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voice was tender and sure. Gently, she slid onto Rebecca’s body and braced herself on her elbows, her hands in Rebecca’s hair. “I love you for what’s in your heart. “
    Rebecca shuddered, needing so badly to believe. “There are things I’ve done…things I do …” She sighed again. “You remember Sandy?”
    “Yes,” Catherine replied, pleased that her voice was steady. Sandy. The young woman you were with when your lung collapsed. The woman who looked like she was half in love with you. Is she the woman you see at night when you leave here?
    “I did something with her you might find less than honorable.”
    “What?” Catherine asked carefully.
    “The details aren’t really important.”
    “In this particular instance, the details matter.”
    “You don’t think…me and Sandy?” Rebecca laughed. “Christ, no.”
    Catherine blushed. “She’s very attractive, and she obviously cares about you.”
    “Catherine, I love you. “ Rebecca kissed her, lightly at first, then with a sudden surge of passion. “There is no one else. Not Sandy. No one.”
    “I’m not used to feeling jealous,” Catherine confided with a touch of embarrassment.
    “I kind of like it. But you don’t have to worry.” Rebecca shrugged. “Anyhow, I signed Sandy up as a confidential informant today.”
    “And you thought I’d object?”
    “Getting information to me is always risky, and now she’s going to be doing it a lot more regularly.”
    “Yes,” Catherine murmured drowsily, “but the fact that you worry about it is what’s important.”
    Rebecca drew the sheet up over them and yawned. “It’s late. We should get to sleep.”
    “I’m sorry. I’m fading a bit.”
    “Mmm.” Rebecca kissed her and closed her eyes. “Me, too.”
    As Catherine began to drift off, she realized that Rebecca had managed to avoid the subject of their living together very neatly.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Michael turned carefully at the sound of her door opening. The pain in her head was constant, alternating between a low-level ache hovering at the top of her spine to an all-out cannon barrage that beat against the back of her eyeballs until it hurt to keep her eyelids open.
    “Good morning,” Ali Torveau said as she approached the bed. “You don’t remember me, but I’m Dr. Torveau, the trauma surgeon who’s been taking care of you since you came into the hospital.”
    “I have a few blanks in my memory of the last couple of days. I’m sorry.”
    “There’s no need to apologize.” As the surgeon spoke, she withdrew her stethoscope from the right-hand pocket of her white lab coat and leaned over the bed to listen to Michael’s injured lungs. “How does your chest feel?”
    “It hurts a little when I take a deep breath. Not too bad though.”
    “What about your head?”
    Michael grimaced. “That’s not doing quite as well. Major headache.”
    “It’s almost always temporary, but I can’t tell you how long it will last. It could be a few days; it could be a few weeks.”
    “When can I go home?”
    “You haven’t even been out of bed yet,” Ali responded with a small laugh. “Let’s take things one day at a time.”
    Michael glanced toward the closed bathroom door behind which running water was faintly audible. “I can rest at home as well as here. And Sloan isn’t getting any sleep at all.”
    “This has been hard on both of you, I know,” Ali said sympathetically. “How about if I talk to her—”
    “Talk to who about what?” Freshly showered, Sloan walked directly to the bed, leaned down, and kissed Michael’s forehead. “Good morning.”
    Michael smiled, the headache diminishing for an instant. “We were talking about me going home.”
    “So soon?” Sloan spun around to stare at the trauma surgeon, her eyes glowing with excitement.
    “Whoa.” Ali held up her hands, but she was smiling, too. “Let’s see what this morning’s CAT scan shows. If that looks good…we’ll see.”
    “Good enough.”