we know that what you want is all that counts.”
He didn’t address that. He only said, “It’s important that I make sure you don’t aggravate any injuries. So please, just let me check you out?”
“I guess that means you did become a doctor?” she said, curious but trying to hide it.
“I did. So let me do my job,” he reiterated.
Begrudgingly, she conceded to that, doing some checking out of her own as he continued his examination.
Conor Madison. How, on this day of all days, could she open her eyes and find herself with him?
Maybe she was hallucinating. That would be so much better...
But if she was hallucinating, wouldn’t she see him as the boy he’d been when they were last together rather than this solid, muscular, all-grown-up version of him?
The man who was fully developed—broad of chest and shoulders, with biceps that filled and tested the sleeves of the gray sweatshirt he had on.
He’d aged from youthful good looks into a striking handsomeness.
That aggravated Maicy all the more...
“Shouldn’t you be wearing a uniform?” she asked with some impudence.
“I’m on leave,” he answered curtly as he took her pulse.
His voice was the same. It had been deep then and it was deep now. But now it held more confidence, more certainty, more authority, as he told her what to do.
“I’m fine,” she insisted when his examination seemed finished.
“You aren’t completely fine,” he said. “You were in a car accident, you have a gash in your head and were unconscious for some amount of time. If I had you in a hospital I’d send you for X-rays and a CT scan. But since we aren’t in a hospital—”
“Where are we?” she said.
“The Dale family’s hunting cabin.”
“Rickie Dale?” She hadn’t thought of him in years.
“Right—glad to see that you seem to be firing on all burners. That’s a good sign when there’s the potential for a brain injury.”
“And how is it that I’m here with you?” she asked derisively, thinking that she’d answered enough of his questions and followed enough of his instructions to have earned some reciprocity.
“I was headed for Northbridge when the storm hit, and I knew I wouldn’t make it. I called Rickie and asked if I could use the place now, to wait out this weather. I came across your car on my way here.”
“My car...” Maicy said. “Did I wreck it?”
“You were nose-first in a ditch.”
Maicy closed her eyes again, overwhelmed for a moment by all this day had brought with it.
“Hey! You aren’t passing out on me again, are you?” Conor said in a louder voice.
She opened her eyes. “No,” she said, hating that there was gloom in her own tone for him to hear. “It’s just been a bad day,” she added, hoping he’d leave it at that.
No such luck.
“Yeah, I’d say so... Were you on your way to your wedding or coming from it?”
“Neither.” She just wasn’t sure how to qualify it. “I got to the church but left before the wedding happened.”
“Without a coat?”
“I took my coat—it’s in the back seat with my suitcase. I just didn’t put it on. I was in a hurry.”
He didn’t push it. Instead he said, “Do you feel like you can sit up?”
“Sure,” she answered, not revealing that she felt unsteady and drained because she didn’t want him to know there was any weakness in her at all. Not now or ever again.
“I want you to take it slow,” he told her. “Let me help you, and tell me immediately if you feel any hint of pain or tingling or numbness.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she clipped out.
He helped her sit up, and she made it there without saying anything, containing the groan that almost escaped when her head throbbed with the movement. Her expression must have shown her pain, though, because he said, “There’s some pain reliever in the first-aid kit but I don’t want to give you that until I know that the bleeding is under control. Can you stand to wait?”
“Yes.” And even if she hadn’t been able to, she wouldn’t have told him. “Now can I get off this floor?”
“Give it a minute. Let’s see what sitting here does first.”
Maicy sighed, feeling impatient. Methodical and cautious. That was Conor Madison. To a fault.
And she had faulted him for it. With good reason.
Glancing down, Maicy noticed her dress.
“Oh, I’m a mess...” she lamented. And it had been such a beautiful dress—white satin, scooped neck with cowl-like draping to the hem that ended at her ankles in front and gracefully expanded into a short train in back. Now it was wrinkled, soiled and stained with blood.
“Actually, you look pretty damn good...” Conor said. She might have been flattered if she’d been willing to accept a compliment from the likes of him.
But as it was she ignored the remark and announced once more, “I feel fine. Now can I get up?”
“How’s the dizziness?”
“Good. Gone,” she lied. “I’m sure I can drive. All I have to do is get to my car and back it out of the ditch and—”
He looked at her as if she was crazy. “In the first place,” he said, “you’re not fine—you’re doing well, but you are not unscathed. You’re nowhere near ready to go outside into the snow without shoes or a coat, much less to hike a mile to your car—because that’s where it is, at the end of the drive up to this cabin. It’s not drivable even if you could get to it—it’s going to need a tow truck. Then there’s the fact that if you were in an emergency room where you belong, they’d admit you to keep an eye on you overnight, and there is no way in hell I’d let you drive even if this was a balmy summer day. So no matter how you want to cut it, you, Maicy Clark, are stuck here. With me.”
Oh...it was worse than she thought. Not only had she encountered the one person she’d hoped never to see again in her life, she was stranded with him?
“You look sick—what’s going on?” he said.
“What’s going on is that I don’t want to be here.” With you! she added in her head.
But
