ROMeANTICALLY CHALLENGED. Marina Adair

reserved for the patient’s plus one.

      Sitting back, he leaned his head against the wall, sprawled his legs all the way out, sure to take up as much territory as possible. While the position helped with the dizziness and alleviated some of the soreness, he had to admit that the agitated way Gray moved around Emmitt’s legs was even better.

      Emmitt took great pleasure in ruffling the good doctor’s lab coat every once in a while.

      “So what brings you in?” Gray asked.

      “Do I need a reason to visit my domestic partner?”

      “We don’t live together, so we aren’t domestic partners.” Gray took the Velcro thing from the wall and wrapped it around Emmitt’s arm—tightly.

      Emmitt opened his mouth to respond—and in went the thermometer.

      Gray pressed his finger to Emmitt’s wrist and silently checked his watch. He was grinning as if he found some kind of sick pleasure in making Emmitt follow the rules.

      “How’s my pulse?” he asked around the thermometer.

      Gray lifted a single brow and struck his serious guy pose. “Did you swim back from China?”

      “No.”

      “Then it’s not good.”

      “The closer my proximity to assholes, the higher it gets.”

      The thermometer beeped. “It’s 98.9.” Gray coiled the stethoscope back around his neck and took a seat. “What happened in China? And before you give me some half-baked answer, like you did last night, remember I can order a whole panel of random tests if I think you’re wasting my time.”

      Needles and being controlled were two big triggers for Emmitt. One came from watching a parent slowly die, the other from being on the receiving end of the remaining parent’s coping techniques.

      “I pretty much told you all of it,” Emmitt began, choosing his words carefully. He needed to give enough info so Gray would clear him but not so much that he started asking more questions. “One of the silos failed, whatever warning system was in place failed, and kaboom.” His hand became a bomb, his fingers sizzling fireworks.

      “What I read online doesn’t sound as benign as you’re making it out to be.”

      “It wasn’t. Over sixty people died,” he said, unable to look anywhere but his lap. “It looked like a war zone, bro.” He could still hear the screaming of the people stuck inside who—if they weren’t lucky enough to pass out from the toxic smoke—were burned alive. He woke up every night to the lingering scent of smoldering ashes. “I was on the other side of the factory when it blew, so I was nowhere near the blast area. Most of my injuries were from flying shrapnel. I got off easy.”

      The sound Gray made said he strongly disagreed. “Are you talking to someone about it? These kinds of traumatic—”

      “Yes, Dr. Phil. They brought in grief counselors and made all of us talk to someone at the hospital.” Emmitt had been unconscious for the first part, and sweet-talked his way out of the last. Rehashing it wouldn’t help. The only thing he could think about was getting home and hugging his kid. That hug would feel better than anything some shrink could have given him.

      “Good to hear. I started seeing one after Michelle—” Gray cleared his throat. “It helped. A lot.” Before Emmitt could ask how he was doing, the good doctor was back to doctoring. “Did any of that flying shrapnel hit you in the head?”

      Emmitt looked him directly in the eye and didn’t waiver. A convincing technique he’d picked up while imbedded with a team of SEALs in Fallujah. When people lie, their gaze tended to shy away. Maintaining eye contact was an easy way to convince someone of your truthfulness—even when you’re lying.

      “Everyone was hit with little particles, but beside some lacerations from concrete and a few bruises, nothing major.” Not a lie. It was the crumbling floor above him that did the real damage.

      “Then you want to tell me why you couldn’t sit still last night? Hell, you couldn’t follow the card game.”

      Yup, Emmitt had been stupid enough to mention the embarrassing shrapnel he’d taken in the ass. Levi had asked him how badly he’d been injured, Emmitt had panicked, and out came the one part of the whole unlucky event that they’d never let him live down.

      Better than spilling the truth though. Paisley was clearly having a tough time with her mom gone, and coming clean on all the details would have done nothing but unnecessarily worry her.

      “Hard to concentrate on cards when the table is bitching like a bunch of biddies.”

      “That doesn’t explain why you’re so moody. Plus, you look like shit. How have you been sleeping?”

      “As well as a man can when forced to sleep on his own recliner,” Emmitt said, and the dickhead had the nerve to smile, as if finding Emmitt’s current living situation hilarious. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

      “You have a problem, talk to your property manager.”

      “Levi may have agreed, but I know damn well it was because you pressed him,” Emmitt said. “A heads-up would have been nice.”

      “If you’d kept in touch, I would have warned you.” Gray picked up his pen and the little notebook he always carried, as if he hadn’t been informed of the computer revolution. “Okay, here’s how this will work. You want me to clear you? You have to be up-front with me.”

      Emmitt gave a noncommittal shrug. “What more do you want to know?”

      “Were there any complications from the blast that you’re not telling me?”

      “That would affect my ability to read and edit words?” When Gray waited for Emmitt to answer his own question, he sat up, and the sudden movement caused the throb in his head to settle behind his eyes. “No, Gray, I can read and write just fine.”

      “Doesn’t matter. When you’re hurt on the job, you need to be fully recovered before returning—you know this.”

      “You’ve been talking to Carmen.”

      He closed his notepad. “I took an oath, which is why I’ll need to see the file from the hospital in China before we go any further.”

      “I don’t have one.” That was the truth. “They released me. I flew home. The only paperwork I got was a bill for my insurance company. Even if I did have my medical papers from the hospital stay, which I don’t, they’d be in Mandarin.”

      “Then you’ll need to call the hospital where you were treated. After they e-mail me their findings, we’ll schedule an appointment for a proper checkup.”

      “Are you serious?” Emmitt scoffed. “Is this because I’m claiming my right to take Paisley to the father-daughter dance?”

      Gray lifted a judgmental brow.

      Okay, that came out a little angrier than he’d anticipated but, Jesus effing Christ. Why did Gray have to be such a Boy Scout all the time? Emmitt wasn’t asking for clearance to drop into a hot zone from thirty thousand feet up. All he wanted was to finish the article he’d started, which required a few more interviews and pictures.

      His camera and computer had made it back to Rome, but most of his notes and all the digital recordings Emmitt had compiled for the story were accidentally shipped to the home office in New York and were now being held hostage by Carmen.

      “How about we make a deal?” The throb in his head had settled firmly behind his eyes. “You send Carmen an e-mail stating that I’m good to go and I promise not to take any new assignments until after the dance.”

      “Lie to Carmen Lowell?” Gray laughed. “That woman isn’t going to let you off the hook until you apologize for every transgression since you met her.”

      “Which is why