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“Tanner, too. He’s trying to hide it, but I know it’s eating at him. On the way over, he said he wished the guy had never called in the first place. If he lost his nerve, the least he could have done was phone. As it is,” Kelly continued, sounding as protective as she did irritated, “neither one of them heard from him until this morning. Then, he just left messages on their answering machines that he’d been delayed and said he’d be in touch later.”
Alex’s brow pinched as she watched both women look toward the men again, but she wanted to dismiss the thought that flashed in her brain almost as quickly as it formed. It had to be pure coincidence that Tanner’s eyes were so nearly the same blue as her patient’s. And it had to be coincidence that the rather stubborn line of his jaw had been carved at that same hard angle. Even if the world didn’t know that Chase Harrington was…well, Chase Harrington, he wasn’t built anything like Tanner. The younger Malone had the muscular physique of a man accustomed to physical labor. Chase was a little taller, according to his chart, anyway, and he had the lean, hard body of a runner. His hair wasn’t black like Tanner’s, either. It was more a rich, deep sable. If he looked like anyone, it was…Ryan.
“I don’t remember,” Alex prefaced, not sure she’d ever known the answer to what she was about to ask. “Where was this brother from?”
“Seattle,” they both said an instant before the clink of a spoon on a water glass had everyone quieting for a toast.
Alex tried to let it go.
She couldn’t.
For the next hour, while her friends and associates mingled and laughed and passed platters of pasta and eggplant parmesan, the suspicion that had lodged in her mind nagged with the relentlessness of a toothache.
She could overlook the physical similarities. There were a lot of men with dark, to-die-for looks and wickedly beautiful azure eyes who weren’t related to the Malones. She’d bet half the black Irish in Ireland fell into that category. But Chase had missed a meeting last night, too. One that had been so important to him that he’d come out of anesthesia wanting nothing other than to call the people he was supposed to see.
I need them to know I didn’t stand them up.
If it hadn’t been her own party, she’d have excused herself the moment she recalled the almost desperate undertones in her patient’s voice. Ryan and Tanner were her friends and if there was any chance that Chase Harrington was the man they’d been waiting for, she needed to do what she could to let them know their brother hadn’t simply decided not to show. But her friends had gone to a lot of trouble for her, so she made herself wait until the cake they’d brought had been cut and everyone was busy visiting again before she caved in and turned to Ronni.
“There’s something I need to check with a patient. Will you keep an eye on Tyler for me for a few minutes?”
Knowing Alex was on call, familiar herself with such interruptions, her friend didn’t even hesitate. “Sure. If you get hung up, just let me know and we’ll take him home with us.”
“I shouldn’t be that long,” Alex assured her, then slipped out to run across the street to ask a few questions of her patient.
At eight o’clock on a Saturday evening, the long corridors of the hospital were almost eerily quiet. The business of treatments and therapies and diagnostics that created traffic jams of gurneys and wheelchairs and lab carts was over for the day. Dinner trays had been cleared and sent in their huge stainless-steel carts back to the hospital kitchen.
The only sounds were from the television sets in a couple of the rooms and the muffled conversations of visitors bearing mylar Get Well balloons and tidy bouquets of flowers.
There were no visitors in Chase Harrington’s room. No balloons. And bouquet was too plebeian a term for the half-dozen fabulous arrangements filling the widow ledge and the tray table belonging to the other, empty, bed.
The head of Chase’s bed was raised higher than it had been that morning. He lay back against the pillow with his head turned from the door, his braced leg extended and his uninjured one bent at the knee to make a tent of his blankets. With a business card in his hand, he tapped a slow beat against the raised siderail while he stared out the window at the construction lights glowing in the dark.
When he didn’t notice her in the doorway, she glanced at the florist’s card on the arrangement nearest the door.
The exotic creation of red ginger, bird of paradise and anthurium was sent “with best wishes for a speedy recovery” from the board of Claussen Aerodynamics.
“We just closed a deal,” he said, talking to her reflection in the window. “I’m sure they were relieved all the i’s were dotted before I wound up here.”
“Maybe they just mean what the card says. That they hope you’re better soon.”
He turned toward her, his level expression telling her he didn’t believe that for half a second. The sentiment was business. An obligation. Nothing more.
“It’s a beautiful arrangement, anyway,” she told him.
“It’s a write-off. They all are.”
His cynicism was unmistakable. So was his displeasure with whatever it was he’d been thinking about as he gave the business card an impatient flip onto the document-covered tray-table beside his bed. She’d never seen him upright, let alone moving under his own steam. But the image of a tornado chained in place sprang to mind as she quietly closed the door. She had no trouble picturing him pacing as he worked, his mind racing, his beautifully honed body rarely still. All that leashed energy and power bent on conquering…everything.
