Jake headed down the stairs. Ally watched him go until he disappeared around the corner of the house.

Then she closed the door and turned from it, catching the faintly lingering scent of his cologne.

And even though she didn’t understand why, she couldn’t resist breathing it in.

Breathing it in and picturing Jake all over again.

Jake standing at the door, facing her, towering above her in all his broad- shouldered, masculine majesty.

Looking into her eyes.

Touching her cheek.

Jake in a position from which he could easily have kissed her…

She yanked herself back to reality.

Kissed her?

Jake Fox?

Maybe she should have her head examined, too!

VICTORIA PADE

is a native of Colorado, where she continues to live and work. Her passion – besides writing – is chocolate, which she indulges in frequently and in every form. She loves romance novels and romantic movies – the more lighthearted the better – but she likes a good, juicy mystery now and then, too.

Designs on
the Doctor

Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

Ally Rogers felt shell-shocked as she stared out the window of the Chicago-bound airplane.

It wasn’t every day that some stranger told her there was a situation with her mother that she needed to “get to Chicago—immediately—to deal with.”

It wasn’t every day that some stranger told her that even though Ally might not want to be involved in her mother’s life he wasn’t giving her the option not to be any longer.

It definitely wasn’t every day. It was just yesterday.

This week had been hellish for Ally right from the start. As a well-known interior designer dealing with celebrity clients, she sometimes had to travel the world to get to their sprawling mansions, and she was frequently required to keep odd hours to accommodate her clients’ hectic schedules.

Yesterday had been a prime example of that. She’d flown in from Italy at dawn, catching only a few hours sleep on the plane. Then she’d had to rush home, shower and change her clothes before dashing to meet with a national news anchor while he did his live morning show. During his commercial breaks she’d presented pictures of what was being implemented by her design team in his Tuscan villa and gotten the okay on her plans for the rest of the project.

Ignoring the jet lag she was suffering, she’d had a full twelve hours of other appointments and details that had had to be attended to before she’d finally gotten back home again. Where a curt voice mail from a Jake Fox had awaited her. The name wasn’t familiar to her and he hadn’t said more than that to identify himself, only that he needed to speak to her ASAP about her mother. That it was an emergency.

When Ally had heard that, she’d wanted to kick herself for not having given her mother her new cellphone number yet. But Ally had been en route to Italy on Sunday when she would have made her weekly call to Estelle. And to be honest, she’d just been so busy that she’d forgotten all about it.

The moment she’d heard Dr. Fox’s message, she’d dialed the number he’d left. And if his message had been curt and impatient, it was nothing compared to her conversation with him.

After the under-his-breath “It’s about time” response to her call, Ally had said, “Are you with my mother now? Who are you?”

“A friend of Estelle’s from the senior center,” he’d said. “If you talked to your mother more often you’d know that.”

“Are you her doctor?”

“No, I’m not her medical doctor, but Estelle needs to get to her doctor. Unfortunately her friends and I can’t persuade her to do that. Besides, this is a family situation, something a stranger shouldn’t need to tell you,” he’d added, under his breath again. Then he’d proceeded, in a more matter-of-fact tone, to say that Estelle had been unwell, that it wasn’t exactly clear what was going on with her, but that he was convinced she needed medical attention.

After trying and failing to get more out of the doctor—who insisted he had no more information to share—Ally had instantly dialed her mother’s house. But there hadn’t been any answer. She didn’t have the numbers—or even the last names—of any of her mother’s friends. The neighbors had all changed since Ally had lived with her mother, so there was no one nearby she knew to call. And despite the fact that Ally had continued to try her mother’s number again and again in between making arrangements to fly to Chicago as soon as she could, she hadn’t ever reached Estelle.

So there she was, on her way to Illinois with no clue what was going on and only her own worst fears to keep her company.

Thank you very much, Jake Fox.

What kind of person made a call like that when something happened to someone’s seventy-nine-year-old mother?

No, she and her mother weren’t close. And never had been. But Estelle was still her mother. Shouldn’t there have been a little compassion? A little finesse? Especially from a medical person?

But Jake Fox had been so impatient. And why? Just because Ally didn’t live in the same city, the same state that Estelle lived in? Innumerable people didn’t live near family. Ally was sure Estelle wouldn’t even want her close by, or that close proximity would change the nature of their relationship. Once-a-week phone calls and spending major holidays together, that was the extent of it and would be the extent of it regardless of where she lived.

And who was this guy, anyway? A friend of her mother’s from the senior center—that’s what he’d said. Was he some sort of boyfriend Estelle hadn’t mentioned? Another retiree who had become her companion? And even if they were close, why couldn’t he have said what kind of trouble her mother was having? Or if Estelle had been hurt. Or where she was…

Ally wasn’t a nervous flyer and yet her hands were clenched onto the armrests and her palms were sweaty.

Rather than drying her hands on her twill slacks, she decided to make a trip to the restroom to wash them, thinking that getting up, moving around, might help some of her agitation.

It didn’t. She was no more relaxed as she ran cool water over her hands, and one glance into the mirror over the sink gave evidence to how tense she was.

She hadn’t had time to do more than leave her honey-blond hair loose around a face that had lost the usual bloom of pink that highlighted her cheekbones. Even her slightly full lips looked washed out beneath the thin, straight nose, and her emerald-green eyes were a little bloodshot from lack of sleep.

She dried her hands and smoothed the simple brown T-shirt she wore over the tan slacks before retaking her seat, feeling no better than when she’d left it.

She decided to stop focusing on Dr. Fox. Her mother’s health was the only thing that mattered right now.

Please let her be all right…

She took a few deep breaths to combat a fresh rise of fear.

If only her mother was all right, Ally was even willing to have more dealings with Jake Fox. He and his bad, dictatorial disposition were beside the point. Ally just wanted her mother to be okay.

Then she’d deal with Jake Fox.

It was after noon when Ally pulled her rental car up in front of the small suburban home in which she’d grown up.

The two-story, circa-1950s red brick house with its covered front porch looked the same as it always had except that the lawn was dry and nearly dying in spots.

If it had been any other yard in the neighborhood Estelle Rogers would have marched up to the front door, rung the bell, and when the owner had answered, minced no words about how their laziness was lowering her property values. She would have given them a dressing-down that would have shamed them into improved lawn care. So the fact that Estelle’s own yard looked so bad in the August heat was an indication that something was amiss.

And Ally needed to go in and see what it was. See her mother.

Ally’s stomach—which had been in knots since yesterday’s phone call—tied itself into one more. But then, her stomach tied itself into that knot every time she came to visit her mother.

