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“He’d been in and out of...of a mental hospital in Washington for the past two years. I thought he was back in until he came to my apartment with a g-gun. Made me g-go with him.”
Her rescuer bit off an expletive even as he darted a quick look at the driver’s seat and floor. She saw the nine millimeter at the same time as he did, wedged between the clutch and brake, and shuddered. A siren wailed in the distance, growing louder quickly.
“About time,” the man muttered, glaring toward the sound for a moment before turning his dark gray eyes on her face again. “It won’t be long now. You’ll be in good hands.”
“You’re very k-kind, Mr. uh...” She stopped, searching for a name, then realized he hadn’t given her one.
“Boyd MacAuley.”
“I’m..Stacy Patterson.” She slipped a hand free of the blanket and held it out. His big hand closed over hers, his rough fingers wonderfully warm and reassuring. Woozy now, she let her eyes close. She would rest now, for just a moment, she told herself. Until the dizziness eased up.
“Hang on tight, Mrs. Patterson,” she heard him say, and for the first time in months she felt safe.
Portland General Hospital was solid and square and resembled a brick fortress. Located in the downtown rabbit warren sandwiched between the Willamette River and the majestic Columbia, it had felt like home to Boyd the instant he’d first walked through the front door as a scared intern eight years ago. Now, however, it was just a place he didn’t want to be.
As soon as the paramedic driving the ambulance had backed into the reserved space directly in front of the emergency room door, Boyd stepped from the back of the rig and squared his shoulders. Though Mrs. Patterson had fainted shortly before help had arrived and was still unconscious, her vitals were steady and she seemed in no great danger. Once she was safely in the hands of the trauma staff, his responsibility was ended.
Ten minutes tops, he told himself as he followed the two EMTs pushing the stretcher through the automatic sliding doors. Long enough for him to relate to the triage nurse all he’d learned before she’d passed out. Long enough to make sure she was getting the best Portland General had to offer.
Inside, there was an atmosphere of controlled urgency. Nurses in scrubs and doctors with surgical masks dangling under their chins moved swiftly yet with a sense of purpose that Boyd had once shared. Little had changed at PortGen in three years, he realized as he drew a deep breath of hospital air. It smelled the same, part dust and old wax, part disinfectant, and an unwanted rush of memories crashed over him.
He went cold inside and the floor seemed to shift. Fisting his hands at his sides, he drew in great gulps of air, fighting against the sharp claws of fury. Slowly the chill receded, bit by bit, until he could breathe normally again.
Around him, the controlled urgency took form and shape. And sound.
“Cubicle four, gentlemen,” the admitting clerk barked as the paramedics slowed. Boyd didn’t recognize the woman, but he knew the type—a drill sergeant with a clipboard and absolutely no sense of humor. More than once during his years as an intern and resident in this place, he’d tangled with this one’s clone. The best he’d managed during all that time was a draw.
“Are you a relative, sir?” the clerk asked while strafing his naked chest with a disapproving gaze.
“No, just a witness.” He saw the militant glint in her eyes and was about to brush past her when he heard a familiar voice calling his name. Turning toward the sound, he felt a jolt of relief. Prudence Randolph was the best nurse he’d encountered in the five years he’d spent practicing medicine. She was also his neighbor and his friend.
“So that really is the reclusive Boyd MacAuley under that gorgeous tan?” Prudy was an irrepressible tease and a charming flirt, but only with men she considered safe. She’d been divorced for years and claimed to have sworn off marriage forever.
“Sawdust is more like it,” he replied, suddenly conscious of his sweat-stained jeans and grimy skin No doubt he smelled like the mangy dog he resembled.
Prudy flicked him a curious grin, even as she was focusing her intelligent brown eyes on the patient. “Is she a friend of yours?”
“Never saw her before. Said her name’s Stacy Patterson. We weren’t able to find a purse or any identification.”
“Auto accident?”
He raked a hand through his hair and nodded. “Trans Am hit a tree on Astoria. She was in the passenger’s seat. From what I can tell she banged her head on impact.” He drew a hard breath. “She’s pregnant. Just over seven months. No attending OB.”
Prudy’s eyes clouded. “Vitals?” she asked the uniformed paramedic on the other side of the stretcher.
While the EMT recounted the numbers, Boyd searched the young woman’s face for signs of returning consciousness. The gash on her forehead was oozing blood into the bandage applied by the paramedics, and her skin was purpling around the wound.
Small boned and too thin, she reminded him of a priceless porcelain doll his grandmother had kept on her dresser. Her skin had the same translucent quality as the fragile china, and her lashes were long and thick. Lost in the oblivion of sleep, she seemed very young and vulnerable—and terribly alone. It hurt to look at her, and yet he couldn’t make himself walk away.
“Call Dr. Hoy,” Prudy told the clerk briskly. “And get a lab tech up here stat. We’ll need blood work done.” The clerk flicked Boyd a curious glance before she turned to leave. He could almost predict the questions she would ask Prudy later.
“What about the driver?” Prudy asked as she held back the curtain to number four.
