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Lost In Sensation
By Maureen Child Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
Copyright © 2004 Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
All right reserved. ISBN: 0-373-76611-4
Chapter One
No good deed goes unpunished. Truer words were never spoken, Sam Holden thought. And he should have kept them in mind. Because he was even now living them.
He just couldn't figure out how he could have done anything differently.
"I owe you, man," Eric Wright said from the passenger seat. Then he reached down and rapped his knuckles against the plaster cast encasing his right leg from the knee down. "Actually, I owe you two. Saving my skin and driving me home for my wedding."
"No, you don't owe me." Sam glanced at his friend. A purple and yellowing bruise smudged his forehead in stark contrast to his pale face. His dark red hair stood out in a weird sort of halo around his head. Lines of pain were drawn deep around his mouth, and his eyes were tired.
"You look like hell."
"Hey," Eric said with a small grin, "if not for you, I'd be looking cold and stiff right about now."
"Yeah, yeah." He brushed the latest round of thanks aside and narrowed his gaze. "You feeling okay?"
Eric grimaced. "You asking as my friend or as my doctor?"
"Which one will get me an honest answer?"
Laughing shortly, Eric shoved one hand through his hair, then scraped that hand across his eyes as if trying to wake himself up. "I'm okay. Just tired -" he looked at Sam again "- and grateful to be alive. Like I said, I owe you."
At thirty-two, Sam was tall, leanly muscled and too impatient for his own good. A black-haired, blue-eyed doctor, he had more female patients than male but much to their dismay, Sam never noticed more about the women than the symptoms they were presenting. He had only a handful of close friends and Eric Wright was one of them.
But in the last couple of weeks, Eric had been acting more like a fan than a friend. Sam had never been good with gratitude. He didn't like the slippery feel of someone's admiration. Probably shouldn't have become a doctor then, huh? But then, he'd had no choice. He'd been interested in nothing but medicine since he was a kid. At five, he'd borrowed his grandfather's stethoscope, listened to his dog's heart and found an irregular beat. Even the vet had been impressed. And that rush of discovery had pretty much sealed his future.
But having someone look at him with shining eyes and absolute trust made him want to run for the hills. Trust was a burden he didn't want to carry ... it was just too damn fragile. An odd thought for a doctor, he mused. But there it was.
"You don't owe me, Eric." He'd said the same thing he didn't know how many times since the accident. Eric never seemed to hear him, though Sam continued to try. "Hell, I was in the car. What was I supposed to do, leave you in the wreck while I ran for it?"
Eric shrugged. "Most would. There aren't many people who'll climb into a burning car to drag somebody out." He waved a hand at the bandage on Sam's left forearm. "With a bum arm, no less."
"Just a sprain." The bandage was an irritation and, in his mind, not really necessary. But the ER doctors had insisted on it - at least for a few days. And the night of the wreck, he'd been too glassy-eyed from shock to argue.
It had all happened in seconds - and had felt, at the time, like they were moving in slow motion. A truck swerving into their lane. Eric ripping the wheel to one side. The scrape of metal against the guard-rail. The long, eternity-filled seconds the car was airborne and the jarring slam when they hit the earth and rolled over. Sam had inched out of the broken side window, then crawled around to the driver's side. Unconscious, Eric was oblivious to the flames already licking at the undercarriage. But Sam had felt the heat against his face and the cold rush of fear in his bones. Somehow, though, he'd managed to free Eric from the seat belt and drag him to safety before the fire erupted into a blaze.
Luck was with them both that night. If it hadn't been, Eric's family would have been planning his funeral instead of celebrating his wedding.
"Still ..."
Sam sighed and gave up trying to convince his friend. "Fine. I'm a hero. Super Doc, that's me."
Besides, if they were going to talk about payments due, Eric had it backward. Eric Wright had been a good friend - especially the last couple of years. By choice, Sam had always been something of a loner. More so in the last two years. But whenever Sam began pulling away from the few friends he did have, Eric had refused to allow it.
And for that, Sam owed him.
So here he sat, outside Eric's parents' house, with two long weeks to fill before he could head back home to L.A. Ordinarily, he would have driven up for Eric's wedding, then gone home the next day. But because of the accident and Eric's inability to drive, Sam had somehow been suckered into a two-week vacation in northern California, specifically Sunrise Beach with Eric's family.
The prospect of which was enough to make Sam want to throw the car into gear again and peel away from the curb at warp speed. Unfortunately, he was a man of his word and there was no backing out now.
He shot a look at the Wright house. Sitting far back from the street, it boasted a deep, dark green lawn, despite the simmering heat of summer. Neatly tended flower beds, awash in splashes of brilliant color, lined the front of the old bungalow and dangled from brightly painted window boxes. The wide front porch had pots of ferns hanging from the rafters and planters with yet more flowers spilling from them perched on the railing.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Lost In Sensation by Maureen Child Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
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