Читать книгу Medical Romance July 2016 Books 1-6 - Lynne Marshall, Amalie Berlin - Страница 27

CHAPTER THREE

“STAY HERE!”

James gritted out the command as he threw open the door to his vehicle and dashed after the intruder. He turned the same corner as the man, only to be confronted by a spiderweb of alleys and apartment fronts. There was no sign of anyone. No witnesses. No perpetrator.

If Mila hadn’t still been in the car, he would have ventured farther to make sure the jerk wasn’t hiding in one of the dumpsters or behind one of the parked cars, but what if he had an accomplice? What if, even now, Mila had decided to go inside her clinic on her own?

“Hell.” He should have just called the police and stayed with her, but the instinct to chase down whoever it was had been too strong. And now he was at least five minutes away from the clinic.

Pivoting toward the opening of the alley, he took off the way he’d come, his gaze seeking out his car as soon as he turned the corner. And found the passenger door open, the seat empty.

“Damn it, Mila!”

The muttered words were swallowed by the flow of traffic on the busy street. Why had no one stopped to help when they’d seen someone breaking in? Maybe because this wasn’t the safest area of town.

And Mila lived here...had just gone into that dark clinic all alone.

Reaching the door, he found it still locked, so he stepped through the opening, glass crunching beneath his shoes. His instinct was to call out to her, but if someone else was lurking in the shadows, he was afraid he’d tip him off. Instead, he stopped for a second and listened.

He heard someone talking. Was it just Mila on her phone, reporting the break-in to the police? Or was someone else in there?

Picking his footsteps a little more carefully to avoid snapping more glass, he made his way through the inky interior. She hadn’t turned the lights on. Why?

He reached the narrow hallway and drew up an internal map of the clinic from his visit a week ago. The voices were coming from the right, from the direction of the exam room he remembered seeing. Pausing outside the open door, he again heard Mila’s voice, the low sound coming across as calm and soothing...as if worried about spooking a frightened animal.

It was then that it dawned on him. She wasn’t speaking English. It was Spanish. She’d trekked through the Amazon basin, so she knew both Spanish and Portuguese.

He took a deep breath and spun around the corner, a streetlamp shining outside the window making it a little easier to see.

Mila, who was crouching in the gloom, grappling with someone or something, squeaked out a warning. He braced himself for attack.

Only the fear on her face was aimed squarely at him, not whatever was next to her.

“God, James, you almost gave us a heart attack.”

He’d almost given them...? The thing next to her was evidently a who...not a what.

“What the hell is going on?”

Reaching to the right, where he remembered the light switch being, he flipped it on. Two pairs of eyes blinked up at him. His attention swiveled to the small figure huddled close to Mila.

It was a child—a young boy around three years old—not an armed intruder, like he’d feared. Which meant the man who’d run away from the building was what? A father? Boyfriend? Some kind of sexual predator...? His brows drew together in anger. Who broke into a medical clinic and dropped off a kid?

In one hand, the boy clutched a gray blanket, the satin edge frayed and missing in spots. The child’s other hand was balled into a fist that he held against his mouth.

No. Not a fist. The child was sucking his thumb, fingers curled tightly into the palm of his hand. And those hollow, tearstained eyes...

The child stared at him for a second or two longer and then whimpered, cringing closer to Mila. James forced his frown away, realizing he probably made a scary figure standing over them, the emotions churning within him clearly visible.

“Está bien. No tengas miedo.” Mila’s voice was soft and comforting, even as she sent James another scathing glare.

She was telling the child not to be afraid?

What about him? She’d almost set him flat on his ass when he’d seen her kneeling there, envisioning all kinds of terrible things.

But this child was thin. Very thin and... His gaze stopped, chest squeezing tight enough to stop him from breathing for several seconds.

His feet. The boy’s feet. They were turned inward at an unnatural angle as if they were pairing up for a duel.

Clubbed. Both of them.

His inward curse rattled his ribs and shunted the pressure that had been gathering around his midsection to his throat. The deformity should have been corrected when the child was an infant.

He knelt next to the pair, his glance meeting Mila’s. “Is this one of your patients?”

“No.” She placed a hand on the boy’s head as if protecting him. From what? James’s fury?

He wasn’t angry. Not at the child, anyway. “I thought I told you to wait in the car.”

