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  Tread Softly

  Ann Cristy

  I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

  “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,”

  by William Butler Yeats

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cady leaned over Rafe’s sleeping form and kissed his cheek. It had been two months since the operation and soon he would be going home. He could speak, he could walk… Cady shrugged. Well, he could move in his walker a few feet more each day. Soon he would be back to full strength, the doctors assured her, and at his job in the Senate as junior senator from the state of New York. Cady sighed. Maybe she would again find herself in the limbo their marriage had been in before the airplane accident that had cost Rafe so much.

  No… Even now, as she watched his eyes flutter, Cady vowed to herself that no one would relegate her to the hidey-hole life she’d been leading before the accident five agonizing months ago, when the plane carrying Rafe and a few friends crashed. They had been on their way to Durra, his father’s home in Maryland, named after the tiny hamlet in Ireland where Rafe’s great-grandfather was born. The Learjet’s engine had malfunctioned; the plane had hit the ground on a wingtip and somersaulted into a tree. The pilot had been killed, and Rafe, who had been standing talking to his friends, had broken his back, causing a vertebra to press on his spinal column. He’d been paralyzed from the neck down as a result. He’d received further damage from a severe blow to the head when his body was flung through the cabin. His vocal cords had been injured, but, although at first the doctors were not hopeful about Rafe’s back, they’d been confident he would at least regain control of his voice.

  When Dr. Kellman had come forward and told Cady his feeling that with a radical type of surgery with which he had previously been successful, Rafe would again be mobile, Cady had felt the beginning of hope.

  “The spine would be fused here… here… here.” Dr. Kellman pointed to the many dots on the scan. “Admittedly, the more points of injury, the greater the risk.” The doctor stared at her, his mouth tight. “But I also feel that his chances are very good. Of course, there will be long weeks of physical therapy, speech therapy… ” The surgeon tapped his pointer on the desk. “But with the use of the ‘Halo,’ the head device I described to you that will keep him immobile, I think we’ll succeed.”

  Cady stood and shook Dr. Kellman’s hand. “Doctor, thank you.” She took a deep breath. “I’d like time to think this over, and of course I’ll consult with other specialists.”

  Cady’s research had confirmed what Dr. Kellman told her. There had been success with such a procedure, but it was still experimental, radical, and because so many pressure points on the spine were involved, very risky indeed. Still, when Rafe had not responded to physical therapy or to any of the other types of treatment the doctors had tried, it became clear that the only hope for his full recovery lay in the new laser surgery that Dr. Kellman recommended.

  As she watched the vacant look in Rafe’s blue eyes as he came awake, the restless flutter of his hands as he clutched at the covering sheet, Cady remembered the long days in the nursing cottage when his eyes were the only moving part on that vital form. It still made her shudder with pain to think of it. She recalled the day she had told him she was going ahead with the operation, over the strong opposition of his father.

  “Emmett is furious that I would dare contemplate having such a radical procedure performed on you.” Cady lifted the flaccid hand to her mouth, delighting in being able to touch him. “Oh, I know it’s because he fears for your life.” She smiled at her husband, kissing each of his fingers. “He would rather have you confined to this Stryker frame than risk your life.” She had watched his blue eyes become cobalt rays burning into her mind. “Oh, yes, I know how you feel about that. I have no intention of letting anyone interfere with the surgery that Dr. Kellman feels can help you.” Cady caught her breath as the fire deepened in his eyes. For a moment she felt as though he were speaking to her rather than blinking his eyes, as he usually did to communicate.

  She cleared her throat. “Ah… the governor called this morning and asked if I would consider running for your seat if you’re unable to do so.” She rubbed Rafe’s limp hand against her cheek, wanting to touch him. “I told him I would be busy campaigning for you.” She kneaded his hand gently.

