by Nora Roberts
“Why?”
Because her head was spinning, her pulse was pounding, and her juices were running in a way they hadn’t in—ever. “You’re not my type.”
That clever mouth curved. “You’re not mine either. Go figure.”
“Men who look like you are always scum.” She knew better, absolutely knew better, but she couldn’t stop her hands from streaking up his chest and grabbing all that wonderful gold-tipped hair. “It’s like the law.”
His lips curved. “Whose law?”
She could have had a snappy comeback for that, if she’d just been able to concentrate. “Oh, the hell with it,” she muttered and dragged his mouth back to hers.
Nerves and needs seemed to pulse from her in fast, greedy waves. He couldn’t stand against them, could barely stand at all once her mouth started its assault. He should have known she wouldn’t believe in the slow and the gradual, or the easy sweetness of a lazy seduction. But he hadn’t considered that the fire-drenched demands of that mobile mouth would undermine his innate sense of reason.
In the space of a heartbeat he went from enjoying her to devouring her.
His arms banded around her, forgot about her long, fragile bones and soft, spare flesh. He used his teeth because that mouth, that wide, sultry mouth seemed to have been made for him to ravish. The scent of soap was absurdly sexy. He could almost taste it as he ran hot, wild kisses down her throat.
“It’s only because I haven’t had sex in so long.” She gasped out the rationale even as her eyes crossed.
“Okay. Whatever.” He curled his hands around her tiny, tight butt and muffled a moan against her throat.
“A year,” she managed. “Okay, it’s been nearly two, but after the first few months you hardly . . . Jesus, touch me. I’m going to scream if you don’t touch me.”
Where? He nearly panicked. He was unable to tell one part of her from another. He was steeped in all of her. Instinct had him tugging her crisp white shirt out of the waistband of her skirt, fumbling with buttons.
“Upstairs.” He swore ripely as the buttons refused to yield. He didn’t have enough sanity left to be appalled at how his fingers shook. “We should go upstairs. I’ve got a bed.”
Desperate, she grabbed his hand and pressed it to her breast herself. “You’ve got a floor right here.”
He managed a laugh. “I’m beginning to love practical women.”
“You haven’t seen anything—” Then it hit her. The first wave of pain was followed so swiftly by a second she barely managed a choked gasp.
“What? What is it? Did I hurt you?”
“No, it’s nothing.” He was trying to straighten her up as she doubled over. “It’s just a twinge. It’s—” But the burning was spreading like wildfire, and the fear burst through with it as she felt her skin break out in a cold, clammy sweat. “Just give me a minute.” Blindly she reached out for something to balance her and would have fallen if he hadn’t scooped her up.
“The hell with this.” The words exploded between gritted teeth. “The hell with it. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“No. Stop it.” Desperate for relief, she hooked an arm under her breasts and pressed. “Just take me home.”
“In a pig’s eye.” Like a warrior hoisting his conquest, he carried her out of the house. “Save your breath and yell at me later. Right now you’re doing what you’re told.”
“I said take me home.” She didn’t bother to fight him when he strapped her into the car. All of her energy had to focus on dealing with the pain.
He backed out of the drive, saying nothing as she tore Tums out of the roll habitually in her pocket. Instead, he snatched up the car phone and punched in a number. “Mom.” He drove fast, whipping the car around curves, and interrupted his mother’s apology for not returning his call. “It’s okay. Listen, I’ve got a friend, a woman, five sevenish, maybe a hundred and five pounds, mid-twenties.” He swore lightly, cradling the phone on his shoulder as he shifted gears. “It’s not that,” he said at the inevitable chuckle. “I’m taking her to the hospital right now. She’s got abdominal pain. It seems to be habitual.”
“It’s just stress,” Kate managed between shallow breaths. “And your lousy cooking.”
“Yes, that’s her. She can talk, and she’s lucid. I don’t know.” He glanced briefly at Kate. “Any abdominal surgery, Kate?”
“No. Don’t talk to me.”
