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“Our company doesn’t normally fly north of Toledo, but for you we will.” Madrid was only a half hour farther than Toledo by car—not a great distance—and it meant getting her the best care.
Remi exhaled a deep breath. For once he was glad his title could make a difference. This time his judgment wasn’t impaired. A life was in jeopardy, possibly because of him. He had no desire to take on another demon.
“Sign here, and I’ll tell him to inform dispatch.”
Remi put his signature to the dotted line. While the other man spoke to the cockpit, he pulled out his phone once more and asked for information. If it was at all possible, he wanted to speak to the doctor before they landed.
When he got through to the receptionist, he learned the doctor was in surgery. She would inform him an accident victim with an eye injury was being flown in. The E.R. would notify the doctor of her arrival.
A half hour later the helicopter landed on the helipad located at the east entrance of the hospital. They rushed her into the E.R., where Remi admitted her, promising to give the triage nurse more information when he heard from his foreman.
While he waited in the reception area, several different E.R. doctors went in the cubicle to examine her. A little later a moustached doctor in scrubs appeared. One of the staff showed him behind the curtain at the far end of the room.
Remi walked over to wait. When the doctor came out a few minutes later, he said, “Dr. Filartigua?”
“Sí?”
“I’m Remigio Goyo, the person who phoned for you to attend Senora Gray.”
“Lucky for her you didn’t waste any time, Don Remigio.”
“How bad is her injury? I saw the accident. She said she couldn’t see anything.”
“That’s common with a rupture like this. A glass shard has penetrated the globe of her right eye. The lab is running tests now to prepare her for surgery. After I get in there and remove it, I’ll know more. Does she have family here?”
“No. I’m still trying to get answers from the police. Where can I wait while you’re operating?”
“There’s a reception area on the sixth floor, east wing.”
“I’ll be there.” Tight bands constricted his breathing. “I’ve heard you’re the best. Do whatever you have to.”
His eyes studied Remi for a brief moment. “Of course.”
“May I go in with her now?”
“If you wish, but it’s not necessary. She’s asleep. My advice to you is get a cup of coffee in the cafeteria.” As he started to walk off he added, “You look like you could use one.”
The doctor’s comment reminded Remi he’d awakened with no appetite and had turned down lunch during his business meeting with Luis.
Without conscious thought he walked over to the edge of the curtain. He wanted one last look at her before she went to surgery. The male lab technician darted him a glance, but Remi’s gaze was drawn to her porcelainlike skin where the blood had been cleaned off. In a hospital gown, with her hair pulled back and covered, the pure lines of her classic facial features were even more pronounced.
In his mind’s eye he could see her car rolling onto its side. He shuddered to think the result of that split-second moment might have done serious damage. If he’d been driving slower he probably would have applied the brakes, giving the other woman more room to maneuver. But all the ifs in the world wouldn’t change what had happened.
More than ever he needed that coffee, so he left for the cafeteria. En route his cell rang. It was Paco. “We’re back at the estate now. The police sent for a tow truck to haul the woman’s car. You’re supposed to phone Captain Perez in Toledo, Remi.”
“Bueno.” After writing down the number, he thanked Paco, then made the call to the investigating officer to let him know the woman in the accident was undergoing surgery in Madrid as they spoke. Remi answered his questions, then was told he could collect her purse and suitcase at police headquarters in Toldeo.
The officer could shed little light except that the twenty-seven-year-old American woman was driving a rental car from Lisbon, Portugal. EuropaUltimate Tours was paying for it.
Remi pursed his lips. Did that mean she worked in Europe?
The police assumed they were her employer. They had put in a call to the tour company’s personnel office in New York, but hadn’t heard back yet.
He thanked the other man for the information and told him he’d be in touch. Without hesitation he called his distributor in New York, a man the Goyo family had worked with for years. He asked him to send one of his staff over to EuropaUltimate Tours and get the head of personnel to phone Remi back on his cell. It was an emergency.
