Angel Face

by Suzanne Forster

  “Pacemaker failure,” an OR nurse shouted over the noise.

  As an intern called out the patient’s vital signs and a respiratory technician held an oxygen mask to his face, Teri studied the fortyish man. His complexion was grayish, and she could hear by his breathing that fluid was accumulating in his lungs. The pump was failing, but he was clearly athletic, with the lean build of a runner.

  The heart did not discriminate, she’d learned. Based on her experience, it brought down the lean and wiry almost as often as the obese.

  “I got Dr. Garret,” the pager nurse announced, referring to the on-call anesthesiologist. “He’s on his way.”

  “I’ll go scrub up,” Teri said, still studying the patient. Her coat was halfway off, but something held her in place. They were removing the man’s clothing to prepare him for surgery, but they’d missed something. He wore an earring that was set with round black objects. They looked like pearls made out of metal, and the loop was inches from his shoulder, where the circuitry for most implant-able heart-rhythm regulators was housed.

  Dr. Garrett burst through the door and was given a quick rundown by Lloyd of the man’s condition. Neither doctor seemed aware that Teri was in the room, but she was very aware of both of them.

  “Have we got him on the monitor yet?” Steve Lloyd called out. “Could we get him hooked up, please!”

  “Pulse is all over the place,” someone shouted. “He’s in v. fib.”

  Lloyd started chest compressions. “Get the paddles ready, two hundred joules! Keep bagging him,” he instructed the respiratory technician.

  Garrett was ordering the nurse to start an IV when Teri yelled over the din, “Wait! Get that earring off him first!”

  Lloyd glanced around at her. Garrett turned, too, and within seconds, the whole room was looking at her.

  Teri pushed through the startled cluster to get to the patient, who was only vaguely aware of what was going on at that point. “Magnets,” she said, removing the earring and holding it up. “I think these might be magnets.”

  She was next to an IV pole, and the clank of metal was audible as the earring adhered to it. No one in the room seemed to know what she was talking about, including Lloyd. Teri couldn’t believe it, but she held her tongue. Was she the only doctor at California General who kept up with the medical research? They were about to perform a totally unnecessary operation. The patient’s rhythms were already normalizing.

  “Magnet therapy can interfere with pacemakers and defibrillators,” she explained. “Even those innocuous looking mattress pads people sleep on. Our patient doesn’t need surgery. He needs to rethink his jewelry and get his pacemaker recalibrated.”

  “You sound very sure of yourself, Dr. Benson.”

  Teri gestured toward the monitor, where the lines tracing the patient’s cardiac activity were perfection. One textbook QSR complex after another. They hadn’t even needed to shock him to get the rhythms back.

  Steve Lloyd put on a stern face, but Teri could see that he was impressed.

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I did some reading,” she said. “There was a report in one of the journals. Good timing, I guess.”

  She laughed and pretended to shrug it off.

  “Perfect timing for our friend with the pacemaker,” Garrett said.

  “I think this calls for some chocolate pudding in the cafeteria,” Lloyd deadpanned. “My treat, Benson?”

  There were oohs and ahhs when Teri accepted.

  Lloyd gave the trauma team instructions for the patient’s care and escorted Teri out with a flourish. Despite the mock gallantry, he seemed to regard her with renewed respect, and Teri was pleased. Physical attraction was not enough, although she would take whatever came her way.

  “Good work, Doctor,” he said as they walked to the cafeteria, “but I’d lay off the reading and try to get some sleep if I were you. Six-thirty comes early, and you have a big day ahead of you tomorrow.”

  She smiled. “An honor to assist you, sir.”

  Laughter danced in his eyes, making him rather attractive, Teri decided.

  “I’ll be doing the assisting, Dr. Benson,” he advised her, “unless you’d rather not perform your first valve replacement operation.”

  “Steve, are you sure?” Her voice was tremulous, and only partially for effect. It wasn’t a valve repair, the great Jordan Carpenter’s claim to fame, but it was one step closer. One huge step, and the mere thought made her quiver.

