Книга - The Doctor’s Mission

The Doctor's Mission
Lyn Stone


Dr. Nick Sandro's top-secret mission: to help undercover agent Cate Olin recover from an attempt on her life.The safehouse? His own apartment, where her body– which he'd dreamed about for years–was suddenly his responsibility. Nick had loved Cate since childhood, but he'd accepted this job as a favor to her family, to her boss. No way he'd cross the line.For a civilian, Cate's gorgeous doctor sure was secretive. About giving up his career as a surgeon. About not letting Cate in. But when a terrorist hell-bent on revenge came after both of them, saving each other's lives depended on sharing everything.









“I’m sorry you had to do that,” Cate said.


Nick said nothing. What was there to say? He had taken lives today for the first—and he hoped last—time. Right now, he was pretty revved up and the anger was still ruling. Later, he suspected the impact of what he’d done would hit him.

“You’re trained to save lives,” Cate said as if reading his mind. It was disconcerting. Hell, everything that had happened since she came back into his life had been disconcerting.

She had shot someone today, too, he remembered. “Did it bother you?” he asked.

“Yes, but there’s no choice. Well, there was one, but when it’s live or die, I’m gonna choose live every time.” There were tears in her eyes.

He eased out of traffic, turned down a dirt road and parked behind trees. “Come here,” he said gently. She slid her arms around his waist, laid her head on his shoulder and held him tight. For several long moments, he simply held her close.


Dear Reader,

What do people do when they can no longer work in their chosen profession? How do they totally reinvent themselves? I’ve seen this done, up close and personal, and it’s no easy task, giving up that in-the-know status, that feeling of being right in the middle of life-changing events, doing everything you can to fix them. And suddenly, you’re on the outside of it all.

As with any drastic upheaval in life, it helps to have a support system, but I wondered what would happen if that was also taken away. Here is the story of two individuals, dedicated to their jobs to the exclusion of all else, who are forced together by duty and circumstance. Can they help each other deal with the emotional trauma while dodging both danger and a passion they’ve denied for years?

Read on to see how COMPASS Special Agent Cate Olin and neurosurgeon Nick Sandro tackle their demons after the fall….

Enjoy!

Lyn Stone




The Doctor’s Mission

Lyn Stone

















www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




LYN STONE


A painter of historical events, Lyn decided to write about them. A canvas, however detailed, limits characters to only one moment in time. “If a picture’s worth a thousand words, the other ninety thousand have to show up somewhere!”

An avid reader, she admits, “At thirteen, I fell in love with Bronte’s Heathcliff and became Catherine. Next year, I fell for Rhett and became Scarlett. Then I fell for the hero I’d known most of my life and finally became myself.”

After living four years in Europe, Lyn and her husband, Allen, settled into a log house in north Alabama that is crammed to the rafters with antiques, artifacts and the stuff of future tales.


For my Al, master of reinvention, soul of inspiration and

forever the very heart of me.




Contents


Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue




Prologue


Bernese Alps, Switzerland, November 6th

Sunlight sparkled off the perfectly powdered slope. Thin, crisp air added to the euphoria zinging through Cate Olin’s veins as she looked out over the awesome peaks surrounding her. “On top of the world,” she sighed.

Cate tossed her companion a smile. Werner looked almost as impressive as the scenery. Together, he and the Alps would make a terrific travel ad for winter fun and games. And she would spend no more time with him than she would with these mountains.

He had approached her in the bar last night and asked her to dance. They’d talked, laughed, danced some more and then he had suggested they ski together the next morning. So here she was, having some much-needed fun, her reward for a tough mission accomplished.

After a light breakfast at Le Chalet d’Adrien, they had caught a hop, then ridden the lift to the top of Col des Gentianes to ski off-piste. Werner said it was supposed to be a fun run. A friend of his had highly recommended it.

Werner adjusted his goggles, then his gloves. She would love to know what he was thinking right now, but telepathy did not work on this guy. That was okay, too. That skill required concentration and mental energy. Her last assignment had taken a lot out of her and she badly needed a couple of weeks of nothing but recreation.

He slid slowly to her side, their skis parallel as he leaned sideways to kiss her cheek. “Ready to rock and roll?”

His Austrian accent was cute and he knew it. Cate took a second simply to enjoy the way he looked. She toyed with the idea of sleeping with him later. She might. And she might not.

Sex without any deep emotional involvement would be a new experience for her and one she thought she might find more depressing than satisfying. She sensed Werner didn’t do deep.

“Give me a minute.” She adjusted the bright red cap she wore and determined not to worry about anything today.

Cate shook the tension out of her legs one at a time, lifting each ski as she relaxed her muscles. She shrugged her shoulders to loosen them, then set her poles and grinned at Werner. “Okay, let’s boogie!”

“Take the lead.” He gestured broadly for her to go ahead of him. “I would like to watch your derriere!”

Cate hesitated, then experienced one of those uh-oh moments when he gave her a playful shove and shouted, “Go, you little chicken!”

Laughing, she wanted to glance back, but had to gain her balance and keep it. The bright morning sun had paved the powder with a slick-as-glass surface.

Cate flew, unable to control her speed the way she wished. The slopes she had experienced before had been bumpy with the tracks of others, offering a bit of traction. And not this steep. She slalomed, attempting to brake, tried to snow-plow to no avail, then considered falling down, just to stop her rapid descent.

After a harrowing run, the trail leveled out a little where it edged against a steep incline on her right. Suddenly she heard a distinctive crack, then another. A rifle!

Ten feet to her left, the slope dropped off like a cliff’s edge. To her right, the snow-covered wall. Above, the rumble of an avalanche. No accident of nature.

She dug in her poles, pushed hard and picked up speed, trying to outrun the fall, go perpendicular to it, get out of its way. To God knew what. But someone had skied this way earlier today. The trail led somewhere besides over the edge of an abyss. She hoped.

Snow pelted her head and shoulders, slid down, obliterated her path. There was nowhere to go but over the edge, where the descending rush of snow would take her anyway if it didn’t cover and smother her here.

Instinctively, Cate tucked her poles beneath her arms, squatted down and fell sideways. She snapped off her skis, scrambled for the cliff’s edge and looked over for a safe way down. A rolling crush of white shoved her from behind and took her with it.

As white blanked out the blue of the sky, Cate fought panic. She struggled to stay on the surface. Couldn’t let it bury her. The heat from her body would encase her in ice in less than half an hour. If the oxygen trapped with her lasted that long and the weight of the snow didn’t crush her.

Then she hit something really hard that broke her slide and she began to tumble head over heels.

She wanted to scream, but her mouth wouldn’t move. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, knowing it could be full of snow and the last one she would ever take.




Chapter 1


Martigny Hospital, Valais, Switzerland—November 27th

Nick Sandro swore under his breath. He knew what he had to do. His parents had put it to him like an order. Look after Cate. Friendship demanded it. He had no excuse not to. He had done it reluctantly during the greater parts of their childhood and adolescence. He would have to do it now.

Bracing himself, he pushed open the door of her hospital room. “Hi, Catie,” he said softly. “You awake?”

