by Sandra Brown
“If she has another love interest, it’s her damn marathons. Not a man. But to her, running is just as orgasmic as fucking. More so, if you want to know the truth.”
“I don’t want to know. I told you from the beginning, Jeff. We can talk about anything, no subject is off-limits, except your personal life with Emory.”
“Alice—”
“I never want to hear how wonderful, or lousy, or mediocre the sex is. I don’t want to hear about it at all.”
“All right! I heard you!” Jesus! Wasn’t anybody on his side?
Suddenly she was contrite. “I apologize. The last thing you need is for me to lash out at you.”
“Look,” he said brusquely, “I need to go.”
“Jeff.”
“You shouldn’t have called. I’m glad you did. But we’ve talked too long. If anyone checked my phone I’d have to explain this call. I’ll be in touch when I can. Good-bye.”
“Jeff, wait.”
“What?”
“Have you considered…”
“Spit it out, Alice. What?”
“Maybe you should have an attorney present when you talk to them.”
Again, not a comment he had anticipated from her. “That’s all I need. A lawyer advising me not to answer their questions. That wouldn’t appear at all suspicious.”
“I just think it would be wise to—”
“No, it would be stupid. Because if these two detectives have got into their pea brains that I’m culpable, retaining a lawyer would seal it. No, Alice. No attorney.”
“I’m only trying to help.”
“Which I appreciate. But I’ve got to handle this my way.”
“I understand. But please don’t shut me out. What can I do?”
He thought about it, then said coldly, “You can stop calling me.”
* * *
“Labor? She told me she’d lost the baby.”
He spoke in a hush, but his alarm was apparent. Keeping her voice low, Emory said, “She has.” Taking a deep breath, she organized her thoughts into an explanation.
“Lisa estimates that she conceived four and a half months ago. But two weeks ago, she miscarried. Being at least sixteen weeks along, she should have consulted a doctor, who would have prescribed medications that cause and accelerate the elimination of tissue.
“It may require several weeks for the body to rid itself of it. Often, if the pregnancy is as advanced as Lisa’s was, a D and C is performed. It can be a heartbreaking, even traumatic, time for the patient, but there are no residual health issues.”
Apparently uncomfortable with the subject, he pushed his fingers through his hair. “But she didn’t see a doctor.”
“No. She’s suffering now because not all the uterine material was discharged naturally when she miscarried. She didn’t receive treatment, or the medications, or a D and C. Her body is trying to expel a sixteen-week fetus on its own, and the contractions are so strong, it’s essentially like being in labor.”
“Christ.” He looked aside before coming back to her. “You’re sure there’s no longer a baby?”
She was touched by his apparent concern. “I’m sure. She had profuse bleeding, today as well as two weeks ago. And the size of her uterus isn’t nearly as large as it would be if she was almost halfway into a pregnancy.” She looked over toward the bed. Lisa had stopped crying, but she’d laid her arm across her forehead. “She says she’s glad it died.”
“How long has this been going on?”
Emory came back around to him. “Today’s bleeding? It woke her up this morning and became so significant, as did the cramping, she was forced to tell her aunt and uncle.”
“Kindness personified, from what I understand.”
“She told you they kicked her out?”
He nodded.
“Leaving her no choice but to call her two cretin brothers and ask them to come get her.”
“How long will it take to, uh, get it out?”
“I don’t know. I could use the instruments I brought to scrape the uterus, but I’m reluctant to. First, because that’s not my area of expertise. Secondly, these are less than sterile conditions. The threat of infection would be too great.”
He mulled it over for several moments, then said, “Okay. Bundle her up. We’re taking her to the hospital.”
“Wait.” She placed her hand on his arm. “I also have the emotional stability of my patient to consider. She insists that no one else learn about the baby. When I suggested that you and I drive her and her mother to the nearest medical facility, she threatened to kill herself.”
“She was hysterical.”
“She was perfectly rational. How willing are you to take a chance on her meaning it?”
He swore under his breath and then released a long breath. “What do you suggest, Doc?”
She looked at her wristwatch. “I suggest we let nature take its course. It’s almost two o’clock. The road will present fewer hazards in daylight. Let’s reassess at dawn. Maybe between now and then, I can calm her down enough to accept the situation and talk her into telling her mother what’s actually going on.”
He inched closer and lowered his voice, so there was no chance of Lisa’s overhearing. “Come on, Doc, don’t you think Pauline knows? She’s coarse and uncultured, but she’s not stupid.”
She gave him a wan smile. “I’m almost certain she knows. And more than likely Lisa knows that she knows. But denial is the only way she can cope right now.”
He looked over at the bed, his forehead creased with worry. “She’s not in danger of dying, is she?”
“Believe me, if I thought it was an emergency situation, I’d bundle her up and drive the truck myself. But it hasn’t reached that level. Her blood pressure is a little high, but her distress is probably the explanation for that. Her bleeding is what is to be expected. I’m monitoring her temperature. It’s normal.”
To further assuage his worry, she said, “She’s frightened and uncomfortable, but her body is responding as it should. Women in third world countries endure this without medications or clinical procedures, and they survive.”
