“Sorry!” the man said breathlessly.
Jill blinked up at him and could see the light had changed. Thank the Lord he was now hurrying across the street, putting distance between her dogs and his. Gingerly, she rose to a sitting position and frowned down at her already swelling wrist.
A woman leaned over her, grabbed the dogs’ leashes and finished untangling them from the pole and each other. “You okay?”
“Maybe not.”
Shaking now, Jill struggled to get her bag unzipped to fish for her phone. Then she realized she had no one who could come and get the dogs while she went to an ER or to urgent care. Not her OT friends, who never answered their personal phones when they were working. Not her parents, who still lived in her home state of Pennsylvania, nor her sister, who lived in New Jersey and was out of town for work.
And not Conor. Not anymore.
“I need to get home.”
“I’ll help you with your dogs. You live very far?”
“No. Just a couple blocks. Thank you... I... Thanks so much. I’ve hurt my wrist and the dogs might be hard to handle on my own.”
“Happy to help. Come!” The woman gave a quick tug on the dogs’ leashes and they both dutifully came to stand quietly next to her.
“You’re obviously an experienced dog-handler,” Jill said, trying to smile. “And at this moment my guardian angel, I think.”
“Ways to be a guardian angel don’t come by too often, so you’re making my day. Except that you’re hurt, which I’m sure sorry has happened,” she said. “I’m Barbara Smith. You need help getting up?”
“No, I... I’m okay.”
Using her good hand to awkwardly push herself to her feet, Jill knew she was definitely not okay, and prayed it was a simple break. Nothing that would require surgery or weeks of the kind of therapy she helped her own patients with.
But, looking at the odd angle of her wrist, and the fact that it was already discoloring, she had a bad feeling she wouldn’t be that lucky.
“Then show me where you live, dear, so you can get that wrist looked at.”
“It’s just a couple blocks north. I’m Jillian Keyser, by the way.”
“I’d say it’s nice to meet you—but the circumstances aren’t very nice, are they?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
Pain still radiating up her arm, she held it protectively against her stomach as they walked the few blocks to her apartment building. She didn’t feel much like talking, which worked out fine because Barbara kept up a cheerful monologue about dogs and the city and the parks she often took her own animals to.
Beyond glad to finally get her pets inside the door, Jill turned to her guardian angel in the flesh. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help. Truly. I... I’m not sure what I’d have done if you hadn’t been there when it happened.”
“No thanks necessary. I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time.”
“Thank you again.”
The door clicked closed. Jill drew several steadying breaths before she struggled one-handedly to get the dogs fresh water, then debated what to do next.
The surgery center she’d worked at before her divorce had some of the best hand and wrist surgeons in New York City. One of them being her ex-husband. She’d been at her job at OTC for ten months, which had given her some idea about the other surgeons out there, but the truth was she felt more comfortable reaching out to someone she knew well. Someone she knew would fit her in right away for an X-ray, and who wouldn’t blab about it to Conor McCarthy if Jill asked her not to.
She grabbed her cell phone, drew another deep breath, then dialed HOAC. The awkwardness of doing it made her think about how hard it was going to be to function with only one usable hand. Her years of working as an occupational therapist had told her a lot about how handicapping it was, but she had a feeling that having her own struggles would be eye-opening.
“Hi, this is Jillian Keyser. I used to be a OT there. Hey, Katy! Yeah, long time no see. Um...can I speak with Dr. Beth Crenshaw? Believe it or not, I’m pretty sure I’ve broken my wrist.”
“Looks like a fairly light surgery schedule today,” Conor McCarthy said to the two other orthopedic surgeons in the men’s locker room as they changed into scrubs.
“Yeah. Glad the snow and ice season is coming. It’s good for business,” Bill Radcliff joked.
Conor couldn’t help but chuckle, knowing Bill was kidding. “Don’t let your patients hear that, or it’ll be all over social media how you like to see people slip and fall so you can fix them up.”
“It’s an unfortunate reality that our jobs entail being there for people after they hurt themselves, and my patients love me for it.” Bill grinned. “Always confounded, though, by the folks who decide to take up running in the winter, instead of getting into the groove while the weather’s nice. Wouldn’t you love to know what percentage end up falling and breaking something?”
“Yeah...”
The mention of runners made Conor think of Jillian, which sent all amusement from his chest, leaving it feeling hollow. A vision of her slender body in running tights or shorts that showed her shapely legs immediately came into his mind, along with her beautiful smile and the cute messy bun she always wore her hair in when she ran.
He’d loved seeing that bun bounce as she ran out the door almost every day, probably trying to make up for not being able to run for so many years. She’d told him that after the leg-length discrepancy she’d been born with had been surgically repaired in her teens, running had been the first thing she’d wanted to do. He’d always admired the hell out of her for her determination to overcome what some would have thought a handicap.
The ache in his chest almost physically hurt, and he dropped his hand when he realized he’d been unconsciously rubbing it over his sternum, as though he could somehow soothe his stupid broken heart. He’d have expected that after nearly a year apart he wouldn’t be reminded of her by the least thing, but obviously he was nowhere near getting over Jillian Keyser.
“You close to finalizing that deal with Urgent Care Manhattan to partner with us? That would be huge, if they could move in next door now that the space is vacant,” Bill said. “We’re all counting on you making it happen.”
“I have a meeting with them today, as a matter of fact. Hoping to close on it soon—before our competition woos them with an offer they think they can’t refuse.”
“I know you have a lot on your plate, but you’re still planning to be chairman once the companies merge, right? With you there, making sure they’re both managed the way they should be, I’ve got my check already written as an investor.”
“Believe me, I’m going to make it happen and I’ll have them running as smooth as a Wall Street banker. So get your checkbook ready.”
Conor took a last swig of coffee and headed toward the OR to find his surgery schedule. Studying the paper in his hand, he walked past several patients being prepped for surgery in cubicles only partly curtained off—and then the sound of a woman speaking caught his ears and he stopped dead.
He turned to see the owner of the melodic voice and felt his heart drop into his stomach. Her body was wrapped in a hospital gown, her usual sweet smile was on her face, and her hair tumbled across her cheek as she exchanged comments with the prep nurse and an anesthesiologist.
“Jillian? What the...?”
She looked up and his eyes met the gorgeous ones he’d missed