Falling for Rachel
Page 53

There were other dreams. Zack standing behind him at a pinball machine, guiding his hands, laughing at the whirl of bells and whistles.
Then Cash was there, leaning on the machine, the smoke from his crooked cigarette curling up in front of his face.
He saw Rachel, smiling at him in a brightly lit room, the smell of pizza and garlic everywhere. And her eyes were bright, interested. Beautiful.
Then they were drenched with tears. Overflowing with apologies.
The old man, shouting at him. He looked so sick as he stumbled to the top of the stairs. You’ll never amount to anything. Knew it the first time I laid eyes on you. Then that blank, slack look would come over his face, and he could only whine, Where have you been? Where’s Zack? Is he coming back soon?
But Zack was gone, hundreds of miles away. There was no one to help.
Rio, frying potatoes and cackling over one of his own jokes. And Zack, always back to Zack, coming through the kitchen. You going to eat all the profits, kid? An easy grin, a friendly swipe as he went out again.
The gleaming piano—that polished dream—and Zack standing beside it, grinning foolishly. Then the glitter of the overhead light on the barrel of a gun. And Zack—
With a grunt, he threw off sleep, tried to struggle up.
“Hey, hey…take it easy, kid.” Zack sprang up from the chair beside the bed to press a gentle hand on Nick’s shoulder. “It’s okay. You got no place to go.”
He tried to focus, but the images around him kept slipping in and out like phantoms in shadows. “What?” His throat was sand-dry and aching. “Am I sick?”
“You’ve been better.” And so have I, Zack thought, fighting to keep his hand from shaking as he lifted the plastic drinking cup. “They said you could suck on this if you came around again.”
Nick took a pull of water through the straw, then another, but didn’t have the energy for a third. At least his vision had cleared. He took a long, hard look at Zack. Dark circles under tired eyes in a pale face prickled by a night’s growth of beard.
“You look like hell.”
Grinning, Zack rubbed a hand over the stubble. “You don’t look so hot yourself. Let me call a nurse.”
“Nurse.” Nick shook his head, almost imperceptibly, then frowned at the IV. “Is this a hospital?”
“It ain’t the Ritz. You hurting?”
Nick thought about it and shook his head. “Can’t tell. Feel…dopey.”
“Well, you are.” Swamped with relief, Zack laid a hand on Nick’s cheek, left it there until embarrassment had it dropping away. “You’re such a jerk, Nick.”
Nick was too bleary to hear the catch in Zack’s voice. “Was there an accident? I…” And then it came flooding back, a tidal wave of memory. “At the bar.” His hand fisted on the sheets. “Rachel? Is Rachel all right?”
“She’s fine. Been in and out of here. I had Rio browbeat her into getting something to eat.”
“You.” Nick took another long look to reassure himself. “He didn’t shoot you.”
“No, you idiot.” His voice broke, then roughened. “He shot you.”
When his legs went watery, Zack sat again, buried his face in his hands. The hands were trembling. Nick stared, utterly amazed, as this man he’d always thought was the next best thing to superhuman struggled for composure.
“I could kill you for scaring me like this. If you weren’t flat on your back already, I’d damn well put you there.”
But insults and threats delivered in a shaky voice held little power. “Hey.” Nick lifted a hand, but wasn’t sure what to do with it. “You okay?”
“No, I’m not okay,” Zack tossed back, and rose to pace to the window. He stared out, seeing nothing, until he felt some portion of control again. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Looks like you’re going to be that way, too. They said they’d move you down to a regular room sometime soon, if you rated it.”
“Where am I now?” Curious, Nick turned his head to study the room. Glass walls and blinking, beeping machines. “Wow, high tech. How long have I been out?”
“You came around a couple times before. They said you wouldn’t remember. You babbled a lot.”
“Oh, yeah. About what?”
“Pinball machines.” Steadier now, Zack walked back to the bed. “Some girl named Marcie or Marlie. Remind me to pump you on that little number later.” It pleased him to see a faint smile curve Nick’s lips. “You asked for french fries.”
“What can I say? It’s a weakness. Did I get any?”
“No. Maybe we’ll sneak some in later. Are you hungry?”
“I don’t know. You didn’t tell me how long.”
Zack reached for a cigarette, remembered, and sighed. “About twelve hours since they finished cutting you up and sewing you back together. I figure if he’d shot you in the head instead of the chest, you’d have walked away whistling.” He tapped his knuckles on Nick’s temple. “Hard as a rock. I owe you one, a big one.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You saved my life.”
Nick let his heavy lids close. “It’s kind of like jumping off a ship in a hurricane. You don’t think about it. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Zack?”
“Right here.”
“I want to talk to a cop.”
“You’ve got to rest.”
“I need to talk to a cop,” Nick said again as he drifted off. “I know who they were.”
Zack watched him sleep and, since there was no one to see, brushed gently at the hair on his brother’s forehead.
“I told you his condition is good,” Dr. Markowitz repeated. “Go home, Mr. Muldoon.”
“Not a chance.” Zack leaned against the wall beside the door to Nick’s room. He was feeling a great deal better since they’d brought his brother out of ICU, but he wasn’t ready to jump ship.
“God save me from stubborn Irishmen.” She aimed a hard look at Rachel. “Mrs. Muldoon, do you have any influence with him?”
“I’m not Mrs. Muldoon, and no. I think we might pry him away once he checks in on Nick. My brother shouldn’t be with him much longer.”