  Before his accident, she and Rafe had been estranged for nearly five years. They had lived in the same house but almost as strangers. It hadn’t been a cataclysmic schism but rather a gradual alienation that had begun with Cady’s dislike of some of her father-in-law’s friends. To her, these people seemed like leeches trying to suck the vitality from Rafe’s high-level priorities and leave behind the sleazy money-making schemes they represented. Rafe had defended his father’s cronies and insisted that he had to give careful consideration to the bills that many of them urged him to support. His sheepish defense of these people during heated arguments with Cady had bordered on the defensive, she thought in retrospect. At the time, however, she had interpreted Rafe’s hesitation as a sign that he was on the verge of knuckling under to his father’s friends’ demands. She had been bitter in her denunciations of these men—and of her husband for listening to them.

  More and more Rafe had attended parties alone, especially the parties his father gave at Durra. True, he had initially asked Cady to attend these gatherings with him. She had refused, partly because of her dislike of Emmett Densmore, Rafe’s father, who had never accepted Cady as his son’s wife. But the parties at Durra were a sore point with Cady for another reason as well.

  It wasn’t so much the scandal that had broken when Rafe, then a freshman congressman, had been discovered hosting a private party at Durra where the only guests other than men in public office had been a bevy of notorious call girls. After all, the episode had occurred before Cady had even met her future husband. But Rafe had never mentioned the incident, had indeed acted as if the parties at his father’s estate were dull, staid political affairs, and he had been lukewarm in his urging that Cady accompany him. Diffidently he had offered to forgo them himself, though Cady, unwilling to create a wedge between father and son, wouldn’t hear of it. Yet she couldn’t help wondering if her husband’s silence about the scandal and his continued presence at what she could only speculate were little better than orgies weren’t proof that he had not forsaken the wild playboy life that he had led prior to their marriage. Hints to this effect from Bruno Trabold, Emmett Densmore’s most intimate assistant and manager of his various sidelines and investments, fueled Cady’s suspicions. But pride—and love—prevented her from confronting Rafe about the parties at Durra.

  As time went on it seemed that Rafe spent more and more time at his father’s estate. Cady sought to fill the lonely hours by enrolling at Georgetown University to pursue a master’s degree in archaeology. She was encouraged in this endeavor by Rafe’s colleague, Rob Ardmore, a young congressman from Iowa. Rob also suggested that Cady do her utmost to combat what he suggested was an undue influence over Rafe of his father’s questionable associates. But Rafe seemed to turn a deaf ear to everything she said. While she studied, he partied. The rift between husband and wife widened.

  “I suppose you’d rather I didn’t even sleep in this room,” Rafe had said to her one evening when he walked into their bedroom and she grabbed a dressing gown and held it up in front of her.

  “That’s up to you,” Cady had responded coldly.

  Rafe had moved into another bedroom the next day, tearing Cady apart, though she had said nothing to dissuade him.

  She had held her breath waiting for him to ask for a divorce. Days went by when she didn’t even see him. She had been glad to take a trip back to New York State to see her father in the univer
sity town of Ithaca.

  It was while she was there that the call had come informing her of the accident. “It’s Rafe.” Emmett didn’t spare her. “The plane crashed on the way to Durra. He’s alive, but it’s bad. Get here fast.” The phone had crashed down, leaving Cady to arrange her return trip to Washington. She had felt as though her insides were shredded. She remembered being on the plane and thinking Rafe mustn’t die. She had promised an elusive deity that she would do anything if only her husband’s life were spared.

  She studied Rafe again as he came more fully awake.

  “Hello. You had a long, deep sleep.” Cady felt her smile slip sideways under Rafe’s long scrutiny.

  “Hello,” he answered, his voice retaining the slight hoarseness that the doctors assured her would gradually fade. “It always seems as though I’m still unable to speak when I first awaken.” He swallowed. “God, it was awful having to blink my eyes to communicate.” His mouth lifted at the corners. “Sometimes I think you read my mind rather than my blinks.” He coughed and nodded gratefully when Cady held out the water mug with the bent glass straw. Rafe took several deep drafts, sighing and leaning back against the pillows. “I’ll never forget that helicopter ride from the nursing cottage to here. I wanted either to be well again or to die on the operating table.”

  Cady could feel the pressure of tears building in her eyes. “I knew how you felt.”

