Riley's Sleeping Beauty by Sherryl Woods

Author:Sherryl Woods [Woods, Sherryl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459294844
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 1995-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

She was calling his name.

Riley woke with a start to find that Abigail was whispering his name over and over. Her voice was raspy from disuse, but there was no mistaking that single word. Her movements were even more agitated than they had been when she’d set off her monitor earlier in the week.

“Riley? Riley!”

There was a frantic desperation in her tone that tore at his heart. What in God’s name could she be dreaming that had put her in so much distress? Before he could figure it out, she cried out his name once more.

“I’m here, darling,” he whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. He allowed his fingers to linger against the pale skin in a reassuring caress. “I’m right here.”

She quieted at once, an expression of peaceful serenity stealing over her face. He wondered at the calming effect of his presence, wondered what she could possibly be dreaming that painted him as the good guy, wondered if he could live up to her expectations this time, as he hadn’t when he’d tried to ship her home to safety.

Since she seemed quieter when he talked, he kept at it, suddenly determined to tell her all the things he’d kept hidden in his heart.

“Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you? I don’t mean just these past few days. I mean ever since I left home,” he said, glad of the lateness of the hour so that he could make the admission without fear of Jared turning up at any moment to taunt him for it. Except in an emergency, the doctors and nurses paid scant attention to their patients in the wee small hours of the night. He desperately needed this privacy, needed time to make amends to her, to say all the things he had deliberately kept bottled up inside during the long, lonely years of his self-imposed exile.

He had left Phoenix all those years ago knowing that he was falling in love with Abby, knowing that he could never give her the kind of emotional commitment that she deserved. He had been convinced he didn’t have that kind of love left in him after so many tragic losses.

Still, he had not been able to stop himself from sending an occasional postcard. He had chosen the pictured scenes with care, searching for the most exotic or most romantic. Writing the brief messages, penned only after careful thought, had been his only link to Abby and to his past.

“Dear Abby...Paris is exactly what we always imagined.”

“Dear Abby...Found the most amazing ruin in Egypt. Those books we read didn’t do the place justice.”

“Dear Abby...I’ve been chasing the same bad guy all over the Middle East. Got him!”

Never once had he written what he’d felt: “Dear Abby...I miss you.” It would have made those feelings too real, would have opened a door he hadn’t dared to open.

For the same reason he had never let her know how to contact him in return. He had feared that one sweet letter expressing even a hint of encouragement would draw him back into her life.

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