Here to Stay (Silhouette Special Edition)

With thanks to my intrepid critique partner, Doretta Thompson, for her insight; to my agent, Alice Orr, for her wisdom; and especially to Mark and Ben, for their love, which transcends all those pizza dinners!

B
eing dead shouldn’t
hurt
so damn much, he thought grimly. Therefore, he probably wasn’t dead. What he was, however, was trapped, freezing and in pain. Especially his left shoulder. Just breathing hurt like the devil. Willing himself to stay awake, to stay calm, he tried to sip in air in a way that didn’t make everything feel worse. If he could stay in control, he had a chance.

He opened his eyes and saw nothing. Dear God, was he blind, too? Fear chilled him. He forced his eyes to stay open in spite of the weariness, willing them to work. As shadowy forms took shape, he realized he wasn’t blind. Relief flooded through him like brandy. But for the light-absorbing darkness, he could see.

Immediately his relief turned back to fear. The dark reached out to swallow him. He couldn’t move. His arms, his legs, tied, trapping him in the dark. Helpless again.

No! Don’t lock the door! Turn on the light! Please? I won’t tell! Promise!
He struggled to free his hands.

Suddenly the voice in his head faded. A jagged pain started in his shoulder and ripped into his lungs, bringing the present into sharp focus, erasing the dim past. Defeated, he peered into the darkness until he could make sense of the shapes within the shadows surrounding him. It was night and he was pinned inside a crumpled car...somewhere.

He couldn’t see because there were no lights, not even from the stars or the moon. No other cars. And no houses. No one to find him until—
maybe
—morning, whenever that would be. He had no idea what the time was. His watch was pinned under him, and the dashboard clock was dark.

What the hell had happened? All he could remember was...nothing?
Nothing.
Not where he was, or who he was, or why he was...wherever he was. He closed his eyes, trying to think. Trying to remember. He sifted through his thoughts, finding nothing to answer his questions. His mind worked, but it was like having a blank tape in the machine.
Who was he?

The need to sleep overwhelmed him. Maybe he’d wake up and find it was all a dream. With his eyes closed, he drifted again, letting the dark wrap around him.... But sleep wouldn’t take him.

God, it was cold.
He
was cold. The wind blasted him through the broken window. Bone-rattling, biting cold. He shook from it. Every tremor smacked him into the bent interior of the car. The pressure sent pain knifing through his ribs and into his head. The searing pain in his shoulder screamed for relief. With an odd sense of distance from his own condition, he decided his shoulder was dislocated.

Suddenly alert, he listened for signs of life. Nothing. Only the night. How long had he been there? Asleep. Unconscious. Cold.

He tried to move, to reach for the denim jacket on the seat beside him, to ease himself out from the twisted mess of glass, metal and steering wheel. Pain slammed him back down, humbling him, making him gasp for breath. In the frigid air the pain felt hot. It played no favorites, assaulting him with blinding force everywhere.

He closed his eyes and tried to wait the pain out. Better. If he could get to his jacket and trap what was left of his body heat, maybe he would just sleep for a while, gather his strength. Night couldn’t last forever. Someone was bound to find him.

He tried once more to move. Breathing in slowly, past the fire in his chest, he pushed to free himself. The pain that ripped through him sucked the breath from his lungs. A starburst of colors flashed in his head, and then...nothing.

N
o one could have walked away from that crash. Sasha hugged herself against the bitter wind and made her way cautiously to the mangled red-and-white vintage Corvette lying in the ditch. The light from several flares and her lantern sparkled on the road’s surface, but even knowing the black ice was there didn’t prevent several back-wrenching slips. She’d called the Ontario Provincial Police from her car phone the moment her lights had picked out the wreck. Now, shaking with cold and dread, she had to find out if the ambulance she’d requested would be too late.

