The Unexpected Hero Read online

  “I didn’t get any pepperoni,” he said, “because I wasn’t sure if you ate red meat.”

  “I do sometimes. I’ve never followed any special diet.”

  “Would you if you could?”

  After a moment, she shook her head. “I think not. I find that I get too busy to pay attention to things like that, and I’d probably get a protein deficiency.”

  At that he laughed. “I hear you. The worst thing about being a medical professional is that you know what’s good for you, but rarely have time to attend to it. And have you noticed how many of our staff go out to the courtyard to smoke?”

  “It was epidemic when I was in the navy.”

  “Ditto for the army. I smoked for a while when I was a medic, then quit in medical school.”

  “It’s the stress,” she said. “Sometimes we relieve it in unhealthy ways.”

  “And in war,” he added. “When you stop believing there’ll be a tomorrow, who’s going to worry about cancer?”

  “Too true.”

  He fell silent a moment, then said, “I want to apologize for my initial reaction this morning when you showed me the doll.”

  She hesitated, at once relieved and uncertain. “Thanks, but are you sure you know me well enough?”

  He gave her a charming, crooked smile. “I know, just two days. But yeah, I’ve been thinking about it all day. I’ve seen you in action, so I’m inclined to think that you genuinely care about your patients. So I’m sorry.”

  “No need,” she said frankly. “You reached the first logical conclusion. I was stunned at first, but I’ve had a chance to reflect, too, and I probably would have reached that same conclusion right off the bat.”

  “Are you always capable of so much objectivity?”

  “I doubt it.” She managed a smile. “But sometimes it pays to think things through once your limbic system has settled down.”

  Another laugh from him. “Only a medical person would have phrased it that way.”

  Her smile grew more natural. Maybe he wasn’t the kind of man she feared. It was just that her ex-boyfriend had been so controlling, yet so charming. The charm had kept her around entirely too long.

  “So, about your furniture crisis,” he said as he reached for a second slice of pizza. He flashed a smile that was both dark and disarmingly handsome.

  “Crisis?” The word surprised her, then made her grin.

  “Well, I suppose you could describe it some other way.”

  “It’s not a crisis,” she assured him. “I just spent too many years living out of a duffel, and then when I was in Denver I just never got around to decorating. I had a few things—a bed, a table, a second-hand sofa—but none of it was worth moving, that’s all.”

  “It’s a crisis,” he decided. “If I were you, I’d ask my mom and sister to help me solve it. They both seem like the types who’d be glad to take you shopping.”

  Something, maybe it was an urge to test him, made her say, “What? You’re not going to volunteer?”

  He held up a hand. “If you saw my place, you’d realize I’m in no position to help anyone decorate.”

  “Ahh. So why are you complaining about mine?”

  “I’m not complaining. It’s just that I don’t see how you can find it very relaxing. Every home needs at least one comfy chair, a good light to read by, and maybe a TV. Beyond that, I know nothing.”

  She laughed then, really laughed, and felt tons of tension seep away. “So your requirements are simple?”

  “Actually, yes,” he said. “The places we’ve been, the things we’ve seen…I don’t have to tell you how grateful it makes me just to have an easy chair and a decent light to read by.”

  “I hear you.” The darkness started nibbling again, but she pushed it back. “Do you have any family in the area?”

  “Not a soul. What family I have lives in Florida—my dad and two sisters and their families.”

  “Why did you come here, then?”

  “Because somebody I met in a USO told me about this wonderful place in Wyoming.” His eyes twinkled.

  Krissie felt herself smiling in response. “Who might that have been?”

  “Someone you know. Your brother, Seth Hardin, in fact.”

  “Oh, wow! Did he tell you his story?”

  David shook his head.

  “Oh, man. My dad didn’t even know about him until he showed up one day on the doorstep fifteen years ago. The details are Seth’s and my parents’, so I won’t go into them, but you could say that Seth was a blessed event, even if he was already twenty-seven. Well, he became a blessed event after my parents settled some differences.”

