Page 6 of Lush Curves

“How are you?”

“I’m…” Suddenly those amazing blue eyes were filled with tears. “I’m a mess.”

“I know,” he said, wishing hard that he could hold her now, but every professional pore in his body held him tightly in check, held him closely to protocol. Though just barely. “I’m so sorry, Annie. If I could do more, if I could doanything, I’d do it. In a heartbeat.”

“I know,” she whispered. “You’ve done so much, and you keep coming around and checking in even though you’re based in the E.R., and you know… I haven’t really thanked you for that, have I?” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you, Sam. Thank you for fighting for my daughter when she first arrived here, and thank you for going above and beyond. I know you don’t have to.” Her brow furrowed suddenly, as a thought occurred to her. “So…whydo you?”

“Why do I what?”

“Why do you keep coming here? Even though Sarah isn’t really your patient any more?”

And there it was. There was the moment for Sam to tell her the truth. To tell her that as much as he cared about Sarah – and hedid, just as he cared about every single person who got rolled through those E.R. doors to him – he cared about Annie too. And not as a badly-injured patient’s frightened mother, or as an employee struggling to hang onto her job through a horrific ordeal, or as a strong, scrappy, hurting woman determined to see this thing through to its bitter end, no matter what it cost her in terms of her emotion and her sanity.

Yes, he cared about her all those ways, of course… but healsocared about her as a beautiful, curvy, sexy, amazingfemale. As a sweet, soft body that he wanted to curl up to in bed, as a stunning woman with a killer smile that he wanted to see every morning, as a person with hard life experiences behind her which he wanted to celebrate her surviving.

He didn’t give a good goddamn about her age, about her having two grown children not that much younger than he was, about her job, about the crap neighborhood that he knew she lived in, based on the address in Sarah’s file. He didn’t care about anything except seeing her smile at him… preferably while he drove deep into her lush body, those eyes hot with want and need for him.

But there was no way to tell her, not without crossing every single professional line in his life. Oh, sure, Annie wasn’t his patient (nor was Sarah, if he was being pedantically correct), but shewasvulnerable and Sam had nothing but disdain and disgust for people who kicked others when they were down for the count. Doctors who preyed on distressed and desperate people were the lowest of the low, in his opinion, and even though there was no specific protocol which demanded that he stay away from every random patient’s mother who wandered the hospital hallways, Sam wouldneverdo it. He’d never be able to live with himself if he took advantage of someone while they were so worried and afraid, when they were just looking for comfort and a bit of hope for their loved ones… the day that Sam didthatwas the day that he’d hand in his doctor’s license personally.

So he said nothing to Annie about the real reason that he went several floors out of his way to bring her a coffee, and check Sarah’s chart, and talk to Mac. Not one damnword.

“I keep coming here because I have a patient a few doors down,” he said, hating to lie, butcome on… the truth was impossible. “I drop in when I’m here, though I think he’ll be discharged soon enough.”

“Ah.” Annie nodded, drank some more coffee, the auburn of her hair warm and lovely in the morning sunlight. “That’s really good of you to check in.”

“OK, well.” Sam pushed himself up and off the window ledge, already feeling that familiar ache in his chest at the thought of leaving her all alone here with her fear. “I need to get back to the E.R.”

“Sure. Thanks, Sam.”

“No problem, Annie.” He glanced over at Sarah. “Take care.”

“We will.” She sighed. “We’ll try, anyway.”

Sam walked away then, resolving to stay the hell away from the woman from that point on. It wasn’t fair what he was thinking, even if she didn’t have a clue, and he was sure that if he kept coming around, sooner or later she’d notice, and then she’d have one more thing to deal with in her life. No way he was doing that to Annie.

So that’s what Sam did: he forced himself away. He kept track of Sarah’s status, of course, but he did so only through Mac. And a few weeks later, when she woke up out of her coma, when she woke up talking but with a huge gap in her recent memory and weakness in her right side, Sam both rejoiced and worried, right along with Annie, though she never knew it.

She never knew that he longed to come back and meet Sarah properly; that he seriously thought about driving past Annie’s house ‘accidentally’, just to see if the lights were on. She never knew that the odd glimpse that he caught of her entering and leaving the hospital stopped his heart dead in his chest; that when he saw her in those brief seconds, he was fiercely happy to see how much better-rested and relaxed Annie looked after Sarah woke up.

She never knew that after Sarah was discharged, Sam toyed with the idea of getting Sarah’s filed-away chart and calling Annie’s cell from the family contact information listed there. Just to say hi, just to see how they were all doing.

Also, just to ask her for coffee. Or lunch. Or dinner.

But he never did. Sam never crossed that line.

What he did was, he let her go.

And he thought about her and Sarah and Noah every single goddamn day, from that point on.

What Sam was doing was, he was waiting… though he hadno ideathat’s what he was doing.

Chapter One

Present day

Sam heard the shouting and heavy objects crashing to the floor long before he saw the source of the anger and rage. He picked up the pace a bit, hurried towards the E.R., even as people scurried past him in the opposite direction. It wasn’t uncommon for fights and arguments to break out in the E.R., of course, especially at the weekends, and most especially in the middle of the night. But things could get tense and go south anytime – as shown right at this moment, at just before nine o’clock on a rainy, foggy Tuesday morning in late-winter.

He entered the large E.R. open space, set down his awful cafeteria coffee on the first available surface, took in the scene at a glance. There was medical equipment scattered all over the floor, patients were cowering on gurneys and visitors in chairs, the doctors and nurses were mostly hugging the walls, though Sam did see Doctor Harold Tillman trying to talk to a large man with reddish hair.

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