Holding the baby protectively close, she tiptoed toward the living room-where she already knew the intruder was, from the violent roaring sound. Sure enough, there was a woman’s rump, bent over her couch, pushing the vacuum cleaner beneath it.
As if finally sensing there was someone else in the house, the woman suddenly jumped, whirled, slapped a hand on her chest and turned off the roaring vacuum at the same time.
“Don’t be frightened,” Winona said warmly. “I can help you with this. I know there has to be a recovery program for cleaners. There is for every other problem. If nothing else, I can be your support group. Trust me, I can teach you to live with dirt. I know. I do it every day-”
The woman dropped the hand from her chest and let out a guffaw…followed by a second guffaw and then a full belly laugh. “Justin always said you were full of the devil. You do remember me, don’t you? Myrt?”
“Of course I do.” Even if all the clues hadn’t come together, Winona would have recognized Justin’s housekeeper when she finally got a good look.
It wasn’t as if they really knew each other, but Myrt wasn’t the kind of person anyone forgot. The jeans and T-shirt fit the figure of a thirty-year-old, but the worn, leathered face looked more like sixty, creased with both life and laugh lines. Huge silver earrings dangled from her ears when she leaned forward to catch a glimpse of Angel.
“So that’s our baby, huh? Just for the record-I had four of my own. And seven grandkids now. But I hardly get to see the children. Everybody moved so far away with their jobs and all. I get so hungry to hold a baby.”
Winona was slowly picking up the picture of what was going on here-but she wasn’t completely sure. “Our baby,” she echoed.
“Uh-huh.” Warm brown eyes met hers. Winona was smart, but she had a bad feeling that Myrt was smarter. “Justin said you had your hands way too full, trying to work full-time and take care of the baby, too. Said you were getting worn out. His house is big, but it’s nothing to clean, pretty much because he’s never there. Truthfully, he has so much room that it would be much easier to set up you and the baby at his place-”
“Whoa.” Winona could feel her knees giving way.
“-but it doesn’t matter to me. He’s paying me a ton-which, of course, is only half of what I deserve-because I’m the best grandma you’ll ever hire. I bake like a dream. Never lose patience with a child. And I love to clean-”
“You’re frightening me,” Winona said baldly.
“Now, now. Pretty darn silly for you to look a gift horse in the mouth, isn’t it? You need the help. I’m here. And Justin’s paying my salary, so it’s not like you have to worry about it. I can sleep over any time you want-”
“Whoa. Double whoa.”
“Truthfully, I wish my nights weren’t so free, but since Ted died…well, there’s still heat in this old furnace, but I just can’t seem to look at another man. I’ve tried. The point being, though, that I can stay all night with our Angel if you need me to. It’s no problem at all. Truthfully, it’s better for the baby to be in her own environment than taken out to a baby-sitter’s. Now, let’s get down to the important stuff. How often does she want a bottle? When’s her bath time? Her fussy time?” Myrt waggled her fingers, signaling that she wanted Winona to fork over the baby.
Winona carefully handed her Angel, then stood as rigid as a school principal, watching every movement the other woman made. She didn’t hold Angel the way Winona did. Didn’t pat her exactly the same way, either. Nothing was remotely perfect. But the woman was clearly enamored big-time the instant she touched the baby, and Angel was cooing right back.
“Myrt?”
“Hmm?” The woman had dropped the vacuum cleaner and sat down with the little one. Clearly work and cleaning were forgotten. Winona’s respect for her upped ninety notches.
“She gets cranky around dinner. Actually, it’s no set time. Just whenever I’m trying to eat. And other than that, she almost never cries unless she’s got a good reason. On food, though, she wants a bottle every four and a half hours, and I do mean pronto-and she’s a minute overdue right now.”
“Well, then, I’ll get it. We’re going to have a great time together, aren’t we, precious?” Myrt seemed to have lost all interest in paying attention to Winona.
“Well, I don’t want to leave you, but as soon as she gets this bottle, she’s likely to drop off for almost a two-hour nap. And I really need to have a talk with Justin. Would you mind if I took off for just a bit?”
“Well, of course not, dear. That’s what I’ve been telling you. I’m here for you. And the baby.”
