Chapter 2

Dr. Ethan Miller gazed longingly at the lumpy, hard couch that inhabited one corner of the doctor's lounge. A couch that he had intimate knowledge of, having spent many long nights trying to get comfortable enough on it for a nap. Tonight, he didn't think it would take much.

It had been a killer of a week. A flu bug had kept a lot of the staff home, leaving them at a skeleton crew. Not a good thing for a major metropolitan hospital. With his iron constitution, he had been immune and had ended up working doubles all week.

Not that he would complain about the money. School loans, almost--finally-- paid off, rent, and what he was putting aside for the little house he had found just outside of town, ate up most of his salary. And his parents had wanted him to become a doctor so that he wouldn't have to know the scrimping and saving that they had. It was laughable.

He shook his head, clearing cobwebs, and went back to work on updating files. Paperwork was a pain in the ass. He signed the last form, glanced at the clock, and then started toward the couch. He had about an hour and a power nap would be fantastic. He laid down, beat down a spring that wanted to pop into his back, set the alarm on his watch and closed his eyes. He sighed, pleasure seeping through him just to lay still for a while and relax. He was just this side of sleep when he heard his name being paged over the loud speaker, the code following alerting him to his being needed in Emergency.

Cursing took up time and energy, but he did a little of it anyway as he grabbed his white coat off the back of the chair he had been sitting in and scooped up his stethoscope to hang around his neck. He was out the door before the page repeated.

He pushed through the heavy double doors that separated Emergency from the rest of the hospital and turned through another set of doors that took him into the curtained areas. He noticed a police officer standing at attention outside one of the cubicles and was about to swing in there when a nurse caught his attention.

"Dr. Miller. Curtain three please."

He saw the diminutive figure surrounded by hospital personnel and thought they had an injured child. Until he got closer. Then the curves and swells of a nicely built female made themselves known under the light sheet she was covered with. He pushed closer, angling so that he was next to her and looked down.

Thick black hair was cut to curve next to her face in wisps that seemed to point toward huge green eyes. Black brows arched above them, now drawn together in pain. A pixyish face, pointed chin and lush mouth completed the picture. A nasty swelling bruise marred creamy skin across one cheekbone and down to the corner of her mouth. A gash just above one temple had bled onto her face. One nurse was cleaning that, another was taking vitals.

"Doctor, Jenna Donovan. Blood pressure 128 over 88, pulse 76. Car accident." She made a tsk tsking sound. "No seat belt."

"Well, now, Jenna Donovan. Let that be a lesson to you." He leaned over and played a pen light over her eyes calling out his findings as he did his exam.

Dr. Miller was a well loved member of the Emergency room, at least by most of the nurses. And the ones who didn't like him, respected him for the job that he did. He was known for his courtesy towards nurses and a genuine acknowledgement of appreciation for the job that they did. That alone made him a favorite. Add to that a tall, leanly muscled body, thick dark hair, liberally sprinkled with blonde above melted chocolate eyes that gleamed with intelligence. High cheekbones and a thick eyelashes were kept from being pretty by a crooked nose that was testament of a well planted punch back in his wild college days. A square jaw was covered with the whiskery beginnings of a beard. When he smiled, white teeth flashed and women had been known to take third and fourth looks.

He was known to get lots of cookies and other goodies from the ladies that he cared for, old or young, he treated them all the same.

And now, he beamed that smile down at Jenna. "We're going to get some x-rays, Jenna. And I'm going to have you admitted. Just overnight," he added as he saw the look in her eyes.

"Can't you just give me something for pain, slap a band-aid on my head and let me go. I got work." She hated hearing the whine and weakness in her voice but she hated hospitals worse.

"Okay, let's make a deal." He took her hand, slid his down to her wrist and checked her pulse himself. "Let's get the x-rays, stitch up your forehead, and then we'll go from there."

While he waited for her to answer, an answer that he had no intention of paying attention to anyway, he signaled to one of his nurses. The nurse put down the shoe she had been toying with and went to a phone against the wall, picked it up and made arrangements to have Jenna shipped down to x-ray.

The shoe on the tray caught Ethan's eye. Spiked heel, at least four inches of it with an intricate weave of straps. The shoe size was tiny. It was a shoe made to imply sex. A shoe she had been wearing?

He studied her face, intrigued. She just didn't look like the type to want to twist up her feet in shoes like that. But than again, what did he know of types.

"I don't know how I'm getting anything out of that deal, doc." Jenna was tired, she hurt and all she wanted to do was to have people quit poking and prodding her, go home to her tiny apartment and go to bed. A few hours sleep and she would be fine, ready to go and do her reports, take their suspect into interrogation and break him. She almost smiled at the thought of sitting across from him in that tiny airless room. Of winning despite the fact that she had actually thought she was going to die there for a while.

"Well, I'm not calling up to request a room for you right away. I'm going to let the nurses get you unstrapped from this contraption and get you sent down to x-ray. I don't think anything is broke, especially since you wiggled all the right extremities at all the right times." He smiled down at her and pushed the hair out of her face and away from the nasty gash that still was leaking blood.

Yummy, Jenna thought. With a smile and a face like that he could be making more money in front of a camera than behind a stethoscope. Tall, tanned and too tempting by half which added up to trouble to her. She sighed. She was more tired and hurt than she thought if she was having these kinds of thoughts. Maybe she would just lay here and let them poke and prod a little more. Just until she was sure her brain wasn't completely scrambled.

Hands were unbuckling straps and pulling away blocks when he walked away from her. He patted her foot in passing and turned as the sheet was pulled off of her.

Normally patients were in hospital gowns when he reached emergency but the back board and straps that had kept her immobile had hampered the nurses somewhat so he had arrived before they could change the patient.

His eyebrows winged up at the sight of long slender legs, a tiny leather skirt that was ripped at the side and showed off smooth skin and firm stomach that disappeared beneath another piece of leather, this one almost too miniscule to hide luscious breasts. The shoe had been a surprise. The outfit was a shock. And as he walked away, the image stayed in his mind, making him grin a little.

He was walking toward the first curtain, getting ready to stop by the uniform standing outside of it when Dorothy Allen, the huge nurse that he silently thought of as Nurse Tackle, stopped him.

"The girl from the car accident? Her man is out in the waiting room."

"Thanks, Dorothy."

He glanced in the curtained room as he walked by. A huge man sat silently on the gurney, both hands cuffed to the bed rails. He sat there, staring out with eyes that had all the warmth of a shark. Every few seconds he lifted his hands and shook them, making the hand cuffs rattle and clang against the metal of the rails.

He seemed to sense Ethan's presence and stopped rattling for just an instant, just long enough to lock gazes with the doctor. Then he stared off into space again, rattling and clanging as before.