Touched by Love (Love in Bloom: The Remingtons) Read online

  **

  BOYD HUDSON RAN a hand through his thick hair as he descended the steps toward the subway, hurrying at the sound of the approaching train. He’d had a hell of a shift at the firehouse, followed by a few hours at TEC, and his brain must have been too tired to realize he’d walked away with Janie’s phone. He stepped onto the empty platform, wondering why it felt like a ghost town. He rounded the stairwell and his heart caught in his throat. Janie lay on her back, treacherously near the edge.

  “Don’t move!” He raced toward her and knelt between Janie and the edge of the platform, doing a quick visual inspection. She clutched her cane with a white-knuckled grip. She had a nasty gash above her eye. Her cheek was already beginning to bruise. His gut clenched with empathy and anger as he scanned the empty platform.

  “Who the hell did this to you?”

  “Boyd?” She sat up, and when she opened her mouth to speak, sobs burst out.

  Christ, he was ready to kill someone. Boyd gathered her trembling body in his arms. “Try not to move. It’s okay, Janie. I’ve got you. What happened?”

  He held her until her breathing calmed, reassuring her and trying to restrain his mounting anger. Once she calmed, he drew back and did another quick visual assessment of her limbs and the angry abrasions on her face.

  “I know you’re scared, but can you tell me what happened?”

  “I tripped and fell off the platform. My ankle…” She tried to lift her knee and sucked in a breath between her clenched teeth. A flood of fresh tears tumbled down her cheeks, and she began searching beside her with her hands.

  Off the platform? His gut ached knowing how terrified she must have been. He looked at the steep drop as a train rolled into the station, wondering how in the hell she’d managed to climb back out.

  “My bag. Do you see my leather bag anywhere?” She whipped her head around and cried out again when it jerked her ankle.

  “Try not to move, Janie. I’ll find your bag in a minute. I’m just going to take a look at your ankle. Did you lose consciousness at all?”

  “No, please. Don’t touch it.” She held out her palm, staving him off.

  A few people stepped off the train, and Boyd asked one of them to call 911. Luckily, other than a few curious glances, no one stopped to gawk.

  “I just wanted to assess your injuries.” He reached for Janie’s hand. “I’m not going to hurt you. But I really need to take a look. The more you move, the more it will hurt, so if you just let me take a quick look and stabilize your ankle, it’ll help.”

  She squeezed his hand, and more tears came. Boyd embraced her again, careful not to jostle her ankle. The train pulled out of the station, and he glanced over his shoulder again at the drop where she’d fallen.

  “It’s okay, Janie. I won’t let anything happen to you now.”

  She nodded against his shoulder. “Th-thank you. You smell good.”

  It took a moment for him to process what she’d said, and relief swept through him. If she could joke, she probably wasn’t in too much pain.

  “If that’s a pickup line, I have to warn you, I’m an expensive date.”

  When he pulled back enough to study her face and wipe her tears, he was struck, not for the first time, by how beautiful she was, despite the cuts and bruises. He’d been attracted to Janie since the first time he’d seen her. She had delicate, graceful features. A slender, upturned nose, high cheekbones, and almond-shaped eyes. Her brows were darker than her blond hair, and her painted lips were full and small. Cupid’s lips. He had no idea where that thought came from.

  “It wasn’t a pickup line. It was just an observation.” Miraculously, a smile lifted her cheeks. “I’m a romance writer now. I notice those things.”

  “You do, huh?” Boyd was blown away. She’d just taken a fall that would have sent anyone into a full-on panic, and Janie was joking?

  She drew her shoulders back and sniffled, clearly working hard to regain control of her emotions. Her blouse was torn, revealing her bra. Boyd shrugged off his button-down shirt and draped it over her shoulders.

  She leaned away. “What are you doing?”

  “Your shirt is torn. I’m giving you mine so you’re covered up.” He helped her put her arms into the sleeves, then rolled them up.

