Mac's Angels : Sinner and Saint. a Loveswept Classic Romance (9780345541659) (2 page)

Dr. Nikolai Sandor stood in the doorway of the glass-walled cubicle inside the intensive care unit studying the sleeping woman.

Even in her condition, Karen Miller was exquisite. Her silver-blond hair and alabaster skin made her look like some ice princess from a child's fairy tale. She needed to be wearing ermine and snowflakes, riding in a Russian sled across a frozen lake with her eyes flashing, her hair loose in the wind. Instead, she lay cold and still.

Niko was surprised to feel a sudden awareness, a connection between them. Was it that he was tired? Was it because she was beautiful and her name was Karen, the same as his sister? He didn't like the way he was responding to her. He didn't want to feel anything. He didn't want to be there.

But most of all, he didn't like coincidences. The one thing he'd carried away from his life as a Gypsy was an understanding that everything in life was preordained. If something was meant to happen, a man didn't fight it.

Niko Sandor fought every obstacle that threatened his chosen future. He hadn't always won, but he'd never given up.

He'd also never given in to flights of fantasy. Niko had forced himself to become a logical, organized person above all else. Such instant physical awareness of a strange woman was unsettling, even for a Gypsy who'd fought the lure of mystery all his life.

Hold on, Sandor. The woman is a patient
, he told himself. He was there because she'd had a blow to her
head, causing trauma. Now the temporary swelling of the brain was gone. The case was proceeding normally, except for one thing.

Karen Miller remained comatose. Her refusal to come back to the world had brought him to the treatment wing of the hospital for the first time in years.

“Tell me about her,” he commanded the nurse, who seemed awestruck at the presence of such a legend.

“According to her application to the library where she works, she's twenty-nine—”

“I mean her medical history,” he snapped. “I read the chart, walk me through it, please.”

The attending doctor appeared in the doorway and answered instead. “Nothing unusual. She apparently stepped in front of a taxi four days ago. Got knocked into the curb. Hit her head. Brain swelled. Intensive care.”

“Family?”

The nurse said, “None, apparently.”

“Friends?”

“Same story. Acquaintances, but nobody close.”

Niko swore. “Sometimes that's the best way to reach them. Often they'll come back for someone they know.”

“I think we've lost this one,” the nurse's tired voice said. “And I'm always the optimist.”

“And I'm always the pessimist,” the younger doctor said sharply. “Wake up, woman. We need this bed. And you need to get out of here. Go back to your life.”

“Well, we haven't tried that treatment,” the nurse admitted. “Telling somebody we need her bed is a novel approach, but I don't think it's working.”

Niko studied the chart. At this rate they'd have to go with a feeding tube. She'd lose weight, muscle tone, the ability to function. “Why in hell isn't she waking up?”

The doctor on duty glared at his watch. “Beats me. I told you. We've done everything according to the book. She isn't alive, but she's not dead either. She seems to be caught somewhere in between.”

Niko slammed the chart against his hand. “You don't call being in a coma dead? I do. And the longer she stays, the less likely she is to wake up.”

Niko knew he was being unnecessarily sharp, but six years earlier he'd watched another patient in a coma, another patient who didn't want to live. In spite of all his efforts, she'd gotten her wish. She'd died.

“Listen, I hate to leave you,” the young doctor said, “but I have a trauma going to X ray. The nurse can answer any questions you have.”

Dr. Sandor waved him away. He knew the doctor didn't understand what a research scientist from the ninth floor was doing in intensive care. There was a world of difference between gene splicing and head wounds. He didn't understand it himself. If he tried to explain, they'd call the hospital shrink—for him, not the patient.

How was he supposed to reach a stranger who was so alone that she didn't even have a friend to come and sit with her? Her arms were threaded with needles
pumping fluids into her veins. Wires fed her vital signs to a monitor that announced a steady heartbeat and pulse. But she didn't respond.