“I was going to, but I heard crying coming from inside the clinic.” She glanced toward the door just as the sound of a siren swept through the interior of the space. “And I knew the police would arrive at any second.”

Not soon enough to stop a bullet, though, if Mila had come upon something other than a frightened child. His anger came back in a rush. “You should have waited for them, then. For your own protection.”

Her face quieted, becoming an icy cold mask that stopped him in his tracks. “I don’t need you to protect me, and you’re not the one who makes my decisions. Not in the past. And certainly not now.”

She was right. She was a grown woman, and this was her clinic. Not his. “I was worried. I lost sight of the man I was chasing, and when I came back and saw the car empty...”

Mila’s mask cracked, then fell away. “I’m fine.” Her head shifted toward the boy. “He said his uncle left him here. I think he was hoping to get the boy some help.”

“Medical help, I assume.” He nodded toward the boy’s feet.

“Yes.”

“And then just ran off? What kind of a—?” He bit off the word, not sure how much English the boy understood. “What kind of person does something like that?”

“Fear can make people do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

“Like abandon someone they’re supposed to love?”

As he said the words he was gripped by a huge sense of irony. Fear had caused him to do that very thing. Abandon Mila on the cusp of their wedding, leaving her hurt and alone. No matter that he’d thought it a necessity at the time. And then when he’d discovered it hadn’t been necessary, when it had been too late to take it all back, the tabloids had exploded with the news of their broken engagement, comparing it to his parents’ ugly divorce years earlier. It had reminded him of all the reasons he should just leave things as they were. Mila deserved better than him and his dysfunctional family.

Freya had been there to pick up the pieces for her friend, and to rake him over the coals. He didn’t think his sister had ever quite forgiven him for what he’d done to her dear friend.

The sound of voices shouting from the entrance to the clinic cut off anything she might have been getting ready to say, and they were soon caught up in chaos as the police rushed in, followed by the emergency technicians once the all clear was given.

Worse was the fact that a lone firefighter showed up, right on the heels of everyone else. Concerned eyes took in the scene, and Mila stood to hug him, leaning in to whisper something in his ear.

The man shrugged with a crooked smile. “I know. I was worried. Sorry. The address that came over the com was for Bright Hope. I had to check it out.”

Tyler Richardson, Mila’s ex. He evidently wasn’t out of the picture as completely as Mila had said. And he was evidently allowed to worry about her safety, whereas he himself didn’t have that privilege.

Taking in the lean muscle and short cropped hair of the other man, James stiffened. Emotions he’d thought long dead surfaced as he watched her describe what had happened, including the police officers in her explanation.

Mila never once lost her cool during the events that followed, and she didn’t allow James—or even her ex—to speak for her, not that the man tried. He knew enough not to, which made James’s chest tighten further. Tyler knew the woman Mila was today.

He forced himself to stand a few feet back and watched her, a strange sense of admiration rolling through him. She was confident and matter-of-fact. So different from the shy but passionate woman who had taken his senses by storm six years ago.

She’d traveled the world. Alone. Had probably faced hundreds of situations far more dangerous than the one they’d found at the clinic.

Would she have gotten the chance to grow and change if they’d stayed together? Or would the overprotective nature his sister accused him of having press her into a box she was afraid to leave? Or worse?

He had no idea whether he was trying to assuage his guilt in leaving her, or if it was a genuine question for which there was no answer. But, whatever it was, Mila had been changed in some undefinable way.

The firefighter who still stood by her side seemed to respect her as well. In fact, the three of them—woman, child and man—looked like the kind of family you saw on greeting cards.

And James didn’t like it. At all.

He moved in closer to diffuse the picture. “I know Bright Hope hasn’t officially opened its branch at The Hills, but I’d like to transport him there to do a workup and make sure there are no medical issues other than his feet. We have state-of-the-art equipment.”

It was true. Not just that. His medical center was also equipped with suites to house patients who were having surgery so that their privacy could be guaranteed. A nod to battles he, his sister, and his parents had fought with the paparazzi. The center could also accommodate those patients who needed physical therapy after a procedure. And they always kept a few of the small apartments open for emergencies.

“That would be great. Thank you, James.”

Tyler’s head abruptly cranked around to look at him, narrowed eyes meeting his.

