Page 64 of Tempt the Dragon
Chapter Eighteen
Miami
April
Today was the day. Rosilda was coming home from the rehabilitation center. Mel’s fee for turning Duncan over to the Collectors had covered the testing and transplant surgery Rosilda received at the hospital. It also paid for the rehabilitation center, while leaving some left over for Rosilda’s continued care and daily household expenses. Mel parked thecar in the driveway of the house where she’d grown up. She got out and with her neighbor, Mr. Beaumont’s help, they walked Rosilda into the house.
“I told both of you I don’t need all this fussing.” Rosilda talked and walked, keeping her hands steady on the walker she detested.
“No need being sassy, Rose,” Mr. Beaumont crooned as Mel unlocked the door and they walked inside.
She’dhired a housekeeper to come in and clean the house from top to bottom last week when the occupational therapist told her Rosilda would be coming home today. “We’re just going to get you inside and settled in and then I’ll start dinner.”
“You don’t cook,” Rosilda quipped.
She accepted that jibe and decided to let it slide like she did whenever Rosilda asked her about what happened in theCongo, specifically what happened with Aiken.
“I promise whatever I cook won’t send you back to the hospital.” She couldn’t stand sleeping on another rock-hard couch while worry encompassed her every thought.
“They don’t want her back in the hospital with her sour attitude,” Mr. Beaumont added as he closed the front door.
“I don’t have a sour attitude, just don’t have patience withpeople flittin’ around me all the time when I can do for myself.” The look she tossed over to Mel meant she was also referring to her.
Mel didn’t care. She’d lived with this attitude for longer than Mr. Beaumont had been living and thanks to a successful transplant and recovery, she was now more than likely going to live with it a while longer. “Well, you can rest assured, I’m only going tobe waiting on you a little while longer. Once the home nurse starts her visits next week I’m going back to work.”
“Oh really?” She wanted to ask more, Mel could tell, but Mr. Beaumont was a human and she didn’t dare speak of preternatural things in front of him.
“You cooking enough for three?” he asked.
Mel smiled. “I sure am.”
Rosilda frowned.
Three and a half hours, Italiancold cuts, plain chips, root beer soda, a frozen apple pie and half a dozen episodes ofGolden Girlslater, Mr. Beaumont left for the night. Rosilda made her way into the en suite bathroom in her bedroom and slammed the door. Mel dropped down in the recliner near the window and waited.
A few minutes later Rosilda returned, giving a fake look of surprise. “Oh, you still here? I would’ve thoughtyou’d run to your room like you used to do when you were younger and didn’t want to talk about whatever was in your head.”
She had to admit Rosilda was moving better. Even as she put the walker in front of her a measured step before walking into it, the way the therapist had taught her, Mel could see that her legs were no longer wobbling when she did so. Her arms were steady as they guidedthe walker and she was standing straight up, contrary to the hunched over position she’d been in when she first went into the rehab hospital. Having one organ transplant was tough on a body, and a double transplant was almost debilitating. But Rosilda was a trooper and the shifter blood mixed in her DNA probably increased her chances of a complete healing. As it was, her mixed heritage had been whatkept her alive for so long. The shifter part of her had healed her ailments over and over through the years, until it couldn’t heal completely this time, hence the need for surgery.
“There’s nothing going through my mind, but I’m guessing there’s something going through yours. So I’m going to sit here and let you get it all out of your system.” Because if she didn’t, Rosilda would simply keepon dropping her not so subtle hints forevermore, and that was the very last thing Mel needed. She couldn’t get over him with Rosilda constantly bringing him up, so yes, it was better to get this over with once and for all.
“Don’t act like you’re doing me a favor, missy.” Now she was talking to Mel as if she really were back in her childhood days. Whenever she’d stepped out of line and Rosildahad to chastise her, it was started by using the name “Missy,” as if Mel were acting more grown than she was.
Mel went to the bed and took the walker away when Rosilda sat on the side. She’d pulled the blanket and sheets down while Rosilda was in the bathroom. Now, watching the woman who meant the world to her lay back against the pillows, she gingerly pulled the blanket and sheets up to coverher body. She resisted the urge to lean down and kiss Rosilda’s weathered cheek the way she’d done each night in the hospital, because the woman was currently scowling at her.
Returning to the recliner, she sat and waited. It wouldn’t take too long.
“You wanna know why your parents sent you here and then went home to die?”
The question had Mel sitting forward to stare over at Rosildawith what she knew was a shocked expression. “What did you just say?”
“All these years, you never asked me if I knew why they left you. You asked why you weren’t like everyone else and I gave you the best answers I had, but you never asked that one question. I figured you’d made your peace with it. But I should’ve known you hadn’t really made peace with it at all. You just pushed it asideand carried on, just like you’ve been doing these past eight weeks that I’ve been laid up,” Rosilda said.
“First, let’s be clear, I’ve been here these last eight weeks because there’s no other place I’d rather be. You raised me when I had nobody. I wasn’t about to leave you alone.”
“And for that I thank you. But that’s not the only reason you’re here.”
Slapping her hands on her thighsshe couldn’t help but say, “Well, now I think you’re skating along the lines of sounding ungrateful. I’m here because I love you, Rosilda. You’re the mother I never had.”