Niko leaned closer. She smelled clean, of disinfectant that almost concealed the faint scent of wildflowers. He lifted her eyelids and examined eyes that were a startling blue. Frosted eyes, he decided, perfect companions to her fair skin and blond-white hair. She came from some strong Scandinavian stock probably. But she was far too thin and far too helpless. And he still came back to the original question: How could he wake her?

Karen Miller lay on her back, arms at her sides, rigid in repose. He could almost feel her resistance. She seemed determined to float in what had been described by those who'd experienced the same thing and returned as a cocoon of warmth. The netherworld of twilight sleep took away pain, uncertainty, and worry. It made all things bearable.

“Ms. Miller? Karen.”

Go away. Leave me alone
.

In spite of the void in which she'd drifted, she heard the low, impatient voice that seemed determined to intrude. The truth was, she liked where she was; she didn't know anybody named Miller and she didn't want to change anything. This place was safe. So long as she remained, everybody was safe.

At first there'd been pain as they moved her about, sticking her with needles, pressing her wrist and chest. Then finally came the quiet, peaceful quiet—until this man arrived.

“Okay, princess. Your chart says that your brainwave pattern is normal. Let's check the monitor. Okay. EKG's normal. Pulse is normal. What's your problem?”

Nothing will ever be normal again. Only fear, deep pain. Lonely pain. Warm now. Safe
.

“Light, please,” the voice snapped.

The voice was demanding, accustomed to being obeyed, dangerous even. She felt but did not react to an intrusive light shining into first one eye, then the other.

“Like I told you, no response,” the nurse said. “She sees nothing.”

There's nobody I want to see now, not anymore. Leave me alone
.

“Nothing. Try clapping.”

I won't hear it. Go away. Please—just go away
.

The nurse sighed. “I don't understand. She's not sedated. The brain swelling is practically gone. She really should be awake by now.”

Niko held back a sudden urge to shake the sleeping woman. “She's certainly defying medical opinion. But we know the mind is a formidable enemy. It looks as though Karen Miller has made up hers. If she has her way, she's going to leave us. I have to change that.”

“I don't see how. We've done everything we can. What are
you
going to do?”

“Find an unconventional way.” He pulled the curtain, shielding the Plexiglas window from the nurses'
station in the center of the intensive care unit. Now they had complete privacy.

Nikolai Sandor had never been a superstitious man. But today was Friday the thirteenth, a day known for bad luck. His trouble had started early that morning with the ringing of the phone, his private line. It seldom rang. Anybody Niko cared to talk to had to wait for him to do the calling. The others didn't matter.

He'd ignored it for more than an hour, until it was driving him and everybody on the floor crazy. Finally, he swept the papers from his desk until he could find the offensive thing.

“Sandor here,” he'd barked. “Who the hell is this?”

“Lincoln MacAllister” had been the answer, and Niko had felt his stomach rise up and slam him in the chest.

“What do you want, Mac?”

“There's a little problem I could use some help with. I need a man experienced with medicine and women, a man who has a score to settle and won't take no for an answer.”

Niko's first inclination had been to hang up. Whatever it was Mac wanted, he had been reasonably certain that it was trouble. But he couldn't refuse—and Mac knew it. He'd known this day would come. He could dance around the call, but it wouldn't make it go away.

Still he'd waffled, trying to delay the inevitable.
“Me, experienced with women?” He'd laughed, ignoring the reference to his having a score to settle.

“I've kept up with you, Niko. How else do you manage to raise all that money for your work?”

“Couldn't it just be my work that brings in the contributions?”

That time Mac had laughed. “Not for a moment, Niko. I've heard about the way you take shameless advantage of all those society women—when you have to.”

“So, I'm good at finding money. It's my Gypsy background. Charm them, disarm them, and con them. That's the Gypsy way. Don't tell me you're running low on funds to operate that mountaintop hideaway you call Shangrila. If so, come join us at the hospital's Winter Ball next week.”

“No, money isn't a problem for me. What I need is someone with the kind of experience nobody else has.”

“All right. Tell me what you want.” That's when Mac had hit him in the gut. “There's a patient in your hospital I want you to see. A woman.”