Was it his imagination or was there a veiled threat in the firefighter’s gaze? He met the look and matched it with one of his own. Neither looked away, until Mila cleared her throat and glanced from one to the other.

James took a step back. “I’ll call Adam Walker and see if he has any openings in his schedule. He’s one of the best orthopedic surgeons around.”

Mila’s eyes closed for a second. When they opened, they were a warm shade of hazel that he hadn’t seen in forever. “Thank you. I owe you.”

“Nope. You don’t.”

If there was a debt owed by anyone, it was him. And it was more than he could ever begin to repay. For helping him discover something that had set his life path in stone. Or maybe he had Freya, his dad and Cindy to thank for that. Cindy’s lie had saved two incompatible people a lot of grief and heartache. Mila might not have appreciated that back when he’d broken things off, but she probably did now.

It took almost an hour to sort through the red tape of having Leonardo—the name the boy had given them—declared a temporary ward of the state so that they could transport him to The Hollywood Hills Clinic. Mila had gone outside to say goodbye to Tyler and then had headed up to her apartment to pack a small overnight bag, insisting that she was going to stay with Leo at the medical center.

What if he got scared? Or had a nightmare? He shouldn’t be alone.

“Are you sure you want to stay?”

The department of children’s services wouldn’t be there until morning. Maybe it was just as well, because James was suddenly bone tired in a way he hadn’t been for a long time. Whether it was physical exhaustion or exhaustion that came from the emotional upheaval of the break-in and seeing Mila’s ex, he had no idea.

“I’m sure,” she said, walking with the EMT workers to the ambulance and then climbing in beside the boy. “Would you mind running by the store and picking up a few things for him, like clothes and a toothbrush?”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, sorry.” She peered out of the vehicle before opening her purse.

He stopped her with an upraised hand, realizing she’d misunderstood him. And he was glad that she’d chosen him to run her errands, rather than Tyler. If he refused, he had no doubt she would call the other man and ask him to get the items. Not going to happen. “I don’t need your money. I just have no idea what size he wears.”

Up went Mila’s brows. “Um. He’s around three years old. So a size three should do it. Get some underwear and socks too, okay?”

Kids’ clothes sizes ran by age? Who knew?

“I’ll meet you back at the clinic in an hour or so.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you soon.”

The doors to the ambulance slammed shut and the vehicle sped away from the building, lights flashing, leaving him standing there alone.

Just as well.

He needed time to untangle exactly what had happened here tonight. And why the fishing hook he’d been toying with a few hours ago at the restaurant had just been suddenly and expertly set by some distant fisherman, leaving him little or no chance of escape. Not without inflicting some major damage to some of his internal organs. Although, if things got too bad, he might have to just rip free of the line and hope for the best.

* * *

Adam Walker met her at the door.

Mila tried to calm her still shaking legs. She’d been shocked that Tyler had rushed over to Bright Hope to try to help. Especially with James there. She’d felt guilty enough for breaking things off with him. She certainly hadn’t expected him to show up right after she’d been wined and dined by her other ex.

Lord.

It was over. With both of them. She had nothing to feel guilty about.

And yet she did. That line of guilt ran from her to each man, and she wasn’t sure which side made her feel worse.

Neither. And her mind should be on Leo right now, who needed her help.

“Let’s get him to an exam room.” Adam stretched his palm toward the boy, who, seated in a wheelchair, hesitated for a split second and then placed his small hand in the other man’s. With kind eyes and tightly curled brown hair, the orthopedic surgeon had worked with children before. It was there in the easy grip of his fingers, in the way his right shoulder stooped low so Leo’s arm wouldn’t be stretched too high by the difference in their heights as Mila pushed the wheelchair.

Mila smiled, despite herself. Whereas James had seemed vastly uncomfortable in the boy’s presence, Adam was a natural. Judging from the gleaming gold band on the man’s left hand, he might even have children of his own at home.

They got Leo up on the exam table, and while a nurse worked on getting the boy’s vitals, Adam rolled the bottoms of the child’s threadbare jeans up a few inches to get a better look at his feet and ankles.

His jaw tightened as he examined the twisted appendages and slid his gloved hand along the outside edges of Leo’s feet. “They’re both fixed in the varus position.”

