Is she Even Leo Gabney, the most insensitive man Nick had ever met, was unable to finish the question.
Eugenie Watson is one tough lady.
Nick glanced quickly at the doctor. Then shes
Going to be fine. Apparently the doctor was familiar with this fill-in-the-blanks form of conversation. She has a whopping headache and a few stitches to close up the laceration across her eyebrow, but theres no indication of more serious damage.
But what about
The blood? The doctor grinned. Very little of it was hers. Her attacker mustve been a mess when she was through with him. Ive discussed it with Detective Sturgeon and hell put area hospitals on the lookout.
Nick thought about the panty hose torn half off her body. He hated to ask. Was she
The doctor shook his green-capped head. No evidence of further sexual assault. Id say she changed his mind by fighting back. Both Nick and Gabney relaxed marginally. The doc continued, But we cant be sure exactly what happened. She doesnt remember anything about the attack, which isnt surprising if you consider what a horrible experience it must have been. The brain has its own way of protecting itself.
She doesnt remember anything? Nick spun toward the new voice, having not realized that Detectives Sturgeon and Peters had entered the room. Sturgeon was sucking one of the peppermints hed been working his way through ever since hed arrived at the lab on the heels of the paramedics. His sallow cheeks, moving in and out with each peppermint suck, made him as if he should be behind glass at the Boston Aquarium rather than at the helm of a major investigation. Is she conscious?
The doctor wasnt intimidated by Sturgeons scowl. She doesnt remember the attack, and shes conscious now but not in any shape to answer questions. Youll have to wait.
Then, just as Nick was coming to like the doctor, the guy said, You can make do with this gentleman. He found Miss Watson.
The cops turned with identical fishy looks and Peters flipped to a new page on his pad. And your name would be?
Nick sighed. Dr. Nicholas Wellington the Third, Ph.D.
Sturgeon raised an eyebrow. Any relation to the Nicholas Wellington that ran for president a few years ago?
Feeling that helpless mix of guilt and anger that always came with thoughts of the Senator, Nick nodded. Hes my father.
IM FINE. Genie batted at the nurses hands and shooed the blood-pressure cuff away. Im a doctor, I should know when Im okay to leave, dont you think? The nurse rolled her eyes and glanced at a nearby man in green scrubs as if to say Not frickin likely. The frazzled intern who grinned in reply didnt look a day over fourteen.
Genie winced at the unkind thought. She hadnt been much older than that when she interneda fact her colleagues never let her live down. She was the last person who should be complaining about her doctors age, particularly when he was agreeing with her.
Thats correct, youre perfectly fine. Now. He paused for emphasis. But you know as well as I do that after a concussion of such severity you should be monitored for at least the next twenty-four hours in case there is additional swelling of the brain.
She hated how he said the brain as if it belonged to someone else. It was her brain damn it, and it had no right to swell without her permission. Since she hadnt given it permission to get any bigger than it already was, she should be able to go home.
But the fourteen-year-old intern remained firm. He crossed his arms over his weedy chest and frowned. The only way Im going to release you is if theres somebody with medical training to observe you. Do you have any colleagues you could call? Any friends that could help you?
Genie opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. How pitiful it sounded to say, No. Theres no one. But it was true.
Sure, she had acquaintances. She chatted with the elderly Chinese lady who cleaned the lab each night and she knew the names of all the grandchildren in the pictures that lined Bens desk at the security kiosk. And she had colleagues that she nodded to in the halls and smiled at in the lunchroom.
But there was nobody to call and say, Ive got a concussion. Will you come stay with me so I can sleep?
Nobody.
Inexplicably, a low, intimate voice floated through Genies mind. She didnt clearly remember anything after hearing the rubba-thump of the darkroom door behind her when shed gone to develop the days films, but she did have a sketchy recollection of a comforting presence in the ambulance. She remembered a large, warm hand holding hers and a gentle voice saying she was going to be okay.
She assumed it had been a paramedic, and made a mental note to thank him for his excellent bedside mannerthough with the way her bruised brain was working, it could be a few weeks before that particular note surfaced.
The nurse and the young intern left in a swirl of white and green, and when the door swung the other way, it revealed the face of Genies least favorite administrator.
