Dr. Bodyguard. Jessica Andersen

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      “Nope, everyone else already had plans. Since neither you nor I have a life, we were unanimously chosen for the roles of visitor and visited.” He tried to grin, but it faltered and his hand trembled as he wiped a handkerchief across his sweating head. “Jesus, Genie. I… I…” He couldn’t finish, just shrugged, and she wondered if he had been the one to find her in the darkroom.

      She’d seen the bloodstained lab coat before the police had taken it away, but when she tried to imagine the attack, her mind slid away and showed her other things instead. Fields. Butterflies. Flowers. The hazy shape of a man holding his hand out to her.

      Since Genie’s greatest source of pride was her well-ordered, methodical mind, she did not like this open rebellion and planned to make her brain behave at the earliest possible moment. But to do that, she had to go home. She’d never get any peace at Boston General. There would be candy stripers trying to cheer her up until she wanted to throttle them, doctors shining lights in her eyes every five minutes to make sure she wasn’t in a coma, and that big woman nurse with the mustache and the sponge baths…

      She had to get out of here.

      “Will you take me home, Leo?” It was worth a try, but even before the words were out, he shook his head.

      “No. No. I don’t think that’s a good idea, Genie. You’re pretty banged up.” He paused and she could read the words, Although it could’ve been a whole lot worse, in his gaze. “No. I think you should stay right here and let the doctors look after you while the police find whoever did this.”

      Genie didn’t want to think about who had attacked her. Even the word police made nausea swirl higher and sweat bead. She didn’t want to think about being attacked. Not here, not now. She needed to go home.

      Needed to be alone so she could fall apart in private.

      She frowned to keep the tears away, but the movement pulled at the stitches on her forehead and made her headache worse. “Then go away. I don’t want any visitors unless they’re going to take me home.” She stopped Leo on his way out. “Hey. Can you find the guy that rode with me in the ambulance? I want to thank him.”

      Leo looked surprised. “You do? But I thought you didn’t…” He trailed off, then shrugged. “Okay, I’ll go get him.”

      “He’s here?” Didn’t paramedics hang out at fire-houses? Or in ambulances? She thought so, though her E.R. experience was limited to a quick three-week rotation and taped reruns of the popular television show.

      “Yeah, right outside. He’s been waiting around to make sure you were going to be okay. He was real worried about you.”

      “Then send him in and go away, Leo.” The administrator headed for the door and Genie called after him, “And, Leo? Thanks for coming. Thanks for looking upset.” Even though he was probably more concerned about lawsuits and PR nightmares, it was nice to think that someone cared.

      When he was gone, the nausea subsided and was replaced with a warm, fuzzy feeling Genie thought might be due to the little pill Nurse Walrus had given her a few minutes earlier. Her mind drifted.

      She needed, she thought irrelevantly, to get a life. If nothing else, this…incident had brought home the fact that she’d let important things slide while she’d pursued her medical degree, then her Ph.D., becoming the youngest Primary Investigator that Boston General had ever seen.

      She made another mental note. Make a few friends. Go on a date. Her lips curved. A date? With whom? The pool of eligible men at Boston General was pretty shallow. She certainly wasn’t dating George Dixon again—been there, done that, got the restraining order—and most of the other researchers she knew were either ancient, married or—as in the case of the handsome antichrist she shared lab space with—egocentric jerks.

      At the thought of her worthy opponent, something niggled at the back of Genie’s brain, but the rumble of Leo’s voice in the hall diverted her and she thought that her paramedic must be pretty inefficient if he waited for each of his patients to wake up. Or else he’d picked up on the same weird vibrations she’d felt run up her arm when he’d been holding her hand in the ambulance.

      She plucked at the overwashed sheet and wished she were wearing something other than a hospital johnny. Wished she had a comb and a mirror. Wished she hadn’t run out of laundry and been forced to scrounge in the back of her underwear drawer. Her heart sank at the thought of her colleagues at Boston General seeing the zebra striped satin panties and matching bra her mother had optimistically sent from Paris.

      Never mind what the paramedic thought, she could just imagine the talk in the doctors’ lounge. Hey, did you see what Watson was wearing when they brought her in? Whoo-whee. Hot stuff for such a cold fish.

      Genie didn’t want to be hot stuff. She didn’t want to be a cold fish. She just wanted to be—

      The door opened. She glanced over to thank her paramedic and perhaps, since there was no time such as the present to work on her new resolve, ask him if she could buy him a drink. But instead her heart gave an unsteady thump and all that came out of her mouth was a startled, “Beef!”

      The big blond man at the door stopped, looked intently at her, and a slow, sexy grin creased his face. He nodded and said in a disturbingly familiar drawl—one that could even be called nice if she stretched it—“Genius.”

      And the battle lines were drawn. Again.

      He knew she hated the nickname that had plagued her since she’d skipped fourth and fifth grades, landing smack in junior high at the age of eight. He called her that to bug her, the same reason she called him Beef to his face when the other women did it behind his back.

      Nicholas “Beef” Wellington the Third. He might think the nickname was a culinary reference, but the women knew better. They called him Beef as a tribute to his masculine physique, a testimony to his hunkiness and grade-A buns.

      Except for Genie. She called him Beef because she knew it irked him and because he was everything she was not—gorgeous, popular, wealthy and well-connected. And sexy. Had she mentioned sexy? He was also sloppy and easygoing, and for the past several months, Leo had forced her to share her precious lab space with him. Her equipment.

      Practically her life.

      Dr. Genius Watson and Dr. Beef Wellington. They were opposites. Thesis and antithesis. Matter and antimatter. Genie figured that over time they’d either cancel each other out or repel each other into different universes.

      She was betting on the latter.

      “I was expecting somebody else,” she said. “A paramedic.” Please, she thought, let it have been a paramedic.

      Beef Wellington crossed the room in two ambling strides. His lab coat was unbuttoned and the weight of the ID badge, radiation monitor and pen collection in his left breast pocket pulled the coat askew to give her a quick glimpse of the tight, perfect chest and flat stomach beneath the worn T-shirt. There were rusty stains on his sleeves and on the faded jeans that showed through the gap in the white coat.

      His dark blond hair had outgrown its midsummer buzz cut and drooped across his forehead and ears as though it couldn’t bear to be away from his face with its wide Viking cheekbones and slashing blade of a nose.

      He leaned close and Genie could smell him, a combination of warm soap, acrylamide СКАЧАТЬ