by Julie Miller
“Thank you, sir. I might run into you at the ME’s office then. Here’s a clean set of scrubs you can change into.” Dr. Shaughnessy handed that bag to Lucy. “Take your time, ma’am. Unfortunately, we’re having a run of business this afternoon. I’d better go get my next assignment. Have a good one.”
“Thanks, John.” Before the curtains had even closed behind the intern, Lucy was squiggling off the edge of the table. “I’ve been here way too long. I keep thinking about how everything would be different if I’d just gotten Diana to talk to me.”
When her toes hit the floor, she swayed and Niall reached across the table to steady her. But she put her hand up to keep him away.
“It’s a bump on the head and a couple of stitches.” Technically, Niall had counted seven. But if she still wanted to keep some distance between them the way she had after that kiss upstairs and battle of wills outside, he’d respect the patient’s wish. After he retreated a step, she dumped out the bag with the scrubs onto the exam table and pulled out a pair of white cotton socks. “I’ve just been off my feet too long. I need to get the circulation going again. Not to mention that it’s freezing in here. I think my blood stopped flowing half an hour ago.”
When she bent over to slide the first sock on, the gown split open at the back and gave him a clear view of her underwear clinging to the curves of her hips and bottom. He remembered those panties from the laundry she’d been folding late one night. They were a pretty lavender color, a few shades lighter than the polish on her toes, and Niall’s groin tightened with an unexpected response that was as potent as it was ill timed. Niall politely turned away from the tempting sight. He needed something to focus on besides the way Lucy McKane was transforming his well-ordered world into a topsy-turvy mess.
“Tell me about the knife,” he stated, maybe a little more harshly than he intended. “Tell me everything.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Lucy went back to dressing and Niall went back to being a medical examiner with ties to KCPD’s crime lab. He heard about the silver car that she’d seen in no-man’s-land and again just a block from their condo building—and yes, she thought it could be the same car that had nearly run her down last night. She told him about the brute in the elevator and the long knife he’d carried that could explain the distinct pattern of her head wound. When Niall thought he had his physiological and emotional reactions well in check again, he pulled a narrow file from his kit and scraped the dried blood from beneath her fingernails and labeled it as evidence. In the back of his mind, he kept thinking how much easier it was to process a dead body in the lab than to deal with the scents of rain and blood and antiseptic on a living person. On a friend. On a woman who was the most alive person he’d ever dealt with.
On Lucy McKane.
Niall shook his head, warding off the uncharacteristic anger that simmered in his veins when he snapped a picture of the ugly bruise on her elbow and she told him how she’d followed the trail of blood the same way he had to track down the man who’d assaulted her and warned her to mind her own business. But when she raised her arms to slip into the pink scrub top, his temper boiled over. “Hold it.”
Lucy froze at the sharpness in his voice and instinctively hugged the top to her waist. “What now?”
It wasn’t the smooth curves of her lavender bra that had caught his attention, but the fist-size bruise turning all shades of purple framed between her breasts that had him circling around the exam table to stand directly in front of her. “Did he do that to you, too?”
A rosy blush dotted her cheeks as she tilted her face up to his. She turned away and lifted the shirt up over her head again before answering. “I suppose so. On the elevator when he shoved me back inside to get away.”
Niall raised his camera. “I’d better get a shot of that, too.”
She whirled around on him. “I am not a crime scene!”
“It’s what I know how to do, Lucy. It’s how I can help.” Okay, so maybe going on seventy-two hours with hardly any sleep was giving him a short fuse he’d never had before, but the tear she swiped off her cheek and the soft gasp of pain wasn’t helping him clear his head, either. “Apparently, I can’t keep you from getting hurt, but I can analyze the size of his hand and the weapon he carries. If I can get a clean sample of his blood off you and your clothes, maybe I can identify him. If I get DNA and he’s in the system, I can send Duff and Keir to arrest him, and he won’t be able to hurt you or threaten Tommy and Diana anymore.”
