Not to mention damn sexy.
If she wanted to come, he had no reason to refuse her. So he shrugged and resumed walking toward the elevators. “Suit yourself.”
“I usually do.” Before he could change his mind, Cate quickly slipped through the swinging door he held for her.
His laugh was short, leaving his features completely unchanged. She caught a cynical note in his voice.
“Somehow,” he said, “that doesn’t surprise me.”
She wondered what else he thought of her and why that should matter. But it did, and that bothered her.
The elevator car that arrived a couple of moments later was empty, save for the padded drop cloths hanging on all three of the walls. It made her think of a padded cell.
“Looks like someone’s moving,” Cate commented.
“They’re bringing new equipment into the sixth-floor research lab.”
Reaching over her, Christian pressed for the third floor. Cate stepped back to get out of his way and somehow managed to do the opposite because he moved as well. She found herself with her back up against his chest, his right arm forming a semicircle around her as he reached for the keypad.
Something fluttered through her, unsettling her. Making her feel flustered for no apparent reason.
She couldn’t remember when she’d felt that way last. High school? Flustered wasn’t a word that an FBI special agent enjoyed entertaining anywhere except maybe on a Scrabble board.
Cate cleared her throat, more out of nerves than any real need. “Sorry,” she murmured.
“My fault.”
God, they sounded like characters trapped in a play about awkwardness. It wasn’t a feeling he welcomed or was all that familiar with. Maybe his hours were finally getting to him. His mother’s words, “physician, heal thyself,” mysteriously materialized in his head.
He went on the defensive. Against everything. “What are you doing here?” he asked her suddenly.
Humor had always been her way out. “Define here.” Cate turned to look at him and decided that the padded walls made the elevator car feel very small and oddly intimate. She didn’t need that right now. “Here as in the elevator, here as in the hospital, or here as in Southern California—”
He held his hand up, stopping her. He had a feeling she could go on indefinitely. And then he surprised them both by laughing. She stared at him quizzically. Or maybe she thought he was crazy. Maybe he was. A little. Not that anyone could blame him with the schedule he kept.
“My mother recently accused me of talking like a lawyer. She should have been here for your response, then she’d realize what legalese really sounds like.” He looked down at her. A strange urge wafted through him that he refused to recognize as anything but the result of lack of sleep on his part. “Okay, to be very specific, what are you doing in this elevator in this hospital, riding up to the X-ray lab with me?”
Unable to resist, Cate deadpanned, “And by that you mean—” The incredulous look on his face made her laugh and give up the ruse. “Sorry, couldn’t help myself.” Her smile broadened, filtering into her eyes. And into him. “And thank you.”
His mind was wandering again. Her smile seemed to do that to him. He struggled to pull his focus back on the subject and away from her. “For what?”
“I don’t think I’ve laughed for weeks now.” Longer than that, she thought. Maybe not even since Gabe died.
“You should,” he told her quietly. “It’s a nice sound.”
A pleased feeling sprouted from nowhere. She didn’t usually take compliments to heart. Maybe she was just needy right now, she reasoned. And maybe the good doctor wasn’t as anal as she’d originally thought. After all, Lydia seemed to like him and she had already learned that her new partner didn’t suffer fools or humorless people.
“Thank you. I guess I just actually wanted to corner you and ask how Joan was doing.” She saw the guarded look that came into his eyes. “I am allowed to do that, right? Ask how she’s doing?”
“Without my getting specific?”
“Be as vague as you like.” But she wouldn’t have been Cate if she hadn’t added, “But feel free to be specific if you have a heart.”
“I have a heart, agent—” He stopped abruptly. “What is your last name, anyway?”
“That’s my whole problem,” she reminded him. “My quest, if you will,” she added. “I’m trying to find out my last name. My real last name.”
Chapter 17
Christian knew all about quests. Because he was a Native American, a Navajo, the word had special meaning for him. A great many of his people, not to mention the members of other tribes, went on personal quests. On private journeys where no one else could follow them. To find themselves. To seek guidance and answers.
In a way, he supposed that he was still on a quest of his own. He needed to find a true purpose to his existence. The death of his wife and daughter had shattered his firm grasp on life. He knew he was a healer, had wanted to be one all his life. When Lukas preceded him into the field of medicine, it had just intensified his drive to become a doctor, even though the odds were against him and money was scarce.
But as to who and what Christian Graywolf the man was, that had somehow evolved into a mystery for him. He used to know, or at least thought he knew. But Alma and their baby’s deaths had changed all that, had him questioning everything he used to take for granted. Since he hadn’t followed them into the Great Beyond the way he’d initially wanted, there had to be a reason why he was still here.
He needed to ascertain that reason and make his peace with it.
Looking at Cate tempted him to tell her more than he should. More than he could. There was some kind of connection working between them, some kind of current traveling on a level he didn’t want to acknowledge. And yet, he could feel it, feel a pull toward this woman that seemed to transcend his will and logic.
