“Aw, hell,” Winona said. “Stevie Richards?” As if there were more than one Stevie living on Cold Creek Road.
“Yeah. Parents called Dr. Webb right away last night. The whole family was just a mess. Dr. Webb finally kicked them all out, sat with Stevie himself after the surgery, got him calm, kept him calm…” Normally Mary Jo would never have told a patient’s business, but Winona had known her for years. She generally knew more about an accident or a kid’s problems than ever made it on a hospital’s records, so the two frequently exchanged notes and information. “Anyway, I knew he wasn’t in Stevie’s room an hour ago, but I can-”
Winona could see her hand reaching for the phone. “No, don’t call him. I don’t want to bother him if he’s with a patient. This wasn’t that important.” If Justin had been up all night, he had to be exhausted. That changed things. Her need to see him was some kind of emotional thing, but that was foolishness. Win was an ace pro at putting emotions in the bank when she didn’t absolutely have to spend them.
“Well, he’s still in the hospital, I know.” Mary Jo tapped a finger on the desk. “I’m pretty sure he was headed up to Lady Helena’s room. At least, he mentioned wanting to do a consult with Dr. Harding and Dr. Chambers. That was about a half hour ago, so I’m guessing you might have picked a good time to catch him.”
“Thanks. I owe you.”
Outside, she heard the whir of a helicopter. Royal Memorial was hardly a metropolis-size hospital, but the Burn Unit had begun earning a stellar reputation from the day it opened, and these days patients were often flown in from other cities. Still, the minute she walked into the Burn Unit, it was like wandering onto another planet. All the noise and hustle of the Emergency Room disappeared. Here, it was quiet. A gentle place, with pale blue walls and soft lighting. Nobody sneezed here, no one coughed-Winona had always figured that no one would dare. Justin would shoot anybody who came in here with a cold, because even bitsy germs could be a serious threat to a burn patient. The smells were the same old hospital smells-alcohol and bleach and antiseptics-but somehow neither the quiet nor the stinks made for a cold atmosphere. If you were a patient here, you were in big trouble. You needed peace and serious healing. And that’s how Winona always felt here, as if she were in a place designed to soothe the spirit as well as heal the body.
Somehow, for a while now, she’d intuited that Justin needed that kind of healing place as well-that he hadn’t created the Burn Unit just from studies of how a good one should be, but from something inside himself. Some sore that he hid from sight.
That thought was still on her mind when she located him.
Lady Helena’s room was supposed to be a secret for security reasons-she was one of the most seriously VIP patients the hospital had ever had-but every cop in town knew where she was. When Winona rounded the corner, she recognized Dr. Harding and Dr. Chambers. They were both standing in the doorway, and she could hear Justin’s voice from inside the room.
Dr. Chambers was the bone man. He wasn’t the chattiest guy in town, but Winona had taken him busted-up kids before, knew he was an okay guy.
Dr. Harding was a woman and impossible not to like. Her specialty was burns, and the compassion in her eyes created its own kind of beauty. Justin never took credit for a damn thing, but Winona’d heard through the grapevine that he’d stolen Dr. Harding from Boston because of her innovative work with burn patients.
Winona hesitated at the far end of the hall, wary of coming closer and intruding. Because the town rehashed every ounce of news related to the plane crash every morning at the Royal Diner, she basically knew what had happened to Lady Helena. Helena had suffered burns as well as a severely broken ankle in the crash. Justin had been a consult on her medical team from the get-go, even though she wasn’t in his direct hands yet. The break had to be healed and so did the burns, before he could do plastic surgery for the scars. Winona remembered exactly how beautiful Lady Helena was, how graceful and elegant she’d come across to everyone at the Texas Cattleman’s Club gala. Now, her voice inside the hospital room was pale and groggy and frightened.
“When can I go home?”
“I’m afraid you’re stuck with us for a while. Weeks yet. But I promise, we’ll do our best to keep you entertained,” Dr. Harding teased gently.
