Taming the Playboy

He was sitting back on his heels. A fresh wave of terror drenched her, leaving her shivering. “Why did you stop giving him CPR?” she demanded, an audible tremor in her voice as it rose. The words rushed out of her mouth. “Why aren’t you trying to get his heart going?”

He curved his mouth into a slight smile. Triumph at this point, he knew, could be tenuous and very short-lived. By no means was the man on the ground out of the woods. “Because it is going,” he told her.

Her eyes darted back to her grandfather, searching for proof. Staring at his chest. Was that movement? “On its own?”

Georges nodded. “On its own.”

Tears suddenly formed in her eyes. He became aware of them half a beat before the blonde threw her arms around his neck.

Half a beat before she kissed him.

Hard.

Like the oncoming tide, she pulled back as quickly as she had rushed forward. Georges realized that he had tasted not only something sweet when her lips had pressed against his, but something moist, as well. Tears. He’d tasted her tears on her lips. They must have fallen there just as she’d impetuously made contact with his.

They tasted salty and yet, somehow they were oddly sweet, as well.

“Thank you,” she cried breathlessly. “Thank you.” And then, just like that, her complete attention was focused back on her grandfather. She took the old man’s hand in both of hers and held it next to her cheek. With effort, she controlled the tremor in her voice. “Now you just hang on, Grandpa, you hear me? Help’s on the way.” For a split second, her eyes shifted back to the man who had saved them both.

Georges felt himself getting lost in her smile as she murmured, “Some of it’s already here.”

Forcing himself to look back at his patient, Georges thought he saw the old man’s eyelids flutter, struggling unsuccessfully to open. He took the man’s other hand in his and once again felt for a pulse. He found it, albeit a weak one. Mentally, Georges counted off the beats.

The blonde looked at him quizzically, obviously waiting for positive reaffirmation.

“It’s still a little reedy,” he told her. “When they get him to the hospital, I think your grandfather should stay overnight for observation. They’ll take some films, do an angiogram.” Georges looked at the man’s face. It was remarkably unlined, but he would still place him somewhere in his late sixties, possibly early seventies. Other than the gash on his forehead and the episode he’d just experienced, the man seemed to be in rather good condition. But appearances could be deceiving. “Does your grandfather have any medical conditions that you’re aware of?”

The blonde laced her fingers through her grandfather’s hand, as if her mere presence could ward off any serious complications. “I’m aware of everything about my grandfather,” she told him. There was no defensiveness in her voice, it was simply the way things were. She took an active interest in this man who was very much the center of her world. “He has a minor heart condition—angina,” she specified. “And he’s also diabetic. Other than that, he’s always been healthy.”

Georges focused only on what he considered to be liabilities. “Those are complicating factors.”

The blonde pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen into her face. She continued holding her grandfather’s hand. “Are you a doctor?”

He smiled. “I’m a fourth-year resident.” He thought of John LaSalle, the attending physician that he was currently working under. LaSalle regarded residents as lower life forms only slightly higher than lab rats. “In some eyes, that makes me an ‘almost’ doctor.”

The blonde looked back at her grandfather and, for a moment, watched the way the man’s chest rose and fell in grateful silence. She was aware that she might not be watching that if it hadn’t been for the efforts of the man beside her.

“There’s nothing ‘almost’ about you,” she replied softly.

It took Georges a second to realize that those were not bells he was hearing in his head but the sound of an approaching siren.

Chapter Two

One of the paramedics, Nathan Dooley, a tall, black, muscular attendant who seemed capable of carrying the patient with one hand tied behind his back, recognized Georges the minute the man climbed out of the passenger side of the ambulance’s cab. He flashed a wide, infectious grin at him, even as he and his partner, a somber-faced man in his thirties named Howard, swiftly worked in tandem to stabilize the old man.

Doubling back to retrieve the gurney from the back of the vehicle, Nathan returned and raised a quizzical eyebrow in Georges’ direction. “What, you don’t work enough hours in the E.R., Doc? Going out and trolling the hills for business now?”

