Have Gown, Need Groom

Alison narrowed her eyes at Mimi in a warning, then laid a comforting hand on Hannah’s shoulder. “Hannah, everyone has crazy dreams. They don’t always have to mean something.”

“Do you think I’m making a mistake?” Hannah asked.

“I think anyone getting married is a mistake,” Mimi replied dryly.

“Just because Mimi is anti-marriage doesn’t mean you can’t be happily wed,” Alison said softly. She handed Hannah her bridal bouquet, a huge assortment of white lilies with rose-colored satin ribbons streaming from the center. Hannah sniffed at the arrangement, the fragrance so sweet it made her eyes water.

“But what about the dream and the legend of the ring?” Hannah’s chest tightened. “I was supposed to dream about the man I was going to marry.”

“Maybe it was your way of having one last fling before you’re tied down to Mr. Boring,” Mimi offered with a devilish smile

Alison sent Mimi another warning glare and straightened the lace on Hannah’s neckline. “Silly folktale.”

Still unconvinced, Hannah remembered the dream kiss and knew in her heart she couldn’t hurt Seth by marrying him if she really didn’t love him. Her mother’s parting words rose to haunt her. I only married you, Wiley, because I was pregnant. A real marriage needs more…

Her parents had married because of her. Hannah definitely wasn’t pregnant, but had she agreed to marry Seth for the wrong reasons? For security, not real love. “Go tell Seth to come here.”

“But it’s bad luck for him to see you before the ceremony,” Alison argued.

“I don’t care. I have to talk to him.”

Mimi nodded and rushed out while Alison fanned Hannah’s face to calm her. Seconds later, Seth bobbed his sandy-blond head in, his expression perplexed.

His face fairly faded in front of her eyes, the shapely square jaw and chiseled face of the man from her dreams invading his space like a surreal sci-fi movie—Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Like a flash of heat lightning, the vision disappeared and Hannah gaped at Seth, wondering why he fell vaguely short of her erotic fantasy. A woman’s toes should curl and her blood should boil when the man of her dreams kissed her, right? A woman should burn at a man’s touch. Maybe that passion was what her mother had been missing with her dad. She couldn’t marry Seth and repeat her mother’s mistake. She had to know now.

“What is it, Hannah? Did you forget something?” Seth asked.

Hannah framed Seth’s face with her hands and kissed him fervently on the mouth. Her toes would curl, her blood would sizzle, the passion would come, the hunger would surge. Magic would happen just like she’d dreamed when she was a little girl.

She kissed him harder.

Burn, baby, burn.

But her toes didn’t curl. Didn’t even twitch.

Her blood didn’t boil. Didn’t even bubble.

Darn.

At best, she was lukewarm.

The startled gasp that erupted from Seth’s throat when she finally ended the kiss didn’t sound like hunger or passion or even surprise. And her bright-red lip-prints streaked his mouth.

“I—I have to know something, Seth,” she whispered, near panic. “Do you have a birthmark on your b-behind?”

Seth stumbled backwards, his eyes dilating. “What?”

“A little quarter-moon?” She pointed to his left hip. “Up here, on your left cheek?”

Seth’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, steam practically oozing from his ears. “No. What’s come over you, Hannah? You’re acting odd.”

An overwhelming sense of panic hit her. “Seth, tell me why you want to marry me.”

His eyebrows narrowed. “What?”

“Please, just tell me. Why do you want to marry me?”

He ran a hand through his hair, spiking the ends. “We talked about this before. We make a good match, Hannah. We work well together. Have the same goals. We’re both doctors.”

“What about passion?” Hannah asked, desperate for something to cling to.

His face flushed. “I…I thought we decided sex could wait. That passion wasn’t really important.”

No, but love was.

“Seth, do you love me?”

He chewed the inside of his cheek. “I…I care about you…”

“But you don’t really love me,” Hannah finished for him.

“We’ll have a good life, Hannah. We work well together, we’re compatible—”

“I’m sorry, Seth.” Tenderly, she laid her palm on his cheek. “Maybe we were wrong. Maybe passion is important.”

He shook his head. “Can’t we discuss this later? The guests are here, the preacher. We have cake, we have a schedule….”

Typical, all business, no emotional response.

