Читать книгу Wife by Design - Tara Taylor Quinn - Страница 14

CHAPTER FIVE

“I REMEMBER YOU.” Darin’s wide-faced grin matched his five-year-old tone and Grant stiffened, a natural reaction to exposing his older brother to people who might not expect to hear near–baby talk coming from a grown man.

Because if they reacted adversely, Darin would be able to tell and it would upset him.

“You do?” Lynn’s smile appeared genuine as she approached, her gaze meeting Darin’s. She held out her hand. “I’m glad because I’ve never forgotten you.”

“I’m pretty memorable.” Darin shook Lynn’s hand as his voice reverted to that of a grown man. A completely harmless, charming grown man.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m going to work hard because I want to use my arm and because I promised Grant. Who’s that?” Like Grant, Darin had noticed the slender blonde woman in jeans and a staff blouse who was hovering behind Lynn.

Unlike Grant, his older brother had the tact of a child.

“Darin, Grant, this is Maddie,” Lynn said, turning to take the other woman’s hand and pull her forward.

“You’re pretty.” Darin smiled the killer smile that had been unwittingly stealing hearts from good men for most of his life.

“It’s good to meet you,” Maddie said, her words a tad slow and thick sounding. After a quick glance at each of them, her gaze returned to the floor.

“Do you see a spider?” Darin asked. “I could kill it for you. I can step on him. Both of my feet still work.”

“I don’t see a spider.” With a sideways glance, Maddie seemed to send Lynn some kind of message.

“Maddie’s in physical therapy, too,” Lynn said. “She and Darin will be sharing this morning’s session.”

“And maybe more,” Maddie said. “Angelica mostly works with groups unless someone needs her to stand right there next to them the whole time. I don’t need that. I know my exercises and don’t need help with the machines anymore. She just has to check and make sure that I’m using my muscles right.”

Grant studied the other woman. She was...way above average in the looks department. Her blue gaze was clear. And yet...she reminded him of Darin. Postaccident Darin.

“Maddie works here,” Lynn told the two men.

“I’m a good Friday.”

“A girl Friday,” Lynn said quickly, and Grant took a mental step back. He’d been so busy taking care of his own business and finding help for Darin that he hadn’t really considered the day-to-day business of The Lemonade Stand.

Lynn had mentioned residents. She’d been referring to abused and battered women.

Like Maddie?

Was she in therapy to recover from injuries caused by physical abuse?

Had she been hit in the head?

“I saw a movie called His Girl Friday,” Darin inserted into the conversation. “It’s a Cary Grant film that’s part of the National Film Registry’s catalog and ranks number nineteen on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years...100 Laughs,” the man who’d once been headed toward a top position on Wall Street finished.

“That was a funny movie,” Maddie said. “That guy kept getting arrested. But I didn’t like it that the main guy yelled all the time. If you’d like to come with me, I’ll show you where we do therapy....”

Darin stepped forward, took Maddie’s elbow and Lynn started. She looked as though she was going to step in.

“Okay, but I’m a little scared.” Darin’s childlike voice could be heard as the two walked through the door that Darin opened after letting go of Maddie while she typed a code into the box on the wall. “I can’t use my left arm at all, you know....”

Lynn followed, looking like a mother hen as her gaze darted back and forth between Maddie and Darin.

“He won’t hurt her,” Grant whispered, leaning in close as he fell into step beside her.

Lynn put visible and immediate distance between them, saying nothing. And Grant cursed himself silently for not being more aware, more in tune, with the fact that he and his brother had just entered a very sensitive culture.

It wasn’t going to be enough just to make certain that he and Darin didn’t do anything to hurt these women; they were going to have to be aware that every move they made, every look they gave, every sentence they spoke, could potentially scare any one of them.

Lynn Duncan included—apparently.

* * *

“WE CAN WATCH through here.” Avoiding eye contact with the man she’d been schooling herself not to think about for a week now, Lynn walked toward the large window in the hallway outside the physical therapy room where Maddie had led Darrin. “Angelica keeps the blinds closed when she has to, but if she can keep them open, she does. A lot of battered women suffer from PTSD―post-traumatic stress disorder―and often that’s accompanied by bouts of claustrophobia.” Keeping it professional. Aside from the warmth that suffused her body as it came, once again, in close contact with Grant Bishop.