“Yeah, I’d say she lives with a lot of stress, brings most of it on herself. We’d eaten about forty-five, fifty minutes before,” he said in response to his mother’s brisk questions. “No, no alcohol, no caffeine. But she lives on goddamn coffee and eats Tums like chocolate drops. Yeah? Is there a burning sensation?” he demanded of Kate.
“It’s just indigestion,” she muttered. The pain was backing off. Wasn’t it? Please, wasn’t it?
“Yes.” He listened again, nodded. He was grimly aware of where his mother’s questions were heading. “How often do you get that gnawing ache, under the breastbone?”
“None of your business.”
“You don’t want to piss me off right now, Kate. You really don’t. How often?”
“A lot. So what? You’re not taking me to any hospital.”
“And the grinding in the stomach?”
Because he was describing her symptoms with pinpoint accuracy, she closed her eyes and ignored him.
He spoke to his mother another moment, punched up the gas. “Thanks, that’s what I figured. I’m going to take care of it. Yeah, I’ll let you know. I will. ’Bye.” He hung up, kept his eyes firmly on the road. “Congratulations, you idiot. You’ve got yourself a nice little ulcer.”
Chapter Eight
No way did she have an ulcer. Kate comforted herself with that thought, and the image of how foolish Byron was going to look for rushing her to the hospital with a case of nervous heartburn.
Ulcers were for repressed wimps who didn’t know how to express their emotions, who were afraid to face what was inside them. Kate figured she expressed her emotions just fine, and at every opportunity.
She was simply dealing with more stress than usual. Who wouldn’t have a jittery stomach after the two months she’d just had? But she was handling it, she told herself, shutting her eyes tight against the incessant burning pressure. She was handling it her way.
The minute Byron stopped the car, she would explain yet again, calmly, that Kate Powell took care of Kate Powell.
She would have, too. If she could have caught her breath. But he jerked to a halt in front of the emergency room, slammed out of the car, and plucked her out of her seat before she could so much as squeak.
Then it was worse, because she was inside, with all the sounds and scents of a hospital. Emergency rooms were all the same, everywhere. The air inside was thick with despair and fear and fresh blood. Antiseptics, alcohol, sweat. The slap of crepe-soled shoes and the whisper of wheels on linoleum. It paralyzed her. It was all she could do to keep herself from curling into a ball in the hard plastic chair where he’d dumped her.
“Stay,” he ordered curtly before marching over to the admitting nurse.
She didn’t even hear him.
Flashes of memory assaulted her. She could hear the high, desperate scream of sirens, see the red lights pulsing and spinning. She was eight years old again, and the dull throb deep inside her ached like a wound. And blood—she could smell it.
Not hers. Or very little of her blood. She’d barely had a scratch. Contusions, they had called them. Minor lacerations. A mild concussion. Nothing life-threatening. Nothing life-altering.
But they had wheeled her parents away, even while she’d screamed for her mother. And they had never come back.
“It’s your lucky night,” Byron said when he came back to her. “Not much going on. They’re going to take a look at you now.”
“I can’t be here,” she murmured. “I can’t be in a hospital.”
“That’s the breaks, kid. This is where
the doctors are.” He lifted her to her feet, surprised when she went along like an obedient puppy. He passed her off to a nurse, then settled down to wait.
Kate told herself the more she cooperated, the quicker they would let her go. And they had to let her go. She wasn’t a child now who had no choice. She stepped into the narrow examining area, shuddering once at the sound of the curtain being drawn closed behind her.
“Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
The doctor on duty was young and pretty. A round face, narrow eyes behind wire-framed glasses, dark hair scooped back at the side with simple bobby pins.
It had been a man before, Kate remembered. He’d been young, too, but his eyes had been exhausted and old. Mechanically, Kate answered the standard questions. No, she didn’t have any allergies, she’d had no surgery, she was taking no medication.
“Why don’t you lie back, Ms. Powell? I’m Dr. Hudd. I’m going to check you out. Are you having pain now?”
“No, not really.”
The doctor lifted an eyebrow. “No or not really?”
Kate closed her eyes and struggled to steep herself in the here and now. “Some.”