  “It’s not me who has to be sure, Teri.”

  She touched the sleeve of his coat. “I’m ready. I’ve assisted with hundreds of them. I’ve been ready for months . . . years.”

  “I suspect you are,” he said, seeming delighted with himself that he’d made such an extraordinary discovery. “Do you know what, Dr. Benson? I think you and I are going to make ourselves some medical history one of these days.”

  Great minds, she thought, except that he probably envisioned she would go down in the annals of medicine as one of his indispensable team members. She didn’t think so. Teri Benson wasn’t sharing her place in the history books with anybody.

  THERE was no way to stop her. She paid no heed to Jordan’s shouts as she stumbled out of the hut, leaving a trail of wet clothes behind her. God, what a vision. No one would have believed it if he’d tried to describe the naked, pale-skinned nymph with flying black hair who’d just disappeared into the haunted jungle night. She kept murmuring something about a stream, but he didn’t know what she was talking about.

  He hadn’t moved since she left, and not just because he was corseted like Houdini and lashed to the furniture. He was staring at the doorway and wondering how the hell he was supposed to save her, given her gift for bondage, not to mention knives and torture. Save her? Save her? She’d tormented him beyond all human endurance. She’d purposely starved him to the point of brain damage. She had him desperate for food, sex, and swift, terrible vengeance. He really was going to have to work on that ridiculous hero complex.

  “Free yourself, man!” Muttering, he twisted around to see what she’d done with the knife. That was the only thing he needed to think about at the moment. Nobody was going to get saved until he got himself out of this full-body straitjacket she’d strapped him in.

  He wouldn’t have thought there was a rope tie in existence that could hold a good-sized man who sincerely didn’t want to be held. He’d been pretty creative at knots in his youth, but this was inspired. She’d come up with configurations he’d never dreamed of, and it wasn’t accidental. She knew exactly what she was doing.

  He spotted the knife across the room, stuck in a cane wastebasket that had toppled over with the impact. To get there he would have to drag the couch with him. The woman was perverse. His feet had gone dead, and pain radiated sharply from his kneecaps as he settled on his side.

  The only pleasure he got as he inched himself across the floor was imagining her in the jaws of some ferocious beast. He hoped that seconds before she was gobbled up, she would remember that she’d made it impossible for him to save her. Now that would be poetic justice: Angel Face, a remorseful midnight snack.

  The jungle was as wild after sundown as it was silent during the day. The roaring and screeching spurred him to hurry. She’d left the door of the hut open, and it sounded like someone was being eaten. The noises were not only getting louder, they were getting closer. With surgical focus, he blocked everything out but the knife. He had to get to it. Nothing else mattered.

  He’d hauled himself and the couch about halfway across the room when he came up against the cane coffee table. He used his head and shoulders to knock it over. Luckily, it was small and light enough to get one of the legs between his teeth. He bit down and with a hard toss, sent the table tumbling like a log.

  God, it felt good to make some noise of his own.

  The path was clear, and the knife was less than three feet away. But when the racket was over, Jordan heard something that made him hesitate. A series of clicks
turned his gut to ice. He was no longer alone in the cabin.

  He came around to a thunderous roar. Standing in the doorway of the hut was a massive golden cat. Its coat had marks like a leopard’s, but it was bigger and more muscular. Obviously drawn by the scent of food, it eyed the platter that was still on the floor and the man who was conveniently netted like a deli ham.

  Wasn’t it she who was supposed to be the midnight snack?

  Jordan found himself staring into neon green orbs with three-dimensional black slits. As far as he knew, jaguars were the only spotted cats that roamed the jungles of Mexico, and this was a big one. This was a beast. Another roar shook the grass hut. Its gaping black maw revealed fangs the size of meat hooks, but fortunately, the cat didn’t seem all that interested in him at the moment.

  Big cats rarely attacked humans, he reminded himself, although there wasn’t much comfort in that disclaimer. Under the circumstances, his survival strategy was simple. If he didn’t move, maybe the cat would forget he was there, finish off the platter, and be gone.

