Читать книгу Born A Hero - Paula Detmer Riggs - Страница 9

Climbing out of the limousine, Dr. Katherine Remson decided she had stepped through the looking glass and followed Alice into Wonderland.

A mere sixteen hours ago she’d received an urgent phone call from Dr. Gordon Hunter to report to Montebello to assist the medical staff in a crucial rescue mission. Now here she was, before the Royal Montebellan Hotel, delivered by one of King Marcus Sebastiani’s chauffeurs.

Located on a spectacular beach on the leeward side of the city, the hotel was an impressive granite edifice of a dozen stories, the facade reminiscent of the turn of the century hotels in the world’s great cities during the Gilded Age. Prominently displayed over the entrance on a gleaming brass pole, the white-black-and-gold flag of Montebello hung limp in the humid night air.

In the spacious foyer between two sets of large plateglass doors, airport-type security had been set up, and a short line had formed. Although the sharp-eyed men in the uniform of the Royal Montebellan Palace Guard were polite, even bantering with those waiting, the large pistols secured to trim waists were a grim reminder that evil in the form of senseless violence had come to the halcyon island kingdom.

A bomb had gone off in a civilian square, destroying one building completely and trapping an unknown number of people inside. The whole city was in an uproar as rescue workers rushed to save them.

Kate’s chauffeur, Arturo, a craggy, quietly imposing man in his forties, was clearly known to the guards, who, after a quiet word from him, allowed her to pass without having to wait in line.

“My family is most grateful for your kindness, Doctor,” one of the guards told her quietly as the chauffeur escorted her past the X-ray equipment.

“Paolo’s cousin Maximo is the chef at Leonardo’s, a restaurant in the building that was destroyed by the bomb,” Arturo murmured as they passed the concierge’s desk. “He has not yet been rescued.”

“I am so sorry,” she said, her chest thick with emotion. During the flight, the young steward had told her of the shock and anger that had raced through Montebello at the news of the bombing. It wasn’t just an appalling tragedy to the majority of the city’s citizens, it was also an intensely personal one, since Montebello was a land of large and interconnecting families.

As Arturo led her past a series of large marble pillars, she felt a sense of unease hanging over the opulent lobby like a pall, dulling the glittering marble-and-gilt surroundings like a thin layer of tarnish.

The curved, marble reception desk was busy. Four dark-haired, dark-eyed female clerks in trim maroon blazers and gray skirts projected an air of efficiency and calm, but most of the people lined up at the desk were clearly anxious to check out.

The chauffeur surveyed the situation with a slight frown before leading Kate to a spot next to one of the soaring marble pillars flanking the desk. “If you would be so kind as to wait here, Dr. Remson, I will facilitate your check-in.” Though he spoke perfect English, it was flavored with a charming Italian lilt that had been shared by everyone she’d met so far.

“I don’t mind waiting in line,” she assured him, even as her tired body yearned for a soft bed and cool sheets.

“Nevertheless, I will have a word with the hotel manager.” He set her bags at her feet before disappearing through a door behind the desk.

Five minutes later she found herself in an elevator with both the chauffeur and the manager himself, a Signor Francetti, who reminded her of an older, stockier Robert De Niro.

“This floor is reserved exclusively for foreign dignitaries and guests of the royal family,” he said as the elevator doors opened on the sixth floor.

Kate caught her breath as she stepped into the spacious elevator atrium to find herself in what her tired brain wanted to call museum chic. Paintings in ornate gilt frames lined walls covered with what appeared to be authentic watered silk of palest ivory. Her brand-new sandals—little more than a couple of wispy ostrich-skin straps and a thin leather sole—sank a good inch into the pile of the rich maroon carpeting. With each step she took, she expected a security guard to rush out from the shadows to warn her not to touch the priceless old masters. The very air seemed rarified, scented, she guessed by a combination of citrus and rose petals.

After they’d walked what seemed like a good quarter mile, the manager stopped in front of the second door from the end on the left. “We’ve put Dr. Hunter next door,” he said as he inserted the key card.

