"My sentiments exactly," Mac said under his breath. He'd been much better off when it was a matter of a mult.i.tude of women rather than a single woman. Because now his stomach was completely tied up in knots. Just like his heart.

Howard Monroe didn't come looking for them until another half hour had pa.s.sed. The doctor walked into the lounge still wearing his scrubs, his mask at half-mast around his neck.

Erika froze when she saw him. Mac made it across the length of the room in three strides, taking Howard's arm, as if that somehow a.s.sured him of the right answer to the question he put to him. "Well?"

Howard smiled, nodding. "Yes, she will be." His gaze took in both mother and worried significant other. "Jolene came through with flying colors." Howard thought of sitting down, then decided against it. If he sat, he'd never get up and he needed to change. "Lucky we went in when we did. The aneurysm gave every sign of rupturing. As it was, we got it all. She'll be up and flying in no time."

Tears in her eyes, Erika hugged the surgeon. "Oh thank you, thank you."

"Entirely my pleasure." Howard looked at Mac over Erika's shoulder. "By the way, she's asking for you."

The news surprised him. He would have thought Jolene would have asked after her mother or Amanda. "Me?"

Howard nodded, removing the mask's ties from around his neck. "I think she mumbled something about a d.a.m.n b.a.s.t.a.r.d." A genial smile curved his mouth. "I figured that had to be you."

Mac looked at Erika uncertainly. It was enough that he knew Jolene was all right. He could wait now. "Her mother should-"

"No," Erika told him. "You go in first." She gave him a little push to set him moving. "I'll stay out here with the children and celebrate."

Grateful, Mac began to hurry out, then doubled back and brushed a kiss on the older woman's cheek. No words were necessary.

Erika smiled. "I see what she sees in you. Actually I saw it first." She shooed him out. "Go, tell her we were all out here, rooting for her."

He barely heard the end of her sentence.

Very quietly, Mac made his way into the recovery room. There were times when the area was teeming with beds, all separated from each other only by the curtains that hung from the ceiling and served as temporary walls.

But the load was light today. The last patient had just been taken up to his room. Jolene's was the only bed in the dimly lit enclosure.

As he approached her, Jolene appeared to be groggy, but awake. Mac's heart constricted looking at her.

Just thinking of what he might have lost at the very moment when he'd realized he'd found it...

He leaned his hands on the railings, marveling at how fragile she seemed. And how perfect, despite the bandage over half her head. "Hi."

She gazed up at him, vaguely aware that she had to look terrible.

"Hi." The word all but croaked out of her parched throat. She'd done a lot of talking in the operating room. That and the surgery had left her pretty much exhausted.

Mac nodded toward the entrance. "Your mother and the kids are outside."

"I have kids?" she asked wryly. "When did that happen? I thought I just had one."

"Amanda and Tommy. He insisted on coming once he knew about the surgery. Felt it was his duty since you were there for his." For the first time, Mac's tongue felt heavy. He was just so grateful she was all right.

"I remember," she murmured.

"Your mother let me come in first." He glanced again toward the entrance, thinking that perhaps Jolene might rather have seen her mother in his stead. "Nice lady."

"I always thought so." She blew out a breath slowly, then dragged another in. Breathing was taking concentrated effort. "What I didn't think...was that you'd be here."

He took her hand in his. How did he make her understand? "When are you going to stop underestimating me?" A grin played on his lips. "Besides, bald women turn me on."

She closed her eyes, thinking of what she had to look like. Too bad Halloween wasn't around the corner. She'd be all ready. "Don't remind me."

She'd never looked more beautiful to him. "It's just a section, not your whole head."

"Great," she sighed, then took another deep breath. Her eyes felt like lead. "I'll start a new style."

Mac stroked her hand. "Just as long as you're around to start it, that's all that counts." Was this happiness he was feeling inside? It hurt, he thought. It hurt to be this happy. "You're a lucky woman, they got it just in time. All of it."

Jolene tried to nod and found that any movement hurt. This was going to be slow going. But then, she wasn't going anywhere.

"That's good."

She vaguely remembered that the surgeon had said something along those lines, but everything was getting blurry now. She just wanted to sleep.

"Now it's time for me to get lucky."

She opened her eyes wider as his words registered. Well, at least he was being honest with her. What did a man like him want with a half-bald temporary invalid? "New prospect?"

She'd misunderstood. He shouldn't have joked. "New venue." Mac collected himself, looking for words, serious words. "This isn't exactly the most romantic setting, but seeing as how we've all been given a second chance here, it'll do. Jolene, will you marry me?"

