What the Wind Knows(44)

I wore the sweater and trousers I’d worn the day Thomas pulled me out of the lake. I hadn’t expected company, and I had no pajamas other than the voluminous nightgowns that tangled around my body and strangled me in the night. I was still flirting with the future, with going home. Plus, wearing the clothes made me feel more like myself, and I needed to be Anne Gallagher, the writer, to create a special story for a perfect little boy.

Thomas knocked again and gently turned the knob.

“May I come in?” he asked. He had his medical bag in his hand, the dutiful doctor till the end.

I nodded, not looking up from the small stack of paper I was using to jot down my ideas before I committed them to the pages that waited.

He drew up behind me, a warm presence at my back. “What’s this?”

“I’m making Eoin a book for his birthday. Writing him a story that’s never been told before. Something just for him.”

“You’re writing it?” There was something in his voice that made my heart quicken.

“Yes.”

“You always made Declan read to you. You said the letters moved when you tried to read them. I assumed writing would be difficult as well,” he said slowly.

“No. I don’t struggle with reading or writing,” I whispered, setting the pencil down.

“And you’re left-handed,” Thomas said, surprised.

I nodded hesitantly.

“I guess I never knew that. Declan was left-handed. Eoin is too.”

Thomas was silent for several seconds, musing. I waited, afraid to resume my writing for fear he’d notice something else.

“I need to check your wound, Anne. It should be sufficiently healed to remove the stitches.”

I rose obediently.

His brow furrowed as his eyes traveled down my clothing and back up to my unbound hair.

“Countess Markievicz wears trousers,” I blurted, defensive. Constance Markievicz was a leading figure in Irish politics, a woman born to wealth but more interested in revolution. She’d been imprisoned after the Rising and enjoyed a certain notoriety and respect among the people, especially those sympathetic to the cause of Irish independence. The fact that she’d married a Polish Count only made her more fascinating.

“Yes. So I hear. Did she give you those?” he countered, a sardonic twist to his lips. I ignored him, walking to the bed and stretching out carefully on the crisp spread. I’d caught Maeve pressing it. She’d then given me a quick lesson in using the iron, though she’d insisted I wouldn’t need to press my own clothes. They’d already been ironed and hung in the huge wooden wardrobe in the corner.

I raised the hem of my sweater to uncover the bandages, folding the bottom over my breasts, but the waistline of the trousers still covered the edge of the bandage. I unbuttoned them and eased them down an inch, my eyes fixed on the ceiling. Thomas had seen me in less. Much less. But baring my skin this way felt different, like I was engaging in a strip tease, and when he cleared his throat, his discomfort magnified my own. He pulled the chair from the desk to the side of my bed and sat, removing a small pair of scissors, some tweezers, and a vial of iodine from his bag. He removed the bandage I’d applied the day before, swabbed the area, and with steady hands, began to pluck the neat stitches from my side.

“Beatrice Barnes informed me when we were at the department store that there were several things you still need. Since you had to resort to wearing Countess Markievicz’s trousers, I am inclined to believe her.”

“I didn’t intend for you to pay for my clothes,” I said.

“And I didn’t intend for you to think I wanted you to leave,” he countered softly, slowly, making sure I understood him.

I swallowed, determined not to cry, but felt a traitorous tear scurry down the side of my face and disappear into the whorl of my ear. I had never cried much in my life before Eoin died. Now I cried constantly.

“My car is filled with parcels. I’ll bring them in when I am finished here. Beatrice has reassured me that you now have everything you need.”

“Thomas . . .”

“Anne,” he responded in the same tone, raising his blue eyes to mine briefly before he continued his careful snipping. I could feel his soft breath on my skin, and I closed my eyes against the flutter in my belly and the curling of my bare toes. I liked his touch. I liked his head bowed over my body. I liked him.

Thomas Smith was the kind of man who could quietly slip into and out of a room without drawing much attention. He was handsome if one stopped to contemplate each feature—deep-set blue eyes, more glum than glittering. Long grooves in his cheeks when he flashed a brief smile. Straight white teeth behind well-formed lips that perched above a dimpled chin at the apex of a clean-cut jaw. Yet he had a slight stoop to his shoulders and an air of melancholia that had folks respecting his space and his solitude, even as they sought him out. His hair was dark, more black than brown, though the glint of stubble he removed from his cheeks each morning was decidedly ruddy. He was lean, his ropey muscles giving his spare frame girth. He wasn’t tall. He wasn’t short. He wasn’t a big man. He wasn’t a small man. He wasn’t loud or obtrusive even as he moved and acted with an innate confidence. He was simply Thomas Smith, as ordinary as his name, and yet . . . not ordinary at all.

I could have written stories about him.

He would be the character that grew on the reader, making them love him simply because he was good. Decent. Dependable. Maybe I would write stories about him. Maybe I would . . . someday.