LITMIR.BIZ

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It could turn against her. Ben could turn against her. Especially if he knew the truth.

      “Hello, Ben,” Shannon said, trying to clip off her words to keep him disinterested.

      His eyes lit up instantly. Her ploy wasn’t working in the least.

      “Hi, Shannon.” He smiled. “Merry Christmas.” He got up from his uncomfortable metal chair. “How are you today? Pretty as ever, I see.”

      “Ben,” she said warningly, going into John’s room.

      Ben followed her inside. He said nothing, only watched her.

      She felt the silence, awkward and heavy, slowing her movements. She cuffed John’s arm, took his blood pressure, then his temperature and marked them on the chart.

      “Any change?” Ben asked, crossing the room and looming over John’s face.

      “None.”

      Ben smiled charmingly. “Would you tell me if there was?”

      “Yes,” she said, as she took out sheets to change the linens. She put her hand on her hip and glared at him. “What do you want, Ben?”

      Glancing at his feet sheepishly, he replied, “I wanted us to have a meaningful conversation about our relationship.”

      “We don’t have a relationship.”

      “Okay. We work together, then. Does that make you more comfortable?”

      “Nothing about this makes me comfortable,” she replied hastily, putting new cases on pillows and exchanging the old pillows behind John’s head for clean ones.

      Ben rubbed the back of his neck, and tried another tack. “Would you agree we’re more than that?”

      She sighed. “Ben, be honest. You said it before. You’re lonely. You just don’t want to be alone at Christmas. Whether it’s with me or not isn’t really the point.”

      “That’s not true at all. Damn it, you know that. Why are you being so tough?”

      She shrugged. “I’m not tough.”

      He rubbed his jaw as if she’d hit him. “It doesn’t look like that to me.”

      “Please don’t do this to yourself, Ben. I’ve tried to be nice about this. I’m just not interested in you…like that.”

      “I just don’t get you, Shannon. I feel there’s a connection between us. There is something going on, but you won’t let it happen. You said there was no one else, but you act like there is. I went so far as to ask Chelsea and she said you had absolutely no man in your life. So that can’t be it.”

      Grinding her jaw angrily, she answered, “Chelsea doesn’t know flip about me or my life. I do have someone.” She glanced at John.

      “Aw, hell. Why did you lie then?”

      “It’s very new. Just came up, I guess you could say. And Ben, it’s really none of your business.”

      Holding both palms in the air, he backed toward the door. “I get the picture.”

      “Ben…” She started toward him.

      “No, really,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s my fault. Just hardheaded.”

      She could see the pain in his eyes and felt wretched. She hadn’t wanted it to be like this. She wanted to consider Ben a friend, and if her life had been different, maybe she might have taken a chance on him.

      As the door shut behind him, Shannon couldn’t help thinking it seemed so final. And suddenly she realized she’d lost something valuable.

      She went back to removing John’s open-backed hospital gown—a tedious task given his size and dead weight. She dipped a washcloth in warm, sudsy water and washed his back, then his chest, his arms.

      She remembered the dream she’d had and how John had kissed her. Stretching her arm across his chest to dip the cloth in the water again, her breast brushed against him. She felt an immediate heat rise inside her.

      “Sorry,” she said to the comatose man.

      She washed his legs, moving from the thighs to the feet and then back up again. She rinsed him with a cloth dipped in clean water.

      “I feel sorry for Ben, wanting to see me. But I just can’t.” She smiled to herself, wringing out the cloth for a last swipe of rinse water across his abdomen. “You’ll always be my special guy.” Her voice grew wistful. “More than special. I suppose I can tell you the truth now. I claimed you for myself that first night. I don’t know how to explain it. It was as if…” She remembered Ben’s words. “I felt a connection between us. As if I knew you somehow. Of course, that’s impossible. We’ve never met. But you’re special. That I know.”

      Just like I know this is crazy. I’m crazy.

      She looked out the window at the Christmas lights glittering through the haze.

      “I promised you we’d be together tonight and I’m not a welsher.” She smoothed John’s hair away from his face, fighting a profound sentimentality she thought she’d lost long ago.

      Don’t do this to yourself, Shannon. It’s too dangerous.

      She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, but stopped herself from going farther. Instead, she resoaped the cloth and began on his hands.

      She stopped abruptly. “Why hasn’t anyone come for you, John?”

      Discarding the cloth, she wove her fingers between his, soaping them, massaging them. “Can you hear me? I like your hands. Manicured. It’s been a long time since I’ve known a man who had manicures. Let’s face it, it’s been a long time since I’ve known a man, period.”

      His fingers closed around hers and she smiled. “You’re warm…” Suddenly, his fingers tightened.

      “God!” She jumped back. “You moved!”

      He bolted upright, his eyes clearly focused, his movements swift. He dug his fingers into her wrist, twisting her arm behind her back. A metallic object flashed in his hand.

      “What are you doing?” she gasped.

      He choked off her words with a twist of her arm. “Shut up!”

      Pain shot through her arm and up her neck. “Ahhhh!”

      His face was so close she could feel his breath. His eyes were compelling in their frightening glint. “Don’t say a word!”

      “What…” Her tongue was tied, her eyes wild.

      “One sound and I shoot this hypo into your jugular. You know what an air bubble to the brain can do?”

      Her eyes shot to the hypodermic needle already piercing her throat. Terror made her numb, she couldn’t speak. Time stood still. She couldn’t talk.

      “Did you hear me?” he demanded.

      She couldn’t swallow, her tongue was like lead. Only by sheer determination did she manage to say, “Just don’t hurt me.” She held her breath.

      He pricked her skin with the needle. “That’s up to you. Do as I say and it’s a bargain.”

      Her lips were so dry from fear they stuck together. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her response. “Okay.”

      “Unhook this catheter and get this IV out of my hand.”

      Shannon nodded as he eased his hold on her, but only slightly.

      John kept the hypodermic imbedded just beneath the skin, dangerously close to her jugular.

      “Easy! Easy! Can’t you be more careful?” he groaned as she urgently removed the catheter. “That hurts.”

      “S-sorry.” Her hands were shaking so

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