was. But it's a lot more. Listen, her parents were killed in some sort of accident when she was a kid. I don't know the details, but there must have been some hospital time. She's panicked at staying here, and she isn't the panicking type."
"She needs these tests," the doctor insisted.
"Dr... Hudd, is it? Dr. Hudd, she's got an ulcer. Textbook symptoms. We both know it."
"Because your mother said so?"
"My mother's chief of internal medicine at Atlanta General."
Hudd's brows shot up. "Dr. Margaret De Witt?" She sighed again. "Impressive. I've read a number of her papers. Though I tend to agree with her diagnosis, I'm sure she'd agree with my procedure. Signs point to a duodenum ulcer, but I can't discard other possibilities. These tests are standard."
"And if the patient is so distressed, emotionally wrecked, that the idea of the tests aggravates the preexisting condition?" He waited a beat. "Neither one of us is going to be able to force her to have them. She'll just walk out of here, go on popping Tums until she's got a hole in her stomach you could sink a putt through."
"No, I can't force her to have the tests," Hudd said irritably. "And I can give her medication, in exchange for a promise that she comes back as an outpatient for a barium X-ray if symptoms recur."
"I'll see that she does."
"You'd better. Her blood pressure's up, her weight's down. She's hoarding stress. I'd say she's got a breakdown on the boil."
"I'll take care of her."
Dr. Hudd hesitated a moment, measuring him. Then nodded. "I'm sure you will." She reached for the curtain, glanced back. "Is your father Dr. Brian De Witt?"
"Thoracic surgery."
"And you're - "
"In hotels." He smiled charmingly. "But my sisters are doctors. All three of them."
"There's one in every family."
"I'm sorry," Kate murmured. She kept her head back, resting it against the car's seat. Kept her eyes closed.
"Just follow doctor's orders. Take your medicine, get your rest. Cut back on the jalapenos."
She knew he said it to make her smile, and tried to oblige him. "And I was just craving some. I didn't want to ask until I was sure we'd managed the great escape, but how did you talk her out of admitting me?"
"Reason, charm, compromise. And by invoking my mother's name. She's a big deal."
"Oh."
"And a promise," he added, "that if it happens again, you go in for X-rays - as an outpatient." He laid a hand over hers, squeezed. "This isn't something you can ignore, Kate. You have to take care of this, and yourself."
She fell silent again. It was all too embarrassing. And there were still little hot licks of panic flickering in her stomach.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw the moon-kissed sweep of Big Sur, the rise of cliffs, the flash of forests, the wild curve of the road with thin mists of fog hovering. Tears stung her eyes. She'd asked him to take her home, and he'd understood. Home was Templeton House.
The lights were glowing against the windows. Glowing in a warmth and welcome that was as dependable as sunrise. She could smell the flowers, hear the sea. Even before he had fully stopped the car at the top of the drive, the door swung open. Laura raced out.
"Oh, honey, are you all right?" Her robe swirling around her legs, Laura wrenched open the car door and all but absorbed Kate into her arms. "I've been so worried!"
"It's all right. It's so silly. I - " Then she spotted Ann hurrying out and nearly broke.
"There, darling girl." Crooning, Ann tucked an arm around Kate's waist. "Let's get you inside now."
"I - " But it was too easy to just let her head rest on Ann's shoulder. Here were memories of warm cookies and sweet tea. Of soft sheets and cool hands.
"Byron." Laura cast a distracted look back at him. "I'm so grateful you called. I - " She looked toward Kate, already halfway to the house with Ann. "Please come in. Let me get you some coffee."
"No, I'll head on home." It was obvious that Laura was oblivious to everyone but Kate. "I'll come by later and see how she is. Go ahead."
"Thank you. Thank you so much." She dashed away.
He watched her catch up and flank Kate on the other side. The three of them slipped into the house as one.
She slept for twelve hours and awakened rested and dazed. She was in the room of her middle childhood. The wallpaper was the same, the subtle pastel stripes. The blinds of her late adolescence had been replaced by lace curtains that swayed at the open windows. They had been Kate's grandmother's. Had hung in her own mother's bedroom. Aunt Susie had thought they would bring her comfort when she had first settled in Templeton House, and she'd been right.
They brought her comfort now.
There had been many a morning Kate had lain in the big, soft four-poster and watched those curtains flutter. And felt her parents close.
