M.D. Most Wanted

by Marie Ferrarella

  This was none of his business, Reese told himself. He wasn’t supposed to be getting involved in a patient’s private life. This wasn’t an underage child in a dangerous home situation, so he had no right to ask anything. He shook his head.

  “No.”

  Wallace’s natural tendency toward suspicion raised its head. He regarded the surgeon closely. “Then why the question? You’d do better to remember to keep this on a professional level, Doc.”

  Wallace’s constant vigilance was beginning to really annoy him. “Aren’t you overstepping your bounds?”

  Wallace didn’t see it that way. “The bottom line is that I protect Ms. Merriweather. From anything,” he added significantly.

  He couldn’t see London putting up with this kind of thing for very long, and he was surprised she hadn’t really rebelled before.

  “Gotta take the cotton batting off sometime, ‘Daddy,’” Reese informed the other man as he walked away.

  He was beginning to experience a great deal of sympathy for London. The phrase “poor little rich girl” was starting to take on new meaning.

  “So, how’s life with the tower set?” Lukas Graywolf asked when Reese ran into him a few minutes later on the fifth floor of the hospital, commonly thought of as the surgical floor. Reese was back making his rounds, looking in on the three patients on whom he had operated earlier in the week. All three, two men and a teenage girl, had come in after London.

  Unlike his ancestors, Lukas enjoyed beating around the bush a little. Right now Reese was really not in the mood for it. “If you’re asking about the ambassador’s daughter, I just discharged her.”

  Lukas fell into step with him. He had just come from the cardiac floor and had stopped to look in on a friend who’d had surgery forty-eight hours ago. “So you’re down here with the rest of us peasants?”

  “Just where I belong,” Reese pointed out. And then he sobered slightly. “That trip of yours to the reservation still on for next month?”

  Lukas, a full-blooded Navajo, was the first of his family to go to college, much less medical school. To placate his mother, he didn’t practice on the reservation. To placate his conscience, he returned whenever he could with other doctors in tow, all volunteering their time.

  Lukas nodded. “My mother says that by the time we get there, we’ll be seeing every living, breathing person on the reservation. Word travels faster there than any other place I’ve ever been to.”

  Reese remembered the last time they’d gone. It had been a grueling three days during which he hardly remembered sleeping. But the feeling of satisfaction had been overwhelming. “I guess I’d better stock up on some extra candy bars to keep going.”

  Lukas slanted him a disparaging look. “There’ll be hot food, like always.”

  As he recalled, Lukas’s mother was one fine cook. Thinking of the man’s mother turned Reese’s thoughts immediately toward the newest development in his friend’s life. His engagement to an FBI special agent.

  Talk about different worlds, he mused, this one took the prize. And yet it seemed to be working. He’d never seen Lukas happier.

  “What’s the almost Mrs. Graywolf going to be doing while you’re gone?” he wanted to know as he stopped by the nurses’ station.

  “She’s taking some vacation time and coming with us to help.” It was her generosity of spirit that made him love her as he did. That and the fact that she moved him the way no other woman ever had. “And to meet my mother. She’s already met my uncle,” he reminded Reese.

  Meeting a mother came under the heading of heavy-duty stuff and could definitely weigh in as an entertainment bonus. For the first time that day Reese grinned. “This promises to be interesting.”

  “That’s one way to put it.” Lukas hesitated, then confided his greatest worry, “My mother always wanted me to marry a girl from our tribe.”

  That wasn’t unusual, Reese thought. Several of his friends had parents who wanted their children to marry people of like heritage. That sort of thing had been going on since the beginning of time.

  “Mothers are like that.” He picked up three charts from the desk and began to head to the first room. Mr. Walker and his gall bladder.

  Lukas glanced at him. “Your mother wants you to marry a girl from your tribe, too?”

  His mother, bless her, was the exception to every rule, save one. “My mother would be satisfied if I just found someone from my species. She wants grandchildren.”

  Lukas was already planning on a family. Girls who looked like the woman who had won his heart. “Give her some.”

  Reese paused in front of Sidney Walker’s room. He had no idea why, but he felt a flicker of irritation. “They skip something in your training? I’m missing one important ingredient. A wife. Or at the very least, a significant other.” The fact that he would definitely marry the mother of his child if that ever came to pass was something he felt he could keep to himself.

  Lukas saw no problem with that. “Shouldn’t be hard for a dedicated young surgeon like you to find himself a wife. Word has it that the ambassador’s daughter has eyes for you.” He’d seen her being transferred from the ICU to the tower suite. “And she certainly is a looker.”

  Reese shook his head. “I’ve never seen it fail. Get a guy ready to walk up the aisle and suddenly he starts trying to get his friends to do the same thing.”

  Lukas’s expression sobered and he shook his head. “Not true.”

  “No?”

  “No,” the taller man said firmly, then deadpanned, “Since when are you my friend?”

  Reese merely laughed and shook his head, his hand on the swinging door. Mr. Walker had waited long enough. The man was itching to be sent home. “Get back to me when you have exact dates.”