  “I won’t ask, but I’m dying to know. Seth’s been reactivated, hasn’t he?”

  “Yeah, unfortunately. It isn’t enough anymore to finish out your twenty.”

  “No, it’s not.” He sighed. “And here we go again. So all right already. Do you ever lie awake wondering if they’ll call you up again?”

  “Yeah.” Krissie looked down. “I felt so guilty for resigning, but—oh, hell, David, I couldn’t take it anymore!”

  “I know. I know.” He put down his pizza and reached across the table to cover her hand. “I know. I got the same way. I feel the same way.”

  Jumping up, she wrapped her arms around herself and started pacing the apartment. The pain inside her was nearly as big as the physical pain too many of her patients had been forced to endure. At times, she felt as if it would tear her apart. She could barely breathe, her chest was so tight, and a wire garrote seemed to have tightened around her throat. Oh, God!

  Moments later, strong arms wrapped around her from behind, and she felt him rest his chin on her shoulder.

  “I know,” he murmured, rocking her gently. “I know. You don’t have to be in a war zone to help people. Plenty of folks here need you too.”

  She turned within the circle of his arms, buried her face in his shoulder and started to cry. They were silent tears, but they wracked her body.

  He held her and rubbed her back and said nothing at all.

  Finally she hiccupped, “I didn’t know I’d feel so guilty.”

  “Guilty for what?” he asked, voice rough with emotion. “Guilty because you gave all you had? Guilty because you were gutted and had nothing left? That’s nothing to apologize for. Nothing.”

  She wished she believed it, but most of the time she feared that the gash in her heart would never heal. Or worse, that she might never be able to forgive herself.

  It was David who got the bright idea. He called her sister Wendy, and within ten minutes she and her husband, Billy Joe Yuma, arrived bearing an absolutely sinful container full of homemade chocolate chip cookies.

  “Oh, my God,” Wendy said as she stepped into the apartment. “Krissie, you’re kidding me.”

  “Kidding you about what?”

  “Where’s the furniture?”

  David spoke. “We discussed that earlier.”

  “I haven’t had time yet…”

  “There’s always time. You should have called me. We’ve got stuff we can spare until you find your own.”

  Krissie shook her head. “It’s okay. I’m on my two-day break, so I figured I’d go shopping for a few things tomorrow.”

  “You need more than a few things.”

  They all settled on the living room floor cross-legged, in a circle with cookies and milk.

  Billy Joe, or Yuma as he seemed to prefer to be called, was a war vet who’d flown medevac helicopters in Vietnam. He’d come home with some serious problems of his own, but had straightened himself out pretty well under Nate Tate’s wing and with a job flying the county medevac helicopters. Wendy, who’d developed a crush on Yuma at a very early age, had gone off to become a nurse, working trauma in a big-city hospital until she felt ready to come home and take on the man and his demons. He was considerably older, but marriage to her seemed to have taken years off his age.

  “Okay,” David said just as the lingerin
g evening began to dissolve into twilight, “we’ve got a couple of problems. Hence my distress call.”

  At that, both Wendy and Yuma perked up. “Hey,” Wendy said, “I thought you were dying for our company.”

  “We are,” David said. Krissie shot him a look but he ignored her. “First of all, we both could use some advice on dealing with demons. And then there’s this thing going on at the hospital.”

  Wendy scanned both their faces, then she said, “Sis, don’t you even have a lamp? I can barely see you.”

  Krissie went to her bedroom to retrieve her one light, a torchiere. She carried it into the living room, plugged it in and turned it on.

  “That’s better,” Wendy said. “Okay, I presume we’re talking about the demons of war.”

  “You got it,” David agreed as Krissie returned to the circle and sat.

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Yuma remarked. “Don’t drink, avoid drugs and live with it.”

  Wendy gave him a sour look. “That’s it? That’s your best?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “That and time. I have this theory.”