“Dr. Hunter is here?” she questioned as he opened the door, then stepped back to allow her to precede him.

Signor Francetti nodded. “He arrived late this afternoon and went directly to the hospital after checking in.”

“I’m surprised he got here so quickly,” she said as she walked into the room. Four steps later, she stopped dead. Instead of a room, she’d been given a suite the likes of which she’d never seen outside of Architectural Digest, which her mother subscribed to.

“This can’t all be for me,” she murmured, glancing around at the cozy living room-like setting. Through an open door to her left she saw a bedroom with a bed as large as her office in her clinic in San Francisco.

“His Majesty is most grateful for your assistance,” Signor Francetti hastened to assure her. “He insists that you want for nothing while you are our guest. We have arranged to house Arturo in the hotel as well, so that he will be at your disposal. When you require his services, you have only to call down to the front desk.”

“Oh, but I can take a cab—”

“No, Doctor,” Arturo spoke up with surprising firmness. “You are too valuable to the people of Montebello to take that kind of risk.”

Kate blinked. “Are you saying this bombing might not be an isolated incident?”

The chauffeur shrugged. “If His Majesty’s sworn enemy, Sheik Ahmed Kamal of Tamir, is behind this, he will not stop until he has embroiled us all in war. Word has it that he intends to take Montebello by force.”

Kate was dumbfounded. “War? You mean with tanks and smart bombs and scud missiles?”

The men exchanged grim looks. “It’s possible,” the manager replied, “although, of course, we have faith that His Majesty will find a way to avoid further bloodshed—at least that of our people.”

“You need not worry for your own safety, Doctor,” Arturo hastened to add. “Every measure possible has been taken to make sure you and your fellow volunteers are not injured.”

“In the meantime, whatever you require, you need only ask,” Francetti assured her.

Kate took a deep breath. She might have stepped through the looking glass, but she was here to work around the clock to save lives, not indulge herself in luxury. “At the moment all I require is a cool shower and an hour’s nap to shake some of this jet lag,” she said as she dropped her leather backpack onto the nearest chair. “After that, I, too, would like to see the hospital.”

An hour later the elaborate clock radio on the bedside table woke her from a deep sleep. Her senses still fuzzy, she slipped from the warm, lavender scented sheets and padded barefoot into the sinfully opulent bathroom, where an outrageously sexy tub fashioned of a solid block of black marble beckoned.

Feeling a lot like Cleopatra before she did the snake thing, Kate adjusted the gold taps to one notch below scalding, added a scoop of deliciously scented bath beads, then stripped out of her new underwear. Her drowsiness slowly turned to a decadent lethargy, tempting her to linger, but the images she’d seen on TV were a vivid reminder that she was here to work, not shamelessly indulge herself.

Fifteen minutes later, dressed in one of her new wraparound skirts, silk camp shirt and strappy sandals, she was slipping her favorite surgical clogs into her tote bag when she heard water running next door.

A smile curved her lips at the thought of seeing Dr. Hunter again. Next to her father, her good friend Sarah’s dad was her favorite male. Kate hadn’t seen him since he and his wife Helena threw Sarah a surprise birthday party last February.

When the sound of the shower ceased, she glanced at the phone, then decided to say a quick hello in person before calling for Arturo. After running through a mental checklist of all the articles she might need at the hospital, and finding she’d forgotten nothing, she slung her tote over one shoulder and pocketed the key card Signor Francetti had left on the breakfast bar.

Quiet elegance welcomed her again as she left her suite to rap on the door next door. Her lips already curving, she waited a few beats, then knocked again, louder this time.

“Hang on, I’m coming,” a muffled—and decidedly irritated—male voice called from within. An instant later the door opened, and she found herself looking directly at a man’s muscular, broad-shouldered, bare chest.

Water droplets glistened in a ragged triangle of golden chest hair spread over superbly developed pectoral muscles. Below a corded midriff, a dark blue towel was slung low on narrow hips, held in place by one large hand wearing a wide golden wedding band.

