It was all Jesse’s fault.

Jesse and that damned hot mouth of his.

And now Tania’s life was being shaken up. Shaken up for the first time since she’d consciously pulled her emotions out of the game, sealing them away.

She’d never lost herself before – lost the ability to think clearly. To function. For more than just a split second when Jesse kissed her at the door, her mind had gone blank and her body had grown hot. As for the longing…

Well, she just didn’t do that. Didn’t long for anyone. And yet…

Jesse had made her long.

Made her want…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written more than 150 novels, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Readers can visit her website at www.marieferrarella.com.

Dear Reader,

Welcome back for the fourth instalment of THE DOCTORS PULASKI. I cannot begin to tell you the memories working on this series brings back for me. I grew up in New York City – Queens specifically – and worked in a building that looked out on Radio City Music Hall. At lunchtime, I would walk the very streets I’m writing about now. And while the hospital where my dedicated doctors work is fictional, the Diamond District in the first chapter is very, very real.

Many a lunch hour was spent looking into windows along that route and sighing. The engagement ring my now-husband bought me came from one of those shops. After the purchase, he brought the ring right over because he was afraid of losing it, which is how I came to be engaged on the twenty-second floor of what was then The Equitable Building. You’ll soon see why all this brings back fond memories for me.

In reading about Tatiana and Jesse, I hope their story sparks you into creating fond memories of your own.

As always, I thank you for reading and with all my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

Marie Ferrarella

A Doctor's Secret

MARIE FERRARELLA

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Misiu and Marek,

and growing up in New York City.

Love, Marysia

Chapter 1

“Stop, thief!”

When he looked back at it later, Jesse Steele would have to say those words had ultimately changed his life. Had he not heard them, he probably would have never met her.

It was an overcast Manhattan late spring morning and he was worried about rain. That, and making the meeting on time.

One moment he was taking a shortcut through New York’s famous Diamond District. He had to hurry because New York’s more famous traffic was making it impossible for him to get back to his office in time for the one o’clock meeting with the senior partners of the architectural firm of Bryce, Newcomb and Tuttle. The next moment he was breaking into a run, charging down the crowded sidewalk and then tackling a rather upscale but guilty-looking man running from the scene.

The rather elderly distinguished man who had uttered the cry stood in the narrow doorway that led to his small, exclusive shop on the second floor. Dressed in dark slacks, a white suit and a black vest, the unique ties of a prayer shawl peeked out from beneath the bottom of the vest. A black, hand-sewn yarmulke completed the picture.

The blood from the cut on the old man’s cheek was a startling contrast to his somber clothing. He swayed slightly as he clutched at the doorjamb, but the anger on his face was fierce.

All this Jesse had taken in within half a heartbeat. While heads turned toward the man in the doorway and several women yelled a protest as the object of the old man’s cries barreled down the long city block, Jesse sprang into action. Using the prowess that had gotten him a football scholarship and seen him handily through his four years at NYU, he flew after the thief.

Throwing his weight forward, Jesse grabbed the man by the waist. They both went down on the concrete less than a foot shy of the gutter.

Frantic to get away, the robber fought and kicked with a fierce determination that only made Jesse angrier. Nothing got to him as quickly as someone trying to take advantage of someone else. The robber was young, strong and well-built. The man in the doorway looked as if he could easily blow away in a stiff breeze.

“Let go of me, you bastard!” the thief shouted, his arms flailing wildly as he tried to beat Jesse off.

Still struggling, the thief cracked him across the side of his head with what turned out to be a toy gun. He’d used it to intimidate the store owner. Jesse’s grip on the man tightened and he brought the thief down, straddling him to keep him in place.

The bag the thief clutched when he fled the store flew out of his hand and spilled. Diamonds appeared on the concrete, creating their own rainbows in the sparse available light.

Suddenly the people in the immediate area came to life, converging on the two struggling men, their attention collectively focused on the brilliant booty displayed for them to see.

Jesse was on his feet instantly, holding on to the thief’s arm and jerking him up in his wake.

“Don’t even think about it,” Jesse ordered one man who was close to him. The latter was bending to scoop up some of the bounty.

Jesse’s harsh voice, added to his six-two stature, succeeded in keeping the man honest and the rest of the crowd at bay.

The man in the doorway took out a handkerchief to dab at his wound as he hurried over to Jesse. Shock and surprise registered on his bewhiskered face.

“Thank you, young man. Thank you,” he called even before he reached Jesse. “My name is Isaac Epstein and you have done me a great service.”

The thief was squirming next to Jesse, doing his best to get out of his grasp.

“Let me go!” the man ordered. When Jesse merely glared at him, the thief’s indignation retreated. He became supplicant and meek. “Look, this was all a big mistake. A big, stupid mistake. I won’t—”

Jesse had no desire to listen to anything the man had to say. Anyone who would try to rob an old man was worthless—worse than dirt in his opinion.

“Shut your mouth,” he advised evenly. “You’ll get a chance to explain your side of it to the police.”

The man’s eyes widened even more, bulging like marbles. “The police?” he echoed. “But I—”

The sound of approaching sirens abruptly halted the thief’s protest. But not his attempts to get away. He tugged mightily, getting nowhere rather quickly.

Jesse’s smile was as steely as his last name. His fingers tighten around the thief’s arm, squeezing it as he continued to hold the man in place.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he told the thief coldly. Jesse looked down at his light gray suit. There was a tear at the knee and what looked to be an oil stain across the other leg, sustained when they’d wrestled on the ground next to the subway grating. Damn it. Jesse swallowed a curse. “But when this is over, you are going to buy me a new suit.”

What the would-be thief said in response was enough to offend several of the people watching the minidrama.

Jesse jerked him up, squeezing even harder as he held his arm. The man yelped.

“You say anything like that again,” Jesse growled, “and I guarantee that you’ll be picking up your teeth from the sidewalk.”

If there was a retort coming, it disappeared as the sirens grew louder. Two squad cars and an ambulance arrived almost at the same time, one practically tailing the other.

The thief whimpered.

* * *

Tatania Pulaski loved being a doctor, or more accurately, loved being a resident. Tania was in her fourth year, that much closer to being able to hang up a shingle if she so desired. She loved everything about her duties, even the grosser aspects of it. Very little of what she dealt with at Patience Memorial Hospital fazed her.

Even so, she took nothing about her journey or her ultimate goal for granted. She, like her three older sisters and her one younger one, had paid her dues and was acutely aware of every inch of the long, hard, bumpy road it had taken to get here. She knew the sacrifices her parents had made and the contributions each of her older sisters had made. It was an unspoken rule: the older always helped the younger. It was just the way things were.

Although her heart was focused on becoming a spinal surgeon, there was no task Tania wasn’t willing to do if the occasion came up. The only thing she didn’t like were the rare moments that other doctors lived for.

A lull in the activity.

She didn’t like lulls. Lulls caused her to think and, eventually, to remember. To remember no matter how hard she tried not to, no matter how often she forced herself to count her blessings first.

She had a great many of those and counting always took a while. She had a supportive family, parents and sisters who cared about her. Even her brother-in-law and the two men who, very shortly, were going to become part of the family were all nice guys.

On top of that, she was becoming what she’d always dreamed of being ever since Sasha, her oldest sister, had announced she was going to be a doctor. The revelation gladdened the heart of her father and, most of all, her mother.

