He patted her hand. “Don’t worry about it. The medication has that effect.”

  Marjorie wondered if it actually was the shot. No, she was convinced his silk-edged voice and kind eyes were the cause of all this, mesmerizing her. Her eyes drifted closed, and she moistened her lips as she imagined Sam Bretton leaning over her and whispering words of love in her ear, then taking her in his arms and kissing her with such tenderness, such passion, that her thoughts forcefully collided inside her head. A fireworks display that rivaled a Fourth of July celebration exploded, and she forced her eyes open and felt the blood rush through her veins.

  “Go ahead and sleep,” he said softly. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  “Please don’t leave me.” Her eyes rounded, and her mouth filled with the bitter taste of panic. She needed this man she barely knew more than she’d ever needed anyone. The terror that gripped her as she stared ahead at the wide double doors that led to the operating room was intense and nearly overwhelming.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Sam assured her, continuing to hold her hand, his fingers firmly entwined with hers.

  Somehow it seemed vitally important that he be there every minute. Still, she hated needing anyone. People had always let her down. She was a stronger person than this, and Dr. Sam Bretton was little more than a stranger. Yet she trusted him enough to place her life in his capable hands.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” she said, and realized her voice was barely audible. “You…you don’t need to stay with me. I’m a big girl. I’ll get through this…really…Don’t tell Jody, she’ll only worry…Must call Lydia.”

  “That’s all taken care of,” he said, and his voice seemed to come from a great distance.

  “Thank you, Sam,” Marjorie mumbled, and started slipping into a light sleep.

  A female voice made its way through to her fading consciousness. “Dr. Johnson is ready, doctor.”

  An invisible force pushed the gurney forward, and Marjorie struggled to open her eyes. Someone lifted her head and placed her hair inside a confining cap.

  She managed to open one eye and was greeted by blinding lights. Sam was at her side, and Cal Johnson, whom she’d briefly met earlier, stood on the opposite side of the room, examining her X-rays. Sam leaned over her and explained that the anesthesiologist would be there any minute. Marjorie nodded, even managed a weak smile, then decided that it was better not to look around. She settled back down and tightly shut her eyes.

  Soon other voices met over her head, some deep, others crisp, and a few soft. In her drug-induced drowsiness Marjorie sorted through them and tried to assimilate only Sam’s words. The nurses joked and flirted with him like a longtime friend. She sighed with the realization that if his patients fell in love with him, then the women on the hospital staff must be equally vulnerable to his charms. Maybe he was already married. Of course, that was it! Sam Bretton had a wife. Her disappointment was keen. He was married. He had to be. Rats! All the good ones were already taken.

  Finally it got too difficult to concentrate, and she gave up trying. When she woke, this troublesome episode would all be over, and she could get on with her life and forget that any of this had ever happened.

  * * *

  —

  Impatiently, Marjorie waded through huge billows of thick, black fog. She shivered with cold and sighed when Sam’s familiar voice asked for a heated blanket. She felt the weight of a quilt on top of her, and she sighed contentedly. The fog parted as warmth seeped into her bones, and for the first time she could decipher a path that led through the haze. She tried to speak, but her lips seemed glued together, and no amount of trying could pry them apart.

  “Marjorie?”

  Getting her eyes to open required an equal amount of effort, but when she managed that task, she was blinded by a flash of high-intensity light. She groaned and lowered her lashes.

  “Am I in the morgue?” she mumbled, having difficulty getting the words over her uncooperative tongue.

  “Not yet,” Sam answered.

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “You’re in the recovery room. Everything went without a hitch. We’re lucky we got the appendix when we did. From the look of things, it was ready to burst, and then there could have been some unpleasant complications.”

  “Close, but no cigar, huh?”

  “In this case you don’t want a cigar.”

  “So I’ll live and love again?”

  Sam brushed the hair from her temple. “You’re good for at least another fifty years.”

