Bri studied Tory’s drawn face, her eyes darkening with concern. “Have you had anything to eat this morning?”

“What?” Tory asked in confusion.

“You haven’t, have you?” Bri put her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket and hunched her shoulders slightly. “Look, I’ll bring you something from the cafeteria. Toast or something. Is coffee okay?”

The sight of Bri, so very much like Reese, searching desperately for a way to take care of her brought a sudden flood of tears to Tory’s eyes. With a shaking hand, she brushed away the few that escaped before she could contain them. She cleared her throat and smiled. “I guess I should skip the coffee. But some juice and toast would be great. Thanks, sweetie.”

Bri blushed and ducked her head. “I’ll be right back.”

K.T. watched Bri walk away. “She’s hot.”

“She’s a child,” Tory said acerbically.

“I don’t think so.” She gave Tory a speculative glance. “Still living in Provincetown?”

“Yes. Bri’s father is the sheriff there and Reese’s boss.”

“Why did the kid ask if coffee was okay? Is something…wrong? Are you ill?”

“No.” Tory hesitated. “I’m pregnant.”

K.T.‘s gasp of surprise was audible. “Jesus Christ, Tory. Stop fooling around then. Let me operate and make sure your partner’s around to see the baby.”

Tory’s face lost the last remnants of color, but she refused to give in to the sudden wave of dizziness. “You never could see the shades of gray, could you? I’m going to find Jill Baker and see what she thinks. I’ll give you my decision after that.”

Than she walked to the bed, leaned over, kissed Reese on the lips, and strode away without looking back at the astonished surgeon.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Tory found Jill Baker in the pathology laboratory, bent over a microscope, a frown of intense concentration wrinkling her smooth forehead.

“What have you found?”

Without looking up, the infectious disease specialist answered, “It’s a gram negative, just like we expected. At least we know the antibiotics are correct.”

“Is there any way to tell if it’s the virulent form or the self-limited variety?” Tory tried to keep her voice even and hoped that her rising panic wasn’t evident. As each second passed, and the clock ticked down on the chance of keeping Reese out of the operating room, her anxiety escalated.

“No, I’m sorry. Not from this. We need to wait for the culture and sensitivity results to come back.” Her eyes were sympathetic, but her tone held the matter-of-fact delivery of every physician who knew that only the truth would suffice.

“How long?” Tory asked, although in her heart, she knew.

“Twelve hours at best, more likely twenty-four.” Baker shrugged. “Bacteria grow at their own pace.”

“If it’s Vibrio vulnificus, she doesn’t have twelve hours, does she?” Tory put one hand on the counter, determined not to let anyone see her falter.

“If that’s what it is, she doesn’t even have six.” Baker’s gaze slid from Tory’s tormented green eyes to the scrolled gold band encircling her left ring finger, the exact match to the one on the sheriff’s hand. “What would you say if you didn’t know anything about her except the medical facts?”

Tory looked away, attempting the impossible task of keeping Reese’s face from her mind. But she was a doctor, and after a moment, she succeeded in assessing, categorizing, calculating the timetable, and reviewing the sequence of symptoms. She took a deep breath. “I’d say that everything points to the rapid onset of cellulitis which was most likely produced by an ocean-borne pathogen. In all likelihood, there was systemic spread almost immediately, which accounts for her toxic presentation and gastrointestinal symptoms. I can precisely pinpoint the time of infection, and considering that it’s been almost twelve hours, the progression is not escalating particularly rapidly.”

“Very good,” Baker said with a small grin. “And your conclusion?”

“It’s more likely to be the nonfulminant variety, because if it were anything else, by now her condition should have deteriorated to the point of shock and system failure.” For just a second, her voice shook. “There’s no evidence of disseminated intravascular coagulation on her last blood panel, and the local spread of the infection seems to have stabilized.”

“Want a job? We could use another ID attending around here.”

“No thanks,” Tory said with a weak laugh. “What if we wait on the surgery, and I’m wrong?”

“Being cautious is the sign of a good physician. Second-guessing yourself, though, is dangerous.” Jill Baker’s expression was solemn. “Let’s try a little old-fashioned medicine. Let’s look at the wound. If the cellulitis hasn’t progressed, and she still looks stable, I say we sit on it for another couple of hours.”

“O’Bannon’s going to go crazy.”

Joe lifted one elegant shoulder. “Let her. Her ego can take it.”

Tory took a deep breath. “Okay.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

K.T. was gone when Tory and Jill returned, having been called away by an emergency in the trauma unit. Bri was sitting by Reese’s bedside, perched on a tall stool, a tray bearing English muffins and cardboard cartons of juice balanced on her knee.

“Look who’s here,” Bri said happily as Tory approached, inclining her head toward the bed.

Tory leaned over the stretcher and gazed into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. “Hello, sweetheart,” she murmured, her heart aching at the shadows of pain that lingered in Reese’s face.

“Hi, love. Sorry I keep…fading.” Reese turned her head slightly. “Bri says she has breakfast.”

“Yes,” Tory said with a smile. “But not for you just yet. Are you hungry?”

“Not really.” Reese grimaced. “I’m just happy not to be heaving. You should eat.”

Tory petted her hair, stroked her face, unable to bear not to be touching her. “In a minute.” She glanced to the side as Jill joined her at the bedside. “Honey, this is Jill Baker. She’s an infectious disease specialist. She needs to look at your arm.”

“Okay,” Reese said weakly. “Just looking, right, Doc?”

“No sharp instruments, Sheriff,” Jill replied with a smile.

Reese kept her eyes on Tory’s face as the other doctor unwrapped her arm. She would be able to read the answer in her lover’s eyes. When Jill gently probed with a gloved hand, Reese winced and immediately saw Tory’s eyes darken. “I’m okay, Tor. It doesn’t hurt too much.”