All Tania had to do was to take in the scene that long-ago afternoon and that made up her mind for her. She was going to be a doctor. She, too, was going to save the world one patient at a time. The fact that Natalya and Kady followed in Sasha’s footsteps only made her resolve that much stronger that she was going to be a doctor, too.

There’d only been one dark incident to cast a stain on her life, one in comparison to the multitude of blessings, and yet the shadow of that one stain managed to cast itself over everything, blackening her life like a bottle of ink marring a pristine white sheet.

One stain had caused all the happiness to slip into abeyance.

She tried, more for her family’s sake than her own, to put it behind her. To forget. But forgetting for more than a few minutes at a time was next to impossible. The incident lived with her every day, shadowing her. The memory of it found her when she was at ease and assaulted her mind, making her remember. Making her suffer through it.

Especially in her dreams.

Trying to block it out of her mind was the reason why she’d eagerly volunteered to work in the emergency room every time the area was shorthanded. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the E.R. was crowded with patients, all seeking immediate help. The atmosphere was nothing short of frantic and hectic. And nothing made her happier than being there. She was forced to concentrate on procedures, on patients who needed her help.

And while she concentrated on that, the cold, hard reality of what had happened to her that one horrible evening was pushed into the background.

For the time being.

This particular morning the bedlam that was called the E. R. seemed especially acute. A trauma bay was no sooner emptied than someone else was brought in to fill it. She’d been on duty for close to twelve hours, on her second “second wind” and had cleared over thirty-one cases before she stopped counting.

Tania felt dead on her feet and there were still several hours to go until her second shift was finally over.

Be careful what you wish for.

It wasn’t an old Polish saying, like the ones her mother was so fond of quoting, but it certainly did fit the occasion.

She was just erasing the newest case she’d discharged, which meant she was up for the next patient, when another fourth-year resident, Debbie Dominguez, tugged on the sleeve of her lab coat.

When Tania glanced in her direction, the dark-haired woman pointed to the rear doors that just sprang open. The look in Debbie’s eyes was envious.

“Boy, some people have all the luck.” She referred to the fact that Tania was up for the patient being brought in by two ambulance attendants.

Strapped to the gurney was a tall, muscular man in what appeared to be a disheveled, gray suit. The patient’s hair was several shades darker than her own blond hair and he didn’t exactly look happy to be there.

Behind him were two more gurneys, one with an older, somber-dressed man and the second with a rather vocal patient. The latter had a police escort in addition to the two attendants bringing him in.

“I don’t need a doctor,” the man in the gray suit on the first gurney protested. “Really, all I need is just to get cleaned up.”

The older man on the second gurney seemed noticeably concerned. “Please, young man, you need stitches. I know these things. I will take care of everything. The hospital, everything,” he promised with zeal. “But you need to have medical attention.”

The head ambulance attendant began rattling off the first man’s vitals. Tania listened with one ear while giving the man on the first gurney a swift once-over. As far as patients went, they didn’t usually come this exceptionally good-looking. While distancing herself, Tania could still see why Debbie had been so interested. Any more interested and the woman would have been salivating.

When her patient struggled to get off the gurney, Tania placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Listen to the man,” she advised, nodding toward the second gurney. “He’s right. Besides, if you put on another suit, you’re just going to wind up getting blood on it unless I stitch you up.”

Turning his head in her direction, Jesse’s protest died in his throat. His eyes swept over her and he had to admit he did like what he saw.

“You’re my doctor?”

Rounding the corner to the trauma bays, feeling as if she was at the head of a wagon train, Tania grinned in response to the appreciative note in the man’s voice. “I’m your doctor.”

Jesse settled back against the gurney. “I guess maybe I’ll take those stitches.”

“Good choice.” She looked at the attendants still guiding the gurney. “Put him in trauma bay one.”

“I thought you said—” Jesse craned his neck to keep sight of her.

“Be right there,” she promised.

Moving to the second gurney, she nodded at the older man. “Looks like you’ll be getting the group rate for stitches,” she commented, examining the gash on the man’s cheek.

Isaac shrugged, as if this was nothing new to him. “Never mind me, young lady, make sure that he’s all right.” Wrapping his long, thin fingers around a black bag he was clutching, with his other hand he pointed in the general direction that Jesse had gone in. “He’s a hero, you know.”

Tania glanced over her shoulder even though by now the gurney had been tucked away into the trauma bay.

“No, I didn’t know.” She smiled at the man. “So that’s what one looks like,” she murmured, playing along with the older man. She took a step back, getting out of the gurney’s way, then pointed toward another area. “Put this one in trauma bay three,” she instructed the attendants.

“Treat him well, Doctor,” Isaac called to her as he was wheeled away. “Anything he needs, I will take care of.”

“He’ll have the best of care,” she promised before she turned her attention to the last gurney. The attendant closest to her gave her the patient’s particulars. The latter looked far from happy, but it was a toss-up as to who was more disgruntled, the patient or his police escort.

The man on the last gurney struggled against his restraints. “It’s a mistake, I tell you. The old guy must’ve slipped the bag in my pocket when I was leaving his store.”

“Now why would he do that?” she asked. She’d come across all kinds in the E.R. and this was just another odd case to add to the list.

“I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to pull some insurance scam. Who knows? Do I look like a thief to you?” he demanded hotly, indicating his clothing. Tania had to admit, except for the tear in the jacket, it looked like a high-end suit. “I’m going to sue that ape in the gray suit for battery and if you don’t want to be included, you’d better uncuff me!” he growled, yanking at the handcuff that tethered him to the gurney’s railing. “You hear me?” he demanded. “I want out of here.”

“No more than we want you gone, I’m sure,” Tania replied evenly. “But we can’t have you bleeding all over the place now, can we?” she asked sweetly. Glancing at the board over the front desk to see which room had been cleared, she saw a recent erasure. “Put him in trauma bay number four.” She pointed in the general direction, since she didn’t recognize these attendants. Tania spared the third patient one last glance. “Someone’ll be along to talk to you in a minute.”

“Not soon enough for us,” one of the patrolmen complained. He shook his head wearily as he followed in his partner’s wake. “It’s the heat,” he confided to Tania as he walked by. “It makes the crazies come out.”

She smiled. “So does the rain.” Tania signaled over toward the nurses’ station. “Elaine, take the gentleman’s information in trauma bay three.”

“What about one?”

“I’ll handle that myself.”

Elaine nodded, a knowing smile on her lips. “I thought you might.” Picking up a clipboard, she walked into trauma bay three.

Armed with a fresh clipboard and the appropriate forms, Tania went to trauma room one.

The moment she walked in, she could feel the man’s restlessness. Not the patient type, she thought, amused. Well, they had that in common.

While waiting for someone to come in, Jesse had taken off his jacket in an effort not to get it any more wrinkled than it already was. He wasn’t altogether sure why he did that. There was no saving the pants and without the pants, the jacket was just an extraneous piece of clothing.

Habit was responsible for that, he supposed. Habit ingrained in him since childhood, when every dime counted and no amount was allowed to be frivolously squandered or misspent. Stretching money had been close to a religion for his parents. They’d taken a small amount and somehow managed to create a life for themselves and for him.

He twisted around when he heard someone enter the room.

And smiled when he saw who it was.

“Hi.” She extended her hand to him. “I’m Dr. Pulaski. And you are…?”

“Jesse Steele.”

Succinct, powerful. It fit him, she thought, trying not to notice how his muscles strained against his light blue shirt.