Well, she couldn’t sit there and wait it out the way she usually did, so she charged from the car, taking only her purse with her.

“She’s not there.”

Ally stopped short before even reaching the front porch and turned to find a boy of probably five or six on his bicycle on the sidewalk that ran in front of the house.

“Do you know where she is?” Ally asked, doubting that he did but desperate.

“She got taked ’way in a am-buh-lance today.”

Oh God.

Ally’s stomach clenched even tighter as awful things went through her mind. Had Estelle been home alone last night when she’d called and called, maybe unable to get to the phone? Had she been lying on the floor all night?

“When was this?” Ally asked the child.

“After breakfast,” he answered.

“Do you know where she was taken?” Ally inquired, feeling more frantic by the minute.

“To the hospital,” the little boy said as if it should have been obvious.

The neighborhood hospital—she’d start there. And hope she wasn’t already too late.

Ally nearly ran down the porch steps and back to her car.

“Thank you,” she said to the little boy as she went by him and got behind the wheel again. The hospital was only about a fifteen-minute drive away. Ally made it in ten, parking crookedly in the first spot she could find in the emergency-room lot before she nearly ran to the hospital entrance.

“I’m looking for Estelle Rogers, she may have been brought in by ambulance—”

“Those people are also here about her,” the receptionist said, pointing to the waiting room.

Maybe the receptionist didn’t want to give her bad news…

Ally turned in the direction the woman indicated. Among the other people in the waiting room, she spotted a group she recognized, if only slightly. Her mother had had routine gallbladder removal four years ago and Ally had come to Chicago then to help Estelle through the surgery and to convalesce afterward. There had been a steady stream of her mother’s friends from the Wilkens Senior Center who had visited Estelle during that time, and while Ally didn’t remember most of their names, their faces were faintly familiar.

Faces that all looked somber and serious now.

The worst…

The worst has happened…

Ally felt her knees go wobbly. Her head was light. The whole hospital seemed to be spinning.

Without taking a step, she listed to one side and had to grab on to the reception counter’s edge.

“Ma’am?”

The receptionist’s alarmed voice seemed to be coming from far away.

Then Ally was only vaguely aware of the receptionist jolting to her feet and calling, “Dr. Fox! I need help!”

“So cold! Her hands are like ice, Jacob!”

“It’s okay, Bubby. She’s coming around.”

Ally forced leaden eyelids open. For a moment she was lost. She didn’t know where she was, or why she was lying on her back on a hard floor, surrounded by people she barely recognized.

There was a very attractive man hunkered down on one side of her, taking her blood pressure. There was a much, much older woman who had Ally’s left hand between both of hers, rubbing vigorously. And there was a woman who looked like a nurse standing at her feet.

It was the blood-pressure-taking and the sight of the nurse that cued memory—she was at the Chicago hospital where her mother had been taken by ambulance.

“My mother…” she said, her own voice sounding fearful and sluggish at once.

“You’re who we’re interested in right now,” the man said, despite the stethoscope in his ears.

Ally looked to the elderly woman rubbing her hand and whispered, “Am I too late? Is she…”

“Oh, no!” the older woman said quickly. “Not Estelle. She had a fall today. And there are some other things wrong, but she’s still with us.” The hand rubbing became more intense. “Just rest and let our Jacob take care of you.”

The man being referred to as “our Jacob” took the stethoscope out of his ears and unfastened the blood pressure cuff from around Ally’s arm. As he did, he said, “You thought Estelle had died?” He actually looked…embarrassed.

“I didn’t know what to think.”

“You didn’t tell her what’s going on?” the older woman demanded of him.

“I told her Estelle was in trouble,” he answered, turning even redder.

“Jacob! Look at this poor girl! So worried!”

Now she remembered the woman. Bubby had been the friend that Ally had liked most during Estelle’s gallbladder recovery. She was a tiny Jewish lady who had come every day with pastries and casseroles. Rayzel—that was her name.

“She should be worried,” the man said under his breath.

And that was when Ally knew that Jacob was Jake Fox.

She bolted upright, sending her head spinning again. The spinning made her reel, and if Jake Fox’s long arm hadn’t snaked around her to catch her she would have smacked her head on the wheel of a nearby gurney.

“Hold on! Where do you think you’re going?” he said.

“It’s you!” Ally accused.

“Lie back down,” he commanded, easing her to the floor again before he said, “Yes, we spoke on the phone last night.”

His tone wasn’t warm, but at least it wasn’t as impatient as it had been the previous evening.

Ally realized then that the hospital receptionist and the rest of her mother’s friends had gathered around, keeping some distance behind Jake. She hated that she’d made such a spectacle.

“How about a chair?” he said to the nurse. “I think all we have here is a stress-related fainting spell. She doesn’t need a bed, but since she wants up, let’s let her try to sit. And maybe she can have a little orange juice and a cookie or a cracker…”

With the excitement over, the receptionist returned to her post as the nurse left to do the doctor’s bidding. Only Jake Fox and Estelle’s friends remained.

Then Jake said to Bubby, “You all can go out and watch for Nina—you don’t want to keep her waiting. I’ll deal with this.”

“I could stay,” Bubby offered. “Nina could take everyone else.”

“And miss your card games at the center? No, go on. There’s nothing you can do. You know what’s happening with Estelle, and her daughter is here now. She’s going to be okay. I’ll get her back on her feet and she can take over.”

After assuring Ally that she would check in with her at dinnertime, Bubby and the contingent of elderly ladies filed out of the emergency room just as the nurse brought a wheelchair into the reception area.

“We can put her in her mother’s room,” Jake told the nurse. “I’ll take her there while you see if you can find the juice and crackers.”

“I don’t need a wheelchair,” Ally protested. Feeling more embarrassed by the minute, she sat up slowly this time so she could stay up.

“I’ve kept you from having to see an E.R. doctor, but I’m not going to let you on your feet until I’m sure you can stay there,” the doctor said flatly.

The nurse put the brake on the chair and left again.

“Let me do the work,” the doctor ordered Ally.

His left arm came around her from behind again, he grasped her nearest forearm with his right hand and brought her off the floor and into the chair in one smooth movement as if she weighed nothing.

For no reason she understood, Ally was very aware of the power and strength in that bracing arm and the warmth of his hand on her bare skin. Aware of it all and feeling for the first time as if she wasn’t in this alone somehow.

But then she was in the wheelchair and she came to her senses—this was the guy who had read her the riot act and created the stress that had buckled her knees in the first place. Not only was she alone in whatever was happening, but she and Jake were at odds over it, without her even knowing why.

He didn’t say anything as he released the brake on the wheelchair and pushed her through the doors that separated the reception area and waiting room from the actual emergency-treatment area.

