Fortune (3 page)

She looked away again. “I smile when I feel like it.”

The timeless dance of flirtation and rebuttal. She looked like she would gladly toss him over the balcony if she could.

“You know what, Kat? I think you’re a very pretty girl.”

She snorted. “That’s the greatest line I’ve ever heard. Seriously. Only a brain surgeon could come up with something so original.”

“You don’t believe I’m really a brain surgeon?”

“Let me put it this way. I wouldn’t have a lot of respect for a brain surgeon who hung out in a crap club like this every weekend.”

“You hang out here.”

“Don’t remind me.”

He could have pulled out his medical ID and showed it to her, but he was so used to girls going all weak at the knees because of his career that he kind of enjoyed the novelty of her disregard.

“So I guess the next question is obvious,” he said. “Why do you hang out here if you hate it so much?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I would love to answer that question for you but I don’t really know.”

“Which points at a rather alarming level of non-self-awareness.”

“Non-self-awareness? Is that even a word?”

“I know a lot of large and exotic words, being a brain surgeon.”

She rolled her eyes. “I think I’m going to go dance.”

He laughed as she pushed away from the railing and made her way through groups of people to the stairs. She was a little sassafras, that was for sure. He watched her squeeze between two gabbing club girls and extricate herself from a groping drunk guy. He was just thinking how disappointed he was that he wasn’t going to talk to her again when he saw her fall off balance. She teetered just a moment and then tumbled down the stairs.

It was like slow motion. He saw every contact with the hard concrete, calculating possible bodily damage.
Ouch, her shoulder…her hip.
She almost righted herself, but then flipped around and fell backward hard, her head hitting the metal edge of the last stair. He was already halfway down behind her, pushing people out of the way.

As he bent over her, she looked up at him, pained and confused. Behind her head, he could already see the blood. Head injuries bled copiously, he knew, so he tried not to panic. He attempted to check her limbs without moving her, wary of spinal damage, but she struggled to sit up.

“Just lie still,” he said. “Don’t try to move yet.” He pushed her back down as forcefully as he dared. Kevin, one of the bouncers, looked over his shoulder.

“She’s bleeding all over the place.”

“Yeah, that happens when people crack their heads open. Can’t you move these gawkers away from here?” Ryan asked, gesturing around.

The bouncers began cordoning off the stairs like some kind of crime scene. One of them handed him a pair of gloves. Ryan pressed his hand hard against the wound on the back of her scalp.

“Ouch,” she moaned.

“Just be still. What hurts?”

“Everything.” But she moved her arms and legs enough to reassure him her spine was okay. He scowled up at the ocean of drunk partygoers around them, noticing guys leering at her.
Bloody chick, cool.
Idiots. He pushed down her skirt so they couldn’t look up her dress. Stupid, worrying about them gawking at her panties at a time like this. He leaned over her, pressing on the gash, worrying about brain injuries and skull fractures.

“Let me up,” she muttered, pushing at his hands.

“I would prefer not to until I know the bleeding has stopped.”

“I’m still bleeding?”

“Like a fountain. Now be still until the ambulance gets here.”

“Who called an ambulance? I can’t afford an ambulance.”

“The club will cover it. Head and neck injuries are nothing to take chances with. Now hush and lie still.”

“You know I… I really don’t do well with blood…and needles…”

“You’re going to need stitches for a start. And if there’s any cranial bleeding—”

She made a sound halfway between a protest and a plea and promptly passed out.

* * * * *

The first thing Kat saw when she came awake was the jumbled collection of origami figures on the tray beside her. At first she thought it was crumpled scraps of newspaper. Her eyes focused, her mind still fuzzy.
Not scraps. Origami. That’s strange.
She turned with a start to find a familiar set of dark eyes looking at her, then back down at her chart. The man from Masquerade was standing at the foot of her bed in a white lab coat.
Shit.

“So you really are a doctor.”

“I don’t lie, Ekaterina. Ever. Yes, I am a doctor. A surgeon, actually, but let’s not quibble over terms.”

Ekaterina.
He knew her full name now, and god knew what else and he was looking down at her in full asshole-doctor mode. What the hell was his name again? Brian? Ryan? She gestured to her chart. “Why are you looking at that? That’s my private information.”

“I’m the neuro specialist on call this morning, so for the moment you’re my patient. Dr. Ryan McCarthy,” he said, flashing his badge at her before sitting down on the edge of the bed. Kat was mortified to think how awful she probably looked. It was impossible to meet his eyes now, with his scrubs and the lanyard of medical IDs around his neck and that curt, bedside-manner way he spoke to her. “How are you feeling?” he asked. He reached out and she thought he meant to hold her hand but he took her wrist instead and pressed his forefinger to her pulse.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Six in the morning. I just came on shift.”

“But you were here last night with me.”

“Yes.”

“When do you sleep?”

“How are you feeling?” he repeated with an edge of impatience.

“Horrible.” The back of her head ached like hellfire. She reached up behind her, remembering her fall and the bleeding.

“Don’t touch.” His voice arrested her. “You’re bandaged up pretty good.”

“Am I bald in the back now?”

He laughed with that easy, white-toothed smile she remembered. “They don’t normally shave patients bald just to put in a few stitches. Most of your hair is still there.”

She vaguely remembered that now, the stitches, the scans of her brain. IVs and ambulance lights and people shining flashlights in her eyes. He made some notes in her chart. “What are you writing?” she asked suspiciously.

“That you’re making conversation and seem relatively alert this morning.”

“Oh.”

“How does your head feel? Sore, achy? Any sharp pain?”

“Just…sore. Woozy.”

