When Morning Comes Read Online Free Page A

her right hand. “Yes.”
    The man studied Cade closely. “Why do you want to see Sabrina?”
    â€œWe work together. I’m Dr. Mathis.”
    â€œYou have any proof?” the woman asked.
    Cade pulled out his wallet. They were right to be cautious. Opening his wallet, he showed them his driver’s license and a wallet-size replica of his medical degree.
    Both peered at the identification a long time as Cade waited. He had several patients with visual problems who refused to wear their eyeglasses.
    Lifting their heads, they smiled. “That’s her car, so she’s at home. She likes to swim in the evenings. The gate isn’t locked, but I keep telling her it should be.”
    â€œMs. Thomas likes to follow her own dictates,” Cade said.
    â€œMost women do,” the man said, looking affectionately down at his wife with a smile.
    â€œNothing wrong with that,” the woman added. “Please tell Sabrina the Goldens said hello.”
    â€œI will,” Cade assured them as the couple continued down the sidewalk. Turning, he went back up the walk and around the side of the house. As the woman had said, the gate of the eight-foot wooden fence was unlocked. The neighbors didn’t have to worry. Ms. Thomas struck him as a woman who could take care of herself, Cade thought.
    Rounding the corner of the house, he stepped onto lush grass in a flower-filled backyard. To his right was an eight-foot stone fireplace with a cushioned group seating in front. He heard a splash, looked deeper into the yard. He saw the water rushing over a rock waterfall into an odd-shaped swimming pool close to the back fence. His eyes narrowed as Sabrina climbed out of the water.
    His gaze slowly swept from the soft features of her face over the black two-piece swimsuit, then narrowed on seeing the skin-graft scars that resembled a faded patchwork of skin that ran from her left forearm, beneath her left breast to mid-thigh. He’d done a rotation in the burn unit in medical school. Gauging from the extensive scars and the smoothness of the skin grafts except beneath her left arm, she’d suffered third-degree burns at a very young age.
    Unconsciously his mouth tightened at the thought of the pain she must have endured. Burn therapy had come a long way in the past fifteen to twenty years. But before that time she would have had to suffer the excruciating pain of dressing changes to help heal and debride the wounds without any anesthesia or medication to dull the pain.
    She had suffered.
    He now knew another reason she fought so hard for her patients. She knew what it was to rely on others for the best medical care, and be at their mercy when it wasn’t given.
    *   *   *
    Sabrina climbed out of the pool, a daily ritual to keep the mobility in her left arm, and reached for the towel she’d tossed on the chaise, and froze. Her head jerked up. Dr. Mathis was the last person she expected to see, even if she had been thinking about him since she left the hospital.
    Mrs. Ward had called Sabrina to tell her she’d spoken with him. She’d said he was as abrupt as usual, but he also sounded concerned that she wasn’t feeling well. She and her husband had decided, if they had to choose between bedside manners and skill, they’d choose skill. They—
    Her thoughts slammed to a halt as she remembered the burn scars. She reached for the towel. Her fingers clutched the soft material, but something inside her refused to hide behind it. So let him be disgusted like Howard in high school when he’d come over unannounced and saw her in a halter top and shorts. That had put an end to their dating.
    She hadn’t even thought of dating again until she was a freshman in college. Again disaster struck when Kent saw the scars on her arm when her knit sleeve rode up. She hadn’t tried dating again.
    Her chin jutted the tiniest bit. Let him get a good look. His reaction