LITMIR.BIZ

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knew the woman had a wide variety of threads and a full selection of sewing needles to choose from.

      She also knew that Dorothy didn’t bother locking her door. It reflected on the kind of atmosphere that the inn prided itself on. Here everyone was treated like a trusted family member.

      Knocking first to make sure she wouldn’t be walking in on Dorothy, Stevi gave the housekeeper to the count of twenty before opening the door. That’s when Stevi remembered that the housekeeper had gone for a much-needed rest to visit with friends in Ohio. Stevi slipped in, then quickly closed the door behind her.

      Dorothy’s small room would have made a nun’s quarters look almost frivolous. The only visible item that was in the least bit personal was a framed photograph that had been taken a couple of Christmases ago in the reception area by one of the guests. Dorothy and the entire Roman family, including Cris’s son, Ricky, were standing in front of a ten-foot Christmas tree.

      The sewing box she was looking for was next to the only upholstered chair in the room. Both faced the window for better light, she guessed.

      Opening the sewing box quickly, Stevi picked up a spool of white thread and a needle that looked to be of average thickness and length. Pausing, she wondered if Silvio would rather use a thinner needle. Or a thicker one? Unable to decide, she took three and hoped she wasn’t missing something obvious.

      She quickly closed the sewing box, leaving it where she found it.

      She opened the door just a crack to make sure no one was passing by. Most people were either still in their rooms or had gone to the dining area for breakfast, which meant she was relatively safe, she reasoned, as she slipped out of Dorothy’s room and hurried back to her own.

      “Got it,” she declared, leaning against the door she’d just closed, looking for all the world like a fugitive who had outrun her pursuer.

      “Did you have to drive into town to get it?” Silvio asked. His eyes remained on the unconscious patient as he held out his hand to her.

      “It wasn’t easy to find,” she answered defensively. Coming forward, she placed the spool of thread in his hand. When he looked at her quizzically, she produced the three needles. He took the midsize one.

      Silvio had already used the alcohol and gauze to wash the area around the wound and to try to stem the flow of blood.

      As she watched, he measured out a length of thread, snapped it away from the spool and threaded the needle after first dousing it with alcohol.

      Then, with a sure hand, he methodically sewed up the man’s wound. With each stitch he took, he spared a glance toward the unconscious man’s face, waiting for some sort of reaction or sign that he was waking up. But the man continued to be unconscious.

      Mercifully, Stevi thought, the stranger wasn’t awake to feel the needle.

      Finished with his handiwork, Silvio bit the end of his thread.

      The stitches were small, neat and parallel. Gardeners, she was certain, didn’t know how to sew like that. Most people didn’t sew like that.

      She looked at the man she had known almost from the very beginning of her life. What he had just demonstrated took training.

      “Silvio?” she said uncertainly.

      “Yes?” he responded, a guarded note in his voice.

      “Where did you learn to sew like that?”

      He shrugged. “I had a mother who was too busy to take care of the seven children she had given birth to, so I did what I could to help out.”

      Stevi frowned. The stitches were more professional than those of a child who was desperate.

      “And you sewed their clothes?” she asked, trying to coax more out of him.

      “Sometimes,” he said with another shrug. “I also might have learned how to do that while I worked at the hospital.”

      She really hadn’t known what sort of work Silvio had done in a hospital in his past. She’d made a few assumptions, she now realized. This was not the skill set of an orderly or a janitor.

      Just who was this man her father had taken in all those years ago?

      “Silvio?” she pressed.

      “Yes?” His back was to her as he tried to make his patient as comfortable as possible.

      Placing his fingers against the man’s pulse, he silently counted the beats, then quadrupled them. The heart rate was getting stronger, he thought with satisfaction. He hoped that this—caring for the stranger—didn’t turn out to be a mistake on his part.

      He empathized with this stranger. In a manner of speaking, all those years ago he had been the one who had washed up on the shore. His shore had happened to be Richard Roman.

      “What did you do at the hospital?”

      Her question made Silvio lift his head as he stopped what he was doing. For a second, he stared straight ahead without turning to face her.

      He decided a partial answer might be enough, so he told her quietly over his shoulder, “I was a physician’s aide.”

      For a moment, she forgot all about the man lying in her bed and looked instead at the man she considered part of her family.

      “Then what are you doing here?” He had a vocation, an ability to help people heal. Why would he be satisfied gardening?

      Silvio turned around, his face the picture of earnestness. “Tending to your mother’s garden because your father asked me to.”

      Stevi still had trouble accepting and processing the information. “Don’t you miss being a physician’s aide?”

      There was a calmness in his voice as he answered her question. “If I missed it, Miss Stevi, I would be there. Instead, I am here, helping your father. Helping you,” he added, looking from her to the man he’d helped bring into her room.

      It took all kinds to make a world, she reminded herself. And she didn’t want Silvio to think that she was questioning his judgment.

      “I guess things work themselves out for the best.”

      As to that, Silvio wasn’t 100 percent convinced, at least, not in this particular case. “That still remains to be seen, Miss Stevi.”

      The patient appeared to be breathing more easily now, she thought. And it might have been her imagination, but she thought his color was a little better. A little less pale at any rate.

      “How long do you think he’ll be unconscious?” she asked.

      “That is difficult to say,” Silvio said. “The man has lost a lot of blood, but that appears to be the only wound. Since you do not want to take him to a hospital—”

      “I don’t,” she said with feeling. “At least not until he can speak for himself.”

      The expression on Silvio’s face was stern. “Hopefully, it will not be too late by then.”

      “It won’t be,” she answered.

      “How can you be so sure?” It wasn’t a challenge so much as a desire to know why she was so confident she was right.

      “I just am,” she answered.

      Silvio sighed. He was going to have to step up his efforts to watch over this family. “Then we will just have to wait and see,” he said calmly, like a man who was going to sit back and wait for things to unfold.

      He rose from the side of the bed. From his perspective, there was nothing else he could do until the man woke up. But there was just one more thing he needed to know.

      “When will you tell your father about this?” he pressed.

      She nodded toward the stranger. “Not until he wakes up and can tell me what happened to him.”

      She

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