If she could just talk to them now, she thought. Just try to understand why her father had done what he had done. But what comfort would there be in that? What excuse could possibly justify it?
She had to concentrate on the now. Had to find a way to live in the now. And yet how could she not drift back?
It was the house, most of all, she supposed. It held so many memories. There was history here, eras, people, ghosts. Like the cliffs, the forests, those wildly shaped cypress trees, it held magic.
She turned her face into the pillow, encased in Irish linen. Ann always saw to it that the bed linen was scented lightly with lemon. There were flowers on the night table, a Waterford vase filled with sweet-smelling freesia. A note was propped against it. Recognizing Laura's handwriting, she stirred herself to reach out.
Kate, I didn't want to wake you when I left. Margo and I are at the shop this morning. We don't want to see you there. Annie has agreed to lock you in your room if necessary. You're to take your next dose at eleven sharp, unless you sleep through it. One of us will come home at lunchtime. You're expected to stay in bed. If you ever scare us like this again...I'll threaten you in person. I love you, Laura.
Just like her, Kate mused, and set the note aside. But she couldn't very well stay in bed all day. Too much thinking time in bed. No, she decided to call it by its name: brooding time. So she would find something to keep her from brooding. Her briefcase had to be somewhere, she decided. She'd just -
"And what do you think you're about, young lady?" Ann Sullivan stood in the doorway with a tray in her hand and a hard light in her eyes.
"I was going to... go to the bathroom. That's all." Cautiously Kate finished climbing out of bed and ducked into the adjoining bath.
Smiling, Ann set down the tray and moved to fluff the pillows. All her girls thought they could lie when the chips were down, she mused. And only Margo was any good at it. She waited, her back soldier straight, until Kate came back in. Then Ann merely pointed at the bed.
"Now, I'm going to see to it that you eat, take your medicine, and behave yourself." With smooth efficiency, Ann fit the tray over Kate's lap. "An ulcer, is it? Well, we're not putting up with that. No, indeed. Now Mrs. Williamson has fixed you some nice soft scrambled eggs and toast. And there's herb tea. She says chamomile will soothe your innards. You'll eat the fruit too. The melon's very mild."
"Yes, ma'am." She felt as though she could eat for hours. "Annie, I'm sorry."
"For what? For being knotheaded? Well, you should be." But she sat on the edge of the bed and, in the time-honored fashion, laid her hand over Kate's brow to test for fever. "Working yourself up until you're sick. And look at you, Miss
Kate, nothing but a bag of bones. Eat every bite of those eggs."
"I thought it was heartburn," she murmured, then bit her lip. "Or cancer."
"What is this nonsense?" Appalled, Ann snagged Kate's chin in her hand. "You were worrying you had cancer and did nothing about it?"
"Well, I figured if it was heartburn I could live with it. And if it was cancer, I'd just die anyway." She grimaced at the violent glare. "I feel like such a fool."
"I'm glad to hear it, for you are." Clucking her tongue, Annie poured Kate's tea. "Miss Kate, I love you, but never in my life have I been more angry with anyone. No, you don't. Don't you dare tear up while I'm yelling at you."
Kate sniffled, took the tissue Ann held out, and blew her nose fiercely. "I'm sorry," she said again.
"Be sorry, then." Exasperated, she handed over another tissue. "I thought Margo was the only one of you who could make me crazy. You may have waited twenty years to do it, my girl, but you've matched her. Did you once tell your family you were feeling poorly? Did you once think what it would mean to us if you ended up in the hospital?"
"I thought I could handle it."
"Well, you couldn't, could you?"
"No."
"Eat those eggs before they're cold. There's Mrs. Williamson down in the kitchen, fretting over you. And old Joe the gardener cutting his precious freesia so you could wake to them. That's to say nothing of Margo, who kept me on the phone thirty minutes or more this morning, so worked up over you, she is. And Mr. Josh, who came by and looked in on you before he would go on to his work. And do you think Miss Laura got a wink of sleep last night?"
As she lectured, Ann piled toast with raspberry preserves and handed it to Kate. "That's to say nothing of how the Templetons are going to feel when they hear."
"Oh, Annie, please don't - "
"Don't tell them?" Ann said, with a fierce look at Kate. "Is that what you were going to say, missy? Don't tell the people who loved and cared for you, who gave you a home and a family?"