“Tell me when it increases.”
Soft hands, Kate thought as they began to probe her. Doctors always seemed to have soft hands. Then she hissed as the doctor applied pressure under her breastbone.
“That’s the spot, huh? How often does this happen?”
“It happens.”
“Do you find the discomfort occurs after a meal, say, an hour or so after a meal?”
“Sometimes.” She sighed. “Yes.”
“And when you drink alcohol?”
“Yes.”
“Is there any vomiting?”
“No.” Kate swiped a hand over her clammy face. “No.”
“Dizziness?”
“No. Well, not really.”
Dr. Hudd’s unpainted mouth pursed as she pressed her fingers to Kate’s wrist. “Your pulse is a little fast.”
“I don’t want to be here,” Kate said flatly. “I hate hospitals.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling.” The doctor continued as she made notations on a chart, “Describe the pain for me.”
Kate stared up at the ceiling, pretended she was talking aloud to herself. “It’s a burning in the torso, or an aching.” She wouldn’t stay here, she reminded herself calmly. On this table, behind these curtains. “More like sharp hunger pains in my stomach. They can get pretty intense.”
“I bet. How have you been dealing with it?”
“My heartburn,” Kate said dully. “Mylanta.”
The doctor chuckled, patted Kate’s hand. “Are you under a lot of stress, Ms. Powell?”
My father was a thief, I’ve lost my job, and the cops could be knocking on my door any minute. There’s nothing I can do about it, nothing, that won’t make it worse.
“Who isn’t?” She tried not to jerk when the doctor lifted her eyelid and shined a light to check her pupils.
“How long have you been having these symptoms?”
“Somewhere around forever. I don’t know. They’ve gotten worse in the last couple of months.”
“Sleeping well?”
“No.”
“Taking anything for that?”
“No.”
“How about headaches?”
“No, thanks. I have plenty of them. Nuprin,” she said, anticipating the question. “Excedrin. I switch off.”
“Mm-hmm. When was your last physical?” When Kate didn’t answer, the doctor eased back, pursed her lips again. “That long ago, huh? Who’s your regular doctor?”
“I go see Minelli once a year for a pap. I don’t get sick.”
“You’re doing a good imitation of it now. I’ll follow that up with my imitation of an exam. Let’s check your blood pressure.”
Kate submitted to it. She was calmer now, certain that the ordeal was almost over. She imagined the doctor would dash off a prescription and be done with it.
“Blood pressure’s a little high, heart’s strong. You’re underweight, Ms. Powell. Dieting?”
“No. I never diet.”
“Lucky you,” Hudd said, with a considering look in her eye. It was a look Kate recognized, one that made her sigh.
“I don’t have an eating disorder, doctor. I’m not bulimic, not anorexic. No binging, no purging, no pills. I’ve always been thin.”
“So you haven’t lost any weight lately?”
“A few pounds, maybe,” Kate admitted. “My appetite’s been kind of sporadic. Look, I’ve had some problems at work and it’s stressed me out. That’s all. Believe me, if I had a choice, I’d rather have curves than angles.”
“Well, when we solve this problem, you should put them back on. After we run a few tests—”
Kate’s hand shot out, curled around the doctor’s wrist. “Tests? What kind of tests?”
“Nothing that involves torture chambers, I promise. We need some X-rays, a barium certainly. And I recommend an upper G.I. These are to pinpoint and to eliminate.”
“I don’t want any tests. Give me a pill and let me out of here.”
“Ms. Powell, it’s not quite that simple. We’ll get you in and out of X-ray as quickly as possible. I’ll try to schedule the G.I. for first thing in the morning. Once we get you admitted—”
Panic was white, Kate realized. White rooms and women in white uniforms. “You’re not keeping me here.”
“Just overnight,” the doctor soothed. “It’s not that I don’t respect your boyfriend’s diagnosis . . .”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Well, I’d work on that if I were you, but in any case, he’s not a doctor.”
“His mother is. He talked to his mother on the way over. Ask him. I want you to get him back here. I want you to get him.”