Mila knew that there were two main forms of club foot, equinus—when the toes were pointed toward the ground—and varus, when the bone malformation caused the outer portion of the foot to swivel downward, forcing the toes toward the center. “I haven’t seen him walk yet. I’m not sure if he can.”

“You may not have seen it, but he does.” Adam gestured her closer. “See this callusing over the tarsal and metatarsal? He walks on the edges of his feet.”

“Wow. It should have been corrected when he was a baby.”

Adam shrugged. “I’ve seen more of these cases in developing countries than here in the States, where corrective surgery is the norm. Maybe his folks couldn’t afford it. Or maybe they immigrated here from somewhere else.”

“He only speaks Spanish, from what I’ve seen. And he said his uncle left him at my clinic. The authorities are still trying to locate him.”

The surgeon rubbed a hand behind his neck. “I can fix his feet. But we’ll need permission from someone before I can do anything.”

“I’m scheduled to speak with a social worker tomorrow. Surely they’ll make a way, even if we can’t find the uncle. He can’t stay like this.”

“I’ve done a few pro bono cases that have come through the courts when the system’s doctors were inundated and couldn’t get to them.” He gave the boy’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll be happy to help in any way I can. Just get me the release forms.”

“I’ll get to work on it.”

James pushed through the door, his arms loaded with packages. Not from the local store but from one of the upper-end clothing chains in the area. The orthopedist’s brows went up, bland amusement sliding through his eyes. “Doing a little late-night shopping, James?”

“Sure. That’s what I normally do with my free time.”

His voice was a little sharper than she’d expected it to be, and she blinked up at him. Maybe he really had minded going to the store. She could have asked Tyler to go, but since they were no longer an item, she hadn’t felt right doing so. She didn’t want to give him any false hope.

So why had she been okay with asking James? Maybe because she hadn’t been worried about him getting the wrong idea. He’d been the one to break off their engagement, not her, so he wasn’t likely to want to rekindle anything at this late date.

And neither was she.

Oh, maybe she’d taken one look at that rugged face and piercing blue eyes and had seen stars for a second or two. But that had been pure fantasy. The real-life version of that relationship had gone up in smoke. And if she were stupid enough to harbor any ideas, she’d better snuff them out now because the man hadn’t wanted her back then, and he undoubtedly didn’t want her now.

Adam filled James in on what surgery to Leo’s feet would entail and how long it and the ensuing recovery would take, while Mila peered into the bags of clothes.

Hmm. Superheroes. She never would have pegged James for a superhero kind of guy, although he was aloof and secretive. And he never snatched at publicity. In fact, he’d always shunned it while they’d been together, even though reporters had dogged his every step back then.

Was it because he hadn’t wanted to be seen with her?

He’d asked her to marry him, for heaven’s sake.

And yet he hadn’t been able to go through with it in the end. How humiliating it had been to see cringe-worthy pictures of herself beneath headlines that had screamed things like “scorned” and “dumped.” She’d fled to Brazil to get away from the onslaught...and the pain.

Pulling her mind from the past, she ripped open the packages, instead. “I wish we could run these through the washer before putting them on him, but I guess it’s better than staying in the filthy things he has on now. I’d like to get him to a room and get him cleaned up, if we can.”

James pulled his cell phone from his pocket and made a quick call. “Okay, mark the suite as occupied. Oh, and, Stella, make sure you have an extra trundle bed set up.”

Good, he was taking her at her word that she wanted to stay in the room with Leo.

“Yes, I’m aware that the room already has one. I need an extra, in case there are any problems.”

“Problems?” The panicked word slid from her mouth before she could stop it.

Adam, as if sensing a storm was brewing, gave a quick wave. “Let me know what happens with the social worker, or if there’s a problem during the night. I’m on call.”

She mouthed, “Thank you,” to him, still trying to wrap her head around the bombshell James had just dropped. Why on earth did he need an extra bed? Did he think she couldn’t handle one small child on her own?

As soon as the specialist was out of the room, she turned toward him. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t know this child or what he’s like. It’s just for one night, to make sure things run smoothly.”

Smoothly? He was making Leo sound like he was just another chart to be dealt with.

As if realizing he needed to clarify matters, he said, “If it’s true that his uncle dropped him off, the boy is bound to be frightened. He might even try to run away or the uncle could show up, which could cause legal problems for the clinic if the Department of Children and Family Services comes by tomorrow and the child has disappeared. I thought we could take shifts and watch him. See how he does.”

