You have my sister’s phone number. If anything comes up and you need me, you call, you hear me? Any time, day or night.”
Her elderly neighbor bent down and brushed a kiss across Allie’s cheek. “I think of you as the granddaughter I never had, you know. I hope wherever we end up, we don’t lose touch.”
“Not a chance,” Allie promised, squeezing her hand.
She watched as Jane left, admiring her still-brisk step in her favorite pink shoes. She wore them today with an orange skirt and flowered shirt. A bright-orange baseball cap sat atop her white hair. It was an outfit that could stop traffic, which Jane counted on, since she hated wasting time on a corner waiting for a light to change. It was a habit that scared Allie to death.
All in all, her neighbor was a wonder, interested in everything and everyone. Allie saw her pause in the hallway and watched her face as she carried on an animated conversation with a nurse she’d befriended on her first visit. Jane had all of the doctors and nurses wrapped around her finger. Allie didn’t doubt that Jane was the reason they’d been taking such extraspecial care of her, bringing her treats from the cafeteria and lingering to chat to make up for the fact that she’d had so few visitors.
Once Jane was gone, Allie struggled to her feet, determined to take a walk around the room at least to begin to get her strength back. She closed the door on her way past so no one would witness her awkward, unsteady gait.
She was still limping around the confined space, filled with frustration, when the door cracked open and eyes the color of melted chocolate peered at her. When her visitor spotted her on her feet by the window, a grin spread across his face.
“You’re awake. They told me not to disturb you if you were sleeping.”
“Come in,” she said, glad to see her rescuer again so she could thank him properly for saving her life. “I just realized that I don’t even know your name.”
“Enrique Wilder,” he said. “Ricky will do.”
“Thank you, Enrique Wilder.”
He looked almost embarrassed by her thanks. “Just doing my job.”
“So you spend your life scrambling around like a cat saving people?”
“If I’m lucky,” he said.
She shuddered a little at the implications of that. “Well, I’m grateful.”
He moved carefully around the room, his gaze everywhere but on her. He seemed so uneasy, she couldn’t help wondering why he had come. He paused to gaze out the window, and after a moment she tapped him on the shoulder so he would face her.
“Why are you here?” she asked finally.
“To tell you the truth, I’m not entirely sure.”
“So this isn’t follow-up you do on everyone you’ve pulled from a collapsed structure?” she teased lightly.
He looked away. She could see his lips moving, but because of the angle of his head, she couldn’t read them. She touched his cheek, turning his head to face her.
“Oh, sorry,” he apologized. “I forgot. I just came to make sure you’re okay. No lasting damage?”
“None. You can check me off as one of your success stories.”
“When are they springing you?”
“Not fast enough to suit me,” she said.
“I thought the goal these days was to get people out as quickly as possible, too quickly sometimes.”
“That’s the general rule, yes, but these are unusual circumstances. It seems I don’t have a home to go to, and they don’t want me alone.”
“You don’t have a friend you could stay with?”
“None I feel I could impose on. I haven’t been in Miami very long. Most of my friends are neighbors.” She shrugged. They both knew the situation most of her neighbors were facing.
“Of course. How is Mrs. Baker, by the way?”
“Living with her sister and grumbling about it,” Allie said with a chuckle. “Jane is very independent. She thinks her sister is a stick-in-the-mud. A half hour ago, you could have heard all about it.”
His devastating smile tugged at his lips. “She was here?”
“Yesterday and today. She says it’s to check on me, but I think she’s just desperate to get away from her sister.”
“I know the feeling,” Ricky said.
“You have a sister?”
“Four of them.”
Fascinated by the idea of such a large family, Allie sat on the side of the bed and regarded him eagerly. “Tell me about them.”
He looked doubtful. “You can’t really want to hear about my sisters.”
“I do,” she assured him. “I was an only child. I’ve always been envious of big families. Tell me about your parents, too. Is your mother Cuban?”
“How did you guess?”
“Your coloring and your first name are Hispanic, but your last name is Wilder. Those looks had to come from somebody.”
He laughed. “Ah, deductive reasoning. Yes, my mother is Cuban. She met my father at school when she had just come to the United States. She swears she fell madly in love with him at first sight.”
“And your father, what does he say?”
“He says she didn’t look twice at him until they were twenty and he’d used up all his savings sending her roses.”
Allie chuckled. “Maybe she just liked roses.”
“That was part of it, I’m sure, but Mama has always understood the nuances of courtship. She might have been madly in love, but she wanted my father to prove his love before she agreed to a marriage that would be forever.”
“And the roses proved that?”
“No, but the persistence did.”
“And she passed all of this wisdom on to her children, I suppose, assuring that all of you have nice, secure relationships.”
“Let’s just say that my sisters each made their prospective husbands jump through hoops before they said yes. On occasion I felt sorry for the poor men. They had no idea what they were getting into. Sometimes I tried to warn them when they showed up for the first date, but it was too late. My sisters are very beautiful, and the men were already half in love with them before they arrived at the house.”
“How about you? How have you made your mother’s wisdom work for you?” she asked, surprised by how much she wanted to know if Ricky Wilder was married or single and how very much she wanted it to be the latter.
“I haven’t. Haven’t met a woman yet I wanted to impress.”
“But I’m sure you’re swimming in eager admirers,” she said, teasing to hide her relief.
“What makes you think that?”
“Please,” she chided. “Look in the mirror.”
His grin spread. “Are you trying to say that you think I’m handsome, Allie Matthews?”
“Facts are facts,” she said, as if she were stating no more than that. She hardly wanted him to know that he was capable of making her blood sizzle with little more than a glance. “Back to your sisters. Tell me about them.”
He settled into the room’s one chair. “Let’s see, then. Maria is the oldest. She’s thirty-six and has four children—all boys, all holy terrors. Each of them is fascinated by bugs and snakes and chameleons. To her horror, they’re constantly bringing their finds home and letting them loose