Chapter Three

What the hell?

She knew why he was there. Why would she even suggest he jump ship because of his arm? Was it personal? Even though she’d said nothing, it’d been clear since the meeting with the captain, that she didn’t want anything to do with his investigation.

Was this her way of putting an end to it? Even though he was ninety percent sure his boss had sent him on a fool’s errand, she wasn’t going to put an end to his assignment. Besides, there was that ten percent that he couldn’t ignore.

“No.”

She looked him straight in the eye, and her concern for his well-being, as well as the seriousness of the situation, came across loud and clear. “What do you mean, ‘no’?” She nodded at his arm. “You want that to go septic? Do you need to get seriously ill before you do something about it?”

It’s not personal. She’s just doing her job. His focus darted to the nurse. Damn it. He’d done it again. The nurse. She was a medical professional. Most likely very well aware of the proper treatment for his injury.

If he was honest with himself, he felt like he could go to bed and sleep for a week. But would he? He hadn’t had a good night’s rest since Donato died. Nothing like a death on your conscience to keep you awake at night.

The discussion he needed to have with Sage couldn’t be conducted in front of Celeste, so he lowered his voice. Focusing on her was oddly calming. “How about a consultation? Tell me all my options. In your office, maybe? Alone.”

He forced the smile playing at his lips under control as he watched her glance at the nurse and nod her head once. She stripped off her gloves and dumped them in the trash. “That’s all for now, Celeste. I’ll let you know when I need you again. Why don’t you get yourself a snack and put your feet up for a moment?”

Once Celeste left the room, he hopped off the table. The protective paper sheet made a crinkling noise that sounded excessively loud in the silent room. He shrugged back into his shirt but didn’t bother buttoning it. Something had to be done about his arm today and the shirt would most likely be coming off again. One thing was for certain, it was not going to be surgery in a regular hospital. At least not right away. There had to be something to keep the wound from getting worse until the investigation on board was over, and he could take care of it properly.

When they were seated in her office with the door closed, he stared at her long and hard, momentarily caught off guard by the color that rose in her cheeks when her eyes flicked down to his bare chest and took way too long to return to his face. However, all she did was cross her arms and lean back in her chair. Sexual attraction aside, he sensed the doctor was going to be an asset. If there was one thing he’d learned in the last month it was to never ignore his gut. Because his feelings had kept him from doing his job the way his gut was telling him to, a young life with so much potential was gone.

My God, how could I let you die, Donato?

It’s okay for you to take a break, Dace. To grieve. Donato’s death hit you hard. It doesn’t make you less of a man. Less of a cop. I don’t want to lose one of my best detectives because of it, either.

Could Rocque be right? Or was the fever and infection affecting his ability to think clearly?

He forced himself to concentrate. To try and be the cop he’d been for most of his adult life. His gut told him he could trust her. Which, all things considered, certainly worked in his favor. Besides, he was running out of options. This woman, whether he liked it or not, had the power to get him thrown off the ship. Not going to happen.

“Are you going to tell me what this is all about? We can’t afford to waste time.”

What the…? She knew very well why he needed to be on the ship.

“Even though my assignment on this ship is a joke—.”

“A joke? What does that even mean? Dr. Roberts wasn’t murdered? Does Captain Southerby know this?”

Wow. She was even more attractive when she was angry. How was that possible? He gave a gusty sigh and swiped a hand down his face. “No, no, that’s not what I meant. Dr. Roberts was murdered. But he was murdered in his home, which means, although it’s possible the person who did it worked on board with him, it’s highly likely his death isn’t connected to his job. I have this assignment because I refused to take time off—.”

It appeared one of Dr. Brady’s many skills was getting people to open up to her. Or… Was Rocque right? No. It was his damn injury messing up his brain. He gave her what he hoped was a sheepish look.