Boyd hesitated, the image of death still vivid in his mind. “The poor guy went through the windshield. Looked like a broken neck.”
Prudy sighed. “Her husband?”
“Ex, I think she said.”
“Is he the baby’s father?”
Boyd raked back the still-damp hair that had flopped onto his forehead. “She was pretty woozy and a little sparse on the details, but yeah, that seems a good bet.”
Prudy frowned. “Ex or not, it’s still going to be rough on her when she wakes up, especially if she loses the baby, too.”
Yeah, it’s always hardest on the one who’s “lucky” enough to survive, Boyd thought as he watched Prudy and the two paramedics transfer Stacy to the narrow bed. There was a slash of yellow paint on one high cheekbone and yellow splatters on the bright pink basketball sneaker peeking out from the gray ambulance blanket tucked around her small form.
“Oops, sorry.” Jenkins, the senior medic shot Boyd an apologetic glance, and Boyd realized that he was in the way. He’d forgotten for the moment that he was a carpenter now, a blue-collar guy with callused hands more suited to holding a hammer than a scalpel. Though his profession had changed, his knowledge of medicine hadn’t, however. He waited until the paramedics left, then cleared his throat. “Who’s the OB on call?”
“Jarrod.” Prudy looked up from the blood pressure cuff she was affixing to the patient’s too-thin arm and smiled. “We’ll take good care of her, Boyd. The best. She’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, sure she will.” A sudden lump pressed his throat and he had to swallow twice before he could make it dissolve. He’d heard that before. He’d even believed it. He knew better now. “Guess I’ll head on back then.”
Taking another step backward toward the curtain had him nearly colliding with an entering tech who sidestepped gingerly. “Sorry,” Boyd muttered, and earned himself a pained look.
“Sir, you’ll have to wait outside until after the doctor examines your wife,” the tech instructed impatiently.
“She’s not...” He stopped, realizing that the tech wasn’t listening. Frowning, he turned to go, only to be halted by the sound of Mrs. Patterson’s soft voice.
“No, wait. I don’t...want him to go.” Across the cubicle, Mrs. Patterson was now awake and watching him with bruised eyes. When he locked his gaze on hers, she tried to smile. “I haven’t thanked you.”
He cleared his throat. “No need. Mostly I just kept you company until the bus showed up.”
Stacy wet her lips and struggled to focus her mind on her rescuer’s words instead of the all-encompassing pain in her head. “Bus?”
“Sorry, I mean the ambulance.” His mouth quirked. It wasn’t quite a smile but held a certain promise she found endearing.
“I don’t...but of course, there would have to be...an ambulance. How silly of me...not to remember.”
The effort to speak set her head to spinning, and she hauled in air in an effort to clear her brain. Concentrate on his eyes, she told herself as his face wavered in and out of focus. Gray eyes in a deeply tanned face. Quicksilver eyes, framed by thick, blunt lashes the color of bronze. There was something haunting about those eyes. Something sad. Memories he didn’t want, perhaps, or lingering shadows of a terrible suffering. For an instant, she thought she was looking into the eyes of her tormented husband.
“Boyd?” she murmured, and heard his deep voice answering. The words were indistinct, yet she felt a sense of comfort.
Another face swam into her field of vision. A face with feminine features and a kind smile. A face topped by a halo of shining copper. A nurse, she finally decided.
“Is there anyone you want us to call for you, Mrs. Patterson ? Family? Friends?”
Stacy concentrated for a moment. “Some...someone should call my ex-in-laws in Seattle. Leonard Patterson, Sr., on Stanton Street.” Old and frail now, the Pattersons had never forgiven her for signing the papers to commit their only son.
Someone repeated the information, then asked if there was anyone else. A member of her own family perhaps? The baby’s father?
“Len...”
“Len was the baby’s father?” the voice repeated with a soothing calm.
“Yes.” Len had longed to become a father, but that was before a hopped-up kid bent on robbery had split his skull with a baseball bat. After that, he’d become a mean, angry man given to bouts of violence that had finally worn out her love and her loyalty.
“Anyone else? A neighbor, maybe? Or a co-worker?”
Stacy cleared her throat again of a sudden thickness and searched for the name that hovered just beyond her consciousness. A face wavered, round and patrician, with a frizz of curly white hair swooping over the apple cheeks. “Adeline... Marsh.”
“Is she a friend?”
“Principal at Lewis and Clark Elementary. I’ve been substituting. Morning kindergarten.” Stacy licked her lips, aware suddenly that somehow, her hand was in Boyd’s again. Had she reached for him? Or had he reached for her? Either way, she was grateful for the human contact and curled her fingers tighter around his.
“I’m...sorry about taking you away from your work,” she murmured, her voice oddly thin.
“It’ll still be there when I get back.” He bent lower, and his bare shoulders blocked out the overhead light.
“Will your boss be angry?”
“No boss. I work alone.”
She heard a low drone of whispered conversation and turned her head toward the sound. The resulting pain in her temple caused her to inhale sharply.
“Easy, honey.” he soothed, his voice low and scratchy.
