A Doctor in His House

What did he look like now, beyond the blurred, broad-shouldered silhouette she’d been able to glimpse?

She had a sudden, powerful shaft of memory, from the first time they’d met, six years ago, and for a few blessed moments, the memory managed to override the migraine.

In her mind, she was back in the E.R., examining a child complaining of stomach pain, adding up the symptoms and thinking it didn’t look good. Even though the pediatric E.R. beds were in a separate area from the general beds, she could still hear the commotion nearby. A detoxing addict had turned abusive and violent. This one was apparently stronger and more persistent than most.

She finished her exam, and promised the parents that the senior doctor would be there soon to order some tests, then she left to return to the pediatric medical floor on level six …

And there was Daniel, strong-shouldered and intentionally intimidating in his uniform, responding to a call for security. She passed him just as he reached the knot of people caught up in the addict’s drama—passed him close enough to almost brush his arm, which was flexed big and hard beneath the dark gray shirt. Close enough to see the control and determination in his face.

Some security guards didn’t look like that. They looked as if they enjoyed the prospect of wielding power and force a little too much. They practically grinned in anticipation as they approached a potentially violent scene. Daniel, in contrast, seemed calm, businesslike, implacable.

Incredibly good-looking, too, in a way she didn’t usually notice, with his angular features and well-shaped head, close-cut dark hair and matching stubble, deep-set black eyes and powerful size. Until that point, she’d always gone for very smart, cerebral men, liking their intellect before she noticed their body.

Daniel was different, that first day and every day afterward.

Daniel was so, so utterly different from Kyle, the ex-husband whose last name she’d still been using back then. She was powerfully aware of it from the very first moment, when he glanced sideways at her and then ahead to the scene that awaited him.

She couldn’t help the turn of her head in his direction, couldn’t miss the moment when their eyes met, heard him say to the addict a moment later, “We’re done here,” and then that was it. She reached the swing door that led out of the E.R., pushed it open and left. The backward swing of the door blocked out sound and sight. She never learned the aftermath of the addict’s behavior, and the child with stomach pain turned out to have leukemia, which eventually went into remission and then cure.

Her first sight of Daniel Porter was the thing that stayed with her, and she must have given something away in her face or her body language … She must have been more naked than she knew. Because he began to smile at her when they passed each other in a corridor or met up at a desk. Soon, he was saying hi and pausing to talk.

The conversations grew longer, and he didn’t seem in a hurry to bring them to an end, even though the subject matter was usually pretty trivial and sometimes he seemed to find talking a challenge or an effort, and then one day—

Yeah.

A drink. A meal. Bed.

She was so horribly on the rebound at that point, from the ugly unraveling of her marriage. Kyle had remarried so quickly, it had felt like a studied act of revenge. Maybe it was. Kyle was like that. She would never have taken him back, and she wondered about the new wife, but still her emotions from the breakup were raw.

Maybe the reason she’d responded to Daniel so strongly was purely that he seemed so polar opposite to her ex, in so many ways.

But you couldn’t make a relationship work when it was based on choosing the opposite to what you’d had before. And with the painful timing, it could never have worked with Daniel, no matter what kind of a man he’d been. They’d both been crazy even to try.

Chapter Three

Was Scarlett asleep?

Daniel wasn’t sure.

She hadn’t moved or spoken for a while now, and her breathing was very even. It was almost three o’clock, and Andy should be back with the prescription pain medication any minute. The TV was spewing out another crime show rerun. He preferred hospital shows for when he needed to unwind in front of a screen.

There was a symmetry about it, he realized. Scarlett was a doctor and liked TV crime. He was a cop and liked TV medicine. Neither of them wanted to revisit their working environment in their time off.

Healthy.

Something in common, too, in an upside-down kind of way.

Only problem was that this particular TV crime show was killing him with its implausibility.

He tried to find in Scarlett’s face and body the same woman he’d known six years ago, but couldn’t, and maybe that was good. She’d been quite defiantly blonde back then. Now her hair color was a natural golden brunette, but that wasn’t the biggest difference.

Where were the big, liquid, intelligent brandy-brown eyes and the sensitive, full-lipped mouth? The softness and curves? Lost in fatigue and stress and weight loss and pain. He’d eventually recognized her, but only just, and even now he couldn’t put his finger on what had finally clicked. Not her voice.

Something harder to define.

Something—and this appalled him, when you got down to it—that had its source in his memories of her body when they’d made love. The way she’d closed her eyes and surrendered so totally to the moment. The way she’d moved. The way she’d been possessed by the strength of their physical connection to the same degree she was now possessed by the blurred vision and pain.

They’d only been involved for a few weeks, but he hadn’t known sex like it before or since.

He hadn’t known certainty like it before or since, either.

Hell, what kind of an admission was that? What did it say about his life? Was this why he hadn’t said anything to her about their past acquaintance? Because he was afraid that his memories of their time in bed, and his memories of how she’d made him feel, would color his voice and she would hear it? Because if they talked about the past, then she might guess how much he’d never gotten her out from under his skin?

How could you say a calm, casual, “Remember me?” in a situation like this?

Better—way better—to let it go and say nothing.

For now, at least.

Scarlett began to feel human again when the stronger pain medication kicked in at around six o’clock. Andy had brought the pharmacy bag into the house, grabbed his overnight bag and left for the city almost at once. After she’d taken the medication, Daniel had left for the store, and now she could hear that he was back. He still had the key from under the flowerpot, and when he let himself back in the house, she heard the rustle of the shopping bags.

He closed the door behind her, put down the bags and came through into the living room, to Scarlett’s couch. “What can I do for you next?” He sounded like a cop, again. Voice deep and clipped. No words wasted. No hesitation or doubt.

“Find another crime show before I murder one of those designers …”

He didn’t laugh. Well, okay, she wasn’t being that funny. Humor was all in the timing, and hers had disappeared along with her vision. She heard him pick up the remote and start channel surfing, stopping at the first show he came to. She listened to it for a moment, then they both spoke at the same time.

“Sorry, I can’t handle—” from her.

From him, “Sorry, do you mind if we—?”

“Please,” she agreed. “Switch.”

“Sitcom?”

“One with an audience, not canned.”

“Let’s see what we have here … And then can I heat you some soup?”

“Please.”

She managed to sit and sip soup from a mug, in between bites of toast that Daniel had rested on a paper napkin, and when she opened her eyes the multiple images had resolved down to two, the blurriness was lessened and the light didn’t hurt anymore. She still couldn’t see clearly, but the progress felt good.

Daniel came and took the empty mug from her hands without her having to ask.

“Thanks. I’m feeling a lot better, painwise, even if the vision still isn’t that great.”

“You’re looking better. Way better color.”