And yet—drudgery seemed like such an inappropriate word when applied to Cecilia. She was so fascinating. So intriguing and challenging. And yet so restful. He thought it could very well take a lifetime to get to know every facet of her.
She fit with him in a way no woman had before her. He couldn’t imagine anyone suiting him better. Not that he was looking for anyone better suited, he assured himself quickly. Everything was just fine for him the way it was.
He had his family, a successful career, and he could soon have a child to satisfy his natural desire to procreate. What more could he want. Right?
To be fair, the accident wasn’t caused by his distraction with thought
s of Cecilia. Even with his mind so jumbled, he had followed every rule of the road, obeyed the speed limits, had come to a full stop at every intersection. Unfortunately, the driver of a rusty old sedan wasn’t as careful. Either he didn’t see the stop sign or didn’t see the motorcycle, but he sped into the intersection at the same time as Geoff.
Geoff saw the car at the moment before impact. It gave him barely enough time to lay the bike down so that he didn’t slam directly into the side of the big car.
As pain ripped through his left side, he only hoped his reaction hadn’t been too little, too late.
The pace at the clinic was finally slowing a bit. Cecilia had already delivered healthy twin girls. The C-section was underway in the hospital. The hysterical Orcadol addict was on her way to rehab—though not without causing a major scene first. The waiting room was only half full now.
Maybe she would survive the day, after all, she thought as she pressed a hand to her aching back. It had been touch and go for a while there.
She still hadn’t had a chance to talk to Mari. She checked on her next mother-to-be, who was, perhaps, a couple of hours away from delivery. Leaving her in the capable care of her husband and doula, Cecilia made another effort to have a quick conference with Mari. She still needed the consultation, of course, but she also wanted to see if Mari had recovered from the upsetting incident with Detective Collins.
She turned a corner into the hallway that led to Mari’s office. As she walked that direction, she saw Mari step out, accompanied by a young man wearing an orderly’s uniform. With her back partially turned to Cecilia, Mari pressed a stack of what looked very much like prescription slips into the young man’s hand. He stuffed them unceremoniously into his pocket, turned and disappeared into the stairway at the other end of the hall from where Cecilia stood.
That had certainly looked odd, Cecilia thought, pausing in her steps for a moment as Mari moved back into her office.
And then she frowned and shook her head. She blamed Detective Collins for planting even the tiniest seed of doubt about Mari in her mind. There was no reason at all to find anything suspicious about that exchange, no matter how it might have looked to….
Hit suddenly by an eerie feeling of being watched, she glanced over her shoulder. Detective Collins lurked behind her at the very end of the hallway, arms crossed over his solid chest, one shoulder propped against the wall.
His gray eyes locked with hers, and his expression made her wonder if he suspected everyone at the clinic of being a drug pusher. Was he following her? Or watching Mari’s office? She had no doubt he had seen the exchange between Mari and the orderly.
Probably because she was tired and grumpy, she took a step toward him with the intention of asking exactly what he thought was going on at the clinic. Before she had taken a second step, he turned and disappeared around the corner.
She was tempted to chase him down and ask her questions, anyway. Some remnant of common sense made her stop, take a deep breath and remind herself that belligerent confrontation was probably not the wisest way to deal with an overly suspicious officer of the law.
She turned back, instead, toward Mari’s office. She would let her intuition tell her if Mari was acting in any way different than usual—though she still didn’t believe there was even the tiniest bit of merit in Bryce Collins’s accusations.
Mari was buried in paperwork. She looked up with a weary smile when she heard Cecilia in the doorway. “I haven’t forgotten about you, Cecilia. It has just been an incredibly hectic day.”
“For all of us,” Cecilia agreed. “Our consultation can wait until tomorrow morning. I’ll have some test results back by then. I’m quite concerned about this patient. She’s determined to have a midwifery delivery, but I tend to think we should be considering an early cesarean section. I’d appreciate your opinion.”
“I’ll clear some time just before lunch, if that’s convenient for you. We’ll look over the file and the test results, and then we’ll schedule a time when I can examine her for myself.”
“Yes, that will be fine. Um, Mari—”
Before Cecilia could mention her strange encounter with Detective Collins in the hallway, the phone almost hidden beneath the papers on Mari’s desk buzzed loudly.
Mari sighed deeply. “Hold on.” She picked up the receiver. “Yes?”
A moment later she sat straight up in her chair, her expression shocked. “He did what? Is he all right? Okay, I’ll be right there.”
Slamming the phone back into the cradle, Mari jumped to her feet. “Cecilia, I’m sorry, but I have to go. Can you keep things running around here? I’m supposed to be in the conference room in ten minutes, but it looks like I’m going to be delayed.”
“Of course. I’ll spread the word that you’ve been called away.”
“Thank you.” Mari was already hurrying toward the doorway. “I won’t forget about our consultation tomorrow, but I really have to go now. My brother has been injured in a motorcycle accident.”
Cecilia felt her heart leap straight into her throat. Holding on to the doorway to steady herself, she lifted a hand to her suddenly tight throat. “Is he going to be all right?” she called after her rapidly departing supervisor.
Mari replied without looking back. “Yes, I think so. I just need to go see him.”