Okay, so that made sense. Although she wasn’t sure how he expected a three-year-old to sneak down the hallways unnoticed and make a daring escape. But he could get lost. Or hurt. Or someone could appear, claiming to be one of his parents.

At least James’s reasons for staying with them were now perfectly clear. It had everything to do with protecting the reputation of his precious medical center.

And nothing to do with her.

* * *

She heard something.

Cracking her eyelids, Mila found a dark, silent room.

Not her bedroom.

Lying there for a moment, she waited for her vision to adjust.

Another murmur of sound.

Leo! She was in a hospital suite. Rolling to the side, she almost tumbled off the narrow cot until the events of the previous evening came flooding back to her. The boy. His damaged feet. James’s insistence on spending the night with them.

She somehow managed to get her legs beneath her and staggered upright as a quiet sniffle and whisper slid past her.

Yanking down the T-shirt she’d retrieved from her apartment, she tiptoed toward the sounds, hoping she could get there before Leo woke up James. If she could do that and leave the lights off, she would.

More snuffling, and then a deep sigh.

She could finally see enough to make out the cot where James had been.

It was empty.

She relaxed. Maybe he’d decided not to stay after all. If he’d had as difficult a time getting to sleep as she had...

Well, her stupid insomnia was due to having James sleeping in the same room.

She made her way toward the hospital bed, almost reaching it before she realized there were two figures there.

Her heart squeezed so tight she almost couldn’t breathe. There in the bed was James, eyes closed, one arm loosely draped around Leo, keeping him from falling off the edge. The boy, dressed in the new set of superhero pajamas, was half-sprawled across her ex’s chest. Tears pricked her eyes.

Their future could have looked exactly like this, only she would have been in the bed beside James, and Leo would have been their son.

She had to blink several times to get the chaos swirling within her to settle down enough to move closer. Leo must have woken sometime during the night. James had evidently heard him and she hadn’t and he had gone to him.

Since it looked like one of Leo’s hands was clutching James’s shirt, rather than his ratty blanket, he probably couldn’t ease away from him.

How long had they been here like this?

From James’s posture, it had been a while. His right arm was curled beneath his head, as if using it for a pillow, since the actual pillow was on the boy’s side of the bed. Except Leo wasn’t using it. He was using James’s chest instead.

She crept closer, fascinated, just as she’d always been, by how her ex’s face looked as he slept. His lashes made slight shadows beneath his eyes. The furrow of concentration he normally had between his brows was softened in sleep, and just the slightest hint of a depression remained.

She should go back to bed and leave them alone, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t fair to let him shoulder the burden when she had been the one to insist on staying with him in the room.

So she leaned down, close to his ear. “James,” she whispered.

His lids flicked open in an instant, all traces of sleep gone. Blue eyes sought out hers and the arm holding Leo to him tightened slightly.

The frown was back. “You okay?”

“Yes.” She nodded to the sleeping boy. “Did he wake up?”

“He had a nightmare.”

There was something about whispering with James in the dark that made her swallow. How easy things had once been between them, and how simple they’d seemed.

In reality, nothing had been simple. They’d known each other for too short a period of time to commit to staying with each other forever. She’d known almost nothing about him and yet she’d planned on spending the rest of her life with him.

An ocean of hurt welled up inside her, making its way to her eyes once again.

James didn’t miss it. Then again, he didn’t miss much of anything. His arm came from beneath his head and he snagged her wrist. “Hey. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes.” Her voice betrayed her, though, even at a whisper.

“Mi.” He eased out of the bed, leaving Leo asleep, and his hand moved from her wrist to the hair falling over the left side of her face, coaxing it behind her ear. The soft touch made her shudder. Before she could move away, though, his fingers continued from her ear, curling around until they reached her nape. He paused.

Then his head came down, lips brushing against hers in a soft kiss that broke her heart.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “For everything.”

Sorry.

An admission of guilt but nothing else.

A word rolled through her, bouncing around like a giant ball that had been trapped in a small room for far too long. There was no exit unless she made one. But, try as she might, her pride wouldn’t allow her to ask the one question that had haunted her for six long years: why?