Lori Wilde - Racing Against the Clock

The overhead lights beamed down hot and bright. She wore a flimsy hospital gown and nothing else. Not even her underwear. Where were her clothes?

Plucking the oxygen tubing from her nose and peeling the sticky monitor pads from her chest, she then carefully swung her legs over the edge of the gurney. Her head swam and she was forced to grip the railing for support. Once she had regained her equilibrium, Hannah eased her bare feet onto the tile floor and hissed in a breath against the shocking coldness.

She had to get out of here. Before Daycon’s goons came back. Before the police showed up. Before Dr. Handsome returned and started demanding answers. She knew he hadn’t believed her when she’d lied about not knowing her own name. She had seen the suspicion in his dark eyes, had heard the doubt echo in the richly resonant tones that matched his cautious demeanor. She lied to protect him, to keep him from getting any more involved with her than he already was.

And any minute he would be back, wanting to take her to surgery. Hannah couldn’t allow that to happen. If she succumbed to anesthesia she would be too vulnerable.

What a predicament.

She had no money, no identification and no clothes. Plus, she had a movie-star handsome doctor who made her pulse race and wanted to slice her open. To top it all off, she was starving.

As if to illustrate the point, her stomach growled.

“Forget food. Get moving, Hannah,” she whispered.

First things first. She had to focus, had to find where the hospital staff had stashed her clothes. She took a hesitant step toward the cabinet below the shiny stainless-steel sink in the corner. Her leg seemed to be working fine. Fractured indeed. Dr. Handsome had better learn how to read X rays. Thankfully for her, his diagnosis left a lot to be desired.

Reassured that everything was in proper working order, she stalked over to the sink and rummaged beneath it. Betadine wash. Antiseptic hand soap. Scrub brushes. Nothing that looked like her beige car coat, navy-blue jumper, black penny loafers and white-lace cotton blouse.

Hurry, you’ve got to get out of here before that studly doctor comes back.

She shut the cabinet door and closing the back of her immodest hospital gown with two fingers, moved across the floor to investigate the other side of the room.

There was a brown paper sack on the floor wedged behind a chair, beneath a heavy metal supply rack.

Aha. This looked promising.

Hannah bent over and touched the sack with her fingertips, but her arms were too short to reach it. The sack slid farther against the wall.

Shoot.

She settled herself onto her knees in the chair and leaned over the back, allowing the tail of her gown to flap as she strained to extend her arm. She was concentrating so hard on reaching her coveted prize that she didn’t hear the door whisper open, but the next sound drew her attention.

A throat being cleared.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Dr. Tyler Fresno demanded.

Her head came up. Her eyes were wide and scared, but Tyler could not get the image of that round little fanny from his mind. When he had walked through the door and spotted the woman bending over the back of that chair, the thin cotton hospital gown draping loosely around her legs and revealing her naked backside, his initial response had been utterly masculine and not at all professional.

Physical passion, hot, hard and more powerful than anything Tyler had experienced in the past six years kicked him solidly in the gut. He had no business entertaining these thoughts. None whatsoever. Yet there they were.

Jane Doe scurried to her feet and spun around, a red stain coloring her cheeks. “I was just trying to find my things,” she said, fumbling to close her gown and hide her nudity.

Immediately contrite, he was embarrassed at his overt sexual desire.

Then surprise ambushed him as he realized what she had been doing. The woman should not be able to stand on that leg, much less kneel in the seat of a chair. The pain would be too great.

“What are you doing out of bed?” he demanded, stalking toward her.

She backed up, her chest rising and falling so rapidly he couldn’t stop himself from noticing the swell of her firm, unfettered breasts beneath that skimpy gown.

He shifted his stare to her right leg. The limb supported her without even trembling. Impossible! Confused, Tyler shook his head. The intern must have been wrong about the hairline fracture.

Jane Doe squared her shoulders, raised her head and took a stand. “I’m leaving the hospital against medical advice. Please, get me my clothes.”

“No,” he said.

“You can’t hold me here against my will. I know my rights as a patient.”

“The police are outside. They want to talk to you.”

Her color paled and she looked stricken. “The police? Why would they want to speak to me?”

“About the accident. They’re saying that someone tried to run you off the road.”

“No.” She forced a laugh. “Where did they get that idea?”

“Eyewitnesses.” She was clearly afraid of the police. Why? Was she in some kind of trouble?

Tyler sank his hands on his hips and studied her face. The look of desperation in her eyes sliced him deep. He’d seen a similar expression before. In his own mirror. He remembered what it was like to feel utterly desperate and completely out of control.

After Yvette had died he’d gone off the deep end, drinking too much and isolating himself. Six weeks after her death, he’d taken off for Big Bend National Park and walked into the desert without any supplies, determined to stay there until he died. Three days later, dehydrated and malnourished, he’d become delusional and staggered into an illegal immigrant’s camp. The man could have left him for dead. He’d taken a great risk, but he had stayed with Tyler and nursed him back to health. If a considerate stranger hadn’t given him sanctuary during that grim time in his life, he would not have survived.

Did Jane Doe need that kind of help from him now?

Yeah, like you’re capable of giving it. When was the last time you altruistically did anything for anyone? his cynical voice taunted.

After Yvette’s death, he had become so accomplished at shutting off his own feelings that his concerns for his patients never extended beyond their surgical recovery time. What mattered to Tyler was that he performed their operations to the best of his ability. After that, it was out of his hands. He hadn’t cared about their family life or spiritual well-being. He hadn’t bothered with learning how they got around at home or if they had someone to cook and clean for them while they recovered. That was the job of social workers and nurses, not surgeons.

He was too rusty. His do-gooder instincts were flabby and out of shape. He should just get someone from social services to come consult on her case so he could wash his hands of everything but her medical condition.

Inside his head, he heard Yvette click her tongue that way she had when she was disappointed in him. He could almost feel her disapproving frown burning the back of his head.

Angrily, he shrugged off the sensation. Dammit! He had no reason to feel guilty. He hadn’t asked for this assignment. He wasn’t this woman’s savior. Nor was she even asking him to be. He didn’t want to get involved.

I’m my brother’s keeper. Yvette’s motto—his own old motto before he’d lost touch with his humanity—echoed in his ears.

Ah, hell.

“No one forced me off the road,” Jane Doe denied. “The eyewitnesses are mistaken. It was wet and getting dark. I was driving too fast. My car hydroplaned and flipped.”

“You can remember the accident but you can’t remember your name?”