She went to her room and slid beneath the sheets of her canopy bed; in minutes, she fell into a fatigued and dreamless sleep.
Jenny felt no better by dinnertime. But no worse either, she insisted to herself as she dressed in a yellow sundress that dipped off her shoulders. She hoped that Richard would think her pretty and sophisticated, not simply the “kid next door.” All through dinner, she struggled to keep her mind on the conversation, but found it difficult to concentrate.
“Why don’t the two of you dance,” Mrs. Holloway suggested, snapping Jenny out of her stupor. “No use being trapped at the table with us.”
Jenny wished that Richard had asked her of his own accord, but decided not to quibble over the fine points. What did it matter how she ended up in Richard’s arms, just so long as she did?
“Come on, Jenny.” Richard stood and held out his hand.
Jenny felt her grandmother’s gaze follow them to the dance floor, where she glided smoothly into Richard’s arms. She thought she fit there perfectly.
“I don’t think Dame Marian approves,” Richard said.
“Of our dancing? Why shouldn’t she?”
“I don’t think she approves of me.”
“Don’t be silly. She likes you and always has.”
“We’re too old to be playmates,” Richard cautioned.
Jenny didn’t understand what he was trying to tell her. Perhaps he was feeling coerced into spending the evening with her, instead of out with a girl he really liked. “How’s it going between you and your father?”
“Don’t ask.”
Richard seemed in a bad mood, which made her feel all the more like a nuisance. “Could we go out on the patio?” she asked. “It’s stuffy in here.”
He pulled back and studied her. “You look a little pale. Maybe we should sit down.”
“Some fresh air should do it.”
He led her outside onto a flagstone patio lined with stone benches and strings of colored lights. A faint breeze carried the scent of the sea. He took her to a bench near a low stone wall and settled her down.
She breathed in deeply, hoping the evening air would clear her head. Just her luck. A romantic corner in the moonlight with Richard, and she didn’t feel well.
“Better?” he asked, sitting beside her and taking her hand.
Her pulse reacted to his touch. “Better,” she said.
He loosened his tie and opened the collar of his shirt. “I’d rather be out sailing.”
“Me too.” She didn’t add that sailing over a gentle sea under a star-studded sky alone with him would be her idea of heaven. “Maybe we could go out some morning next week.”
“I don’t think I can make it.”
She bit back her disappointment. Why was he avoiding her? She thought of other summers when they’d been inseparable. He was the one who’d taught her to sail. “You promised we would. Are you angry with me? Did I do something to offend you?”
“Of course not.” He stood and paced to the wall and peered out into the darkness. “Dad wants me to be a runner in his firm this summer. He says it’s time I learned to appreciate hard work.”
Jenny knew that a runner was a lowly job that called on the employee to do detail work and odd jobs for attorneys in a law practice. “But you said you weren’t interested in becoming a lawyer.”
“I’m not, but it doesn’t seem to matter to my father what I want to do. He won’t listen to me. He’s determined that I attend law school once I finish my undergraduate work.”
“So that means you’ll be working all summer?”
“Right up until the fall term starts. It also means he and I will be commuting to Boston for the summer.
Commuting meant that Richard would be living in the city during the week and only coming out to the island for weekends. Suddenly, her idyllic summer stretched in front of her like a long, lonely road. “Isn’t there any way you can get out of it?”
“Only if I want to be cut loose from the family.” Jenny stood, wanting to be closer to him, wanting to hold on to this slice of time in the moonlight. The movement was too quick, and she swayed. Richard caught her. “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you ill?”
She felt lightheaded and clutched his arms for support. “I—I don’t know …”
The world around her tipped and swayed, and she felt as if she were tumbling into a deep well. Richard’s arms lifted her as darkness engulfed her.
Three
“HOW LONG HAVE you been experiencing these symptoms, Miss Crawford?”
“I’ve been feeling sick for a few days,” Jenny answered. She lay in the local emergency room while a doctor poked, prodded, and asked questions. She felt acutely embarrassed. It was bad enough to have fainted in Richard’s arms, but it had caused a scene at the country club when the ambulance had come and picked her up. She knew her grandmother was beside herself out in the waiting room. At least the Holloways were with her. She grimaced, knowing that she’d spoiled their anniversary party.
“Did I hurt you?” the doctor asked as he rotated joints in her arms and legs.
“I’m a little sore,” she confessed.
“And these bruises—how long have you had them?”
“I’m not sure. A couple of weeks. They just keep showing up. I guess I’m clumsier than I thought.”
“I don’t think you’re clumsy,” the doctor said.
“What do you think is wrong? Is it the flu?”
“Your lymph nodes are swollen, which indicates an infection of some kind.” He patted her arm and smiled noncommittally. “We need to do some lab work.”
“You mean stick needles in me?”
“We have to draw some blood, yes.”
Jenny gritted her teeth. If there was one thing she hated, it was shots. She’d sobbed through every immunization as a child. “Then can I go home?”
“Actually, I think it wisest to check you in for observation.”
“But I don’t want to stay here!”
“It’ll only be a for a few days—until we figure out what’s going on with you.”
