“Ella, can I see you?”

She pretended to misunderstand. “I need to finish my rounds.”

“I meant after. Once I’ve left the hospital. I’ll be staying in Walnut River for a couple weeks.”

“Oh? So you do have family here?” Would he admit it now?

“Trying to get me off track, Doc? I’m asking if you’ll have dinner with me once I’m discharged.”

She shook her head. “It’s just that you’re very predictable. It makes me wonder how many other nurses and doctors you’ve wooed.”

He didn’t blink. “Not a one.”

She huffed a laugh. “I’ll bet not for lack of trying.”

“Don’t have to try, Doc.”

“Ah. Women drop like flies at your feet, then?”

A wicked grin. “Something like that.”

“Good to know.” She lifted her chin. “Well, Mr Sumner, don’t let me get in their way.”

MARY J FORBES

grew up on a farm amid horses, cattle, crisp hay and broad blue skies. As a child, she drew and wrote of her surroundings and in primary school composed her first story about a little lame pony. Years later, she worked as an accountant, then as a reporter-photographer for a small-town newspaper, before attaining an honours degree in education to become a teacher. She has also written and published short fiction stories.

A romantic by nature, Mary loves walking along the ocean shoreline, sitting by the fire on snowy or rainy evenings and two-stepping around the dance floor to a good country song – all with her own real-life hero, of course. Mary would love to hear from her readers at www.maryjforbes.com.

First-Time Valentine

Mary J Forbes

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Chapter One

J.D. opened his eyes to a murky dawn.

For a moment, he was at a loss with his surroundings. Oh, yeah. Back in Walnut River, Massachusetts, his hometown—and the hospital of his birth.

He groaned as memories of a long night of pain and fitful dreams rushed together. He lay in a hospital bed. IV attached to his vein. His right knee…

He did not want to consider the mess there.

Outside his room, the hospital woke. In his head, memories tumbled. The board meeting last night. The snowstorm. His knee popping like a firecracker as he slipped on those damned icy steps. And then…oh, man…the killing pain.

Had he blacked out? He couldn’t remember. Just the crazy pain.

He should’ve had his knee fixed years ago. Hadn’t he learned back in high school playing basketball? When the doctor told him about “jumper’s knee”? Had he taken the man’s advice? No. Instead, he’d ignored every recommendation and for years depended on over-the-counter painkillers. And then he’d defied fate seven years ago by joining the Northeastern HealthCare basketball team when the company hired his ambitious mind.

Arrogant jackass is what you were.

J.D. grunted. Damn this February weather. Damn the ice and snow, and why he’d returned yesterday to this armpit dot on the Massachusetts map. And damn the fact that he was now doomed to wait for surgery by the esteemed Dr. Ella Wilder, another one of the family of Wilders he’d come to lock horns with—well, not lock horns, to wine and dine and sway to realize that NHC’s contemporary model of practicing medicine was the way of the future. A model second-to-none in efficiency. A model favoring corporate-run medicine, not the old-fashioned methods prevalent in this quaint little hospital.

If he did his job right, Walnut River General would be brought under NHC’s generous umbrella in a matter of months, a move that would benefit patients and doctors with some modernity—with a capital M.

But first he needed to get out of here. Fast.

Six hours later and still waiting for his surgery, he realized fast was not a key part of this hospital’s policy and his apprehension had mushroomed into full-blown anxiety. Okay, they’d told him the E.R. was having a chaotic day. But he hadn’t seen the doctor—any doctor—since he’d been there.

Stop worrying, J.D. Your gurney is third in line for the O.R. Won’t be long now. Which did not calm him at all.

Goddammit. Didn’t they know he hated Walnut River General? His mother—Grace Sumner—had died here. Died of a blood clot in her brain—as a result of the C-section at his birth, or so Pops maintained.

You go to the hospital to die. End of story. As far back as J.D. remembered the old man’s words had been a slogan in their house.

Yes, Grace was the reason J.D. had avoided getting his knee repaired years ago. Nobody was cutting into him, causing blood clots. Last night, however, he knew he could no longer dodge surgery. It was either that or end up walking with a cane for the rest of his life, plus attracting arthritis before he was forty.

So, where was the female Wilder? He hated to admit it, but the way she touched him, spoke, smiled last night in the E.R.…

“Mr. Sumner,” she had said upon entering his curtained cubicle. “I’m Dr. Ella Wilder. I hear you fell on some steps and banged up your knee.” Against the collar of her white lab coat hung a hot-pink stethoscope.

“Should sue the hospital,” he’d ground out, gazing at her through half-closed eyes. He hadn’t expected a woman doctor. Nor one resembling a French fashion model.

“Suing won’t heal your knee, sir,” she informed him, dipping her head to examine his exposed leg.

The paramedic—Mike O’Rourke was it?—had found J.D. sprawled across the snowy steps by the hospital parking lot. In the E.R., the man had cut away the expensive cloth from his right pant leg, easier for radiology to take X-rays.

Ella Wilder snapped on a pair of surgical gloves and tested the wounded area gently. “Tell me when it hurts.”

He winced; she nodded. “I’m sending you for an MRI.”

“Think I broke something?” He tried to lift up on his elbows.

“According to the X-rays, no. However, I’d like more information about the soft tissues around and under your kneecap. We’ll also do some blood work to see if there’s a sign of arthritis.”

“Arthritis?” He bit his bottom lip as she gently probed the distended knee. “You saying—” a pained grunt “—I’m getting old?”

“Not at all.” The dark bob of her hair swung along the line of her jaw as she removed the gloves. “Arthritis can happen at any age.”

“Terrific. Worst-case scenario?”

“Let’s see what the MRI brings. If it’s what I suspect, we’ll do surgery tomorrow once the swelling subsides.” She offered a smile and it blew through his pain like a breeze on the Cayman coast. “Meantime, we’ll keep you off your feet tonight and get some pills into you.”

“Don’t need pills,” he mumbled. “Don’t wanna stay here.”

She patted his hand. “Trust me, the pills will help while we wait for the injury to settle and the throbbing to lessen.”

In spite of his pain, a corner of his mouth lifted. “You going to be my doctor?”

“If your injury is what I suspect, then yes, I will be.”

His eyes closed. “Good. I like the idea of throbbing for you.”

God almighty. Were you delusional last night, J.D., or just a total jerk? He couldn’t believe he’d actually uttered those words. To a doctor, no less. He owed her an apology, preferably before the operation. The last thing he needed was for her to cut into him with payback on her mind.

Across the O.R.’ s inpatient waiting bay, an old guy hacked as if his lungs were full of gravel. From out of nowhere a nurse hurried to raise the guy’s head, asking how he was holding out, and if anyone sat with his wife and did his son still work at the paper? J.D. groaned. The old home-week chitchat he could do without.

He checked the wall clock. 12:23 p.m. Eighteen hours since he’d tumbled down those steps that led to the parking lot across the hospital’s entrance lane.

Never in his life had he been this idle. Okay, admittedly the care so far had been excellent. Nurses, doctors and technicians were gentle and promptly got him whatever he asked for: magazines, water, juice…everything except an early surgery slot.

New York, that’s where he should be, in his plush office with its cherrywood desk and his proficient secretary. Hell, he hadn’t scratched and clawed his way to the rung of executive for Northeastern HealthCare by stopping to smell the Mayflowers.

