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  Jolene thought for a second. “They just took two more up for surgery a few minutes ago. I think Trauma Room Two is free.” The victims had been doubled up by twos and threes, gurneys wheeled into the rooms serving as beds rather than just used for transport.

  “Room two it is,” he announced cheerfully to the boy who was now wrapped around him like a small gibbon monkey around a tree, holding on for dear life. Looking over the boy’s head, Mac lowered his voice. “I’d like your help, Nurse DeLuca—unless of course you have some icebergs you need to create.”

  Jolene pressed her lips together, stifling the retort that had sprang up in response. “This way.” She turned on her crepe heel and quickly led the way to the room that Jorge had only now freshly sanitized.

  Once inside, she closed the door behind Mac, then hurried over to the bed as the boy was placed there. He began to whimper again.

  Rather than step back the way she fully expected him to, she saw Mac take the boy’s hand in his.

  “It’s going to be all right, Nameless, I promise.” Mac carefully made the boy as comfortable as possible. “You know, you’re about my nephew’s age. His name is Kirby.” He kept talking to the boy as if they were old friends, hoping to put him at ease. “Kind of a funny name for a kid, but I suspect he’ll grow into it. What do you think, Nameless? Think he will?”

  The boy took a deep breath, then let it slowly out again. His small chest quavered slightly. “Tommy.”

  Breakthrough, Mac thought.

  He looked at the boy innocently. “You think he should be called Tommy?” Mac pretended to think the choice over. “Yeah, that’s a pretty cool name. Maybe I’ll ask him if he wants to change his name to Tommy.”

  “No,” the boy contradicted softly. “My name.”

  Mac maintained a serious expression as he asked, “You want to change your name to Tommy?”

  For the first time, there was a hint of a smile on the small boy’s face as he looked up at him. “No, my name is Tommy.”

  “Ah.” Nodding sagely at the revelation, Mac solemnly took the boy’s hand in his and shook it. “Glad to meet you, Tommy.” He inclined his head toward the boy. “I’ve got to admit that Tommy sounds a lot better than Nameless.” Still smiling, though this time it was purely for the boy’s benefit and not easy, Mac looked into the boy’s eyes. “Who did this to you, Tommy?”

  She’d been grudgingly giving him points for his behavior toward the boy, but the insensitive, not to mention possibly incorrect nature of the question had Jolene taking offense for the boy’s absent parents. “You can’t just assume—”

  The woman was really beginning to get on his nerves. Not even sparing her a glance, Mac held his hand up to silence her. His entire attention was focused on the boy. He needed to bridge this gap that existed between Tommy and the rest of the world.

  “You can trust me, Tommy,” Mac assured him softly. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen to you again.”

  A shaky sigh came from the boy’s lips and then he pressed them together before raising his eyes to Mac’s. His lower lip trembled, as if he was struggling against the urge to cry.

  It was clear that he didn’t want to say anything, was afraid of saying something, whether because he thought he would be punished, or that something more dire would happen to him. To Mac, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that the boy was afraid and that he had been harmed. And that he never should be again.

  Tommy seemed to search his face before lowering his eyes again.

  “Hugo,” the boy said so quietly that for a moment, it seemed to Mac that he’d imagined it. And then Tommy raised his head again, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “Am I gonna look like a monster?”

  Finally something he could control in this awful scenario. There was no hesitation in his voice whatsoever. “No, absolutely not, Tommy. You’re going to be the same good-looking guy you always were.

  “Nurse DeLuca,” he uttered Jolene’s title deliberately, his smile never wavering for Tommy’s benefit, “do you think you can put your disdain for me on hold long enough to bring me a suturing tray?”

  Without waiting for her affirmative reply, Mac went on to enumerate the rest of the supplies he was going to need in order to begin the first phase of Tommy’s recovery.

  He’d almost had her.

  Watching Harrison MacKenzie interacting with the boy, she’d almost been touched by his behavior.

  But then when he looked at her, every single warning signal in her body went on the alert. This was the arena she was accustomed to. Being treated like little more than a semiliterate lackey by a doctor.