The vision of the other man appeared again, briefly but intensely, and she blinked Seth back into focus, a sickening knot balling in her stomach. Yes, Seth was the wrong man for her— No toe-curling or blood-boiling kisses. What if she married him, had children, then discovered they’d made a mistake? She never wanted to put a child through a divorce—not after the pain she’d experienced. And if she didn’t love Seth passionately, it wouldn’t be fair for her to marry him. He deserved better.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you, Seth. You’re a wonderful guy, but you deserve a woman who loves you with all her heart and soul. And I deserve a man who feels the same way. I…”

Hannah spotted her sisters hovering at the door. “I’ll go tell Dad,” Alison whispered.

“I’ll tell my parents,” Seth said tightly.

Hannah reached for Seth’s hand. “No, I’ll do it.”

Raising her head up high, she snatched the tail of her dress and marched to the church entryway. Cameras, guests, her father, Seth’s parents—all stared back at her. The organist’s eyebrows shot up as if to signal it was time for the wedding march. A reporter started running toward her, his camera angled to catch her face. On his heels, a half a dozen others seem to come out of the woodwork, camera lights flashing.

Hannah panicked and blurted out the announcement, “I’m sorry, everyone. We’ve called off the wedding.”

A gasp rumbled through the room, Wiley shot forward, Mrs. Broadhurst jumped up and shrieked, and Hannah swung around and stumbled toward the back door, searching for an escape. Alison and Mimi stood at the side door, waving her forward. She darted past Seth, who scowled at her, and jogged outside, scanning the parking lot for her car before remembering she’d left it at her house. Mimi had driven her over. The honeymoon getaway car, a white Cadillac convertible complete with clanking cans and streamers, winked at her in the sunlight. Hannah darted toward it.

The last thought she had before she climbed inside the plush white interior was that later that night she would see herself on TV. Everyone had black sheep in their family, but the Hartwells had a whole flock of weirdos grazing the southeast. Uncle Elroy had served a stint in prison, Aunt Betty-Jo was a kleptomaniac, cousin Wally claimed he’d been an ostrich in a former life…the list went on and on. She’d spent her adult life trying to overcome her infamous family image.

But now her worst nightmare had come true—Hannah Hartwell, respected doctor and hater of public scenes, had just become another Hartwell spectacle.

DETECTIVE JAKE TIPPINS was having a terrible, no-good, very rotten day. As paramedics lowered his gurney from the ambulance to the ground outside Sugar Hill General, a camera flashed and he ducked his head. Damn. He couldn’t even hide his humiliation. He’d been shot in the butt, the EMTs had shredded the seat of his jeans, exposing his backside for the whole world to see, and now the media had jumped on the bandwagon, wanting the story. Thank God the hospital banned the vultures from entering the ER. They might blow his cover at Wiley’s.

He scrubbed a fist over his stubbled jaw, then dropped his forehead on the gurney as the EMTs quickly pushed him through the doors and wheeled him toward one of the exam rooms. Pain shot from his hip down his leg like a razor blade. Still, he reached behind him to try to cover his wound with his hand. A man had a right to a little privacy, didn’t he?

“BP high. One-fifty over ninety. Respiration twelve and even. Pulse eighty-eight and steady,” the EMT called.

The nurse pulled the sheet down around his knees and lifted the bandage. A gust of cold air hit his backside. “Still bleeding.”

He gritted his teeth as she applied more pressure to his wound, then tried to cover himself again. To think that the day had started out so simple. Most of the employees at Wiley Hartwell’s used-car lot had taken off early to attend the wedding of Wiley’s oldest daughter, Hannah. Wiley lived and breathed for his kids. He had boasted nonstop about his daughters ever since Jake had come to work for him, so Jake felt as if he knew them. But he didn’t get that whole hoopla about family stuff himself; he’d grown up being shuffled from one place to another, without a mother or father to speak of, and he was used to being alone. Weddings to him signified the death of a man’s bachelorhood, his whole identity. No wonder the groom partied the night before and wore black to the ceremony.

To avoid the uncomfortable formality, he’d volunteered to man the car lot during the wedding, hoping to take advantage of the opportunity and sneak into Wiley’s office. But after Wiley’d left, some punk kid had tried to steal a sports car right off the lot, and when Jake had tried to apprehend him, the black-leathered twerp had shot him. The reporters had dogged him from the site of the shooting at breakneck speed, calling him a hero.

