Critical Care (13 page)

She summoned a smile. Logan returned it, looking anything
but scared, and Claire was suddenly very aware that these weren't
her brother's arms. Surprisingly, for the first time in a long time,
she wanted to leave those old memories behind-even the good
ones-and exist in the moment without worry or sadness. Just
be. An unplanned detour. If only for tonight. One root beer. One
dance. Nothing more.

Though he made no move to close the distance between
them, Claire felt the heat from Logan's palm against her back as
she followed the line of dance. She inhaled softly, and the scent
of him-shampoo, trace of woodsy cologne, and warm masculine
skin-made her feel unexpectedly woozy. She began to wish he
weren't holding her quite so far away, that he'd lean down enough
that she might feel his cheek against hers. Then she began to imagine the brush of his beard growth, the touch of his skin....

"So am I making you crazy yet?" Logan asked.

"What?" Claire startled in his arms, blinking at him. Her face
warmed as if he'd read her mind.

"With my dancing. I did warn you." He grinned at her, his
fingers tightening a little over hers.

"No, perfectly sane here." She nodded and began moving away
from him. "But thirsty. You promised me a soft drink."

"Oh no you don't," Logan said, reaching for her hand again as
the band started a slower tune.

"You said one dance," Claire reminded him as other couples
drew close.

"One slow dance," he qualified, slipping his arm around her.
Onstage, the bass strings thrummed as the chief of pediatrics crooned something sappy about the stars over Texas. "That first
one was practice."

She began to protest but found herself laughing instead when
she saw the look on his face-boyish and charming, with his eyes
plainly pleading. "Fine," she said, chuckling again. "But this is it,
cowboy-doctor. End of this nurse's shift."

Logan drew Claire closer this time, knowing since the moment of
that unexpected hug at Daffodil Hill how perfectly she fit in his
arms. He led her slowly, moving to the rhythm of the music, and
she followed as naturally as breathing in and out.

Minutes passed, and it was as if she belonged in his arms, almost
like she was something he'd been missing and hadn't even known
it. Much the way he'd felt when he first escaped into the profound
silence of the Sierra Mountains and realized his everyday life had
too much noise. A revelation, a truth. Holding Claire Avery felt like
that. He didn't want the dance to end. Logan stooped down so his
cheek rested against the softness of hers. She smelled as sweet as
he'd imagined ... sweeter. He closed his eyes, then snapped them
open as she called his name.

"Yeah?" he said, blinking and feeling like an adolescent fool
when he noticed the music had stopped.

Claire nodded toward a neon cactus. "Erin's over there."

Blast. "Great," he said as the charge nurse spotted them and
began to wave. Why did she have to interrupt?

"It is you," Erin said, arriving beside them and prodding Logan
with a finger. "I thought I was seeing things." She shook her head
at Claire, and her silver earrings shaped like boots swayed with the movement. "We've been trying to get him to join us in some R &
R forever."

Go home. Logan smiled at Erin and shrugged. "Guess you finally
did." He glanced around the room. "Where's Brad?" He could take
you home.

"Out in the parking lot, and that's exactly my problem." She
turned to Claire. "Did Sarah ever call? I wasn't surprised that Glenda
and Inez bailed on us, but I was sure Sarah would show."

Logan frowned. Who was coming next? Merlene Hibbert?
Maybe the chief of staff in a bolo tie and Stetson?

"She called my cell maybe twenty-five minutes ago. She accidentally dialed me instead of you, but she wanted to say she
couldn't come." Claire's eyes clouded with concern. "She sounded
kind of upset or maybe just tired. Not sure. My wireless connection
was bad and it's noisy in here, but it sounded like ... something
about her baby?"

"Baby?" Erin shook her head. "Nope, no baby. Not Sarah."

"Well, then I'm not sure," Claire said. "But she isn't coming."

Erin touched Claire's arm. "I'm sorry about this, but I need
to leave. Brad's feeling ... Well, it's complicated, but I need to do
some damage control there, meet him at my apartment and talk
things over. I wouldn't have offered to drive tonight if I'd known
that he'd show up like this."

"I'll drive Claire home," Logan offered hastily, causing Claire's
eyes to widen. She glanced down at her boots, and Logan knew
she was squirming. "I mean, I could if she wants to stay longer.
No problem."

"Great!" Erin nodded at Claire. "I'd feel so guilty for inviting
you out and then dragging you away. Is that okay? Or should I call
Brad and tell him I need to drop you off first?"

No. Say no. Logan held his breath for what felt like forever,
filled with the memory of Claire in his arms.

"No," Claire said, shifting in place. "You go on, Erin. I understand. I'll get a ride with Logan. If it's not out of his way."