He grunted. He’d be hard-pressed to find any flower in the concrete jungle where he worked.

“Hello, Mr. Sumner,” a soft female voice said before blue scrubs and her face came into view.

God, she was one appealing woman. And those dark eyes… A brown he couldn’t quite describe—until he thought of the fancy bag of hazelnuts his secretary had bought him last Christmas.

“How are you feeling?” Ella Wilder asked, unaware of where his thoughts traveled. This afternoon the bell of her pink stethoscope was tucked into a breast pocket.

“Bored as hell,” he grumbled.

She offered a quick smile. “Won’t be much longer. I have one surgery ahead of you which will take about thirty minutes.” Moving down to his iced knee, she marked the spot where she would do her work. “The swelling has decreased. That’s good.”

Her hair, he saw now, was a study of browns and blacks. Today she’d clipped the thick locks behind her ears.

She asked several more questions about his injury, ensured he was Jared Devlin Sumner, and had he taken his meds?

“I gave all that info to the nurse,” he said, annoyed as hell that through everything he couldn’t stop taking inventory of her body.

“We like to double check. It’s standard procedure.” She jotted a few extra notes on his chart. “Do you have family here, Mr. Sumner?”

“No.” Well, he did, but his old man was no one’s business. “This isn’t a big deal, is it?” He would never admit it, but the notion of having his flesh divided by a knife scared him witless.

Her expressive eyes held his. “Everything should go fine.”

“Should? Not sure I like the sound of that.” He tried to swallow past the fist in his throat.

Again the smile. He liked her mouth. The cute little body, the shape of her eyes…that great mouth…. Hell, he liked everything he saw.

“You’ll be fine, Mr. Sumner.”

“Maybe I’ll take legal action. Those stairs should’ve been de-iced.” All right, he sounded like one of his dad’s scratched records, constantly playing the same line over again.

One dark brow curved. “Were you wearing snow boots?”

“I had proper footwear.”

The brow remained high. “Not from what I saw last night.”

When he was wearing his five hundred dollar pair of Gucci loafers. “Fine. You’ve made your point,” he grouched.

She patted his hand. “You wouldn’t be the first to misjudge our weather.”

“I grew up here.” Now why mention that?

This time both eyebrows sprang. “Oh?”

“Long time ago.”

“And no doubt well before my time.”

He grinned. “I’m not much older than you, Doc.” Going with the years in med school, he estimated she was in her early thirties.

“According to your chart you’re seven years older.” Her cheeks flushed and she looked away. “See you in the O.R.”

“Hold on—you’re twenty-nine? Are you a real doctor?”

Her nostrils flared. “I finished my residency last year.”

“Should I trust you with my knee?” The flip tone contained his thread of worry, he knew.

“You can trust me.”

“Where have I heard that before?”

“I’ll see you in surgery, Mr. Sumner.” She walked away, tidy in her blue scrubs—determination in her eyes.

J.D. swallowed. He’d offended her twice in less than twenty-four hours and he was going under the knife. Her knife.

And he’d forgotten to apologize.

Should I trust you with my knee? The words plagued Ella’s mind as she scrubbed in for his surgery.

Lord, she thought, if he only knew how close his question struck. Well, she wouldn’t think of it. She would not. Instead, she inhaled slowly and checked the equipment tray readied by the scrub nurse. Interning is behind you. You’re a doctor now. With excellent surgical talent. You know what to do.

Her counselor’s mantra, calming her pounding heart and the jitters edging into her fingers. One more deep breath….

They wheeled Sumner in and she saw he was calm and slightly drowsy from the sedative administered twenty minutes before.

Shelly, the circulating nurse, went through the preoperative checklist again, ensuring he was the correct patient via his armband, X-rays, consent forms, lab results. Next Brad, Ella’s anesthesiologist, explained his role to her patient.

The pain will be gone soon, she told him mentally. On the monitor, she scanned Sumner’s vitals.

“Good to go,” Brad informed her. Patient was out.

“Let’s get started then.”

An hour later, Ella pulled off her soiled surgical gloves and tossed them in the disposable bin. She had repaired his damaged cartilage. He’d been lucky—the kneecap hadn’t shifted, and while the soft tissue had bruised, it hadn’t sustained severe injury. However, the fall had wreaked havoc on his right meniscus—torn the cartilage from its mooring—and after studying the X-rays last night and the MRI this morning, Ella had known J.D.’s repair would entail the arthroscopic surgery she had just performed.

Now he was on his way to recovery. She’d check on him in fifteen minutes, but first she needed a drink of water. Surgeries with their intense lights and stress always dehydrated her. In the small doctor’s lounge down the hall she found her internist brother, Peter, sitting at one of the two small tables reading several pages of a letter, a coffee at his right hand.

“Hey, Peter.” Ella reached into the fridge for the liter of Evian she’d brought that morning from home.

He gave her a glance. “El.”

She sat across from him, stretched her legs, took a long pull on the water and jutted her chin at the pages. “What’s up?”

“More crap from the state medical board. They’re claiming we’re unethical in our methods, that we’re focusing too much on coddling—their word—patients and not enough on speed of recovery and effectiveness of treatment.” He gathered the pages into the big brown folder marked Dr. P. Wilder, Chief of Staff. The word confidential had been typed above his name.

“Should you be telling me this?” she asked, hoping he would say no. She had no time or interest in crazy allegations, especially when they alluded to a political agenda. Having already heard the rumors and innuendos, she simply tried to focus on her work.

Undoubtedly some of those rumors had evolved from the tug-of-war between Peter and his fiancée, Bethany Holloway—before they’d fallen in love. As a newcomer to Walnut River and the hospital board, Bethany had initially advocated Northeastern HealthCare’s takeover of Walnut River General. Until Peter convinced her NHC’s financial “support” would disintegrate the heart of the hospital.

Now, he shrugged his big shoulders. “You know the most of it already,” he said.

“I don’t want to,” Ella said honestly. “I was never any good at political science.”

He gave her a smile. “Aw, El. You were the brains of the family. We all knew that the minute you turned two and told Mom she’d made an extra cookie for Anna.”

Their sister who had estranged herself from the family almost ten years ago. Ella rubbed her forehead. “I wish…”

“What?”

“That Anna believed in our love.”

“She’s got to work it out herself, Ella.”

Momentarily they remained silent, the hospital’s sounds drifting through the open door: a medicine cart’s squeaky wheels in the hallway, the beep of someone’s pager, the jingle of a maintenance staffer’s keys. Sounds that had soothed Ella since she’d first toddled down the wide, polished corridors with her daddy, Dr. James Wilder.

Oh! Sometimes missing him would hit her so hard she had to catch her breath.

She thought of the man whose knee she’d repaired. Of course she’d recognized him last night. J. D. Sumner, executive of Northeastern HealthCare had arrived two days ago from New York City to woo the hospital board. A man with an agenda that, according to Peter, would uproot her father’s legacy and the principles of Walnut River General.

A man who had the greenest eyes—like moss on a forest tree….

Moss on a tree? Sheesh, Ella. Have you lost it?

Shoving the silly analogy aside, she said, “Sumner’s surgery went well, although he’ll be using crutches for a few days.” Her lips twitched. “I wouldn’t put it past him to show up in the boardroom with his butt hanging out of a hospital gown.”

Peter flashed a grin. “I’ll tell Beth. She’s doing some digging on who’s feeding the wolves.” He tapped the folder.

