A Doctor's Watch. Vickie Taylor

in her experience.

      Despite his charm and his manners, she jutted her chin when she nodded, reminding herself he was the man standing between her and Todd. She needed to get home to her son, preferably before school let out for the day. She didn’t want him to know anything about this little incident.

      He shouldered his way through the door and eased across the room, stopping about three feet away and extending his hand. Tricky, he was. Making her go to him. A subtle but effective shifting of power in the room.

      On another day, she would have refused to play his mind games. But today, she decided an antisocial display would not further her cause.

      Hopping off the exam table and stepping forward, she accepted his hand. His knuckles were scraped and swollen as though he’d been in a fight, she noticed. Young Dr. Handsome was one surprise after another.

      Before she thought better of herself, she swept her thumb over the abrasions. “Rough day at the office, Doc?”

      He looked puzzled for a second, then glanced down and extricated his hand from hers. “Just a little difference of opinion.”

      It was her turn to look puzzled, but she didn’t ask for an explanation, nor did he offer one. It was best they get down to business, anyway.

      “I’m sorry you had to wait so long,” he said, throwing his jacket across the foot of the bed. “I’d have been here an hour ago, but the weather’s taking a turn for the worse and the roads are getting nasty.”

      An hour. What was one hour? she wondered.

      An eternity to an eight-year-old boy. A boy waiting for his mother.

      “Why don’t we get this over with so you can get back on the road to wherever home is, then?”

      “Sounds like a plan.” He rubbed his hands together to warm them, looking her up and down.

      Her spine tingled as if he’d run his fingers up her back. The look hadn’t been sexual at all—it was definitely a doctor’s appraising gaze.

      Still, she had felt it.

      As if he’d felt it, too, he took a step back.

      Even fully clothed and with four feet of distance between them, she felt naked. Bare to the soul. Unable to resist any longer, she set her tea down and crossed her arms over the buttercup-yellow flannel pajama top Nana had brought for her.

      She wished Nana had brought clothes, instead.

      “How are you feeling?” he asked.

      “Fine,” she lied. Her hip hurt like hell. “The doctor gave me a clean bill of health.”

      “Good. Do you know why I’m here?”

      Her lips pressed together in a bleak smile. “You’re a psychologist.”

      “Psychiatrist, actually. You know what happens next?”

      She nodded and sat on the edge of the bed, her legs hanging over the side. She’d been through this before. At least he wasn’t patronizing her.

      He asked a battery of questions. Her name. The date. The name of the current president. The immediate former president. Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?

      She looked up at him quizzically. “Grant?”

      He grinned. “Just seeing if you were paying attention. Thought I had you there.”

      “My son loves riddles. I hear that one, or some variation on it, at least once a week.”

      “What happened this morning?” Dr. Handsome asked. His gaze followed her as she hopped off the bed and paced, limping. She didn’t want to do this, but he wasn’t going to let her go home to Todd until she did.

      “Why don’t you just come right out and ask me?” she said, hating the impatience in her voice.

      “Ask you what?”

      “If I tried to kill myself again.”

      “Did you try to kill yourself again?” he said without missing a beat.

      “No.”

      “But you have tried before.”

      Statement, not question. No sense denying it, she thought. The facts would be in her medical record.

      “A long time ago,” she said flatly.

      “After you lost your husband?”

      “And my sister six months before that, and my parents a year before that.” Her heart constricted painfully at the memory. Memories.

      A moment of silence passed. “That’s a lot to go through in eighteen months.”

      “Too much.” She turned to him, her lips pressed in a grim line. “Or so I thought at the time.”

      His smile was gone, and the look that had replaced it brought a lump to her throat. His face glowed with a warm, quiet concern.

      Compassion.

      “But not anymore?” he asked.

      She took a deep breath, raw at having to expose herself like this to a stranger. Most people had a right to privacy. To dignity. Not so the mentally ill, or those suspected of mental illness. They were expected to drag their deepest fears, their most personal vulnerabilities out for inspection by anyone with the right abbreviations or acronyms behind their names.

      She considered lying, knew it would only delay the inevitable. He would pick at her until he got the truth.

      Looking down, she saw her hands were trembling and clasped them together to hide the weakness. “I spent eight months in the hospital learning to deal with my grief. I clawed my way back to normalcy day by day. Sometimes minute by minute or second by second, but I made it.” She threw her chin in the air. “My doctor there had me keep a journal. I still do it. I record my good days and bad days and why each was the way it was. As of this morning, I’d had three hundred and ten consecutive good days. Three hundred and ten.”

      When she dropped her gaze again, she realized she’d fisted her hands so tightly her knuckles had gone white.

      Dr. Hansen gave her a few seconds to collect herself, then asked gently, “What happened this morning?”

      She hesitated. “I fell.”

      He checked the file, then said in that same placid, calming tone, “You told the police you were pushed.”

      “I was confused. I hit my head.” She touched the knot on her temple as if to prove it. Damn it, she shouldn’t have to prove anything to him.

      But she did, if she wanted to go home, and she did want to go home, even if it meant lying. She’d told the police and the first doctor who had examined her that she’d been pushed into the road.

      It hadn’t gone over well.

      She ducked her chin. She would not give him reason to call her paranoid. “Maybe some snow slid off the trees and hit me in the back. The sun was warming things up pretty good.”

      She lifted her head. “Or maybe I just stumbled. That’s how I ended up in the road.” Desperately, she tried to give him a reassuring grin. It wobbled and she gave up. “I did not throw myself over a cliff on purpose.”

      To her surprise, he smiled back. “Good.”

      She rolled her shoulder, feeling the tension easing out. He believed her. Didn’t he?

      He made a few notes on her file and then raised his head. “What were you thinking about before you fell?”

      “Todd’s Christmas present. My son, he’s eight. I was deciding what to get him.”

      He made a sympathetic noise. “Tough age to buy for. Young enough he still wants all the good kids’ toys, but too old to admit it.”

      “Exactly.”