Sleeping with Anemone

contagious, requests privacy, or is in the intensive care unit.”

“How about the maternity ward?”

“I’m allowed.”

“So did you bring those flowers for Paula?”

I glanced at Marco. Damn. He knew we’d made her up. I could see it in the slight upward turn of the corner of his mouth. “Busted,” I said, and he shook his head.

“You’re so transparent, every thought and emotion plays out on your face.”

“I’m trying to correct that.”

“Don’t do it on my account. I like your face just the way it is.”

As a courtesy, I stopped at the nurses’ station to tell them my destination and get their approval. “No problem,” one nurse said, waving me on. She barely gave me a glance. Marco, however, was another story. As was typical with most every female, all three nurses stopped what they were doing to watch him. In fact, two of the nurses couldn’t take their gazes off him-or his hot pockets. I was surprised they didn’t form a conga line behind him.

A loud moan came from one of the rooms as we trundled the boxes up the hallway.

“I hate hospitals,” Marco grumbled.

“So you’ve mentioned. You were an Army Ranger, for heaven’s sake. You’ve seen worse.”

“Why do you think I hate hospitals?”

We stopped in front of 203, a private room. The door was open, but I knew better than to walk in without announcing myself, especially to a male patient. I called, “Floral delivery,” but nobody answered.

“Would you look to see if Peter’s presentable?” I asked Marco. “I don’t want to embarrass him.”

Setting the box on the floor outside the door, Marco walked to the end of a short hallway, past a bathroom, to see into the room. He peered around the corner, stared for a moment, then turned around and came out. “That’s not Peter Chinn.”

“Isn’t this 203?” I checked the ticket Lottie had written for the delivery. “Oh, wait. Lottie makes sloppy numbers. I’ll bet this says 208.”

Marco had a contemplative frown on his face as he picked up his box and carried it back up the hallway. “I don’t know who was in that room, but he reminded me of Tom Harding.”

“Tom Harding?” The former owner of Tom’s Green Thumb Nursery and Greenhouse, otherwise known as the first man I helped send to prison? No way. “Harding got a twenty-year sentence, Marco. If he were ill, wouldn’t he be in the prison’s infirmary?”

“Yes, he would. And the man I saw was heavily bandaged, so I’m sure it was a mistake.”

We carried the boxes to 208, where I called, “Floral delivery,” and, after receiving no response, Marco once again stepped inside.

He backed out quietly. “This is Chinn’s room, but it looks like he’s sleeping. Why don’t you leave his flowers with the nurses? They can bring them down later.”

“I hate to put that task on them. Maybe Peter’s just resting his eyes. Make some noise.”

Marco scowled. “No way.”

I sighed. Sometimes you just had to do things yourself. Holding my box, I announced myself again, then walked up the short hallway and peered around the corner. The assistant city attorney was propped up on several pillows, eyes closed. A television mounted on the wall was tuned to CNN, and behind him, a heart monitor made a steady blip across the screen.

“Floral delivery,” I called again.

Peter turned to gaze at me through half-closed lids. “Okay,” he said in a singsong voice.

I waved Marco in, but he refused to set foot in the room, so I put down my box and went back for the other one. “See how simple that was?” I said to Marco.

“Just put the flowers out and come back,” Marco said. “I’m leaving in two minutes.”

Right. Like he could go without me. Maybe it would do him good to get a sample of what my life was like, unable to travel anywhere on my own.

“And no haranguing!” he whispered as I headed inside.

“I’ll put these on your bedside table and window ledge,” I said to Peter, dispersing the arrangements. “Would you like to read the cards that came with them?”

“Okay,” he responded in the same dopey manner as before. I had a strong hunch he was sedated.

“How are you feeling?”

He pointed to the back of his skull. “Got a concussion.”

Oh yeah. Sedated. “From a slip on the ice, right?”

He didn’t reply. I studied him as I laid the gift cards on the tray table. He had his lips pressed together like a child with a secret. Hmm. What was that about? Was there more to his accident than the public knew?

“Was that how you got the concussion, Peter?”

“Not supposed to say.”

I moved closer to his bed. “For legal reasons?”

He frowned, as though he was trying to remember.

“Abby, let’s go,” Marco said from the hallway.

“One minute,” I called. I turned back to Peter. “Do you remember falling on the ice?”

He plucked at the blanket, as though he were getting agitated; then the blips on his monitor got closer together, so I backed off. “That’s okay, Peter. Just keep getting better. Anything I can do for you before I go? Pour some water? Turn up the volume on the TV? Run the next planning commission meeting?”

He pursed his lips into a pout. “I rang for the nurse, but she hasn’t answered. She brought me tea but forgot my honey.” He sounded like a sad little boy.

“Do you want honey?”

He nodded.

“I’ll be right back.” I dashed into the hallway and glanced around.

“Let’s go,” Marco said.

“I need to find honey first.” I saw a trolley cart parked down the hallway and made a beeline toward it.

“Honey who?”

Only a male would assume that referred to a woman. I found a box of honey packets on the cart, grabbed a handful, and showed him. “Actual honey, made by bees, for Peter’s tea.”

“Hey, it was an honest mistake.”

“How many women named Honey do you know?”

“One, and so do you.”

“Do not.”

“Sure you do. Honey B. Haven. Tom Harding’s girlfriend.”

I came to a sudden stop. Honey B. Haven? Wait a minute. Was that the woman with the ginormous hair whom I’d seen leaving the hospital? Because if that was her, seeing both her and someone who looked like Tom Harding was an awfully big coincidence.

“Marco, I thought I saw Honey downstairs when we came in. Do you think it’s possible Tom Harding is a patient here?”

“There’d be cops outside his door, remember?”

“Then you think it’s a coincidence that Tom Harding’s girlfriend was here?”

“There are all kinds of reasons for people to visit hospitals. Maybe she was visiting Paula and her new baby. Now, let’s take those packets to Peter and leave.”

“How about this instead?” I shoved the packets into his hands. “You take these to Peter. I’m going to see who’s in room 203.”

Without waiting for his response, I hurried up the hallway, only to stop short of entering the room. What if the man in that bed was the same jerk who had tried to do away with me?

Ridiculous, my little voice of reason whispered. Do you see any cops?

Not a single one. I took a breath and slipped inside. A large man lay beneath a blue hospital blanket, tubes in his nose and mouth, an IV in his hand, and a heart monitor behind him making slow blips across the screen. The top of his head was swathed in bandages, and his eyelids were purple and swollen, yet he did bear a striking