Internal Memo: Courage Bay Hospital E.R.

From: Dr. Guy Giroux

To: E.R. personnel

After reviewing patient reports from Thursday night, I would like to commend all of you for your hard work and professional expertise during what’s now being billed as the Storm of the Century. Although I was unable to be here because of the storm, I have received nothing but praise and gratitude from the fire and police departments, as well as civilians, on the performance of Courage Bay Hospital’s emergency room staff.

As many of you know by now, one of the patients admitted was my stepdaughter. Heather was given excellent care by the admitting staff, and I know that all of you who dealt with her, especially Dr. Rachel Browne, worked tirelessly on her behalf.

I also want to thank you for the concern you’ve shown me during this time. Because of the extra work due to the storm, as well as my personal situation, schedules will be less flexible and some of you will be asked to cover extra shifts. I appreciate your willingness to do this, and suggest that anyone who finds the commitment onerous should address their concerns directly to me.

As I have always known, our E.R. staff is one of the best in the country.

About the Author

JO LEIGH

Jo Leigh has written more than forty novels for Harlequin and Silhouette Books since 1994. A triple RITA® Award finalist, she has contributed to many series, most recently Harlequin Blaze.

Jo lives in Utah, where she’s hard at work on her next book. You can chat with her at her Web site, www.joleigh.com. And don’t forget to check out her daily blog!

Nightwatch
Jo Leigh

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the next adventure in the Code Red series. I had a fascinating time with this book, diving deep into the world of medicine and emergency rooms, which was a blast! I talked to a lot of nurses, particularly the terrific Tammy Strickland and Myrna Temte, who made sure I wouldn’t make a fool of myself. Then I got to work with the other authors of the series, which made it too fun. As for the romance, well, let’s just say I was able to use some of my own experience to make it all come alive.

Let me know what you think. I promise I’ll get back to you!

www.joleigh.com

Best,

Jo

To Marsha. Thank you. Again.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER ONE

THE MOMENT Dr. Rachel Browne stepped outside to the emergency bay, the wind and rain slapped her in the face. So hard, in fact, that she had to hold on to the door to keep her balance.

The ambulance had slogged through what was already being called the storm of the century by the media, taking almost fifty minutes for what should have been an eight-minute ride.

The EMTs pushed open the doors, and John Wilkins, one of the E.R. orderlies, ran up to help them pull out the gurney.

Rachel, inadequately dressed in her lab coat, waited just under the overhang, but even so, she was soaked by the time the patient got to her.

“Julie Bell,” the paramedic closest to her shouted over the wind. “Found on her bathroom floor, presumed overdose. No suicide note, but a lot of empty bottles.”

“Any narcotics?” Rachel asked as they hurried into Courage Bay Hospital.

“Not that we saw. She’s lethargic, but arousable. BP’s 110 over 65, pulse 80.”

“Julie,” Rachel said, trying to get a response. “Can you hear me?” She looked back at the paramedic. “How long?”

“Maybe an hour. A friend found her.”

“Where is she?”

“A tree fell on her car—she couldn’t get out.”

Rachel turned back to her patient as they hit trauma two. “Julie, what did you take? What kind of drugs?”

“I picked up everything I could find on the floor,” the paramedic said, handing the bag to John.

They moved her parallel to the E.R. bed, and Amy Sherwood, a first-year resident, and two nurses, Katya and Karen, spaced themselves to make the transfer.

“On three,” Rachel instructed, and they lifted the young woman with practiced ease.

“We’re out of here,” the paramedic said. “It’s a nightmare out there. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Noah building the ark. Man, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Rachel nodded at the man, then turned back to her patient, who’d roused enough to try to sit up.

“Leave me alone,” she said, her voice slurred and wet.

“Lie back, Julie. We’re going to help you, but you need to help us. What kind of drugs did you take?”

“Nothing, let me go.”

“CBC, chem panel, blood and urine tox screen,” Rachel instructed Katya. “We’re going to have to pump her stomach.”

“I’ll get a tube.”

“Wait.” Rachel raised her hand, stopping Katya. “What were the drugs?”

The nurse opened the bag the EMTs had left. “Diazepam, doxepin, amaryl, aspirin.”

“Pulse ox is 96 on 2 liters. I’ll run an EKG. It could be tricyclics.”

“She’s tachy at 120,” Katya said.

Rachel bent over the girl. “Julie!”

“Sats down to 81.”

“Okay,” Amy said, “She’s lost her gag reflex.”

“Let’s intubate.” Rachel grabbed the tube and got it into position. “Push flumazenil, .2 mil.” Just as she prepared to open the girl’s mouth, Julie stirred, then sat up.

Rachel took a quick step back. “All right, then. That’s good.”

“What’s going on?” Julie asked.

“Do you remember taking pills?”

“What?”

“Let’s give her charcoal and get her something dry to wear, please. Amy, you take it from here.” Rachel walked out of the trauma room, shedding her gown and gloves. It had been like this for almost ten hours now, only most of the patients had storm-related injuries. Blunt trauma, electrical shock, traffic accidents. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if any of the damn medical staff were here.

She wasn’t completely alone, but every doctor who had made it in had been pushed to the limits of endurance, literally running from patient to patient, and there was no end in sight.

“Incoming!” John Wilkins yelled as he stepped on the floor pad, activating the automatic door. A man in a uniform stumbled in carrying a drenched woman. She had passed out or was dead.

Rachel ran to the woman while Wilkins and two others got a gurney. “What happened?”

“She’s pregnant,” the man said, gasping for air. “She was in my cab and she started having seizures. She passed out about ten minutes ago. Before that, she said her head was killing her.”

“Thank you,” Rachel said, shoving the Good Samaritan aside. She’d immediately recognized the symptoms of preeclampsia.

Katya came running to help, and as they pushed the gurney, Rachel told her to get a CBC and do a chemstrip. “And get me an OB.”

Thunder rumbled as they headed toward Trauma 3. The girl, name unknown, roused when they transferred her from the gurney. She looked very young, pasty and full-term. She opened her eyes briefly, then shut them tightly as if the lights were terribly painful.

Rachel moved to the bedside. “What’s your name?”

The girl mumbled incoherently.

“That’s okay. We’re going to take care of you and your baby.”

The ghost of a smile flickered briefly as the nurses, Lydia and Katya, got busy with her vitals.

“BP is 250 over 70, and oh—”

The girl went into a seizure, her body spasming as if she’d been hit by a live wire.

“Give her 5 milligrams Dilantin. And get respiratory down here. We have a precipitous delivery, people, so let’s get the kit and the crash cart. Where is my OB?”

“There is no OB.”

Rachel looked up to see her resident, Amy Sherwood, at the door, donning her gown. “They have no one to send. We have to do it here.”

Rachel held back her curse. She could do this. She would do this.

Lydia, one of the best E.R. nurses Rachel had ever worked with, moved in close, preparing the woman for a C-section.

“Amy, work on her BP,” Rachel said, as she picked up the scalpel. “Where’s anesthesia?”

“Right here, Dr. Browne.”

Rachel didn’t even look up. She knew it was Dr. Reid, and he could handle the next step. She pushed a stray hair from her young patient’s face. “You’re going to be okay, honey. What’s your name?”

“Heather. Heather Corrigan.” Even those few words seemed an appalling effort for her and Rachel had to lean close to hear.

“Hello, Heather. I’m Dr. Browne.”

Heather’s lips curled in a faint smile and she half nodded before her teeth clamped again as another labor pain hit.

Rachel swabbed her forehead while Lydia prepped her belly. “Who’s your doctor, Heather? Do you have an OB? An obstetrician?”

Heather rolled her head back and forth in a negative response that obviously cost her. “Haven’t seen a—a doctor. I need to see…” Her already weak voice faded into nothingness as another wave of pain swept her body.

Katya raced into the cubicle carrying the FHD–100—a portable fetal monitor that ran on batteries. “I’ve got another orderly coming down,” she said. Then Reid covered Heather’s mouth with the mask.

“All right then,” Rachel said, putting on rubber gloves. “Let’s be on top of this, people. Everything’s going to be fine.”

ONLY, EVERYTHING WASN’T fine.

