But she was already gone.

Chapter Three.

M ac snapped his cell phone shut. It had taken some fancy talking, but he'd gotten himself a reprieve. And then some.

He'd smoothed Lynda's ruffled feathers, mentioned an expensive restaurant that was in the offing and what might happen afterward. She'd quickly forgiven him for the fact that she'd been waiting, getting steadily more annoyed, for the better part of half an hour. Lynda had informed him tersely at the beginning of the conversation that had eventually swung his way that she didn't take kindly to being kept waiting by any man.

But then, she'd conceded at the end, she knew that he wasn't just any man.

She'd already softened considerably when he told her about the collapsing balcony and the people who had fallen along with it. By the time he'd ended the call, Lynda would have been willing to forgive him anything and bear his children straightaway.

Mac smiled to himself, antic.i.p.ating the evening ahead. He didn't take for granted that he was a man with more lives than a cat and twice as many grace periods.

Lynda had promised to be waiting for him with a cool bottle of wine chilling on the ice and a hot body warming on the bed.

Once more with feeling, Mac thought as he made his way to the staff lounge. This time, nothing was going to stop him from making it out of his lab coat and out of the hospital.

Nothing but the sound of raised voices.

He heard the conversation as he made his way down the corridor.

A gruff voice was strained with impatience as Mac heard the man retort, "Look, I don't need any of your lip, lady. You took care of him, great. Send the insurance company the bill. Wasn't me who told him to stick his face in front of Hugo's muzzle. I can't be watching the kid 24/7, I've got my own life, my own problems to keep me busy. d.a.m.n kid's old enough to know better."

Turning the corner, less than fifteen feet shy of the rear electronic doors and freedom, Mac saw a tall, fairly muscular man with a weather-hewn face talking to Wanda. Or more properly, at Wanda. He was obviously giving the head nurse a hard time.

She looked as if she was having trouble hanging onto her temper, Mac noted, which was unusual, given that Wanda was one of the most easygoing people he knew. The man's clothes had the appearance of being hastily donned, and he had one large hand clamped tightly down on Tommy's small wrist.

The man gave Mac the impression that he would think nothing of yanking Tommy up by his arm like a rag doll that had fallen on disfavor.

Not your problem, Mac, just keep walking. Door's ready to open for you.

Mac didn't listen to his own advice.

Instead he stopped in front of Wanda and the boisterous stranger, pausing first to smile down at Tommy. The boy looked up at him with huge, frightened eyes, a beaten puppy looking for a single show of kindness.

"Problem, Wanda?" Mac asked in a deceptively easygoing voice.

The look in Wanda's eyes was nothing short of grateful relief. "This is Tommy's stepfather, Paul Allen." Mac could tell she wanted to say something more, but she only added, "He came here looking for him."

Obviously not in the mood for any further introductions or delays, the other man frowned so deeply, it looked as if the expression went clear down to his bones and was permanently etched there.

"Had a h.e.l.l of a time finding him," Allen complained. He glared down at the boy tethered to his hand. "Kid keeps running away."

Mac continued to keep his tone friendly, but there was no mistaking his meaning. "In my experience, kids don't run away when they're not unhappy."

The remark earned Mac an annoyed glare. "'In my experience"' he echoed, "pain in the b.u.t.t ones do." The man's eyes narrowed as he scrutinized him. "What are you, the roving shrink around here?"

"No," Mac replied evenly for Tommy's sake, "I'm the doctor who fixed his face."

Tommy's stepfather blew out a short breath. "Yeah, well thanks," he spat the words out as if they cost him, then gave Tommy a short yank to wake him up. "Let's go, kid."

"Just a minute," Mac called after him, then took a couple of quick steps to catch up. "We're not finished yet."

The other man didn't appreciate being detained any longer, especially not over someone he considered an impediment in his life. "Maybe you're not, but I am, Doc. I've got dinner waiting for me and the dog needs to be fed-"

That wasn't all that the dog needed, Mac thought. But he knew that getting into it over the animal wasn't going to accomplish anything. His main concern was the boy's welfare and this was going to need kid gloves. "Your son needs more operations-"

Allen spared a malevolent look in Tommy's direction. As far as he was concerned, the boy had been nothing but trouble from day one. "Oh he does, does he? What kind of operations?"

Mac didn't want to get into any long explanations in front of Tommy. Besides, he had a feeling that most of it would be wasted on the man in front of him. He put it as simply as he could.