“They sedated you last night. You really don’t do well with medical procedures.”

She grimaced. “I never have.”

“No big deal. At least you slept well. How’s your vision?”

She shrugged, watching the way his fingers toyed with the pen in his hand, flipping it around in a circle. Dark tufts of hair on tan knuckles. Big, big fingers.
Jesus, Kat. Just chill.
“My vision is fine. So will I live?”

“I sincerely hope so. At least try not to die on my shift. They frown on that.”

He pulled a small penlight out of his pocket and turned it on, then took her chin between those big fingers and leaned close, shining it into her eyes. She stared forward, trying not to think about the subtle pressure of his thumb and forefinger, or how near he was to her. Or how shivery both those things made her feel. Good lord, she’d bled all over him last night, whined about the procedures and needles. She’d probably even cried at some point. It’s not like he would feel any attraction to her now, whether he’d flirted with her at Masquerade or not. Had that been just last night that he’d smiled and flirted with her? Just last night that she’d gone pitching down the stairs like a total idiot? It seemed a world away now.

He pulled back, made more notes, all businesslike doctor. Some part of her wanted him to smile that big smile at her again, to acknowledge her as more than his patient, but he was all serious and professional.

“Your brain scans and x-rays look good. They’ll do another set this afternoon and then tomorrow morning, and provided they look the same, they’ll probably let you go home. Your mother will be happy to hear it. She was a little upset last night.”

Kat caught her breath. “A little upset?”

“They almost had to call security.”

As if on cue, her mama swept into the room, waving her arms around in wide, dramatic gestures and yelling at the top of her lungs. Four of Kat’s sisters pushed into the room too and Ryan stepped back from the bed as they crowded around Kat.

“Katyusha! You crazy girl!” her mother shrieked, then turned and glared at Ryan. He was a pretty big man and pretty well built, but he backed away from her. Most men did. “You are still here?”

“I actually work here, Mrs. Argounov.”

Her mother’s gaze fell on the pile of origami figures before fixing back on the man in the white coat.

“What is your name, you? Your name is?”

“Ryan. Dr. Ryan McCarthy.”

“Doctor? So you are her doctor now?” Her mother had a thick Russian accent, so it sounded like
duk-ter
.

“I’m a surgeon, actually.”

Mama clutched her chest. “She had surgery? When did this happen? I knew I should never have left you here. My poor baby.”

Kat suffered her mother’s smothering hug while Ryan watched with a faint grin.

“No. Well, she didn’t actually have any surgeries, Mrs. Argounova. I’m just here as a consult.”

“A consult? What does this mean?”

“Mama, he’s helping me,” Kat interjected. “Just back off with the questions. I’m fine.”

Her mother glanced over at her, then back at the man across from her, studying him with an unfathomable look in her eye.

“Mama,” Kat warned in a low voice. She didn’t want her doing any of her weird perceptive nonsense. Not here, not now.

“Dr. Ryan McCarthy, you have my many thanks,” her mama finally managed. But she still looked at him for an unnaturally long time, long past the time she should have looked away. Then she extended one plump hand. “Please, call me Elena. You and my daughter are friends?”

He and Kat looked at each other. “No. Well—” Kat said, as Ryan said, “Yes.”

“And you are good
duk-ter
? You take excellent care of her?”

“I’ll do my best. But I do have a surgery to prepare for now, so I’d better go.”

“Yes, you must go.” Her mother nodded as if it had been her own brilliant idea, although Kat could tell he was dying to get out of there. “You go and do surgeries, yes. Many blessings on your head.”

Ryan took one last look at Kat and left, brushing by her sisters. She wondered if she’d ever see him again. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to or not. Her mother watched him go too, then turned to Kat, hugging her close, clucking over the bandage around her head.

“My baby girl. You see, this going out, dancing, partying all night. When they call last night, I drive here expecting the worst.
Gospodi
, a call from the hospital! I didn’t tell your father. It will kill him with worry.”

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

“When will you outgrow this nonsense? It is time to grow up now into lady. You must find a good man and settle down. What about this
duk-ter
? He is your friend?”

“He’s just…some guy. I don’t know. I barely know him.”

“One of your, how do they say, ‘man sluts’—”

“Mama, please.”

“I am only saying he is handsome,
duk-ter
, probably rich man. Maybe you get to know him better,
zaika
.”

“Life is not all about bagging a rich man, Mama.”

“I didn’t ever say rich man was all in life. I never did. Is your father a rich man? Not so much. What is important is to find a man who makes you happy. You, girl. You run around, you wear your short skirts and clonky shoes and your hair…” Elena sighed, lifting a tangled mass of Kat’s curly locks from beneath the bandage.

Kat pulled away. “I got this tragic hair from you, you realize.”

“Don’t take that tone with me.” Her mother enfolded her in another smothering hug, pressing her to her ample chest. “Katyusha, my own. I only want you to be happy. It is my wish for you, my one wish. You know this.”

“Yes, Mama. I know. But it’s not that simple. I can’t just pretend to be happy, or bag some rich doctor and find happily ever after.”

“I know. You must find your way. You
will
find your way. I know this.” She pulled away and smiled down at Kat with a twinkle in her eye. “You know I do know,
zaika
.”

“Did your crystal ball tell you?”

“My heart tells me, you impossible brat. Now you rest. You get better, Katyusha mine.”

* * * * *

Later, after Ryan’s last surgery, he went to her floor and checked in at the nurses’ station. “Ekaterina Argounov,” he said, repeating the exotic name he’d learned from her chart. She had pronounced her mother’s name “ma
ma
,” with the accent on the second syllable. Her ethnicity fascinated him, like everything else about her.