"It's almost time, darling," Paige said to Angie. "Go outside. Don't miss it."

The crowd outside was growing; the cherry pickers, ladders and other equipment had been put out of sight. Jack stood at the far end of the porch, ready to join the extension cords. To get the best possible view, Angie crossed the street and stood near the clinic in the darkness, hands in her pockets, watching her breath cloud the air.

And then there were big hands on her shoulders.

There were any number of people who might do that, but she could feel it was him. Sense him. Then he bent his head and gently nuzzled her, making her smile. Oh, she was toast. She knew right then that she'd never be able to resist him.

As if he read her mind, he turned her around and stared down into her eyes for a moment before gently and briefly touching her forehead with his lips. And then he smiled.

"I thought you found me thoroughly resistible," she said.

"I find you thoroughly tempting."

"And would you call that practical?" she teased.

He made a face. "Part of being good with secrets is not taunting a person with them," he told her. "I can't help it if you're tempting."

"I'm sure that has mostly to do with being in a little town where there aren't too many temptations."

"Or it could have to do with you. How was your day?"

"Slow and easy. Lovely. I've eaten a lot of Christmas cookies. How is Marie?" She cringed at the thought of sounding jealous, but she couldn't stop herself from feeling it.

"Having a good day today."

He turned her around toward the tree, but he kept his arms around her waist, pulling her back against him. She glanced over her shoulder at him and said, "I think my uncle Jack is watching."

"Try not to worry. I learned to fight from four big brothers. I can defend myself and keep you safe."

She was close to telling him that the number of women he vowed to protect was growing....

And then the tree lit up and the lights were so grand in the town, the street was filled with the brightness of an afternoon sun. There was a chorus of "Ahhhhh," then applause. Patrick's arms tightened around her. She leaned back against him and enjoyed the closeness. She had barely begun her fantasy of what else might happen between them when a truck came into town, horn blowing. The street was filled with people and the old truck's horn was separating them, parting the crowd, until it finally came to a stop right in front of the clinic.

Angie, acting on sheer impulse, wiggled out of Patrick's arms and ran toward the vehicle just as a woman got out of the pa.s.senger's side of the truck. She was holding a very large child wrapped in a blanket-a blanket on which there was a considerable amount of blood. A bloodstained towel covered most of the child's face.

On instinct, Angie went toward them. At precisely that moment, Mel and Dr. Michaels burst through the crowd, running toward them.

"Frank?" Mel asked. "Lorraine?"

"It's Megan! She slipped-there was ice on the porch and a nail sticking out of the porch post got her right on the forehead. It's bleeding bad."

"Come inside. Frank, you come, too. Let's have the doctor look at it."

Angie turned to Patrick very briefly, holding up her hand toward him. That was her only gesture before following the man, woman, child and pract.i.tioners into the clinic.

It felt odd to her. First of all, no one questioned her presence there, as though she was already an a.s.sistant of some kind. Second, Mel began barking orders at her as if she had been trained in this clinic. "I'll need a sterile pack of four-by-four gauze, sterile water, not saline. Cameron? Want an antibiotic?"

"I don't think we need an IV, but I'll go with cephalexin, broad spectrum IM. She had a teta.n.u.s shot last summer but give me some Valium and lidocaine. I'll get a suture kit."

"Can you get that together, Angie?" Mel asked, handing her the keys to the drug cabinet. "I'll take care of the syringes."

"Yes. Please check my work, make sure I have the right things."

"Absolutely."

Angie got out the gauze and water and then went after the drugs, but what really had her attention was the fact that the little girl didn't make a sound.

"I'm going to put pressure on the wound, Megan," Mel said gently, softy. "Just for a little while."

Angie had only seen a little bit of this injury, the blood on her face, but the child was so silent. She shook like a leaf, however-either terrified or in shock. And Mel was dabbing at her face and forehead with gauze. "Easy, Meg, it's not bad," Mel was murmuring.

"Let's get this cold, b.l.o.o.d.y blanket out of here," Mel said, leaving a thick padded gauze over half of Megan's face. She reached into the cupboard behind her and produced a clean, warm blanket. To Angie, she said, "Roll Megan toward you, then toward me-gently, now."