“Well, Jesse Steele, I’m afraid there’s some paperwork waiting for you at the nurses’ station, but first, let’s see the extent of your injuries.”

“It’s nothing, really,” he protested. The woman was drop-dead gorgeous and in another time and place, he would have liked to have lingered. But hospitals made him uneasy and, in any event, he definitely had somewhere else he needed to be.

“The blood on the side of your head says differently,” she replied cheerfully. With swift, competent fingers, she did her exam. “I need you to take off your watch. I think you have a cut there.”

“It’s just a scratch.”

“Potato, po-ta-to, I still have to see it.” He took off his watch and set it aside on the nearby counter, then held his wrist up for her to see. “Okay, that’s a scratch,” she asserted. “You win that round. However—” she indicated his head “—that definitely needs attending to. Which means I get to play doctor.”

She smiled brightly as she crossed toward the sink. “So—” she turned on the faucet and quickly washed her hands “—I hear that you’re a hero.”

“Not really,” he answered with a mild shrug. Heroes were people who laid their lives on the line every day. Cops, firefighters, soldiers. Not him. “I was just in the right place at the right time. Or…” His lips gave way to a hint of a smile. “Taking it from the thief’s point of view, in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Do you always do that?” she asked, looking at him as she slipped on a pair of plastic gloves. “Look at everything from both sides?”

Crossing back to him, she gingerly examined the gash at his temple more closely.

He tried not to wince. She could feel him tensing ever so slightly despite her light touch.

“Occupational habit,” he replied through clenched teeth.

Taking a cotton swab, she disinfected the wound. He took in a bracing breath. “You’re a psychiatrist? By the way, you can breathe now.”

He exhaled, then laughed at her guess. “No, I’m an architect. I’m used to looking at everything from every side,” he added before she could ask for more of an explanation.

“Never thought of it that way,” she confessed.

It was good to keep a patient distracted, especially when she was about to run a needle and suture through his scalp. The best way to do that was to keep him talking about something else.

A quick examination showed her that the bruises were superficial, but the gash at his temple was definitely going to require a few stitches.

“Well, aside from a couple of tender spots that are going to turn into blacks and blues—and purples—before the end of the day,” she warned him, “you do have a gash on your right temple. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a couple of stitches.” He looked as if he was going to demur, so she quickly added, “But don’t worry, they won’t be noticeable. You’ll be just as handsome as ever once it heals.”

“I don’t need stitches, it’s just a cut.” He shrugged it off. “So, I guess that’s it,” he said, beginning to get off the examination table.

She put her hands on his upper torso to keep him from going any farther. For a little thing, he noted, she possessed an awful lot of strength.

“No, it’s not a cut. That thing on the inside of your wrist is a cut. That—” she pointed to his temple “—is a full-fledged gash that needs help in closing up. That’s where I come in,” she added cheerfully. “You’re not worried about a little needle, are you?”

“No, I’m worried about a big meeting.” He blew out a breath, annoyed now. If he’d stayed in the taxi, he wouldn’t have gotten into this altercation. But then, he reminded himself, the old man would have lost his sack of diamonds. “The one I was going to when this happened.”

“Important?” Tania pulled over the suture tray and, taking a stool on rollers, made herself comfortable beside the gurney. “The meeting,” she added in case he’d lost the thread of the conversation.

Right now, her patient was eyeing the surgical tray like a person who would have preferred to have been miles away from where he was.

“To me.” He watched as she prepared to sew him up. From where he sat, the needle and suture was one and the same entity. He’d never been fond of needles. Jesse sat perfectly still as she numbed the area. “I was supposed to do a presentation. That was why I was cutting across the Diamond District,” he added. Then explained, “Because the traffic wasn’t moving and I needed to be there in a hurry.”

She nodded, her eyes on her work. “Lucky for that man that you did.” When he stopped talking, Tania momentarily raised her eyes to his face. Amusement curved her mouth. “I could write you a note, say you were saving a nice old man from a big bully,” she teased. “It’d be on the hospital letterhead if that helps.”

“No, I already called them to say I’d be late. They weren’t happy about it, but they understood.”

Her eyes were back on the gash just beneath his hairline. He had nice hair, Tania caught herself thinking. Something stirred within her and she banked it down. There’d be no more wild rides, she told herself sternly. They always led nowhere.

“Sound like nice bosses.”

“They are. For the most part,” he qualified in case she thought he had it too easy. Nothing could have been further from the truth. “What they are is fair.”

“So,” she said in a soothing voice, taking the first tiny stitch, “tell me exactly what you did to become a hero.”

Chapter 2

Tania heard the man on the gurney draw in his breath as she pierced the skin just above his temple. He sat as rigid as a soldier in formation.

Not bad, she thought. She’d had big, brawny patients who had passed out the very moment she’d brought needle to skin.

“It’s nothing, really,” Jesse said in response to her question as she slowly drew the needle through. He was aware of a vague pinching sensation and knew he was in for a much bigger headache later, when the topical anesthetic wore off.

Tania smiled to herself. Modesty was always a nice quality. It was also very rare in men who looked as good as Jesse Steele did. There was something about women throwing themselves at their feet that gave handsome men heads that barely fit through regulation-size doorways.

She kept her eyes on her work. “The man in trauma room three seems to think you’re the closest thing he’d seen to a guardian angel. And the man in trauma bay four thinks you’re the devil incarnate, so my guess is that you must have done something.”

He was probably going to have to give a statement and maybe show up in court, as well, if it came to that. No good deed went unpunished, Jesse thought.

Still, he did feel good about having saved the old man’s diamonds. “I tackled him.”

The doctor arched an eyebrow. He found it very sexy. “Excuse me?”

“The guy with the police escort,” he clarified. “I tackled him.”

“Why?” she asked.

His response had been immediate. There hadn’t been even a moment’s hesitation. “Because the old man yelled ‘stop thief,’” he told her and then, before she asked, he added, “and the guy in the suit was the only one running away from him.”

She could see why the old man had sounded so grateful. “That was pretty brave of you,” she acknowledged. “Most people would have looked the other way or pretended not to hear.”

He couldn’t do that, couldn’t look away or count the cracks in the sidewalk when someone needed help. He hadn’t been raised that way, wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he’d just walked on. “I don’t like thieves.”

“Most of us don’t,” she agreed, humor curving her lips. And then she paused for a second to scrutinize him. There was more to this man than just looks, she decided. “Sounds like it’s personal.” Because her father had been and her new brother-in-law still was involved with the police force, she guessed, “Is someone in your family in law enforcement?”

He had meant to stop with just the first word, but somehow the rest just slipped out. She was extremely easy to talk to. “No. Someone in my family was robbed.”

Something about the way her patient said it made her look at him again, her needle poised for a third tiny stitch. “Who?”

“My parents.”

Tania felt her heart tighten in empathy. “What happened?”

Her patient blew out a breath and was quiet for so long, she thought he’d decided not to answer. Which was his right. She was prying.

But just as she completed the last stitch, he said, “My parents ran a small mom-and-pop-type grocery store in Brooklyn. We lived right above it. One night some thug came in and robbed them. When he tried to steal my mother’s wedding ring, my father pushed him away. The thug shot him point-blank and ran. My mother got to keep her wedding ring, the thug got seventy-three dollars in cash, and my father died.” His voice was stony. He could still remember hearing the shot and wondering what it was. He was home that night, struggling with his math homework and planning on asking his father for help. He never did do his math homework that night.