What in the hell was the matter with her?

Darin looked up, saw them and waved. With a tap on his shoulder, Angelica called his attention back to her and the bar she’d placed within his brother’s left grasp.

“If you want to hand me over to whoever’s going to show me the grounds, we can move on,” Grant said. “He’ll do better if I’m not here distracting him.”

“Lila, our managing director, was going to go over things with you, but she’s...busy...this morning.” Their newest resident, a middle-aged woman named Melanie Zoyne, had appeared on the doorstep in the middle of the night with no broken bones or cuts that needed stitching, but bruising on every bruisable part of her body. “My next appointment isn’t until after lunch, so as long as there aren’t any emergencies, I’ve been elected to do the honors.”

She’d been up with Melanie since three—thankfully there’d been no indication of internal injuries to accompany the varying stages of bruising the woman’s brother had left in his wake—and was running on adrenaline.

Which might explain the weakened state that was allowing for inappropriate reactions to the jeans-clad man standing beside her.

He was just a man. Like any other.

“Darin’s eager to please you.” It was one of the things she’d noticed about the brothers four years before. Rather than being cantankerous or resentful, as many injury patients were, Darin just seemed to want to keep his brother happy.

Did Grant have that effect on everyone?

“He’s eager to get the use of his arm back,” the man at her side said, his gaze trained on his brother. And then he glanced at her. “Dr. Zimmer says that the location of the injury, the part of the brain affected by the surgery, is retrainable. With hard work Darin will be as good as new.”

As good as he’d ever be with an incurable brain injury. Grant was still watching her. Waiting?

“I know, he told me,” she said. “And while I’m not a surgeon, I dealt with a lot of brain injury patients during my years on the neurosurgery ward, and from everything I’ve studied, seen and learned, I completely believe that Darin can recover from this latest setback.” She sounded like the consummate professional. With a last glance in the therapy room, not at Grant’s brother, but to make certain that Maddie was fine, Lynn headed down the wide hallway, stopping to straighten a magazine on one of the cherrywood end tables in one of the conversation nooks stationed along the wall.

She’d take him to Lila’s outer office. Show him the large map of the grounds on the wall across from Lila’s desk. Take him out to the garage that housed the lawn equipment and fertilizer they already owned—collected through donations. Then give him a brief tour of the private beach and the bungalows because he couldn’t explore those unescorted—and finally get back to real life.

Lunch with Kara, whom she hadn’t seen since Maddie had brought the little girl to her office on the way to the preschool housed on the property. This was the private preschool for residents at the Stand, not the preschool run by current and former residents that was attended by neighboring children and—like the other businesses—helped support the Stand.

She’d get through these next moments and then get her mind back on the things that mattered most.

* * *

“YOU AND DARIN have the biggest part of the battle won,” Lynn Duncan said as she guided him through a maze of hallways that were wide enough to be rooms. “He’s willing to work hard.”

“Darin’s always been willing to go the extra mile.”

“But his attitude is good,” she said, turning another corner closely enough that he bumped into her.

And moved away immediately.

“After what you said about his depression, I expected him to be at least minimally resistant. In my experience, patients with a brain injury like his, one that allows moments of complete lucidity, tend to battle with frustration, resentment and even bitterness as they experience awareness of their loss again and again.”

She didn’t seem bothered by his accidental touch. Grant filed the knowledge away. Yet she’d shied away earlier, when he leaned in too close. He’d never dealt firsthand with a battered woman before, and while he’d assured the gorgeous nurse that he and Darin would behave with impeccable decorum, while his brother’s future depended on them doing so, he’d just realized that he had no idea what that decorum required.

“Darin has his moments, but overall he handles his situation with the dignity and class that I’ve always associated with him,” he said, keeping his voice level down, his tone easy.

One hall led to another and they entered a large, upscale lobby complete with a shiny black baby grand piano set on a dais that dominated about a quarter of the room.

“It’s great when situations like these bring out the best in people. It could just as easily have brought out the worst.” Lynn sounded like a doctor on rounds with med students. Or at least what Grant imagined one would sound like.

“I can’t honestly tell you what Darin’s worst is. Except maybe taking too much on himself. Which, I’m told, brings on the depression. He can’t stand being a burden to me. Or anyone.”

The look she gave him was a bit unsettling, as though she was reading more into his words than he’d put there.

