He smiled. Look at me, he willed her.
She glanced at him, then blinked, startled, and went back to staring at her screen. “I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice, “you’re obviously someone famous, and I’m making you uncomfortable....” Blood seemed to drain from her face.
Usually, he would interject, reassure her and make her comfortable, but...he was genuinely interested in hearing what she had to say. And he got the feeling she didn’t speak her mind too often to people, preferring to keep things to herself.
“I’ve...had a bad morning,” she continued, still not looking at him. “I just got some...difficult news. If you’d like, I’ll have another anesthesiologist called in to assist with your surgery. But I assure you, I’m very capable at what I do, and once I’m with the rest of the team, I will be fine—”
“I want you,” he blurted.
She blinked at him. Her eyes lingered on his, then traveled the length of him very quickly, up and down. She swallowed. “Why?” she asked.
He liked the sound of her voice—soft and calming. And it was completely inappropriate for the situation, but his body was giving a sexual response....
He crossed his arms over his lap. Smiled nonchalantly at her and gave her an uncharacteristic, honest answer. “Because I’m scared as hell at what’s going to happen to me, and I don’t want anybody else but you to know. Okay?”
“Me?” She put her hand on her heart.
“Uh, I figure you’ve already seen me at my worst. I don’t want to have to explain it to anybody else again.”
She nodded slowly. “That’s logical.”
“It is.”
Their gazes held for just a split second too long. There was...something there. An attraction, and on her part, too. And no, it wasn’t as meaningless to him as overcoming a challenge—getting a woman who wasn’t impressed with his celebrity to come to his side. It was...deeper than that.
And it was crazy to think so based on a two-minute meeting. Maybe he was just so scared witless about the cancer talk, it was making him think crazy things.
Carefully, Elizabeth LaValley put down her computer tablet. He got the impression that this action in itself was significant for her.
“Mr. Farell,” she said slowly, “your surgeon is very good. He’s our best, in fact, and I can vouch for him.”
“Not all cancer can be cured,” he murmured. “People die. I’ve seen...people die.”
Again, that pale face. “I know.” Her voice caught, and her hand went to her mouth.
“Tell me, Lizzy,” he said softly. “Uh, is it okay if I call you that?”
“I...yes. I’m fine, really. It’s fine.” She waved her hand, looking flustered. “It’s just...we had a cancer scare in our family five years ago. My three-year-old nephew had leukemia. Today is the day he gets tested, to see if he’s really cured.”
“And you’re worried?”
“My sister thinks he’s sick again.” She shook her head. “No—we’re supposed to be talking about you. This is your surgery. Your anesthesia. In a minute, your surgeon—the head of the team—will be coming to see you.”
She picked up the tablet again and very carefully sat to read his case notes. There was fresh concentration in her gaze. Her blinking had stopped. Her hands weren’t shaking.
“Lizzy, I’m sorry about your nephew.”
She shook her head again. “He’ll be fine, Mr. Farell. Today, we’ll be removing a tumor from your right ring finger—a growth on the bone—but from your tests, there are no solid indications it’s cancer. Of course, the tumor will be tested as soon as it’s removed, but that is standard procedure.”
He’d lost her. But she needed to prepare for her job performance in the minutes ahead—of anyone, he could understand and appreciate that. “How long will it take to get back the results?”
“Typically, a few days for the lab work,” she said. “But, once the doctor opens up the finger and sees the tumor, he can usually rule out cancer by sight.”
Jon drew in a breath. She was gazing at him, her forehead creased. He got a feeling she didn’t look at too many of her patients like this. Really look at them, really let herself see them as people instead of as medical problems to be solved.
“Thank you, Lizzy,” he said quietly.
She blushed. “It’s Elizabeth.”
“Call me Jon.”
Her teeth bit down on her lower lip.
And because things were looking so much better now, he pushed his luck. “I have another request that I was wondering if you could help me with.”
* * *
TALKING INAPPROPRIATELY to a patient? This was so unlike her; it was surreal.
The only thing that explained Elizabeth’s uncharacteristic unprofessionalism with Jon—with this patient—was that, silly as it sounded, her grandmother had called her Lizzy.
And her grandmother had died when Elizabeth was eight, the same age her nephew Brandon was now.
Fresh tears sprang to her eyelids. She bit down on her lip again. Control. Stay in control.
She was just so vulnerable now, ever since Ashley had told her about Brandon. She pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to stop the trembling.
The surgeon approached Mr. Farell. A professional athlete getting the most experienced doctor on staff...no surprise there. Elizabeth stepped aside, relieved to be able to step into the shadows.
Talking to the patients presurgery was the least favorite part of her job. She would as soon die as admit this to anyone, but she’d chosen anesthesia as a medical specialty because the bulk of her duties involved dealing with patients while they were unable to move or speak and therefore couldn’t interact or cause conflict with her. All that was required, interfacing-wise, was typically a five-or ten-minute consultation before the procedure. Right up Elizabeth’s alley.
