Picking Up the Pieces. Barbara Gale

till her smooth black skin glowed like a pearl; her long, slender neck dripped with diamonds; her clothes custom-fitted by Versace. Beyond his touch. She was royalty now; she dined with princes.

      It was the sight of her fellow passengers scattered around the drafty building, trying to get comfortable in a place designed to keep them moving, that finally convinced Althea she really was stuck at the airport. Her frustration was clear. She removed her sunglasses to reward Harry with a long, hard stare. “Harry, your concern is commendable, but I didn’t ask for your help, and I surely don’t appreciate your lousy mood. Like I said before, why don’t you put down my bag and disappear?”

      Her thick-lashed amber eyes may have made her famous, but flashing as they were, Harry was immune. “Althea, honey, I swear I would if I could, but my conscience would never let me sleep. There’s about two, maybe three more inches of snow due to come down before this storm is done, so like it or not, we’re stuck with each other. So, what’s it going to be? How would you like to play this out?” Harry gave her a long searching look.

      He watched as she considered the question, her beautiful face a portrait of uncertainty as she scanned the terminal, looking for an alternative. In the end, he merely shrugged. “All right, Allie, a compromise. We hang out together, and I ask no questions. That way my conscience won’t bother me, and your privacy won’t be invaded.”

      Flopping down beside her, he suddenly didn’t want any answers. He was too busy trying to deny the band of sweat that had broken out across his brow, trying to force down the bile rising in his throat, control the furious way his head was spinning. Christ, was he really going to embarrass himself right there in the terminal? Hell, there was no way he was going to make it home if this kept up. Why weren’t the damned pills working?

      Althea…

      But he couldn’t work words past his parched lips.

      Althea…my head…I can’t breathe… Althea, stop swaying…

      Althea…

      Chapter One

      The waiting room in Elmhurst Hospital was chilly and poorly lit, but Althea didn’t mind. She had her fur coat to warm her and hospital protocol to distract her. Waiting for an ambulance at the snowbound airport had been a major distraction of worry, too, but eventually it arrived to whisk them away. Then the paperwork, and all those questions for which she didn’t have answers. But as long as they were tending to Harry Bensen, wherever he was, having been swallowed up by the medical machine, she didn’t care what the admitting nurse wrote down.

      How strange it had been to run into him. Of all people, didn’t one always say? Old lover, lost love. The set of his shoulders, the way he walked, the tilt of his head, the color of his hair. Had he honestly thought she could ever forget? A woman never forgot her first love. Never.

      When finally she was allowed to see him, every inch of Harry’s torso was wired to various monitors, and an IV was dripping magical curatives into his arm. Although Althea was able to smile with some measure of relief, she couldn’t help noticing how frail he seemed, lying against the starched linen of the hospital bed, his lips white and chapped, the rest of him an alarming shade of yellow. Fighting an odd impulse to brush her lips across his brow, she instead allowed her fingers to skim his burning temple. Harry’s eyes fluttered at the featherlight touch.

      “Hey soldier, how are you feeling?” she whispered.

      Depleted by his illness, tremendously dehydrated, and dazed by the drugs dripping into his arm, Harry was grateful to feel a cool hand on his body. Barely able to open his eyes, his smile was tenuous as he fought the surge of happiness he felt when he saw who was standing by his bedside.

      Althea leaned over him, her concern plain as she brushed his hair from his forehead. Obviously fighting, too, an ineffable sadness. “Oh, Harry, why didn’t you tell me how sick you were? No, don’t answer that,” she hushed him with a timid smile. “It was my fault, I had no idea, I should have noticed. Malaria. Who would have thought? You sure scared the heck out of me, back at the airport, collapsing like that without any warning.”

      “Next time…I’ll send…a telegram.”

      “I wish you would,” Althea admonished him tenderly, recalling her horror as Harry had slid to the cold ground, a ballet in slow motion. “Never mind. The doctors aren’t quite sure what you have but they’re pumping you up with antibiotics. Your blood count is high so they’re running a few tests, but they do promise you a full recovery. They said you have to take better care of yourself, though. No more trips to steamy climates, for one thing.”

      “They…said so?”

      “That and more, way more than I should know about your body,” she teased gently. “I think they assume I’m your wife.”

      “You didn’t correct them?”

      “The path of least resistance.” She thought he was smiling but couldn’t be sure, his lips were so cracked. It probably hurt to speak, it probably hurt for him to move anything, given his high fever.

      “Hush now, I’ll do all the talking.” Gently she pressed a piece of ice to his parched mouth. With the lightest touch she bathed his face and hands with a wet washcloth, trying to cool him down. Eventually he seemed to be more comfortable. You poor guy, she thought, what on earth have you been doing to get to this point? I sure hope this is the worst you’re going to go through. But she knew that was wishful thinking; she hadn’t seen anyone this ill in ages.

      Not wishing to disturb him, but unwilling to leave him alone, Althea sat by his side for an hour, until a nurse came to check on his IV. Although the nurse told her she could stay as long as she liked, Althea knew she still had to battle the snow and figured this was a good time to leave. Quietly she gathered her belongings.

      “I think I’ll be getting home, now that he’s safely settled,” she whispered.

      His head barely turning, Harry’s eyes flickered open when he heard the scrape of her chair.

      “You’ll come back?” he begged hoarsely as he followed her with his eyes.

      How could she refuse? Nodding, Althea pressed his hand gently, ignoring the wrench in her heart.

      Once, long ago, when she’d had choices to make, Harry Bensen had been one of them. Leaving him behind had not been the high point of her life, and she would never fool herself that he forgave her. Looking down now at his ravaged body covered with wires, she knew all he wanted was a lifeline to the outside world. Glancing at the machines surrounding his bed, monitors attuned to his every heartbeat, an oxygen tank helping him to breathe, she could appreciate that. All right, then, she would give him what she could, and maybe—in the smallest way, of course—it would make up for what she had refused him in the past. Giving in to her impulse, she lowered her lips to kiss his brow and promised to return.

      Dawn was breaking as Althea left the hospital. A path plowed by the maintenance crew enabled her to make her way to the express bus, the only vehicle big and heavy enough to dare the city streets after such a storm. Glittering with six inches of newly fallen snow, New York was a prism of beauty now that the sky had cleared, and as the bus lumbered into Manhattan, she was treated to the sight of a skyline that seemed just short of unearthly. Against the expanse of white snow that covered the buildings and floated on the river, a red-orange sun was creeping into the early-morning sky, painting the city with a Technicolor wand. For one brief moment, suspended as she was between her old life and new, Althea wondered if the sight was an omen. It pleased her to think it was.

      The bus left her two blocks from her West Side co-op, but treading carefully, she managed to make her way home. It had been nearly a year since she had been back, but Broadway seemed the same. She dashed through the heavy brass doors of the lobby, hungry for its familiar warmth.

      In the year she had been gone, its ornate vestibule remained unchanged. Heavy gold-framed mirrors still decorated the walls; the vestibule was still crowded with cabbage-rose sofas and fake greenery. Its familiarity was a comfort, and yet a strong