One More Chance Read online

  A bald-faced lie—she didn't used to sleep with anyone except Pete and that was long ago and far away. Ten years of marriage didn't mean diddly.

  Why was Pete angry with her? What had she ever done to him? That's what she got for dealing with people who knew her when. How much money is enough? You can only spend it so fast… fast. Get a doctor in here, fast-something's wrong… I'm beginning to think a little human compassion wouldn't hurt you a helluva lot.

  Ben, that's who it was, Ben what's-his-name. She relaxed, a major battle won. But the voices never stopped.

  The price of everything and the value of nothing—do you think she's waking up now?

  We go back a long way, you and me, a long way, a long way… my second chance… She got the second dose in at two. Haven't you ever needed a second chance—second dose—second chance? It's infected—she's on her way back to surgery… Never look back, never look back.

  "Name ten animals, Juliana."

  "Aardvark, uhhh… platypus…"

  "Very funny."

  I may have lost my mind but not my sense of humor.

  Pleasure before business—business before pleasure…I'll have this land if I have to break him—when hell freezes over! I won't sell, now or ever.

  My God, Juliana, what have they done to you? I'm sorry, I didn't mean… it's just such a shock. I'm sorry, I'm truly sorry— Jeez, look at these bruises. Who's been starting the I. V.s around here, Godzilla?

  Juliana's eyes snapped open. "Where am I?" she asked very clearly. "What's happened to me?"

  Ben and Paige looked at each other and Ben saw his own elation mirrored on the girl's face. He grinned in pure relief and she grinned back.

  "What are you doing here, Ben?" Juliana's frown took in the entire room. "For that matter, what am I doing here? Is this a hospital? Paige, answer me."

  Paige's laughter sparkled. "Welcome back, Mama. Yes, you're in the hospital. Don't you remember?"

  "Of course I remember." Juliana fixed her daughter with a stern gaze that held absolutely no comprehension. She lay quietly for several minutes, her expression a study in concentration. Finally she said tentatively, "I was at his place with Cary."

  Ben nodded encouragement, trying to keep the wide, silly smile off his face. She was lucid. He'd wondered if this day would ever come.

  "That's right." Paige sat in a chair by the bed and stroked Juliana's arm, above the IV tube that dripped unceasingly through the needle into her hand. "What else do you remember?"

  Juliana closed her eyes and frowned; her effort to remember was almost palpable. "I guess I left?"

  "You collapsed. Ben brought you to the emergency room."

  "Oh. I remember. I had a headache."

  "Yes. Does your head hurt now?"

  Juliana frowned. "No."

  She raised her free hand. When her fingers touched the gauze wrapping around her head, she flinched, and Ben saw panic in her eyes.

  "What's happened to me? I—I'm a little confused."

  "You had brain surgery, Mama." Paige's voice trembled, as if she were on the verge of losing it. "For an aneurysm. Three times."

  Paige had been so brave for so long, but now tears gathered in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. Juliana didn't seem to notice, and it suddenly occurred to Ben that her eyesight might have been affected by what she'd been through.

  "Brain surgery! I don't believe it."

  "It's true. After they fixed the aneurysm, you weren't coming along very well so they operated again to put in what they called a… a shunt, to drain away fluids—"

  "In my brain!"

  Juliana seemed about to panic, as if all of this were news to her. Yet she'd been in and out of consciousness from the very beginning, talking to them although not always rationally. In fact, not often rationally, Ben amended.

  Paige continued to stroke her mother's arm. "The shunt got infected, so they had to operate again to take it out. But now everything's going to be just fine, it really is."

  For a moment Ben thought Juliana would let it rest there, but then she asked, in a frightened voice, "The last thing I remember is sitting in his kitchen. How long have I been here?"

  Paige licked her lips, her smile tremulous. "Three weeks, Mama. You've been here three weeks."

  Hell, they're both going to break down, Ben thought. He leaned forward. "Three bad weeks. You were better off wherever the hell you were."

  Her lips still trembled but a little fire appeared in her eyes. "What are you doing here, B-Ben Ware?"