He looked around the bedroom. “This qualifies as third world.”
“As a precaution, I’m giving her antibiotics.”
He tilted his head toward the bed. “Mind if I talk to her?”
“No. You’re a hero in her eyes. She said you were about as nice a person as anybody she’s ever met.”
“She doesn’t know me.”
“That’s what I said.” She smiled to let him know that she was teasing. “Go on. I’ll give you two a moment.”
“Don’t open that door.”
She looked at it and shuddered. “I have no intention to.”
He went to the side of the bed and knelt beside it on one knee, bringing him eye level with Lisa. Emory couldn’t hear what he was saying, but Lisa was listening with rapt attention.
Weariness claimed Emory and, despite the shabby condition of the wall, she leaned back against it and closed her eyes. Her head was aching, but she attributed the dull pain to fatigue more than to her concussion. The space between her shoulder blades burned with tension. Considering the events of this night, was it any wonder?
Not too long ago, within a span of time that could be measured in hours rather than days, she’d thought that waking up in a stranger’s bed, not knowing where she was or how’d she got there, was the most bizarre thing that could ever happen to her. How wrong she’d been.
“How are you?”
Roused by the familiar scratchiness of his whisper, she opened her eyes and was momentarily disoriented. “Gosh, I must have dozed off standing up. I haven’t done that since med school.”
“Tired?”
“Exhausted.”
“Crime takes a toll.”
She gave a soft laugh. “Felony for the sake of a patient. There’s a first for everything.” Then she added, “I better understand the gray area of your morality now.”
/> “Dark gray,” he said, and she smiled. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t eat anything that came out of this house.”
“Some water?”
“If you wash the glass first and you’re the only one to handle it.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He moved the chair from beneath the doorknob and was about to open it when she stopped him with a question.
“The brothers were fighting when I came out to get you. What was that about?”
“Me.”
“You?”
“Will asked me if I was a homo.”
“How crass. What did you say?”
He looked at her for a moment, then removed his hand from the doorknob, placed it around the back of her neck beneath her hair, and pulled her up to receive his kiss—his open-mouthed, exploratory, evocative, and unshy kiss, which started out slow but soon acquired an urgency that was barely contained.
He kissed her like he meant it, like this kiss was going to be the last thing he ever did on earth, and he was going to do it right, thoroughly, and leave nothing wanting.
But she was left wanting, and judging from the rapid rise and fall of his chest and the fever in his eyes when he jerked his head back, he’d been left wanting, too.
Roughly, he said, “I told him no.”
* * *
The crisis came a little after four o’clock. Lisa gripped her lower abdomen and cried out.
“I know it hurts.” Emory had never experienced anything worse than mild menstrual cramps. She’d never conceived, never miscarried, and, if she had, she would have gotten immediate and ideal medical care. The girl’s evident suffering affected her beyond her professional objectivity.
After her second cry, the bedroom door was flung open and Pauline marched in. “Mr. Whatshisname there wasn’t going to let me in, but short of hog-tying me, he couldn’t keep me out.”
He who’d been standing guard outside the bedroom looked at Emory with chagrin. “I swear to you that I wouldn’t hesitate to hog-tie Norman or Will, but I’m no match for Pauline. I’ll be right outside the door.” He stepped back and pulled it closed.
When Lisa saw her mother, a look of relief washed over her face, as though she’d been excused from having to make a difficult decision. “Mama?”
She extended her hand. Pauline gripped it as she sat down on the edge of the bed. Looking up at Emory, she said, “I was the eldest, and all my brothers and sisters were born at home. I ain’t squeamish. I can massage her belly.”
Twenty minutes later, Emory left mother and daughter alone. Pauline was cooing to the girl, her calloused and unmanicured hand amazingly gentle as she smoothed back Lisa’s hair from her forehead.
Emory went to the door and opened it. He was there as he’d said he would be, standing sentinel. The brothers were asleep. Will snored from the sofa. Norman was in the recliner, his head resting against his shoulder, a string of drool dangling from his lower lip.
Emory had the plastic trash can liner, now closed with a tightly tied knot at the top. “This needs to be disposed of. I suggest burning it.”
He took it from her without a qualm. “How is Lisa?”
“Much better. I’m close to convincing them that she should have a follow-up physical examination. But I think she’ll be all right. I’d like to stay with her for a while longer, just to make sure.”
He nodded and turned away to do his chore.
Shortly after that, Emory and Pauline gave Lisa a sponge bath and changed the bedding. The fresh sheets were dingy but clean. Pauline carried out the soiled ones and told Emory she was going to make coffee.
Emory took Lisa’s blood pressure, but even before she’d removed the cuff, the girl’s head was sunk deep into the pillow and her eyes were closed.
Arching her back to work out the kinks, Emory walked over to the window and looked out. She thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. The sun wasn’t up yet, but there was enough predawn light for her to make out a large form, kneeling down beside the dog, stroking its head, and talking to it with words she was certain didn’t matter to the abused animal. It was responding to the first kind touch it had probably ever experienced. It ate a morsel of food from his hand, then licked his palm in gratitude.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
Emory looked over toward the bed and was surprised to see that Lisa was awake and observing her. “No. We just met.”
