a pedestrian and broadsided him as he’d pulled out of the underground parking and onto the street. The speed hadn’t been great and the Jaguar had been heavy enough to take the impact, but if he hadn’t gotten out right away to check the damage, he wouldn’t have gotten pinned between the two cars. The other driver had jumped out of his car and forgotten to put it in Park. Before Ethan knew what was happening, he had a broken leg.
“You’re pretty lucky to get out of it with a simple fracture,” his doctor had told him. When Ethan had challenged Doctor Maury Perry’s definition of lucky, the man who had been his physician for over ten years had shrugged philosophically. “You’re alive, it’s a clean break and you won’t be off your feet too long. You’re damn lucky, Ethan.”
Ethan had never bought in to the idea of luck. If luck had been involved, there wouldn’t have been an accident. He exhaled, assured that the pain wasn’t going to get worse any time soon, and twisted his head to see his medication and a half-full glass of water by the bed.
An image flashed in his mind of someone lifting him, giving him pills and cold water. Then he remembered. Tripping. Falling. The pain exploding. Almost crawling into the house. The table and chair crashing to the floor, the lamp breaking. The red-haired woman coming to him out of nowhere, helping him, sitting on top of him. Or maybe not. Maybe he’d dreamed it, or maybe the pills had made him hallucinate. But he wasn’t imagining being in bed with his broken leg raised on a couple of pillows. And his prescription and water were right by him.
Had the doctor done that?
He raised himself carefully on one elbow to look around. He was sure the chair had fallen over, but now it was sitting by the door, right along with the side table. The only clue he had that the accident had happened at all was the missing Tiffany lamp, which he remembered shattering.
He glanced at the French doors. They were shut. He checked the clock by the bed. Six-thirty. The light coming in the back windows was dull and gray, and he could see the rain streaking the glass. He reached for the service button Jim had rigged on the side of the headboard, the button he’d been trying to get to last night when he’d passed out on the floor by the bed. He pressed it, then fell back into the bed and closed his eyes. His leg was throbbing steadily, and he felt confused. He hated both sensations, but more than that, he hated not knowing exactly what had happened the previous evening.
In less than five minutes, James came striding into the guest house. The man was large, matching Ethan’s six-foot-two-inch frame, but outweighing him by a good thirty pounds. James wasn’t given to much physical activity unless it was a rousing game of chess, but he always wore running shoes. He was dressed as usual in a casual polo shirt, dark slacks and white sneakers. He brushed his prematurely gray hair straight back from his square face, and his pale blue eyes flicked over his boss as he came closer to the high bed.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he said with a gusto that grated on Ethan’s frayed nerves. “How are we doing today? Or should I say, who are we doing today?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Ginnero is waiting on your decision on the money, and if you could, let Bruce know what you are going to do about approaching the Wakefield Group. He’s in Mexico now.” James was invaluable, never forgetting anything, yet dealing with the business in an almost offhanded manner. “You really need to put these people out of their misery, boss.”
“Later,” Ethan murmured and gingerly pushed himself up, feeling a twinge in his leg when it slipped off the pillows that had been supporting it. He grimaced but kept moving to sit up against the headboard.
James proceeded to stuff pillows behind Ethan’s back, then adjusted the ones that had been under his injured leg. “Good idea to elevate your leg,” he said as he stood back. “Isn’t that what the doctor said to do, along with resting as much as you can?”
Yes, Dr. Perry had said that very thing, but it hadn’t been Ethan’s idea to do it. “Were you down here last night?”
“Last night?” James asked. “No. I told you I was going to the city to see…a friend. Julie, the dental assistant.” Ethan nodded and James went on. “I took the first ferry back this morning. Just walked into my room when the bell went off and I came on down here. Why?”
“I took a fall.”
James frowned at Ethan. “What were you doing to fall?”
“I was trying to walk. I went onto the deck, wondering why the hell I agreed to come here to recuperate at all. When I turned to come back in, the damn cast hit a potted plant. I ended up on my behind.”
James was all business now. “I’ll call Dr. Perry, and then get Scooter to bring the helicopter over right away.”
“No,” Ethan said quickly. “Forget that. I’m okay.” He was so sick of being sick and even sicker of doctors. At least, most doctors. “There was a doctor here already.”
James looked confused now. “The local doctor?”
“No,” he said, remembering Dr. Andrew Kelly from his childhood, a pleasant man with thinning sandy hair and a quiet manner. “No, it wasn’t Dr. Kelly. It was a woman.”
“She checked you out?”
“I think so,” Ethan said, but couldn’t remember her doing more than touching his forehead and being on top of him in the bed. “She got me settled,” he said, “and I guess she got my medication.” He glanced past James. “She must have picked up the mess I made over there, too.”
“I thought you said you fell on the deck.”
“I did, then I came in here, grabbed that chair by the door for balance, but I sent it over on its back with the side table and lamp.”
“What lamp?” James asked, looking in the direction Ethan indicated.
“The one I broke when it fell.”
“Hurricane Ethan,” James muttered as he crossed to the French doors and opened them. “Well, you made a mess out here,” he said, then closed the door and walked over to the phone by the spiral staircase. After dialing four digits and asking someone to come clean up the guest house, he came back to Ethan. “How did you get the doctor to visit?”
“I didn’t. I think she was on the beach and came up to…” He wasn’t sure why she’d come up or even if she actually had been there. The falls had been real, but maybe they’d knocked him senseless. Maybe he’d just imagined her being with him and her touch on his skin. Maybe the pills had conjured her up. He usually hated medication. “She was here,” he said as much to assure himself as to answer James’s question.
“Are you sure you don’t want to check in with your own doctor?” James asked, either not noticing his uncertainty or not wanting to ignore it.
“No, I’m okay.” He was. Although his leg was no better or no worse, his head was finally clear. He wouldn’t take any medication again unless he absolutely had to. Besides, he had work to take care of, and one more thing he wanted to do. “Find out who the doctor is for me, will you?”
“Sure,” James said, before changing the subject. “Want me to check your faxes and e-mails?”
“I’ll do it,” Ethan muttered. “I hate being out of the loop like this.”
“Out of the loop? How? You’ve got every modern convenience in this place from the fax, to the high-speed
