Page 1 of Lush Curves

Prologue

Three years ago

The woman flew into the hospital emergency room like a bat out of hell: long, red hair streaked with gray flying out behind her, purse open as she haphazardly threw in some car keys, waitress’ uniform crumpled and creased, and stained with splotches of what looked like coffee and ketchup. But for all of that, she was absolutely formidable, and Doctor Sam Innis knew that this was the kind of woman who was going to face it – whatever the hell it was, whatever horrible thing had brought her storming into the E.R. at one a.m. – with all of the ferocity of a lioness.

Sam was standing behind some heart monitor equipment, so she didn’t see him as she hurtled on past, but he suspected that she wouldn’t have noticed him even if he’d been standing smack in the middle of the hallway. Her blue eyes were trained on the large, glowering man with messy dark hair who’d come in with Doctor Shane ‘Mac’ MacIntyre almost an hour earlier.

“Jax!” she cried, and Sam heard nothing but fear and confusion in the utterance of the man’s name. “Jax!”

Jax Hamill got to his feet, and Sam saw him shoot a concerned look at the red-headed man sitting on the sofa next to him. Sam knew that the man’s name was Noah Matthews, and it was clear to Sam that Noah was pretty severely autistic. Sam had been nothing but amazed at how gentle Jax had been with Noah – and not just Jax.

Sam’s attention turned to mountain of a man holding a stack of baseball cards in his massive hand. Sam had seen plenty of rough types in the E.R., numerous genuinely terrifying people with seriously-worrying reputations – but Matt ‘King’ Kingston took the proverbial cake. By a goddamnmile.

So it had been touching to watch King sit for an hour with Noah, patiently going over the baseball cards, player after player, team by team, letting the younger man just rattle off physical stats after RBI after playoff. It was clearly Noah’s displacement activity, a way to keep him focused and calm, and King had dedicated himself to it with a compassion and almost-sweetness that had made Sam look at the ferocious, ex-military, black-ops badass with a sense of softening.

Not that Sam had spent much time talking to Jax, or King, or Noah. He’d been in the E.R. with Mac for an hour, fighting desperately to save the life of the young woman that these men were here for. Mac was sitting on Noah’s other side now drinking a coffee in preparation for the long, awful night ahead. His blue eyes met Sam’s dark ones, and both men gave each other a tiny head-shake of sadness. They knew what Sam was there for.

Sam’s thoughts went to Sarah Matthews now, and his stomach both sank and tightened in an all-too-familiar feeling of worry and dread. Her head injuries were extensive; they were the kind of extensive that rarely ended well. The kind of extensive that meant that he was almost certain that his next words to Sarah’s stoically-worried loved ones were going to be, “I’m so sorry. We did everything that we could…”

God, he was fed up with having to say those words. Sam excelled at trauma and he knew that he had the temperament and the skills, that he was invaluable to the E.R., that he was damn good at his job. But some days, he just wanted to be a dermatologist, to have sane office hours, to have a little prescription pad for creams – and to never,everagain have to start a conversation with, “I’m so sorry.”

Jax gently took the woman by the elbow now, said something under his breath to her. She looked over at Noah too, and Sam saw that he’d tensed up at the woman’s frantic appearance. Right away, her face softened and she nodded, let Jax lead her down the hallway to a sofa. He gently placed her on it, the knelt down to her level. Sam saw them talking, saw the woman look back at Noah, saw her touch Jax’s hand in a concerned, caring gesture.

Thatwas the thing that got Sam out from behind the heart monitor machine to talk to Mac about the CT scan – that little hand touch. This woman was clearly Sarah Matthews’ mother, and she had to be beside herself with fear and worry… and shestillhad it in her to offer comfort to a hurting, barely-holding-onto-his-rage bear of a man.

A woman like this was strong, and she was gentle, and God knows that she needed to know things. She needed the worst and she needed the truth – both unvarnished – and she trusted herself to be able to handle things. Sam suspected that she’d been trusting herself and her own judgement for a long, long time, and had long stopped looking to others for solace or salvation. She carried herself like a woman who had vast inner resources, deep wells of strength to draw from.Thiswas the kind of woman that if the zombie apocalypse came, she’d not only survive, she’d blow holes in zombie headsandfeed the kids in her charge. Sam would want to be in a group withher, that was for damn sure.

Well, thank Christ for her grit, because she was going to need it for whatever was coming her way – no matter what it was.

He nodded at Mac now, and walked over to the other man. Shane MacIntyre was hands-down the best neurologist that Sam had ever had the priviledge of working with, and although he had left the hospital to start his own private consulting practice – meaning that the man was rolling in cash, all his former colleagues presumed –he was still on-call for really bad cases that rolled into the E.R. Sarah Matthews hadno ideahow lucky she was that Mac had been among the first to see her after her brutal attack (Sam wasn’t sure where the connection lay, exactly, but based on his observations, it looked like Jax was Sarah’s boyfriend, and Mac was Jax’s friend), and Sam thanked every star twinkling above that Mac had been the one to bring her in. He’d started things up long before Sarah had hit the E.R., and that early care and intervention may have made all the difference for Sarah Matthews.

Or – based on her CT scans –maybe not. Maybe no matter what any of them did, there was not going to beanyhope for this young woman.

God, Sam hated being the bearer of bad news.

Mac got to his feet, and King glanced up sharply. They all shot looks down the hall at Jax and Annie, but they were still totally absorbed in their conversation, but no way they would be for much longer. They had to talk, and fast.

“And?” Mac said brusquely, gesturing at the scans in Sam’s hand. “How bad?”

“Bad.” Sam gave Mac the x-rays, and Mac held them to the light, squinted, sighed. “You see it?”

“Fucking hell. Yeah.”

“Don’t say bad words,” Noah reproved him. “Sarah says that swearing is bad.”

“Sorry, Noah,” Mac said, giving him his trademark quirky grin. “Wanna wash my mouth out with soap?”

“Why would I do that?” Noah asked, clearly perplexed, as he clearly always was when he took things absolutely literally. “I like you, and soap doesn’t taste good.” He then returned his attention to his baseball cards and exited the conversation completely.

“See what?” King asked gesturing at the scans, keeping his voice low and his tone unconcerned for Noah’s sake, but trying to get the conversation back on track. “Anything very interesting?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Mac handed the x-rays back to Sam. “Not overly surprising, considering everything, but… it’s a bad case, man. We’re going have to dig in and dig deep, for everyone’s sake. They’re going to need support. Trust me.”

“Whatever they need, they got it.” King’s voice was still warm, but his gray eyes were slate and steel. “Allof ‘em.”

“Heads up,” Mac said suddenly. “Mother headed this way, and she’s on the warpath.”

“I’ll stay here,” King said, his tone jovial. “Noah? Want me to quiz you on your cards some more?”

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