“All right. Try to calm down. I’ll go talk to him. Just lie down here and try to relax.” The doctor eased Kate’s shoulders back.
Once she was alone, Kate struggled to breathe deeply, evenly. But terror was circling.
“Still arguing,” Byron began when he stepped into the room.
Kate popped up like a spring. “I can’t stay here.” She snatched at his shirt front with trembling hands. “You have to get me out.”
“Now, listen, Kate—”
“I can’t stay here overnight. I can’t spend the night in a hospital. I can’t.” Her voice lowered to a broken whisper. “My parents.”
Confusion came first. Did she expect him to call the Templetons in France to back her up? Then he remembered—her own parents were dead. Had been killed in an accident. Hospital.
And he saw that what he had taken for pain and bad temper in her eyes was sheer terror.
“Okay, baby.” To soothe her, he pressed his lips to her brow. “Don’t worry. You’re not going to stay.”
“I can’t.” She felt her breath hitch, felt the simmering hysteria start its greasy rise.
“You won’t. I promise.” He cupped her face until her swimming eyes met his. “I promise, Kate. I’m going to talk to the doctor now, then I’ll take you home.”
Hysteria receded, replaced by trust. “All right. Okay.” She closed her eyes. “All right.”
“Just give me a minute.” He stepped to the other side of the curtain with the doctor. “She’s got a phobia. I didn’t realize it.”
“Look, Mr. De Witt, most people don’t like spending time in hospitals. There are times I don’t like it myself.”
“I’m not talking about ordinary resistance.” Frustrated, he dragged a hand through his hair. “That’s all I thought it was. But it’s a lot more. Listen, her parents were killed in some sort of accident when she was a kid. I don’t know the details, but there must have been some hospital time. She’s panicked at staying here, and she isn’t the panicking type.”
“She needs these tests,” the doctor insisted.
“Dr. . . . Hudd, is it? Dr. Hudd, she’s got an ulcer. Textbook sympt
oms. We both know it.”
“Because your mother said so?”
“My mother’s chief of internal medicine at Atlanta General.”
Hudd’s brows shot up. “Dr. Margaret De Witt?” She sighed again. “Impressive. I’ve read a number of her papers. Though I tend to agree with her diagnosis, I’m sure she’d agree with my procedure. Signs point to a duodenum ulcer, but I can’t discard other possibilities. These tests are standard.”
“And if the patient is so distressed, emotionally wrecked, that the idea of the tests aggravates the preexisting condition?” He waited a beat. “Neither one of us is going to be able to force her to have them. She’ll just walk out of here, go on popping Tums until she’s got a hole in her stomach you could sink a putt through.”
“No, I can’t force her to have the tests,” Hudd said irritably. “And I can give her medication, in exchange for a promise that she comes back as an outpatient for a barium X-ray if symptoms recur.”
“I’ll see that she does.”
“You’d better. Her blood pressure’s up, her weight’s down. She’s hoarding stress. I’d say she’s got a breakdown on the boil.”
“I’ll take care of her.”
Dr. Hudd hesitated a moment, measuring him. Then nodded. “I’m sure you will.” She reached for the curtain, glanced back. “Is your father Dr. Brian De Witt?”
“Thoracic surgery.”
“And you’re—”
“In hotels.” He smiled charmingly. “But my sisters are doctors. All three of them.”
“There’s one in every family.”
“I’m sorry,” Kate murmured. She kept her head back, resting it against the car’s seat. Kept her eyes closed.
“Just follow doctor’s orders. Take your medicine, get your rest. Cut back on the jalapeños.”
She knew he said it to make her smile, and tried to oblige him. “And I was just craving some. I didn’t want to ask until I was sure we’d managed the great escape, but how did you talk her out of admitting me?”
“Reason, charm, compromise. And by invoking my mother’s name. She’s a big deal.”
“Oh.”
“And a promise,” he added, “that if it happens again, you go in for X-rays—as an outpatient.” He laid a hand over hers, squeezed. “This isn’t something you can ignore, Kate. You have to take care of this, and yourself.”