LITMIR.BIZ

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Sam had yet to give up the fight to turn that particular tide. New marrow would be transplanted into his bones at seven o’clock tomorrow morning. The match wasn’t as close as Sam would have liked and there was a chance the boy’s body would reject it, but until that happened, Gilbert was still a motor head and Sam happened to own one very fine, candy-apple-red Maserati. Said Maserati was currently parked outside.

      “Let’s go,” he said, tugging the boy into the lobby. “If all that stuff about speed was just some macho bluff on your part, better cough up the truth now before you wet your pants.”

      “You’re going to let me ride in it?” Gilbert’s blue eyes bugged.

      “I’m going to do better than that. I’m going to let you drive it.”

      The kid stumbled in thrilled shock. Sam caught his elbow and held him up. “Easy does it now.”

      “That’s against the law,” Gil said.

      “Are you going to rat me out?”

      “No! No, sir.”

      “Then come on. I’ve got thirty minutes before rounds and—”

      And then she was there.

      Sam’s voice was chopped off in midsentence and he came to a stop. He had a single, inane thought: this isn’t supposed to happen yet. They’d only gotten out of that underground room where they’d been held hostage a few days ago. He’d figured it would take Caitlyn Matthews weeks to recover and get back to work. At least, it would take the average woman that long.

      But little Miss Tight Buns obviously considered it her patriotic, Hippocratic, fuss-budget duty to get back to work as soon as possible after the singularly worst event in her ultra-organized life, Sam thought. She’d probably do it if only to make his life miserable, he thought.

      His eyes narrowed as she came toward him. A petite, waifish blonde, her every stride was measured and precise. That little chin of hers was held high, and her sapphire eyes moved neither left nor right. Every germ within a fifteen-yard radius either saluted or ran for cover at the sight of her, Sam decided sourly.

      His heart, meanwhile, was pounding like a trip-hammer.

      “What are you doing here?” he demanded when she came to a stop in front of him.

      “I work here,” Cait replied without looking at him. Then she leaned down to look into Gilbert’s eyes. “Running off on me, are you?”

      “No, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. I’ll be back, though,” the boy said, clearly rattled.

      Cait straightened again and transferred her attention to Sam. “Where are you taking him, anyway?”

      “Nowhere.” Sam felt like a kid himself, one just caught in a naughty act by a particularly unpleasant teacher.

      What was he supposed to do about this situation, anyway? He decided this was all her fault. No matter that he should have known it would eventually come to this when he’d first taken it into his head to touch her in that underground room. For that one insane, stress-induced moment he’d thought he would just taste her and that would be that. But he hadn’t stopped there because something amazing and overwhelming about her had swum through him and over him and drove him to a place where nothing else mattered except the scent of her, the feel of her, her heat.

      Now they were back at the hospital, back to being co-workers, and he couldn’t seem to get his stride.

      “Why are you guys in the lobby?” she asked in that quiet, even voice, bringing him back.

      Sam looked around, then recovered enough to wink at Gil. “Could be just a wrong turn. Right, sport?”

      “Knowing you, why do I doubt that?” Cait took Gil’s other hand. “Come on, kiddo, back to bed with you.”

      “No! Please!” The boy pulled hard against her grip, forcing her to let go.

      Cait looked at Sam again, frowning. “What are you up to?”

      Sam felt temper slide into his blood. Maybe it mingled with his panic. “Tell you what. When I start reporting to my nurses, you’ll be the first one I come to.”

      He saw her recoil. “I’m sorry,” he said to her, then turned to Gil. “Go sit down over there for a minute.” He pointed at the little lounge tucked in one corner of the lobby. The boy hurried off.

      “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said yet,” Cait commented.

      “You just can’t hold your tongue, can you?” That was a new side to the normally quiet Caitlyn, he thought, and it made something with hard, hot fists punch inside his brain. “You shouldn’t be here. What’s wrong with you, anyway? Why are you back at work so soon?”

      “Why are you?”

      “I’m a doctor. I have patients.”

      “So do I.”

      “Someone else can fill in for you. They’ve been doing it for days.”

      That chin of hers came up again. “Well, they don’t have to do it any longer. The world didn’t suddenly come to an end when we…when I…when Hines…”

      He watched her come up against the issue of what had happened to them—between them—in that room and back off again. Okay, that was good. She was a complication his life didn’t need. And there was no doubt he’d snag up her life pretty nastily, too. They were the two most disparate people you could ever imagine, and they still had to work together. They had to leave behind that underground room—and everything they had done there—and move forward.

      His knees went a little weak as he considered the alternative—that she might think they shared some kind of…relationship now. He could always give her his ex-wife’s phone number, he thought. Nancy could set her straight on that score.

      He decided to avoid pursuing their current topic and switched gears. “I’m taking Gil for a ride,” he said suddenly.

      “In what?”

      “My car.”

      “Why?”

      “He’s got this thing for speedmobiles. And he’s dying.”

      He saw her wince, but then she rallied. “He can’t possibly have been discharged. Do his parents know about this?”

      “Are you questioning me again, Nurse?”

      She backed off a step. “Of course not.” Then something glinted in her eyes. That was new, too, he thought, startled. She’d always been docile to a fault.

      “Yes,” she amended.

      “Well, don’t. It’s none of your concern.”

      “He’s my patient. Have you considered the risk of infection if you take him out of here?”

      He withered her with his gaze and glanced at his watch. “That’s why he’s chock-full of antibiotics. I’ll see you for rounds in twenty minutes.”

      “Where can you take Gilbert Travalini in twenty minutes?” she persisted.

      To the barren roads snaking through the federal land behind the Saddlebag bar, he thought, and to a brief, small slice of heaven before, God forbid, the boy actually saw the pearly gates for real. “Don’t worry about it,” he answered. “Get to work.”

      She backed off another step.

      “Caitlyn—Nurse Matthews.” He corrected himself fast. Her gaze lifted to his, a little too fast, a little too searchingly. Sam felt his stomach spasm. “It was a one-time thing. You know that, right?”

      This time her expression didn’t change. “Of course. I never intended for it to be anything else.”

      You were a virgin, damn it! The words blared through his head, though Sam held himself back from shouting them aloud. Virgins

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