  Rafe turned his head on the pillow. “I know you did. And I appreciate your standing up to my father when he tried to block the surgery. I could blink my consent, but the operation wouldn’t have been properly authorized without your having signed the release papers. Dad would have used all his influence to prevent it if you hadn’t kept it secret from him until after I was already on the operating table.”

  Cady shuddered in reminiscence of her father-in-law’s ire when he had discovered that his son was in the midst of undergoing the experimental surgery. “Emmett was furious with me,” she said quietly.

  “Don’t I know it!” Rafe grinned at her, some of the pallor leaving his haggard face. “And I can imagine how you felt when my brothers arrived to visit me less than an hour before the helicopter was scheduled to take me from the nursing home to the National Institutes of Health for the operation.”

  Cady grazed her knuckles across her lips and nodded, recalling her shock when the twins, Rafe’s brothers, had ambled into the cottage. She had frowned at them in her fear. “What are you doing here? I thought you visited Rafe earlier in the day.”

  “Nice greeting, Cady,” Gareth, the more voluble twin, offered before going over to the bed and lifting Rafe’s heavy arm. “I bet you didn’t expect to see me twice in one day, did you, old man?” Gareth said to Rafe. “Gavin decided he would come after practice because he had a makeup test today. So I came with him.” The sandy-haired giant turned around to look at Cady. “Satisfied, o sister-in-law who never smiles anymore?”

  “Hey, Gareth, knock it off. Cady smiles. She’s just tired from working those long hours in Rafe’s Senate office,” the lesser giant with the darker-color hair answered, smiling in his rather shy way at Cady before walking toward the hospital bed and grinning at his brother. In the quick, restrained way he had, Gavin leaned down to kiss his brother on the cheek.

  Cady liked the twins, although at times she thought Gareth a little too flippant and outspoken. It was enough for her that they came to visit Rafe. That made them top drawer to Cady. She cleared her throat, wondering how she was going to get rid of them. “Ah… I… ah… this… I hate to say that this is my hour, but it is.” She looked at a now-frowning Gareth, her eyes steady.

  “Cady of the tiny slim body, the honey-color hair, and the violet eyes that should have been fawn-brown to go with the rest of your coloring. You surprise me, as usual. Why do you want us to go? You always seem to be in there battling about something, but you look as fragile as that Belleek china from Ireland that Dad prizes so much. What’s going on behind that doll face, Cady?” Gareth quizzed her, his careless college look fading into a sharp-eyed study.

  His twin glanced up from Rafe’s bed. His quiet eyes had an arrested look as the color rose in Cady’s face.

  “Why does it seem strange to you that I would want my designated hour alone with my husband? It wasn’t my idea to break the time down so that Emmett and Bruno could have their special times.” She bit her lip as she heard her voice rise in a hysterical way. At all costs she had to keep her cool. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with Rafe being taken to the hospital today and operated on by Dr. Kellman. All the plans hinged on split-second timing. If Rafe’s father ever suspected, he would try to stop her.

  Graf’s low growl seemed to steady Cady’s nerves. She was grateful that Rafe had requested, through blinks, to have their chocolate-brown Doberman pinscher with him in the nursing cottage. Even Albert Trock, the male nurse who was Rafe’s constant attendant at the nursing home, thought the dog was good for Rafe’s morale.

  Both Gareth and Gavin looked at the Doberman curled next to the bed.

  “Why the hell do you bring Graf every time you come, Cady?” Gareth asked, scowling amusement as the large dog stretched. “He doesn’t seem to like anyone but you and Rafe.”

  “I like him,” Gavin announced, approaching the Doberman but not touching him. Graf looked back at him in unblinking appraisal. “He has a dignity about him, a sense of worth.”