Or tried to.

"The scar is going to have to be-"

Allen stopped him right there. He didn't have money to throw away on vanity surgery. "Scars are good for a kid. Builds character. Maybe n.o.body'll mess with him when they see it." And then he laughed harshly as he threw Tommy a disparaging look. "Kid's a wimp, he needs something-"

Before he could say another word, the man found himself being strong-armed over to the side and pressed against the wall. Taken by surprise, Allen let go of Tommy's wrist.

Mac was holding him put with a strategically placed elbow to his chest.

"Hey, what the h.e.l.l-?"

Mac kept his voice low, even and almost moderately friendly sounding to the untrained ear. But Wanda and Jorge, who had come out to see what the noise was about, knew better.

"Now listen to me carefully, Mr. Allen. A little boy's self-esteem is a fragile thing. From what I hear, Tommy's already lost his mother and he very nearly lost his face today thanks to your dog. He's terrified of that animal. In my book, that means you owe him a little more consideration than he's been getting. Now he's going to need reconstructive surgery on that cheek once the st.i.tches heal. I want you to bring him by my office for a consultation in two weeks. You can come here, or to the office I have in the building across the street."

Taking a business card out of his jacket, Mac thrust it into Allen's shirt pocket.

Furious, knowing he was probably outmatched, Allen still fumed. "And if I don't come-"

Mac had expected the challenge. "Trust me, Mr. Allen, you don't want me to come looking for you. And in case you're thinking you can take me, you can't. I've got a black belt in Tae Kwon Do." He patted Allen's shirt pocket with the card in it. "Do we understand one another?"

The breath Allen exhaled was hot and pungent. "I can have you sued-"

Very calmly, Mac turned toward the head nurse. "Wanda, don't forget to call the animal control department so they can check out Mr. Allen's dog for distemper. And while you're at it, get in touch with social services. They said they wanted to be called if there was possible child abuse and negligence suspected."

Jerking away, Allen moved over to the side and straightened his shirt. "All right."

"All right what?" Mac asked amiably.

Allen fired each word out as if it was a bullet. "All right we understand each other."

The smile on Mac's face was cold as he regarded the other man. "Good." And then he squatted down to Tommy's level and took the boy's hand in his. Mac pressed another card into the boy's palm, closing his fingers over it. "And you can call me anytime you want to talk-night or day. Got that?"

Tommy solemnly nodded his head. There was a slight glimmer of hope in his eyes. And more than a little affection.

Taking Tommy's hand, the boy's stepfather glared at Mac. "Can we go now?"

Mac spread his hands wide. "Never said you couldn't." Muttering something angrily under his breath, Allen turned away. "Two weeks," Mac called after him in a voice that sounded as if his greatest concern in the world was what to have for dinner that night.

Wanda pressed her lips together, shaking her head. "Never did know what Jane saw in that man."

Mac had never met the late nurse, but he took a philosophical guess at her reason for marrying a man who was clearly not one of the kinder citizens of the world. "Maybe she saw something in him that we can't."

Wanda could only shrug, resigned to ignorance. "Maybe. You know, if you hadn't come along, I would have decked that man."

"Now that I would have paid to see." Mac laughed. "Good night, Wanda," he said cheerfully.

He got exactly two feet farther in his escape when someone called out to him.

"Oh, Dr. Mac, could you-?"

Mac didn't even turn around. Instead he stepped up his pace.

"Nope, no way." He raised his hands as if to ward off anything else that might be coming his way. "I'm out of here. Now."

He hurried out through the rear doors before someone else managed to waylay him. The place, he decided, was harder to shed than a wad of gum stuck in a little girl's hair.

Just on the other side of the doors, Jolene watched him make his way out of the immediate parking area toward the larger one reserved for doctors. She thought of the last comment he'd made to her when his pager went off.

"Well, he certainly is in a hurry to get to his date," she said to Wanda.

One more hour to go, Wanda thought, rounding the main desk and claiming her chair. Not that she got that much opportunity to sit at this job. In her mind's eye, she replayed Mac pushing Tommy's stepfather against the wall. She could have cheered. No doubt about it, Mac was her hero. After the father of her children, of course she added with a mental smile.

She flipped open a chart. "Man deserves to play hard after the day he put in."

From everything Rebecca had said to her, playing hard was never a problem for the good doctor. "Nothing he didn't sign on for by going to medical school," Jolene commented.

