When Ric awoke late the next morning, he felt thoroughly rested. Having spent a few nights in the same house as a wakeful baby, plus a night disturbed by Connie's dreams, he'd been pretty tired. But after her orgasm of the night before, Connie had slept entirely peacefully. But where was she? She wasn't lying next to him in bed, though the dent in the pillow where her head had been was still warm. Then, as he began to fully wake up, he heard the movement of water in the bathroom next door, telling him that Connie was probably lying in the bath. Getting out of bed, he moved to stand in the bathroom doorway, finding her reclining in the hot, bubbly water.
"You slept well," She said with a smile, glancing up at him from under her eyelashes. "Hmm," He said with a yawn. "So did you." "I wouldn't have done, if you hadn't been here," Connie told him seriously, as he moved to the sink to clean his teeth. "Glad to be of service," He told her with a smile. "Would you care to join me?" She asked him, feeling that some company in the lapping warmth of her haven certainly wouldn't go amiss. "Are you sure?" He replied, liking the idea immensely. "Yes," She reassured him. Swiftly removing his boxers, Ric slid into the bath behind her, Connie fitting comfortably between his legs. As she leaned back against him, he adjusted her slightly so that she lay with her head on his left shoulder. Turning to face him, she kissed him gently.
Ric found that wholly delicious as this was, he couldn't quite escape the effect that her nearness was having on him. He wasn't sure how his reaction to her would be greeted by her, and he didn't want to frighten her off by being quite so clearly aroused from having her soft, naked body nestling against him. When he gently tried to push her slightly away from him, she raised an eyebrow at him. "Does my nearness happen to be a little too invigorating?" She asked with a sly little smirk. "Yes," He told her, in that gravelly, enchantingly erotic voice that had first captured her attention. "Oh well," She said philosophically. "You do at least still find me attractive." "Connie, you will always be beautiful to me, no matter how you look," He assured her seriously, the honesty shining out of his eyes and straight into hers. "Thank you," She said quietly, the true sincerity in his words almost overwhelming her. "However, that doesn't exactly get rid of your current problem, now does it," She added with a smile, wanting to get back onto a footing she could entirely understand. But as she moved her hand to encompass his arousal, he stopped her. "Connie, you really don't need to do that," He assured her, not wanting her to do something she wasn't ready for. "I know I don't," She told him quietly. "If I for one moment thought I did, I wouldn't, but I wouldn't be averse to the idea of a repetition of last night." There was a hunger in her eyes, whether for love or for lust, he wasn't sure, but it made him see that she was deadly serious about what she wanted from him. As his hands began moving familiarly over her body, and she brought him nearer and nearer to the edge, Ric thought that but for Connie's injuries, he really couldn't be happier.
Later that afternoon, Ric told Connie that there was something he needed to do, but that he would definitely be back later. "That sounds mysterious," She said, his evasive explanation intriguing her. "I owe someone a drink for doing me an enormous favour," He told her with a smile. "If they hadn't given into my pleading, I never would have known where to find you." "And just who did you manage to persuade to give you my address?" She asked him with a mock frown on her face. "Aha, that really would be telling, and I did promise that I wouldn't," He told her honestly. "She doesn't want to lose her job." "Tricia," Connie said without a flicker. "She always did have a soft spot for you." "Well, you can thank your lucky stars that she does," Ric said with a slight frown of his own. "Yes, I know," Connie said, looking slightly mollified, and thinking that Tricia was probably the only person in that hospital who might actually care about what had happened to her.
Having phoned Tricia to arrange a time to meet with her, Ric strolled into the bar opposite the hospital and found her already sitting at a table waiting for him. He bought them both a drink and they sat talking for quite a while, exchanging news and catching up on all the gossip, of which Tricia knew plenty. But after a while, she said, "So, did you find what you were looking for with Connie's address?" "In a manner of speaking, yes," Ric told her evasively, not quite able to decide whether or not he should tell her what had happened to Connie. "Oh, come on, Ric," Tricia said affectionately. "You don't virtually beg me to give you someone's address without good reason, even if you are sleeping with her." "Tricia, how much do you know about Michael?" Ric asked her, wanting to see just how much she might have been able to work out for herself. "He has about as much time for his marriage vows as my daughter ever did about hers," Tricia replied philosophically. "And he uses Connie's position to drive through any new policy that looks good to the accountants, but doesn't ever work in practice. I also don't think that Connie is happy with him, but that's nothing new. Why?" "On Christmas Day, he beat her up, pretty badly. She wouldn't tell me when I phoned her on Boxing Day, but I knew something was wrong, which is why I press-ganged you into giving me her address. Seeing a patient turn up on the ward looking like that is terrible, and its something you never quite get used to seeing. But when it's someone you know, someone you're extremely fond of, it hurts you almost as much as it does them." "Ric, you can't solve everything," Tricia told him gently, briefly laying a hand over his. "Yes, it's terrible what has happened to her, and yes, you might want to take her away from it all, but you can't. Whatever Connie chooses to do about this, has to be her decision." "I know," Ric said regretfully. "I just feel pretty useless, that's all." "You know something," Tricia told him with a warm smile. "From the very first time I started working for you, back in the days when I typed your letters and did your filing, the one thing that always stood out about you, was your absolute dedication to making people better. That's why being Clinical Director could never have worked for you, because you wanted the best for the patients more than anything else. You didn't care about the trust, and you didn't care about the red tape that everyone tried to put in your way at every turn. So if you've been looking after Connie, which I'll assume you have, then you really have been doing everything you can for her. You've never done anything in half measures, Ric, which hasn't always been a good thing. But what's important about all this is that you were here when she needed you, not something that most of us usually manage to achieve." "Thank you," Ric said in amazement, feeling incredibly touch at the level of sincerity in her tone. That was the thing with Tricia he thought in slight amusement, you always got the absolute unvarnished truth from her. "Will you do something for me?" He asked her, needing to settle this point before he left for Ghana. "I have to go back in a couple of days, so will you keep an eye on her for me? Just to make sure she's all right?" "If she'll let me, I will," Tricia promised him, feeling that as Ric had been the one to remove her breast tumour over a year ago now, she owed it to him to try and look after the thing that appeared to be most precious to him, just as he had done his utmost to keep her body as beautiful as it once had been.