  "I wish I knew," he said, disgusted. "I guess I feel responsible. I don't know why—I just happened to be standing there fat, dumb and happy when you keeled over in my kitchen."

  "You're not fat," she objected faintly. Her eyelids drifted closed and she slept.

  Ben's astonished gaze met Paige's. They burst into simultaneous laughter.

  I wasn't happy, either, he thought. But I sure as hell was dumb—still am, apparently.

  Juliana sat on the edge of the hospital bed, staring with dull hostility at the tray of food. She swayed slightly, feeling dizzy and disoriented. "I want a cigarette," she burst out. She shoved the bedside table away, slopping soup over the edge of a plastic bowl.

  Ben shoved it back again. "Stop being a pain in the butt and eat."

  Responding to the tone of command, she picked up her fork and stabbed at a gray lump of… something, maybe meat. "This stuff's awful. You wouldn't like it if you had to—"

  "But I don't have to—you do. Shut up and eat."

  She gave him a furious glance and lifted the fork to her mouth. She had no idea what she was eating. She halfway suspected the doctors had removed her taste buds. Everything blurred together on her tongue and tasted exactly the same, which was to say, awful. She picked up the buttered roll. "I want to go home." Her voice trembled. "Where's Paige? Tell her I'm ready now."

  "I explained that to you." He spoke with exaggerated patience. "She's trying to catch up on her school work. She's missed a lot of classes, spending so much time here."

  "Oh." She didn't remember him telling her anything of the kind. She dropped the roll onto her tray.

  He picked up the roll and shoved it back into her hand. "I promised Paige you'd eat a decent supper and, by damn, you're going to. Take a bite."

  She did. It was easier than arguing.

  Juliana rolled over. Even half-asleep, she remained acutely aware on some level of the need for caution to avoid disturbing the I.V. needle taped to her hand. She'd grown accustomed to the stiffness in her neck and she moved with care.

  Yawning, she lifted her free hand to rub her eyes, then stroked across her forehead and over the top of her head. Her fingers did not encounter the gauze helmet she'd come to accept; instead she felt stubble.

  She sat bolt upright in the bed.

  Paige leaped to her side. "Mama, what's wrong?"

  "My hair. What have they done to my hair?" Juliana pressed the heels of both palms against her temples, fingers splayed across the shaven remains of a once-glorious head of hair. The most awful sense of betrayal choked her, and yet she didn't feel surprise, exactly.

  Paige tried to pry her mother's hands away from her head. "We explained all that to you, remember? Three days ago when they moved you from intensive care—"

  "They didn't have to shave my head just because they moved me." None of this made sense to Juliana; all she knew was that she was virtually bald, a situation profoundly shocking.

  "Hi. You up for company?"

  Juliana jumped at the unexpected voice and twisted around. Ben stood grinning in the doorway. Without waiting for an invitation, he entered.

  He carried a foil-wrapped pot of daisies and looked around for a place to set it. Every available surface was covered with plants and flowers and get-well cards.

  Humiliation laced with anger washed over her. She had no place to hide, so she just turned away and sank back down on the bed, closing her eyes. When she finally opened them, everyone was gone.
/>   Ben and Paige walked down the hospital corridor, his arm around her shoulder. During the weeks of waiting, they'd grown closer then he would ever have believed possible—closer than he should ever have allowed.

  He'd have been proud to be her father, he thought with melancholy regret. She was strong and gutsy—like her mother, only nicer.

  Paige raised sad eyes. "I get so discouraged. I tell her the same things over and over again and she doesn't remember. One minute she's fine and the next she asks how long it is until Valentine's Day."

  "She needs time." He gave her shoulders a comforting squeeze, hoping it was true. "Considering what she's been through, we're damned lucky she's not a—" he bit off his words before he could say "vegetable" and substituted "—a whole lot worse."

  "I know, and I'm grateful. I just can't help but wonder if… well, if she'll ever be the same as she was."

  They had reached the hospital's front doors and paused for a moment. Ben rested both hands on her shoulders and she gazed up at him with perfect confidence. There was a bond between them, forged of shared hopes and fears, and he believed she drew as much comfort from it as he did.

