Hero For the Asking (Reed Sisters: Holding out for a Hero 2)

"What about me?"

"Do you ever get bored passing out prescriptions for reading glasses?"

"I might, if that was all I did. It's not. Only recently I had a patient—eight years old—who's been classified as mentally handicapped. His teacher recommended that the boy be placed in special classes for children with learning disabilities, despite his parents' belief that their son had an average IQ. After trying tutors and child psychologists they brought him to me. We discovered that he had a visual impairment—an inability to process the two separate images detected by his eyes, to put it simply. He's really a very bright child, considering what he's had to deal with. My job is particularly rewarding when children are involved."

"That sounds fascinating," Clay conceded, and the look he turned to her was sincere. "And it seems that we have something in common if you enjoy dealing with childhood problems."

She lowered her chin and toyed modestly with her seat belt. "Not all my cases are like that," she admitted. "Most of the time I do pass out prescriptions for reading glasses. But I love my work."

He reached across the console to catch her left hand in his right one. "I wasn't trying to offend you when I asked that question. Sometimes I don't mean things exactly the way they leave my mouth."

"I understand. And there was no offense taken," she assured him.

"You're a very special person, Spring Reed," he said softly, lifting her hand to his mouth. "Are you sure you won't reconsider having an affair with me? I'm yours for the asking, you know."

She laughed lightly, genuinely amused, despite her concern at what they may find in a few minutes. "I'll let you know if I change my mind," she told him.

"You do that," he replied. Then he kissed her knuckles again and placed her hand back in her lap.

Spring turned her head to look out the window beside her, but her thoughts were not on the passing scenery. Instead, she thought of Clay. She liked him. She really liked him. She liked his melting smile, his offbeat humor and his obvious sensitivity. She liked his blue-green eyes, his golden hair and the pleasure he seemed to find in the most casual of touches. She was even beginning to like the way he dressed. Now that should have been frightening. Yet somehow it wasn't.

Broadway, with its strip joints and businesses catering to every prurient interest, had been Spring's least favorite part of the quick sight-seeing tour of San Francisco that Summer had given her the day before. Clay took her into an area that Summer had avoided altogether. He parked in front of a crumbling dump of a building that should have been condemned years earlier, and probably had been. The littered street was completely deserted in the bright afternoon sunlight, but Spring suspected that the shadows of evening would bring out all the human flotsam that would inhabit such a place. She shivered, thinking of a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. "This is where she is?"

Looking grim, Clay tugged at his tweed cap. "That's what I was told."

Something in his posture told her that he wasn't telling her everything he'd heard. She only hoped she would be able to help him. Following his lead, she took a deep breath and climbed from the car. She noticed that his eyes, no longer smiling, darted all around them as they entered the dark, unwelcoming building through a door that had long since ceased to lock or even close properly. Clay walked unerringly to a flight of bare metal stairs. "Up here," he told Spring.

She hesitated for only a moment. He reached out and took her hand. Strengthened by the contact, she nodded at him and walked just behind him up two flights to the third floor, the top floor of the building. Clay looked around for a moment, seemed to get his bearings, then led her down a hallway to their left, never releasing her hand, for which Spring was grateful. At the end of the hallway was a closed door. Clay stood for a moment before it, then knocked tentatively. "Thelma? It's Clay. Are you there?"

When no answer came from the other side of the door. Clay knocked louder. "Thelma? Come on, sweetheart, let me in. I only want to talk, to make sure you're okay. Can you hear me?"

Again, silence. Clay looked at Spring, then at the doorknob. Still holding her hand, he twisted the rusted metal knob. The door wasn't locked. It opened with a screech of angry hinges.

The smel

ls struck her first. She didn't know what they were, nor did she want to. Her eyes were focused on the teenager sprawled on a filthy bare mattress that lay on the trash-covered floor. The girl wasn't moving. Spring was horribly afraid that she was dead.

Clay was already across the room, down on one knee in the dirt as he touched Thelma's face. He looked up at Spring, his face as expressionless as if carved of stone. "She's burning up with fever. She's very ill."

"Do you know what's wrong with her?"

"No. Flu, maybe, or pneumonia. God knows when she ate last. I was told by one of her friends that she wasn't well when she disappeared. Her mother was mad at her for missing a couple of days at her after-school job in a fast-food restaurant. Thelma's tiny salary is more important to her mother than Thelma is, it seems." Dull fury glinted in Clay's eyes, making them seem suddenly hard, without a trace of his usual laughter.

"I'll find a phone," Spring told him, moving backward.

"No." The harsh, flat syllable stopped her. "I don't want you out on those streets. I'll go. Do you mind staying with her?"

"Of course not."

Clay touched her shoulder in passing. She could feel the fine trembling in his fingers. He paused at the doorway. "You'll be okay? You're not frightened? I won't be long."

"I'm fine," Spring assured him. "Hurry, Clay. She looks so ill."

He ground out a curse between clenched teeth and ran.

Left alone with the unconscious teenager, Spring breathed deeply for courage, then almost gagged as the rank odors assaulted her again. She took Thelma's limp hand in hers, fingers closing around the thin brown wrist to monitor the reedy pulse. She's just a child, she thought, looking down at the vulnerable face. She'd been told Thelma was fifteen; she would never have guessed so from looking at her. Thelma's hair, which was now badly in need of washing, was cut to curl around her head. Long eyelashes lay on soft, full cheeks that would normally be a rich chocolate but were now ashen. Her mouth was a child's mouth, tender and full, open to expose even white teeth. Spring felt her heart twist in her chest. She eyed the girl's dirty sweatshirt and torn, faded jeans and blinked back tears. "Don't worry, Thelma. You're going to be just fine," she murmured, though she doubted that her words registered.

Thelma's breathing was labored and harsh, punctuated by a hacking cough, her skin hot and dry. Spring wished fervently that she had a cool, wet cloth to wash Thelma's face. Then she reached eagerly for the small handbag hanging from her shoulder and dug into it, coming up with one of the packaged moistened paper napkins provided by some fast-food establishments. For once she was grateful for her habit of saving possibly useful odds and ends. She ripped open the foil package, gratefully breathing in the lemony scent before gently placing it against Thelma's face, talking softly and soothingly. She thought she saw Thelma's eyes open once, briefly, but there was no other sign that she was aware of anything going on around her.