Somehow it seemed vitally important that he be there every minute. Still, she hated needing anyone. People had always let her down. She was a stronger person than this, and Dr. Sam Bretton was little more than a stranger. Yet she trusted him enough to place her life in his capable hands.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” she said, and realized her voice was barely audible. “You…you don’t need to stay with me. I’m a big girl. I’ll get through this…really…Don’t tell Jody, she’ll only worry…Must call Lydia.”

“That’s all taken care of,” he said, and his voice seemed to come from a great distance.

“Thank you, Sam,” Marjorie mumbled, and started slipping into a light sleep.

A female voice made its way through to her fading consciousness. “Dr. Johnson is ready, doctor.”

An invisible force pushed the gurney forward, and Marjorie struggled to open her eyes. Someone lifted her head and placed her hair inside a confining cap.

She managed to open one eye and was greeted by blinding lights. Sam was at her side, and Cal Johnson, whom she’d briefly met earlier, stood on the opposite side of the room, examining her X-rays. Sam leaned over her and explained that the anesthesiologist would be there any minute. Marjorie nodded, even managed a weak smile, then decided that it was better not to look around. She settled back down and tightly shut her eyes.

Soon other voices met over her head, some deep, others crisp, and a few soft. In her drug-induced drowsiness Marjorie sorted through them and tried to assimilate only Sam’s words. The nurses joked and flirted with him like a longtime friend. She sighed with the realization that if his patients fell in love with him, then the women on the hospital staff must be equally vulnerable to his charms. Maybe he was already married. Of course, that was it! Sam Bretton had a wife. Her disappointment was keen. He was married. He had to be. Rats! All the good ones were already taken.

Finally it got too difficult to concentrate, and she gave up trying. When she woke, this troublesome episode would all be over, and she could get on with her life and forget that any of this had ever happened.

—

Impatiently, Marjorie waded through huge billows of thick, black fog. She shivered with cold and sighed when Sam’s familiar voice asked for a heated blanket. She felt the weight of a quilt on top of her, and she sighed contentedly. The fog parted as warmth seeped into her bones, and for the first time she could decipher a path that led through the haze. She tried to speak, but her lips seemed glued together, and no amount of trying could pry them apart.

“Marjorie?”