Presumed Guilty & Keeper of the Bride (37 page)

Even before he walked in the doors, he could hear the sounds of frantic activity inside. The waiting area was mobbed. He pushed his way through the crowd until he’d reached the triage desk, manned by a clearly embattled nurse.

“I’m Detective Navarro, Portland Police,” he said. “Is Nina Cormier working here?”

“Nina? Not tonight, as far as I know.”

“She came in with one of the ambulances.”

“I might have missed her. Let me check.” She punched the intercom button and said, “There’s a policeman out here. Wants to speak to Nina. If she’s back there, can you ask her to come out?”

For a good ten minutes, he waited with growing impatience. Nina didn’t appear. The crowd in the ER seemed to grow even larger, packing into every available square inch of the waiting area. Even worse, the reporters had shown up, TV cameras and all. The triage nurse had her hands full; she’d forgotten entirely about Sam.

Unable to wait any longer, he pushed past the front desk. The nurse was calming down a hysterical family member; she didn’t even notice Sam had crossed into the inner sanctum and was heading up the ER corridor.

Treatment rooms lined both sides of the halls. He glanced in each one as he passed. All were occupied and overflowing with victims from the bombing. He saw stunned faces, bloodied clothes. But no Nina.

He turned, retraced his steps down the hall, and paused outside a closed door. It was the trauma room. From beyond the door came the sound of voices, the clang of cabinets. He knew that a crisis was in full swing, and he was reluctant to intrude, but he had no alternative. He had to confirm that Nina was here, that she’d made it safely to the ER.

He pushed open the door.

A patient—a man—was lying on the table, his body white and flaccid under the lights. Half a dozen medical personnel were laboring over him, one performing CPR, the others scurrying about with IV’s and drugs. Sam paused, momentarily stunned by the horror of the scene.

“Sam?”

Only then did he notice Nina moving toward him from the other side of the room. Like all the other nurses, she was dressed in scrub clothes. He hadn’t even noticed her in that first glimpse of blue-clad personnel.

She took his arm and quickly tugged him out of the room. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

“You left the blast site. I wasn’t sure what happened to you.”

“I rode here in one of the ambulances. I figured they needed me.” She glanced back at the door to the trauma room. “I was right.”

“Nina, you can’t just take off without telling me! I had no idea if you were all right.”

She regarded him with an expression of quiet wonder, but didn’t say a thing.

“Are you listening to me?” he said.

“Yes,” she replied softly. “But I don’t believe what I’m hearing. You actually sound scared.”

“I wasn’t scared. I was just—I mean—” He shook his head in frustration. “Okay, I was worried. I didn’t want something to happen to you.”

“Because I’m your witness?”

He looked into her eyes, those beautiful, thoughtful eyes. Never in his life had he felt so vulnerable. This was a new feeling for him and he didn’t like it. He was not a man who was easily frightened, and the fact that he had experienced such fear at the thought of losing her told him he was far more deeply involved than he’d ever intended to be.

“Sam?” She reached up and touched his face.

He grasped her hand and gently lowered it. “Next time,” he instructed, “I want you to tell me where you’re going. It’s
your
life at stake. If you want to risk it, that’s your business. But until Spectre’s under arrest, your safety’s my concern. Do you understand?”

She withdrew her hand from his. The retreat was more than physical; he could feel her pulling away emotionally as well, and it hurt him. It was a pain of his own choosing, and that made it even worse.

She said, tightly, “I understand perfectly well.”

“Good. Now, I think you should go back to the hotel where we can keep an eye on you tonight.”

“I can’t leave. They need me here.”

“I need you, too. Alive.”

“Look at this place!” She waved toward the waiting area, crowded with the injured. “These people all have to be examined and treated. I can’t walk out now.”

“Nina, I have a job to do. And your safety is part of that job.”

“I have a job to do, too!” she asserted.

They faced each other for a moment, neither one willing to back down.

Then Nina snapped, “I don’t have time for this,” and she turned back toward the trauma room.

“Nina!”

“I’ll do my job, Sam. You do yours.”

