that seemed rather important to you.”
Hesitation slashed his features. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I made it. Thanks.” Looking uneasy and not at all comfortable with the feeling, he nodded toward the bed. “So what’s the deal with the leg?”
It was as clear as his water glass that something about his business still disturbed him. It was equally clear that he wanted to change the subject.
“My question first,” she countered, more curious about his reaction than whatever his call had been about. “How do you feel?”
“Like I was hit by a Mack truck.” Moving gingerly, he set aside the paper someone had obviously gotten for him. Just as carefully, he eased back against the pillows. “Actually,” he muttered, looking paler from the movement, “I think it was a Ford.”
She’d expected antagonism from him. She’d been braced for bluster. She hadn’t anticipated raw sensuality or a dry humor that had somehow managed to survive obvious discomfort.
Feeling her guard drop, she eyed the wicked bruise edged beneath the left sleeve of his gown. She knew there was also one on his left hip. His thigh would be rainbow-hued for weeks. “I understand you’re refusing pain medication,” she said, reaching for the edge of his gown to lower it from his shoulder. “Why?”
“Because I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”
“You’d rather be in pain?” she asked mildly.
“I’d rather be able to think.” He hitched a breath when her fingers moved over the tender joint. “I just want my mind clear. I have things to do and I can’t do them if I can’t concentrate.”
Trying to concentrate herself, she made a mental note to have the nurses ice his beautifully muscled shoulder, then clinically ran her hand over his rock-solid trapezius muscle to the strong cords of his neck. The tension she felt there could easily have been a normal state of affairs for him. Her neck was definitely where she tended to carry her stress. But the impact would have strained his muscles, too.
“You’re going to be sore everywhere for a while,” she told him, frowning at the way the heat of his skin seemed to linger on her hands as she slipped the gown back in place.
“I was the last time, too.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Not this way.” There was an edge in his voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago, a heavy hint of frustration that almost overrode the discomfort. “I broke my other leg skiing a couple of years ago. It’s an inconvenience, but it isn’t anything I can’t function with if I’m not taking anything that messes up my head. And as long as I can move around,” he pointedly added. “So let’s get rid of that scaffolding and just put a cast on it. I need to get out of here.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
Looking at her as if she couldn’t possibly have said what he thought he’d heard, he muttered, “Why not? All you have to do is take that thing off and wrap my leg in plaster of paris. It’ll probably take a couple of days to dry completely, but I don’t have to stay in the hospital for that.”
He was rubbing his temple. The one without the bandage. She didn’t doubt for a moment that he had a headache. She was also beginning to see why he seemed to be giving everyone else one, too. Especially Kay with her regimented routine and Mrs. Driscoll with her hospital regs. She seriously doubted that any man who’d accomplished what he had followed other people’s rules. He did things his way.
That was how he wanted them done now.
Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t in a position to call the shots.
Unfortunately for her, she was.
“You may have had a broken leg before,” she patiently allowed, still more concerned with the way he winced when he moved than with his obstinance, “but there are different kinds of breaks and this particular one can’t be casted. At least not yet. Your mobility is a priority but not our first one. The bone penetrated the skin and our biggest concern is infection. You’ll be able to get around with the scaffolding,” she assured him, referring as he had to the external fixation device. “But right now, you need a three-day course of IV antibiotics. As for letting you out of here, we’ll talk in a few days about how long you need to be hospitalized.”
“A few days isn’t acceptable. If I can get around on this thing, you can give me a prescription for whatever I need to take and I can get out of here now. I need to reschedule a meeting and I can’t hold it here.”
The man was clearly under the impression that it would take more than a speeding truck to slow him down. He also seemed to think her medical opinion of his treatment was negotiable, which, given his injuries, it was not. He held her glance, his carved features set and the furrows in his forehead speaking as much of pain as of impatience. He had work to do and he clearly intended to do it.
He seemed to overlook the fact that, at the moment, he couldn’t make it from the bed to the bathroom without help.
“You don’t seem to understand,” she said, every bit as determined to get her point across. She didn’t doubt for a moment that the man had a few dozen irons in the fire and that any number of them needed tending. Especially the meeting he was obsessing over. She understood career pressure. She was intimately acquainted with job stress. But she also knew that people in pain could be irritable, unreasonable.
“What you need right now are antibiotics. If you don’t get them, you could get an infection and, trust me, that’s the last thing you want. If you do get one, we’re talking six weeks of IV therapy. If that doesn’t work, you could lose your leg. It gets bad enough and we can’t control it, you could lose your life.”
He didn’t seem nearly as impressed as he should have been with the consequences. “Scare tactics, Doctor?”
“I’d be happy to bring you a few case histories to back up my conclusion.”
“I’d rather have a copy of the Financial Times.”
“Fine. You can cooperate and be back on your feet in a few months, or do it your way and have it take longer. And by the way,” she added, in that same velvet-over-steel voice, “you might not be acting like a wounded bear if you’d take what I prescribe. The pain is only going to get worse. Especially when they get you up in a few minutes so you can move around. I guarantee you’re not going to want to stand up without it.”
Pulling a small, rubber-tipped reflex hammer from her pocket, she swallowed her irritation at the deliberate challenge in his eyes and moved to the end of the bed. “Can you feel this?” she asked, refusing to let him bait her any farther as she ran the instrument over the top of his foot.
The relief Chase felt at the faint tickling sensation was buried as promptly as the fear he’d denied when he’d first seen the metal pins protruding from the bandages on his leg. Aching everywhere, trying desperately not to think about it, he purposely waited until his doctor glanced toward him before he acknowledged her.
“I feel it,” he finally said, trying to decide if he was impressed with her aplomb or just plain annoyed by it.
He did know he was intrigued.
With her attention on her exam,