But his training managed to overpower his inclination and the coaxing look in her eyes. For now. “Joan’s doing well.”
As well as could be expected under the circumstances, or really well? Had the woman been given a clean bill of health? Cate wondered. She hadn’t been able to get her hands on positive documentation yet.
“Despite the cancer,” she said.
It was a leading statement and he was never one to be led. “I never said—”
“No, you didn’t.” He hadn’t even hinted that Joan had cancer. She wondered how the man would have stood up in a witness stand, being grilled by a thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyer. Probably well. His honor wouldn’t have let him do anything else. She had no idea why she found that sexy, but she did. “But government work has its perks.”
He looked at her for a long moment, trying not to get lost in her eyes. Was she telling him she’d hacked into the hospital’s records? He doubted she’d go that far, but the truth was, he didn’t really know what this woman was capable of. On the other hand, she could just be fishing.
“Not legally,” he said.
He couldn’t read her expression. The desire to run the back of his hand along her cheek came out of nowhere. He banked it down.
“Sometimes there’s a fine line between legal and moral,” she countered.
The elevator had finally made its slow way up to the third floor. The doors seemed to open arthritically. Christian waited for her to get off first. The moment he stepped out of the car, the doors suddenly closed with unexpected verve. Startled, he took another step, bumping against her. A current zigzagged through him. Through her as well, he thought, because for just a moment, a stunned look flashed across her face.
He forced himself to focus on what they were discussing and not the sensations, so long dormant, that were attempting to chew their way out of a steel-caged prison. “Not according to the law,” he reminded her.
Cate made no comment as to her feelings about legality. Having him bump against her had her dealing with a warmth that had sprung out of the shadows. It worried her. She move
d the conversation to a lighter venue. “Your mother was right, Dr. Graywolf, you should have been a lawyer.”
“No, what my mother said was that if she’d wanted me to be a lawyer, she would have sent me to law school.”
They turned down a long corridor. Arrows of varying colors pointed to different departments. She felt as if she was dealing with those same arrows inside of her, pointing off in different directions. And right in the middle was this physical reaction to the man walking next to her. She had to get a grip. “Lydia tells me that your mother’s an amazing woman.”
He was proud of his mother, extremely proud, but not blind to her faults. “That’s one word for her.”
“I’ll bite, what’s another?”
Christian smiled, and Cate felt something in her stomach tighten. “In Lydia’s case, she would have probably used the word formidable.”
Cate could easily envision that. A clash between two strong-willed women who loved the same person. Especially if they came from different cultures. “I take it your mother didn’t like the fact that her new daughter-in-law wasn’t one of the Dine.”
He looked at her, impressed. Most people that he knew weren’t familiar with the name that his tribe applied to itself. “Been doing homework?”
“I just like knowing.”
He waited for more, but it didn’t come. He turned down a second corridor, then made another right. “Knowing what?”
“Just knowing,” she replied innocently. “As much as I can about everything I can.”
Most people only took in as much as they had to, no more. That made her a very unusual person. But then, he’d already sensed that. On all levels. “Knowledge is power?” he guessed.
Only if you could hold it over someone’s head, she thought, shaking her own. “I don’t care about power, I care about knowledge for its own sake.”
It was a specialized world they lived in, with only enough time to focus on very specific things. No one had a chance to even approach being a Renaissance person anymore. There was just too much to know, to learn. But he had to admit that trying was admirable. “I thought they stopped making people like you in the Middle Ages.”
She grinned. She would have never survived that era. Except for a few isolated souls, women were regarded as utterly inferior. If she’d lived back then, she would have had to have been a man. “A few of us managed to survive.”
“Good to know.”
She could tell he meant what he said. Cate had no idea how but there was something in his eyes—and he did have beautiful eyes. Almost as if a bit of the morning sky had fallen and managed to somehow channel through him.
Cate suddenly pulled herself together. What was going on here? Fantasizing about a man’s eyes was not what she was being paid for.
Christian paused in the hallway for a moment, standing before the X-ray facility where he’d sent his patient. Inside him, ethics and morality warred with each other. He bent the former to allow a little leeway to the latter.
He lowered his voice. “Look, Joan isn’t as strong as you are.”
“You think I’m strong?” Cate pressed her lips together. The man probably thought she was fishing for a compliment. She wasn’t, but he’d surprised her. The confident, strong woman she’d once been had been steadily crumbling for the last few years now. All that was left was a facade and a charade.
He smiled at her even as he attempted to distance himself from this woman who seemed to be getting to him far too quickly and on levels he wanted to keep sealed off. “Let’s say you remind me of Lydia.”
She took it on approval and it warmed her. “Nice company to be in.”
“The best.” He thought back to the beginning of this part of the conversation. They’d only been together for a few minutes and it seemed as if there were several fragments he had to pull together. “And by the way, my mother loves Lydia. Initially she was just worried that maybe Lydia was slumming.”
She couldn’t come up with a proper meaning to the word in this context. “Slumming?”
