"Spoilsport," she murmured. "By the way." She indicated the front of Jolene's dress. "You missed a b.u.t.ton.

Jolene flushed as she turned away and slid the b.u.t.ton back into its hole. Exasperated with herself and the fact that her mind kept insisting on reliving the evening, Jolene dropped onto the sofa. Exhaustion caught up with her a second time. With a sigh, she laid her head against the pillow tucked into the corner. She'd just rest for a moment, just until her mother got Amanda ready.

She knew she should go up and help-and she would. In a second. As soon as she caught her breath.

Being with MacKenzie had completely drained her of all her energy. The man had made love with her three times before she finally summoned the strength to crawl back into her clothes. He had asked her to spend the night and for a second, she actually had considered it.

But she knew even as she was debating that she couldn't. Amanda was waiting for her. Motherhood wasn't a responsibility she could just put down and pick up at will. It was a 24/7 proposition and she had signed on for the duration.

Without thinking, Jolene closed her eyes, promising herself that she'd jump up in another moment and go help her mother get Amanda ready.

All she wanted was to close her eyes for just five minutes, close her eyes and not think of Harrison MacKenzie and the way he'd managed to set the whole world on fire without burning a single thing.

Except for her.

"Honey, I forgot to ask you if you wanted-" Returning into the room, Erika stopped by the sofa and smiled to herself. "He really did tucker you out, didn't he?" It was about time Jolene had a little fun and if she was any judge of character, that young man presented "fun" in capital letters.

Erika went to the hall closet and took out the afghan she'd made several years ago. It wasn't very good, but she'd kept it as a first effort. There'd never been a second one.

She spread the afghan over Jolene, careful not to wake her.

"I'll get up in a minute, Mom," Jolene murmured, her eyes still closed. She curled up under the cover. "Just five more minutes."

"Take all the time you want, honey," Erika told her softly. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Thanks, Mom." The words were all but sighed out as Jolene pulled the throw a little closer.

Smiling, Erika bent down and pressed a kiss to her daughter's cheek, then tiptoed away, feeling very optimistic about the future.

Chapter Twelve.

"L ooking for someone?" Reese Bendenetti finally asked after watching his friend's head bob up and down like one of those old-fashioned toy dogs. Mac had done it not once but several times in the s.p.a.ce of the last few minutes.

The noise within the cafeteria was such that it took Mac a minute to realize that there was an unanswered question floating between them and that he was the one who was supposed to be doing the answering.

He looked back at one of Blair's top internal surgeons, a man recently engaged and destined to leave the ranks of the available within the next couple of months. Reese had even gone so far as to ask him to be part of his wedding party, something he was still contemplating, given his feelings about marriage.

Mac nudged the fare on his plate a little with next to no interest. "What makes you ask?"

"Well, for one thing, you're not paying any attention to your lunch. Not that, I grant you, the meat loaf merits much attention." Reese sighed. To him eating was one of life's pleasures. A pleasure that was currently being denied him. "I can't wait for Hannah to get back from her vacation." Hannah being Hannah Wong, the woman who did most of the cooking at the hospital's cafeteria. In the last five years, ever since she'd joined the kitchen ranks, she had almost single-handedly turned a standard joke into an appreciable dining experience for staff and patients alike.

"And for another," Reese continued, "you're not paying much attention to me, either."

There was no point in denying that he'd let his mind wander. He'd only heard about one half of what Reese had had to say since he'd picked up his tray at the entrance of the cafeteria and joined him.

"Sorry. And no-" he could be forgiven for indulging in a half truth, Mac thought "-to answer your question, I'm not looking for someone, I'm just thinking about this afternoon's surgery."

Which was what he should have been doing exclusively, Mac told himself, even though the procedure was a relatively short one on his side of the scalpel. On Tommy's side of the knife, of course, it was a huge deal. Any surgery at that age would be. Mac glanced up as someone walked into the cafeteria.

It wasn't her.

It made him a little edgy, knowing that he was looking around for her like this. It reminded him too much of a high school boy with his first major crush watching the doorway, waiting for the new girl to walk into his math cla.s.s.

He was light years beyond that. So what was wrong with him now? How had she managed to crawl in under his skin this way when the thrill of the hunt was supposedly gone?

He purposely hadn't called her in order to make things appear light between them. They were supposed to be light-so why weren't they?

