“Oh, God.” Logan’s voice choked with relief “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“Yours…too.”
“For more than one reason. What I did to you—” his voice hitched “--the tracheostomy. My utility knife is no scalpel, but it’s all I had. But you’re speaking now, thank God. No damage to the larynx. How’s the swallowing?”
She tested it out. Working her throat hurt a little less sore than when she’d first woken up. “It’s…okay.”
“No aspiration. Excellent.” She heard the scrape of something—his fingers through his hair? “I know it’s painful to talk, so let me do the talking—”
“Logan.” A hoarse interruption, but he paused. “You…saved me.”
“No—don’t.” He made a strange noise. “I don’t want gratitude. It’s just what I do. I kept you alive. You were strong, so strong.”
She pressed the phone against her ear, wishing he had called her by video so she could see the expressions on his face. His voice sounded weird. Uneasy, uncomfortable, a little frustrated. It brought to mind that heartbreaking evening in his work shed, when she’d asked too many questions about the carved birds, and about his work as an emergency doctor in the Amazon.
“Come,” she rasped, swallowing again. “To…hospital.”
“I can’t.” His voice short, clipped.
“Why…?”
A fraction of a pause. “It’s past visiting hours.”
He couldn’t possibly be worried about that, not considering how Dr. Nguyen had gushed over him.
She said, “Break…rules.”
“I already have.” Was that a sigh? “You’re talking to me through contraband. Cell phones aren’t allowed on the ward. I had to twist Dr. Nyugen's arm to slip it to you, so I could hear your progress myself.”
His stubbornness hurt, almost as much as her throat. Maybe he couldn’t tell how much she missed him, now that she was reduced to speaking in monosyllable. Clarity, then, she thought, mustering courage. Pride didn’t seem all that important right now.
“I need…you.” The word love she held bated on her tongue.
Silence throbbed on the other end of the line. She could tell he’d stopped pacing. She heard cicadas and crickets singing, and recognized the music. He was standing in the darkness under the stars. Maybe on the deck outside the cabin. Their cabin, where she’d fallen in love.
“Jenny.” His voice was strangled. She heard the undeniable sound of a screen door swinging open and then slapping closed. “You’re on powerful meds right now. We can’t have any reasoned discussion while you’re pumped up with sedatives.”
What did they need to discuss? She just wanted to hold his hand, to be with him, to feel his warmth.
“By the time I got there you’d probably be asleep.” His steps echoed, like he was passing through the hall that headed toward the bedroom. “Is there anyone you want me to call?”
I don’t want anyone else. A bud of worry began to blossom. Why wouldn’t he come?
He said, “What about your parents?”
“No.” Her parents would fly out and ask too many questions and never leave her a moment alone with Logan. “No…one.”
“Okay, but let me know if you change your mind.” He made restless, hurried noises, like he was gathering things, maybe cleaning up the cabin up. “Dr. Nyugen told me she wants to keep you for observation until the day after tomorrow. I can’t visit tomorrow—I have something I have to do. I’ll fetch you out of the hospital once you’re discharged, okay?”
A dark hand closed over her heart. He wasn’t going to visit tomorrow either? Not even for an hour? What was this thing he had to do that was more important than coming to the bedside of the woman whose life he’d just saved? She couldn’t imagine what. Nothing had seemed urgent to the Logan she had shared the cabin with. But she hardly knew him, really. She’d been with him for barely two weeks. Now she began to wonder if Dr. Nguyen knew more than she did about the man.
She pressed the phone hard against her ear, seeking whatever subtle message he was broadcasting that she wasn’t picking up, just as she heard a zipping noise.
The familiar, gut-wrenching sound of a suitcase being closed.
“The day after tomorrow, Jenny,” he said into the silence, his voice falsely bright. “Then, I promise, we’ll talk.”
The call disconnected. She let the phone drop from her hand onto the hospital bed. She turned to her side to curl around it like the leaves of a mimosa pudica, the touch-me-not fern that folded inward whenever wounded. She stared at the white room, at the blank walls and shining floors, at the IV bag hanging from the stainless steel pole, trying to make sense of a life turned upside-down. The sound of nurse’s footsteps came from the hallway, along with the murmur of voices. One hot tear slipped out of her eye and burned a trail down her cheek.
Logan had warned her. His life was in transition. He could offer her nothing beyond the two weeks in the cabin. A cabin he’d retreated to after what had happened in the Amazon, to spend months carving wooden birds to occupy his doctor’s hands. Birds that looked like they could fly away. Unlike his terrible memories. And what had she done, then? She’d led him deep into the Pacific rain forest, only to collapse into anaphylactic shock and propel Logan right back to his own private hell.
She closed her eyes. She had fallen too fast and lost control of her emotions. It wasn’t the first time. She should be used to being abandoned by now.
That zipping noise was the sound of Logan saying good-bye.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Two exhausting days later, Logan pulled the car into a parking spot in front of the hospital and shut off the ignition. Before he went face-to-face with Jenny, he had one last phone call to make.
“Logan!” Dylan exclaimed, picking up his cell phone after one ring. “You’re on my calendar to call today. You beat me to it.”
Logan pulled a face. Back at their college reunion, Logan, Dylan, and Garrick had agreed to keep in touch with each other, but