Her smile looked as forced as his felt. “Hey, Nick. They told me you were here. It was good of you to come.”

“Glad to,” he said with a shrug. “Besides, Mom and Dad would have my head if I didn’t come and see about you.”

“Like old times, huh? Trying to match us up.” Tears leaked from her right eye, but the smile stayed in place.

She looked frail. Her long, straight hair had been snipped close to her scalp in the area around her incision. The rest lay lank and lifeless around her pale, striking features. She had wide, dark-lashed eyes of the deepest blue imaginable, a straight no-nonsense nose and a luscious mouth that begged kissing. Even after all this time, he could still recall the feel of those lips and the taste of her as she’d kissed him. The sensation still raised guilt. He had been twenty. She had been jailbait.

“How are they?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said, keeping his voice bright. “Dad’s in London at a seminar. Mom went along. They’ll stay for a vacation and return home in a few weeks.”

“Yeah, they sent me a card. Picture of the horse guards,” Cate said with a chuckle. “Inside, it said Giddyup.”

Nick laughed with her, losing a little of the wariness he felt. “Serious get-well wish.”

“Karen? How’s she?”

“Pregnant. Divorced again. She should have known better than to marry another doctor.” He grimaced automatically, but added a small laugh to show he wasn’t carrying a torch for his ex-wife.

Cate smiled at him. “She’s a real dunce, that girl.”

He nodded, smiling. “It was a mistake. We’re both wiser.”

She sighed heavily. Her smile remained, wistful but sincere. Nick wondered if Cate ever regretted passing on marriage. As far as he knew she had never shown the slightest interest in it. He had kept pretty close tabs over the years through their parents. “How about this Austrian you were with on the slopes? Important?”

The smile crooked a bit. “Mostly to himself. But he did save my bacon when he called for the rescue.”

“But the bastard didn’t try to dig you out. I’d like to break his neck.”

“Judging by the tracks, they think he did try after he called in. One of his skis was found near where I was buried. Apparently, he fell on the way or was caught in a secondary slide. They probably won’t find him until spring thaw.”

“So he wasn’t involved in trying to kill you.”

“Somebody probably paid him to ski that particular slope. He was pretty insistent we do that one. Jack said Werner made a cash deposit in his account the day before, but it wasn’t enough to hire someone to conspire in a murder. True, Werner was a little vain, but I know he was no killer.”

Nick saw a tear trickle down her cheek, but she didn’t seem to be really grieving over the man, just sad that he’d been lost.

Even without makeup, hair a mess and dressed in a wrinkled, faded hospital gown, Cate was the most beautiful woman he knew. She was tall, nearly six feet; her body was angular, yet very graceful. He noted her nails were clipped to the quick with no polish, making her supple, long-fingered hands look smaller than he remembered.

The need to hold and reassure her hit him like a fist every time he looked at her. He hadn’t worried enough about his own reactions before taking this on. Maybe he should have examined his reasons a little more carefully. No way could he let them seclude her in some safe house without the kind of help she would need, though, no matter how hard this got for him. The government might furnish doctors to check on her, but who was to say what sort and whether they would be concerned about anything other than her vital signs.

Cate was observing him closely. “You’re looking good, Nick. Still plundering around in people’s gray matter?” she asked as a brave attempt at being chipper.

He looked away from her direct blue gaze. “I’m taking some time off.”

“Knocking around Florence, Jack says. Working vacation?”

“Sort of. I came over a few months ago. Attending some seminars at the Johns Hopkins campus there.”

“Teaching them how to cut?” she asked, blunt as ever.

“No, not teaching.” So she didn’t know what had happened. Hadn’t heard. What had proved a life-changing event for him hadn’t even warranted a paragraph in the local paper. No one had died, after all. He hadn’t really been on duty when it had happened, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. His parents would not have mentioned the incident to her except to relate how lucky he was to have escaped death.

No, he was the only one who felt the full impact of his injury. He could no longer operate. His career was over. No reason Cate should have heard about it. Oddly enough, she was probably the only one who would fully understand. Eventually she would, but he couldn’t dump that on her now. She had enough problems of her own.

“Odd that you’d choose Florence,” she said. “I would have thought Rome. Isn’t that where your grandparents were from?”

He nodded. Her parents came in just then and he turned to greet them. “See you later,” he said to Cate. “I’ll leave you to your visit.”

Jack Mercier, Cate’s boss, was waiting for Nick in the lounge across the hall. “Did you tell her?” he asked, frowning.

“Not yet,” Nick said. “I’m still not sure…”

“She’ll be safe with you in Florence. Safer than anywhere else she could go. I’ll station eyes there in case you run into trouble.”

Eyes? Agents that surveilled, no doubt. That whole business was foreign to him, the terminology as strange as medical terms would be to Cate. Yet another barrier between them. Good. He could use more of those.

Mercier headed up the elite counter-terrorist organization Cate had been working as an undercover operative for these past couple of years. Nick thought Cate had been working as an intelligence analyst at a desk somewhere in Washington. God only knew what her duties had entailed. Had being the key word. She was finished.

Mercier’s voice dropped to a confidential tone. “I have to ask, Sandro. Are you physically capable of firing a weapon if you need to?” He glanced pointedly at Nick’s right hand, permanently damaged in an E.R. confrontation with a crackhead nearly a year ago when he had stopped in on an informal consult. Mercier pressed. “You are left-handed, right?”

Nick flexed his fingers out of habit. “I used to shoot skeet and I could still pull a trigger, but there’s no way I’m qualified to give Cate the protection you say she might need.”

“I only ask as a precaution. You’ll have bodyguards keeping a close watch.” He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Take her to Florence, help with her rehab and give me an evaluation. That’s all you have to do.”

“That’s all?” Nick gave a wry huff. “Right.”

“We have a good protection program, as I told you before, but I really think she’ll have a better chance of recovery with the help of someone she knows. She needs that with what she’ll be facing. You spoke to Dr. Ganz. You know what she’s up against. Want her to do that with strangers who are just doing their jobs?”

Every instinct of self-preservation within Nick warned against it. Not because someone might still be gunning for Cate. If anything, that was the most compelling argument Mercier had for convincing Nick to agree.

He had been living in Florence the last few months, attending the seminars. After Cate’s injury, the Olins had contacted his parents and asked them to plead their case. They wanted someone they knew to see that Cate was getting the best medical help available. They had obviously spoken with Mercier, who had roped him in to helping her with therapy.

“Do you have any idea who tried to kill her?” he asked. What had happened had been no accident. Mercier had stationed guards outside her door since she’d been admitted. “What about the man she was with that day?”

“He called for rescue and was pinpointing Cate’s location when he was cut off midsentence. He’s still missing. He said he heard the shots that caused the avalanche. When Cate regained consciousness, she verified there was gunfire, definitely a rifle. We think maybe he was going to dig her out and got buried in a drift. One way or another, we’ll find him.”

“Any new suspects?”

Jack nodded. “Yes. Two of our operatives coordinating with the Police Nationale have someone under surveillance now, a known assassin who was spotted in the area. It’s a matter of time before they make an arrest, maybe only hours. But even if he is our shooter, somebody hired him for it. I’d like to have Cate stashed somewhere she can’t be found.”

