DR. DEVASTATING Page 9

  "I know that. I am a damn doctor, after all. Answer my question."

  "You have to—"

  "Just answer me."

  She shoved her bangs back away from her face and glared at him good and hard. "If I answer you, will you get in the car?"

  He tried to look sincere and appealing, though he supposed all the dried blood on his face spoiled the effect. "I promise." She was still eyeing him distrustfully. "Come on, Lee. Just tell me why you're here."

  "It's crazy. I shouldn't be."

  "But you are."

  "I almost turned and went back five times on the drive up here."

  "But you didn't."

  "I should have."

  "Lee. You didn't. You're here. Why?"

  "Because I … well, you said we could be friends."

  "I did?"

  Her head bobbed up and down in an emphatic nod. "Yesterday. In your office. You said—"

  He put up his good hand. "All right. I said it. And that's why you're here? You drove most of the way to Blue Moon Lake after ten at night just to tell me you want to be my friend?"

  Her scrubbed-clean face kind of crumpled into a sheepish little grin. "Crazy, huh?"

  He actually felt himself smiling, even though it hurt to do it. "Not really."

  Now she looked hopeful. Adorably so. "It's not?"

  "No. It's not crazy." He was thinking that it was a start, at least.

  She looked down at the ground beneath their feet and then back up at him. "So. Will you be my friend?"

  He pretended to have to think about it. "If I say no, will you get back in your car and leave me all alone out here for the bears to kill and the buzzards to pick clean?"

  "Oh, stop it. I don't think there are any bears around here at all."

  "But would you leave me here?"

  "Of course not." She turned for the passenger door again. "Come on. Let's get you over to Memorial."

  "Lee."

  She froze, facing away from him, her hand on the car door. "What?"

  "I would love to be your friend."

  She still didn't turn to him, but she did lift her head. She seemed to be staring out over the top of the car, at the shadows of the trees across the road. "You would?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well." Her voice sounded small and soft. He guessed that she was smiling—just a hint of a smile. "Okay, then. We'll be friends." A slight breeze came up. It stirred the trees so they whispered and sighed. Lee pulled open the car door and stepped back. "Now," she said briskly, "will you please get in?"

  He limped the two steps it took to get into position and she helped him lower himself into the seat.

  "We'd better stop at your car and let me turn off the lights," she suggested. "It's well off the road, so no one's going to hit it, and that means there's no reason to run the battery down. Tomorrow, we can see about having it towed out of that ditch."

  He leaned his aching head back against the seat and let out a long, tired breath. "Whatever you think."

  It was well after midnight before they released him from the hospital. By then, he had an elastic bandage on his ankle, which had been sprained, a lightweight resin cast on his wrist—which had sustained a simple fracture at the distal end of the radius bone, damn it—and two butterfly strips taped over his right eye to close the gash there. He also had a big bottle of codeine to help him handle the pain.

  Lee drove him to his condo. She helped him up the stairs, though he probably could have managed it himself. However, he liked leaning on her. He liked it a lot. No way was he going to argue with her if she wanted to give him a hand.

  She took his key from him and opened the door, stepping right inside and switching on a light. "This is nice," she said.

  "What?" he asked, innocently, "You and me alone like this?"

  "I was referring to your apartment. It's attractive."

  "Why, thank you very much. But it's a condo. I think."

  She looked at him knowingly. "Had enough codeine, have we?"

  "Doing all right, yes. Will you put me to bed, please?"

  She shot him a sideways look that brimmed with suspicion, but then she slid up nice and close to him, wrapped his left arm around her shoulder and assumed the responsibility for holding him upright once again. "Which way?"

  "Through that arch there."

  Slowly but surely they hobbled across the living room, under the arch and down the short hall to his room. She took him straight to the bed. "Sit." She flicked on the bedside lamp. "Do you have anything in your pockets?"

  "Is this a quiz?"

  She held out her hand. "Come on. Your wallet, keys, anything too lumpy to sleep on."