  Jolene stiffened her back automatically.

  “Yes, Doctor,” was all she said in response as she turned on her heel. She went to retrieve the items he was going to need.

  “Good as new,” Mac promised Tommy again as Jolene walked out, knowing that a child’s retention ability numbered in the seconds when it came to fear.

  His sister Carrie had gone on to marry a successful stockbroker and along the way had provided him with two nephews and a niece. Mac had instantly evolved into a doting uncle. The trio had given him a broad learning spectrum from which he’d picked up a great deal more insight into dealing with kids than he’d gotten from either his child psychology courses and even his short rotation in pediatrics.

  Tommy wrapped his small fingers around Mac’s hand and nodded, his eyes if not trusting, at least a little hopeful.

  For now, it was the best Mac could ask for.

  Wanda stuck her head in just as he was finishing up his work. She’d observed Jolene entering the room with a suture tray earlier. It was Wanda’s custom to stay on top of the new personnel—be they doctors or nurses—when they joined her E.R. team until she was sure that were they were well integrated into the whole.

  “Everything okay in here?” she asked cheerfully. And then her milk-chocolate complexion seemed to blanch when she saw the patient. “Tommy?”

  Mac stripped off his gloves, tossing them into the trash. He flashed a wide smile at the boy. “You know this trooper?”

  “Sure I know him. This is Tommy Edwards.” There was an infinite amount of compassion in her eyes as she looked at the boy. “His mother, Jane, was a nurse here. One of my best.”

  That would explain why the boy had turned up here, Mac thought. He moved away from the boy and closer to Wanda. “Was?”

  Wanda lowered her voice. That was a whole other story. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Mom died,” the boy said with the on-target honesty of a child.

  Wanda came closer to the bed. She threaded her hand through the boy’s silky dark hair. Her heart ached just to look at him. “What happened, Tommy?”

  “He sustained a laceration,” Mac said simply for the boy’s sake, avoiding technical terms that he knew would only frighten him. “He said Hugo did it.” Turning his back to the boy so he couldn’t hear, Mac took Wanda aside. “That his father?”

  Wanda shook her head. It was a sad story all around. “He doesn’t have a father, he’s got a stepfather. His father left before the boy was born. Stepfather’s name is Paul Allen.” She’d heard that the man wasn’t happy being saddled with Tommy’s welfare now that the boy’s mother was dead. Wanda stopped to think. “I think Jane mentioned a dog named Hugo. A Doberman. Said she didn’t like having the dog around, but that Paul was adamant about keeping it.”

  The man’s exact words had been that he’d sooner get rid of the boy than the dog, but that wasn’t something Wanda was about to repeat around Tommy.

  She turned around again and looked at Tommy. He looked pale, even against the fresh bandage that was covering his sutures. “Honey, why didn’t you come to me when this happened?”

  “Tried,” he mumbled to the tips of his sneakers as he looked at them. “Couldn’t find you.”

  “Well, now you found me,” Wanda declared. “And we’re going to find your stepdad.” Even if she had to haul him out of whatever hole he was residi
ng in, Wanda added silently. About to pick up the boy, she looked at Mac. “Are you through with him, Doctor?”

  “For now.” Turning his head, he lowered his voice, “He’s going to need reconstructive surgery on that once the wound heals.”

  Wanda nodded as she pressed her lips together. “Getting Allen’s consent isn’t going to be easy. Especially not after I strangle that dog of his with my bare hands.”

  “My money’s on you, Wanda,” Mac told her, grinning.

  Wanda merely laughed in response. “C’mon, Tommy. Let’s see if there’s any ice cream in the refrigerator for a brave boy.”

  She scooped the boy up into her arms, holding him to her ample chest. The boy curled up against her, responding to the maternal warmth he felt emanating from his mother’s friend.

  His eyes met Mac’s over Wanda’s shoulder just before he was carried out from the room.

  “Bye,” he said solemnly.