“Coincidence,” Georges told him, carefully watching the other EMT work. The other man knew it, too, Georges thought, noting the all-but-rigid tension in Howard’s shoulders.

“Destiny,” Nathan corrected. He was still grinning, but it sounded to Georges as if the paramedic was deadly serious. He moved back as the two attendants transferred the old man onto the gurney and then snapped its legs into place.

His mother believed in destiny. In serendipity and fate, as well as savoring the fruits of all three. As for him, Georges still didn’t know what he believed in. Other than luck, of course.

He supposed maybe that was it. Luck. At least, it had been the old man’s luck in this case. Georges was fairly certain that if he hadn’t been on this road, right at this time, traveling to see his latest—for lack of a better word—love interest, if he’d given in to the weary entreaty of his body, he would have been home in bed right now. Most likely sleeping.

And the old man on the gurney would have been dead. He and his granddaughter would have been trapped in a fiery coffin.

It was satisfying, Georges thought, to make a difference, to have his own existence count for something other than just taking up space. Moments like this brought it all home to him.

Again, he had Philippe to thank for that. Because, left to his own devices, he had to confess he would have been inclined to sit back and just enjoy himself, just as his father had before him, making the rounds on an endless circuit of parties. His father’s money had assured him that he could spend the rest of his life in the mindless pursuit of pleasure.

But Philippe had had other plans for him. At the time, he’d thought of Philippe as a humorless bully. God, but he was grateful that Philippe had happened into his life. His and Alain’s.

Otherwise, the petite woman beside him would now be just a fading memory instead of very much alive.

“I want to go with him,” the blonde was saying to the other attendant, who, as uptight as Nathan was relaxed, clearly acted as if he were in charge of this particular detail.

Her grandfather had already been lifted into the back of the ambulance, his gurney secured for passage. Nathan was just climbing into the vehicle’s cab and he nodded at the woman’s statement. But Howard was in the back with the old man, and he now moved forward to the edge of the entrance, his thin, uniformed body barring her access.

When she tried to get in anyway, Howard remained where he was and shook his head. “Sorry. Rules.”

Reaching for both doors simultaneously, he began to close them on her. But the action was never completed. Coming up from behind her, Georges suddenly clamped his hand down on the door closest to him. It was apparent that Georges was the stronger of the two.

It was also very apparent, especially from the scowl on his face, that Howard did not care for being challenged.

“Let her go with him,” Georges told the paramedic. It was an order even though his voice remained even, low-key. “She’s been through a lot.”

Howard’s frown deepened. This was his small kingdom and he was not about to abdicate so easily. “Look, there are rules to follow. Nobody but the patient, that’s him, and the attendant, that’s me,” he said needlessly, his teeth clenched together, “are supposed to be riding back in—”

Georges’ smile was the sort envisioned on the lips of a cougar debating whether or not to terminate the life of its captured prey—if cougars could smile.

“Have a heart—” his eyes shifted to the man’s name tag “—Howard. Let the lady get into the ambulance with her grandfather.”

Nathan twisted around in his seat, looking into the back of the ambulance. “Listen to the man, Howie,” he advised with a wide, easy grin. “Someday he could be holding a scalpel over your belly.”

It was obvious that Howard didn’t care for the image or the veiled threat.

“If you get any flack,” Georges promised smoothly, “just refer your supervisor to me. I’ll take full responsibility.”

“Yeah, easy for you to say,” Howard grumbled. Drawing in a breath, he blew it out again, clearly not happy about the situation. Clearly not confident enough to back up his decision. His small black eyes darted from the woman’s face to the doctor’s. Survival instincts won over being king of the hill. “Okay.” Howard backed away from the entrance and returned to his seat beside the gurney. “Get in.”

“Thank you,” the blonde cried. It wasn’t clear if she was addressing her words to Howard or her Good Samaritan, or the man in the front seat behind the steering wheel. Possibly, it was to all three.

Taking her hand, Georges helped the woman get into the back of the ambulance.

But once she was inside, she didn’t let go of his hand. She held on more tightly.

“I want you to come, too,” she said to him. When it looked as if he was going to demur, she added a heartfelt, “Please?”