Acutely embarrassed, she reluctantly lifted her gaze to the man’s face. Stretched taut over sharp bones and hollowed planes, his skin had a patina of bronze from a burned-in tan. Heavy blond stubble added harsh texture to a jaw that was decidedly square. Deep lines framed a mouth that was well-shaped, but set in bitter lines.

“Well?” he demanded impatiently, and from beneath sun-bleached brows, green eyes fringed with brush-thick golden lashes bored into hers.

Her first reaction was hurt that Sarah’s dad would deliberately omit to mention that Elliot was one of the doctors he’d been contacting. Her second was a wild—and wholly unexpected—joy at seeing her first love again.

“I…when Signor Francetti said Dr. Hunter was next door, I naturally assumed it was your father.”

Suspicion tightened the muscles around eyes that she saw now were badly bloodshot. “You know my father?”

“Well, of course I—” She broke off when she realized he was still glaring at her as though she were some kind of rudely aggressive stranger. “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe it,” she said with a choked laugh. “That makeover must have really done a job.”

His gaze narrowed to a near squint, then turned dangerously impatient. “Look, lady, I have a raging headache and a real short tolerance for riddles. In two seconds I’m closing this door, so if you have something to say to me, get to it, or go the hell away.”

Heat suffused her face and her breath hitched. “You rude, self-involved…jerk! I can’t believe I once thought you were the kindest person I’d ever met.”

His mouth twisted into a sardonic sneer. “Maybe that ‘didn’t we meet someplace before’ baloney works on some guys, honey, but I’m damned sure I would remember a hot little number like you.”

A hot little number? Of all the unmitigated gall! And yet the purely female part of her psyche felt a little thrill. Her last semiboyfriend had dropped her after three dates because he considered her a cold fish.

“A thousand dollars donated to charity says we have indeed met—and more than once,” she retorted with a new recklessness that both frightened and exhilarated her.

Disgust deepened the bitter lines bracketing his mouth and made his deep voice raspy. “You’ve got a talent for bluffing, I’ll give you that.”

It cost her, but she lifted her chin and offered him a taunting smile. “Oh, I get it, you’re as chintzy as you are rude.”

A dark and savage emotion flared in his eyes. She refused to step back, though the protective instincts in her reptilian brain had already tensed her muscles and shot a hot bolus of adrenaline into her system.

At twenty-one Elliot’s body had been a magnificent example of well-conditioned, superbly developed male anatomy. A twelve on the hunkability scale she and Sarah had worked up during a sleepover in their sophomore year—not that Sarah had agreed, of course, but a sister couldn’t be expected to be objective.

Now, at thirty-one, he seemed taller and far more muscular and a thousand times more formidable. She locked her knees and forbade herself to show fear. Or anything else, for that matter.

“Five thousand to the San Sebastian Victims Relief Fund says we’ve never laid eyes on one another,” he challenged in a voice that had gone even harsher, though she would have thought that impossible.

Oh, she was going to enjoy this, she thought in a burst of anticipatory pleasure.

“Done,” she declared before she lost her nerve. In fact, some imp inside her prompted her to extend her hand. “Shall we shake on it, Doctor?”

He hesitated, then removed his right hand from the doorjamb where it had served to prop him up. He had beautiful hands, his long fingers supple and sensitive, his wrists thick with muscle, his grip strong enough to hold a scalpel steady for long, painstaking hours. As his fingers curled around hers, she noticed that his wide palm was rimmed with calluses that hadn’t been there ten years ago.

The inner shiver caused by the friction of his skin against hers was expected. After all, the last time he’d touched her had been in the heat of passion, and the body remembered, even when the mind forgot.

“Ball’s in your court, lady,” he challenged as the handshake ended. “Where exactly was it we met, you and I?”

He was crowding her now, looming over her in a blatant display of masculine arrogance. Strong scents of soap, mint toothpaste and wet, angry male teased her nostrils. Her senses wobbled a little before she regained control.