Slowly she adjusted the angle of her head until she could see his eyes, now dark and intense and probing. Deep lines fanned the outer corners, suggesting a man who knew how to laugh, yet the strongly molded face had the look of a man more accustomed to discipline and control and restraint.
“Miz Patterson?” a third voice inquired softly. “I need to draw blood for the lab now.”
It wasn’t really a question, saving Stacy the trouble of replying. Boyd stepped back to allow room for a roly-poly woman in a blue smock. Stacy watched anxiously as the woman readied a syringe and hoped she wouldn’t disgrace herself by fainting. Just in case, she looked away before the needle entered her arm. She felt a prick, then pressure. The overhead light was beginning to sear her eyes, and her head was spinning again. She felt her lashes drooping and quickly forced her eyes wider. It was important to stay awake and alert. In control.
“Boyd?” Mindless of her aching head, she looked around anxiously.
“Right here, Stacy.” He took her hand again, and the cold that had begun to seep into her again abated. The self-confidence she’d built up over the past year was crumbling fast, leaving her feeling lost and scared and lonely.
Some independent woman you are, she thought, disgusted with her pitiful lack of fortitude. Here she was, an expectant mother who wanted desperately to be held in the arms of a man she’d just met.
She started to thank him again, only to find herself seized by a spasm of pain in the small of her back. She stopped breathing, her heart tripping. The pain spread, rippling toward her belly, nearly squeezing her in two.
“No!” she cried in sharp agony. “It’s too soon!”
“Get Dr. Jarrod, stat,” she heard the nurse order sharply. “Tell him the patient may be going into premature labor.”
Stacy clung to the strong hand wrapping hers, terror racing with the adrenalins in her veins.
“Try to relax, Stacy. Take deep breaths.” Boyd’s voice was steady and call, everything she wasn’t.
“Tell them to save the baby,” she pleaded. “Make them promise. If there’s a choice, my baby has to live.”
“Look, babies are surprisingly resilient, especially in utero,” he said in that curiously raspy voice.
“But what if she isn’t? What if—”
“Hey, none of that, okay?” Lifting a hand from hers, he brushed back a lock of her hair, his touch as gentle as a lover’s caress. “You’re going to be fine. Both of you.”
Stacy tightened her grip on his hand. “Is that a p-promise, or a guess?”
His hesitation was slight but noticeable. Because he didn’t want to lie? she wondered.
“Definitely a promise,” he declared an instant before the curtains parted to admit a tall, lanky man who, in spite of the blue scrubs, reminded her more of a working cowboy than a doctor.
“MacAuley?” he exclaimed on a double take. “What the hell?”
“Later,” Boyd said, stepping back. He’d done all he could do for the dark-haired angel with the beautiful eyes. Now it was up to the professionals. And luck. It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to believe in either one.
Two
Boyd thumbed open his third can of beer, drank deeply, then wandered out of the kitchen onto the back porch. It was nearly seven, and the sun was hovering at the edge of the western horizon, turning the sky to flame, while the conifers that typified the Oregon skyline suggested black teeth eating the sunset inch by inch. Below the ridge that wedged downward at a sharp angle, the Columbia River resembled molten lava as the sun’s rays skimmed the surface.
Propping a bare foot on the railing, he leaned forward slightly, hoping to catch a breeze, but the air was deathly still. At the house to the left, Linda and Marshall Ladd were barbecuing burgers. At the end of the short street, Portland firefighter, Cliff Balisky, was roughhousing with his two boys, who from the sound of their triumphant shouts were whomping up on the old man.
Suddenly restless, he chugged down the rest of the beer in his hand and gave some thought to opening another. How long had it been since he’d been drunk enough to pass out? Drunk enough to buy himself a few hours of mindless oblivion? Four, five months maybe? Longer?
Before Karen and the baby had died, he’d never been much of a drinker, mostly because he didn’t like the reckless edge it put on his personality. Tonight, however, the need for numbness had overridden his customary caution.
He knew the reason for his black mood. The ambulance ride, the all-too-familiar bustle of the ER. A baby in danger. A wisp of a woman with big green eyes and a tumble of silk-soft hair who’d somehow slipped beneath his guard and touched a part of him he’d thought he’d lost.
The woman was fine, he assured himself firmly as he headed inside for another beer. Definitely in good hands and no doubt still sleeping peacefully, just as she’d been when he’d left her a couple of hours ago. Still, his conscience would likely give him fits unless he made sure, he decided as he reached for the wall phone by the kitchen window.
Though the hospital switchboard was known for its efficiency, it took the operator an interminable five minutes to track down Prudy, another minute before he heard her calm voice in his ear.
“I thought you might be calling,” she said after he’d identified himself.
“The hell you did.” Boyd glowered at his reflection in the window over the sink. He was already regretting the impulse to call.
“In answer to your question—”
“What question? All I did was say hello.”
“She’s resting comfortably.”
Boyd heard the teasing note in Prudy’s tired voice and felt his patience thinning. “Are you going to tell me what I want to know or am I going to be banging on your door at five a.m. for the next week?”
Prudy groaned. “You sure know how to bargain from strength, you rat.”
“A man’s got to do—”