  He reached into his hip pocket and pulled out his wallet. "You have my keys."

  She took the wallet from him and set it, along with the keys, on the night stand, beneath the lamp. "Give me the watch." He held out his arm and she slid the watch free. She put it by the lamp, too. Then she volunteered, "I'll take your other boot off for you."

  She knelt before him and he found himself looking down at the top of her head as she started unlacing his left boot. "What happened to the other one, anyway?" he asked, as he glanced at his right foot, which was bare except for the elastic bandage applied to stabilize the sprain.

  She glanced up. "It's down in my car, along with your other sock and those loaner crutches they let you take home."

  "Do you know you have freckles across the bridge of your nose? Very light freckles, just a few of them, kind of sprinkled there. I never really noticed them before."

  She didn't answer, just went back to her work, removing his boot and then his sock, too. That done, she rose and stood over him. "Do you have to go to the bathroom?"

  He shook his head. "I took care of that when they finally let me wash my face. You didn't answer me, about the freckles."

  She reached for the extra blanket that he always left neatly folded on the steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. "Stretch out on the bed. Come on."

  He looked down at himself. "Except for my shoes, I'm still fully dressed. And I'm dirty."

  "You need rest. You can take a bath in the morning."

  "There's blood on my shirt."

  She dropped the blanket and planted her hands on her hips. "If you insist on a bath tonight, fine. Good luck. I'm outta here." She started to turn.

  "Wait." He hoped he sounded really, really pitiful.

  She turned back. "Well?"

  He hoisted his legs up onto the bed and stretched out. "Satisfied?"

  She picked up the blanket again and carefully spread it over him. Her badly cut hair curved along her cheek as she did it, as dark as night against her pale skin. Then she pulled his codeine from her pocket and set it on the nightstand, along with his watch, keys and wallet. "Don't go crazy with these."

  The bed felt good, really good. "I won't."

  "I'll go down and bring up your boot and your crutches before I go."

  "I owe you. Big time."

  "You certainly do. You can start paying me back by never questioning my judgment again. Especially at work."

  Work. He hadn't even thought of that. "Hell. What about the clinic?"

  "Don't worry. Dr. MacAllister will find some last-year residents to stand in for you. We'll manage, I promise you."

  "It shouldn't be long before I can walk on this ankle. Then I can come in, anyway. I can see patients, though I'll probably need more assistance than usual, to work around this damn wrist."

  "Derek. We'll have all day tomorrow to find someone for Monday. And now is not the time to worry about it, anyway." She reached over and turned off the lamp. "Get some rest."

  Though light still spilled in from the hallway, the near-darkness soothed him and the codeine made everything hazy and soft. "Lee?"

  "What?"

  "You didn't say, about the freckles. Do you know you have those freckles?"

  She gave no answer for a moment. But then she admitted in a voice very close to a whisper, "All righ
t. Yes. I know."

  "Will you check on me? In the morning?"

  "Hey. What are friends for?"

  Derek smiled and closed his eyes. "There's an extra key in that little wooden case on top of the dresser. Take it with you."

  "All right. I'll do that."

  A moment later, he heard her tiptoe out. And after that, the world seemed to just fade away.

  Lee went down to her car and got the boot, the sock and the crutches. She carried them back up and started to leave them just inside the front door.

  But really, if he was going to get any use out of those crutches, they should be where he could reach for them, near the bed. So she tiptoed down the hall again and into his room, where she tried to be absolutely silent as she set his boot and sock in the corner and propped the crutches against the wall on the far side of the night-stand.

  Apparently she wasn't quiet enough. Derek moaned a little and whispered, "Lee?"

  She whispered back, "I was just putting your crutches here. Go back to sleep."

  "My throat's so dry, all of a sudden. I wonder, could you get me some water?"

  "Sure. Be right back."