  “Let’s hear it,” David said.

  “When you’re all wrapped up in it, you don’t have time to assimilate what you’re going through. The hits just keep coming. But later, when you get away from it, that’s when you do your dealing. It’s different for everyone, of course, but you’ve got to deal with it, and for most of us it happens once we get home. I don’t think you can truncate the process.”

  “I don’t either,” Krissie said quietly.

  Wendy reached over and squeezed her hand. “We all have nightmares, Krissie. Maybe not to the degree the three of you do, but I’ve seen enough in emergency rooms and as a flight nurse to haunt me.”

  “I know you have.”

  “Sometimes,” Yuma said, “it just takes you over. You have to let it roll. But you’ve also got to find a way to stop it when it gets to be too much. Some way to bring yourself back. Because the simple truth is that while you do have to deal with it psychologically, you can’t let it take you over or you’ll never be any earthly use again. My advice is to talk about it. I’m always available.”

  “Me, too,” Wendy said. “And there’s always a psychiatrist. But I don’t have to tell you two that, you’re medical professionals. You both know that these days they have some pretty good medications if it gets too hard to handle. Stuff that can help you get through it.”

  “I can handle it,” Krissie said. “I’ve been handling it for a while.”

  “Me, too,” David agreed. “We’re just having a tough night tonight.”

  Yuma nodded. “They happen. So talk.”

  “Actually,” David said, “for my part I think what happened today is kind of triggering it. Krissie?”

  “Yeah, maybe. I guess. But I was having trouble before. That’s why I take the night shifts.”

  Wendy nodded. “Go on.”

  “It’s just easier to wake up from a nightmare to sunlight.”

  Yuma spoke. “Boy, do I understand that!”

  “Me, too,” Wendy said. “I understand. But the two of you strike me as functioning pretty well. So, however you’re dealing, you’re doing it.”

  “By working myself to death,” David said. “But that’s okay. One step at a time.”

  “The only way to go,” Yuma agreed. “I got pretty well trashed for a few years, but you know that, Krissie. At least you’re not doing that.”

  “Work seems like a better option.”

  Yuma smiled at her. “Trust me, it is. But what happened at the hospital?”

  “We lost a couple of patients,” Krissie answered. “But I don’t know if we’re allowed to discuss it.”

  David shrugged. “We weren’t told to keep quiet.”

  Wendy leaned forward. “If there are two people in this county who won’t gossip, it’s the two of us. So what happened?”

  David sketched it for them in quick broad strokes, including the fact that he’d called Gage. Wendy’s eyes narrowed as she listened, and Yuma leaned in intently.

  “Not good,” he said.

  “No,” Wendy agreed. “It does sound suspicious. But why in the world would anyone do such a thing?”

  “Why in the world,” Yuma asked drily, “do people do such things all the time?”

  Wendy looked at Krissie. “He can be a cynic sometimes.”

  “I wonder why?” Yuma asked the ceiling.

  In spite of herself, Krissie giggled. “You two can be so funny.” She looked at David and discovered he was smiling, too.

  “But seriously,” Wendy said, “it does sound suspicious. Without the dolls, I could just blow it off. Things happen, even under the best medical care. But the dolls are something else.”

  “That’s what upset me,” Krissie said. “I mean, yes, I was upset about losing the patient, but when I saw that doll everything went to a whole new level.”

  “Was the second patient in the same room as the first?”

  Krissie shook her head. “So the doll had to have migrated somehow. Or it’s a different doll. I don’t know which one troubles me more.”

  “Either way is troublesome enough,” Wendy agreed. “But if Gage is looking into it, maybe you should let go of it for now.”

  “Except for one thing,” David said firmly. “I don’t want her to be alone at the hospital. At all.”

  At that, Wendy stiffened. “Are you accusing her?”

  “No, but the fact that this started her very first night puts her in the crosshairs any way you look at it. I’m just recommending an ounce of prevention.”