“Speaking of which, I need to check the one in my recovery.”

With a last gulp of water, she deposited the empty bottle into the recycle bin and headed down the hallway. She still couldn’t believe she’d given Sumner that tidbit about her age and experience. Thank goodness, she hadn’t blurted out anything else—such as I have confidence issues in the O.R. and am seeing a psychologist in Springfield.

God forbid.

Walking into recovery, she saw that consciousness wove through her patient’s mind, a sunbeam eliminating shadows.

“Hey, Doc,” he mumbled, those green eyes braving the light before drifting closed again.

Wolf or not, J. D. Sumner was a patient whose knee had been carved into by her scalpel. Her compassionate heart—the same one Peter had inherited—softened.

She laid a cool hand across Sumner’s forehead; found his pulse on the big freckled wrist resting on the blanket. Good—regular and strong. Skin a little warm but that was expected fresh out of the O.R.

Thank God. Another win.

Stop thinking like an intern! Focus on your patient.

She did. And saw he was a big man, long and lean and honed in all the muscled regions. She knew the human anatomy inside and out. Eleven years of school, orthopedic studies and her residency had garnered her that knowledge. Sumner was the epitome of health.

“The surgery was a success,” she told him quietly, her hand slipping upward to stroke back his hair.

He had wonderfully thick hair, McDreamy-shaggy and a dark auburn hue she’d sell a kidney for. Rich was all she could think. The color was rich as a forest of oaks in autumn.

Forests again. What was the matter with her? She wasn’t even an outdoor kind of gal.

“Feels good, Doc.” His words came less slurred; his eyes slowly zeroed on her. “Your fingers are nice and cool.”

God, what was she doing? She snatched back her hand, but not before his lips curved in a slight smile and a current landed in her abdomen. “The nurses will take you to your room in about fifteen minutes,” she told him. “You’ll need to wear the knee brace for a few days to keep the leg straight. I also want you to use crutches until you can put pressure on the leg without pain.”

He was having trouble keeping his eyes open. “Can I have some water? Mouth feels dry as Arizona.”

“The recovery nurse will give you a few sips.” For anyone else she would have complied. But there was something about J. D. Sumner that confused her, sent tingles up her arms wherever she touched him. The moment he’d come into the E.R., snow-covered and biting his lip, she had felt that electricity. Thankfully, during surgery her focus had been too intense.

“No, you,” he said. “I want you to—”

“Yolanda can—”

“Please.” He caught her hand in a shocked move. “You.”

“Mr. Sumner, I have other patients.”

“J.D. It’s…J.D.”

In his eyes she saw that same flicker of apprehension she’d noticed before the operation. For some reason NHC’s top man was afraid. But of what—hospitals in general? Was that why he hadn’t had his knee fixed years ago? Oh, yes, she’d noted the old damage, the ‘jumper’s knee.’ Why had he ignored the problem so long?

Again, her heart responded. While fear often accompanied patients and families into the hospital, Ella worked hard to ease their situations. J. D. Sumner was no different.

“All right,” she said and nodded to the nurse tucking a warming blanket around his feet. Within seconds, Yolanda handed Ella a plastic water bottle and straw.

Gently she slid her hand beneath his head—fingers automatically weaving through the density of his hair—and lifted him to the flexible straw. His lips were well-shaped, though dehydrated from the anesthetic. Dark whiskers covered his top lip and obstinate jaw, and flowed down his neck to his Adam’s apple.

As a kid he would’ve had freckles across his cheeks.

Sipping slowly, he watched her watch him and again she felt that prickle in her belly. Gold dusted his irises, but most surprising were his lashes: black and long, curvy as a seashell. To achieve what he grew naturally, she’d need extra-lash mascara.

“Thank you,” he said hoarsely.

She slipped her hand free of his head, set the bottle on the rolling tray. “You’re welcome. Yolanda will look after you now.”

“Will I see you again?”

“In about an hour. Meantime, try and sleep.” She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “You’ll be up before you know it.”

She turned to go.

“Doc? I’m sorry for last night. What I said. About the throbbing.”

“No offense taken. Sometimes pain will make people say strange things.” Which was true.

“You’re Peter Wilder’s sister.”

“I am.”

His dry lips worked up a semi-smile. “Much prettier to look at. But…this won’t stop me from moving NHC’s agenda forward.”

Of course it wouldn’t. “Mr. Sumner. I have larger issues to worry about than what’s up your sleeve.”

His gaze touched her bare arm. “Cute arm up your sleeve.”

“Later,” she said. But his look felt like a touch of his big hand.

“The pretty lady blushes.”

Shaking her head, she left recovery vexed he could knot her tongue with less than a handful of words. With just a look. Get ahold of yourself, Ella. You’re a doctor and he’s…he’s a patient!

And the most virile man she’d seen in years.

Lord, the mere length of his eyelashes had her heart in arrhythmia. Oh, yes. One look from him and her palms sweated as though she sat behind the hottest boy in ninth grade—instead of being the accomplished doctor she was and a woman of almost thirty.

And still a virgin, Ella. Let’s not forget that.

The thought of celebrating her next birthday in another maiden voyage had her shuddering.

Dammit. Four years ago she should have worked harder to coax Tyler out of his issues of impotency and away from thinking he wasn’t a “whole” man because he sat in a wheelchair. However, she’d been so busy interning she’d let them fall into a platonic relationship. Which in itself was a revelation. She hadn’t truly loved Tyler as a woman should. She’d loved him as a friend.

Perhaps, if they’d had sex… Who was she kidding? She’d chosen him as a safety net—one that kept her focused on her honors status rather than her status as a woman.

Still, had they had some form of sex she’d be more suave today, more adept around the J.D.’s of the world.

Pretty. His word swirled in her mind. She’d never considered herself pretty. Anna, her sister, was the pretty one. No, the beautiful one with the white-blond hair and lovely blue eyes.

If J. D. Sumner saw Anna, he wouldn’t look a second time at Ella with her plain brown eyes, the straight dark hair she hacked off the instant it closed in on the collar of her lab coat.

Be grateful for what you’ve got Ella.

And she was grateful. For many things. Her siblings. This hospital, founded on the ethics and standards of her late father. Her family’s resources to send her to university. Her intelligence.

So…why couldn’t she be grateful and pretty?

She gave herself an inner shake. She didn’t have time for this—this silly vanity. She’d taken the Hippocratic oath, for God’s sake. Nothing mattered but her skill. She had no time to think about J.D. and the experiences he had with beautiful women.

So she told herself…every spare second of her shift.

Chapter Two

At 8:00 p.m. that night she pulled her Yaris into her garage from the back alley and shut off the ignition. Bone-tired, she sat listening to the engine tick. The car had been her father’s last birthday gift, a month before his retirement—and untimely death.

She remembered the massive red ribbon on the hood, the gigantic card with Happy 29th, Ella! Love always, Dad on the driver’s seat.

Her eyes stung. Never again would she see her barrel-chested daddy, hear his kind voice, feel his big bear-paw hands stroke her hair or rub her shoulder affectionately.

That birthday had been the best. Sometime during the night, he’d driven the car into her garage and had her beatup Chevy removed. Then he’d rung her doorbell at five in the morning, an hour before her shift at the hospital. He’d stood there on her little porch with a cup of Starbucks in one hand and The Boston Globe in the other. And the biggest grin.

