by Rita Herron
She loved her father, but he was a sucker for publicity. Unlike her, he thrived on attention and had probably already twisted the entire fiasco into a scheme to sell more cars. Poor Seth. Guilt dug into her conscience like a razor-sharp scalpel. She would never forgive herself for hurting him. He must absolutely hate her.
And his mother would probably sue her if the story appeared on the society page, tainting their blue-blood family name. As for her family, she’d simply fallen into footsteps already molded by other Hartwells. Twenty years of trying to overcome her roots down the drain because of a thirty-second decision.
She closed her eyes and allowed the regret to flow, along with the heartache she assumed would follow from losing Seth. Even if she changed her mind and crawled back on her hands and knees groveling, his family would probably never forgive her. Oddly, heartache for Seth never came—only sadness for embarrassing him. And the ball of fear that had lived within her since she was a little girl swelled inside her again. She’d inherited her mother’s blond hair and fair skin. Maybe she was like her mother in other ways, too.
Disgusted with herself, she sniffled and dried her cheeks with the hem of her jacket, reasoning the only way to avoid the press was to throw herself into work. She peeked through the door again, grateful the reporters had disappeared.
A surgical scrub hat pulled over her hair for disguise, she fielded her way to the nurses’ station. Tiffany, the big lovable nurse who ran the floor, paused near the curtained partitions and sent her a gap-toothed smile.
“What are you doing here, Dr. Hartwell? I thought you were getting married today.”
“I canceled the wedding,” she said, striving for a confident voice.
Tiffany’s chubby face reddened in surprise.
“You mean you’re not marrying Dr. Broadhurst?” Susie, one of the physicians’ assistants, hesitated over a tray of medicine. “But he came by this morning on the way to the church.”
“I know,” Hannah said. “It didn’t work out.” She shrugged and hurried over to Tiffany, unable to think of an explanation that sounded rational. “I heard about the car crash and thought you might need some help. How many victims?”
“Six.” Tiffany narrowed her eyes. “But if you’re upset, you don’t have to stay, we’ll manage. We’ve already marked you off the calendar for the next week.”
“I’m fine.” Hannah shifted uncomfortably. “I’d really like to work.”
Tiffany nodded, tactfully choosing not to press the issue. “All right. Doctors Bentley and Douglas are with the car victims.”
Hannah tried to steady her voice. “What else do we have?”
“A gunshot wound in three. Man was shot in the posterior. I paged Dr. Hunter but he’s in surgery with a ruptured spleen.”
“Oh, yes, I heard about the shooting on the radio, too.” Hannah reached for his chart. “What are his vitals?”
“Blood pressure’s a little high. EMTs applied a pressure bandage, started a drip. His name’s Jake Tippins.” Tiffany quickly recited his other vital signs. “I suppose you’re aware the shooting occurred at your daddy’s car lot.”
Hannah’s gaze swung up in shock. “No…what happened?”
“Someone tried to steal a car. Our patient caught him.” Tiffany gestured toward the outside waiting area, wiping a pudgy hand across her forehead. “The reporters are calling him a hero. I had to chase ’em away from the ER.”
Hannah silently groaned, felling empathy for the man. The six o’clock news tonight would be full of Hartwell happenings. “Has his family been notified?”
“Man claims he has no family. Didn’t want us to call anyone.”
Once again sympathy for the man filled her. “Okay. I’ll take care of him.”
Tiffany nodded, checking the other charts. “I’ll assist you in a minute.”
Hannah headed to the exam room, then slipped inside. The man lay face down, his head propped on his left hand, his breathing steady as if he’d fallen asleep. Or maybe he was unconscious. She scanned his chart and noted that his vitals were still stable. He’d lost some blood, so he’d probably given in to fatigue. She studied his back, her gaze traveling the length of his long body to where his toes hung off the end of the gurney. He was one of the biggest men she’d ever seen. Thick black hair covered his head, and his wide shoulders and firm, muscular arms attested to the fact the man worked out. Probably lifted weights, or maybe he was a body builder…when he wasn’t selling used cars.
