And who the hell was this woman he was treating?
The tunnel terminated in an underground parking garage that was standard-issue, with its pylons and little yellow-painted squares—and yet as large as it appeared to be, the place was empty except for a couple of nondescript vans with darkened windows and a small bus that also had blackouts for glass.
Before she even had his Porsche in park, a steel door was thrown open and—
One look at the huge guy who stepped out and Manny’s head exploded, the pain behind his eyes getting so intense he went limp in the bucket seat, his arms falling to the sides, his face twitching from the agony.
Jane said something to him. A car door was opened. Then his own was cracked.
The air that hit him smelled dry and vaguely like earth . . . but there was something else. Cologne. A very woody spice that was at once expensive and pleasing, but also something he had a curious urge to get the fuck away from.
Manny forced his lids to open. His vision was wonky as hell, but it was amazing what you could pull out of your ass if you had to—and as the man in front of him came into focus, he found himself staring up at the goateed motherfucker who had . . .
On a fresh wave of fucking-OW, his eyes rolled back and he nearly threw up.
“You’ve got to release the memories,” he heard Jane say.
There was some conversating at that point, his former colleague’s voice mixing with the deep tones of that man with the tattoos at his temple.
“It’s killing him—”
“There’s too much risk—”
“How the hell is he going to operate like this?”
There was a long silence. And then all of a sudden, the pain lifted as if it were a veil drawn back, all that pressure gone within the blink of an eye. In its place, memories flooded his mind.
Jane’s patient. From back at St. Francis. The man with the goatee and . . . the six-chambered heart. Who had shown up in Manny’s office and taken the files on that cardiac anomaly of his.
Manny popped open his lids and lasered in on that nasty-looking face. “I know you.”
“You get him out of the car,” was the only response from Goatee. “I don’t trust myself to touch him.”
Hell of a welcome wagon.
And there was someone else behind the big bastard. A man Manny was one hundred percent sure he’d seen before . . . Must have been only in passing, though, because he couldn’t call up a name or remember where they’d met.
“Let’s go,” Jane said.
Yeah. Great idea. At this point, he needed something to focus on other than all this say-what?.
As Manny’s brain struggled to process what was happening, at least his feet and legs got with the program. After Jane helped him out of the car and onto the vertical, he followed her and the Goateed Hater into a facility that was as nondescript and clean as any hospitaclass="underline" Corridors were uncluttered, fluorescent lights were in panels on the ceiling, everything smelled like Lysol.
And there were also the bubbled fixtures of security cameras at regular intervals, like the building was a monster with many eyes.
While they walked along, he knew better than to ask any questions. Well, that and his head was so scrambled, he was pretty fucking sure ambulation was the extent of his capabilities at this point. And then there was Goatee and his death stare—not exactly an opening for chitchat.
Doors. They passed many doors. All of which were closed and no doubt locked.
Happy little words like undisclosed location and national security hopscotched through his cranial park, and that helped a lot, making him think maybe he could forgive Jane for ghosting out on him—eventually.
When she stopped outside a pair of double flappers, her hands fidgeted with the lapels of her white coat and then the stethoscope in her pocket. And didn’t that make him feel like he had a gun to his head: In the OR, in countless trauma messes, she’d always kept her cool. It was her trademark.
This was personal, though, he thought. Somehow, whatever was on the other side of these doors hit close to home for her.
“I’ve got good equipment here,” she said, “but not everything. No MRI. Just CAT scans and X-rays. The OR should be adequate, however, and not only can I assist, but I’ve got an excellent nurse.”
Manny took a breath and reached down deep, pulling himself together. By force of will, he shut off all the questions and the lingering ow-ow-ow in his head and the strangeness of this descent into 007-land.
First thing on his to-do list? Ditch the pissed-off peanut gallery.
He glanced over his shoulder at Goatee. “You need to back off, my man. I want you out in the hall.”
The response he got in return was . . . just fang-tastic: The bastard bared a pair of canines as long as his arm and growled, natch, like a dog.
“Fine,” Jane said, getting in between them. “That’s fine. Vishous will wait out here.”
Vishous? Had he heard that right?
Then again, this boy’s baby mama sure hit the nail on the head, considering that little dental show. But whatever. Manny had a job to do, and maybe the bastard could go chew on a rawhide or something.
Pushing into the examination room, he—
Oh . . . dear God.
Oh . . . Lord above.
The patient on the table was lying still as water and . . . she was probably the most beautiful anything he’d ever seen: Hair was jet-black and braided into a thick rope that hung free next to her head. Skin was a golden brown, as if she were of Italian descent and had recently been in the sun. Eyes . . . her eyes were like diamonds, both colorless and brilliant, with nothing but a dark rim around the iris.
“Manny?”
Jane’s voice was right behind him, but he felt as if she were miles away. In fact, the whole world was somewhere else, nothing existing except for the stare of his patient as she looked up at him from out of her immobilized head.
It finally happened, he thought as he burrowed under his shirt and took hold of his heavy cross. All his life he’d wondered why he’d never fallen in love, and now he knew: He’d been waiting for this moment, this woman, this time.
The female is mine, he thought.
And even though that made no sense at all, the conviction was so strong, he couldn’t question it.
“Are you the healer?” she said in a low voice that stopped his heart. “Are you . . . here for me?”
Her words were heavily accented, gorgeously so, and also a little surprised.
“Yeah. I am.” He wrenched off his suit’s coat and threw it into a corner, not giving a shit where the thing landed. “I’m here for you.”
As he approached, her stunning icy eyes slicked with tears. “My legs . . . they feel as though they are moving, but I suspect they do not.”
“Do they hurt?”
“Yes.”
Phantom pain. Not a surprise.
Manny stopped by her side and glanced at her body, which was covered with a sheet. She was tall. Had to be at least six feet. And she was built with sleek power.
This was a soldier, he thought, measuring the strength in her bare upper arms. This was a fighter.
And, God, the loss of mobility in someone like her took his breath away. Even if you were a couch potato, life in a wheelchair was a bitch and a half, but to somebody like this, it would be a death sentence.
Manny reached out and gathered her hand into his own—and the instant he made contact, his whole body went wakey-wakey on him, as if she were the socket to his inner plug.
“I’m going to take care of you,” he said as he looked her right in the eye. “I want you to trust me.”
She swallowed hard as one crystal tear slipped out to trail down her temple. On instinct, he reached forward and caught it on his fingertip—
The growl that percolated up from the doorway was the countdown to an ass-kicking if he’d ever heard it. Except as he glanced over at Goatee, he felt like snarling right back at the son of a bitch. Which, yet again, made no sense.