No Regrets
It was so quiet up here, with only the sound of the air rushing over her outstretched arms. So peaceful. Looking down at the idyllic-appearing landscape, one would never imagine that the city could harbor so much cruelty, pain and suffering. She began to soar even higher, toward the vast firmament with its sparkling stars and Milky Way glittering like gold dust scattered over midnight blue velvet.
As she flew past the sun, her flowing silver sleeves suddenly went up in flames, engulfing her in a blazing fireball. She came crashing back to earth, hitting the ground with a bone-rattling thud that made her moan.
“Reece! She’s coming to!”
Lena’s familiar voice sounded as if it was coming from the bottom of the sea. Molly thought she heard Reece answer, but she could not make out the words. She struggled to regain consciousness, tried to open her eyes, but they were so heavy and her mind was so fogged, she gave up the attempt and drifted back into the mists.
The next time she woke, the sun was streaming in through the window, and Molly wondered what she was doing in bed in the middle of the day. She must be ill, she decided. But that was odd because she never got sick. The nuns at the Good Shepherd Home for Girls had always said she had the constitution of a horse. And the personality of a mule.
Concentrating mightily, Molly managed to rouse herself, then immediately wished she hadn’t. Her muscles were screaming with pain, there was a bone-deep throbbing between her legs, her breasts felt as if someone had touched a torch to them and her face ached horribly. So horribly, Molly wondered if her dream of burning up hadn’t been a dream at all.
It took a herculean effort, but she managed to pry her eyes open. The first thing she saw was Reece, slouched in a plastic chair across the room. He was asleep.
She opened her mouth to say his name, but her lips were too dry to form the words. Her faint moan snapped him from his light sleep.
“It’s about time you decided to wake up and join the living.” As a doctor, Reece had thought he’d become immune to suffering and death. Until he’d seen Molly lying amidst all that garbage, valiantly clinging to life.
He held out a plastic glass, encouraging her to take a sip of water from the straw. “Not too much.” He took the glass away too soon. It seemed she’d barely had a chance to wet her lips.
“I’m…so…thirsty.” It was not Molly’s nature to complain. But she felt as if all the sand on the Los Angeles coastline had somehow ended up in her mouth.
“I know. But you’ve been on IVs for the past eight hours, so you’re in no danger of dehydration—”
“Eight hours?”
“Thomas found you when I was going off shift.”
Thomas? She shook her head, then wished she hadn’t, when lightning flashed behind her eyes and boulders inside her head shifted.
“Was I—” she had to struggle to get the words out “—in an accident?” Molly felt as if she’d been run over by a bus.
“There’s plenty of time to get into details later.” He reached down and brushed her dark hair away from her forehead with a soothing touch. ”Lena’s been going out of her mind with worry. She’s in the cafeteria. Let me go get her.”
He left the room, leaving her question unanswered.
Molly was staring up at the ceiling, trying to focus her mind, which she realized was fogged with some heavy-duty painkiller—Demerol?—when she became aware of the sound of footfalls on the tile floor.
The sight of the blue uniform took her back suddenly to that terrifying night when the house had been surrounded by police. She could hear the unforgettable sound of the front door being kicked in, and she gasped involuntarily. The sudden intake of breath was incredibly painful.
“The doc said your ribs are cracked,” a baritone voice rumbled. “You probably should avoid any deep breaths.” Ignoring hospital rules, he sat down on the bed. “How are you feeling?”
His face bore a striking resemblance to Alex Kovaleski. But this was not the man who’d tried for so many hours to talk her father out of murder. It was his son, Dan, who had, over the intervening years, become almost like a brother to Molly.
“Thirsty,” she managed.
He glanced over at the pink plastic glass. “Did Reece say you’re allowed to drink anything?”
“Since when did you become a stickler for rules and procedure?”
He laughed at that and held out the glass to her. “Welcome back. I told Lena that low-life slimeball couldn’t beat the spunk out of you.”
“Beat?” After taking a long wonderful drink, she tried to blink away the fog clouding her memory. “I was beaten?”
“Aw, hell. Reece didn’t tell you?”
“No.” But Dan Kovaleski’s frown spoke volumes. “I guess it’s up to you.”