“Why would someone want to kill her? And why that way?”

“We’ll have some answers soon. Sam Jakes, a freelance reporter from D.C., blew her cover the week before this happened. He must have had an inside track at the White House. That was a very private ceremony with only our teams, the president and a couple of staff present. Jakes reported the commendation she received and explained her part in the investigation. Unfortunately, he gave her name, a recent photo and some background material on her.”

“So she was outed and you think some wacko read that and is after her? Did you arrest the bastard who did the article?”

“Of course. The point is, that put Cate at great risk.”

“So she would no longer be good for covert work anyway?”

“I’d planned to have her doing backup or mop up, not as primary. At least not for a while. Now, because of this injury, any type of field work is out of the question. Whatever she does for us, we’ll have to keep her under wraps. She’s made enemies. We’ll get whoever is after her. In the meantime, all you need to do is keep her with you and take care of her health.”

“And have a gun handy, of course,” Nick added, his words laced with irony.

Mercier nodded. “That would be wise, but it’s highly unlikely you’ll need it. Do you have one?”

Nick coughed a laugh. “Are you kidding? I’m a physician, an American residing in a foreign country. How the devil would I get a gun?”

“We’ve got you one,” Mercier assured him. “That, plus some other things Cate might need will be in the trunk of your car.”

“Well, I’ve shot snakes and targets, but never anything with legs. I’m not sure I could take a life.” He frowned at Mercier. “Just so you know.”

“Trust me, if someone starts shooting, you’ll be damned glad to have the means to return fire.”

“What if she refuses to go with me?” Nick asked. That was a distinct possibility. She had always resented his “hovering” as she called it. Hated it when he cautioned her about taking risks.

“She’ll go,” Mercier declared. “We can’t take her home yet. Ganz says she shouldn’t fly for that long in her condition. For her safety, we’re creating a diversion to make everyone think she’s on a plane back to the States.”

Mercier’s wife, Solange, joined them in the waiting room just as Cate’s parents came in. After greeting them, the Merciers excused themselves and went in to speak with Cate.

Cate’s mother, Tess Olin, an Amazon who looked scarcely older than her daughter, approached Nick. “I know this is an imposition, dear. It’s not fair to ask it of you.”

Yeah, but Nick knew he really had no choice. “Dr. Ganz and Cate’s supervisor agree it’s the best thing. I know what to watch for, can prescribe whatever she needs and conduct her therapy.”

“It’s the perfect solution,” Rolph Olin said. He shot a look at his wife, one that warned her to stop protesting.

“I guess it does make sense,” Tess said, obviously relieved. Cate’s younger brother, Anderson, nodded in agreement, looking from one parent to the other, taking his cue from them as usual.

Nick could only imagine how Cate would fare if these three took over her care. The best she could hope for would be benign neglect. The worst would be another attempt on her life when she was at her most vulnerable and unprotected.

Sending Cate into whatever kind of protection program they offered would be even worse. She would probably get very little medical attention since all the damage was virtually invisible. Her condition could deteriorate in either case.

“So you’ll be flying home with her?” her mother asked.

“Of course.” Nick figured it wasn’t exactly a lie. They would fly home eventually. “Go ahead and do whatever you have to do. I’ll take good care of Cate,” he assured the Olins and was somewhat mollified by Tess’s tears of relief and Rolph’s obvious gratitude.

They did care about her, but they were definitely not equipped to be caregivers. All their focus was on her little brother’s career. Sport freaks, to the exclusion of everything else. “I promise to call you and give you progress reports.”

Tess smiled up at him and gave him a motherly hug. Rolph and Anderson shook his hand. He couldn’t miss the renewed hope for a love match in their eyes, a hope both he and Cate had always resented. Even his own parents had pushed that.

Their families had been friends since he and Cate were kids. His own father was a big name in sports medicine, Cate’s was a world-class coach. That common interest, and living in the same town, had cemented a friendship that had grown over the years. Their folks had entertained each other frequently and even traveled together on family vacations.

Cate was three years his junior and back then it seemed to Nick that he was the only one who cared whether she reached adulthood. Totally unsupervised and absolutely fearless, Cate had dragged him into more life-threatening scrapes than he could count. Apparently, her adventurous nature hadn’t changed.

He had been relieved when he finally graduated and left home for college. While still in medical school, he had married Karen, who was the antithesis of Cate in every way imaginable. The marriage had proved a serious lapse in judgment.

Though he’d continued to worry about Cate over the years, she probably hadn’t given him a second thought. According to Mercier, she loved her work battling terrorism around the world. Nick shuddered to think of the danger she had faced in her job, but he did admire her for channeling all that daredevil energy into something positive. She would not take it well when she learned that outlet was now closed to her.

He knew from experience what it was like to lose the work that defined you. His left hand clenched automatically while his right barely made a fist. Even after surgery and extensive therapy, it had taken him nearly a year to accept the permanent nerve damage and resulting changes in his life.

Maybe helping Cate come to terms with this injury would give new meaning to what he had endured and accomplished. It would be better if she didn’t have to face this catastrophe alone, as he had.

Tess was speaking again, her hand on his arm. “We’ve already told her goodbye. We didn’t mention all that we discussed about you looking after her. She’ll listen to you, Nick. She always did.”

No, she rarely had listened. But Nick nodded anyway.

The Olins were not bad people. They simply didn’t know how to manage anyone who wasn’t in top form physically. When one of the skiers they trained suffered an injury or illness, they passed him or her off to someone who could fix it. If there was no complete comeback in the offing—and sometimes even if there was—the individual was quickly replaced by someone else to train. Right now their hopes were pinned on getting their own son, Anderson, prepared for jumping and freestyling his way through the next Winter Olympics.

No doubt they’d be off to the nearest slopes as soon as they could make arrangements. He heard them mention Austria as they turned to leave.

Nick sat in the waiting room. Mercier and Solange, a physician who worked at the hospital in Georgetown, were still in with Cate.

When he saw them exit, he joined them in the hall. “How is she?” he asked.

Solange replied, “Restless. Attempting to cope, mostly with denial. Dr. Ganz said he would release her today, but we didn’t mention that. I wonder if she should stay another day or so.”

There was no reason to prolong the inevitable. “So, she’s aware of Ganz’s prognosis?” Nick asked. They had operated to relieve the pressure on her brain from the bleeding, but the damage had been done. She had hit a rock. In addition to that, she had been deprived of oxygen a few minutes too long before they could dig her out. It was unlikely that Cate would ever fully overcome the results of her injuries. Her vision was impaired. So were her voluntary reflexes and her equilibrium. Her thought processes had been slow at first, but that had improved fairly rapidly. It was a good sign, but not good enough.

“Yes, she has been told,” Solange said with a grimace.

Mercier put an arm around her shoulders as he met Nick’s gaze. “I want to thank you personally for doing this, Sandro. I imagine Cate won’t be easy to live with these next few months.”

“I know.” Boy, did he know it. Cate had not been easy to be with when she was well and happy.

