When A Hero Comes Along. Teresa Southwick

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СКАЧАТЬ doctor took the chart from her and flipped through it. Without looking at the patient, he said, “Mr. Bennett, you’re having an M.I.”

      “What’s that?” The man’s fearful gaze moved back and forth between them. His anxiety quotient was edging him toward panic.

      “Myocardial infarction,” Mitch said.

      “Heart attack,” Kate translated.

      “We’re going to give you some anticoagulants, a clot buster and some morphine for the pain.” Mitch looked at her. “Per my standing orders.”

      “Okay,” she said nodding.

      “Then we’re going to transfer you upstairs to the cardiac-care unit for observation.” Mitch started to walk out.

      “Am I going to die?” Mr. Bennett asked.

      Mitch finally looked at him. “Not today.”

      Kate shook her head at the doctor’s curtness. Mitch Tenney was the finest trauma specialist she’d ever seen. What he lacked in bedside manner he made up for in skill. And that’s probably the only reason he was still on staff. Mercy Medical administration had received more than one complaint and the doctor was flirting with his third strike.

      She stayed with the patient until he was transferred upstairs, then checked in at the nurse’s station. “If I’m all clear, I’m going to grab some lunch.”

      The supervisor looked up from her computer monitor. “Go, Kate. It’s late. You must be starving.”

      “Yeah. Been one of those mornings.”

      And it got just a little more unpredictable when she walked through the waiting room on her way to the cafeteria. Joe stood there dressed in a khaki flight suit, aviator sunglasses hanging from the V where his white T-shirt peeked above the zipper.

      “Hi,” he said.

      “What are you doing here?”

      Mentally she smacked her forehead. He wasn’t dressed up for Halloween. These were work clothes for a helicopter pilot. She just hadn’t connected the right dots fast enough to realize that he was her helicopter pilot. He’d brought Mr. Bennett in.

      “Scratch that,” she said, shaking her head. She wasn’t prepared to deal with him again so soon. Part of the reason she’d cut last night’s visit short was to pull herself together, but one sleepless night of thinking about him hadn’t been long enough to settle her traumatized nerves. And when he stood there looking like temptation for the taking, she knew her nerves wouldn’t be upgraded from critical to stable any time soon. “I guess what I meant to say was don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

      “Not at the moment.”

      He looked good, she thought. The one-piece flight suit should look dorky, but didn’t. Not on Joe. It was impossibly masculine, along with his short dark hair which was mussed in a good way. Dark-blue eyes met hers and he seemed more serious than she remembered. More compelling. And more dangerous.

      He was still handsome, and looking at him did scary things to the rhythm of her heart, which had already worked pretty darn hard in less than twenty-four hours. But he was different somehow. The self-confident, cocky air that had first captured her interest was missing in action. He seemed more watchful, wary, on full alert.

      His face was strong, with a square jaw and a nose that was not quite straight. Looking closer, she noticed a scar on his chin, a back-slash that she didn’t recall. And she would. She’d kissed every inch of his face during those intense weeks they’d been together, before he’d abruptly told her it was over between them.

      Kate slid her hands into the pockets of her scrubs as she looked up at him. “I’m on my way to lunch.”

      “Mind if I join you?”

      She shrugged. “Suit yourself. But it’s hospital food. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

      “Roger that.”

      The cafeteria was on the first floor and she led him through the maze of hallways until the scent of food drifted to them. It was late for lunch and the room was practically empty. They took red plastic trays from the stack and slid them along the metal shelf in front of the steam table while studying the day’s menu choices—beef stroganoff and chicken teriyaki. She looked up at Joe, intending to break the tension and say something light and innocuous about the awful food, but her tongue refused to work. She was immobilized by the expression in his eyes—probing, intense, alive, knowing. Suddenly she wasn’t hungry—at least not for food.

      She cleared her throat, then said, “I recommend a hamburger.”

      He nodded, and she ordered two. They got drinks from the fountain dispenser, then filed by the cashier and Kate insisted on paying because of her employee discount.

      When they were facing each other across a table, she cut her hamburger in half. Anything to keep her hands busy. Unfortunately, the movement also highlighted the fact that they were shaking. “So—I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

      “It was bound to happen.”

      “Because of J.T.,” she said.

      “Because Southwestern Helicopter Service is my company and we have the contract for medical evacuation with Mercy Medical Center.”

      “I knew that.” It was another reason she’d half expected to see him when his tour of duty ended. “I just figured as owner of the company, you were running the show from behind a desk.”

      “No way.” He shook his head. “The way I see it, anyone who doesn’t want to fly is crazy.”

      Mentally she raised her hand for a free pass to the psych ward. She liked both feet on the ground, thank you very much. One irreconcilable difference in the con column and she suspected there would be more. Part of the problem was that she didn’t know how many more. She’d spent several sizzling weeks with this man and talking hadn’t been high on her list of things to do with him. But the list had changed. He was J.T.’s father and she knew very little about him, except that he’d charmed her into breaking her rules, then disappeared and broke her heart. That’s what happened when you didn’t follow the rules. She wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

      “I see,” she said.

      Without cutting it in half, he took a manly bite of his burger, then chewed. “So, who watches J.T. while you’re at work?”

      Probably he’d have asked that even if she hadn’t mentioned their son a few moments ago. And she was going to cut him a break on the slightly judgmental tone in his voice and chalk it up to her imagination, aggravated by guilt from leaving her son in order to make a living and put a roof over his head. “I have someone.”

      “I guess you checked out this someone?”

      “Of course. She’s mature. A grandmother.” When she noticed the look on his face, she added, “A young grandmother. She has references.”

      Joe finished his hamburger while she picked at hers and made crumbs out of the bun. Without consciously forming the thought, Kate had known that Joe showing up would complicate СКАЧАТЬ