He’d been wearing jeans, but the seat had been cut away. A sheet lay draped across the lower part of his body, and his hand clutched it over his buttocks. She fought a chuckle. Even in sleep, the man still clung to his dignity.
She inched the sheet down and her gaze slid lower to assess his wound. He roused slightly. “Sir, I’m Dr. Hartwell. I’m going to examine you now.”
He mumbled something incoherent, still half asleep. Even so, his fingers momentarily tightened around the sheet. “Relax, Mr. Tippins, I’m not going to hurt you.” She slowly pried his fingers from the material. The paper-thin elastic gloves popped against her wrists as she prepared to do a preliminary exam. Striving to be gentle, she pushed his denim shirt out of the way, removed the pressure bandage then dampened a cotton swab with antiseptic.
He moaned and stirred, his hand swinging around to cover his wound once more. She shook her head as they played tug-of-war with the sheet.
“Mr. Tippins, just lie still please. I have to examine you.”
His head bobbed up and down in concession, but the way his shoulders straightened signaled he’d braced himself for more pain. And his hand tightened around the covers jerking it over his backside again. This was getting ridiculous.
“Uh, Mr. Tippins, I can’t help you if I don’t examine the injury.”
He made a noncommittal noise which sounded faintly like a swear word, then slowly released the back of the sheet and buried his head in his arm. Hannah almost laughed, but caught herself. Poor man, if he was shy, she certainly wouldn’t make things worse by making some silly comment about the location of his injury.
She pressed the area around the bullet wound to measure how deeply it was embedded, putting pressure at different points. The bleeding had stopped, the skin yellow…
“Ow.” He flinched.
“Sorry, Mr. Tippins. I’m almost finished.”
His head bobbed again, and she patted the area with the cotton swab, wiping away the dried blood.
“Great place to get shot, wasn’t it?” His voice rumbled thick and low, almost gravelly. “I feel like Forrest Gump.”
“I can’t think of a good place to get shot,” Hannah said dryly, a smile twitching at her mouth.
“Think I’ll make it?”
He was joking, a good sign. “You’ll be fine.” She tossed the cotton swab into the trash.
“You’re going to have to put me under the knife, aren’t you?”
Hannah sighed. Men could be such babies. Even the big muscular ones. “If you’re asking if the bullet will have to be removed surgically, then yes. It’s embedded a good four to five inches.”
“Will you do the surgery?”
“Yes. If they’re short in surgery I’ll probably assist. We’re a small town facility here.” Hannah heard his sigh and her defenses rose. “Do you have a problem with female doctors, Mr. Tippins?”
“No,” he muttered. “Not as long as they know what they’re doing.”
She stiffened. Was he insinuating she didn’t? “I can assure you I’m well trained. I completed a surgical rotation last month before I joined the ER. I’ll be gentle, too, I promise.”
“Oh, your hands are great, Doc, it’s not that.”
Hannah shook her head, exasperated, finally deciding the pain must be affecting his brain. “Then what is it, sir?”
He exhaled, his body rumbling with his breath. “I just don’t like hospitals, that’s all.”
“Not very many people do,” she said sympathetically. She sp
otted an unusual-looking bruise and leaned closer to examine it. “Hmm.”
“I hate it when doctors go ‘hmm.”’
Hannah chuckled. “Sorry. It’s nothing really. I noticed a small dark spot. Thought it have been an exit wound but it’s not.”
“Probably a bruise, I went down pretty hard on a tire iron when that creep shot me.”
She peered closer, contemplating thanking him for what he’d done for her father, but suddenly realized the bruise was a small birthmark. A crescent-shaped, quarter-moon birthmark. Right on the arch of his hip.
Her chest tightened—she’d seen that birthmark before. “It can’t be,” she whispered.
His head snapped up. “What’s wrong, Doc?”
She hadn’t realized she’d spoken out loud.
He angled his head slightly to look into her eyes and for the first time, Hannah saw his face. “It can’t be what?”
