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It was lunchtime and most of the doctors had already done their rounds so there weren’t a lot of people on the floor at the moment. She shouted at the crazed patient, “Let her go.”
Judging by the yelp that came from the other nurse, the man squeezed even tighter. “Stay back! This one’s infected. I can see it in her face.”
What?
Her eyes went to Paulina, whose skin was as white as a sheet, her free hand digging at the man’s fingers, trying to get him off her. Luckily the scalpel was waving aimlessly in the air, the patient didn’t seem to be actively trying to cut her.
Yet. Who knew what he might do next?
This man had to be disturbed...or high. In fact, there was a long line of stitches over his right eye and in spite of the clean hospital gown he wore, his socks were filthy and crusted with blood. Had he been in a fight? Was he drunk?
She took a few more steps, circling around the man, only to hear him growl low in his throat when she ventured too close. “It’s okay,” she said, deciding to play along. “We know all about the infection. She’s taking medication for it.”
“You’re lying!” A few drops of spittle flew from between his lips.
Out of the corner of her eye she spied Lucas, who’d somehow come down the hallway on silent feet and was easing toward them. One turn of the crazed man’s head and he’d see him as well. Sophia didn’t dare gesture for him to get back. Besides, she was damned glad to see him, even though she’d told him to stay put. And although it seemed like hours, less than a minute had passed since she’d asked the patient to call for help.
Lucas was now about twenty feet away.
Trying to maintain eye contact with the patient, she eased further to the left, glad when the man’s unblinking gaze followed her movement. It reminded her of a cobra, ready to strike at the first hint of weakness.
“I’m not lying,” she murmured in as soothing a voice as she could manage. “Her hair has light streaks of color in it. It means the treatments are working.”
Are you insane, Sophia? What are you trying to do?
Keep him busy. Until someone could get to them. Anything to stop that scalpel from slicing through the air and hurting Paulina.
The patient’s lips thinned as his feverish gaze tripped from her to Paulina and then back again. The fingers holding the deadly weapon trembled for a second or two. “I don’t see anything.”
“Because you’re not a doctor. You’re not trained to.”
Just then, Lucas succeeded in covering the last few feet that separated them and grabbed the man’s knife hand. An enormous roar came up from the patient’s chest. He released Paulina and pivoted with lightning speed toward Lucas. Sophia lunged forward and caught the guy’s other hand to keep him from twisting the rest of the way round. The man was as strong as an ox. He threw her backwards, sending her skidding across the floor, where she flailed as she tried to maintain her balance—only to fail miserably and land on her butt.
She scrambled back up just as the sound of tinkling metal hit her ears, along with Lucas’s grunt of pain when the man’s fingers closed around a fistful of his hair and hung on. Before she could run toward them again, two men in uniforms stepped out of the elevator, took one look at the scene and charged, each man grabbing a gowned figure and wrestling them apart.
“Dammit! Let me go!”
The oath came from Lucas, who was now pinned securely in front of one of the guards, one elbow locked behind him, while the injured arm dangled awkwardly, the sling bunched along his forearm. Amazingly, the troublemaker had gone totally limp once subdued, moaning as if mortally wounded. He looked like the victim, rather than the guilty party.
As she put a hand to her throat and struggled to catch her breath, one of the guards glanced expectantly at her. “Which one did you call us about?”
“The one on the left.”
Poor Lucas looked like he’d been through the wringer. His hair stood straight up where the other man had grabbed it and his gown had twisted sideways, revealing quite a bit of one taut thigh.
Releasing him, the guard said, “What happened?”
“That man attacked Paulina, yelling about some kind of infection.”
Just then a woman exited a second elevator and rushed toward them, followed by one of the emergency room doctors.
“Please don’t hurt him. I’m his sister,” she said. “He’s schizophrenic. I didn’t realize he was off his meds until this morning when I found him covered in blood, saying someone was after him. I lost track of him in the emergency room.”
