Tracy

004:

She could hear Michael coming long before he ever even got to her room---- huffing and puffing, he tended to sound like a rushing locomotive. He was barking orders as well. No paparazzi! No reporters! No statements! No pictures of any kind! His feet flopped on the linoleum, he always wore hippie sandals, and they always flopped.

She was sitting up, her legs dangling over the side of the hospital bed. Her clothes were in place, she just wanted to leave. But, of course, she needed a ride. It wouldn't do to show up to Grandma Coral's in a taxi and have to be escorted around. She had a car at Rocks--- or at least there was a car at Rocks that she'd used before. Hopefully, Michael had thought to bring it--- they had carriers for this sort of thing, right?
D
And then he was there... tall, powerful, charismatic, full of righteous indignation. She loved that last description and thought he would too.

In actuality, the light behind him from the nurse's station haloed his full head of curly dark hair, wet from rain and plastered into stringy tendrils like Arby's curly fries. That sounded really good right now, and she was hungry.

Michael stood in the doorway, hands on hips, elegant bulk resting easy on his frame. He was a big man, but he never lacked for confidence due to his size. His presence filled every room he was in. Tracy loved everything about him, and wouldn't let anyone else touch her work only him. She had a defiant side bred from years of being told what to do by people who thought they knew better than her. Michael was the only one she ever paid any attention to.

He just stared at her, shaking his head.

"Can you get me out of here?" She smiled sweetly, her headache miraculously disappeared and her calm and reason restored.

Michael waved a pager in the air. "Could you have paged me before it came to this?" He tossed it on her bed and it banged against her butt. She felt around for it with her fingers.

"I shouldn't have gone with him."

Michael lowered himself into the too small vinyl armchair the room provided and looked up at the one piece of artwork. He dismissed it with a skeptical raise of his brows. She knew he was something of a connoisseur. Print 5000/10000 wasn't even remotely of interest no matter who it was by. His eyes rested back on hers.

"Why did you then?"

"What? Go with him? Just to get him out of there. He was higher than a kite. I hated to have him attract a crowd."

"So you attracted a crowd of your own. Including the evening news." He was shaking his head.

"I thought he was just taking me to Mom and Dad's to pick up Danny."

"You really thought that, did you?" The sarcasm rang from his thin lips as they swiveled to one side comically. He reached for the remote and flipped channels on the mounted television set above them. The first news channel he came to actually was showing the ambulance, and the Naval Officer helping her.

"Who is this guy? Hero of the day. Saving the lady in distress." Michael's tones dripped with the reverberations of having to answer this question many times already.

Tracy fingered the paper she'd wadded in her pocket. She smoothed it for the hundredth time. His name was Raine Maverick, and he was a lieutenant in the Navy--- he worked at Miramar, south of here, he was a Top Gun Naval Flight instructor.

He was of supreme interest right at the moment.

Michael's eyes slid to hers as no plausible denial was forthcoming. "I said, who is this guy?"

"I don't know." She said, which was truthful, but she wanted to know. Everything about him intrigued her now that her headache had stopped pounding and twisting her stomach into knots. A guy who had stopped, that's who he is. A guy who had bandaged her leg and hand, that's who he is. A guy who did not run off, but offered to come to the hospital with her. That's who he is. A guy who had seen who she was and didn't become all gushy and swoony. A guy who flew planes...

Unlike the guy, she was currently supposedly attached to. Who yelled at her, bossed her around, blackmailed her to see his son, and called her names. The contrast was stark.

Michael's keen eyes were arrested on her transparent face. He made a sympathetic noise in his throat and leaned forward over his bulk, drumming his fingers on the arm chair. Finally, he scratched his chin.

"What are you going to do?"

Tracy's eyes snapped up to his. "I got his number."

Michael leaned back again, this time in speculation. "Well, you have that in common. You both fly."

Tracy grinned like the Cheshire cat and pushed herself off the bed. "I thought of that, you know. I thought of that." She had recently gotten her pilot's license. It seemed the only practical solution to her transportation problem, especially as her college classes required her attendance in Idaho most of the week, and her job and child required her attendance in Southern California on the weekends. Flight had been a logical extension of her repertoire. It may have nearly broke her, but she bought a plane. Flight had made her completely mobile, and accessible.

"He wanted me to gig in a nightclub, Michael." She said slipping back into her gauzy over-top. Michael could see she was going to leave, with or without permission, so he wisely lumbered to his tired feet.

He shook his bear-like head. "Yeah."

"No, I mean really. He's gigging in night clubs and he wants me to promote him." She was noticeably shocked and upset.

Michael's hand on the small of her back as he ushered her out of the arched doorway into a better lit hallway rubbed absently. He rarely touched her, but right now compassion seemed appropriate. "Are you going to promote him?"

Her surprised expression told him only that she hadn't considered it yet. This bird was completely mercurial, and would say and do one thing one day and something entirely different the next depending on who was demanding what from her. He'd never seen a person so eager to please as Tracy McCaffrey. It was a burden.

But Casey Crandall may have pushed her too far.

"He is using Danny to keep me in line. He threatens not to allow me to see him." They walked down the now guarded hallway and Michael nodded to his security people as he pushed open the double doors for her, one hand over her head, she wasn't a very tall person, and right now they'd given her some kind of flat plastic flip flops rather than her heels. Her jeans leg was still flapping and ripped up the seam.

Michael stopped in the main lobby as his security kept the paparazzi at bay. He flashed his ID and some other paperwork at the nurse's station while Tracy rummaged in her purse for chap stick--- or so she said. He knew she really had no idea about insurance cards, or medical releases. They pushed a clipboard forward and he pointed out where she should sign.

She was this awkward mixture of savvy pop diva and juvenile air head.

Possibly the most exasperating person he knew.

"Are you going to see him anyway?" They stood in the hallway that led out the largest entrance, where cameras were already flashing, where voices could be heard, where their respective cars were being brought.

"Yes, I am. He's my baby. He needs me." She shoved her purse to her shoulder and gripped it hard with one little hand. Michael thought he'd never seen such a petite hand. And oh, how that hand could caress a piano keyboard or race over guitar strings.

"And that is the crux of it, my dear. He's your baby, and he needs you."

Relief flooded her face and she nodded, for the first time with confidence. If he could give her that then half the job was done. He thought for the first time about making it home tonight to his own wife and family. It seemed like it might be a possibility after all.

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