Keeper of the Bride

trauma room. “I was right.”

“Nina, you can’t just take off without telling me! I had no idea if you were all right.”

She regarded him with an expression of quiet wonder, but didn’t say a thing.

“Are you listening to me?” he said.

“Yes,” she replied softly. “But I don’t believe what I’m hearing. You actually sound scared.”

“I wasn’t scared. I was just — I mean—” He shook his head in frustration. “Okay, I was worried. I didn’t want something to happen to you.”

“Because I’m your witness?”

He looked into her eyes, those beautiful, thoughtful eyes. Never in his life had he felt so vulnerable. This was a new feeling for him and he didn’t like it. He was not a man who was easily frightened, and the fact that he had experienced such fear at the thought of losing her told him he was far more deeply involved than he’d ever intended to be.

“Sam?” She reached up and touched his face.

He grasped her hand and gently lowered it. “Next time,” he instructed, “I want you to tell me where you’re going. It’s your life at stake. If you want to risk it, that’s your business. But until Spectre’s under arrest, your safety’s my concern. Do you understand?”

She withdrew her hand from his. The retreat was more than physical; he could feel her pulling away emotionally as well, and it hurt him. It was a pain of his own choosing, and that made it even worse.

She said, tightly, “I understand perfectly well.”

“Good. Now, I think you should go back to the hotel where we can keep an eye on you tonight.”

“I can’t leave. They need me here.”

“I need you, too. Alive.”

“Look at this place!” She waved toward the waiting area, crowded with the injured. “These people all have to be examined and treated. I can’t walk out now.”

“Nina, I have a job to do. And your safety is part of that job.”

“I have a job to do, too!” she asserted.

They faced each other for a moment, neither one willing to back down.

Then Nina snapped, “I don’t have time for this,” and she turned back toward the trauma room.

“Nina!”

“I’ll do my job, Sam. You do yours.”

“Then I’m sending a man over to keep an eye on you.”

“Do whatever you want.”

“When will you be finished here?”

She stopped and glanced at the waiting patients. “My guess? Not till morning.”

“Then I’ll be back to get you at 6:00 a.m.”

“Whatever you say, Detective,” she retorted and pushed into the trauma room. He caught a fleeting glimpse of her as she rejoined the surgical team, and then the door closed behind her.

I’ll do my job. You do yours, she’d told him.

She’s right, he thought. That’s exactly what I should be focusing on. My job.

From his car phone, he put in a call to Officer Pressler and told him to send his relief officer down to Maine Med ER, where he’d be the official baby-sitting service for the night. Then, satisfied that Nina was in good hands, he headed back to the bomb scene.

It was eleven-thirty. The night was just beginning.

NINA MADE IT THROUGH the next seven hours on sheer nerve. Her conversation with Sam had left her hurt and angry, and she had to force herself to concentrate on the work at hand — tending to the dozens of patients who now filled the waiting area. Their injuries, their discomfort, had to take priority. But every so often, when she’d pause to collect her thoughts or catch her breath, she’d find herself thinking about Sam, about what he’d said.

I have a job to do. And your safety is part of that job.

Is that all I am to you? she wondered as she signed her name to yet another patient instruction sheet. A job, a burden? And what had she expected, anyway? From the beginning, he’d been the unflappable public official, Mr. Cool himself. There’d been flashes of warmth, of course, even the occasional glimpse of the man inside, a man of genuine kindness. But every time she thought she’d touched the real Sam Navarro, he’d pull away from her as though scalded by the contact.

What am I to do with you, Sam? she wondered sadly. And what was she to do with all the feelings she had for him?

Work was all that kept her going that night. She never even noticed when the sun came up.

By the time 6:00 a.m. rolled around, she was so tired she could scarcely walk without weaving, but at last the waiting room was empty and the patients all sent home. Most of the ER staff had gathered, shell-shocked, in the employee lounge for a well-deserved coffee break. Nina was about to join them when she heard her name called.

She turned. Sam was standing in the waiting room.

He looked every bit as exhausted as she felt, his eyes bleary, his jaw dark with a day’s growth of beard. At her first sight of his face, all the anger she’d felt the night before instantly evaporated.

My poor, poor Sam, she thought. You give so much of yourself. And what comfort do you have at the end of the day?

She went to him. He didn’t speak; he just looked at her with that expression of weariness. She put her arms around him. For a moment they held each other, their bodies trembling with fatigue. Then she heard him say, softly, “Let’s go home.”

“I’d like that,” she said. And smiled.

She didn’t know how he managed to pilot the car to his house. All she knew was that a moment after she dozed off, they were in his driveway, and he was gently prodding her awake. Together they dragged themselves into the house, into his bedroom. No thoughts of lust crossed her mind, even as they undressed and crawled into bed together, even as she felt his lips brush her face, felt his breath warm her hair.

She fell asleep in his arms.

SHE FELT SO WARM, so perfect, lying beside him. As if she belonged here, in his bed.

Sam gazed through drowsy eyes at Nina, who was still sound asleep. It was already afternoon. He should have been up and dressed hours ago, but sheer exhaustion had taken its toll.

He was getting too old for this job. For the past eighteen years, he’d been a cop through and through. Though there were times when he hated the work, when the ugly side of it seemed to overwhelm his love for the job, he’d never once doubted that a cop was exactly what he was meant to be. And so it dismayed him now that, at this moment, being a cop was the furthest thing from his mind.

What he wanted, really wanted, was to spend eternity in this bed, gazing at this woman. Studying her face, enjoying the view. Only when Nina was asleep did he feel it was safe to really look at her. When she was awake, he felt too vulnerable, as though she could read his thoughts, could see past his barriers, straight to his heart. He was afraid to admit, even to himself, the feelings he harbored there.

As he studied her now, he realized there was no point denying it to himself: he couldn’t bear the thought of her walking out of his life. Did that mean he loved her? He didn’t know.

He did know this was not the turn of events he’d wanted or expected.

But last night he’d watched her at work in the wreckage of the bomb site, and he’d admired a new dimension of Nina, one he saw for the first time. A woman with both compassion and strength.

It would be so easy to fall in love with her. It would be such a mistake.

In a month, a year, she’d come to see him for what he was: no hero with a badge, but an everyday guy doing his job the best way he knew how. And there she’d be in that hospital, working side by side with men like Robert Bledsoe. Men with medical degrees and houses on the water. How long would it take for her to grow weary of the cop who just happened to love her?