The early morning sun dappling his gray hair, he’d led her through her little backyard, with its grand old maples, to the garage, saying he needed a ride to the hospital because he’d cabbed it to her house to wish her a happy birthday.

And there sat the little blue Yaris.

Ah, Daddy. I hope you know I miss you like crazy.

Sighing, she hit the remote for the garage door before climbing from the car with a sack with homemade clam chowder from Prudy’s Menu, a deli she frequented when she worked overtime.

Tugging her wool-lined coat tight around her, she headed across the snowy, moonlit backyard for the rear door of her small Cape Cod house, the one her maternal grandmother had lived in for sixty-two years and bequeathed to Ella and Anna three years ago. From the start, Anna hadn’t wanted the house, but Ella vowed to buy out her half by setting up an account and depositing monthly increments in her sister’s name.

As she stepped inside her quaint country kitchen, a squeaky meow greeted her before a three-legged bundle of gray fur came around the corner. A year ago, Ella had found the wounded kitten on the side of a highway, and brought her home to heal.

“Hey, Miss Molly.” She cuddled the animal close. “Smell the soup, do you? Let’s find you some nice tuna instead.”

At nine, she turned out the kitchen lights and headed down the hall to take a bath. Oh, but she was tired.

Today had been a grueling one. Ice on the highways resulted in two traffic accidents, causing broken legs, a shattered shoulder and a fractured spine. Then there was the man shoveling snow off his roof who’d fallen to a cement patio, smashing both heels.

And of course, J. D. Sumner with his damaged knee.

She had popped into his room before leaving the hospital. Why she’d left him until last on her evening rounds, she couldn’t say. Normally, she checked each patient room-by-room, ward-by-ward.

But she’d gone to check the roof faller first before backtracking to room 239—one of only three private rooms in the hospital.

Nothing but the best for the executive of Northeastern HealthCare, she thought wryly.

Eyes on the small muted TV, cell phone attached to an ear, he’d been resting comfortably when she entered the room.

Finally, I get some attention, he’d grumbled after ending the call. His sensual lips quirked and between his lashes there lay a gleam. Heard you in the corridor, he’d gone on. Either you were afraid to come into my room or I’m your favorite patient and you saved the best till last.

At that, she laughed. She couldn’t help it. Despite his helplessness in that hospital bed, the man had an impossible ego. She explained that his room was near the exit—at which he’d chuckled and called her a fibber.

The banter continued for several moments before she examined his surgery, checked his blood pressure, pulse and temperature. And then he asked, Why are you doing the nurse’s job?

Why, indeed? she thought now, letting herself slide beneath the steamy water for a moment before rinsing out her hair.

How could she characterize her father’s legacy to a man geared to implementing the type of corporate practices armed to decimate the care of WRG? Practices that filed a patient under a number rather than a name, that sent patients home with little more than a fare-thee-well.

So the rumors went.

James Wilder was the reason she’d gone into medicine. His compassionate teachings were entrenched in Ella. She would not give them up. Not even if the hospital board decided to accept NHC’s takeover bid, should it come to that. Which she desperately hoped would never happen.

The water grew cool and she pulled herself lethargically out of the tub. Molly offered a squinty-eyed look from the mat by the sink.

Ella laughed. “Yeah, I know. Nothing riveting.” No, Anna was the family beauty queen. Elegant, lovely and gifted. Oh, Anna. I miss you.

With a sigh, Ella pulled the tub’s drain. Maybe one day they would be close again—as sisters should be.

The phone rang. The nightstand clock read nine twenty-eight and caller ID indicated the hospital. Although she wasn’t on call, she became immediately alert, and lifted the receiver. “Dr. Wilder.”

“It’s Lindsey, Doctor.”

The night nurse.

“Your patient, Mr. Sumner, is reacting to the Demerol, I believe. Heart’s pounding, sweats, woozy.”

She climbed from the bed, reached for her clothes. The symptoms definitely sounded like a reaction. “Temp and BP?”

“Fifty-two, and seventy over sixty. Feels as if he’s about to pass out.”

Damn. His admission form hadn’t signified any allergies. “Get two liters of saline into him, flush it out. Now. And get Doctor Roycroft in to check his stats.” Roycroft was on night call. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

She hung up, rushed into her jeans and a sweatshirt. She didn’t stop to think why she needed to race to his bedside. The nurses and on-call doctors were there.

They’re competent, Ella. You’re not dealing with an alcoholic nurse who wouldn’t acknowledge her own problems.

Still, she couldn’t take the chance. This time she was responsible, not a scrub nurse. She had prescribed the meds.

In her car, she shivered, although the vents blasted hot air. At the hospital, she half-jogged up the stairs to the second floor.

A male nurse inputting computer data sat behind the counter of the floor station. “Is Lindsey with Mr. Sumner?” she asked.

The man glanced up from the screen. “No, but the patient is okay, Doctor. We got him settled. Changed his nightshirt and the sheets. Sponged down his skin.”

Ella scanned Sumner’s chart. Heart and blood pressure back to normal. Saline doing its work. “Thank you. I’ll check on him while I’m here.” She headed down to the room.

A nightlight glowed from the opposite wall, casting a dim hue across the bed and J.D.’s form under the blankets. His leg had been propped on several pillows. He was still awake.

“Hey, Doc,” he said, voice deep and raspy. “You come all the way back just to see me?”

Sick as he’d been, she heard the grin in the tone, pictured his grass-green eyes in the dark.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, automatically checking the pulse along the arch of his elevated foot for circulation. Steady.

“Wasn’t feeling so hot a while ago.”

“You reacted to the Demerol. Were you aware about the symptoms before, by chance?”

“No. Never bother with meds unless it’s aspirin or some such. Don’t like taking prescription meds. Don’t need ’em.”

She wanted to ask about his jumper’s knee. He hadn’t gone without pain at some point in his life. But he was drowsy and he’d been through enough for one night. “You may need a medical alert bracelet for the Demerol.” Setting a palm against his forehead, she noted the coolness of his skin. He was okay.

“Get some rest, Mr. Sumner.”

“I wish…” His eyes drooped. “I wish you’d call me J.D.”

She ignored the request. J.D. was far too personal. It gave him an edge she wasn’t prepared to relinquish. “Sleep, sir. It’s best for your injury. Let the saline and the

medication do its job.”

“They gave me Tylenol 3.”

“It’ll help with the pain.” And the fever. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“What time?”

“Around seven.”

“I pressed the call button right away,” he said, as if reluctant to let her go. “Was surprised someone attended so fast.”

“That’s how our hospital works. No calls go unnoticed or unattended. Here, patient care is first and foremost.”

“Good.” His breathing slowed, his eyes drifted closed. “Wish you were on call. I hate…hospitals.”

“Well,” she said softly, “I hope you won’t hate ours too much.”

“’Ni’, Doc.”

“Goodnight.”

She left his room, returned to the nurses’ station and wrote her observations on his chart. Several minutes later she was heading home, hands gripping the steering wheel. Would she ever get past the horrifying repercussions of that surgery in Boston?

One day at a time, the counselor had told her.

God help her if something had gone wrong with J. D. Sumner.

He’s already scared. The thought popped up like a weed.

