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Isaac began backing out immediately. “Of course, of course.” He took both of her hands into his, his gratitude overflowing and genuine. “Thank you for all that you did.”
Jesse debated slipping on his jacket, then decided to leave it slung over his arm. A dull ache started in his shoulder. He was going to feel like hell by tomorrow morning, he thought, remembering his days on the gridiron.
“What about you?” he asked the old man as they walked out of the room. “How’s your face?”
Isaac touched the bandage, then dropped his hand. Even the slightest contact sent a wave of pain right through his teeth.
“If Myra, my wife, was alive today, she would say ‘as ugly as ever.’” He shrugged philosophically. “When you are not a good-looking man, a blow to the face is not that big a tragedy.” And then he smiled, nodding at his Good Samaritan. “Not like with you.” He stood for a moment, cocking his head like wizened old owl, studying the doctor’s handiwork. “Nice work. My brother Leon would approve. Leon is a tailor,” he explained. And then his eyes lit up. “Of course. I’ll send you to Leon.” The thought pleased the jeweler greatly. “He will make you such a suit. And I will pay him.”
How did he get the old man to understand that he didn’t owe him anything? That successfully coming to the jeweler’s rescue was enough for him. “No, really, I don’t—”
But Jesse got no further in his protest. Isaac pursed his lips beneath his neatly trimmed moustache and beard. “Pride is a foolish thing, young man.” He wagged his finger to make his point. “It kept the Emperor without any clothes.” His voice lowered. “Please, it’ll make me feel better.”
Tania passed the two men on her way to get the chart for her next patient. “I’d give in if I were you,” she advised Jesse. “It doesn’t sound as if he’s about to give up.” And then she winked at the old man, as if they shared a secret. “Trust me,” she told Jesse, thinking of her father, “I’m familiar with the type.”
And with that, she hurried off to a curtained section just beyond the nurses’ station.
Isaac watched her walk away. There was appreciation in the man’s sky-blue eyes when he turned them back to Jesse. “Nice girl, that one.” And then he asked innocently, “Are you married?”
“What? No.” Was the man matchmaking? Trying to line up a customer for a ring? Well, he wasn’t in the market for something like that right now. Maybe later, but not for a couple of years or so. “And not looking for anyone right now, either,” Jesse emphasized.
His words beaded off Isaac’s back like water off a duck.
“Sometimes we find when we don’t look. And should you find,” Isaac said, digging into his pocket, “you come to me.” Producing a business card, he tucked it into Jesse’s hand. “I will take good care of you. I’ll match you up with the finest engagement ring you’ve ever seen.” And then he added the final touch. “On the house.”
Jesse nodded, pocketing the card, fairly certain that this was an empty promise the old man felt he had to make. Once there was a little distance from the events of today, Jesse was confident the man would feel completely differently. He had no intentions of holding a man to a promise made in the heat of the moment.
Besides, the last thing he needed right now was an engagement ring.
“And you, do you have a card?” Isaac asked him curiously, his bright blue eyes shifting to Jesse’s pants’ pocket.
Just by coincidence, he’d been given his first batch of cards yesterday afternoon. He hadn’t had a chance to hand any out yet. “Yes.”
Isaac waited for a moment. When nothing materialized, he coaxed, “May I have it? So that I can have your phone number,” he explained. A gurney was being ushered by. Jesse and Isaac stepped to the side, out of the way. “Not to bother you, of course, but to see how you are doing and to find out when you are available for that suit.”
Maybe saving this man’s diamonds hadn’t been such a good thing, after all, Jesse mused. Then again, maybe he was being a little paranoid. After all, the man was justifiably grateful. But after what he’d been through recently with Ellen, well, it had him still looking over his shoulder at times.
“Believe me, it’s really not necessary.”
Isaac fixed him with a long, serious look. “Neither was coming to my rescue, young man, but you did. Isaac Epstein does not forget a kindness. You are a very rare young man.” So Jesse dug into his pocket and handed the man his card. “Jesse Steele,” Isaac read, then glanced at what followed. “You are an architect?”