  For some inexplicable reason it seemed easier to concentrate with her eyes closed. Her lids fluttered shut even though she strained to keep them open.

  “Go ahead and sleep,” Sam told her softly. “I’m here, like I promised.”

  Marjorie wanted to thank him; she searched for some way to let him know how grateful she was that she hadn’t woken up alone. The hospital might seem a warm, congenial place to him, but he was there every day. To her, it was a disinfected torture chamber, and she was scared witless. It seemed so important to tell him that his presence comforted her that she wrestled to keep awake even as she felt herself slipping back into the thick, dark fog.

  Pain woke Marjorie up the second time—a dull, throbbing ache in her side, quite different from what she’d experienced before meeting Sam. She raised her hand, rubbed her eyes, and yawned. The room wasn’t as brilliant as before. The light appeared muted, and she was grateful. She rolled her head and realized she was in a small room. The draperies were closed, but a ribbon of light entered between them. A noise distracted her, and she turned her head in the opposite direction and discovered Sam Bretton sitting at her bedside, reading the latest Scandinavian thriller.

  “Sam?”

  He closed the book, turned to face her, and smiled. “Hello again.”

  “What time is it?”

  He rotated his wrist. “Almost six.”

  “In the morning?”

  He nodded and stood, setting his novel aside. He took her wrist and pressed his fingers over her pulse while he stared at the face of his watch.

  “Have you been here all night?” It seemed incredible that he would have stayed with her ever since her surgery. She noticed then that the blood-pressure cuff was wrapped around her upper arm, and fear renewed itself within her. There had been problems! Big problems! She swallowed around the tightness in her throat. All night she’d teetered on the brink of death, and Sam had stayed with her and fought for her very life. For hours her fate had hung by a delicate thread, and this man had valiantly battled to save her.

  “What happened?” Her question was hoarse, revealing a hundred doubts.

  “Nothing,” he answered crisply. “All surgeries should be such a breeze.”

  “Nothing went wrong?”

  He frowned, puzzled. “Nothing.”

  “But…the blood-pressure cuff…And you stayed with me all night. Why?”

  His frown deepened, marring his smooth brow with three nearly straight lines. “Because I said I would. You needed someone.”

  Guilt fell heavily upon her shoulders. She certainly hadn’t meant for him to do this. He must have gone without sleep the entire night, and all because of a few silly words she’d uttered in the throes of panic. “But I didn’t—”

  “Hey, don’t worry about me,” he interrupted quickly. “I’ve got the day off.”

  “I suppose you golf on Wednesdays?” she asked.

  “I don’t play golf.”

  Marjorie feigned shock. “You don’t golf? Just what kind of doctor are you? No one told me that before I made my first appointment with you.”

  “Count your blessings, Majors.”

  “Oh?”

  “I could charge by the hour.”

  The effort to smile was painful, but holding back her amusement would have been impossible. “Hey, don’t make me laugh—it hurts.” She groaned and placed her hand over her abdomen. “How soon will the pain go away.”

  “In a few days.”

  “A whole lot of good that’s doing me now.”

  “Stop being so impatient.”

  He spoke with just enough of a challenge for her to quit arguing. She would grin and bear it.

  “I’ll get the nurse,” Sam informed her, smiling. “Cal left instructions for you to sit upright once you woke.”

  Marjorie snapped her mouth closed and pressed her lips together to smother a protest. Dr. Johnson didn’t actually expect her to move, did he? She couldn’t—not yet. If breathing hurt this much, she could only imagine the agony that sitting up would cause. Great! Sam and his friend had grabbed her from the jaws of death, only to let her die a slow, torturous death from pain.

  From the moment she’d met Dr. Sam, Marjorie had been looking for some imperfection. Anything. He was much too wonderful to be real. Now the flaw stood out like a fake diamond under a jeweler’s eyepiece. Clearly, she decided in her still-drugged state, Sam Bretton enjoyed watching people suffer.

