Just One Night Together by Deborah Cooke

 

One

December 29—New York City

She looked so frail.

Damon always had to stop and catch his breath at first sight of his mom. Once it had been because of her beauty and the smile that could make everything come right. Now, it was because nothing would ever come right again. He’d never get used to the change in her. He just didn’t want her to ever see horror in his expression.

Every week since April, he’d left F5F at five sharp. The story was that he had a date with Natasha. That much was true.

But Natasha wasn’t a romantic interest. She was his mom.

And she needed him more than ever.

Since her diagnosis, Damon had gone home every Friday night, to the house in Queens where he’d grown up. He’d helped his mom, small tasks at first, then more complicated ones. He couldn’t remember when he’d started cooking in batches for her, stocking the freezer with the foods she loved. It seemed he’d always done it, because she didn’t like to cook for herself, but since the previous winter, he’d done it more. Then he’d moved home in July, giving up his studio apartment downtown, so that she wouldn’t be alone at night while she went through her first round of chemotherapy. He’d commuted to and from the club.

By August, he’d had to hire someone to be with her each day. That had been over his mom’s objections, after she’d fallen and broken her wrist while he was at work. The doctor agreed that she shouldn’t be alone at all after that, and Damon had been relieved. Friday nights had become their time together, the companion’s night off. It had nearly killed him to go to Harte’s Harbor for Ty’s wedding in September but his mom had insisted and the companion had stayed that weekend. Damon’s mom made it through the chemo and the radiation without the leukemia going into remission. The oncologist had recommended another more aggressive round of treatment.

Then in November, just after Thanksgiving, she’d fallen again. That time, she’d broken her hip and had been checked into the hospital.

Damon watched her sleep and reviewed his earlier meeting with the oncologist. The bottom line was that the cancer wasn’t responding to the treatment. It had spread into her nervous system and, even though the oncologist wasn’t giving up, Damon understood the prospects. There were alternative choices, and he had donated more blood for stem cell transplant, but he had to face the truth.

The treatment wasn’t working.

His mom wasn’t ever going home again and he couldn’t bear to tell her.

He knew she’d prefer to be in a familiar setting, but it was much simpler for her to get the care she needed while she remained in the hospital. The team was pulling for her, but Damon feared it wouldn’t be enough.

There were no good choices, except coming to see her as often as possible. He liked to come at night, when the hospital was comparatively quiet. He’d arranged for her to have a private room and the best care, but nothing was going to stop the changes in her body.

Damon knew how the story would end. He didn’t want it to end, but he wasn’t sure how long he could bear for it to continue, either. He’d spent time alone at the house on this night, making dinner for himself, packing some for his mom in case she wanted to eat, choosing some photographs to bring with him. They might prompt her memory of better times.

When he arrived at the hospital, having trudged through a cold December night, his mom was sleeping. Her back was to the door, her shoulder thin even beneath the blanket. She’d always been slender, a dancer, but now she was little more than bones. Her breathing was more shallow, as if even sleep was less restorative than once it had been. She was on a heart monitor and he watched the display of her pulse for a moment.

Her heart was still working too hard. He’d talked to the doctor about that and the risks of the surgery to repair her hip. They’d talked about her suitability for any surgery, given the cancer in her marrow and her prognosis.

There were no good answers and Damon hated that.

His mom had always been filled with such fierce determination, a woman who seemingly could accomplish anything by force of will. Damon had always thought that came from her ballet training, maybe her upbringing in Soviet Russia. Now, she was diminished, as if that fighting spirit had abandoned her. He wondered why she’d given up.

He wished he knew how to make her care enough to fight.

He stood watching her for long moments, aching for his pending loss. His father had died when he was young, and Damon had no siblings. Everything he’d done had been for his mom, to make her proud of him, to not let her down. There was so much he’d never told her.

He wasn’t sure how he was going to continue without her.

Damon didn’t even want to think about that.