Logan exhaled and waited a few casual seconds before answering. "Going right by your place," he said with the linen-cool
nonchalance of Cary Grant. "No problem."

Claire raised her brows, and Logan's smile faltered as he realized-and then hoped Erin hadn't-that, of course, he would have
no idea where Claire lived.

Logan stopped the Jeep in front of a modest A-frame cabin and told
himself, though it was barely 9 p.m., there was no way Claire was
going to invite him in. She'd gotten quieter during the hour after
Erin left, and he was fairly sure she'd been embarrassed the charge
nurse had seen them dancing.

They'd finally had the root beers, but the only further dancing
Claire had agreed to was a line dance. Some idiot thing called the
Watermelon Crawl that made him look like a stumbling Neanderthal. At least she'd laughed, laughed hard enough to double over,
and that was worth the embarrassment. She had such a great laugh.
There were so many great things about her. But it was frustrating
to have no clue what she was thinking about him, and there was
every reason to believe she'd bought into all the ugly complaints
she'd heard. The nurse who quit probably spray-painted them on
the wall of the nurses' lounge.

"I'll walk you to your door," he said, breaking the silence after
he'd switched off the engine and headlights. He peered up the
dark, pine-studded driveway and then turned to her. "Although I forgot my grizzly rifle. I'll have to wrestle 'em bare fisted, like
Daniel Boone."

Claire laughed and her beautiful eyes lit up. Logan told himself
to settle for that and to stop thinking about holding her again. It
wasn't going to happen. She stopped laughing, and he prepared
himself for the fact she was going to say she could walk to the door
by herself, thank you very much.

"You'd better come inside, then." Claire's lips curved into a
smile. "The three bears could already be tasting my coffee."

Sarah pushed the cell phone's End button and watched its screen
until the familiar Pollock Pines number eclipsed into darkness. It
was the phone's first assigned speed dial slot: Dad. Her shoulders
sagged beneath the old flannel robe as the irony struck her. The
only "speed" in this call had been a rush to disconnect when her
mother answered. And before she could hang up on Sarah.

She reached for the near-empty bottle of merlot and refilled her
plastic juice glass, spilling some of the liquid onto the apartment's
tidy breakfast bar. It welled up for a moment, dark as blood on the
white tile, and then seeped slowly into intersecting grout lines. She
frowned. Sloppy, careless. She'd retrieve that old toothbrush from
under the sink, grab a bottle of bleach, and get the stain out. It
would wipe away pure and clean like it never happened and ...

Sarah's throat squeezed. Did her mother guess how desperately
she'd needed to hear her father's voice? Was that why she answered
the phone herself? Had the call been purposefully intercepted, the
way it had been this same time last year? Could her mother know
how completely unbearable the next few days would be for Sarah?
Oh, Mama, please. Please. She bit her lower lip, unable to stop the mournful groan. Did she remember that next week was Emily's
birthday?

Two. She'd have been two years old.

Sarah slid from the kitchen stool, letting a brief rush of dizziness pass. She stretched, pressing her knuckles into her lower back,
then glanced down at the cell phone on the breakfast bar. She'd
called Erin to say she wasn't coming to that Denim and Diamonds
fund-raiser tonight, hadn't she? The memory was fuzzy, but ...
oh yeah, she'd accidentally punched Claire's number. But at least
Erin would get the message. No problem, then. She imagined Erin
and Claire and the others who'd planned to go tonight, and the
thought struck her. What had the social worker advised at the critical incident debriefing? "Do the things that feel good to you"? Yes.
And that's exactly what they were doing. Good for them.

She walked across the short stretch of carpeting to the painted
wooden rocking chair and eased into it. She pushed off with her
bare toes and set the chair into gentle motion, hearing its familiar
creak. Her body began to relax, and she sighed. This was what
felt good to Sarah. Rocking. Imagining her baby in her arms, her
daughter's downy head brushing against her lips. Remembering
the sweet scent of her skin. She closed her eyes, seeing a chubby
blonde birthday girl laughing and riding on the shoulders of her
adoring grandpa. Emily ...

After opening her eyes, she patted the pocket of her robe, making certain the pill bottle was there. The sleeping pills prescribed
by a doctor she'd worked with in Sacramento. She'd had them for
a year and never taken one. But if the wine didn't do the trick,
she'd break a pill in half and take it. This one time. She needed to
sleep, and it had been so hard this past week. She shook her head.
Wine. Pills. She hated them both, but she couldn't work if she didn't sleep, and it was critical to stay on top of things at the ER.
People's lives were at stake. Children's lives. And Dr. Caldwell was
counting on her.