  He grinned coaxingly. "Maybe she won't be the same. Maybe she'll be better. There must have been room for at least a little improvement."

  Her rueful smile gave her away. "Maybe just a tiny bit," she conceded.

  "In the meantime, go get some rest. You're worn out, little one."

  "I'm having dinner with Daddy and Sandra and the boys. That always cheers me up. They've been wonderful through this whole thing, although why…"

  Her voice trailed off but Ben knew. Juliana hadn't exactly come through for her ex-husband, even if he had for her.

  "Good. Then I'll see you tomorrow."

  She nodded and her hazel eyes sparkled with mischief. "I don't get it—why are you spending so much time here? The doctors and nurses may believe that wild story about an engagement, but I know better."

  Ben shook his head ruefully. "I guess since I'm the one who brought her in, I want to be the one who takes her out again."

  She rose on tiptoe and stared earnestly into his eyes. "You're wonderful," she said. "You act tough, but I see right through you. You've been a real friend." She planted a quick, Shy kiss on his clean-shaven jaw, smiled and turned away.

  Stunned, Ben watched her hurry past the glass doors. Damn, this was getting sticky.

  Walking slowly to his pickup, he thought longingly of the little neighborhood bar he passed each time he drove home from this hospital. Maybe just one drink—only he knew it wouldn't be just one.

  Alcohol hadn't eased his pain before, and it damn sure couldn't help him now. He knew that, intellectually, but it was so hard to resist the urge to escape both the memories and the reality.

  He threw open the unlocked door of his truck and climbed inside. He took a deep breath and sat there for a moment, perfectly still; then he thrust the key into the ignition. He had it under control now. He knew he wouldn't stop at the bar, no matter how much he wanted to.

  And he did want to. He really did.

  They wouldn't bring her a computer, so she couldn't get any work done. They insisted she eat the horrible food and blow in that crazy plastic tube—to keep from catching pneumonia, they said. But she knew it was so much horse hockey.

  "I want to go home," she insisted to everyone who entered her room. "When can I go home?"

  "Soon," they all responded. "If you eat everything and follow orders." They made it sound easy. It wasn't.

  Embarrassed by her shaved head, she refused to see anyone except Paige and Ben and Stella. Other visitors were duly announced, then sent on their way with excuses. Deeply depressed, horribly confused, Juliana simply didn't care.

  On March 27, six weeks after she entered the hospital, she dressed in her own robe and slippers and sat on the edge of the bed, ready for discharge. She held a book in her hands, unread. She found it impossible to concentrate; she would read a paragraph—sometimes just a sentence or a line—and realize minutes later that her mind had wandered somewhere else entirely.

  Anything, however inconsequential, disturbed her ability to concentrate. But what now drew her attention was a revelation of major proportions.

  Her fingernails looked as if they belonged to the Dragon Lady. Juliana stared at them as if she'd never seen fingernails before—and she hadn't. Not this long, on the tips of her own fingers.

  She lifted her left hand, running the pad of her thumb along the edges of her nails. Incredible! She'd always kept her nails short, but not because she preferred them that way; they were so soft that they split and broke. With her active life-style, she simply couldn't get any length.

  For six weeks she'd lain in bed doing nothing, so her nails had grown and grown and grown. They were in desperate need of shaping, but to her, they were positively beautiful.

  She heard footsteps and looked up, ready to share this exciting news with Paige. Instead, Ben appeared in the doorway, his broad shoulders nearly filling it.

  "Oh," she said, disappointed. "It's you."

  His mouth set in a sardonic curve. "Very well, thank you. Nice of you to ask. And you?"

  He walked inside, followed by Dr. Crow. The doctor held a chart, which he flipped open. He glanced at a few pages and closed the cover again. He grinned at Juliana. "Ready to go, I see."

  "I've been ready," she said in a surly tone. Despite the fact that she'd been eager to leave, now that the day had come she felt perversely frightened and unprepared.