Mac looked down at his plate. He had no appet.i.te. And even if he had, what he had before him wouldn't have satisfied him.

"You're right, this is pretty bad." He pushed his tray away. Then, for no reason at all, or maybe because Reese was one of his best friends, he reopened the topic. "You seen Jolene around? DeLuca," he added when Reese looked at him blankly.

The grin was instantaneous. Reese had had a feeling all along. "Oh, you mean the nurse from paradise. I think I saw her walking into the E.R. earlier." Two could play the vague game. "Why?"

"No reason." Rising to his feet, Mac picked up his tray. Deciding it was a good idea, Reese joined him. They walked to the conveyor belt that brought dirty plates and trays back into the kitchen together. "Well, I'd better see how Tommy's doing."

"Right. By the way, if I wasn't already spoken for, I'd be noticing her, too."

Mac thought it best not to comment on that. He wasn't even sure what had prompted him to ask Reese about Jolene, other than the fact that they were both on E.R. duty.

He was sounding more and more like that adolescent kid he'd never been, Mac thought, annoyed with himself as he parted company with Reese on the first floor.

Still, he looked down the hall before the elevator doors closed again.

It didn't surprise him that Tommy's stepfather wasn't with the boy in the pre-op area. The admitting nurse told him that Allen had brought the boy in, signed the necessary authorizations and then left, saying something about not being able to miss work.

What did surprise Mac was that the woman he'd been keeping an eye out for these last couple of days was in the room. When he dropped by to see how Tommy was doing, he found her standing over the little boy's bed, holding his hand and talking to him in a low, calm voice.

Just listening to her cadence did a great deal to calm him. As well as stir him, Mac mused, standing in the doorway and listening. A smile teased his mouth. She liked to come on tough as nails, but it seemed that the firebrand had a heart made out of pure marshmallow. It went a long way in her favor.

He caught Tommy's eye. Time to stop hiding in the shadows, he thought, walking in.

"Am I interrupting anything?" he asked the boy cheerfully.

Tommy kept his hand wrapped tightly around Jolene's hand. "Jo came by," he told Mac excitedly. "She's making me not scared."

"She's good like that."

"It was my break," she explained, banking down the sudden, fl.u.s.tered feeling. "I saw Tommy's name on the surgery chart." Why she felt compelled to explain her actions was beyond her.

Mac spared Jolene a smile before looking back at his patient. The scar on his cheek was no longer angry, but it was the first thing that drew attention.

Poor kid, he thought. There was no doubt in his mind that Tommy had endured a great deal of teasing these last few weeks.

Mac came around to the other side of the bed, purposely keeping a slight distance between himself and Jolene.

"You're not afraid, are you, Tommy? We talked about this. You're just going to take a short nap and when you wake up, your face is going to be a little numb and there'll be bandages on it, but we'll be that much closer to putting you back together again."

"With no scars?" Tommy asked hopefully, even though the ground had been covered before.

"With no scars," Mac a.s.sured him patiently.

Tommy licked his lips as he nodded, fear very much a part of the scenario. But if Dr. Mac said it was going to be okay, then it was. "And I'll look just like I did before?"

"Yes." He knew better than to make promises that wouldn't be kept immediately. "But not right away, remember?"

Tommy nodded solemnly. "I remember."

He couldn't resist ruffling the boy's hair. "Okay, then I'll see you in a little while in the operating room, okay?"

Tommy's eyes were as wide as saucers at the mention of his next destination. "Okay."

Jolene bent down and kissed the boy's cheek. "Good luck, Tommy. I'll check on you after your surgery."

The nurse smelled good, just like his mother had, Tommy thought. And she wore a white uniform, too. It made his throat feel all scratchy and funny. He missed his mother a lot. Tommy looked at the man who was his friend. "Can Jo be there, too?"

She wasn't a.s.signed to surgeries at Blair other than the emergency ones that took place on the floor of the E.R. "No, I-"

Having her there would probably go a long way in calming Tommy. Mac paused to consider. "Do you have operating room experience?"

She looked at him in surprise. "Yes, but-"

"Then you can be there if you'd like. I can arrange it." It wouldn't be that difficult, especially when all she would have to do was hold Tommy's hand and then not get in the way once he was put under.

She looked into Tommy's eyes. He squeezed her hand. "Please?"