But this man...Jon Farell...had just blown all her experience out of the water. Even now, as the surgeon talked on and on, regaling Jon, asking him questions, adding to his “cocktail banter stories” by interacting with a Captains pitcher, Jon kept glancing at her. Meaningfully, as if the two of them shared a secret.
She rarely stared at men. Her life was too private for that, Albert not considered. But this man...
She’d been fighting an urge to lean closer and smell him. Very strange, but she did understand the scientific principal behind it. Sex pheromones, it was called. The theory stated that Nature, in her infinite wisdom, ensured that people with complementary genetic traits were attracted to one another. Someone with a family tendency for diabetes, say, was attracted to someone else with specific immunity against it. A way for survival of the species, so to speak.
Scientifically, then, she wasn’t physically attracted to Jon Farell, but her DNA was.
Intuitively, it made sense. Jon was the physical opposite to her. He was athletic and strong, with ice-blue eyes. His face bore the fine, delicate features of Nordic ancestry, but mixed with something else—a blending of another culture that gave him bronzed, sun-kissed skin and long brown hair, mysteriously streaked on the left side with white. His hair wasn’t dyed white, but was naturally white, as in, the absence of color. Somewhere along the line, probably through blunt trauma, a small section on his scalp, about a quarter inch wide, had been injured such that he no longer had any pigment in the hair follicles.
Overall, it made Jon Farell look...beautiful. And with his warm, musically pitched voice, it gave him the mysterious aura of some past, mystical culture.
He set her workaday French and Scottish genes on fire. Which had probably contributed to her opening her mouth and admitting things to him that she would never in a million years tell anybody else.
It made him uniquely dangerous to her.
The aides prepared to wheel Jon’s gurney into the operating roo
m, and she stepped forward, doing her job. As the rest of the team moved into position, she put relaxants into Jon’s IV line. Waited until those ice-blue eyes flickered closed.
She felt her shoulders relaxing. He was in the customary pose of her customary patients. He was no longer a threat.
“Lizzy,” he murmured suddenly, and she jumped.
“Yes, Jon?” She leaned closer.
“Please tell me afterward what the doctor said about the malignancy. Can you do that?”
“I’ll...”
But he was out. It was just as well.
They wheeled him into surgery, and she set him up to monitor him with her equipment. Waited while the nurse—that lucky woman—tied his beautiful hair up into a cap before placing pads on his chest and a cuff on his arm. Elizabeth eased him into unconsciousness by selecting a syringe and inserting the drugs into his IV.
He was truly out then.
Briefly, Elizabeth wondered how she could possibly communicate to Jon afterward, as he had asked, but she put that out of mind and went back to her customary, safe place. With deft hands—she’d done this hundreds of times, after all—she intubated him.
For the first time, she was touching his body, albeit with gloves on. She gently placed a tube into his airway to take control of his breathing during the operation.
Then she sat back at her cart behind the surgery drape and observed her machines. That was what anesthesiologists did.
He was not the famous Jon Farell now. He was any patient.
But still, when the surgeon isolated and removed the tumor at long last, she couldn’t help searching the doctor’s eyes.
Good news or bad?
And either way, how would she tell Jon?
Copyright © 2013 by Cathryn Parry
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Keep reading for an excerpt from ACCIDENTAL BODYGUARD by Sharon Hartley.
Accidental Bodyguard
by Sharon Hartley
CHAPTER ONE
CLAUDIA GOODWIN DROVE into her assigned parking space at Brasilia Apartments, turned off her demon car and held her breath. This time the engine kept chugging for only about five seconds before it finally hiccupped to a stop. With a weary sigh, she pulled herself out of the old clunker and into the cool late-January evening.
Thank the nursing gods she was off tomorrow and could sleep late. Although first she had to check on Maude Spalding.
Claudia entered the pleasantly lit courtyard of the small complex and reminded herself she loved her job at West Miami Children’s Hospital. She’d chosen the option of working three days straight and then four off. One of those seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time deals. Funny how lots of things seem like a good idea at first and later prove, hey, not so much.
Pushing away useless regret, she took a deep breath and inhaled the fragrance of night-blooming jasmine. She closed her eyes to savor the scent and relaxed her shoulders. The courtyard was filled with tropical foliage—towering palms, hibiscus, terrestrial orchids and bromeliads. Even a live oak or two. Meant to remind visitors of a mini rainforest, this garden-like refuge was why she’d moved in.
And she’d move again as soon as the trial was over. A niggle of worry about her testimony crept into her thoughts, but Claudia shrugged it away, rapping on her downstairs neighbor’s door.
Though it was after midnight, Maude would be up. The feisty eighty-six-year-old seldom slept. She’d lived by herself in the Brasilia for over thirty years and refused to go into assisted living.
“Maude?” Claudia called softly.
“Come on in,” Maude answered in her breathy voice.
Claudia entered and, as always, felt like she’d been transported into an over-the-top holiday extravaganza. Every available surface contained some red-and-green or gold ornament. There were Santas, Mrs. Santas, snowmen, elves, wreaths, twinkling lights and hundreds of Christmas trees, big and small. Glitter everywhere.
