Hot as Sin (7 page)

The nurse looked confused. “No. I don’t think so.”

Dianna’s brain raced. “Could she have seen me in the ICU?”

“I could call over there to ask, if you’d like.”

Using the phone beside Dianna’s bed, the nurse quickly confirmed that April had, indeed, visited Dianna in the ICU when she was sedated. One of the nurses recalled seeing her sleeping on a chair in the waiting room a couple of hours earlier.

When the nurse left, Dianna called April’s cell phone and left her a message saying she was all right and that she’d love to see her. But why, she wondered anxiously as she hung up, hadn’t her sister come back for another visit?

Just then, her friend Ellen came rushing into the room. A ball of energy who never walked when she could run, and never ran when she could sprint, Ellen was a big reason that
West Coast Update
was such a success. Were it not for her friend’s recommendation to the network’s producers, Dianna might have remained just another green-eyed blonde waiting in the wings.

“Oh honey, how are you feeling?” Ellen asked mid-hug. “I wish I could have been here sooner, but I couldn’t get a flight back out of San Francisco until late this morning.” Not stopping for a breath, she said, “Oh boy, I have to tell you about a simply breathtaking man sitting across the aisle from me. Big shoulders, wounded eyes. What I wouldn’t give to make things all better for him.”

It was so nice to have Ellen’s soft, warm arms around her that Dianna felt tears coming. Taking a deep breath, she blinked them away before sitting back against her pillows.

Smiling at her friend, she teased, “Did you take a covert picture of him on your cell phone?”

Ellen snapped her fingers. “No picture, darn it, but do the words ‘tall,’ ‘dark,’ and ‘gorgeous’ mean anything to you?”

Dianna felt her smile wobble. Tall, dark, and gorgeous sounded like Sam. Exactly like Sam.

She hadn’t thought about him this much in years. Hadn’t let herself. She must really be feeling bad if she was letting a bunch of old feelings about an ancient relationship get to her.

Wanting to change the subject, she said, “I can hardly believe I was in such a bad crash. Honestly, I feel more hungover than anything.”

Ellen sat down on the edge of the bed and held Dianna’s hands in both of hers. “Oh my gosh, honey, I shouldn’t be talking about a man. What’s important is that you’re feeling better. We were all so worried about you. No one wanted to stay in San Francisco at the studio. They all wanted to come here to be with you.”

Her staff at
West Coast Update
were as close as she got to family. Well, she had April, but they didn’t exactly hang out and joke around. She was godmother to three new babies, and attended every birthday party she was invited to, even though she was usually the only childless, husbandless woman there. Years ago, she’d been on the verge of becoming a sleepless, but radiantly happy, new mother. Now she was resolutely single, without a family anywhere on the horizon.

At least she’d found a place where she belonged, where no one questioned where she’d come from. Her coworkers assumed Dianna had always been confident. Beautiful.

No one knew how hard she’d worked to transform herself.

Ten years ago, she’d come to San Francisco with just enough money to rent a crappy apartment. She’d needed to find a job. Fast.

She’d done surprisingly well in her communications course at Tahoe Junior College, given how shy she’d always been, so after carefully studying the morning newscasters and realizing she could probably do what they did, she went to a training salon. For ten dollars they gave her a cut and color, transforming her dirty-blond locks into golden waves.

They also told her about clothing resale shops, where she soon found a couple of beautiful outfits in her size with the tags still on them. She’d marveled over the fact that some people had so much money that they would give things away without ever using them, but she was thankful, too, because she no longer looked like a hick from the mountains. She looked like a young professional, ready to make her mark on the world.

That morning when she’d walked into the local news station, she’d felt utterly out of place. A total imposter. All she wanted to do was turn tail and run. Instead, she planted a wide smile on her face and made sure they knew she was willing to work hard. She wasn’t afraid of sweeping floors or cleaning toilets or filing endless piles of papers.

Amazingly, she got the job, and one day when someone on set was sick, they actually let her help out onstage. Even more remarkable, at twenty-four, after six years of giving every spare moment she wasn’t fighting for April to the network, they’d accepted her proposal for a brand-new show.

