The Penalty Box by Deirdre Martin Page B

a cut to his scalp. Katie wondered if he’d been trying to commit suicide. If so, she sure wished he’d picked someone else’s car to hurl himself in front of.
    â€œI saw the whole thing!” a young woman pushing a stroller called breathlessly from the curb. “He wasn’t even looking where he was going!”
    Katie barely heard; her eyes remained riveted on Paul. He seemed intact, but you never knew. What if he was bleeding internally, his life slowly slipping away, the same way hers would when she was on trial for vehicular manslaughter? Oh God. Tearing off the silk scarf around her neck, she pressed it to his bleeding head. Paul groaned, opening his eyes briefly before closing them again.
    â€œDo you have a cell phone?” Katie called to the woman. The woman nodded. “Could you call an ambulance?”
    â€œNo.” Paul groaned. “No ambulance.”
    He was sprawled in the middle of Main Street like a limp rag doll, but that didn’t stop him from trying to call the shots, Katie noticed.
    â€œNo ambulance,” he repeated more forcefully.
    By now, a small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, murmuring, “That’s Paul van Dorn!” Thankfully, the observation wasn’t followed with, “He was just mowed down by Katie Fisher.”
    Katie put her face close to his. “Paul?”
    â€œKatie?” He looked up at her woozily. “What are you doing here?”
    â€œThat was my bumper you just tried to kiss.”
    Paul chuckled, then grimaced. Clearly, laughing hurt. “Getting revenge for high school, huh?”
    â€œActually, I thought you were trying to end it all.”
    â€œBelieve me, if that was the case there are a lot more pleasant ways to go about it.”
    â€œSuch as—?”
    â€œA hotel room, two hookers, some downers and a bottle of Jack Daniels.”
    â€œNice to see you’ve put some thought into it,” Katie said dryly. As he struggled to push himself up on his elbows, she said, “What are you doing? Don’t move!”
    Paul rolled his eyes. “Katie, listen to me.” He gently removed her hand from his head, replacing it with his own. “I don’t need an ambulance.”
    â€œYou don’t know that.”
    â€œI do know that. Believe me, I’ve had worse knocks than this out on the ice.”
    â€œYou could be bleeding internally. You could be concussed from hitting your head on the pavement. You don’t know.”
    â€œOkay, look.” Paul continued pressing the scarf to his head. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can drive me over to the emergency room, okay? But there’s no need to trouble EMS. Agreed?”
    Katie mulled this over. He was sitting up and talking. Then again, what if she agreed and he died in her car? Would she be liable?
    â€œKatie?”
    â€œOkay, I’ll drive you over to the hospital. You’ll need stitches to the head, at the very least.”
    Paul pulled the scarf away and pressed his fingers to the cut on his head. “It’s nothing. A scrape.” He wiped his bloody fingers on his T-shirt.
    â€œC’mon, macho man, let’s get you in the car.”
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    â€œWell?”
    Katie leapt out of her butt-torturing chair the minute Paul reentered the emergency room waiting area. She’d read every outdated issue of Woman’s Day and had memorized all the top stories on Headline News while she waited for the doctors to release him. It didn’t help that the woman sitting next to her kept groaning with a stomachache.
    Paul was a sight. Blood smeared his running clothes, and his face remained pale. A small patch of his head had been shaved and covered with a gauze bandage.
    â€œFour stitches,” he told her. “No biggie.”
    Katie felt awful. “That’s it? Are you sure?”
    He shrugged. “A few bruised ribs.”
    â€œNo concussion?”
    â€œI’m fine,”