Racing Against the Clock. Lori Wilde
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Her chest rose and fell in a shallow rhythm. Her body was lithe, supple. Her firm musculature told him that she worked out often and her lack of a tan meant she was either conscientious about the use of sunscreen or spent most of her time indoors. Her breasts were high and firm. Her abdomen was flat.
Tyler registered these things and tried hard not to be moved by them. He was a professional. A doctor. He’d seen thousands of unclothed women and had never been aroused. He was a surgeon, and because of his stint in the first Gulf War, also something of an expert on chemical exposure. Apparently, that was why the intern had called him in to consult on the case.
Curiously enough, considering she’d been exposed to a potentially harmful chemical, her respirations were deep and unlabored. Color good. Her blood pressure was low but he could put that down to the internal bleeding from her spleen, not from the chemical.
Tyler made a mental note to get her lab analysis as soon as possible. Until he knew what he was up against he was not taking any unnecessary chances. She needed surgery but anesthesia at this juncture might be risky. He would not operate until he knew what he was dealing with or until her physical circumstances deteriorated, forcing his hand.
She moaned when he pressed the right-upper quadrant of her abdomen where her spleen was located. He glanced up and saw her eyelids flutter open.
Their gazes met.
The woman looked like a delicate doe startled in the woods by the sound of a hunter’s gun.
Something stirred inside him. Her vulnerability reached out to him, strumming a chord that was far too familiar. In a flash, he saw a loneliness inside her that matched his own, a sense of desolation that ran as deep as the pain he had harbored for so long.
The connection was instantaneous and frightening in its power.
For God’s sakes, Fresno, stop it.
She was his patient, he was her doctor and even if she weren’t his patient, she deserved much more than a damaged man who’d lost his ability to love.
“Miss?” he said, purposefully denying the heavy thump, thump, thump of his heart. “Can you hear me?”
“Marcus,” she mumbled.
“I’m Dr. Tyler Fresno, and you’re in the emergency room at Saint Madeline’s Hospital in Houston, Texas. You were involved in a motor vehicle accident.” Tyler leaned closer and touched her shoulder. “Can you tell me your name?”
She shifted away.
“Are you in pain?”
She didn’t answer or meet his gaze again.
Tyler pressed the button on the electronic blood pressure cuff—88/62. Her BP was up. Excellent news. Perhaps her spleen wasn’t bleeding as profusely as he had feared.
“Can you tell me your name?” he repeated.
“Marcus.”
“Your name is Marcus?”
“Marcus.” Her lips puckered in a whisper. She stirred. “Where are you?”
Was Marcus her husband? Tyler glanced at her ring finger and saw that it was bare. A woman as beautiful as this one was no doubt married or engaged or at least had a significant other. Somewhere, somebody, probably this Marcus fellow, was worried about her.
A twist of pain stabbed through him as he imagined how frantic her husband must be. If she were his wife…
No. She wasn’t his wife. She was a patient. She meant nothing to him beyond the healing of her injuries. That detached attitude had kept him sane and functioning for the last six years. It was the only attitude he could entertain.
“Miss,” he said, “we need to take you to surgery. You’ve suffered internal injuries and your right leg has a hairline fracture.”
Her eyes were closed again. She did not move.
Tyler shook her. “Is there someone we can call? A family member? Your boss?”
Her eyes flew open and he noticed they were as blue as the ocean outside his beach house on Galveston Island. “No,” she snapped. “There’s no one.”
At least he had gotten a response. “What’s your name?” he repeated.
Fear flitted across her face. She paused a moment before saying hesitantly, “I don’t know.”
He had the oddest notion that she was lying, but it wasn’t that unusual for patients to suffer temporary amnesia following a major trauma such as a car accident. So maybe he was imagining things.
“Can you tell me what chemicals you were transporting? It’s important.”
“Chemicals?” Her voice went up an octave and she dropped her gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There were no chemicals in my car.”
“The paramedics found broken glass vials and a damaged empty lockbox in your vehicle.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jane Doe repeated, but she still refused to meet his gaze.
“It’s important. Your life might depend upon this.”
“I’m sorry,” she insisted. “I don’t remember anything about any chemical.”
“Where were you going?”
She shook her head. “I can’t recall. Are the paramedics okay? Did they come into contact with these chemicals?”
Something flickered in her eyes. Remorse? He knew now that she was lying but he had no idea why.
“Possibly.” Two could play this withholding information game. A little guilt might loosen her tongue. “I’ve got to check your lab values, then I’ll be right back with some papers for you to sign. Permission to do surgery. Since you don’t know what your name is, you can sign with an X.”
“All right,” Jane Doe murmured, and he had the suspicion she was simply placating him.
He left the examining room and stepped into the empty work lane. He pulled the door closed behind him, sealing the woman inside. His mind whirled. What had just passed between the two of them? Why was his pulse thready, his breathing rapid?
The intern, obeying his command, had shut down one whole side of the E.R. The HAZMAT decontamination team had arrived garbed in gas masks and rubber suits. The three men carried instruments that looked something like Geiger counters. A band of curious nurses watched the proceedings from behind a glass partition. A representative from administration waited with them, safely out of harm’s way, no doubt fretting over the cost involved.
“Doctor.” One of the members of the decontamination unit moved to block his exit.
Tyler knew what to do without being told. He stopped, raised his arms level with his shoulders and allowed them to run their instruments over his body, searching for foreign material.
“You’re clean,” the man said at last. “But I recommend you decontaminate, just in case.”
“Do you have any idea what the chemical is?” Tyler asked.
“No, sir.” The man shook his head. “We just came from the accident site and we’ve impounded the car.”
“Good.”
Whatever the chemical was, it must have a short half-life if the HAZMAT crew had been unable to find anything. He would check with the lab, then visit the paramedics. Tyler stripped off the barrier gown, the rubber gloves and paper mask and tossed the items in a special biomedical-hazards bin located near the exit. After scouring his skin in the decontamination shower, he dressed in fresh hospital scrubs and combed his damp hair.
As he left the E.R. and headed for the lab, he was stopped in the corridor by a uniformed police officer.
“Dr. Fresno?”