Her vision of a positive, fun show that highlighted all the West Coast had to offer, from restaurants and shops to local stars, quickly became a hit. And she loved it. Even though sometimes she didn’t feel like smiling or sitting still for two hours while the stylist touched up her highlights and perfected her makeup.

All that mattered was that she was making an excellent living doing exactly what she wanted to do—and that her success had allowed her to pull April out of the foster system. Even better, unlike her mother, she didn’t have to rely on a man to take care of her … and she wouldn’t be left with nothing after he’d gone.

“I shouldn’t have let you go meet April by yourself,” Ellen said, breaking into her thoughts.

Dianna squeezed her friend’s hand, wanting to reassure her. “The accident could have happened anywhere. I shouldn’t have been driving in that storm.”

But Ellen knew too much about Dianna’s difficult relationship with April to think that their meeting in the coffee shop was just a friendly chat between loving sisters.

“It was more than the storm, wasn’t it? What did April say this time to upset you?”

Dianna’s chest tightened as she thought about their conversation in the Vail coffee shop. “She has a new boyfriend. That’s why she’s decided to stay in Colorado.”

In truth, there was much more to the situation, but Dianna wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about what April had told her just yet. Not until she figured out what she was going to do about it.

A pretty middle-aged doctor whom Dianna hadn’t met yet knocked lightly on the door before entering the room.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Kelley. You are a very lucky lady to have survived that crash in such good condition. I’ve never seen anyone moved out of the ICU so quickly. Good for you. From what I can see on your X-rays you’ve got no broken bones and no internal injuries, although I’m sure you still feel pretty banged up.”

The doctor flipped through the chart from the previous night. “How are you feeling today?”

“Pretty good, actually.”

The doctor slipped her chart back into the slot on the side of the bed. “I’m glad to hear it. I’d like you to spend another couple of hours with us so that we can continue to monitor you. But if you feel up to it, and everything looks good, I’m prepared to discharge you tonight.”

After shaking her hand and getting an autograph for her daughter, the doctor exited the room and the nurse stuck her head back inside.

“Ms. Kelley, I wanted to check with you about another visitor who’d like to say hello.”

Quick to protect Dianna against reporters looking to get the first sound bite on the accident, Ellen replied, “She isn’t ready to make a statement yet.”

The nurse shook her head. “Oh no, this man says he’s a firefighter, not a reporter.”

Dianna’s heart practically stopped beating. “A firefighter?”

“Swear to God he’s one of the best-looking guys I’ve ever seen,” the young nurse said innocently.

“What’s his name?” Ellen asked, impatience ringing out in her tone.

“Oh, sorry, his name is Sam MacKenzie.” The woman looked nervous now. “Should I tell him you don’t feel well, Ms. Kelley?”

Dianna’s heart and mind rebelled at the thought of seeing him exactly at the same time that she realized how badly she
wanted
to see him.

How badly she
needed
to see him.

Having the nurse tell him to go away would be the easiest thing to do. The smartest thing to do.

It didn’t take a genius to know that a reunion with Sam wasn’t a good idea. He’d been the reason for her greatest heartache, and regardless of the lies she’d told herself, the truth was, it had taken her years to get over him.

But Sam had obviously come all this way to see her and she knew Ellen wouldn’t let up until she explained.

Most important, though, she refused to act like a coward.

“I’d be happy to see him,” she lied to the nurse, a false smile from her arsenal of pretend smiles plastered on her face.

“Send him in.”

CHAPTER FIVE

THANK GOD, Sam thought as he stood in the doorway,
she’s alive
.

Relief at seeing her sitting up in bed flooded through him a millisecond before his next thought caught him unaware.

She’s even more beautiful than the day I met her
.

Even with a bruise on her cheekbone, even ten years older, she was still the most stunning woman he’d ever seen. In a matter of seconds, he took in the details of her face, her bright green eyes, her soft red lips, her high cheekbones, and her long, graceful neck.

The beautiful girl he’d been in love with had been transformed into a hell of a woman.