Tania cut the black thread and felt numb. When he mentioned his parents, she could envision her own, Magda and Josef, being in that situation. Granted, her father was a retired police detective, but, judging from the way Jesse’s jaw had tightened, the underlying emotional ties were the same.

She lightly placed her hand on his arm. “I’m very sorry.”

He nodded, trying to put distance between himself and the memory of that night. The memory of flying down the stairs and bursting into the store, only to see his father on the floor, not breathing, blood everywhere. His mother sobbing. Funny how it still cut so deep, even after all these years.

Jesse cleared his throat. He could feel the passage growing smaller, threatening to choke him. “Yeah, well, that happened a long time ago. I was thirteen at the time.”

Sympathy filled her. “Must have been rough, growing up without a father.”

She didn’t know what she would have done without hers. Especially after the incident. It was her father who’d broken through the stone wall she’d built up around herself rock by rock. Her father who’d held her hand throughout the ordeal and who’d given her the courage to stand up for herself. Without him gently, firmly urging her on, trying mightily to control his own anger, she didn’t know if she would have pressed charges, much less been willing to go to court to tell her story yet one more time. Each time she recited it, it got worse for her, not better.

But the latter never turned out to be necessary. She was spared the courtroom ordeal. Jeff Downey confessed at the last minute and the case was settled out of court with a plea bargain. He was sent upstate and got ten years. Less with good behavior. He was paroled six months ago. Which meant he was out there somewhere. She tried very hard not to think about that.

She’d always suspected that her father had had something to do with Jeff’s confession and his accepting the plea bargain, that somehow, Josef had managed to put pressure on the boy she’d once thought was the answer to her prayers instead of being the source of recurring nightmares. Her father had denied doing anything out of the ordinary when she asked.

But she knew her father, knew how he felt about all of them. How he felt about her being violated. There was nothing more important to Josef Pulaski than his wife and his daughters.

Although logically, she knew that not everyone had parents like hers, in her heart she always envisioned her parents whenever people mentioned their own. It was always sad to find out the opposite was true. Those were the times when she felt really lucky.

“It was,” Jesse agreed. His father had been a stern man, but fair. They were just beginning to get along when Jason Steele was murdered. “But I got through it.”

Interested, Tania asked, “What about your mom? How did she handle it?”

“She sold the store, bought a flower shop instead. Most people don’t rob flower shops.” He remembered how he begged her not to buy another store and how she’d tried to reassure him with statistics about flower shops. He still went there every day after school—to guard his mother until she closed up. “And she managed.” He paused, wondering how the blond-haired doctor with the killer legs and the sweet smile had so effortlessly gotten so much information out of him. “Is this part of the treatment?”

“Sorry, my attending always says I get too close to my patients.” Which wasn’t strictly true, Tania added silently. She asked questions, but she didn’t get close. Getting close involved vulnerability. She hadn’t gotten close to anyone since the incident. Not even to the men she’d gone out with since then. She didn’t know how.

He eyed her for a second, as if he was trying to make up his mind about something. “Do you?” he asked. “Get too close?”

She didn’t answer him directly. She gave him a reply she felt worked in this case.

“I find patients trust you more if you take an interest in them. And I am interested in them,” she assured him. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be in this field.” Smiling, she mentioned the first job she could think of that had to do with solitude. One she’d actually considered, except that solitude meant that she would be alone with her thoughts, and that she couldn’t do. “I’d be a forest ranger.”

“A forest ranger,” he repeated, amused. “That would have been the medical world’s loss.”

Tania laughed softly. “Well, I see your encounter with the thief didn’t knock the charm out of you.” Pushing back the surgical tray, she stripped off the rubber gloves and deposited them into the trash bin. “We’re done here,” she announced, then took a prescription pad out of her lab coat pocket and hastily wrote something down.

“There might be pain,” she warned him, tearing off the paper. “You can get this filled at your local pharmacy, or use the hospital’s pharmacy.” She gave him directions since he was probably unfamiliar with it. “It’s down in the basement, to right of the elevator bank when you get off.”

Jesse took the prescription she held out to him and glanced at it. His eyebrows drew together in consternation. He was looking at scribble. “You sure it says something?”

Tania grinned. Her mother, she-of-the-perfect-handwriting, used to get on her case all the time. “It does look like someone dipped a chicken in ink and had it walk across the paper, doesn’t it? That was my first inkling that I was going to be a doctor. I have awful handwriting.”

Jesse folded the paper and put it into his wallet. “Not awful…” he said with less than total conviction, letting his voice trail off.

Before she could say anything, someone behind her asked in a jovial voice, “So, how is the hero?”

They both looked over to the trauma room’s entrance. The man whose diamonds he’d recovered stood in the doorway, beaming at him. There was a butterfly bandage on his cheek but other than that, he seemed none the worse for wear.

Tania pushed her stool back, then rose to her feet. “Good as new,” she declared, then turned back to Jesse. “Now comes the really hard part.” Her mouth quirked. “Filling out the insurance forms.” She turned to lead the way out. “You can do that at the outpatient desk.”

Isaac stepped into the room. He raised both hands, as if to beat the notion back. “No need. It’s on me. I’ll pay it,” he told Jesse eagerly.

Jesse slid off the table, picking up his jacket. “That’s all right,” he told the older man. “My company has health insurance. They’ll take care of it.”

Isaac gave him a once-over, taking in the torn trouser leg and the stains. “Then a new suit,” he declared with feeling. “I owe you a new suit.”

For just a second, there was a mental tug of war. But in the end, pride prevented Jesse from taking the man up on his offer. The suit he had on had set him back a good five hundred dollars because he knew appearances were everything.

But he was his own man. He always had been. That meant he paid his own way and was indebted to no one.

“No,” he assured the old man, “you really don’t owe me anything.”

This could go on all afternoon, Tania thought. She gently placed a hand to each man’s arm and motioned them out of the room. “I’m afraid that you two need to settle this outside.” She smiled brightly at Isaac. “We need the room.”

Isaac began backing out immediately. “Of course, of course.” He took both of her hands into his, his gratitude overflowing and genuine. “Thank you for all that you did.”

Jesse debated slipping on his jacket, then decided to leave it slung over his arm. A dull ache started in his shoulder. He was going to feel like hell by tomorrow morning, he thought, remembering his days on the gridiron.

“What about you?” he asked the old man as they walked out of the room. “How’s your face?”

Isaac touched the bandage, then dropped his hand. Even the slightest contact sent a wave of pain right through his teeth.

“If Myra, my wife, was alive today, she would say ‘as ugly as ever.’” He shrugged philosophically. “When you are not a good-looking man, a blow to the face is not that big a tragedy.” And then he smiled, nodding at his Good Samaritan. “Not like with you.” He stood for a moment, cocking his head like wizened old owl, studying the doctor’s handiwork. “Nice work. My brother Leon would approve. Leon is a tailor,” he explained. And then his eyes lit up. “Of course. I’ll send you to Leon.” The thought pleased the jeweler greatly. “He will make you such a suit. And I will pay him.”

How did he get the old man to understand that he didn’t owe him anything? That successfully coming to the jeweler’s rescue was enough for him. “No, really, I don’t—”

But Jesse got no further in his protest. Isaac pursed his lips beneath his neatly trimmed moustache and beard. “Pride is a foolish thing, young man.” He wagged his finger to make his point. “It kept the Emperor without any clothes.” His voice lowered. “Please, it’ll make me feel better.”