  If he didn’t move . . .

  That was easier said than done when you wanted to scream, lift your skirts, and run like a woman. Maybe he was better off tied. Otherwise he would have been chased up a tree by now. Jaguars were good climbers, as he remembered, another useless bit of trivia for which he had no source.

  The food was gone instantly, including the fruit. The cat licked its chops, eyeing Jordan next. With a growl throttled deep in its chest, it came close enough to sniff Jordan’s hair, snarl menacingly in his face, and then whip around as if it had heard something of interest outside.

  Jordan suddenly knew what it was to be at the bottom of the food chain. A male, he observed as the jaguar presented its hindquarters. The females were the hunters, weren’t they? If that were true, this one might not feel the need to drag home groceries for the little ones.

  He was hanging on to that thought when Angela appeared in the doorway, looking as dazed and confused as the black-haired nymph who left. She was dripping wet, bedraggled, and utterly beautiful. Beads of water streamed down her naked body as she stood on the threshold, exactly where the jaguar had been.

  She and the cat were staring at each other, but she didn’t seem to recognize the danger.

  “Hold still,” Jordan whispered. “Don’t look the animal in the eye. It’s confrontational.”

  She glanced up dizzily as if she’d just realized Jordan was there. God, he’d never seen anything so surreal. A naked woman and a massive jungle cat in a face-off. This was something out of Sheena. Jordan wasn’t sure she understood him. She looked dazed, and he guessed that she was either in shock or delusional from the fever.

  At least she was alive.

  “Get out of the doorway,” he told her with quiet urgency. “Blend into your surroundings, and the cat may get bored and leave. They can only see you if you move, and they rarely attack humans.” Rarely.

  Well, she didn’t move. She stood right there in the doorway. She was blocking the cat’s way, and when the animal roared at her, she roared back. A thunderous cacophony. She jutted her head, dropped her jaw and let fly with very near the same volume and ferocity as the cat.

  Jordan watched in astonishment. She could not be going to confront that jaguar. That was suicidal. It was more than twice her weight, probably two hundred fifty pounds, and a savage natural predator.

  The cat snarled and crouched menacingly, as if readying itself to leap.

  Angela didn’t attempt to imitate that pose. Instead, she walked over to the beast and bopped it on the nose with her hand, showering water everywhere.

  Jordan watched in amazement as the huge male cat made a squealing noise, darted around her and out the door.

  Was she crazy? Or was he? Because someone sure as hell was.

  CHAPTER 17

  ANGELA rushed over and knelt next to him on the floor.

  “Who did this?” she asked, apparently meaning the upended furniture. “Did the jaguar attack you? They rarely do that.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said with as much irony as he could dredge up, given his situation. He was lying on his side, propped awkwardly by bound hands that had gone so numb he couldn’t feel them anymore. And he still couldn’t believe what he was hearing or seeing.

  She was naked. She was dripping wet. And his heart was clambering to get out of his body any way it could. Right now, his mouth was the preferred exit.

  “Untie me,” he urged. “The cat may come back.”

  She stared at him with the patience of a small child whose parent has just said something very silly. “If it does,” she assured him. “I can handle it.”

  He heaved himself around, maneuvering to get back to his knees. He didn’t want her to help him. It was more than a matter of pride. He knew what would happen. His glands went on cruise control when she got near him.

  She did anyway, of course, embracing him with arms that were cool and wet and shivering, rubbing him with breasts that were aroused and tender from the elements. Her body was a delicate shade of blush pink, and the worst of it was, she was trembling. Trembling everywhere. He could hear it in her breath, feel it in her hands.

  How had she backed down a two hundred fifty pound beast?

  Shock, most likely. She was naked and soaked. The stream water may have brought her fever down too abruptly.

  By the time she got him to his knees, Jordan was wet and she was dry. Well, drier. Her hair was still dripping beads of water that seemed to be drooling all over the wonders of her feminine flesh. Droplets raced to the tips of her breasts and then hung there, clinging to rose-colored nipples.