While he waited, he ate a meal in the cafeteria. During his second cup of coffee, his phone rang. Within two minutes he’d explained the situation to the personnel department and was given the name and phone number of David Bowen, Jillian Gray’s brother, who lived in Albany, New York.
Armed with that information, he hurried through the hospital and took the elevator to the sixth floor. The clerk at the nurse’s station told him Senora Gray was still in surgery. He thanked the man before going to the reception area.
With no one there he could speak freely as he pulled out his phone and called the Senora’s brother. The man answered on the fourth ring.
“Mr. Bowen?” he said in English. “My name’s Remi Goyo. I’m calling from Holy Cross Hospital in Madrid, Spain. Before anything more is said, let me assure you your sister Jillian is all right, but she was in a car accident outside Toledo a few hours ago.”
The other man groaned.
“I was the only person who witnessed it, that’s why I’m calling. A piece of glass got in her eye.”
“Dear Lord—”
“Dr. Filartigua, a revered eye surgeon in
Madrid, is operating on her now. I knew you would want to be told.”
“Thank you. I can’t believe this has happened—not after what she’s been through.” The man sounded tormented.
Remi’s hand tightened on the phone. “Is there something the doctor should know?”
“Her husband was killed in a car-truck accident in New York City a year ago. I begged her to stay with us for a while, but like a soldier she went right back to her work as a tour guide. It’s an exhausting business. To be on her own yesterday means she must have taken the day off for a change. Her way of dealing with her grief I suppose.”
Remi understood that need well enough.
“She’s been trying to function ever since. For this to happen now…” His voice broke.
After hearing of her loss, Remi knew Jillian Gray would want her brother at her side no matter what. “How soon can you get here? I’ll pick you up and bring you to the hospital.”
“That’s the problem. My wife is expecting our third baby in a month, but the pregnancy hasn’t gone well. She has toxemia. If it gets any worse the doctor will have to deliver the baby early. I’m afraid to leave her in case something goes wrong in the delivery room, but I don’t want Jilly to know the reason why. My sister thinks everything’s fine.”
A vein throbbed in Remi’s temple. “I understand.”
“We’ve kept my wife’s condition a secret so Jilly wouldn’t worry. She’d hoped to get pregnant herself, but there wasn’t enough time before Kyle died. If she thought my wife was in trouble…I don’t know what to do. She can’t hear about it, not at a time like this. It would be too much for her. Has she called for me?”
He cleared his throat. “Not yet.”
“I know Jilly needs me, but she’ll hide it because that’s the way she’s made.”
Remi had witnessed her bravery. When he’d asked her if she had family here, she’d said no and didn’t expand on it. Both brother and sister were determined to shield each other from the worst.
What a situation! In frustration his fingers made furrows through his hair. “I plan to see your sister through this. I won’t leave her side.”
“I can’t ask you to do that—”
“I’m offering. The accident was partially my fault.” Without preamble Remi explained exactly what had happened.
“It wasn’t your fault,” the other man confessed. “I wouldn’t have stopped for an animal either. At that speed it’s too dangerous. I’m just thankful you weren’t hurt, too. What would she have done without your help?”
“Someone else would have come along.”
“No one like you. Thank you, Mr. Goyo. Will you do me one more favor and let me know the second she’s out of surgery? I don’t care what time it is. When she’s awake I want to speak to her. In the meantime I’m going to talk to my wife and the doctor. Depending on his advice, it’s possible I could fly over for a quick trip.”
“Don’t worry about that right now. You take care of your wife, and I’ll take care of your sister.”
“I don’t know how to repay you for this, but I’ll think of something. Let me have your phone number.”
After giving it to him he said, “You’d do the same for me, verdad?”
“Yes.”
The man sounded so sincere Remi believed him. “Then say no more. We’ll speak later.”
Too restless to sit, Remi put the phone in his pocket and walked down the hall toward the nursing station. Maybe they knew something.
