Last Of The Joeville Lovers

He held her gaze and looked as if he wanted to say more. There was so much pain on his tanned face, the gray at his temples more pronounced than she remembered.

“I have a patient in postop. Will you be around a while?”

She nodded. “Either in PT or with Josh.”

“Good. There’s something we need to talk about.” He looked guilty suddenly, and she couldn’t imagine what was on his mind. “I—I know this is a terrible imposition, but I was hoping you might move out to the ranch when Josh goes home. He’ll need a lot of one-on-one time, and I doubt he’d work as well with me.” Taylor opened her mouth to speak, but Max stopped her. “Just think about it. No need to decide now.”

Taylor stood rooted in place and watched Max amble down the hall toward Recovery.

Move out to the ranch? The thought hadn’t crossed her mind. Yet the idea of too much time alone in her small apartment had worried her. The move could help her as well as Josh.

Then why was she experiencing this shortness of breath? What was she afraid of? She knew and liked the family, and there was plenty of room for her in that big sprawling home.

Finally she puffed out her cheeks, burst out a long breath and headed for the Physical Therapy Unit. It was best not to think about the future right now.

Hard work. Lots of it. That’s what she needed.

Time would clear the cobwebs.

The patient load was lighter than usual, giving Taylor too much time to think. Each moment there was a break in the schedule, she thought of Josh upstairs, and confusion swirled in her head. Less than a week ago she didn’t even like the man. In fact, she’d gone out of her way to avoid him the few days a week she’d worked at the ranch clinic. Now she couldn’t get him out of her thoughts.

He was hurt. He needed her help. Staying at the ranch during his therapy made sense. Logic, logic, logic. It wasn’t working this time.

The last patient left and she strode toward Josh’s room, drawn there with a force she was too weary to analyze. When she arrived at his bedside, he opened his eyes and smiled his easy smile again.

“You’re back.”

“I said I would.”

“A woman of her word.” He patted the edge of his bed and she sat gingerly. “Hear any good jokes lately?”

She laughed, feeling some of the tension ease. “Afraid not.”

His expression grew serious. “I’m sorry. I’m being selfish again.” He turned off the TV with the remote on his bed railing, then met Taylor’s eyes. “I meant to say something before about your mother—”

Taylor averted her gaze, bracing herself for another “I’m sorry about your loss.” But Josh surprised her.

“I know how you feel.” He took her hand as he had before and the reaction in her limbs was the same. “Anytime you want to talk...maybe reminisce...you know where to find me.” His stroke on the back of her hand felt good. Sincere. “I don’t have as many memories as you do,” he added, “but I’ll tell you a few of mine if you’ll tell me some of yours... when you’re ready.”

Taylor’s gaze drifted lazily over the length of his battered body and then returned to his drooping eyelids. In spite of all that had happened to him, his concerns were for her. This didn’t quite mesh with her earlier impression of this man. Had he always been this sensitive and she’d missed it? Or was it that her guard was down?

Whichever, she was glad when he closed his eyes, glad that he didn’t see the moisture brimming in her own.

She tiptoed from the room and stopped at the front desk, where she’d left her two bags from the airport. They were light, and the distance to her apartment was short, so she decided to walk. The cool evening breeze revived her, and she thought that sometime soon she should make arrangements to get her car from the ranch. Yet in her grief even this little detail seemed to overwhelm her.

She entered her quiet second-floor apartment and just stood in the middle of the warm dusky room, bags still in hand, not knowing what to do next. Time passed, she wasn’t sure how much, before she remembered something important. She walked to her bedroom, opened one bag and found what she was looking for. Gently she lifted the two calico-covered journals and pressed them to her chest.

At last the tears spilled freely. She dropped on the bed and let them come. There was no one watching; she no longer needed to be brave. And when the tears had run their course, she opened her nightstand, slipped the books inside and gently closed the drawer, knowing it would be some time before she was ready to face such personal pages. Someday she would read them. Every word. Then she would know her mother’s fears.

