Love on Call (13 page)

When his mouth touched her breasts again she felt her whole being turn to liquid. Brad carried her to the bed. Her body slid down until her feet touched the floor. Tiny electrical currents sparked her blood as she moved. Running her fingers inside his waistband, she pulled his shorts and underwear down in one movement. His body was powerful, dark and fully aroused. He was male, primitive, in the throes of mating, and he wanted
her.

Mallory flowed like the sea as he entered her, with rippling tides and rushing waves. Pleasure drenched her like crashing surf on the beach. The two of them swam in their own private ocean, a place inhabited by no one else. Mallory couldn't believe the freedom she felt. There would never be anyone else who could take her to this level of ecstasy except him. She closed her eyes and followed him. She absorbed the waves, loving the way they crashed into her, the way Brad's hands held her, supported her and loved her.

She was turning into pure sensation as he rode her, flew with her, took her to places neither had been before. It was wild, exhilarating and radiant. Mallory felt the burning, the liquefying of her body. She
hadn't thought it was possible to burn in water, but she burned for Brad. Being in love changed her perception of lovemaking. She wanted to give him all she had, every part of her—body, mind and soul. She told him so in a thousand ways. In the touch of her hands on his body, her lips on his, the way her thighs gripped him. Only in words did she not say it. But the cry of release that was forced from her throat as they both reached the pinnacle expressed all she was feeling.

Together they collapsed onto the bed, sated, out of breath, satisfied. Mallory couldn't speak for fear she'd say the words or cry out again. Neither was the right reaction. So she encircled him with her arms and ran her hands over his naked skin.

B
rad recognized experience when he heard it. And Mallory's speech revealed someone who'd been there. He sat in the darkened amphitheater listening to her present her paper on coma patients and their treatment and healing. She'd co-authored the paper with Dr. Holt Carter.

When Mallory first came to Philadelphia General she'd been assigned to the coma wing. Holt's report said she'd showed great promise and a keen interest in the field of neurology. At the last minute he hadn't been able to attend the conference, and Mallory had to give the presentation alone. It was highly unusual for a first-year resident to do so, but she looked relaxed and at ease. She had that ability, but underneath Brad knew a cauldron bubbled inside her. They'd
made love throughout the afternoon yesterday. He couldn't get enough of her no matter how hard he tried. Mallory Russell had something that complemented him body and soul, and each time they made love it was an electrifying experience.

He pulled his mind back to the room and her presence at the podium. She wasn't repeating things she'd heard or read. Her words were original, taking him inside the mind. This woman had known the comatose state from inside, from the place where life hangs in the delicate balance between being alive and being dead.

When had that happened, and why had he never known about it? Had he been so wrapped up in his own problems that he hadn't been able to see anyone else's? Brad was attuned to a lot of things about Mallory.
He
changed whenever she entered a room. She didn't have to do anything, just be there, and she became the focus of his thoughts. So how had he missed this?

The audience was applauding. Brad joined them.

“Thank you, Doctor.” The afternoon's moderator was speaking from a microphone on the other side of the stage. “I'm sure all the doctors have learned a lot from your presentation.” Brad shifted his attention to the audience. “If there are any questions, we have a few minutes.”

The question-and-answer period was very lively. Brad sat forward in his seat, which was situated in the last row of the amphitheater. Mallory couldn't see how intensely he concentrated on her.

After ten minutes the moderator broke in. “We have time for one more question.”

There was one Brad was burning to ask. He couldn't decide whether to wait until they were alone or ask it in front of the forum. Other hands were already in the air. Deciding his query would give greater credibility to her presentation, he called, “I have a question.”

The moderator looked up, squinting toward the back. Brad stood up and stepped into the aisle. He walked down two steps until he stood under one of the few lights left on for emergency purposes.

“Yes, Dr. Clayton.”

As Brad formulated his question, he realized there had to be volumes about Mallory Russell he didn't know. More surprising was how much he wanted to discover it all. She fascinated him. Every time he heard her speak or saw her in a hospital corridor, he wanted to know what she was thinking, what secrets she harbored.

“Dr. Russell, your paper points out not only the neurological areas of the brain common to coma patients, but also some insights into the psychological effects on the body and well-being of the patient.”

Mallory nodded. “Yes, it does.”

