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The paramedic was giving a report to a doctor in abbreviated terms that made no sense to her. She tried to interrupt, but with no voice, it was hard to get their attention.
She used her earlier technique, grabbing the man’s white coat and tugging.
“Hello, Ms. Colton. Don’t worry. We’re going to take care of you. I’ve heard you sing. Let me tell you it’s a pleasure to welcome you to our hospital.”
She shook her head. “No hospital,” she insisted in her raspy whisper, her stress rising.
“Dr. Hathaway will be here any minute. I’m sure he—”
“No!” she protested as loudly as possible. Then she fell back against the pillow, clutching her throat.
For the first time the doctor appeared unsure of himself. “Uh, we’ll just take your vital signs and wait for Dr. Hathaway.” And he backed away from her, giving instructions to a nurse.
Liza closed her eyes. Being unable to use such a vital part of her, her voice, was frustrating. She knew she’d endangered it with her foolish behavior, but eating or sleeping had seemed unimportant the past three days.
If only she hadn’t fainted.
“Ah, Dr. Hathaway, I’m glad you’re here,” she heard the E.R. doctor exclaim.
She shoved herself to a sitting position just as the nurse was trying to take her pulse.
“Here now, dear, just relax. Dr. Hathaway is one of our best physicians. He’ll take good care of you.”
She shook her head, her gaze seeking the handsome doctor. When she found him in the constantly moving crowd, she waved him over.
Before she could make the effort to speak, however, he began barking out orders to the nurse.
“And set up an IV. She’s dehydrated.” He looked at Liza. “When was the last time you ate?”
She shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t want to admit her foolishness. But she’d been so frightened for Emily, it had been impossible to think of such mundane things.
While the nurse set up her IV, the E.R. physician drew Dr. Hathaway to the side and began whispering to him. He sent a sharp look her way, making Liza wonder what the man was telling him.
She had her answer when Dr. Hathaway stepped back to her side. “My cohort here says you’ve refused to be admitted.”
She nodded, relieved that finally someone was listening to her.
“Look, Ms. Colton, I know you don’t want to stay here, but at least let us give you some fluids and check things out. Only for an hour or two.”
As he finished speaking, the nurse returned with a plastic bag of fluid.
“If you’ll at least let us do that, you’ll feel a lot better,” he assured her, that deep voice sounding very soothing.
“Have to—call…cancel tonight,” she muttered, each word paining her.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. What theater are you performing in?”
She managed to get out the name of the prestigious theater.
Even though he listened, he also motioned to the nurse. She placed something in his hand. He came around to the side of the bed where the IV was hung. “Just rest for a little while. I’ll be back shortly,” he assured her.
Liza saw him inject a syringe into a juncture in the tube. She tried to ask what he was giving her, but suddenly even her raspy whisper was impossible. Her tongue wouldn’t move and her eyelids drifted closed. The sleep that had eluded her for so long was making up for lost time.
“I want her admitted,” Nick told his colleague.
“But she said she didn’t want to be here,” the E.R. doctor said cautiously. “We can’t hold her against her will.”
“Do you want to ask her now?”
“Well, no, I mean, you’ve sedated her, but—”
“She agreed to stay a few hours so we could check her out. I suspect she’s either on some radical diet or may even have recently become bulimic. You know how these entertainers are.” He turned to the nurse. “Have her taken upstairs and admitted. Tell the nurse on duty that at the first sign of her waking up, she’s to call me at once.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
With a nod of thanks, he strode out of the emergency room to make the short drive back to his office. He’d left patients waiting while he attended to the mysterious Ms. Colton. The beautiful Ms. Colton.
Not that he was interested, of course, he assured himself. First of all, he never had personal relationships with his patients. And secondly, he’d been married to a beautiful, wealthy woman. He’d never commit such a mistake again.
Not that Liza Colton resembled his ex-wife, Daphne, in any way other than her wealth. Daphne was a neon sign and Liza Colton was moonlight. Daphne was a curvaceous blonde who used every trick in the book to catch a man’s eye. Liza Colton was a slender brunette, almost too slender, her dark hair cut in a pixie that made her green eyes look huge. She had that fragile, graceful appearance of Winona Ryder or, maybe even more, Audrey Hepburn.
He shook off such thoughts. It wasn’t like him to linger on a patient’s appearance. His job was to treat the woman and send her on her way.
The rest of the afternoon he tended to patients, calmly and efficiently. But he couldn’t keep his thoughts away from Liza Colton. He had his nurse call the hospital midway through the afternoon to check with the nurse on duty.
Ms. Colton was still sleeping.
He hadn’t given her that strong a sedative. He’d expected her to awaken after a couple of hours.
As soon as he saw his last patient, he stripped off his lab coat and grabbed his jacket. “I’m going to the hospital, Missy. You can reach me there if anything comes up before you go home.”
“Are you going to see Liza Colton? ‘Cause I’d love her autograph!”
“She’s sick, Missy. I can’t bother her with that kind of request,” he chided, smiling at his young nurse.
Missy’s face fell. “I guess not.”