A chill trailed through her as she crawled into her cold bed and closed her eyes. The old love seat in the Ann Arbor attic, with its loose floorboards beneath, were her last waking thoughts.

John Phillips traipsed up the attic stairs and braced his weight on one arm of the old love seat. A hand-crocheted throw lay folded neatly over the opposite arm. He remembered the hours of contentment on his wife’s face as she’d pulled each stitch of it while patiently awaiting the birth of Taylor.

Memories. There were so many good ones.

Yet there were bad times, too—one nightmare that cut so deep he had been certain at the time that the pain would never leave him, but with the help of God their marriage had more than survived. It had found peace and love again.

Weary to the bone, he lifted the end of the love seat and hunkered down to remove the loose planks. His fingers paused over the cracks in the wood, remembering the time years ago when he’d discovered the journals and the days after when he’d decided not to tell Angela.

Finally he would destroy the only remaining evidence of that dreaded time in their lives. He lifted the boards and stared at the empty space below. Stunned, he sat down with a thump. It had been years since he’d looked here. Perhaps Angela had destroyed them long ago. He rubbed his chest as if it would slow the pounding of his heart. Surely the children hadn’t found the journals. Had they?

No. It was unthinkable. If they had, they would have said something. He would have seen the questions in their eyes, a change of some sort.

When his pulse slowed, he returned the boards and love seat to their original place, picked up the handmade throw and took it with him down the stairs, clutching the treasure to him and reassuring himself that the secret was safe at long last.

Four

The scrapes and bruises on Josh’s face and arms disappeared over the next couple of weeks, and although no feeling had returned to his legs, his smile seemed as optimistic as ever.

Taylor watched him flex his biceps as he pulled himself up to the bar over his chest. He had long ago abandoned hospital garb in favor of his own white T-shirts, which fit snugly over his well-worked torso. Thankfully his shoulder had healed well. The effects of hard work with his upper body was evident. And distracting. Yes, she was glad to see him working out, though she’d seen other patients do the same, and their results hadn’t left her weak in the knees.

“So...when do I get out of here?” Josh asked.

She made herself look at his face, which was no small feat. “That’s not for me to decide,” she said with a forced calm. He pulled himself up and down on the bar some more, showing off his strength. In the past she’d thought hunky bodies meant empty brains. It seemed where Josh Malone was concerned, she was usually wrong. Her visits at his bedside had proved it time and again.

“Well, I can get myself in and out of a wheelchair without a problem. Don’t you think I could do the rest at home just as easily?”

Shane and Jenny sauntered into the room before Taylor could answer, buying her time to compose her racing thoughts. If Josh went home, was she ready to move to the ranch? To work so closely with him day after day?

Shane backhanded Josh’s shoulder. “You causing problems again, little bro?”

“Me?” He looked offended, then smiled. “I just want to get out of here and start walking, that’s all.”

Jenny planted a noisy kiss on his cheek. “You’d better pretty soon.” She smoothed her cotton top over her ever-growing belly and locked her fingers below the big bulge. “Does it look like we can wait forever? Remember your promise, Joshua!”

Taylor watched the family interplay from the foot of the bed and thought of Michael and her father. She missed them more than ever and envied the easy camaraderie of the Malones.

Josh cocked his head and frowned at Jenny. “What promise?”

“You know very well what promise...to be our backup plan if these babies decide to come quickly. Who else can fly us here to the hospital?”

Shane tugged his wife closer. “I could try. Couldn’t do much worse than Josh.”

“Very funny,” Josh said, yet his expression didn’t register amusement. He seemed distracted by something and Taylor wondered what. Was he afraid to fly again? She sure would be.

Shane punched his shoulder. “Come on. Lighten up. Since when did you take yourself so seriously?”

Josh stared at his legs and Shane looked as though he’d been stabbed in the gut. He shuffled his feet and then continued. “That Cessna dealer called last night. Said your new plane will be ready soon.”