“It would seem to me that you could only speak of this from personal experience. Were you ever in a coma, Dr. Russell?”

Many people in the room gasped. Brad felt as if he'd confronted her with being a prostitute or beating children, something criminal and unacceptable.

Mallory stood her ground, unflinching. She waited for the rustle of movement to subside, then she spoke directly into the microphone, her voice strong and sure. “I was in a coma for two years.”

The room was quiet for a long moment. Then someone stated, “So, Dr. Russell, these are not only your observations, but a personal account?”

“Yes.”

The lecture broke up then and immediately Mallory was surrounded by doctors asking questions. Brad got close enough to hear them complimenting her on her lecture and asking if they could consult on her findings. One doctor asked if she would be willing to join his hospital's team.

Brad had achieved the desired result for her, but he wondered if it was in fact the right thing to do. He didn't want Mallory to leave or to be angry at him. When he finally caught her eye, those dark orbs bored into him like the point of a diamond drill.

 

Anger burned in Mallory as she stepped off the elevator on the fifteenth floor. She walked to her room, stomping along the plush carpeting. She closed and locked her door, then got her suitcase out of the closet and threw it on the bed. She was leaving Texas as soon as possible.

“Mallory.”

She whirled around. Brad stood in the connecting doorway.

“You've got a lot of nerve,” she said. “What were you trying to do?”

“I was trying to help you.”

“Well, I don't want your kind of help. I authored that paper without you, and if I wanted the world to know I'd been in a coma, I wouldn't need you to stand up and ask the question.”

“It gave validity to the paper. Look at what happened after the lecture.”

She scooped up clothes from a drawer and put them in the suitcase. “How do you know that wouldn't have happened anyway? It was a good paper, a damn good paper, and I didn't need to open an artery to make it work.”

Mallory skittered about the room, gathering jewelry and shoes, pulling slacks and blouses off of hangers.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing that concerns you, and I'd appreciate it if you'd leave my room.”

“Mallory, why are you so upset?”

She stopped and stared at him. “Suppose it was your lecture and I stood up and asked how many kids you'd stalked in abandoned buildings and down alleyways.”

“That's not the same thing and you know it.” She could both feel and see the stiffness in him.

“You're right. It isn't the same. It's what you do, and you have a good reason for doing it. Don't you think I have a good reason for doing what I do?”

“You mean for breaking in and out of the hospital many nights to talk to coma patients?”

She felt the color drain from her face. Her entire
body tingled as if there was an electrical field surrounding it, ready to shock her.

“You know?”

“That you're the ghost?” He nodded.

Mallory snapped out of her frozen state and started moving again, this time even faster. She wanted to get away from Brad, away from Texas.

“Stop, Mallory.” He started toward her, and she shrank back toward the wall. “I won't stop you from leaving. Just talk to me. Tell me why you secretly go into the coma wing.”

“No,” she said. “You never talk to anyone. You keep your feelings bottled up inside you, making everyone jump as your moods come and go. Well, it doesn't work on me. You told me once you didn't want anything but a professional relationship. I'm sorry the rules were broken yesterday. It won't happen again. I'm leaving Texas and as soon as I get back to the hospital I'm asking for a transfer.” She pulled the business cards she'd collected out of her pocket and dropped them onto the pile of clothes in her suitcase.

Brad looked at them, then moved so fast she didn't have time to react before his hands had pulled her into contact with his body. “This is a rash decision,” he stated.

“It may be rash, but it's mine.” She yanked her arms free of his hold.

Brad sighed. “I apologize,” he said. “My intention was to help you, not anger you.”

Mallory moved away from him. He was too pow
erful when he was close. He had a greater power over her than he knew, and she didn't want that revealed along with her identity as the ghost. Going into the bathroom, she checked that she'd retrieved everything. “Well, you should have checked with me first.”

“Please stand still and talk to me,” Brad said.

Mallory dumped the things she'd gathered on the bed and turned to face him.

“Can't we sit down and talk about this?” he asked.

“Brad, I don't want to hear what you have to say. I'm leaving.”

“You're running.”

“Okay, I'm running.”

“Why?” His voice was so soft she barely heard it.

Because I'm scared, too.
She was afraid of him, afraid falling in love would change everything. She could no longer be the doctor she wanted to be. And he wasn't the man she wanted to fall for. But life didn't give her the choice.

