LITMIR.BIZ

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      “How’s that?” she asked, squeezing with all her might.

      “Good.” He met her challenging glare and swallowed back his awkwardness.

      “Sure you don’t want it harder?” Her voice held a note of sharp sarcasm. Her stare was disconcertingly intense. His gut knotted.

      “That’s fine. You can let go now.”

      She released his hands and although Tyler was relieved, he felt vaguely dissatisfied.

      “Lie down,” he said. “I want to examine your abdomen again.”

      “May I leave after this?”

      “Perhaps.” Boy, was she a tough cookie. He had to admire her doggedness.

      Sighing, she stretched out on the gurney, crossed her legs at the ankle and propped the back of her head in her palms.

      He moved to her side and palpated her spleen. “Is that tender?”

      “No.”

      “You wouldn’t be lying simply to get out of here, would you?” he asked.

      “I’m not above fudging the truth in order to get dismissed,” she admitted and Tyler suppressed a smile at her honesty. “But I’m sincere. It really doesn’t hurt.”

      When he had examined her previously she’d had marked guarding of the area and had moaned in pain. Now, she seemed unaffected by his probing. Weird. Her spleen must have stopped bleeding spontaneously. He’d never seen it happen, but he’d heard it was possible. He took her blood pressure—116/78. Textbook normal.

      “I really think you should be admitted for observation,” Tyler said. “We don’t know for sure that your spleen isn’t still leaking. What happens if you get down the road a few hours and start hemorrhaging internally?”

      “Guess that’s a chance I’ve got to take.” She shrugged.

      Concern kicked him hard in the heart. If she wanted to take that risk, why should he care?

      He didn’t care.

      Yes, you do.

      No, I don’t.

      Come on, you’ve got to stop being such a crusty old goat eventually. The contrary voice in his head was pure Yvette, goading him to rise to the occasion. She’d always kept him on his moral toes and since she’d been gone he’d slid far down the slippery slope to indifference.

      I don’t, he mentally argued.

      Yes, you do. Because once upon a time you were self-destructive and your friends stepped in. Right now this woman needs all the friends she can get. Whether she recognizes it or not.

      Okay. Fine. He would try to cajole her into staying. That way, if she refused, he could let her go with a clear conscience.

      “Why are you so adamant against spending the night?” Tyler asked. “What could it hurt?”

      “I have an aversion to hospitals.” She rubbed her arms and he saw goose bumps rise on her skin. That’s when he realized her chemical burns were gone.

      He shook his head, blinked and did a double take. He examined her arms and legs. Not a burn insight.

      “What’s wrong?” she asked.

      “Your burns have disappeared.” Now that really was strange. He frowned, shoved a hand through his hair and wracked his brain for a plausible explanation. A mistake on the X ray he could buy. Her spleen clotting itself off, while unlikely, wasn’t impossible. But now this?

      Tyler felt as if he’d just fallen into The Twilight Zone.

      What kind of chemicals had been in those vials? Curiosity gnawed at him. She was a complicated woman with disappearing symptoms. He told himself he needed for her to stay so he could get to the bottom of her odd healing, but in reality he wanted to find out who she really was.

      Gently, Tyler drew the sheet around her shoulders to warm her. She shied at his touch as if afraid he might harm her. Her lip trembled and she turned her head away from him.

      “Please, bring me a release form and I’ll exonerate you from all responsibility,” she said. “I just want to leave.”

      “You think a piece of paper will keep me from worrying about you?” Tyler asked, disturbed because what he’d said was true. No matter how much a stubborn part of him longed to deny it, he cared about Jane Doe.

      And that scared the living hell out of him.

      “If you’re insistent on leaving can I at least call someone for you?” he asked.

      “No.” She shook her head. “I…I don’t remember.”

      He saw through her like glass. Whenever she lied, the tip of her nose reddened.

      “How do you intend to get home? Your car was totaled in the accident.”

      “I’ll walk.”

      “Do you even know where home is?”

      She didn’t answer.

      Tyler clenched his teeth. “You didn’t have any identification on you. The paramedics searched your car but couldn’t find a purse. Do you have any money?”

      “Are you offering a loan?” She quirked one eyebrow at him.

      “Yes,” Tyler said, reaching for his wallet. A wad of cash should take care of the problem. He needn’t get anymore involved than that. “Except it’s a gift, not a loan.”

      “Do you often offer needy patients money, Doctor?”

      “No.” He hadn’t ever given money to a patient, but Yvette had. Many times. He’d often joked she was driving them into the poor house with her lost causes. His late wife had been a social worker with a marshmallow heart who’d been unable to resist any stray who showed up on her doorstep. He heard Yvette whispering in his ear, Help her.

      “I’m special, then.” Jane Doe’s tone was sardonic but the look in her eyes was one of appreciative surprise.

      His chest swelled with an odd emotion he couldn’t name. Their gazes locked and he knew it was true. He couldn’t say why or how but this woman was special to him and not just because she obviously needed him. Without even trying, she touched something deep inside him. Perhaps it was the sarcasm that hinted at her hidden vulnerability; perhaps it was her nervousness, perhaps it was because she looked a bit like Yvette—blond, petite, fragile.

      Or perhaps it was his own loneliness that he saw reflected in those soft blue eyes. Peering through those cerulean depths and on past into her troubled soul was like staring into a looking glass.

      “Yes,” he admitted. “You are special.”

      She ducked her head, denying him further access to those tantalizing eyes.

      “Please,” he said, extending five twenty-dollar bills to her. “Take the cash.”

      “I can’t accept your money.”

      She glanced up and he caught another glimpse into those too wise yet oddly naive eyes and drew in a breath. What he was about to suggest overstepped all boundaries of the doctor-patient relationship but he could not bear the thought of her wandering the streets hungry and alone.

      He remembered the kind man in the desert who had saved his life when he was at his lowest point. Jane Doe was at that threshold now.

      Here’s your opportunity to repay that karmic debt, Yvette’s voice niggled. Not only that, but giving this woman sanctuary is a chance to get the old Tyler back. I miss him. Don’t you?

      Tyler clenched his jaw. Why her? Why now? She made him feel something again when he believed he’d lost all ability to feel tender emotions. And he did long to be the man he was before Yvette had died. Concerned, loving, compassionate. He’d forgotten

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