Free Under the Wire by Cindy Gerard Page A

hurt always accompanied that knowledge. Hurt and, if she let it, anger. In all these years, he hadn't contacted her. She didn't know what that meant. And she needed to find out.
     
    It wasn't going to be today, though, she told herself, no matter that this man had given her heart a scare.
     
    He moved on and Lily regrouped. She headed toward the nurses' station. Soon, she promised herself. She would go to see him soon. It was still a question of courage. Of confronting a ghost.
     
    She'd taken a huge chance coming to Manny after all these years. True, it wasn't as if she could have contacted him sooner. It was only eight months ago when she was watching an old news documentary on the elite Special Forces that she'd seen him.
     
    Talk about heart-stopping moments. She'd recognized him on the tape immediately even though she'd been stunned to see him alive and had no inkling how he'd ended up in the U.S. Army.
     
    It had taken her months of Internet searches and dead ends to finally locate him, another month to come to terms with the reality of confronting him. And then, when the job opening here at the BMC had come up— well, it seemed like an omen. Karma. Kismet. Whatever.
     
    The offshoot was, she'd moved to Boston. And some stranger who reminded her of Manny had just shocked her into remembering that her search was almost over.
     
    Switching gears, Lily spotted Gracie filing charts. "Hey, Gracie. I'm yours for the next ten minutes. What can I do for you?"
     
    Exactly ten minutes later, the confusion cleared up, Lily headed back down the hall toward her office. A heated debate in rapid-fire Spanish blasted from behind a curtained treatment area and stopped her.
     
    When the "debate" rapidly accelerated to an argument, she headed toward the curtain, whipped it open, and stepped inside.
     
    Her heart bumped up again when she encountered the tall Latino she'd seen earlier. Then as now, he stood with his broad back to her, faced off with a resident and a uniformed officer over a patient lying prone on a stretcher. Both the officer and the resident were agitated and scowling.
     
    "This is a hospital, gentlemen," Lily advised them in a stern but hushed voice. "I'd suggest you work your problems out elsewhere."
     
    They immediately quieted at the authority in her tone; the two men facing her looked sheepish. The Latino's shoulders stiffened. Slowly, he turned around.
     
    And for the second time today, Lily's heart stalled, kick-started, and fired.
     
    Manny.
     
    It really was Manny.
     
    Her knees buckled.
     
    He reached out and grabbed her elbow, steadying her. Just as swiftly, he pulled away. Eyes as black as onyx and every bit as hard searched her face, clearly as stunned at seeing her as she was at seeing him.
     
    Time stopped. Shifted to another dimension, even another reality, as she stared, unable to absorb anything but the pure uncensored rancor emanating from him like ice from a glacier. If possible, his eyes grew even harder, knifelike, as his gaze cut into hers.
     
    Finally, she found her voice. "Manny? ... My God ... It is you."
     
    Just as quickly, she lost the power of speech. When he ripped his gaze away from her, it felt like he'd ripped a piece of her soul along with it.
     
    Reeling again at the force of it, she grabbed a gurney for support and hung on.
     
    "We'll settle this down at the precinct," Manny told the uniformed officer. Then he shouldered around her and, without another word, left—but not before shooting her a look that horrified her.
     
    Rage.
     
    Hatred.
     
    Unqualified bitterness.
     
    They all hit her with the impact of a head-on collision with a train.
     
    Lily couldn't make herself move. Could only stare at the space where Manny Ortega had stood, her thoughts jumbled and stalled, her hands shaking.
     
    Emotions bombarded her—joy ... disbelief... shock. Along with confusion and pain. They circled like a funnel cloud, immobilizing her where she shivered in the wake of