by Judi Lind
But who was he—inside—and why had he led such a solitary existence? And, dear God, why did he instinctively know that he’d lost something incredibly precious when he’d lost his memory?
Gil turned slightly and felt a searing jolt of pain down his side. His slight moan captured the attention of a bluesuited nurse and she bustled to his side.
“Hey, Bearded Wonder, have we decided to come back and join the living?”
Gil grunted. “Why don’t we dispense a couple c.c.’s of morphine? And water.”
Fierce Pierce reached for a chart on the foot of his bed. “I’ll have to check with the doctor about your pain meds, Mr. Branton, but I think we can manage the water.”
He grabbed her arm, unexplained panic rippling along his spine. “How did you know my name?”
She pulled loose from his grasp, and an instant later, the sweet relief of an ice cube slid across his cracked lips. “Vee hafe our methods. Vee know everysink.”
Her manner was teasing, and although his memory was fuzzy and specific details unaccountably elusive, Gil remembered enough to be afraid. If he’d been recognized, he had to leave. Now.
Before he could question the nurse further, she moved away, along with the sliver of consciousness he’d been holding on to. Gil slipped back into blessed sleep.
Sometime later—a minute? a week?—he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder and his eyes fluttered open. The large red-headed nurse was at his side again, a tumbler of water in her hand.
Gil licked his lips in anticipation of the quenching liquid and tried to sit up. Another pain-racked groan escaped his lips. “What the hell did you people do to me? Beat my ribs back into place?”
The nurse chuckled as she deftly slipped a supporting hand behind his back. “Doctor said you’d be a terrible patient. But don’t give me a hard time,” she warned. “Remember, I have the power of the Fleet enema on my side.”
She raised the flexible straw to his lips and he sucked the water into his parched throat. Gil drank deeply until she pulled the glass from his greedy mouth. “Enough now. I just put some happy juice into your IV, so you should rest comfortably for a while. Nightie night.”
Unable to form a cohesive reply, he shuddered back onto the rock-hard pillow and closed his eyes.
MIDNIGHT. ALL THE ACCIDENT victims had finally been treated and hospitalized or released. Incredibly only a single fatality resulted from the myriad of crushed vehicles. Valerie leaned against the wall and drank in the silence. She could go home now. And sleep. Forget this night.
She had the next three days off. Three whole days away from the clinic. Away from birth, death and this hospital.
Away from Gil Branton.
By the time she returned on Thursday, he should be discharged. She’d never have to see him again.
But she’d also never know why he’d abandoned her.
Not that it mattered, she reasoned, gathering her personal items from her locker. She’d picked up the pieces of her life and moved on. She didn’t need Gil or his lousy excuses. She was finished with him. Done. Over it.
Except it wasn’t over. For Valerie, their brief history would never be over.
The price she would pay for loving Gil Branton was going to be extracted for a very long time.
She tugged her braid over her shoulder onto her chest to make room for her backpack, then wound the braid into a knot on the back of her head and pinned it into place. Gil had always loved her long hair.
Who cared what he liked? Maybe she’d cut it off. A short pixie style would be easier to care for.
She strode out of the physicians’ lounge and headed for the exit nearest the staff parking lot. Why was she thinking about Gil, anyway? As far as she was concerned, he probably deserved the beating. Guilt rippled through her. No, he didn’t deserve that beating. No one did. Not even a lying, perfidious, leave-you-all-but-at-the-altar jerk like Gil.
Why had he been so badly beaten? Obviously he was the victim of a robbery, but what was he doing near that biker bar in the first place?
She bumped the exterior door open with her hip and pulled her keys out of her pocket “Night, Pete,” she called to the security guard who patrolled the parking lot.
Well, for the next three days, she could put Gil out of her mind. He was stabilized and receiving excellent medical care. Nothing more for her to worry about. Besides, she had her own future and her own problems to sort out.
