Intensive Care

by Jessica Andersen

  “You bitch!” Belle slurred. She lurched to her feet and staggered across the room, holding her head in her hands. She wove straight toward the linear accelerator, which whined with its recharge, preparing to fire again.

  “Belle! Look out!” Ripley lunged for the disoriented woman and knocked her aside, feeling a warm breeze as the accelerator belched a stream of particles and fell silent when its deadly program finally came to an end.

  And in the next moment, everything was still. Cage sagged against the far wall and Ripley stood staring down at Belle, who’d fallen to the floor beside the accelerator table. Reflexively, she touched her fingers to the other woman’s throat. The pulse was thready and weak.

  “Belle?” She turned her over. Belle’s hands were clutched to her chest. Her bloody fingers were wrapped around the end of a crystal rose stem. She’d fallen on Ripley’s makeshift knife.

  Belle’s lips curved in a sweet, satisfied smile. “Peace,” she whispered on her last breath, and the lines smoothed away from her face. In death, she looked much as she might have growing up, before her mother’s passing and her father’s warped religion had turned her into something less than human.

  And something more.

  “Ripley.”

  She turned at the thick sound of Cage’s voice. He was propped up against the wall, where he’d landed after slipping on the baseball. He was clutching his shoulder, and she felt a quick spasm of relief that he’d done nothing more than re-injure the pitching arm that had saved her life.

  She knelt down beside him. “How bad is it?”

  “I’m not sure,” he whispered, and opened his hand to show her the syringe. Its needle was buried deep in the muscle of his right shoulder. “You tell me.”

  “Oh, Cage,” she cried, then bit her lip. Bedside manner, she reminded herself. Keep the patient calm and talking, even if it feels like your heart is breaking. “It’s just a scratch,” she lied, slipping the needle out of his flesh as smoothly as her shaking hands allowed.

  “Liar,” he whispered, and she could feel his heart thunder when she touched his throat.

  “You didn’t get the full dose,” she whispered, seeing that the syringe was more than half full. “You’ll be fine.”

  There was a commotion in the outer office, and a shout. “Is everything under control, Mr. Cage?”

  He grinned ferociously, and she could see sweat break out all over his body as the adrenaline pumped him up to fight or flee. His pulse galloped at his throat and he reached for her.

  “No,” she yelled toward the outer office. “Get a gurney and a cardiac team down here, stat. We have a possible case of adrenaline poisoning here.”

  “This doesn’t feel like poison, Rip.” He drew her down and touched his lips to hers. He caught her hand and pressed it to his chest.

  She felt his heart miss a beat.

  “It feels like what you do to me every time I see you.” He deepened the kiss. “It feels like being in love.”

  His hand slackened on hers and he sagged back as Ripley yelled, “Stay with me, Cage! Don’t you dare leave me now. Don’t you leave me!”

  But she’d waited too long to say the words.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Do you realize I only used this office for a week?” Cage asked Whistler as he loaded files into yet another cardboard box. “Not even that. I started here last Friday, and it’s only Thursday.”

  “Not to mention that you spent Monday night and half of Tuesday being monitored up in Cardiac while the hospital was falling apart around our ears.” The young tech held up Cage’s lucky team jersey. “You want this?”

  Cage shook his head and let the past go. “Nah. Keep it to remember me by.”

  A distressed noise came from the open doorway. Cage’s head shot up and his throat closed.

  Ripley.

  Every time he’d surfaced during those terrifying, confusing hours it had taken his body to clear the injected adrenaline, she’d been there. Holding his hand. Cooling his overheated body. Talking to him. Then he’d slept through the night, and when he awoke, she was gone.

  He hadn’t seen her since, and he didn’t like to think what it meant.

  “You’re packing so soon?” She stepped into the Rad Safety Office and nodded at Whistler, who faded into the back room at Cage’s gesture.

  “New job, new office.” He looked at her sideways, trying to read her thoughts in her face. Did she really think the words I love you meant so little to him? Was she so willing to see him gone that she wouldn’t even repeat the plea she’d made as he was graying out on the floor?

  Don’t leave me, she’d said. But had she meant it?

  “Right.” She twisted her hands together. “Where are you going?”

  “Not far,” Cage answered easily, and was almost relieved when the interim Head Administrator poked his head into the room.

  “Cage. Caroline. Everything under control?” Howard Davis was pale but composed. His bypass had been rescheduled for the following week, once the new administration was in place. Leo Gabney had been removed from his position with prejudice, but it wasn’t clear yet whether he’d be hauled up on charges or not.

  Time would tell, just as it would tell what shape the new Boston General would take.

  “Father.” Ripley rolled her eyes. “Why do you insist on calling me Caroline?”

  Howard smiled and patted her hand. “It’s your mother’s middle name, you know. All those years, calling you Caroline reminded me that I still had a piece of her close to me.”

  Ripley’s frown held little sting. “She’s moved home, Father. You’re going to the movies with her in an hour and you have cruise tickets for the month after next. You have her close to you now, so do you think you could call me Ripley?”

  Howard scowled, but it was all for show. “I’ll consider it,” he grumped before turning to Cage. “You ready to go?”

  Cage hefted the last of the boxes and propped it on his hip. His right shoulder still hurt like hell, but the sports medicine doctor had told him to hit the ibuprofen and come see him when the swelling went down.

  There was nothing like a little joint surgery to usher in a new phase of his life, Cage had thought at the time.

  Now he nodded at Howard. “Ready.”

  “What?” Ripley practically shrieked. “That’s it? Ready? That’s all you have to say for yourself?” She marched up to Cage and poked him in the chest. “You think you can waltz in here, turn my department upside down, say you love me, and waltz right out again without a word? Well, think again, Zachary Cage. I won’t have it!” She spun and glared at her father. “I quit.”

