New Year Escapes. Leslie Kelly

alerted her because she had been sitting beside his bed looking out the window, and now as he stared, dry-mouthed and disbelieving, slowly she turned and her gaze met his.

      For the first time in nearly four years he and Sophy—his wife—were face-to-face.

      Wife? Ha.

      They might have stood side by side in a New York City judge’s office and repeated after him. They might have a legally binding document declaring them married. But it had never meant anything more than a piece of paper.

      Not to her.

      Not to either of them, George told himself firmly, though the pain he felt was suddenly different than before. He resisted it. Didn’t want to care. Sure as hell didn’t want to feel!

      The very last thing he needed now was to have to deal with Sophy. His jaw tightened involuntarily, which, damn it, made his head hurt even worse.

      “What are you doing here?” he demanded. His voice was rough, hoarse from tubes and dry hospital air. He glared at her accusingly.

      “Irritating you, obviously.” Sophy’s tone was mild, but there was a concern in her gaze that belied her tone. Still, she shrugged lightly. “The hospital called me. You were unconscious. They needed next of kin’s permission to do whatever they felt needed doing.”

      “You?” George stared in disbelief.

      “That’s pretty much what I said when they called,” Sophy admitted candidly, crossing one long leg over the other and leaning back in the chair.

      She was wearing black wool trousers and an olive green sweater. Very tasteful. Professional. Businesslike, George would have said. Not at all the Sophy of jeans and sweats and maternity tops he remembered. Only her copper-colored hair was still the same, the dark red strands glinting like new pennies in the early morning sun. He remembered running his fingers through it, burying his face in it. More thoughts he didn’t want to deal with.

      “Apparently you never got around to divorcing me.” She looked at him as if asking a question.

      George’s jaw tightened. “I imagined you would take care of that,” he bit out. Since she had been the one who was so keen on it. Damn, but his head was pounding. He shut his eyes.

      When he opened them again it was to see that Sophy’s gaze had flickered away. But then it came back to meet his. She shook her head.

      “No need,” she said easily. “I certainly wasn’t getting married again.”

      And neither was he. He’d been gutted once by marriage. He had no desire to go through it again. But he wasn’t talking about that to Sophy. He couldn’t believe she was even here. Maybe that whack on the head was causing him to hallucinate.

      He tried shutting his eyes again, wishing her gone. No luck. When he opened them again, she was still there.

      Getting hit by a truck was small potatoes compared to dealing with Sophy. He needed all his wits and every bit of control and composure he could manage when it came to coping with her. Now he rolled onto his back again and grimaced as he tried to push himself up against the pillows.

      “Probably not a good idea,” Sophy commented.

      No, it wasn’t. The closer he got to vertical, the more he felt as if the top of his head was going to come off. On the other hand, he wasn’t dealing with Sophy from a position of weakness.

      “You should rest,” she offered.

      “I’ve been resting all night.”

      “I doubt you had much,” Sophy said frankly. “The nurse said you were restless.”

      “You try sleeping when they’re asking you questions.”

      “They need to keep checking, you have concussion and a subdural hematoma. Not to mention,” she added, assessing him slowly as if he were a distasteful bug pinned to paper, “that you look as if you’ve been put through a meat grinder.”

      “Thanks,” George muttered. Yes, it hurt, but he kept pushing himself up. He wanted to clutch his head in his hands. Instead he clutched the bedclothes until his knuckles turned white.

      “For heaven’s sake, stop that! Lie down or I’ll call the nurse.”

      “Be my guest,” George said. “Since it’s morning and I know my name and how old I am, maybe they’ll finally let me sign myself out of here and go home. I have things to do. Classes. Work.”

      Sophy rolled her eyes. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re lucky you’re not in surgery.”

      “Why should I be?” He scowled. “I don’t have any broken bones.” He was half-sitting now so he stopped pushing himself up and lifted his arm to look at his watch. His arm was bare except for the intravenous tube in the back of his hand. He gritted his teeth. “Damn it. What time is it? I have a class doing an experiment tomorrow. I need to go to work.” I need to get away from this woman—or I need to grab her and hold on to her forever.

      Sophy rolled her eyes. “Like that’s going to happen.”

      For a terrible moment, George thought she was responding to the words that had formed in his concussed brain. Then he realized she was talking about him going to work. He sagged in relief.

      “The world doesn’t stop just because one person has an accident,” he told her irritably.

      “Yours almost did.”

      The baldness of her statement was like a punch to the gut. And so was the sudden change in Sophy’s expression as she said the words. There was nothing at all light or flippant about her now. She looked stricken. “You almost died, George!” She even sounded as if she cared.

      He steeled himself against believing it, making himself shrug. “But I didn’t.”

      All the same he knew the truth of what she said. The truck was big enough. It had been moving fast enough. If he’d been half a step slower, she would likely be right.

      Would they have called Sophy if he’d died? Would she have come and planned his funeral?

      He didn’t ask. He knew Sophy didn’t love him, but she didn’t hate him, either.

      Once he’d even thought they actually stood a chance of making their marriage work, that she might have really come to love him.

      “What happened?” she asked him now. “The nurse said you got hit saving a child.”

      He was surprised she’d asked. But then he realized she might want to know why they’d tracked her down and dragged her here. It didn’t have anything to do with caring about him.

      “Jeremy,” George confirmed. “He’s four. He lives down the street from me. I was walking home from work and he came running down the sidewalk to show me his new soccer ball. He dropped it so he could dribble it, but then as he got closer he kicked it harder—at me. But it—” he dragged in a harsh breath “—went into the street.”

      Sophy sucked in a breath.

      “There was a delivery truck coming….”

      Sophy went very white. “Dear God. He’s not …?”

      George shook his head, then instantly wished he hadn’t. “He’s okay. Bruised. Scraped up. But—”

      “But not dead.” Sophy said it aloud. Firmly, as if to make it more believable. She seemed to breathe again, relief evident on her face. “Thank God.” And her gaze lifted as if she was in prayer.

      “Yes.”

      Then she lowered her gaze and looked at him. “Thank George.”

      There was a sudden flatness in her tone, and George heard an unwelcome edge of finality, of inevitability. Almost of bitterness.

      His teeth came together. “What? Did you want me to let