He took her to one of the small examining rooms that surrounded a central space like satellites. None of the doctors or nurses talking, checking charts or at the computers in the center even looked up, and when they got to Estelle’s room it was empty.

“My mother isn’t here,” Ally said.

“She’s probably still in X-ray. I’ll check,” he said, leaving just as the nurse came in with orange juice and crackers.

Rather than argue, Ally accepted them, taking a few sips of the juice and eating a cracker. Then she tested the sturdiness of her own feet.

She was still a bit shaky, but she made it to the visitor’s chair without incident and the nurse wheeled the chair out of the small room.

The nurse met Jake coming back and Ally watched as the two stopped just outside the door to discuss something she couldn’t hear. It gave her the opportunity to study the man who had caused her such torment in the last several hours.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, and had long legs that were muscular enough to tease the fabric of the khaki slacks he was wearing with a maroon dress shirt and tie.

His hair was a dark espresso brown and he wore it longish and slightly unkempt. He had the facial bone structure of a Greek god—all angles and planes and sharp edges. His nose was hawkish, his lips were lush, and if Ally hadn’t disliked him so much from their phone call, she would have been blown away by how good-looking he was.

But appearance aside, he was still the jerk who had verbally skewered her last night and movie-star handsomeness didn’t change that.

One thing was for sure, though, he wasn’t her mother’s boyfriend or companion. He was close to Ally’s age—likely in his early thirties—and while it would have surprised her to know her seventy-nine-year-old mother was keeping company with anyone, she knew Estelle wouldn’t do anything as audacious as fool around with a younger man.

Which begged the question—why was he hanging out with a group of geriatrics? Maybe he was related to Bubby?

His conversation with the nurse ended just then and he came back into the room.

Propping a hip on one corner of the examining table, he leveled a charcoal-colored gaze on her and Ally tried not to appreciate the beauty of those thickly lashed eyes. Instead, in her most authoritative voice, she said, “Will you please just tell me what’s going on with my mother?”

He surprised her with a purely businesslike voice of his own. “I hold groups at the senior center—”

“Groups?”

“I’m a psychiatrist.”

“My mother went for therapy?”

“Not exactly. The groups deal with general issues of aging.”

“Ah.” But if he was a shrink, wasn’t that all the more reason that he should have handled things with more tact? Ally thought it was but she didn’t say it and he merely went on.

“I also walk every morning with the ladies, so I have pretty consistent contact with Estelle.” He paused, sighed slightly and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to get into this on the phone and have you think it wasn’t that big a problem that you’d have to rush to address. But I started noticing problems with your mother’s memory a few months ago. I suggested some supplements, some vitamins that I was hoping might help. But she can be stubborn—and she told me I was crazy, that her memory was as good as ever.”

“Only you didn’t think that was true?”

“I’m not the only one who’s been seeing the changes. Bubby—who I’ve known half my life—and the rest of Estelle’s friends have also seen them.”

So he wasn’t related to Bubby.

“More than memory changes?” Ally asked rather than get into his personal life.

Jake sighed again. “There’s been an all-round slip in her mental state. She gets disoriented, confused. Bubby has been with her twice now when your mother has forgotten the way back from the senior center. Two other friends found her at the mall unable to find her car in the lot—they had to have security drive them up and down the rows until her friends spotted Estelle’s car, then one of them drove her home. We’ve been waiting—and hoping—that you would notice something and step in…but that’s never happened.”

That last part had a tinge of the previous evening’s criticism in it. But since he was allowing her to get her side of the story in, she said, “My mother and I talk on the phone once a week—every Sunday except this last one. But the fact that she doesn’t remember what I’ve told her from one week to the next isn’t unusual. She’s never been interested enough in what I tell her to make any kind of mental note about it. I’ve always had to remind her again and again that I’m referring to something I told her. I haven’t noticed that being any different.”

“Do you ask how she is? Did she tell you about the mall fiasco? You haven’t seen or heard anything that seems out of the ordinary?”

Ally thought about it, but she honestly could not come up with a single instance in which Estelle had seemed like anything but herself.

“No, nothing,” she said, even though she knew this man was going to take it as a strike against her. “Every week I ask how she is and she says she’s fine—never anything else. When I try to question her about what she’s doing, if she’s getting out of the house, what might be going on with her friends or at the senior center, she will only say that she’s keeping busy, and she gets peeved if I press her for any kind of details, as if I’m prying. Then she cuts me off and that’s it for that week’s call.”

“Maybe she doesn’t think you’re interested.”

So it’s still my fault… Ally was getting mad. “Look, Dr. Fox. Things between us just aren’t…touchy-feely. On either of our parts. She had gallbladder surgery a few years ago and she only told me about that begrudgingly because she said her doctor was going to make her go into some kind of care facility afterward if she didn’t have help at home. As soon as I knew, I rearranged my schedule so I could be here and I’d planned to stay longer but after two days she told me she was well enough to take care of herself and that she wanted me to go home.”

“Estelle is proud of how independent she is. If she felt as if she was infringing on you or on your time—”

Again it’s my fault…

Ally stopped him before he could go any further. “So, were some memory lapses the reason you called me the way you did yesterday?” she asked.

“No,” he said simply. “As I said, the ladies and I do a walk every weekday morning. If someone can’t make it, they either tell us ahead of time or call one of the group to let us know so no one worries. Yesterday Estelle just didn’t show up. I sent the ladies on without me and went to your mother’s house. I found her front door wide open, a burner on her stove blazing hot with nothing on it and no Estelle. After searching the place and calling for her, I spotted her from an upstairs window—she was nearly at the other end of the block, wandering down the middle of the street in her nightgown.”

That knocked some of the wind out of Ally again.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. I went after her, got her back home and she was in such a daze she didn’t understand why I was upset. She said she’d just gone out to get her newspaper, as if that was all there was to it. I got her some breakfast, but I still didn’t want her to be alone. Sylvia—I don’t suppose you know her?”

Ally shook her head.

“Well, she’s one of your mom’s friends, and kindly agreed to stay with her. But by early last night Estelle insisted that she felt fine, that I’d made a big deal out of nothing, and she convinced Sylvia to leave her alone—”

“I must have called the house two dozen times last night and there was never an answer.”

“Sylvia had left by the time I talked to you. Who knows why Estelle didn’t answer the phone—but that’s the point, left to her own devices we don’t know what she’s doing.”

“If all of this was yesterday, how did she end up here today?”

“When she didn’t show up for our walk again today the ladies and I all went over there. We can only assume from the way it looked that she’d tripped over a throw rug in the entryway. She’d hit her head, hurt her wrist and she was nearly incoherent.”