Life around her had been a roller-coaster ride. Cate embraced risk. A thrill a minute and damn the danger. All that energy. That strength. Those mercurial moods and sheer physicality. One thing he had to admit, he had never felt so alive before or since being with Cate. He had tried to hold on to that zest for life she had revealed in him. Secretly, he had envied her natural exuberance and tried to embrace it.

The trick would be to turn the force and strength of Cate’s energy into something that would get her through the worst of this. And to focus whatever drive he had left on her recovery.

“No one knows your address in Florence but your parents, right?”

“I moved to a larger apartment recently, so even they don’t have my exact address,” Nick assured him.

Mercier nodded, obviously satisfied. “We’ll make certain you aren’t followed when you leave here. Two of our Italian assets are already in Florence checking out your apartment and the surrounding area. They’ll identify themselves when you arrive. Here’s the information on them.” He tucked a card into Nick’s breast pocket.

“That’s assuming I can persuade her to go,” Nick said with a wry smile.

“I just told her she has to,” Mercier declared. “Cate’s practical. She understands that.”

Mercier cleared his throat and glanced at the closed door to Cate’s room. “Well, Good luck, Sandro.”

“Thanks.” Nick sighed. He would need it.

Mercier had told him earlier that he had three months, at which time he needed to know whether Cate could function in a training capacity or at a desk job with the agency. That time frame closely coincided with the date Nick had to report for the fellowship he’d decided to take.

Psychiatry was a far cry from neurosurgery, but it was one of the possibilities open to him now that he lacked the strength and fine motor skills necessary for delicate operations. So they had three short months for Cate to reinvent herself.

He took leave of the Merciers and went back in to speak with Cate. She looked exhausted, barely able to stay awake. “Hey, girl. Did they wear you out?”

“God, this is the longest day ever,” she groaned. “What are my chances of getting out of this place so I can get some rest?”

“Pretty good, actually. You’ll be staying with me for a while,” Nick said, reaching for her hand and clasping it with his left. “Don’t you dare say no. I’m looking forward to making you my famous spaghetti.”

“Oh, please,” she groaned, and made a face. “Not with the olives?”

“Black olives now,” he replied with a grin. “I’ve gone exotic.”

She wriggled around, withdrawing her hand from his and pulling up the sheet to cover her breasts, clearly outlined by the soft cotton print.

Her gaze fastened on the window. “They shouldn’t expect you to babysit me, Nick. I told them that.”

“We are doing this,” he declared. “It’s all settled. No arguments.”

She brushed a hand over her face. “Jack made my alternative pretty clear, but it’s so not fair to you. Gives new meaning to the word imposition.”

“Your mom said that, too, but it’s not imposing. I volunteered for it.” He managed another grin to cover the lie and flashed her the Boy Scout pledge.

“You did no such thing and we both know it.” She sighed. “And what if I don’t choose to be your good deed for the day?”

“I’ll carry you off like the caveman I can be when you strip me down to essentials. You know I’ll do it.”

She laughed. “Caveman stripped down, huh?”

Nick didn’t miss that fleeting expression that said she did recall him stripped. Her awareness of him as a man had always made him feel primal. Again, the old guilt over that surfaced, but he dismissed it. He made up his mind to view her as a grown woman from now on, not as the precocious kid who hit on him regularly and delighted in making him uncomfortable.

She had burst into the bathroom and seen him naked in the shower once. And stared, fascinated, amused and aroused, too, if those little breasts of hers had been any indication. It had not been his fault.

Her gaze shifted from heated to frustrated in the space of a heartbeat. “So when do we blow this joint? I’m sick to death of it.”

Nick released the pent-up breath he’d been holding. “This afternoon looks good for me.”

Her blue eyes flew wide. “Seriously? Today?”

She had been here for three weeks, conscious for two of them, ambulatory for one.

“They’ve done about all they can do here. Now comes the real work.” He shot her a warning look. “You know I’ll be a slave driver, don’t you?”

Cate exhaled, looking incredibly weary. All the visitors today hadn’t helped. Maybe she was too tired to make the trip. “If you want to wait until tomorrow, Cate, it’s okay,” he said.

“Not on your life. If I have to sneak out the back door dressed in this backless wonder and mooning the locals, I’ll do it. You said today.”

“Today it is. You take a short nap while I get the paperwork done. Then I’ll send in a nurse to help you dress. I hope your mom brought some clothes for you. If not, I’ll get you a set of scrubs to wear. Nap now,” he ordered, shaking his finger at her.

She clenched her eyes shut and pulled the sheet up under her chin. “Sleeping, see? Go sign me out.”

Nick reached through the railing of her bed and squeezed her foot. “See you in about an hour, twerp.”

He had to get out of here before he made an idiot of himself, kissed her and promised he’d make her well despite the overwhelming odds against it.

Seeing her this way, weak, bedridden and so desperate to escape the hospital she would go with anyone, made Nick worry that maybe this wasn’t going to work. What if he was too personally involved to help Cate do what she needed to do? Could he ignore all the old feelings and be professional enough?

He had left her alone when she was seventeen because he had to, but it hadn’t been easy. He had put her firmly out of his reach. Now she was thirty. And a patient, he reminded himself sternly. Still off-limits. No way would he become involved with a patient. Not even Cate.

“The last time you wore that look I had just laid a wet one on you under the mistletoe,” Cate said, laughing. “Do I still scare you, sweetheart?”

He shook his head in sheer exasperation. What the hell was he going to do with her? That was what scared him.




Chapter 2


Laughter proved the only weapon available as Cate fought tears of frustration and fear. She had to lick this. And who did they send to help? The man she had avoided like the plague for years.

God, why did he have to look so damn good? Who was she kidding? Even if he had gotten bald and fat, he would still be Nick, the only man she had ever pursued. And she had done that with such a wicked vengeance, ignoring his every protest, knowing that her aggressive behavior had actually pushed him away. How embarrassing was that?

What was her family thinking? Unfortunately, she could no longer tell and that was yet another source of frustration. They had always been a snap to read. Now she couldn’t even grasp how they were feeling, much less pick up any of their thoughts.

Both she and Nick had known their parents hoped for an eventual love match and resented that fiercely as most teenagers would. Only she had rebelled by provoking him, daring him, making him miserable. She was sure he had seen her as a pest. She had deliberately acted like one.

Their folks had given up the matchmaking after they saw their children’s lives headed down totally different paths. Nick’s marriage had quelled their hopes completely. And surprisingly, had secretly devastated Cate. She hadn’t even realized how much she really wanted him.

Nothing had cooled as far as she was concerned. And Nick wanted her, but obviously still felt guilty about it. Now it wasn’t her age or their parents’ interference, it was his ethics. It would always be something. They were just too different to get it on. She would have to curb her libido and give him a break.

Maybe he could help her recover from this injury. Not that further surgery ever could, so her neurologist had said, but if anyone could work a miracle, it would be Nick.

Couldn’t he see they were all using him? That she would feel she was, too, if she let him look after her? He’d insist on it anyway, though. Nick was like that, a born healer, Dr. Responsibility. And stubborn as the day was long. Worse than she was, if that was possible.

God, she did not want to go to Italy with him.