Rachel peeled off her paper scrubs and threw them furiously into the trash. She never got used to losing a patient. At least the baby would live, although his heartbeat was irregular and his jaundice was advanced. If only Heather had seen an obstetrician when she’d first gotten pregnant. Or even come to the hospital a few hours earlier.

Desperate for some coffee, Rachel headed toward the call room, but John Wilkins flagged her down from the other side of the hall. She stopped wearily and waited for him to reach her.

“Sorry, Doc. EMTs are bringing in a guy who had a roof cave in on him in the storm. They’ll be here in five.”

“Oh, Lord. Okay, when he gets here, can you get him cleaned up and into X ray and then come get me?”

“Sure, Doctor.” He paused midturn. “You okay?”

She looked at her watch. Almost 3:00 a.m. She’d been on duty for nearly seventeen hours. “I have to be, John. There’s nobody else.”

He nodded sympathetically. “I’ll take care of it.” He turned and hustled down the hall.

This time, Rachel made it to the coffee machine. She practically guzzled the first cup and was halfway through the second when John returned.

“He’s in X ray, Doctor. Whoa. They need you, stat.”

“That bad, huh?”

The orderly nodded.

Rachel slugged back the remainder of the coffee. “Well, let’s hit it.”

As she and John reached the X-ray room, the technician was just wrapping up. Rachel nodded and smiled at her, then approached the body lying on the gurney.

She noted approvingly that John had installed a saline drip and oxygen feed on the patient. She understood the orderly’s reaction. The face of the man on the gurney was in worse shape than many of the traffic accidents she’d seen—a palette of cuts, bruises and swelling distorting the features beyond recognition. “What’s his name?”

“Bruce Nepom.”

The man’s salt-and-pepper hair was matted with blood and he showed no signs of consciousness.

“Let’s get him in one,” Rachel said. As they walked, she pulled a small flashlight from her pocket and gently pried the man’s eyelids open, one at a time. She flashed the light across his eyes, but the pupils were blown—dilated and unresponsive to the light. “Bruce—Mr. Nepom. Can you hear me?” As expected, there was no reaction.

Rachel examined the man’s mouth. Three of his front teeth were broken, but he hadn’t bitten his tongue.

Once they were in the exam room, she pulled the sheet back to expose a well-developed chest with a smattering of graying hair, and a massive bruise along the ribs.

She noted John had already put in a catheter, and that most of the man’s injuries were upper body. She ran a finger along a tattoo on the man’s left shoulder—two dragons entwined around a Celtic cross. The tattoo had once been colorful, but the tints had faded and darkened.

“According to the EMTs, the whole roof fell on him,” John repeated.

She pulled on a fresh pair of rubber gloves. “Let’s see what we can do to help Mr. Nepom.”

RACHEL HANDED HER NOTES to the admitting nurse in the E.R. “Hang on to these for me, will you, Karen?”

“Sure, Doctor.” She gave Rachel a quick once-over. “You look beat. About time you went home.”

Rachel glanced at the half-filled seats in admitting. Aside from the two serious operations, she and Amy had treated dozens of broken limbs, stitched up God knows how many cuts, and even treated a man whose foot had been caught under a falling tree by poking through his toenail with a red-hot paper clip to relieve the pressure. She smiled at that one. “That’s my plan, Karen. I’m hoping to sleep uninterrupted for a good twenty-four hours.”

“Good night, Doctor. Or rather, good morning.”

“See you later.” Rachel headed out the double doors to the parking lot, still worried about Nepom. The surgery had been a success, but that didn’t mean the patient would live. Even if he did, his head wounds were so severe she doubted he’d regain anything like normal consciousness.

Although the sun was actually rising behind her, she felt as if she were coming out of a movie matinee. It was as though she’d forgotten what natural sunlight was like. Standing on the steps a moment, she took a deep breath. Clean air, sunlight.

Great time to go to bed.

With leaden feet and a killer backache, she made her way across the debris-strewn lot to her car. It would take her ten minutes to get home. Twelve minutes to be in bed.

DR. GUY GIROUX CLIMBED over a fallen palm tree then up the rise at the edge of his property. From there he could see the road and, thankfully, the city maintenance crew hard at work disentangling the trees and cars that had prevented him from getting to the hospital the previous night.

The last he’d heard from the E.R., before his cell had gone dead, was that they were critically understaffed. As head of the E.R., he should have been there. Thank God Rachel had made it in, but with this kind of storm, the injured would be more than any one doctor could handle.

They should have been better prepared, given the run of bad weather they’d been having. It was only a couple of months ago that the last severe storm had come through, causing major mudslides that had washed away houses. Now this.

He headed back to his house, which mercifully had been spared the worst of last night’s storm. His neighbor’s ground floor had been flooded, and Mrs. Allen had come to him for help, but all he’d managed to do was get her and her three annoying Pomeranians into the warmth of his spare room.

It was the only thing that had gone right. Without television reception or phone service, he’d relied on his radio for any word of relief, but it hadn’t come till about an hour ago.

The storm was the worst recorded in the history of Courage Bay, California, and he knew firsthand how far back that history went. His great-great-great-grandfather, Pierre Giroux, had been the captain of an American twenty-one-gun sloop of war, the Ranger, which had blown off course during the U.S.–Mexican War and been shipwrecked in Courage Bay. Perhaps in a storm like this.

Guy heard the dogs yapping before he crossed his threshold. He liked dogs and ordinarily wouldn’t have minded their incessant barking, but not today when he was suffering from lack of sleep and a rare feeling of helplessness.

“Dr. Guy?”

He inhaled deeply and let the air out slowly, trying to ease the headache that had been building steadily from four this morning. “Yes, Mrs. Allen?”

“The babies are hungry. Do you think it’s possible to get into my house and get some food for them?”

“No, I don’t believe it is. But I have some ground beef in the freezer.” He closed the door behind him and headed for the kitchen, avoiding the small woman still dressed in her housecoat and curlers.

“They’d like that very much,” she said.

As he got the beef out, he turned to her. “I’m going to have to leave. The road is open, and I’m needed at the hospital. The power’s back on, and I’m sure they’ll have the phone service turned on shortly and you can call your sister.”

Mrs. Allen nodded. She was eighty if she was a day, and her sister was only a few years younger.

“Then you call your insurance agent. He’ll help you with the house.”

The woman sat down at the dining room table, and the dogs, none of them puppies, swirled around her legs, panting heavily. “Thank you for last night. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

“It was my pleasure.” He put the beef in the microwave, hit defrost, then excused himself with a reassuring smile to get ready for work.

His shower, although too brief, revived him somewhat, and the three aspirin would help even more. By the time he’d dressed and returned to the kitchen, the dogs were gobbling up their breakfast, eating out of his cereal bowls. Mrs. Allen stood watching them, and he was glad that she had them. Everyone needed someone to care for.

She looked up at him with a coy grin. “Have I told you about my great-niece, Lilly?”

He nodded. “You have.”

“She’s a very beautiful girl, Doctor. And she can cook like a dream.”

He grabbed his coat from the back of his dining-room chair and slipped it on. “I’m sure she can, but I’m already married—to my work.”

“Oh, I’m sure—”

“If you don’t believe me,” he said, “you can ask my ex-wife. Turns out I don’t share well with others. So save your niece the grief.”

Mrs. Allen sighed. “It’s such a shame. You’re so very handsome, and especially nice.”

He touched the older woman on the shoulder. “Thank you. You have my phone number if you need anything, right?”

She nodded.

“Please let me know when you reach your sister. If I’m not available, you can tell my secretary, Connie.”

Mrs. Allen went back to the pleasure of watching her “babies” as Guy headed toward the garage. He pressed the door opener as he stepped inside. The garage was neat as an operating room, which was the only way he’d have it. Inside, his baby, a 1958 Corvette, sat shiny and polished as the day she was born. But he wouldn’t take her out today. Not with the roads so torn up. Instead he climbed into his Range Rover and prepared for a slow twenty miles to the Courage Bay E.R.

When he arrived at the hospital, his headache returned full force. He went to his office first, but the usual piles of reports were missing. As was Connie. He played back the messages on his private line, and after two calls from a pharmaceutical house in Boston asking him to speak at a symposium next spring, Connie’s voice came on, letting him know that she’d been stranded and would get in as soon as the streets were cleared.

