"You're going to be sore everywhere for a while," she told him, frowning at the way the heat of his skin seemed to linger on her hands as she slipped the gown back in place.
"I was the last time, too."
"You've done this before?"
"Not this way." There was an edge in his voice that hadn't been there a moment ago, a heavy hint of frustration that almost overrode the discomfort. "I broke my other leg skiing a couple of years ago. It's an inconvenience, but it isn't anything I can't function with if I'm not taking anything that messes up my head. And as long as I can move around," he pointedly added. "So let's get rid of that scaffolding and just put a cast on it. I need to get out of here."
"I'm afraid that's not possible."
Looking at her as if she couldn't possibly have said what he thought he'd heard, he muttered, "Why not? All you have to do is take that thing off and wrap my leg in plaster of paris. It'll probably take a couple of days to dry completely, but I don't have to stay in the hospital for that."
He was rubbing his temple. The one without the bandage. She didn't doubt for a moment that he had a headache. She was also beginning to see why he seemed to be giving everyone else one, too. Especially Kay with her regimented routine and Mrs. Driscoll with her hospital regs. She seriously doubted that any man who'd accomplished what he had followed other people's rules. He did things his way.
That was how he wanted them done now. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't in a position to call the shots.
Unfortunately for her, she was.
"You may have had a broken leg before," she patiently allowed, still more concerned with the way he winced when he moved than with his obstinance, "but there are different kinds of breaks and this particular one can't be casted. At least not yet. Your mobility is a priority but not our first one. The bone penetrated the skin and our biggest concern is infection. You'll be able to get around with the scaffolding," she assured him, referring as he had to the external fixation device. "But right now, you need a three-day course of IV antibiotics. As for letting you out of here, we'll talk in a few days about how long you need to be hospitalized."
"A few days isn't acceptable. If I can get around on this thing, you can give me a prescription for whatever I need to take and I can get out of here now. I need to reschedule a meeting and I can't hold it here."
The man was clearly under the impression that it would take more than a speeding truck to slow him down. He also seemed to think her medical opinion of his treatment was negotiable, which, given his injuries, it was not. He held her glance, his carved features set and the furrows in his forehead speaking as much of pain as of impatience. He had work to do and he clearly intended to do it.
He seemed to overlook the fact that, at the moment, he couldn't make it from the bed to the bathroom without help.
"You don't seem to understand," she said, every bit as determined to get her point across. She didn't doubt for a moment that the man had a few dozen irons in the fire and that any number of them needed tending. Especially the meeting he was obsessing over. She understood career pressure. She was intimately acquainted with job stress. But she also knew that people in pain could be irritable, unreasonable.
"What you need right now are antibiotics. If you don't get them, you could get an infection and, trust me, that's the last thing you want. If you do get one, we're talking six weeks of IV therapy. If that doesn't work, you could lose your leg. It gets bad enough and we can't control it, you could lose your life."
He didn't seem nearly as impressed as he should have been with the consequences. "Scare tactics, Doctor?"
"I'd be happy to bring you a few case histories to back up my conclusion."
"I'd rather have a copy of the Financial Times."
"Fine. You can cooperate and be back on your feet in a few months, or do it your way and have it take longer. And by the way," she added, in that same velvet-over-steel voice, "you might not be acting like a wounded bear if you'd take what I prescribe. The pain is only going to get worse. Especially when they get you up in a few minutes so you can move around. I guarantee you're not going to want to stand up without it."
Pulling a small, rubber-tipped reflex hammer from her pocket, she swallowed her irritation at the deliberate challenge in his eyes and moved to the end of the bed. "Can you feel this?" she asked, refusing to let him bait her any farther as she ran the instrument over the top of his foot.
The relief Chase felt at the faint tickling sensation was buried as promptly as the fear he'd denied when he'd first seen the metal pins protruding from the bandages on his leg. Aching everywhere, trying desperately not to think about it, he purposely waited until his doctor glanced toward him before he acknowledged her.
"I feel it," he finally said, trying to decide if he was impressed with her aplomb or just plain annoyed by it.
He did know he was intrigued.
With her attention on her exam, his glance skimmed the feathered sweep of her hair. It was too short for his taste, barely enough for a man to gather in his hands. But the color was incredible. Shades of ruby and garnet gleamed like lines of fire in rich, dark cinnamon. And it looked amazingly soft. Almost as soft as the skin of her long, graceful neck and the delicate shell of her ear.
A pearl stud gleamed on her earlobe. Simple. Understated.
Her profile was as elegant as a cameo.
Alexandra Larson looked nothing like someone who would replace hips and knees and piece together broken bodies for a living. With her delicate features and doe-soft brown eyes, she looked more like some advertiser's idea of a kindergarten teacher. Or a dancer. He'd always been under the impression that orthopedic surgery required a little muscle. If he had to guess, there wasn't a whole lot beneath the narrow white coat covering her scrubs.
He had no problem with her not looking like his idea of a doctor. He had no problem with her being female. His problem was with needing a doctor in the first place—especially one who seemed to think she knew his body better than he did.