In the time they’d been apart, he’d never allowed himself to give in to the ridiculously powerful urge to watch her show, but there had been times he’d been unable to avoid seeing
West Coast Update
when he was waiting in the airport or sitting in a bar drinking a beer with the guys.

Six years after she’d left Tahoe, he still remembered the day he saw her interviewing a pop star. Her smile had been so big, so wide, her eyes so shiny and bright, he felt like he’d been shot straight through the heart.

All along, he’d assumed that she’d been torn to pieces by losing the baby, because that’s how he’d felt. As the camera zoomed in on her thousand-watt smile, he suddenly realized a baby would have held her back from the flashy life she’d really wanted.

Staring at her now on the hospital bed, he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised to see her look so glossy, so polished, but he’d always assumed she looked that way because of the cameras, or the lights, or that maybe the TV screen was distorting the truth.

In his head she had always been the same Dianna, the pretty girl who’d changed his world with a smile. But this woman was blonder, slicker, a thousand times more sophisticated-looking than the girl he used to know. People in hospitals never looked good. And yet, somehow, she did.

Dianna was in the middle of saying something to a thin woman with a severe black haircut who was sitting on a chair beside the bed when she looked up and saw him. Breaking off in the middle of her sentence, she sucked in a deep breath, her face flushing beneath his scrutiny.

And yet, even as he mentally dissected all the ways she’d changed, all the reasons they were more different than ever, his body was telling him to get over there, to pull her tight against him and kiss her until they were both gasping for air.

What the hell was he thinking?

Her friend moved first, standing up and holding out her hand. “Hello, I’m Ellen Ligurski, Dianna’s best friend. Her producer, too.”

One of the woman’s eyebrows was raised in question. She had to be wondering who the hell he was.

“Sam MacKenzie,” he said. “Dianna’s ex-fiancée.”

Ellen’s eyes went round like saucers, and she mouthed, “Oh my,” at the same time that Dianna gasped.

Well, that confirmed what he’d suspected all along; Dianna had completely buried her past when she’d moved to San Francisco. Especially the part about him.

But before latent anger could get the best of him, he told himself to get over it. They’d both started fresh. They’d both come out of the relationship just fine. He still had his wildfires. And she had the whole world at her feet. Neither of them had a damn thing to complain about—apart from her car accident, of course.

“I saw you on the airplane,” her friend said. “If I’d known that you were coming to see Dianna, I would have given you a ride.”

She turned to Dianna and whispered,
“This is the guy I was telling you about,”
loud enough for him to overhear.

Dianna and her friend had been talking about him? Interesting.

He let one side of his mouth quirk into a charming half smile. Ellen responded as expected, her eyes and mouth growing soft, an answering smile on her lips.

She was clearly still trying and failing to cover her shock at hearing that he and Dianna had once been an item. Practically husband and wife, with a white picket fence and everything.

“I heard Dianna was in a car accident,” he said to the woman. “And I wanted to see for myself that she was all right.”

“I’m fine,” Dianna said, her warm, slightly husky voice washing over him, making a beeline for his groin.

Her colorless face and tightly pinched lips belied her relaxed words and he was selfishly glad to know that he wasn’t the only one having a hard time with their impromptu reunion.

“I’m glad to see that,” he said, even though the truth was, he hadn’t expected to come all this way to find her sitting on the edge of the hospital bed in designer clothes that probably cost more than he made in a week.

What an idiot he was for actually thinking she needed him.

At the same time, he wanted to drop to his knees to give thanks that she’d survived the head-on, that she wasn’t wrapped head to toe in bandages, that there weren’t doctors hovering over her, pumping blood into her, stitching up her organs while they tried to keep her alive.

The air in the room was strained and heavy. Ellen’s eyes jumped between the two of them, back and forth several times, as if they were playing a tennis match.

Finally she offered, “I’ve got some phone calls to make for this week’s lineup. I’ll give you two some privacy.”

Dianna nodded, her lips still pursed tightly, two pink spots of color emerging beneath her cheekbones.