Where There's Smoke.... Barbara McCauley

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СКАЧАТЬ “No.”

      “Hmm. A mild concussion, but nothing severe.” Dr. Tuscano slipped the flashlight back into her coat pocket and picked up the chart again. “Except for your parents, who are on their way here now, you should have no more visitors.”

      “Dr. Tuscano—” the redheaded nurse stuck her head back in the doorway “—you’re wanted on line three. Dr. Heaton.”

      “Be right there.” Smiling, the doctor patted Emily’s hand. “I’ll be here in the morning to check on you. We’ll see how you feel after a good night’s rest.”

      Emily watched the doctor leave, then slowly turned her head toward Shane. He stood at the foot of her bed, his hands still in his pockets. She saw the worry in his gaze, had the strangest desire to touch his cheek, to comfort as much as to be comforted.

      “I better go,” he said after a long moment. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

      But she wasn’t all right. She didn’t know who she was, or what had happened to her; she had stitches in her head and an IV stuck in her arm.

      She felt like a child. Alone and frightened. The only person she knew, the only person she could remember, was Shane. She didn’t want him to leave. She knew if he were here that she would be all right, that she could go to sleep and nothing would happen to her.

      “Thank you for coming.” She silently cursed the tears burning her eyes.

      “What’s wrong?” Frowning, he moved closer. “Are you in pain? Should I call the doctor?”

      “No.” She turned her head away. “I’m sorry. It’s silly.”

      “What’s silly?”

      “I thought maybe…if you wouldn’t mind…”

      “What?”

      “Could you…” She turned her head back to face him. “Could you stay with me, just until I fall asleep?”

      He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded and reached for a chair and sat. “Yeah,” he said with a smile. “I could do that.”

      “Thank you.”

      She knew he was watching her, but it didn’t make her feel self-conscious. It made her feel safe.

      She welcomed sleep, was certain that when she woke, her world would make sense again. That she would remember. Her eyelids grew heavy, and with a soft sigh she let the darkness wash over her.

      Two

      In the spring, tourists came to Boston Harbor Marina in droves. Wearing their hats and sunscreen and fancy digital cameras with long-distance lens, families of sightseers converged on the docks. While dads clicked away, moms held on tightly to impatient little hands more eager to test the water rather than look at it. They ate foot-long hot dogs from Arnie’s Dog Cart at the end of the pier, ice cream cones from a vendor nicknamed Marty the Mariner, who entertained his clientele with stories of mermaids and ghost ships, then they took a two-hour tour of Boston Harbor.

      From the deck of his sailboat, Shane watched the first tour bus of the day pull into a parking lot on the other side of the marina. A great place to visit, he thought, taking a long sip from the mug of steaming black coffee in his hand.

      An even better place to live.

      Half the year he lived in an apartment over his uncle’s pub, the other half he lived here in the marina. He’d used the money from his mom’s life insurance policy to buy the Free Spirit, a thirty-six-foot single-mast sloop. Marjorie Cummings had loved the ocean, had enjoyed the sailing trips her son had taken her on before and even after she’d fallen ill. Shane liked to think that he’d made her smile when he’d bought the boat and moved in.

      Damn, but he missed that smile.

      The sound of a powerboat pulling away from its slip caught his attention, and he lifted a hand in greeting as The Sea Breeze passed by. She was a pretty little yacht. Built for show as well as speed. And while Shane admired the shiny chrome and custom paint, the fancy boat with all its bells and whistles and oversize stateroom was simply not his style. What would he do with all that space? he thought in amusement. He didn’t even have a girlfriend, let alone a wife, though a few of the women he’d dated had made it clear they’d be happy to change his marital status.

      But he was content with his life just the way it was. He came and went as he pleased, sometimes for days at a time. Other than his uncle, Shane had no one to answer to. No one checking up on him, wondering where he was, whom he was with or what he was doing. And that was fine with him.

      He glanced up at a pair of seagulls flapping noisily overhead, screeching at each other in argument over a chunk of bread scavenged from a nearby trash can. The damp, salty air was crisp and cool, but the early morning fog had already begun to lift and the weather promised to be clear and warm. A good day for sailing, he mused, briefly considered taking the boat out, then decided against it. He’d promised his uncle he’d come by and help out with the lunch crowd, and he still needed to revarnish the last section of deck he’d been sanding for the past few days. He had plenty to do to keep his hands and mind occupied.

      So why, then, had he spent most of last night and this morning thinking about a pretty brunette with velvet-brown eyes and a wide, luscious mouth that would tempt a monk?

      After he’d been booted out of Emily’s room last night, Shane had gone home, poured himself a cold beer, then sat on the deck of his boat in the darkness and sifted through what he’d learned about Emily Barone from the nurses.

      The Barone family and their gelato empire, Baronessa Gelati, had been in the papers quite a bit lately, he’d been told. Tabloid stuff, most of it revolving around some rather risqué photographs of one of Emily’s cousins taken with a Baronessa public relations man, and something about a batch of gelato that had been tainted with habaneros. He’d also learned that Emily had an older sister and two older twin brothers, one of whom he’d met last night and instantly disliked. When he’d walked in and found Derrick bullying Emily, it had been all Shane could do not to grab the jerk by the scruff of his neck and throw him out on his butt. Fortunately, the nurse had interrupted with the phone call, then the doctor had banned all visitors.

      Still, Shane had been restless all night, had felt uneasy knowing that Emily might wake and still not know who she was or what had happened to her. He knew, of course, that her parents would be there, that she’d be well cared for. But strangely, it didn’t ease his concern.

      Shane scrubbed a hand over his face, then tossed back the rest of his coffee. He had no business thinking about Emily, wondering what was going to happen to her. He’d simply done his job by pulling her out of the burning building. Her injuries weren’t life-threatening. She had her family to take care of her now.

      She’d be fine, he told himself with a shrug. Emily Barone wasn’t his concern any longer, and she most certainly wasn’t his problem.

      “Emily, can I get you something, dear? Some water, or another pillow?”

      Emily glanced at the woman sitting beside her bed. Her hair was a soft blond, the style short and chic, her eyes pale blue with fine webs of wrinkles in the corners. She was still dressed in the sleek black suit she’d worn to the opera the evening before, but she looked as though she’d СКАЧАТЬ