The doctor nodded. “He wasn’t particularly agitated when he arrived. I stepped out to call his psychiatrist, who’s on his way. It’ll take him about ten minutes to get here.”
His sister spoke up. “I’m so sorry about all of this. My mother called and I left the room for just a second to talk to her.” She glanced at Lucas and then evidently spied the scalpel on the floor. “Oh, no. Did he hurt someone?”
“No, we stopped him in time,” Sophia said. The woman seemed so genuinely upset that she didn’t have the heart to tell her just how serious the situation had been. And from the look of the man now, you’d never guess he’d just gone on a rampage. She could understand why they’d let their guard down.
Besides, even with all the precautions in the world, you couldn’t always stop bad things from happening. She knew that for a fact. Look at Marcos and Lucas. Or even her own childhood, for that matter.
The doctor turned to the guard who’d been holding Lucas. “Could you accompany us back to the emergency wing? I’d appreciate it.”
Within minutes they’d bundled the patient, whose name was evidently Ronaldo, into a wheelchair and got back into the elevator, his sister holding his hand.
Sophia sent Paulina a shaky smile. “Are you okay?”
The nurse chuckled and pressed a hand to her chest. “Other than wondering if he was going to carve out my heart and eat it, yes. Thank you for coming when you did.” Her gaze went to Lucas, who leaned against the counter. “And thank you for wrestling that scalpel away from him.”
Sophia realized Lucas wasn’t just leaning against the nurses’ station, he was propped against it as if he’d fall to the floor if he let go. “Hey. Are you hurt?”
“You mean besides my pride?”
His pride. What did that have to do with anything?
“You made him let go of the knife.”
“And if those guards hadn’t gotten here when they had, that’s about all I would have done.”
Shock whistled through her. He acted like he’d just let the opposing team score the winning goal of the season.
She moved over to him and laid a hand on his arm. “What are you talking about? You disarmed him, Lucas. You saw how he threw me across the room like a toy. If you hadn’t stepped in to help, who knows what damage he could have caused?” She frowned. “Speaking of damage, how are your stitches?”
“They’re not happy, but they’re still there. I’ll be glad when the damned things come out.”
Paulina wheeled an office chair around the desk and put it behind him. “Sit, before you fall down.”
“I’m fine.” Despite his words, he carefully lowered himself into the chair. Was he really okay? Or just saying that for her and Paulina’s benefit?
“How about your side? Did he get you?”
“No. Believe me, I was keeping everything of value as far out of the reach of that scalpel as I could.”
Paulina giggled at the words, although it took Sophia a second or two to get his meaning. Then her face heated in a rush, and her glance instinctively dropped to his lap. “Oh.”
“Yeah. As it was, no harm done.” He dragged a hand through his hair, pausing to rub the area of his scalp where the patient had pulled his hair. “I’ll give you this, Nurse Limeira, you sure do run an exciting ward here.”
She laughed. “All in a day’s work, Dr. Carvalho.”
He sighed and leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes for a second or two.
Hmm, the man really did look a bit shaky. Maybe it was time to get him out of there. “Are you still feeling well enough to be discharged today? Or do you want to stick around for one more night?”
“And risk another scene like that one?” He shook his head. “I think I’m more than ready to leave. A nice—quiet—apartment is sounding better and better.”
She glanced at Paulina, who seemed positively starstruck by Lucas, even going as far as to twirl a strand of her bleached-blonde hair around her index finger as she watched him.
Even injured, he had the same effect on other women that he’d had on her when she’d been little. A tiny part of her wondered if she was the only one he’d forgotten. Maybe he didn’t remember any woman he’d had contact with. He was handsome enough that he could have his pick—just look at Paulina. And maybe he did just that. Maybe he went through them so fast that none of them made a lasting impression.