Cate wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t. This would pass, this weakness, this dizzy feeling, the horrendous headaches, nausea and rapid mood swings. Nick would know how to fix it all. He always knew how to fix things. Leaky faucets, faulty spark plugs, people’s brains. He was her best chance to beat this.

Surely she could stand the embarrassment of being with him if he could teach her how to overcome her injuries. He didn’t seem to be holding a grudge after all this time. He hadn’t ever, bless his heart.

Their paths had crossed occasionally when she had gone home to Elizabethtown, New York, for a visit and he happened to be there, too. It was impossible to avoid one another in a town that size. Their brief greetings had been understandably cool. Barely polite, but never hostile. It was just that she hadn’t wanted to set off any errant sparks and knew he had felt the same.

They wouldn’t do any sparking this time, either, and in spite of her teasing just now, she would see to that. Except for her age, all the old reasons they shouldn’t act on what they felt were still alive and kicking, magnified now by the intervening years and added to by the present situation. He had been right then and he was right now.

Her ruminations went on and on, preventing sleep. Before she knew it the nurse had come to help her dress. That proved no small feat since it involved sitting up, then trying to stand while the room spun. Not fun. She managed to get her clothes on before the nausea overcame her and she had to throw up. After that, she settled in the wheelchair to wait.

“Ready to go?” Nick asked as he breezed in, still looking like a cool million. She closed her eyes against the sight, but the image stuck. Oh, man, what eye candy!

He had always turned her on, even as a kid. As a fully mature man, he set her hormones bouncing big-time.

He had this intense look about him, riveting brown eyes and a strong jaw that gave him a determined, capable-of-anything appearance. His body had filled out, grown more muscular and less rangy. She tried not to imagine what it would feel like to have him hold her, to have him love her like no one else ever would.

He approached and she caught a whiff of his aftershave. Smelled like heaven must, she thought, realizing that part of the essence was Nick himself. Good ol’ pheromones.

“I’ll take it from here,” he said to the nurse who was about to wheel her out.

They left by a little-used exit. Cate noted a gray Volvo parked right behind the dark blue Audi Nick guided her to. She recognized Danielle Michaels, one of her fellow agents, in the Volvo’s driver’s seat and another, Vanessa Senate, riding shotgun.

“Hi, guys!” she called. Danielle waved at her and gave her a thumbs-up. Van smiled, too. They had been in for brief visits, along with her other teammates. God, she missed them. She missed work.

“What are they doing here?” she asked Nick as he helped her out of the wheelchair and into the comfy passenger seat of his Audi.

“Escorting us out of town,” Nick said. “Sort of like an honor guard.”

Cate fastened her seat belt. “Trust them to make a big deal out of nothing.”

“Hey, it’s a big day for you. They wanted to throw a keg party, but I declined on your behalf.”

“Meanie.”

“Yeah, well, I recall your fondness for suds and I don’t think you’re quite up to a hangover.” He pushed a lever and reclined her seat. “Just relax and don’t try to view the passing scenery. Might make you carsick. Try to sleep if you can. Want something to help?”

“Nope. No more pills. If I get the urge to upchuck, I’ll let you know so you can pull over.” She did as he instructed, well aware of the effect visual motion had on her even when she was sitting still.

They rode for a while with only the soft music from the radio filling the silence. Cate couldn’t sleep.

She kept stealing glances at Nick through her lowered lashes. “Better get this out of the way now, I guess. Do you forgive me?” she asked, unable to stand the question foremost on her mind.

“For what?” he asked.

Cate chuckled. “Hitting on you when you couldn’t hit back. I knew you wanted to.”

“Shut up,” he said playfully. “You did drive me crazy.”

“I know. Actually, I read your mind. Knew exactly what you were thinking. I told you so then, but you didn’t believe me.”

He smiled. “Yeah, well, you were definitely a little witch.”

“You still don’t believe it, do you?”

He shook his head. “You might have Mercier and the government snowed with that psychic claptrap, but I know how you do it.”

“Do you really?” She would never convince him. She hadn’t exactly kept her ability a secret from him, but hadn’t offered any proof of it, either. She had welcomed his skepticism. Not fair, maybe, but a girl had to use everything available to get things going. Or end it when it was time.

But what did that matter now? She couldn’t do it anymore. Her “gift” had always been there and very early on she had found it proved much more useful if she kept it to herself. Nobody had believed her anyway unless she demonstrated it and then it seemed to scare them off.

Only after she heard about the COMPASS team and applied for it had she been totally upfront about what she could do. Telepathy had become a large part of her job, maybe the most important skill she had. Was that why Mercier no longer wanted her as a field agent? Did he realize she had lost it? And if he did, how could he know it wasn’t a temporary loss? How could she?

Somehow, though, she needed Nick to know she had been inside his head, to believe it now. Maybe she just needed to convince herself it had been real and that it could be again. “You had some serious stuff going on in that mind of yours.”

“Like worrying about a jail term if I let you have your way with me,” he said lightly. “Did that register at all?”

“Yeah, I got that, and I’m apologizing for it, okay? Can we be friends again, Nick? Can we put all that behind us and just…get on with this?” God, could she sound more needy?

“Good friends, always,” he agreed with an emphatic nod. “We’ve never been other than that, Catie. Just relax and don’t worry about a thing.”

Cate couldn’t let it go. It sounded too pat, too easy. “So you’re not still mad about it, even a little?”

“Of course not. Can’t you read my mind and tell?” he teased.

No, not even a little bit. She’d get it back, though. She had to. God, it was like a giant hole in her awareness, that missing ability. Yet another handicap she had to overcome. She missed it as much as she would any of her other five senses. But Nick couldn’t help her with this.

She needed to understand precisely what her other handicaps were. “Nick, could you explain it to me and dumb it down to layman’s terms? Dr. Ganz told me everything, but I didn’t get much after his initial message of doom and gloom.”

Nick sighed and renewed his grip on the steering wheel as if bracing himself for something unpleasant.

“All right. Hitting that rock caused bruising and trauma to your brain. When there’s a sharp blow to the head like that, the bruising and the damage to the internal tissue and blood vessels is due to a something we call coup-countercoup.”

“Sounds like a double whammy,” she said, trying to conceal her fear.

“Exactly. The bruise directly related to trauma at the site of the injury is the coup. When the brain jolts backward, it can hit the skull on the opposite side and cause a bruise called the countercoup. The impact of the brain against the sides of the skull can cause a sort of tearing of the lining, tissues and vessels. The result of that can be bruising or swelling of the brain and internal bleeding. That’s why Ganz did the surgery, to relieve the pressure from the bleed.”

“I see.” Cate ran a finger over the healing scar and the stubble of hair growing in around it.

Nick continued. “Some injuries aren’t so bad and the symptoms and disabilities disappear over time, while some are severe and may result in permanent impairment.”

“So how severe is mine?” she asked, hating how scared she sounded. But she had to know. “It must be pretty bad.”

He glanced at her and tried to smile. “Well, certainly not minor, but you’re still very lucky. All your motor functions seem to be working, if a little slowly. They will get better, though.”

So maybe she’d get her extra faculty back in time, she thought, hanging on to the hope.