He looked as if he’d rather try to serve a speeding ticket on Zsa Zsa Gabor. “How about we wait and see what the doc thinks you’re ready to hear?”
“I never would have taken you for a coward, Daniel Kovaleski.”
He cursed ripely. “Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got to be the most stubborn female God ever made?”
“All the time.” The familiar sparring helped clear her head and take her mind momentarily off her pain. “Personally, I’ve always taken it as a compliment.”
“You would.” He cursed again, softer this time as he linked their fingers together. “There weren’t any witnesses, Molly. At least none that we could find, which doesn’t mean anything.
“Right now, all we know is that you left the hospital a little before midnight. Six hours later, Thomas showed up at the ER door, frantic because he’d found you lying unconscious in the alley a few blocks away.”
Her fingers tightened on his. “Is he all right?”
Dan shrugged. He had never liked Molly’s dangerous predilection for picking up strays. “Thomas is Thomas. He’s the same as he always is. Nuts.”
“He’s in emotional pain,” she managed to argue. “But he still managed to get help for me.”
“Point taken.” His gaze drifted out the window toward the mean streets. “It’s also a possibility that he’s the one who did this to you in the first place, then suffered a sudden case of remorse. Or fear.”
“Thomas would never hurt anyone.”
Dan’s expression was cop hard. “You can’t be sure of that, Molly.”
“I’d stake my life on it.”
“When all that Demerol wears off and you can think rationally again, you might just realize that may be exactly what you’ve done.”
Although the brief conversation had exhausted her, she had to stand up for a man she knew didn’t have the strength to stand up for himself. “Thomas isn’t responsible.”
“Actually, you’re probably right,” he agreed with obvious reluctance. Two strong-willed people, they’d argued often over the years and neither was fond of losing. “Since the test results came back negative.”
“Test results?”
A reluctant smile hovered at the corner of his grimly set lips. “From what we could tell, you bopped the guy a good one, kiddo. Not all that blood in the alley was yours.”
“Nor Thomas’s.”
“No.” He gave her a long look as if judging whether or not to say more.
Belatedly understanding his dilemma, Molly decided to help him out. “I was raped, wasn’t I?”
He closed his eyes, briefly. When he opened them, Molly saw regret and embarrassment. “Yeah.” He exhaled a long breath. “Hell, Molly, I’m so sorry.”
She thought of all the rape victims who’d come through the doors of the ER and realized that in some way, she might be fortunate her memory had blocked out the assault. “You and Reece don’t need to tiptoe around the subject. I’m no different than any other rape victim.”
“Yes you are,” Dan shot back. “The fact of your being a nun—and a virgin—should put you off-limits to creeps like that.”
Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, had been raped, Molly remembered. When she also recalled that Dinah’s brothers had massacred all the men in the rapist’s city to avenge the defilement of their sister, she decided not to share that particular Bible story with this grim-faced man.
“Virgins get raped every day. Some of them are children.” Although her eyes were barely slits, she managed to meet his frustrated gaze. “And I’ve seen you deal with that.”
“True.” This time it was his fingers that tightened on hers. “But what you don’t see is me throwing up afterward.”
Molly tried to smile, then flinched when the attempt pulled the stitches Reece had sewn in her top and bottom lips. “You’re a good man, Dan. And you’re definitely your father’s son.”
His grip loosened, his smile brightened his brown eyes. “Speaking of Pop, he’s been driving everyone nuts waiting to get in to see you.”
Amazingly, Alex Kovaleski had taken an interest in the orphaned McBride sisters after that fateful night fourteen years ago. He’d even tried to adopt them, only to be informed that divorced men were not suitable fathers for little girls.
The bureaucrats were wrong. Molly didn’t want to think about how much worse their rocky childhoods would have been without Alex Kovaleski in their corner.
He’d attended her Profession Day, his chest puffed up with pride as she’d repeated her vows and had the slender gold ring of Christ slipped onto her finger. And although he was a man given to wearing plaid shirts and jeans while off duty, he’d willingly donned a morning coat to give Lena away at her wedding to Reece. Her unconscious smile tugging at the stitches returned Molly’s mind to her reason for being a patient in her own hospital, but before she had a chance to think about that, Lena rushed into the room and threw her arms around her older sister.
