Northern Rebel Daring in the Dark - By Jennifer Labrecque Page 0,120

afraid you’ll both have to sit in the back.” The cop gave Tawny a look of apology. “Regulations. Only a badge can sit up front.”

“The back is fine.” She stepped over the uneven sidewalk and tugged Simon toward the car. New York’s own Dudley Do-Right opened the rear door. Tawny offered him a smile that probably curled his insides. It would’ve curled Simon’s if it’d been directed at him. “This is so nice of you,” she said, climbing in the back, her running shorts hugging every delicious curve of her sweet bottom. And yeah, the dickhead wearing the badge noticed. Simon crawled into the backseat behind her. A steel cage separated them from the front. He’d never been in a police cruiser before. The radio squawked and the officer relayed his twenty—his location—and where he was heading.

Tawny held fast to Simon’s hand while she carried on a conversation with Dan Berthold, their officer-chauffeur. With the streets virtually deserted, Officer Berthold didn’t seem to mind breaking the law he was sworn to uphold, and within minutes they pulled up to the hospital that stood like a beacon of light in a surrounding sea of dark.

“Would you mind dropping us at the E.R.?” Tawny asked.

“No problem.” Berthold swung around to the emergency-room entrance, threw the car in Park and jumped out to open the back door.

Simon didn’t miss the way the cop eyed Tawny’s legs as she climbed out. Simon quelled the urge to knock him flat. Assaulting an officer who’d just delivered him to his mother seemed a bad idea—even if he deserved it for looking at Tawny like that.

Tawny shook Berthold’s hand. “Thank you so much. I know why you’re called New York’s finest.”

“You want me to wait? I could wait.”

“That’s really sweet, but we don’t know how long we’ll be. Thanks so much.”

“My pleasure.” Berthold turned to Simon. “Hope she’s okay, man.” He held out a hand.

Simon took his proffered hand and shook it. Maybe the guy wasn’t so bad after all. He hadn’t really hit on Tawny and they had arrived a hell of a lot faster than running. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime.” With a final appreciative glance at Tawny’s derriere in her running shorts, Berthold got in his car and left.

“He had the hots for you.”

Tawny rolled her eyes at him. “He got us here fifteen minutes earlier than if we’d run the whole way.” She started toward the double doors. “Come on. When we get inside, don’t worry about me. I’ll wait in the lobby.”

Simon stopped on the sidewalk outside the wide emergency-room doors. “No. I want you to come with me.”

“I don’t mind waiting in the lobby. I don’t want to intrude.”

He skimmed the line of her jaw with the back of his hand, needing to touch her, admitting what didn’t come easily to him. “I’d really like for you to come with me.”

She turned her cheek into his touch. “Then I’ll go with you.” She took his hand in hers. “Let’s go find your mother.”

They stepped into utter, overwhelming chaos, bright fluorescent lights—all the brighter after the dark—and the cool bliss of air-conditioning. Simon glanced around, at a loss as to where to go. Tawny dragged him behind her. “What’s your mother’s name?”

“Letitia. Letitia Marbury. She didn’t take my dad’s name when they married. Dr. Letitia Marbury.”

Tawny marched up to a desk. Within minutes her smile and Southern charm had elicited his mother’s location.

Tawny put her hand on his arm. “You go on up. I’d like to freshen up.”

“I’ll wait.” Now that he was here he didn’t want to go up, fear at exactly what he’d find stalling him.

“No. Go on up. You need a few minutes alone with them. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and pushed him in the general direction of the elevator bank. His sweat-soaked T-shirt chilled beneath the blast of air-conditioning. “I promise I’ll be right up.” She touched his arm. “Go on, Simon, she’s waiting for you.”

10

ONCE SIMON DISAPPEARED through the swinging double doors, Tawny headed for the exit. She followed two EMTs wheeling an empty gurney out the door. Ugh. The heat was even worse, coming out of the air-conditioning. She went from cool to sticky and sweaty in about two seconds flat.

She tried to ignore the strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail and lay plastered against her neck, and hauled out her cell phone. Cell-phone usage in an emergency room was one big no-no. She blew