“I know, sweetheart.” Tory’s fingers trembled in Reese’s hair. “What do you think, Jill?”

“It’s no worse.”

Tory closed her eyes. When she opened them, Reese’s questioning gaze was fixed on hers. “That’s good, honey.”

“No surgery then?”

“Maybe I should decide that,” K.T. announced dryly as she moved in next to Jill and reached for Reese’s arm. Her dark eyes steady on Reese’s blue ones, she said, “I’m Dr. O’Bannon. I’m a surgeon.”

“Doctor,” Reese said with a hint of her old authority in her voice. “I’m hoping I won’t need your services.”

K.T. didn’t respond as she lifted and turned Reese’s arm, then probed upward towards her shoulder. “Hurt up here?”

“No.”

“Make a fist.”

Reese tried, but couldn’t quite close her fingers.

“That bother you anywhere?” K.T. questioned.

“Just feels stiff.” Reese frowned. “Mostly I just feel really beat. I can’t seem to stay awake.”

“That’s the effect of the dehydration and the bacterial toxins,” K.T. murmured without taking her eyes from the wound. After a moment, she gently placed Reese’s arm back on the bed. Then she grasped the guardrail in both hands and leaned over slightly so that her face was all that Reese could see. “I don’t see very much change in the physical appearance of your arm in the last four hours. That may be a good thing, or it might not. The safest thing would be to take you to the operating room, remove the sutures, irrigate the wound, and excise any dead tissue.”

“How would that affect the function of my arm?” Reese said, trying hard to concentrate. The headache was slowly returning, and with it, an overwhelming desire to close her eyes.

“Maybe not at all.”

“Maybe?”

The surgeon blew out a slightly exasperated breath. “I can’t tell you for sure until I see what the tissue looks like.”

“Worst-case… scenario?”

“Sensory loss, primarily in the upper aspect of your hand, weakness of wrist extension, decreased grip strength.”

Reese’s eyes flicked to Tory. “Can we wait?”

“Honey…”

“Sheriff Conlon,” K.T. interrupted. “If we go now, we minimize the risk…”

“K.T., let me talk to her alone for a minute,” Tory said quietly.

Reese stiffened slightly and shifted her gaze back to the surgeon. The tone of familiarity in Tory’s voice was too much to be coincidence. So you’re the idiot who let her go.

“I have a patient to check on in the trauma unit,” K.T. said stiffly. “I’ll be back shortly.”

“Reese,” Tory said softly, “I know how important it is for you to have the full use of your arm. But we can’t take any chances. I… I can’t risk losing you.”

“I would never willingly do something that might take me away from you.” Reese lifted her left hand and when Tory grasped it, she entwined her fingers with her lover’s. “But if there’s a possibility that we can ride this out without the surgery, I want to try.”

“Jill feels we can wait a couple more hours,” Tory said, knowing that she was making perhaps the most important decision of her life. Searching her heart and mind, she settled herself and answered, “I agree with her.”

“Okay then,” Reese said with a sigh, closing her eyes. “If you don’t mind… I think I’ll sleep for a bit.”

Tory laid Reese’s hand down on the bed and brushed her fingers over Reese’s hair, then kissed her. “I’ll be right here, sweetheart. You just rest.”

“You don’t have to stay, Bri,” Tory said with a weary sigh. Reese had been transferred upstairs from the emergency room to the intermediate intensive care unit for observation. The isolation room was equipped with the standard hospital bed, freestanding bedside table, and several chairs. In addition, a small sofa had been provided in the event that family members wanted to stay for extended periods of time. It was easier for visitors to remain in the patient’s room rather than the regular waiting room, thereby avoiding the cumbersome process of scrubbing and donning cover gowns every time they reentered the room.

“I want to wait,” Bri said as she settled on the sofa next to Tory. “If that’s okay?”

Tory leaned her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes. “Sure.”

It was noon. Twelve hours said she had gotten the call from the EMTs about a multi-vehicular accident with victims trapped in the wreckage. It was a call like so many late night calls she had gotten in the seven years she’d been Provincetown’s year-round doctor. She and Reese had responded to any number of the same calls over the time they’d been a couple and were used to working together. It had all seemed so routine the night before, but then that’s how so many life-altering events began…as something so ordinary. And now, she was waiting while her lover’s future, and possibly her life, hung in the balance.

“Just a few weeks ago we found out about the baby.” Tory’s voice broke on the words. “Now…”

“Tory,” Bri whispered softly as she edged closer on the sofa, alarmed by the tears leaking from beneath Tory’s closed lids. Tentatively, she placed her hand on the weeping woman’s shoulder. “She’s going to be okay.”

Tory struggled with the rush of emotions, but she was so tired and so terrified and before she could stop herself, she’d turned into the warm body next to hers. Bri’s arms came around her and Tory held on, pressing her face to the strong shoulder as she wrapped one arm around Bri’s waist. She felt a soft cheek against her hair and the whisper of breath against her ear as she let the tears come.

“She’ll be fine,” Bri murmured, pulling her close.

When Nelson Parker arrived at the hospital and asked for the whereabouts of his deputy sheriff, he was directed to a room in the intermediate care unit on the second floor. The door was closed when he arrived, and looking up and down the hall, he saw no one around. Carefully, he pushed the door open and peeked in.

The room was dim, and at first all he could make out was the single hospital bed in the center of the room holding a sheet-covered form. His gaze drifted to the small sofa tucked into one corner, and his eyes widened. His daughter sat with a woman cradled in her arms, her chin resting on the top of the tousled auburn hair. He and Bri stared at one another for an instant, and then he slowly closed the door.