Free Coven of Mercy by Deborah Cooke Page A

back to the hospital to look over the most recent bout of test results, just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I knew I hadn’t, I never do, but it gave me the excuse to look in on Mrs Curtis again.
    She was probably awake. We shared a kind of insomnia, a restlessness in the middle of the night that only conversation cured. She had a private room, so I knew I wouldn’t be troubling anyone else.
    I needed to talk to her about doing another biopsy anyway. The last had been painful, deeper than anticipated. I’d feared that the subsequent radiation would finish her before the cancer did. But Mrs Curtis had rallied, as she always did.
    So, unfortunately, had my determined foe – the cancer.
    The ward was quiet. I’ve always preferred the hospital at night. During the day, it can be fraught with emotional energy, people demanding answers and desperate to do something to help. I’d never done well with that kind of anxiety.
    I was always better with test results, percentages, calculations, cold hard maths. Winter, if you will – relentless but consistent, instead of the capricious and fleeting charm of spring.
    In the quiet darkness, the hospital was more pure in its function. Monitors beeped and intravenous tubes dripped. The machines ran the show, which worked for me. Patients slept. Visitors had left. Gurneys were moved as the dead journeyed quietly down to the morgue. The nurses focused on the checking of patients and keeping records.
    I savoured the dimness of the lights and the emptiness of the lobby as I crossed the threshold that night. I was looking forward to seeing Mrs Curtis too, even with the discussion ahead of us. The elevator came immediately and, in the comparative silence, I heard the whirr of its mechanism as I stood alone in it.
    I nodded to the night nurse, Miriam, one of the most watchful and competent of the nursing team. I hesitated outside Mrs Curtis’s room, my steps frozen at the sound of voices.
    She had a guest.
    How could that be?
    I looked at my watch. It was almost midnight. Outrage rose within me that anyone would disturb a patient as she healed, but then Mrs Curtis laughed.
    It was a different laugh than the one I usually heard in her presence. Low. Breathy. Sexy.
    “I can’t dance now!” she protested in a tone of voice that indicated she’d like to be persuaded otherwise.
    “Of course you can,” a man insisted. His voice was low and rich, a murmur that made me shiver.
    “The IV . . . ”
    “We’ll ignore it.”
    “But there’s no music,” Mrs Curtis argued, her tone light.
    Flirtatious.
    Did Mrs Curtis have a lover? She’d never mentioned it, but then I made a point of not asking after personal details. I knew nothing about her life and, until this moment, that had suited me just fine. I peeked around the edge of the door, curious.
    There was a man on the far side of Mrs Curtis’s bed, standing with his back to the window. He had dark hair and dark eyes, and seemed to be younger than Mrs Curtis. He was handsome, handsome enough to make me yearn for something I hadn’t had in a long time. He was wearing a black leather jacket, black jeans and a black T-shirt. A silver earring gleamed from his left ear lobe. No pretty boy – he was older, knowing, a little bit world-weary.
    Sexy.
    Familiar.
    Although I knew I’d never seen him before.
    Mrs Curtis had braced herself on one elbow, her hair a tangle of silver and russet on the back of her neck. Her skin was pale and she was thinner than I’d realized. The back of her hospital gown was open, and I was shocked at how clearly the individual vertebrae were delineated. The IV in her right hand looked enormous in comparison to her delicate hands.
    “Isn’t there?” he asked, his smile broadening. He had a sensual mouth, a full and mobile one, and his smile looked positively decadent. I couldn’t identify his accent, but it was European. Exotic.
    And then I heard the waltz. It seemed as if an orchestra had struck up in the