It had been a long road to that label. He still felt no small pride whenever he heard it applied to him. “Yes, I am.”
“You know—” Isaac leaned his head in as if he was about to impart a dark secret “—my house could use expanding…”
Jesse couldn’t help laughing. Isaac was harmless and well-meaning, if pushy. He put his arm across the older man’s shoulders, leading him out of the area and to the outpatient station so they could both get on with their lives—especially him.
“I think we need to get out of everyone’s way, Mr. Epstein.” The police had indicated that he could come in later and give his statement, for which he was extremely grateful. “And I need to get to my office.”
They weren’t going to hold the meeting for him forever, he thought. He had a change of clothing at the firm, in case he had to take a sudden flight out on business. The suit might be wrinkled, but anything was better than what he was currently wearing.
“Let me make a call,” Isaac offered. “My cousin’s son, John, he owns a limousine service. You can arrive to your office in style.”
“I can arrive on the bus,” Jesse countered as he walked down the hallway with the older man.
Isaac released a sigh that was twice as large as he was. “I never thought I would meet anyone more stubborn than my Myra.”
Jesse tried to keep a straight face as he said, “Life is full of surprises, Mr. Epstein.”
“Isaac, please,” the man corrected him as they turned a corner.
A little more than two hours later the flow of patients temporarily became a trickle. It was then that Shelly Fontaine, a full-figured nurse with lively eyes and a quick, infectious smile, came up to her, dangling a watch in the air in front of her.
“What would you like me to do with this, Dr. Ski?” The name was one Tania had suggested after Shelly’s tongue had tripped her up several times while trying to pronounce her actual surname.
Glancing up from the computer where she was inputting last-minute notes, Tania hardly saw the object in question.
“Have Emilio take it down to Lost and Found where everything goes,” she murmured. And then her mind did a double take. “Hold it,” she called to Shelly who moved rather fast when she wanted to. “Let me see that again.” She held her hand out for the watch. Upon closer examination, she recognized it. The timepiece was old-fashioned with a wind-up stem. And, if she wasn’t mistaken, it had come off Jesse Steele’s wrist. She had assumed he’d put it back on after she’d examined the scratch beneath the band. Obviously not. But just to be on the sure side, she asked, “Where did you get this?”
“Trauma bay one.” Shelly nodded back toward the room where, even now, another patient was being wheeled in on a gurney. It looked as if the flow was picking up again. “You were taking care of that hunk in there.” Shelly’s mouth widened in a huge, wistful grin. “I thought you might know where to find him. Assuming this is his and not some patient who was there before him.”
“No, this is his,” Tania said with certainty. “I recognize it.”
It would be too much of a coincidence for there to be two watches like this worn by patients occupying the same room on the same day. Rather than give the watch back to the nurse, Tania slipped the watch into her pocket. Hitting several more keys, she saved what she’d input and rose from the desk.
“His address has to be on file,” she said, thinking out loud. She knew for a fact that she’d seen it written on the information form the nurse had taken before she’d come in to treat the man. “I’ll look it up and have someone mail it to him.”
Shelly sighed soulfully as she followed her away from the desk. “I’d like to mail me to him.”
“Shelly, you’re married,” Tania pointed out.
“I’m married, I’m not blind. I can look. And maybe lust,” the older woman added mischievously. “It’s not like Raymond doesn’t look every woman over the age of eighteen up and down when he passes them.”
Obviously not every marriage was made in heaven, Tania thought.
“Hey, you ready?” Kady called, coming around the corner like a runaway steamroller.
Tania made a show of looking at the watch on her wrist. “For lunch or dinner?” It was a blatant reference to the fact that her older sister was more than half an hour late.