  Again Sam proved her wrong. The nurse who came to her room came alone. Her nametag was pinned to her uniform: Bertha Powell, RN.

  “Dr. Sam sent me,” Bertha announced.

  Marjorie studied the older woman, who looked as though her previous profession had been mud-wrestling. She was built as solid as a rock, and from the glinting light in her eyes, she was just waiting for Marjorie to start something.

  “Where’s Sam?”

  “Dr. Sam asked me to tell you that he’ll be back later this afternoon.”

  “Wonderful,” Marjorie muttered, and wiggled her big toe as an experiment. The pain wasn’t debilitating, but she wasn’t exactly up to swinging from jungle vines, either.

  Bertha pulled back the sheet. “Are you ready?”

  Marjorie wondered what the other woman would do if she announced that she refused to move. Briefly she toyed with the idea, then decided against it. Her teeth gritted, she cautiously did what had been requested of her.

  Exhausted afterward, Marjorie slept for six hours. Someone moving inside her room woke her. When she stirred and opened her eyes, she found Lydia standing at the foot of her bed with a small bouquet of flowers in her hand.

  “Hi, Marjorie,” Lydia said in a soft voice.

  “I had my appendix out,” Marjorie grumbled. “I stopped your friend in the nick of time from doing a lobotomy.”

  Lydia looked relieved and set the flowers on the bedside table. “Same ol’ Marjorie.”

  “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

  “Hey, no problem. I’m used to it, remember?”

  Marjorie tried to wipe the tiredness from her eyes. “I bet you’re waiting for me to tell you how right you were.”

  “It’d feel good, but I can wait.” Obviously she couldn’t, because she added, “Didn’t I tell you it had to be more than a queasy stomach? I figured it out long before you, didn’t I?”

  “Yup, you did,” Marjorie returned, with more than a hint of amused sarcasm. “Where would I be without you?” That much wasn’t in jest. She was sincerely grateful her friend had made the appointment when she did, especially after what Sam had told her.

  Lydia pulled a chair close to the hospital bed and plunked herself down. Without so much as pausing to inhale, she started off with a long series of questions. “How do you like Dr. Sam? Isn’t he wonderful? Didn’t I tell you he was a marvel? Now that you’ve met him, you’ll probably be like everyone else and fall madly in love with him.”

  “No doubt.”

  Lydia’s face blossomed into a wide grin. “I knew you’d like him.”

  Just managing to avoid her friend’s gaze, Marjorie asked, “What’s his wife like?”

  “His wife?” That stopped Lydia cold. She opened and closed her mouth twice. “I didn’t know he was married.”

  “You mean he isn’t?” Hope flared. Naw, he had to be married—and probably had a passel of kids to boot. All in diapers, no doubt. Knowing the type of doctor he was convinced Marjorie that Sam Bretton would be a devoted husband and father. She, on the other hand, was definitely not the mother type.

  “I don’t know anything about a wife,” Lydia answered thoughtfully, chewing on the corner of her bottom lip. “I really don’t think he’s married. I can’t remember seeing a wedding band, can you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Marjorie muttered. He’d been wonderful…more than wonderful, but she had far more important matters to deal with that didn’t involve risking her heart over a physician whose second job entailed throwing women’s equilibriums off balance.

  In order to change the subject, Marjorie scooted her gaze past Lydia to the bouquet of carnations and roses on the bedside table. “Thanks for the flowers.”

  “Hey, no problem. They’re from all the salespeople at Dixon.”

  “All?” Marjorie cocked one delicately shaped brow suspiciously. “Even Al Swanson?”

  Lydia grinned sheepishly. “He tossed in a buck and suggested I buy a cactus.”

  That Marjorie could believe. Al had made it clear that he didn’t approve of women in the car business. That was tough, she mused, since she was at Dixon Motors for the long haul, no matter what Al or anyone else thought. It wasn’t that Al had taken a dislike to her and her alone. He had a problem with everyone. He had yet to learn that sales work was often a team effort. Marjorie’s gut feeling was that Al Swanson wouldn’t be around Dixon much longer.