The silence of the cold night was almost spooky. She listened for sounds from the car. A call. A groan. Anything to reassure her that whoever was inside was alive. With a sick feeling, she let the beam of light play along the crumpled car until she found the shattered left side window. The driver would be trapped inside, but alone or with a passenger, she couldn’t tell. A dark shape inside absorbed the light. Sasha inched closer. A low moan came from within.

Sasha’s heart leaped. Someone was alive! She moved too quickly on the deceptive surface. Her thick-soled boots found no traction, and with a jerk she forced herself upright. Heart pounding now, she shuffled to the side of the wreck and took a deep, steadying breath, then bent and reached through the broken window until her searching fingers and the lantern light found the same thing: a shoulder in a soft, dark sweatshirt studded with broken glass sparkling like deadly sequins.

On another quick breath Sasha prayed for calm, for objectivity, for knowledge. She brushed lightly at the chunks of tempered glass, then slid her fingers toward the person’s neck, seeking a pulse. At the same time she aimed the light farther into the car. Seeing no one in the black leather passenger seat, she turned her complete attention to the driver.

Judging by the size and hardness of the shoulder and neck, the person inside was a man. A big, strong man. His pulse was weak, and his skin under the sweatshirt felt cold. The flashlight reflected the man’s thready breath hanging in the frigid air, mingling with her own as she slowly exhaled.

He moaned again, very softly, obviously feeling pain despite being unconscious. Sasha wanted to offer him some comfort, but she had to get back to her truck to warn the OPP they’d probably need an emer-gency task force truck to pry the man out of the twisted driver’s seat.

As she shuffled back over the hidden danger of the slick black ice, Sasha prayed fervently that help would arrive in time.

* * *

He felt it again, a light touch on his shoulder, too light to hurt, enough to get his attention. He fought to wake up. When his body refused, he groaned.

“Easy, now.” A low voice filtered through his haze. A woman’s voice. “Don’t try to move. The police will be here soon. They’ll get you out and take you to a hospital. Any minute now.” The voice was soothing. He decided he could trust the speaker. Hell, did he have a choice?

He tried to talk, to ask her where he was, and what had happened, and who she was, but his first word came out as a croak. Searing pains followed the sound. He took a cautious breath and tried again, fighting to open his eyes.
He needed to know.

“Shh. Everything will be all right. I’ll stay with you until the ambulance comes. You just relax.” Her touch lifted from his shoulder. “It’s very cold. I’m going to get a blanket for you from my truck. Then I’ll stay with you.”

She’s staying.
The sense of panic he’d been fighting suddenly faded. This time, when the darkness rose up inside him, he sank into it gratefully, somehow certain he was safe now.

* * *

Sasha wrapped her arms around herself, unable to stop the shivering that came, not from the biting-cold night air but from deep inside herself. She stood to the side, appreciating the efficiency and skill of the ambulance attendants and the police rescue experts, watching with a strange sense of emotional detachment. She understood why, of course. It was an instinctive survival tactic that allowed humans to cope with the most horrifying reminders of their own mortality.

The rescue team worked on the bent and twisted side and roof of the car, freeing the man inside a little at a time. He must be badly injured, she mused. He had stayed unconscious during most of the rescue. The medics had looked her way often, reassuring her that his vital signs were strong enough. She knew they understood the odd connection between strangers when one person sat comforting, touching, reassuring another while waiting for help.

Finally the man was freed. His groans cut to her heart as the medics eased him onto the stretcher. She felt drawn toward him as the stretcher moved past her to the rear doors of the ambulance. She gazed down at him while the medics adjusted the stretcher to slide it into the ambulance. He was covered by blankets from his chin down, and his face was too bloodied for her to know what he looked like.

Sasha wanted to reach out, to touch his shoulder one last time in reassurance, but she knew it was a foolish, useless gesture. He was now in far better hands than hers, and she might hurt him rather than comfort him.

As if he sensed her presence, the man opened his eyes and looked around without moving his head. In the light from the interior of the ambulance she could see his pupils were dilated, but she couldn’t tell the color of his eyes. Oddly, that made her even sadder.