“And that was when you called the ambulance.”

“It was impossible to tell exactly how badly she might have been hurt, so yes, I called the ambulance. She’s been examined, and beyond some bumps and bruises, her wrist is the primary concern for the moment—that’s why she’s in X-ray now. But there’s a bigger picture here.”

Ally was trying to absorb everything. “I didn’t know,” she said.

“You don’t know what’s happening because you’re nowhere around,” he countered as if he couldn’t contain it any longer.

“No, I’m not. I don’t live here.” The explanation sounded feeble even to her, but it was the best Ally could come up with.

“As people age, as their physical and mental abilities decline, they need help. If they’re lucky enough to have family, it’s that family that should provide the help.”

That was a tidy lecture that once again made Ally feel as if he was passing judgment on her. He was just so convinced that he knew the right way. The only way.

“Well, now that I am here, what do you suggest?” she said, challenging his attitude.

In a more reasonable tone, he said, “I’ve been trying to get your mother to go to her primary-care physician for a physical but she’s flat-out refused. I’ve tried to get her to let me order a brain CT or an MRI, to order blood tests to see if we can tell what’s behind the memory lapses, but again, she just won’t do it. As her daughter, it’s your job to intervene.”

“You want me to force my mother to get medical treatment?” Ally said, her own voice taking the opposite turn and becoming louder than it had been.

“Look,” he said, as if he felt the need to impress upon her the importance of what he was saying, “Some of what Estelle is showing could be considered indications of Alzheimer’s disease. I don’t know what your relationship has been in the past, but like I’ve said already, your mother is in trouble and you’re the only family she has.”

He had no idea what he was asking of her.

The nurse who had been in before reappeared in the doorway now. “Excuse me, Dr. Fox, but your secretary just called to remind you that you have a patient and the patient’s family waiting in your office. There’s some volatility…”

Ally looked on as Jake checked his watch. “I completely forgot. Tell Eugenia that I’m on my way.”

He glanced at Ally again, his slightly bushy eyebrows coming together in a frown. “How are you feeling? Any more light-headedness? Nausea? Dizziness?”

He got points for seeming to care that she’d recovered from her faint and for putting that before whatever volatile situation awaited him.

“I’m fine. I’d just worked myself into such a state of terror on the way over here—that’s all it was.”

He blushed again. “Look, I’m sorry I scared you.”

“It’s okay.” But Ally was surprised by how small her voice had become.

“Your mother will be back here soon,” Jake continued anyway. “They’ll probably splint her wrist, give her some pain meds and send her home. You’re going to have to take it from there.”

Basically what he’d told Bubby.

But Ally had had no idea to what extent he’d meant that when he’d said it earlier. Now that she knew what problems her mother was having and that he expected her to confront Estelle, she felt completely overwhelmed.

Jake was waiting expectantly for some kind of answer, so she nodded her head as if taking it from there was exactly what she was agreeing to do—even though she had no idea how she was going to do it.

Apparently he didn’t feel reassured. “I mean it. You can’t turn a blind eye to this. It has to be dealt with.”

“I heard you the first time,” she said, managing a little spunk in defense against his once again demanding directive.

He stared at her as if he still wasn’t convinced he could leave this in her hands. But after a moment he seemed to concede to the other demands on his time. “I have to go. I’ll check with you later, though probably not until tonight.”

Ally didn’t say anything at all to that, but after another moment, he pushed off the examining table and headed out of the room.

He paused at the door and turned those striking dark gray eyes on her again.

“I’m sorry, Ally,” he apologized a third time. “I know this is a lot to handle and none of it is what anyone wants to have to face. But it’s in your mom’s best interests that you do face it,” he said, showing the first hint of compassion since they’d met.

“I’ll see you later.”

Part of Ally would have preferred she never see the man again as long as she lived. Yet another part felt a tiny bit intrigued—and safer—at the idea.

Because as abrasive as the handsome doctor could be, there was also something strong and solid about him that made it seem as if he could handle anything.

And when it came to her mother, Ally wasn’t too sure she could.

Chapter Two

It was after eight o’clock Thursday evening. Jake’s last session had ended at ten minutes before the hour and he was sitting at his desk in the office that adjoined the hospital trying to make his case notes before he left.

Trying unsuccessfully.

He just couldn’t seem to concentrate. Since leaving Ally Rogers at the E.R. he’d done his damnedest to keep his mind on the patients he’d seen. But his thoughts kept wandering back to Ally.

On the few occasions when Estelle had spoken of her daughter, Jake had imagined Ally to be considerably older. After all, he was the age of most of his walking companions’ grandchildren, not their children, so he’d never figured that Estelle’s daughter would be closer to his age.

Young and beautiful…

Yeah, okay, so not only her age had thrown him off.

Ally Rogers was someone any man would have taken a second look at. Which was what he’d been doing from the emergency-room waiting area before he’d even known who she was.

Not too tall—about five-four—she was well proportioned with curves enough for his gaze to linger where it shouldn’t have when he’d first seen her from a distance.

She also had gleaming wavy blond hair that was nearly the color of summer sunshine, cascading around a face that could have been made of fine bone china.

But it was her eyes that had stuck with him most. Bright, rich green, the color of rolling Irish hillsides, sparkling even when she was just coming out of her faint…

Not that it mattered, he reminded himself, fighting off the image. It didn’t matter how beautiful she was. It didn’t matter that she was younger than he’d expected. Neither of those things could excuse neglecting her mother. Or at least what had seemed to him like neglect.

It was a personal sore spot with him and he knew it had roots in his own background. Growing up as he had, without a family of his own, shuffled from stranger to stranger in foster care, had bred in him the conviction that families shouldn’t be taken for granted. If a person was lucky enough to have one, they damn well should appreciate it and be willing to do whatever it took to maintain it.

Jake threw his pen onto his case file and pushed back into his leather chair with a vengeance.

A tough old bird—that was how he’d always thought of Estelle Rogers. She was a woman who didn’t invite closeness, who didn’t exude the kind of warmth that Bubby did. But he tended to take people the way they were, to look for the good in them, and he liked Estelle.

Once he’d gotten to know her he’d found that she had a dry sense of humor, an admirable determination and a generous spirit. She was also always ready to lend a hand to anyone at the senior center who needed it, and until recently, she’d played an unbeatable game of cribbage.

But he felt bad for her—lately because of whatever health issues might be looming, and before because she’d seemed as alone as he was, despite the fact that, unlike him, she did have family. A daughter.

A daughter who, with the exception of a weekly phone call and a few holiday visits, didn’t bother with her mother.

