Faith Hope and Love (A Homespun Romance) Read Online Free Page B

toes.  If he had said jump, they would all have executed perfect leaps.  He had threatened them with everything from libel to unwanted publicity.  He wanted attention and he wanted it now.  No, he wouldn't leave the patient and wait outside.  For once in their lives they could damn well live up to their category. 
    A lion with a sore tooth would have been more amenable.
    A Dr. Andrews finally armed with the results of some tests approached him warily.  Rachel Carstairs was suffering from only one thing.  Exhaustion. 
    It made all the other little pieces fall into place.  The whitewashed look, the stumbling. 
    "She isn't unconscious, just asleep.  Probably the best medicine.  Seems to have been running on nervous energy for too long.  Hasn't eaten for the last twenty four hours as well.  We could start an intravenous drip, keep her overnight."
    The doctor checked the large man's face for a reaction, wondering about his relationship to the patient.  Ms. Carstairs was one lucky woman.  Luke Summers had watched the tests they had run on her like a mother hawk.  One wrong move, his expression had warned, and I'll pull this place down around your ears.  Everybody knew he didn’t care about medical insurance and forms to fill.  He was paying for what he wanted and he wanted the best.  Right now.
    It was late.  Luke wanted to get back to the ranch.  Share his news.  Hold his soon-to-be son.  Rid himself of the tensions of the day.
    He looked at the sheet draped figure on the bed.  The decision was already made.  There wasn't much of her to poke and prod.  He hated hospitals himself.  He couldn't abandon her in one.
    "Does she need hospitalization?" 
    "Not really.  A nurse just sponged her down and gave her some juice.  She had no trouble drinking it.  As long as she keeps up her fluid intake she'll be al l right.  She has no fever and there are no signs of any other infection.  This medical card you found with her passport shows her shots are up to date.  Unofficially I'd say all she needs is rest.  If she has a place to go, someone to take care of her, we could release her.  Otherwise I have to keep her here."
    Luke swallowed, "I'll take full responsibility.  I'm a relative." 
    So, help him God, he was.  Of a kind.
     
     
    Coming awake wasn't frightening.  She was used to waking in strange places.  A hut, a tent, the floor of a school.  It was usually the attack on her senses that wakened her.  Children screaming, a rooster crowing, the gabble of human voices that believed in operating at full lung capacity. 
    What alarmed Rachel now was she wasn't in a foreign, dirty, smelly, loud place, with the barest of amenities.  Or in a foreign, clean, fragrant, quiet place, with the finest of comforts.  She had been in both over the last few years.
    She was in a four poster bed.  Large, luxurious, frightening.  White Priscilla drapes framed a piece of orange sky.  Sunset?  Sunrise? 
    Lilies of the valley on a green background covered the walls.  The sculptured carpet matched the background color of the elegant wallpaper perfectly.  A cherry dresser gleamed against one wall.  Outside someone was talking.  Spanish.  A woman laughed.  The sound jogged Rachel's memory.  This definitely wasn't the motel room she had checked into.  She turned her head.
    A figure shot out of a chair in the corner, "She's awake.  Come quick.  She's awake."  A well-built girl ran out of the room.
    Rachel froze.  Never had her waking up been a cause for rejoicing before.  Was she hallucinating?
    Boots rang on the wooden floor outside.  The door was thrust wider.  A man, backlit, stood there.  Big.  Wide.  Blocking out the world.  Fear receded as strength flowed out of him and wrapped her like velvet.  The absurd sensations swamping her confirmed this had to be a dream.
    "How are you feeling?"
    Rachel thought about it for the first time since she had woken up.  She wiggled her toes, pinching