A heavy-set nurse began to fire insurance questions at Jake, taking his medical history. A second nurse checked the bandage, tsking under her breath. “I need to get you another IV, sir.” He nodded as she left the room, then lifted his weary head and glanced through the glass-topped doorway on the opposite side of the room. He could swear he saw a beautiful blonde streak right past the window then dart into the room across from him—wearing a full-length wedding gown. She looked like an angel. Or maybe a princess.

Nah. No princesses or fairy tales in the real world. He closed his eyes, giving in to the fatigue. He must be seeing things.

Hell, he might even be delirious.

HANNAH BREATHED a sigh of relief to find the locker room empty. She quickly shed her wedding dress and crammed it into her locker. It actually felt good to pull on fresh scrubs and her lab jacket. That gown had felt like a straitjacket.

She grimaced. Her wedding gown shouldn’t have felt confining; it should have felt magical. She fought the tears, but they trickled down her face anyway. What in the world was wrong with her? She wasn’t the emotional type. She hadn’t cried since she was nine, not since that awful birthday when her mother had left.

Maybe she’d suffered some sort of breakdown, a post-traumatic reaction to her parents’ divorce. Maybe she needed therapy. First she’d deserted Seth. And now she’d shown up at work where she would have to explain why she wasn’t at her wedding marrying him. Why the heck had she come to the hospital?

Because it seemed like the safest place, she acknowledged silently as she searched for a tissue. Her family would be calling or dropping by her house to check on her, and Seth might show up demanding to talk. She wasn’t ready to deal with any of them.

Besides, she had heard the news of a car crash on the radio while she’d been driving around in circles trying to decide what to do. There’d been a shooting mentioned, also, although she’d only caught the tail end of that story. The hospital probably needed her. Work was the one place she’d be able to forget about her messed-up personal life and feel responsible again.

She leaned against the locker, trying to collect herself as the shock of her own actions settled in. She hoped her sisters would have explained to their father….

Finally gaining control of her emotions, Hannah inched open the door and winced at two reporters still hovering in the hallway like starved lions sniffing out their prey, ready to pounce for the kill. She hadn’t expected them to follow her to the hospital. Sometimes she hated living in a small town—the reporters would have a heyday with the story, the traditional wedding gone awry, prominent doctor jilted at the altar. She pictured the headlines and groaned—Wacky Wiley’s Wacky Wedding.

She loved her father, but he was a sucker for publicity. Unlike her, he thrived on attention and had probably already twisted the entire fiasco into a scheme to sell more cars. Poor Seth. Guilt dug into her conscience like a razor-sharp scalpel. She would never forgive herself for hurting him. He must absolutely hate her.

And his mother would probably sue her if the story appeared on the society page, tainting their blue-blood family name. As for her family, she’d simply fallen into footsteps already molded by other Hartwells. Twenty years of trying to overcome her roots down the drain because of a thirty-second decision.

She closed her eyes and allowed the regret to flow, along with the heartache she assumed would follow from losing Seth. Even if she changed her mind and crawled back on her hands and knees groveling, his family would probably never forgive her. Oddly, heartache for Seth never came—only sadness for embarrassing him. And the ball of fear that had lived within her since she was a little girl swelled inside her again. She’d inherited her mother’s blond hair and fair skin. Maybe she was like her mother in other ways, too.

Disgusted with herself, she sniffled and dried her cheeks with the hem of her jacket, reasoning the only way to avoid the press was to throw herself into work. She peeked through the door again, grateful the reporters had disappeared.

A surgical scrub hat pulled over her hair for disguise, she fielded her way to the nurses’ station. Tiffany, the big lovable nurse who ran the floor, paused near the curtained partitions and sent her a gap-toothed smile.

“What are you doing here, Dr. Hartwell? I thought you were getting married today.”

“I canceled the wedding,” she said, striving for a confident voice.

Tiffany’s chubby face reddened in surprise.

“You mean you’re not marrying Dr. Broadhurst?” Susie, one of the physicians’ assistants, hesitated over a tray of medicine. “But he came by this morning on the way to the church.”

“I know,” Hannah said. “It didn’t work out.” She shrugged and hurried over to Tiffany, unable to think of an explanation that sounded rational. “I heard about the car crash and thought you might need some help. How many victims?”

“Six.” Tiffany narrowed her eyes. “But if you’re upset, you don’t have to stay, we’ll manage. We’ve already marked you off the calendar for the next week.”