At least, not in the three years that Jake had known Estelle.

Yes, now that he’d met her daughter he was less sure about the relationship between them, but Jake still believed that Estelle was entitled to her daughter’s care, difficult relationship or not. And if Ally Rogers had any decency she’d be more conscientious and make the best of however much longer she might have with her mother, because she was lucky to have a mother at all.

On the other hand, clinically, he had to concede that there might be more going on with the Rogerses than he’d thought, and recognizing that battled with those personal feelings.

Some people could be even tougher on their own families than they were on the rest of the world, and maybe Estelle fell into that category. If she did, making the best of the time she and her daughter had left together could be tricky.

The bottom line at this point, though, was that when Estelle’s health, well-being and future had to be addressed, her daughter was the only one who could address it. Friends didn’t have the same legal authority, if nothing else.

So for Estelle’s sake, he hoped Ally could handle the situation the right way.

And maybe for his own sake, too.

Not that he had anything at stake in this other than wanting what was good for Estelle.

It was just that now that he’d seen Ally Rogers, he was hoping she had as much character as she did beauty.

When the doorbell rang at nine o’clock, Ally shot a glance up the stairs of her mother’s house, afraid the bell would wake Estelle. She hurried to open the door before whoever was there could ring again.

Jake Fox stood on the step.

Ally considered it a lapse in her own sanity that any part of her was happy to see him. But there was a part that took a little leap of…interest?

Hiding it completely, she said an almost challenging “Hello.”

“Hi,” he greeted in return.

She asked him in, still camouflaging her secret elation by making the invitation sound begrudging.

But if he noticed, he didn’t react to it as he came inside.

What he did react to was the sight of her suitcase, waiting beside the staircase.

“You can’t be leaving?” he said. “I checked with the E.R. I know Estelle’s wrist is only a sprain and she got a relatively clean bill of health otherwise, but that doesn’t mean this is over or under control by any means. The fall is nothing compared to—”

“My mother is upstairs asleep for the night,” Ally said to cut him off. “We didn’t get out of the emergency room until three this afternoon. I took care of a few things, got us some dinner and since she’s finally down for the count I was about to take my suitcase out to my own place.”

“Your own place?” he said, sounding calmer but confused.

“There’s a small sort-of apartment above the garage. It’s where I stay when I’m here.”

It was criminal how attractive the man was, even with a baffled expression on his face.

“Come on, I’ll show you,” she offered rather than remain where they were and risk that their voices might rouse Estelle.

Ally bent over to pick up her suitcase but Jake beat her to it.

It was an unexpected courtesy.

“Thanks,” she said, almost wishing he hadn’t done anything nice—it conflicted with the ogreish image of him that she was trying to hang on to.

She walked ahead of him down the hallway that ran beside the stairs into the dated liberty-green kitchen. Then she went out the back door and to a stairway that hugged the rear of the house and led to the upper portion of the attached garage.

The stairs creaked as they climbed them to the landing where Ally unlocked a scarred wooden door to let them in.

The apartment was a single room that was more like a big bedroom than an apartment. It was large enough for only a double bed and dresser, a sofa with a television close in front of it, a few kitchen cupboards and some old appliances lining one wall, and a closet and bathroom tucked into the far end.

“This is where you stay when you visit your mother?” Jake asked once they were inside, setting her suitcase on the floor.

“Actually, I haven’t lived or stayed in the house with my mother since I was sixteen. I adopted this as my own space then and lived up here through the rest of high school and all through college. After I left home and started coming back to visit, my mother said that she liked her privacy and was sure I’d want mine, so I might as well use it then, too. Which is what I’ve done.”

Ally could see that he found that extremely curious, but since he didn’t ask, she didn’t say more on the subject.

Instead, he said, “Estelle needs to have tabs kept on her. You can’t do that from out here.”

“As a matter of fact, I can. One of her friends from the center came by after we got home today and while she and Mother were visiting I went out and bought a state-of-the-art intercom system. It works for every room in the house, so I can monitor where she is at all times. It’s also connected to a motion detector that’s on the front and the back doors—a light goes on and a beeping sounds whenever either of them opens,” she said, pointing at the receiver. “Plus, I don’t plan to be up here during the day unless she has a guest or we need a short break from each other.”

“Impressive,” Jake said with raised eyebrows that made Ally think it surprised him that she’d done anything at all.

She picked up her suitcase from where he’d left it and took it to a trunk at the foot of the bed.

She didn’t ask him to sit, wanting to dish out a little payback for his earlier treatment, but also in denial of the fact that she was even slightly glad that he was there.

When she turned back to him she found him perched on the arm of the couch anyway. He looked relaxed and it flashed through Ally’s mind that under other circumstances Dr. Jake Fox might have an entirely different effect on her. An effect that would involve things a whole lot better than anger or frustration.

But these weren’t other circumstances, and to keep even the hint of those better effects at bay, she busied herself by opening windows to air the place out.

“How is Estelle doing?” he asked then.

“Good question,” Ally said, hearing the bewilderment in her own voice but glad to talk about her mother to further distract herself when all the windows were open and she had to face him again. “One minute she’s herself, and the next…I’m not sure. She did tell me when I brought her home today that I should be a nurse and marry a nice doctor like you—or maybe even you—so I guess we know who she thinks highly of.”

He smiled as if she’d caught him off guard with that and he couldn’t help himself. And when he smiled, deep grooves bracketed his lips in a way that lent an entirely new level of handsomeness to his features.

Not that she wanted to be aware of that any more than she’d wanted to notice the innate sensuality he exuded just sitting there…

“I’ll bet you squashed the idea of me being nice, let alone marriage material,” he said wryly.

Okay, so she couldn’t help a slight smile, herself, at the fact that he’d read her so correctly.

“You did, didn’t you?” he said with a chuckle.

“You’re probably married or engaged or living with someone and she forgot about it,” Ally countered rather than admit he was right.

“None of the above. Why? Did she forget that you’re married or engaged or living with someone?”

Was he interested, or merely checking on her mother’s mental capacities?

He couldn’t be interested and as disapproving of her as he’d been.

“No, she didn’t forget that about me either—I’m unattached,” Ally confirmed. “What she forgot was that I’m not eighteen and just making my decision about where to go to college and what to major in and do with my life. It was sort of a combination of revisiting a time when she didn’t want me to go into interior design and the present-day you thrown in somewhere. It was confusing.”

“Yeah, things with Estelle have been that way for a while now.”

“But the next minute she can be normal,” Ally contributed defensively, because she didn’t want him to lose sight of that.

“And the minute after that she could be confused again,” he countered. “Did you talk to her about having a physical or letting me order some neurological tests?”