Claudia called Maude Our Lady of Perpetual Christmas.
December 25th was long gone, but Maude kept Christmas year-round, never putting away any of her knickknacks. They reminded her of happier times, of her family, now all dead.
Claudia approached her tiny, gray-headed neighbor in the large recliner where she spent most of her time watching television, noting she was using her oxygen.
“You been upstairs yet?” Maude demanded, with an odd, excited expression. Her eyes appeared huge behind her thick glasses.
“No,” Claudia answered, feeling for her neighbor’s pulse. “Any palpitations tonight?”
“Was some kind of ruckus in your unit,” Maude blurted.
Claudia dropped Maude’s wrist. “Ruckus?”
Maude nodded. “Sounded like furniture being moved, dishes being thrown every whichaway. I almost called the police, but I didn’t want to get you in no trouble.”
Claudia stepped back, her stomach cramping hard. Had Carlos finally decided to take action against her? “Why would you think—”
“I been around a long time, Miss Claudia. I can tell when someone’s got something in their past they’re not proud of.”
Claudia looked up. Her unit was directly over Maude’s. “I promise I’m not wanted by the police. My problem is I agreed to help them.”
“You may not be hiding from the law, but you’re keeping your head down trying to avoid trouble.”
Hoping my ex forgets about me. Claudia swallowed, suddenly worried about Moochie, the black stray cat who’d adopted her when she moved in to the Brasilia.
“Did you see anyone?”
“Two men ran down the stairs after the commotion. I didn’t notice them going up.” Maude sighed. “With my eyesight, I couldn’t tell you nothing about the way they looked.”
“I’d better go see what’s going on,” she said.
“You still got that stun gun?”
Claudia nodded and patted her purse.
“Have it at the ready.”
Claudia hurried up to her apartment. Had Carlos decided she was a liability? Maybe it was time to go in to hiding.
Her front door stood open. Not closed and locked as she’d left it. She took a deep breath. Now the jasmine seemed sickeningly sweet, making her faintly nauseous.
Most people would call the police before entering, but she couldn’t do that. Not because she was hiding from them as Maude thought, but because she didn’t trust them to protect her. Cops could easily be bought. Her ex, the infamous Carlos Romero, had taught her that. So she’d made her preparations months ago. The day she realized she was being followed.
She was on her own.
Everything she needed, courtesy of a grateful patient’s father, waited for her in a safe-deposit box.
Claudia pushed the door wide and gasped. She waited at the threshold, absorbing the chaos before her. Maude’s description had nailed the condition of her home. Furniture had been tossed and ripped. Drawers opened and thrown. Dishes and appliances smashed on the kitchen floor.
No doubt they were looking for her journal.
“Moochie?” She stepped into the living room, her heart beating so hard and fast her blood pressure had to be off the charts. “Moochie,” she called again. “Where are you?”
She entered the bedroom and discovered more destruction. They’d ripped her nursing scrubs into shreds. Fearing the worst, she kept searching.
&nbs
p; In the bathroom she found Moochie, drowned in the toilet.
She clamped a hand over her mouth, her shoulders shaking. Oh, Moochie. You poor sweet thing. I’m so sorry.
She raised her eyes to the mirror and stared at words scrawled in red lipstick: KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.
* * *
JACKSON RICHARDS ACCEPTED the coffee he’d ordered from the dark-haired barista, thanked her and took a hesitant sip. Strong and hot. Just as he remembered. No one brewed a better cup than the Collins Island Café.
Jackson exited the café into a cool, salt-laden breeze off the Atlantic Ocean and walked the short distance to the security office. He had a golf cart at his disposal, but he preferred to walk.
Colorful tropical landscaping and the soothing sound of waterfalls surrounded him. He was on the job, but this assignment was more like a forced vacation. His boss insisted he needed a break after his last two missions, which, yeah, had both been bitches. He took another sip of the excellent coffee.
Maybe Lola was right, but he’d resisted taking this cushy gig as Security Director on Collins Island, a private island off Miami Beach accessible only by boat where his employer, the Protection Alliance, provided security. PA operatives rotated in and out as the live-in chief, usually delighted for the opportunity.
Most of the residents were seasonal, and this was the height of the season. Crime was nonexistent on this island paradise. All he had to do for the next month was keep his staff on schedule, act friendly to the wealthy residents and enjoy the resort-like atmosphere.
But it was always boring as hell. And he hated sucking up to trust fund slackers.
A blast of hot air greeted him when he pushed open the door to the security office. He groaned at the decor as he moved to shut down the heat. Pink-and-gray Art Deco was definitely not his style. And what idiot had decided heat was needed just because a weak cold front had swept through south Florida last night? Not him. He was a north Florida man. Jackson opened a window.
He shrugged off his jacket and hung it in the closet. Another thing he didn’t like about this gig was the requirement to wear a blue blazer. Damn thing made him feel like a polo player. His khakis and the knit shirt featuring the Collins Island logo over the pocket were enough of a uniform.
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