  No, she wasn’t dry, but she wasn’t a waterfall, either, and that gave him an idea, thank God. Hopefully, it would distract his drooling hormones for a damn second. He did not need her staring with female satisfaction at another one of his resounding erections.

  “It was probably because you were wet, right?” he said. “Cats hate water.”

  “Jaguars love water.” She rose and gave him a sisterly pat on the cheek, which made him think of Penny. And Birdy. And the hospital. He’d made arrangements for Steve Lloyd and Teri Benson to handle his postop patients and take the surgeries he couldn’t reschedule, but he hadn’t planned to be gone more than a few days. How long had he been gone? A few years? It felt like it.

  “They love to swim and fish,” she went on. “They’re the most water-friendly of the big cats.”

  “Good to know. Next time one attacks, I won’t go hunting for my flippers.”

  Now she was picking up the furniture, and he could have broken his neck, craning around to look at her. She’d picked up her blouse but hadn’t bothered to put it on yet. And it wouldn’t have covered the part of her that was pointing his way, anyhow. She would have to have an incredible ass, he observed, feeling slightly guilty at the salacious thought.

  News flash, Carpenter. She is not an angel. Admiring her backside is not sacrilege.

  When she’d righted the coffee table and put the platter on it, she came back, apparently to share some more jaguar lore. Her blouse was draped over her shoulder like an afterthought as she sank to her knees and rested her hands on her thighs. Uncanny how much she looked like that Disney movie mermaid. Even more uncanny how he never had a clue who this woman was going to be from one minute to the next. Please stand up, he thought.

  “You should never show fear to a jaguar,” she informed him with quiet conviction. “They sense it immediately, and you lose their respect.”

  “I’ll remember that, too. Any other jungle etiquette while you’re at it?”

  Apparently, there was plenty, because she went on, seemingly without the slightest awareness of his sarcasm. He wasn’t sure she was aware of him.

  “Jaguars are the boldest of animals,” she said. “If you’re bold in return, they’ll accept you as one of them. If you act like prey, you’ll be prey.”

  “It’s difficult not to act like prey when you’re tied hand
and foot.”

  He got one of those long-suffering looks again. It seemed she did know he was there.

  “It has nothing to do with your physical stature,” she chided. “It’s your heart. You could be a child, but if you have courage and strength of character, those things will be honored.”

  He hoped his expression conveyed true concern. “You’re starting to sound like a Star Trek conventioneer.”

  Nothing. No response. Not an eye blink. She missed not a beat of her Wild Kingdom lecture series.

  “They were worshiped in most ancient Indian religions,” she continued. “Some of the tribes engaged in bloodletting, and the king would actually cut his own penis with a stingray’s spine and collect the blood in a ceremonial bowl.”

  “Ouch!” And Jordan thought his knees hurt.

  “Various other parts of the body were cut, too, and often quite gruesomely.”

  That was announced with a certain amount of relish, he noted.

  “It was all part of their sacrifice to the jaguar god,” she pointed out. “They believed it released human energy and balanced heaven and earth.”

  “Where are you getting this stuff?”

  She hesitated as if she weren’t at all certain “The Bajio is steeped in mysticism. I’ve been here before.”

  Wet hair fell into her eyes, and she shook it back. All it took was a toss of her head, but when she stopped, a couple of other parts of her body didn’t. Jordan couldn’t take it anymore. “Aren’t you going to put some clothes on?”

  She glanced down with a blink of surprise, but the expression on her face said she had no idea what he was talking about. She’d thought she was clothed. That’s when Jordan knew something was wrong. She appeared alert and talked rationally . . . well, rational was a relative term, but for a woman with jungle fever, she wasn’t doing so badly. What tipped him off was her ashen complexion and the sweat that sheened her chest and throat.

  She was in shock, which explained what she’d been able to do with the jaguar. Even badly injured shock victims had been known to perform superhuman feats with little awareness of what they were doing. That was Jordan’s diagnosis, and it was the best he could do without any more information.