Shelving that little annoyance, he settled back, mentally whimpering as he carefully let his body relax against the mattress he was certain had been constructed of concrete. As sore as he was, the surface felt as hard as a slab and was just about as comfortable. He tried to overlook that, too.
What he couldn't overlook was how he could so easily recall her from last night. He'd been too drugged to fully comprehend much of anything beyond the pain and the need to get to a phone. But, somehow, he could still remember the soothing tones of her surprisingly sultry voice and feeling strangely calm when she'd rested her hand on his shoulder.
That feeling completely eluded him now. As she continued her examination, his thoughts flashed to the accident that had landed him on her operating table. A couple of seconds one way or the other and he wouldn't have been in the intersection when that idiot had blown the red light. If he'd called to confirm his appointment from the airport rather than heading straight for his meeting, it wouldn't have happened. If he'd taken an earlier flight instead of eking every possible minute out of the afternoon, he would already have been at the hotel.
The accident hadn't been his fault, but that didn't stop him from being angry with himself for not preventing it. He knew he'd been preoccupied. He'd been thinking of the two men he was to meet in the hotel's lounge, worrying about what he would think of them. Or, more importantly, what they would think of him. He had no idea how he'd be received and the uncertainty had him feeling more unsettled and uneasy than he'd felt in his entire life.
He was thinking he'd give up half of everything he owned just to get that meeting over with when he felt his doctor's hand rest on his bare calf. Small and soft, its warmth penetrated his skin, mercifully drawing his attention from his thoughts and focusing it on the one part of his anatomy that hadn't been throbbing until he caught her scent and felt her touch when she'd checked his shoulder.
He'd had no idea that surgical soap could smell so appealing. He didn't know either what
she wore with it that made it so seductive. Or, how she could lower his blood pressure even as she raised it.
"I understand you're from Seattle. If you'll give me the name of your personal physician, I can start arranging a transfer to a hospital there, if you'd like."
"I'm not leaving Honeygrove until I've done what I came to do."
She hesitated. "Fine," she said, again, when he was pretty sure what she actually thought was "great." "We'll just keep you here, then."
"I need a fax machine."
Something like resignation washed over her delicate features. Or maybe it was annoyance. The way she schooled her features as she crossed her arms made it hard to tell for sure.
For some reason he couldn't begin to identify, her forced calm annoyed the daylights out of him.
"I heard," she informed him, all business. "Unfortunately, we're not equipped to set up an office in a hospital room. If you need something sent, I'm sure Mrs. Driscoll would be happy to take care of it for you."
"I'm not asking to use your personnel or your equipment." Curbing the quick flash of exasperation, he closed his eyes, fighting for the calm she seemed to manage with such exasperating ease. "I've already explained that."
"You haven't explained it to me."
She had a point. She also actually looked willing to listen, which was more than anyone else had done so far. "I'll buy a machine if someone will just get me a phone book so I can have one delivered and set up. I have a meeting in Chicago on Tuesday and I'd planned to finish the contracts this weekend. The drafts are in my briefcase, which no one can seem to locate," he pointed out, trying hard to hold back his frustration but pretty sure he wasn't succeeding. "If I had them, I could work on them instead of lying here doing nothing. Since I don't, I'll have my attorney fax me a copy. I'd have my secretary do it, but she's at her son's wedding this weekend.
"I know I won't be going to Chicago myself," he countered, sharp claws of frustration gripping hard when she pointedly glanced at his leg. "My attorney will represent me. That's what I pay him to do."
His terseness caused the soft wing of her eyebrow to jerk up. Looking a little cooler than she had a moment ago, she picked up the chart she'd dropped on the end of his bed. "I'll get you the number for the fax at the nurses' station," she said, sounding as if she were willing to be reasonable even if he wasn't. "You can have them sent there."
"That won't work." There were changes he needed to send to his attorney and his attorney would have to send the documents back once the changes were made. Aside from the fact that he'd prefer his business dealings to remain confidential, he had other projects he needed to stay on top of, and he knew as sure as stocks rose and fell that the hassle with the head nurse wouldn't be worth the trouble. "Attila out there has already pointed out that the nurses aren't secretaries—"
"It's General Sherman … I mean Kay," his suddenly fatigued-looking doctor hastily corrected. "The woman's name is Kay."
"Fine. I'm sure General Kay isn't going to like having her precious routine interrupted. I can do everything myself if someone will just get me a phone book." His voice was low, partly because he had no intention of losing control to the point where he raised it; mostly because his throat felt as if he'd swallowed sandpaper.
That frustrated him even more.
"I also need to have the meeting I missed last night," he muttered. "But that's something I can't do until you let me out of here."
And that's what bothered him most, he thought, and shoved his fingers through his hair.
Alex saw him wince, then heard him hiss a breath when the suddenness of his movement caught up with him and pain radiated from his shoulder. She didn't doubt for a moment that his agitation had only increased the pain in his head. Strain dulled his eyes. Except for his bruises, the sheets now had more color than his face. She didn't know if he was the most stoic man she'd ever encountered, or the most masochistic. She would concede that he was the most driven.
She truly didn't care about his wheeling and dealing. Her concern was getting him well and keeping him comfortable while she was doing it.
