Stupid. Wrong. Incredible anyway.
His arm gave way, and he slumped back onto his pillow. Her heat and peach fragrance still clung to the tangled sheets.
A shuffling, then coughing noise broke into his concentration. Gray frowned, looked around, his gaze landing on the red light glowing from the nursery monitor. Thunking his forehead, he mentally kicked himself. How could he have forgotten about Magda a few feet down the hall?
Never had he let his personal life interfere with his professional responsibilities. If he were totally honest with himself, he considered Magda more than just a professional obligation. Each hospital checkup with his pint-size patient had only edged her further into his heart. Now she was Lori's child. That alone made her special, no matter how many mind games he played with himself about keeping his distance.
Gray heard the shower swish on just as Magda coughed again. Raking his fingers through his hair, Gray reined in his thoughts and libido. No easy task, but necessary if he hoped to make it through the morning.
He shoved to his feet and lumbered down the hall. Opening Magda's door, he found her sitting up in bed, her eyes wide with early-morning groggy confusion. Her hair spiked in at least three different directions. Bed head, his mother called it.
Magda eyed Gray and clutched a Barbie in her fist. Tenacity and wariness mingled in her little eyes. She had spirit no language barriers could disguise.
Yeah, she was a special kid.
"Hi, Magda." He entered slowly so she wouldn't bolt. She needed peace while she recuperated. After the life she'd likely had, the kid needed peace—period.
"Magda?" He extended his hands. "Let's go see Lori."
"Yori?" Huskiness from coughing distorted more normal childish tones.
"Yeah." He nodded. "Lori."
He held his hand out and waited while she scrambled from under the covers. Her legs dangled over the edge of the bed, her bare feet not quite touching the floor. Gray reached to take her hand. With rabbit speed, she jumped down and scampered past him.
Apparently, her trust wasn't easily won.
Kids didn't forget and forgive as easily as some thought. He knew that well enough from his own childhood. He hadn't understood the change in his father until he was an adult, and then it had been too late. They'd grown too far apart.
Gray shrugged off depressing thoughts. Too much soul picking wouldn't accomplish a thing. He needed to remember that, before Lori had him spilling his guts all over her priceless Oriental rugs again.
He followed Magda to Lori's room, silence echoing from the bathroom. He rapped two knuckles on the bathroom door. "Lori?"
Magda skirted past him to press her ear to the door.
"Lori?" he called again, then decided he'd better warn her about Magda. Lori had been spitting nails when she'd charged to the bathroom. Magda didn't need to overhear the tones from angry fallout that belonged squarely on his ears. "Magda wants to talk to you. She's right here."
"Gray." Lori's voice wobbled.
Was she crying? Guilt clubbed him. His brow fell to rest on the frame. He should have checked his libido at the door before he'd crawled into bed with her. "Lori, are you okay?"
"No. Go away. Please."
Like hell he would leave her crying over him. "Not a chance. Cover yourself, or whatever you need to do, because I'm coming in." He gave her a five count and hoped the door wasn't locked so he wouldn't have to pull some lame John Wayne stunt. "Now."
He pushed the door open and found Lori sitting on the bathroom floor swaddled in a bulky white bathrobe. Her green pallor answered his question before he could even ask.
Lori blanched. "Stomach flu."
Gray stretched out on Lori's sofa and channel surfed. She had been too incapacitated to turn down his offer to watch Magda for the afternoon. Lori had started to protest. Then her face had turned seaweed green and all arguments died as she'd shoved him out of the bathroom and slammed the door in his face.
For the best, since he still wasn't all that steady after their near miss earlier, and he needed time away from her to regain his footing. Taking care of Magda offered a perfect distraction until he could leave. After an hour he and Magda had arrived at an armed truce. As long as he didn't pick her up, she was fine.
They'd had breakfast, Magda's a bland diet of dry toast in accordance with her own stomach flu recovery. She'd eyed the cow cookie jar with longing as if to say "Yori" would have given her one. He'd held strong. Not too difficult since he didn't relish the idea of mopping up that cookie later.
Now Magda played quietly on the rug while Lori slept the day away. He'd hauled the Barbie house into the living room so he could catch the ball games.
Not a bad gig.
Magda seemed to be a low-maintenance kid, and she didn't want his attention anyway. Which stung a little more than it should have. Kids always liked him. He was the favorite uncle. The Disney dude. King of Barbies and Tonkas.
Gray thumbed the button until he found the cartoon channel and pitched aside the remote. Good thing Lori was totally out of it. Memories of her passion-dazed eyes, her playful touch swirled through his mind. He didn't have much left in the way of reserve ammunition around her.
So much for his clean break.
When he'd checked on her earlier, her weak smile of appreciation had slathered on the guilt. Who'd have thought she would turn weepy over a pack of crackers and a cup of tea? Weren't women supposed to want roses and Godiva chocolates?
Of course he'd given her those a year ago, for all the good it had done them.
Lori was grateful for such damned unpredictable little things. That stabbed at him. She deserved more. She deserved everything. The house, the kids and a husband who could commit to something more than the next piece of rank on his shoulder.