Before he reached it he saw Dr. Filartigua coming out of the double doors of the surgery.
Remi walked over to him. “How bad was her injury?”
He pulled his mask down. “Bad.”
The one-syllable answer hit him like a blow to the gut. “Bad enough to take away her vision?”
“Only time will tell. The glass splinter penetrated to the inner part of the globe. I removed it, but there’d been some internal bleeding. Surgically speaking, everything went well. The rest is up to nature. She appears to be in excellent health otherwise.”
Remi was grateful for that much good news. “How soon can she leave the hospital?”
“She’s in the recovery room now. If all goes well, they’ll move her to a private room within the hour. Pending no other problems, I could release her by tomorrow afternoon. However, I suggest she stay an extra day to recover from the trauma of being in the accident. Have you been able to contact her family yet?”
“Yes, but her brother lives in New York and there’s a problem.”
The doctor listened. “Under the circumstances it’s a good thing you’re here to lend support. I’ll want to see her in a week at my office. Then we’ll know more about her ability to see. The nursing staff will send her home with instructions. She has to put drops in her eye three times a day for the first three days.”
“Is she going to be in a lot of pain?”
“No, but within twenty-four hours she’ll complain of it irritating her, and she’ll want to rub it. Right now she has a small, cuplike patch taped over her eye to protect it day and night. Each time she needs the drops, she’ll have to unfasten it. Otherwise, she can do normal activity, even read or watch television.”
“What if she wants to go back to work?”
“Not for a month. The one thing I warn is that she doesn’t bend over so her head is lower than her heart. When she’s awake, you can tell her the operation was a success.”
Their eyes met in silent understanding of what he didn’t say.
“You have my number. If there’s an emergency, my service will get in touch with me.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
The second he left, Remi went back to the reception area to phone David Bowen. He wasn’t going to like what Remi had to tell him.
* * *
Jillian heard voices before she came fully awake. She knew she was in a hospital. During the night a nurse had told her the operation was over and everything was fine. They were taking her to a private room. She’d had no idea what time that was.
When she finally opened her eyes, sunlight filtered in the room through the blinds. She couldn’t see out of her right eye. Raising her hand to feel it, her fingers met with something plastic that had been firmly taped down.
A man’s calloused hand caught hold of hers in a gentle grip. “Don’t touch it, Jillian.”
That deep voice—
She remembered his thickly accented English. He was the man at the accident scene.
Slowly turning her head she took in the tall, powerful-looking Spanish male standing at her side. Her hand was swallowed in his strong, warm grip. Until now she’d never realized how white her skin must look to a man whose natural olive complexion had been burnished by years in the sun.
Vibrant black hair was swept back from a widow’s peak, highlighting hard, chiseled features. A true man of Castile. With those eyes, dark and brooding beneath equally black brows, she was put in mind of a figure from an El Greco painting.
Wearing a white shirt with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows, his pronounced five o’clock shadow lent him an earthy sensuality that took her by surprise. It had to be the anesthetic still in her system playing tricks with her mind.
“Are you my guardian angel?”
“If I were, you would never have had that accident.” He gave her hand a small squeeze before relinquishing it.
“You were the driver of the other car?”
“Sí. I’m Remi.”
The memory of their near miss flashed through her mind. “I—I could have killed you.” She half moaned the words.
“It wouldn’t have come to that. In any case, you were such an excellent driver, you turned aside in time.”
She bit her lip. “I remember swerving and the sound of the helicopter, but little else.”
“You’re at the Holy Cross Hospital in Madrid.”
“Madrid? I thought I was in Toledo.”
“I had them fly you here so Dr. Filartigua could operate. He’s an expert eye surgeon.”
She tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry.
“Thank you. The nurse told me the operation was a success.”
He studied her intently. “The doctor told me the same thing. Would you like some juice? Then we’ll get your brother on the phone. He’s anxious to talk to you.”