Her mood took a sudden nosedive. She needed to remember her earlier admonition to steer clear of him as much as possible. Not that it was going to be possible as she’d volunteered to sleep over. If it weren’t for her longstanding friendship with Marcos, she wouldn’t have offered in the first place. But she had, and she felt obligated to go through with it.
Well, just because she had to sleep near him, it didn’t mean she was going to sleep with him.
She blinked. Why had that thought even come up?
Maybe because she’d gotten a good glimpse of rock-hard thighs and a nice tight tushie during the struggle with Ronaldo.
Yep, visions of sponge baths were now dancing through her head.
Well, there’d be none of that. Not here. Not at Marcos’s apartment. She was simply there to make sure the man didn’t fall and suffer a concussion.
Although if he didn’t wipe that knowing smirk off his face, a concussion wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities. And she’d be the one inflicting it.
She stepped in front of Paulina in an effort to snap the woman back to reality. “Well, I guess that’s settled. Before we have any more mishaps, maybe we should find you something to wear and get you out of here.”
CHAPTER FIVE
AT LEAST HE didn’t have to wear his brother’s clothes.
Lucas knew it was a strange thing to be thankful for, but he was borrowing his brother’s apartment, sleeping in his brother’s bed, and making use of his brother’s friend.
No. She was their friend. At least, from what Marcos had told him.
Damn, if only he could remember.
Right now, Sophia was brewing coffee in his brother’s kitchen as if she’d done it a million times. That thought made him uneasy and he wasn’t sure why.
He should be grateful for all she was doing for him. And he was. After all, she’d gone to his hotel and arranged for his things to be taken to Marcos’s place. And he hadn’t had to watch her actually carry his stuff into the building while he’d trailed along behind.
Unlike her own suitcase. Which he’d been painfully aware he couldn’t offer to carry. It made him feel useless, something he wasn’t used to.
Perched on his brother’s couch, the scent of coffee hit his nose, and he breathed deeply as he surveyed his surroundings. Modern furnishings, almost painfully so, were strategically placed, from the black leather sofa and swivel recliner to the low black cabinet where a flatscreen television sat at eye level. A photo to the left of the set caught his attention.
Struggling to his feet while trying to ignore the fierce burning in his shoulder—a direct result of the scuffle at the hospital—he moved toward the picture.
“Do you want café com leite? Or do you take your coffee black?” Sophia’s voice came from behind him, distracting him for a second, and when he turned his head he found her peeking around the corner, a few locks of sleek black hair sliding over one bare shoulder as she leaned to the side. She flipped the strands back with a quick shake of her head, leaving a long line of tanned skin that seemed to call out to him.
Damn. He knew she had a shirt on, he’d seen it—some kind of fluttery green thing that wrapped around her just above the swell of her breasts. There were no straps, though, so right now all he could think about was how she’d look if she stood in that exact pose without the shirt. And, boy, could his imagination drum up a pretty good set of possibilities.
“Lucas?” she said. “What do you want in your coffee?”
Besides you?
He shook himself back to reality. “Just a couple of drops of sweetener, if Marcos has any.” Artificial sweetener in Brazil came in plastic bottles, he’d found, although some of the higher-end coffee shops carried packets of the stuff, along with sugar.
“Okay, I’ll be out in a minute.” A quick smile accompanied the words, and she popped back into the kitchen.
Lucas braced a hand on the television stand, swearing softly. He probably should have suggested that he hole up in his hotel room for another couple of weeks. Had suggested it, in fact, once his discharge papers had been written up, but Sophia had held him to his promise of letting her help—compliments of his brother. Again. The tattoo on his arm was a constant reminder that he kept his word when at all possible. He hadn’t been able to keep much of anything else in his life—not even his real last name—so it was the one thing he’d felt he had control over.
So he was stuck with her. For now.
Brazilian women tended to dress to accentuate their curves, and Sophia was no exception. There was no way he was going to tell her to change for his benefit. But he also hadn’t expected to be knocked for a loop by seeing her out of her customary scrubs either.