Jenny saw her summer fun evaporating. First, Richard wouldn’t be around, and now this. Why was this happening to her?
A nurse stepped around the curtain that shut Jenny off from others in the emergency care area and prepared her arm to take blood. “Relax,” the nurse said.
Jenny shut her eyes and promised herself she’d be brave, but the sharp sting of the needle into her vein made tears well up. She hated to act like a baby over a needle and hoped the nurse didn’t see them. “All done,” the nurse said, taping a cotton ball to the inside of Jenny’s arm. “Hold it tight, or you’ll get a bad bruise.”
“What’s one more going to matter?” Jenny muttered.
The doctor reappeared with her grandmother in tow. “I’m making arrangements for you to go upstairs,” he told Jenny. “As I’ve told your grandmother, ours is a small hospital with minimal equipment.”
“How much equipment will I need?”
He smiled and made notations on a clipboard. “Nothing for the night. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of you.”
“I want Jenny to be comfortable,” Grandmother said. “I want her in your best room.”
“ ‘Grandmother, please, it’s not necessary.”
“I’ll be contacting my personal physician in Boston first thing in the morning.” Marian cast a challenging eye toward the ER doctor. “I want to be certain that Jenny gets special attention. I don’t want anything to be missed or overlooked.”
“If it’s necessary for her to return to Boston, we will recommend it,” the doctor replied.
Return to Boston! Jenny reacted instantly. “But it’s summer. I always spend summers here. I don’t want to go back to the city.” Then she remembered that Richard also would be in Boston, and her plight didn’t seem so terrible.
“I must do what’s best for you,” her grandmother said. “If you must return, I shall too. I’ll have the staff reopen the house
and close up the one here.”
“But it’s your summer too.”
“Why, I wouldn’t dream of sending you back to the city while I remained behind. It’s out of the question.”
Deep down, Jenny was relieved. She wanted her grandmother with her. Marian had been a substitute mother to Jenny for nine years, and Jenny didn’t want to face hospitalization all alone.
“Your room’s ready,” the doctor told her, when a nurse handed him a piece of paper. “You’ve got a private room on the third floor, one of our largest.” Jenny wondered if he expected her to feel grateful.
“Perhaps I should stay also,” Grandmother offered.
“There aren’t any facilities for guests,” the doctor answered.
“Grandmother, don’t,” Jenny interrupted. “I’m not a baby.” Although Marian was very fit for her age, she was sixty-six, and jenny felt concerned about her. She would be more comfortable in her own home, in her own bed. “You can be here first thing in the morning.”
“We’ve given your granddaughter a little something to help her sleep,” the doctor added. “She’ll sleep through the night, and we’ll begin tests in the morning.”
Grandmother looked skeptical, but agreed. Minutes later, an orderly helped Jenny into a wheelchair and pushed her toward the elevator. In the hallway, Jenny saw the Holloways and Richard. “Oh, you poor dear,” Dorothy Holloway exclaimed.
Jenny hardly heard her, for it was the stricken, frightened expression on Richard’s face that held her attention. “Are you all right?” He dropped to his knees in front of the wheelchair and took her hand.
“I don’t know. They’re running some tests tomorrow.”
“They’re insisting Jenny stay the night,” Marian explained. “I hate for her to be alone.”
“She won’t be,” Richard replied. “I’ll stay with her.”
Jenny felt embarrassed. Grandmother’s hint was so broad that a three-year-old could have picked up on it. Of course, Richard had no choice but to offer to spend the night. She sighed, too tired and achy to argue that it wasn’t necessary.
The group of them entered the elevator, then the quiet hall of the third floor. A nurse led the way to the room, where she helped Jenny change into a hospital gown and get into bed. The sheets felt cool, and Jenny pulled up the covers gratefully. Once she was settled, the others came in to say good-night.
“I’ve made arrangements for a phone to be placed in your room,” Grandmother told Jenny. “If you want anything, call me.”
“I’ll be fine.” Jenny had never been inside a hospital before, and even though this one was small and homey, she didn’t like it. The smells of disinfectants and antiseptics repelled her.
“I’ll keep checking on her,” Richard insisted. “There’s a visitors’ lounge just down the hall where I can spend the night.”
Grandmother kissed her, and Jenny said good-bye to Richard’s parents, then breathed a sigh of relief when she was finally alone with Richard. “They were making me nervous,” she said.
“They’re just worried.”
She realized that the hospital gown was not very attractive, and suddenly, in spite of how bad she was feeling, she cared about how Richard saw her. “Thanks for catching me out on the patio. I owe you one.”
“You looked very pretty tonight,” he said, touching her cheek.
She caught his hand and pressed it against her skin. “I’m scared, Richard. I don’t like being sick.”
“Maybe it’s just the flu.”
“If it were, they’d have sent me home.”
“You’re Jenny Crawford—they wouldn’t take any chances.”
His explanation didn’t wash, but she was starting to feel numb from the pill they’d given her in ER. “Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Richard watched her eyelids flutter closed and her breathing grow deep and regular, yet he held tightly to her hand even after her grip on his relaxed. She’d scared him when she’d passed out. He was still shaking from the ordeal. Something was wrong with her. Something serious. He felt it in his gut. Perfectly healthy sixteen-year-old girls didn’t sprout bruises on their bodies and keel over for no reason.
