Undercover M.D.

Terrance turned in time to see Alix heading in his direction. Now what?

Alix had never been one to shirk her duty, no matter how distasteful or difficult it was. She placed dealing with Terrance in that category.

Telling herself that she was no longer the young woman she’d once been did no good. In her heart Alix sincerely doubted if she would ever be completely over Terrance McCall.

But there was absolutely no reason to let him know that.

As she drew closer, a foul odor assaulted her nose. She sniffed, then realized that the smell was coming from the same vicinity as Terrance.

“Is that coming from you?”

He nodded. “Patient in Bed K threw up on me, just like you predicted.” He was wearing a lab coat that was entirely too snug in the shoulders and had had to change his shirt and pants. “One of the residents lent me his clothes.”

Alix nodded. “That would explain the scrubs.”

She’d forgotten how good he looked in the attire. And how much it had once turned her on. This time, however, he looked like someone who’d gotten caught in the rain and had his clothes shrink. The cuffs of his pants exposed a section of dark sock.

“Rafferty?” she guessed, referring to one of the residents on the floor.

He glanced down to see if the man’s name was written on the lab coat. It wasn’t. Terrance looked at her, surprised. “How did you know?”

“Process of elimination. He’s shorter than you are. Adam Hathaway’s about the same height,” she judged. “They’re the only two doctors in the E.R. right now.” The odor was getting to her. She wrinkled her nose. “I’d suggest you take a shower.”

“Can’t.” When she looked at him quizzically, he leaned over and whispered, “In case you haven’t heard, the head doctor’s pretty strict. If I leave my post for more than a minute, she’ll have my head.”

Alix wasn’t amused. She looked at him pointedly, making herself, she hoped, perfectly clear. “The head doctor doesn’t want your head, Doctor. Or any other part of you, either.”

Maybe he’d overstepped his boundaries. Feelings for her or not, the woman was married and he had his rules. She had nothing to worry about from him. “Duly noted. Just so I’m clear on this, are you telling me to take a shower?”

Alix nodded. “For the good of the hospital,” she affirmed.

He wasn’t about to argue the point. Terrance couldn’t help wondering how many people he’d offended in the last hour. “Where would I—”

“There’s a facility directly behind the doctors’ lounge. Slightly bigger than a bread box, but if you’re not planning to do any acrobatics while showering, it’ll do the trick.”

Funny she should mention that. It brought back to mind the showers they’d taken together, fitting against each other in a tiny stall. Sometimes they would even remember to turn the water on.

“Thanks. And Alix—”

She knew that tone, that pause. He was going to say something she was better off not hearing—even though part of her hungered to.

But that was her weakness, and she would deal with it. The way she’d always dealt with everything else that life had thrown her way. She’d learned to savor the good moments, trusting the memory of them to see her through, like a bridge to the next good moment.

“Go take your shower,” she ordered. With that, she turned on her heel and walked away.

Terrance raised his voice. “It’s good to see you again,” he called after her.

Without bothering to turn around, Alix waved her hand at him, dismissing the words.

Dismissing him.

Telling himself he didn’t feel stung, Terrance turned away. Like he’d just told Riley, they weren’t here to fraternize or enjoy the “scenery,” they were here to bring the operation to a successful close.

On that thought he began to walk quickly to the doctors’ lounge.

Just behind him, he heard the rear emergency room doors opening and the sound of a gurney being hurried in. Turning around, he could see the blood even from where he stood.

The shower was going to have to wait.

Terrance broke into a run. He caught Alix’s expression out of the corner of her eye as she approached from another direction. He wouldn’t have been able to say why the unguarded look of approval pleased him the way it did, but it did.

Chapter 4

Terrance frowned slightly as he set down his tray on the table and slid into the corner booth in the hospital cafeteria. The vantage point allowed him a full view of the area just beyond the entrance.

Things were going slower than he wanted. He’d been at Blair Memorial for almost a week and had learned nothing.

No, that wasn’t strictly true, he amended silently. He might not have gotten anywhere in his investigation, but he had learned that his first career choice did hold an attraction for him, even after a self-imposed absence of six years.

He’d learned, too, that the woman who had been so important to him while he was studying to be a doctor most definitely still held an attraction for him. Time had done nothing to diminish that. But then, he hadn’t left her because he’d lost interest in her the way he had with medicine. Alix hadn’t been the reason he’d gone numb inside, becoming all but clinically dead yet still somehow going through the motions. Medicine had done that. Or rather, medicine’s failure had done that to him.

The inability of medicine to save his father’s life after Jake McCall had been shot during a DEA stakeout had shaken the very foundations of Terrance’s world, had made him question everything that he felt he was about.

The moment his father had taken his last breath, medicine had ceased to hold any allure for Terrance. He found he had to get away, to think, to somehow try to reinvent himself. That meant leaving his old life behind.

That meant leaving Alix behind, as well, because she deserved someone who was whole—not him. She deserved someone who could love her, and he no longer knew if he was capable of the kind of love she needed.

So he’d left Bedford and Alix and refused to look back. Left her without saying a word. It was the coward’s way out, the only time he’d taken it, but it was the only way he could have walked away.

Now he wasn’t so sure that he had done the right thing.

Too late for second thoughts now, McCall. She’s married to someone else.

That meant that he’d lost the right to let that bother him, certainly lost the right to try to reaffirm his position in her life. Even if he were so inclined, which he wasn’t.

He was what time and circumstances had forced him to become. A loner. In his chosen profession, that was viewed as an asset. No wife to worry about, no family to slip into his thoughts at the wrong moments, taking his edge off, blurring his focus. The best agents were the ones who were married to the job, not to a flesh-and-blood person.

He knew all that, and yet…

And yet nothing, Terrance thought. He was here to try to get close to William Harris, the grandson of the founder of this hospital, not to conjure up regrets and fantasize over what might have been.

He was familiar with the hospital, the first in Bedford. Known then as Harris Memorial, the eight-story, multiwinged edifice had only recently been renamed Blair Memorial in honor of the woman who had bequeathed her entire fortune to the hospital upon her death.

Terrance smiled to himself. For a fifty-million-dollar bequest, he would have allowed himself to be renamed Shoe.

“Mind if I join you?”

Terrance roused himself from his thoughts.