rolled her out of the room. As they moved through the area, Eva couldn’t help noticing that nurses rushed to open doors, move carts and just generally smooth the way, always flashing smiles and coy looks at the doctor. Eva could stand it just so long before waving her arms and singing at the top of her lungs, “Hel-lo! Patient coming through. Doctor Luscious is just half the parade.”
“Will you behave?” he growled. “Or can you not help yourself?”
“Why should I?”
Then again, why shouldn’t she? After all, what did she care if all the nurses in the hospital cast lures at the man? He was someone else’s problem. Poor woman. She probably didn’t have a moment’s peace. Of course there would be someone, probably several someones. A man as good-looking as he, and a doctor no less, could have his pick. He could even be married, though she had noticed no wedding ring—and hated that she had noticed. Apparently impending doom did not produce wisdom any more than did hard experience.
He wheeled her through a waiting room and then a pair of automatic glass doors onto a covered sidewalk. A luxury sedan sat waiting at the curb. A uniformed security guard, female, slid out from behind the steering wheel and walked around to take the chair after Eva vacated it. Leland opened the passenger door for Eva, kissed the security guard on the cheek, reducing the hefty woman to giggles, and rushed around the front of the car to the driver’s side, his overcoat flapping with the force of his strides.
Eva was buckling up when he dropped down behind the steering wheel. He followed suit, tossed a wave at the still-tittering security guard and put the car in gear. Eva shook her head.
“You have no shame, do you?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“You kissed the security guard! It’s not enough the nurses are all in love with you? You must have the security guard, too?”
He rolled his eyes. “For your information, she’s family.”
Eva blinked at that. “Oh. Well, in my defense, everyone’s wrong sometimes.”
Starting the engine, he shook his head. “She’s my late wife’s cousin, actually, and she’s married. And she has two grown children. And her husband is disabled.”
Those two words, late wife, rang inside Eva’s skull like a bell, reverberating repeatedly. Late wife, late wife, late wife...
“All right already,” Eva cried melodramatically. “I was wrong. So shoot me.”
“I’m just saying.” He hunched his shoulders.
Eva trained her gaze on the scenery passing by her window. Okay, she conceded silently, so he really was rather likable, when he wasn’t being all handsome and knowing and authoritative.
Several minutes passed before he spoke again. “And the nurses are not all in love with me. Actually, none of them are in love with me.”
She chanced a glance at him and found him scowling. “How do you know?”
“I just do.”
“O-kay.” A smile almost surprised her. She had to work at keeping it away. She got very interested in the scenery again.
A few minutes later he said, “You’ll need to have those stitches removed in about a week.”
“Will do.”
He pulled an envelope from inside his coat and tossed it into her lap. “Give that to the doctor who does it.”
She looked at the envelope but not at him. “All righty.”
Shifting in his seat, he added, “I suggest you get a good night’s sleep before you drive.”
Turning back to the window, she gave him a noncommittal answer. “Very well.”
After a few more blocks, he said, “Don’t throw that envelope away.”
“I won’t.”
“I mean it.”
She finally looked at him again. “I said I wouldn’t. What’s with you?”
“I tucked a few bucks in there, if that’s all right with you,” he snapped. Then, more mildly, he added, “You said you were broke.”
“Oh.” Surprised and truly chastened, she looked down at the envelope. “That’s very kind. Thank you.”
“No problem,” he muttered, staring straight ahead.
A few seconds later the comfortable car turned into the grocery store parking lot and stopped.
Eva looked around. So did Leland. Then they looked at each other.
“Uh-oh,” he said.
She chose a more colorful word. “Crud.”
Her van was gone.
“There were only four payments left!” Eva Belle Russell squawked. “And I just had it repaired.”
Brooks dropped the small cell phone into his coat pocket, sighing deeply. “According to the police, you were four payments behind. They had no choice but to impound the vehicle.”
What a mess. At least he had learned her name and that the vehicle had been financed through a bank in the Kansas City area, though what good that information did him, he wasn’t sure, especially if she continued to refuse treatment.
“Well,” she drawled, employing that broad wit of hers, “my aunt always said I’d wind up a streetwalker. Looks like she was right. Literally.”
She reached for the door handle, but of course he couldn’t let her just get out and walk away, not in her condition. Objecting would undoubtedly cost him, though; in fact, he had to make himself do it. She actually got the door open and one foot out before he could speak.
“Eva, wait.”
She looked around at him. “Got my name, did you?”
“Eva Belle Russell.”
She wilted, sinking back into the seat as if defeated by the simple fact of being known. “What are you going to do?” she asked warily.
“Depends. How much trouble are you in?”
Some of her spunk returned. “My head’s cracked. I’m broke. I’m stranded. My car’s been repossessed! Is that enough for you?”
“Are you in legal trouble?” he demanded.
“No!” She folded her arms, muttering, “Other than the repossession thing. And I guess that’s taken care of now.”
“I mean,
