Imaginary Lover Read online

  “I promise you, I didn’t leave anything on your table. I don’t know how he got there. Why’d you name him Siggy?”

  “I don’t know. It just came to me. Maybe because this whole thing has Freudian overtones. I guess it got to me subliminally. Sigmund Freud seemed appropriate. You got a better idea?”

  “Yeah, call her Eve, as in the many faces of Eve. I think we’re both nuts. Maybe Hattie was smarter than either of us knew.”

  Dusty lifted her mug again. The coffee was cold, but she clasped the cup to keep her hands still. “How’s that?”

  “We’re both misfits, dropouts, wounded beings that ought to be locked up together. We’re each other’s punishment.”

  “I’ll buy that,” she said, turning to put the cup in the sink. “The problem I have is the together part.”

  She didn’t know how she managed to drop the cup, nor how it came to nick a slice from her finger. But suddenly bright drops of blood were dripping into the sink.

  Then Nick was there, holding her hand, running cold water over it, then blotting it with a towel. “Let’s get upstairs to the bathroom,” he said sternly. “You need antibiotic ointment and a bandage.”

  Moments later they were wedged in the tiny bathroom, still steamy from Nick’s shower, with Nick covering her finger with ointment and deftly applying a bandage.

  “Wow, that looks spiffy, Doc,” Dusty said, trying unsuccessfully to move away and succeeding only in wedging them even more tightly together. “You’re very efficient.”

  “I aim to please,” he said, his voice low and hoarse.

  “I’ll bet you aren’t used to operating in such small spaces,” she whispered.

  “I don’t—” operate at all, he started to say, then realized what he’d done. Applying a simple bandage to a cut finger didn’t seem like much, but he’d reacted instinctively, an action that he would never have made a few days earlier. A simple cut finger had become more significant than surgery.

  “Don’t what?” Dusty prompted.

  He took in a deep breath, allowing the very female scent of her to fill his nostrils, and he felt the sudden surge of adrenaline in response.

  “Don’t …” But he couldn’t remember what he’d started to say. All he could see was the wild beauty of the woman who looked up at him with trust in her eyes and mischief in her smile.

  “Neither do I,” she said, “not normally.”

  “But there’s nothing about this situation that’s normal, is it?”

  “Not for me,” she managed to say, despite the fact that her throat was practically closed off by the lump that grew bigger by the second. She hadn’t felt so tongue-tied since she’d walked across the stage to receive her badge at the police academy.

  He touched her hair, allowing his fingers to tangle in the long silver strands that cascaded down her back. “I’ve never seen hair quite this color. I’ll bet you were really a hit with the criminal element.”

  “There was a time or two that it could have been pretty tempting to break the law instead of enforcing it. What about you? I’ll bet every female patient you had automatically disrobed when they caught sight of you.”

  “Would you?”

  Her mind suddenly pictured the two of them nude together. “Would you want me to?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t understand what’s happening here, and I don’t think I like it.”

  There was suddenly no oxygen in the air. Dusty felt as if she were smothering. His dark eyes devoured her, swallowing up all her fears and turning them into wonder. She was shy. She was afraid. She was trembling.

  His gaze roamed over her, searing her with heat and anger. He was right, he didn’t like what was happening. But he couldn’t stop it any more than she could.

  “Sweet Jesus,” she whispered, struggling with her confusion.

  “Ah, hell!” he swore, and kissed her. For a few seconds they both sailed over the edge of reality.

  Then he was gone.

  For the rest of the morning, Dusty read her script and tried to improvise an ending. She could do this, she reasoned. Once, long ago, she and Hattie had made up plays and performed skits. She remembered the times with such affection. But now, the ideas wouldn’t come.

  Years of street life and crime had killed the creative juices. Though, she admitted with chagrin, they hadn’t stifled the physical ones.