  “Not bye,” Mac corrected him. “‘So-long.’ I’ll be seeing you again soon. Sure you don’t like being called Nameless better?”

  The boy giggled and shook his head slightly. “I’m sure.”

  Mac grinned at him. “Okay.”

  As Wanda stepped out of the room with his patient, Mac peeled off the yellow paper gown he’d put on and turned to toss it into the wastebasket where he’d thrown away his gloves. He could feel the other nurse’s eyes all but boring into him.

  That woman was a knockout, but she could definitely stand to have an attitude adjustment. Too bad he was too tired to do anything about it right now. “Something you want to say to me, Nurse DeLuca?”

  She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or distant. In either case, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t here to strike up friendships with the doctors. But she was big enough to admit when she was wrong. And she had been, at least as far as this went.

  “You were good with that little boy.”

  He turned to face her squarely. “Why, did you expect me to torture him?”

  She was already regretting her mellower stance. “No, I just expected you to be a doctor.”

  Mac stood studying her for a moment, trying to make sense of what she’d just said. He failed.

  “Is that some kind of code? Because I was being a doctor. Stethoscope, sutures, Novocain,” he went down the line of things he’d used in cleaning out, then stitching the wound. “The works.”

  “No, I mean you were kind to him.” Most of the doctors she’d worked with were interested in doing their job, applying their knowledge, and then moving on. After four years, she’d begun to believe that was the nature of the beast.

  Still lost, Mac could only stare at her. “Just what kind of doctors do you know, Nurse DeLuca? Dr. Frankenstein and his crowd?”

  He was making fun of her. She might have known. Served her right for entertaining charitable thoughts about him. “Never mind.”

  “No,” he caught her arm as she began to leave the room. “You started this, I’m curious.”

  Blowing out a breath, Jolene resigned herself to remaining where she was until the doctor heard what he wanted to hear. “I’m accustomed to doctors who treat the wound, not the patient.”

  He was watching her eyes. She looked directly at him. People who fabricated things looked away. Either she was very, very good, or she was telling the truth.

  When you hear hoofbeats, he reminded himself, think horse, not zebra.

  He thought zebra.

  “So that’s why you transferred.”

  Jolene had learned that being closemouthed was a great deal safer than sharing bits and pieces of yourself. Because bits and pieces could be reconstructed to be used against you, or tossed away carelessly. She wasn’t sure which was worse.

  But she’d just witnessed him being exceptionally gentle with the boy, the way she would have been had MacKenzie acted like a typical doctor in her mind toward the boy.

  So she shrugged and gave him an answer of sorts. “Among other reasons.”

  She was mellowing, he thought. And he had to admit that he liked it. His initial reaction toward Jolene shuffled forward to take the center stage.

  “Maybe you can tell me about those other reasons over coffee later if you’re not busy—”

  “I am.” Just because she was being civil to him didn’t mean she wanted to sit at the same table.

  She’d answered just a little too quickly for him. “You don’t know when later.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she informed him crisply. “I intend to be busy until the next century.”

  He was about to counter that assessment, but his pager went off.

  He tilted the small gray/blue device toward him and recognized the phone number as one he’d dialed only last night. Lynda. Somehow, she’d managed to completely slip his mind.

  “Damn, I forgot all about that.”

  Curious, Jolene looked down at the LCD scene with its numbers that meant nothing to her. The question came without thought. “Forgot about what?”

  Mac sighed. He was supposed to have picked the woman up at her place twenty minutes ago. “My date.”

  Reaching into his pocket for his cell phone, Mac turned toward Jolene to finish their conversation.

  But she was already gone.

  Chapter Three

  Mac snapped his cell phone shut. It had taken some fancy talking, but he’d gotten himself a reprieve. And then some.

  He’d smoothed Lynda’s ruffled feathers, mentioned an expensive restaurant that was in the offing and what might happen afterward. She’d quickly forgiven him for the fact that she’d been waiting, getting steadily more annoyed, for the better part of half an hour. Lynda had informed him tersely at the beginning of the conversation that had eventually swung his way that she didn’t take kindly to being kept waiting by any man.

