Yeah, house. First of all I was expecting an apartment, or condo at the very most. But nope. He lived-and owned, I’d learned-an old Victorian house on the west side of Hope Valley, in one of the finer, older neighborhoods.
Bachelor: grumpy at times, grouchy at others. House: burned-out-bachelor pad, it was not.
As I followed him up the pink flower-bordered walkway, I couldn’t even speak. Without a green thumb on either hand, I knew nothing about the flowers other than that they were pink and pretty, and that Dano must either live with someone or had hired someone to landscape. Yet, what would make him do that?
Then he bent to pick a brown leaf off one of the plants and I mumbled, “He planted them.”
“I planted them. Don’t sound so shocked. Did all the landscaping myself. Good therapy to empty my bucket of ambulance runs when I need to forget,” he said, and opened the large, dark paneled wood front door with a leaded and frosted glass window in the center.
“Oh,” was all I could manage until I stepped inside and added, “Oh, my.” Oh, again.
Dano appeared to ignore me as he pointed out, “Here’s the living room, the john’s in there and you can stay upstairs in the room to the left of the railing. When you try to wake me, don’t get close.”
I wanted to ask why, but figured he must have been a deep sleeper and would probably clock me if I startled him.
We went into the kitchen, which had copper pots hanging from the ceiling, large tomato plants growing in pots by the bay windows and old large-plank hardwood floors. At a white enamel sink, he took a glass from a cabinet, filled it and drank it down in one swallow.
“This place is neat,” I said, sitting down at the white wooden kitchen table. There were even crocheted doilies on the table as placemats.
“My grandmother made those,” was all he said when he noticed me noticing them.
“Ah. That’s nice. Look, Dano, I’m here to help you. Let me get you whatever you want while you sit and take it easy. I don’t want your head to start hurting.”
He looked at me.
Gulp.
Damn. The guy had a way of looking that I felt. Actually felt.
“Already hurts like hell. I’d go to bed now, but then I’d be up all night long…thinking.”
There was pain in his voice, and I knew ER Dano had really been on the job far too long. It’d taken a toll on him, and grabbed his life without releasing. I could sense that he didn’t like to go to sleep-obviously since job-demon dreams awaited him.
So I sat there staring at him in the little Victorian kitchen, which looked more like a librarian lived here than a macho paramedic, thinking, What the hell am I going to do? when the urge to kiss him shocked the hell out of me.
I made some excuse about seeing the rest of the house. At least it was an interesting place, and he bought my reasoning for taking the unguided tour while he rested. Naturally Dano had not volunteered to show me around, but had merely shrugged and sat himself at the kitchen table to read the daily newspaper.
Since he hadn’t seemed to mind, I walked through the dining room, which had old mahogany furniture, chairs with needlepoint mauve roses, lacy curtains that looked genuine and antiques-in the corner was an old China tea set on a lace-covered pedestal table.
I had to shake my head. There was an air to the house of antiquity, yet it was freshly kept up and not musty, as one might expect. He had to have inherited this place. For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine Dano decorating in this taste. Then again, he lived here without changing anything. Hmm.
ER Dano was one hell of a dichotomy.
In the living room, I sat on the rose-colored Victorian couch. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing; as a matter of fact it made me think of how prim and proper ladies must have been in the Victorian era. They had to be, to sit this straight. White porcelain vases holding silken floral arrangements sat on the sideboards. Wait a minute. I got up and walked to them and ran a finger along the petals, which came off in my hands.
Real flowers.
Real flowers? Dano had real flowers in his house? Man. This was almost creepy. I turned to see him standing in the doorway. Whoops.
“Hey,” I mumbled.
He nodded. “I’m beat. Going up to bed. Remember, not too close when you annoy the hell out of me.”
I smiled. “Um, Dan. These flowers are beautiful. Did you arrange them?” Now if there was one thing I just knew ER Dano would not want to talk about, it would be flowers.
But he looked at them and said, “My therapist had me take a freaking course in floral arrangement.”
I laughed. “Yeah, right. Really. Did you do them?”
He walked over to them and poignantly took a brown petal from a rose much like he’d done outside. “My old lady had a greenhouse. She taught my sister, and I used to watch-as a kid. And, the therapist part is true.” He turned and looked past me as if his mom and maybe sister were in the doorway. “Helps. They help.” With that he walked out of the room and up the staircase.
I stood there and thought, I’ll bet it does. Anything to take his mind off the daily tragedies of life that ER and the crew of TLC faced.
My eyelids fluttered. The annoying buzzing tickled my ears, and I opened one eye to look at the digital clock on the bedside table. Midnight. Geez. I thought it was time to get up for work. I turned over and shut my eyes-then realized this wasn’t my bed.
I sat bolt upright and I looked around the old Victorian room where I’d been sleeping. Oh, right. D-day. Time to take my life into my hands and check on Dano. I’d peeked in on him just before I’d gone to sleep myself, but he’d been awake and growled the date and time as I’d said good night.
As I rolled out of bed and slipped on my shoes, I had to smile. I’m sure he was fine, since his attitude never adjusted one second.
When I padded down the short hallway, I noticed light coming from under his door. Hmm. Maybe Dano couldn’t sleep and was up reading. I slowly eased the door open despite the squeaking sound the old thing made.
Dano was fast asleep. The Tiffany lamp on his bedside table was still lit. Oh well. Guess he dozed off and forgot to shut it off. I only hoped he hadn’t gotten too tired because of the head injury. Purposely I walked to the edge of the bed, reminding myself of my nursing days. It almost felt as if I were making my rounds on the unit where I used to work.
“Ah. No. No!” Dano mumbled.
“Are you-” I started to say until I realized he was sound asleep.
Dano talked in his sleep. But the thing was, he sounded disturbed by something. Suddenly he lashed out with a left jab.
I stepped back. Geez! He could have knocked me out with that one. I remembered what he’d said about not getting close. Dano must have known that he was a restless sleeper. A very restless sleeper.
He tossed and turned, still mumbling, so I got as close as I could, thinking I could move back fast if need be, and said, “Dano. Dan, it’s Pauline.”
I stepped back as Dano suddenly sat upright.
“Dan?” I asked.
But he merely looked my way in a glassy stare. Not a word, and he was out of bed and walking toward the door. Dressed in black boxers and no tee shirt, Dano looked hunky, but when I realized he was sleepwalking, I had other things on my mind other than how hot he looked.
What should I do?
My sister Mary had a child who walked in his sleep and the doctor had told her never to try and wake him. Dano was out the door already! So I hurried to follow him but found him standing in the hallway, rubbing his head as if in pain.
“No. No. I should have. I should have given the epi. She died because of…” His eyes locked on me. He paused, blinked. “What the hell?”