  That was the problem, she reasoned. Being in the house with Nick was messing up her mind. Technically he wasn’t even in the house now, but she felt his presence there. She also felt the ache in her lower body and grimaced. The situation wasn’t any easier for him. He’d kissed her. Lordy, how he’d kissed her. And she’d returned that kiss. But when his body hardened against her and his hand had found her breast, she’d cried out in protest.

  Moments later she’d been alone in the bathroom, with the sound of a sigh of disappointment heavy in the air. Had it been Nick who’d voiced his displeasure without knowing? Or had—had she imagined it?

  This was getting heavy. What they both had to do was face it and get past it. First they had to identify the “it.” If she was reading the situation right, Dr. Nick Elliott was as horny as a stallion in sniffing distance of a mare in heat. She was suffering from pure lust for a man who was a writhing mass of contradictions. They were heading for a collision unless she found a way to defuse the situation.

  But how?

  She couldn’t leave, at least not immediately. Her probation prohibited that. What she didn’t understand was why he didn’t leave. He’d been sent there to torment her. He was her punishment. If he had been an entertainer, he’d be the kind of man who could step on a stage and mesmerize the audience with his dramatic good looks.

  Why was he staying?

  Maybe he wasn’t as well-off as he’d said. He said he was rich, but he’d been in an accident that must have cost a small fortune. He’d said he’d make arrangements to buy her out. Arrangements?

  She dropped her script and let her mind run free. Then it came to her. He might not have money left, but according to Hattie’s attorney, Dusty did. She’d buy out his interest in the house. That would solve the problem of too much togetherness. With a nod of satisfaction she picked up the script and began to read again.

  She was beginning to formulate another idea about the story when there was a resounding thud. Glancing up, she couldn’t see any reason for the noise.

  Then she saw it, the box containing her ghost was upset on the floor, the excelsior scattered. As she watched, the ghost food canister suddenly flipped over on its side and began to roll across the floor, coming to a stop at Dusty’s feet.

  This was too much. She’d loved the whimsical instructions on the card that came with the box. Choose the place where you place the box carefully, it had said. If the ghost isn’t happy it may show its displeasure, it warned. But this was testing her credibility.

  First the growing tension between her and Nick.

  Then the mysterious sighs and unexplainable incidents.

  Hattie’s house was a seething mass of undercurrents, and Dusty had learned the hard way that the only thing she could believe was what she saw, heard, felt, and tasted with her own senses.

  The nonsense she’d spouted about Merlin the wizard was just that—nonsense. Nick’s suggestion that Hattie might come back as a ghost was just as ridiculous. All of this had to be happening because of the tension between her and Nick.

  In spite of her resolve to study the script, her mind went back to Nick. She made a mental list of possible solutions if he refused to sell. Discuss “it.” Bring the volatile situation into the open. Admit to “it.” Force a confrontation and get past the lust.

  The lid on the floor vibrated.

  Dusty grabbed her script and her coat and left the house in a jog. She didn’t know where Nick was, but there was the sound of laughter in the air as she ran toward the ART Station.

  Nick stood at the hospital window, trying to explain what had happened in the last few
days. Bill Lewis, the doctor who had seen him through the accident and the trauma afterward, didn’t interrupt.

  “I know that bandaging a finger is nothing, but I did it, Bill. And I didn’t need to be asked. As for the incident in the restaurant, I can’t explain it. If anybody else on the hospital board heard me saying that Sigmund Freud was there, they’d ship me off to the loony bin.”

  “You’ve known all along, Nick, that your memory loss is selective. Anything to do with medicine, you closed out. I can’t say that I understand why you made your work the scapegoat for the death of your wife, but who ever understands the way the mind operates?”

  “It was more than just her death,” he said. “It was the way I cheated her, from the beginning.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better about things. I was afraid that when Hattie died you’d go into a tailspin.”

  “No. In some strange kind of way, her death was a catharsis. Then Dusty came along …”

  Bill stood from behind his desk and flipped on the X-ray viewer on the wall behind him. “Say, Nick. I wish you’d have a look at this and tell me what you think.”

