When I See Your Face

The expectation faded into mist, like dreams barely recalled when dawn came. She felt the loss deep within, a nostalgia for what might have been, rather than what actually was. She had longed for a great love. Without it, life would be lonely.

Inhaling carefully, as if the slightest movement might cause her to shatter, she thought of her guardian angel, the one who had comforted her and eased the fear with his cool touch. He hadn’t been real, but that didn’t stop her from clinging to the memory or the dream of him or whatever it had been. Maybe she would meet a man like that.

Riding that small raft of comfort in the troubled sea of darkness that was now her future, she drifted toward sleep once more.

Rory stood outside the door of room 212. He glanced at the pot of poinsettias he’d brought. They seemed pointless now, after he’d spoken with Shannon’s cousin in the parking lot. Shannon wouldn’t be able to see them. Both her eyes were bandaged. The doctors didn’t know the outcome yet. She might be blind.

He pictured her in her police uniform, swinging across the street with a bouncy step. Her hat had sat at a jaunty angle on her head, and she’d been leading a group of children across the street. The Pied Piper of Wind River, he’d thought in amusement at the time. The later picture, the one of her shot and bleeding, didn’t seem real.

A funny ache tapped behind his sternum as he went into the room. He wasn’t, he saw, the only one who’d thought of flowers. Vases and baskets of them covered nearly every surface and overflowed onto the floor, filling the corners of the room with lush color that reminded him of spring.

The patient was asleep.

He set the flowerpot on the windowsill, then stood beside the bed and studied her face. Beneath the massive bandages covering her head like a turban, he could see bruises along her left cheek. The rest of her face was pale.

Except for her lips. They were pink and full.

Her mouth wasn’t wide, but it had an appeal that made a man want to lean forward and experience for himself the taste of those dewy lips. For some reason he’d wanted to do the same thing at the parade that night.

Frowning, he drew back. He’d seen his share of attractive women… But there was something very appealing about this particular female—when she wasn’t arguing the opposite side of an issue with him. Maybe it was because she was asleep. A man just naturally wanted to wake her with a kiss.

Cynically amused at his own thoughts—Prince Charming he wasn’t—he stepped back from the bed and took in the whole array of medical equipment. The lady cop had been seriously wounded. If he’d been seconds later in arriving, the outcome could have been much different.

It certainly seemed to be an odd case, still of interest to the local news media, although the story hadn’t made it to national broadcasts.

The other two victims had been released from the hospital. The store owner couldn’t remember anything about the incident. The customer couldn’t identify the robber, who, he said, wore surgical gloves and a stocking over his face. Walking in on the robbery, he had struggled over a gun after the crook had shot the officer and the store owner and gotten himself shot as a reward for his efforts.

No gun or identifiable fingerprints had been found at the crime scene. There had been no trace of the perpetrator at the shoot-out, as the media had dubbed the incident due to the number of shots fired. Six in all, four from the robber’s gun, two from Shannon’s. If she ended up blind, then she wouldn’t be able to identify the perp, either, assuming the cops ever found the guy.

Rory didn’t know how much of the story was true. All his information came from the local paper.

He paused in his ruminations when Shannon shifted restlessly. Her lips moved in a murmur. Although his practice didn’t extend to the human animal, he checked her pulse anyway. It was fast. When she became more and more agitated in the grip of her nightmare, he debated ringing for the nurse and asking about a sedative.

As he hesitated, the sun emerged from a cloud. Its rays, streaming in through the window, caught in the strands of hair across the pillow. Fascinated, he stared at the luxuriant tangles. Her hair flowed from under the white gauze in long, curly tendrils. Where the sunlight hit it, the strands glinted in shades of tawny blond and auburn, like darkly burnished gold, a secret treasure waiting to be discovered.

He lifted a curl and watched it curve over his finger and cling, as if it had a mind of its own.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? And the color is natural. You can tell by the roots.” A nurse came in and checked various things—the patient’s vital signs, the level of water in a pitcher on the bedside stand. “Miss Bannock? How do you feel today? You want to sit up?”

Rory stepped back to give the nurse some space. He saw Shannon’s head turn toward the woman’s voice and tried to recall the color of her eyes. He noticed the smallness of her hand resting on the sheet.

She was on the slender side, but tall, probably five-eight, like her cousin, Kate, who had been a grade ahead of him in school from the time he started kindergarten until they’d graduated from the same state university a year apart.

He’d had a terrible crush on the “older” woman in high school, something she’d never known. After college, he’d gone on to vet school and Kate had married someone else.

“You have company today, someone other than your cousins and the sheriff and detectives,” the nurse reported to the patient in tones too cheerful to be real as she went to the other side of the bed, smoothing the covers as she did. “A handsome young man.” She cast him a playful glance.

“Hi,” he said, stepping up to the bed again. His voice came out as falsely cheerful as the nurse’s. He cleared it self-consciously. “How’re you feeling?”

Now that was a brilliant question to ask someone who’d been shot in the head. Disgusted, he tried to think of something to add, but his mind went blank. So much for social skills.

“Fine,” she said politely. “Uh, do you mind telling me who you are? I’m not good with voices yet. Except for Kate and Megan.”

“Rory Daniels. Sorry, I should have mentioned it.”

“That’s okay. Rory,” she repeated as if testing the name against some memory.

For a second, she seemed disappointed, then she smiled. Her lips tipped up at the corners and dimples appeared in her cheeks. Even with that just-begging-for-a-kiss mouth, the dimples made her look young and vulnerable beneath the pile of bandages.

“How nice of you to stop by,” she continued in a polite manner that set his teeth on edge. “Oh, and Happy New Year.”

As if they were at a tea party or some damn thing. It made his chest ache in that odd way.

The nurse pushed a button and the bed slowly rose, bringing the patient to a full sitting position.

When the bed stopped, Shannon turned toward him as if she could see. “It seems I have you to thank for saving my life. The paramedic said you called for help, then controlled the bleeding until they arrived. A very good Samaritan indeed.”

She stopped speaking. The alluring smile disappeared. The soft-looking lips trembled, then firmed as she smiled once more. He added self-control to her list of attributes.

“It was nothing. Don’t think about it if the memory bothers you,” he quickly said.

“No, I want to remember. Would you help by telling me everything you saw?”

He mulled over the scene at the mini-mart while the nurse brought a robe from the closet, deftly slipped it on the patient, then bent to put on slippers. “Why don’t you escort her down to the sunroom? The patient is tired of these four walls,” she said without checking with Shannon.

“Sure.”

Rory took hold of Shannon’s arm and steadied her as she got out of bed. The nurse, beaming with goodwill, saw them on their way, then bustled about straightening the room, her shoes making curious little noises on the tiles.

“This is the first time I’ve been out of the room since I got here. I’m sort of nervous,” Shannon admitted as they walked slowly down the broad corridor.

“So am I.”

“You? Why?”

“I want to kiss you.”

She stopped abruptly. Her head whipped around toward him, then she groaned and put a hand to her temple.

“Sorry,” he murmured, resisting an urge to put his arm around her waist and pull her closer. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I should have guarded my tongue.”

The smile fluttered over her lips. “Well, now that you have my attention, what did you really want to say?”

He laughed, relieved at her humor and sassiness. “Here we are. Turn right,” he directed.

They went into the pleasant, window-lined room. The winter sun played hide-and-seek through a thin covering of clouds. “Do you recall what the room looks like?” he asked.

“Not really. Windows and plants, I think.”