Page 6 of Bronx

She bent her long legs and leaned back on her hands to be even with me. "Beware," she said with a hint of a smile, a hint that assured me the full blown one was nothing short of breathtaking. "I told myself I just needed a break from the noise and that I'd just swim out to the island for a short hike. I've been here thirty minutes. I think there's some mysterious force on the island keeping me captive here, and frankly, I don't mind." She stretched out her long legs. I had to drag my gaze away from them. "So . . . tell me—girlfriend problems?"

She had me tongue-tied like an idiot, but I managed to finally take a breath. "Not anymore," I said.

She laughed and it was a sound I wouldn't soon forget. Her brown eyes grazed over my expression, and she bit her bottom lip lightly. "No, I was wrong. It's grief. I've seen it enough to know." She reached up. "Took me a second to see it because it's all up here on the forehead." She reached up, and I found my breath catching in my throat again. Her fingertips lightly brushed aside the long hair plastered on my forehead from the swim. It was just a casual gesture, but I felt her touch deep in my bones. Was the flowery scent coming from her or the landscape? It had to be her. Even nature couldn't have such a sweet fragrance.

"You can see grief in people's foreheads?" I asked.

She squinted at me for further assessment. "I'm right, aren't I?" The music across the water switched from the hard core, bass pounding stuff to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Her face turned toward the party. It occurred to me I was cataloguing every detail about her, capturing the moment to be savored later, when things were shit again. Her profile was symmetrical with only the slightest bump in her nose to disturb the precision, a detail that only made her more beautiful. "Finally some decent music," she said softly.

"I agree." I was certainly bound to wow her with my commentary, I thought wryly. I couldn't seem to find words or thoughts or my breath, for that matter.

Her face swung back toward me, and it took me a long moment to recover. She was close, not as close as I would have liked, but I could see, clearly, the tiny spray of freckles on her nose. "So am I right?" she asked. "About the grief?" She leaned back farther on her hands and turned her face up to the ribbons of sunlight seeping through the canopy. "You're in luck, the doctor is in." She sat up again. "Actually, I'm not a doctor. I'm much better than that. I'm a nurse. I see your raised brow. It's true though. Doctors, they live in this vacuum. All they see are the tests and the numbers and medical books. Nurses see the human side of pain and illness. We can look past the tests and numbers to see what's really going on. That's why I recognize the grief in that forehead. I've seen it more times than I ever wanted to."

I smiled. It was the best response I could come up with in my state of delirium.

"I like that smile," she said. "It's real, genuine."

I nodded and told myself this amazing moment was going to be lost forever soon, and I would remember sitting through it like a dumbfounded fool. "The grief you see is genuine too." My own voice seemed a little distant, unfamiliar. Was it the woman sitting next to me? Or was it because I was about to talk aboutit, the raw emotion I was feeling over Vick's illness? "My dad was recently diagnosed with cancer. They operated yesterday, took out a lot of his insides." I stared down at my feet, absently digging their way into the sand as if my brain was no longer controlling them. "You're right about the doctors. They unloaded a lot of bad news on us, gently, politely, but they didn't seem to absorb the impact their prognosis was having on us, my mom." I brought my feet closer and rested my arms on the tops of my knees. "I've seen her go through some pretty heavy stuff in my life, but it looked as if her own life was draining away with each layer of bad news."

I still didn't know her name. I was still trying to figure out if she was real or if my desperate mood had just conjured her up. She placed her hand on my arm. I had no idea how much I'd needed that human touch until her soft, warm palm covered my arm.

"Look, I'm going to tell you a few things, if you're ready. I won't be able to tell you don't worry, your dad will be fine because that is not generally how this cancer thing works. Right now, you're seeing your dad in a hospital bed hooked up to machines and looking as if he's just one step from the grave. That's how everyone looks after major surgery. Is your dad a strong guy? Was he in good shape going into this?"

"He lost some weight because of the stomach pain he was having but yeah"—I nodded—"he was the best damn horseman. He could outride anyone."

