of him to deal with right now.
He made it to the door in less than five strides and pulled it open. The ambulance attendants had arrived. “Took you long enough.”
The two paramedics, both in their early twenties, exchanged glances. The blonder of the two pushed the gurney into the house. “Hey, we went through every red light from the station house to here.”
The other paramedic looked Dylan over. There was blood on his shirt and on one of his pants pockets. “What the hell happened to you, McMorrow?”
His adrenaline beginning to settle, he realized that he hadn’t given any details when he’d called for the ambulance, only saying he needed one. The attendants hadn’t known if they were coming to the site of a homicide or a heart attack.
He glanced down at his shirt. “I got this playing midwife. The lady couldn’t wait for you two to get here.”
Only a short distance away, Lucy heard him and something inside of her cringed. The lady. As if they didn’t know each other. As if they hadn’t held each other in their arms and made love until both of them could have sworn that the morning would come to find not a breath of life left between them.
Tears stung her eyes. She pressed her lips together, telling herself she was over him. What they had was in the past, long gone and buried. There was someone else who needed her now.
The younger of the two paramedics looked at Lucy as he lined up the cot beside the sofa. He gave her a warm smile.
“Looks like you did half our job for us, Detective.” The paramedic glanced at Dylan. “Nice work.”
Dylan made no comment, standing off to the side as the two paramedics quickly took vital signs from mother and daughter. It was only when Lucy’s eyes sought him out that he moved from the sidelines. He’d had every intention of leaving, but there was something in her eyes that had him changing his mind.
“I’ll follow you in the car.”
The paramedic closest to Dylan spared him a glance once they had secured mother and child on the gurney. “You might want to change that shirt first. Unless you want everyone to think you were in an accident.”
An accident.
It had been in an accident that he had allowed himself to feel something, to give way to a temporary lapse in judgment and actually believe that he could be like everyone else.
That he was free to love and feel like everyone else.
But he knew better.
“I’ll change later,” he muttered as he followed them out the front door.
Dylan pulled it shut behind him, making sure the lock was secure before he hurried to his car. It was only as he waited for the driver of the ambulance to start the vehicle that Dylan allowed himself to sag, resting his head against the steering wheel. It was the only outward sign of fatigue he allowed himself. And only for a moment. Anything more and his control could break.
He was too numb to think. He wouldn’t have let himself think if he could. It was better that way.
Or so he told himself.
Since he knew the ambulance’s destination, he actually made it to Harris Memorial’s emergency room parking lot a hairbreadth behind the vehicle. He was out of his car and at the ambulance’s back door just as the attendant was opening it. He helped the man lower the gurney, then took his position at its side as Lucy and her baby were guided through the electronic doors.
Dylan curbed the urge to take Lucy’s hand, curbed the urge to touch her. The less contact he had with her, the better. There’d already been far more than he’d bargained on.
Then what was he doing here, trotting beside the gurney if he had no intention of getting any closer than he had? he demanded silently. He was supposed to be on duty, taking his turn at maintaining surveillance, not halfway across town on the ground floor of Bedford’s most popular hospital.
What he was doing here, he told himself, was being a friend. To Ritchie if not to Lucy. And Ritchie’s sister had been through a great deal. She’d had both death and life flung at her within the space of less than half an hour. Even if there had been no history between him and Lucy, if ever he saw a woman who looked like she needed a friend, it was her. Process of elimination made him the closest one she had around.
“I have a doctor here,” he heard her saying weakly to the attendant walking just ahead of him beside the gurney. “Sheila Pollack.”
Dylan was vaguely familiar with the name. He’d heard several of the men at the precinct mention the woman, saying their wives and girlfriends swore by her. He grasped at the tidbit, needing something to do, to make himself useful. Anything to keep him from coming face-to-face with the past and have to deal with it.
“I can have her paged,” he told the paramedic. He turned to go to the registration desk.
“Don’t bother, we’ll call her office,” an amiable, matronly-looking nurse told Dylan as she came up to join the delegation around the gurney.
He fell back without a word, feeling useless.
“Don’t go,” Lucy called to him. “I want to talk to you. About Ritchie.”
“It’ll have to wait until we get you cleaned up, honey,” the nurse told her. “My, but that is one beautiful baby. You do nice work.” She glanced at Dylan. “Is this the baby’s daddy?”
Lucy forced herself not to look in Dylan’s direction. “No.”
Dylan tried to grab at the excuse the nurse had inadvertently given him. It was a legitimate way out of this uncomfortable situation. And he did have to get to the stakeout.
But Lucy’s eyes were imploring him to stay. The excuse died on his lips before he had a chance to say it. There was no way around it. They had unfinished business to tend to.
“I’ll wait in the hall until you’re ready,” he called after her.
She raised her voice. They were almost around a corner. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
Her voice lingered after she disappeared from view. “I’ll hold you to that.”
His lips curved before he could think better of it. “I know.”
Chapter 3
Dylan straightened up slowly. His back had begun to ache, and it felt as if it was taking on the shape of the hospital wall he’d been leaning against. He’d been waiting out in the maternity ward corridor far longer than he figured he should have.
He glanced at his watch. It was time to go.
He’d put in another call to dispatch the moment Lucy’s gurney had disappeared behind closed doors. This time he’d had them patch him through to Dave Watley, the man he’d been partnered with off and on over the years. The message was short, terse. He was going to be late. Watley had been surprised, but he’d hung up before the man could ask why.
Even