  “Thank you for not letting me flash anyone else.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “I bet.” She scoffed.

  “I wasn’t look—” As he said it, she smirked. Janie Jansen was very different from the women he knew. They would be in tears, and rightly so, but they’d also add a layer of drama to the already horrible situation by shrieking and gasping for the attention of others just because they could and would be worrying about their hair and makeup. “Is there someone I can call for you? Family? A boyfriend?”

  She shook her head. “No, but that was a sneaky way to see if I’m single.”

  “Hey, you used a pickup line, so…” Smart, funny, and beautiful was a rare combination, and Boyd couldn’t deny the attraction he’d felt toward Janie for months was growing stronger, but he pushed those feelings away to take a look at her ankle.

  “I’m a trained paramedic. Do you hurt anywhere besides your ankle? Your back? Chest? Head?”

  She shook her head.

  “There must be someone I should call for you.”

  “I don’t need to bother anyone because of a twisted ankle.”

  His mind turned to his brother and sister. They’d lost their parents when they were young, and if this had happened to either of them, he’d definitely want to be there for them. And he knew they’d want to be there for him. It bothered him that Janie felt she should shoulder this alone. “You’re pretty banged up. You really need to be checked out, and since you won’t let me check out your ankle, we don’t know if it’s twisted, sprained, or broken.” He wiped a tear from her cheek.

  She shook her head. “I’ll be fine. Oh, my bag.” She tried to push to her feet.

  “Janie, don—”

  The second she put weight on her foot, she collapsed into his arms.

  “I see you’re as stubborn as you are beautiful.” He helped her back down to the floor.

  “Sweet talk will get you nowhere,” she quipped through another flinch.

  “Just giving you fodder for your romance. Are you okay here for a minute? You won’t try to sprint away?”

  “Ha-ha.”

  He held her delicate hand between both of his, glad she was no longer shaking but needing to know she would stay put and not further injure herself. “I want to see if your bag fell off the platform. Please don’t try to stand.”

  She nodded, and he quickly went to the edge of the platform, spotted her bag, and jumped down to retrieve it. He pulled himself up, wondering again how the hell she had pulled herself onto the platform with an ankle she couldn’t stand on. He knelt beside her and placed her bag in her lap.

  “Somehow your bag fell against the wall and not on the tracks. I’m going to call an ambulance again. They should be here by now.”

  “An ambulance? I…” Her eyes filled with fresh tears, and he wrapped his arms around her again.

  “I’ll be right there with you. The ambulance needs to take you to the hospital.”

  She bit her lower lip and turned away.

  “Talk to me, Janie. Does something else hurt?”

  “No. Yes. My right side aches, but that’s not it. I…I told you that I don’t like to ride in vehicles in the city.”

  He curled a finger beneath her chin and turned her face toward him, again struck by her beauty, her strength, and now this sudden flash of vulnerability.

  “I’ll go with you. I won’t leave your side, but we have to get you checked out.”

  He called for the ambulance, just in case the person he’d asked hadn’t, and tried again to assess her ankle. Each time she moved, she cringed. Finally, she allowed him to take a look. Her ankle didn't appear to be broken. Though he wasn't a doctor, he was on his way—two weeks e
arlier he had interviewed with the University of Washington School of Medicine, and he was hoping to be invited to interview with at least a few of the other schools he’d applied to.

  “I’m going to stabilize your ankle with my hands to keep it from moving.”

  “Okay.”

  “How did you manage to get back onto the platform from the tracks?”

  “I pulled myself up. I was so afraid a train would come that I just made myself move.”

  “That’s incredible. You’re a brave woman, Janie.”

  She lifted her eyes to him then, as if she could see him, or was mentally assessing his face the way people did when they were weighing whether someone was being honest. Boyd tried not to notice the sparks that look sent through him, but it was impossible.

  “I don’t know if I’d say I was brave as much as I was driven by not wanting to die a painful death in a New York City subway station.”