Guy sighed as he went to make coffee. His office wasn’t large but it had its pluses, the main one being the private call room. He busied himself with coffee grounds while he thought about the missing reports.

He’d have to give the staff the benefit of the doubt. Considering the conditions last night, reports weren’t the top priority. Saving lives was.

Which meant that he would take his coffee to go. He’d do rounds, assess the situation in the E.R. But first, more aspirin.

The scent of his Kona coffee made him feel better as he went back to his desk. He kept meaning to replace the old thing, with its battered sides and stiff top drawer, but whenever he had any time off, he made his way to the boat.

Just thinking of the Caduceus relaxed him more than anything else in the world. His ’44 sloop was everything a man could want in a boat, and his only regret was that he had so little time to sail her.

Thank God she’d been in dry dock during the storm. She was getting a new mast, aluminum. He was to have taken her out next week, but with this damn storm…

He’d call. After rounds.

Coffee cup in hand, Guy walked toward the admitting desk, all thoughts of sailing firmly stowed away. Before he reached his destination he was stopped twice, once by Karen, the admitting nurse, then by Mike Trailer, the head of maintenance, both of whom had tales of woe. Karen was concerned that the computers had been down for two hours during the night, and Mike told him about some window blowouts on the third floor. He listened patiently, although he was sure the information had already been given to Callie Baker, the chief of staff. He was more concerned with what was happening now in his domain.

Surprisingly, there were only four people in the admitting area, none of whom presented serious problems. Two of the E.R. bays were occupied, one with a woman who had broken her left hip when she fell on a toppled tree, and the other with a heart-attack victim, who was now stabilized.

He went back to admitting, and when Karen gave him the charts, he flipped quickly through the various cuts, bruises and breaks. He stopped when he got to Bruce Nepom. After reading the chart, Guy put the stack back and headed for the ICU.

He found the man in room C. There wasn’t much to see. Nepom was hooked up to a heart monitor, IV, respirator. Bandages covered his face and head, and his ribs had been taped.

There wasn’t much hope, but he was glad to see Rachel had been so thorough. Everything that could have been done had been done. What he didn’t see on the chart was that Nepom’s family had been contacted.

After putting the chart back, Guy returned to admitting one more.

Karen gave him the rest of the night’s paperwork, and he headed for his office and another cup of coffee.

He flipped through more notes. Damn. Rachel and Amy must have stitched, sewn, patched, splinted and put casts on nearly a hundred people since the storm started.

The name on the next report stopped him cold. Heather Corrigan. He did a quick check on her vital statistics: age eighteen, blond hair, no wedding ring. It was the Heather he knew. His stepdaughter. And she was dead.

Guy put the papers down on his desk and closed his eyes. Heather was supposed to be in Europe with his ex-wife. What was she doing here? Pregnant?

He focused his gaze with some difficulty, but as he read, the words became horrifyingly clear. Preeclampsia. Heather was healthy, strong. For God’s sake, she was only eighteen. And she’d died in his E.R. What the hell had Rachel done?

He picked up the phone with shaking fingers and dialed.

“Hi. You’ve reached Dr. Rachel Browne. Leave your number at the beep.”

“Dr. Browne, this is Guy Giroux. Pick up the phone. Right now.” He sat stiffly, a well of anger making it difficult to breathe, then slammed the receiver down when she didn’t answer. He stared blankly at his desk for a moment, then pounded his fist on it so hard his pen holder fell over.

Rising slowly, Guy put on his coat, retrieved Heather’s chart and headed for his car. He needed to talk to Dr. Browne—now.

CHAPTER TWO

THE DRIVE TO RACHEL’S did nothing to calm Guy’s mind. He wavered between the respect he had for her as a doctor and the pain and rage he felt as a parent. He simply didn’t understand how she could have been so incompetent.

His tires squealed as he came to a stop in her driveway, and once the keys were out of the ignition he was heading for her front door.

He rang the bell several times, then beat on the wood with his fists, almost hitting Rachel as the door suddenly flew open.

“What is it?”

Guy’s tirade stopped before he was even able to start it. Dr. Rachel Browne, aka the Iron Lady, well known for her strict code of ethics and her somewhat aloof manner at the hospital, stood before him in a loose robe and tiny, see-through red nightie.

“Put your eyes back in their sockets, Guy, and tell me why you’re waking me up two hours after I got off the seventeen-hour shift from hell?”

He tore his eyes away from the vision she presented and looked straight into her eyes. “What the hell happened in there last night?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Heather Corrigan. Healthy eighteen-year-old. And she’s dead, Rachel.”

Rachel blinked at him as if his words weren’t English, as if she didn’t know she’d killed a girl in his E.R. Killed—

“I’m sorry I didn’t get the full report to you, Guy, but the girl had severe preeclampsia. I did everything possible to save her.”

“Everything possible,” he said, not believing that for a minute. “Where the hell was Williams?”

Rachel folded her robe tightly around her and slowly tied the knot in front. “There was only one OB on last night, and she was in the middle of a C-section with complications.”

He knew he was scaring her, that her step backward was a precursor to slamming the door in his face, but there had to be something she’d missed. Something she could have done.

“Guy? What’s going on?”

He focused on her face, realized his vision was blurry with tears. “She’s…she was my stepdaughter.”

Rachel’s eyes closed for a long moment, and when she opened them she touched his arm. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

“Damn it, Rachel, she was always perfectly healthy. There’s no reason this should have happened.”

“She hadn’t seen a doctor in a long time. No prenatal care at all. By the time she came in, her blood pressure was through the roof, the baby was almost dead. Guy, it was too late.”

He swallowed, leaned against the doorframe. Blinked his eyes clear. “I don’t understand any of this. She was supposed to be in Europe with her mother.”

“Why don’t you come in. Sit down.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you did everything. I just—”

“Of course.”

“Go back to sleep. You must be tired.”

“Are you sure you ought to be driving? With all the storm damage—”

“I’m fine. Sorry to have bothered you.” He turned and walked to his car, wishing like hell he could blame her. Blame anyone except himself.

RACHEL WATCHED as Guy got into his Range Rover, worried that he’d do something crazy, get distracted. Just plain run off the road.

Heather Corrigan had been his stepdaughter. She could hardly believe it even now, but why would he lie about something so awful?

Guy pulled out of her driveway too quickly. When he jerked to a stop, she saw him wipe his face with his hand, and when he started up again, he was moving at a much saner pace. Only when he turned the corner, out of her view, did her focus shift to her street. Tousled and windblown for sure, it still had the peaceful mien that had drawn her here in the first place.

There were mostly two-story houses with manicured lawns. Bikes, ten-speed and trainers, leaned against garage doors or lay on the sidewalk, making it difficult for the mailman.

She’d been so drawn here, and yet she’d never felt truly at home. Her night shifts, her single status. She was the odd duck, the silent stranger her neighbors nodded to when they couldn’t avoid her gaze.

Exhaustion washed over her, and she wasn’t quite sure whether it was the night before or the thought of the night ahead that made her so weary. Poor Guy. She’d had no idea. Yeah, she’d heard he’d been married before, but that was about the extent of her knowledge of his personal life.

The man was a hell of an administrator and an even better trauma surgeon. She was lucky to work with him.

But he was also terribly attractive, and not just because of his good looks. He pulled at her in a way that was too scary to examine closely. So she didn’t. She avoided him by working nights most of the time. By never letting down her guard. By being a doctor first, and a woman a distant second.

She closed her door, debating whether to get a glass of orange juice, but her body led her to the bedroom and her Egyptian-cotton sheets. To sleep.

GUY DIDN’T GET BACK to his office and privacy for two hours. The longest two hours he’d ever spent.

It was just that he had to know. For certain. So he’d gone to the morgue. In that cold room, with the sterile sinks and the gleaming drawers, he’d found her. Death had changed her, stiffened her soft features, made her face a mask. But it was Heather. God, what had she done to her hair? It was short, uneven, as if cut by ragged scissors without a mirror.

He stood there for a long time, wishing he could remember some prayers. Finally he spoke, quietly, hoping someone, something, listened.