"That's good. That'll help. Right now things seem extra bleak," she continued. She had my undivided attention as I absorbed and memorized the sound of her voice like it was my new favorite song, even if the lyrics weren't everything I wanted to hear. "Your dad is going to recover from the soul sucking surgery, and they'll put him on some kind of therapy, whether it's chemo or radiation or both. In fact, there are new things being tried every day, clinical trials. There's far more hope with a cancer diagnosis than there was even five years ago. He's got some good days ahead still, no matter which direction the disease goes. There'll be remission, glorious remission. It'll give you back your dad. I can't tell you for how long, but for a period of time things will feel right again. This feeling of dread won't stick around forever. Cancer is definitely a day by day disease. No sense in dwelling on the future when you have an amazing day in front of you."

Her words sank into me, into my chest. It was the first time since the diagnosis that I felt as if my emotions weren't heavy with anger, sadness. I wasn't entirely sure if it was a glimmer of hope, something she'd sparked with her reassuring words or if it was just a better way to deal with what I was feeling. Either way, she had turned my mood and my day around.

"Thank you," I said. "After everything I've heard in the past week, every passing attempt at sympathy or advice, every I'm so sorry about your dad, that little talk was profoundly comforting. It was real, not sugarcoated, yet it makes me feel like we can get through this . . . one day at a time, like you said."

She dusted off her hands by swiping them past each other. "Then, my work here is done."

I was just about to introduce myself when loud laughter and screams pulled our attention to the party on the beach. The wild laughter was centered on the bow of Topper's boat. Gabe, better known as Helix for his spinning descent from a jump, had joined his best friend Bulldozer with the women at the bow. Helix and Bulldozer were close like King and me. They grew up together.

"Those two clowns are inseparable," she said, the woman whose name still eluded me but who had changed my entire day, my entire outlook with her words . . . and her face . . . and her legs. "Gabe finishes Adam's sentences. Neither of them can make a life decision without consulting the other." She pointed toward the boat. Bulldozer had climbed onto the rim of the bow. He beat his chest like Tarzan and bellowed into the air.

"Now he's going to show off by somersaulting into the water," she said, blithely. Right on cue, Bulldozer lifted his massive frame into the air. He tucked and rolled and landed in the water with a splash that soaked his captive audience. The two women, including his wife, I assumed, shrieked and dove in after him.

"Next, he'll use his newly gained fame as an excuse to lift one of the women onto his shoulders, so she can shriek further with delight." Again, as if she had time traveled ahead to witness the scene, Bulldozer breached the water's surface like a massive whale right beneath the blonde. Her legs wrapped around his neck as he held tightly to her thighs.

I turned to her. "Seems like you know Bulldozer pretty well." I stuck out my hand. "By the way, I'm Jack, Jack Devlin."

She smiled and nodded in recognition. "Ah, the famous firefighting cowboy. Bronx, right?"

"Yep." I was absurdly glad that she had heard of me.

Her fingers wrapped around mine as she shook my hand. "I'm Layla." She winked. "Mrs. Bulldozer."

The breath was swept out of me again, only this time for a whole other reason. I had either just gained massive respect for Bulldozer, or I'd just learned to like him even less.

Layla laughed. I had a name now, an awesome, lyrical name to go with the incredible woman sitting next to me. She belonged to Bulldozer. That was the short, clipped sentence that was now on a continuous loop in my head. She fucking belonged to Bulldozer. Only, could anyone ever really possess an angel?

"I did not expect that reaction when I introduced myself," Layla said.

I smiled, feeling more than a little embarrassed. "Sorry, just didn't put the two of you together. And then—" I glanced toward the water where Bulldozer's head was still sitting between the blonde's thighs.

"Yeah, he sometimes forgets he's married," she said dryly. "But then, I knew he was kind of a jerk when I walked down the aisle toward him. He did look sensational in a tux though, which helped me push the jerk part out of my head for that moment. And since you're not trying to debate me on that point, I assume you have the same opinion."

---