He had his friends and partners at F5F, of course, but they knew very little about his private life. He’d always been solitary. He’d always kept his secrets. He’d always felt like the outsider on the team, that they’d wake up one day and realize he didn’t have enough in common with them. He’d thought that privacy was a good thing, or at least a matter of survival, until he realized he was soon going to be completely alone.

It was true what they said: love did make you weak, because there was something you could lose.

Damon put his messenger bag down on the chair and shed his jacket. He bent over his mom and kissed her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered, looking as thin as paper, and for a second, his worst fear came true as she looked at him without recognition.

Then she smiled and his heart started to beat again. “Damon,” she whispered, her voice faint.

“Hi,” he replied, easing his weight down onto the side of the bed. “How are all those aches and pains today?”

“Everything hurts, but complaining won’t change it.”

“Hungry? I brought you some...”

“No, thank you.” She smiled and turned away from him, letting him untie the back of her gown. “I know you can help with the pain, though. You can do anything.”

“That’s what you always said,” he reminded her. “We can do anything.”

Her smile turned sad. “Not quite anything.”

Damon saw that she understood more of her situation than he’d realized. His throat was tight with the truth of it, but he couldn’t talk to her about it. He wasn’t good with confidences and intimacy. Instead, he forced a smile. “Let’s get started then and work out some of those kinks.”

It was dark outside the hospital windows and the sounds were muted by the heavy glass. He could see the skyline of Manhattan but the city could have been a thousand miles away—or just a backdrop painted on a curtain. Even the business of the hospital was background noise, very few footsteps or voices, and no alarms. He felt as if they were in a little private space of their own.

He turned his mom to her stomach with care, ensuring that no tubes or wires were pinched and that there was no weight on any joints. They said her wrist was healing slowly, the bone knitting together due to her rest, but the cancer wasn’t helping.

He’d learned everything he could about massage, just to give her some relief from her old dancing injuries. He remembered his dad giving his mom massages. Damon had never imagined she’d need so much more. He moved slowly, listening to her breathing, making sure that nothing hurt.

Once on her stomach with the pillow set properly, she sighed. “This is the best part of my week,” she whispered and Damon smiled as he poured massage oil into his palm.

“Mine, too, Mom.” He smoothed the lotion over her back, ignoring the way the bones protruded. “Mine, too.”

He felt satisfaction as the tension eased from her body beneath his touch.

At least he wasn’t completely powerless, although it was closer than he liked.

* * *

Haley had heard about him,of course. The mysterious man who showed up every Friday night to give Mrs. Natasha Perez a massage. The hunky and mysterious son, if she listened to the other nurses. There was a lot of speculation about him and whatever he did—and what kind of relationships he had.

Haley didn’t care much about his social life. What intrigued her was the difference in his mother’s charts. As a nurse interested in alternative therapies, Haley always wanted to know more about easing discomfort, no matter how it was done. There was no denying that Natasha slept better and more deeply every Friday night.

He came on other days and times, too, and the story was that he phoned her daily, but Friday night, after the wards quieted down, he showed up like clockwork.

Was it his presence, as Mrs. Perez’s only son, or his massages that made the difference? Haley had swapped shifts, just to see for herself.

On this Friday night, just past midnight, she stood in the doorway of his mother’s room and watched. She was on her break from the cardiac ward and had twenty minutes. The door was partly closed, which both kept Haley out of view and limited what she could see. From this vantage point, she could see only the edge of the heart monitor but could hear its output. Even without reading the display, she heard Mrs. Perez’s pulse slow to a nice steady resting rate.

She couldn’t see the son well from this angle, plus he had his back to the door. He was bigger than Haley had expected, buff like someone who worked out a lot. His hair was dark, almost black, and he looked tanned. His jacket was flung over a chair and he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She could see the muscles in his back and arms flexing as he gave his mom a massage. His broad shoulders strained the T-shirt and she could see the end of a tattoo on his upper arm, below the hem of the sleeve. His hands moved rhythmically over his mom’s limbs as he talked softly to her.