“I’m fine.” Hannah shifted uncomfortably. “I’d really like to work.”

Tiffany nodded, tactfully choosing not to press the issue. “All right. Doctors Bentley and Douglas are with the car victims.”

Hannah tried to steady her voice. “What else do we have?”

“A gunshot wound in three. Man was shot in the posterior. I paged Dr. Hunter but he’s in surgery with a ruptured spleen.”

“Oh, yes, I heard about the shooting on the radio, too.” Hannah reached for his chart. “What are his vitals?”

“Blood pressure’s a little high. EMTs applied a pressure bandage, started a drip. His name’s Jake Tippins.” Tiffany quickly recited his other vital signs. “I suppose you’re aware the shooting occurred at your daddy’s car lot.”

Hannah’s gaze swung up in shock. “No…what happened?”

“Someone tried to steal a car. Our patient caught him.” Tiffany gestured toward the outside waiting area, wiping a pudgy hand across her forehead. “The reporters are calling him a hero. I had to chase ’em away from the ER.”

Hannah silently groaned, felling empathy for the man. The six o’clock news tonight would be full of Hartwell happenings. “Has his family been notified?”

“Man claims he has no family. Didn’t want us to call anyone.”

Once again sympathy for the man filled her. “Okay. I’ll take care of him.”

Tiffany nodded, checking the other charts. “I’ll assist you in a minute.”

Hannah headed to the exam room, then slipped inside. The man lay face down, his head propped on his left hand, his breathing steady as if he’d fallen asleep. Or maybe he was unconscious. She scanned his chart and noted that his vitals were still stable. He’d lost some blood, so he’d probably given in to fatigue. She studied his back, her gaze traveling the length of his long body to where his toes hung off the end of the gurney. He was one of the biggest men she’d ever seen. Thick black hair covered his head, and his wide shoulders and firm, muscular arms attested to the fact the man worked out. Probably lifted weights, or maybe he was a body builder…when he wasn’t selling used cars.

He’d been wearing jeans, but the seat had been cut away. A sheet lay draped across the lower part of his body, and his hand clutched it over his buttocks. She fought a chuckle. Even in sleep, the man still clung to his dignity.

She inched the sheet down and her gaze slid lower to assess his wound. He roused slightly. “Sir, I’m Dr. Hartwell. I’m going to examine you now.”

He mumbled something incoherent, still half asleep. Even so, his fingers momentarily tightened around the sheet. “Relax, Mr. Tippins, I’m not going to hurt you.” She slowly pried his fingers from the material. The paper-thin elastic gloves popped against her wrists as she prepared to do a preliminary exam. Striving to be gentle, she pushed his denim shirt out of the way, removed the pressure bandage then dampened a cotton swab with antiseptic.

He moaned and stirred, his hand swinging around to cover his wound once more. She shook her head as they played tug-of-war with the sheet.

“Mr. Tippins, just lie still please. I have to examine you.”

His head bobbed up and down in concession, but the way his shoulders straightened signaled he’d braced himself for more pain. And his hand tightened around the covers jerking it over his backside again. This was getting ridiculous.

“Uh, Mr. Tippins, I can’t help you if I don’t examine the injury.”

He made a noncommittal noise which sounded faintly like a swear word, then slowly released the back of the sheet and buried his head in his arm. Hannah almost laughed, but caught herself. Poor man, if he was shy, she certainly wouldn’t make things worse by making some silly comment about the location of his injury.

She pressed the area around the bullet wound to measure how deeply it was embedded, putting pressure at different points. The bleeding had stopped, the skin yellow…

“Ow.” He flinched.

“Sorry, Mr. Tippins. I’m almost finished.”

His head bobbed again, and she patted the area with the cotton swab, wiping away the dried blood.

“Great place to get shot, wasn’t it?” His voice rumbled thick and low, almost gravelly. “I feel like Forrest Gump.”

“I can’t think of a good place to get shot,” Hannah said dryly, a smile twitching at her mouth.

“Think I’ll make it?”

He was joking, a good sign. “You’ll be fine.” She tossed the cotton swab into the trash.

“You’re going to have to put me under the knife, aren’t you?”

Hannah sighed. Men could be such babies. Even the big muscular ones. “If you’re asking if the bullet will have to be removed surgically, then yes. It’s embedded a good four to five inches.”

“Will you do the surgery?”

