скачать книгу бесплатно
“Because I was there when you fell off the stone wall at Eagle Point Park and cut your knee open. You said you were okay, then you saw the blood and your face went white just before your eyes rolled back in your head.”
He shouldn’t have mentioned the incident, because it was an admission that he still remembered that day, even so many years later. As he remembered so many things they’d done and moments they’d spent together. He had too many memories of Ashley. Memories that haunted his waking moments and taunted him in dreams.
“I was nine,” she said, her indignant response forcing his attention back to the present.
“And you’re as pale now as you were then,” he told her.
Since she couldn’t see her face, she really wasn’t in a position to deny his accusation. Instead, she lifted her arm and thrust her towel-wrapped hand toward him.
“Fine. Take a look and give me one of those butterfly bandage things so I can go home.”
Cam took her hand and carefully began unwrapping the towel. At another time, he might have lifted his brows at the parade of little goslings embroidered along the hem, but now it was the blood soaked into the fabric that held his attention.
“How did it happen?” he asked.
“Broken glass.”
He was a doctor—he’d seen far worse than a three-inch gash in the flesh of a woman’s hand. Except that this was Ashley’s hand, and the gash ran down the side of her palm before abruptly detouring toward her wrist. Luckily, it stopped short of her ulnar artery, but his heart skipped a beat in his chest when he realized how close it had come.
“Must have been a big piece of glass,” he noted.
“Eleven-by-fourteen.”
It only took him a second to figure out the reference. “A picture frame.”
She nodded, but kept her gaze firmly affixed to the opposite wall.
He tore open the packaging of a gauze pad, dabbed gently at the skin around the wound. “Well, I think it’s going to take a little bit more than one of those butterfly bandage things to fix this up.”
“How much more?”
“Probably ten to fifteen stitches.”
He thought of the patients still in the waiting room and considered sending her to the hospital for the procedure. Now that he’d examined her injury, he was confident the repair was something any ER doctor could handle.
But she was already here and he had everything he needed on the premises to get the job done, and he would take care to minimize, as much as possible, any scarring.
“I was afraid you were going to say something like that.” She sighed. “Okay. Let’s just do it.”
“Well, Ashley Roarke, I never thought I’d hear you say those words to me again,” he teased.
That remark brought color to her too-pale cheeks and a flash to her lovely violet eyes.
Eyes that had haunted his thoughts and his dreams for longer than he was willing to admit.
“The stitches, doctor.”
He grinned, unrepentant. “Of course.”
He released her hand and went to the door, poking his head out to ask Irene for a suture tray.
She must have anticipated his request, because she came in with the necessary equipment less than a minute later.
Her eyes grew wide when she saw Ashley’s injury.
“Oh, honey, what have you done?”
“I lost a fight with a piece of broken glass,” Ashley told her.
“Well, don’t you worry. The doctor will have you fixed up in no time.”
“But you’re going to jab me with that first, aren’t you?” she asked, warily eyeing the needle that the nurse was prepping.
“Actually, the doctor is going to jab you with it,” Irene told her. “But you won’t feel him poking at you after that.”
Cam fought against a smile as Ashley’s cheeks colored again.
He’d remembered so many things about her, but he’d forgotten how easily she blushed, how much he used to enjoy making her blush. But that was a long time ago.
Now he had to forget that they were ever lovers and concentrate on doing his job.
“There now. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Irene said.
“You wouldn’t be asking that question if you’d been on the other end of the needle,” Ashley told her.
The nurse chuckled. “You never did like getting shots,” she remembered. “And your sister wasn’t any better. How’s she doing, by the way?”
He didn’t know if Irene had asked the question because she was anxious to catch up on Roarke family gossip or if she was trying to distract Ashley from what he was doing, but since the patient wasn’t paying any attention to him or the needle sliding through her skin, he was grateful.
“Meg’s great,” Ashley responded. “She seems to have adapted to marriage easily and blissfully.”
“Good for her,” the nurse asserted. Then her voice gentled when she said, “But I imagine it must have been difficult for you.”
Ashley didn’t move, but Cam sensed her tension.
“Megan getting married so soon after you ended your engagement, I mean,” Irene clarified.
“I was—am—happy for her.”
“Well, of course you are. And I have no doubt that someday you’ll find a man who’s perfect for you, too.”
“I’m not looking for a man—perfect or otherwise,” Ashley said.
She spoke with such conviction, he found himself wondering about the details of her broken engagement, and whether he might be able to subtly pry them out of the nurse at another time. Because he had no doubt that if there were details to be known, Irene would know them.
But for now, he clenched his teeth together to hold back the questions he wanted to ask. He had no business asking any questions, no business feeling anything for the woman who had once meant everything to him.
“Are you up to date with your tetanus shot?” he asked instead.
Ashley shifted her attention from the nurse to him. “I had a booster two years ago.”
“Then you don’t need another one.”
“Must be my lucky day.”
He smiled, appreciating that she could find humor in the situation.
“Since you’re just about finished up here, I’ll go check on Mrs. Kirkland,” Irene told him. Then to Ashley, “Take care of yourself, hon.”
“I will.”
“How do they look?” he asked, after Irene had gone.
Ashley glanced down at her hand, at the dark thread that stood out in stark contrast to her pink skin. “It looks … good?”