  “The same goes for you.”

  One foot in the doorway, Reese paused again. “Come again?”

  “With that Merriweather woman.”

  Lukas of all people didn’t need to be told this. “She’s a patient, Graywolf.”

  “You just discharged her,” his friend reminded him. “One visit and you’re home free.”

  Reese said nothing as he went to look in on his next patient.

  But his friend’s words accompanied Reese for the remainder of the day, buzzing around his head like annoying summer flies. They followed him home, as well, at the end of the grueling day.

  And it bothered him.

  Bothered him a great deal that his thoughts kept returning to London at the oddest moments.

  He had no business thinking about her except as a patient who had made an amazingly fast recovery. There’d been nothing to learn from her case, no nugget to squirrel away for a time when he had another patient in her condition.

  Outside of the fact that her recovery was swift, there was nothing remarkable about her case.

  Other than the woman herself.

  Chapter 8

  She saw them the instant she stepped off the elevator. They were waiting for her.

  Flowers.

  Roses from an unknown sender. Big, plump ones that the doorman had brought up to her apartment and placed before the door in her absence.

  They were always the same. White roses with an unsigned card.

  This one read: “Welcome home. Remember to be careful. Someone loves you.”

  Reading the words created a chill that wrapped itself around her spine, shimmying up and down. London tried to tell herself that the roses could just as easily have come from one of her friends or from one of the myriad people she’d met during her travels both alone and as part of her father’s entourage. After all, her hospital room had been filled with flowers. Her work had her interacting with a great number of people.

  The flowers and note could have come from anyone of them.

  They could have, but they didn’t. Because anyone else would have signed the note, and this one was unsigned. Just as the other five had been.

  Her heart had almost stopped when she’d first seen the ro
ses sitting there before her door, artfully arranged in a lovely blue crystal vase, the florist’s logo on the side of the envelope. Blue, because that was her favorite color.

  Whoever was sending them had done his homework.

  Seeing the vase, Wallace had cursed under his breath. One of the things London liked about him was that he never said anything offensive loudly. He’d started to pick up the flowers—vase, card and all—ready to throw them away.

  But she had stopped him, hoping against hope that she was wrong. That the color of the roses was just a coincidence. She held her hand out for the small envelope. “No, I want to see it.”

  Wallace’s expression had registered his doubt over the wisdom of her request. “Ms. London—”

  She could tell by his tone that he was trying to change her mind, but he never argued, never tried to browbeat her the way her father did. That, too, was in his favor.

  “It might be from a friend,” she pointed out.

  “Maybe the wrong kind of friend,” was all he said politely. He watched her face for a reaction as she opened the card, ready to take his cue.

  He saw the brief moment of fear in her eyes and his heart ached.

  She slipped the note back into the envelope. “I still think it might just be someone who’s painfully shy. Not everyone who’s persistent is a stalker.”

  But even as she said it, she was beginning to believe in her own explanation less and less. The roses and unsigned notes had begun arriving six weeks ago, strategically placed where she would just happen upon them. At first it was a single rose, then two, three, swiftly blossoming into a bouquet. The vase before her held two dozen.

  Ironically, the first rose and note had arrived just as she had almost convinced her father that there was no need for the bodyguard detail that had been following her around like a string of discarded dental floss that had somehow attached itself to the heel of her shoe. But when Wallace called the ambassador and told him about the rose and the card on the doorstep, any hope she had of being rid of her bodyguards was terminated. The ambassador wouldn’t hear of it.

  Wallace put out his hand. He made her think of a gentle, trained bear.

  “Give me the card,” he requested. “I’ll see if the florist can describe whoever sent the roses.” He held the card through his handkerchief. “If he wrote the card, there’ll be fingerprints.”

  She smiled. Good old Wallace. He never gave up, even when it was hopeless. They both knew that there was a pattern being followed. There would be no identification, no prints other than those belonging to the florist or one of his or her assistants.

  “That’s what you always say, and it always turns out that someone has phoned the order in using someone’s else’s credit card and that person always turns out to be surprised because they never heard of the florist.” She told herself to enjoy the flowers and forget the implications. Wallace wouldn’t let anything happen to her, and who knew, maybe whoever was sending them was content with things the way they were. “Face it, my secret admirer’s got this thing down pat.”

  The wide shoulders rose and fell. “Everybody slips up eventually.”

  “Everybody?” she echoed, a smile curving her mouth. “Even you?”

  Wallace returned her smile, suddenly looking like a young boy instead of the seasoned professional he was.

  “Almost everyone.” He nodded at the flowers. “Want me to toss them out?”

  “Oh no, Wallace, why take it out on them? They’re beautiful. Whoever this secret admirer is,” she refused to label him anything else, even in her mind, “he’s got good taste.”

  Wallace looked at her. “He’d have to, Ms. London. He picked you.”

  Then, before she could make a response, Wallace unlocked the door for her and turned away to pick up her luggage.

  She could have sworn she’d seen him blush.

  The man was a positive dear, she thought, crossing her threshold, and she felt guilty about making his job difficult. She just wished that it didn’t conflict with her own sense of freedom.