“Actually, I’m not really sure, but…” She paused, deliberately prolonging her private exhilaration.

“I thought so, you little—”

“…but my mother told me once that your mom brought you next door to see me a few days after I was born. Of course, I doubt you would remember that, since you were practically a baby yourself. I certainly don’t. What I do remember, however, is crashing my new red trike into the plum tree in your backyard one Christmas morning, then screaming bloody murder when you offered to sew up the cut on my chin with your mom’s petit point needle. I think I was four at the time, which would have made you five.”

Shock splintered his eyes. His gaze narrowed, skimmed like lightning to her toes, then moved slowly upward until it zeroed in on her face. Holding her breath, she watched recognition settle into those familiar eyes, followed by something very like guilt.

“My God! Katie? Is it really you?” Now his voice was rough, as though forced through a constricted throat.

Ah, revenge truly was sweet, she thought, her lips forming her coolest smile, the one she’d practiced in front of the mirror for weeks before trying it out on smugly superior male colleagues during her residency.

“That’s Dr. Remson to you, Doctor.” She felt a rush of pure vindication. “You can leave the receipt for the donation with the desk clerk.”

Feeling empowered and deliciously militant for the first time in her life, she turned and stalked off, her sandals slapping the carpet with each proudly furious step.

Behind her she heard an angry curse, followed by the unmistakable sounds of pounding footsteps. She quickened her pace, but refused to sprint.

“Stop running away, damn it,” he all but growled in her ear a split second before he grabbed her arm and, with an ease that infuriated her, jerked her to a halt.

Her leather soles slipped on the carpet’s thick pile and she skidded sideways. Her hip collided with his hard thigh before she found her footing. He jerked back as though scalded. The towel flipped open, exposing one muscular thigh and, for a brief instant, more intimate parts of his anatomy.

A sizzling heat started in the vicinity of her throat and melted downward to pool in the intimate parts of her anatomy. God, was she actually panting?

Scrambling to regain her dignity, she straightened her spine and glared at him. “Let me go, or I’ll scream so loud the king himself will hear me,” she ordered through a stiff jaw.

“Not unless you promise to listen!” His grip eased, but his hand remained coiled around her arm. For all his good-natured affability, Elliot had a stubborn streak as unyielding as tempered steel.

“I’ll give you sixty seconds.” She made a show of glancing at her watch, the old-fashioned kind with the sweep hand. “Starting now.”

“You’re right, I behaved like a jerk,” he grated, his jaw rigid.

It was difficult to look down her nose when she was looking up, but Kate leaned back far enough to make a stab at it. Anything was preferable to standing with her nose all but buried in that sexy chest hair. “And your point is?”

“I’m apologizing, damn it. That’s my point.” He looked thunderously angry—and yet, buried deep in his eyes was the same black emptiness she’d seen on the day he’d buried his wife and child.

Death was no stranger to those in the medical profession, especially surgeons and technicians involved in high risk cases. Over the years she’d grieved at every loss as though it were her own child, and as a matter of personal choice remained involved with helping parents come to grips with their own grief.

But never, in all the years since that bleak gray day in October, had she seen anyone suffer the way Elliot had. Her heart expanded and she nearly reached out to him before she remembered how easily he had shredded both her heart and her secret dreams.

“Katie, I’m truly sorry,” he said when she remained silent. “I shouldn’t have dumped my foul mood on you.”

“I agree completely, and your time is up.” She directed a pointed look at the large sinewy hand still holding her captive.

His brows lowered. “You’re still ticked off.”

“No, I’m in a hurry to get to the hospital, Doctor. I have patients to attend to!”

“Point taken.” Finally he let her go. The sensory imprint of those strong, callused fingers lingered, but she refused to indulge the need to rub away even that reminder of his touch. “I’m heading back myself. If you give me five minutes to throw on some clothes, I’ll go with you.”