  “An alibi,” Yuma corrected. “And I agree with you, David. If it turns out these deaths aren’t natural, and if there’s another one…” He turned his gaze on Krissie. “You don’t want to be alone.”

  “But I can’t always have someone at my elbow! Sometimes I actually take a break. You know, eat? Nap? It’s a long shift.”

  “Then I’ll cover you,” David said firmly. “When you can’t have your other nurses nearby, let me know.”

  “Oh, this is ridiculous,” Krissie said. “It’ll disrupt the whole wing. You’re acting like this is directed at me, but I’m not the one who died. I wasn’t even threatened.”

  David sighed, as if he didn’t know how to argue. Surprisingly, that reassured Krissie—who’d been once again wondering if this guy wanted to control her every movement, even to making sure she was sleeping when she said she was sleeping—and her remembered frustrations and fears subsided a bit.

  Just then, both Yuma’s and Wendy’s pagers sounded.

  “Gotta go,” Yuma said, as he scanned his pager.

  “Me, too. Tomorrow, we go shopping,” Wendy added, as she and Yuma headed for the door in a hurry.

  “Do I need to go to the E.R?” David asked, checking his own pager even as he spoke. It wasn’t sounding.

  “We’ll let you know,” Wendy promised. She blew a kiss to Krissie, and they were gone.

  Krissie stared at the nearly empty milk glasses and the carton of cookies on the floor in front of them. She didn’t like this, she realized. There was absolutely no reason to think that anyone should be out to get her. So why was everyone acting as if someone was?

  “I just got back in town a week ago,” she said. “There’s no reason anyone should want to get me into trouble.”

  “I’m not sure anyone does, Krissie. Hell, I’m not sure anyone has been hurt at all yet. It’s just the configuration of the problem that’s worrying me.”

  She looked at him. “The configuration?”

  He gave an awkward smile. “I’m weird. I tend to see problems like vectors in a physics equation. What forces are pushing in what direction.”

  “Oh.” She blinked.

  “So I see a configuration here, a group of forces at work, and it’s like they’re all trying to point to you. If the deaths were suspicious. And in that case, you need to have some protection.”

  “I can’t believe some
one’s trying to set me up.”

  “I don’t want to believe it. But I keep seeing those vectors. And with the way things are configured now, if those two deaths weren’t accidental, everyone’s going to be looking at you first. And if someone’s trying to set you up, there’s going to be another death. And it’s going to happen when you’re alone.”

  “God!” She closed her eyes. “I have never in my life wanted so much for someone to be wrong.”

  “I feel the same way.” He scooted closer and took her hand. “Try to think of it this way. If someone is out to frame you, and you’re never alone, no one else will die.”

  She closed her eyes a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Okay, I can deal with it from that perspective.”

  She looked at him, and in an instant every other thought fled. He was so close, and he looked so good, and smelled so good, like soap and man. She had almost believed that she would never feel this yearning again, this yearning to be close to a man, to be held, to be touched.

  Yet, as if someone had flipped a switch, her entire body wanted to lean toward David Marcus, to feel once again his arms around her, to find out whether his lips were soft or hard, to learn what the scratch of his cheek felt like against the softness of hers. To know whether the yearning she felt now could erupt into the maelstrom of passion.

  His face seemed to move closer. Her breathing stopped, and her heart skipped a couple beats in anticipation. Some little voice in her head tried to get her attention, to remind her she was coming off a bad relationship and was anything but emotionally secure right now. But she didn’t listen to that little voice because…

  Because she needed to know. Now.

  He didn’t reach for her, but he bent closer, and finally, their lips touched. A brief, light touch that sent electric shocks running through her to her very center, filling her with heat and heaviness.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, and kissed her lightly again.

  More sizzles, more sparkles ran through her. Had she ever felt this way before? Not quite. Not quite like this or so quickly.

  Danger. She didn’t know him yet. Not well enough.

  But before she could jerk back, he pulled away, placing space between them.