  For now she was just going to enjoy being back in her own apartment and not think about anything else.

  Except maybe, she thought with a smile as she sank down on her sofa and kicked off her shoes, a very sexy surgeon who did a great deal to get her blood moving.

  She sighed with contentment as Wallace placed the vase on top of her baby grand.

  Keeping perpetually busy, Reese had not allowed himself to realize how much he missed seeing London until he walked into examining room number three and saw her sitting on the examining table, waiting for him, her legs dangling over the side.

  She looked like an innocent and a temptress all rolled into one.

  She looked up when he opened the door. Her eyes met his instantly, taking him prisoner. Reese had to remind himself of the boundaries that still existed, though it wasn’t easy.

  But then, she wasn’t the kind of woman who made things easy on a man.

  She just made him glad to be alive.

  He’d picked up her chart from the see-through holder on the outside of the door where his nurse had left it. Reese flipped it open now, forcing himself to concentrate on the reason London was here.

  Quickly he scanned the few notes that his nurse had made. Everything seemed to be in order.

  Closing the folder, he placed it on the counter and looked at London. “So how have you been feeling? Since there haven’t been any emergency phone calls, I take it your amazing progress has continued.”

  She’d been tempted to call him. More than once. But there’d been no reason other than she wanted to hear his deep, masculine voice. She had no symptoms to report, no flare-ups. London indulged in games on occasion, but she didn’t believe in outright lies. She supposed that did give them something in common.

  “That’s me,” she affirmed blithely. “Wonder Woman. Or is that Superwoman?”

  As far as he was concerned, she was a woman in a class all by herself. “I don’t think you need a secret identity. Or me, for that matter.” Taking her chin gently in his hand, he turned her head so that he could look at her left temple. Even that minor contact between them sent unsettling ripples undulating through him. “The cut is healing nicely, and the bruise seems to be going away.”

  She could feel her heart speeding up. The sensation intrigued her. She didn’t normally react this way to something so innocent. After all, he was just examining her, not seducing her.

  “A little makeup doesn’t hurt,” she finally managed to say.

  Reese gently rubbed his thumb along her temple to see if any telltale powder or cream came off. When he looked, there was nothing on his thumb. But a great deal was going on inside of him.

  “No,” he replied quietly, his eyes on hers, “no makeup. That’s just your body at work, taking care of you.” He continued holding her chin for another long moment. Wondering what it would be like to kiss her.

  Her nerves felt as if they were tiny beads of water on a hot skillet, bouncing here and there. It took skill to mask her reaction. “Dr. Bendenetti?”

  “Yes?”

  She smiled then, her temple moving ever so slightly against his fingers. Like a playful kitten rubbing against the hand of someone who was petting it. “Are you through with my face yet?”

  He sincerely doubted that he would ever be through with her face. It was the kind of face that haunted a man, the kind that wasn’t easily forgotten.

  Reese dropped his hand, self-conscious, though he tried not to show it. “You can have it back.”

  “My ears thank you,” she quipped. The smile that rose to her lips was nothing short of wicked. And stimulating. “So, do you want me to disrobe?”

  Oh, yes.

  The silent response bursting across his brain left him thunderstruck. He’d seen her nude during the operation, when sections of her body had been left uncovered so that he could work. When they’d thrown a fresh sheet over her, there’d been a split second when her undraped body had
been exposed. Even with the bandages and the peril of a life-and-death situation, it had registered in the recesses of his mind as damn near perfect.

  But that had been a passing, neutral observation. Her suggestion now brought an entirely different response coursing through his veins. Reminding him that he didn’t get out very much.

  He shook his head, taking a step back from the examination table.

  “Won’t be necessary. Just lift up your sweater so that I can see how your ribs are healing.”

  When she raised the left side of her sweater, a potpourri of colors met his eye. Yellow, purple, blue. But none of the colors were as bold as they had been several days after she’d been brought in.

  He allowed himself a smile. “Looks like you have a pretty good rainbow going there.”

  She looked down to the area under scrutiny, acutely aware of his nearness. He was wearing a cologne she was familiar with and liked. It was arousing.

  “All the basic colors,” she agreed. It still hurt when she shifted, but not nearly as much as it had before. “And a few not so basic.”

  Gingerly, Reese touched the area all around the bruises. “Does this hurt?”

  The ache she was experiencing intrigued her. It had very little to do with the fact that after two weeks, she was still somewhat sore to the touch and everything to do with the doctor who was touching her. London caught her breath as something hot and demanding zipped through her with an urgency she was unfamiliar with.

  “A little,” she breathed.

  Very gently, Reese dropped the sweater back into place. “That’ll pass before you know it. Everything seems to be in order.” A smile came into his eyes as he raised his gaze to her face. “Perfect, actually.”

  Shifting on the table, London adjusted her sweater slightly and looked at him. “So I don’t need to come back?”

  He was really trying to maintain the lines that were drawn between them—and getting no help from her. “Not unless you start experiencing any of those symptoms on the list I gave you.”