Tania passed the two men on her way to get the chart for her next patient. “I’d give in if I were you,” she advised Jesse. “It doesn’t sound as if he’s about to give up.” And then she winked at the old man, as if they shared a secret. “Trust me,” she told Jesse, thinking of her father, “I’m familiar with the type.”

And with that, she hurried off to a curtained section just beyond the nurses’ station.

Isaac watched her walk away. There was appreciation in the man’s sky-blue eyes when he turned them back to Jesse. “Nice girl, that one.” And then he asked innocently, “Are you married?”

“What? No.” Was the man matchmaking? Trying to line up a customer for a ring? Well, he wasn’t in the market for something like that right now. Maybe later, but not for a couple of years or so. “And not looking for anyone right now, either,” Jesse emphasized.

His words beaded off Isaac’s back like water off a duck.

“Sometimes we find when we don’t look. And should you find,” Isaac said, digging into his pocket, “you come to me.” Producing a business card, he tucked it into Jesse’s hand. “I will take good care of you. I’ll match you up with the finest engagement ring you’ve ever seen.” And then he added the final touch. “On the house.”

Jesse nodded, pocketing the card, fairly certain that this was an empty promise the old man felt he had to make. Once there was a little distance from the events of today, Jesse was confident the man would feel completely differently. He had no intentions of holding a man to a promise made in the heat of the moment.

Besides, the last thing he needed right now was an engagement ring.

“And you, do you have a card?” Isaac asked him curiously, his bright blue eyes shifting to Jesse’s pants’ pocket.

Just by coincidence, he’d been given his first batch of cards yesterday afternoon. He hadn’t had a chance to hand any out yet. “Yes.”

Isaac waited for a moment. When nothing materialized, he coaxed, “May I have it? So that I can have your phone number,” he explained. A gurney was being ushered by. Jesse and Isaac stepped to the side, out of the way. “Not to bother you, of course, but to see how you are doing and to find out when you are available for that suit.”

Maybe saving this man’s diamonds hadn’t been such a good thing, after all, Jesse mused. Then again, maybe he was being a little paranoid. After all, the man was justifiably grateful. But after what he’d been through recently with Ellen, well, it had him still looking over his shoulder at times.

“Believe me, it’s really not necessary.”

Isaac fixed him with a long, serious look. “Neither was coming to my rescue, young man, but you did. Isaac Epstein does not forget a kindness. You are a very rare young man.” So Jesse dug into his pocket and handed the man his card. “Jesse Steele,” Isaac read, then glanced at what followed. “You are an architect?”

It had been a long road to that label. He still felt no small pride whenever he heard it applied to him. “Yes, I am.”

“You know—” Isaac leaned his head in as if he was about to impart a dark secret “—my house could use expanding…”

Jesse couldn’t help laughing. Isaac was harmless and well-meaning, if pushy. He put his arm across the older man’s shoulders, leading him out of the area and to the outpatient station so they could both get on with their lives—especially him.

“I think we need to get out of everyone’s way, Mr. Epstein.” The police had indicated that he could come in later and give his statement, for which he was extremely grateful. “And I need to get to my office.”

They weren’t going to hold the meeting for him forever, he thought. He had a change of clothing at the firm, in case he had to take a sudden flight out on business. The suit might be wrinkled, but anything was better than what he was currently wearing.

“Let me make a call,” Isaac offered. “My cousin’s son, John, he owns a limousine service. You can arrive to your office in style.”

“I can arrive on the bus,” Jesse countered as he walked down the hallway with the older man.

Isaac released a sigh that was twice as large as he was. “I never thought I would meet anyone more stubborn than my Myra.”

Jesse tried to keep a straight face as he said, “Life is full of surprises, Mr. Epstein.”

“Isaac, please,” the man corrected him as they turned a corner.

A little more than two hours later the flow of patients temporarily became a trickle. It was then that Shelly Fontaine, a full-figured nurse with lively eyes and a quick, infectious smile, came up to her, dangling a watch in the air in front of her.

“What would you like me to do with this, Dr. Ski?” The name was one Tania had suggested after Shelly’s tongue had tripped her up several times while trying to pronounce her actual surname.

Glancing up from the computer where she was inputting last-minute notes, Tania hardly saw the object in question.

“Have Emilio take it down to Lost and Found where everything goes,” she murmured. And then her mind did a double take. “Hold it,” she called to Shelly who moved rather fast when she wanted to. “Let me see that again.” She held her hand out for the watch. Upon closer examination, she recognized it. The timepiece was old-fashioned with a wind-up stem. And, if she wasn’t mistaken, it had come off Jesse Steele’s wrist. She had assumed he’d put it back on after she’d examined the scratch beneath the band. Obviously not. But just to be on the sure side, she asked, “Where did you get this?”

“Trauma bay one.” Shelly nodded back toward the room where, even now, another patient was being wheeled in on a gurney. It looked as if the flow was picking up again. “You were taking care of that hunk in there.” Shelly’s mouth widened in a huge, wistful grin. “I thought you might know where to find him. Assuming this is his and not some patient who was there before him.”

“No, this is his,” Tania said with certainty. “I recognize it.”

It would be too much of a coincidence for there to be two watches like this worn by patients occupying the same room on the same day. Rather than give the watch back to the nurse, Tania slipped the watch into her pocket. Hitting several more keys, she saved what she’d input and rose from the desk.

“His address has to be on file,” she said, thinking out loud. She knew for a fact that she’d seen it written on the information form the nurse had taken before she’d come in to treat the man. “I’ll look it up and have someone mail it to him.”

Shelly sighed soulfully as she followed her away from the desk. “I’d like to mail me to him.”

“Shelly, you’re married,” Tania pointed out.

“I’m married, I’m not blind. I can look. And maybe lust,” the older woman added mischievously. “It’s not like Raymond doesn’t look every woman over the age of eighteen up and down when he passes them.”

Obviously not every marriage was made in heaven, Tania thought.

“Hey, you ready?” Kady called, coming around the corner like a runaway steamroller.

Tania made a show of looking at the watch on her wrist. “For lunch or dinner?” It was a blatant reference to the fact that her older sister was more than half an hour late.

“Sorry, it’s been crazy today. I had to perform an emergency cardiac ablation. This man had an attack of atrial fibrillation that just wouldn’t stop. I know I should have called, but there wasn’t any time—”

“Save your apologies.” Tania grabbed her purse from the drawer beneath the nurse’s desk. “You lucked out. It’s been hectic here all morning, too.”

“Did it have anything to do with the camera crews outside?” Kady wanted to know.

She hadn’t seen the light of day since she’d walked in yesterday. Armageddon could have swept the street of Manhattan and she wouldn’t have known about it. “Camera crews?”

“Yeah, outside the E.R.” Only extremely tight security, instituted right after the serial killings that had rocked the hospital last January, had kept the pushiest of the crew members out. “Something about a hero saving a dealer’s diamonds. Security kept them out, but I heard that the media swarmed all over the guy when he finally left the hospital.”

Tania shook her head. “Poor man probably never got to go to his meeting.”

Kady stopped walking and looked at her sister, confused. “Meeting? What meeting?” And then the answer dawned on her. “Did you treat him?”

Stopping by the elevator, Tania pressed for the basement where the cafeteria was located. “I sewed up his scalp wound.”

Kady sighed. “Some girls have all the luck,” she teased. Tania looked at her and for one moment Kady could have bitten off her tongue. Because for one unguarded moment, Tania had allowed the pain to come through and register in her eyes.