It was over now, and he knew for sure. After he put all the paperwork on Heather in front of him, he sat down behind his desk, sinking into the fine leather, and closed his eyes. Memories of Heather laughing, braiding her hair, begging him for a Madonna album despite the adult lyrics. He’d only had her for four years. Four years of emergency calls, late-night surgeries, missed school plays, forgotten birthdays. He’d been as lousy a stepparent as he’d been a husband. But he’d loved Heather. More than her mother, at the end, although that was no one’s fault but his own.

He’d never blamed Tammy for leaving him. She had every right, and in fact, she’d probably stayed too long. His damn job. That was what she’d always called it. His damn job. And it had given him the only real satisfaction in his life.

He wasn’t meant to be married, but the lesson had been learned the hard way. With other people’s pain. And now, Heather was gone.

Guy hadn’t known she was pregnant, or even that she’d had a boyfriend, a lover. He’d lost touch, and whose fault was that?

It took him a moment to locate Tammy’s number in his Rolodex. She was living in Bordeaux, France, away with husband number three, studying art and learning to cook. Last time they’d talked, she’d sounded happy.

He got through after dialing all those numbers, and Tammy’s voice sounded as if she were in the next room, not overseas.

“Bonjour.”

“Tammy.”

There was a pause, long and static-free. “Guy.” She always used the French pronunciation. “To what do I owe this honor?”

He swallowed, picked up his pen and squeezed it. “I don’t know how to…Oh hell, Tammy…Heather.”

“What about Heather?”

He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Tammy. She’s dead.”

Nothing. No sound. No sharp cry, no keening wail. Just perfect silence.

“If this is a joke—”

“It’s not. I wish it were.”

Then came the sound of pain, and it was as terrible as anything he’d heard in all the years he’d been telling parents about their children, husbands about their wives…This was his grief, and her grief, and it was too real. It hurt like hot metal in his gut, like a gunshot wound.

“How?” Tammy said, her voice slurred.

“I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”

“What? What are you talking about? Heather’s not pregnant. She’s with her father. With Walter. In Los Angeles.”

“No, she’s not. She’s here, in Courage Bay. I think—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I think she was trying to find me.”

“Wait a minute. This makes no sense. I spoke to her two weeks ago, and she said everything was fine. That she was in L.A., that Walter was at the office, but that she would tell him hello.”

Guy ran a hand over his face. “So you had no idea where she was? Who she was with?”

“No.”

“Tammy—”

“Wait, stop right there. Don’t you dare use that tone with me, not now. Not when…”

He listened to her weep and cursed himself for being an insensitive fool. “We should call Walter. Find out what he knows.”

She sniffed. “Yes, right. But she was really pregnant?”

“She had a baby boy.”

“Oh, God.”

“And, I’m sorry, Tammy, but he’s not doing all that well.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure, except that he has jaundice and his blood pressure isn’t stable.”

“What do you mean, you’re not sure? You’re a doctor, for God’s sake—that’s all you’ve ever cared about. And now your grandchild is ill and you don’t know why?”

Guy’s first thought was that the boy wasn’t his grandchild, but he said nothing. His second thought was that he was a complete ass. “I’m sorry. I’ve been having a tough time with this, too. I’m going from here to the NICU.”

“I’m going to call Walter. And then I’ll get on a plane. Please, Guy. You have to take care of the baby. Please.”

“Of course.”

She wept quietly for another moment. “I have to clear things with Ted. He’s got this…It doesn’t matter. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“You have my cell. Call me if you need me.”

“Thank you.”

He heard her hang up, and he listened to the dial tone for a second, then put his phone in the cradle. He had to go see the baby, make sure everything was being done to save him. A baby boy that Heather would never know. Who the hell was the father, and where had he been last night? Where had he been during the whole pregnancy?

A knock jerked him out of his thoughts and his sister, Natalie, poked her head in. “Can I come in?”

He nodded.

She stepped into his office, closing the door behind her. Six years his junior, she bore the distinctive Giroux high cheekbones and dark eyes. Natalie was a burn specialist, and their brother, Alec, worked in the E.R. with Guy. “I heard about Heather, Guy. I’m so terribly sorry.”

“Does everybody know?”

She smiled the way she did with her patients. Kind, concerned, ready to listen. “This isn’t L.A. County General, Guy. These things get around pretty fast.”

His head dropped into his hands. “She deserved better, Nat. I don’t know how it happened.”

She walked behind him and massaged his tense shoulder muscles. “Things happen, Guy. Mom—Dad. You have to believe there’s a reason.”

“Don’t get all metaphysical on me. Does Alec know yet?”

“He’s already left for Cabo with Janice and the kids. But I’ll call him. Let him know what’s going on. I know he liked Heather a great deal. We both did. She was a sweet girl.”

Guy’s throat tightened, and he had to change the subject before he made a fool of himself. His sister had recently married the city’s fire chief, Dan Egan. “How are things with you and Dan?”

Natalie walked to his side and smiled. “Really good. Thanks. In fact, why don’t you come for dinner tomorrow night?”

Guy appreciated the invitation. He liked Dan, and was happy that Nat had found herself a good man. Both his siblings had been through so much in the last year, and yet they’d come out stronger, better. In love. And he’d never felt so distant from them. “Thanks, Nat, but I’m going to stick close to the hospital. I’ll take a rain check.”

“Anytime, big brother.”

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I swear it.”

Her beeper went off. Natalie sighed, patted his still-tense shoulders and headed for the door. “You’re an incredible doctor, Guy, and a pretty decent man. I know you’ll do the right thing, whatever it is.” With a final smile, she left his office, closing the door behind her.

CALLIE BAKER SET ASIDE the damage report and her master list of what had to be done to get the hospital back to perfect working order, even though she hadn’t even started on the delegation sheet. It was time for rounds.

She knew most chiefs of staff didn’t go on master rounds, but for her it was a sacred ritual. Although she could only manage it once a week, twice if she was lucky, it was the one duty that kept her heart and her mind completely focused on who she was and what her job was all about.

Above all else, she was a doctor, and she liked to think she was a damn good one. The administrative duties would swamp her if she let them, and that wasn’t going to happen as long as she had something to say about it.

It had taken her a long time and a hard road to get where she was, and one of the key ingredients to her success was her ability to see the big picture while never losing sight of the details.

Before she left the office, she stopped in the small restroom and made sure she was put together. After a quick application of lip gloss and a readjustment of the hummingbird pin on her jacket lapel, she straightened her white coat and headed out to the front lines.

Everything went according to plan until she hit the ICU. Callie read through Bruce Nepom’s chart three times. His prognosis wasn’t good. In fact, it was a miracle that he was still breathing. His injuries had been severe, especially the cranial damage. That’s what had caught her attention. Something didn’t fit. A deep, focused trauma at the back of the skull.

She looked at the man, swathed in bandages. His blood pressure was so low as to be a hint instead of a statement, and she knew it was only a matter of time. A short time. She wondered why he was here alone.

After making a note on the chart that she wanted to be updated on his progress, Callie continued her rounds. Bruce Nepom’s injuries lingered in her mind, however. A fuzzy question that had to be answered.

RACHEL WOKE UP SUDDENLY at two-thirty from a dream. Guy Giroux had been to her house. But unlike the real event, this time he’d come in and he’d wept like a child. In her dream she’d tried to comfort him, but her own discomfort made her awkward and jerky. He didn’t seem to notice, but Rachel was beyond mortified. It was like seeing the man naked, or walking in on him making love.

Guy had a place, and it was at the hospital. He had a role, and that was as her boss. Anything that disturbed that picture was uncomfortable and to be avoided at all costs.

Only, the picture was disturbed now. Guy had lost his stepdaughter. Someone he cared about, loved. He’d been married, which Rachel had known but never thought about, and there had been a little girl in his life. It was altogether too personal.

At work, Rachel was an attending physician and little else. She listened to her staff, joked with them, even went for the occasional drink after a tough night. But she kept her private life to herself.

She’d learned early that, as a doctor, emotional objectivity was a good thing. Not that she didn’t care what happened to her patients. In fact, that’s where all her nurturing went—to the people who needed her. The truth was, she was too emotional. Things affected her deeply, and she cared way too much when confronted with pain and suffering she could do nothing about.

