Racing Against the Clock Read online

  “No.”

  “I want to check your neurological signs.”

  “All right.”

  At least she hadn’t fought him on this. He removed a penlight from his pocket and flashed it in first one pupil and then the other. Equal and reactive.

  “Do you know what day it is?” he asked, testing to see if she was oriented to time and place.

  “Thursday. November, the seventh,” she replied.

  He nodded. “And where are you at?”

  “St. Madeline’s Hospital in Houston, Texas.”

  “Here,” he said. “Squeeze my hands.”

  She stared at him. “What for?”

  “So I can check your grip.”

  “Is this really necessary?”

  “I don’t bite.”

  She sighed and rolled her eyes.

  Why was she so reluctant to touch him? He wriggled his fingers. “Come on.”

  Slowly, she took his fingers in her hands and squeezed.

  “Harder,” he said.

  Her hands were soft and warm and fit perfectly in his. Delicate and feminine hands. She smelled nice, too. Like sunflowers.

  “How’s that?” she asked, squeezing with all her might.

  “Good.” He met her challenging glare and swallowed back his awkwardness.

  “Sure you don’t want it harder?” Her voice held a note of sharp sarcasm. Her stare was disconcertingly intense. His gut knotted.

  “That’s fine. You can let go now.”

  She released his hands and although Tyler was relieved, he felt vaguely dissatisfied.

  “Lie down,” he said. “I want to examine your abdomen again.”

  “May I leave after this?”

  “Perhaps.” Boy, was she a tough cookie. He had to admire her doggedness.

  Sighing, she stretched out on the gurney, crossed her legs at the ankle and propped the back of her head in her palms.

  He moved to her side and palpated her spleen. “Is that tender?”

  “No.”

  “You wouldn’t be lying simply to get out of here, would you?” he asked.

  “I’m not above fudging the truth in order to get dismissed,” she admitted and Tyler suppressed a smile at her honesty. “But I’m sincere. It really doesn’t hurt.”

  When he had examined her previously she’d had marked guarding of the area and had moaned in pain. Now, she seemed unaffected by his probing. Weird. Her spleen must have stopped bleeding spontaneously. He’d never seen it happen, but he’d heard it was possible. He took her blood pressure—116/78. Textbook normal.

  “I really think you should be admitted for observation,” Tyler said. “We don’t know for sure that your spleen isn’t still leaking. What happens if you get down the road a few hours and start hemorrhaging internally?”

  “Guess that’s a chance I’ve got to take.” She shrugged.

  Concern kicked him hard in the heart. If she wanted to take that risk, why should he care?

  He didn’t care.

  Yes, you do.

  No, I don’t.

  Come on, you’ve got to stop being such a crusty old goat eventually. The contrary voice in his head was pure Yvette, goading him to rise to the occasion. She’d always kept him on his moral toes and since she’d been gone he’d slid far down the slippery slope to indifference.

  I don’t, he mentally argued.

  Yes, you do. Because once upon a time you were self-destructive and your friends stepped in. Right now this woman needs all the friends she can get. Whether she recognizes it or not.

  Okay. Fine. He would try to cajole her into staying. That way, if she refused, he could let her go with a clear conscience.

  “Why are you so adamant against spending the night?” Tyler asked. “What could it hurt?”

  “I have an aversion to hospitals.” She rubbed her arms and he saw goose bumps rise on her skin. That’s when he realized her chemical burns were gone.

  He shook his head, blinked and did a double take. He examined her arms and legs. Not a burn insight.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Your burns have disappeared.” Now that really was strange. He frowned, shoved a hand through his hair and wracked his brain for a plausible explanation. A mistake on the X ray he could buy. Her spleen clotting itself off, while unlikely, wasn’t impossible. But now this?

  Tyler felt as if he’d just fallen into The Twilight Zone.