Then his eyes met hers. “Stay,” he whispered hoarsely. As if sensing something important, the ambulance attendants paused.

Tears burned behind Sasha’s lids. “I can’t.” She swallowed hard. “You have to get to the hospital, and I have to move my truck out of the middle of the road. Don’t worry. They’ll take good care of you.”

“Stay,” he urged again in that hoarse whisper. “With me.”

Sasha touched his shoulder lightly and offered him a wobbly smile. “I’ll come to the hospital to see you. But you have to go now. Let the doctors take care of you.”

His eyes fluttered almost closed, then opened again. “Promise...you’ll come.” It was a demand, not a request. She almost smiled. Despite his injuries, he retained a sense of personal power. She guessed he was a man used to command.

“I promise. Now go. Let them help you.”

The man’s eyes closed again, breaking the contact between them. The medics slid the stretcher into the ambulance and within a minute the ambulance was creeping down the slippery, winding road. Sasha let out a long breath. It hung in the air, clouding her vision. When the vapor floated away she found herself face-to-face with a youthful, serious-eyed Ontario Provincial Police officer holding a note-book. His name tag said he was Constable Dave McLeod.

“From the looks of the car and the side of that tree,” he confided, “I’d guess he spun out on the black ice and bounced off the tree before ending up in the ditch. Hell of a time getting him out, eh? The car’s a write-off. Too bad. A classic Corvette like that’s collector quality. Well, the driver’s lucky to be alive, eh? Florida plates. The guy probably thought winter was over up here.” He sighed. “The en-gine’s stone cold. He must have been here a while before you found him.”

Absently Sasha nodded, but she really had no sense of time. It had seemed to take forever to free the driver from the wreck, but she’d never once glanced at her watch. Her own discomfort had seemed of little concern compared to his safety. It certainly wasn’t the first time she’d been exposed to the elements to deal with an emergency, although never one like this.

“I’ll just take your name and address, ma’am, then let you go. You look like you’re freezing. You’ve been out here a couple of hours, I think. Hard to believe it’s spring, when it’s this cold at night.”

His words made Sasha realize how chilled to the bone she was. Gratefully, she nodded. “My name is Sasha Reiss.” She gave him her address and home phone number, as well as her pager and car phone numbers. He wrote the information down in his notebook, his black-gloved fingers gripping the pencil awkwardly. She imagined he wasn’t much warmer than she was, having been on the scene only a short time less than she had.

“Occupation?”

“Equine veterinarian.” She saw his pencil stop moving. “Horse doctor.”

Constable McLeod looked up from his notes. “What brought you way out here on a dirty night like this? I sure wouldn’t be out here in the middle of the night unless I had to be.” His quick smile was frankly flirtatious.

She gave McLeod a brief, weary half smile, agreeing. “I have a client about thirty-five miles east,” she told him. “They have a local vet for routine things, but they call me for special needs. One of their mares slipped on ice and needed stitching. She’s a fussy mare, doesn’t like men very much.”

He shook his head as he closed his notebook. “Sheesh! Now we’ve got feminist horses, eh?”

Sasha smiled, suspecting that, like many of the men she knew, Dave McLeod had old-fashioned values he felt were under attack by newly independent women. “Not really. But this one had a few unfortunate experiences with men, so she assumes they’re all dangerous.”

The young constable nodded. “I guess it all depends on your point of view, eh? Are you really going to go to the hospital? You don’t have to, but that’s really nice. Let me write down the guy’s name for you.” He grinned. “Then get yourself home and under an electric blanket.” The playful expression on the constable’s face faded. “You did fine tonight, Doc. This guy probably owes you his life.”