  Her modesty made her even more attractive. The ambulance crew arrived a few minutes later. As they moved her into the ambulance, she gripped the sides of the gurney, and her entire body began trembling again. Boyd climbed into the ambulance and held her hand.

  “I’m right here. I won’t leave your side.”

  “I…I hate vehicles here. I’m okay anywhere else, but drivers here petrify me. I know it’s weird, but it’s my only quirk.” She squeezed his hand so tightly her fingernails dug into his skin. “Seriously, other than that I’m totally normal.”

  She’d just fallen off a subway platform and managed to pull herself to safety, and she was worried he might think she was strange to be scared to ride in an ambulance?

  “Well, Janie. You’ve one-upped me, because I have way more than just one quirk.”

  “You don’t have to stay with me,” she said in a shaky voice.

  He wondered if she was aware that the death grip she had on his hand was telling him a lot more than her words did.

  “Don’t you have a date?” she asked with that snarky voice he was quickly learning was her defense mechanism.

  “That’s a sneaky way to see if I’m single.”

  “You said you had a date.”

  “Right. It got canceled.” He didn’t tell her that his date was really his way of not sounding like a loser who was going to go home and study for the medical school interviews he hoped to have. Or that he’d been attracted to her since the first time he’d seen her in the reception area of TEC. But even back then he’d hoped to be heading off to medical school soon, and there was no room in his life for a girlfriend, which was why he kept up the playboy act. More to ward off his own attraction than hers, but every bit helped.

  “I do have a date,” he answered. “With a sassy blonde at the hospital, and I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather be.”

  Chapter Two

  BOYD TALKED TO Janie the whole way to the hospital, and she couldn’t have been more thankful. Not only did he have the most soothing voice she’d ever heard, but it was deep and sexy, and every word made her brain turn to mush. He’d even coerced her into letting him take a picture of her so she could laugh about it later. Did he suddenly forget she was blind? She doubted she’d laugh if someone described the picture to her, but he had an easy way about him, and she gave in. He told her a story about when he was little and fell out of a tree and broke his ankle. By the time he finished his story, they’d arrived at the hospital and she’d completely forgotten about her fear of riding in the ambulance.

  Things moved quickly after that. If it weren’t for Boyd narrating everything going on around her, she’d have been even more frightened. You’re in triage so they can assess your injuries. The emergency room isn’t too crowded. The hospital staff addressed Boyd by name.

  “How do they all know you?” she asked.

  “I was a paramedic, moved up to firefighter. I still work part-time as a paramedic here at the hospital. Just a shift every now and then,” he explained, then went right back to explaining what was going on, like he hadn’t just thrown her for a loop. “They’re taking you back into a private room now.”

  He held her hand as they wheeled her toward the private room. He was a fireman, a paramedic, and worked at TEC? She’d had him pegged as a bit of a flirtatious slacker, since he only worked at TEC a few days each month.

  A nurse tended to Janie’s cuts and Dr. Blankenship, Dr. B, checked her out and explained that they were going to take X-rays.

  Boyd brushed her hair off her forehead and leaned in so close it was impossible not to notice his now familiar musky, manly scent. “You’re okay. I’ll be right here when you come back.”

  True to his promise, Boyd was waiting for her when they brought her back into the room a while later.

  “Doing okay?” he asked.

  She nodded, although her heart was going crazy from everything she’d been through. The room was so bright, she wished she could bring her face right up to Boyd’s and find that perfect angle where she could make out his coloring, or the shape of his head. Something to get a better sense of him. But she was getting carried away. She shouldn’t be fantasizing that sexy-sounding Boyd Hudson could be anything more than a coworker helping her through a hard time.

  “I don’t want to be a burden. You really can leave.” She hoped he wouldn’t, but surely he had better things to do than hang around a hospital on a Friday night.

