a curse. She knew she could have someone from the Bureau stationed here in her place, but she didn’t want to leave until she had a status report on the bomber’s condition. She wanted to know exactly what she was up against. There was no way she was going to lose this one, even for a blink of an eye.
Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that not even she could live on coffee alone. She tried to recall when her last meal had been. The day had taken on an endless quality.
Lydia jerked her head around as she heard the operating room doors being pushed open. The sound of her heels echoed down the corridor as she quickly returned to her point of origin.
The physician who had given her such a hard time emerged, untying his mask. He looked tired. That made two of them.
“Well?” she demanded with no preamble.
It didn’t surprise Lukas to find the blonde standing here like some kind of sentry. Gorgeous, the woman still bore a strong resemblance to a bull terrier, at least in her attitude. Their earlier exchange had convinced him that she wasn’t someone who would let go easily. Or probably at all, for that matter.
Lukas took his time in answering her, walking over to the row of seats in the waiting area and sinking down onto the closest one. The woman, he noted, remained standing.
“Well, is he alive?” she pressed.
Lukas pulled off his surgical cap and looked at her. “Yes. He’s lucky. The bullet was very close to his heart. Less than a sixteenth of an inch closer and he’d be on a slab in the morgue.”
Her mouth twisted. Whether the word lucky was appropriate or not was a matter of opinion. “Too bad the boy his bomb blew up wasn’t as lucky.”
Lukas didn’t feel like being drawn into a debate. Weary, he rose to tower over the woman. It gave him an advantage. He found he preferred it that way. “Look, I don’t want to know what he did. My job is to patch him up as best I can.”
Her eyes grew into small points of green fire. “How can you not care?” she asked heatedly. “How can you just divorce yourself from the fact that the man you just saved killed a teenage boy? That he might have killed more people had his timing been a little more fine-tuned.”
The woman was a firebrand. The kind his uncle always gravitated toward. Too bad Uncle Henry wasn’t here to appreciate this, Lukas thought.
“Because I’m a doctor, not a judge and jury.” The look in his eyes challenged her. He knew all about hasty judgments. “Are you sure you have the right man?”
She laughed shortly. The tip they had gotten had specifically named John Conroy as the mastermind of the new supremacy group whose goal was to “purify” the country. The explosives they’d found in his house erased any doubts that might have existed. What they hadn’t found, until it was too late, was the man himself.
“Oh, I’m sure.”
There was something in her voice that caught his attention. “That was your bullet I took out.”
“Yes.” And he was going to condemn her for it, she thought. She could see it coming. There was a time for compassion and a time for justice. This was the latter. Lydia raised her chin. “We chased him down into the rear loading dock behind the mall. I shot him because he was about to shoot my partner.”
The hour was late and he should be on his way. But something kept Lukas where he was a moment longer. “I didn’t ask you why you shot him. Figured that was part of your job.”
She didn’t like the way he said that. “You weren’t there.”
“No, I wasn’t. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a life to get back to. Or at least a bed.”
Finished, he brushed past her and accidentally came into contact with her shoulder. The woman bit back a moan, but he heard it. Lukas stopped and took a closer look at the bloodied area around her shoulder. When she’d first come in, he’d assumed that the blood belonged to the prisoner. Now he had his doubts.
“Take your jacket off.”
Startled by the blunt order, she stared at him. “What?”
“I thought that was pretty clear.” There was a no-nonsense tone to his voice. “Take your jacket off,” he repeated.
Even as a child, she had never liked being ordered to do anything. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck. “Why?”
The last thing he wanted right now was to go head-to-head with a stubborn woman. “Because I think that’s your blood, not his.”
Lydia turned her head toward her shoulder. Very gingerly, she felt the area around the stain. Flickers of fire raced up and down her arm. Now that he said it, she had a sinking feeling he was right.
Dropping her hand, she gave a dismissive shrug with her uninjured shoulder. “Maybe you’re right. I can take care of it.”
Lukas glanced over her head. The operating room was free now. The orderly had wheeled his patient into the recovery room. Administration had sent in a security guard to watch him. That should please Ms. Law and Order, he thought.
“So can I. Come with me.” It wasn’t a suggestion. He caught her hand and dragged her behind him.
She had no choice but to accompany him. “You have a real attitude problem, you know that?”
Lukas spared her a glance. “I was going to say the same thing about you.” He released her hand and gestured toward a gurney. “Sit there.”
Lydia looked around the empty room, panic materializing. “Where’s the prisoner?”
Opening a drawer in a side cabinet, he took out what he needed. “They took him to recovery.”
Lydia turned on her heel, about to leave by the rear door, the way she assumed Conroy had. “Then I have to—”
He caught her hand again. This woman took work, he thought.
“Stay right here and let me have a look at that shoulder before it becomes infected,” he instructed. “Relax, your prisoner’s not about to regain consciousness for at least an hour.”
She frowned, torn. Her shoulder was beginning to feel a great deal worse now than it had earlier. “You know that for a fact?”
The surgical pack in place, Lukas slipped on a pair of latex gloves. “Pretty much.”
Maybe she was overreacting, at that. “Is he still handcuffed to the railing?”
In reply, Lukas nodded toward the metal bracelets lying on the countertop. “They’re right there.” He saw her look and watched her face cloud over. Like a storm capturing the prairie. “I figured you might be needing these for someone else.”
She bit back a curse. Unconscious or not, she would have felt a great deal better if Conroy were still tethered to the railing on his bed. “This isn’t a game.”
“No one said it was.” He nodded at her apparel. “Now take your jacket off. I’m not going to tell you again.”
Tell, not ask. The man had a hell of a nerve. Setting her jaw, Lydia began to shrug out of the jacket, then abruptly stopped. The pain that flared through her left shoulder prevented any smooth motion. Acutely aware that the physician was watching her every move, she pulled her right arm out first, then slid the sleeve off the other arm. She tossed the jacket aside, then looked at her blouse. It was beyond saving.
She sighed. The Wedgwood blue blouse had been her favorite. “What a mess.”
“Bullets will do that.” Very carefully, he swabbed the area and then began to probe it. He saw her eyes water, but heard no sound. The woman was a great deal tougher than he’d assumed. He knew more than a couple who would have caused a greater fuss over a hangnail. “How is it you didn’t realize you were shot?”
She measured out every word, afraid she was