But the next, Tania was flashing the wide smile she’d always been known for and nodding her head in agreement. “Yeah, we do. Your turn to buy lunch, by the way.”

Kady was relieved that the moment had passed. “I distinctly remember that it was your turn.”

“Maybe you should be marrying a neurosurgeon instead of a bodyguard. There’s something going wrong with your memory.”

The elevator arrived and the doors opened. Kady put her arm around Tania’s shoulders and guided her in. “Not today, little sister, not today.”

Chapter 3

She’d just wanted to make sure he was all right.

She’d been a safe distance away, trailing discreetly behind him—far enough away not to be noticed, close enough to see—when Jesse had stopped that thief.

Her breath had caught in her throat as she’d watched the two grapple on the ground. And it had taken everything she’d had not to run up to Jesse when she’d seen the blood trickling along the side of his head. She’d wanted to clean the wound with her handkerchief and make it better with her kisses.

In all probability, she would have run up to him to do just that, but the ambulance had arrived in the blink of an eye. When it had, rather than step forward she’d melted back in with the crowd. That was when she’d read the logo on the side of the vehicle. It had been dispensed from Patience Memorial Hospital.

She knew where that was.

Several months ago they’d treated her there when her wrists had had an unfortunate meeting with a shard of glass. The police had brought her there, summoned by her nosy superintendent who’d come about the overdue rent and had illegally let himself in when she hadn’t answered the door. The police had wanted to label it a suicide attempt. She’d talked them out of it, saying it was just an accident. A glass had broken when she was washing dishes and she hadn’t realized it until the jagged edges had scraped against both of her wrists and she’d felt faint.

They didn’t look like they believed her, but she’d convinced them. She was good at convincing people when she set her mind to it.

Except for Jesse.

But then, Jesse was different. Special. He always had been. She’d known that from the moment she’d first seen him walk through the doors of the firm she worked for. Used to work for, she corrected herself. They’d fired her. Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Except for Jesse. He was special.

Special. And hers.

He was so brave, so selfless. So willing to put everyone else first. That’s why she loved him. Or at least that was one of the reasons. There were so many. She’d need a lifetime to count them. A lifetime that they would spend together.

Once she knew where the ambulance was going, she took off, availing herself of shortcuts in order to get there before the vehicle arrived. She succeeded, beating out the ambulance by a couple of minutes. Even using the siren, it had been slow going. The streets were clogged with lunchtime traffic and there was nowhere for the cars to pull over.

She’d counted on that, on the ambulance arriving at the rear E.R. entrance just as she had. She was in time to see Jesse being taken in.

Because there was so much activity in the immediate area, what with two other ambulances arriving on the heels of the first and the usual general commotion that occurred around an emergency room at midday, she managed to slip in without even being noticed.

She’d gotten very good at slipping in without being noticed.

Just like a little fly on the wall, she thought, her lips framing a smile that didn’t quite move into her soul.

When the fluffy-looking blonde in the lab coat approached Jesse, she’d felt a sharp flare of temper, a surge of red-hot jealousy, but she banked it down. Her anger could be kept in abeyance as long as she thought that the woman was there to help Jesse. Jesse’s wellbeing came first. Always. Besides, he didn’t like shallow types like the blonde. He liked women like her.

He liked her.

Loved her, she silently corrected.

As the minutes ticked away, she finally managed to pass by the room where Jesse was being treated, peering in through the window. He wasn’t looking in her direction, so he didn’t see her. Which was good. But it was so hard to resist the temptation to rush in, to throw her arms around him and tell him that she would take care of him. That she was so proud of him for saving that old man’s property but that he must never, never do that again. He could have been killed. What if that horrible man he’d brought down had had a gun?

She couldn’t bring herself to think about it, it was just too awful.

She hated that man. Hated him for bruising Jesse’s beautiful skin, for making Jesse hurt his head. If she could have, she would have made the thief pay for what he did. She would have stabbed him, then laughed as she watched the life dribble out of him. Someone like that didn’t deserve anything better.

But those stupid policemen kept hanging around. They’d probably arrest her if she punished that man and gave him what he so richly deserved, what he had coming to him.

Jesse had almost seen her when he left the hospital, but she was too fast for him. She was certain that if he had seen her, he would have recognized her even though she wore a disguise.

The heart sees what the eyes don’t.

And he loved her, she knew that. He was just a little confused, that’s all.

He’d loved her once and you just don’t stop loving someone. You don’t.

She’d slipped out of the hospital close behind him when he’d left, but she’d managed to mix in with all the cameramen and reporters outside. She’d been tempted to shove one or two of the women. Women with their perfect hair and their pretty makeup, all trying to get close to Jesse. But she didn’t. She’d kept her cool. Jesse would have been proud of her had he known.

He’d know soon.

Walking back to her apartment, she clenched and unclenched the hands that were thrust deep in her pockets. She had to be patient. She’d make her move soon, but not yet.

Not yet.

It was oh so hard being patient. But it was a small price to pay for forever.

She was sure Jesse would agree.

Tania chewed on the inside of her lower lip, staring at the watch sitting on the desk in front of her. She’d almost forgotten about it until she’d shoved her hands into her pockets as she’d walked out of yet another trauma room and her fingers had come in contact with the leather band.

Jesse’s watch.

In all the commotion this morning and his hurry to get to his meeting, had he just forgotten it? Or had he left it behind on purpose, left it behind so that he’d have an excuse to see her again?

Tania sighed. She had to stop being so paranoid. Sometimes an oversight was just an oversight, nothing more.

Even if Jesse had orchestrated this, the man had no way of knowing that a) she’d be the one to find the watch, which she actually wasn’t, and b) that she’d opt to deliver his watch back to him in person. The most logical way to get this back to Jesse was just to have someone ship it out, the way she’d already mentioned to Shelly when the nurse had brought the watch to her.

But then, she wasn’t the type to make someone do things for her that were not in some way directly related to hospital procedures. And even then, she had a tendency to try to do everything herself. Her sisters teased her and called her an overachiever. On occasion, Sasha had bandied about the word “controlling,” trying, she knew, to make her come around and relax.

She supposed that “controlling” was actually more on target as far as assessing her behavior. She’d always been an overachiever, they all were in her family. But controlling, well, that was a later development. One designed to make her feel more secure.

If you controlled everything around you, or at least as much as possible, then you never had anything unexpected happening to you. You stayed safe. She had made a vow at seventeen never to be at the mercy of circumstances—and especially not at the mercy of any person.

She eyed the watch again, then made up her mind. Her endless shift was just about to finally come to an end. It would be no great hardship for her to drop this off on her way home—provided that the man didn’t live in Connecticut, she mused.

Tania laughed softly to herself. If he did, this was definitely going into the mail. She was not about to go out of her way for any man, even if that man happen to be drop-dead gorgeous. That sort of thing no longer carried any weight with her.

Just the opposite was true.

Rising from the desk and dropping the watch back in her pocket, she went to outpatient registration to get Jesse Steele’s home address.

He didn’t live in Connecticut, or any of the other outlining states, either. As it turned out, when Sally Richmond “conveniently” turned away from the computer screen to let her look without actually saying she could, Tania discovered that Jesse Steele lived right here in Manhattan, just the way she and her sisters did. Jotting the address down on an index card, she whispered, “Thank you” to Sally and slipped away from the outpatient registration area.

