Got A Hold On You (Ringside Romance) by Pat White Read Free Book Online

fingers and Bill Billings rushed
forward with a garment bag.
    “We thought you might need your clothes,” Uncle Joe
said with an apologetic smile.
    She snatched the bag from Bill’s hand. “I can’t do
this tonight.”
    “Strike while the iron’s hot, my dear.” Uncle Joe led
her into the hospital and down the hall to the bathroom. “Hudson needs money
and we need Hudson. It’s a match made in Heaven.”
    “More like Hell.”
    “Think positive, Frankie, positive.”
    “I’m positively never going to forgive you.”
    “Of course not. Now go change before you get arrested
for exposing yourself.”
    She swung the bathroom door open and dropped the bag
on the counter. Ripping open the zipper, she glanced at her reflection in the
mirror above the sink. Black mascara smudged her eyes, and her red-streaked
hair stuck out in twenty-five different directions.
    With her usual efficiency, she went to work washing
the war paint off her face and rinsing the temporary color from her hair. She
wound her wet, shoulder-length hair into a conservative bun, brushed her
eyelashes with a quick stroke of mascara, and drew a thin line of “Perfect
Peach” gloss across her lips. Uncle Joe brought the navy suit she’d worn
earlier, along with her half-inch pumps and tortoiseshell glasses. This felt
better, much better. A crisp cotton blouse, wool-blend suit and practical pumps
would make everything right. She removed the uncomfortable contact lenses and
placed the glasses on the bridge of her nose. Everything was almost back to
normal.
    Almost.
    She shoved all evidence of tonight’s fiasco into the
garment bag and zipped it shut. Glancing into the mirror, she studied her pale
but passable reflection. She might not be ready for a boardroom, but she looked
good enough to negotiate with a barbaric wrestler. She flung the door open and
spotted Uncle Joe hovering a few feet away.
    “Afraid I’d sneak off?” She shoved the bag at him.
“Burn it.”
    With a brisk business stride, she aimed for the
admitting clerk’s desk. “Black Jack Hudson, please.”
    The middle-aged woman eyed Frankie over her reading
glasses. “Black who?”
    “Jack Hudson. He was just brought in.”
    The clerk leafed through a stack of papers. “Here we
go. Jack Hudson. Head trauma. He was unconscious when they brought him in.”
    “Unconscious?” Her stomach flipped.
    The door to the examining area swung open and the
paramedic who’d attended Jack walked out.
    “Excuse me. Weren’t you the one that treated Jack
Hudson?” Frankie asked.
    “Yes, ma’am.” He eyed her with suspicion, not
recognizing her as the feline femme fatale he’d kicked out of the ambulance.
    “He’s okay, right?” she asked.
    “Doctors are with him now.”
    “But it’s not serious, is it?”
    “Can’t say, ma’am. One minute he was lucid, ranting
about a crazy woman who tried to smash his skull. The next he was out cold.”
    The paramedic brushed past her, leaving her stunned.
She stared at the door to the examining area. No, she couldn’t have hurt him
that badly. She wasn’t that strong or willful or malicious.
    “Guess you hit him harder than you thought,” Uncle Joe
said.
    A nurse swung open the door and Frankie seized the
opportunity to prove them all wrong and ease her conscience. With a deep breath
she slipped into the examining area unnoticed. The door clicked shut behind her
and she aimed for the nurse’s station.
    “Jack Hudson?” she said, her voice sounding not at all
like her own.
    “And you are?” The nurse glanced up from a chart.
    “His wife.” Great, first assault and battery, and now
she was impersonating a wife. She was sure to burn in Hell.
    “Number four.” The nurse motioned toward a row of
examining areas sectioned off by curtains.
    Inhaling the scent of rubbing alcohol, she ambled
across the examining area and touched the coarse white fabric, listening for
sound of a doctor performing an exam. When she heard nothing, she pushed