“What’s his name?”
“He’s a very private man.”
Lisa studied her for a moment, then said, “You don’t know it either, do you?”
She gave the intuitive girl a rueful smile. “No.”
“I’ve seen him working in his yard when we’ve driven past his place. He always scared me.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, he’s so big.”
“He is.”
“And kinda broody looking. I never saw him smile before last night.”
“He’s not inclined to very often.”
“He smiles at me, though. And at Mama. And at you.”
She had the knowing look of a woman, and Emory realized that she must have witnessed the kiss, the kiss that caused a curling sensation low in her belly every time she thought about it. The kiss that had lulled and electrified her at the same time. She had never felt safer or more endangered.
The emotions were conflicting, yet on one point she was crystal clear: She hadn’t wanted it to end. Despite the situation and the squalid surroundings, she had longed to experience more of his lips, his taste, the bold trespassing of his tongue.
Lisa startled her out of her reverie when she said, “One time, when my brothers dumped a barrel of trash right outside his gate, I told them they were crazy to rile him.”
“I think you’re probably right.” She hesitated, not wanting to place Lisa in an awkward position, but feeling pressured to ask. “Do you know if the three of them have tangled before?”
“Before what?”
“Before he became your neighbor.”
“No. I’m sure of that. I’ve heard Will and Norman talking about him, wondering who he is and what he’s up to. Mama reckons he’s hiding from the law.”
Emory said nothing.
“Or, Mama said, maybe he’s hiding from a wife and kids he ran out on.”
No bride. No wife. Not ever.
“But I don’t think that’s it,” Lisa said. “I’d sooner believe he was an outlaw than a man who deserted his family.”
Emory looked over at her. “Why would you think that?”
“He just don’t seem the type. But something’s going on there. It’s invisible, but you can tell he carries it around with him.”
Silently, Emory agreed.
“If I was guessing,” Lisa continued, “I’d say he has a mean streak a mile wide. He keeps it under control. But if he ever let it loose, look out.”
Without realizing how disturbing her observations were to Emory, she added, “But he’s been awful nice to me, from right off when he looked into the truck and saw that I was ailing. He’s treated me nice, and not like he expects anything in return. If you know what I mean.”
Emory nodded understanding.
Lisa thoughtfully plucked at the frayed hem on the top sheet. “I don’t think he’s the kind of man who’d mess with me. Take advantage of a woman. You know?”
“No, I’m certain he’s not that kind of man.” Emory had been with him for three days, and he hadn’t taken advantage, even when she’d thrown herself at him. You almost got me, Doc.
“What do you make of him, Dr. Smith?”
Emory turned back to the window and watched him scratch the dog behind its ears. He unhooked the chain from its collar. Nuzzling his hand, the dog happily fell into step beside him as he turned and headed back toward the house.
“Honestly, Lisa, I have no idea what to make of him.”
Chapter 16
You warm enough back there?” Sam Knight looked
at Jeff through the rearview mirror.
Riding in the backseat of the SUV, with its official markings on the door panels and light bar of the roof, he felt like a caged animal in a circus parade, part of the sideshow, but disliking it intensely. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
“Still cold as a witch’s tit this morning. But at least the snow has stopped. Let me know if you need more heat.”
“I will.”
“There’s Buddy.”
Knight pulled off the road and up to the entrance of a local bakery, where Grange was waiting out front. He was holding a flat box and a white paper sack in his gloved hands, stamping his feet to stay warm. As soon as the SUV came to a stop, he climbed into the passenger seat.
“Lord! It’s cold.”
“Thanks for volunteering to get our breakfast,” Knight said. “Coffee smells good. Pass a cup on back to Jeff. What kind of doughnuts did you get?”
“An assortment.”
Knight drove back onto the highway but stayed in the outside lane, driving with care. With so much care, in fact, it was maddening to Jeff.
Grange distributed the coffee and passed the box of doughnuts around. Knight, fortified with a bite of his, addressed Jeff in the mirror. “Dr. James called us this morning.”
Grange corrected him, mumbling around a bite. “Dr. Butler.”
Knight turned to his partner. “Huh?”
“Dr. Butler’s the lady. Dr. James is the man.”
“Oh, right,” Knight said. “I keep getting their names mixed up. Anyhow, Jeff, she called.”
“She called me, too.”
“Did she?”
He nodded as he blew on his coffee. “To let me to know that the clinic is offering an award for information.”
“That’s something, isn’t it?” Knight exclaimed. “Twenty-five grand.”
Jeff said, “I’m humbled by their generosity. To think that Emory’s associates would do that for her. For me.”
“Speaks well of both y’all.”
“Emory is highly regarded among her colleagues.”
“I read about her going to Haiti after the hurricane,” Knight said. “Volunteered for weeks at a time.”
“She’s made three trips and is planning to go again when she can work it into her schedule.”