“Do you have any idea how much you frightened us?” she asked on a sob as tears streamed down her delicate cheeks. “I was so afraid I’d lose you. Just like…”
Lena didn’t finish the sentence. There was no need. Molly knew they were both thinking of their mother. And Tessa.
“I know.” Although the tight embrace was making her ribs feel as if they were on fire, Molly hugged her sister back. “It’s okay. I’m going to be fine.”
“Of course you will,” Lena agreed. Belatedly remembering Molly’s injuries, she released her. “And as soon as Reece lets you out of here, we’re going to have the biggest celebration in history.” She gave Dan a watery smile. “You and your dad are invited.”
He grinned back. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
They might not be a Norman Rockwell painting, Molly admitted. But she and Lena and Reece, along with Dan and Alex, made one pretty terrific family. And even as her head throbbed and her body ached, she felt the warmth of love in the room and knew everything was going to be all right.
Chapter Four
Elaine Mathison was a stunning woman with a lion’s mane of tawny hair that tumbled over her shoulders. She was tall and slender, and wore a simple tube of ivory silk designed to showcase a figure toned from hours spent with a personal trainer.
“Hello. And aren’t you lovely!” she welcomed Tessa. She exchanged a look with Jason—that was the handsome policeman’s name, Tessa had learned. “Darling, you’ve outdone yourself this time.”
“Tessa was afraid she’d be crashing the party,” Jason revealed.
“Nonsense.” Elaine smiled. “A party can never have too many beautiful women. Believe me, darling, with your fresh, innocent looks, you’re going to be a hit.” That stated, she linked arms with the young woman and led her across the sea of white marble in the entry hall.
A massive crystal chandelier dominated the hall, showering sparkling light on a towering sculpture of two lovers in an intimate embrace. Palm trees framed the arched doorway of a living room shimmering in silver and white.
Set high in the hills of Bel Air, the house boasted stunning views of the glittering city below and the dazzling waters of the Pacific Ocean. The scene reminded Tessa of something from the Arabian Nights. Just gazing out over the scene was like being on a magic carpet ride above Los Angeles.
Although there weren’t as many big-name movie stars as Tessa might have wished for, she did recognize several guests. All the women, she noted with a tinge of envy, were young and ravishingly beautiful, and the men older, but still handsome. And those who weren’t handsome looked as if they had so much money, it didn’t matter. Expensive perfumes filled the air, mingling with the seasonal scents of juniper, fir and pine.
Tessa was not overly intimidated by the unfamiliar splendor. Having grown up on air force bases all over the world, she’d acquired the instincts of a natural chameleon. By the time she was ten years old she’d attended seven schools and had developed the ability to adapt her behavior to immediately fit in to her new landscape. She’d worn Izod polo shirts and khaki shorts in New England, flowery cotton summer dresses in Georgia, faded jeans and eelskin boots in Wyoming.
She’d hiked the Grand Canyon, donned Gore-Tex against the unrelenting rains of the Pacific Northwest to ride a racing bike along thirty miles of Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail, and had, in what she would always consider the ultimate endurance test, sat through Wagner’s famed Ring Opera with fellow senior year drama students in Germany. Of course, the fact that she’d been having a secret, passionate affair with her teacher, a self-professed Ring fanatic, made the experience more palatable.
She’d no sooner sat down beside the pool with Jason when Elaine approached.
“Darling,” she said to her son, “I hate to bother you with business, when you’ve just arrived, but Jeremy Stone insists on speaking with you in the library. It seems he’s in desperate need for someone to serve as a police consultant on his new movie and of course you immediately came to mind.”
“I’ve already got a job, Elaine,” Jason said equably.
“Of course you do. But if you’d only talk with him.”
He sighed as if this was a familiar argument, and turned toward Tessa. “I won’t be long.”
She smiled up at him. “I’ll be fine.”
He laughed at that and ran a finger down the slope of her nose. “Oh, you’re a lot better than fine, Tessa Starr.”
Still glowing from that tender touch, Tessa was watching a stunning blonde clad in a thong bikini playing a spirited game of Marco Polo with an aging television comic when a handsome man wearing obviously expensive linen slacks and a collarless shirt approached. If Jason hadn’t just left, Tessa would have sworn it was him.