Haley wasn’t sure whether it was a worse choice to stand in the doorway and eavesdrop, or to declare herself and ruin the mood he’d created. She listened to the heart monitor and stayed put.

Just watching his hands was mesmerizing.

His jeans fit just a little too well for her own heart rate to be dropping, though.

How long had it been since she’d wrapped her legs around a man? Too long, judging by her body’s response to the sight of one deliciously fit male. She always bailed quickly on relationships, not wanting to get in too deep, not wanting to be tied down, not wanting to sacrifice her ambitions. For the past year or so, it had seemed like too much trouble to bother with men. She watched Mrs. Perez’s son, though, and realized she’d been ignoring her basic needs.

She swallowed, stared, and considered fixing that.

“There’s something I should tell you, Mom,” he said. He had a nice deep voice, both soothing and sexy. “Something I told you a long time ago that just isn’t true.”

“You never lied to me.”

“Well, I did once. I’ve been feeling guilty about it ever since.”

His mom sighed. “You could always have told me.”

“I know. But there never seemed to be time. These nights when I’m here with you, it feels as if we have nothing but time.”

That wasn’t strictly true. Haley bit her lip. She’d read Natasha’s charts. Time was not on the older woman’s side. She hoped the son knew the reality ahead of them.

Maybe that was why he was confessing.

“You’re still not telling me,” Mrs. Perez said, humor in her tone. Haley smiled at the sound. Too often, she heard the pain in the voices of patients like this one.

The son didn’t respond for a moment. He lifted the sheet and began to work on his mother’s legs. He caressed from the ankle upward, his hands in a V, circling slowly across the flesh. His mom sighed.

Haley bit her lip. The sight of those large tanned hands on the older woman’s slender and pale leg, the tenderness in his touch, the comfort he was giving, was enough to make her tears rise. Kindness was a little too rare in the world, in Haley’s view.

“It’s hard to know where to start,” he murmured finally.

“At the beginning,” his mother suggested, and he chuckled.

“You wanted grandchildren,” he said. “I think that was the beginning.”

“A child is the beginning,” she whispered. “We think it’s the culmination of love, the result, but the conception is really the beginning.”

The son didn’t answer. That his ring finger was bare told Haley that he might be single. Or divorced and single again. Either way, the direction of the conversation and his silence suggested that he was alone and that he didn’t have kids.

She knew she should leave.

She knew she had no right to listen.

But she told herself that she was observing his technique and learning.

He was good. The monitors showed the therapeutic effect of his touch. Mrs. Perez was almost asleep and at ease. Her pulse had slowed even more, and her charts showed that she asked for fewer painkillers on Saturdays. It was amazing.

“You kept asking me about women, about marriage, about babies,” the son continued, a tinge of exasperation in his tone. He eased the sheet aside and worked on her thighs, his movements slow and reverent. “And then one day, you asked if I was gay.” He leaned a little more into the massage as he worked higher. “And I said yes.”

“I remember,” his mom said mildly.

“But I was lying,” he admitted, bending to drop a kiss on her shoulder. It was a tender gesture, one that made Haley’s tear threaten to break free. The love between mother and son was almost palpable. The heart monitor beeped steadily as his hands bracketed the back of his mother’s waist. “Breathe now, Mom. Breathe in when my hands are here, then out when I move them. In and out. In and out. Slowly. Push out the pain with each breath.”

Mrs. Perez did as she was told, and Haley found herself breathing the same rhythm. It would have been meditative, if she hadn’t been so fascinated by the patient’s son.

“I was lying because I didn’t want you to be disappointed anymore,” he continued in that velvety voice. “I didn’t want you to be waiting for something I wasn’t sure was ever going to happen.” He was silent for a long moment. “I wasn’t sure the right woman really was out there, and so I lied.”

“I know,” his mother said softly.

“You knew?” His hands froze for a moment, then he resumed his massage.

His mother laughed softly. “I knew, Damon. I always knew.”