She tried to summon a convincing scowl, one that would soothe the worried look on his face. Jeez, Leo, dont I rate anyone better? Couldnt they have sent Hetta from personnel or Louie from accounts payable? Even one of Dixons goons. Anyone would be a better deathbed visit than you. Though she didnt like him much as an administrator, Leo was one of her favorite acquaintances and he smiled at her feeble snarl.
Nope, everyone else already had plans. Since neither you nor I have a life, we were unanimously chosen for the roles of visitor and visited. He tried to grin, but it faltered and his hand trembled as he wiped a handkerchief across his sweating head. Jesus, Genie. I I He couldnt finish, just shrugged, and she wondered if he had been the one to find her in the darkroom.
Shed seen the bloodstained lab coat before the police had taken it away, but when she tried to imagine the attack, her mind slid away and showed her other things instead. Fields. Butterflies. Flowers. The hazy shape of a man holding his hand out to her.
Since Genies greatest source of pride was her well-ordered, methodical mind, she did not like this open rebellion and planned to make her brain behave at the earliest possible moment. But to do that, she had to go home. Shed never get any peace at Boston General. There would be candy stripers trying to cheer her up until she wanted to throttle them, doctors shining lights in her eyes every five minutes to make sure she wasnt in a coma, and that big woman nurse with the mustache and the sponge baths
She had to get out of here.
Will you take me home, Leo? It was worth a try, but even before the words were out, he shook his head.
No. No. I dont think thats a good idea, Genie. Youre pretty banged up. He paused and she could read the words, Although it couldve been a whole lot worse, in his gaze. No. I think you should stay right here and let the doctors look after you while the police find whoever did this.
Genie didnt want to think about who had attacked her. Even the word police made nausea swirl higher and sweat bead. She didnt want to think about being attacked. Not here, not now. She needed to go home.
Needed to be alone so she could fall apart in private.
She frowned to keep the tears away, but the movement pulled at the stitches on her forehead and made her headache worse. Then go away. I dont want any visitors unless theyre going to take me home. She stopped Leo on his way out. Hey. Can you find the guy that rode with me in the ambulance? I want to thank him.
Genie didnt want to think about who had attacked her. Even the word police made nausea swirl higher and sweat bead. She didnt want to think about being attacked. Not here, not now. She needed to go home.
Needed to be alone so she could fall apart in private.
She frowned to keep the tears away, but the movement pulled at the stitches on her forehead and made her headache worse. Then go away. I dont want any visitors unless theyre going to take me home. She stopped Leo on his way out. Hey. Can you find the guy that rode with me in the ambulance? I want to thank him.
Leo looked surprised. You do? But I thought you didnt He trailed off, then shrugged. Okay, Ill go get him.
Hes here? Didnt paramedics hang out at fire-houses? Or in ambulances? She thought so, though her E.R. experience was limited to a quick three-week rotation and taped reruns of the popular television show.
Yeah, right outside. Hes been waiting around to make sure you were going to be okay. He was real worried about you.
Then send him in and go away, Leo. The administrator headed for the door and Genie called after him, And, Leo? Thanks for coming. Thanks for looking upset. Even though he was probably more concerned about lawsuits and PR nightmares, it was nice to think that someone cared.
When he was gone, the nausea subsided and was replaced with a warm, fuzzy feeling Genie thought might be due to the little pill Nurse Walrus had given her a few minutes earlier. Her mind drifted.
She needed, she thought irrelevantly, to get a life. If nothing else, thisincident had brought home the fact that shed let important things slide while shed pursued her medical degree, then her Ph.D., becoming the youngest Primary Investigator that Boston General had ever seen.
She made another mental note. Make a few friends. Go on a date. Her lips curved. A date? With whom? The pool of eligible men at Boston General was pretty shallow. She certainly wasnt dating George Dixon againbeen there, done that, got the restraining orderand most of the other researchers she knew were either ancient, married oras in the case of the handsome antichrist she shared lab space withegocentric jerks.
At the thought of her worthy opponent, something niggled at the back of Genies brain, but the rumble of Leos voice in the hall diverted her and she thought that her paramedic must be pretty inefficient if he waited for each of his patients to wake up. Or else hed picked up on the same weird vibrations shed felt run up her arm when hed been holding her hand in the ambulance.