Her self-possessed poise was beginning to fray. For the sake of her pride—and her peace of mind—she had to put some distance between the two of them.

“I don’t have five minutes, Doctor. And if I did, I wouldn’t waste them on you.”

Anger simmered for an instant in his eyes before fading. “Seems you’ve changed more than your looks, Kate,” he said quietly.

The whisper of hurt in his voice struck her as the worst kind of hypocrisy. He wasn’t the one who’d walked out of the pool house ten years ago, a pathetic basket case. Who hadn’t been able to get out of bed for a week. Who’d come close to hating herself for the humiliating spectacle she’d made of herself. Worst of all, who hadn’t been able to let a man touch her for years afterward.

“If you mean I’m no longer a…hmm, let me see if I can get this right. Oh yes, I remember now, ‘a stupidly naive little girl on some misguided mercy mission,’ you’re completely correct.”

He winced, then raked his free hand through his hair, leaving it tousled. Beneath the sun-bleached brows his eyes searched her face. “I hurt you more badly than you let on, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you hurt me, but I also realize I was as much to blame for what happened as you were. Let’s just leave it at that.”

He bowed his head, his free hand pinching the bridge of his nose. When he glanced up again, regret shimmered in his eyes like tears. “Katie, it’s not that I didn’t appreciate—”

“I’m not going to discuss the past with you, Elliot,” she interrupted, her voice bordering on shrill. She took a breath and tried to ignore the conflicting emotions in her chest. When she spoke again, she had her voice—and herself—under control again. “You and I are here to do a job, not walk down memory lane. I’m sure we can treat each other with appropriate courtesy on those few occasions when we’re forced to spend time in one another’s company.”

The disbelief in his eyes had her teeth grinding together. Clearly, Golden Boy wasn’t used to being rejected.

“Is that what you really want, Kate?”

“That’s what I want,” she said in her firmest tone. She felt a sharp stab of satisfaction. Less than admirable, perhaps, but completely human.

He hesitated, then sighed heavily, his big chest rising and falling mightily. Then, as she made herself hold her gaze steady on his, his jaw turned hard and ice formed in his eyes.

“In that case, Doctor, I won’t delay you a moment longer.” Without another word, he turned and stalked off with long, angry strides.

Alone in a bathroom the size of a regular hotel room, Elliot jerked the towel from his hips, wadded it into a ball and slammed it into the shower stall. As he stepped into clean briefs, he worked to level emotions that scared him.

“Way to go, Slick, you handled that real well,” he muttered as he dug into his shaving kit for his razor. As he slapped lather on his jaw, he forced his fractured thoughts into something resembling reason.

During the past ten years surly had been his mood of choice, followed by rude and uncommunicative. No matter where he was or who was around him, he’d been an equal opportunity…jerk. His jaw tightened as Kate’s outraged words rang in his ears again.

Self-involved? He tried to dispute that, but couldn’t. Not that it bothered him all that much. A man who’d had the best part of himself amputated tended to think about what was missing. In his case there wasn’t a prosthesis he could buy to replace his wife and baby girl.

All he wanted was to be left alone. Most people got the message quickly enough. Medics Without Limits colleagues who worked with him soon learned to leave him strictly alone between assignments. No one invited him to share a meal or a beer…or a bed.

Damn it, Kate Remson had been way out of line!

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken one look at a woman and wanted her beneath him naked. No, damn it, not just a woman. His sister’s best friend. The solemn little brown wren he’d come to love as much as he loved Sarah.

Little Katie Remson, who’d always seemed to have her nose stuck in a book, had become a knockout with enough sexual wattage to short-circuit common courtesy and scramble his senses.

No wonder he hadn’t recognized her, he consoled himself as he methodically scraped away a night’s growth of whiskers. The black-rimmed, soda-bottle glasses that had dominated her face were gone, no doubt replaced by contact lenses—or maybe she’d had one of the new surgeries designed to correct her kind of severe myopia. Whatever the reason, he had been mesmerized by those golden eyes with the curly lashes and expressive brows.