“Sorry, it’s been crazy today. I had to perform an emergency cardiac ablation. This man had an attack of atrial fibrillation that just wouldn’t stop. I know I should have called, but there wasn’t any time—”
“Save your apologies.” Tania grabbed her purse from the drawer beneath the nurse’s desk. “You lucked out. It’s been hectic here all morning, too.”
“Did it have anything to do with the camera crews outside?” Kady wanted to know.
She hadn’t seen the light of day since she’d walked in yesterday. Armageddon could have swept the street of Manhattan and she wouldn’t have known about it. “Camera crews?”
“Yeah, outside the E.R.” Only extremely tight security, instituted right after the serial killings that had rocked the hospital last January, had kept the pushiest of the crew members out. “Something about a hero saving a dealer’s diamonds. Security kept them out, but I heard that the media swarmed all over the guy when he finally left the hospital.”
Tania shook her head. “Poor man probably never got to go to his meeting.”
Kady stopped walking and looked at her sister, confused. “Meeting? What meeting?” And then the answer dawned on her. “Did you treat him?”
Stopping by the elevator, Tania pressed for the basement where the cafeteria was located. “I sewed up his scalp wound.”
Kady sighed. “Some girls have all the luck,” she teased. Tania looked at her and for one moment Kady could have bitten off her tongue. Because for one unguarded moment, Tania had allowed the pain to come through and register in her eyes.
But the next, Tania was flashing the wide smile she’d always been known for and nodding her head in agreement. “Yeah, we do. Your turn to buy lunch, by the way.”
Kady was relieved that the moment had passed. “I distinctly remember that it was your turn.”
“Maybe you should be marrying a neurosurgeon instead of a bodyguard. There’s something going wrong with your memory.”
The elevator arrived and the doors opened. Kady put her arm around Tania’s shoulders and guided her in. “Not today, little sister, not today.”
Chapter 3
She’d just wanted to make sure he was all right.
She’d been a safe distance away, trailing discreetly behind him—far enough away not to be noticed, close enough to see—when Jesse had stopped that thief.
Her breath had caught in her throat as she’d watched the two grapple on the ground. And it had taken everything she’d had not to run up to Jesse when she’d seen the blood trickling along the side of his head. She’d wanted to clean the wound with her handkerchief and make it better with her kisses.
In all probability, she would have run up to him to do just that, but the ambulance had arrived in the blink of an eye. When it had, rather than step forward she’d melted back in with the crowd. That was when she’d read the logo on the side of the vehicle. It had been dispensed from Patience Memorial Hospital.
She knew where that was.
Several months ago they’d treated her there when her wrists had had an unfortunate meeting with a shard of glass. The police had brought her there, summoned by her nosy superintendent who’d come about the overdue rent and had illegally let himself in when she hadn’t answered the door. The police had wanted to label it a suicide attempt. She’d talked them out of it, saying it was just an accident. A glass had broken when she was washing dishes and she hadn’t realized it until the jagged edges had scraped against both of her wrists and she’d felt faint.
They didn’t look like they believed her, but she’d convinced them. She was good at convincing people when she set her mind to it.
Except for Jesse.
But then, Jesse was different. Special. He always had been. She’d known that from the moment she’d first seen him walk through the doors of the firm she worked for. Used to work for, she corrected herself. They’d fired her. Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Except for Jesse. He was special.
Special. And hers.
He was so brave, so selfless. So willing to put everyone else first. That’s why she loved him. Or at least that was one of the reasons. There were so many. She’d need a lifetime to count them. A lifetime that they would spend together.
Once she knew where the ambulance was going, she took off, availing herself of shortcuts in order to get there before the vehicle arrived. She succeeded, beating out the ambulance by a couple of minutes. Even using the siren, it had been slow going. The streets were clogged with lunchtime traffic and there was nowhere for the cars to pull over.
She’d counted on that, on the ambulance arriving at the rear E.R. entrance just as she had. She was in time to see Jesse being taken in.