As she slid behind the wheel of her Celica, Valerie glanced up at the imposing hospital structure. Automatically her gaze lifted to the fifth floor. Most of the lights were out; the patients in the fifth-floor ward, Gil’s ward, were sleeping peacefully. She’d done her duty to her patient. She could go home with a clear conscience.
But not an easy heart.
Despite her protests to the contrary, Valerie had to know the truth. Why had Gil dumped her so callously? Hadn’t she at least deserved a phone call? A last meal?
If she didn’t get an explanation, Valerie knew she would never be fully free of him, nor of the shell of cynicism she’d erected around her heart. She’d never be able to trust again, and that would be her loss, not Gil Branton’s.
Filled with determination, yet sick with the thought of facing him, she slid out from behind the wheel and headed back for the hospital entrance.
Minutes later she was on the fifth floor and making her way quietly down the hall. The ward was eerily silent; only the mechanical whoosh of an occasional respirator broke the stillness. The ward lights had been dimmed and the temperature was cool, almost chilly. Like a morgue, she thought, then shivered in surprise that her thoughts had become so morbid. She’d served her share of night duty and never felt the creeps before. She was giving in to the uneasiness of facing Gil, transferring the blame for her uneasiness to the dim wards of a sleeping hospital.
Although she moved slowly, her footsteps nonetheless eventually led her to Gil’s bedside. Pausing beside the privacy curtain surrounding his bed, she steeled herself for the coming confrontation.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the near darkness. The venetian blinds, which were set between two layers of glass in the unopenable windows, were closed tightly. Not even moonlight penetrated the darkness.
Once she’d gained her night vision, she padded around the bed and stood near his head. Gil was sleeping, so peacefully that she hesitated to awaken him. His dark lashes lay against his cheeks. Valerie’s fingertip brushed the stubble of his salt-and-pepper beard.
How she’d loved this man once.
How she hated him now.
Summoning all the anger, all the hurt and all the self-doubts his desertion had caused, she forced her heart back into its stainless-steel casing. “Gil?”
He stirred slightly, but didn’t awake.
“Gil.” She poked his shoulder with a fingertip. “It’s me, Valerie. Time to wake up and face the music. Gil!”
The dark lashes fluttered and he opened his eyes. Those lovely melting chocolate-brown eyes she’d once trusted and adored. Those duplicitous brown eyes.
His hand reached out and clutched hers tightly, like a drowning man clinging to a life raft. “Honey, is that—” He broke off and licked his parched lips.
Despite her hatred for this man, her medical training and physician’s heart refused to let him suffer. She reached for the carafe by his bed. Empty. Stifling a sigh, she whispered, “I’ll get you some water. Then we’ll talk.”
Pulling her hand from his disconcerting grasp, she gathered up his carafe and empty glass and headed for the adjoining bathroom. To protect him from the bright fluorescence, she closed the bathroom door before turning on the light.
Adjusting the cold-water flow to a trickle, she glanced into the mirror. She was startled by her reflection. Her mouth was drawn tight, and her eyebrows were knotted in a ferocious frown. She looked like an unhappy bitter woman.
She laughed wryly. Wasn’t that what she’d become? A woman who no longer found any joy in life?
When Gil had jilted her, he’d taken a part of her—-her vibrancy, her humor—with him. Now she was going to take it back.
Returning to the task at hand, she filled the plastic carafe and rinsed out his tumbler and straw. She switched off the light and allowed her vision to readjust to the darkness before she swung open the bathroom door.
She halted after taking only a couple of steps, shocked into place by the sight of a man leaning over Gil’s bed. A part of her registered that something was very wrong, but she was too startled to pay it heed.
“Hello,” she called softly, not wanting to startle the person who was attending to Gil. “I’m Dr. Murphy. I treated your patient in the ER and stopped in to see—”
The man beside the bed whirled around, stared at her for a moment, then bolted for the door.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” Before she could complete the sentence, he pushed past her, almost knocking her down in his mad race to escape. Never looking behind, he disappeared into the corridor, leaving the door open wide.