“And if he’s not?”
Niall slipped his fingers into his hair and scratched at the frustration jamming his thoughts. “I’m not up to that part of the plan yet.”
“What plan is that?”
He threw out his hands and glared down at her. “The one where I keep you and Tommy safe and stuff like this doesn’t happen.”
Had that outburst really just come from him?
A gentle touch to his jaw snapped him out of his roiling thoughts. Lucy’s lips were almost smiling when she reached up to stroke the spiky strands of hair off his forehead. He calmed at her tender caress. “I’ll be okay, Niall. I’ve been hurt worse than this.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” There. He’d admitted it out loud. Maybe he’d just admitted it to himself. He was feeling. The visual of Lucy’s injury and the touch of her hand made him feel emotions that were unexpected, and clearly more powerful than he was equipped to handle.
Yet with a smile he craved as much as her touch, she seemed to take every mood swing in stride. “You know, I was processed like this when I was seventeen. Back in Falls City.”
“Processed? You were assaulted?” Parts of his brain were starting to click again. She’d mentioned something about her past earlier. “By the boyfriend your mother wanted you to stay with?”
She nodded, but he didn’t miss the way her lips pressed together in a taut imitation of a smile, or the way her hands slipped across her belly and she hugged herself.
“Roger Campbell. He got pissed off when I refused to have sex with him. Apparently, my mother had promised him that I would. It was her solution for getting him to take me back, I suppose.” Opening up a dead body never made Niall feel physically ill the way Lucy’s matter-of-fact recitation of the crime against her did. “It was a shaky relationship to begin with. I didn’t want to take a step I couldn’t turn back from. To be honest, I didn’t want to end up like Alberta—so dependent on a man to take care of her that she didn’t care what it cost her.” Her shoulders lifted with a weary sigh. “It cost me too much, anyway. That’s why I can’t have kids, you know. He broke a couple of ribs, damaged my...” She rubbed her hand across her flat belly. “I had to have emergency surgery.”
Every one of Duff’s rich vocabulary of curses raced through Niall’s head. But only two words came out. “I’m sorry.”
For a lot of things. Lucy was a natural caregiver. She should have scads of children and dozens of relatives to share her life with. That this woman should have been so used, so hurt by the people who were supposed to love her, gave him a clearer understanding of her obsession with tracking down her foster daughter and saving her. He’d redouble his efforts, as well. Maybe then she’d believe that she was not alone in her quest to do whatever was best for Tommy.
“It’s not the memory, you know. It happened. Life goes on. Roger went to prison and I moved to Kansas City. But I didn’t want to ever be in an ER again, feeling so useless, like there’s not a single thing I can do to help myself. Especially when I know there’s someone I can help. Someone who needs me. I want to go see Tommy and make sure he’s all right. At least I could be taking care of him right now. That would be something useful I could do to help Diana. It’s important to feel useful, isn’t it?” Lucy paused for a moment. “Oh. And the lightbulb just went on. I think I understand where you’re coming from now.” She reached for the hem
of the scrub shirt. “Take your picture.”
Niall curved his grip around both her hands, stopping her. She wasn’t a DB on an exam table at the lab. She was a living, breathing, beautiful woman with fears and goals and needs he should be addressing instead of falling back on the procedures and science that only made him feel comfortable and in control—not necessarily better.
Her fingers trembled within his grasp, drawing his attention to her icy skin and the sea of goose bumps sweeping up both forearms. Instead of taking the photo, he put away the camera and pulled his ME’s jacket from his kit. It was little more than a windbreaker with a knit cotton lining, but he slipped it over her shoulders anyway, wanting to shelter her—no, needing to protect her—from at least one thing in this world that had or could ever hurt her.
“You are the coldest woman I’ve ever met.” When she arched a questioning eyebrow, he realized how that must have sounded. “Temperature-wise. Not personality-wise. Not at all. You know, cold hands, warm...”