Damon. His name was Damon.

His mom’s voice turned sleepy. “You always make it feel better,” she murmured as he worked down her arms to her fingertips. “What would I do without you?”

“You don’t have to do without me, Mom.”

“But you’ll have to do without me.”

He was startled, Haley saw. Not surprised, so he knew the truth, but he thought his mom didn’t. Haley could have told him that patients always understand their situation more clearly than their doctors and family realized. “Don’t think about it, Mom. Just relax.”

“But I do think about it. I think about you.”

“Mom!” Damon shoved a hand through his hair, and Haley caught a glimpse of his profile as he glanced at the monitors. Natasha’s pulse was increasing again, her agitation undoing all that he’d accomplished.

“I don’t want you to be alone.”

“So, stay,” he said, his tone reasonable.

“It’s not a joke, Damon.” She grasped his fingers with urgency and he paused to look up. “You’ll find her,” his mom said with quiet conviction. “You’ll find her, Damon, if you let yourself look for her, and then you won’t be alone after I’m gone.”

“You’re not going anywhere anytime soon, Mom,” Damon began, and Haley knew he was wrong. She didn’t want him to be misled. In her experience, people did better if they had time to prepare themselves for the truth. She’d checked his mom’s charts. Her leukemia wasn’t responding to treatment. If anything, it was getting worse and spreading faster.

Haley must have made some slight sound, the merest protest, but Damon heard her. He spun and his gaze locked with hers. He was even better looking than she’d expected, and he was annoyed. She saw anger flash in his dark eyes and his unblinking stare made her fully aware of her transgression without him saying a word.

She flushed, hating that she’d been caught, but not regretting what she’d learned. She took a step back when he frowned, then pivoted in the hall and leaned back against the wall of the corridor, her heart leaping. She closed her eyes and saw him again, and her heart raced.

Damon.

Not gay.

Very intense.

What would he look like when he smiled?

She’d guess that he’d be transformed, from a dark angel into an irresistible hunk. She closed her eyes, trying to catch her breath before she went back to her shift.

And those hands. What would it be like to feel them on her own skin? She’d be like butter in no time at all, warm and soft, and then...

No. She would not fantasize about Mrs. Perez’s son.

At least not when he was only fifteen feet away.

Haley had to pull herself together and get back to the cardiac ward.

She stood with her eyes closed for just a moment longer. The corridor was quiet, just the low murmur of voices carrying from the nurses’ station at the far end of the hall. She could hear patients snoring and sleeping, more than one murmuring, the heating pipes creaking and the sound of traffic far below. An ambulance rolled into the ER and Haley heard the familiar sounds of activity but at a distance. There had been a siren, so the patient was alive. They’d stopped the siren once the ambulance was on hospital grounds so he or she was stable. As ever, she said a little prayer for that stranger’s well-being.

It was an old habit, one her mom had taught her, and Haley didn’t even think about it anymore. She just did it. Her mom always said there couldn’t be too many prayers for anybody. Haley imagined them like little pairs of gold wings, flying from her lips to the ears of the divine.

She heard Damon murmuring to his mom and assumed the massage had been resumed. The beeping of the monitor slowed again and Haley smiled.

He really had a gift.

Was there any way she could learn to do the same? She’d studied and taken courses but it seemed to Haley that there was an emotional component to the success of Damon’s massage, or even a mystical one. It was more than just technique. What had he meant when he told her to push it out? Had he taken on his mom’s pain to give her relief? It was an intriguing idea, but she didn’t imagine he’d be in a hurry to share more of his secrets with her.

There was something familiar about him, something Haley hadn’t noticed until he looked directly at her. Did she know him? She was pretty sure she didn’t, but the sense was hard to shake. She couldn’t put her finger on the reason and stood thinking about it, listening to the heart monitor. Conversation in the room stopped. She guessed that Mrs. Perez had fallen asleep.

Where could she have seen Damon before?

How could she have seen him and not remembered?