The slim white jeans she wore hugged her body, cupping her curves in all the right places. Then there was that blouse, the deep green fabric snug on top before floating down around her hips, the silky fabric molding to her form whenever she moved. It was almost long enough to be a dress—a teeny-tiny one. And those heels...
Whew.
Despite the sexy clothes, there was a youthful innocence to Sophia, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on why she gave off that vibe. It wasn’t that she was a child—he shifted his aching shoulder as he turned back toward the framed photo on the television table—far from it. But there was a certain joie de vivre that clung to her as tightly as her narrow slacks. Strange that she would give off that kind of glow, despite growing up in a bare bones orphanage. Or after what she must have gone through with her facial surgery.
The narrow scar on her lip had made something contract inside him. Maybe because he spent almost all of his vacation time treating children in developing countries with just that type of deformity. The fact that Sophia bore the telltale mark of a surgeon’s tools made his heart cramp.
There was something about the scar that struck a chord deep inside him. And touching it as she’d stood behind the desk at the nurses’ station had triggered a visceral reaction that had been both foreign and familiar. Those two sensations had warred within him for several seconds. Had he remembered the scar from their time together at the orphanage?
Possibly.
It wasn’t a real memory, per se, more a remembered emotion. Curiosity, maybe? It hadn’t been disgust. Far from it. But it seemed to mesh with his reasons for choosing pediatric reconstructive surgeries over the more lucrative types.
Pulling his focus back to the picture, he picked it up. Two adults and two children were grouped around a rickety handcart. The image was real. Not one of those staged, stick-your-head-through-the-cardboard-figure kind of thing he saw from time to time. He narrowed his eyes and tried to see the details past the sepia tones and the midline crack where the picture had evidently been folded at one time. A man stood at the metal bar across the front of the contraption and held the cart level, while a woman and baby perched on the flat bed, and the older child with a grubby T-shirt and worn flip-flops stood with his hands on his hips, legs braced apart.
Lucas swallowed. It was them—his birth family—he knew it even without being told. His mom held him close in a protective gesture, while his brother dared the world to mess with any of them.
His father already looked broken down, even back then. Staring at the picture, he tried to sense some kind of emotional connection with the figures, but felt only a vague sense of shame, which was probably left over from days gone by. His brother’s feet were the only thing that elicited a strong reaction in him. He had shoes on, while his own feet were bare. He did remember snatches of arguments he and his brother had had—with Marcos constantly railing at him for not wearing shoes in the yard.
He still preferred his feet bare, not that he got much of a chance any more with his busy lifestyle.
A soft click sounded behind him and then Sophia’s voice came again. “That’s you and Marcos with your parents.”
The fact that Sophia didn’t expect him to know what he was looking at sent another wave of shame washing over him. His adoptive parents had said they’d chosen him because the day they’d visited he’d been curled in a corner, sucking his thumb. He’d been skin and bones, and had seemed hopeless, they’d said...so much so that it had frightened them. They’d never thought about having kids of their own—although they’d worked with several children’s charities—until they’d seen him.
They’d given him opportunities that few kids in his situation would have ever dreamed of having. And that just compounded his guilt, even though Marcos and Sophia seemed to be doing just fine, judging by the high-end furniture in his brother’s apartment. In fact, the picture was the only shabby-looking thing in sight.
He set the frame back in its spot and turned toward her. “I’ll have to ask Marcos to make a copy for me.”
“Do you remember them at all?”
He hesitated. “I think I remember my father and Marcos, but not my birth mother.”
“She died when you were still a baby.” She reached back and bunched her long hair in her hand, then twisted it and tied it somehow so that it stayed up off her neck. “Your parents loved you very much, from what Marcos says. Your adoptive family must have as well.”
“They did. I guess I was lucky.”
He’d called them, in fact, after the shooting. They’d been worried sick, had wanted to come down immediately, but he’d assured them he was fine and would be back in the States soon.