“What’s your main concern here, Cate?” he asked.

“Going back to work. Why is Mercier so dead set against that?”

He shrugged. “The seizures would be my guess. You had several immediately after they brought you in. Grand mal type.” He hesitated for a few seconds. “Those could happen again at any time in the future with little or no warning. You can see how that would hamper you as a field agent and put others at risk.”

“Ah. Well, suppose I took antiseizure meds?”

“Could impair cognitive functions you’d need to have sharp on the job.”

“Space me out you mean?” She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “Okay, that’s enough. I get the picture, though I don’t necessarily agree that I’m a lost cause.”

Somehow she’d think of something to get around Mercier’s main objection. Maybe have a number of EEG’s over the next few months and prove there was no longer a threat of seizures. She hadn’t had a single seizure since she woke up. Mercier would be convinced eventually.

She could hear just fine, no numbness, her taste and smell seemed okay. But occasional double vision and the loss of her sixth sense worried her. She felt lost without the telepathy.

She couldn’t talk to Nick about the absence of that skill if he didn’t even believe she had it to begin with, so she deliberately changed the subject.

“My moving in with you won’t mess up anything you’ve got going, will it? With someone else, I mean.”

“No, I’m not involved at the moment. How about you?”

“No. There’s no one,” she answered, even as she suddenly realized there probably never would be—nothing serious anyway. She compared every man she met to Nick. Why hadn’t she noticed before that she was automatically doing that?

She ran her thumb beneath the seat belt where it pressed against her chest. “So this Boy-Scout deed of yours. It wasn’t really your choice, was it?”

He hesitated just a beat too long. “I care about you, Cate. I want you to recover to the maximum extent and also make sure you can deal with whatever is not possible.”

She sat up straight and glared at him. “Well, that sounds depressing as hell and pretty damned pessimistic. What do you mean?”

He punched off the radio. “You do understand that full recovery is probably out of the question? I know Ganz told you that. Solange Mercier affirmed it and I have to agree.”

“Bull, you don’t have to,” she scoffed, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t care what any of you say, I can whip this, Nick. If you’re giving up before we get started, I don’t need your so-called help!”

Rising fury had her close to hyperventilating. Her face felt hot as hell and her nails bit into her palms. She recognized the unwarranted anger and knew the heightened emotion was a product of her injury. She deliberately tamped it down. It was a good sign that she could control it, Cate decided with a firm nod. Progress already.

“I’m not giving up, Cate,” Nick told her, shaking his head. “Only trying to prepare you.”

“I am prepared,” she said, biting off the words, determined not to unleash her feelings and give him the notion that they were uncontrollable. “I’m fully prepared to do whatever is necessary and then some. I will get back to top speed and I’ll do it in three months. You watch me.”

He shot her a look that contained no sympathy whatsoever. She hadn’t expected that. She had thought he would cajole, maybe tease or argue just to strengthen her determination. Instead, he focused again on the highway. “I see we’ll have to work on your acceptance of limitations.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “That will be your greatest challenge.”

He turned the radio on again. Cate watched him for a few minutes, wondering what was going on in that mind of his right now. God, she wished she could read him the way she used to. But the gift was gone, buried under the snow in the Bernese Alps, along with her balance and depth perception. Maybe forever.

What if he was right? She would be so screwed.

No. She could not let herself think that way, even for a second. With enough hard work and dedication, Cate knew she would come out of this whole. She would do anything, go to any lengths, to make that happen.

For now, she was determined to enjoy the moment. Or rather the hours it would take to reach Florence. She had traveled very little in Europe when she hadn’t been in a hurry to get where she was going. She decided to stay awake as Nick drove over the Simplon Pass from Switzerland into Italy. When traveling by train or air there was little to see but the insides of enormously long tunnels or the topside of clouds. So this scenery was new to her and distracting, thank goodness.

The snow-capped peaks were nothing new, but the sight of them, up close or at a distance, always filled her with awe. Even the memory of being trapped beneath all that snow so recently didn’t cause the view to pale. “I love it over here,” she muttered. “So beautiful.”

“You should be sleeping,” Nick replied. “Are the curves getting to you? I figured this would be better than the tunnel.”

“Claustrophobic, are we?” she asked with a grin.

“No, actually it’s the lack of lines on the road that separate the traffic going in opposite directions. A little unnerving.” He paused. “You feeling okay?”

“Not as bad as you’d think. And I don’t want to miss all this.” She fluttered her fingers against the car window. “Fantastic.”

The faint threat of nausea and the constant blurring bothered her, but she found she could take brief looks, close her eyes for a while and then open them to something totally new.

There were gorgeous waterfalls, some even channeled over the road by special concrete structures that also lent protection against avalanches. She shivered at the very thought of avalanches. But what were the chances of being caught in two within the month? She quickly dismissed the thought.

Chalets had sprung up in places where it seemed no human should or could live. Real Heidi country, she thought with a smile, recalling the poignant story from her childhood. “Look! There are some sheep!”

“Goats,” he argued, correcting her with a laugh.

“Okay, so I don’t see all the details. I will. And I’ll come back here soon and ski that slope,” she promised herself out loud. She noticed the look on Nick’s face as she said it. He didn’t think she’d be able to face it, or maybe didn’t think she ought to try.

“Hey, you get thrown, you get up and get back on the horse,” she explained.

“Not if the outlaws are shooting at you,” he reminded her. “Then you scramble for cover, which is precisely what you’re doing.”

“You’re a cautious man, Nicky,” she said with a chuckle. “You always were.”

“Is that your Latin for coward?” he asked with a smile.

“No, of course not,” she assured him. “It’s just that you spend too much time looking and never, ever leap.”

He inclined his head in agreement. “Maybe that’s why I’m not the one running for my life.”




Chapter 3


Even though it extended travel time, Nick had opted for the less-congested autostrada instead of taking the A1 main artery leading to the city. That made it easier to determine whether anyone had followed them. No one had, he was certain.

They arrived late in the day, just as the sun was throwing its golden glow over the city. He didn’t wake Cate to see it. As eager as he was to share the beauty of Florence with her, that would have to wait. Brunelleschi’s beautiful, striped dome shone in the distance like a beacon leading him to the area that was his temporary home.

He loved Italy and especially old world Firenze, even though the Sandro family originally hailed from Rome. When he’d first arrived, he had considered making the move permanent. He had even been offered a position on staff where he was attending the seminars. But his plans were already made for the fellowship and he hadn’t liked the idea of taking the easy way out. Besides, he was admittedly addicted to fast-lane living and rather spoiled when it came to amenities not available anywhere else but the States.

When they reached his building, Nick parked in front, half on the cobbled sidewalk, as everyone did. He woke Cate, helped her from the car and ushered her inside to the lift that would take them to his second-floor apartment.

His bedroom was the larger of the two, but fronted the street, so he guided her to the guest room. It looked rather spartan, but he figured she was too tired to notice anyway. Tomorrow he would see about fixing it up for her. She collapsed immediately without so much as a good-night.

Too wired to go to bed so early in the evening, he went to the kitchen, heated a can of soup and made himself a ham sandwich.

