Tangled Web by CATHY GILLEN THACKER

spread over the pillow in a halo of dark silk.
    At first glance, he thought she was asleep and hence was loath to wake her. Sometimes sleep was the best remedy for the headache Carmelita had told him Hope had. But as he neared, she stirred slightly. She opened her eyes, and sent him a brief but dismissing look. He felt his muscles tighten protectively as he moved to her side and saw how fragile and truly ill she looked at close range.
    Carmelita had been right to get him. Hope might want to throw him out of her boudoir—he couldn’t blame her if she did—but dammit, she wasn’t going to manage it until he had tended to her and made sure she was all right.
    â€œChase,” Hope moaned softly, inhaling the rich familiar scent of his after-shave. His shape seemed blurry to her. “Go away.” She didn’t want him to see her like this. She didn’t want anyone to see her. “I can’t talk to you now.”
    Chase grinned knowingly. Another sign she was ill. Newly sick patients were notoriously cranky and often overemotional. “Thendon’t talk,” he advised softly, already slipping automatically into his physician’s mode.
    Methodically he let his glance scan over her from head to toe, taking in everything about her. Obviously she felt really sick, for Hope was still in the clothes she had worn to work. The short navy skirt brought out the blue of her eyes and the white silk blouse only served to enhance the creaminess of her fair skin. Her only effort to get comfortable, it seemed, had been to kick off her shoes; they were lying helter-skelter at the bottom of the bed. She’d also removed her longish navy suit jacket and tossed it down next to her on the enormous antique canopy bed. She was lying on top of the ruffled white coverlet rather than beneath it, and a soft white afghan was drawn up to her waist. She looked as pure and untouched as the new-fallen snow against all that white, but up close he could see her full mouth was bare and soft, but drawn taut. It appeared that even the slightest movement caused her an inordinate amount of pain and stress. Realizing this, a surge of compassion flowed through him. He hated seeing her so physically miserable. He kept his voice low and professionally pragmatic as he began to take a routine history of her illness so that he could assess her condition. “Carmelita said you sent her to pick up Joey at school,” he remarked casually. She had to have felt very ill to have delegated that, a chore she usually relished.
    Hope wet her lips and looked supremely irritated that he hadn’t left. Slowly she released a long, exasperated breath, then apparently realizing she wasn’t going to get rid of him until she cooperated, answered his question, “Yes,” she said, her voice laced with unexpressed pain. “I asked her to do that. Is that a crime?”
    No, Chase thought, but looking so beautiful was. Ignoring Hope’s grumpy manner, Chase set his medical bag down on the chair next to the bed. Although he didn’t often treat patients one-to-one anymore, he was licensed to do so. Carmelita had summoned him to discover if a call to Hope’s private physician was in order. Seeing the amount of distress Hope was in, evidenced as much by her immobility as her attitude, he wondered if maybe they should be considering the emergency room instead.
    â€œHas this ever happened before?” he asked gently. He was aware Hope was trying not to cry now that help had arrived and it was okay to surrender to the inevitable and admit that she was sick.
    â€œYes. I have a tendency to get migraines, but never this bad.” Her whispered admission ended on a groan. “And I really don’t feel like talking, Chase.”
    Again he refused to take the hint. “Double vision?”
    Hope pressed the heel of her hand between her eyes. “Yes,” she said, furious she couldn’t get rid of him as easily