He smiled again. “It looks raw and ugly, but it will look good when the wound has healed.”
“How long?” she asked.
He tore open a sterile gauze pad, affixed it to her skin. “Seven to ten days.”
“At least they’ll be out before I go back to school.”
“Too bad,” he said. “I imagine fifteen stitches could be the object of intense fascination for a bunch of first graders.”
She looked up, surprise evident in those stunning eyes.
He was suddenly aware of how close they were sitting. That he was still holding her hand. And that she had made no effort to pull away.
“How did you know I teach first grade?”
He shrugged. “It’s what you always said you were going to do.”
“I didn’t think you would have remembered something like that,” she murmured.
“You’d be surprised what I remember,” he said. “What I couldn’t forget.”
Her gaze dropped away, and he cursed himself for speaking aloud a truth he’d only recently acknowledged.
He wrote her a prescription for some painkillers, tore off the page and handed it to her.
“Try to keep your hand elevated as much as possible, keep the stitches dry, and set up an appointment with Courtney to have them checked next week.”
“I’ll do that,” she said. “Thanks.”
Cam nodded and moved to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob.
“I never forgot you, Ashley. And I don’t think you forgot me, either.”
He walked out before she could reply. Because even if she denied it, even if she had forgotten about him, he was going to make sure she remembered him now.
This time, he wasn’t going to walk away.
Chapter Three
Ashley didn’t get the prescription filled.
She hadn’t told Cam that she was taking Fedentropin because she didn’t want him asking all kinds of questions about the drug trial she was participating in. It had been awkward enough when Irene had made reference to her broken engagement without getting into any explanations about her medical history or the experimental drug that was helping to manage her endometriosis so that pregnancy remained an option for her.
But her hand throbbed painfully as she tried to sweep up remnants of broken glass and wood with her left arm wrapped around the broom and the handle of the dustpan gripped with the thumb and two other fingers of her right hand, making her rethink that decision. She could call Megan, of course. Her sister had developed the drug she was taking and would know whether it was safe to take the painkiller she’d been prescribed.
But then she’d have to tell her sister about the fifteen stitches and Megan would insist on coming over to see for herself that it wasn’t a fatal wound. And as much as she enjoyed spending time with her sister, she hated knowing that her family was still so worried about her. As they’d been worrying since she’d ended her engagement.
Because worrying translated into hovering, and while Ashley was still adjusting to living alone, she enjoyed having her own space. She ate her meals on her own schedule, watched whatever she wanted to watch on TV and generally came and went as she pleased without being accountable to anyone else.
Of course that would change when she had a baby, but she looked forward to the duties and responsibilities of motherhood. She wanted nothing more than to feel the stirring of a new life in her womb, and the warmth of a tiny baby in her arms.
Which was another reason she didn’t want to fill the prescription Cam had written for her. Her appointment at the Pinehurst clinic was only a few days away and she didn’t want anything to delay the start of the process. So she’d stick with her extra-strength Tylenol and hope that was enough to take the edge off of the pain.
Her stomach growled as she emptied the dustpan into the garbage, so she propped the broom and pan in the corner and moved to the fridge. Unfortunately, she found nothing that appealed to her. Or maybe she just didn’t want to tackle putting together a meal with only one hand.
She could, however, dial the phone, and she was thinking about doing just that when the doorbell rang.
She’d never been the type to ignore a ringing phone and the echo of a bell had the same effect. She pulled open the door and, for the second time that day, found herself facing her past.
“Making house calls, Dr. Turcotte?” she asked him. Her tone was deliberately casual, refusing to acknowledge the jump in her pulse.
For as far back as she could remember, her body had always instinctively reacted to Cameron’s presence. Since she could do nothing about that response, she simply tried to ignore it.
But she couldn’t deny that he looked good. His hair was as dark as she remembered, and still long enough to flirt with the collar of his shirt. His eyes were the same rich green that brought to mind the Irish countryside of her ancestors, and his gaze was just as intense. The shadow on his jaw attested to a long day at the office and gave him a slightly dangerous edge. Dangerously sexy, she mused, and immediately pushed the thought aside.
He had on the same shirt and khaki pants he’d been wearing earlier, but he’d loosened the knot in his tie and rolled up his sleeves, revealing darkly tanned and strongly muscled forearms. He used to be an avid tennis player and she found herself wondering if he still enjoyed pounding a fuzzy yellow ball around the court. It would certainly explain his trim and toned physique.
“Actually, I’m not here in my professional capacity,” he told her, his comment drawing her back from her perusal.
“Then why are you here?” She knew the question sounded rude, but she didn’t care. She was tired, her hand ached and she didn’t have the energy or the desire to put a smile on her face, though she was suddenly experiencing an unwelcome stirring of certain other desires.
Cam lifted a flat white box that she hadn’t even noticed he was carrying because she’d been too busy looking at him.
“Pizza delivery,” he said.
“I didn’t order pizza.”
“And yet I’ve got a large double pepperoni and extra cheese in my hands.”
It was her favorite kind. Of course, it had always been his favorite, too. Had he remembered her preference? Or had he just ordered it the way he liked it?
Not that it mattered. Even if he had remembered, their history was exactly that, and she wasn’t going to let his sudden appearance at her door drag her down memory lane.