The two agents Mercier had contacted in Florence came by after darkness fell, supplying the proper password so that Nick could identify them as being who they claimed to be.

One was a portly little guy in his early thirties, sporting a neat moustache and wearing an expensively tailored suit. The other looked slightly older, tall, built like a wrestler and dressed more casually. Both were Italian, probably former military, judging by their bearing.

Their English was fairly fluent, but out of politeness, since this was their country, Nick switched easily to the Italian his grandmother had required that he learn.

Tosseli and Giacomo reassured him they would remain on watch from the rooms they pointed out in the building across the street. Anytime Nick and Cate went out, he was supposed to ring them up and let them know. The telltale bulges beneath Tosseli’s coat and Giacomo’s loose-tailed shirt assured Nick they were loaded for bear.

Despite Nick’s aversion to firearms, these he didn’t mind. If someone did come after Cate, he wanted all the backup he could get.

After their watchdogs left, Nick went to bed. He fought with dreams of Cate all night long, the same dreams he had battled when he had left her to go away to school. Hot dreams. Then there were the nightmares about there being no one to save her from herself. But the hot dreams dominated.

He knew he couldn’t keep dwelling on the past this way or he’d go nuts. Cate had made it perfectly clear she just wanted to be friends now, nothing else. She had even felt easy enough with him to tease him about those early years.

How could they be anything else but friends? He was in no frame of mind to embark on a relationship. He had lost his livelihood and whether he would succeed in his next position was anybody’s guess. There was the fellowship coming up, more training. Analysis. Setting up practice, if that’s what he decided to do in the new specialty. What if he found he hated psychiatry? Yet another field? More training? For the first time in his life, his future was uncertain.

And even if he were already settled into something career-wise, what about Cate? She had some huge life changes down the road whether she accepted that fact or not. He wasn’t sure he could help her much past the immediate recovery phase.

It seemed he needed to work on acceptance as badly as she did because he still wanted her, so badly that he might settle for something as temporary as a one-night stand.

He made up his mind to retreat into doctor mode for the duration. He would not let this get out of hand. It could only hurt both of them.

By morning, he had his resolve firmly in place.



“Breakfast,” Nick announced, placing a tray on the table next to her bed.

Last night she had insisted on using the walker for balance to get herself to the bathroom and back. He knew that changing her clothes must have been difficult, but her determination had won out. The T-shirt she wore to sleep in was on inside out, he noted. Either she hadn’t noticed or hadn’t had the energy left to fix it.

She pushed up in bed, closing her eyes momentarily and swaying a little. He watched her swallow hard several times and take a deep, shuddering breath. It took her nearly a full minute to recover from the sudden movement.

“Take it slowly next time. Give your senses a chance to catch up. Your body’s doing one thing, your brain is registering something else. Disorienting, I know, but you’ll learn to adjust and compensate.”

Cate shot him a nasty look and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m fine. So what’s to eat?”

He took the tray and placed it in her lap. “Egg, toast and coffee. Decaf cappuccino.”

She wrinkled her nose. “You know I hate decaf anything! The least you can do is bring me high-test. I’ll make it myself in the morning.”

“There’s juice, too, if you don’t want cappuccino.” He pulled a chair next to her bed to join her, and reached for his own cup of regular coffee.

She beat him to it, laughing when she tasted it. “I knew you wouldn’t drink the fake stuff. Or the sweet stuff! This one is mine!”

Nick sighed. She was going to be a handful, but he had known that going into this. “Have it your way.” He picked up her juice and took a sip. “Soon as you finish, we’ll get you up and running, so to speak.”

“A jog around the block? Just what the doctor ordered and I see you’re dressed for it. I hope you’ve removed all the local statuary to prevent collision damage.” She winked. “Though I wouldn’t mind running into The David. What a bod!”

“Joke all you want. I know this balance thing is driving you crazy. We’re going to improve that, but don’t expect miracles by this afternoon, okay?”

She nodded, then dug into the egg, making a face as she did it. “It might take a week or so. I’m good with that.”

He remained silent, unwilling to burst her bubble and not even certain he could if he tried. She obviously needed time to come to terms with the truth of her condition.

“Great coffee,” she told him. “I want a refill after my shower.”

Nick took the tray and set it on the nightstand. “You have to let me help you with that, Cate. Can’t have you falling and breaking something.”

“Help with the coffee, yes. With the shower, no,” she declared. “I can do this by myself, Nick.”

“Cate…”

“I will be careful,” she promised, giving him her stubborn grin. “No chance in hell you’re gonna see me naked after all these years.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” It was. He had seen her naked once, poised on the pier near his family’s cabin on the Waxahatchee River, about to dive. A nymph at dawn, all golden and surreal, too beautiful for words. The image was branded on his mind forever.

He stood and picked up the breakfast tray, shoving his chair out of the way with one foot. “If you run into trouble, I think I can stand what gravity must have done to you in your old age. Holler if you need me. And take your time. Move very carefully, okay?”

“Aye, sir!” She saluted.

It was all he could do to leave the room. In spite of that, he did feel relieved that she was taking charge of the more intimate tasks necessary. He could only imagine what seeing her naked with warm water sluicing over her would do to his own equilibrium.



Cate managed to make it to the bathroom. The aluminum walker surrounded her on three sides, providing the stability she needed. She slid it carefully forward on the tiled floor, afraid to lift it for fear she would tilt sideways and fall.

The step-in shower was easy to access and operate. She made quick work of it, leaning on the walker to steady herself. Then she grabbed a towel, dried off and pulled Nick’s terry robe off the nearby hook. Snuggled inside it, she raised one lapel to her nose and smiled as she inhaled his scent.

Feeling refreshed and enjoying her successful stab at independence, Cate headed for the sink. She wiped off the steam and took a good look at herself in the mirror. If she stood real still, there was only one of her looking back.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” she asked her reflection. Man, she looked pathetic. No worry that Nick would want to kindle anything with her looking like this. Not that she was even entertaining the thought.

The truth was, she would always love Nick, but she knew love was not enough to surmount all their differences. She could never have been a doctor’s wife with all that entailed, the social obligations, the sacrifice of her own goals. And he could hardly be expected to enjoy life as a husband to someone like her. Not Nick the worrier.

Nope, that would never have worked then and wouldn’t work now. A silly girl’s pipe dreams, that’s all. Time to put them away, file them under misty memories and what-might-have-beens.

She reached up and raked her wet hair back with one hand. Needed lightening, she thought with a sigh. Needed a cut. They had chopped out a chunk, then shaved it down to the scalp around the site of her surgery, a round gap of half-inch stubble that looked horrible unless she did a sort of comb-over. The word made her grin at herself in the mirror.

She plundered shamelessly in the drawers of the bathroom cabinet and came up with a pair of scissors. Maybe she could go punk.

If she couldn’t control anything else in her life right now, at least she could take charge of her appearance.

Confident she could look no worse than she did now, Cate grabbed up a comb, separated a section of hair and began to snip. She could do this.



What was she doing in there? Nick paced the hallway, waiting for her to come out. The water was off, had been for ten minutes. Maybe she was using the bathroom. He wasn’t about to storm in and embarrass her.