She couldn’t help wondering if he regarded women as conquests, too.
She immediately banished the thought, along with the hint of warning that came with it. His sex life was none of her business. It was entirely possible that he would regard any part of his personal life as none of her business, too. But if she was right about who he was, there was far more going on with him than she had suspected, and the reasons for his agitation could be far more profound than she’d thought.
The soft fabric of her dress whispered faintly as she moved toward the glow of the reading light cocooning the bed. She hadn’t had time to consider how truly unsettling it would be for a person to face siblings he’d never met. Or to ponder the circumstance that had allowed such a relationship to go unknown for so long.
As she’d hurried through the hospital, she’d been more aware of the faint stirrings of guilt. She’d always prided herself on paying attention to her patients so she wouldn’t miss something that could impair their progress. With Chase, she’d simply adopted every one else’s opinion of him as a difficult man and ignored the first stirrings of sympathy she’d felt for him.
“I see you got what you wanted. Are you working now?”
A large packing box sat in the green plastic visitor’s chair by his bed. Its contents, a state-of-the-art fax machine, occupied the bedside table that had been positioned within easy reach. Someone had unplugged the phone for the other bed and run the fax line to it.
He’d gotten what he was after, but he still didn’t look very happy.
With a subdued, “No,” he pushed the tray-table aside, watching her as she stopped beside his bed. “I’m finished.”
“Your color’s improved,” she noted, mildly surprised. Judging from the amount of well-marked paper stacked on the tray-table, he’d been at it for hours. He should have looked exhausted. “How’s the new medication working?”
“Better.”
“Good,” she murmured, more aware than she wanted to be of his intense blue eyes. She nodded toward the night-blacked window, as much to get his focus off her as to ease into her reason for being there.
“I see our new wing had your attention. The construction was delayed for a while because of an embezzlement problem with the foundation funding it, but everything’s back on schedule now. Our administrator…Ryan Malone…” she said cautiously, watching to see if he reacted to the name, “managed to pull more funding together.
“We’re all anxious for the space,” she continued, when all he did was blandly glance back at her. “If the new wing were finished, we might have been able to accommodate the request you made for a larger room. I’m sorry, but we don’t have VIP suites here at Memorial.”
Despite bruises that were working their way from dark cherry to concord grape, he truly did look better than when she’d last seen him. The dull glint of deep pain was gone from his eyes. But his edginess remained. It seemed to linger just beneath the surface, as carefully controlled as the man himself. Bridled as that tension was, it seemed to curl through her, knotting her nerves as his glance slid over the simple navy A-line skimming from her neck to midcalf.
There was no reason she should have felt exposed. He wasn’t looking at her as if he were mentally disrobing her. As his glance lingered on her taut and slender biceps, then moved to where she toyed with the single pearl hanging just below her throat, he was studying her in a way that was almost clinical.
“You don’t strike me as the type who makes idle conversation, Doctor.” His dark head dipped toward the closed door. “And I can’t imagine we’d need privacy if all you came to tell me is that my request for a larger room has been denied. Why don’t you just tell me what’s bothering you so much that you left your party to talk to me?”
Alex didn’t fluster easily. Remaining cool under fire was as much a form of self-preservation as a professional necessity. But this man had a definite knack for knocking her off balance. She suspected he knew it, too.
“How did you know where I was?”
“I imagine everyone within earshot of the nurses’ station knows. I could hear them trying to decide who got to be at the restaurant when you arrived and who had to go over later and bring back cake.” His glance slid to where her ringless fingers grasped her necklace. “They were also speculating about whether or not you’d have a date. As of a few minutes ago, word was that you didn’t.”
“It’s nice to know the hospital grapevine is so accurate.”
“It’s an interesting distraction,” he admitted, sounding as if he’d used it to keep himself from crawling the walls. “So, if you didn’t have a date, who’s this Tyler who was with you?”
“My son,” she replied, and watched the dark slash of Chase’s eyebrows merge.
“You have a son? I thought they were talking about some guy.”
“He is a guy. He’s just a little one.”
That wasn’t what he meant. And she knew it. It was just impossible to know what other thoughts flashed through his mind. There was no denying that her having a child had given him pause. The hesitation itself was enough to nudge her defenses. There were some men who tended to shy from women with such an encumbrance. There were others who regarded children as nothing but burdens that cost money and delayed goals.
She had no idea how this man felt. She just knew that Tyler had nothing to do with why she was there—and that Chase Harrington had an uncanny knack for bumping old bruises.
He’d even managed to do it when he was out cold.
“How did you know something’s bothering me?” she asked, disquieted by that, too.