Haley didn’t even hear his footsteps. She wasn’t aware that he’d left his mother’s side, until his fingertip landed on her shoulder. The unexpected touch made her jump and her heart skipped again when she found Damon right beside her, that dark gaze locked upon her. She shivered right down to her toes.

Then she simmered, just a little.

“Do you always listen to other people’s conversations?” he asked, his voice low so that he wouldn’t disturb his mom’s sleep.

Haley was sure she flushed from head to toe. “I was watching, actually.”

He lifted a brow and she knew that didn’t sound much better. At close proximity, Haley felt the full weight of his attention. He was taller than her and broader than her, seemingly all muscle...

And that was when she knew where she’d seen him before. He was the guy in the billboard for that downtown fitness club, Flatiron Five Fitness.

Get hard at F5F.

So, she knew what he looked like almost naked.

Haley’s mouth went dry. Of course, all of greater New York area knew what he looked like almost naked, because those ads were everywhere, but still, she felt like she was talking to a superstar.

A very hot superstar, whose attention was completely fixed upon her.

She stammered a bit, aware he was still waiting for her reply. “I was curious about your mom’s heart rate. It drops a lot on Friday nights and she sleeps much better. She even takes fewer painkillers. I heard from the other nurses that you gave your mom a massage each Friday, so I wanted to see.”

“Why?”

“I’m interested in alternative therapies for both routine care and palliative care. I particularly want to know about making a difference even when there can’t be a cure. The benefits of therapies like massage aren’t as well documented as would be ideal, but are more anecdotal. It wasn’t clear to me whether it was your presence or your massage at root, so I wanted to see.” Haley knew she was chattering, but she couldn’t stop. She nodded toward his mom’s room. “This looks like a perfect example of an improvement from massage.”

Damon’s expression became guarded then, and she realized he understood his mom’s situation. “So, you want to study her...” His opinion of that was clear.

“No. I want to learn.”

It was only when he glanced back toward his mom that his features softened. The sight of his love nearly broke Haley’s heart.

“I want to help.” She put her hand on his arm, compassion making her bold. She had an idea and she blurted it out before she could think better of it. “You probably have a job and a family and can’t be here all the time,” she said, her words spilling forth in a rush. “If you could teach me what you do for your mom, I could give her a massage on other nights.”

He looked back at her with surprise. “You can do that?”

Haley thought about schedules and shifts. She’d do it on her own time just to learn more. “I can make it happen.”

His eyes narrowed. “You would do that?”

“Yes,” Haley said, feeling in this moment that she’d do pretty much anything to keep this man talking to her.

He straightened a little, his gaze brightening. “You were going to say something, when I told her not to go.”

Haley looked at the floor. It wasn’t her place to tell him, if he didn’t know.

He cleared his throat and his next words were husky. “Am I right to expect that you wouldn’t have to help out for long?”

Haley had that lump in her throat again. “I’m not your mom’s doctor.”

“But you know.”

She nodded.

He sighed. “I talked to the oncologist today,” he admitted quietly, defeat in his tone.

Haley lifted her head and met his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

Their gazes clung for a long moment, one in which Haley was afraid to take a breath and risk breaking the spell.

Then he shrugged. “But that doesn’t change anything. We’d better get started if you’re going to be able to help.”

“Good idea.” Haley didn’t start until the evening the next day, so maybe they could meet in the morning...

But Damon had other ideas. His tone filled with purpose. “When does your shift end?”

“At two.”

He nodded and Haley felt like he’d taken command of the situation, leaving her behind. “I’ll still be here. Your place or mine?”

“Excuse me?”

He smiled just a little, the corner of his mouth lifting in a way that made him look unpredictable—and very sexy. “How were you planning to learn massage?”

“Well, I’ve studied books and there are mannequins in the classroom...”

“No,” he said flatly. “Hands-on is the best way. You have to feel it. I massage you, then you massage me.”

If she’d been blushing before, now Haley’s skin was on fire. Her voice rose. “I’m not certain that would be professional.”