“You all right, Cate?” he called.

“No…” He heard her drawn-out moan. Pain? Something clattered to the floor.

“I’m coming in,” he warned.

The moment the door opened, Nick gasped.

She turned to him, tears in her eyes and sobbed. “It…It’s awful!”

He took it in. Long pale hanks of hair littered the sink and floor. The scissors lay open, next to the faucet. His hairbrush and the small hand dryer had tumbled to the floor. Cate was grasping the bars of the walker in a white knuckled grip. Wet hair stood straight out from her head in uneven lengths.

“Oh, Catie,” he groaned.

“Fix it,” she pleaded.

He had never heard her sound so desperate about anything. She certainly had never worried much about her looks. Hadn’t had to. She was a natural beauty.

He went to her and took her in his arms, the bars of the walker between them, a reminder of why she was here. Gently, he patted her shoulders and barely stopped himself from kissing her on the head. “It’ll be okay. Let’s go where you can sit down.”

Patiently, moving at turtle’s speed, he helped her out of the bathroom and into the club chair by the window in the bedroom. Then he retrieved the comb, scissors and dryer.

Good Lord, what had he gotten himself into? Should he call a stylist? Who the heck would make house calls? He didn’t know anyone else who could do this. At least not nearby and not on a Sunday.

Though she wasn’t vain, Cate had always spent a fortune on her haircuts. She had told him once that a good haircut saved money and time because it required so little in-between care. Her straight, part in the middle, all one-length style suited her perfectly and hadn’t changed a bit since she was a kid. Until now.

Well, hell, he was a surgeon. Or had been. Surely he could manage to even up a few strands of hair. Cate was unduly upset by this little tragedy and he couldn’t have that.

“We’ll have this straightened out in no time,” he assured her. “Just sit there, close your eyes and be patient.”

She sniffled. “I thought I could…”

“I know, I know. Actually, it’s not that bad,” he said, hiding a grimace. Actually, it was terrible. She had butchered it. He might not know much about hairstyles, but he could surely make it better than it was now.

He tried to remember what he’d seen the stylists do to women’s hair in the shop where he had his cut. It bothered him that he wasn’t nearly as observant as he’d always thought. His right hand worked better at this than he had imagined it would, but little strength was required to separate sections of hair and hold it for cutting. The movements of his left were as precise as ever.

After about ten minutes, he laid the scissors down, fluffed what was left of Cate’s hair out with his fingers and plugged in the hair dryer. He sort of rolled the brush at the crown of her head, giving her hair some puff. Unfortunately, that was about all he could recall a stylist doing. He smoothed down the rest around her face.

She sat stiffly, eyes tightly shut, her breathing sounding about as ragged as her hair had looked.

The result was a fringed pixie cut that looked oddly endearing on Cate, at least to Nick. He missed the silken flow that used to entice him to stroke it. Good. Now he’d no longer have to deal with that particular temptation. Besides, this new wash-and-go hairdo would be much more practical for her right now.

He gave her shorn hair a final ruffle. “Finished! Girl, I think I missed my calling. You are gorgeous.”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “I over-reacted, didn’t I? Crying over my hair is not rational behavior. I’m much worse off than I thought.”

Nick tweaked her chin. “Give yourself a break, would you? Women obsess over their looks all the time.” He leaned closer and winked. “Want to hear a secret? Men do it, too. It’s allowed. Now, you want to see?”

She braced her hands on the arms of the chair and got to her feet. Nick led her back into the bathroom, anxious to see whether his efforts would rouse a new spate of tears. Or maybe outright hysteria.

Cate was kind. She smiled, reaching up to flick the bangs, then tug them into some sort of order only she could see. “Not too bad. Now what can you do about these dark circles under my eyes?”

Nick’s breath gusted out in a wave of relief. “Feed you regularly and see that you get enough sleep and exercise.”

Her direct gaze met his in the mirror’s reflection. “Thanks, Nicky,” she whispered. “For everything. You didn’t have to do…all this. Take me in, feed me, do my hair…”

“Sure I did,” he said, hoping she never learned how he had argued against taking her on. “You’d do as much for me, wouldn’t you?”

She nodded. “Could…could we get on with whatever you do have in mind for rehab?”

Nick shrugged. “Don’t you want a day to rest up before we start, maybe tour the apartment, sit outside on the balcony and watch the tourists? Not many come this way, but the locals are interesting. Most are attending church at this hour, but later it gets pretty lively out there.”

She clicked her tongue, impatient. “I don’t have time to watch people!”

He laughed, relieved that her mood had switched. “Then get your britches on and let’s go to work.”

“Where?” she asked, looking altogether too excited, probably expecting a full-scale workout, complete with hand-to-hand combat. Unless she had acquired some patience in the intervening years, he had his work cut out for him.

“I’ve set up in the lounge. I want to do some basic evaluation, then start with hand-eye coordination exercises and build from there. I know they did tests in the hospital, but I need to judge the extent of the injury for myself. And for you, of course. First, we’ll define exactly which parts of your brain are affected, then construct the actual therapy so that other parts can take over and learn new tricks.”

“Got it,” she said with apparent enthusiasm. “So get out of here and let me get dressed.” Her blue eyes twinkled with mischief. “Unless you want to observe me and see how my coordination works with that.”

“Don’t think I’m not tempted.” He teased her back with a fake leer. It felt a little too real.

She gave him a push. “Get out of here!”

Her moods were very pronounced and changed too rapidly with too little cause, he noted. Similar to bipolar symptoms. Could be that she was merely nervous about being with him in a doctor/patient situation. That couldn’t be any easier for her than it was for him. Something to watch, at any rate.



Cate examined the navy sweats he’d left for her to wear, the matching hoodie, white T-shirt and a pair of his sneakers. Those would be too big for her, but not by much and he’d provided thick socks. Walking would be easier with shoes. She had the changes of clothing that her mother had bought, but they were dressy outfits, as useless as the fancy low-heeled pumps and slick-soled flats.

Cate wondered what had happened to the bag she had with her at the ski resort. They would have to shop for clothes for her, but not today.

He came back fifteen minutes later. She was dressed, but exhausted now and lying on her back across the bed. He sat in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Tire out real easily, huh?”

She groaned. “Weak as a kitten! Couldn’t even manage the socks and shoes. Tell me this is temporary.”

“It is, but you can’t rush it too much.”

“Funny, you never realize how wonderful it is to be normal until you’re not.”

He picked up one of the socks and Cate lifted her foot. “You were actually normal? When was that?” he asked, joking as he slid the sock on.

Years worth of adrenaline-powered action scenes and arduous training ops flashed through her mind like a high-speed slide show. “When I was with you. When you told me what to do. How to be,” she answered without thinking.

Their eyes met. He drew a finger down the side of her ankle, then held her foot flat against his chest, caressing it.

Her breath caught in her throat as the warmth of his gaze registered fully. She clenched her eyes shut against the heat in his.

He gently lowered her foot, then released it. When she opened her eyes, the heat was gone and so was Nick. He had closed the door between them. Or maybe she had done that with her response.





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