I understand you’re just doing your job, but what do I have to do to convince you I’m fine so you’ll let me go? As I said, the SUV barely touched me. I don’t need X-rays or stitches and I don’t want any pain medication.”
“You might be singing a different tune in the morning. You’re probably going to hurt everywhere.”
She already hurt everywhere but she wasn’t about to tell this earnest, concerned young doctor that. “I promise, I’ll pick up a bottle of ibuprofen and take them faithfully.”
The doctor still didn’t look convinced so Eliza decided to appeal to her sympathy, if nothing else. “I appreciate your concern. Everyone here has been really great. I can highly recommend the hospital and will be happy to post good reviews on Angie’s List or wherever you hospitals need reviews, but I have had a really miserable day. The worst.”
The doctor gave her a sympathetic look. “The paramedics told me you were supposed to start work at the Lake Haven Inn. I’m so sorry. What rotten timing.”
“Almost as bad as being in the crosswalk at the exact moment a driver coming down the hill hit a patch of ice, right? Haven Point hasn’t been really great to me. Right now I just want to take my daughter and go.”
The doctor frowned again, looking torn. She studied the computer screen again and studied Eliza carefully.
“If I were to release you, where will you go?”
“I was going to drive back to Boise. I have friends I can stay with for a few days, until I figure things out.”
That was a blatant lie. Yes, she had plenty of friends but she wouldn’t feel comfortable calling any of them a few weeks before Christmas and inviting her and her daughter over for an open-ended visit.
She didn’t like the bleak option of an extended-stay hotel somewhere, but she would figure out a way to make it work for a while.
Dr. Shaw chewed her bottom lip, looking more like a middle-school student prepping for an algebra test than the attending physician at an emergency room.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t feel good about you driving two hours back to Boise when we haven’t properly assessed your injuries, especially with that storm. It’s already snowing pretty hard out there and I can imagine the mountain passes between here and Boise are restricted to chains or four-wheel drive only.”
“I have four-wheel drive on my vehicle and chains in my trunk.”
She also had a pounding headache that would make even driving to the mountain pass an interesting exercise, but that was another thing she decided not to mention to the physician.
“How about this. I’m all right with releasing you from here but I don’t feel good about sending you out into the storm. Do you know anyone in town you could stay with tonight?”
She shook her head then fought a wince as her pain cells reacted quite negatively to the gesture. “Megan Hamilton is the only person I know—besides the nice EMTs and your staff here, of course. I imagine Megan has her hands full right now, dealing with the fire at the inn. I can’t add another burden onto her plate.”
“We’re at a stalemate, then.”
“What if I were to find a hotel room for the night and drive back tomorrow?”
“I’m afraid that might be easier said than done. A lot of our hotels are only open seasonally, during the summer. With the fire at the inn, we lost half the available hotel rooms in town. All their guests had to scramble to find lodging here or in Shelter Springs, from what I understand.”
She sighed. Finding a way through this quandary was more effort than her aching head wanted to handle right now. “I suppose that’s our answer, then. I can’t stay overnight in the hospital simply because of a lack of hotel rooms. Not with Maddie to think about, too. I’ll drive back to Boise to stay with friends. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
The doctor was quiet. “I’m still not crazy about that option. You’ve got a sprained wrist and a concussion. We both know you’re in no shape for driving under perfect conditions, forget about driving at night during a winter storm. Give me a few moments to see if I can arrange something.”
“I may have the solution.”
The sudden masculine voice in the room startled both of them. Only Maddie, happily watching her show with her headphones on, didn’t jump.
Eliza and the doctor both turned to find Aidan Caine standing in the doorway, looking lean and sexy in a blue sweater, jeans and worn leather boots.
She knew who he was now. She had figured it out during the ambulance ride, when she heard the EMTs mention his name. She should have recognized him immediately but she had been too dazed after the accident to place why the face of the man whose vehicle had hit her seemed so familiar.
Aidan Caine. The Geek God. That’s what the magazines called him. He was a tech genius whose company had recently been named one of the five most influential in Silicon Valley. Though only in his midthirties, he was reported to be worth well into nine—possibly ten—figures.
She had never met the man in person but they were connected by a tangled web that went back far further than the events of this afternoon. What an odd coincidence, that he had been driving in the little town of Haven Point at the exact moment she was crossing the road.
If she didn’t know better, she might think Aidan Caine had some kind of vendetta against her and was determined to ruin her life—all while looking like a cover model for Sexy Geek Monthly.
“Hi!” Maddie exclaimed suddenly, distracted from the Disney princess movie she was watching. She pulled off her headphones and beamed at Aidan.
“Hey, Mama, look! That’s my friend! The nice man who helped me when you were hurt.”
Nice man? Aidan Caine? She really needed to have a talk with her daughter about developing more discriminating taste. From all reports, the man was ruthless and cold, used to taking what he wanted, to hell with the consequences.
He had just mowed her down with his car, for heaven’s sake.
Eliza had plenty of reason to know Mr. Caine and the people who worked for him only cared about the Caine Tech bottom line, not about all the people they stepped on to protect it.
Oblivious to just how much this man had indirectly altered the course of her young life, Maddie slid off her chair and trotted over to him holding out her paper. “Look, Mr. Aidan. I’m coloring a picture. It’s a Christmas tree. You can have it, if you want.”
Eliza braced to swoop in and protect her baby, fully expecting him to be impatient and brusque with a little girl’s childish drawing. Instead, he surprised her by taking the paper with apparent delight. “Thank you. It’s very nice. I especially like the angel on the top.”
“We always have an angel on the top of our tree,” Maddie informed him. “Except this year. This year we don’t even have a Christmas tree. Isn’t that sad? We were going to have one at our new apartment but it burned down. Now I don’t know what we’re going to do. All our ornaments are in boxes. So are most of my toys, even my Barbie Malibu Mansion.”
Dr. Shaw stepped forward