Any hesitation she felt disappeared. "You clear it with Wanda, I'll be there."

"Consider it cleared."

The sound of guitars filled the operating suite, its tempo geared to keep the people within the room alert. It was how Mac wanted it, the way he conducted all his surgical procedures. To the sound of the Ventures wrapped in an endless summer.

Today the procedure was a relatively simple one, one of three that would eventually restore the boy's face to its original countenance. But Mac remained intently focused as he worked. He never took anything for granted in the operating room. To do so, to feel overly confident, even with the simplest of procedures, would have been an invitation to a mishap, a mistake waiting to happen.

The entire surgery took forty-five minutes from start to finish. Done, Mac left the brightly lit operating salon and stripped his gloves off. The mask followed. Glancing toward the swinging doors that led to the hospital corridor, he saw that Jolene was already out and on her way back to the E.R.

He pushed the door open and hurried after her.

She was immediately aware of him. "I didn't think you chased after anyone."

"I do if they bolt."

"I wasn't bolting," she corrected. "I was returning. To the E.R. I work there, remember?"

She paused, knowing she was becoming testy again. But that was because she couldn't stop thinking about him and she didn't want that happening, didn't want to find herself in the same position she had once been in.

Won't happen, she promised herself.

But somehow, the silent words seemed to carry less weight than they had the last time she'd vowed them.

"That was nice of you to arrange for me to be in there with him," she forced herself to say. And it was true. He kept doing nice things like that. It made it difficult to mentally keep sticking warning labels on him when he behaved this way.

"I try to make my patients happy whenever possible," Mac told her simply. "You made him feel calmer. He likes you." They were right outside the E.R. doors. Mac stopped walking. "He's not the only one."

"You needn't practice your charm on me, Doctor." Jolene looked around to make sure no one was listening before she added, "We already know you can slide into home base."

"Maybe-" his smile was teasing, making her warm "-but it's just the beginning of the season."

She wasn't sure just what he meant by that. But before she could ask, she saw Mac looking down the hall and shaking his head. He blew out a breath, disgusted. "You'd think the guy would be out here after the operation."

She knew he meant Tommy's stepfather. It bothered her, too, but she'd come to be realistic about the roles some men played in their children's lives. Or didn't play. "Not everyone's a good parent."

"No, I guess not," he agreed. He would have liked nothing better than to shake some sense into the man's empty head. "Well, I'd better use my 'considerable charm' and see if I can get Administration to agree to allow Tommy to remain here at least overnight."

Normally cases such as the boy's were discharged within a number of hours, the patient sent home with a list of dos and don'ts to follow. There wasn't much chance of their being followed, he guessed. Allen had already proven he didn't care about the boy's well-being if it interfered with his own life.

"It goes without saying that b.a.s.t.a.r.d isn't going to be changing Tommy's bandages for him." Mac knew his limits. The hospital wouldn't spring for two nights. Not unless he hid the boy in the supply closet. "Although I'm not sure what one night's going to do. That's going to take a week of care-"

She was already ahead of him. "I could stop by Tommy's house after hours. You know, like the Visiting Nurses."

He was aware of the group, nurses who were sent to render minor services to shut-ins. In this case, there would be no way to justify writing a prescription to cover the paperwork end of it, especially since there was no insurance involved. "It'd have to be on your own time."

She looked at him pointedly. "Didn't ask for compensation, did I?"

"No, you didn't." His mouth curved. There was something exceptionally tempting about her right now. "I could pay you in trade."

She'd had no intentions of there being a repeat of their date. Was almost adamant about it when she'd gone over it in her mind-time and again, just to make sure there would be no slipups.

Yet she heard herself asking, "Just what did you have in mind?"

Whenever a procedure went correctly, there was always this accompanying burst of energy with it that flowered all through him, giving him a sense of happiness, peace and purpose. It was overshadowed by what he was feeling now and he couldn't even begin to explain why since work had always been paramount in his life.

"Why don't I stop over at your place around seven tonight and I can show you?"

Not a good idea.

The words telegraphed themselves through her mind with the urgency of a sinking ship sending out an S.O.S. She knew she should listen to it.

Jolene gave it a halfhearted try. "I've still got unpacking to do."

He wasn't about to accept any excuses. "Then you can use an extra pair of hands."