“I think I can guarantee that.” She stepped away from him, pressed a hand against her jittering stomach and exhaled. “Whew. I can’t catch my breath.”
“I know the feeling.” He caught her hand and twined their fingers together. “Care to adjourn to my office so we can make some plans?”
Mandy’s heart lifted as she finally began to realize—and believe—that the impossible had become possible, that she could have the man she loved, that he could love her back. Only a few days earlier she’d been close to dying.
Now, the future spread out in front of her, bright and shining with potential.
She smiled. “You’re The Boss.”
He grinned crookedly. “I think from now on we can share that responsibility. That’s what families do, right?”
As proposals went it wasn’t much, Mandy thought. Yet, coming from Parker, it was exactly right.
“Yes,” she said, taking his hand as the E.R. erupted with applause and cheers. “That’s what families do.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1154-8
DOCTOR’S ORDERS
Copyright © 2008 by Dr. Jessica S. Andersen
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One “I’m sorry, Doctor, but Ms. Dulbecco died early this morning.” On the phone, the nurse’s voice softened. “Did you know her personally?”Mandy Sparks gripped the handset tightly and turned her back on the chaos of the Emergency Services Department, so her coworkers—or one coworker in particular—wouldn’t see how badly the news had upset her. She looked down, and her long blond hair fell forward past her face, forming another barrier between her and the rest of Boston General. “I didn’t know her well. She was a patient, that’s all.”But to Mandy there was no “that’s all” about it. As far as she was concerned, every case was special, every injury or illness a personal battle.“She went peacefully,” the nurse offered, as though that made a difference. And in a way, it did. Mandy hadn’t been able to pinpoint the cause of Irene Dulbecco’s pain, but she’d been able to make the forty-something mother of two more comfortable. She’d gotten Irene stabilized, and had sent her upstairs to t
Chapter One
Chapter Two Mandy screamed and tried to roll away, but her attacker grabbed her jacket with his free hand and pinned her arms by holding onto both of her sleeves at once. She thrashed wildly as he kneeled partway across her, forcing her torso flat against the unyielding pavement.Panic poured through her, and adrenaline gave her struggles renewed strength, but not enough to budge the man. He leaned down, and as he did, a shaft of light reflected in from the main street, giving her a glimpse of his face.She got the impression of bitter gray eyes hidden within the hood of a heavy black sweatshirt, and saw lighter material covering his nose and mouth. Then he shifted his weight, pinning her fully with his legs so he could grab her upper arm and hold it steady.Without a word, he swung the syringe sharply downward, plunging the needle through her parka, but missing her arm.Mandy screamed as her attacker cursed and withdrew the needle, then aimed it at the meat of her arm. Just as the syringe
Chapter Two
Chapter Three “I want you out of here starting now,” Parker said. “Take a couple of weeks off. Go someplace nice and chill out.” He managed to dredge up what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’ll clear it with your boss.”But instead of jumping at the chance, as any other member of his staff would have, she shook her head, her face set in familiar stubborn lines. “Not on your life. I’m a doctor and Irene Dulbecco was my patient. If there’s any way I can help figure out what was done to her and prevent it from happening to someone else, then that’s what I need to do.”And there it is, Parker thought on a bite of temper. He’d once warned her that her damned wide-eyed idealism was going to get her in trouble. He hadn’t figured on being there to watch it happen, though, and he hadn’t expected the trouble would be of the life-or-death variety.Maybe he should’ve known better. Mandy was the sort of person who attracted controversy and chaos—heck, as far as he could tell, she went looking for i
Chapter Three
Chapter Four Mandy froze in shock the moment Radcliff’s lips touched hers.The first thought that flitted through her mind was a panicked sort of relief that the attraction she’d been feeling with increasing sharpness throughout the day wasn’t one-sided.Her second thought never materialized; it was lost beneath a wash of heat when his mouth slanted across hers.She parted her lips and kissed him back, her body responding before her mind had a chance to catch up. Warning buzzers sounded dimly in the back of her brain, but she couldn’t bring herself to care just then. She was awash in sensation, suddenly drowning beneath a wave of need.The stubble of his faint beard rasped beneath her fingertips when she lifted a hand to touch his jaw, urging him closer. She closed her eyes and tried not to go boneless when his tongue touched hers and every neuron she possessed flared to life simultaneously on a shouted thought: Finally!Finally he held her close, his touch arrogant and possessive, like the
Chapter Four
Chapter Five Mandy went over the files until her lower back ached, her eyes went blurry and her head started to pound, but she didn’t give in to the discomfort, because she knew the answer had to be there somewhere.All of the test levels had come back within normal limits, true, but some were skewed to the high or low ends of the “normal” spectrum. There was a pattern in the small test irregularities. She was sure of it. She just wasn’t sure what that pattern was telling her yet.When she reached the end of Julian George’s file, she flipped back to the beginning and started over. As she did so, she yawned, popping her ears and spiking the headache into a quick bolt of pain behind her right eye.“Ow.” Wincing, she rubbed her eyes, then glanced around the kitchen, wondering where Radcliff kept his aspirin.She jolted when she found him standing in the doorway, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He’d changed into a gray Harvard sweatshirt and a soft-looking pair o
