One of the few good things to come out of all the events of the past couple of weeks is that Hurley recovered from his injuries. He was discharged from the hospital two days after his surgery and though he’s still a little wan from the blood loss and limited on what he can do with his left arm thanks to some muscle damage there, he’s back on the job and looking as hot as ever. Even better is the fact that Alison hasn’t been sniffing around him of late. And the cherry on this sundae is my dinner date with Hurley tonight, payment on our wager regarding Erik Tolliver’s guilt or innocence.
I’m very excited about it but also nervous as hell. Though I spent a lot of time visiting Hurley while he was in the hospital, so did a ton of other people. I was never alone with him and all of the conversations that took place were centered on the case. We never touched on anything personal and I’m still not sure if he heard my whispered words to him in the ambulance. The closest we have come so far to any sort of personal revelation was when I first appeared at his bedside in the recovery room. He looked up at me, smiled, and said, “It’s about time you showed up.” I told him I’d been there all along, just on the sidelines, and then his nurse gave him a shot of morphine through his IV and he was out until he was taken to his room.
Hoover and Rubbish are sitting on my bed watching curiously as I go through my usual attempts to find something suitable to wear. I try on a blue dress with a tight, low-cut bodice that gives me Grand Canyon cleavage. I add a V-shaped necklace that looks like a dire ctional sign to the river bottom, and finish it off with a pair of navy blue pumps.
“What do you think of this one?” I ask the furballs, promenading for them both. Rubbish yawns, contorts himself into an impossible position, and starts to lick his butt. Hoover cocks his head to the side and whines.
“Yeah, you’re right. Too slutty,” I say, peeling the dress off. Next I try a pair of beige slacks and a black, slightly see-through blouse that shows off some of my new lingerie.
“Better?” I ask the judges, posing again. Hoover just stares at me and sighs; Rubbish hocks up a hair ball.
Ditching that outfit, I next opt for something simpler; black slacks, a long, cream-colored blouse with a mandarin collar, and a low-heeled pump. Hoover, who has just lived up to his name by scarfing up the hairball Rubbish deposited on my comforter, licks his lips and barks his approval. And just in time. A second later I hear a knock on my door.
My heart is racing as I head out to the living room. Hoover follows on my heels, curious and wary since this is the first time anyone has come to the house since he’s been here. I tell him to sit, which he does dutifully, and then I open the door.
There on my doorstop stands Hurley in all his long-legged, dark-haired, magnificently healed glory. He’s wearing black slacks and a black sport coat with an azure-colored shirt that makes his eyes look like the color of the sky on a bright fall day.
He eyes me from head to toe and says, “You look great.”
“Thanks. So do you.”
He grins boyishly and says, “I figured the colors black and blue were appropriate, given the way I’ve spent the past week.”
His words tweak my lingering guilt over what happened and I start to mutter an apology but Hoover, having exhausted his ability to remain patient, makes his presence known by running over to smell Hurley’s feet.
“Who is this?” Hurley says, squatting down and giving Hoover a scratch behind both ears.
“Hoover.” Hurley eyes me skeptically and I shrug. “Trust me. If you spent any time around him at all, you’d understand. I found him last week hanging out by the garbage Dumpster at the grocery store, starving and frightened.”
“It’s about time you came to your senses and got a real pet.”
“Well, he isn’t technically mine yet. He might belong to someone else. I ran an ad in the lost-and-found section the other day.”
Hurley is stroking Hoover along his back and the dog’s tail is wagging so hard he’s thumping out a rhythm on the doorjamb. Can’t say I blame him. I’d wag my tail, too, if Hurley was stroking me.
“You have to keep him,” Hurley says, giving Hoover a final pat on the head and then standing back up.
“I hope to.” I summon Hoover back inside, grab my purse and coat, and shut my front door. “Ready?” I ask Hurley. He nods and takes my coat, holding it for me so I can slip it on. Then he walks over and opens his car’s passenger door for me. I settle inside and fasten my seat belt. Hoover made for a handy distraction at the door, but now my nervousness has returned full force. I’m running dozens of conversational scenarios through my mind, wondering how the evening will play out, curious as to how our relationship might progress by night’s end.
Hurley climbs in on his side and starts the engine. Before he slips the car into gear, he turns and looks at me with a curious smile.
“There’s something I want to ask you,” he says, and my heart does a flip-flop as I think, Here it comes. “That day that Jackie stabbed me, were you riding in the ambulance with me?”
“I was,” I say, swallowing hard. Had he heard what I said? And if so, is he happy about it? Worried? Scared? “Why do you ask?”
And with that I hear my cell phone ring. A split second later, so does Hurley’s. He pulls his from his jacket pocket while I take mine out of my purse, and we both look at the displays.
“Damn,” Hurley mutters.
“Crap,” I mumble at the same time. And then we each answer our respective calls.
Once again, the dead are putting my love life on hold.