Rachel had been that way all her life, and it had made for a roller-coaster puberty. Her friends’ lives all became larger than life, their joys were hers to share, and their pain cut her to the core.

Her decision to become a doctor was born from a deep need to make things better. Not just for others, but for herself. She couldn’t stand feeling helpless.

In grade school she’d had a dear, wonderful friend. Molly had moved two houses down when they were both in fourth grade, and it had been love at first sight. They lived at each other’s houses, played together constantly, dreamed big dreams. Molly was like a sister to Rachel, only they fought less.

And at fifteen, Molly got bone cancer. Two years later, she’d died, and Rachel had nearly gone with her, her grief was so consuming. Standing by, watching her friend’s body waste away was the most excruciating experience of her life, and from that time on, nothing had swayed her from her course.

It was in medical school that Rachel realized she couldn’t help anyone if she was engulfed in grief herself, so she decided she simply wouldn’t let it in. It was as if she’d created an invisible bubble around herself, and nothing came through.

Nothing.

The strategy had worked so well it almost scared her, whenever she let herself think about it. Because there was one problem: she’d never been able to figure out a way to let the positive emotions enter through the barricade.

Not that she was unhappy. The satisfaction she got from her job was deep and fine. But was it enough?

Waking up alone, going to sleep alone, cooking for one…It fell short. Not short enough to make her give up her career or even curtail her hours. If she ever did meet anyone, he’d have to deal with that, or hit the road.

For some unknown reason, she thought of Guy again. She needed to think of him as her boss, not a man. A really attractive man.

That was one road she wasn’t going down. Nope. No way. He was off-limits. Completely and utterly. He was the reason she preferred the night shift and why she did all she could to keep their communication on paper.

Rachel threw the covers back and headed for the shower. Her shift didn’t start until nine, but she had shopping to do, some calls to make. And she wanted to get to the hospital early to review her paperwork and check on Heather Corrigan’s baby boy.

CHAPTER THREE

ELEANOR FITZ, the charge nurse in the NICU, wasn’t someone Guy new well. He dealt with her during administrative meetings and whenever a preemie was born in the E.R. They’d never talked, aside from work. He didn’t understand his reticence to approach her now, and he pushed it aside, intent on seeing Heather’s child.

When Eleanor saw him standing just inside the room, she seemed startled, but she quickly hid her surprise. “Dr. Giroux, how can I help you?”

He walked directly to the large sink and scrubbed his hands as if preparing for surgery. Then he draped a sterile mask around his neck and walked across the room to the nurses’ station, his gaze sweeping the incubators, isolettes, infant warmers and bevy of monitors hooked up to the tiny charges. The other nurses, most of whom he recognized, were busy, and there were two fathers, one holding his child, the other looking desperately through an incubator at his.

“I’m looking for Heather Corrigan’s baby,” he said.

For a split second Eleanor’s forehead creased, but perhaps he imagined it because when she smiled, she seemed all business. “He’s right over here.” Turning, she led him to the incubator at the far end of the room. Both a heart and a respiratory monitor were connected, and when he got closer, he saw an IV tube inserted into the hand of an incredibly tiny, very yellow baby.

“What’s his condition?”

The nurse didn’t even pluck the chart from the corner of the incubator. “He’s doing better than he was, but that’s not saying much. Very low blood pressure. You can see his jaundice is advanced and his kidney is only at ten percent. There’s still a lot we don’t know. His blood work isn’t finished.”

Guy stopped himself before he snapped at the woman in his frustration. “Please call the lab immediately and have his bloods done, stat.”

“Yes, Doctor,” she said, the words an unasked question.

“This is my stepdaughter’s child. I’d like to be informed immediately of any changes. You have my beeper, I assume.”

“Yes, Doctor,” she said, and it was if she had changed into another person. Softer. Sympathetic.

He wanted to make her leave, and he could have with a glance, but he didn’t. The child deserved all the sympathy in the world, considering his stepgrandfather.

“I’ll get right on it, Doctor,” Eleanor said, stepping aside. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.”

He nodded, his gaze on the boy.

“Doctor?”

He turned, surprised that the nurse was still there. “Yes.”

“Does he have a name?”

Guy stared without seeing. Thought about his girl, the way her hair insisted on flying about in the most undisciplined manner, no matter how she tried to tame it. About the way her laugh made him smile, even when he was in the foulest mood. “Heath,” he said. He looked at the baby once more. “His name is Heath Corrigan.”

RACHEL WAS STILL a little stunned at the storm damage she’d seen on her errands. Roofs had blown off, trees had toppled, electrical wires had been ripped from their housings. It was amazing the E.R. hadn’t been ten times as busy.

She’d finished her grocery shopping, gone to the post office and to the dry cleaners. Tonight would end her graveyard shift, and the day after tomorrow she would begin days. It wasn’t an easy transition to make, not only because of her body clock, but because of the social aspects of the day shift.

There were more patients, more interactions, more staff. She’d be doing rounds with Guy, seeing him in the call room, in the lounge. It was also time for her yearly review, and while she felt confident her performance was up to par, she didn’t like the fact that Guy had so much power over her.

Not that she hadn’t had supervisors and bosses before. She’d done her residency at Baylor in Houston, and they were notorious for their brutal reviews, but no one had ever flustered her the way Guy did. For all her expertise at disassociating her emotions, she failed miserably when she was around him.

She’d given up denying her attraction to him. It was there. Big time. But just because she felt it didn’t mean she had to act on it.

She just wished it would go away—that she could cure her attraction like a headache and be done with it.

And now, given his grief at the loss of Heather, she needed to be extra attentive, more personal, giving.

Okay, she wanted to be those things because no one should have to go through his pain, but the territory was dangerous and she had to be so very careful not to let him get too close. Not to let her guard down.

Once Rachel arrived at the hospital, she headed straight for the NICU.

In the elevator to the fourth floor, two nurses joined her. Rachel smiled at them and stood to one side. Of course she knew them both—they worked in cardiology—but not well.

“I know,” Cathy said, her voice just above a whisper, yet clear as a bell to Rachel. “I couldn’t believe it. His own stepdaughter.”

“I heard he was just devastated,” Ilene whispered back.

The elevator stopped on Two, and the nurses left without a backward glance. Rachel sighed. Courage Bay was a small hospital, and rumors raced through it like a fire. That was another reason she had no intention of letting Guy’s situation get to her. Nothing went unnoticed around here, and she would rather die than be the subject of staff gossip. It was enough that she’d earned herself the nickname of the Iron Lady. No one had ever said it to her face, but she’d heard it in the lounge, even on the floor. Better she should be known by that moniker than as a soft touch.

At the fourth floor, she headed toward the NICU, but as she passed the big windows, she came to an abrupt halt. Guy Giroux, her tough-as-nails boss, sat in a rocking chair, a sterile mask covering the lower half of his face, a tiny bundle, still hooked up to an array of monitors, cradled in his arms.

A wave of compassion swept through her, as strong as the winds that had toppled the trees last night. Without her permission, tears filled her eyes and she had to blink them away as she struggled to regain her composure.

This wasn’t the plan. She hadn’t even spoken to the man and she was getting blubbery. This never happened to her. Not anymore.

She got a grip on herself, straightened her shoulders and headed into the room, stopping to wash her hands and grab a mask before she walked over to him.

Guy didn’t look up. She doubted he knew she was there, the way he was watching the child.

Oh, God, the baby was so small and so jaundiced. Her gaze went to the monitors, and she was immediately concerned about both the BP and the heart rhythm.

“Hello, Rachel,” Guy said.

She smiled, but her body was almost rigid with control. “Hello, Doctor. I came up to see how the baby is doing.”

“I wish it was better,” he said, and that’s when he looked up at her.

It was as if she were staring at a new man. All she could see were his eyes, but the change in him was palpable. Guy had always been compassionate—that was one of the things that made him such a good doctor—but this was…different. There was a softness she would never have guessed, right there in his dark gaze.

“What can I do?” she asked.

He hesitated. “Before we get into that, I want to apologize for this morning. I had no business barging in—”

She held up her hand, her face filling with heat as she remembered her outfit, or lack of one. “It’s not a problem. I’m sorry I didn’t finish up the paperwork yesterday. I came in early to do just that, but if I can help here, I’d like to.”