Winona grabbed her jacket and car keys and hightailed it outside. As soon as she climbed in her car, she cell-phoned her boss so Wayne would know she wouldn’t be at her desk for a while.
Possibly “a while” was an understatement, she mused, as she shot out of the driveway. When she caught up with Justin…well, when she caught up with Justin, she wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do to him.
But she was going to do it good.
Seven
When Winona pushed open the door to Royal Memorial Hospital, her pulse was hurtling at a hundred miles an hour. Heaven knew why she was so nervous when the chances were slim that she’d even find Justin. He could easily be tied up for hours in surgery, and it wasn’t as if she would ever interrupt him when he was busy with patients.
She didn’t have to see him this instant, Winona kept telling herself. For darn sure he shouldn’t have sicced Myrt on her without asking permission, but being good to her was hardly a murdering offense. She could yell at him about that any old time, and, yes, it troubled her that they still hadn’t settled the proposal question, but that was part and parcel of the same problem. Something was wrong with Justin. He was behaving in very odd, very troubling ways. She wanted-needed-to get to the root of all this nonsense, but grabbing him at work for a snatched conversation was never going to resolve any of that.
She should be home. Or at her own work. Anywhere but clipping down the hall toward the Plastic Surgery/Burn Unit hell-bent for leather-and still she kept bounding along at the same breakneck pace. Although a number of familiar faces called out a “Hey, Winona!” she avoided making eye contact or anything but a brusque return greeting. Everyone in town knew she was a cop, and she roamed the hospital floors at all hours without anyone ever saying boo, so she had no fear that anyone would stop or question her. Nerves were hammering on her conscience, though. She knew perfectly well that she had no excuse in God’s great earth to be here. She just wanted to see him.
And for some unknown reason, she wanted to see him now. Not later. To yell at him for being manipulative and bossy, she told herself virtuously.
But even having given herself a good, sound, self-righteous excuse didn’t seem to stop her heart from hammering.
She paused at the nurses’ desk right inside the Plastic Surgery unit. “You haven’t seen Dr. Webb, have you?” she asked a nurse in ice-blue scrubs with Mary Jo on her chest badge.
The blonde recognized Winona with a tired smile. “He’s been in here off and on since last night. You know, the accident with the two teenagers on Cold Creek Road? Stevie really got his face cut up.”
“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 b
een 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 stay?”
“I told you, I told you. All night, if you need me to. Any time.”
“Well…how’s Angel?”
“Just like her namesake.”
“Being good?”
“Happy as a clam.”
Winona’s worry nerves detangled. “Well, the thing is, I just caught up with Justin and he’s really whipped. What I’d like to do is take him home and make sure he gets some rest, but I know he won’t go along if I tell him that plan. I can’t believe I’m going to be at his place for very long, but I just can’t give you an exact time when I’ll be home.”
“So this is easy. I know where you are, I’ll call you if I need you. Otherwise, take the evening off, mom. Go play. If you’re not back by the time I get tired, I’ll just bunk down in the spare bedroom and leave the door cracked so I can hear the baby. Now, do you have a key?”
Winona blinked at the phone. Even her foster mothers had never asked if she’d had a key. Myrt was like having an honorary mother-whether she wanted one or not.
But her humor suffered a fadeout when she pulled up behind Justin in his drive. Her house was only a couple miles from here, but it might as well be another universe. His place was white stucco with a Spanish red-tile roof, two stories tall with pillars framing the front door. A covered patio stepped down in layers to water gardens. Her yard had a clothesline. His had a marble fountain and a jetted pool.
When he unlocked the door, he ushered her in first. Possibly it was the sudden silence that made her so oddly nervous. She scuffed off her jacket, pushed off her shoes, tried to brazen past her nerves with some normal conversation. “It’s been a while since I’ve been here. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been upstairs-how many rooms up there?”
“Four bedrooms and three baths, I think-but I can’t swear to that,” he said wryly. “I haven’t been up there myself since I can remember.”
She shot him a bemused smile. “And that’s another question I never got around to asking you before-why on earth did you buy such a big house?” The downstairs alone was a maze of room choices. Past the dining and living areas were a den and office, a sunroom and game room, and somewhere on the first floor was the master bedroom as well.
Millionaire M.D. Page 10
