slight change in rhythm—no palpable pulse, though. We’ll have to shock him again.”
They went through the three-shock routine again. With the last shock, the cardiac monitor blipped the hoped-for change.
“He’s back.” The man’s expression didn’t reflect the relief in his voice. Her anxious eyes jerked to the cardiac monitor to make sure. “Sinus rhythm, 80 beats per minute. A bit slow, but we have him back.” He reached out a hand and squeezed her shoulder. “Good work.”
Relief and pleasure at his praise, at his touch, melted her tense face into a wobbly smile. One he didn’t return, the intensity back instead. His eyes went to her lips, rested there until they began to swell, open—then he turned to the crowd and said something in Spanish. Something about la madre. Telling them to allow the mother back? Cassandra had forgotten all about her. He hadn’t. Nice...
Then everything crashed back on her after the vacuum in which she’d been suspended, with only the man and the boy for company. Even the paramedics had been faceless tools of assistance. Now everything seemed to zoom into existence once again. Bystanders. The wailing mother. Then a second set of medical personnel materialized on the scene.
The man jumped to his feet, exchanged rapid conversation with one of them, and suddenly she was shoved to the side. The frantic mother hurled herself at her toddler, people again restrained her, the newcomers descended on the scene and implemented the protocols of moving a critically injured victim with total efficiency.
Then just as suddenly, the whole crisis receded, leaving her behind.
He was leaving her behind!
He was walking away with a man who probably was the pediatric intensivist who was taking over the case, deep in conversation. Not looking back.
In seconds all she could see of him was the back of his regal head receding out of sight as the sea of people between them thickened then obscured her vision.
As anticlimaxes went, this one was a whopper.
But what had she expected? What was there to expect? They were both waiting to catch planes that would probably take them to opposite ends of the earth. The best they could have had was an hour of—of what? And, anyway, what could possibly top what they’d just shared: dragging a life back from the brink of death? Anything from then on would have been an anticlimax. Never had she shared such an intense experience with anyone. At work she collaborated with others, saving lives, daily, but it had never been this immediate, this synergistic.
Now he was gone and the whole incredible experience was over.
She straightened, delayed reaction hitting her. It was already as if nothing had happened, the scene reverting to what it had been previously: busy morning traffic in an international airport.
So, what to do now with enough leftover adrenaline to power her for a month? How to stop it from turning on her, making her legs dough and her nerves exposed wires?
Sit down before you collapse.
Though that wasn’t such a bad idea right now. It might bring him back, then he would...would...
For heaven’s sake! Would what? What was wrong with her? She’d never reacted this way to a man before. Not since...
Her thoughts screeched to a halt again. So did her racing heart.
He was coming back.
His eager stride was eating up the space between them, as if a tape had rewound, snipping out the footage of the last explosive half-hour, resuming time at the moment before they’d heard that scream.
Now it was exclusively personal again, the fierceness of that silver gaze was too much to take head on. Heat surged in her head, cascaded all over her body. Her face had to be radiating a red as deep as her hair by now. Her eyes escaped his, only to stray over the rest of him, and— Wow!
She’d definitely missed a lot during the crisis. Everywhere she looked, every detail of his striking features and awesome physique—and the thoughts they provoked—were even more blush-worthy.
This was getting surreal. After Steve and Daniel, not to mention Rick, she wanted a man and a man’s attention like she wanted incurable acne. Anyway, they were passing ships in the night—or planes in the morning—and when it came to looking and fantasizing, she was all for handsome men. And this man wasn’t...
No. It would almost be an insult, calling him that. He was...one of a kind. Unadulterated power and maleness in human form. And now she knew the package housed as formidable a brain, his appeal shot to an all-new high. Appeal? Ha! What a lame word to label the jarring response he was wringing from her.
But something was wrong here. Very wrong. Besides feeling like a derailed train, she felt as if she knew him, as if she should know him.
Then it struck her. Hard, then harder. With the force of a jackhammer right inside her head.
No wonder she’d felt she’d known him all her life.
She had.
He was Vidal! Despicable, mercenary, cold-blooded, self-serving Vidal Arroyo Martinez. The man whose very name had been anathema to her for the past fourteen years. The user, the deserter. And that was just for starters.
He was really here. This was really him. Of all coincidences, of all places. When just an hour ago she’d been cursing her luck that she had a boss with the same first name, memories of him had come back to disturb her more than they had in years. Had the intensity of her antipathy summoned him or something?
Whatever, he was here. And he was now no more than a foot away, coming to tower over her, almost touching her. Then touching her. His thigh against her hip, his hand going to her arm, smoothing it up and down. Familiar, forward. Then his mouth was against her ear, his whisper penetrating her brain, turning it to mush.
“Miss me?”
Her heart kicked, turned. Recognizing him wasn’t making any difference, was it? His virility was overwhelming her senses, overriding her mental aversion. She should make some comeback. Cutting and condescending.
He talked first, his eyes sweeping her face, her body, until she felt he’d touched her all over. “I missed you.”
The exaggeration hit all her indignant spots. “How could you miss me? Apart from handling the emergency together, we practically haven’t met yet!”
“Oh, we’ve met all right!”
So he remembered her?
“We don’t need formalities. Even without sharing the emergency, which can’t be topped as introductions go, we met the moment our eyes did.”
Oh, boy. So this was the legendary Vidal in action. The world had turned so much, the day had come when she was on the receiving end of his devastating seduction technique. It shouldn’t be having any effect. She knew all about him, was onto his every heartless trick.
What should be and what was had nothing in common.
Oh, why did he have to sound like that? Had he always sounded like that? Opened his mouth and poured out those deepest, darkest