He smiled. Not that she could see his lips curve through the mask, but the corners of his eyes crinkled. “I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that you did everything possible for Heather. I’m still stunned about all this. I spoke to her mother. Seems she thought Heather was in Los Angeles with her father.”

“Oh, no.”

“Tammy didn’t even know about the pregnancy.” His gaze went back to the boy. “This little guy had no help coming into this world. No prenatal care, no grandparents. I just don’t understand. This wasn’t like Heather. She’s always been a good kid.”

In the two years she’d been at Courage Bay Hospital, she’d never had such a personal conversation with Guy. Her first instinct was to get out, go back to the world she knew, but she could tell he wasn’t finished. That he needed to talk.

So she walked over to an empty incubator and grabbed the rocking chair positioned next to it. She placed it close to Guy’s chair. Settling into it, she crossed her legs and leaned back. “Tell me about her.”

Guy touched the baby’s tiny arm with his index finger. “I only had Heather for four years. Her mother and I got divorced when she was thirteen. She was bright. Heather, I mean. Inquisitive. I’d hoped that someday she’d become interested in medicine, but back then, all she cared about were boys and music, music and boys. Oh, I forgot clothes. Those were big, too.”

“She sounds like a typical teenager.”

“In a lot of ways, she was.” Guy looked at her, although Rachel had the feeling he wasn’t really seeing her. “She loved to sail. I suppose that’s where we spent most of our time together. I was always getting home after she went to bed, leaving before she woke up.”

“That’s the doctor’s curse.”

“It cursed that marriage, all right. But I learned my lesson. Never again. I wasn’t there for either of them. They needed me, but I didn’t give much of a damn. Tammy…”

She didn’t press him to finish the sentence. In fact, she didn’t want to hear the rest. His confession was hitting her in a place long buried. The two of them were so alike. At least Rachel had never made the mistake of getting married. She knew it would be just as Guy said. She wouldn’t be there in a way a wife or mother needed to be.

“Tammy’s in France, but she’s going to get here as soon as she can. I still haven’t connected with Heather’s father. I left two messages, but the number I have may be old.”

“Do you think he knew what was going on?”

Guy shook his head. “I never cared much for Walter. The idiot. He was unfocused and a wastrel, but I never imagined he was this negligent.” His voice hardened into something Rachel recognized a lot more than his previous gentle cadence. “I’m going to find out exactly what he knew, and when. And how he could have let this happen. I blame him for Heather’s death.”

His head bowed a little farther, as if she wasn’t there. Rachel barely heard his next words, they were whispered so softly. “And myself.”

“Guy, you’ve been divorced from Tammy for how long?”

He didn’t answer for a long moment. “Five years.”

“And the last time you checked, Heather was supposed to be with her mother in Europe?”

He nodded. “Yeah. The last time I checked. Which was months ago.”

“I know this is hard, but don’t borrow any more grief than you already have. There’s no way you could have known that Heather wasn’t with her parents. Or that she was pregnant. Her own mother didn’t know.”

“That doesn’t absolve me, and you know it. But I’ll tell you one thing, Rachel—I’m going to get to the bottom of this. And I’m going to make sure Heath is taken care of. In every way.”

“Heath?”

“After his mom,” Guy said, rocking the baby gently. “He needs to get better. I have to figure out exactly what’s going on here and fix it.”

“Then let me help.”

His chair stopped. “How?”

“I’ll go to the lab and I’ll go over the reports with a finetooth comb. Let me call Tim Burns…get him in here.”

“He’s on vacation.”

Rachel knew the neonatologist was away, but she also knew that he was only in Palm Springs, and that if he understood the situation, he’d get back here, pronto. She also knew the specialists on staff were perfectly capable of handling preemies and all the problems that went with them, but Burns was the best. And he was Guy’s friend. “Let me worry about that.” She stood up, put the rocker back. “I’ll page you as—”

The baby’s heart monitor went off that second, and even though every instinct she had was to rush in to see what was wrong and what she could do, she stepped back as the team swarmed around Guy and the incubator.

After a few moments, she realized Heath had gone into arrhythmia, and the medical staff had to do some pretty fancy footwork to stabilize him. Which they did, thank God. Now it was a matter of keeping him stabilized, and that’s something she could help with.

Guy was standing at the foot of the incubator, his skin paler than she’d ever seen it before. She touched his arm. “I’ll call,” Rachel said softly.

He barely acknowledged her.

She wished she could do more. Say something, be someone who could ease his torment. But she couldn’t.

GUY WENT TO HIS OFFICE and sat down, his head still muzzy with so many thoughts. Heath was stable for the moment, but the information Rachel had gotten from the lab strongly indicated that the boy had a genetic problem, perhaps Noonan’s syndrome, though more tests had to be run.

The thing was, he knew for a fact that there was no indication of Noonan’s in Walter’s or Tammy’s background. So if that was the final diagnosis, the disorder had to have been transmitted through the father.

Noonan’s. It was a relatively common birth defect, and Guy had seen his share of cases. Some severe, some blessedly mild. From Heath’s current physical symptoms, the slight webbing on his neck, his low-set ears, it didn’t appear that he had severe Noonan’s, but there were still heart tests, the karyotype analysis and the genetic tests for mutation in the PTPN11 gene. What no one knew yet was if the boy would be developmentally challenged, which happened in about a fourth of the cases.

Nothing was more important than finding Heath’s father and getting his medical history. If the same genetic testing could be done on the father, Heath’s chances for survival would be greatly enhanced, but Guy didn’t have a clue where to begin.

Rachel was checking into Heather’s belongings, and he’d put in four calls to Walter. Guy wanted to kill the son of a bitch for not calling him back.

He wanted coffee, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to get up and get it. He didn’t like asking Connie, but today would have to be the exception to the rule. Leaning over his desk, hardly looking at the paperwork he couldn’t deal with yet, he buzzed his secretary.

“Yes, Doctor?”

“I hate to ask, but could you make me a pot of coffee?”

Connie chuckled. “It’s already made, just five minutes ago. So you just sit right there, and I’ll bring you a cup.”

Guy smiled. “Thank you.”

“No sweat.”

He sat back in his chair, knowing full well why there was a fresh pot of coffee made. Everyone in the hospital, including Connie, knew about Heather. About Heath. And they would all be solicitous and pitying and it would be a nightmare on top of a nightmare for Guy.

Putting his hand on the back of his neck, he rubbed the tense muscles as Connie entered his office, tapping first, as she always did. She looked bright and sunny today, her dress a brilliant red that made her café au lait skin appear smooth and vibrant, belying her fifty-plus years. She’d been with Guy for the past three years, and their relationship was one of businesslike companionability. He appreciated the fact that he never had to ask for anything twice. Connie was proud of her work, and it showed.

Today, however, her concern wasn’t about hospital matters, but him, and he could see it in her eyes, the way her smile was filled with concern. “How are you?” she asked.

“As well as could be expected.”

She nodded, then disappeared into his call room. It held only a bed, a locker, a small radio and of course, his coffee supplies. When Connie reappeared, she held a steaming mug, which she put in front of him.

“Thank you.”

“Hold on,” she said, then she hurried out of the office, leaving the door slightly ajar.

It wasn’t but a moment till she was back, this time with a plate. “I made some spiced pumpkin bread last night before we lost power. Luckily, it baked all the way through. I know it’s one of your favorites.”

He couldn’t tell her that the thought of food made his stomach turn. “Thanks, Connie.”

“And I don’t care if you’re not hungry. You eat a piece. You need to be at your best for that little boy.”

“So it’s all over the hospital, is it?”

“Of course.” She sat down across from his desk, in one of the two brown leather wing chairs. “Which means what it means. What I want to know is how I can help.”

Guy sipped some coffee. It was perfect, just as he’d expected. “There’s nothing to be done, except your usual excellence. It might be a little tougher in the next few days because of the storm. I’ll need an updated schedule of the staff. Has everyone checked in?”

“Yes, sir. Only Williams still can’t get in. But he thinks he’ll be cleared out by tonight.”