  When she returned with a full glass, he'd already propped himself up to a sitting position. She handed him the glass. He drank. Then she took it from him and set it where he could reach it easily during the night.

  "Now, lie back down," she instructed.

  He obeyed. She straightened the blanket around him again.

  "Lee?"

  "Go to sleep."

  "Do you know what did this to me?"

  "Yes. You said at the hospital that you fell down the basement stairs at Walter MacAllister's cabin."

  "I did fall down the stairs. But I had help."

  "Derek. You need sleep."

  "A damn raccoon jumped me."

  She shook her head and let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a barely restrained laugh. "Oh, Derek, come on."

  "It's true. At the cabin. I heard it knocking the canned goods around in the basement. I went down to investigate and it jumped me. I tripped. And that's how I fell down the stairs." He reached up and grabbed her arm with his good hand.

  Lee gasped at the contact, partly in surprise at the abruptness of the action—and partly because of something she refused to examine too closely.

  "Lee. Are you really my friend?"

  "Yes." She peeled his fingers away and tucked his hand beneath the blanket. "And you are going to sleep now."

  "There's a rifle in that closet." His hand was out from under the blanket again, pointing.

  "Derek—"

  "It's on the top shelf, in a wooden case. The shells are in a box right next to it. If you're really my friend, you'll get it down and load it and drive up to Blue Moon Lake and eliminate that animal from the raccoon gene pool."

  Lee did laugh then, in pure disbelief. "Derek. Forget it. I'm not murdering any innocent little raccoon."

  "Innocent? That animal is about as innocent as Ted Bundy. Killing it wouldn't be murder. It would be a public service."

  "Stop it."

  "Listen. If you don't kill it, I'll do it myself. As soon as I can use this damn wrist of mine."

  Without pausing to think about it, she brushed his hair back from his forehead. "Derek. Will you settle down?"

  His eyes changed, turned soft and smoky. Lee pulled her hand away and stepped back. "I am leaving now. And you are going to sleep."

  "Yes, nurse."

  "Good night."

  He waited until she was halfway to the door before he murmured, "Good night, Lee," to her retreating back.

  Lee drove home smiling. After all, she'd helped a friend. And tomorrow, she would help him some more. She'd arrange to have that huge vehicle of his towed back to town. And she'd contact Dr. MacAllister so he could make sure there would be someone to cover for Derek on Monday.

  It was a little after two when she let herself in her front door. She went straight to the bathroom, where she washed her face and brushed her teeth. Then she took off her faded jeans and Fruit Of The Loom T-shirt. Underneath, she was wearing a rose-beige silk teddy edged in oyster white lace.

  Lee left the teddy on. She liked the feel of silk against her skin. Also, a teddy was comfortable to sleep in. It never hampered movement, since there really wasn't much to one. She climbed into her big, comfy four-poster bed, turned off the light and snuggled down.

  Morning came so swiftly. It seemed to Lee that she'd barely shut her eyes before the sun was shining in the window. She stretched and yawned and the sheet slipped down.

  How surprising. Instead of the rose-beige silk teddy she'd gone to sleep in, it seemed she was wearing a leopard-skin demibra and itty-bitty string bikini panties to match. She looked down at the underthings and sighed.

  Lee loved sexy lingerie. Her friends might tease her about it, but she didn't care.

  As far as Lee was concerned, provocative underwear was her own little secret she kept to herself, every bit as personal and private as her fantasies. Nice undies made her feel good. Very good. And undies, like fantasies, were one hundred percent harmless. You couldn't get infectious—not to mention deadly—diseases from your underwear, or from your fantasies. And neither would ever break your heart. They didn't even raise your blood sugar levels or make you fat.

  Sighing some more, Lee pushed the sheet away completely. Yes, she really did like this leopard-skin look—although, now she stopped to think about it, she couldn't remember ever seeing this particular bra and panties before.

  But what did it matter? She was wearing them now.