“But it would be effective.” His smile broadened, his eyes gleaming. He was amused by her, which didn’t stop Haley’s blush—in fact, that only made it worse. “I didn’t think nurses were afraid to touch people.”

He was teasing her, just like her brother Brad did, but it was a thousand times different—since he wasn’t her brother. Worse, she thought he was very attractive and he seemed to know it. Haley was redder than a beet, feeling like she’d been caught in more ways than one, and found herself almost completely inarticulate.

“No, no, of course not.” She closed her mouth, hating the sound of her own nervousness, and flicked a glance at him.

“Oh, then you’re all about theory instead of practice.”

He was so sure he understood her—and he was right—that Haley wanted to surprise him. “Maybe I have been,” she conceded. “Maybe it’s time to change.”

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall beside her, his eyes so dark and his gaze so knowing that Haley couldn’t look away. “Your place or mine?” he asked again.

“My place,” she said with a confidence she didn’t feel. “We’ll go to my place, but only for massage lessons.”

“You’re on.” He offered his hand to shake on it, and Haley felt her hand swallowed by his strong, warm grip. His touch sent a thousand shivers over her skin and awakened a yearning that she hadn’t indulged in a very long time.

She pulled her hand from his and took a step back, trying to regain her composure. “I have to get back to work. I’ll see you at two.”

He inclined his head. “Meet you in the lobby.” Humor still glinted in his eyes and Haley wondered what she’d gotten herself into.

Damon was going to teach her about massage. That was it.

At her apartment.

The prospect put a little quiver in her belly that Haley doubted would disappear anytime soon.

* * *

Damon had beensure the prim little nurse would turn and run when he made his offer.

He was intrigued that she hadn’t.

Maybe he hadn’t read her that well after all.

She was cute, in an uptight kind of way. That in itself invited an intervention. She had her hair pulled back tightly and her uniform was crisp. The way she blushed made him want to shake her up a bit. He wanted to unfasten her ponytail and push his fingers through her hair. It was dark blonde and long, with enough of a wave in it that her ponytail bounced when she walked. She was so perfectly groomed that he wanted to see her disheveled. He wanted to know how far that blush went—it looked like maybe it went down to her nipples.

Maybe further than that.

He was curious to know what else made her blush—besides him.

And what made her gasp.

He was very much looking forward to feeling her bare skin beneath his hands. She was tiny like his mom, but more curvy, with a resolve in her eyes that he found familiar. He’d bet she could move mountains when she wanted to. She’d be fierce, like his mom; she’d be stubborn and have opinions that were hard to shake.

All the same, there was a reserve about her that made him think she stood back and watched a lot. He’d caught her listening and she’d been so agitated that he knew she hadn’t expected to be discovered. She hadn’t expected to be noticed—though how anyone could overlook those curves and that steady blue gaze was beyond him.

Damon wondered if she knew her own capabilities, whatever they might be. People who stood back often thought they had fewer gifts. Helping those people find their strengths was one of the most gratifying aspects of coaching for Damon.

But surely a nurse knew her own competence?

She didn’t wear a ring, but that might not mean anything.

The idea of giving her a massage had been an impulse, a wicked idea that he’d expected her to refuse. He’d suggested it just to see her reaction. That she hadn’t declined made Damon very interested in what would happen later.

Would she stand him up?

Would she change her mind?

Or would she let him teach her? The idea heated Damon’s blood. He’d been focused on his mom for the past six months, ignoring everything except her needs. This cute nurse had reminded him of a very basic drive that had been unsatisfied for too long.

What if it was more than a massage lesson? It would have to be her choice, but Damon wouldn’t be the one to say no.

She’d disappeared down the hall before he realized he had over an hour to waste in the hospital before the end of her shift.

He didn’t even know her name, or what department she worked in. He’d assumed it was oncology, but then she’d gotten on the elevator.