Shaking her head in wonder, Valerie moved to the door to close it. The conversation she intended to have with Gil was better done in private. Her hand still clutching the water pitcher, she glanced down the corridor just in time to see the man dash through the steel fire door into the stairwell.
“Wait!” she called. “Why are you...” Her voice trailed off and she leaned against the doorjamb for support. At that moment she knew what her instincts had been trying to tell her all along. That man had been dressed in jeans and a dark T-shirt. No uniform. No hospital identification badge.
Sudden fear clutched her heart and she darted back to Gil’s bedside. He was thrashing in the bed, his fingers clutching his throat as he gasped for breath.
Chapter Two
Valerie set the carafe on the nightstand and flipped on the overhead light. Reflexively Gil turned from the harsh glare and she grabbed his head between her strong hands. Was he choking? A reaction to his meds?
Like a cornered cougar, he instinctively fought her. Not wanting to take the precious seconds to find the call button and summon help, Valerie leaped onto the narrow bed and put one leg over his torso to stifle his thrashing. When he’d quieted somewhat, she tilted his chin. His airway seemed clear and from the way he was gulping air, nothing was lodged in his lungs.
She yanked down the sheet and scanned his torso. No welts or hives indicative of anaphylactic shock from an allergic reaction. Grabbing her penlight from her backpack, she opened his mouth and checked his airway. Clear. No swollen tissues. Nothing obvious was obstructing his breathing. But something was wrong. “Gil! Calm down. You’re okay.”
He waved a dismissive hand and continued to suck in oxygen rapidly, like a drowning victim who’d been plucked from the ocean at the last possible moment.
He stared at her as if he’d never seen her before.
“Gil? What’s wrong? You’re hyperventilating.” Had he been surprised, even frightened, by the man who’d been in the room? She’d never imagined Gil to be the panicky type. But then, had she ever really known him?
After a few moments his breathing slowed and she thought he’d gone back to sleep. When she started to leave the room to let him rest, his hand clamped around her wrist.
“No! Don’t leave.”
She settled back down on the edge of the bed. Despite her bitterness toward the man lying on the bed, she nonetheless felt a splinter of compassion. As if they were acting independently of her will, her fingertips smoothed the rumpled dark hair from his forehead. “Go to sleep, Gil. I’ll stay.”
He shook his head and forced out halting words. “No. Can’t stay. They’ll...kill me.”
“What?”
“That man...tried to...” Gil didn’t finish, but he pointed to the floor beside the bed.
She glanced down and was startled to discover a pillow beside her foot. Gil was tired, delirious. He must have pushed it off the bed while thrashing about. Her gaze traveled back to his dark head. The pillow was beneath it.
But it was on the floor, so how...?
Valerie’s gaze darted across the room to the vacant bed. Where a pillow should have been was glaringly empty. Even as her mind put the pieces together, she could scarcely believe the finished picture. In his present condition, hooked to IVs, tubes and myriad machinery, there was no way Gil could have managed to cross the room and get that pillow. Yet there it was on the floor beside his bed, quietly telling a horrible truth.
Like a sleepwalker, she bent over and retrieved it, still not believing what must have transpired. “That man, who was he?”
Ignoring her question, Gil struggled to sit up. “You have to help me, Doctor. He’ll be back. Believe me, these people never quit.”
Apparently exhausted from the effort of speaking, he sank back down on the bed.
“Who, Gil? Who are these people and why would they want to kill you? Talk to me!”
His dark eyes, their whites shot with broken blood vessels, searched her face. The haunted face that stared at her now barely resembled the man she’d known a few short months ago. The man who’d left her without a word of farewell. “No time,” he whispered. “Either get me out of here or...or I’ll be...dead by morning.”
Valerie reached for the bedside phone. “All right. I’ll get security.”
Her hand was stilled by Gil’s laugh. A harsh sound that mocked her suggestion. “Security guard? That man was a pro. Your...rent-a-cops...would be as effective as preschoolers. We...have to get out of here.”
Her hand still on the receiver, Valerie nodded. “The police, then. If there’s anything to your story, they’ll put a guard on your room.”
