Sam rubbed the pencil between his palms. “How’d you get into car sales?”

Marjorie shrugged. “The usual way, I suppose. I started out working in a computer store four or five years back. We worked on commission, and I did well.”

“That figures. So where did you go from there?”

“Boats.”

“Do you know a lot about them?”

She crossed her knees, winced in an effort to hide the pain, then grinned sheepishly. Naturally, he noticed, but he was kind enough not to comment. “At the time I didn’t know a thing, but before long I learned everything there was to know.”

“And from there it was a natural progression to cars?”

“More or less. I like selling a top-of-the-line product, so selling Mercedes sedans and sports cars was a natural next step.”

He continued working the pencil back and forth across his palms. He didn’t normally spend this much time with a patient, but he wanted her to feel comfortable with him. She was alone and scared to death, and it was his job to do what he could to reassure her. Success in health care had a lot to do with attitude, and he wanted Marjorie Majors to feel confident and secure about whatever lay ahead.

“I’ve always wanted a Mercedes,” he said.

Marjorie realized he was doing everything he could to ease her fears and help her relax. It was working; the tense terror that had gripped her only moments before was slipping away.

He placed his hands against the edge of the desk and rolled back his chair. “I’ll see you at Tacoma General,” he said, his gaze holding hers.

“I wasn’t planning to run away.”

“I didn’t honestly think you were.”

The smile that curved his mouth did funny things to her heart rate, but Marjorie quickly dismissed the effect as having anything to do with attraction. She was grateful, that was all. Grateful—nothing less, nothing more.

Two

Marjorie felt strange. She lay on her back, staring above her as the dotted white tile loomed closer and closer, then gradually faded back into place. Her eyes narrowed, and she tried to tell herself that the ceiling wasn’t actually closing in on her. This phenomenon was the result of the shot the nurse had given her a few minutes earlier to help her relax before they came to roll her into the operating room.

“How are you feeling?” Sam Bretton moved beside her gurney and placed his hand over hers.

Again Marjorie was struck by how gentle his dark eyes were. A man shouldn’t possess sensitive eyes like that. In her drugged condition her imagination was running away with her, suggesting thoughts she had no right to think. She stared back at him, then blinked twice, because it seemed as though she could see straight into his heart. It was large and full, and his capacity to care and love seemed boundless.

“Marjorie?”