Panic was white, Kate realized. White rooms and women in white uniforms. "You're not keeping me here."
"Just overnight," the doctor soothed. "It's not that I don't respect your boyfriend's diagnosis…"
"He's not my boyfriend."
"Well, I'd work on that if I were you, but in any case, he's not a doctor."
"His mother is. He talked to his mother on the way over. Ask him. I want you to get him back here. I want you to get him."
"All right. Try to calm down. I'll go talk to him. Just lie down here and try to relax." The doctor eased Kate's shoulders back.
Once she was alone, Kate struggled to breathe deeply, evenly. But terror was circling.
"Still arguing," Byron began when he stepped into the room.
Kate popped up like a spring. "I can't stay here." She snatched at his shirt front with trembling hands. "You have to get me out."
"Now, listen, Kate—"
"I can't stay here overnight. I can't spend the night in a hospital. I can't." Her voice lowered to a broken whisper. "My parents."
Confusion came first. Did she expect him to call the Templetons in France to back her up? Then he remembered—her own parents were dead. Had been killed in an accident. Hospital.
And he saw that what he had taken for pain and bad temper in her eyes was sheer terror.
"Okay, baby." To soothe her, he pressed his lips to her brow. "Don't worry. You're not going to stay."
"I can't." She felt her breath hitch, felt the simmering hysteria start its greasy rise.
"You won't. I promise." He cupped her face until her swimming eyes met his. "I promise, Kate. I'm going to talk to the doctor now, then I'll take you home."
Hysteria receded, replaced by trust. "All right. Okay." She closed her eyes. "All right."
"Just give me a minute." He stepped to the other side of the curtain with the doctor. "She's got a phobia. I didn't realize it."
"Look, Mr. De Witt, most people don't like spending time in hospitals. There are times I don't like it myself."
"I'm not talking about ordinary resistance." Frustrated, he dragged a hand through his hair. "That's all I thought it was. But it's a lot more. Listen, her parents were killed in some sort of accident when she was a kid. I don't know the details, but there must have been some hospital time. She's panicked at staying here, and she isn't the panicking type."
"She needs these tests," the doctor insisted.
"Dr… Hudd, is it? Dr. Hudd, she's got an ulcer. Textbook symptoms. We both know it."
"Because your mother said so?"
"My mother's chief of internal medicine at Atlanta General."
Hudd's brows shot up. "Dr. Margaret De Witt?" She sighed again. "Impressive. I've read a number of her papers. Though I tend to agree with her diagnosis, I'm sure she'd agree with my procedure. Signs point to a duodenum ulcer, but I can't discard other possibilities. These tests are standard."
"And if the patient is so distressed, emotionally wrecked, that the idea of the tests aggravates the preexisting condition?" He waited a beat. "Neither one of us is going to be able to force her to have them. She'll just walk out of here, go on popping Tums until she's got a hole in her stomach you could sink a putt through."
"No, I can't force her to have the tests," Hudd said irritably. "And I can give her medication, in exchange for a promise that she comes back as an outpatient for a barium X-ray if symptoms recur."
"I'll see that she does."
"You'd better. Her blood pressure's up, her weight's down. She's hoarding stress. I'd say she's got a breakdown on the boil."
"I'll take care of her."