Season Of Glory. Ron/Janet Benrey

scrubs. It took him a few seconds to recognize her as the woman he’d talked with for more than an hour at the tea party. Sharon…

      Rats! I’ve forgotten her last name.

      She smiled at him from the doorway. “How do you feel?”

      “Confused. No one will tell me what put me in a hospital. I woke up an hour ago, and I’ve received a full-blown runaround since then.”

      “That’s my fault, I’m afraid.” She moved into the room. “None of the staff who came on duty after seven o’clock this morning knows the whole story of why you’re here. I haven’t had a chance to bring the nurses up to speed.”

      Andrew struggled to think of Sharon’s last name. She’d looked different in The Scottish Captain’s back garden. Her complexion had seemed more golden in the late afternoon sun, especially in contrast to the deep green of her outfit. But her blue scrubs this morning and the cool fluorescent overhead lighting in his room conspired to made her skin look pale, almost porcelainlike.

      Yesterday, her ash blond hair had brushed her shoulders; now, it was tightly pinned back. One feature hadn’t changed, however. Despite her metal-rimmed glasses, her amber eyes appeared as luminous as when he’d stood next to her on the gazebo steps—and even more lively.

      A vision flashed in Andrew’s mind. “I remember a stocky man,” he said. “In his forties. Mostly bald with a friendly face and a small goatee. He kept shining a light in my eyes.”

      “Ken Lehman is our lead emergency room physician. He spent most of the night working on you.”

      “I want to talk to Dr. Lehman. How can I get hold of him?”

      “You can’t right now. He went home to get some sleep.”

      “He’s home sleeping? That’s just wonderful!”

      “Actually, it is wonderful,” she said. “I had to fight with Ken to make him leave the E.R. He came on duty at two o’clock. yesterday afternoon, and it wasn’t until five this morning that he agreed you’d made sufficient enough progress for him to get some rest. I promised to monitor you and call him if your condition gets worse.”

      “Will I get worse?”

      “No. You’re on the mend.”

      Another memory jogged his mind. He’d woken up briefly during the night and seen a patchwork of images: a tress of blond hair, a woman praying silently and the glint of a needle attached to a green plastic tube.

      “You were my nurse last night, right? You stuck something in my arm.”

      Her amber eyes flashed mischievously. “Several somethings.”

      Concentrate! What’s her last name?

      Andrew tried to dredge up their conversation in the gazebo. Had she told him that she was an emergency room nurse? Probably, and many other things about herself, too—but most of the tea party was still a blank in his mind.

      You’re not as clearheaded as you thought you were.

      He peered at her nametag, but her last name was too small to decipher from across the room.

      “On the mend from what?” he asked.

      She took a step toward him. “You were poisoned.”

      “Tainted food! I thought it must be something like that.” He shook his head in mock sadness. “That’s what happens when Americans attempt to cook Scottish vittles without proper training. No doubt a fusty scone I ate at afternoon tea laid me loo—as my Scottish grandmother would say.”

      He expected her to nod, but surprisingly her face darkened. “None of the food you ate at the party made you ill.” Then she glared at him. “Not even the dessert I prepared.”

      Embarrassment tore through him. “I remember. You made the Strathbogie Mist.”

      “Which you loved.”

      “How could I not? It’s comfort food straight from my childhood. My grandmother served us Strathbogie Mist every Sunday—even during the winter when she used canned pears instead of fresh. That’s why I ate two helpings at the tea party.”

      “Now you’re fibbing,” she said with a laugh. “There weren’t any extra portions.”

      She came another step closer. At last, he could read her nametag.

      Pickard. Sharon Pickard!

      “There must have been extras,” he said. “Two of those little ceramic dishes appeared by my side. I don’t recall who gave me the first one, but I’m all but certain that Emma Neilson brought me the second helping a few minutes later.”

      Her smile vanished. “I wish you hadn’t eaten any.” She sat down in the visitor’s chair alongside his bed and pointed at his heart. “You were poisoned. Really poisoned. Someone tried to kill you by spiking one of your ramekins with oleander toxin. You consumed more than enough toxin to stop your heart. Oleander poisoning has a high death rate. You could easily have died last night.”

      Andrew glanced at her fingers a few inches from his chest, and then at the anxious grimace on her face. All at once, the words she spoke hit home. Poisoned. Toxin. Stop your heart. Death. He shivered as he recognized that she sincerely meant everything she said. He made a feeble wave toward the medical monitors in the room. “All these electronic gadgets…you actually used this stuff on me?”

      “Every last screen, meter and dial.”

      “I could have died…” he said without meaning to.

      “But you didn’t. Ken Lehman kept you alive.”

      Andrew recalled that he’d seen many glimpses of blond hair during the night. “Ken and you.”

      “True. I helped Ken,” she replied with a new smile that made her face glow.

      He realized that he was gawking at Sharon. Her jubilant expression made her more than striking—she’d become beautiful.

      Stare at her later. After she’s answered all your questions.

      “You said that the toxin I downed came from oleander. Do you mean the shrubby evergreen with large five-petalled blossoms? The plant some people call rosebay?”

      She nodded. “Is gardening one of your hobbies?”

      “I’m not sure I could recognize an oleander in the flesh, so to speak, but during the 19th century, the Ballantine Studios built several church windows that incorporate oleanders in their designs. I’m quite familiar with the stained-glass rendering of the plant. Some have pink blossoms, others white.”

      “Oleander is an efficient killer. Fortunately, the symptoms you presented helped Ken Lehman make a quick diagnosis. You even had the classic redness of the skin around your mouth.” She touched the depression on his face, just above his chin. “It hasn’t faded yet.”

      Andrew shivered at her touch, astonished at its gentleness. He thought back to the tea party. He remembered feeling woozy, uncoordinated. He wondered what he’d eaten that was making him nauseated and his insides ache. Then he became dizzy and everything changed perspective. He slowly became aware that he’d tumbled to the floor. His side hurt, but nowhere near as much as his stomach. He’d probably hit something solid, perhaps a chair, on his way down.

      Someone was shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw Sharon.

      “Dr. Carroll,” she said. “Can you take a look at Andrew?”

      A moment later, Andrew felt a woman’s fingers touch his wrist and then the artery in his neck.

      “His pupils are dilated and I don’t like his pulse. I barely felt anything in his wrist and his carotid pulse isn’t much stronger. I wish I had my medical bag.”

      “I know that Emma has an EpiPen auto-injector inside the Captain’s first-aid kit,”