He nodded, thinking about his team. They were good. In fact, it was the best E.R. in the state, as far as he was concerned. Recently they’d handled things even metropolitan hospitals never saw. He thought of his brother, Alec, and how brilliant he’d been during the virus outbreak last summer. Then there had been the weather anomalies, the fires. It had been the most hectic year Courage Bay had known, and Guy’s E.R. had done more than anyone could have expected. “I may have to leave town for a few days,” he said, “so we’ll need a working plan for a week without me.”

“Of course,” Connie said.

“The baby isn’t out of the woods, not by a long shot. I want—” He stopped, startled at the direction of his thoughts, at the depth of his emotions. “I want to spend as much time as I can with him, until he is.”

Connie tilted her head a bit to the right. “You’re family. It’s only natural.”

But it wasn’t natural. It was nothing like Guy. Why he cared so much, why Heath’s condition meant so much to him was a puzzle that shook him. He’d had other family members in trouble before. His own mother, for God’s sake. He’d been there for her, as much as he could be after the car accident that had killed his father and eventually taken her life, but he’d never felt this much at sea.

It was unprecedented and the stupid thing was, Heath wasn’t even his blood. It didn’t matter. He would do whatever it took to take care of the boy.

“Is that it?” Connie asked. “I feel like I should do more. Help more.”

He knew just what she was talking about, but he couldn’t think of a thing. As long as she kept him and the team organized, that was all he could ask.

As long as Rachel was there…

What a thought to have about Rachel Browne. Up until today, he would have said she was a colleague, one of his staff. He noticed her beauty, of course, but since very early on, there had been no question of crossing the line, of being anything more than her boss. And yet today, he’d acted as if she was more. A friend. Someone to turn to.

It was official. His world had turned upside down. There was a life depending on him that hadn’t been there yesterday, and for once, he had no excuses to back out. No other priorities. And where just a few short hours ago it seemed he was in this alone, he now had a friend. Rachel.

Go figure.

CHAPTER FOUR

RACHEL HELD the plastic bin tightly, as if it would drop any second. It wasn’t a special bin, except that inside it were all the worldly goods of an eighteen-year-old who’d died on Rachel’s watch.

She’d gone over the medical procedures in her mind a hundred times, reread her notes six times, maybe seven. And still, she couldn’t think of a thing she’d have done differently. She’d taken extraordinary measures to save Heather’s life. And still, she’d failed.

It happened. Rachel had also heard that Bruce Nepom had died this morning, which didn’t make things better. God, she’d tried so hard. The damage that had been done to that man’s skull…

She reached her office and kicked the door shut behind her. Then she put the bin on the table, wincing at the grooves embedded in her palms.

Going through Heather’s things was a breach of protocol, but in this case, it was done out of kindness. If there was anything disturbing in the meager belongings, she wanted to see it first, then tell Guy. Since the death wasn’t suspicious, there would be no police involvement. And since Guy was acting as next of kin, there was no harm here, only help.

Heather’s coat was on top. It wasn’t in good repair, and there were stains on the poor-quality wool. The blue color had faded, leaving it washed out and sad looking. There was one piece of paper in her pocket, and on it were two phone numbers. Rachel recognized the one for Courage Bay Hospital. The other had a 213 prefix. Los Angeles. She carefully put the paper, wrinkled and still a bit damp, in her jacket pocket.

After folding the coat, Rachel picked up Heather’s dress. Another thrift-store bargain, she imagined. Yellow, with little green flowers. No pockets. Next was Heather’s purse. It was a large cotton tote, with lots of pockets inside. Unfortunately, they didn’t hold much of consequence—breath mints, a hairbrush, dark glasses, a faded ticket stub to a movie. But then Rachel found a small notebook. She opened it to the first page. The handwriting was small, tight.

I’m here, finally. Away from all of them. Safe. Well, not now, because he’s not here. But he’ll be back soon, and then it will be dinner and maybe we’ll watch an old movie on his crappy TV. I won’t care because we’ll be together. It was so easy. I still can’t get over that. Mom didn’t even check. Dad was busy with his bimbo of the month. And I disappeared, like on that TV show where someone’s there one second, and gone the next. Only, no one’s looking for me. And it feels…

Rachel turned the page, but it was a new entry, written with a different pen. Leaning back in her chair, Rachel wondered if she should go immediately to find Guy, but something kept her in her seat. Fear. Protectiveness. She turned back to the book.

We went to his friend’s house last night, but I don’t remember all that much. I got totally wasted, and this chick, Perry, scored some Ecstasy, which I’d never done before. Mixed with the Southern Comfort, it was so cool. I like his friends, although Perry’s boyfriend scared me a little when we were in the kitchen together. He touched me, but then Perry came in so it was cool again. After, S and I made love until, like, four in the morning. Then he went to sleep, and I think if it had been quieter, I would have, too, but the sirens went on and on, and then there was this helicopter. I could see the light, really bright, on the walls. They’re cracked between the posters, and the paint is really chipped. I wonder if this is where we’ll always live, or if he’ll get that job, and then we can move somewhere nice, where the carpet isn’t stained, and we can have a washer and dryer, ’cause I hate going to that skeezy Laundromat. We’d have a new bed, too, one that didn’t make my back ache every morning. And I could buy new sheets and a comforter and stuff. I really want to decorate my way for a change, and have all the money in the world to buy whatever I want. He says we’ll have everything, and I believe him. I just have to wait. But I don’t know how long to wait. I said I should look for a job, but he got really pissed, and so I didn’t mention it again. He’s going to take care of me. He promised. I know he will, ’cause he loves me. More than anything on earth. He loves ME.

Rachel’s chest constricted with pain for this child. She did a little elementary math. Heather had to have been pregnant nine months ago, yet she didn’t appear to be when she’d written this. How long ago would that have been?

Flipping through the pages, Rachel saw that the entries were made in different colors of ink, mostly black, but some in blue, red, and a few in purple. The handwriting got even smaller toward the end, which was probably where Rachel should have looked to start with.

She found the last entry more than three-quarters of the way through the small notebook.

I’ve been gone for almost a week. Does he think I’m dead? Hit by a car, or mugged, or maybe he thinks I had the baby? I still don’t understand what happened. How it all went to hell. He loved me. He told me so over and over. Loved me, and he would take care of me, and take care of our baby. And then he wouldn’t let me out of the house. I thought it was because he was worried about me. But even when I wanted to go, when I felt fine, he kept me locked up. Got mean. He wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t explain. And when I tried so hard to understand, he just hit me. It hurt so bad.

And then he left, and it was three days before he got back. I tried to get out, but he’d done something to the door. He took his cell phone and didn’t leave me any money, so what was I supposed to do?

And then, yesterday, when he was gone again, that guy from the apartment came. I couldn’t believe it at first, but then I started screaming and I didn’t stop until he’d gotten the door open. He didn’t want to help me, but I guess he felt sorry for the baby. He got me out, took me to the bus station, gave me some money. And now I’m waiting for the bus.

The scariest part is the headaches. They’ve gotten so much worse. The baby keeps kicking so I haven’t slept, and I have to keep going to the bathroom.

I don’t want to call my mom or dad. But Guy will help. He was the best, when he was there. I wonder if he’s forgotten me. I remember the times we went on the boat together. That was cool. I wish he could have been my real father. Then he might have stayed home more, and we could have been a real family. I guess I’d

That was it. The last entry. Rachel closed the book and got up, put the lid back on the plastic bin and headed for Guy’s office.

Connie was on the phone in the outer office, but she waved at Rachel to go inside.

Rachel knocked lightly, then opened the door enough to see Guy at his desk. His head rested on his hands, his shoulders were slumped, and he didn’t look up.

“Yes, Connie.”

“It’s me,” she said. “May I come in?”

He raised his head, and smiled at her. God, he looked like hell, red-rimmed eyes, his dark hair unkempt and spiky. For the first time she could remember, Guy looked every one of his forty-three years. But in his sad smile was a welcome that she took to heart.

“I have something,” she said, holding up the notebook. “It was in Heather’s things.”

He changed instantly, becoming fully alert. The intelligence that made him so appealing lit up his eyes.

She went to his desk and handed him the book. He took it anxiously, but when he opened it randomly, somewhere in the middle, he glanced up from the small script to her.

“I’ll leave you,” she said. “You should read it.”

“Have you?”