“Long story short, my captain and I had a bit of a disagreement about this murder investigation. As a compromise, we decided it would be best if I was the one to investigate things on board by cruising through the Caribbean as a security guard. I like keeping busy. If you send me to a hospital, I’m going to find myself taking a vacation I have absolutely no desire to be on. I’m thinking as a doctor, you might understand the need to keep busy.”

****

Sage sat up straighter, grateful for the formality of a desk between them. He crossed his arms, leaned them on the desk and looked at her earnestly. Was he trying to charm or intimidate her? Did he think she was stupid? She’d confronted men like this and worse, or better, depending on how you looked at it. Hell, she’d taken on her father, the head of the hospital, and won. Not that it felt like any sort of a victory at the time.

She wished he’d button up his shirt. He had the nicest chest she’d seen in a long time, and she’d seen more than her fair share. In an attempt to distract herself, she adjusted the photograph of her mother which sat on her desk, putting it an angle where she could see it better. When her eyes went right back where she didn’t want them to go, she picked up a pen and jiggled it in fingers that itched to touch things they shouldn’t. She longed for an excuse to run her hands over the sculpted muscles of his torso and discover if the hair on it was soft or coarse. Over his wide shoulders, down his biceps—.

Jesus. Was that a scar from a bullet wound by his collar bone? Just the thought of him experiencing that sort of danger on a daily basis upped the ante for her. Old Sage would’ve propositioned him there and then. And yes, right on her desk. The fact he was her patient notwithstanding.

Take a deep cleansing breath and concentrate. The man has a serious medical problem. She was a medical professional in charge of caring for him. Full stop.

She gave her head a slight shake. He was so right. She did have a driving need to keep busy. He may not have come out and said it in so many words, but the message came through. He needed to be out of New Orleans for a while. She could certainly understand the need to be somewhere else. How would she have felt if, on the verge of getting away from Chicago, she’d been forced to stay, even for just a week? Most likely it would’ve sent her over the edge, and she’d bet her new job Dace Langdon was a man on the edge. So from where she sat, she couldn’t be the one to keep him from what he needed most. She firmly believed a patient should have what was in their best interests physically and emotionally. Treating her patients that way, not her father’s constant pressure for her to excel, was why she’d been a successful ER doc.

His eyes roamed her face as though looking for weakness. What was it with him? She wasn’t the enemy for goodness sake. Though it did make her wonder exactly who was. Himself? His boss? Or some unknown third party? Didn’t matter. He was her patient. His health was all she needed to concern herself with. They may be pretending they were friends, but they weren’t really, so getting personal wasn’t necessary.

“Are you trying to charm me into getting your way? Because you can save us both the time and give it up. Do you have any idea what it’s like to work in an ER in Chicago?”

“I can make a pretty good guess. You see a lot of ugly shit and the stress is a killer. I know first-hand what that’s like.”

A smile tugged at her lips. She set the pen down and relaxed back in her seat. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s really going on?” She placed a comforting hand on his, ignoring the tingles that buzzed up her arm from the casual contact, gave it a squeeze and slowly removed it. “I can keep a secret and my number one weapon in situations like this? Doctor/Patient Privilege. You have no idea the kinds of things I’ve had to keep to myself.”

She gave him a quick smile then a long, steady look straight in the eyes, and refused to think about how amazing their color really was. Or be enthralled by how they went from icy blue to a warm sky blue when he decided to give in.

He leaned back in his chair and although there was still a cautiousness about him and he kept his arms crossed, his eyes retained their warm glow. “I need you to fix my arm in a way that allows me to stay on the ship.” He paused for a moment. “Compared to what my assignments are normally, this job is fluff. If my arm is going to be useless for a while, it’s not a big deal. I can do security guard stuff in my sleep and like I said, there’s not going to be much to investigating Dr. Roberts’ death. In my opinion, I’m here more as a precaution. If the killer is someone he worked with, having a police detective on the ship will prove to be valuable. As well as keep the passengers from having their cruise disturbed by the harsh realities of life.”