  Ben moved to the far side of the bed, swinging a shopping bag in one fist. "Any last-minute instructions, Doc?"

  "Not many." Dr. Crow crossed to Juliana and picked up her wrist. As he spoke, his fingers probed for her pulse. "No medication, no restrictions beyond those of good sense. You can do just about anything you feel like doing. Get plenty of rest, eat good meals. I want to see you a week from today."

  The two men looked at her expectantly and she looked put the window.

  "Any questions?" Dr. Crow asked finally.

  Yes! Am I all right? Have I lost my mind? Half my mind? A quarter? How long does it take hair to grow back? If I get mad and scream my head off will this happen to me again?

  "Any questions?" he repeated.

  "No," she mumbled. "None."

  "In that case, take care. I'll see you in a week. And if you have any problems, any questions, call, okay?"

  Juliana nodded. When he left the room she felt abandoned.

  Ben touched her arm. "I'll start loading up all this greenery. Then I'll come back for you."

  Her eyes widened and she drew an outraged breath. "Where's Paige? She's the one who's supposed to take me home."

  "Juliana…"

  She wouldn't be soothed. "Where's my daughter?"

  "I told her to go on to class and I'd—"

  "You had no right! I'm her mother!" She clenched her hands into fists. Her newly discovered fingernails bit into her palms and she hastily unclenched her hands.

  Ben's face darkened and he leaned toward her. Instinctively she drew back.

  He cupped her chin with one hand and forced her to meet his angry gaze. "You've been running that girl ragged. Bitch, bitch, bitch, that's all she's heard out of you."

  "But—" Tears sprang in her eyes. The big bully. She hadn't the strength to pull away from him.

  He went on relentlessly. "I know you've been sick. I know you're frightened and confused. But it's time you realized that whatever you went through, she went through something just as bad in its own way."

  All her emotions seemed to lie just beneath the surface. His words conjured up an image of Paige as something akin to the Poor Little Match Girl. "I—I'm sorry." She could barely get the words out.

  "Well, hell." He sounded disgusted. For a moment more their glances held, but he no longer looked angry. He slid his hand from her chin down to her throat, his touch light and nonthreatening. "I'm sorry, too. Paige is a great girl…woman…person…whatever.
You've done a hell of a job with her, but now you've got to lighten up."

  Juliana sniffled, acutely surprised by the comfort to be found in human contact. His fingers felt warm and reassuring on her throat, and he was saying wonderful, true things about her daughter. "Okay," she managed.

  "Then why are you crying?" He sounded perplexed. He dropped his hand and stepped away from the bed.

  "Because I can't leave here looking like this!" She lifted her hands to her cropped head. Tears streamed down her . face in earnest.

  He gave an impatient snort. "I know that." He opened the shopping bag and whipped out a black knit stocking cap. With a flourish, he placed it on her head and pulled it clear down over her ears.

  He nodded with satisfaction. "There, you look great. Happy now?"

  She lifted her hands and clutched the cap on either side, the heels of her palms meeting beneath her chin. His grin was infectious and she returned it reluctantly. "Happy may not be the word I'm searching for—and I'm searching a lot these days. Will you settle for 'resigned'?"

  He gave her a thumbs-up gesture and turned to pick up an arrangement of flowers.

  "Leave them," Juliana decided suddenly. "The nurses can give them to sick people. I just want out of here."

  "You got it. I'll whistle up a wheelchair and we're gone."

  She watched his powerful figure stride into the hall. Sighing, she looked around the room one last time.

  Her life had changed irrevocably here. More had happened to her than getting shorter hair and longer fingernails.

  And as soon as she could think straight, she'd figure out what the hell it was.

  Juliana and Paige shared a sprawling house in the best residential area of Summerhill. They'd lived there for two years, longer than they usually stayed in one place. Juliana had bought the house because it was a good investment just as she'd bought the other seven houses they'd lived in since the divorce.

  Thus when Ben carried her through the front door, he saw nothing inside that bore her imprint. Professionally decorated in blue and cream, the house was a testament .to educated taste, a healthy bank account and nothing else.