“No wonder your brothers tease you. You’re such a straight man, Niall.” Her expression had changed from accusation to a full-blown grin, and he felt the muscles around his own mouth relaxing. “That’s a wonderful compliment. Thank you.” She slid her arms into the sleeves and rolled up the cuffs to expose her hands. “This does feel better. I swear, you’re as warm to the touch as I am cold all the time.” This time, she was the one to draw back in embarrassment.
Niall chuckled and pulled the collar of the jacket together at her neck. “It’s nice to know I can offer something you appreciate.”
She curled her fingers around his wrists, keeping them linked together. “I appreciate everything you’re doing for me—for us—Diana and Tommy and me. I just need you to remember this is a team effort. You don’t get to say whether or not I help. I’m going to.”
“Understood. But you are a steep learning curve, woman.” He dropped his forehead to rest against hers, carefully avoiding her injury. “And I just need you to understand that, in your efforts to save the world—”
“Just my little part of it.”
Niall conceded the point, but not the entire negotiation. Her little part of the world seemed to be a far too dangerous one for his liking. “I need you and Tommy to stay in one piece.”
Lucy tilted her green eyes beneath his, looking straight up into his probing gaze. “Speaking of Tommy—I know he’s only a couple of weeks old, but I think babies can sense separation. He’s already lost contact with his mother. I don’t want to be gone so long that he thinks we’ve left him, too.”
He could feel her trembling, an indication that the hospital’s cold air was still affecting her. Cupping his hands over her shoulders, Niall rubbed up and down her arms, instilling what warmth he could before reluctantly raising his head and breaking contact with her. “I don’t want that, either. Let’s go upstairs and check in with him. I want to find out what Dad decided about Grandpa, too.”
“And then we’ll go to the lab?”
Niall gathered the evidence bags he’d labeled and stowed them inside his kit. “I think I’d better take you home so you can rest. You’ll at least want to put on some of your own things.”
A hand on his arm stopped his work. “I need answers more than I need sleep or clean clothes. I can watch Tommy, and we’ll stay out of your way while you work. I have a seriously bad feeling that there’s a clock ticking somewhere in Diana’s life. That she doesn’t have a lot of time. I need to know why she was with that man. Maybe the blood you found will tell us who he is. Diana said I was the only person she could count on. I need to know why she keeps running away from me instead of allowing me to help.”
Taking Lucy and Tommy to the lab with him wasn’t the wisest course of action. With them there it would be a challenge to focus on all the tests he needed to start running. But it was what Lucy wanted.
“Okay.”
She picked up his camera and handed it to him, helping him finish packing. “Oh, and never threaten to kiss me again, okay, smart guy? I know relationships are a challenge for you. At least, I think that’s what I’m learning about you. Don’t overthink it when you’re attracted to someone. If you’re afraid for me or worried about Tommy or your grandfather and you have that raw feeling inside that you don’t quite understand, finding a logical explanation won’t make it go away. All that does is distance you from your real feelings. If you want to kiss me, go for it. Don’t make it some little scientific experiment and don’t do it to shut me up. Either kiss me because you think there might be a special connection between us or don’t do it at all.”
And with that intriguing little life lesson hanging in the air for him to analyze, Lucy walked out of the ER, leaving Niall to gather up his equipment and follow.
Chapter Seven
Answers were not to be found at the crime lab.
Lucy watched while Niall made phone calls and ran tests and accessed computers, but apparently forensic science, while it worked miracles in many ways, moved at a much slower pace than she expected. Results were coming in due time, Niall promised. But his patient attention to detail made her feel as if she was suffering from ADHD. Or perhaps, with Tommy asleep and Niall running tests and consulting with the CSIs and lab technologists in the building, while Lucy had nothing to do but pace, she only felt useless and isolated and not able to do one small thing to help find Diana. Even knitting was out of the question, since everything in her bag had gotten soaked with the rain and would need time to dry out before she could finish Tommy’s cap or start any other project.