He thought of the next assignment and its assurance of his promotion to lieutenant colonel within a year. Tomorrow would start his last week of work at Charleston Air Force Base, his final flight scheduled for Friday, his party at his folks' condo on Saturday.
His parents. Damn. Gray sat up. He'd promised his mother he would stop in over the weekend.
Gray snagged the phone from the end table and punched in the number. Listening to the call go through, he watched Magda march her Barbies in front of the dollhouse.
The ringing stopped.
"Sergeant Clark's quarters," his father's clipped voice answered. Even retired and living off base, the old Chief Master Sergeant never shed his military routines.
"Hey, ol' man, it's me. Could you put Mom on?"
"Sure, son." The phone clattered to rest. "Angela…"
And that was it. The standard conversation he could expect with his dad. He wasn't sure anymore if it was his fault or his father's but didn't much care, other than it seemed to bother his mother.
The phone crackled with muffled sounds of his parents talking while he waited, watching Magda. She mumbled in her own language, and he resolved to find a translation dictionary. Some familiar words flowed through the gibberish, like "Mama" and "Papa."
Could she still have memories of her real parents? Her file hadn't held much information, except that her mother and father, both local schoolteachers, had died about eighteen months ago in a village raid. With no other living relatives, Magda had been placed in the orphanage.
She slid a smaller doll into the swing, the "Papa" doll behind pushing. A fist tightened around Gray's heart.
Of course she would have memories, spotty but real. His nephew remembered the color of a car they'd sold when he was two. Gray remembered his father—
"Grayson?" His mother's voice jolted him back to the present. "Where are you, sweetie?"
"Hi, Mom, still in Charleston. Sorry, but I'm not going to be able to make it out there this weekend. I'm, uh, with a patient today." Not a lie, but good thing his mom couldn't pin him with those laser, lie-detector eyes or he'd be busted for sure. If he didn't keep her diverted, she'd be talking about his sex life again. "And I'm on call tomorrow."
"Oh, well, work has to come first," she chirped, ever the good soldier.
Gray grimaced. "I'll still be over next Saturday for the party."
"And we'll be at your little ceremony on base Friday."
Magda folded the "Mama's" legs and sat her on the tiny porch steps. Lori would have a field day analyzing the doll play unrolling before him.
Gray yanked his attention back to the phone conversation. "You don't have to come to that, you know."
"We wouldn't miss it. Your father's looking forward to it."
Yeah, right. "Okay, then."
The little girl doll swung higher. Magda giggled and squealed, sounds Gray had never heard from her before. Perhaps if he looked into an interpreter, Lori could collect those memories for Magda and record them for when she was older. Magda squealed again.
"Who's that?" Angela asked.
Busted. Apparently, his mother's radar extended through telephone wires. "Uh, my patient."
"You're still working with those children from overseas?"
"Uh-huh." Keep it simple and get off the phone. "Look, Mom—"
"What about that little patient you and Lori were going to check on?" His mother's bracelet jingled over the phone. "Are you seeing her?"
"Yeah."
"I thought she wasn't supposed to be in the hospital more than a couple of days."
Might as well spill it before his mother concocted something more convoluted than reality, although he couldn't imagine what that might be. "She's home. Her foster parents backed out, so Lori stepped in. She called for a consult when Magda got sick."
"Magda," she sighed, her grandmother bracelet chiming. "What a sweet little name."
He could almost hear the jeweler's engraving tool etching out the name on a new charm for his mother's bracelet. "She's a sweet kid."
When she wasn't scowling at him.
"I'll bet she would enjoy playing with all those other children at the base party Friday."
Seconds ticked by while Gray clamped his teeth together. Magda moved the papa doll as he pushed the swing. She should remember her father had played with her. Every kid should have happy childhood memories.
His own father had been big on camping trips and parks when Gray had been a boy. Of course, looking back now, Gray realized that's probably all their budget would allow. Those simple vacations made for good memories. Odd how he hadn't thought about them in years.
"Grayson? Are you still there?"
"Yeah, Mom."
"Why don't your father and I pick up Lori on our way to base? Then she won't have to bother with the guards and registering her car at the front gate. Where does she live?"
"Above her office, but Mom—"
"If the two of you are back together, you really need to make the most of your time before you leave."
He and Lori a couple again. He could see how his mother could come to that conclusion.
Had Lori gotten the same idea from all the time they'd spent together? He'd told her they weren't going to start anything. But he'd seen that softening in her eyes when he'd told her about his father, then again when he'd brought her those lame crackers.
Somehow he needed for her to realize what he'd said about his job was true. Maybe a trip to the base, combined with time spent with his parents might help her to understand.
He ignored the annoying voice that insisted he was scrounging for excuses to spend more time with Lori. "Okay, Mom. I'll ask her and see what she thinks."
"Maybe she would also like to come to your family party on Saturday—"
"Don't push it, Mom. We're talking about Friday. Magda can have fun with the other kids. Lori and I can say goodbye then. But no family party."
