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He turned around then. “Just let me do this.” His voice spoke directly to my heart.
“Okay,” I whispered.
He let out a breath and walked back over to me.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
He sat down and looked into my eyes. “You did, so you’ll have to make it up to me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I wondered what he had in mind. Gauging by the heat in his eyes, I could guess. The last thing I should be doing was hoping.
10
COPE
I’d expected my little spitfire—the way I’d begun referring to Ali in my mind—to have a fit when I took her to my apartment instead of hers. She didn’t disappoint. However, the trip from the hospital here had done her in.
“I can walk, Cope,” she’d argued when I pulled a wheelchair I’d borrowed out of the trunk.
“You sure about that?” I’d bruised some ribs playing football and remembered they hurt like hell.
She turned to get out of the car, and even that was too much.
“Ready?” I asked, standing with my hands on my hips.
When she glared at me, I laughed and brought the wheelchair closer.
She was so exhausted by the time we got upstairs, that she didn’t have the strength to complain when I wheeled her into what was obviously my bedroom rather than the guest room.
When we got the final okay to leave the hospital, I’d gone ahead of Ali and the nurse wheeling her downstairs, and brought my rental around to the entrance. I used that time to call the one woman I knew would help me without asking questions—my mother.
Not that she never would. Eventually, she’d fire them at me faster than an M134 Minigun. However, she’d wait until after she did everything I’d asked.
Laurel Margaret Browning-Copeland was a graduate of Bryn Mawr, where she’d parlayed her degree in political science into becoming a senator’s wife. I sometimes wondered if my father’s campaigns and subsequent career would have been successful had he married someone else. The two shared a bond I envied. They’d met when she was a sophomore at her alma mater and my father was a grad student at nearby Villanova. Their courtship was the stuff of fairy tales, and clearly, my mother thought of my father as her very own Prince Charming. While many political couples put that face forward in public, having spent eighteen years growing up in their home, I knew firsthand that their love story was authentic.
“Can I help?” my mom asked, coming into the room where I was trying to figure out how best to get Ali from the wheelchair onto the bed.
“By the way, I’m Laurel, Sumner’s mother.” She walked around the chair, sat on the bed, and held her hand out.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Ali Graham. Sumner’s charity case.”
My mother smiled and put her hand on the arm of the wheelchair. “Sumner, if you put this down, you can reach around and gather Ali in your arms. Which side is the worst, sweetheart?”
“The right,” Ali answered. My mom put the other arm down and directed me to come around to the opposite side.
“She just said the right hurt the worst.” My mother pointed to Ali’s left arm. “Good point,” I mumbled, feeling like a jackass. “Ready?” I asked, putting one arm behind her knees and the other around her back. I swept her up as gently as I could and then rested her body against the wall of pillows my mother was tucking in around her.
“How’s that?” she asked.
“It’s fine,” Ali grunted, trying to adjust her body into a comfortable position.
“Where are her pain meds?” my mom asked.
“Kitchen.”