She felt Brad's arms go around her waist and she leaned into him. “I never meant to do anything but help you,” he whispered into her hair. “I would never hurt you.”

It was too late, Mallory thought. She was already hurt.

“Please don't go.” His hands combed through her tresses. “I need you to stay. I want you to stay.”

 

Night had fallen. Windows in various offices across from the hotel were lit up, part of the glittering city
scape before them. Brad and Mallory occupied her bed, along with her open suitcase and the collection of items she'd dropped there in her haste to pack and leave. She hadn't left. Brad had stopped her. They sat up against the pillows, holding each other and watching the windows. They hadn't made love. They had talked, not about the day, but about everything else.

Finally Brad shifted, aligning himself against her. “Tell me about the coma.”

Mallory knew he wanted to hear about it. Tonight, it seemed, he wanted an account of her entire life, minute by minute.

“It was an accident. I was seventeen and angry with my parents. I wanted to go to the movies. It was opening day for a popular film and all of my friends were going. My parents insisted that I go with them to my father's company picnic. On the way we had an accident. My parents were killed. My sister was put into foster care. I hadn't been wearing my seat belt and I suffered a head injury that sent me into a coma.”

She remembered those days. They were painless, and she could still recall the floating feeling that she was someplace safe, inside a warm, moist holding place. She'd had no desire to leave it or to find out what it was. It was just a nice, pleasant place where there was nothing to worry about.

“Then the voice came.”

“What voice?”

“I don't know. It was a woman's voice, soft, melodic, soothing. She talked to me. I couldn't hear any
words at first, at least none that I remember. There was a sense of time passing, although—”

“Time passing?” he interrupted. “Coma patients don't—”

“You're being a doctor,” she stated, cutting him off. “Coma patients are aware of time, although not the same way conscious people are aware of it, in hours and minutes. It's daylight and darkness that defines time passing.”

“You knew there were days and nights?”

She nodded, but realized he couldn't see her. The sun had set and the room was dark. “I was aware.” She went on with her story. “I couldn't distinguish single days or know how often the voice came, but there was a regularity to it. I could sense she would be there and I looked forward to hearing her.”

“Did she come for the entire two years?”

“I believe so. I don't know how long I'd been in the coma before I heard her voice. But once I heard it, she continued to come and talk to me.”

“When did you recognize words?”

“You don't recognize words until you wake up. When I woke up I remembered her like a dream. Someone would say something to me and it would trigger the memory.”

“Didn't you ever ask who she was?”

“No one knew. She was like a ghost.”

“And that's why you do what you do now?”

“There are worse things I could do,” she told him.

“I didn't mean—”

“I know,” she interrupted. “The people I talk to
are like the children you save. They have no one else. No visitors come to see them. Nurses and doctors monitor their vitals, but there's no caring, no one to touch their hand.” She reached over and took Brad's hand as if to demonstrate. “Or caress their face. They're in a void, and all they need is a voice to help them return.”

“Why do you keep it secret?”

“It affords me freedom. I don't have to answer to anyone. There are no statistics. No one is monitoring the number of patients who wake up versus those who don't.”

“But they are. The hospital knows. The nurses talk about it every time one wakes up or someone dies. You appear to be providing a valuable, life-affirming service.”

“I don't need accolades, and I don't need people looking over my shoulder. I do it for the patients and no one else.”

“You surprise me all the time,” Brad murmured. “Anyone else would want to make front-page news. You're content to stand in the background and do what you think is right.”

Mallory smiled to herself. He got it! She was glad it was dark in the room, although the glow coming from her could probably light several candles.

Brad was quiet for a while, the two of them lying side by side, taking in the twinkling lights of the city. Mallory felt this was as close as she would get to paradise. She slipped her arm around Brad's middle. She'd been so angry with him earlier, but if she was
honest with herself, she'd have to admit his question had probably helped her presentation. The audience had taken her paper seriously enough, but the addition of a personal connection to the psychology of coma patients turned a corner for her with the doctors in residence.

“Brad,” she said, “I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“For this afternoon. My anger. You were trying to help me. I understand that now. It's just that I'm not that forthcoming with my private life and…”

“I know.” He didn't let her finish. “Until that day in the emergency room, few people had ever noticed you. Only Dana knew anything about you. Then they went overboard. I admit I did, too.”