“Mac, you know I don't treat patients anymore,” he'd protested.

“This one needs you, Niko.”

“Why me?”

“Because you are the only one who will understand.”

“Understand what?”

“She may have tried to commit suicide. She's unconscious and doesn't want to wake up.”

There'd been a long silence. He understood all right. And Mac knew that he did. Damn him, why was he doing this? Niko had put that part of his life behind him. If Mac needed help, he'd give it. But there had to be another way.

“So who is she?” he'd finally asked.

Mac's reply had been a long while in coming, and his answer put the final screw in his hold on Niko. “Her name is Karen.”

Karen. Niko's throat tightened. No, this couldn't be happening. He'd known this day would come—payback time. But as the years passed, he'd let the thought of his obligation fade. Now it was staring him in the face. He couldn't refuse and he couldn't fight it. “What do you want me to do?”

“It's simple, Niko,” Mac had said. “She needs an angel to save her life.”

So now he was standing in foreign territory, doing what he'd sworn he'd never do again, reaching out to another woman intent on dying, a woman named Karen.

“Come on, princess, open your eyes and let us have a look at them.”

“Give it up, Dr. Sandor.” The nurse let out a long breath. “I don't know what the head of the hospital thought you could do that we haven't.”

“My sentiments exactly,” he growled.

“Well, I hate to leave you, but I've already worked
three hours of somebody else's shift. My replacement has finally arrived.”

“Thanks for the help,” he murmured as the nurse left. He could think better in the silence anyway. There was some reason why Ms. Miller didn't want to come back. Maybe she just didn't care what happened to her. He'd been there before and he knew how hopeless that was.

Dr. Nikolai Sandor sat down in the hard straight chair beside her bed and closed his eyes. What in hell was he supposed to do?

Karen heard the closing of a door and now—blessed silence. Finally, they'd gone and left her alone. She felt herself beginning to drift, as if all restraints had been lifted and she could escape to a place where she could be and do what she wanted.

Then came the familiar voice again, low and deadly.

“I'm not going to let you do this, Ms. Miller. You can't drop out of life. I know you don't understand, but you're my final payment on a very big debt. You're my second chance. I won't let you go.” Then he added softly, “I need you to live.”

The voice had changed. It didn't growl any longer. Instead, it had turned compassionate and compelling, reaching out like hot smoke, forcing itself past the layers of shadows in which she hid. She was responding in spite of herself.

“Squeeze my fingers, darling,” he coaxed, pressing two fingertips against her small palm.

Don't call me darling. You have no right. Don't touch me like that
. She didn't return his squeeze.

“You're so cold. Let me warm you.” She felt the bed shift as he sat down beside her, pulling the blanket over her, tucking it about her shoulders.

A desperate fear of being held swept over her.

“I saw that, princess. Your monitor gave you away. You know I'm here. Was it my touch?” He squeezed her hand again. “Come on, darling Karen. Come back to me.”

She fought him.
Stop calling me that. Go away
.

“Damn! It's gone. Nothing, not even a blasted beep. This is hard for me too, princess. Don't back away from me. I know this has been a traumatic time for you, but you hear me, I know you do.”

I hear you
. She heard his voice, low and seductive. It was a laughing voice, now dangerously tight. She'd heard it before. Was it real? She couldn't remember. No, it was the voice of the man in the book, the voice in her dream.

For weeks now she'd been haunted, first by the story, then the dream of a Scottish woman and her Gypsy lover. Like a voyeur, she'd shared their lives, living through them, experiencing the awakening of the senses, of love and delicious desire. Eagerly she'd embraced the dream when it came, seeking the passion that was missing in her life. A dream was safe.

But the dream had become more substantial than her real life. When the Gypsy's heart had raced, she'd
felt it as if she were the heroine. When he'd kissed the woman, it had been her lips he'd kissed. Even so, she'd known that it was a dream. Still, that didn't stop the overwhelming sadness that swept over her when the woman had been abandoned. When the woman in the story had lost her lover, nothing mattered; Karen had wanted to die.