“Then I’m sending a man over to keep an eye on you.”

“Do whatever you want.”

“When will you be finished here?”

She stopped and glanced at the waiting patients. “My guess? Not till morning.”

“Then I’ll be back to get you at 6:00 a.m.”

“Whatever you say, Detective,” she retorted and pushed into the trauma room. He caught a fleeting glimpse of her as she rejoined the surgical team, and then the door closed behind her.

I’ll do my job. You do yours,
she’d told him.

She’s right,
he thought.
That’s exactly what I should be focusing on. My job.

From his car phone, he put in a call to Officer Pressler and told him to send his relief officer down to Maine Med ER, where he’d be the official baby-sitting service for the night. Then, satisfied that Nina was in good hands, he headed back to the bomb scene.

It was eleven-thirty. The night was just beginning.

N
INA MADE IT THROUGH
the next seven hours on sheer nerve. Her conversation with Sam had left her hurt and angry, and she had to force herself to concentrate on the work at hand—tending to the dozens of patients who now filled the waiting area. Their injuries, their discomfort, had to take priority. But every so often, when she’d pause to collect her thoughts or catch her breath, she’d find herself thinking about Sam, about what he’d said.

I have a job to do. And your safety is part of that job.

Is that all I am to you?
she wondered as she signed her name to yet another patient instruction sheet. A job, a burden? And what had she expected, anyway? From the beginning, he’d been the unflappable public official, Mr. Cool himself. There’d been flashes of warmth, of course, even the occasional glimpse of the man inside, a man of genuine kindness. But every time she thought she’d touched the real Sam Navarro, he’d pull away from her as though scalded by the contact.

What am I to do with you, Sam?
she wondered sadly. And what was she to do with all the feelings she had for him?

Work was all that kept her going that night. She never even noticed when the sun came up.

By the time 6:00 a.m. rolled around, she was so tired she could scarcely walk without weaving, but at last the waiting room was empty and the patients all sent home. Most of the ER staff had gathered, shell-shocked, in the employee lounge for a well-deserved coffee break. Nina was about to join them when she heard her name called.

She turned. Sam was standing in the waiting room.

He looked every bit as exhausted as she felt, his eyes bleary, his jaw dark with a day’s growth of beard. At her first sight of his face, all the anger she’d felt the night before instantly evaporated.

My poor, poor Sam,
she thought.
You give so much of yourself. And what comfort do you have at the end of the day?

She went to him. He didn’t speak; he just looked at her with that expression of weariness. She put her arms around him. For a moment they held each other, their bodies trembling with fatigue. Then she heard him say, softly, “Let’s go home.”

“I’d like that,” she said. And smiled.

She didn’t know how he managed to pilot the car to his house. All she knew was that a moment after she dozed off, they were in his driveway, and he was gently prodding her awake. Together they dragged themselves into the house, into his bedroom. No thoughts of lust crossed her mind, even as they undressed and crawled into bed together, even as she felt his lips brush her face, felt his breath warm her hair.

She fell asleep in his arms.

S
HE FELT SO WARM
, so perfect, lying beside him. As if she belonged here, in his bed.

Sam gazed through drowsy eyes at Nina, who was still sound asleep. It was already afternoon. He should have been up and dressed hours ago, but sheer exhaustion had taken its toll.

He was getting too old for this job. For the past eighteen years, he’d been a cop through and through. Though there were times when he hated the work, when the ugly side of it seemed to overwhelm his love for the job, he’d never once doubted that a cop was exactly what he was meant to be. And so it dismayed him now that, at this moment, being a cop was the furthest thing from his mind.

What he wanted, really wanted, was to spend eternity in this bed, gazing at this woman. Studying her face, enjoying the view. Only when Nina was asleep did he feel it was safe to really look at her. When she was awake, he felt too vulnerable, as though she could read his thoughts, could see past his barriers, straight to his heart. He was afraid to admit, even to himself, the feelings he harbored there.