His dark gaze locked with hers, the pupils of his eyes slightly dilated, the unmistakable cleft in his chin hauntingly familiar. Hannah staggered backward, a bolt of heat engulfing her as if an inferno had burst into flames at her feet. She recognized this man. She knew him…intimately. He was the tall, dark handsome man from her erotic dreams.
His heavy-lidded, dark-brown eyes paraded over her, a sliver of need sizzling in the luminous depths. The room began to spin crazily, and the day’s events crashed to a sudden mortifying halt.
Jake Tippins moaned, and she quickly glanced back down to see if he was okay, but the room rocked sideways. Hannah clutched the bedrail to steady herself, but her legs faded into numbness and the spots that danced before her eyes emerged into one big black hole. She’d never fainted in her life, but she recognized the symptoms. Just before she passed out, she tried to warn her patient to roll out of the way.
Chapter Three
What the hell?
Jake gritted his jaw in pain when the dreamy looking woman suddenly staggered and reached for the gurney. He twisted sideways to catch her, but the IV limited his movement, and she collapsed beside him on the floor.
“Help! Someone help me! Nurse, hurry, the doctor passed out!”
His gaze zeroed in on her name—Dr. H. Hartwell. He’d thought that’s what she’d said, but he’d been so sleepy he’d figured he’d heard wrong. Hannah Hartwell was Wiley’s daughter. What was she doing in the ER? She was supposed to be at her wedding. “Someone get a doctor!” he yelled again.
Impatience flaring, he climbed awkwardly from the gurney, grappling with the IV pole as he knelt to take her pulse. Thank God she was breathing. A sprig of baby’s breath protruded from her surgical cap, and her eyes looked slightly red and swollen. He pushed off the cap, revealing wispy blond hair. Yep, it was the same woman he’d seen in the wedding gown. So, he hadn’t been delirious.
“Dr. Hartwell, wake up,” he whispered, panic hitting him. Had Wiley heard about the shooting and ordered Hannah from her wedding to take care of him? Was that the reason she’d been upset?
Her cheeks seemed pale, long blond eyelashes lying on her creamy skin like thin layers of cornsilk. And her slender body was way too still for comfort.
Suddenly the nurse appeared, her eyes widening in dismay. “What in the world…?”
“She passed out,” Jake explained. “I’ve been yelling for help.”
A tall, older physician with a scowl on his face stormed into the room. Jake watched helplessly as they settled Hannah Hartwell onto a gurney and wheeled her away.
“I…WHAT happened?”
“You passed out on us, Doc,” Tiffany said. Hannah tried to get up, but Tiffany pressed a gentle but forceful hand on her arm. “Relax. You need to lie still and let us check your vitals again.”
Hannah bit back a moan, mortified. “I’m fine, really, Tiff. I just need something to eat.” And to figure out what’s happening to me today.
The chief of staff frowned. “Dr. Hartwell, I don’t understand what you’re doing here, or why you dragged all these reporters along—”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for them to follow me,” Hannah said weakly.
Dr. Porter pursed his thin lips. “Need I remind you this is a hospital? We’re here to treat patients, not flaunt our personal escapades.”
Hannah opened her mouth to respond, but he silenced her with a lethal look. “We can’t allow anything, especially our personal lives, to affect our work here or to jeopardize the safety and health of our patients. Is that understood, Dr. Hartwell?”
The seriousness of his words brought a wave of shame to her. “Yes, perfectly,” Hannah whispered.
“Then I suggest you go home until you’ve had time to recover, and let this…this circus you’ve created die down.”
Hannah nodded, biting her lip as her superior turned and strode from the room. Tiffany patted her arm sympathetically. “We’ll get you something to eat, Doc. You’re not going anywhere until I know you’re okay.”
Hannah’s heart squeezed at Tiffany’s unusual show of concern. She’d witnessed the woman mothering some of the young nurses but had never been on the receiving end of such treatment. Hannah had always been the caretaker. She didn’t like this vulnerable feeling. “I’m fine, really, Tiffany. I need to see about that patient.” Worry assaulted her. “Please tell me I didn’t pass out on top of him.”