Oh, he had a cocky attitude, but an underlying current of apprehension rode his voice from the moment Mike O’Rourke, one of the hospital’s paramedics, brought him into the E.R. Which, she supposed, was understandable, but still…

In her mind she backtracked the past two days. His constant questions, the hint of anxiety. His need for her at his side. And it was more than simple attraction. He saw her as his lifeline. Why?

Why was J. D. Sumner, executive of one of the largest health care corporations, leery of hospitals?

Or was it just her hospital?

J.D. woke in a cold and drenching sweat.

The hospital gown stuck to his clammy skin and for a moment his brain didn’t register his surroundings. And then his eyes focused.

He lay in the hospital, a place he had not spent one night—never mind two—since his birth. The clock radio read 12:03 a.m. He’d been asleep less than two hours. His mouth tasted of dryer lint. He reached for the water, took a sip. The ice had long since melted.

Someone had placed the call button within reach, tying it to the guardrail near his hand. He pressed the red glow light of the tiny plastic knob—one, two, three. Shudders rolled through his body.

Within ten seconds, a soft tread came down the corridor. A woman entered his room.

“Doc?” J.D. rasped, eyes blurry.

“It’s Lindsey,” the woman said. “The night nurse. Are you okay, Mr. Sumner?”

“I’m soaked.” His teeth rattled. He tried to focus, but she stood etched in the dim glow from the hallway. “Need the doc,” he slurred.

At his bedside, the nurse ran gentle fingers down his arms, took his cold hands between her palms. “I’ll get you a clean gown and some extra blankets,” she said, then disappeared.

J.D. shivered. He hadn’t been this cold since he’d been a kid and had to shovel his dad’s truck out of a ditch one bitter winter night when the old man hit an icy patch and plowed into the snowdrift along the shoulder of the road. I’m frozen, he’d told his dad.

You’re not shoveling hard enough, Pops had retorted.

Another shudder rushed through J.D.’s body.

Lindsey returned with blankets in her arms, a fresh water bottle in her hand and the male nurse on her heels.

“We’ll get you comfy in no time, Mr. Sumner,” she said.

Gently, they assisted him from bed to a chair. And while Lindsey changed the linens, the man changed J.D.’s nightshirt. Minutes later he lay snug and dry under the covers. His knee throbbed like a son of a bitch.

While he sipped water, Lindsey took his pulse and inserted an ear thermometer. She had calm hands and a soothing voice. He’d always imagined hospitals as semi drug-induced prisons where the injured were at the mercy of emotionless medical staff who pretty much wanted you out of the way and not holding up the assembly line.

The type of hospitals NHC praised. For some reason, tonight the standard felt false.

Checking his stats, Lindsey asked, “How’s the knee?”

“Feels like it’s been run over by a truck.”

“We’ll give you some more Tylenol.”

His breathing eased. “Is the doc coming?”

“We’ve called her, but it’s just the Demerol working itself out of your system.”

After he’d taken the pills, the nurse tucked him in as if he were a child. “You’ll sleep now,” she said kindly.

He damn near expected her to kiss him goodnight on his forehead, but she stepped back and drew up the guardrail. “Good night,” she whispered.

He was too tired to respond. Already the pills were spreading their smooth serenity into his raw knee and his last thought was that he couldn’t remember anyone ever tucking him in at night.

Definitely not his old man.

The wind had died down by the time Ella drove through the cold dawn to the hospital the next morning. All night, between bouts of sleep, she’d worried about Sumner. Considering Lindsey would have notified her if something had gone awry, forfeiting sleep had been silly and foolish. Sheesh. If she thought of the thousands of lost nights during her studies and internship….

Pulling into her parking spot, she inhaled hard. If she hadn’t been so driven, so fevered over getting her medical degree, maybe there would have been someone after Tyler….

Oh, God. The last thing she needed was to remember Tyler. Dear Tyler with his brilliant medical mind. His broken body after his skiing accident in their first year of internship. Tyler whom she had loved, but hadn’t been in love with. Until he was gone, dead of acute pneumonia, and she cried and despaired and regretted.

More for him or for you, Ella?

The thought stopped her cold at the door of the change room.

Be honest. Tyler hadn’t wanted to live. He hadn’t been able to surrender his dreams of neurosurgery.

All right. The tears were more for me.

Her conscience shaken, she pushed into the room. As always, changing into her scrubs and lab coat made her a doctor once more. No time for regrets or moaning over lost chances.

She walked to the nurses’ station and collected her charts, scanning each of the seven patients requiring her attention. J.D., she noted, hadn’t slept well initially according to Lindsey: Cold sweats, shivers, dry mouth. 9:35—Changed Demerol to T3. 24:03, paged Dr. E.W.—Changed bedding/gown. Patient repeatedly asked for Dr. E.W.

That his temperature rose a half degree after a restless night was normal. His vitals overall were good. She reread repeatedly asked for, glanced down the hallway to 239 and her heartbeat quickened. He was okay. The remainder of the night had been uneventful. She wondered if he was awake, if he’d eaten breakfast, if he waited for her.

She began her rounds. Each patient received her personal attention, each received encouragement for healing. These were the ethics her father had taught that made WRG a hospital where patients could heal in comfort and ease. Patients are people. She could almost hear her father’s voice. They have faces and names. They are not medical terms.

She walked into J.D.’s room with her dad smiling over her shoulder. “How are we this morning, Mr. Sumner?”

He was sitting up in bed, knee raised by pillows, his hair falling endearingly over his forehead—and with a sex appeal that seared like a flame.

God, he was a striking man. All the studying, all those late, late nights when she’d propped her eyes open with toothpicks and drank coffee until her back teeth floated…none of it prepared her for this. For J. D. Sumner.

Her next breath snagged at the flash of his smile. “Hey, there, Doc. Can you get me out of here this morning?”

On the pretense of checking his chart, she walked to his side. “You had a bit of a tough night.”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“Mm-hm.” She pressed two fingers against his wide, warm wrist. Heart rate steady, strong and slower than yesterday. “Do you exercise regularly, Mr. Sumner?” she asked, examining his knee for discoloration and swelling.

It took her a moment to realize he hadn’t replied. Ella lifted her head. Eyes dark and deep as jungle pools stared back.

“Why won’t you call me by my first name?” he asked quietly.

“It’s better this way.” First names are too close and persona.

A chuckle. “Ah…got it. Better for you. Interesting.”

“Not interesting, professional.”

At that he laughed. “Now there’s a fun word coming from one of this hospital’s finest. In my world, professional comes with proficiency and competence.”

“And we’re not?” she asked mildly.

“Oh, you’re professional, don’t get me wrong. You just need to speed things up a little. Not do so much hand-holding.”

She ignored his critique. “Hold as still as possible, I want to change the bandages. Then later this morning we’ll get you up and around for a few minutes. And for your information, professionalism is at the top of our agenda, particularly when it comes to patient care.” She shot him a stern look. “Which your company doesn’t seem to understand, from what I hear.”

“My company understands you would do well to update equipment, move into the modern world. Why work with old tools, old standards, if new ones are at your fingertips?”

She tossed the bandages in the trash bin by his bed. “God forbid, I ever need medical care in an NHC-run hospital. I’d be a faceless, nameless entity.”

“You’d be cared for in the most resourceful, sophisticated way possible.”

Ella paused, her eyes locking on his. “Have you received any unsophisticated medical attention since you were admitted, J.D.?”

She realized her error the instant his name left her tongue and his grin bloomed big as a kid’s on the last day of school.

