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“I think she’s genuine.”
Because Ethan knew the young doctor didn’t have the experience to know if someone was genuine or not, he followed him through the department. Vicodin was an effective painkiller. It was also a commonly used recreational drug, and he’d ceased to be surprised at the lengths some people would go to get a prescription. He didn’t want anyone dispensing strong painkillers to someone who was simply hoping to get high from Vicodin.
His first thought when he saw her was that she was out of place among the rainbow of humanity that decorated the halls of the emergency room on a Saturday night. Her hair was long, and the color of creamy buttermilk. Her features were delicate and her mouth was a curve of glossy pink. She was wearing one shoe with a heel so high it could have doubled as a weapon. The other she held in her hand.
Her ankle was already turning blue.
How did women expect to wear heels like that and not damage themselves? That shoe was an accident waiting to happen. And although she seemed normal enough, he knew better than to let appearances dull his radar for trouble. A few years before, a student had presented with toothache, which had turned out to be a way to get pain meds. She’d overdosed a few days later and been brought into the emergency room.
Ethan had been present for her second visit, although not her first. It was a lesson he’d never forgotten.
“Miss Knight? I’m Dr. Black. Can you tell me what happened?”
It must have been a great party, he thought as he examined the ankle.
“I twisted it. I’m sorry to bother you when you’re so busy.” She sounded more than a little embarrassed, which made a change from the two patients he’d seen immediately before her, who had taken his care as their God-given right.
He wondered what she was doing here on her own on a Saturday night. She was all dressed up, so he doubted she’d spent the evening on her own.
He guessed she was mid to late twenties. Thirty possibly, although she had one of those faces that was difficult to put an age to. With makeup she could look a little older. Without, she could pass as a college student. Her eyes were blue and her gaze warm and friendly, which made a refreshing change.
Generally speaking, he didn’t see a lot of warm and friendly during his working day.
“How did you twist it?” Understanding the mechanism of the injury was one of the most helpful ways of piecing together a picture of the injury. “Dancing?”
“No. Not dancing. I wasn’t wearing shoes when I twisted it.”
He watched in fascination as her cheeks reddened.
It had been a while since he’d seen anyone blush.
“So how did you do it?” Realizing she might think he was after details for his own entertainment, he clarified. “The more details you give me, the easier it is for me to assess the injury.”
“I jumped from a window. It wasn’t far to the ground but I landed awkwardly and my ankle turned.”
She’d jumped from a window?
“You’re a bit of a risk-taker?”
She gave a wry smile. “My idea of risk is reading my Kindle in the bath so no, I don’t think I’d describe myself as a risk-taker.”
Ethan’s senses were back on alert. Instead of thinking possible addict, or potential adrenaline junkie, he was thinking possible abuse victim. “So why did you jump?” He softened his tone, trying to convey with his voice and actions that he could be trusted.
“I needed to get away from someone.” She must have seen something change in his expression because she shook her head quickly. “I can see what you’re thinking, but I wasn’t being threatened. It really was an accident.”
“Jumping from a window isn’t usually an accident.” Unless she was intoxicated, but he didn’t smell alcohol and she seemed perfectly composed. More composed than most of the people around her. The ER on a Saturday night wasn’t a pretty sight. “Why not leave by the front door?”
Her gaze slid from his. “It’s a long story.”
And one she obviously didn’t intend to share.
Ethan thought through his options. They saw plenty of domestic abuse incidents in the ER, and they had a duty to offer a place of safety and whatever support was needed. But he’d also learned that not everyone wanted to be helped. That it was a process. “Miss Knight—”
“You don’t need to worry. I was on a date, if you must know, and it wasn’t going well. My mistake.”
“You jumped to get away from your date?”
She stared at a point beyond his shoulder. “He wasn’t exactly the way his profile described him.”
“You’d never met him before?” And now he was thinking trafficking. And maybe he’d been wrong about her age and she was closer to twenty than thirty.
He checked the form and saw from her date of birth that his first guess had been the correct one. She was twenty-nine.
“I was trying online dating. It didn’t go quite the way I thought it would. Oh, this is so embarrassing.” She rubbed her fingers over her forehead. “He lied on his profile, and I didn’t even realize people did that. Which makes me stupid, I know. And naive. And yes, maybe it also makes me a risk-taker, even if I’m an unintentional risk-taker. And I’m horribly bad at it.”
He was still focused on her first words. “Lied?”
“He used a photo from thirty years ago and claimed to be all kinds of things he wasn’t.” She squared her shoulders. “I found him a little creepy. I had a bad feeling about the whole thing so I decided to make an exit where he couldn’t see me. I didn’t want him to follow me home. You don’t need to hear this, do you?” She leaned down to rub her ankle and her hair slid forward, obscuring her features.
For a moment he stared at it, that curtain of shiny gold.
He breathed in a waft of her perfume. Floral. Subtle. So subtle he wondered if what he was smelling was her shampoo.
He never became emotionally involved with his patients. These days he didn’t become emotionally involved in anything much, but for some reason he felt a spurt of anger toward the nameless guy who had lied to this woman.
“Why the window?” He dragged his gaze from her hair and focused on her ankle, examining it carefully. “Why not go out through the front door? Or even the kitchen or the rear entrance?”