Chapter Five
Chapter Six Down in the Atrium, Mandy saw a middle-aged woman in a puffy red parka waiting near the café entrance where they’d arranged to meet. Crossing to meet her, Mandy extended her hand. “Mrs. Stone?”The woman nodded. “Call me Millie, please.”Her handshake was tentative, her knuckles large and gnarled, suggesting advanced arthritis, though she was only in her forties. She was as short and round as Irene had been tall and lean. Her hair was curly brown and her face was open and probably cheerful under normal circumstances. As she and Mandy ordered their coffees and slid into a booth, though, she carried heavy circles under her eyes, and her lips were turned down in grief.Mandy took the bench opposite her. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me. Steve Dulbecco said you and Irene were friends a long time.”A faint sheen of tears filmed the other woman’s eyes, and her voice trembled slightly when she said, “Since junior high. We met in the marching band, and stayed in touch ever since. We
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven “Help!” Mandy screamed as she was shoved into a restroom so quickly nobody around her noticed. “Help me!” She thra
shed against her captor’s hold, but the alarm drowned out her cries and he was far stronger than she.“Shut up!” He spun her, shoved her face-first into the wall beside a paper towel dispenser and yanked her arms up behind her back.Craning her neck, she saw hard gray eyes glittering above a surgical mask. He wore latex gloves on his hands, blue ones this time.Heart pounding, she struggled against his grip, only half aware of the inhuman sobbing noises she was making in her terror.Her captor shifted, holding her wrists in one hand. Pain flared in her arm and her consciousness dimmed. Everything went gray and fuzzy, and she sagged to the floor, barely conscious.She was vaguely aware of a thud in her skull and a second prick in her arm, but it all seemed very far away for a few seconds. A voice whispered from very near her ear, “Start the clock. Seventy-two hours
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight The next two hours were filled with another round of police questions and crime scene analysis, and even though Stankowski did his best to minimize the invasion, Mandy’s head was pounding by the time she and Parker were cleared to leave.Her heart hurt, too. Logically she knew the worst part had been the attack at the M.E. building, but there was something profoundly disturbing about watching the cops rummage around in her apartment. Stankowski had insisted on the search even though she’d protested that the note had been slipped under the door.Given that his techs had positively identified the metal pellet extracted from her neck as a small but highly powerful transmitter, and were working on determining exactly what information it was designed to transmit, she hadn’t argued against the search, but it had bothered her nonetheless.Having the cops in there had made her apartment seem even more Spartan somehow, and the unpacked boxes had loomed large in her vision. Even her h
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine Driven by the excitement of a testable hypothesis, Mandy and Parker headed straight to Boston General and started culling the blood samples for synthetic oil particles. Once they had them, mass spectrometry gave them a chemical breakdown of the oil. By nine o’clock that morning, they had their delivery system. They even had a brand name: Dynastin 402.Unfortunately that wasn’t enough to tell them how to clear the toxin from Mandy’s blood, leaving them so close, yet so far from the answer.Refusing to give up, she kept cranking while Parker brought Stankowski up to speed.“Let me get this straight.” The detective frowned at his notes. “The rash and the lack of toxins in the blood samples made you look at oil-based drug delivery systems called nanoparticles. These things can cause rashes at the site of injection. I get that. What I don’t get is why your blood tests didn’t find them in the first place. The whole ‘nano’ thing makes me think of Verne’s Incredible Journey, when the
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten Mandy couldn’t quell the nervous jitters as Stankowski drove them to the address on file for Paul Durst. On one hand she envisioned that they’d reach a dead end, finding that the address belonged to an abandoned lot or a Chinese restaurant, or that Durst had moved out weeks ago, after he lost his job.On the other hand, though, she couldn’t help imagining the relief of finding him, IDing him as the hooded man and discovering the raw materials he’d used to make his poison, along with a convenient store of the antidote.“Hey,” Parker said gently from beside her. “Try not to think about it. Stressing about it isn’t going to change anything.”“You’re right.” She exhaled and forced herself to relax into her seat. “I know you’re right. Doesn’t make it any easier to stay chilled out, though.” She paused, and forcibly turned her attention to the folder he had open in his lap. “Anything useful?”Instead of answering immediately, he looked at her for a long moment, then smiled faintly. “