Nick half smiled. “I’ll see how she’s feeling. Maybe I’ll ask her, but I’m not promising anything.” Missy was a good nurse who worked hard. Surely one autograph wouldn’t be too much to ask from the diva.
He was rewarded by Missy’s brilliant smile and her thanks. With a wave, he hurried to his car.
Once he reached the hospital, he went straight to the second floor where Liza Colton was. “Any change?” he asked the floor nurse.
“On Miss Colton? No, she’s sleeping.”
With a frown, he walked to her room. Just as the nurse had reported, she was sleeping soundly after four hours. Unless she had a bad reaction to the sedative, or she hadn’t slept in a while, she shouldn’t still be asleep.
He lifted her delicate hand and held her wrist. Pulse was normal. He listened to her heart. No problem there.
Reluctantly, he decided to awaken her.
“Ms. Colton? Can you hear me, Ms. Colton?” He patted her hand as he called her name, but she didn’t stir. Finally he took her by her shoulders and gently shook her. “Liza? Liza, open your eyes.”
Very slowly, her dark lashes swept up, and she stared at him blankly.
“Do you remember me? I’m Dr. Hathaway. You came to see me about your throat.”
After staring at him with confusion, she finally nodded, then let her eyelids drift down again.
“Don’t go back to sleep. I need to ask you some questions.”
He grabbed the pillow from the next bed and pulled her forward, to slip the extra pillow behind her. He wasn’t happy to realize he liked holding her in his arms. What was wrong with him suddenly?
He backed away from the bed and went to the foot of it, adjusting the upper part of it a little higher.
“Ms. Colton? Liza? Open your eyes.”
“So tired,” she whispered, even as her eyes flickered.
“Haven’t you been sleeping well?”
“No,” she said, her voice still raspy. “Couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Em—” Before she could finish that word, whatever it might’ve been, she came fully awake and sent a panicked look his way.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked, growing more intrigued by the moment. He went to the side of the bed.
“Have to go,” she muttered, the words paining her if her face was any indication.
“You’re not well, Ms. Colton. When’s the last time you ate?”
With her gaze flickering around the room, as if looking for an escape, she shrugged her shoulders.
“Young lady, I need a better answer than that. If you’re on some ridiculous, totally unnecessary diet, I need to know. It could be affecting your voice.”
She lifted one thin hand to rub her forehead. “No,” she replied, though he wasn’t sure what she was saying.
“You’re not on a diet?”
She shook her head, though not vigorously.
He leaned forward and pushed the call button. “Nurse? I want two dinner trays brought to room 226 ASAP.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
He sat on the edge of the bed. When she stared at him in confusion, he said, “I’m starving. I thought I’d keep you company, even though it’s a little early for dinner.”
He wanted to see her eat. And keep the food down. If she was bulimic, he’d have to stay for several hours. But he hadn’t really seen any signs of bulimia.
“Must go,” she said, her raspy voice holding panic.
“I called the theater and told them you were ill and wouldn’t be performing. They promised to take care of everything, and to keep your location quiet.” He wasn’t sure about that necessity, or even if that’s what she’d want. She probably preferred the notoriety an illness would give her.
That was the way divas were.
The nurse came in at that moment carrying two trays.
“You’re in luck tonight, Doctor. Meat loaf is on the menu, along with apple pie,” the nurse told him, grinning.
He returned her smile. “Sounds good. Doesn’t it, Ms. Colton?”
She looked so lost, he felt a stirring of compassion. If she was truly a diva, how had she lost her way so badly? Was someone pressuring her to lose weight? Was her career not going well? The theater said they’d contact her manager, and Nick had felt compelled to give them Liza’s location to pass on to the man. But now he wondered if he’d made the right decision.
He moved to the foot of her bed to raise the head of it a little more before he put one of the trays on the bed table and rolled it toward her. Then he removed the metal cover.
“Doesn’t that look good?” he asked, looking at Liza.
She didn’t move, her face not reflecting pleasure. Instead, she stared at the meal in distaste.
He ignored his own meal and lifted her fork to cut a piece of the thick meat loaf. “Let’s take a bite of this. I think you’ll really like it.”
Holding it up to her mouth, he waited until she finally opened her lips for him to insert it.
He kept his eyes on her as he instructed, “Chew it up, Liza. You need the calories.”
She swallowed and he started to feed her a bite of corn. Before he could, however, she emitted distressed sounds.
He grabbed the dish they distributed for queasy stomachs just in time.
Two
Embarrassed and miserable, Liza shuddered. “Too much.”
“Lady, that was hardly enough to keep a fly alive,” the doctor muttered, clearly irritated with her.
“No,” she protested, her throat even more raw. “Haven’t eaten since…days.”
He stared at her as he checked her pulse. Then he punched the call button again. “Nurse, we need soup, Jell-O, things for nausea.”
“I asked you when you last ate,” he grumbled as he sat back after disposing of the pan. Then his eyes gentled. “Want me to wipe your face?”
She nodded, not bothering to speak. He disappeared, then reappeared, a damp washcloth in his hand. His gentleness as he cleaned her brought tears to her eyes.
“Hey, quit worrying. We’re going to take care of you,” he assured her.
“Have to go,” she whispered.