“I tried. More than once. She shot me down every time. Angrily. She says she’s fine.”

“But you’re seeing for yourself that she isn’t.”

Ally shrugged. “Something is up,” she acknowledged. “The trouble is, she’s the most like herself when she’s adamantly refusing to do anything about it.”

“That’s where you come in.”

Ally sighed. “You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think that I’m the one who can get my mother to agree to anything. The truth is, I’m the last person she listens to.”

“Then you’ll have to be more take-charge with her than you’ve ever been before.”

“Take-charge? With Estelle Rogers? That would invite a power struggle that would make her dig in her heels worse than she already has. She doesn’t do what she doesn’t want to do.”

Jake’s dark gray eyes pinned her in place as he seemed to weigh something.

Then he said, “I’m going to be straight with you, Ally—giving in to Estelle, not doing anything about her health or what’s gone on here the last two days, isn’t an option. Before you got there today, the E.R. doc wanted to call in Social Services. It can be done for geriatrics the same way it can be done for minors in jeopardy. The fact that Estelle lives alone and that there are indications that it isn’t a safe situation for her anymore is enough for them to step in. If they do, they can control what gets done with her and where she ends up living.”

Ally could feel the color draining from her face.

“Seriously? That can be done with an adult?”

“Anyone considered at risk,” he reiterated. “I told the E.R. doc that you were on the way—that kept it from happening today. But if you can’t deal with this, I’ll have to call a caseworker myself.”

“You’re threatening me?”

He shook his head. “I’m telling you the way the system works. I can’t force a friend to get medical attention, but I am legally obligated to notify authorities if I know of anyone who’s unable to care for themselves.”

Ally had had just about enough for one jet-lagged, nearly sleepless, enormously stress-filled day. She lost it.

“What do you want me to do, physically force her to have tests done? Apparently you—who she likes and respects and who carries the authority of being a doctor—haven’t been able to convince her to have the tests you want to do. But you think I can come in here and work some kind of magic on one of the most stubborn people who ever walked the face of the earth? Me, who she still blames for—”

She caught herself. “Who she still thinks of as an irresponsible kid?”

“What does she blame you for?”

Of course. He was a shrink. He wasn’t going to let a Freudian slip like that go by.

But Ally wasn’t going to bare her soul to him, no matter who he was or what he did for a living.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, no longer shouting but sounding no happier with him than she had. “I’m just saying that I’ll do whatever I can, but don’t expect miracles.”

He was watching her closely and she wished she could push a rewind button and go back to the moment before she’d spoken so carelessly. But if he thought silence and scrutiny were going to make her uncomfortable enough to spill more of her guts, he was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Still, when the silence went on longer than she could bear, she sighed and said, “I’ll keep working on her and see what I can do. Who knows, since she’s changing personalities every hour, maybe she’ll wake up tomorrow morning with one that’s agreeable. But, Jake, please don’t call Social Services until I see if I can fix this.”

“It may not be fixable,” he cautioned, calmly, quietly, and in a way that told her he was going to drop his quest for an explanation. “If Estelle has Alzheimer’s—”

“Can we just stick to what I can deal with this weekend while I’m here?”

“This weekend? This weekend is only the beginning.”

And he was on the attack again—Ally heard that familiar impatience in his voice.

“If your mother has Alzheimer’s,” he continued, “there won’t be an easy solution. And one way or another—”

“I know!” she said to stop him from saying more that she just couldn’t hear tonight. “I know, I know, I know!”

Exhausted, Ally sank onto the corner of her bed.

To his credit, he got the message that she simply could not handle the big picture right then.

He switched gears, his tone calmer, more consoling. “Why don’t I see if Bubby can come over tomorrow? She can be persuasive—and as stubborn as they come if she needs to be. Maybe if the two of you gang up on your mother, she’ll listen.”

“An intervention of two?” Ally said facetiously.

“Pretty much. I’d make it an intervention of three but I’m the keynote speaker at a conference tomorrow that I can’t miss. But if you and Bubby together can’t get through to your mother tomorrow, I promise I’ll add whatever influence I have to convince her to have those tests done.”

Ally had been staring at the floor but she glanced at him then, finding a kind smile on his face.

He got up and came to stand in front of her, reaching a big hand to her arm and squeezing it comfortingly. “I know this is rough.”

Did he also know how warm his hand was? How strong? How good it felt and that something elemental in her sparked?

“Let’s just take it a day at a time for now,” he added, his deep voice drawing her from her thoughts. “Tomorrow we’ll bring in reinforcements with Bubby, and then we’ll go from there.”

Ally nodded.

“Get some rest,” he advised.

Ally nodded again, shocked by how sorry she was when he let go of her arm.

She got to her feet. “I’ll walk you out and peek in on my mother to make sure she’s still asleep.”

Jake led the way for the trip back through the house, opening the front door when he reached it.

But he didn’t immediately go out. Instead, he turned to look at her. “I’ll check in again tomorrow night.”

Ally nodded, gazing up into those smoldering eyes and suffering another wave of that strange mix of emotions that volleyed back and forth between hating this guy and being confused by the feelings he stirred in her.

“I’ll be here,” she answered.

“That’s important,” he said before he reached for her arm again and did another of those reassuring squeezes.

Only this time he rubbed his thumb against her arm, too, and somehow that made it seem less comforting and more…intimate.

But then he said good-night and left, and Ally wasn’t sure if she had only imagined that.

Chapter Three

“I’ll have to take this.”

David Hanson excused himself from the dinner table to take a phone call. When he did, Nina Hanson’s children—Zach and Izzy—asked if they could be excused as well. That left only Jake, Bubby and Nina—who was Bubby’s granddaughter and Jake’s friend since they’d met as teenagers—sitting in the Hansons’ dining room.

It was Friday evening. Jake had a standing invitation to the traditional Shabbat celebration that Nina held each week. As part of the religious observance, Nina, Bubby and the kids lit candles, said kiddush, and afterward they all enjoyed a meal together. And even though Jake wasn’t Jewish, he liked to be there whenever he could because it was a warm family time that gave him a sense of belonging that was almost as good as having a family of his own.

“Poor David,” Nina said with a loving look in the direction her husband had just gone to take his phone call. “He’s probably going to have to go to Kyoto next week while Tom Holloway goes to San Francisco. There’s trouble with both the Taka hotels.”

Jake knew that Nina’s husband’s family business—Hanson Media—had merged with a Japanese-owned company called Taka Corporation a few years ago and that as a result, their business interests had expanded. They were now in the process of developing a chain of upscale hotels, with the first two in San Francisco and Japan.

“What’s going on?” Jake asked.

