what she would want to keep and what she would merely throw away, it seemed unwise to bring everything to Tucson only to toss it out there. She needed to go through the things herself before paying to have anything shipped to her.
So she’d resigned herself to making this trip. She’d intended to slip into Northbridge, do what needed to be done at the house and slip out again, not attending the closing. No more than a few people would ever know she had been back where the events of fourteen years ago had been the talk of the town.
But now here she was, brought in by a police officer, her rental car in need of towing after being smashed into a pole. That was a commotion that would never go unnoticed in Northbridge. That was a story that would be told. And repeated. And repeated. Along with the fact that Chloe Carmichael had been behind the wheel.
That was certainly not slipping quietly in and out of Northbridge’s back door.
Best-laid plans…
The curtain that was pulled most of the way around the bed opened just then and Chloe’s eyes shot from the pyramided covers to the person who had thrown it wide.
She didn’t need to read his hospital badge to know who he was, even though he’d changed considerably since she’d last seen him. She would have recognized those staggeringly handsome features anywhere. After all, the younger version of them had materialized in her mind’s eye more times than she could count in the last fourteen years.
“Reid,” she whispered more to herself than in greeting.
He took it as a greeting, though, and responded in kind, “Chloe.”
Well, maybe in kind wasn’t exactly accurate. There was nothing kind in that single utterance of her name. Clearly Reid Walker wasn’t any happier to see her than she was to see him. In fact, if the grim expression on his face and the cutting tone of his voice were any indication, he was even more unhappy than she was. More than unhappy, actually. He seemed ticked off, disgusted, put out and all-round disgruntled.
Probably no more than she should have expected.
Chloe took a deep breath and tried to make the best of a bad situation. “It is you. The nurse said Dr. Walker would be in and I wondered if maybe Cassie or one of your brothers had ended up going to medical school. Or if it was you. Apparently it was you…”
“Apparently.”
Snide. Sarcastic. Downright nasty.
This was not going to be nice.
His gaze dropped to the chart he held in his hands but Chloe had the sense that more than studying whatever was written on it, he just couldn’t stand to look at her.
“Single?” he said after a moment, obviously reading what she’d marked on the papers she’d filled out. “Is there anybody you want notified of the accident? I know your parents are gone—”
“I appreciated the flowers and sympathy card your mom sent. I wondered how she knew—”
“The newspaper ran a small article,” he explained curtly, still looking only at her chart and wasting no time going back to what he’d been saying. “Is there anyone else you want notified of the accident or asked to come here to be with you? Friends? Other family? A boyfriend or fiancé?”
Was he being persistent about that as a matter of course or was he trying to find out if she was unattached?
Given his attitude, Chloe thought it must be a matter of course.
“No, there’s no boyfriend or fiancé or anyone else who I want called.”
He didn’t so much as nod to acknowledge her answer. He merely shot her another question. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
For a split second she thought he was talking about what had happened fourteen years ago. But of course that wasn’t the case and she realized it a little belatedly. She was in an emergency room. He was her doctor.
“The weather was fine when I left the Billings airport,” she began to explain. “But about halfway here it started to snow. Hard. The roads iced up and even though I was driving at a snail’s pace, the rental car spun out and I hit a telephone pole. The engine died. The doors wouldn’t open. The air bag was in my face. I couldn’t do anything but use my cell phone to dial 911 for help.”
“Any loss of consciousness?”
“No. But the cop who finally got there had to pry one of the doors open to get me out. Once I was out, it didn’t seem like any bones were broken or anything, but he insisted that he bring me here anyway.”
Was she rambling? She was afraid she was. But she was so unnerved both by the accident and by seeing Reid again unexpectedly that she sort of didn’t know which end was up.
“Are you having any pain?” he demanded, deigning to look at her again but with such scorn she wished he hadn’t.
“No, not really. It kind of shook me up but like I said, I’m not hurt. The air bag took most of the impact. There are a couple of scrapes on my arms and a bruise on my knee, but otherwise, I’m fine.”
“I’ll still need to check you over.”
He sounded as if he’d rather walk barefoot through toxic waste—she wasn’t giving him high marks for bedside manner.
Not that Chloe was any more thrilled with the prospect of Reid Walker—of all people—examining her…
“There isn’t another doctor?” she ventured.
“Molly, you want to come in here?” he hollered over his shoulder rather than answering Chloe’s question.
The nurse she’d seen before joined them.
“Is the next shift in yet?” he demanded.
“No,” the nurse answered. “And they may be a while. This storm took everybody off guard—J.T. just called and his car won’t start so he’s walking in. I’d just hung up from talking to him when Shauna called to say her husband had to go out to deal with a frozen water main and she’s having to find someone to come stay with the kids before she can leave home.”
Reid stabbed Chloe with another glance. “And if you want to wait for them you should know that you won’t be seeing a doctor. Shauna is a nurse and J.T. is a nurse-practitioner—they do our overnights and call for help if something too serious for them to handle comes in. Or I can do the exam but have Molly stay in the room, if that makes you more comfortable. Your choice.”
Nothing in the world could make Chloe more comfortable at that moment. All she wanted was to get this over with and slink away from the entire situation. And waiting for another shift to come in in a snowstorm didn’t seem like the fastest route to that.
“What will you have to do?” she asked before she committed to anything.
“I’ll check for head, neck and spinal cord injuries. Check your extremities—” He paused to address the nurse once more. “Did you look for seat belt signs?”
“I did. There weren’t any,” the nurse responded.
“Seat
