Trapped in Time Read online

  “Oh…all right.” Caroline felt a little let down—she had a mental image of running into Richard’s room and throwing her arms around his neck. She was hoping he might start to feel the connection she’d felt from the moment she first saw him and realized she had been dreaming of him. It was possible, wasn’t it?

  “C’mon, let’s get you back to your suite,” Kat said to her. “You want to get showered and changed and get a good night’s rest yourself so you’ll be fresh and gorgeous when you go to see him tomorrow, right?”

  “Kat’s right—you’ve had an incredibly long day,” Sophie pointed out.

  “You’re right.” Now that the tension and fear of the surgery was over, Caroline began to feel how tired she really was. She’d been trapped in another universe for days, had been drugged multiple times, forced to go through an annulment and a wedding, and had to fight for her life with a serial killer. She was beat.

  “Let’s go—I’ll walk you to your suite.” Kat rose and gave her a hand to stand up. Caroline swayed tiredly. “Here—hold on to me.” Kat held out her arm and Caroline leaned against her gratefully.

  “Thank you—thank all of you,” she said, nodding at Sylvan and Liv and Sophie as well as Kat. “You’ve all been wonderful. I know we haven’t known each other long but I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

  “You’re very welcome, Dr. Lambert.” Commander Sylvan smiled at her. “Have a good night’s sleep and we’ll see you in the morning.”

  “I’ll be at the med center bright and early,” Caroline promised and then yawned hugely.

  “Let’s go,” Kat commanded. “You’ve got to go lay down before you fall down.” She led Caroline away and the last thought Caroline had was that she couldn’t remember ever feeling so tired.

  * * * * *

  “All right—what’s going on?” Sophie turned to her husband as soon as Caroline and Kat were safely out of earshot. “I can feel the worry coming off you in waves. Is Richard not doing as well as you told Caroline he was?”

  “It’s not that.” Sylvan shook his head. “In fact, he’s doing even better. He was awake and lucid when we left him. But—”

  “But he doesn’t want to see Caroline,” Liv finished for him, flatly. “In fact, he specifically asked not to see her.”

  “What?” Sophie couldn’t believe it. “But he took a bullet for her! Surely that has to mean something—he has to care at least a little, doesn’t he?”

  Sylvan looked thoughtful. “Actually, I think he does care—he just doesn’t want to admit it, even to himself. If I were a betting male, I would bet he’s afraid that seeing Caroline will cause him to feel things for her he doesn’t want to feel.”

  “Or maybe seeing her is just too painful—it’s a reminder of the other Caroline he lost,” Liv pointed out. “The one our Caroline was pretending to be. I think that really upset him—the fact that she gave him ‘false hope’ that his wife was finally starting to love him.”

  “But…but what are we going to tell Caroline?” Sophie demanded. “Kat and I have been sitting out here trying to convince her that everything is going to be okay and that Richard really cares for her. What are we going to do if he refuses to see her tomorrow too?”

  “I don’t know.” Sylvan looked troubled. “But I cannot force him to see a visitor he doesn’t wish to meet with.”

  Liv frowned. “Look, I’ll work on him some tomorrow when we do morning rounds. Maybe he’ll come around by then.”

  “I hope you’re right.” But Sophie couldn’t help feeling worried. Richard struck her as a very stubborn man. What was that quote from Pride and Prejudice? “My good opinion, once lost, is lost forever,” she muttered.

  “What was that?” Liv asked.

  Sophie shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just that…Richard strikes me as having a very stiff, old-fashioned sense of honor. And if you offend that honor or violate his personal code of ethics by, say, pretending to be his dead wife and toying with his heart—which is what he feels like Caroline has done…”

  “He’s not likely to give you a second chance,” Liv finished for her. “Oh dear—you could be right, Sophie.”

  “I hope not,” Sophie said grimly. “I guess only time will tell.”

  But she had a bad feeling about it all the same—a very bad feeling indeed.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  “I know he doesn’t want to see me.” Caroline was clearly trying to keep her voice steady. “And that he’s planning to go back to his own universe. But, well…I’d just like to say goodbye.” She looked at Liv imploringly. “Couldn’t I at least do that, before we never ever see each other again?”

  Liv frowned and consulted the schedule. It was a quiet day in the Med Center and nobody much was around. Which meant there were fewer people who might tell on her for bending the rules. She hadn’t been a full-fledged doctor for long, which meant she was being careful to walk the straight and narrow. But in this case, she thought it was time to make an exception.

  Poor Caroline had been coming to the med center every day for two weeks and every day Richard had refused to even see her. Liv had watched as the repeated refusals and rejections ate away at the other woman’s self esteem—watched as her face fell every time she was turned away. Clearly she felt a deep connection with the big Blood Kindred—and just as clearly he felt nothing for her.

  Or that was what he wanted to believe.

  Liv had even tried speaking to him herself on Caroline’s behalf. But Richard was a deeply private (and deeply stubborn) person. All his loyalty and love had been given to the other Caroline and he appeared to have no interest in forming a relationship with anyone else.

  Just yesterday, Liv had finally lost her temper with him.

  “I can’t believe you won’t even talk with her,” she’d said, glaring at her patient, who was propped up in his bed and reading up on modern Kindred medical techniques—a subject which apparently interested him much more than the fact that there was a woman who loved him desperately just outside the door, wanting to speak with him.

  “I am sorry,” Richard had said stiffly, sounding not a bit repentant. “But I think it’s best if I and the imposter keep our distance. She has taken advantage of my gullibility once—I have no intention of allowing such a thing to happen again.”

  “She’s not the imposter in this world,” Liv had snapped, completely at the end of her patience. “You are. And maybe you ought to think what it was like for her, trying to survive in your crazy, mixed-up universe and realize you are not the wronged party here, Richard!”

  “I’m certain it was…difficult for her.” He had frowned sternly. “And for that, she has my sympathies. But I regret that I can extend no other emotion to her. Which is why I refuse to see her—it’s best that she not be given false hope, as I was given it.”

  “You’re a liar,” Liv had accused him. “You’re lying to me right now about feeling nothing but sympathy for Caroline. And worse—you’re lying to yourself. Lying so well you actually believe it.”

  “I beg your pardon?” He had looked deeply offended—not surprising since up until then, Liv had been doing her level best to be completely professional with him, despite the way his treatment of Caroline irritated her. To have her lose it like this was probably blowing his mind—but at that point, she didn’t care.

  “It’s not my pardon you need to beg,” Liv had snapped. “And I think you need to ask yourself something, Richard—are you avoiding Caroline because you truly feel nothing for her—or because you’re afraid you might if you only gave yourself a chance?”

  Then she had stormed out of the room and asked another doctor to check him for evening rounds. She couldn’t bear to be in the same room with anyone who was being so irritatingly stubborn and willfully blind. But now she decided she could see him one more time—and give Caroline a chance to see him too, despite his wishes not to see her.

  After all, Caroline hadn’t hurt or assaulted him in any way. S