“Now, that sounds perfect,” he said, much too brash for her liking. “A little culture, a little smokiness, a little se—”

“Stop right there.”

“I was going to say—”

“Do not go there.”

“—sensitivity.” Another broad grin. “Ah. You thought I had something else on my mind.”

Despite his injury, the man was relentless. And he read her too well. “What you have on your mind is not my concern.”

“That a fact?”

“Absolutely. My interest in you, Mr. Sumner, falls into one category. You are my patient. Nothing else.”

He sighed with flair. “You break my heart, Ella.”

Oh, boy. She had to force herself to remember that he’d been in the board meeting the other night representing Northeastern HealthCare. He could possibly eradicate everything Walnut River General stood for. Which meant he could not, in any way, be trusted.

His flirtations were a guise, a smoke screen to obtain information to sink her hospital. The hospital her father had worked all his life to uphold with integrity and dedication—and above all—class-A skills and leadership. Shifting the subject, she placed her fingers on his knee and hiked her chin toward the S-shaped birthmark on the inside of his thigh. “Who gave you the birthmark?”

“Probably some ancient ancestor.”

“Do you have family in Walnut River?” She moved her fingers around his kneecap.

“Why?”

“I have another patient with the same birthmark.”

His leg jerked. “Take it easy,” he breathed.

Concerned, she touched the area where her fingers had been. “This hurt?”

“It’s sensitive.”

Leaning closer, she examined the region below the knee. “Hmm. It shouldn’t be. It’s too far from the incision.” Beyond the small line of stitches, his knee appeared normal in its healing. No signs of blood poisoning, thankfully.

Ella pressed the call button. “I’ll prescribe a topical cream.”

“Now?” J.D. asked, suddenly serious. His gaze searched his injury, his Adam’s apple bobbed.

For a moment Ella was tempted to reverse her call to the nurses’ desk and ease the nervousness his tone carried. “Everything’s fine, but a nurse will finish up here so I can continue my rounds.”

“Will you be back later?”

June Agger, a twenty-year veteran with the hospital, entered the room. “Dr. Wilder?”

“Could you finish dressing Mr. Sumner’s surgery for me, June? Thanks.” To J.D., she said, “I’ll be back when I do rounds tonight. We’re going to keep you an extra day to monitor your meds, make sure nothing else causes you fever and nausea. If you need me for anything concerning your knee, June will know where to find me. Meantime, Ashley, our physiotherapist, will begin some passive and very mild ambulatory exercises. Don’t overdo it, though.”

“Doc,” he called before she made it out the door. “The day can’t go fast enough.”

Until she returned to him.

She headed down the hallway, convinced danger was spelled J.D.

Except for the octogenarian dozing at the tiny desk near the door, the hospital library was empty at three in the afternoon.

Dressed in a blue terry robe and using the crutches the physiotherapist prescribed, J.D. quietly thumped his way across the hardwood floor. The library was elementary-sized. Ten inner shelves were stacked with fiction and two walls held reference, research and an assortment of current magazines.

Situated in the northwest corner of the hospital’s ground floor, the library had a cozy nook facing two corner windows where patients could enjoy the hospital gardens now under three feet of snow.

Gingerly, he sank into a cushiony chair. Beyond the glass, a variety of trees—elm, oak and maple, New England’s finest—were scattered across the gardens. He’d read about them in a brochure at the information desk four hours before he busted up his knee. Which at the moment throbbed like an insane drum behind the brace.

Too much damn walking, he thought. Hadn’t she told him not to overdo it? Mercy, but he wanted out of here. He wanted to get back to his job, back to New York. He wanted out of Walnut River.

Barely loud enough to be discerned, the PA system called “Dr. Ella Wilder, recovery three. Dr. Ella Wilder, recovery three.”

He pictured her hurrying to the patient, her pink Nikes quick and quiet on the tiled floor, a worry line between her fine dark brows. He imagined her slim hands on the patient’s forehead, taking his pulse, her voice—the one with smoke and sex rolled into its vowels—a balm to distressed nerves.

J.D. smiled. Oh, yeah. Sex. She’d read him well this morning. She, with the keen mind, perceptive eyes and beautiful face. Ella Wilder had a sensuality that shot a man’s testosterone sky-high.

Unfortunately, such women were out of his league. The type he attracted was brash and bold. Women who knew how to have a good time, if not for a long time. Women who knew how to let him take what he needed, what he wanted. Without frills. Without obligations and assurances and emotional morasses.

A deep disillusionment crept in. Out over the gardens a soft fall of snow had begun and he felt it burying what he’d always known. No matter how hard he scraped and clawed his way through the maze of life, the ghosts of his blue-collar past would forever haze his heels.

And a woman like Ella Wilder, with her culture and sophistication, with her background smacking of old money, heritage and long lines of tradition would see him as a mere speck on her chart.

Well, dammit, maybe it was time to make some alterations to that speck. And maybe, just maybe, it was time for him to be a different kind of man.

One the good doctor would appreciate.

Chapter Three

Whenever she could, Ella took lunch at home. The quiet of those sixty minutes helped her reenergize and refocus. Today was one of those days. She hadn’t been able to get J.D. out of her head. The man dominated her thoughts during every lapsed moment. When she took a ten-minute water break. When she changed her scrubs from one surgery to the next. Thank God, the second she began scrubbing in her mind zeroed on her task.

This afternoon she had a single surgery scheduled. Eighty-year-old Mrs. Shipmen needed the radial head on her right elbow repaired. Ella looked forward to the surgery. She did not look forward to its completion. The afternoon would leave too much room for thoughts of J. D. Sumner.

Molly greeted her at the back door, purring happily as she twined around Ella’s ankles.

She was standing at the window over the sink, eating the tomato and chicken salad sandwich she’d thrown together and musing about the snow she needed to clear from her walkway before dark, when her neighbor across the alley stepped out of his house and began sweeping his back stoop.

And suddenly it struck.

Jared Sumner. Best known for his gardening skills around Walnut River. Not only had he maintained the hospital’s gardens, last summer she’d hired him to care for and nurture her property.

Six months before, she’d observed him limping around his backyard with a cane, so she had gone across the alley to inquire about his health. The old man had shrugged off her questions—until unbearable pain drove him to see her.

Last October she replaced his left hip. And asked about the birthmark on his inner thigh.

The S-shaped birthmark she queried J.D. about this morning.

Who gave you the birthmark?

Probably some ancient ancestor.

And then he’d felt pain. In a spot that should not have been painful. Surely, it hadn’t been a ruse to sidetrack her?

Over the sink, she brushed the crumbs from her hands. “Wait here, Molly-girl. I’ll be right back.”

Ella shrugged into her coat, then headed out the back door. The cold air bit her lungs as she half-ran, half-strode, coat flying behind her, across the alley, through Mr. Sumner’s back gate and across his tiny yard, a yard that in summer was an Eden.

A yard J.D. had played in—if the man on the stoop with the bristly outdoors broom was whom she believed.

The old gent raised his head as she came up the walkway he had yet to clear. “Hello, Mr. Sumner,” she called.

“Doc.” He straightened to his full height, a height equaling J.D.’s. and, leaning on the broom’s handle, waited for her to halt below the stoop’s four narrow steps. “Ya done for the day?” he asked, his Boston accent thick as the snow in his yard.