  “What?” Howard Davis looked more amused than alarmed, and Cage felt a warm glow work its way through his chest and set up housekeeping in his recently abused heart.

  “I quit.” She repeated firmly, and jerked her thumb at Cage. “I’m going wherever he’s going.”

  “What about R-ONC? It’s your life.” Howard looked genuinely perplexed now.

  Ripley snorted through her nose. “You may have evolved, Father, but apparently not far enough. The hospital was your life and look where it got you—alone for ten years of it while your wife played golf. Well, that’s not for me. I love the hospital, sure, but I love Zack more. If he’s not here, then I don’t want to be here, either.”

  Father and daughter stared at each other for a moment before Howard nodded. “If you’re sure.”

  Ripley turned toward Cage. “You meant it, right? When you asked me to come with you? You weren’t just saying that because you were sure I’d say no?”

  The warmth exploded from his heart and suffused every dark corner of his soul. Cage grinned and dropped his forehead to rest on hers. He kissed the tip of her nose. “I meant it, Rip. I love you, and I want you with me. I’m ready to give you everything I have to give and more. I want to marry you and have children with you and spend the rest of my life loving you.”

  She closed her eyes and smiled. “Good. That
’s what I want, too.” She turned back to her father. “I quit.”

  Howard shrugged. “Well, you’d better give your official resignation to the new Head Administrator, then. I hear he’s a real stickler for protocol.”

  “You’ve hired someone already?” Ripley allowed Howard to usher her into the hall and turned back to Cage. Her eyes begged for his support. “Will you come with me?”

  “Wouldn’t miss this for the world,” he replied promptly and followed them to the elevator, lugging his box of files. He could hear stifled laughter coming from the back room, where Whistler and the others had heard every word.

  Yes, thought Cage, they’d make a fine Rad Safety Department. And Whistler would make an excellent RSO, though Cage was tempted to put the kid the rest of the way through medical school. He’d make a great pathologist.

  Well, there’d be plenty of time to figure it all out.

  Cage draped his sore arm across Ripley’s shoulders as the three of them rode up to the administrative floor. He let his cheek rest on her hair and wondered whether Admin had a broom closet. If it didn’t, he decided, he’d have one installed, just for fun.

  “Well, here we are.” She paused at the door to what had been Leo Gabney’s office.

  “Second thoughts?” Cage asked quietly, and was relieved when she shook her head.

  “No. Just a big step, that’s all.”

  “You have no idea,” Cage murmured as he followed her inside the big room with its built-up chair and a panoramic view of Chinatown with a narrow sliver of Boston Harbor. The scale model of the Gabney Wing had already been demoted to the kids’ playroom, where toy cars were now parked in the lot.

  “He’s not here,” she said, disappointment evident in her voice.

  Howard merely grinned as Cage dropped his box on the desk and sat in the awful chair. He leaned forward and touched his fingers to the desktop in his best Leo Gabney imitation, and growled, “Request denied, Dr. Davis. The hospital needs you here now more than ever, especially with the additional responsibilities your department will be taking on. I can’t possibly let you quit now.”

  “Cage, this is no laughing matter.” But her eyes glittered with the first spark of wary hope, as though part of her had figured out what the rest of her was afraid to believe.

  He dropped the Leo act, stood up, and crossed to her. “No joke, Rip. Your father is a very persuasive man. And,” he tipped her chin up and kissed her softly on the lips, “you asked me to stay with you. Remember?”

  “I remember.” Her lips curved in a beautiful, mysterious smile and he was reminded of the first time he’d taken note of her, sitting in the front row of a Radiation Safety meeting, staring up at him as though he was everything she’d ever asked for in life. “I love you, Zachary Cage.”

  “I love you, too, Caroline Ripley Davis soon-to-be Cage.”

  This time her smile was blinding in its intensity. Then she frowned and Cage felt his heart sink. “What’s wrong?”

  “New responsibilities. What sort of new responsibilities are you foisting off on my department?”

  “Nothing much,” he tweaked the tip of her nose casually. “Some rich guy with nothing better to do with his money just donated a prime piece of Boston real estate to the Tammy Fund and Boston General. Your department is going to administer it for the families of cancer patients to stay in while their loved ones are receiving treatment.” He paused a beat to let the news sink in. “Milo’s family moved into the penthouse yesterday. Now that he’s turned the corner, he should be able to visit them there.”

  “Cage,” she gasped, delighted. “You didn’t!”

  “I did,” he corrected, and grinned. “Want to go house hunting?”

  He meant the kiss to be light and friendly, an affirmation of the changes in their lives and each other, but she deepened it unexpectedly, reminding him of all the things he’d almost lost two days earlier.

  His life. The woman he loved. What more was there?

  “Ahem.” Cage resurfaced, blinking, and focused on Ripley’s father. The old man stuck out a hand. “Congratulations, Cage. I think I’ve decided to like you, after all.”

  “Thank you, sir. That’s good to know.” Cage grinned and they shook.

  Howard turned to his daughter. “Congratulations. I’m happy for you…Ripley.”

  She gave a little cry and threw herself into her father’s arms. Cage stood back and smiled at the two of them, feeling his heart overflow with love. He reached into his pocket and touched Milo’s lucky baseball, and as he did so, he felt the softest caress at his lips, as though a passing breeze had lingered there a moment too long.

  We’ll name our first daughter Heather, Cage thought. Thank you for everything.

  And the air around him sighed once and was still.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-3236-5

  INTENSIVE CARE

  Copyright © 2004 by Jessica Andersen

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  [http://www.eHarlequin.com] www.eHarlequin.com

  Table of Contents

  Letter to Reader

  About the Author

  Books by Jessica Andersen

  Map

  Cast of Characters

  Dedication

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Copyright