Numbly, Sasha nodded and took the piece of paper on which McLeod had written. She didn’t look at it until she was back in the cab of her truck. As the heater and the defroster fought the damp, cold air, she opened the paper and read by the roof light the name written in neat, square letters: Miles Kent. The name itself meant nothing to her, but she tucked it into her inside breast pocket as if she vi-cariously could lend him some of her strength.

Sasha shifted into first gear and gingerly drove past the wrecked sports car. Within a short distance the road ran straighter and dry. Her body ached with cold and fatigue, but her mind stayed focused on the stranger on his way to the nearest hospital.

Some people thought medicine was all chemistry and mechanics, but she’d been a healer long enough to know there was a spiritual element that could work miracles. In the past she’d focused her energies on healing her equine patients. Now she prayed that even her little bit of spiritual effort would help Miles Kent walk away whole and safe.

* * *

The next day Sasha phoned the hospital before and after her barn calls, to ask about Miles Kent. He was in intensive care, but the nurse assured her that she could visit briefly, since they hadn’t located any next of kin, and her presence might help. Twice daily in the following two days she made time in her hectic schedule to stop at the hospital.

It felt so odd to sit by the bedside of a stranger, holding his good hand and telling him about her day. Although she was a doctor, there was something unsettling about being surrounded by the high-tech machines that measured Miles’s progress while his body healed itself in silence. He was a big man, so unmoving that she found herself wiping tears after each visit. His hand lay limply in hers, not even twitching when she stroked his skin as if he were someone dear to her.

On the second day a doctor stopped by to thank Sasha for her visits, and confirmed that the police still hadn’t found a close relative. It distressed her that Miles Kent was so alone, even as she cautioned herself not to care too much about a man she didn’t know. He might be the nicest guy in the world, or a loony...a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, or Jack the Ripper’s third cousin.

Her mind continued on in silent debate—common sense advised her to keep her distance, and compassion demanded that she offer him whatever comfort she could until he was well enough to leave. Then again, common sense warned her that he had been in so much pain he probably didn’t recall extracting a promise from her. But compassion wouldn’t let her shake her feeling of connectedness to Miles. Besides, didn’t her mother always say she had more guts than brains?

As she had every day for the past three, Sasha phoned the hospital after noon, even though she’d been there in the morning and planned to go again in the evening. This time the nurse told her Miles was awake and off the monitors, and had been moved to another room. Sasha spent the afternoon wondering what it would be like to talk to a lucid Miles Kent, and if anyone had told him she’d been hanging around holding his hand for three days. Would he be pleased? Or irritated that she’d been with him when he hadn’t known? Would he read too much into her attention, or understand she’d keep the same kind of vigil for an injured horse?

After finishing her rounds for the day and showering, Sasha took a soft teal woolen dress from her closet, then thought about what she’d just done.
Why on earth was she primping for a stranger stuck in a hospital bed?
She so seldom wore a dress, even on dates, and this certainly wasn’t a date. Quickly she put on a pair of clean, well-worn jeans and a golden turtleneck sweater that skimmed her hips. With her hair in its customary single braid down her back and her bangs freshly fluffed, she pulled on black suede fringe-trimmed boots. Although she wore no makeup, she sprayed on her favorite cologne,
just because
she liked to smell like something other than a horse. Then, grabbing her jacket, she went out to her truck and made the short drive to the hospital.

The door to Miles’s room was open just a sliver. Suddenly nervous, Sasha hesitated. This could be awkward. For all anyone knew, he didn’t have a clue who she was, and probably wouldn’t want a stranger hovering over him while he was in pain.

Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted when the door swung inward and a nurse hurrying out nearly ran into her. It took Sasha a few blank seconds to realize she knew the woman. Emmy Dunne was the mother of twin girls in the Pony Club Sasha advised.

“Well, hi, Doc!”

“Hi, Emmy.”

“What brings you here?” Emmy tipped her head and studied Sasha with the bright interest of a sparrow.

Sasha felt her cheeks grow warm. “I, uh, I was the one who found Mr. Kent. I promised I’d stop by to see him.”