She balled up the overlong hem of the hospital tee-shirt they’d given her to wear, her other shirt being too stained with blood to be saved. Squeezing the cotton in her hands, she eased her shoulders back and stretched her chin up as much as she dared without straining the bandage on her throat. She would need every ounce of self-control to get through the next few minutes. She had a pretty good idea of what was coming. But in life, as in science, there were some variables that couldn’t be controlled.
“Jenny?”
A quiver tugged at her chin but she smoothed it still. He’d probably meant the gentleness of his voice to be kind. She took it as a sign he was trying to soothe her before dropping the bad news.
“Hey, Logan.” She forced her voice even as she turned around. “I didn’t expect you quite so early.”
Logan stood just inside the doorway. He looked more like Dr. Macallister than the man she’d fallen in love with. He’d slung a suit jacket, the same dark blue as his crisply-creased pants, casually over a shoulder. He’d combed his overlong hair back. The sexy scruff of beard she loved had been neatly trimmed. The faint, musky scent of ambergris drifted across the gulf that separated them.
The doctor was in the house.
Perhaps it was better that he looked like a stranger.
“You sound better, Jenny.” He took a slow step closer and tossed the suit jacket on the bed. “How do you feel?”
“Fine.” As fine as a woman with a broken heart could be. “I’ve made a miracle recovery, so the doctors tell me.”
A frown knotted between his brows. He made no move closer. Her heart beat fast in her tightening chest. She made an effort to breathe slow and kept her gaze steady. It was an instinct, this coolness. It was the only way she knew how to protect herself.
A muscle moved in his cheek. “Are you ready to leave?”
“I can’t. Not yet.” She dropped the hem bunched in her hands. “Dr. Nguyen said she’d come by to sign the discharge papers by noon. Then you have to wheel me out in that.”
He turned to the wheelchair waiting by the door and looked the clear plastic bag on the seat. It held her post-hospital instructions and a new prescription.
He said, “Is that the adrenaline auto-injector?”
“The allergist prescribed it yesterday. Just in case I’m caught in the woods and don’t have Dr. Logan Macallister around to save my life.”
His brow crumpled as he ducked his head. He frowned at his tasseled shoes. Her chest squeezed as she remembered running her fingers through all that thick, dark hair. If only she hadn’t been stung by a bee. If only she hadn’t gone into anaphylactic shock. But life wasn’t a sterilized test tube, into which she could try out a thousand different possibilities. She’d never wanted to be the trigger that revived all of Logan’s traumatizing memories, but she knew he couldn’t bear being with her now, when every glimpse of her scar would bring him pain.
He said, “I don’t want your gratitude, Jenny.”
She ran her fingers up her arms, rippling with goosebumps, crossing her forearms to shield her heart.
“I did what I was trained to do.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “The skills kicked in like a reflex—”
“They’re epic skills, Logan.”
“And yet it’s not gratitude I want from you.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Gratitude fogs things up. It crosses emotional wires.”
“I’m not confusing gratitude for anything else.” I loved you before you saved my life, can’t you see that? “Dr. Nguyen said you were the best possible hiking companion I could have had in this situation.”
“That’s an exaggeration.” He balled his hands into fists. “Any resident could have done that field surgery.”
Maybe so, but Jenny had heard the greetings in the hall before Logan had entered the room, and the whispers among the nurses, and Dr. Nguyen’s praise. Logan was too humble to brag.
He sighed. “I would have told you everything eventually.”
“I know. But we only had two weeks together. We didn’t really have a chance to get to know one another—”
“That’s not true.” He looked up sharply. His green gaze pierced right to her back-collar tag. “I know you well enough, Jenny. I should have run to you when you asked.”
Her heart turned over.
“You were so drugged up that night. So vulnerable. I couldn’t say what I need to say, not when you were in such a state.”
She flinched with every word. How had he slipped under her skin so quickly?
“There was something I had to do before I saw you.” He rocked back on his heels. “It couldn’t wait, not another minute.”
“Logan.” She licked her lips. “You don’t owe me any explanations.”
“Like hell I don’t.” His jaw tightened. “I found a position today.”
She shook her head, not understanding.
“A job. In emergency medicine.” He gripped the rail at the end of the bed, his knuckles white. “Late last night, instead of coming here, I drove to see an old friend. Someone I used to work with at Doctors Without Borders.”
Her pulse jumped. He was going back?
“This friend runs a large emergency room.” He shifted his shoulders under the crisp cotton of the oxford shirt. “He offered me a permanent position before my butt hit the interview chair.”
There were the larger implications here, but she could hardly get past the details. “That’s why you’re wearing a suit today.”
He glanced down at himself, as if confused to find himself dressed for an office. “I drove back from the interview this morning. I didn’t have time to change.”
Her head swam. “Things happen fast around you, Logan.”
“Things sure happened fast between us, Jenny.”
Lightning-bolt fast.