“Just a bit,” she told him, embarrassed. “I hoped there would be something obvious.”

He nodded, looked down at the page again. “Are you on shift?”

“Yes.”

“Are there patients?”

“Yes. Nothing too urgent.”

His gaze met hers. “Come back.”

She took in a great breath of air, trying to steady herself, to mentally step back, get some room, but there was no place she could go. He needed someone, and she was it. “As soon as I can.”

“Thank you,” he said.

She didn’t reply, but at the door she turned back to ask, “Have you eaten?”

“Now you’re sounding like Connie.”

“Good. Someone needs to look after you.”

“I’m fine.”

“And the baby?”

Guy didn’t speak, and his gaze went to the window. “He’s in trouble. I was just up there. They think it’s Noonan’s syndrome, but they’re not sure. We need to find the father.”

“Maybe that will help,” she said, looking at the notebook.

“I hope so. I still haven’t heard from Walter.”

“I have to go,” Rachel said, “but I’ll be back as soon as I can. And Guy?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m off tomorrow. After that, I switch to days. So whatever help I can offer, count on it.”

His lips tightened, and he was staring at the window again. Rachel closed the door quietly behind her.

BY THE TIME Guy finished reading Heather’s diary, it was nearly nine-thirty. He looked at his desk and saw the piles of reports neatly laid in his in-box. He hadn’t even heard Connie come in or leave for the day.

When he rubbed his face, he was startled that his eyes, his cheeks were wet. He’d cried? God, he was falling apart. Everything felt surreal—Heather’s death, this book of sorrows, Heath.

Heath.

He stood up, carefully putting Heather’s notebook in his top drawer, and headed for the NICU. Again, the staff treated him diffidently. Gave him more room in the hallways, smiled with that tinge of sympathy that made him want to punch through a wall. He retreated into familiar behavior, acting as if nothing had happened, nodding but not speaking.

The elevator held only strangers, and for that Guy was grateful. On the fourth floor, he listened to the soft strains of Bach wafting beneath the bustle of nurses and orderlies. On this floor, aside from the NICU, was the nursery. If he walked to his left, he would see the healthy babies, the exultant parents. Just past the nursery was a waiting room, and then there was the delivery room.

He knew that Heather had been in the right place last night, and because of Rachel’s deft handling of the delivery, Heath was alive today. And yet he couldn’t help but wonder what if.

What if he’d called Heather more often? What if he’d paid attention? What if he hadn’t been such a selfish prick for the last five years?

He felt the blood beneath his skin and was aware of his rapid heartbeat. His breath became shallow and harsh, and he ducked into the men’s room. Alone, he went to the sink and threw cold water on his face. Tried for calm, settled for nonpsychotic.

He leaned on the granite counter, stared into his own wild eyes. He’d gone through the looking glass this morning, and it had just turned into a mirror again. He didn’t like what he saw.

Who the hell was he? A doctor, but why? Did he even care about the people he helped? Or was it all self-aggrandizement? Had he ever loved Tammy, or was it just that she was beautiful? That she thought he was God’s gift? That she fit into the pretty little picture he’d created that represented his life. Only, where was the life part?

The moment he’d held that boy in his arms, the facade had shattered. But now that Guy was broken, what was he supposed to do about it? How was he going to pick up the pieces? That baby needed him, and he was useless. Stripped bare and without any of his shiny protective coating.

“Okay, Giroux. Get it together. This is not about you.” He turned off the water, then dried his hands and face, balling the paper tightly before he threw it in the trash. Then he went to look in on his grandson.

As he walked into the unit, his gaze went to the far corner. Heath’s incubator. And Rachel Browne.

Instantly, as if a switch had been flipped, his anger disappeared. Gone, just like that. He studied her. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail that fell to the middle of her back. The white coat, prim, professional, hid the curves that had burned themselves into his brain. Her navy skirt came down to just above her knees, and below that were remarkable legs, the kind of legs that launched ships, that wars were fought over. Her shoes—black, with one-inch heels—were as perfectly groomed as the rest of her. That was Rachel. Always put together, always fresh and beautiful, even if she’d been working twenty-four hours straight.

She instilled confidence in her patients, had complete control of even the most complicated cases. And she never lost her cool. Altogether, she was an extraordinary doctor.

Right this second, he needed her, more desperately than he could ever remember needing a woman. But not for sex or even a kiss. He needed her to calm him. When Rachel was near, the world stopped caving in on him.

He went to the sink first and prepared himself to hold the baby. It was second nature, this washing routine. He’d done it so many times, hundreds, thousands, that it had become a ritual.

Rachel was looking at him when he turned toward Heath. God, her face. It was the best part of her, really. Incredibly large dark eyes, dark eyebrows, and lips painted a perfect red. She had a fascinating beauty, but more important, she was a born healer, in the best sense of the word. And in his eyes, that made her looks a detail. An afterthought.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate how attractive she was. He simply put her beauty in proper perspective.

“Guy,” she said, her soft voice carrying clearly across the room.

He walked toward her, the stirrings of hope quickening his step.

“He’s doing a little better,” Rachel said. “He’s been sleeping peacefully. No arrhythmia, and look—” she handed him the chart “—his kidney function is up.”

Guy read everything, then reread it before he spoke. “He’s still not out of the woods.”

“No,” Rachel said. “But what this tells me is that even if we don’t find his father, we can get to the bottom of his condition. We’ll find out everything. His blood work has gone to the lab in San Francisco.”

He knew what that meant. DNA sequencing, as fast and as accurately as it could be done. It cost him a fortune and was worth every penny. But it still wasn’t magic. Getting the results would take time. Time he could use finding the bastard that had impregnated his stepdaughter. “His name is Stan,” he said. “I think he might still be in Los Angeles.”

Rachel stepped closer and put her hand on his sleeve. “When’s the last time you ate?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well then, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to spend a few minutes looking at that beautiful boy. Then I’m going to take you down the street and force-feed you, if necessary.” She caught his gaze. “We’ll talk.”

CHAPTER FIVE

RACHEL WALKED next to Guy, her hands in her coat pockets. As they approached the Courage Bay Bar and Grill, she slipped a glance his way, the light from a street lamp putting his features in sharp relief.

He didn’t look like the Guy Giroux she was used to. His dark hair, thick and long enough to brush his collar, was mussed, and his strong jaw was darkened with a five o’clock shadow. His eyebrows, which would have been too bushy on a weaker face, made everything about his looks more interesting.

There was no disputing he was handsome. And tall. She guessed he was about six-three. At five-eight, she only reached his shoulders. And then there was his body. The man took care of himself, and didn’t all the nurses and female doctors notice. Guy was often the subject of break-room gossip and wishful thinking.

In all the time she’d worked at the hospital, she’d never heard of him dating anyone on staff. Considering how small-town the E.R. was, that was a good thing. Nothing escaped their co-workers, and this innocent dinner would be no exception. Rachel didn’t give a damn.

It was startling how affected Guy was by the loss of his stepdaughter. He had clearly loved Heather, and his concern for the baby was as deep as a parent’s.

It occurred to Rachel that she barely knew the man. She only knew the doctor. Which was exactly how it was supposed to be. Only, things had changed, and the man inside the black leather coat needed her. She couldn’t bring Heather back, and she wasn’t the best doctor for Heath. But she could be a friend.

They reached the door of the restaurant and Guy held it open for her. Inside, the cold of the January night disappeared. The familiar surroundings helped take the chill out of Rachel. Larry Goodman, the owner, was hosting this evening, and he greeted them both warmly, took their coats and led them to the dining room, to a back booth.

Like all the emergency personnel in town, Rachel came to the Bar and Grill more often than any other place. Aside from the convenient location, the restaurant had great food, the ambience was calming, and Larry and his wife, Louise, went to great lengths to take care of all the teams in the emergency-services district.

She scooted into the far seat of the booth, while Guy sat across from her. “Tea, please, Larry. Earl Grey.”

Larry, who looked younger than his sixty-plus years, nodded and turned to Guy.

“Coffee.”

“Be right back, folks. Tonight we have some great mesquite-smoked salmon, and the prime rib has been getting raves.”

The minute they were alone, Guy pulled the little notebook out of his pocket and put it on the table.