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven Mandy screamed, but her voice was lost in the whoop of the alarm system and the roar of the fire, which was suddenly all around her. The heat, the terrible, awful heat made her skin feel crisp and her clothes burn where they touched her. She coughed, her lungs seizing on the smoke. Her mind cleared fractionally, and she realized she was pressed flat with something heavy on top of her. Trapped!“Help!” she screamed, beginning to struggle. “Help me!”“Quiet,” a voice ordered from right beside her ear. “I’ve got you.”Parker, she thought, only then realizing that he was the heavy weight atop her. He’d used his own body to shield her from the second blast.There was no time for gratitude, though. The fire was too hot, the smoke too thick. Squinting through the thick air, she could see flames, but she couldn’t make out the door or windows, couldn’t see anyone else.“Where’s Stankowski?” she asked, coughing the words like a longtime smoker.Parker rolled off her, grabbing her arm an
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve Of course Parker argued that they should be at the hospital. Mandy insisted, though, and eventually got her way. She took it as a sign that he was worried about her whether he wanted to admit it or not—there was no way The Boss would’ve let himself lose a debate otherwise.Or maybe she was projecting, because heaven only knew that she was sick with nerves, a blend of excitement at the thought that the Anti-P might work, terror that it might not.She wanted to lean on Parker, wanted to draw comfort from his solid strength, but held herself away because she couldn’t afford to show the weakness just then, lest he use it as leverage to strong-arm her back to the hospital. And if she knew one thing for certain, it was that she didn’t want to spend what might be her last night on earth in Boston General.She wanted to spend it in Parker’s bed.When they reached his town house, he helped her out of the cab. She didn’t need the assistance—her legs were steady enough to carry her thr
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen “Oh, hell,” Mandy said, her stomach plummeting to her toes at the absolute stillness of his body, and the closed-off blank of his expression.He sat in the center of his bed, and though it was a king-size mattress, it suddenly seemed as though there was only room for one person. He looked, if possible, even more unreachable than he had the first time he’d seen her back at Boston General and hadn’t even blinked.Even worse, he looked trapped.The cool air on her skin, which had been invigorating only moments before, was suddenly harsh and punishing. She crossed her hands ineffectively over her breasts and inwardly cursed herself, cursed him. Aloud, though, all she said was, “I’ll go get dressed.”She escaped to the guest room, pulled on underwear, jeans, a shirt and socks at random, and jammed the rest of her things in the leather duffel she’d brought with her from her apartment. She knew the danger wouldn’t truly be past until Stankowski and the others had caught Paul Durs
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen “Watch him carefully,” the navy-suited man snapped into a cheap cell phone. “If the cops mobilize once he’s gone, call me on this line and we’ll go to plan B.”Mandy closed her eyes and tried to wish the scene away. She was gagged and bound to a chair in one corner of a cheap-looking, one-room studio apartment. The shades were drawn, but daylight leaked around the edges and the lights were on, revealing a sofa bed upholstered in nubby brown fabric on one side of the room, with a small TV opposite it, next to her chair. A small table in the eat-in kitchen nook was missing one of its ladder-back chairs, no doubt because she was sitting in it. Two cases of diet soda and a few bags of chips on the kitchen counter were the only signs of habitation, suggesting that the men had rented the place just for this purpose.For her kidnapping. Mandy still couldn’t believe what had happened, what was still happening.The three men, the slick guy in the suit and two rougher-looking thug-
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen The landline phone in Parker’s town house was ringing when he let himself through the door. The two guys who had followed him were nowhere in sight, making him think he was, indeed, bugged. He reset the security system behind him, thinking to slow the others down if they wanted to come in after him—or even better, alert the cops if they tripped the alarm. Then he crossed the sitting room and grabbed the phone on the sixth ring, right before it dumped to voice mail.“I’ve got it,” he said without preamble. “Let’s mak
e the trade.”“Agreed,” the metallic voice said, Mandy’s captor having apparently gone back to the voice changer now that they were on a landline.“Where should I meet you?” Parker looked out the front window, but still couldn’t see the two men. “Are you coming here?”“Go outside and get in the car.” As if on cue, the two men pulled up in front of Parker’s town house. “My associates will bring you to me.”“Okay.” He didn’t bother asking why he’d been forced to mak
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen Mandy spent the weekend doing normal things. She hung out with Kim and the Wannabes at Jillian’s, and even managed to work up to a flirt with a friend-of-a-friend from Mass General. Her heart wasn’t in it, though, just as it wasn’t into the idea of rearranging her apartment, finishing the unpacking she’d neglected and forcing some sort of style into the place.She kept trying to remind herself she was lucky to be alive, but the sentiment rang hollow. She might’ve escaped one fate but she’d fallen to another, one that she knew better than to succumb to a second time. Heartache.Her father finally called her back Sunday night, and though they might never be close, she did feel as though the experience with Durst and Deighton had helped her understand him a bit better. They ended the conversation with vague promises to get together, both of them knowing it wouldn’t be anytime soon.By Monday, though, she’d made her decision. Forget waiting for another year worth of E.R. exper
Chapter Sixteen
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