  Nick turned and looked at the film being displayed. He studied it for a long moment, almost unaware of his mind cataloging the chest and the mass that filled the picture. It was huge, and it was a puzzle, totally unlike anything he’d ever seen.

  “How old is the patient?”

  “Twenty-nine weeks old,” Bill answered, afraid to verbalize Nick’s involvement. He knew that memory return could be a fragile thing, and he waited.

  “You’re kidding,” Nick said sternly. “A fetus? What did the autopsy show?”

  “She isn’t dead, at least not yet. But she’s in trouble. We’re considering surgery.”

  “Now?”

  “Two doctors in California are doing some remarkable work while the fetus is still in the womb. Of four cases they’ve attempted, three have been successful.”

  “Of course, it would depend on the problem,” Nick said, leaning forward for a closer view. “You might be able to use laser on something like this.”

  Moments later Nick had projected a possible method of removing the mass. So engrossed was he in the problem that it took him by surprise when Bill made his offer. “If the board decides to approve our attempt, do you want to assist?”

  “Yes! I mean …” His voice trailed off. “No. I’ll never go back to that. I made up my mind. Don’t—don’t do this to me, Bill.”

  “You can’t hide from what you are forever, Nick. The mind may have given you a respite, but it’s not going to tolerate your refusal to be what you are. I don’t know what you expect to do with the rest of your life, but I think it’s time you gave it some serious thought, and if it takes Sigmund Freud to force you, I say welcome.”

  “Not Sigmund Freud,” Nick said in a low voice as he started toward the door. “Hattie started it by sending me an ex-convict who’s driving me crazy.”

  “So call the police. I’m sure the law can get rid of whoever is harassing you.”

  Nick gave a dry laugh. “You don’t understand, Bill. The woman is a cop.”

  Bill shook his head. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, but if it involves fending off a woman, you, of all people in the world, ought to be able to handle it.”

  On the way home Nick considered Bill’s words. He couldn’t hold back the return of his memory. It came with a rush as unstoppable as the flood of water breaking through a dam and overwhelming everything in its path. He was still a doctor. He couldn’t deny that. He just couldn’t deal with it yet either.

  One thing he could deal with was Dusty O’Brian. He’d never believed his jest that Hattie was likely to come back as a ghost. It had just slipped out, a tool to deal with the pragmatic approach to life of Hattie’s adopted niece. He refused to believe in ghosts.

  Dusty was another story. At least she was flesh and blood, a human being, a problem he could face. Sure, he was attracted to her. Any man with even half a dose of testosterone would be attracted to that body, those eyes, that hair.

  She’d charged in, determined to run her own show. On the defensive, it was her mouth that had fueled the problem until she’d learned of Hattie’s death. She still thought she’d closed off her past. But now, like him, she was discovering that there were cracks in her coat of armor, beginning with the storytelling and the gypsy skirt.

  Just thinking about the kiss they’d shared made him hard, about how her lips parted hungrily beneath his, joining in that same surge of raw need. It was Hattie who had brought Dusty to him, but it was Desirée who had unthawed Nick and freed his inhibitions, released his cravings.

  That had to stop. As he’d so often advised his patients concerned about losing weight: If they craved a thing so much that it interfered with reason, indulge it and get past the need.

  Indulge the craving.

  Sound advice.

  He’d make love to Dusty and satisfy that need. Afterward he’d decide what he would do about her, about his medical practice, and his life.

  “And don’t you interfere, Hattie Lanier,” he said out loud, startling one of the homeless standing on the street corner as he passed. “I’ve decided to take back my life and put the past behind me.”

  “Jolly good idea!” the man said with a smile of approval.

  When Nick turned back to hand him a buck, the man had disappeared around the corner. A quick breeze, funneled by the buildings, caught the bill, jerked it from Nick’s hand, and carried it away.

  Nick felt an odd sense of anticipation sweep over him. He felt like that bill, caught up in movement, being swept along to some new place.