Damon slung his jacket over his shoulder, peeked in on his mom one last time, then headed for the nurses’ station. He could put the time to good purpose and see what he could find out about Nurse Neat.

It was only fair, given how much she’d already learned about him.

* * *

“That was Haley,”the nurse said in response to Damon’s question. “Haley Slater. She’s been on staff here for years, if you’re worried about her coming by.”

“No, I was just curious. She seemed quite interested in my mom and I wondered why.”

The nurse nodded, unsurprised. “Haley’s usually in oncology, and she’s really interested in complementary therapies and palliative care. I’ll bet she heard about the effect your massages have on your mom’s condition.”

“You talk about that?” Damon asked, a bit surprised.

The nurse cast him a sparkling smile. “That and other things.” She glanced over him with appreciation and her smile broadened. “But the effect is incredible. If anyone in this place were interested, I’d expect it to be Haley.”

“Why isn’t she in oncology now?”

“Oh, she switched off with Anna in the cardiac ward for three months.”

Damon waited and the nurse, predictably, filled the silence.

“Anna had to start her mat leave early. She’s having a rough second trimester and they ended up a bit short-staffed.” She grimaced. “Lots of heart attacks after Christmas.”

“That’s Haley,” said a second nurse who was counting pills into plastic cups at the other side of the nurses’ station. She was referring to a computer screen, presumably double-checking patients and dosages. “Always stepping up to fill the void. I think she’d work double shifts every day if they’d let her.”

That was interesting. Didn’t Haley have any family commitments?

Was she single?

Damon knew it didn’t really matter. He was only going to teach her about massage, but he wanted to know. “Workaholic?” he asked lightly. “I know a few of those.”

The first nurse smiled. “They’re good to know. Haley’s the one to call if you get stuck with a holiday shift.”

“She filled in for me this past Thanksgiving,” offered the second nurse.

“Christmas Eve for me,” agreed the first. “Or if you’re sick, she’s right there.”

“Good old reliable Haley.” The second sighed and straightened, then smiled at Damon. “I guess that’s the hazard of not having a life.”

“She has a life,” the first nurse said, a little bit defensive on Haley’s behalf. “But her family is all in Illinois or Ohio or somewhere.”

Not married then, and without a significant other. The detail gave Damon unexpected satisfaction. He told himself because it was less complicated that way.

“I thought she didn’t have any family at all,” the second nurse said. “She never takes vacation. If she’s off, it’s because she’s taking a course somewhere.”

“Not true,” said the first with a shake of her head. “She always takes January 27th off.”

“Really? Why?” The second nurse asked the question that Damon wanted answered.

“Some family birthday. I guess they’re pretty close.”

The second nurse frowned. “She can’t get to the Midwest in a day. Even Haley isn’t that organized.”

The first one shrugged. “Maybe they come here. I don’t know. It’s an annual thing, though. She always takes that day off. It’s the only day of the year that she won’t work. It’s right in her file.”

“Maybe they come to visit,” Damon suggested. “It’d be nice to take a couple of days to show family around.”

“Queens in January doesn’t sound like a dream vacation.”

“No, it doesn’t, actually,” he had to agree.

“To each their own.” The nurse smiled at him, then a bell sounded. She straightened. “Mrs. Young, right on time.” She turned to the second nurse. “Have you got her meds measured out?”

“Right here. I’m heading that way in a couple of minutes.”

“I’ll take them now and get her settled.”

“Sounds good. Mr. Matheson will be up next,” the second nurse said. A bell rang before she finished speaking and the two nurses exchanged a smile. “Is your mom okay?” she asked Damon as she gathered up meds.

“She went to sleep,” Damon said. “I’ll check on her one more time then head out.”

“We’ll call if there’s any change,” the first nurse said with a smile. “Have a good night, Mr. Perez.”

“Thank you.”

Haley Slater. Single. Workaholic. Interested in alternative care. It was only a superficial glimpse into the character of the nurse he’d met but it was more than enough to spark Damon’s curiosity.

And leave him hungry to know more.