“I go back in about twenty minutes.” She glanced at the broom. “Thought one of the high school kids was clearing your walks and steps.” If she sounded exasperated it was because she could well imagine the old guy flying off those steps, arms and legs windmilling.

Like J.D. had.

“Huh,” he grunted. “Damn kid doesn’t know what the hell he’s doin’ half the time. Leaves the snow piled so close to the walk, all it does is slide back down.”

She went up the stairs. “Give me that broom, please, and go on inside where I know you won’t fall on your keester.”

“Don’t you mean my ass?” he grumped, though a smile lay in his voice.

“Whatever.” She took the broom, and waved him toward the door. “I’ll see you shortly.”

“What for?”

“I have some questions to ask. Now, are you going to let me finish this or are you going to stand in the way?”

“Huh,” he said again. “I’ve a mind to lock you out. Don’t need a li’l mite like you naggin’ my head off.”

“I don’t nag. It’s called TLC. But you wouldn’t know what that means, would you?”

“Fresh-mouthed doctor, is what you are,” he griped, shutting the door in her face.

She swept the stoop and stairs, then grabbed the snow shovel parked against the house and tackled the walkway.

The door opened. “Do a good job—or I won’t let you do it again.” The door slammed shut.

Old coot, she thought, unable to resist the affectionate laugh that erupted. He’d been her neighbor since she moved into her grandmother’s house a week after she finished her residency last year. After her grandmother’s death three years before, renters had lived in the place—and neglected the property.

Mr. Sumner Senior had jumped at the chance to fix up her “pig sty,” as he termed it. His labor didn’t come cheap, but then a first-class groundskeeper was worth every penny she put in his pocket.

Finished with the walkway, she set the shovel in its spot and climbed the steps. She had all of five minutes.

After brushing the snow from the hem of her long woolen coat, she knocked once. As though he’d been waiting on the other side, he flung open the door.

“Thank you.” Ella strode in. The kitchen’s warmth stung her cold cheeks. She looked past the man to the interior and saw a small tidy room. He was as meticulous here as he was with the outdoors.

“I thought you had people to dice,” he grumped, gripping his carved wooden cane. “You’re takin’ up my afternoon.”

“And you’re welcome for the walkway.”

A grunt.

She shoved her cold hands into the deep pockets of her coat and studied him a moment. Except for his height and thick silver hair, he looked nothing like J.D. Could she be mistaken? Oh, she understood that by asking specific questions she’d be digging into a part of their lives that was not her business. She was both men’s doctor. Not their priest, psychologist or social worker.

But there was that birthmark.

And the last name—as well as the first—marking father to son.

She stared into the old man’s blue eyes. “I’ll make this short, Mr. Sumner. Do you have family?”

He was taken aback. “What the hell concern is that of yours? First you come here bitchin’ about my shovelin’, then you storm into my house and now you’re askin’ questions that got nothin’ to do with patient care.”

She wouldn’t back down. “Do you?”

“If you’re askin’ if I have kids the answer is no.”

“No children?”

“Ya deaf, Doc?”

The tension ran from her shoulders and settled in her gut. The old man was lying. “I have a patient in the hospital right now. His name is J. D. Sumner from New York City—”

“Don’t know nobody in New Yawk.” Cane in hand, he turned away and shuffled to the kitchen table, a small sixties chrome-and-Formica affair with two red vinyl chairs.

Had J.D. sat there once?

Hanging the cane over the back of a chair, the old gent lowered himself into the one facing the window that overlooked his backyard, and it startled Ella that her own kitchen table mirrored an identical arrangement.

He said, “Go back to your hospital, Doc. I’m gonna take a nap, if you don’t mind.” Staring out at his snowy world, he began massaging his hip.

She stepped forward. “Are you in pain?”

“Nothin’ I can’t handle.”

J.D.’s words.

“You’re due for another checkup next week. I’ll expect to see you in my office.”

He turned suspicious eyes on her; eyes that had her thinking of J.D. when he lay on the stretcher in Emerge and asked what she planned for his knee.

“If I need pills, I’ll call you.”

Stubborn old cuss. “You do that,” she said. She should leave well enough alone. But she couldn’t. Her heart could not stand by without trying. “And if you’re curious about my other patient…he’s mid-thirties, has dark auburn hair. And,” she said, pausing for effect, “brown eyes.”

No reaction. The old gent continued his vigilance on the yard.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll go now.” However, as she opened the door she heard him whisper a word. Had it been green? She slanted a look over her shoulder to be sure, but he sat in profile, his jaw pointing toward the winter landscape, his lashes unblinking.

Ella released a small sigh. “See you later, Mr. Sumner.”

He remained motionless.

Stepping outside, she softly shut the door, and smiled.

In profile, Jared Sumner was the image of his son.

J.D.’s skin was on fire one minute, the next like he’d been dunked in the North Atlantic, his teeth chattered so hard. What the hell was going on with his body? He’d done the exercises the therapist told him to do and he’d walked the corridor most of the day, resting whenever the pain got a little touchy.

He glanced at the plate the dinner staff had brought, the chicken congealing in the gravy. It smelled good ten minutes ago, before a wave of heat swept his body and a migraine set up camp in his brain.

Pulling the covers to his neck, he let his eyes drift shut. Maybe if he slept for a bit he’d be okay.

Another shudder shook his body. Dammit. What the hell was the matter with him? All he’d done was a little damage to his knee, for Christ’s sake. Nothing major.

Except his body had switched into betrayal mode.

A stickler for health—he watched what he ate, exercised daily, drank in moderation, had sex regularly—the fact he had no control over his anatomy’s behavior at the moment did not endear J.D. to the hospital. Had she made an error during surgery? The way that quack doctor had with his mom? Had Dr. Ella gone into the wrong area? Used an unsterilized scalpel? He’d read of such things.

Your imagination is running amuck, J.D. You know she did her job. The incision was neat and tidy. Hadn’t he viewed that thin, red line each time she redressed it?

Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough. Tomorrow he was leaving, whether she liked it or not. He couldn’t recall ever staying more than a couple of hours in a hospital. Now here he was again, heading toward his second day with his temperature a rising tide.

Maybe he should call a nurse.

Where was the call button?

God, he was cold….

“Dr. Ella Wilder, line one, Dr. Ella Wilder, line one.”

She punched her office intercom.

“It’s Lindsey from floor two, doctor.”

The night nurse began her shift at five o’clock. Ella glanced at the slim-banded watch on her wrist. Six-thirteen. She’d been at her desk almost an hour and a half. No wonder her shoulders ached.

Lindsey continued, “Mr. Sumner in 239 has a mild fever again. Fluctuates between chills and sweats. My guess is he worked the leg too much today, but he won’t admit it.”

“Swelling?”

“There’s some distension and redness. Temperature’s one hundred. He’s asking for you.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Put the leg on pillows and pack the area in ice. Also, increase the antibiotics by ten milligrams. Has he eaten?”

“Said he wasn’t hungry.”

“Let’s get the fever down. Then we’ll get some food into him. Thanks, Lindsey.”

“Anytime, Doctor. Um…” Pause. “He’s quite adamant about seeing you.”

Her heart kicked. “Did he say why?”

“No. He just seems a little agitated, like he’s nervous about being here.”

“Here, or hospitals in general?”

“He didn’t say.”

“All right, I’ll finish ASAP and come down.”