Sheets rustled as he crossed his arms, his fathomless eyes intent on her face as he considered her. A moment later, the quality of that consideration underwent a subtle shift when he nodded toward her hand. It was curled and resting below the base of her throat.
“Other than the reasons I just gave you, you’ve probably rubbed a full millimeter off that pearl since you walked in here. I wouldn’t say you look nervous. In your line of work, you’ve had to deliver too much bad news to start out by hedging. You’re too professional for that. But you’re not comfortable with whatever’s on your mind, either,” he told her, sizing her up as she suspected he did his allies. Or his adversaries. “I don’t have the feeling you’re here because you’re my doctor, either.”
Unaware of what she’d been doing until he mentioned it, she slowly released her grandma Larson’s pearl. It was disconcerting to be read so easily. Here, on her turf, she was usually the one making the analysis, judging, weighing. She was the one people looked to for answers. Her professional role was the one area of her life where she felt reasonably competent. It was everything else that threw her. Yet, there was no denying the man’s powers of observation, or disputing his conclusions. Most of them, anyway.
“You’re good,” she conceded, wishing she didn’t feel that there was more he’d noticed, but discreetly failed to mention. “And you’re right. I’m not here because of your treatment. But I’m not uncomfortable with what I want to talk to you about. I’m just not sure how to address it.”
“Under the circumstances, why don’t we just try the direct approach?”
He offered the suggestion mildly, encouraging her with a hint of a smile that threatened to be devastating if he ever put his heart into it. He hadn’t reacted to Ryan’s name at all, but she had the feeling he chose to reveal only what he wanted others to see. Since the tactic gave him an extraordinary advantage, she had no doubt he used it shamelessly.
“In that case,” she quietly began, “I need to talk to you about the meeting you missed Friday night. It’s possible that I misjudged its importance.”
He didn’t even blink. But he didn’t move, either. “What about it?”
“By any chance was it personal rather than business? If it was,” she said, before that formidable will of his could snap his guard more firmly into place, “and if it’s about what I think it is, maybe I can help.”
“Just what do you think it’s about?”
“Your brothers. I think you were going to meet them.”
For a moment, the only sounds in the room were the hum of the air system and the steady, rhythmic click of the IV pump beside his bed. She didn’t doubt that he was a master of control. She’d seen him battle to stay conscious when anyone else would have given up. She’d seen him pinch back frustration to keep from lashing out when pain would have had anyone else raging. But his defenses had been strained by the physical toll on his body and he simply hadn’t been prepared for her to hit in such a vulnerable place. Only seconds passed before he replied, but those silent seconds had already given her her answer.
He knew that, too.
Confusion and disbelief melded with a host of sensations he truly did not want to deal with. “How could you possibly have known that?”
“Ryan and Tanner were at my party.” Her voice seemed to soften. “I was talking with Ryan’s wife and Tanner’s fiancée when their meeting with their brother came up. When I learned that the brother was coming from Seattle, it was just a matter of putting two and two together. Even if the coincidence about the meeting hadn’t been there,” she said, her glance slipping from his face to his rangy body, “there are a few similarities between the three of you. Once you get past the bruises, it’s not that hard to tell you’re related.”
His glance cut warily toward the closed door. “Where are they now?’
“At the restaurant. You said that my being your doctor doesn’t have anything to do with why I’m here. I am your doctor, though. That’s why I can’t say anything about this unless you say I can.”
He was her patient. No matter how she felt about Ryan and Tanner, her patient had to come first. “I know how badly you wanted to get in touch with them.” She was drawn by that need, too. Now that she understood why it had been there. “If you’d like, I can help.”
Chase lifted his hand, threading his fingers through his hair. The gesture was new, recently acquired and absolutely no help in dispelling the agitation knotting every one of his already tender nerves. He hated that he couldn’t move. He hated that he couldn’t pace. More than anything, he hated the way his stomach jumped every time he thought about the moment he’d finally see the two men he’d never laid eyes on before.
His brothers.
Until a couple of months ago, he hadn’t even known they’d existed. But he’d discovered a lot of things in the four months since he’d learned that the people he’d thought were his parents…weren’t.
“You haven’t said anything to anyone?”
“No one,” she assured him, sounding as sincere as she looked.
“Then please don’t. I still intend to meet them, but not in a bed, and not wearing this.” Lifting his hand, trailing IV tubing with it, he plucked at the neck of his hospital gown. “I’ll call them after I get out of here.”
“They won’t care if you’re in a wheelchair or flat on your back on a gurney. And they certainly won’t care what you’re wearing.” All she’d have to do was make one phone call and Ryan and Tanner would be there in a heartbeat.
The set of Chase’s jaw turned defensive.