"I realize you have obligations," she conceded, certain he wasn't coping with the pain anywhere near as well as he wanted her to believe. "But I don't think you appreciate how much trauma your body has sustained. I'll have your nurse bring you a phone book and I'll change your pain medication to something that will take the edge off and leave your head clear. But you might as well call whoever handles your schedule and have them cancel everything for the next couple of weeks."
She turned to avoid his scowl and headed for the door. "Oh, yes. One more thing. Your condition right now is, officially, stable. Do you want that released to the press, or do you want no comment."
"I already gave my statement to the woman from the administrator's office."
"And you overstated your condition and understated the accident."
For a moment, he said nothing. He just watched her with his brow furrowed while frustration warred with the pain that undoubtedly frustrated him, too. "I'm not going to argue with you, Doctor. Go with your call on the condition, but leave my estimate of the accident alone."
He'd been there. She hadn't.
He didn't say as much, but that was the message she got as challenge slipped once more into those disturbingly blue eyes.
"Good enough," she told him, wondering why he couldn't have piled up his car when someone else had been on call. "Get some rest."
She stepped into the wide hall, feeling more as if she'd escaped the room rather than merely left it. She'd dealt with demanding type-As, the chauvinism prevalent among some of her male colleagues and her son's terrible twos. All of which, she felt, qualified her as something of an expert when it came to handling difficult men.
But a woman didn't handle Chase Harrington. She worked around him. Still, she hadn't lost her cool when he'd lost his patience. Or when he'd so cavalierly informed her of how she could handle his leg and his medication. And she thought she'd done a commendable job of ignoring the way his glance kept moving to her mouth as she spoke. All he'd done was make her forget to ask if he had any more questions about his condition, which was something she rarely failed to do with a patient.
Irritated with herself for letting him get to her, refusing to go back and let him do it again, she headed for her next patient intent, for the moment, on putting the man from her mind.
Her intentions were honorable. But Brent Chalmers axed them within ten seconds of her walking into his card-and-mylar-balloon-filled room. The gangly blond teenager with the shy smile had heard that Chase was there.
He'd never actually heard of Chase before. Until a few weeks ago when his throwing arm had been mangled in a thresher, the boy's life had centered around sports, a car he was saving to buy and the little farming community of Sylo a hundred miles away. If he'd ever read the business section of a newspaper, it was only because he'd been required to write a report on it for class. He'd just overheard the nurses whispering about some rich guy who'd climbed Mt. McKinley and his ears had perked up.
Brent was usually serious and quiet, and whenever he saw Alex he worried aloud about his ability to ever use his arm. Today, though, as she examined his nicely healing wounds all he wanted to talk about was how awesome it must feel to reach the top of the world.
"Man," he mused. "Can you imagine the shape he must be in to do something like that?"
The question was rhetorical, but she could easily have answered it. Even as she marveled at the boy's excitement, a mental picture of a beautifully muscled male intent on conquering a mighty mountain flashed in her mind. She couldn't begin to imagine the determination, the endurance, the sheer strength of will such a challenge required. But Chase apparently went after what he wanted, claimed it, then moved on.
The thought disturbed her, almost as much as the odd jolt she'd felt when she'd first met his eyes.
What disturbed her more was that he'd distracted her from her patient.
&
nbsp; "Do you, Dr. Larson?" Brent asked, shaking his stick-straight blond hair out of his eyes.
"I'm sorry." Pulling the top of his gown back up over the muscles developing in his bony shoulders, she blinked at his narrow, expectant face. "Do I what?"
"Think you could ask him how long he had to train before he made his climb. And maybe you could ask how long it took. I mean, that would be so cool. Climbing like that, I mean. Wouldn't it?"
"Actually, I can think of about eight hundred things I'd rather do than struggle for oxygen while I freeze my backside over a mile-high drop-off." Smiling easily at his unbridled interest, she nodded to the nurse to replace his elastic bandage and sling. "Tell you what. Now wouldn't be a good time, but if you'd like, I'll ask Mr. Harrington if he feels up to having company tomorrow. If he does, you can talk to him about the mountain yourself before I release you on Monday."
The mix of emotions flushing his face was fascinating. "Oh, don't do that," he begged. "I couldn't talk to him. I mean not, like, to his face," he explained, sounding as if she'd just suggested a personal audience with the Pope. "But, thanks. Yeah, really." The onslaught of discomfort gave way to a smile. "I'm getting out of here?"
"You sure are. There's something I haven't told you, though. I haven't had a chance to redo the room you'll be staying in since I bought my house. It's sort of pink." Wendy, the pregnant teenager who'd lived with her until she'd delivered and moved out last month, had called it rose. It reminded Alex more of antacid. "And you have to share a bathroom with my four-year-old."
His expression suddenly shifted, concern moving into features sharpening with the first angles of budding manhood. "I don't mind, ma'am," he murmured, his voice cracking. "I'm used to my little brothers and sisters."
She hadn't meant for him to go shy on her. But that's how Brent usually was. It had only been the prospect of the extraordinary that had breached the adolescent self-consciousness and quiet manners she normally saw.
DR. MOM AND THE MILLIONAIRE Page 3