They wrapped her up in a fresh blanket while her parents waited as close to the treatment room door as possible. Then Cameron was back, pushing his way in close, pushing Angie away. His suture kit sat on the counter behind him and he looked at Megan's pupils with a flashlight, asked her to follow his finger with her eyes, asked her a couple of simple questions like her birthday, her brothers' names.

"Is it terrible, Doctor?" Megan asked, her voice quivering on the edge of tears.

"It's not, sweetheart," Cameron said. "It's going to be fine."

In the first year of medical school, a med student had very little, if any, clinical experience. In fact, the only experience Angie had came from following around an instructor in a clinic. Without that little bit of experience, she would have no idea what a four-by-four was or how to select drugs from the locked cabinet. And while the injury was a b.l.o.o.d.y mess, especially on the face of a little girl, it didn't overwhelm Angie. She knew even the smallest head wounds could bleed like the devil.

By the time Cameron had opened up his suture kit, the wound had been cleaned and much of the blood wiped away. That's when Angie had her first real look at the little girl's face and tried not to gasp. The laceration on her forehead didn't appear too serious, but the sweet thing already had a horrific scar on her face, already healed. It looked as though she'd been cut from the corner of her mouth almost to her eye; her mouth lifted on one side and her lower lid of her right eye drooped, exposing pink tissue. The scar was thicker in some places than others-it was vicious. Disfiguring.

The little treatment room was very crowded and growing quite warm. Cameron was working carefully but quickly on the laceration, cleaning and washing with lidocaine. "I think we can take care of this here, Megan," Cameron said. "It's going to need some st.i.tches, but it's small. It won't hurt. I'll numb it. And because of the size and location at your hairline, I wouldn't fear a bad scar." Then he looked over at Lorraine. "Is that all right with you, Lorraine?"

Although the woman twisted her hands, she nodded.

"I don't think she has a concussion," he went on. "I'm going to ask you to keep an eye on her tonight-I'll give you some instructions before you take her home."

Mel drew a syringe of something while Cameron donned sterile gloves. Then he leaned over her and said, "Tiny little mosquito bite, Meg, that's all. I bet you don't even have a headache tomorrow."

Angie leaned so close to watch Cameron suture that Mel smiled and Cameron looked over his shoulder at her as if to say, Do you mind? When the st.i.tches were in and a bandage covered the wound, Mel pulled Angie out of the room.

"Cameron's going to ask Megan to just lie still for a while. He'll examine her again before sending her home with her parents. I'm going to write in her chart."

Angie followed her to the desk in the reception area. "Mel...?"

Mel stopped, turned and quietly answered the question she knew was on Angie's lips. "Almost a year ago Megan fell and hit her head, her face, on a shovel that was lying on the ground partially buried by snow. It cut her cheek but, to tell the truth, it wasn't that bad. It was actually the treatment that worked against her. Cameron took her to the emergency room-he wouldn't dare try closing up such a large facial laceration on a child. But there was no plastic surgeon, the E.R. doctor wouldn't call anyone in because Meg's family is very poor and has limited insurance-certainly nothing that would cover plastics, and he st.i.tched her up himself. It didn't take too long to see scar contractures, which I can almost guarantee will only get worse. Megan is growing-the scar is tightening while the rest of her face and surrounding tissue is soft and elastic. It causes severe distortion. And then there's ectropion, scar tissue pulling down her lower eyelid. She needs plastic surgery."

"And why isn't she getting it? Is she afraid?"

Mel shook her head. "It's considered cosmetic. Elective. It would cost thousands of dollars, and that's speaking conservatively. This is a struggling family. They're doing well if they can keep the heat on all winter."

"She'll be disfigured for the rest of her life," Angie said.

"I keep looking for a break. A friend of mine, a doctor in Grace Valley, managed to get a morbidly disfigured woman help several years ago-there was a plastic surgeon with a surgical team who took on some of the most challenging cases for free, but it goes without saying-he can't operate on everyone with an ugly scar. Megan's is hard to look at and very sad-she's a beautiful girl-but it's not the worst we've seen. I'd be so happy if we could just get that eye fixed. That's going to give her problems. It could lead to vision trouble, if it hasn't already."

"But by the time she's a teenager..."