Cool it, he told himself. She didn’t need him going crazy on her. There had to be a reasonable medical explanation. He brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “Jenny …” he whispered. “Be okay.”
He bent forward, smoothed her hair off her forehead, and kissed her tenderly. He stepped backward, his gaze never leaving her sleeping face. He sighed, recalled seeing a coffee machine in the lounge, and headed toward it. It was going to be a long night.
Four
JENNY WAS AWAKENED before dawn by the rattle of glass tubes and syringes carried into her room by a technician. “We need a little blood,” the tech said.
Still groggy, Jenny struggled to remember where she was and why. The memory of the night before returned like a bad dream. “Richard?” She looked around the room, feeling panicked.
He was coming through the door with a cup of coffee. “What’s going on?” he asked the tech sharply.
“The lab needs a blood sample.”
Jenny reached out her hand, and Richard took it. He stepped between Jenny and the tech. “Can you give her a minute? You woke her from a sound sleep.”
“I’ve got to keep on schedule. She’s not the only one I’ve got to see this morning. It’s part of the routine.”
Jenny didn’t like the tone of reprimand she heard in the older woman’s voice. It may be routine for the tech, but it was far from routine for her. “It’s all right,” she assured Richard, feeling him tense. “Just hold my hand while she sticks me.”
“That’s not customary,” the tech started.
“Today, make it customary,” Richard replied.
The tech sized them both up, pressed her lips together, and shrugged. She sorted through her tubes and prepared Jenny’s arm for the syringe. Jenny stared into the depths of Richard’s green eyes while the needle stuck and stung her arm.
Once the tech had gone, Richard leaned over her bed. “You doing all right?”
“Maybe it’ll get easier over time.”
“Maybe this will be the last time.”
She hoped so. “Thank you for staying the night. Sorry I wasn’t much company.”
“This wasn’t supposed to be a house party.” He smiled. “The last time I saw the sun come up, I was in the Bahamas on a sailboat.”
“I wish that’s where we were right now. Was it beautiful?”
“I can’t even describe it.”
His hair was falling over his forehead, and a stubble of beard outlined his chin and jaw. Although he looked rumpled and tired, Jenny thought he looked very sexy. “We never did get to go sailing.”
“When they let you out of here, it’s the first thing we’ll do,” Richard promised.
“How was your night in the lounge?” she asked.
“Green vinyl chairs with metal arms will never replace featherbeds as bedroom furniture.”
She giggled. “That bad, huh?”
He rubbed the small of his back. “I didn’t even know I had muscles to cramp where that chair found them.”
“It’s all right with me if you go on home now. I’ll be perfectly fine until Grandmother arrives.”
“No way.” He swallowed a last gulp of coffee from a Styrofoam cup. “I told your grandmother I’d stay with you, and I will.”
He stayed because he promised Grandmother, Jenny told herself. Not because of me. “Is there a place for you to eat breakfast?”
“There’s a coffee shop downstairs, a newspaper box, and a hole in the wall that passes for a gift shop.”
“It sounds as if you’ve explored the whole building.”
“There’s not much to explore. The place is small.” He fiddled with the Styrofoam cup, chipping out little pieces and piling them up on her bedside table. “How are you feeling this mor
ning?”
“Better now that the blood work’s over. Thanks for holding my hand. I really hate shots.”
“Me too,” he confessed. “What about your other symptoms? How are you feeling from them?”
She took a quick inventory, rotating her ankles and wrists slowly. “I still ache all over, and I’ve got a slight headache, but that might be left over from the sleeping pill. I feel pretty groggy.”
“I think I hear someone bringing breakfast trays,” Richard said, crossing to the door. He looked down the hall and announced, “Here they come.”
Jenny’s stomach revolted as the smell of greasy bacon and eggs drifted into her room. A minute later, an orderly plopped a tray on a table that straddled her bed. She edged up the lid, peeked at the contents, and heard Richard chuckle. “Are you afraid there’s a live snake under there?”
“I’d rather face one than this stuff.”
He removed the lid, and together they stared at the unappetizing offering. “It looks grim all right. How about some Frosted Flakes?” He indicated a small box of cereal and a carton of milk. “They look sealed. How can you go wrong with cereal?”
“I could try them.” Richard prepared the bowl for her. She took several bites, but shoved it aside before finishing. “That’s all I can eat,” she said. “Do you think Tony the Tiger will forgive me?”
“I’ll speak to him personally.” Richard recovered the tray and took it into the hall. “I’ve got to speak to someone about the room service in this place.”
“Silly.” She offered him a smile. It was good having him with her, even if he was only doing it for her grandmother’s sake. “I wonder when they’re going to start on the tests the doctor mentioned in ER last night.”
“Do you want me to go find out?”
“If you don’t mind.”
He gave a brisk salute. “Private Holloway at your service.” The sound of her laugh followed him down the hall to the nurses’ station, where he asked the nurse behind the desk what was happening with Jenny’s tests.