Hanging up her lab coat in her locker and resuming her civilian life, Tania took the crosstown bus to the address she’d written down. She’d taken care to write it in big block letters because she had just as much trouble reading her own handwriting as everyone else did. And given the choice of winding up in the wrong part of town or not, she’d choose “not.”

It wasn’t that much of a ride. Had she had more energy, she would have walked and probably gotten there faster, but by the end of her second shift, she was more or less drained. It had been a hell of a grueling sixteen hours.

So what are you doing playing messenger girl?

She had no answer for that.

After getting off the bus, Tania walked one block over until she reached the address on the card. She and her sisters had grown up in Queens, but they’d all made the trip into Manhattan, to take in the sights and wander the streets every chance they got. She knew the city like the back of her hand. Better.

While on the bus, she’d made up her mind to leave the watch with the doorman if there was one.

There wasn’t.

The wide glass door leading into the modern high-rise was unattended.

Doormen were swiftly going the way of the elevator operators of the last century. Into the mist.

As luck would have it, someone was just entering the building. Not wanting to ring bells at random, Tania slipped in behind the woman before the door closed again.

There was a bank of mailboxes along the far wall. Crossing to them, she scanned the names and apartments until she found “Jesse Steele, 10E.” His was the only name listed. He lived alone.

Or maybe with someone who hadn’t put up her name yet.

That made no difference to her, she insisted silently.

Tania pressed for the elevator. It must have been on the floor above because it arrived almost immediately.

She’d just leave his watch on his doorstep, she decided. Just before she’d left P-M, she’d taken an envelope with the hospital logo on it and placed the watch inside. Taking the envelope out of her purse, she sealed it as she rode up the elevator. There was no harm in leaving the watch on his doorstep. It’d be safe until he got home—provided he was out. The building was in the better part of town and it looked very respectable.

Stepping off the elevator, she began reading the numbers on the doors. The floor was tastefully done in subdued blues and grays, with paintings of flowers scattered through spring meadows hanging every few feet. It made for a pleasant, soothing atmosphere.

Apartment 10E was at the end of the hall.

Since she was just going to leave the watch on the floor directly in front of the door, Tania really couldn’t explain what made her ring the doorbell at the last moment.

Even as she pressed the button, she turned away and started to retrace her steps to the elevator.

As it turned out, Jesse must have been on his way out, because she’d only managed to take three steps before the door to his apartment swung open.

Jesse had trained himself to look through the peephole before opening the door. It wasn’t his way, but better to be safe than sorry. Technically, he no longer had to be on his guard like this. The restraining order was in force and would continue to be for some time. And there hadn’t been any incidents for a while now, not since he’d moved. For a while there, though, he’d found out firsthand exactly what a buck had to feel like during hunting season. And, granted there hadn’t been any incident since the restraining order had been taken out, but he still wasn’t a hundred percent at his ease. Someday, he hoped, he could reclaim his life and go back to being laid back, or at least not feel edgy every time he heard the doorbell ring.

But for now, he had to remain vigilant.

And surprised.

The woman’s back was to him and she wasn’t wearing a lab coat, but he recognized the soft sway of her hips immediately. It was part of what had caught his attention to begin with.

“Dr. Pulaski?”

Tania turned around, forcing a bemused expression to take over her features. She made a point of appearing nonchalant, so much so that no one except her family would have even remotely guessed at the tension she lived with every waking moment.

To the untrained eye, the smile was warm, perhaps even a little inviting. “Hi.”

What was she doing here? Not that he minded, of course. This spared him the chore of coming up with a reason for going back to the hospital to try to see her again before he was scheduled to have his stitches rechecked.

“I thought house calls had gone the way of the dinosaur—or is there a problem with my insurance?” he joked.

She’d been on his mind, off and on, since he’d fought his way past the camera crew, shielding the jeweler while he was at it. The people he worked with were far more interested in having him retell the events of what had happened than they were in his contributions to the meeting he’d ultimately wound up missing. And then he’d had to stop at the precinct to give his statement. All the while, his thoughts kept straying to the woman who had tended to his wounds, vacillating between wondering if he’d ever see her again to wanting to see her again.

“No, no problem that I know of,” she qualified. “But you did leave without your watch,” she told him. She indicated the envelope on the floor.

“My watch.” A look of astonishment slipped over his face as he looked at his wrist. Running behind all day, he’d chosen not to look at his watch, confirming just how late he was. If he had, he would have realized that it was missing.

And remembered where he’d last seen it.

Now that would have been a legitimate excuse to see her again.

“I didn’t even know it was gone,” he confessed, opening the envelope. “I’m so used to it being there, I thought it was. What do they call that, phantom something or other?”

“I think you’re trying for ‘phantom pain’ and that only involves amputated limbs, not missing wristwatches.” She didn’t bother suppressing an amused smile.

He put the watch back on, then looked at it, relieved and satisfied all at the same time. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“Obviously a lot.” Which made her glad she’d gone out of her way to bring it back to him.

“It belonged to my father,” he told her.

She’d already figured out that it was old. “That would explain the winding stem,” Tania commented.

“My mother gave it to me when I graduated high school, said she knew he’d want me to have it.” Not ordinarily an emotional person, he remembered fighting tears when he’d opened his gift and seen the watch. “It belonged to my grandfather before him.”

“So passing it on is a family tradition.”

The thought made her smile, not in amusement but with a feeling of empathy. Despite the fact that they had come to this country from their native Poland with hardly anything more than the clothes on their backs, her parents were very big on family tradition.

She needed to get going. She’d promised Kady to help her decide on wedding invitations. “Well, I’m glad I could reunite the two of you.”

Tania paused for a moment longer. Everything told her she had to leave, but there was something about him, something warm and inviting that had her lingering just a second more.

To keep from looking like some kind of idiot who said one thing but did another, she asked, “By the way, how’s your head?”

She looked even better without her lab coat. And probably excellent with less on than that. Jesse squelched the thought.

“It hurts,” he admitted.

“That’s what the prescription for the painkillers is for,” she reminded him. Had he forgotten to get it filled?

But Jesse slowly shook his head, the way someone would if they were afraid their head would fall off. “I’d rather not take them if I can help it.”

Oh, another one of those, she thought. “Macho, huh? I have a father like that. Do yourself a favor, take the pills.” She second-guessed his reasons for doing without. “A few doses aren’t going to make you slavishly dependent on them.”

His best friend in high school had succumbed to addiction. And then just succumbed. Life was long and he intended to enjoy it. Unencumbered. But he had no desire to get into that now. So Jesse merely shrugged it off.

“I know, but it’s really not that bad,” he told her. Realizing that he was still standing in the doorway, he opened it a little wider and stepped back. “Can you come in for a minute?”

It was Tania’s turn to shake her head. For all intents and purposes, he seemed nice. But no one knew where she’d gone and there was no way she was about to walk into his domain.

Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.

Jesse Steele didn’t come across like a spider, but then, neither had Jeff. There was absolutely no way she was ever going to be anyone’s fly again, anyone’s victim. Everything was always going to be on her terms, or not at all.

“I can’t,” she answered. “I need to get home,” she added. “I just thought you might miss your watch and I wanted to drop it off.”

He seemed disappointed, but didn’t push. “I would like to pay you back for going out of your way,” he told her. “Dinner?”

“Not tonight,” she began.

He’d already assumed that. “Tomorrow?” he queried, then asked, “The day after?” when she didn’t answer.

Despite her efforts to the contrary, she was amused. “If I say no, are you going to keep going?”