New locks for Lucy’s front door couldn’t be found, either, at least not until the entire door frame could be replaced. Which meant another night of sleeping on Niall’s couch, fixing breakfast together, changing the dressing on her stitches, reminding Niall to put his books away and get some rest. She enjoyed a surprise visit from Duff and Keir with a pizza, loving how Niall murdered all three of them in the most competitive game of penny-ante poker she’d ever played. The next day she enjoyed the tour of Thomas Watson’s big two-story house even more when they went over to help move furniture, install a ramp, and share a big pot of Millie’s chili and cornbread around a long farmhouse table. She and Niall took turns feeding, diapering and playing with Tommy and wrestling him away from pseudo uncles and wannabe grandparents.
It was forty-eight hours of the family life she’d always dreamed of—and she had to constantly remind herself that it wasn’t real. Lucy and Niall were just friends. Neighbors. Two concerned adults who’d joined forces to care for and protect an abandoned child.
Domestic bliss this wasn’t. Not really. It hurt to discover herself feeling so at home with Niall’s boisterous family, knowing all the while their laughter and friendship and support was just a temporary gift. It hurt even more to realize how easily her attraction to her handsome, geeky neighbor had grown into something deeper. She was becoming as addicted to Niall’s quiet strength as Tommy was, and Niall’s fierce devotion to a cause—her cause—gave her a sense of security and importance she’d never felt before.
What an idiot. She’d fallen in love with the brilliant doctor next door. And since love wasn’t something that could be examined under a microscope or explained in twenty questions, she knew that Niall was sweetly clueless to the depth of her feelings for him. As for what he might feel for her? Since he scarcely acknowledged his feelings about much beyond his work and family, that was as much of a mystery as locating Diana and identifying the young man who’d threatened her in the elevator, then assaulted her when she’d refused to heed his warning. What logical benefit could she offer the inimitable Dr. Watson, anyway? Despite their friendship, Niall would probably want someone a little more staid and respectable, someone who didn’t butt her nose into things and leave chaos in her wake. As much as he loved his family, he probably wanted someone who could give him that, too—lots of little shy br
ainiacs who would quietly change the world one day. Nothing like setting herself up for heartbreak.
So it was an easy decision to go back to work on Tuesday, returning her life to some sense of the independent normalcy she was used to. Since she and Niall worked opposite shifts, they’d agreed that she would take Tommy to the office with her. Either because he was still worried about her head injury or because he didn’t want her and Tommy to be on their own and unprotected for any length of time, or some combination of both reasons, Niall insisted on driving her and the baby to her office. After dropping them off in the morning, the infant could nap comfortably in one of the family visitation rooms while she caught up on her caseload. And with Niall putting in so many extra hours at the lab and with his family, he could return home and have the day to catch up on some much-needed sleep before reporting in for his regular shift.
Lucy cradled Tommy against her shoulder, turning her nose to the unique scents of baby wash and formula burps as she sang a little ditty and danced around the tiny room, lulling him to sleep. This would be hard to lose, too. It was selfish to wish Tommy was her son, that fate would finally be kind enough to gift her with a child she loved this much. But Diana had been her child, too, for a time, until the law and the lure of a new boyfriend and an exciting career had made it easier than it should have been to lose contact and drift apart. Lucy still loved Diana and felt that inexplicable maternal urge to protect her just as fiercely as the helpless infant in her arms.
So despite the all-too-human envy in her heart, Lucy wanted Diana to be reunited with her son and for both of them to continue to be a part of her life. She’d be the mother Tommy needed until she could lay the precious baby in his real mother’s arms. That would be happiness enough for her. Lucy pressed a kiss to Tommy’s soft hair as pointless tears made her eyes feel gritty. “I love you, you little munchkin,” she promised. “I will always do whatever is best for you.”