Instead of the scraped-back ponytail or that twisted-up bun thing, her hair was now cut into one of those fashionable styles he’d first seen in Paris a few months back—like she’d just gotten out of bed after a hot and heavy night of sex. While she’d been looking up at him as if he was some kind of peasant and she was the queen, his fingers had itched to touch the soft wisps at the nape of her neck.

But it had been her mouth that had had life returning to his groin. For about ten seconds, he’d been in real danger of embarrassing both of them, which was why he’d thrown attitude her way. And hadn’t she tossed it right back?

Damn straight she had. Worse, she’d gotten him as worked up as a horny sixteen-year-old. Hell, the woman could wake the dead, prancing around in that slinky purple skirt that barely covered her butt. Someone ought to remind her that she was a surgeon, not a Riviera bimbo trolling for a sugar daddy.

Damned if she didn’t have all the moves, too, he thought, scowling at the memory of that round little bottom swishing back and forth as she stalked off toward the elevators, her chin in the air and triumph glittering in her amber eyes like little gold stars.

Memory lane, hell. He didn’t want to remember that night in the pool house any more than she did, apparently. For ten years he hadn’t wanted to remember it. Sometimes he managed to forget for months at a time, but sooner or later he would hear a soft voice or see a flash of glossy auburn hair—and then it would all come crashing down on him.

I love you, Elliot. I’ve always loved you. Please let me give you another child. I know a baby can’t replace Lauren and I can’t replace Candy. I know you still love her, but I’ll wait, forever if I have to. Whatever you can give me now, even if it’s just physical love, is enough.

Sweet virginal Katydid, with her painfully innocent eyes and desperate eagerness to please. He’d loved her like a second sister for most of her life, and yet he’d used her.

The memory of the sex itself was blurred by the booze he’d drunk that night. The morning after, when he woke up in the pool house behind his parents’ home, cradled in her arms, the scent of sex mingling with the chlorine from the pool in the foggy air, he’d all but strangled on shame.

It was that shame that had made him cruel, compounding his sins. He’d lost count of the nights he’d drunk himself into oblivion after that. Dozens, hundreds, it hadn’t much mattered. Everywhere he’d looked, he’d run into a memory.

Finally he’d taken a leave of absence from medical school and hit the road, ending up in Alaska, where he’d worked on a shrimp boat to earn his keep. It had been brutally hard work, taxing his strength and straining his muscles. By the end of three months, he’d regained the weight he’d lost, most of it muscle layered over his chest and arms.

At the end of shrimping season, he’d gone back to medical school, because that’s what his wife would have wanted. He’d told himself he was healed, but he knew better. He was little more than a shell, with a hollow space where his heart was supposed to be.

Katie was right to want nothing to do with him now, he thought as he morosely wiped the last of the lather from his face. He would only hurt her again if he got the chance. He wouldn’t want to. He would try his damnedest not to, but sooner or later it would happen. Candy and Lauren had trusted him to keep them safe from hurt, and they’d died. Katie had trusted him with her heart, and he’d stripped her of her virginity and her pride.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Elliot Hunter was poison to those he cared about—and he did care about Katie, as much as a man with most of his heart cut away could.

Whatever she wanted, that’s what he would give her. He owed her that, at least.

After stalking away from Elliot moments earlier, Katherine realized she was holding her breath, and let it out as she turned toward the elevator lobby. It was only when she was safely in the limousine that she allowed her shoulders to slump.

As the limo carried her through the narrow streets of Montebello, a sense of unreality came over her. She couldn’t believe the chain of events that had brought her and Elliot to this majestic island in the eastern Mediterranean. She had no idea what part of the world Elliot had been holed up in before he received the call from his father, but one week ago she’d been in dusty, hot Baja California, hyperventilating her way through a serious makeover she’d known without question would be a miserable failure. Her only worry then had been how fast her hair would grow back after Señor Jose Miguel had finished whacking off several inches….