“I’ll have use of my hand? My leg again?”
The two doctors in the hallway exchanged glances. “We believe so, Helena.” And then they walked out, down the hall in the other direction, leaving Justin alone with Lady Helena.
“Doctor Webb, what am I going to look like? Please tell me the truth. No one else seems willing to answer a direct question. I can’t deal with the truth if I don’t know what it is. How bad are the scars going to be?”
Right then, Winona almost spun around and took off. She completely changed her mind about talking to Justin. It would wait. It was just selfishness, her wanting to see him, to be with him. And it was now obvious that he’d had a harrowing night and was having an even tougher day-Lady Helena’s careful, softly voiced questions could darn well break any woman’s heart-and Winona just couldn’t imagine bugging him right now.
Still, she lingered, just for a few more moments. Not to bug him. Not even to wait for him. But even though she couldn’t make out his specific words to Helena, she could hear him talking, the cadence of his voice like the refrain of an old love song, gentle, familiar, soothing. And then he was striding out, his head bent as he stuck a pen in his white hospital coat, the smile for his patient still plastered on his face…but that smile disappeared the instant he moved out of Helena’s sight.
He clearly believed that he was alone in the hall for that second. Winona could see those proud shoulders of his sag, the starch go out of his posture. His good-looking face was darn near chalk-white from exhaustion.
There was no way she was walking away from him.
“Justin?”
Even before his head whipped around at the sound of her voice, he had his normal expression back in place. His spine automatically straightened; his mouth tipped in that Sam Elliot, lazy, almost-smile; the virile vitality clipped back in his step. And those gorgeous eyes looking her over were-naturally-opaque as far as revealing any of his own feelings.
“Sheesh, Win. You prowling the bad neighborhoods again, looking for trouble?”
That was the whole problem with his teasing. She either wanted to smack him-or kiss him. The bottom line, as she was coming to realize, was that no matter what, she had always been tempted to touch him. How could she have failed to notice that for so long? “You had to know I’d track you down, after what you did,” she said severely.
“What, what? I didn’t do anything.”
“Don’t try that innocent routine on me, Doc. You’re in trouble-and most people know better than to get in trouble with a cop. It’s time to face the music. Exactly what do you still have to do this afternoon?”
“Well, I’m done with patients for the day, but I think I was supposed to meet with some insurance woman this afternoon. And I’ve got a good two hours of paperwork.” He shot her a wayward grin. “I can cancel that stuff. I’d rather get in trouble with you any old time. But I have to admit, Win, I can’t promise to be any kind of great company. I’m a little on the tired side.”
A little? That wayward grin couldn’t fool her in a month of Sundays. The more she studied him, the more she realized that he’d be lucky to drive himself home without falling asleep at the wheel. “Well, I promise, I only want a few minutes of your time-”
He frowned abruptly, as if suddenly remembering some terribly serious thing. “Actually, I need to talk to you. Serious talk. In fact, I wanted to call you much earlier, but stuff kept happening at the hospital and I just couldn’t get free to make the call. I’m glad we ran into each other-”
Winona was afraid it was weddings he wanted to talk about. That wasn’t going to happen. Now that she realized how completely wasted he was, his fate was sealed as far as how this encounter was going to go. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. Let’s swing by your house. Grab a sandwich. We can talk while you’re eating and then I’ll hightail it home.”
His eyebrows raised. “That plan works great for me, but it doesn’t seem very convenient for you. Since when do you want to go to my place?”
Since never. She’d been there; she knew where he lived, but she’d never felt comfortable alone with him in his house. It wasn’t a matter of not trusting Justin-in any way-but of always feeling edgy with the feelings he stirred in her. But right now none of that mattered. The only issue was getting Justin fed, comfortable, and asleep, which she figured would be a lot easier to manipulate on his own turf.
She followed his Porsche, which gave her a chance to use her cell phone to call Myrt. “How late can you
