Summer in Tuscany by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online Page B

was, laughing at me, anyhow?
    I closed my eyes, and suddenly my head was back at the hospital, my safe place, where I was too busy even to think about myself. This trip is just an interlude, I reassured myself. It’ll soon be over. My job is my life, my identity. Without my doctor’s coat I’m just another single parent, Livvie’s mom, trying to do the right thing. I have my work and I have Livvie. I need nothing more. Or do I?
    I thought of the Michelangelo from Long Island and his gray-green eyes, flecked with gold. I thought about his beautiful little daughter and his probably beautiful wife and about their certainly idyllic life. And suddenly loneliness loomed in those sun-filled piazzas, and sleep refused to come.

Chapter Ten
    I stomped into the bathroom, ran a hot bath, flung in about half a gallon of the Hassler’s fragrant bath oil, then slumped in the water up to my chin. This Rome thing was too much for me. I felt like a transplanted alien, thrown into a life of ease and luxury where time had no meaning. I was too used to living on the knife edge, to always having to be alert, to be ready for the next emergency, to juggling time as though it were something precious to be meted out sparingly: so much for this one, so much for that, and none for me. Now all of a sudden I was wallowing in a bathtub wondering what to do next.
    This was all wrong. I shouldn’t even be here.
    I grabbed the hand shower and washed my hair, scrubbing my scalp vigorously as if to stimulate my benumbed brain into action again. Then I climbed out of the tub, wrapped myself in the hotel’s white waffle-cotton robe, and twisted a towel into a turban over my wet hair. I rummaged through the packages, which were still on the sofa, and found what I was looking for—an expensive tube of face mask guaranteed to remove those aggravating little lines and snap open pores tight shut. All you had to do was smooth it over your entire face, leaving two holes for the eyes, then wait fifteen minutes and rinse it off.
    I smeared it on, then took a long look at myself in the mirror. Did the green clay mask make my eyes look bloodshot? Or were they really bloodshot? Maybe I’d better go easy on the Bellinis, though, in fact, the thought of one right now sent a pleasant little tingle down my spine. There you go, I said to myself. One minute you’re complaining that you shouldn’t be here and that you can’t cope. The next you’re putting on face mask and thinking of room-service Bellinis. Who are you anyway, Dr. Jericho?
    I rang room service and ordered that Bellini. Then, remembering the green mask and my nakedness under the robe, I told them to leave it outside my room.
    Five minutes later the bell rang. I gave the waiter a couple of minutes to make it back down the corridor and into the elevator before I opened the door. I saw the little cart just to the left with a silver bucket and my Bellini nestling on the ice inside it. Smiling, I stepped outside, reached for the ice bucket, and heard the door slam shut on me.
    I swung around and almost strangled myself. The belt of my robe was caught in the door. I tugged, but it wasn’t giving. I tugged again. No luck.
    Sighing, I slipped the belt from the loops on the robe and tried the door. It wouldn’t open. Maybe it was stuck because of the belt. I pushed the handle again, gave the door a shove. Nothing.
    Panic swept like a hot tide up my spine. My beltless robe gaped open, and my face was frozen inside a crisp green shell. This couldn’t be happening to me. Not me, Doc Jericho, the cool emergency room physician. No, of course it wasn’t, I told myself bitterly. This was happening to Gemma, the queen of klutz. I gave the door a kick, then wished I hadn’t. Now my foot hurt like hell.
    I glanced behind me. The hallway was long and empty, softly lit and silent. Our suite was at the end of the hall, and the elevators were about midway. Opposite the elevators was a marble console with a big bouquet of