  What kind of chemicals had been in those vials? Curiosity gnawed at him. She was a complicated woman with disappearing symptoms. He told himself he needed for her to stay so he could get to the bottom of her odd healing, but in reality he wanted to find out who she really was.

  Gently, Tyler drew the sheet around her shoulders to warm her. She shied at his touch as if afraid he might harm her. Her lip trembled and she turned her head away from him.

  “Please, bring me a release form and I’ll exonerate you from all responsibility,” she said. “I just want to leave.”

  “You think a piece of paper will keep me from worrying about you?” Tyler asked, disturbed because what he’d said was true. No matter how much a stubborn part of him longed to deny it, he cared about Jane Doe.

  And that scared the living hell out of him.

  “If you’re insistent on leaving can I at least call someone for you?” he asked.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I…I don’t remember.”

  He saw through her like glass. Whenever she lied, the tip of her nose reddened.

  “How do you intend to get home? Your car was totaled in the accident.”

  “I’ll walk.”

  “Do you even know where home is?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Tyler clenched his teeth. “You didn’t have any identification on you. The paramedics searched your car but couldn’t find a purse. Do you have any money?”

  “Are you offering a loan?” She quirked one eyebrow at him.

  “Yes,” Tyler said, reaching for his wallet. A wad of cash should take care of the problem. He needn’t get anymore involved than that. “Except it’s a gift, not a loan.”

  “Do you often offer needy patients money, Doctor?”

  “No.” He hadn’t ever given money to a patient, but Yvette had. Many times. He’d often joked she was driving them into the poor house with her lost causes. His late wife had been a social worker with a marshmallow heart who’d been unable to resist any stray who showed up on her doorstep. He heard Yvette whispering in his ear, Help her.

  “I’m special, then.” Jane Doe’s tone was sardonic but the look in her eyes was one of appreciative surprise.

  His chest swelled with an odd emotion he couldn’t name. Their gazes locked and he knew it was true. He couldn’t say why or how but this woman was special to him and not just because she obviously needed him. Without even trying, she touched something deep inside him. Perhaps it was the sarcasm that hinted at her hidden vulnerability; perhaps it was her nervousness, perhaps it was because she looked a bit like Yvette—blond, petite, fragile.

  Or perhaps it was his own loneliness that he saw reflected in those soft blue eyes. Peering through those cerulean depths and on past into her troubled soul was like staring into a looking glass.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “You are special.”

  She ducked her head, denying him further access to those tantalizing eyes.

  “Please,” he said, extending five twenty-dollar bills to her. “Take the cash.”

  “I can’t accept your money.”

  She glanced up and he caught another glimpse into those too wise yet oddly naive eyes and drew in a breath. What he was about to suggest overstepped all boundaries of the doctor-patient relationship but he could not bear the thought of her wandering the streets hungry and alone.

  He remembered the kind man in the desert who had saved his life when he was at his lowest point. Jane Doe was at that threshold now.

  Here’s your opportunity to repay that karmic debt, Yvette�
�s voice niggled. Not only that, but giving this woman sanctuary is a chance to get the old Tyler back. I miss him. Don’t you?

  Tyler clenched his jaw. Why her? Why now? She made him feel something again when he believed he’d lost all ability to feel tender emotions. And he did long to be the man he was before Yvette had died. Concerned, loving, compassionate. He’d forgotten how to be all those things.

  This is your chance at redemption.

  Offering Jane Doe a place to stay was the right thing to do, even though he feared prolonged proximity to her might alter his fate in ways he never imagined. He needed to do this. In memory of Yvette. In memory of the man he used to be.

  “All right.” Tyler pocketed the money. “If you refuse to stay in the hospital and you won’t take my cash then there is only one option left.”

  “And that is?”

  It was now or never. If he hesitated, he would back out. Tyler took a deep breath and committed himself. “You’ll stay at my secluded beach house on Galveston Island. No one will bother you. You can rest, collect your thoughts and stay until you get your memory back. Is it a deal?”