“My baby brother tells me you’re an actress,” he said, handing her a slender crystal flute of champagne.
“Jason’s your younger brother?” She took a sip. The pale gold wine tasted like sunshine on water.
“By eight minutes. And I do my best not to let him forget it.” His grin might have been a replica of his brother’s, but the devils in his dark eyes were all his own. “But I have to admit this time the kid has definitely demonstrated terrific taste.”
Tessa took another sip of champagne. “Thank you,” she murmured into her glass.
“Don’t thank me. Thank whatever magnificent gene pool you were spawned in.” He rocked back on his heels. “I assume you have photos?”
“Of course.” She was pleased for a chance to demonstrate that she wasn’t as naive as he thought her to be. She pulled the photos from her oversize purse.
Although Tessa thought them flattering, Miles’s frown was not encouraging. “These look like high school graduation shots.”
“Your brother thought they were good.”
“My brother’s a cop. All he saw was a drop-dead gorgeous female. While I, on the other hand, see the unflattering shadow beneath your eyes, and the way whoever was behind the lens didn’t even try to show off your cheekbones.”
He reached out and ran his fingertips along the bones in question. “You could cut crystal with these,” he murmured. “But that hack made you look like a chipmunk-cheeked farmer’s daughter.”
That stung. “I suppose you’re an expert on photography?”
“Actually, I am.” Rather than appearing fatally wounded by her attempt at hauteur, he seemed amused. He cupped her elbow in his palm. “Come with me and I’ll show you what a real photographer can do with a face like yours.”
Tessa didn’t think she liked him. She knew she didn’t trust him. However, now that he’d pointed out the flaws in the photographs, she could see that he was right.
She was trying to decide what to do when Jason returned. “You keep manhandling my woman, Miles,” he said mildly, “and I’ll have to throw you in the slammer.”
“I was just going to show Tessa my rogue’s gallery.”
“I think she’d rather see my Wanted posters.” He put his arm around her bare shoulders. “Wouldn’t you, sweetheart?”
She looked back and forth between the two brothers, trying to figure out whether or not their rivalry was real or a longtime game they enjoyed playing.
“You’re scaring her,” Miles complained. The smile he bestowed on Tessa was absolutely harmless. “Would you feel better if Officer Friendly here came along with us?”
Tessa reminded herself that a faint heart never achieved anything. “I think I’d like to see your photographs.”
“Terrific.” He nodded with satisfaction. “I’ve shot some of the most stunning faces in the business. And believe me, very few of them can hold a candle to you.”
Exchanging a look with his brother over the top of her head, he led Tessa back into the house.
* * *
The next time Molly woke, she found another familiar face sitting in the chair beside the bed.
“You realize, of course, that you scared us all to death,” the elderly nun, who was the closest thing Molly had to a mother, scolded.
“Next time I’m raped and beaten, I’ll try to be more discreet about it.”
A frown furrowed the forehead that, when Molly had first met her, had been covered by a starched wimple. “This isn’t a joking matter.”
“On that we’re in full agreement.” Molly scooted up in bed, wincing at the pain in her hips. Obviously Reece had cut back on his orders for drugs. “How’s Lena?”
“Your sister’s going to be fine.” The nun fingered her rosary beads absently. “Thanks to her husband. The man appears to be a rock.”
“He is that.”
“Father Murphy said a mass for you this morning,” Sister Benvenuto announced. “And the congregation is praying for you. As are all the members of the order, of course.”
“Tell everyone I appreciate their prayers.” Molly glanced around the room. “It looks as if someone threw a hand grenade into the middle of the Rose Parade.”
“You have a great many friends. The red and white carnations in that plastic Santa Claus vase are from Thomas. I have every suspicion that he stole them from a supermarket.”
Molly figured Sister Benvenuto was undoubtedly correct in her assumption. “It’s the thought that counts.”
The older woman shook her head. “You’re too easy on him. With the proper motivation he could return to the work he was called to do.”
“If God can’t provide the impetus, I’m not about to try.” Molly sighed as she thought about Thomas. “Besides, if he hadn’t given up the priesthood, he wouldn’t have been there to help me.”
“I suppose we’ll just have to write it off as another case of the Lord working in mysterious ways.” The older woman’s gaze sharpened as she studied Molly. “I was afraid we were going to lose you.”