“Yes. If they’re short in surgery I’ll probably assist. We’re a small town facility here.” Hannah heard his sigh and her defenses rose. “Do you have a problem with female doctors, Mr. Tippins?”

“No,” he muttered. “Not as long as they know what they’re doing.”

She stiffened. Was he insinuating she didn’t? “I can assure you I’m well trained. I completed a surgical rotation last month before I joined the ER. I’ll be gentle, too, I promise.”

“Oh, your hands are great, Doc, it’s not that.”

Hannah shook her head, exasperated, finally deciding the pain must be affecting his brain. “Then what is it, sir?”

He exhaled, his body rumbling with his breath. “I just don’t like hospitals, that’s all.”

“Not very many people do,” she said sympathetically. She spotted an unusual-looking bruise and leaned closer to examine it. “Hmm.”

“I hate it when doctors go ‘hmm.’”

Hannah chuckled. “Sorry. It’s nothing really. I noticed a small dark spot. Thought it have been an exit wound but it’s not.”

“Probably a bruise, I went down pretty hard on a tire iron when that creep shot me.”

She peered closer, contemplating thanking him for what he’d done for her father, but suddenly realized the bruise was a small birthmark. A crescent-shaped, quarter-moon birthmark. Right on the arch of his hip.

Her chest tightened—she’d seen that birthmark before. “It can’t be,” she whispered.

His head snapped up. “What’s wrong, Doc?”

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken out loud.

He angled his head slightly to look into her eyes and for the first time, Hannah saw his face. “It can’t be what?”

His dark gaze locked with hers, the pupils of his eyes slightly dilated, the unmistakable cleft in his chin hauntingly familiar. Hannah staggered backward, a bolt of heat engulfing her as if an inferno had burst into flames at her feet. She recognized this man. She knew him…intimately. He was the tall, dark handsome man from her erotic dreams.

His heavy-lidded, dark-brown eyes paraded over her, a sliver of need sizzling in the luminous depths. The room began to spin crazily, and the day’s events crashed to a sudden mortifying halt.

Jake Tippins moaned, and she quickly glanced back down to see if he was okay, but the room rocked sideways. Hannah clutched the bedrail to steady herself, but her legs faded into numbness and the spots that danced before her eyes emerged into one big black hole. She’d never fainted in her life, but she recognized the symptoms. Just before she passed out, she tried to warn her patient to roll out of the way.

Chapter Three

What the hell?

Jake gritted his jaw in pain when the dreamy looking woman suddenly staggered and reached for the gurney. He twisted sideways to catch her, but the IV limited his movement, and she collapsed beside him on the floor.

“Help! Someone help me! Nurse, hurry, the doctor passed out!”

His gaze zeroed in on her name—Dr. H. Hartwell. He’d thought that’s what she’d said, but he’d been so sleepy he’d figured he’d heard wrong. Hannah Hartwell was Wiley’s daughter. What was she doing in the ER? She was supposed to be at her wedding. “Someone get a doctor!” he yelled again.

Impatience flaring, he climbed awkwardly from the gurney, grappling with the IV pole as he knelt to take her pulse. Thank God she was breathing. A sprig of baby’s breath protruded from her surgical cap, and her eyes looked slightly red and swollen. He pushed off the cap, revealing wispy blond hair. Yep, it was the same woman he’d seen in the wedding gown. So, he hadn’t been delirious.

“Dr. Hartwell, wake up,” he whispered, panic hitting him. Had Wiley heard about the shooting and ordered Hannah from her wedding to take care of him? Was that the reason she’d been upset?

Her cheeks seemed pale, long blond eyelashes lying on her creamy skin like thin layers of cornsilk. And her slender body was way too still for comfort.

Suddenly the nurse appeared, her eyes widening in dismay. “What in the world…?”

“She passed out,” Jake explained. “I’ve been yelling for help.”

A tall, older physician with a scowl on his face stormed into the room. Jake watched helplessly as they settled Hannah Hartwell onto a gurney and wheeled her away.

“I…WHAT happened?”

“You passed out on us, Doc,” Tiffany said. Hannah tried to get up, but Tiffany pressed a gentle but forceful hand on her arm. “Relax. You need to lie still and let us check your vitals again.”

Hannah bit back a moan, mortified. “I’m fine, really, Tiff. I just need something to eat.” And to figure out what’s happening to me today.