“The kitchen was in sight of our table. I was worried he’d follow me. And to be honest I wasn’t thinking about much except getting away. Pathetic, I know. Is it broken?”
“It doesn’t seem to be.” Ethan straightened. The injury was real enough. Her hurt was real enough, and he suspected it extended a whole lot further than a bruised ankle. “I don’t think you need an X-ray, but if it gets worse you should come back or contact your primary care provider.”
He waited for her to argue with him about the need for an X-ray, but she simply nodded.
“Good. Thank you.”
It was such an unusual response he repeated himself to check she’d heard him correctly. “I don’t think an X-ray is necessary.”
“I understand. I probably shouldn’t have wasted your time, but I didn’t want to make it worse by doing something I shouldn’t. I’m grateful to you, and I’m relieved it isn’t broken.”
She was accepting his professional judgment just like that?
No arguing? No cursing? No questioning him or threatening to sue him?
“You can use whatever pain meds you have in your cabinet at home.”
This was the point where a large proportion of his patients demanded something only available on prescription.
Or maybe he really was turning into a cynic.
Maybe he needed a vacation.
He had one coming, the week before Christmas. A week in a luxury cabin in Vermont.
He met up every year with family and friends and this year he needed the break more than ever. He loved his job but the relentlessness and the pressure took its toll.
“I don’t need pain meds. I wanted to check it isn’t broken, that’s all. I walk a lot in my job.” She gave him a sweet smile that fused his brain.
In his time in the ER he’d dealt with panic, hysteria, abuse and shock. He was comfortable with all those emotional reactions. He even understood them.
He had no idea how to respond to a smile like hers.
She struggled to her feet and he had to stop himself from reaching out to help her.
“What’s your job?” The question had clinical relevance. Nothing to do with the fact that he wanted to know more about her.
“I run a dog-walking business. I need to be able to get around and I don’t want to make it worse.”
A dog-walking business.
He looked at the freckles that dusted her nose.
He could imagine her walking dogs. And believing in Santa.
“If dog walking is your livelihood, you might want to steer clear of stilettos in the future.”
“Yes, it was a stupid idea. A whim. I’ve been trying to do things I don’t normally do, and—” She broke off and shook her head. “You don’t need to hear this. You’re busy and I’m taking up your time. Thank you for everything.”
This one patient had thanked him more in the past five minutes than he’d been thanked in the past five weeks from all his other patients combined.
Not only that, but she hadn’t questioned his clinical judgment.
Ethan, who was never surprised by a patient, was surprised.
And intrigued.
He wanted to ask why she’d been trying to do things she wouldn’t normally do. Why she’d chosen to wear stilettos. Why she’d had dinner with a man she’d met online.
Instead he kept it professional. He talked to her about rest, ice, compression and elevation, the whole time feeling guilty that he’d doubted her.
He wondered when, exactly, he’d started being so suspicious of human nature.
He definitely needed a vacation.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_5a9533c0-d8f0-549a-b5d8-96714086733d)
“IT WAS THE worst evening of my life. I need a do-over.” Harriet eased her injured ankle onto the sofa as she talked to her sister on the phone. “And to cap it all I ended up in the emergency room, where Dr. Hot-but-Disapproving obviously decided I was a hooker.” She could still see the wary look on his face, as if he wasn’t sure whether her career choice was entirely savory.
On days when she had her arms full of slobbery dogs, she wondered that herself.
“He was hot? Tell me more.”
“Seriously? I tell you I met up with creepy stalker guy and jumped from a window into a Dumpster and the only part you want to talk about is the doctor in the emergency room?”
“If he was hot, yes. Did you ask him on a date?”
For someone who claimed not to be interested in romance, her twin thought a lot about men.
“No, I did not ask him on a date.”
“I thought you were trying to challenge yourself.”
“I have limits. Hitting on a doctor who is treating me in the emergency room is one of them.”
“You should have grabbed him and landed a smacker on his lips.”
Harriet imagined the horror on his face. “And then I would have been calling you from a cell where the NYPD locked me up overnight for assault. Wait—are you laughing?”
“Maybe. A little.” Fliss choked. “Is there footage of the whole window episode? I’d love to see it.”
“I hope there isn’t, because it’s not something I want to relive.” The painful throb of her ankle was all the reminder she needed. That and the steady hum of embarrassment that grew louder whenever she thought back to that moment in the hospital.
“I’m proud of you!”
“Why?”
“Because it’s so not you.”
“That much is true.” Harriet wiggled her ankle and wondered how long it would take for the swelling to subside. The last thing she needed in her job was any injury that inhibited her walking. “It’s the last time I take Molly’s advice on anything. She was the one who told me to try online dating.”
“It was great advice. She’s a relationship expert. She knows everything.”
Harriet thought about the three dates she’d endured recently. “Not everything.”
“She tamed our untamable brother. That proves she knows everything.”
“It’s not the best approach for someone who has a problem with strangers. I’m not at my best when I don’t know people.”
“If you can’t walk, how will you manage with the business?”
“I’m reassigning my walks for the next two days.”
“Do you need me to make some calls?”
“No, I’ve done them.”
“Dog walkers and clients?”
“All done.”
