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“But none of them truly is safe,” Luke countered darkly.
“Sometimes the belief is enough,” she offered. “Often it’s all we have.” When he clenched his jaw rather than voice his disgust, she took another tack. “Perhaps it’s time I told you what happened to Sam.”
Taken aback, Luke frowned slightly, then gestured toward a chair. “If you feel you must.”
She sat, and rather than take the chair behind his desk, Luke dropped into the one at her side. His gaze, while still guarded, held a sparkle of curiosity now, which she considered a great improvement. She folded her hands in her lap, but it was an effort not to wring them pathetically.
“We were scheduled to leave on a trip to Scandinavia the next day, and Sam went into his office to clear up some last minute detail on one of his cases. He thought he wouldn’t be gone long, and then we planned to finish packing, eat an early supper, and be ready to fly out of LAX first thing the next morning.
“He’d been gone about an hour when I got a frantic call from one of his partners. He told me Sam had been rushed to Huntington Memorial Hospital, and that I should get there just as quickly as I could.
“I was at the hospital within ten minutes, but it was too late. Sam had suffered a massive coronary, and the paramedics had been unable to revive him. The doctors at Huntington had worked on him too, but he was gone.
“He’d always been so healthy, and it’d been several years since he’d been to his doctor for a physical. A simple stress test would have revealed the problem and saved his life, but he’d never had one. I blamed myself for not taking better care of him.”
A painful lump closed her throat, and she coughed to clear it. “The hospital staff was wonderful and let me sit with Sam for as long as I needed.”
That precious hour belonged solely to her and Sam, and she would never share the details with anyone. “You will probably find this impossible to believe, but I’m grateful that if Sam had to die, he’d died here, where I’d be surrounded by our friends rather than a day later in Copenhagen where I’d have had to rely on strangers to help me fly his body home in a coffin.
“That’s the real difference between us, Luke. I can find a glimmer of hope in a puddle of ink, while all you’d see is the spreading blackness.”
Luke was silent for a long moment, but rather than argue, he reached for her hand and ran his fingertip across her blackened nail. “What happened here?”
She told him. “It was stupid, like most accidents are.”
“Did it happen right before or just after you removed your wedding ring?”
She wasn’t surprised he’d noticed the gold band was gone, but she didn’t like where his question was leading. “After, but that’s merely a coincidence I’m sure.”
Luke drew her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips tenderly. “No, it wasn’t. Freud believed there are no accidents, and most of the time I agree.”
His touch sent a shiver of desire clear to her shoulders, and she left her hand resting in his. “But wouldn’t that mean Nick was deliberately ignoring the dangers while he rode his skateboard? Courting disaster, if you like. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Doesn’t it? He received a whole lot a concerned attention from you, and that looks like a big plus to me.”
She pulled away from him. “That’s sick.”
“No, it isn’t. As I’m sure I pointed out during your training, we keep first-aid kits in all the buildings to tend the cuts and scrapes the kids receive nearly every day. Some are self-inflicted, but once I’ve hustled a kid off to the emergency room for stitches, that’s usually the end of it, for him, at least.”
“You can’t imagine that Nick threw himself into the street in hopes of winning a little sympathy and some new clothes.”
“No, the scrapes were too deep, but the fact he can’t tell us where it happened or the name of the woman who hit him makes me wonder if he told us everything. Nick is a good kid, but that doesn’t mean he’s above bending the truth to his own advantage.”
Catherine sat back to consider that possibility, but what struck her as odd was how Luke had reached for her hand rather than murmur a comforting comment about Sam, or dispute her observation on their differing views of life. He had simply changed the subject to brush both aside. Because each disclosure had been important to her, she now regretted confiding in him.
“I was going to change my clothes, but I think I’d rather just go on home.” She stood and repositioned the chair in front of his desk. “But before I go, what did the owner of the auto supply say about the mural?”
Luke nearly leapt to his feet. “I decided you were right about the
need for a two-story site and didn’t talk with him. I’ll assign Dave the job of finding us a better location.”
While she was surprised he now agreed with her, the brightness had already faded from the day, and she took no pride in it. She wore a preoccupied frown as she hurried for the door. “That’s a good idea. Maybe he’ll see something we didn’t.”
“Catherine? Wait a minute. Have I upset you?”
She rested her hand on the doorknob and shrugged. When he’d confided his painful losses, she’d been unable to speak. Perhaps he was equally at a loss for words and had seized upon her bruised nail to distract them both. It was logical but failed to supply the reassuring affection she truly needed.
“Maybe it’s just a delayed reaction to Nick’s injuries, but I need to go home.”