Tiffany laughed. “No, on the floor.”
“Thank God.”
“But Mr. Tippins climbed down and took your pulse while he yelled for help.”
“Great, the patient doctoring the doctor.” Hannah put her hand across her forehead. “I hope he didn’t injure himself further.”
“Mr. Tippins looked like a pretty tough man to me. I think he’ll be all right.” Tiffany checked her watch. “Dr. Hunter should be removing the bullet just about now.”
Hannah accepted the juice Tiffany offered, deciding she’d rest for a few minutes, but only until Jake Tippins made it to recovery. Then she’d visit the man, apologize and beg his forgiveness. And she’d find out if she’d been hallucinating when she’d examined him. He simply couldn’t have a birthmark like the man in her dreams.
Because bizarre things like this didn’t happen to her.
Mimi, maybe.
But not stable, secure, hardworking, levelheaded, mature Hannah.
“WELL, that just about covers it.” Hannah avoided Jake’s hard gaze as she instructed him on activities to avoid during recovery. “Do you understand, Mr. Tippins?”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice slightly slurred from the medication.
Tension knotted Hannah’s shoulders. “On behalf of my father, I want to thank you for catching that thief. And I want to apologize for fainting on you.”
“It was no big deal.” Still lying on his stomach, he propped his face on his hand and looked up at her, a goofy grin on his face as if he sensed her awkwardness. Either that or the pain medication had affected his brain.
The chief of staff’s warning rang in her ears. “Well, I truly am sorry.”
“No problem, Doc.”
But she did have problems. Somehow she had to forget that she’d seen this man’s naked backside in her dreams. And that the very reason she’d canceled her wedding and jilted her fiancé at the altar was because of the erotic dream she’d had about him.
Back to business. She had to salvage her reputation. She might have lost Seth and the Broadhurst name, but she couldn’t lose her job. And if she didn’t start acting more professionally, she probably would do just that. “How are you feeling now, Mr. Tippins?”
“Just peachy,” he said in a deep drawl. “How about you?”
Hannah tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her fingers trembling. “I’m fine.” Just coming down with a case of the Hartwell crazies.
“Your color’s looking better.”
Hannah averted her eyes, lifting the bandage slightly to check his incision. “Are you in pain?”
“I was earlier, but you distracted me.”
Hannah resisted
the urge to pinch him and wipe that cocky grin off his face. “That wasn’t my intention, I can assure you. It’s been a hectic day, and I hadn’t eaten anything. I’ll definitely be more careful from now on and watch my blood-sugar level.”
He rolled his shoulders in a slight shrug. “Ahh gee, and here I thought I was special.”
The man was incorrigible.
Ignoring him, she said, “Get some rest tonight. We should be able to release you tomorrow.”
He must have been exhausted because he simply nodded and smiled tightly. His only sign of pain—the muscles in his cheeks clenched when she retaped the bandage.
Hannah swallowed, stunned by the sudden hot sensations weaving through her. Maybe her hormones were out of whack. Coupled with nerves, an imbalance could cause hot flashes. She should check her estrogen levels, although she was way too young for—
“Doc?”
She signed off on his chart. “Get some rest now, Mr. Tippins. I need to check my other patients.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon?”
Hannah paused, absentmindedly tapping the chart with her pen. “How did you know I was getting married?”
“Wiley let everyone at the dealership off early to attend your wedding. That’s the reason I was working by myself.”
Right, he worked for her father; how could she forget? Maybe if there’d been someone else working with him he wouldn’t have been shot.
Something else for her to feel guilty about.
His fingers brushed over her knuckles. “Did I say something to upset you?”
Hannah pulled her hand away, her eyes glued to his long tanned fingers. “I…er, I didn’t get married today.”
His dark eyebrows lifted slightly over high cheekbones. “I could have sworn I saw you in a wedding dress. Must have been hallucinating from the pain.”
“No, I was wearing one when I arrived,” Hannah admitted, figuring he’d hear the news from the car-lot grapevine. “I called off the wedding.”