“There are accounting irregularities in Kyoto,” Nina said. “And the promises the interior designer made that he would get back on schedule by this month have fallen through. That puts the soft opening of the Taka San Francisco in jeopardy.”

“Does Drake Thatcher have anything to do with it all?” Jake asked. Nina had told him just last month that the tycoon had planted a woman named Shelly Winston within David’s organization to spy and sabotage things from inside. It hadn’t been successful because Shelly Winston and Tom Holloway—the new head of corporate finance of the hotel division—had fallen in love and ended up together, but it seemed to follow that any other unexpected occurrences might track back to Thatcher, too.

“They don’t know. Anything is possible at this point,” Nina answered. “All I know is that things are a mess.”

“Speaking of messes,” Bubby interjected. “I visited with Estelle and Ally this afternoon, Jacob.”

Nina didn’t seem to mind her grandmother’s abrupt change of subject, because she began to stack all the dirty dishes she could reach from where she was sitting. And since Jake had been anxious to ask Bubby what had come of her trip to Estelle’s house today, he welcomed finally being able to get into it.

“I didn’t want to bring the subject up with David and the kids around—I knew it wasn’t anything they’d be interested in—but I was going to ask you about it as soon as I had the chance. How was Estelle today?”

“The same—sometimes the old Estelle, sometimes…” Bubby raised both palms toward the ceiling, shrugging her shoulders at the same time to convey her own lack of understanding of what was happening with her friend. “She’s a handful, that Estelle,” Bubby concluded. “She went to the bathroom, never came back. We found her packing her bag. She said her husband called and wanted her to go on a business trip with him—the man’s been dead forever!”

“And what did her daughter think of that?” Jake saw Nina’s eyebrows rise and he knew his victorious tone of voice had been the cause, so he explained himself. “I had a hard time convincing the daughter that there’s a problem.”

“Poor Ally, she can tell her mother’s not right in the head now,” Bubby said sympathetically. “This is a lot for that girl to take in, Jacob. We’ve all been seeing Estelle slip, but her daughter—”

“Would have seen it, too, if she’d had more to do with her.”

“Oy, such a big deal with this one!” Bubby said to her granddaughter.

Nina laughed. “You know how he is—he can’t believe anybody who has a family can take it for granted. But he does seem awfully invested in this particular family, doesn’t he?” she responded to Bubby as if Jake wasn’t there. “Do you think it has anything to do with how pretty you said Estelle’s daughter is?”

“Pretty?” Bubby exclaimed. “Pretty doesn’t do her justice. And me? I saw Jacob at the hospital—before he knew who Ally was, when she just came in the door and was at the reception counter? His eyes were glued to her. He didn’t even hear Ruth Cohen ask him if he wanted a cup of coffee out of the machine. It was like in the movies when everything else fades away and he only knew there was her.”

Jake shook his head at the absurdity of that. Yes, Ally Rogers had caught his attention, but it didn’t mean anything. “The key word in all of that is before—before I knew she was the daughter who neglected Estelle.”

“What neglect? When Estelle needed Ally for the gallbladder, Ally came. Estelle hasn’t needed her for anything else until now, and where is she now? Here again, that’s where. So what neglect? Those foster homes, those group places you had to grow up in, Jacob, they made you daydream of what real families are. But it’s not so realistic. Families—there’s some good, there’s some not so good—families are families. What they’re not is fairy tales.”

“If you’re even a little pale one day, Bubby, isn’t Nina going to notice it? And why? Because she sees you. She knows you. She knows what’s going on with you. Would I have to call her and order her to go to your apartment? Would I have to tell her to help you? No, I wouldn’t.”

“Not everyone is like my Nina. But that doesn’t mean Ally is a bad girl. And Estelle is a hard nut to crack—you know that. How many weeks have you been trying to get her to have a checkup? Where has it gotten you? You called Ally, she came—where’s the crime?”

“The crime is if she turns around and goes back to California without taking care of her mother.”

Again Bubby looked at Nina. “He wants this one to be so perfect.”

“He does seem to want her to live up to something, doesn’t he?”

“He wants her to be as good as she looks.”

“I just want her to do what she needs to do. For Estelle,” Jake insisted.

“Well, she did—how does that make you think of her?” Bubby challenged.

“What did she do?”

“Between the both of us we got Estelle to say she would have your tests.” The victory was all Bubby’s now.

“You got Estelle to agree?”

“We did. She won’t see her own physician, though. She likes you—that’s what Ally used to make her say she would.”

“I’ll get right on it, then,” Jake said.

“And say some sorries to that girl, Jacob,” Bubby ordered. “You’re too hard on her.”

“I have not been too hard on her,” he defended himself. “I’ve been as hard as I needed to be to open her eyes. Why? Did she complain to you?”

“No, but I can tell from her attitude. Enough, already! She’s scared enough. This is bad, don’t make it worse.”

Bubby stood, picked up the pile of dirty dishes that Nina had stacked and headed for the kitchen.

But while the elderly woman may have seen the subject of Ally Rogers as closed, Jake had one more question.

“Do you know what Estelle blames Ally for?”

Bubby stopped short to look at him. “Blame? What’s to blame?”

“I don’t know. Last night Ally said Estelle blames her for something, but she wouldn’t say what.”

“I don’t know about that. I just know this—tonight is the night to celebrate the end of the week, to reflect, and then to usher in the start of a new week. A new week brings a new chance to do right. Start the new week by being nicer to that girl, Jacob. You’ll get further.” Then Bubby smiled slyly at him. “And who knows? Maybe you could end up with that family of your own after all.”

Bubby disappeared into the kitchen and Jake turned his focus to his old friend, thinking Nina would be on his side and understand that there was nothing personal going on between himself and Ally Rogers.

But Nina seemed to agree with her grandmother, because she was barely hiding a knowing smile of her own.

The knock on Ally’s apartment door at nine on Friday night startled her.

Her initial, panicked thought was that her mother had gotten out of the house without the alarm going off.

But then it occurred to her that if Estelle got out of the house, the last place she was likely to come was here.

She peeked out the curtain over the window that allowed her a view of the outside landing. And then the late visit made sense—Jake Fox again. He had said he would check in with her today.

Better late than never. Not that she cared.

“I wondered who would know to come back here,” she said in greeting when she opened the door.

“The house was all dark so I figured Estelle had gone to bed early again. I took the chance that you’d still be up and came around,” he explained amiably.

In fact, nothing about Jake’s demeanor said he was on the offensive tonight. He actually seemed relaxed—more even than when he’d perched on the arm of her sofa the night before.

