First Sight by Danielle Steel Page B

inspiration to him, and he knew he would long remember all that they had shared that afternoon. It was growing dark when he finally let go of her hand. They had sat and talked for hours. The nurses had peeked in to see how she was, and discreetly left. She was in good hands, and they didn’t want to interrupt. They could see it was a serious conversation. Both Timmie and her doctor had looked intent as they talked, and now he saw that she looked tired.
    “I’ve exhausted you,” he said apologetically, feeling guilty for staying so long. But she was a fascinating woman, and the insights he had gained into her would never be forgotten. He knew he would always remember her with profound respect and admiration whenever he heard her name. And he hoped to see her again sometime when she came back to Paris. It suddenly seemed like a great gift of providence that he had met her at all. If her friend in New York hadn’t given her his name, she never would have, and would have had to call the hotel doctor, whom she knew nothing about.
    “It was good to talk to you,” she said with a quiet smile, laying her head back on her pillow for the first time in hours. “I never talk about those things anymore.” She had gone to therapists for years after her son’s death and the demise of her marriage, and eventually she and her therapist had decided the work was done. It was as good as it was going to get. The rest she just had to live with and accept. The past was what it was. “It meant a lot to me to tell you about it. Sometimes we think we know who people are, and how they got there, but we really don’t. You never know what people have been through, or how far they’ve come,” she said wisely, as he nodded agreement.
    “You’ve come far, Timmie,” he said soberly. Farther than anyone he’d known. They had formed a bond the night before when he had been there for her. It was something she would never forget either. He had been right there for her, as few people ever were. And she sensed from talking to him that he was a man one could trust. “When are you going to let me go home?” she asked as he stood up. She had nothing and no one to rush home for, but she didn’t like being in the hospital either.
    “I don’t know yet. Not for a while. Perhaps in a week. I’ll let you go back to the hotel before that, and see how you feel. Are you going straight back to Los Angeles from here?”
    She shook her head. “I was supposed to go to New York. I have meetings there next week, and one this Friday night.”
    “I’m not sure you’ll feel up to it. You may be fit to travel in a week, but if I were you, I would go home and rest, at least for another week. You did have surgery, after all.” She nodded.
    She had been thinking of telling Jade and David to have the meetings without her. They could always bring her up to speed when she got home. The most important thing had been the ready to wear show, and she had done that. The rest didn’t seem to matter quite as much to her now, and he could see that in her eyes. She wasn’t fighting him to leave, which he had expected of her. She had turned out to be so much different than he thought at first. He had expected her to be spoiled, difficult, demanding, and overbearing, as witnessed by her success. Instead, she was anything but. She was warm, kind, strong, intelligent, reasonable, compassionate, and gentle. She didn’t seem to have a mean bone in her body. And he liked her a lot. “Do you need anything before I go? More pain medication?” he offered, and she shook her head.
    “I rarely take anything. This isn’t so bad. I’ve been through worse.” After talking to her all afternoon, he knew she had. She hadn’t taken medication when Mark died either. Hiding from reality and her feelings about it was not her style. She faced things head-on. She always had.
    “Call me on my cell phone if you need anything,” he reminded her, and she smiled. He patted her shoulder, and