Wanda looked up. Dr. Mac didn't need her to defend him, but she felt a need to say something, especially after he had come to Tommy's aid that way. She had a very soft spot in her heart for the boy. "As far as I know, they don't give a course on how to handle self-centered b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

Jolene thought of her own ex. And a few physicians she'd had run-ins with along the way. "They should start," she agreed, "by setting up a series of cla.s.ses in nursing school."

Wanda said nothing, just laughed. These two, she thought, were on a collision course. It was just a matter of time.

And if she was lucky, she was going to have herself a ticket on the fifty-yard line. It was something to look forward to.

Mac frowned.

Ordinarily he could compartmentalize his thoughts and place them out of the way, sequestering them to the far recesses of his mind where they couldn't bother him. It was the foundation for his ability to be able to both work hard and play hard, each of which he found important to maintaining a healthy outlook on life and a good balance in his life.

But even as he found himself in the company of a voluptuous woman whose morals appeared to be as easily shed as a pair of sungla.s.ses, Mac was preoccupied. His thoughts were continually being kidnapped by a small boy with huge eyes and a drop-dead gorgeous nurse with an att.i.tude problem.

Several times in the evening, Lynda had to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention.

The evening had ended the way neither one of them would have imagined. He kissed the woman good-night and left her at her door even after she'd invited him in for a nightcap and whatever else might follow. Twice.

Frustrated, Lynda shouted after him. "I liked you better in the elevator." The p.r.o.nouncement was followed by a thunderous slamming of her front door that rocked the night air.

He made a mental note to send her flowers and a short apology. She deserved more than half a date.

And he, Mac thought, getting back into his car, deserved to know what it was about Jolene DeLuca that crawled under his skin and remained there, like an unfortunate brush with poison oak.

Mac slipped out of his lab coat and hung it in his locker. A week had gone by without his having run into the feisty San Francisco transplant. Eight days to be exact.

He figured it was just as well. There was no sense, as his mother had once said, in borrowing trouble.

Except that Margaret MacKenzie had been talking about the inst.i.tution of marriage at the time. She maintained that the state of matrimony was not worth the trouble it generated.

Remembering now, he shook his head. It was one of the few times he ever recalled his parents being in agreement.

More than once, he'd wondered how and why the two of them had ever gotten together in the first place. Granted they'd been a handsome couple back then, still were when they'd finally decided to give the sham they referred to as a marriage a mercy killing. But he had always thought that marriage had to be based on something far more substantial than liking the looks of the face you woke up next to in the morning.

His relationship with either of his parents wasn't such that he could ask one or the other for any insight. The only person in his family he'd ever been close to when he was growing up was Carrie.

The same held now. But even Carrie's happy marriage didn't change his mind about the inst.i.tution in general. Marriage wasn't for him, not even remotely.

At an early age, Mac had come to the conclusion that there was a reason it bore the label of Inst.i.tution. Inst.i.tutions were places meant to restrain you, to keep you away from life in general. Prisons were inst.i.tutions designed to separate the inmates from the rest of life. Marriage did the same. It imprisoned you, kept you from being happy while it sucked out your very soul, leaving behind an empty, useless sh.e.l.l.

Maudlin thoughts, Mac mused.

He walked down the corridor toward the rear of the hospital. He wasn't p.r.o.ne to maudlin thoughts. In general, he was blessed with an upbeat nature.

Had to be the weather, he decided. After three years of dry, almost droughtlike winters, Southern California was finally experiencing a November that was more typical for the region. It had been monsooning off and on all month. Out of the last thirty days, eighteen had been inclement. And according to the weatherman, it didn't look as if there was a letup in sight.

Certainly not today. Rain had been coming in like a gate crasher each time the rear doors opened all through his shift.

Stopping before the doors, Mac stood for a moment as they opened before him, just watching the sheets of rain coming down. The parking lot closest to the building looked as if it was going to be submerged any minute.

The gutters had to be clogged again, he thought.

The problem with living in an environment that typically saw rain only a few months a year, if that, was that people grew lax about things like sewer systems and gutters.

He'd heard that traffic accidents on the freeways were up, as well. People tended to want to escape the rain and drove with less caution than usual.

"Trying to cool down the rest of the hospital, Dr. Mac?" Jorge asked him.

When Mac looked at him, raising an inquiring brow at his meaning, the man nodded at the black rubber mat beneath his feet.

"You do know you gotta step off that if you want the doors to close again."