Once on her stomach with the pillow set properly, she sighed. “This is the best part of my week,” she whispered and Damon smiled as he poured massage oil into his palm.
“Mine, too, Mom.” He smoothed the lotion over her back, ignoring the way the bones protruded. “Mine, too.”
He felt satisfaction as the tension eased from her body beneath his touch.
At least he wasn’t completely powerless, although it was closer than he liked.
Haley had heard about him, of course. The mysterious man who showed up every Friday night to give Mrs. Natasha Perez a massage. The hunky and mysterious son, if she listened to the other nurses. There was a lot of speculation about him and whatever he did—and what kind of relationships he had.
Haley didn’t care much about his social life. What intrigued her was the difference in his mother’s charts. As a nurse interested in alternative therapies, Haley always wanted to know more about easing discomfort, no matter how it was done. There was no denying that Natasha slept better and more deeply every Friday night.
He came on other days and times, too, and the story was that he phoned her daily, but Friday night, after the wards quieted down, he showed up like clockwork.
Was it his presence, as Mrs. Perez’s only son, or his massages that made the difference? Haley had swapped shifts, just to see for herself.
On this Friday night, just past midnight, she stood in the doorway of his mother’s room and watched. She was on her break from the cardiac ward and had twenty minutes. The door was partly closed, which both kept Haley out of view and limited what she could see. From this vantage point, she could see only the edge of the heart monitor but could hear its output. Even without reading the display, she heard Mrs. Perez’s pulse slow to a nice steady resting rate.
She couldn’t see the son well from this angle, plus he had his back to the door. He was bigger than Haley had expected, buff like someone who worked out a lot. His hair was dark, almost black, and he looked tanned. His jacket was flung over a chair and he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She could see the muscles in his back and arms flexing as he gave his mom a massage. His broad shoulders strained the T-shirt and she could see the end of a tattoo on his upper arm, below the hem of the sleeve. His hands moved rhythmically over his mom’s limbs as he talked softly to her.
Haley wasn’t sure whether it was a worse choice to stand in the doorway and eavesdrop, or to declare herself and ruin the mood he’d created. She listened to the heart monitor and stayed put.
Just watching his hands was mesmerizing.
His jeans fit just a little too well for her own heart rate to be dropping, though.
How long had it been since she’d wrapped her legs around a man? Too long, judging by her body’s response to the sight of one deliciously fit male. She always bailed quickly on relationships, not wanting to get in too deep, not wanting to be tied down, not wanting to sacrifice her ambitions. For the past year or so, it had seemed like too much trouble to bother with men. She watched Mrs. Perez’s son, though, and realized she’d been ignoring her basic needs.
She swallowed, stared, and considered fixing that.
“There’s something I should tell you, Mom,” he said. He had a nice deep voice, both soothing and sexy. “Something I told you a long time ago that just isn’t true.”
“You never lied to me.”
“Well, I did once. I’ve been feeling guilty about it ever since.”
His mom sighed. “You could always have told me.”
“I know. But there never seemed to be time. These nights when I’m here with you, it feels as if we have nothing but time.”
That wasn’t strictly true. Haley bit her lip. She’d read Natasha’s charts. Time was not on the older woman’s side. She hoped the son knew the reality ahead of them.
Maybe that was why he was confessing.
“You’re still not telling me,” Mrs. Perez said, humor in her tone. Haley smiled at the sound. Too often, she heard the pain in the voices of patients like this one.
The son didn’t respond for a moment. He lifted the sheet and began to work on his mother’s legs. He caressed from the ankle upward, his hands in a V, circling slowly across the flesh. His mom sighed.
Haley bit her lip. The sight of those large tanned hands on the older woman’s slender and pale leg, the tenderness in his touch, the comfort he was giving, was enough to make her tears rise. Kindness was a little too rare in the world, in Haley’s view.
“It’s hard to know where to start,” he murmured finally.
“At the beginning,” his mother suggested, and he chuckled.
“You wanted grandchildren,” he said. “I think that was the beginning.”
“A child is the beginning,” she whispered. “We think it’s the culmination of love, the result, but the conception is really the beginning.”
The son didn’t answer. That his ring finger was bare told Haley that he might be single. Or divorced and single again. Either way, the direction of the conversation and his silence suggested that he was alone and that he didn’t have kids.
She knew she should leave.
She knew she had no right to listen.
But she told herself that she was observing his technique and learning.
He was good. The monitors showed the therapeutic effect of his touch. Mrs. Perez was almost asleep and at ease. Her pulse had slowed even more, and her charts showed that she asked for fewer painkillers on Saturdays. It was amazing.
“You kept asking me about women, about marriage, about babies,” the son continued, a tinge of exasperation in his tone. He eased the sheet aside and worked on her thighs, his movements slow and reverent. “And then one day, you asked if I was gay.” He leaned a little more into the massage as he worked higher. “And I said yes.”
“I remember,” his mom said mildly.
“But I was lying,” he admitted, bending to drop a kiss on her shoulder. It was a tender gesture, one that made Haley’s tear threaten to break free. The love between mother and son was almost palpable. The heart monitor beeped steadily as his hands bracketed the back of his mother’s waist. “Breathe now, Mom. Breathe in when my hands are here, then out when I move them. In and out. In and out. Slowly. Push out the pain with each breath.”
Mrs. Perez did as she was told, and Haley found herself breathing the same rhythm. It would have been meditative, if she hadn’t been so fascinated by the patient’s son.
“I was lying because I didn’t want you to be disappointed anymore,” he continued in that velvety voice. “I didn’t want you to be waiting for something I wasn’t sure was ever going to happen.” He was silent for a long moment. “I wasn’t sure the right woman really was out there, and so I lied.”
“I know,” his mother said softly.
“You knew?” His hands froze for a moment, then he resumed his massage.
His mother laughed softly. “I knew, Damon. I always knew.”
Damon. His name was Damon.
His mom’s voice turned sleepy. “You always make it feel better,” she murmured as he worked down her arms to her fingertips. “What would I do without you?”
“You don’t have to do without me, Mom.”