  “Oh!” Lydia exclaimed. “I nearly forgot. Dr. Sam phoned and told me to get the key to your apartment so I could pick up some personal items you’re going to need.”

  Once again the man had amazed Marjorie with his thoughtfulness. “I hate to put you to all the trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble. Honest. You’d do the same thing for me.”

  Marjorie smiled her thanks. Accepting anyone’s assistance was difficult for her—more than it should have been, she realized. She’d practically raised Jody with little or no help from any state agencies. With a limited college education, she’d forged her own way in the world, designed her career, and earned enough to support herself and pay for her sister’s college tuition. Sam Bretton had the wrong impression of her, and to Marjorie’s utter embarrassment, she had to admit she’d been the one to give it to him.

  “The key,” Lydia reminded her.

  “Oh, it’s in my purse.” Guessing where it would be stored, she nodded toward the closet door.

  Lydia stood and moved in that direction. “Dr. Sam gave me a list, but you might want to read it over.”

  “I’m sure he thought of everything,” Marjorie responded distractedly. She had to set Sam straight. She wasn’t a helpless clinging vine, although he had good reason to believe she was. The memory of how she’d pleaded with him not to leave her was a keen source of her present chagrin.

  Triumphantly, Lydia held up Marjorie’s key chain. “I’ll run over to your place and get your things now.”

  Marjorie could do little more than nod. Her thoughts were light-years away, spinning out of control. She would talk to Sam the next time he stopped in to see her. She would explain everything. Yawning, she placed her hand over her mouth and determinedly tried to suppress the exhaustion that gripped her. How strange it felt to become so weary so easily. Of their own accord, her eyes drifted closed.

  * * *

  —

  Sam was there when she woke. He smiled down on her before noting something on her chart. “How’s the patient feeling?”

  “I don’t know yet. Give me a minute to sort through the various pains.” To her surprise she noticed that her purple velvet housecoat was neatly folded across the bottom of her bed. Lydia must have returned with her things, and Marjorie realized she had somehow managed to sleep through her friend’s second visit.

  “Dr. Johnson wants you up and walking before dinner.”

  The protest that sprang automatically to her lips died a quick death. Sitting up in bed earlier had been difficult enough! Sam had to be out of his mind if he believed she was going to traipse around this room or down these halls, dragging an IV pole with her, and all because some man she barely knew had ordered her to. She, of all people, should know when she was ready to risk life and limb by walking again.

  Sam glanced up from his notations, his eyes studying her. “What, no argument?”

  “When can I get out of here?”

  “Soon, but that’s up to Cal,” he answered noncommittally. “Listen, before you think about leaving the hospital, focus your energy on getting out of bed and moving.”

  He sounded so reasonable, so calm and confident, that the brick walls of her rebellion crumbled before she had them completely raised. Marjorie cautiously moved the sheet aside and struggled a little higher against her pillows.

  “Careful, Marjorie. Don’t try to move on your own.” Sam closed her chart and hung it at the end of the bed.

  “No,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’ll do it myself.” One foot freed itself from the tangled sheet, and she raised herself up onto one elbow.

  Disregarding her words, Sam placed his arm around her shoulders and helped her into an upright position. Flushed and embarrassed by how incredibly weak she was, Marjorie reached for her housecoat, astonished that the simple task of sitting could tire her so much that she was practically panting.

  Sam draped her robe over her shoulders, then located her slippers and slipped them onto her feet. “Okay, let’s take this nice and easy.”

  “Trust me, I’m not exactly ready to jump off this bed and race down the corridor.” The spinning room gradually circled into place and came to a stop. “I think I’d feel better about this in the morning.”

  “Now, Marjorie.”

  She wanted to argue with him but didn’t have the strength. “I’m not normally like this,” she said, with as much force as she could muster. “I’m sorry I asked you to stay with me…I realize now I shouldn’t have…”