  Cady laughed, so relieved that the subject had been changed that she could feel the moisture beading on her upper lip. “Yes, Dobermans seem to have that look about them. That’s why I call him Graf, meaning ‘count’ in German. He’s a gentle dog, but he’s also very protective of Rafe, so he doesn’t unbend with anyone when he’s here.” Cady paused for a moment. “Though that’s not quite true. There’s a nurse here named Trock, and Graf seems to like him. Track’s marvelous with Rafe—they even play chess together, with Rafe blinking to show the moves he wants to make on the chessboard.” She smiled at the twins, not happy that she had to resist disclosing what would be happening to Rafe that very day. But she couldn’t risk Bruno Trabold or Emmett Densmore’s interference. She fully intended to tell all of them, but not until the operation began.

  It was a stroke of luck when Gavin reminded his garrulous twin of the beer blast on their dorm floor at Georgetown that evening. In short order they informed their immobile brother of all the lurid events that would no doubt take place, then took themselves off, laughing and promising to return the next day.

  The guilty feelings that Cady experienced at keeping such a secret from the twins lessened when Dr. Kellman called her from Bethesda.

  “We’re ready for him, Cady. How are things at your end?”

  “Good so far. I’ve just heard from one of the nurses that the helicopter is standing by. No one is too suspicious because I had informed the staff that I had a meeting that would necessitate the use of a helicopter.” Cady shuddered. “Dr. Kellman, I’m so afraid. I know I’m doing the right thing. It’s hell for Rafe to be a prisoner in his own body, but I’m afraid of losing him, too.” She looked at Rafe when she spoke, feeling his eyes fixed on her. There was a blue-flame message there. “Of course I’m going through with it… but I’m frightened.”

  When she had completed the call, she remembered now, she had walked back to Rafe’s bed to talk to him. “It won’t be long now. I’m just waiting for the shift to change. We’ll go when the early-shift doctors have left and the others are making rounds in the far wing.” She had smiled down at him. “I feel as though we’re caught in the middle of a spy film.” Cady had sunk into the chair, holding Rafe’s limp hand to her forehead.

  Later that day, as she had waited outside the operating room for progress reports on Rafe, she had at last braved the face-to-face encounter with Emmett Densmore that she’d been dreading.

  Bruno Trabold in tow, Emmett strode down the corridor to where Cady waited, his eyes blazing with wrath. “You tricked me,” he accused. “And you enlisted the a
id of that man Trock to lie to me, to stall me, so that I wouldn’t know that Rafe had been transferred here for surgery until it was too late to do anything about it.” He gave her a look of sheer hatred. “If my son dies,” he hissed menacingly, “his death will be on your head.”

  Cady gasped, closed her eyes for a moment, then forced her gaze to meet Emmett’s unwaveringly. “I’m doing what Rafe wants,” she said levelly. “What we both want. I’m sorry that deception was necessary, Emmett, but my husband’s wishes come before yours—or even my own. It’s his life, after all.”

  “His death will be on your head,” her father-in-law repeated ominously.

  “He’s not going to die! And he’s not going to live out his life as a vegetable, either! The operation will succeed, and Rafe will be reelected to the Senate in November,” Cady said, her words more a prayer than an expression of certainty.

  “Will he?” Bruno Trabold mocked her. “What if he’s not around to be reelected in November, Acting Senator Densmore?” His voice dripped venom. “Then I guess you’ll just have to run for your late husband’s seat in his stead, won’t you?”

  Cady met her enemy’s eyes unflinchingly. She knew that Bruno had been furious when the governor had appointed her interim senator a few weeks after Rafe’s accident. It had been Rafe’s own wish, expressed through blinks when the state’s chief executive had visited him in the hospital shortly before Rafe’s transfer to the nursing home. What a blow to Bruno, who’d had Emmett lobbying in Albany for Bruno’s appointment to the position. The governor had told her of Emmett and Bruno’s machinations, and also of Rafe’s insistence that Cady herself fill the office. For brief moments she had taken heart and embraced this trust as evidence that Rafe still loved her, despite their growing estrangement.

  After all, she was only thirty, the minimum age required by the Constitution to serve as a U.S. senator, and despite having minored in political science in college, she had no previous experience in public office. So Rafe’s desire that she fulfill his duties while he was unable to must be his way of expressing his love for her, she reassured herself momentarily.