  She had no other choice but to say yes. She couldn’t go back home to Austin. It wasn’t safe. Daycon’s men would be watching her house. And she couldn’t talk to the police. They would make a phone call and discover she was the one responsible for torching Daycon Laboratories. Besides, Daycon was buddies with a rogue CIA operative. He would have no trouble locating her if she didn’t accept help. She had no money for a motel. She needed food and a good night’s sleep before trying to obtain another car so she could get to Marcus in New Mexico. Dr. Fresno’s offer was a gift from heaven.

  Hannah gazed into Tyler’s sincere brown eyes and felt guilty for lying to him. But she didn’t know how far she could trust him and as long as she kept her name a secret it offered both of them some small measure of security.

  “Why would you do that for me?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Maybe because you’re the most interesting case I’ve ever come across.”

  She studied him a moment, trying to figure him out.

  “Well?” he asked slanting his head and waiting for her response to his proposal.

  “All right,” she agreed.

  “There’s just one stipulation.”

  Hannah groaned. She should have known there would be a catch. “What is it?”

  “You allow me to perform a few more tests.”

  Hannah hesitated. She wanted out of this place. Now. The longer she stayed, the more precarious her position became.

  “I’ve got to know what happened to you,” Tyler insisted. “Why your spleen stopped bleeding. Why your chemical burns disappeared.”

  I could tell you what I think might have happened, Hannah thought, but I don’t fully understand it myself.

  Virusall could be responsible for her stunningly quick recovery. How, she did not know for sure, but the experiences she’d had with the drug in the lab indicated anything might be possible. It was a miraculously healing drug but it was also very unstable.

  Fear rippled through her, but she pushed her anxiety aside. She didn’t have time to piece together what Virusall might have done to her. Not now.

  When she’d accused Tyler of misreading the X rays and confusing her with another patient, she had done it to offer him an explanation. A rational possibility his scientific mind could accept. She couldn’t tell him the truth—that she had concocted a wonder drug proven to eradicate all viruses. She had scarcely believed it herself.

  And then there were the horrific side effects that turned ordinary people with type O blood into vicious beasts.

  To let Tyler in on her secret would be tantamount to signing his death warrant. If Daycon suspected she told anyone about Virusall, she knew the man would not hesitate to do whatever was necessary to protect himself and his CIA cohort.

  She had to get to Marcus before Daycon figured out what she was planning, and she had to get out of this hospital before his henchmen discovered she had not died in the car crash.

  “Concerning these tests,” Hannah asked Tyler. “What do you have in mind?”

  “X rays, more blood work.”

  “How long?”

  “Three, four hours tops.”

  “Sorry. I can give you an hour. That’s all. Do what you can in that length of time—after that, I’ll be gone.”

  “Fair enough.” He surprised her by agreeing.

  Cocking her head, she studied him, wondering what his motivation was in opening his house to her. He had told her she was special. What had he meant by that? Was it because her vanishing illness fascinated him? Had someone helped him when he was down and out? Or was there something more?

  He was a handsome man, tall and lean. His hands, long and slender, belonged to a surgeon. His hair was dark brown, his eyes an even darker shade of chocolate. There was a brushstroke of gray at each temple and a few laugh lines creased the corners of his eyes. An air of refinement clung to him and yet at the same time he exuded a rugged masculinity. A hunter who listened to Mozart. A soldier who studied fine art. A man as comfortable skiing in the Rockies as he would be at a wine-tasting party.

  She could not deny her attraction to him, but Hannah didn’t employ her physical urges to form opinions or make decisions. Her parents had taught her that nothing was more important than a clear head and a practical mind. Affairs of the hearts were reserved for sentimentalists and fools and she was neither.

  Her parents, though they professed to love her, had not been the type to offer kisses, hugs or even many words of praise. Hannah had been expected to perform to the best of her ability and she had strove to please them. She had earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry by age sixteen, had a master’s by eighteen and at age twenty had been the youngest woman ever to earn a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Texas. In fact, it had been her burning desire to honor the memory of her parents and the high standards they had set which led her to discover the phenomenal Virusall.