“I’ll care. I’ve already left messages that I’d been detained,” he said, dead certain she was going to argue with him. She had the same look that she’d had when she’d told him he was acting like a wounded bear. Stubborn and sympathetic. Only now it was confusion rather than exasperation that diluted the latter. “I’ll call them when I’m better.”
Alex opened her mouth, only to close it again. Her first thought was that he was just being his usual headstrong self and wanted the meeting to take place on his terms. Yet, seeing his brow furrow with strain as he reached to knead a spot above his brace, it didn’t seem to be ego or pride prodding him. When she’d explained the seriousness of his injury, how it was possible that, given the worst scenario, he could lose his leg—or his life—he’d scarcely blinked. What she saw in him now, was the anxiety she would have expected then.
That made no sense at all to her. But she’d seen enough fear in patients to recognize it all too easily. She just couldn’t imagine him being afraid of anything. Unless, she thought, caught short by the idea, he was afraid that if his brothers saw him now, they would accept him only out of pity. Or, maybe, he was afraid they wouldn’t accept him if he appeared weak. Not that they were likely to think such a thing with his reputation, she thought—then remembered that his brothers had no idea who he was. They’d been expecting Andrew Malone. Not Chase Harrington.
Conscious of how his jaw tightened when he leaned back, the feeling she’d had when she’d left him in recovery washed over her again. She remembered how he’d struck her then as being so very alone. Only now she had a strange sense that being alone wasn’t his choice. It was simply the only way he knew how to be.
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do,” she agreed, shaking off the disturbing thought. “But there is something I can do, if it will help. I can’t release you any sooner, but I can get you out of this room. For a while, anyway.”
His glance shifted to her, curious and intent.
“I’m sure it won’t do for you to meet in Ryan’s office. That’s his turf,” she added, letting him know she had a few observational powers of her own. “But I can find you an empty meeting room. You’ll have to be in a wheelchair, and you’ll still be hooked up to an IV,” she cautioned, “but your nurse can help you into your street clothes.”
She tipped her head, trying to think of what she’d overlooked. Trying mostly to ignore the way her stomach fluttered when his attention lingered on her mouth before settling on her eyes. “I can set up the meeting for you myself.”
He didn’t even try to hide his skepticism. It narrowed his gaze, seeped into his voice. “Why do you want to help me with this?”
“Because you’re my patient,” she told him, unable to imagine why he looked so suspicious. “And your brothers are my friends. I think you should know they want to meet you as badly as you want to meet them. And I know you do,” she informed him easily. “You wouldn’t have come this far if you didn’t.”
“I’d rather wait until I’m on my feet before I met them. It would just be…easier. I don’t have any clothes right now, anyway. They cut off what I was wearing in Emergency and I have no idea what happened to my travel bag.”
The words rang more of excuse than reason. He had to know that.
“It’s your call,” she conceded. “Just let me know if you change your mind. If you like, I can give you a number where I can always be reached.”
Looking as if he were complying only because it was easier than not, he nudged the business card on the tray-table toward her. It had landed face down, so she wrote her pager number on the back and dropped his pen beside it.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, because the knowledge might make it easier for him, “all that matters to them is that you’re family.”
He looked at her as if he hadn’t a clue what difference that should make. He didn’t ask, either. When ten seconds ticked by and he hadn’t said a word, she stepped back from the bed. She had no problem helping people when they really needed or wanted it. The one thing she’d learned not to do was step in where she wasn’t welcome. She’d done what she could for Ryan and Tanner. And for Chase. But Chase clearly preferred to handle the matter on his own.
The only thing he’d asked of her was why she would want to help him in the first place. He’d looked at her as if she had some angle; as if he couldn’t believe she wanted to help him simply because he needed it.
“I should get back.”
“Yeah. You probably should.”
There were people waiting for her. Telling him she’d see him tomorrow, telling herself there truly was nothing more she could do, she turned away.
She was halfway across the room when she heard him murmur, “By the way, I understand it was yesterday, but happy birthday.”
He watched her pause by the door. Surprise, then a smile moved over her face. That smile was as gentle as a spring rain and just as inviting.
“Thanks,” she replied, and slipped out before he could admit just how much he wished she’d stayed.
She must have thought he wanted his privacy. The door closed behind her, leaving him isolated with the thoughts that had him feeling as if he wanted to crawl out of his skin.
He hated the thoughts churning inside him, hated the sense of uncertainty that came with them. It hadn’t been so bad when he could numb himself with the anesthetic of work. As long as he was pushing himself mentally or physically, he was fine. When he wanted to avoid the very sort of thoughts plaguing him now, he simply switched into a higher gear, demanding more of himself and, by extension, everyone around him. He’d even managed to escape for a few hours that day, hassling with the fax and working on his contracts. Now, grounded, and with his contracts finished, he had no idea how to escape.
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