Veronica Sattler - Wild Honey

“Heard they had to abandon another blast-off at the Kennedy Space Center yesterday,” the elderly doctor had mentioned all too casually. “Makes you wonder how all those scientists and technicians feel when that happens. You know, all that time and energy spent gettin’ ready. And then—nothin’. I wonder if it ever bothers them…” He’d looked pointedly at Travis when he said this. “‘Course, it isn’t as if they won’t have another go at it—not like it would’ve been for me, had I been talked into abandonin’ medicine after years of trainin’. Know what I mean, son?”

Despite the old man’s prying, Travis remained courteous to him. Not that he hadn’t been mighty tempted to tell him he hadn’t the right to call him “son.” That no one had that right anymore. Mighty tempted not to counter with a query of his own: “Is that the lie the old bastard’s put out to all and sundry these days—that I was talked into it?”

But he hadn’t of course. He was old school, too. The proper behavior of a Southern gentleman had been ingrained in him and his brother since the earliest days of their childhood. It was the foremost mark of the Tidewater gentry, their mother had always told them, and a true test of Southern manhood.

And because Judith McLean had a way about her and they loved and respected her, her children had never questioned what she said. Southern gentility might be occasionally threatened and a little ragged around the edges since the Civil War, he and Troy used to joke, but it wasn’t dead yet.

So Travis had smiled and gently changed the subject. Now he sat here, pampered like a pet poodle, because Wally Reston likely thought he was doing his old friend a service by mollycoddling the son Trent himself never spoke to. Never spoke to, never saw, never acknowledged as being alive.

Dead, that was what he was to Trent Cunningham McLean III. Just as he was supposed to be dead to Judith McLean and Troy McLean and Sarah. Dear feisty little Sarah…

Travis shifted restlessly on the bed. The agony of his separation from the sister he’d always been close to wasn’t something he normally allowed to penetrate the wall he’d built around it. Lord, he wanted out of here! He’d even settle for the chance to work off some of the steam that was building inside him like a pressure cooker. What he wouldn’t give for his shorts and running shoes right now!

He eyed the armchair near the window. He could get out of bed and use the chair, of course. But he’d been dumped here, out of state, as an emergency patient—minus toothbrush or robe or anything more than the clothes he came in. Which they’d taken away, the cagey bastards. And he’d be damned if he’d lounge around in a chair wearing nothing but a hospital gown and a bandage!

On the other hand, he could always do it without the gown. That’d get their attention all right. He doubted such a stunt was in him, though. It had been years since he’d even thought of cutting loose….

There’d been the ultraserious business of pulling A’s in prep school and then as an undergraduate in pre-med to assure him entrance into Harvard of course. Because nothing else would do for the son and grandson of two of its most renowned alumni.

And then had come the exhausting discipline of med school itself and—

His mind tripped on the one exception to that tightly reined discipline. The night he’d gone drinking with three classmates who weren’t as disciplined. Who’d convinced him he needed to cut loose a little. The night he’d accepted their dare to go to that clinic and—

Now what had brought that up? He hadn’t thought about that dumb stunt in years. Not since his little four-year excursion in the navy for Uncle Sam. More discipline. And after that, the Agency. The last place he’d have allowed himself to think about something like that. If you weren’t all business in the Agency, you weren’t in the Agency, period.

And now he was thirty-five. A little long in the tooth for the kid stuff, a time to put away childish things…

But the familiar passage from Ecclesiastes was erased when Travis found himself thinking, with a grin, that sitting on the chair in nothing but a bandage might almost be worth it. If it was Miranda Terhune who stumbled across him!

Fat chance, though. He’d seen neither pretty hide nor gorgeous hair of Nurse Randi since the ER. And suspected it was likely to remain so. Not just because the ward he was in wasn’t her beat. He’d begun to see what that young resident had meant when he’d called her an ice queen.

Except…those blushes had told him that somewhere under the ice, a lovely little fire burned. He’d bet on it. It was why he couldn’t resist those teasing probes, gentlemanly or not. That, and because a challenge was a challenge.

Yet his indulgence in that little byplay had likely ensured her giving him a wide berth for the duration of his stay. No, Nurse Randi wanted no part of challenges. She’d keep her distance.

There was something about the woman, though. Something more than her arresting beauty that nagged at him, had his mind returning to her. He wondered if he hadn’t seen her somewhere before. He rarely forgot a face. In his business, his life and the lives of others could depend on such recall. And Randi Terhune’s wasn’t the sort of face he’d be likely to—

The murmur of voices in the corridor intruded, and Travis lost the thought. Visiting hours. Scowling, he picked up the book a candy striper had brought him and found his place. Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. Fit reading for a hospital room? he mused darkly. Maybe not, but it sure fit his mood.

Settling in with the book, he ignored the muted sounds outside his door. He hadn’t had any visitors yet, and he wasn’t expecting any until tonight. Which was just fine with him.

Jason Cord had said he’d drop by, bring his shaving kit and a few other items Travis had told him where to locate in his apartment. And although Jason could be pretty surly these days, he was never boring, especially talking about the doings at the Agency.

Rafe O’Hara had called, of course, to see how he was, the smug bastard. OI’ Rafe was getting married today, though, so maybe Travis had the last laugh. For he firmly believed in one self-evident truth in this life: romantic love was for poets and fools.

Still, Rafe and Francesca looked so happy together that he’d briefly wondered if there might be an exception….

A low rumble of laughter resounded from the corridor just outside the door, and Travis slapped the book shut. Hell, weren’t hospitals supposed to be quiet?

Realizing how grouchy he’d become, he made a conscious effort to relax. If he were honest, he’d have to admit that a few noises wouldn’t faze him if he had visitors. But he didn’t right now, so visiting hours just increased his frustration. And boredom. Hell and damnation!

Suddenly Travis’s head snapped in the direction of his door as it opened. Then he froze.

The slender, elegantly dressed woman had also stopped moving, except for the clear blue eyes that swept over him, drinking in every detail. Eyes so like his own, although the rest of her patrician face had been passed on only to her younger children, missing Travis entirely.

“Hello, son.” She spoke quietly, in the soft Tidewater accent that would forever stir nostalgic echoes from his youth. “May I…may I come in?”

Travis found himself swallowing, unable to speak. He managed a nod, gestured to a chair near the bed.

He watched her as she found the chair, lowering herself into it with as much grace and poise as ever. Judith Paxton McLean was a year short of sixty, but she’d always looked at least a decade younger than her age. An active life that included daily horseback riding and tennis had preserved the girlish figure in the red Chanel suit; the youthful impression was aided by her expertly applied makeup and the smart beveled cut of her silver hair.