  With a lazy index finger, she traced the string of the bikini, where it clung so high up on her thigh that it was almost at her waist. And then she drew her finger up, over her tummy and between her breasts.

  "Lee."

  She looked up from watching the progress of her own finger. What a surprise! Derek was leaning in the open doorway to the hall.

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  « ^ »

  "Derek," Lee said. "You should be in bed."

  "I was just thinking the same thing." He came away from the doorway and started walking toward her.

  "You're not limping," she whispered. "And there's no cast on your wrist."

  Now he stood right by her, at the side of the bed. "My ankle is fine and I don't need the cast anymore. Thanks to you, I'm completely healed."

  He laid his right hand—the one with the now-healed wrist—on her left thigh. His touch was so warm, it completely distracted her from the miraculous nature of his sudden recovery. She looked down at that hand, so tanned and fine, with those little gold hairs she'd always admired dusting the back of it.

  Slowly, with his fingers spread to cover the entire top of her thigh, he ran his hand upward, until he reached the notch where her legs joined. Lee hitched in a small gasp.

  His thumb was now caught between her thighs, nudged up to rest against the leopard-skin panties and the tender mound beneath. She watched, her breath trapped somewhere high in her chest, as he slid his hand over, onto her right thigh and slipped his other four fingers in where his thumb had been, against that silky, leopard-skin fabric.

  On instinct, she pressed her knees more tightly together.

  "Lee," Derek whispered reproachfully.

  Her thighs relaxed. His fingers stroked—so lightly, rubbing at the silken fabric of the panties. Lee closed her eyes and tossed her head on the pillow, moaning low, her heart pounding hard and deep. Her body felt all quivery. Beneath the panties, there was such wetness and heat.

  And then he slipped one finger under the elastic of the panty leg. He touched her, that finger sliding in, parting her, stroking the feminine center of her.

  Lee cried aloud.

  …and sat straight up in bed.

  She dragged in a breath, shoved her bangs out of her eyes and looked around.

  It was still dark. The clock on the dresser said it was three-thirty.

  Somehow, she'
d kicked the covers off.

  What had she been dreaming?

  Something sexy, that was certain. Her body still hummed with sensual excitement.

  With a sigh, she reached down and pulled up the covers. Then she lay her head on her pillow and waited for sleep to claim her again.

  Lee let herself into Derek's condo at nine the next morning. She heard noises in the kitchen and followed the sound. Derek was there, balancing on his good leg as he tried to crack an egg into a bowl.

  "What are you doing?"

  He looked over his shoulder at her—and he smiled. "You came."

  "I said I would, didn't I?" His hair looked wet and he wore different clothes. "I see that you managed to take a bath."

  He grunted, his smile fading. "Barely."

  She'd stopped at a bakery on her way over. Now, she set the bakery bag on the table and went to stand beside him. "Give me that egg."

  He handed it to her.

  "Scrambled?" she asked.

  "Sounds great. I'll make the coffee." He started to hop down the counter.

  She pointed at the table. "Sit down. Now. I'll take care of the coffee."

  So he hobbled over to the table and lowered himself into a chair. "Thanks." He scooted another chair around and put his bad ankle up on it, then reached for the bakery bag. "What's in here?"

  "Cinnamon rolls. Help yourself."

  He took one out, using his left hand, and bit into it. "Mmm. Good."

  She watched him chew. "How do you feel this morning, anyway?"

  He swallowed. "Like someone really big and mean beat me up and then threw me off a cliff."

  "Maybe you should be in bed."

  "Lee. It's not that serious, and you know it."

  "You do have to stay off that ankle, if you want to be able to get around on it anytime soon."

  He pointed at the appendage in question. "It's elevated, isn't it?"

  "It seems to me you were standing on it just a minute ago."

  "Okay, okay. I will stay off it. As much as I can. And if you insist on making the coffee, would you do it now, please?"

  "I'd be glad to, if you tell me where it is."

  "In that upper cupboard to your left. The filters are in there, too."