  She had always been on the outside looking in, the girl who was out of step with everyone else her age. Because of her up-bringing, Hannah had never been very good with people, but it was this trait that made her such a dedicated researcher. She possessed an analytical mind and she enjoyed being alone. She didn’t easily succumb to the emotional pull of others and she held herself to lofty standards.

  But right now Tyler Fresno was tugging at her with the force of a high-powered magnet.

  “Do you know where my clothes are?” She ran a hand through her unruly hair. Furrowing her brow, she wished for lipstick and a hairbrush. She must look a fright and although Hannah wasn’t given to vanity, she found herself wanting to look nice for him. Why?

  “Perhaps they’re down here.” He turned and bent over to pick up the sack she had been trying to reach when he had come into the room and caught her with her backside in the air.

  This turnabout was fair play.

  She propped herself up on her elbows and watched with interest as she got a glimpse of his rear-end. Unfortunately, doctors’ scrub suits did not offer the same uninhibited view as an open-back hospital gown. Still, she enjoyed running her eyes down the length of his lanky form. She wasn’t one for ogling men, but for this guy she would make an exception.

  “Here you are.” He handed her the paper bag.

  Hannah peered inside and was alarmed to see her clothes matted with dirt and blood.

  Tyler must have read her mind because in the next minute he said, “Tell you what—I’ll get you a set of scrubs to wear. What are you?” He squinted, raking his gaze over her. “An extra small?”

  “Yes, but a small will do fine and thank you. That’s very considerate.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He smiled and Hannah felt warm and tingly all over.

  A girl could fall for a guy like him.

  She had to be careful. Hannah had spent so much time in a laboratory, she knew very little about the opposite sex or how to han
dle herself in the presence of a man she found attractive.

  “I’ll just draw a vial of blood first,” Tyler said. He opened a supply drawer. “Damn, we’re out of purple-top tubes. Just hang on a minute while I pop over to the lab for the right tube.”

  “I’m leaving in a hour,” she warned.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll just go ahead and draw your blood and then carry the specimen to the lab in the syringe. I can put it in the correct tube when I get there.”

  “Thank you.” She beamed at him.

  He wrapped a yellow rubber tourniquet around her arm and palpated a vein in the bend of her elbow. “Make a fist for me.”

  After drawing her blood, he then put the syringe into a red bag marked with a biohazard chemical emblem.

  It was after eleven o’clock and Danny was getting ready to leave for the night when Tyler walked into the lab.

  “Here’s the blood on Jane Doe,” he said.

  “Lad, your timin’ leaves a lot to be desired,” Danny grumbled good-naturedly and started to shrug out of the coat he’d just put on.

  “No, no, go on. I’ll put it in a purple-top tube and label it for the next shift,” Tyler offered.

  “You’re a saint, you are.”

  “Off with you.”

  Danny headed for the door.

  Tyler removed the syringe from the red plastic bag and took off the needle cap. He started to push the needle into the tube’s rubber stopper but his hand slipped and he accidentally plunged the needle into the pad of his thumb.

  “Yeow!”

  “What’s the matter?” Danny turned back and paled when he saw the syringe of blood protruding from Tyler’s thumb.

  “I slipped.”

  “Ah, Laddie. I shouldna let you done that,” Danny castigated himself. “It’s my job.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Tyler said, trying to appear casual when his heart was racing. He’d just been stuck with a patient’s blood and he didn’t even know her HIV status.

  Jane Doe wasn’t HIV positive.

  How do you know? Just because you don’t want her to have AIDS doesn’t make it so. Her blood work is abnormal.

  Danny took the syringe and blood tube away from Tyler. “Go wash up at the sink and mind you fill out an incident report on this. You’ll have to get tested and so will she.”