"I don't believe you."
"You'll see. Now, do you want to tell me what happened? I have to write up a police report."
There was a long silence. "I was hit by a truck."
Dr. Keith Webster wondered again how anyone could have tried to destroy this fragile beauty, but he had long since given up pondering the vagaries of the human race and its capacity for cruelty. "I'll need a name," he said gently. "Who did it?"
"Mack."
"And the last name?"
"Truck."
Dr. Webster was puzzled by the conspiracy of silence. First John Harley, now Eve Blackwell.
"In cases of criminal assault," Keith Webster told Eve, "I'm required by law to file a police report."
Eve reached out for his hand and grasped it and held it tightly. "Please, if my grandmother or sister knew, it would kill them. If you tell the police...the newspapers will know. You mustn't...please..."
"I can't report it as a hit-and-run accident. Ladies don't usually run out in the street without any clothes on."
"Please!"
He looked down at her, and was filled with pity. "I suppose you could have tripped and fallen down the stairs of your home."
She squeezed his hand tighter. "That's exactly what happened..."
Dr. Webster sighed. "That's what I thought."
Dr. Keith Webster visited Eve every day after that, sometimes stopping by two or three times a day. He brought her flowers and small presents from the hospital gift shop. Each day Eve would ask him anxiously, "I just lie here all day. Why isn't anyone doing anything?"
"My partner's working on you," Dr. Webster told her.
"Your partner?"
"Mother Nature. Under all those frightening-looking bandages, you're healing beautifully."
Every few days he would remove the bandages and examine her.
"Let me have a mirror," Eve pleaded.
But his answer was always the same: "Not yet."
He was the only company Eve had, and she began to look forward to his visits. He was an unprepossessing man, small and thin, with sandy, sparse hair and myopic brown eyes that constantly blinked. He was shy in Eve's presence, and it amused her.
"Have you ever been married?" she asked.
"No."
"Why not?"
"I - I don't know. I guess I wouldn't make a very good husband. I'm on emergency call a lot."
"But you must have a girl friend."
He was actually blushing. "Well, you know..."
"Tell me," Eve teased him.
"I don't have a regular girl friend."
"I'll bet all the nurses are crazy about you."
"No. I'm afraid I'm not a very romantic kind of person."
To say the least, Eve thought. And yet, when she discussed Keith Webster with the nurses and interns who came in to perform various indignities on her body, they spoke of him as though he were some kind of god.
"The man is a miracle worker," one intern said. "There's nothing he can't do with a human face."
They told her about his work with deformed children and criminals, but when Eve asked Keith Webster about it, he dismissed the subject with, "Unfortunately, the world judges people by their looks. I try to help those who were born with physical deficiencies. It can make a big difference in their lives."
Eve was puzzled by him. He was not doing it for the money or the glory. He was totally selfless. She had never met anyone like him, and she wondered what motivated him. But it was an idle curiosity. She had no interest in Keith Webster, except for what he could do for her.
Fifteen days after Eve checked into the hospital, she was moved to a private clinic in upstate New York.
"You'll be more comfortable here," Dr. Webster assured her.
Eve knew it was much farther for him to travel to see her, and yet he still appeared every day.
"Don't you have any other patients?" Eve asked.
"Not like you."
Five weeks after Eve entered the clinic, Keith Webster removed the bandages. He turned her head from side to side. "Do you feel any pain?" he asked.
"No."
"Any tightness?"
"No."
Dr. Webster looked up at the nurse. "Bring Miss Blackwell a mirror."
Eve was filled with a sudden fear. For weeks she had been longing to look at herself in a mirror. Now that the moment was here, she was terrified. She wanted her own face, not the face of some stranger.
When Dr. Webster handed her the mirror, she said faintly, "I'm afraid - "
"Look at yourself," he said gently.
She raised the mirror slowly. It was a miracle! There was no change at all; it was her face. She searched for the signs of scars. There were none. Her eyes filled with tears.
She looked up and said, "Thank you," and reached out to give Keith Webster a kiss. It was meant to be a brief thank-you kiss, but she could feel his lips hungry on hers.
He pulled away, suddenly embarrassed. "I'm - I'm glad you're pleased," he said.
Pleased! "Everyone was right. You are a miracle worker."
He said shyly, "Look what I had to work with."
Chapter 31
George Mellis had been badly shaken by what had happened. He had come perilously close to destroying everything he wanted. George had not been fully aware before of how much the control of Kruger-Brent, Ltd., meant to him. He had been satisfied to live on gifts from lonely ladies, but he was married to a Blackwell now, and within his reach was a company larger than anything his father had ever conceived of. Look at me, Papa. I'm alive again. I own a company bigger than yours. It was no longer a game. He knew he would kill to get what he wanted.