She nodded. “Glad to hear it isn’t anything huge. I wasn’t looking forward to the drama. Been there, done that, don’t need it anymore. What did you do?”

He stiffened and looked offended. “What’s that supposed to mean? I didn’t do anything.”

“I know your type, Mr. Langdon. Over-indulged in your type in my twenties. No way you’re doing this fluff job of your own free will. Besides,” she gave him a quick smile, “since I’m supposed to know you, any information about you is useful.”

He treated her to a half smile. “It’s Dace, remember?” He shrugged and the smile left his face and his eyes. “Let’s just say I had a choice and it was the lesser of two evils. My boss and I didn’t see eye to eye and since he’s the one in charge, he gets the final say.”

She looked at him for a moment, trying to decide if she should push it, then mentally shrugged. She knew enough now. Any more was tipping it over into personal and she had no need to go there, even if it would help her pretend they were old acquaintances. It complicated things, sucked you in and made you want to go on a joy ride with Detective Hot and Dangerous. Pretending they were friends was more than enough danger for new-and-improved Sage.

“Sure.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and got down to business. “As your doctor I need to give you the kind of treatment that’s in your best interests both physically and emotionally, and after talking with you, I can see that, though physically surgery is the best way to take care of your injury, emotionally it may not be. So, to take care of it here, I’ll need to do a debridement. I’ll give you a local to kill the pain, scrape out the dead tissue and infection, then pack it with iodoform gauze so it can heal from the inside out. It’s been too long since you were injured to suture it. You’ll need to come in here daily so I can check it, clean it and re-bandage it. You’ll also need to do a round of antibiotics.”

“Works for me. Do we do it right now?”

She looked at him long and hard, hoping to make him squirm because sometimes she was just ornery that way, but he’d have none of it and returned look for look. To the point she felt a twinge of guilt for giving him a hard time. Because, truth be told, it was her issues that had all these crazy feelings erupting out of the box she’d shoved them into, he was merely an innocent bystander who happened to be the type of male who was her personal form of crack.

“Yes. We need to take care of this as soon as possible, so you’re a priority.”

He stood quickly, as though eager for her to start digging around in his laceration with a scalpel. “Same room we were in?” She nodded her head. “After you then.”

Which was certainly gentlemanly of him, but she struggled to keep it together when she brushed past him as he held the door for her and headed back to the exam room.

Sage hated herself for it, but she was desperate. Not that surgery wasn’t the best way to treat his injury, but she’d hoped to get him off the ship. She loathed the idea of looking at everyone and wondering if they were capable of murder, but that wasn’t why she didn’t want Dace Langdon around. A guy with a rough edge of danger surrounding him was a habit she’d kicked, with no intention of taking up again. It was a test of new-and-improved Sage she feared she wasn’t going to pass.

When she entered the exam room, she took a deep cleansing breath, cleared her head, and became the professional she needed to be to get the job done to the best her abilities and circumstances allowed. After calling Celeste to let her know she needed her again, she washed up and prepared her sterile field.

Syringe in hand, she faced Dace, who’d been prepped for the procedure by Celeste. “Trust me when I say this will hurt. I’ve had rough, tough biker dudes in tears, begging me to stop. Then again, I’ve had a frail elderly lady barely flinch. I’m going to numb the area with several shots of lidocaine. It shouldn’t take long for it to kick in.” As she finished her sentence, she started injecting the local anesthetic into the area around his wound.

“Jesus. H. Christ! What the hell is that stuff? How can the procedure possibly hurt more than this?”

She paused in her task, one hand on the underside of his bicep, the other holding the needle pointed at the ceiling. “You’d think so. Just tough it out for a few more minutes. It hurts, but it’s the lesser of two evils. Trust me. I’m going to be scraping out the infected tissue with a knife and forceps. You don’t want to feel that.”

