the blood-soaked mass of beard and swabs into the waste container, she turned and saw his face, fully, for the first time.
“Nice bedside manner, Dr. Brennan.” Santa was motionless.
“Oh, hell.”
His face was one of those southern Florida faces she’d come to recognize, long, all bones and angles. His blue eyes watched her carefully now, eyes she really, really should have recognized staring at her from a face that had given her sleepless nights for months.
“Swell to see you haven’t lost your gentle touch,” he said.
Not a drunken bum after all.
“Why didn’t you say something as soon as I walked in?” Her throat was tight, squeezing shut.
“My name’s on the chart. You should have seen it. I wondered if you knew who I was.”
“I didn’t look at the name. Detective Finnegan.” A sigh, the name slipped out as she stared at him.
“Yeah. Me. In the flesh. Alive and well. Disappointed, Sophie?” A flame that burned cold, challenge flickered in his chilly eyes.
After that first appalled glance, she couldn’t look at him. Still, she was proud of herself. Her hand didn’t tremble. She hadn’t flinched. But Finnegan would have heard a thousand things in the sound of his name. Even during their short time together a year ago, his ability to analyze every little bit of body language and nuance of voice had astonished her. Even then, even under the awful circumstances that came later.
On that disastrous Christmas Eve that changed everything between them.
Oh, yes, even then Detective Finnegan had been good at reading between the lines.
Both hands bracing him on the table, he leaned closer, so close that it was all she could do not to lean back as he murmured, “I didn’t know you were on duty, Doctor.”
She wouldn’t move an inch. Not for Finnegan, she wouldn’t. Not for anything he threw her way. “Why? You would have gone to a different hospital?”
“Hell, yeah. I don’t care if this is the only hospital in the county. If I’d known you were working ER tonight, I would have driven myself one-handed down to Sarasota instead of coming here. But here I am. And here you are. Fate’s a bitch sometimes, isn’t she?” His thin mouth tightened. “So, Dr. Brennan’s on duty the day after Thanksgiving.”
“Where else would I be?” She made the mistake of looking up.
“At Home Depot? Picking out a tree?” The tubing lifted with his shrug. “And if I’d had the least bit of luck tonight, another town? Another state?”
With jerky movements, she lifted the suture tray from the counter and placed it near the stretcher. Damn Judah Finnegan. Taking a deep, steadying breath she faced him, her smile as false as the tatty fur on his Santa suit. “I’m needed here.” In spite of herself, that year-old pain spilled out. “Besides, you look as though you’ve done enough celebrating tonight for both of us.”
“Appearances to the contrary, I don’t do trees, Christmas, or jolly.” Aggression radiated from every line of his long torso. “I’m not really a holiday kind of guy.”
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t be. Not under the circumstances.” She tightened her mouth and stared down at the suddenly foreign needles and antiseptic, a fine tremble now vibrating from her to the plastic tray.
“No, not under the circumstances.”
“But time passes. Things change. People change. Life goes on.”
“Not for all of us.” Gripping her chin with one hand, he forced her to look at him. Too thin with all those severe angles and hollows, his face was still compelling in its strength, a strength even she had to acknowledge. “And how tacky of me to bring up Christmas, huh, Sophie?” His fingers were cold against her flushed skin. “But I had to know. I would have bet a thousand dollars you’d forgotten. After all, hey, it’s been a year.”
“Really? You think you know me that well, Finnegan? How nervy can you get?” She jerked her head free.
“Pretty damn nervy when the occasion calls for it,” he said, tapping her with controlled ferocity on the chin. “But hell, yeah, sugar. You bet I’ve got your number. I think you put that episode with my partner out of your mind the minute you left the hospital last Christmas Eve. I wouldn’t have expected anything else, not from you. Not after the run-ins you and George had already had. You had it in for him from the get-go—”
“Never—”
“Sure you did. You and George were oil and water. Yeah, he was loud and crude. A jerk sometimes. But that night, hell. That night the patient was more than just another drunk who’d screwed up on Christmas Eve.” He leaned forward until his face was all she could see. “That night you couldn’t wait to run the blood test. Because it was George. Because he bugged you. Because he was mouthy and vulgar. You prissed up like a prune every time he came within five feet of you. It was George. It was personal.”
“No!”
“Shoot, sugar, your little butt was just quivering with righteousness. I thought you were going to cheer when the test proved Roberts was DUI.”
“He wrecked his cop car. He hit a light pole with the squad car, for God’s sake. He was lucky—” She stopped, appalled, wishing she could take the words back.
“You think he was lucky?” Finnegan smiled, a smile as bitter as any she’d ever seen. “Yeah, Roberts was lucky that the suits would probably let him ride the desk for the last three months before his retirement. Sure, he was going to be disgraced, demoted. His pension cut. Hell, you’re right. He was lucky.” He paused, and then, as smoothly as a surgeon’s scalpel, he added, “Personally, I never could figure out what the big deal was. Sure didn’t seem to me like he had any reason to go home that night and eat his gun.”
Instruments clattered on the tray she held.
“Or didn’t you know what happened to Sgt. George Roberts?”
“I read about his suicide in the Herald the next day.”
“And what did you think, when you read that bit of news? Anything? Feel bad about how you’d handled things? Wished you’d done anything different?”
“What I felt or didn’t feel isn’t any of your business. I did what had to be done.”
“Did you?” Soft, soft the accusation.
“You bet I did.” She’d walk across glass before she’d let him inside her soul to know how she felt about that night. Any doubts or second thoughts were hers and hers alone.
“Now get out of the rest of your suit, Detective. I can’t stitch you up like this.”
“Oh? I thought you could do anything. I thought you knew everything. You sure seemed damned certain you knew best last year. No doubts. No hesitation. Just a ‘gotcha’ for George.”
In the face of his bitterness, Sophie fell like a drowning woman on the raft of professional competence. She