Sophia turned away and walked to the glossy coffee table. “I brought the bottle of sweetener and a spoon. I wasn’t sure how much you wanted.”
Her words were tight, and he got the feeling he’d said something wrong. Was she upset because he’d been adopted and she hadn’t? Surely not. He’d had no choice in the matter. Looking back, though, he could certainly see how hard it must’ve been for Marcos to be the one left behind. But he was glad his brother had been there for Sophia.
“Thank you for the coffee.” Following her, he noted one of the clear glass mugs was filled almost to the brim, while the other was only half-full. He found out why when Sophia tipped a white pitcher of milk into the one with less coffee. He smiled. “When you say café com leite, you mean it.”
“Brazilian coffee is stronger than what you serve in the States, at least from what I’ve heard.”
A barista at a local coffee shop had jokingly referred to American coffee as “água suja” or dirty water. And compared to the dark, full brew that most Brazilians preferred, he could see why.
Sophia settled onto the sofa and took a sip of her drink with a sigh.
You could tell the apartment belonged to a bachelor by the lack of seating options. It was either sit beside her or try to perch on the low-slung easy chair to the right of it. And his side still bothered him enough that he chose the sofa over his sense of self-preservation. So once he’d doctored his coffee, he sat next to her, waiting for the surgical sites to settle down before he took his first slug.
The dark liquid was smooth, with a slightly bitter aftertaste that lingered on his palate the way good coffee should. He closed his eyes and let the scent and taste fill his senses. “I’m glad I didn’t drink the hospital’s coffee before I left. This was worth the wait.”
She smiled at him and bumped his uninjured shoulder with hers before kicking off her heels and curling deeper into the sofa. “I’m glad you like it. And thanks again for your help with that patient. I was worried you’d ripped your stitches.”
“Does that kind of thing happen often?”
“No more than at any other hospital, I suppose. You’ve never had a patient go berserk on you?”
“My patients are generally a lot smaller than that one.”
Her lips twisted. “That’s right, most of yours are probably women who are looking for a tune-up.”
“Actually, no. I work with children. I’m a pediatric plastic surgeon. I deal with...” He swallowed at what he’d been about to say and changed the words slightly. “Facial reconstructive surgery, usually after a traumatic injury.”
Her finger went to her lip, the way it had a number of other times. Surely she wasn’t self-conscious about it. No one but a surgeon who dealt with cleft lips on a regular basis would be aware of her scar. “Why do you do that?”
She didn’t ask what he meant. “Maybe because you noticed it right away.”
“I didn’t. Only after you touched it that first day.” He wasn’t about to tell her he hadn’t been looking at her lip when he’d seen her at the desk. Or that there’d been something about her that had drawn him toward her, as it did even now.
He’d thought it had been because he’d recognized her from her earlier visits, but who knew? His head had still been pretty foggy about the shooting and what had happened afterwards. Maybe he could tackle that. Get her talking so he could keep his mind off the fact that he was seated beside a beautiful woman—all alone in his brother’s house. And that he couldn’t seem to stop staring at her lips—not because of her scar but because they were pink and inviting and...
And he had to put a stop to this right now.
“Did the police tell you anything else about what happened?”
She shook her head. “Marcos said you were standing in front of the favela where you both lived as kids. The police were involved in a drug raid, and a couple of the dealers’ shots hit you as they tried to evade capture.”
He should remember something more about that time—like how he’d even known where he’d once lived—but it was still a blank for the most part. “That’s what the police told me as well. I just can’t remember.”
“It happened fast, from what I understand. Didn’t the doctor say your memories should come back after a while? You banged your head pretty hard on the pavement when you went down. Unfortunately the taxi driver took off once he heard the shots, so the police had to step in. Maybe they’ll find the driver and you can ask him how you ended up there.” She shifted on the couch so she faced him.
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