  He squeezed her hand. “No chance. But don’t worry. I’m only staying out of some sort of sick curiosity. I want to know what happened to your ankle.”

  Disappointment washed through her, despite the lightness of his tone.

  He leaned in, warming the air and sending a ripple of awareness through her. “I’m kidding. I want to be here.”

  A relieved sigh escaped before she could stop it. Luckily, he either pretended not to notice, or was kind enough to let it go.

  “Want me to tell you about the lovely curtained-off room we’re in?”

  She wanted him to talk all night. She would have been scared shitless without him there, and not just because she couldn’t see. She’d fallen off a frigging subway platform! She could have been struck by a train and killed. Her ankle was injured, and she was being helped by a handful of strangers. All of that was unsettling, but even though she didn’t know Boyd well, just having someone with her whom she was at least familiar with helped ease her fears. But she didn’t need a pity party, and she didn’t want him to think she was some sort of damsel in distress.

  Look at that. I’m already thinking like a romance writer.

  “Boyd, why are you staying? I might be blind, but I’m perfectly self-sufficient.” She confidently lifted her chin. “Well, other than falling off the stupid platform, but that was hardly my fault. I tripped.”

  “Is that why you think I’m staying? Out of pity?”

  The hurt in his voice brought a lump of guilt to her throat. “I don’t know.”

  The mattress sank with his weight as he sat beside her, sending another jolt of adrenaline through her.

  “Will it bother you if I sit here? I had a long shift at the firehouse before working at TEC this afternoon and I’m beat.”

  “No, it’s fine. But that’s even more of a reason for you to go home and get some sleep.”

  “Janie, I am most definitely not staying out of pity.” He stroked his thumb over her hand, and it felt intimate and somehow made his words seem even more sincere. “You won’t let me call anyone for you. You just had a traumatic fall that would send the strongest of men into a tailspin, and you said you don’t like to ride in cars in the city. How will you get home once they dress your ankle?”

  She hadn’t thought that far ahead. Maybe she should call Kiki after all, but it would take Kiki hours to get back from Maryland. Kiki rented the apartment next door to Janie, and they were at each other’s apartments so much they probably should be roommates. But they each valued their privacy too much for that.

  Before she could answer, the doctor’s voice pulled her back to the pres
ent.

  “Hi, again. Janie, it’s Dr. B and nurse Kelly. I’ve got your X-ray results.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Boyd said. “Hi, Kelly. How are you?”

  Janie felt the mattress shift and assumed Boyd was standing to greet them, but he remained beside her, one hand still on hers, comforting her.

  “Great, Boyd,” the nurse said. “You’re not on duty, are you?”

  “No. I was returning Janie’s phone and found her after she’d battled the tracks. Figured it was destiny.”

  Janie’s jaw slackened with his declaration.

  “She’s lucky you found her,” Dr. B said.

  “She sure was,” Kelly said. “Janie, Boyd is the best. Not only a great paramedic and fireman, but he’s also one of the good guys.”

  “Great, Kelly, you blew my cover,” Boyd teased. “I was trying to convince her that I was a jerk.”

  Yeah, right.

  “Like you could convince anyone of that.” Kelly patted Janie’s shoulder. “He’s a sweetie. He hates it when I say that, though, because you know guys. They love to be called rough or rugged. But Boyd’s sweet as chocolate.”

  “Great,” Boyd mumbled.

  Janie laughed.

  “Okay, now that we’ve reduced Boyd’s masculinity to sweet,” Dr. B said with a chuckle, “let’s focus on our patient. Janie, it looks like you have a sprained ankle.”

  “I think the toe of my shoe caught on the bumps near the edge of the platform and my ankle twisted and tripped me up.”

  “Well, you’re a lucky young lady,” Dr. B said. “A fall like that could have been far worse. Your sprain is mild, and probably more from that twist you described than from the fall. But since you landed heavily on your right side, you’ll probably be bruised and sore for a while.”