  But then, she’d conceded at the end, she knew that he wasn’t just any man.

  She’d already softened considerably when he told her about the collapsing balcony and the people who had fallen along with it. By the time he’d ended the call, Lynda would have been willing to forgive him anything and bear his children straightaway.

  Mac smiled to himself, anticipating the evening ahead. He didn’t take for granted that he was a man with more lives than a cat and twice as many grace periods.

  Lynda had promised to be waiting for him with a cool bottle of wine chilling on the ice and a hot body warming on the bed.

  Once more with feeling, Mac thought as he made his way to the staff lounge. This time, nothing was going to stop him from making it out of his lab coat and out of the hospital.

  Nothing but the sound of raised voices.

  He heard the conversation as he made his way down the corridor.

  A gruff voice was strained with impatience as Mac heard the man retort, “Look, I don’t need any of your lip, lady. You took care of him, great. Send the insurance company the bill. Wasn’t me who told him to stick his face in front of Hugo’s muzzle. I can’t be watching the kid 24/7, I’ve got my own life, my own problems to keep me busy. Damn kid’s old enough to know better.”

  Turning the corner, less than fifteen feet shy of the rear electronic doors and freedom, Mac saw a tall, fairly muscular man with a weather-hewn face talking to Wanda. Or more properly, at Wanda. He was obviously giving the head nurse a hard time.

  She looked as if she was having trouble hanging onto her temper, Mac noted, which was unusual, given that Wanda was one of the most easygoing people he knew. The man’s clothes had the appearance of being hastily donned, and he had one large hand clamped tightly down on Tommy’s small wrist.

  The man gave Mac the impression that he would think nothing of yanking Tommy up by his arm like a rag doll that had fallen on disfavor.

  Not your problem, Mac, just keep walking. Door’s ready to open for you.

  Mac didn’t listen to his own advice.

  Instead he stopped in front of Wanda and the boisterous stranger, pausing first to smile down at Tommy. The
boy looked up at him with huge, frightened eyes, a beaten puppy looking for a single show of kindness.

  “Problem, Wanda?” Mac asked in a deceptively easygoing voice.

  The look in Wanda’s eyes was nothing short of grateful relief. “This is Tommy’s stepfather, Paul Allen.” Mac could tell she wanted to say something more, but she only added, “He came here looking for him.”

  Obviously not in the mood for any further introductions or delays, the other man frowned so deeply, it looked as if the expression went clear down to his bones and was permanently etched there.

  “Had a hell of a time finding him,” Allen complained. He glared down at the boy tethered to his hand. “Kid keeps running away.”

  Mac continued to keep his tone friendly, but there was no mistaking his meaning. “In my experience, kids don’t run away when they’re not unhappy.”

  The remark earned Mac an annoyed glare. “‘In my experience”’ he echoed, “pain in the butt ones do.” The man’s eyes narrowed as he scrutinized him. “What are you, the roving shrink around here?”

  “No,” Mac replied evenly for Tommy’s sake, “I’m the doctor who fixed his face.”

  Tommy’s stepfather blew out a short breath. “Yeah, well thanks,” he spat the words out as if they cost him, then gave Tommy a short yank to wake him up. “Let’s go, kid.”

  “Just a minute,” Mac called after him, then took a couple of quick steps to catch up. “We’re not finished yet.”

  The other man didn’t appreciate being detained any longer, especially not over someone he considered an impediment in his life. “Maybe you’re not, but I am, Doc. I’ve got dinner waiting for me and the dog needs to be fed—”

  That wasn’t all that the dog needed, Mac thought. But he knew that getting into it over the animal wasn’t going to accomplish anything. His main concern was the boy’s welfare and this was going to need kid gloves. “Your son needs more operations—”

  Allen spared a malevolent look in Tommy’s direction. As far as he was concerned, the boy had been nothing but trouble from day one. “Oh he does, does he? What kind of operations?”