Because there was so much activity in the immediate area, what with two other ambulances arriving on the heels of the first and the usual general commotion that occurred around an emergency room at midday, she managed to slip in without even being noticed.
She’d gotten very good at slipping in without being noticed.
Just like a little fly on the wall, she thought, her lips framing a smile that didn’t quite move into her soul.
When the fluffy-looking blonde in the lab coat approached Jesse, she’d felt a sharp flare of temper, a surge of red-hot jealousy, but she banked it down. Her anger could be kept in abeyance as long as she thought that the woman was there to help Jesse. Jesse’s wellbeing came first. Always. Besides, he didn’t like shallow types like the blonde. He liked women like her.
He liked her.
Loved her, she silently corrected.
As the minutes ticked away, she finally managed to pass by the room where Jesse was being treated, peering in through the window. He wasn’t looking in her direction, so he didn’t see her. Which was good. But it was so hard to resist the temptation to rush in, to throw her arms around him and tell him that she would take care of him. That she was so proud of him for saving that old man’s property but that he must never, never do that again. He could have been killed. What if that horrible man he’d brought down had had a gun?
She couldn’t bring herself to think about it, it was just too awful.
She hated that man. Hated him for bruising Jesse’s beautiful skin, for making Jesse hurt his head. If she could have, she would have made the thief pay for what he did. She would have stabbed him, then laughed as she watched the life dribble out of him. Someone like that didn’t deserve anything better.
But those stupid policemen kept hanging around. They’d probably arrest her if she punished that man and gave him what he so richly deserved, what he had coming to him.
Jesse had almost seen her when he left the hospital, but she was too fast for him. She was certain that if he had seen her, he would have recognized her even though she wore a disguise.
The heart sees what the eyes don’t.
And he loved her, she knew that. He was just a little confused, that’s all.
He’d loved her once and you just don’t stop loving someone. You don’t.
She’d slipped out of the hospital close behind him when he’d left, but she’d managed to mix in with all the cameramen and reporters outside. She’d been tempted to shove one or two of the women. Women with their perfect hair and their pretty makeup, all trying to get close to Jesse. But she didn’t. She’d kept her cool. Jesse would have been proud of her had he known.
He’d know soon.
Walking back to her apartment, she clenched and unclenched the hands that were thrust deep in her pockets. She had to be patient. She’d make her move soon, but not yet.
Not yet.
It was oh so hard being patient. But it was a small price to pay for forever.
She was sure Jesse would agree.
Tania chewed on the inside of her lower lip, staring at the watch sitting on the desk in front of her. She’d almost forgotten about it until she’d shoved her hands into her pockets as she’d walked out of yet another trauma room and her fingers had come in contact with the leather band.
Jesse’s watch.
In all the commotion this morning and his hurry to get to his meeting, had he just forgotten it? Or had he left it behind on purpose, left it behind so that he’d have an excuse to see her again?
Tania sighed. She had to stop being so paranoid. Sometimes an oversight was just an oversight, nothing more.
Even if Jesse had orchestrated this, the man had no way of knowing that a) she’d be the one to find the watch, which she actually wasn’t, and b) that she’d opt to deliver his watch back to him in person. The most logical way to get this back to Jesse was just to have someone ship it out, the way she’d already mentioned to Shelly when the nurse had brought the watch to her.
But then, she wasn’t the type to make someone do things for her that were not in some way directly related to hospital procedures. And even then, she had a tendency to try to do everything herself. Her sisters teased her and called her an overachiever. On occasion, Sasha had bandied about the word “controlling,” trying, she knew, to make her come around and relax.
She supposed that “controlling” was actually more on target as far as assessing her behavior. She’d always been an overachiever, they all were in her family. But controlling, well, that was a later development. One designed to make her feel more secure.
If you controlled everything around you, or at least as much as possible, then you never had anything unexpected happening to you. You stayed safe. She had made a vow at seventeen never to be at the mercy of circumstances—and especially not at the mercy of any person.