“There was a moment I thought that, too.”
Molly knew the nun was not talking about her leaving the order, something they’d discussed on more than one occasion. Each time Molly had dared to profess doubts about a true vocation, Sister Benvenuto had assured her that such thoughts were not only normal, but expected. That such reflection would ultimately make her even more committed to her religious calling.
“It’s going to be difficult to deal with,” the nun predicted. “But you’ve always been strong, Molly. And with God’s help, you’ll survive this test of faith just as you’ve survived every other trial in your life.”
Although she didn’t believe that God would have deliberately caused her to be brutally attacked, to test her as he had Job, Molly saw no point in arguing. Even during her teens, when she’d been an angry young girl, rebelling against the myriad rules the sisters who ran the Good Shepherd Home for Girls had expected her to obey without question, Molly had admired the nun’s seemingly unwavering faith. So unlike her own, which always seemed to question everything.
“What would I ever have done without you?”
“God only knows. Although there’s always the possibility you could have ended up on the street, like those poor girls I pass every day,” the no-nonsense nun said briskly.
“Being sent to Good Shepherd was the best thing that ever happened to me.” What at first had seemed to be punishment, had in the end proven a blessing. The home for girls had been a sanctuary, the first Molly had ever experienced. “I wish Lena could have had the same security.”
Molly had often thought it ironic that Lena, who’d tried so desperately to fit in, was the one who’d suffered the most by being constantly shuffled from foster home to foster home.
“Lena is going to have to learn that true strength comes from within,” Sister Benvenuto said sagely.
Unable to argue with that, Molly was grateful for Yolanda’s interruption.
“I vant to suck your blood,” she said in a ghoulish voice. The sight of the gag store fangs gleaming white and red in the nurse’s dark face made Molly laugh. When you worked in a world where the bizarre and horrific were commonplace, sometimes laughter truly was the best medicine. And the only way to stay sane.
“This is the first in the series of HIV tests, isn’t it?”
“Now, aren’t you a clever girl. Anybody’d think you were a health-care professional, or something.” Yolanda took the fangs out of her wide mouth, put them in her pocket and pulled out a rubber tourniquet. “Hold out your arm.”
Molly did as instructed.
“Lordy,” Yolanda complained, shaking her head as she studied Molly’s freckled arm. “You call those veins? Those are purely pitiful, girl.” She wrapped the tourniquet around Molly’s upper arm.
“Lucky thing you’re in the hands of an expert. Health services tried sending up one of their lab vampires, but I cut him off at the pass. They tend to spatter the stuff all over, and with that pale white skin, I figured you didn’t have any blood to spare.”
When she took a needle out of another pocket and uncapped it, Sister Benvenuto rose. “I believe it’s time I let you get some rest, dear.”
Molly didn’t blame the nun for escaping. Hating having blood drawn even more than she disliked drawing it, Molly would have left if she could.
“I’ll return during visiting hours,” Sister Benvenuto assured her. “Sister Joseph is making those fudge brownies you used to enjoy. She’s making enough to bribe the medical staff into giving you preferential treatment.”
“As if anyone would have to bribe us to take care of our own,” Yolanda muttered after the older nun had left the room.
“She means well.”
“I suppose so. Although she reminds me an awful lot of that harridan who used to rap my knuckles whenever she caught me chewing gum at Sacred Heart Academy.”
The needle slipped into the vein as smoothly as a hot knife through butter. Although accustomed to the sight of blood, seeing her own filling the cylinder was an entirely different matter.
“All done.” Yolanda capped the cylinder and released the tourniquet. “I have to ask you if you do IV drugs.”
“You know I don’t.”
“Just following procedure. So, how about safe sex?”
Molly laughed at that, but the sound held no humor. “Before or after Christmas Eve?”
“Point taken. I’ll have the lab rush this and either Reece or I will let you know as soon as the results come in. You’ve got three more of these over the next nine months. When you test negative on the third one, you’ll be home free.”
“Thank you for saying when and not if.”
“Positive thinking is a powerful thing. Sister Crack-the-Whip who just left might call it praying, and existentialists might call it meditating, but the way I see it, it’s all the same thing.”