Free Lady Be Bad by Elaine Raco Chase Page A

Marlayna
closed her eyes and instantly he appeared. His hair was as thick
and dark as it was half a dozen years ago. The planes and angles of
his face were more pronounced; the shape leaner, harsher; the
complexion bronzed by the sun; and that old nemesis of a five
o'clock shadow still very much in evidence on his cheeks and square
jaw.
    Perhaps the most shocking change was in
Noah's posture and his obvious dependency on a cane. Cane. That black curve of metal seemed part of his anatomy, like an extra
leg. Trembling fingers rubbed across Marlayna's forehead when she
remembered his body.
    Despite a slight roundness, Noah's shoulders
were still broad and looked even stronger than they had when he
worked in construction. His torso was better developed, the sinewy
muscles exposed by the half-lowered zipper on his jacket. It was
his legs that became magnified in her mind. The large scars that
streaked his flesh were quite vivid despite the dark curly hairs
that matted his skin.
    Marlayna knew what her fate had been, but
now she wondered about Noah's. From all appearances, Fate had not
been kind. Had all the unkindness changed the inner man? How ironic
that she was now in a profession that glorified outward perfection
and beauty. And yet, none of that mattered to her; it had never
mattered.
    Despite her concern, Marlayna couldn't help
but smile. She remembered the expression on Noah's face just as the
elevator door snapped shut. "Dumb founded." An airy giggle
punctured the quiet. It was an expression that she had seen on his
face only once before - the first time they had met.
    The emergency room at Grady Memorial
Hospital in Atlanta had been the scene of that auspicious occasion.
Her grin drooped when she remembered that the same room was also
the scene for their last meeting. Resolutely Marlayna pushed away
the last memory and concentrated on the first.
    Eyes closed, her mind effortlessly replayed
another scene from the past. That Wednesday morning the ER had
looked exactly like a beehive gone berserk. Driving winds and rain
had caused a ten-car pile-up on one of the city's main traffic
arteries with over thirty people in need of and demanding various
medical services.
    Her job, admissions and insurance supervisor
rated way above average on the verbal abuse scale, slightly higher
even than the lab technician who answered to "Dracula." She had
become quite proficient in answering those who clutched random
parts of their anatomy while moaning, "I'm dying and she wants my
insurance card and number!"
    On that particular day, during the waning
hours of bedlam, another patient arrived. A dark-haired, dark-eyed
construction worker, his left arm swathed in bloody handkerchiefs,
somehow managed to circumvent the indomitable Miss O'Brian and
ended up in a treatment room before filling out the proper forms.
After discovering the infraction, Marlayna fearlessly charged into
the white-curtained cubicle.
    Her first view of the patient made her face
turn scarlet; she found herself gazing at his bare ass! "Excuse
me."
    "Well, I'm all ready for you, nurse," his
deep voice intoned. He continued to inspect his newly bandaged arm
from his prone position on a gurney. "Those automatic nail guns
certainly have a mind of their own. That doctor did a nice job
getting those four brads out."
    Receiving nothing but a guttural
acknowledgment, he turned his head. "Say, can you hurry this
penicillin shot up; I've got to get back and—" His brown eyes
suddenly narrowed. "You're not the nurse who was just in here."
    Her wide-eyed inspection of his well-muscled
buttocks was interrupted when she shook her head and tapped her
name badge with a pen. "I'm not a nurse; I'm in admissions."
    "Not...a...nurse . . ." His puckered
forehead lifted and smoothed with that discovery. "Jeezus . . .
lady!" His right arm jerked backward, hand groping for a white
sheet that was yanked to his waist. "Don't you treat your patients
with dignity in this joint? Since when am I a peep