Again, she injected the edges of the wound in a fast, efficient manner. Again, he swore profusely, so loud it echoed around the room and left her ears ringing. She feared she’d be deaf until tomorrow by the time she had the area numb. She looked over at Celeste, gave her a quick smile. She returned it with an eye roll that had Sage suppressing a giggle.

Surprisingly, and to her relief, she was wrong. He was silent after that, though she was pretty sure his jaw and teeth were going to ache for a while and his palms would carry deep gouges from his fingernails. She stopped herself from asking him to let her doctor his hands as well. Truth be told, she admired his fortitude. Sucking it up when it was clear to her the pain was taking a toll said a lot about the man.

His injury, the infection, had weakened his defenses most likely, so he wasn’t operating in top form, and it was rather impressive he had the strength to deal with the added stress of severe pain without another whimper. Not only did her admiration go up another notch, she found herself starting to like the man.

“As a guess, I’d say this is a knife wound, Dace. Am I right?”

Keeping his eyes straight ahead, he gave a slight nod and spoke through clenched teeth, “Got it in one.”

“Any idea if the knife was rusty?”

A slight shake of the head came this time. “If you’re worried about tetanus, don’t be. All my shots are up to date. Stupid not to, in my line of work.”

“Good. I don’t suppose you’d like to satisfy my curiosity and tell me how you ended up being sliced by a knife?”

He turned his head then, to look at Celeste before he returned his disturbing gaze to her. “I had a run-in with a gang leader. The collateral damage sucked big time, but the asshole is in custody. That’s the important thing, right?” He looked at what she was doing to his arm and winced.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No, just a flashback seeing you take a blade to my arm. Will there be a big scar? It looks like you’re cutting away quite a bit of flesh there.”

Talking about his current injury wasn’t a good distraction, but any information she had about it would be useful. She smiled but didn’t dare take her eyes off her work to look at him again. Messing up her concentration right now would be a bad thing for Dace.

She compressed her lips. “Since you didn’t get it stitched up right away, you’ll probably end up with an ugly one. Part of it depends on how well we keep the infection from getting worse and spreading. Still, most likely it’ll be worse than the scar from your gunshot wound.” Her eyes darted to the scar, then returned to his arm. She really wanted to know the story behind that. “Care to tell me how you got it?”

He shifted in his seat and cleared his throat.

“If you’re worried about scarring, you might want to keep still. Don’t want my scalpel going places it shouldn’t.”

She paused to give him a quick smile. His eyes lit with the small smile he gave her in return before they darkened and dilated slightly. Her breath caught in her throat at the sudden heat in them, and her belly fluttered in excitement. Holy hell, the man could get her hot and bothered in the middle of a medical procedure. She blinked, took a deep breath through her nose, and returned her attention to his arm. Right now, Dace needed her to do a thorough job cleaning the infection out of his wound. She needed to return to doctor mode.

“I got shot when I was a rookie cop. It was a hard-learned lesson in staying focused on your job. It missed hitting my bullet-proof vest by half an inch.”

“Only little bit the other direction and it would’ve shredded your carotid.”

“Indeed. Aren’t I a lucky fellow?”

“I don’t think sarcasm is the appropriate tone for that statement. You were very fortunate.”

“Yes, well, my partner wasn’t. She took a bullet in the leg which shattered the bone, and now she’s stuck doing a desk job. If I’d been doing my job like I’d been trained to do, it wouldn’t have happened.”

She looked at him again, the expression on his face pained. This was not a good discussion to be having with him right now. She wanted him to relax and forget about the procedure she was doing. She’d hoped talking about his bullet wound would bring up a story about him saving the day. She paused in her work and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“In the kind of work we do, I think we all make mistakes when we’re new, that have ugly consequences. I can’t begin to tell you how many things I screwed up as an intern. When you’re doing the kind of job that can have long-lasting effects on someone’s life, the learning curve sucks big time.”

His shoulders relaxed and she was glad to see it. She removed her hand and continued the debridement. “Now, tell me a story where you saved the day.”