Ally couldn’t help being suspicious of it, though. Even as she found herself unwillingly attracted to it.

“Come in,” she invited.

“Thanks.”

She couldn’t help sneaking a glance at him over her shoulder as she closed the door behind him. He looked great. Whatever had occupied him earlier in the evening must have begun immediately after work because he was dressed much the way he had been on Thursday—casual cocoa-colored twill slacks and a pale yellow dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The only thing missing was a tie. Plus, there was the slight shadow of beard darkening his face, but it only added an appealingly masculine scruffiness that Ally didn’t want to like as much as she did.

“I talked to Bubby,” he announced as soon as Ally turned to face him.

“She brought lunch over and stayed most of the afternoon—it was really nice of her,” Ally informed him.

“And she said you two finally got your mother to agree to let me order tests.”

“It took some work but, yes, we did. Mother won’t have a full physical, but she said she’d let you do what you want. I’ve reminded her about a million times since then that that was what she’d said she would do so she wouldn’t forget.”

“How did that go?”

“She got annoyed and irritated with me, but as of when she went to bed, she was still saying she’d go through with it.”

“Great! I made some calls, pulled some strings, and even though tomorrow is Saturday, I’ve arranged for her to have a brain scan and blood work at the hospital. The labs will tell us if anything systemic is going on, the brain scan will let us know if she’s suffered a stroke—”

“A stroke? That’s the first you’ve said anything about that.” Why was it that every time she talked to this guy, things seemed to get worse?

He sighed. “You’re right. I’m getting ahead of myself. A stroke is another possibility, yes,” he said. “She could have had one in the part of her brain that affects memory, and we could be seeing the damage from that. Or there could be a small aneurysm that’s bleeding into that portion of her brain—”

Worse and worse…

“That’s why we need the scan, to rule out these other things. If there’s no evidence of a stroke or an aneurysm, and nothing systemic to explain what’s going on with her, then we move to the second stage and I’ll do cognitive tests for Alzheimer’s.”

Just when Ally thought she might be getting a grip on what she could be dealing with, he added to the list of scary possibilities and made her feel overwhelmed again.

There was a tiny two-chair kitchen set against the wall near the door. Ally pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, not caring any longer if it was rude to sit when she hadn’t asked him to.

Jake didn’t wait to be invited to join her. He just did, pulling the other chair from the opposite side of the drop-leaf table to the front of it so he was closer to her when he sat down. Close enough for her to catch a whiff of an outdoorsy cologne.

“I know, I’m the bearer of bad news,” he said as if he’d read her mind. “It’s not a role I like.”

Had that contributed to his harshness of before?

She expected him to talk more about the tests and what they could reveal and how bad it could all be, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “You and I haven’t had a wonderful start, and I think I owe you an apology.”

Ally stared at him, trying to figure out if she’d missed something.

“Bubby says I’ve been too hard on you,” he added.

“I didn’t say anything like that to her,” Ally defended herself.

“I know. She said she could just tell. But she’s right, I have been a little rough on you. Partly because I hate what’s happening with Estelle, hate not being able to put my head in the sand about it, and partly because I sometimes have unreasonably high expectations of family members—that part comes from my own history—”

“A history of your own family meeting or not meeting your expectations?”

He hesitated for a moment. “I don’t have any family.”

“Oh.”

But he didn’t give her the chance to probe into it any further. “Anyway, when I’m dealing with my patients and their relatives, I’m good at keeping my personal feelings under wraps. But you got me in personal mode and… Well, like I said, I know I was rough on you. But the important thing is that you are here, doing what you can for Estelle now that you know that something is wrong. So how about if we put everything else behind us and start fresh?”

Ally still wasn’t sure whether or not to drop her guard with this man. But she’d appreciated Bubby’s help with her mother today and if Bubby had gone to bat for her with Jake Fox, it seemed only fair to accept the olive branch he was offering as a result.

“You have been sort of awful to me,” Ally said, unwilling to give him a completely free pass.

He smiled sheepishly—and very engagingly. “But was it so bad that it’s unforgivable?”

Ally pretended to consider that. But then she conceded. “I suppose unforgivable is a bit of a stretch.”

“So I’m forgiven?”

His smoky voice was a blend of humor and mischievous contrition. There was a glimmer in his gray eyes, and one eyebrow arched—the man could be charming when he wanted to…

And it took Ally a moment to stop basking in it all.

“You’re only forgiven if I’ve seen the last of that mean guy,” she warned, wishing her tone hadn’t come out slightly on the coy side.

“I’m on probation then?”

“Actually, I guess you are,” she said. “Because if the mean guy comes out to bite off my head again I’d just as soon not see any more of you.” Handsome, hunky and charming or not.

But her ultimatum only seemed to amuse him. “Okay, I guess I had that coming. Let’s just work together for Estelle’s benefit and see if I can’t prove myself while we do.”

“How will we work together?”

“For starters, tomorrow I’ll pick up the two of you, take you both to the hospital and stick with you through the tests. There’s only so much friends can do to get the ball rolling with someone like Estelle, but once it is rolling, we can be there for all the help and support you need.”

“Are we going to be friends?” Ally challenged.

“At least,” he countered with some devilishness to his expression.

He couldn’t be flirting with her, could he?

That just didn’t seem likely.

And yet, she had the sense that he was.

She was still trying to figure it out when he abruptly got to his feet. “I should go. I haven’t been home since six this morning,” he announced.

Feeling more steady, Ally stood again, too.

“What time tomorrow?” she asked, following him to the door.

“I’ll be here at about one. Be prepared for some waiting, though—I’ve made these arrangements with an emergency-room doctor who’s a friend of mine. We’ll go in there, he’ll order labs and the CT, but if the E.R. is busy—”

“Everyone else will go ahead of us because we’ll be there on the sly,” Ally guessed.

“Right. But we’ll still get the tests done and get the results right away—that’s the advantage of the E.R.”

The results…

The color felt as if it drained from her face and it must have because he smiled at her again, compassionately this time.

“It’s better to know what you’re dealing with, Ally. And by tomorrow night we’ll have more to go on,” he said.

Ally nodded even though she wasn’t entirely sure if he was right. Sometimes ignorance was bliss.

He raised his hand to press the backs of his fingers to her cheek as if to test for temperature. “Are you gonna faint on me again?” he asked with a hint of amusement in his deep voice.

“No, I’m fine,” she said, unusually aware of the feel of his skin against hers.

“We’ll handle whatever we need to, you know?” he assured.

He was pretty free with those we’s. And yet, somehow, it was reassuring.

He took his hand away from her cheek, but his eyes were still on hers, and if this had been any other situation she might have thought he was going to kiss her.

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