She plucked at the overwashed sheet and wished she were wearing something other than a hospital johnny. Wished she had a comb and a mirror. Wished she hadnt run out of laundry and been forced to scrounge in the back of her underwear drawer. Her heart sank at the thought of her colleagues at Boston General seeing the zebra striped satin panties and matching bra her mother had optimistically sent from Paris.
Never mind what the paramedic thought, she could just imagine the talk in the doctors lounge. Hey, did you see what Watson was wearing when they brought her in? Whoo-whee. Hot stuff for such a cold fish.
Genie didnt want to be hot stuff. She didnt want to be a cold fish. She just wanted to be
The door opened. She glanced over to thank her paramedic and perhaps, since there was no time such as the present to work on her new resolve, ask him if she could buy him a drink. But instead her heart gave an unsteady thump and all that came out of her mouth was a startled, Beef!
The big blond man at the door stopped, looked intently at her, and a slow, sexy grin creased his face. He nodded and said in a disturbingly familiar drawlone that could even be called nice if she stretched itGenius.
And the battle lines were drawn. Again.
He knew she hated the nickname that had plagued her since shed skipped fourth and fifth grades, landing smack in junior high at the age of eight. He called her that to bug her, the same reason she called him Beef to his face when the other women did it behind his back.
Nicholas Beef Wellington the Third. He might think the nickname was a culinary reference, but the women knew better. They called him Beef as a tribute to his masculine physique, a testimony to his hunkiness and grade-A buns.
Except for Genie. She called him Beef because she knew it irked him and because he was everything she was notgorgeous, popular, wealthy and well-connected. And sexy. Had she mentioned sexy? He was also sloppy and easygoing, and for the past several months, Leo had forced her to share her precious lab space with him. Her equipment.
Practically her life.
Dr. Genius Watson and Dr. Beef Wellington. They were opposites. Thesis and antithesis. Matter and antimatter. Genie figured that over time theyd either cancel each other out or repel each other into different universes.
She was betting on the latter.
I was expecting somebody else, she said. A paramedic. Please, she thought, let it have been a paramedic.
Beef Wellington crossed the room in two ambling strides. His lab coat was unbuttoned and the weight of the ID badge, radiation monitor and pen collection in his left breast pocket pulled the coat askew to give her a quick glimpse of the tight, perfect chest and flat stomach beneath the worn T-shirt. There were rusty stains on his sleeves and on the faded jeans that showed through the gap in the white coat.
His dark blond hair had outgrown its midsummer buzz cut and drooped across his forehead and ears as though it couldnt bear to be away from his face with its wide Viking cheekbones and slashing blade of a nose.
He leaned close and Genie could smell him, a combination of warm soap, acrylamide gel and male musk. He practically oozed pheromones. Why do you need a paramedic? You sick or something?
He seemed to have conveniently forgotten that she was lying in a hospital bed with stitches and a concussion. From the way her heart was tap dancing in her chest, she wouldnt doubt a touch of arrhythmia, too.
She started to frown, then winced instead. Never mind. Why are you here? Wasnt it bad enough the administration inflicted Leo on me? They had to send you, too? Why? So you could gloat about having my equipment to yourself for the rest of the day? I think Im feeling sicker by the minute.
Leo said you wanted to see me. Wellingtons icy-blue eyes flashed as he said the name. Genie wondered fleetingly what the administrator had done to earn his ire this timebesides making him share lab space with a woman he couldnt stand, of course.
As her hope that she hadnt actually held Wellingtons hand started to crumble, Genie tried one last time. Nope. I wanted to see the guy who rode here in the ambulance, to thank him. Leo said he was waiting outside. Did you see him?
In the sickly hospital light she thought she saw the big man flinch. He nodded with a ghost of his usual grin. Yeah. Sorry to ruin your day, Genius, but that was me.
If she hadnt been afraid it would attract the attention of the big, mustachioed nurse, Genie wouldve groaned. Wellington? Beef Wellington had held her hand all the way to the hospital? And she had liked it? Had vibrations?
She muttered, I think I need another CAT scan, and pulled the covers up over her face.
His dry chuckle sounded in the room and her stomach gave a little flutter. Probably from the concussion. No you dont. Dr. Murphy says youll be fine with a little rest. Youre just embarrassed that you begged me to hold your hand and ride with you. His voice, mellow and warm, dropped a conspiratorial notch. I wont tell if you dont.