Again that ugly laugh. Once more Gil struggled to sit upright, and this time he managed it. “Don’t you understand? That man was a hired killer. And you saw him.” His voice was measurably stronger, as if his strength were buoyed by the dangerous situation. “The cops are no match for a...hit man.”
“Who? Who’s after you?” She wanted to grab his shoulders and shake the truth out of him, for despite her anger, he’d somehow convinced her that his life—and possibly hers—was in danger.
In a move powered by sheer will, Gil managed to swing his legs over the edge of the bed. “Move,” he muttered, reaching for the stainless-steel cart that held the vinyl bags containing intravenous fluids.
Valerie grabbed his hand and moved the cart. “No! You need that medication. I’ll help you, Gil. Just as soon as you tell me what’s going on. You owe me that much.” She almost choked on the bile filling her throat at the oblique reference to how much he’d hurt her.
“Why? Why do I owe you?”
Her heart felt as if it were covered with a shell of ice. Valerie stared into his eyes, seeing no warmth. Not even any recognition. “You don’t even know who I am, do you?”
His gaze raked her features. “Sure, you’re the doctor from the ER. So, are you going to help me or not?”
Without waiting for a reply, he ineffectively pushed her from the cart, and wobbled to his feet. He stood for a moment, visibly corralling his strength. His voice was nearly normal when he stepped away from the bed. “The less you know, Doc, the safer we’ll both be. Just get my clothes and put me into a cab. Once I’m gone, I don’t think he’ll come after you. He doesn’t even know your name.”
He took another step and almost fell on his face.
She grabbed his shoulders as he sagged against her. “Look at you—you can hardly stand. How do you expect to defend yourself against a man you tell me even the police can’t stop? You’re not making sense, Gil. Now get back into bed.”
Turning his shaggy head, he stared into her eyes. “Then move me. Hide me. Now.”
Valerie started to argue, to repeat that the only correct medical course was for him to remain in bed. But he was so agitated, his fear so real it was almost palpable, that she found herself wavering. Had the man really tried to smother Gil with the pillow?
How had he even known ho
w to find him? Once she’d discovered who it was behind several days’ growth of stubble, she’d been too shaken to reveal his identity to anyone other than Fierce Pierce. He was still listed on the hospital rolls as John Doe. And it was hospital policy not to release any information on a John Doe without police authority.
Something was dreadfully wrong.
Fully aware that she might be putting her job—even her life—on the line for a man who’d betrayed her, Valerie nonetheless knew she had no choice. No matter how badly Gil had treated her, she couldn’t abdicate her moral responsibility. She couldn’t stand idly by while another attempt was made on his life.
Putting her hands on his shoulders, she gently tipped him back onto the bed. “Stay here. I’ll find another room.”
She jerked her gaze away from the painfully raw emotion she saw reflected in his, and ran from the room.
As Valerie made her way down the deserted corridor, she reflected how different the atmosphere seemed tonight. How many hundred times had she traversed empty hospital hallways late at night? Never before had she felt this sense of isolation.
Her rubber-soled shoes were soundless in the eerily quiet ward. No quiet murmur of gossiping nurses reached her ears, no muted buzz of televisions or whispers of worried visitors. As she passed the partially open doors to the patients’ rooms, the only sound was the occasional hum of life-sustaining machinery. She rounded the corner and the empty nurses’ station was in sight.
Her heart sank. She’d expected the night nurse to be back from her rounds by now and felt oddly discomfited that the station was still unattended.
As Valerie approached the horseshoe-shaped nurses’ station, bedecked with wilting flowers left by departing patients and draped with thank-you cards and cartoons inspired by hospital humor, she felt her equilibrium returning. Down the hall, the murmur of the night nurse’s voice was calming.
Surrounded by the familiar accoutrements of her profession, Valerie felt her confidence surging. She stepped behind the desk and scanned the chart on the white erasable ink board hanging on the wall. The patients on the ward were listed in alphabetical order, along with their room numbers. Any special information was encoded on a small block beside their name.