“How is she?”
The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. But I heard it was a pretty bad crash. Head-on. That road she was on can be dangerous when it’s icy.”
Air whooshed out of his lungs. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. She was supposed to tell him that Dianna was all right, that she was the one in a million who walked away just fine. He’d tended to enough car crash survivors to know how bad her injuries probably were, that she was most likely fighting for her life that very second.
“I need to see her.”
The woman studied him more carefully, looking at his left hand again. “Are you her husband?”
“No.” Hell, no, he wasn’t her husband. That ship had sailed a long time ago.
“You’re not a reporter, are you?”
“No, I’m a firefighter.”
“Oh, that’s so much better,” she said with a smile. “We’ve been given express instructions not to let any more of the reporters past the front desk. They’re like vultures. It’s kind of creepy,” she said with a feigned shiver. “But firemen are always welcome here.”
She quirked her head to the side, even more flirtatious than she’d been at first. “So who are you?”
It was a good question. He wasn’t Dianna’s boyfriend. Wasn’t even a friend. And yet he’d flown all the way to Colorado to see her. Because he needed to see for himself that she was all right.
Sidestepping the woman’s question with a charming grin, he said, “Sam MacKenzie.”
Blushing furiously beneath his gaze, the woman immediately picked up the phone. “I’ll let Ms. Kelley’s nurse know that you’d like to pay her a visit.”
Dianna woke up to bright light bouncing off the framed picture of wildflowers on the wall across from her bed. She squinted out the window, surprised to see that the sun was already setting over the mountains, but glad to realize that she finally felt reasonably alert after dozing off and on all day while the sedatives they’d given her during the night slowly left her system.
Her heart squeezed as she recalled the conversation she’d had with the doctor that morning.
“Please,” she’d said, “I’d like to know if the people in the other car are okay.”
The doctor hadn’t taken her eyes off of her chart for a long moment. Too long. Something in the lines of her face had warned Dianna to prepare herself for bad news.
“I’m afraid the driver of the other vehicle died. There were no other passengers.”
Every time Dianna thought about it, she had to fight back a thick wave of nausea.
Why was she lucky enough to be alive when the other driver had died?
What had she done to deserve such luck?
And what was she supposed to do with this incredible second chance?
Her life was pretty simple, really. She loved her job, wished she had a better relationship with her sister, and hadn’t yet met the right man to settle down with. But even as she ran through the list, a voice in the back of her head told her she wasn’t being totally honest.
Later. She’d take a hard look at herself and her life. When she wasn’t so tired.
A nurse bustled into the hospital room and asked Dianna to try to sit up. Slowly shifting her weight with the woman’s assistance, she was extremely happy to note that the throbbing in the back of her skull didn’t get any worse.
She felt a little achy all over, kind of like when she had the flu, but apart from that she was surprised by how good she felt. Almost as if she’d simply had a little too much to drink the night before, rather than being rushed from a totaled car to the hospital in an ambulance.
Still, she didn’t really feel up to making small talk with the small, dark-haired woman who took her temperature and blood pressure, then tentatively asked for an autograph.
Knowing the past four years as host of West Coast Update had made her a bit of a celebrity, Dianna played her part as best she could. With her job, there was no downtime. She always had to be on. And even though she was in the hospital, she still felt that she had an image to uphold. People—including this nurse—expected to see the “perfect” Dianna Kelley. She didn’t want to disappoint them.
Not when she’d worked so hard to create that illusion.
As soon as the nurse closed the door behind her, Dianna pushed back the blanket and slowly swung her legs out over the edge of the bed.
So far, so good.
She slid her feet onto the floor and made sure to hold on to the side table as she stood up, just in case. Fortunately, she was only the slightest bit dizzy. Taking her large purse into the bathroom, she closed the door and stared at herself in the mirror.
She looked a sight!
For the past decade, she hadn’t let anyone see her looking less than her best. But as she stared into the mirror, she saw right through the successful twenty-eight-year-old woman to the confused eighteen-year-old girl whom she feared was never far below the surface.
In the small shower, she scrubbed her skin with the industrial pump soap by the sink. After drying off with a tiny, thin towel that was a far cry from the ultrasoft, oversized ones hanging in her bathroom at home, she stood naked in front of the mirror.
Looking at herself with a critical eye, she found herself wondering—not for the first time—how long it would be until she’d need to book an appointment with a plastic surgeon. Thus far, her br**sts and stomach and thighs were still okay, but okay wasn’t even close to good enough for TV.
She hated the thought of someone cutting her apart. Was there any other option? she wondered as she opened her makeup bag and brushed some color onto her pale skin. Could she grow old gracefully and not lose her viewership?
Not likely, she thought with a sigh. Not with a hundred—more like a thousand or more, actually—women waiting in the wings to take her place if she ever started slipping.
Giving silent thanks that the makeup artists she’d worked with over the years had taught her everything they knew about doing professional hair and makeup on her own, fifteen minutes later the face staring back at her looked like the woman everyone recognized from West Coast Update.
The paramedics had retrieved her luggage from the trunk of her rental car and she changed into a pale yellow, long-sleeved cashmere shirt and her favorite form-fitting jeans. As a finishing touch, she spritzed herself with a tiny travel bottle of her signature scent, which she’d found in a tiny town in the south of France.