his free hand, he jerked apart the Velcro tabs along the front of his Santa suit. “Just more needle sticks.” Shark-like, his teeth flashed as he shrugged off the padded belly and jacket, letting them fall in a blood-red pile on the floor. “Besides, you might enjoy it too much.”
“I might.” She saw the rest of the old scar that curved down over his ribs and flat stomach to the tight semi-circle of his navel. “But I’m the doctor and you’re the patient. Guess you’ll have to trust me, won’t you?” She smiled in return, a smile as controlled and taunting as his had been. But her stomach twisted in knots.
“Trust you, Sophie? Lord, that prospect makes me shake in my boots. But stitch away. If you can stand it, I can.” He winced as she dabbed cold antiseptic along the line of the wound. “But hurry up. I have to get back to a stakeout.”
“Right,” she said, her grim face reflected back to her from the shine of the table. “Right. Whatever you want, Detective.”
She bent forward, and as she did, he whispered into the curve of her ear, his warm breath sliding around the rim and curling deep inside her. “In case you were wondering, Dr. Sugar, I’ve already filled out the police report. This was a job-related injury.” Contempt lifted the corners of his mouth. “You don’t have to worry that I’m getting away with anything.”
For a moment she paused. There were things she could say, should say. She wouldn’t. He was her patient. She’d give him the same care she gave everyone. The same care she’d given his partner last Christmas Eve. She could do that. And then he’d be gone.
She stitched. Silently. She didn’t trust her unruly tongue.
And the entire time she felt the burn of his eyes on the back of her neck as she bent to her task. Doggedly she moved the curved needle through his skin and wondered why in the name of all things good, Judah Finnegan had landed in her ER tonight.
She dressed the wound. Silently.
But even as her brain registered the animosity that rose like shimmers of heat from him, she was aware, too, at a tactile level, of his sleek skin and the supple muscles beneath it. Aware of the heavy stillness between them, a stillness and silence that would take only a movement, a word to turn into something…reckless.
She smoothed down the last piece of tape and took a deep breath. Almost home free.
As if she’d spoken aloud, Finnegan moved suddenly, his thigh brushing her hip.
She stepped back, a shade too quickly, but he remained seated.
“Done.” She handed him the list of instructions. “I need to go over these with you. One of the nurses will explain—”
The curtain flew open behind Sophie. She turned, relieved. “Oh, good, here’s—”
“Dr. Brennan!” Cammie stood there, the chubby shine of her face flattened with tension.
Just over Cammie’s shoulder Sophie glimpsed Billy Ray’s ponytail swinging against the back of his shirt as he hovered in the hall.
“Room 4. Code Blue.”
The beating victim.
There would be no miracles tonight.
Sophie dropped the instructions on the examining table, shoved her pen into her pocket, and pointed a finger at Finnegan. “You. Sit. Stay!” Her coat billowed around her as she ran to catch up with Cammie, who’d already disappeared.
The muttered “woof” behind her didn’t even slow her steps.
Finnegan eased off the table. He watched her race down the hall, her shoes jingling.
Sophie’s curly hair bounced wildly against her white medical jacket. Dark brown with the glow of fire. Not red exactly but not brown either. There was a word for it. Russet. Yeah. That was it. The gray material of her skirt bunched and pulled against the length of her thighs as she darted between oncoming techs, hands out, warning them out of her way.
Long, smooth-muscled thighs.
His fingers curled around the curtain. When she’d leaned in close to him, she’d smelled of cinnamon and pumpkin.
And antiseptic.
In a full-out run behind her, a tech followed with a crash cart.
Electricity buzzed along his skin. Whatever was happening was bad. He understood that sudden crackle in the air—like ozone before a storm. He’d smelled it on stakeouts gone sour.
It was always bad.
He watched as Sophie and her colleagues entered a room at the end of the hall and shut the door. For a second everything down the long corridor slowed down, became too quiet, one of those moments between a breath, a moment between life and death. Irrevocable what the next tick of the clock would bring.
He knew that too.
And then, as if everyone had inhaled, exhaled, movement and noise resumed. Only an occasional furtive glance at the closed door revealed the enormity of the moment.
Finnegan glanced at the examining table in back of him. Nothing there that he needed. Nothing more he needed or wanted in this place. Shrugging, he pulled the curtain silently shut behind him and walked toward the exit, stepped out into the night and took a deep breath of his own, sucking the damp air deep into his lungs.
Life and death. A thin line, nothing more than a second or a wrong turn, a wrong word, separated the two.
An hour later, heartsick and exhausted to her bones, sweat beading her forehead, Sophie returned to the examining room and shoved the curtain aside.
A pile of red velvet and bloodied white acrylic lay puddled on the floor of the empty room.
Chapter 2
In a cold, driving rain at two in the morning, they found the baby lying in the manger of the Second Baptist Church, directly across the street from Beth Israel, the only synagogue in the tri-county area.
“What the hell,” Finnegan muttered as rain spat into his eyes and seeped down the neck of his yellow slicker.
“Lord have mercy.” Tyree Jones squatted and reached under the rough wood roof of the manger. His broad dark hand touched the cradle, hesitated. Rain dripped from the edges of the straw spilling over the edges of the cradle. “Shoot, man, it’s a baby, that’s what.”
The spotlight in the shelter shone down on the baby. Chocolate-brown eyes stared back at them.
“I can see it’s a baby, Tyree, an Asian baby, in fact. The punk knifed my shoulder. Not my eyes. What’s a baby doing here?”
“All right, I’ll play.” Tyree’s forefinger brushed against the baby’s cheek. “What?”
“Damn it to hell, Tyree. Get the kid out of there. It’s got to be freezing.” Finnegan rolled his shoulders, easing the ache of the stitches, and stooped down beside Tyree.
“She’s not an it, Judah. She’s an itty-bitty baby girl, that’s