“So you take him to work with you so he feels like he’s contributing,” she said. “That can’t be easy, trying to run a business and watching out for Darin at the same time.”

He didn’t like the way her statement made him feel. As if he had a problem. “Darin’s a big help.” He set her straight on that one. “Even in his childlike moments he can perform the simple tasks accurately.”

As he spoke, his voice rose a bit, and Grant noticed the women milling in the areas around them. Some stared. A couple bowed their heads. One faded away down a hall, giving real meaning to the phrase “fading into the woodwork.”

“I’m sorry,” he said more softly. “Was I too loud?”

“You’re fine.” Her smile made him uncomfortable again. In an entirely different fashion. Grant didn’t have a lot of opportunity for sex in his life, or women in general. But he liked them.

And he liked this particular woman a lot.

“You’re with me,” she said, as though that explained everything.

Maybe it did. These women trusted her.

“That’s why we’re walking all these hallways, isn’t it?” he asked, eyeing her with new respect. “You’re showing them that I’m trustworthy.”

“Yes. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be afraid.”

He nodded. And frowned, too, feeling as if he should be able to do something to help.

He was there to do landscaping. Nothing more.

“I’ll keep my distance,” he assured his companion as they entered yet another hallway, this one a bit narrower but still oversized, with closed doors lining both sides.

Lynn stopped before one and knocked. “It’s okay to talk to anyone here,” she told him. “As long as they speak with you first. Our residents need to feel safe, but they also need to be able to interact with men. The world they’ll be going back to is full of them.”

She smiled and, when her knock wasn’t answered, opened the door.

“You know we did background checks on you and your brother this week,” she was saying, reminding him of the permission he’d granted several days before when he’d stopped in to finalize details and paperwork for the day’s appointments. “And Dr. Zimmer vouched for you, as well. You wouldn’t be here if the staff had concerns about our residents being exposed to either one of you. We have four full-time security guards, all women, and three part-timers, two of whom are men. So there’s someone here twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The bungalows all have panic buttons in them and everyone has Security on their speed dial.”

Made sense.

They were in an office—of sorts. There was a desk in one section, but it didn’t dominate the room.

“This is Lila’s office,” Lynn said, brushing a strand of hair back over her shoulder in a movement that was completely feminine—and drew his attention to her...womanliness.

The rest of the place looked like a formal living room in a wonderfully kept, warm and inviting home, with off-white couches, maroon pillows, a vase of roses on the glass coffee table and mirrors with gilded accents on the walls.

Grant was wearing leather work boots and the jeans he’d had on when he’d dug holes at six that morning to mark where a brick fence would be going.

If she was planning to ask him to have a seat, he’d have to come up with a tactful way to decline.

She turned to face the wall, holding the door they’d come through. “This map shows you The Lemonade Stand premises in its entirety,” she said, walking up to a framed three-dimensional aerial photograph that was taller than he was and almost the width of the office.

Grant studied the scaled-to-size model of a complex that was twice as massive as he’d imagined.

And exquisitely laid out.

At one time, he’d had dreams of designing properties just like this one, and he was kind of jazzed at the thought of working on one again. Getting his hands dirty.

And maybe updating and making improvements, too, if...

He was getting ahead of himself. He mentioned flower beds, underground irrigation, fruit trees, all things that he imagined he was looking at but couldn’t be sure.

“I’m sorry, I―”

“It’s not a problem,” Grant assured her, realizing that while Lynn understood the aesthetics of the grounds, she knew absolutely nothing about the technicalities of the job he had in store for him. “All I need is a walk around the place and I’ll find my answers.” He felt like grinning when the frown cleared from her brow.

She wasn’t wearing any makeup.

He couldn’t remember if she’d had makeup on the day he’d spent with her in the hospital four years before. But he thought so.

Her hair had been curled then, too, now that he thought about it. Gathered loosely in the back by some kind of clip. Darin had pulled on a curl, laughing when it sprang back, and Grant had stepped up, preparing to take accountability for his brother if the nurse had been offended. Instead, she’d let Darin pull the curl again and laughed with him this time.

Today her hair was as it had been when he’d seen her the week before. Pulled back tight into a ponytail, with the exception of that one small piece that had escaped and kept falling over her shoulder.

The change, between four years ago and now, made him curious, but no less attracted to her.