He nodded, crossing his arms before him. “Pretty much.”

“What if I have a jealous husband?” she asked with a straight face. Did a little thing like marriage make a difference to him? Or was he accustomed to getting his way whenever he wanted something?

She saw him looking at her left hand, then raise his eyes again. “Do you?”

It was the perfect excuse, the perfect out. All she had to do was say yes and walk away. Something inside of her played devil’s advocate and kept her from cloaking herself in the lie.

It was almost as if she was daring herself, seeing how far she would go. To see how far she would inch along the plank before it would bend beneath her weight, threatening to make her fall into the water. It was her usual modus operandi. She’d always scramble back to safety, but it seemed that each time she pushed herself a little harder, a little further.

Someday, she was going to hit that water.

No, she wasn’t, she thought with confidence just before she answered his question.

“No, I don’t.”

“Good, then I’ll just keep going.” He thought a moment. “I think I was up to Thursday. Thursday night?” he asked.

She tried not to laugh. “I—”

Jesse just kept going. “Friday, then. Or Saturday. Saturday work for you?”

She gave up and laughed, shaking her head. “Okay, okay, dinner. Wednesday evening. You pick the place, I’ll meet you there.”

“I could pick you up,” he offered.

“You could meet me there,” she countered.

He looked at her for a long moment. “Are you sure there’s no husband?”

“Just two nosy sisters.”

He was an only child who had grown up longing for siblings. “You have two sisters?”

“Four, actually,” she corrected. “Three older, one younger.” And then she added with the same touch of pride that everyone in her family felt, especially her parents. “All doctors at Patience Memorial.”

Now that was unusual, he thought, not to mention impressive. “Sounds like a really nice family.”

Had he planned it, he couldn’t have said anything better to her. Her family was everything to her. “It is. So, which restaurant?” He gave her the name of one and she nodded. “Expensive. Dinner there will probably cost more than that watch did when it was new.”

“Some things,” he told her, “you can’t put a price on.”

It was the sincerity in his voice that finally won her over. Part of Tania still felt that she might be making a mistake, since she really knew nothing about him except what he’d told her, but then, a man who comes to the aid of a stranger couldn’t be all bad.

Right?

Chapter 4

Tania found herself looking at Kady as the latter threw open the door to the apartment she, Kady and Natalya shared.

“Well, it’s about time. I was all set to fill out a missing person’s report on you,” Kady told her, one hand on her hip in a gesture that fairly shouted Mama. Apparently her older sister had flown to the door the second Kady’d heard her putting her key in the lock.

“Not me,” Marja offered carelessly.

She came walking in from the kitchen after having foraged through her sisters’ refrigerator. Her search had yielded a half-empty carton of chicken lo mein and she was well on her way to making it a completely empty carton.

Marja paused to render a wide, wistful smile. “I was all set to put my stuff in your room and move in.”

“Antsy to get out from underneath Mama and Daddy’s protective eye, are we?” Natalya laughed.

They’d all been there, all but smothered in genuine affection and concern. Not a one of them would have traded either of their parents in for any amount of riches. They all knew how very rare a couple Magda and Josef Pulaski were. Selfless, willing to work twenty hours a day if necessary to put them all through college and medical school.

Her father had said more than once that education was a blessing, which made it a family affair.

But right now, Marja was apparently focusing on the downside and she rolled her eyes in response to Natalya’s teasing question.

“God, yes.” The words were accompanied by a dramatic sigh. The drama she got from her mother. “I love them both to pieces, but they still think of me as a child,” she wailed.

“No,” Sasha corrected, keeping a straight face, “they think of you as the baby. The last little bird to fly out of the nest.” She felt for her sister, but at the same time, she couldn’t help teasing her. Lifetime habits were hard to break. “I’m not sure they’re ready to acknowledge your flight plan, Marysia.”

Marja preferred answering to her nickname, but she only allowed her family to use it. Didn’t even mention it to anyone else. They had enough trouble with Marja. For the outsider, “Marysia” became nothing short of an unrewarding, gabled tongue-twister.

“Well, whether or not they acknowledge it, I’m out of there the second Natalya says ‘I do’ to Mike. I’m not even going to stick around for the reception,” she said loftily, licking her fork to get the last of the lo mein, “just hitching the U-Haul to Sasha’s car and bringing my stuff over.”

Finished, she crossed back to the kitchen to throw the empty container out and toss the fork into the sink.

Natalya and Kady exchanged glances, shaking their heads. Marja might have graduated at the top of her graduating class, but she still had a bit of growing up to do.

Sasha grinned. As if leaving the house where she was born were that easy. One by one, they had moved out of the house in Queens, to be closer to the hospital where they all ultimately worked. Her parents had gone through the experience four times already. The fifth and last time was definitely not going to be a piece of cake, not if she knew Mama. Or Daddy, who was more versed than most about the kind of lowlife that was known to sometimes walk the streets of New York.

“Daddy will probably want to supervise,” she told Marja. “You know how he is.”

Marja sighed, planting herself beside Sasha on the love seat. “Yes, I do, God love ’im.” It wasn’t that she didn’t have the utmost admiration and respect for her parents, and she did love them to death. She just wanted the opportunity to miss them once in a while. And to leave the house occasionally without verbally leaving a detailed itinerary in her wake. Whenever she tried, her father made it a point of telling her that he was asking because, just in case she went missing, they’d know where to start looking for her.

“Girls, they are going missing all the time,” he told her with feeling. “You, we will not have missing. So, where is it you are going?”

Marja knew the dialogue by heart—and wanted to put some distance between it and herself until such time as she could hear it without having it set her teeth on edge.

She glanced from one sister to another, looking for support. It wasn’t as if this was something new, a phase their parents were going through. This was everyday life at the Pulaski residence.

“I just really need some time away from them. A vacation,” she added because it sounded less harsh.

Natalya nodded, feigning sympathy. “Yeah, I know how it is. Hot meals, clean sheets, no rent to worry about, laundry done.” She sighed loudly, shaking her head. “Must be hell.”

“Oh, like you didn’t leave the first chance you got,” Marja reminded her.

“I had to. Sasha was lonely.” She glanced toward her older sister. “Weren’t you, Sasha?”

“I was too busy to be lonely,” Sasha deadpanned.

“It’s not that I’m not appreciative,” Marja persisted. “It’s just that I want them to stop looking at me as if I was their little girl.” The others might not have thought so, but it really was no picnic, being the youngest.

“News flash.” Perched on the arm of the love seat, Tania leaned over and pretended to knock on Marja’s head. “You’ll always be their little girl.”

“We all will,” Sasha interjected. “Even when we’re in our nineties.”

Marja shivered at the very thought. “Well, we need to fix that.”

Sasha curved her hand protectively over her abdomen that was just beginning to swell. “Can’t. It’s a fact of life, Marysia. I’m already beginning to feel extremely protective and the baby’s not even here yet.”

Marja leaned over her older sister’s stomach, cupping her hand to her mouth as she addressed the tiny swell. “Run, kid, run for your life. This is your aunt Marysia speaking. I know what I’m talking about.”

“Idiot.” Sasha laughed, thumping her youngest sister in the head affectionately.

If she didn’t move this along, they’d never get to the reason they were all here. Kady looked at the last arrival. “I thought you said you were coming straight home to fall into bed.” She’d all but had to twist Tania’s arm to get her to agree to this get-together. It was called at the last minute because all five of them were very rarely off at the same time and she wanted everyone’s input.

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