Ella ended the call. It wasn’t that often a patient of hers ran a fever that high. She’d bet he’d gone overboard with the exercising. Routinely, at noon and four o’clock, if she wasn’t in surgery, she checked with the nurses’ station to see how her patients fared. J.D., she knew, was determined to leave tonight after her rounds.

Well, J.D. It seems you’ll be with me another night.

The thought had no more entered her mind than she glanced around her office as though she’d spoken aloud. Lord, she needed to go home, soak in a hot bath and—

Oh, Ella. You can’t win with those double entendres. Grabbing another patient file, she set to work. Fifteen minutes later, she took the stairwell down to the second floor; stopped at the desk.

“Is he sleeping, Lindsey?” she asked the nurse.

“No, but he’s adamant about speaking with you.” A glint entered the woman’s eyes. “I think he has a crush on you.”

Ella sighed. “It’s the meds.”

“Maybe we should cut back, considering the number of questions he asks about you.” She winked.

One thing about hospitals, Ella realized early in her career, their gossip mills loved information about their medical personnel. Her brother Peter had been fighting off rumors since he and Bethany butted heads and then locked lips.

That gossip mill was why Ella chose a counselor who practiced in Springfield, twenty miles away. The last thing she needed was her past—those dreaded few days during her years of internship in Boston—sifting down WRG’s corridors. Not even her family knew of the deep-seated guilt Ella harbored due to that one incident, or of the nightmares that still galloped into her sleep. Yes, she understood the fault of the incident was not hers. That the scrub nurse with her in the O.R. had been an alcoholic, had neglected to sanitize one of the instruments. And, yes, the woman lost her job over the whole awful situation.

But a little boy nearly died as a result of that nurse’s disregard—a child under Ella’s care, and on whom she’d operated with an instrument she trusted and believed to be sterile.

And though she still fought to regain the confidence she’d once possessed as a doctor, it was returning, growing stronger day by day within the walls of her beloved Walnut River General.

Picking up J.D.’ s chart and ignoring Lindsey’s comments, Ella headed for 239.

His glassy green eyes fastened on her the instant she stepped around the door. “Finally,” he said.

Taking the ophthalmoscope from her pocket, she went to his side, turned his face toward her, checked his pupils. “You’re not my only patient, J.D.”

“You called me J.D. again.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“There’s a lot I want.”

She ignored his look as she reached for the blood-pressure cuff hooked on the wall above his head.

“And,” he added, voice indistinct with fever, “I usually get it.”

Ella pumped the cuff. “Not all of us are so lucky.”

A corner of his mouth worked. “We talking about the same thing, Doc?”

Oh, she understood precisely what he meant. What surprised her was his ability to tease while a fever warred inside his body. He was a determined man. “Well, there’s one thing you won’t get,” she said, releasing the cuff.

“You?”

“Since you’ve elevated your blood pressure and contracted a second fever, there will be no discharge until tomorrow.”

His mouth sobered. “You’re keeping me another night?”

Ella curled her hands around the guardrail and pulled it up. “How many times did you exercise today?”

“A few.”

“More than the physiotherapist’s recommendation?”

He looked askance; she noticed his chapped lips. “J.D.,” she said, offering the bottle of ice water to him, “do you know what it means to rest?”

“’Course. I do that at night.”

“Not just at night. During the day, too. After any surgery your body needs time to heal, to redefine itself, so to speak. There’s a lot going on inside you that requires your patience—and rest. In other words, I want you to empty your mind of work and whatever else is on your BlackBerry. While exercising prevents clots—” his eyes, she noticed, sharpened “—going beyond the recommended sessions has aggravated your injury. It’s not going to get you back to your office quicker. And while your fever isn’t off the charts, it is high enough to tell me your body has put up a red flag. So, until we get it down and stabilized for at least twenty-four hours, I can’t discharge you.”

During her speech, he sipped the water.

“Do you understand?” she asked.

He handed her the bottle. “I understand.”

“Good.” She set the water on the table and picked up the lip balm. “Keep your lips lubricated,” she said, handing him the tube.

Fevered as his eyes were, the lightheartedness returned.

“To keep them from bleeding,” she informed him, removing the ice packs. The swelling was there, more than she liked, but not as bad as she’d envisioned. By morning, he should be on the mend.

She assessed his circulation on the arch of his long narrow foot, and behind his anklebone where his skin was hairless and smooth and vulnerable.

“What’s the rate?” he asked when she was done.

“Eighty-eight—normal with a fever.”

“My resting pulse is fifty-four,” he lamented.

“It’ll be back once your temp decreases and you’re healing.” She gave him a smile. “You’re in excellent shape.” And he was. His calves were defined, his shoulders broad and solid. She’d noted the muscles in his forearms and biceps. No doubt another gym advocate. Juice monkey was Peter’s description.

“Are you a member of a gym?” she asked.

“Hate gyms. I run, hike and row in the summer, snowshoe in the winter.” He frowned at his leg. “I’d hoped to do some trails around here, maybe follow the river a few miles.”

“No other sport injuries?”

“Nope.” His eyes kept hers. “Maybe I should sue,” he added, smearing his lips with the balm she’d given him. “For lack of viable fitness and fresh air—never mind my more, um, basic needs—all of which I’ll sorely miss this month.” His brows jumped twice and Ella suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

“You are one predictable patient, Mr. Sumner.”

He hissed. “Doc, Doc. How’m I to rescue my self-esteem after that comment?”

“I’m sure your self-esteem will hold out. I’ll get Lindsey to change these ice packs in thirty minutes and then redress your leg.”

From a narrow cupboard in the corner of the room, she retrieved a fresh, plump pillow.

“Meanwhile, I’ll send up some soup so you’ll have something in your stomach for the night. Lift up on your elbows.” When he did, she removed the old pillow and tucked in the laundered one. “Better?” she asked when he’d resettled.

Something grazed his expression—like a butterfly’s fleeting touch to a flower—and it curled around her heart the way the pillow she held wrapped his body’s warmth around her hands. “I’ll see you in the morning, J.D.”

“Ella.” Her name was soft on his chapped lips. “Thank you.”

She touched the big hand resting on his chest. “You’re welcome.” Before she could draw away he gripped her fingers. “Can I see you?”

She pretended to misunderstand. “I need to finish my rounds.”

“I meant after. Once I’ve left the hospital.”

Carefully, she withdrew her hand from his clasp. “I seldom go to New York.”

“I’ll be staying in Walnut River for a couple weeks.” “Oh? So you do have family here?” Would he admit it now?

“Trying to get me offtrack, Doc? I’m asking if you’ll have dinner with me once I’m discharged.”

“Not offtrack. We just want to ensure—”

“Will you?” he asked, his throat so raspy she handed him the water bottle again.

“Let me think about it.”

“Better than no, I suppose.” He took a sip of liquid, eyed her. “I’ll call you tonight.” He flashed a smile. “You’re in the phone book. I checked.”

She shook her head. “I wonder how many other female nurses and doctors you’ve wooed.” For NHC.

He didn’t blink. “Not a one.”

She huffed a laugh. “And I’ll bet not for lack of trying.”

“Don’t have to try, Doc.”

“Ah. Women drop like flies at your feet, then?”

A wicked grin. “Something like that.”

“Good to know. Well, then.” She lifted her chin. “Don’t let me get in their way.”

His laughter followed her out the door.

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