Celeste chimed in. “Yes. I want a hero story. Then, if Sage refuses to tell you one of hers, I have one for you.”

“Now don’t you go telling tales on me, girl. I’m the chief medical officer. I can have you reassigned to that ship you hate.”

She laughed. “You wouldn’t dare. You like working with me too much. Told me yourself I’m your favorite nurse.”

Dace gave a small chuckle. “I can tell you right now, Sage is my favorite doctor. Even if she did just cut off half the skin on my bicep.”

“Shut up. I did not! I did, however, remove all traces of infection and now it’s time for the iodoform packing. Tell me about how you saved the day once.”

“Hell, you’re not going to leave me alone until I do, are you?”

“Nope. Most of the cops I know love talking about the heroic things they do. I’m surprised you’re so reluctant.”

“I’m guessing those cops were trying to impress you so they could get in your pants. I, on the other hand, don’t use that tactic to get a woman in bed.”

“I’m sure you don’t need to resort to such things. I bet all you need to do is crook your finger at them, and they come running.” She gave him a teasing smile, and her eyes widened when she looked at his face. Did his cheeks actually turn pink in embarrassment, or was it just his fever? She looked at the back of his neck and it was the same shade. Well, what do you know?

“There’s no good way to answer that, chère, so I’ll just tell y’all about something that happened in Chicago one winter before I was a detective. Just so you’ll leave me alone, mind you. So, my partner and I were on patrol when the call went out about a toddler who had wandered away from home. We weren’t part of the squad sent out to look for him, as it was toward the end of our shift. I still get chills when I think about what could’ve happened. We were cruising along Lake Michigan, headed back to the station, and I happened to notice something in the water. It caught my eye because it was winter. Not much activity in the water in winter.”

Celeste gasped. “Oh my god. The baby was in the water.”

“He was. No one had any idea how he got there without getting hit by a car and it’s a miracle he didn’t drown. Fortunately, he was in the shallows. I don’t think he’d been in there long, he was standing up when I spotted him, but a few more minutes and I’m sure he would’ve gone under and drown. As it was, by the time I got to him, hypothermia was setting in. He collapsed in the water, but I caught him before he went under. His hands and feet were so blue… The kid was only wearing a diaper. I was so worried he would lose his fingers or toes to frostbite. I couldn’t resist going to the hospital a few days later to check up on him.”

“So that was you, huh?”

“Don’t tell me you were the doctor who worked on him. That would be too much.”

“No, it wasn’t me. I was still in medical school. It was all over the news, though. He was brought to my father’s hospital and he told me about him. The boy lost the tip of a finger and a few toes. Considering what could have happened, he was lucky.”

“Did the mother get in trouble?” Celeste asked.

Dace shook his head. “No. I met her, she’s a good mom. She was beside herself when she discovered he was gone. I guess the little guy was pretty rambunctious. She always made sure the doors were locked and the whole house was baby-proofed. She hadn’t left him for long; she was helping his big sister go to the bathroom. She’d done everything she should have. Sometimes things just happen, and fortunately the boy ended up being returned home safely.”

“Freaks me out to think what might have happened if you hadn’t spotted him. And—Oh my! I just remembered something. Didn’t one of the news stations give you a hero award for that?”

“Aw, hell. I should’ve picked a different story. I forgot we lived in the same area when it happened. Are you about done, Doctor?”

“Yep. Just need to bandage you up.”

When she was done, she was rather satisfied with her handiwork considering the patient was a huge distraction. She removed her gloves as Celeste helped him back into his shirt and hoped her worry didn’t show on her face as she took in his pallor, the tightness around his eyes and mouth. She wanted to caress it away with her hands. It had been so long since she’s felt something more than physical attraction for a man, a concern for his feelings and well-being that went beyond the medical. And the story he just told her didn’t help at all.

She was experienced enough to recognize the vibes of sexual attraction, and she wasn’t the only one giving them off. It scared her. If he guessed the extent of what he was doing to her, she’d be fighting herself and him. She didn’t like the odds on her ability to fight them both. More so under the circumstances. She made sure her features were schooled into her medical-professional mask before she spoke.

