The Huntress: full-length sexy romantic suspense by Dorothy McFalls Read Free Book Online

close. His face blurred as Vega’s eyesight struggled to keep up.
    She glanced around the room, a rather modern hospital room. Slowly, as if on a shaky foundation, her memory returned.
    “Walker?” She bolted up. Pains sparked both in her arm and in the back of her head. She sank back onto the bed.
    “He’s long gone by now.” Jack shook his head and looked damned guilty about something.
    She didn’t have it in her mind to question him, not while her eyesight still insisted on swimming in and out of focus.
    “Merry Christmas,” a new voice sang out. “I see our Jane Doe is awake.”
    A female doctor sauntered into the room. A green elf hat perched on the top of her head. She flicked on the overhead fluorescent lights. The hospital room glowed stark and bright, feeling painfully sharp to Vega’s sensitive head.
    “I’ll need to update your name on this,” the doctor said. She pulled a metal-encased file from the hook at the end of the bed, flipped it open, and clicked a ballpoint pen three times before scribbling something into the file. “Sheriff Townsend contacted me this morning, letting me know who you were. We don’t get many Jane Doe’s around here. You sure stirred up a bit of excitement in town. I’m Dr. Jane Kilpatrick, by the way.”
    Jack stepped back and gave Dr. Kilpatrick room to roll a stool up beside the bed. They murmured greetings in a manner that told Vega the two had already met—which didn’t surprise Vega. Jack probably raised quite a fuss the moment he stepped into the hospital. His fuss-raising ability was legendary, especially when one of his hunters was in need.
    Dr. Kilpatrick wasted no time before shining a viciously bright penlight into her eyes. “Good, good.” She checked the huge lump on her head and probed the gunshot wound paining her shoulder.
    Vega tried to lay still, passive, breathing deeply while she let the doctor do her job.
    “What? No questions about whether I’d be called away to birth one of the farmer’s cows?”
    Cows? She didn’t know the first thing about cows.
    Dr. Kilpatrick laughed. “This one sure went on and on last night, convinced I was the town veterinarian,” she explained to Jack. Vega didn’t remember any of that. “I’m not a veterinarian. I’m a fully qualified M.D. I can show you my diploma if you’d like.”
    Vega blushed. “No…I believe you.”
    Dr. Kilpatrick laughed again and pushed back from the bed. “You lucked out with the bullet wound. Only minimal tissue damage. You have a pretty good concussion from that blow to the head. We were worried about that lump back there most of the night, but I think we can breathe easy now. You look good, considering.”
    Vega listened, half-dazed as Dr. Kilpatrick and Jack continued to discuss her health.
    “Jane Doe?” she asked, cursing her mind’s snail-pace. “Why call me Jane Doe?”
    Dr. Kilpatrick frowned for a moment. “Well, yes,” she said. “You came in without any identification.”
    “I had called Sheriff Townsend, an old friend,” Jack explained. “Warned him you’d be in town on a job. When a Jane Doe showed up at the hospital, he contacted me.”
    “Jack.” Vega shook her head and immediately regretted it. “I believe you must have an old friend in every police department across this country.”
    Jack scratched his stubbly chin. “I suppose I do.” He turned back to the doctor and laid on his charm. The old dog, he was flirting with her. “When can I get Vega on a plane back home to Detroit?” he asked after smearing Dr. Jane Kilpatrick with a healthy serving of compliments.
    “Wait just one minute,” Vega said while struggling to push herself up. “I’m not going anywhere…not without Grayson Walker chained to my arm.”
    Both the doctor and Jack gave Vega a look that made her wonder if she was about to be told she had no more than six months to live.
    “Don’t pursue this one, Vega. Go home. Heal. Perhaps even find a nice stable man to marry, and