say something to her daughter. He gathered from the intonation that it was a question.
“Please, Dr. Bendenetti, where’s the chapel? My mother wants to say a prayer.”
“He’s out of danger,” Reese assured her. Of course, there was always a small chance that things might take a turn for the worse, but the odds were negligible, and he saw no reason to put the women through that kind of added torture.
“The prayer is for you,” Mrs. Morales told him halting. “For thank-you.”
Surprised, he looked at her. And then he smiled. The woman understood far more than he thought.
Reese nodded his approval. “Can’t ever have too many of those,” he agreed. Standing beside Mrs. Morales, he pointed down the corridor. “The chapel’s to the left of the front admitting desk. Just follow the arrows to the front. You can’t miss it.”
Thanking him again, the two women left.
And now, Reese thought as he walked out of the waiting room, it was time to tend to his own needs. His stomach was becoming almost aggressively audible. He was just grateful that it hadn’t roared while he was talking to the Morales women.
He took a shortcut through the emergency area itself. As he passed the doors that faced the rear parking lot where all the ambulances pulled in, they flew open. Two paramedics he knew by sight came rushing in, pushing a gurney between them.
Instinct and conditioning had Reese taking the situation in before he was even aware that he had turned his head.
There was a woman on the gurney. The first thing he noticed was her long blond hair. It was fanned out about her like a golden blanket and gave almost a surreal quality to the turmoil surrounding her. She was young, well-dressed and conscious. And it was quite obvious that she was in a great deal of pain. There was blood everywhere.
So much for finding time for his stomach.
Reese fell into place beside the gurney. “Exam room four is free,” he pointed toward it, then asked, “What happened?” of the attendant closest to him.
The name stitched across his pocket said his name was Jaime Gordon. The dark-skinned youth had had two years on the job and was born for this kind of work. He rattled off statistics like a pro, giving Reese cause, effect and vitals.
“Car versus pole. Pole won. Prettiest jag I’ve ever seen.” There was a wistful note in his voice as he flashed a quick, wide grin. “If it’d been mine, I would have treated it like a lady. With respect and a slow, gentle hand.”
It was then that the woman on the gurney looked up at him. Reese caught himself thinking that he had never seen eyes quite that shade of green, a moment before the education he’d worked so hard to attain kicked in again. He began seeing her as a physician would, not a man.
The woman was conscious and appeared to be lucid from the way she looked at him, but there was grave danger of internal bleeding. He needed to get her prepped and into X-ray as quickly as possible.
As he trotted alongside the gurney, he leaned in close to the woman so she could hear him above the noise. “Do you know where you are?”
London Merriweather’s thoughts kept wanting to float away from her, to dissolve into the cottony region that hovered just a breath away, waiting to absorb her thoughts, her mind.
Ever word took effort. Every breath was excruciating. But she couldn’t stop. Don’t stop. You’ll die if you stop. The words throbbed through her head.
“I know where…I’m going to be…once…Wallace…catches up to me,” she answered. Her eyes almost fluttered shut then, but she pushed them opened. “Hell.”
It had been a stupid, stupid thing to do. But all she’d wanted was a few minutes to herself. To be free. To be normal.
Was that so wrong?
She hadn’t seen that pole. She really hadn’t.
Officer, the pole just jumped up at me, honest.
Her mind was all jumbled.
It would be so easy to slip away, to release the white-knuckled grasp she had on the thin thread that tethered her to this world of lights and sounds and the smell of disinfectant.
So easy.
But she was afraid.
For the first time in her life, London Merriweather was truly afraid. Afraid if she let go, even for a second, that would be it. She’d be gone. The person she was would be no more.
She was twenty-three years old and she didn’t want to lose the chance of becoming twenty-four.
And she would. If she slipped away, she would. She knew that as surely as she knew her name.
More.
Stupid, stupid thing to do. Wallace was only doing his job, guarding your body. That’s what bodyguards did. They guarded bodies.
They hovered.
They ate away at your space, bit by bit until there wasn’t any left.
Trying to fight her way back to the surface again, London took a breath in. The pain almost ripped her apart. She thought she cried out, but she wasn’t sure.
London raised her hand and caught hold of the green-attired man beside her.
Doctor?
Orderly?
Trick-or-treater?
Her mind was winking in and out. Focusing took almost more effort than she had at her disposal.
But she did it. She opened eyes that she hadn’t realized had shut again and looked at the man she was holding on to.
“I don’t want…to die.”
There was no panic in her voice, Reese noted. It was a bare-fact statement she’d just given him. He was amazed at her composure at a time like this.
She found more words and strung them together, then pushed them out, the effort exhausting her. She forced herself to look at the man whose hand was in hers.
“You won’t let…that happen…will…you.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a mandate. A queen politely wording a request she knew in her heart could not be disobeyed.
Who the hell was she?
Reese had the feeling that this wasn’t some empty-headed joyrider the paramedics had brought to him but a woman accustomed to being in control of any situation she found herself in.
This must be a hell of a surprise to her, then, he decided.
“No,” he told her firmly. “I won’t.”
He noticed the skeptical look in Jaime’s dark eyes, but Jaime didn’t command his attention now. The young woman did.
He’d