When she didn't answer, he looked down at her and realized that she'd fallen asleep.

Frustrated, Mac blew out a breath. Okay, so this was just dress rehearsal.

She was someplace else.

Jolene peeled her upper eyelashes away from her lower ones, trying to see. Trying to focus beyond the haze.

This wasn't the Recovery Room anymore.

When had that happened?

Or was the other a dream and she'd been here all along? She could have sworn that Mac had asked her to marry him.

Right, like that would ever happen.

What had the anesthesiologist given her to make her groggy like that?

Her eyes were closed again. She was looking at the inside of her lids. With effort, she opened them again. There was someone beside her.

Holding her hand.

A nurse, probably.

How about that, she thought, giddy, the nurse needs a nurse.

Jolene took a deep breath, filling her lungs so she could talk.

"I'm alive." The words were said to no one in particular and to the world at large.

"Yes, I know."

The deep voice rippled all around her.

A male nurse?

No, wait, she knew that voice. It filled her head and her dreams. It was in the last one she remembered hearing before...

For the third time, she opened her eyes. And focused in on- "Mac."

He grinned at her. "You were expecting Santa Claus?"

"No." He'd come. He hadn't bailed out, he'd come. Happiness poured through her veins, chasing away the anesthetic. Making her feel alive. Groggy, but alive. Very alive. "I guess I fell asleep."

"I guess you did." This was something they were going to talk about every anniversary, he decided, how she'd fallen asleep during his proposal. He'd never let her forget. "Right in the middle."

She didn't quite follow. "Of surgery?"

"Of my proposal."

She blinked, trying to dispel the last bit of grogginess from her bruised brain. "No one told me I'd be delirious after surgery."

His grin deepened. "You're not."

She was not about to let herself get carried away, no matter what her insides insisted on doing. "Then why am I hearing the word proposal?"

"Maybe because I said it." His eyes held hers, his voice dropping. "Maybe because I did it."

"Do it again." It was almost a dare. She was afraid to believe him.

Mac took her hand in both of his. "Jolene, will you marry me?"

She couldn't be hearing right. This was Harrison MacKenzie, Southern California's leading playboy. The eternal bachelor. The only thing he proposed were illicit liaisons.

"Did I sleep right through to April Fools'?"

"No." She needed to be convinced. He could understand that. He had, too. But now, nothing was going to unconvince him. "Jolene, I never thought I'd say those words, never thought I'd want to get married to anyone. I know that maintaining a marriage is going to take harder work than becoming a doctor ever did, but I'm willing to work at it, as long as it's with you."

She had to say yes. He intended to keep at her until she did. Because he knew she wanted it as much as he did. They were just both afraid. Or had been.

"Willing to do anything to keep you in my life. I want us to be a family, Jolene. You and me, Amanda and Tommy-and your mother." He hoped that would clinch the deal. He was willing to do anything.

She ached too much for this to be a dream. Jolene pressed her lips together. "This is a lot to spring on a person who just lost half her hair."

"I can wait. You're not going anywhere." He looked at her significantly. "Neither am I."

She'd been completely dried out by the surgery. Otherwise, she knew there would have been tears in her eyes. "So you're serious."

"Never more."

She lay there, studying his face. Realizing that sometimes, miracles did happen. "Bald women really turn you on."

He laughed. "Singular. Bald 'woman."' He picked up her hand again and held it in his, his eyes intent on her face. "This bald woman."

He meant it. She could feel it. Was it possible to feel this much happiness and not explode? "I guess then I shouldn't deprive you, should I?"

Mac moved his head from side to side. "Wouldn't be right."

A glint entered her eyes and he knew that he was home free. "Does this mean I'll have to keep shaving half my head?"

"You can do anything you like-after you say I do."

"Can't beat a deal like that."

"I'm counting on it."

Just as he leaned over to kiss her, Jolene placed her fingers to his lips. He looked at her quizzically. "And this isn't some postoperative thing with you? You don't have some condition that compels you to propose to every woman being wheeled into recovery, do you?"

He tried to keep a straight face as he crossed his heart. "Never happened before."

"Then I guess the answer's yes."

He arched a brow. "You guess?"

"I know," she corrected. "I'm willing to give you a try." And then, because he'd told her, she added seriously, "I do love you, Harrison."

Somehow, though he'd always disliked the name, hearing her say it made everything that much more intimate. "We're going to do more than try, Jolene. We're going to make it."

She smiled just before he kissed her, echoing his phrase. "I'm counting on it."

ISBN: 978-1-4268-7034-7.

Books by Marie Ferrarella in Miniseries.

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