“I’m going to prescribe some hydrocodone for the pain you’ll have when the local wears off, along with an antibiotic, and I’ll need you back here tomorrow so I can check how it’s healing, as well as clean and re-bandage it. Celeste will set up an appointment for you before you leave. Since you opted out of the surgery, we need to keep a close eye on it.”

“Sorry, Doc, no can do. Narcotic painkillers make me puke and pass out. What are my other choices?”

She raised her brows. “Prescription strength NSAIDS will work, but not as effectively. Or was there something specific you want to take? Ibuprofen? Acetaminophen?”

“Ibuprofen works better for me.”

She nodded and turned to the nurse. “Celeste, would you please finish up here, while I fill the scrips for him?”

“Of course.”

Celeste smiled and winked at her behind the detective’s back. Sage suppressed a groan. She had a feeling Celeste was going to corner her about Dace.

****

“Okay, girlfriend, spill it.”

Sage bit back a sigh of frustration and closed her laptop as Celeste sank into the chair on the other side of her desk. Her moment of reckoning had come. Which sucked because she still wasn’t sure how she was going to keep her best friend from wrangling the truth out of her. “Spill what?”

Celeste let out a disbelieving snort. “Don’t play innocent with me. You know very well I’m talking about your old friend, Dace Langdon. From the vibes coming off of you two, I’d say you had a fling with him in your wild days. Did he move down here to see if he could get something going again? And how could you not have recognized him from the news?”

Sage ground her teeth, bit back some choice words and attempted a careless smile as she shook her head. She almost blew it recognizing his story from the news reports. How was she going to get out of this one? “Believe it or not, I didn’t spend much time with him. We knew a lot of the same people, I ran into him from time to time at some of our hangouts, but I didn’t see enough of him to connect that he was the hero from the news story. There was too much time between when it happened and when I met him. Besides, I was always with someone else, and he never made a move.”

“Which is another point in his favor, but if the things you’ve told me are true, I’m wondering why you never made a move. Considering the sparks coming off you two every time you looked at each other today, I find it very hard to believe you didn’t hook up in Chicago.”

Her stomach did that weird thing it always did when there was trouble looming. Celeste had spent very little time with them together, all of which was in a professional setting, and she sensed their sexual attraction. It wouldn’t be long before other people she worked with started speculating on their relationship. They weren’t going to buy the ‘old friends’ routine for long. The fact everyone knew she didn’t get involved with the men she worked with was going to make the time she spent with Dace even more of a topic for speculation.

She let out what she hoped was a convincing laugh and shook her head. “Honestly, Celeste, nothing happened in Chicago, even though I am rather wishing it had. Then he’d be out of my system, which would make my job much easier now. He’s very distracting, and he’s my patient. It’s a line I don’t cross now, even if it isn’t something I could get in trouble for working for Caribbean Seas.”

Celeste looked at her silently for a few heartbeats. “Okay. Fine. I’m finding it rather hard to believe, but I know how much you hate the person you were before you moved to New Orleans. As much as I’d like to see you pursue Dace Langdon, I’ll leave it alone. However, feel free to bring the subject up with me yourself!” She gave her a cheeky grin and stood up.

Sage leaned back in her chair and laughed, hoping Celeste didn’t detect the relief she felt. “Don’t count on it, but if there’s anything going on in that department, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

“Ha! I knew you were considering getting down and dirty with him.”

Before Sage could deny it, Celeste was out of the room and closing the door behind her. So Celeste had figured that out too. It was all she’d been considering since she laid eyes on the man. She feared it wouldn’t be long before others on her staff started thinking the same thing. Especially since he was going to be in here every day getting his wound checked, and she was never very good at being anything other than her real self.

On the upside, it would distract everyone from figuring out the real reason Detective Langdon was on board.