As he studied her now, he realized there was no point denying it to himself: he couldn’t bear the thought of her walking out of his life. Did that mean he loved her? He didn’t know.

He did know this was not the turn of events he’d wanted or expected.

But last night he’d watched her at work in the wreckage of the bomb site, and he’d admired a new dimension of Nina, one he saw for the first time. A woman with both compassion and strength.

It would be so easy to fall in love with her. It would be such a mistake.

In a month, a year, she’d come to see him for what he was: no hero with a badge, but an everyday guy doing his job the best way he knew how. And there she’d be in that hospital, working side by side with men like Robert Bledsoe. Men with medical degrees and houses on the water. How long would it take for her to grow weary of the cop who just happened to love her?

He sat up on the side of the bed and ran his hands through his hair, trying to shake off the last vestiges of sleep. His brain wasn’t feeling alert yet. He needed coffee, food, anything to snap him back into gear. There were so many details to follow up on, so many leads still to check out.

Then he felt a touch, soft as silk, caress his bare back. All at once, work was the last thing on his mind.

He turned and met her gaze. She was looking drowsily at him, her smile relaxed and contented. “What time is it?” she murmured.

“Almost three.”

“We slept that long?”

“We needed it. Both of us. It was okay to let our guard down. Pressler was watching the house.”

“You mean he was outside all day?”

“I made the arrangements last night. Before he went off duty. I knew I wanted to bring you home with me.”

She opened her arms to him. That gesture of invitation was too tempting to resist. With a groan of surrender, he lay down beside her and met her lips with a kiss. At once his body was responding, and so was she. Their arms were entwined now, their warmth mingling. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t turn back; he wanted her too badly. He wanted to feel their bodies join, just one last time. If he couldn’t have her for the rest of his life, at least he would have her for this moment. And he’d remember, always, her face, her smile, her sweet moans of desire as he thrust, hard and deep, inside her.

They both took. They both gave.

But even as he reached his climax, even as he felt the first glorious release, he thought,
This is not enough. This could never be enough.
He wanted to know more than just her body; he wanted to know her soul.

His passion was temporarily sated, yet he felt both unsatisfied and depressed as he lay beside her afterward. Not at all what the carefree bachelor should expect to feel after a conquest. If anything, he was angry at himself for sliding into this situation. For allowing this woman to become so important to him.

And here she was, smiling, working her way even deeper into his life.

His response was to pull away, to rise from the bed and head into the shower. When he reemerged, clean and still damp, she was sitting up on the side of the bed, watching him with a look of bewilderment.

“I have to get back to work,” he said, pulling on a clean shirt. “I’ll invite Pressler inside to sit with you.”

“The bombing’s over and done with. Spectre’s probably a thousand miles away by now.”

“I can’t take that chance.”

“There are others who know his face. The theater ushers. They could identify him.”

“One of them hit his head on the sidewalk. He’s still in and out of consciousness. The other one can’t even decide on the color of Spectre’s eyes. That’s how helpful the ushers are.”

“Nevertheless, you’ve got other witnesses and Spectre knows it.” She paused. “I’d say that lets both of us off the hook.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can stop worrying about being a target. And you can stop worrying about keeping me alive. And go back to your real job.”

“This is part of my job.”

“So you’ve told me.” She tilted her chin up, and he saw the brief gleam of tears in her eyes. “I wish I was more than that. God, I wish…”

“Nina, please. This doesn’t help either one of us.”

Her head drooped. The sight of her, hurt, silent, was almost more than he could stand. He knelt down before her and took her hands in his. “You know I’m attracted to you.”

She gave a softly ironic laugh. “That much, I guess, is obvious to us both.”

“And you also know that I think you’re a terrific woman. If I ever get hauled to the ER in an ambulance, I hope you’re the nurse who takes care of me.”

“But?”

“But…” He sighed. “I just don’t see us together. Not for the long haul.”

She looked down again, and he could sense her struggle for composure. He’d hurt her, and he hated himself for it, hated his own cowardice. That’s what it was, of course. He didn’t believe hard enough in their chances. He didn’t believe in
her.