  He might, he decided brashly, take a trip, maybe on the Orient Express. He rather liked the idea of being a mysterious character, alone, riding through the night to nowhere.

  But perhaps that’s what he’d been.

  SIX

  Betty welcomed Dusty into her office, cleared off the only chair, and motioned for her to have a seat.

  “Howdy, Dusty, what’s wrong?”

  “I’ve been studying the script this morning and I—I confess, I haven’t any idea what I’m doing. There’s no ending.”

  “Let me see it.” Betty took the typewritten copy and flipped to the end. “Good heavens, where’s the rest?”

  “I don’t know. That’s all I have. Nick said that Hattie changed the ending from year to year. That she hadn’t decided this year what she’d do.”

  Betty frowned. “That’s true. But the original story had an ending. As I recall, the woman became ill, and as she lay dying, her husband returned. They were finally reunited, but it took death to accomplish it.”

  A shiver ran down Dusty’s backbone. “Doesn’t sound like the kind of story Hattie would tell. She liked happy endings.”

  “Yes, that was her dilemma. She always wanted to fix things, make them right. Let me look around and see if I can’t find something written down in our files. In the meantime, would you like to get the feel of telling? You could rehearse what you have in the theater.”

  “On the stage?”

  “Don’t worry. There’s nobody in the building but you and me. You can be as bad or as hammy as you like.”

  Reluctantly Dusty let herself be walked to the theater. Betty turned on a soft spotlight that filled a circle on the platform and left Dusty to the empty stage.

  “Once upon a time—” she began. “No, dummy, that’s a fairy tale. This is for adults. All right, you people, listen up. No. That won’t work.”

  Dusty closed her eyes and let her mind wander back to a time long lost in the recesses of her mind. She’d been eleven and standing on the back porch. On her head was a crown and in her hand a scepter with a star on the end.

  “Now, Dusty, close your eyes and let your spirit float free,” Aunt Hattie was saying. “You’re not a little girl anymore. You’re a queen. Stand straight and feel like a queen.”

  “But I feel silly,” she’d argu
ed.

  “Of course you do. You’re not ready yet. Just stand there. It will come. Open your mind and your heart. You’re whatever you want to be. You just have to let yourself feel it. Feel like a queen.”

  Dusty found herself remembering that little girl, remembering how Hattie had made her let go of what she was in order to become whatever she imagined. And she closed her eyes, emptying her mind, waiting for her mind to be ready.

  Suddenly she wasn’t on a stage any longer; she was at the window of the plantation house, peering into the fading shadows of the night sky. She was cold and hungry. In the distance there was the sound of cannon fire and the smell of smoke. Everything else was quiet.

  “You have to close your eyes,” she whispered to her imaginary audience. “Free your mind of the real world as you know it so that you can become a woman who lived a hundred and thirty years ago. She’s afraid, very afraid. She’s alone. The man she loves is gone and she wants him home, desperately. Feel her desperation.”

  And Dusty went on, describing the woman, how she felt, what she wanted, and where she was. Then Dusty felt the woman’s pain. It was so acute that she broke off her tale and opened her eyes.

  “Very good. Very powerful,” Betty said in a hushed voice from the doorway. “I didn’t understand Hattie’s request that you tell her story, but you’re going to be special.”

  “But I still don’t know how it ends,” Dusty said, trying to cover the eerie feeling that had swept over her.

  “Well, I have two other versions of the same story here. Hattie said a relative composed this story originally and it was passed on to her. The woman’s dead now, but Hattie had her permission to alter it any way she wanted.”

  Dusty took the folder Betty was holding. “I’ll read them over, but I don’t make any promises. This feels weird.”

  “Well, all you have to do is try. If you’re terrible, nobody will hold it against you. The ART Station owes Hattie a great deal. Following her wishes is more important to the station than your performance. Don’t forget, rehearsal tonight is at seven o’clock at the plantation house. Come early so that you can try on your costume.”