“I know we don’t look alike. We’re fraternal twins,” Terese Warwick said as if she knew what he was thinking.
“I’m Hunter Coltrane,” he said, recovering from his shock. “My wife and I adopted your sister’s baby.”
“And he’s in need of blood?”
“It’s a freak thing. He took a little fall, nothing out of the ordinary. He was standing on a stool and it tipped over. But he hit his nose when he fell and it started to bleed. I did everything I could think of to stop it but when I couldn’t, I took him to the emergency room. The doctors there couldn’t get the bleeding to stop either. Now they’re talking about hemophilia. But in the meantime, he’s lost a lot of blood and he needs a transfusion, and your sister is the quickest hope for that.”
“But you know how I am about needles, Terese,” Eve said defensively, as if that were more an issue than a child’s health.
“Sometimes, Eve, you amaze me,” Terese said.
“Oh, I know, you’re so much better, aren’t you?” Eve countered contemptuously. “Why don’t you just go do it then, Terese? If I looked like you do maybe I’d be a do-gooder, too. It is all you have going for you.”
Terese didn’t respond to that cutting comment. She returned her focus to Hunter as if it had never been said.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “I have the same blood type. I’ll go with you to the hospital and do whatever you need.”
“Come in,” Terese called in answer to the knock on the hospital room door at nine o’clock that night.
After having given two pints of blood and staying long enough for the doctors to make certain that her blood sugar level was back to normal and that she was able to stand without getting dizzy, she’d finally received the go-ahead to be released. So she was sitting in a chair, expecting her visitor to be a nurse with forms for her to sign.
But it wasn’t a nurse whose head poked through the door. It was Hunter Coltrane.
“Are you decent?” he asked in the deepest, richest male voice she thought she’d ever heard.
“I never had to do anything but roll up my sleeve,” she informed him with a laugh. A laugh that was almost giddy for no reason at all except that she’d spent the entire time since she’d met the man thinking about him. Wondering about him.
“Come in,” she repeated, trying not to sound as eager as she felt. She told herself she wasn’t necessarily eager to see Hunter Coltrane in particular, just that after so many hours in that room she was eager to see anyone.
Hunter accepted a second invitation, stepping inside and letting the door close behind him.
The room was small but none of the many doctors and nurses who’d come in and out of it had seemed to fill the space the way this man did. He was a commanding presence—over six feet tall, with broad, muscular shoulders and long, thick-thighed legs.
A nurse knocked and came in right behind him to tell Terese the release papers were being processed. Apparently the nurse had also had contact with Hunter and Johnny because she was telling Hunter something about a milkshake that his son had liked.
The conversation didn’t include Terese and while it went on she used the time to take a closer look at Hunter Coltrane.
She didn’t know much about him except that he owned and ran a ranch outside of Portland—Eve had made a point of saying a ranch was a good place for a child to grow up. Now, looking at the man who had adopted her nephew, Terese couldn’t help thinking that hard, outdoor work had served him well because he looked in robust health.
He was dressed for the part of a rancher, too. He had on cowboy boots, a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and jeans that were aged to a faded blue and fit him like an old friend. But it all worked for him better than the three-thousand-dollar suits her father had specially made in London. In fact, the rustic attire only contributed to the rugged good looks of a face that nature seemed to have taken pains to carve.
A face that was no longer as tense as it had been earlier.
A face that Terese studied now that he was standing there in front of her and she had the perfect opportunity.
He had a sharp, square jaw shadowed with a day’s growth of dark beard that looked more sexy than unkempt, and a mouth that was not too full, not too thin. His eyes were the color of the topaz stone in a ring Terese had inherited from her grandmother—brown eyes shot through with brilliant specks of gold. His brow was square and unlined, and he wore his sun-streaked dark blond hair just a little full and disarrayed—not messy, but as if he’d run his hands through it more than once today and let it all fall naturally into slight waves. Certainly it was nothing at all like the no-hair-out-of-place men she encountered in the social circles she was accustomed to.
The nurse left them alone then and Hunter’s attention returned to Terese. “How are you doing?” he asked, barely penetrating her preoccupation.
She consciously pulled herself out of that preoccupation and said, “I’m fine. I felt a little weak and light-headed for a while but they gave me juice and cookies and I’m okay now. They’re letting me go home.”
He pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the door the nurse had just gone through. “She’d told me before that you were getting out. That’s why I’m here.”
That sounded like it might evolve into a fast goodbye and Terese didn’t want it to. Not before she knew how her nephew was. So she said, “More importantly, how is Johnny?”
If Hunter had been about to make a quick exit, it didn’t show because he swung a leg over the wheeled stool the doctor had used and sat down across from her. “Johnny’s okay,” he announced with relief in his voice. “The nosebleed stopped. Finally. And the transfusion made him feel better. They’re keeping him for forty-eight hours—something about checking his hemoglobin to make sure it stabilizes. But as long as he isn’t bleeding, we’re doing well.”
“And during the forty-eight hours will they know if he has hemophilia or not?” The drive to the hospital had only taken about twenty minutes, but Hunter had filled her in on a few things along the way.
“Yeah, those results should be in before they let him go. They’re pretty sure that’s what we’re dealing with, though. They said we’ll have to be cautious but there’s no reason to panic. It isn’t a progressive disease or a debilitating one. Which is good.”
“In other words, it’s not something you’d want him to have, but it could be worse,” Terese summarized.
“Right. I’m sorry you couldn’t come in and see him. The nurses told me you wanted to, but between the nosebleed and the transfusion the poor kid was overwhelmed and not up for company.”
“That’s okay. I understand.” But that didn’t mean she hadn’t been disappointed. She’d been hoping this would be an opportunity to meet her nephew. The nephew she probably wouldn’t have any other chance to meet, even though it was something she’d always wanted.
“Once the bleeding stopped,” Hunter was saying, “and the transfusion was over, Johnny was exhausted. He fell right to sleep.”
Terese