No one, Kate thought miserably, piled on jam or shame like Ann Sullivan. "No. I'll call them myself. Today."
"That's better. And when you're feeling more yourself, you're going to go and thank Mr. De Witt in person for taking care of you."
"I..." Foreseeing fresh humiliation, Kate toyed with her eggs. "I did thank him."
"And you'll thank him again." She glanced up as a maid knocked quietly on the open door.
"Excuse me. These just arrived for Miss Powell." She carried in a long white florist's box and set it on the foot of the bed.
"Thank you, Jenny. Wait just a moment and we'll see what vase we'll use. No, you finish eating," Ann continued. "I'll open this."
She undid the bow, opened the lid, and the room was filled with the scent of roses. Two dozen long-stemmed yellows bloomed against a bed of glossy green. She allowed herself one quiet, feminine sigh.
"Fetch the Baccarat, will you, Jenny? The tall one in the library breakfront."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Now I know I'm sick." Cheered, Kate plucked up the envelope. "Imagine Margo sending me a bunch of flowers." But when she tore out the card, her jaw dropped.
"Not from Margo, I take it." With the privilege of time and affection, Ann slipped the card out of Kate's fingers and read, " 'Relax, Byron.' Well, well, well."
"It's nothing to 'well' about. He's just feeling sorry for me."
"Two dozen yellow roses are something aside from sympathy, girl. That's moving toward romance."
"Hardly."
"Seduction, anyway."
Kate remembered the wild embrace in his kitchen. Hot, intense, rudely interrupted. "Maybe. Sort of. If I was the seducing type."
"We all are. Thank you, Jenny. I'll take it from here."
Ann took the vase from the maid and went into the bathroom to fill it. She wasn't surprised, and not just a little pleased, to see Kate sniffing thoughtfully at one of the blooms when she came back.
"Drink your tea now while I arrange these. It's a relaxing thing, arranging flowers."
She took a pair of scissors from the old kneehole desk, spread the tissue that had covered the flowers on the dresser, and got to work. "Something you take your time about, enjoy. Plunking them by the handful into a handy vase doesn't bring any joy."
Kate dragged her thoughts away from detailing a list of Byron De Witt's qualities. Confident, kind, interfering, sexy, meddlesome. Sexy. "It gets the job done."
"If that's all you're after. In my opinion, Miss Kate, you've always been in a hurry to get the job done, whatever it may be. You've forgotten the pleasure of doing. Rushing through something to get to the next something might be productive, but it's not fun."
"I have fun," Kate muttered.
"Do you now? From what I've seen, you've even turned your weekly treasure hunts into a scheduled chore. Let me ask you this. If you were, by some wild chance in your quest for efficiency, to stumble over Seraphina's dowry, what would you do with it?"
"Do with it?"
"That's what I asked. Would you take the riches and sail around the world, lie on some lazy beach, buy a fancy car? Or would you invest it in mutual funds and tax-free bonds?"
"Properly invested, money makes money."
Ann slipped a stem gently into the vase. "And for what? So it can pile up neatly in some vault? Is that the only means to the end, or end to the means? Not that you haven't done a tidy job with helping me build up a fine nest egg, darling, but you've got to have dreams. And sometimes they have to be beyond your immediate reach."
"I have plans."
"I didn't say plans. I said dreams." Wasn't it odd, Ann mused. Her own daughter had always dreamed too much. Miss Laura had dreamed simple dreams that had broken her heart. And little Miss Kate had never let herself dream enough. "What are you waiting for, darling? To be as old as me before you indulge yourself, enjoy yourself?"
"You're not old, Annie," Kate said softly. "You'll never be old."
"Tell that to the lines that crop up on my face daily." But she smiled as she turned. "What are you waiting for, Katie?"
"I don't know. Exactly." Her gaze shifted to the crystal vase behind Ann, filled to bursting with yellow flowers that glowed like sunlight. She could, if she bothered to, count on one hand the number of times a man had sent her roses. "I haven't really thought about it."
"Then it's time you did. Top of the list is what makes Kate happy. You're good at list making, God knows," she said briskly, then went to the closet for the robe Kate always left in her room at Templeton House. "Now you can sit out on the terrace in the sun for a while. You sit there and do nothing but dream for a bit."