could be irritable, unreasonable.
“What you need right now are antibiotics. If you don’t get them, you could get an infection and, trust me, that’s the last thing you want. If you do get one, we’re talking six weeks of IV therapy. If that doesn’t work, you could lose your leg. It gets bad enough and we can’t control it, you could lose your life.”
He didn’t seem nearly as impressed as he should have been with the consequences. “Scare tactics, Doctor?”
“I’d be happy to bring you a few case histories to back up my conclusion.”
“I’d rather have a copy of the Financial Times.”
“Fine. You can cooperate and be back on your feet in a few months, or do it your way and have it take longer. And by the way,” she added, in that same velvet-over-steel voice, “you might not be acting like a wounded bear if you’d take what I prescribe. The pain is only going to get worse. Especially when they get you up in a few minutes so you can move around. I guarantee you’re not going to want to stand up without it.”
Pulling a small, rubber-tipped reflex hammer from her pocket, she swallowed her irritation at the deliberate challenge in his eyes and moved to the end of the bed. “Can you feel this?” she asked, refusing to let him bait her any farther as she ran the instrument over the top of his foot.
The relief Chase felt at the faint tickling sensation was buried as promptly as the fear he’d denied when he’d first seen the metal pins protruding from the bandages on his leg. Aching everywhere, trying desperately not to think about it, he purposely waited until his doctor glanced toward him before he acknowledged her.
“I feel it,” he finally said, trying to decide if he was impressed with her aplomb or just plain annoyed by it.
He did know he was intrigued.
With her attention on her exam, his glance skimmed the feathered sweep of her hair. It was too short for his taste, barely enough for a man to gather in his hands. But the color was incredible. Shades of ruby and garnet gleamed like lines of fire in rich, dark cinnamon. And it looked amazingly soft. Almost as soft as the skin of her long, graceful neck and the delicate shell of her ear.
A pearl stud gleamed on her earlobe. Simple. Understated.
Her profile was as elegant as a cameo.
Alexandra Larson looked nothing like someone who would replace hips and knees and piece together broken bodies for a living. With her delicate features and doe-soft brown eyes, she looked more like some advertiser’s idea of a kindergarten teacher. Or a dancer. He’d always been under the impression that orthopedic surgery required a little muscle. If he had to guess, there wasn’t a whole lot beneath the narrow white coat covering her scrubs.
He had no problem with her not looking like his idea of a doctor. He had no problem with her being female. His problem was with needing a doctor in the first place—especially one who seemed to think she knew his body better than he did.
Shelving that little annoyance, he settled back, mentally whimpering as he carefully let his body relax against the mattress he was certain had been constructed of concrete. As sore as he was, the surface felt as hard as a slab and was just about as comfortable. He tried to overlook that, too.
What he couldn’t overlook was how he could so easily recall her from last night. He’d been too drugged to fully comprehend much of anything beyond the pain and the need to get to a phone. But, somehow, he could still remember the soothing tones of her surprisingly sultry voice and feeling strangely calm when she’d rested her hand on his shoulder.
That feeling completely eluded him now. As she continued her examination, his thoughts flashed to the accident that had landed him on her operating table. A couple of seconds one way or the other and he wouldn’t have been in the intersection when that idiot had blown the red light. If he’d called to confirm his appointment from the airport rather than heading straight for his meeting, it wouldn’t have happened. If he’d taken an earlier flight instead of eking every possible minute out of the afternoon, he would already have been at the hotel.
The accident hadn’t been his fault, but that didn’t stop him from being angry with himself for not preventing it. He knew he’d been preoccupied. He’d been thinking of the two men he was to meet in the hotel’s lounge, worrying about what he would think of them. Or, more importantly, what they would think of him. He had no idea how he’d be received and the uncertainty had him feeling more unsettled and uneasy than he’d felt in his entire life.
He was thinking he’d give up half of everything he owned just to get that meeting over with when he felt his doctor’s hand rest on his bare calf. Small and soft, its warmth penetrated his skin, mercifully drawing his attention from his thoughts and focusing it on the one part of his anatomy that hadn’t been throbbing until he caught her scent and felt her touch when she’d checked his shoulder.
He’d had no idea that surgical soap could smell so appealing. He didn’t know either what she wore with it that made it so seductive. Or, how she could lower his blood pressure even as she raised it.
“I understand you’re from Seattle. If you’ll give me the name of your personal physician, I can start arranging a transfer to a hospital there, if you’d like.”
“I’m not leaving Honeygrove until I’ve done what I came to do.”
She hesitated. “Fine,” she said, again, when he was pretty sure what she actually thought was “great.” “We’ll just keep you here, then.”
“I need a fax machine.”
Something like resignation washed over her delicate features. Or maybe it was annoyance. The way she schooled her features as she crossed her arms made it hard to tell for sure.
For some reason he couldn’t begin to identify, her forced calm annoyed the daylights out of him.
“I heard,” she informed him, all business. “Unfortunately, we’re not equipped to set up an office in a hospital room. If you need something sent, I’m sure Mrs. Driscoll would be happy to take care of it for you.”
“I’m not asking to use your personnel or your equipment.” Curbing the quick flash of exasperation, he closed his eyes, fighting for the calm she seemed to manage with such exasperating ease. “I’ve already explained that.”
“You haven’t explained it to me.”
She had a point. She also actually looked willing to listen, which was more than anyone else had done so far. “I’ll buy a machine if someone will just get me a phone book so I can have one delivered and set up. I have a meeting in Chicago on Tuesday and I’d planned to finish the contracts this weekend. The drafts are in my briefcase, which no one can seem to locate,” he pointed out, trying hard to hold back his frustration but pretty sure he wasn’t succeeding. “If I had them, I could work on them instead of lying here doing nothing. Since I don’t, I’ll have my attorney fax me a copy. I’d have my secretary do it, but she’s at her son’s wedding this weekend.
“I know I won’t be going to Chicago myself,” he countered, sharp claws of frustration gripping hard when she pointedly glanced at his leg. “My attorney will represent me. That’s what I pay him to do.”
His terseness caused the soft wing of her eyebrow to jerk up. Looking a little cooler than she had a moment ago, she picked up the chart she’d dropped on the end of his bed. “I’ll get you the number for the fax at the nurses’ station,” she said, sounding as if she were willing to be reasonable even if he wasn’t. “You can have them sent there.”
“That won’t work.” There were changes he needed to send to his attorney and his attorney would have to send the documents back once the changes were made. Aside from the fact that he’d prefer his business dealings to remain confidential, he had other projects he needed to stay on top of, and he knew as sure as stocks rose and fell that the hassle with the head nurse wouldn’t be worth the trouble. “Attila out there has already pointed out that the nurses aren’t secretaries—”