“There are women who are drawn to men they feel are socially inferior but can still serve as trophies. A theme and variation of the rich girl and the bad boy,” he elaborated. “Native American men fit under that category.”
She didn’t think of him in terms of a category. She did think of him as a threat, though. He was making her mind wander far too much. She took a deep breath, as if that would reinforce her professionalism. “You need a better crowd to hang around with.”
Christian shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Until I walk a mile in your shoes?” she guessed flippantly. She’d do him one better. “At least you know what shoes are yours. I don’t. Technically,” she added when he looked at her, confused. “Not until I hear Joan Cunningham admit that she’s my mother.”
Hers was just a matter of switching heritage. Ancestors didn’t mean all that much in the Caucasian world, not the way they did in his. Didn’t she understand that? “And will your whole way of thinking suddenly change if you find out you’re Irish instead of Polish with a drop of French blood?”
He remembered, which surprised her. The exchange between them about the people she’d thought were her family had occurred days ago, and from all appearances, the man had an extremely busy life. Yet he’d remembered that she’d thought she had a great-grandmother who’d been an impoverished French countess. Something inside of her felt pleased, although she couldn’t have explained why. Or maybe she could, and just didn’t want to.
“No, but it might open up things for me, make sense about things I’ve felt. I can’t explain it unless you’re standing in my shoes,” she told him. “And it’s Norwegian, not Irish.”
“What is?”
“Joan’s heritage.” She’d yet to piece together her father’s background. There’d been several surname changes and she was still tracing those back. “Both her parents came from Norway. First generation.”
“So you already know.”
“Like I said, ‘technically.’”
She moved out of the way as a woman and her son walked up to the door. The woman was carrying several pages in her hand and looked nervous. The little boy was whining about wanting to play. Envy shimmered through her. The boy had no idea how lucky he was.
Graywolf really wasn’t interested, Cate decided, glancing toward him. But she’d started this, so she put it as succinctly as possible for him. “It was a blood test that blew my world apart, made everything I knew about myself turn out to be a lie. It’s going to take another blood test to start putting things back together for me.”
“You said you had documents you’ve obviously tracked down.”
“Yes?”
“Aren’t they enough for you?”
How could paper take the place of flesh and blood? She didn’t want answers so much as she wanted acceptance. She wanted a family, a feeling of belonging somewhere instead of this awful rootless feeling that kept cropping up over and over again. She wasn’t meant to be a loner, and yet that was what she was right now. And she hated it.
“It’s paper,” she said simply. “There could always have been a mistake made.”
He supposed, in her place, he might have felt the same way. Angry at having been rejected, needing to hear that he was accepted. But he wasn’t in her shoes, he reminded himself. He was in his own shoes. The shoes of a doctor. Specifically Joan Cunningham’s doctor.
“I think you should let this go.”
“Could you?” she asked. “Honestly?”
She had him there.
Christian opened the outer door and walked in. The receptionist behind the counter looked up, saw his lab coat and stethoscope and nodded a greeting.
“Does Lydia know her new partner is pigheaded?” Christian asked.
“We haven’t butted heads yet, so I doubt if she suspects.” She wasn’t about to allow herself to get sidetracked. “You didn’t answer my question, Doctor. If you were me, this close to
finding out, could you back away?”
“I’m not you.”
“But if you were?” she pressed.
Christian took a breath, knowing he could either take the easy way out and lie, or answer the question and leave his patient and this woman open to further complications and interactions.
But before he could answer, the inner door to the X-ray area burst open and he heard a nurse cry out, “She’s having a seizure.”
Gut instinct told him the nurse was talking about the patient he’d sent up.
Chapter 18
Christian hurried through the doors that took him into the rear of the X-ray facility. Deceptively small-looking from the front, the interior of the department was catacombed with rooms where technicians performed various tests with a variety of imaging machines.
“Where is she?” he demanded of the nurse who’d called for help.
Seeming relieved that a doctor was there to take over, the young woman quickly turned on her heel, beckoning for him to follow. “This way.”
As he hurried behind the nurse, he realized that Cate was still right behind him.
“Stay outside.” He shot the order over his shoulder and stepped up his pace. The nurse was almost running.
Cate lengthened her stride to keep up. “The hell I will,” she retorted. “This might be the only time I get to talk to her.”
She was exactly like Lydia, Christian thought. Under different circumstances, he might have admired Cate’s grit. Right now it just annoyed him. But he had no time to waste arguing with her. He needed to get to his patient. The rooms were purposely constructed small and tight for maximum efficiency. Usually there was just enough space for the technician, a table and whatever scanning apparatus was being used on the patient. Cate was going to have to stay out by default.
“In here.” The nurse pointed to a room, stopping short of one of the doorways.
Cate peered inside and caught her breath. Two male technicians were attempting to hold down the girl she’d found in the warehouse and having a tough time of it. The girl was arching and bucking, her entire body convulsing with uncontrollable spasms.
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