your love. Just let him hear your voice.” That was the one hope she’d held on to when her brothers had died, that they had heard her voice and had known she loved them. “He may not respond to you right now, but he will hear you. It will be your voice he recognizes and responds to. If anything is going to pull him out of this, it will be you.”
“Really?” Shocked, Amanda looked at her child, then back at Rebel, trying to determine the truth.
“I’ve worked with many patients who have awakened from comas, and that’s the thing they all had in common. They heard their families and knew there was someone with them.”
“Do you think he can…make it?” She pushed her hair out of her face.
“I don’t know, but for me to go on as a nurse I need to have some hope.” Rebel squeezed Amanda’s hands as she echoed Duncan’s sentiment and choked down her own emotion that wanted to swallow her whole. This moment was not about her own grief and loss but about the recovery of Amanda’s child. “It’s never easy, but don’t give up.”
“I don’t want to…but I’m not getting much support…” she glanced at her husband “.from anyone.”
“Men like to fix things and feel powerless when they can’t.” She thought about Duncan. He was definitely a fixer.
“You are observant.” Amanda offered a smile at that bit of wisdom.
She leaned over and spoke into Eric’s ear, then gave him a kiss on the forehead, careful not to bump any of his tubes. “Just remember, there is always hope.”
Eagerness and a little hope now showed on Amanda’s face.
“I will.” She stroked Eric’s forehead. “I’ll talk to him all the time now. Thank you.” Tears welled again in Amanda’s eyes. “Thank you. You’ve given me more hope than I’ve had since this all happened.”
Unable to bear the onslaught of emotions dredged to the surface by this situation, Rebel pushed them aside. She backed away before she lost control and turned to dash out the door.
And ran right into Duncan’s arms.
DUNCAN REACHED OUT just as Rebel crashed into him. The only way he would not bowl her over was to grab hold of her hips and bring her close against him. The papers in her hands flew into the air and seemed to drift in slow motion to the floor.
He pulled her against his hips with one arm and braced them against the doorframe with the other. Eyes wide in shock, she clutched his upper arms with both hands and caught her breath with a squeal.
With her trim frame and lower body weight, she would certainly have bounced off of him and landed on the floor had he not caught her. Now that he had caught her, he found himself in a very interesting position. Holding her was inappropriate, yet letting go of her seemed equally so. She was tiny beneath the figure-erasing scrubs. It was a crime against man to cover up such a beautiful body. He looked down at her and realized that if he’d wanted to kiss her, she was in the perfect position to do so.
He watched as she licked her lips and pressed them together. What an enticing mouth she had. Unfortunately, he had to release her before any opportunity to taste those lips occurred. As a man experienced in the ways of romantic coworker relationships, that was a treat best left unsavored. “Sorry about that. Are you okay?” Reluctantly, he released her. With some amusement he watched a vivid blush cruise up to her neck and into her cheeks. She was not as unaffected as she pretended to be. Interesting. Off limits, but very interesting.
“Yes, sorry about that.”
They retrieved her paperwork, and she shuffled it back in place. They left the room with a respectable two-foot distance between them. Duncan had had enough of losing the women in his life. His mother, a sister and his fiancée. The last one had about killed him, and he’d sworn off of emotional relationships for a while to rest his heart and soul. Rebel was the most interesting woman he’d run across in a long time and, still, he hesitated. That last relationship had burned him to the core, and he hadn’t really recovered from it. She’d been a colleague, too. He paused, thinking. Perhaps it was time he at least tested the waters again.
“It’s Duncan, please. And it was just a little accident of timing. No fault.”
She cleared her throat, focusing on the tile pattern on the floor. “So are you going to help me cheat on this scavenger hunt, or what?” She quickly diverted the conversation.
“No.” He snorted. As if. But he did like a challenge.
Her gaze flashed to him. “No? So how am I going to get through all of this without dying of hunger or thirst? We are in a desert, you know.”
He gave a quick laugh. He liked humor in his coworkers. Made shifts a lot more interesting. And it was safer than where his thoughts had been going. “Isn’t there a map on there?”
Now she snorted. “If you can call it that. The copier must have run out of toner at an inopportune time. I need a GPS to get through this hospital.”
“If you can navigate to the cafeteria I’ll buy you some lunch.” His stomach had been reminding him of his skimpy breakfast for some time now.
“You’re on.” She started toward the elevators, and he followed along behind, admiring the view. Puzzled, he frowned as he observed her gait and the way she moved her body.
“What do you do?” Now, more curious than ever, he began to ignore that finely tuned alarm system in his head. Pursuing her might be worth the pain.
She hit the elevator button. “Do about what?”
“For exercise. Working out.” He gave her a once-over glance and liked what he saw. “The way you walk and the way you carry yourself is different. I can usually pick out how a person stays fit by the way they move and their body shape. It’s a little game I play with myself. Swimmers look one way, runners look another way, cyclists another way, but you I can’t figure out.” The feel of her body beneath those scrubs had been firm, yet still very feminine. “You aren’t a body-builder either.” He frowned and tried not to ogle her in public. Administration wasn’t kidding about sexual harassment.
At that, a genuine grin covered her face. “Yoga.” She stood on one foot and clasped her hands together over her head with the paperwork flattened between her palms. “Like this.”
“Yoga?” He glanced over her again, dumbfounded. “Really? Just yoga? I thought you just sat in impossible situations and chanted to the universe for enlightenment.”
Rebel laughed. “That would be meditation. You should try yoga sometime. Strengthens the mind and spirit as well as the body.” She resumed her standing position without even a wobble. Show-off.
Duncan tried to mimic her pose and was able to get his hands over his head, but standing on one foot at the same time was not happening, and he almost crashed into the wall. Very uncool.
“I’m a more brute strength, linear kind of guy, like running, hiking, that sort of stuff. If I have to think about it too much, I won’t do it.” He laughed. “Just put me on a bike in a straight line, and I’m good.”
“So how do you get back, then, if you just go in a straight line?”
He laughed, liking her quick wit. “Eventually, I stop, turn around and go in another straight line until I’m back where I started.”
“You need to expand your horizons, Doctor.”
“I like skiing.”
“Skiing in the desert—really?” The bemused look on her face betrayed her skepticism at his statement.
“Yes. Ice hockey, too. You’d be surprised what kind of landscape the desert has to offer.