He’s confident that she’s healing, but there’s no way to tell when she might come out of the coma.”
“And there have been no visitors?” Reid asked.
“No. The police have been quite explicit about that. The only people who have been allowed in this room are doctors, nurses or members of our volunteer staff.”
“There was a reporter from the New York Times who stopped by last week,” Officer Jameson said from the doorway. “I told him about the no-visitor policy.”
“A reporter?” Reid asked.
“Very polite young man. James Orbison,” Jameson said.
“Can you describe him?” Reid asked.
“Medium height, short brown hair, slender build,” Jameson said.
“Cute,” Nurse Braxton added. “He wore preppy clothes, and the glasses added a geeky aura. Sexy.”
Jameson glanced at the nurse with a raised eyebrow. “Sexy?”
Braxton shrugged. “Just saying.”
Reid interrupted the byplay. “Anything else you can recall?”
“He said he’d written an article about Castle MacPherson a little over six months ago,” Jameson said. “He’d convinced his editor to let him do a follow-up piece once some of the Stuart sapphires were discovered.”
“You didn’t let him visit Ms. Lewis?”
“No. He did see her through the glass. No way to prevent that. And he had questions about her condition. But I told him that he’d have to talk to Sheriff Skinner over in Glen Loch if he wanted any further information. He said that the sheriff was next on his list.” Jameson’s gaze shifted to Deanna. “She’s such a pretty little thing. It’s hard to believe that she threatened to kill someone.”
Nell agreed with the young officer’s assessment. Even with her head wrapped in bandages, Deanna Lewis was pretty. Hooked up to all the tubes and wires, she looked fragile and defenseless. Yet she’d taken out Duncan with a Taser shot and then kidnapped Piper at gunpoint.
“You mentioned that members of the volunteer staff are allowed in the room,” Reid said. “Who are they exactly?”
“Oh, we have an amazing group of people who volunteer their services here at the hospital,” Nurse Braxton said. “Many of them are senior citizens, but we also have college students who are required to do community service as part of their degree programs. Since Deanna didn’t have any family visiting, Dr. Knight asked the woman who runs the service if she could find someone to spend time reading to her. He believes that the sound of a human voice often speeds the recovery of coma patients.”
“And the volunteers do that?” Reid asked.
“One volunteer,” Nurse Braxton said. “After her first visit, she said she’d try to come back every day. But the day before yesterday, she said she had to go out of town for a couple of days and not to expect her back for a few days.”
Nell glanced at Reid, and she could tell what he was thinking. She asked the question. “What did this woman look like?”
“Brunette, tall and very attractive. In her early fifties, I’d say. Well dressed. Good jewelry.”
“Did you notice a ring on her finger?” Nell asked.
Nurse Braxton nodded. “Yes. A gold one with a kind of crest on it. I remarked on it. She said it was the family coat of arms.”
“Gwen was on her name tag,” Officer Jameson said. “She signed in as G. Harris.”
Reid turned to him. “Was she ever alone with the patient?”
“No, sir. I always left the door open when she came, just as I’m doing now. All Ms. Harris did was read to her. The same book each time. A children’s story with pictures. Sometimes she’d read it more than once.”
“Do you remember what the story was about?” Nell asked. But she was pretty sure she already knew.
“It was a fairy tale about this Scot who stole his true love away from her family, brought her to the New World and built her a castle with a magical stone arch. Made me think of the one over at Castle MacPherson.”
* * *
NELL WAS ASLEEP beside him when Reid turned down the dirt road that wound its way to the castle. He’d updated Duncan and Sheriff Skinner in Glen Loch before they’d left the hospital and then insisted on driving Nell’s car.
If Gwen Harris showed up again at the hospital, Officer Jameson or whoever was on guard would contact Skinner discretely. Reid and Nell hadn’t discussed what they’d learned; in fact, they’d barely spoken since they’d left the traffic of Albany behind. He could tell that, before she’d drifted off, she’d been doing exactly what he was doing—running through the possible explanations for the information they had gathered from their visit to the hospital. Nell’s subconscious mind was probably still busily looking at the various story lines while she slept. The problem was there were too many possibilities, and so far they couldn’t prove even one.
As the car crested a steep hill, he shifted his attention to the view. Below lay a postcard snapshot of Castle MacPherson tucked into the mountains on a rocky promontory overlooking a quiet blue lake. The image perfectly matched the one he’d carried around in his mind for seven years. The three stories of gray stone stood sturdy and strong, the sun glinting off its windows. Gardens stretched to the west, high cliffs to the east. He even caught a glimpse of Angus’s legendary stone arch at the edge of the gardens before the road took the final steep dip that ended at the castle drive.
As he pressed down on the brake for a sharp curve, he glanced over at Nell. She slept like a child, her hand tucked beneath her cheek on the car door. Keeping her safe had to be his top priority, but he wasn’t at all sure he could keep her safe from him.
File it away and forget it.
Excellent plan. Too bad he didn’t have a chance in hell of sticking to it. When they’d tried that experimental kiss, desire seemed too tame a word for the gut-deep, soul-searing arousal he’d experienced. That wasn’t the part that scared him the most. What did was that, at some point while he’d been kissing her, he’d wanted to give her more. He’d wanted to deny her nothing.
If that woman in the hospital parking lot hadn’t accidentally set off the alarm in her car, he would have made love to Nell right in the front seat of her Fiat. He’d never done anything quite that reckless in his entire life. Not even when his teenage hormones had been at their peak.
Just the thought of it tempted him to pull off onto a side road, find a spot that was a bit more private and finish what he’d started in the parking lot. Reckless and impulsive were qualities he ruthlessly suppressed. Now Nell was making him want to set them free.
Even more troubling was what he had felt when she had mentioned the man she’d fallen in love with. Jealousy. The coppery taste in his mouth, the wrench in his gut—both had been unprecedented.
He might be able to get out of this unscathed. If he dropped her at the castle and never saw her again. That scenario wasn’t open to him.
But if they started down the path where their desires were leading them, he didn’t see a happy ending for either of them.
He didn’t want to hurt her. She was young and idealistic, and she had this incredibly sunny outlook on life. There was no way she wouldn’t expect a happy-ever-after. And she should have it. In many ways, she’d always reminded him a bit of his mother. He’d seen, perhaps more than his brothers ever had, the kind of pain she’d suffered when she’d learned that their father had never loved her. Reid never wanted to be responsible for hurting anyone the way his father had hurt all of them. Better not to go there. Nell deserved someone who would love her and have a family with her.
Ahead of him, the road leveled and the crunch of gravel