The Baby Who Stole the Doctor's Heart (13 page)

“Well, I'm going to have a little chat with Scotty in a few
minutes. He's the one, by the way, who's not playing, like the rest of the children are doing.”

Angela looked over at the boy, who was sitting sullenly on a bench. “He won't exercise,” she said. “He sits out every single time. Refuses. Tells me I can't make him do it.”

“He's seven, and sedentary. And to be honest, I'm worried about him because his blood-sugar averages are too high, his blood pressure is elevated and all that is wreaking havoc with his body.”

“Which is why I assigned him to you.” she said, smiling. “Now, if you'll excuse me…” She took her own sled to the hill, laid down on it and rode the bumps all the way to the bottom. When she came to an inauspicious stop in a pile of snow, pretty much flat on her back, she looked back up to see if Mark was following her down. But he wasn't in sight. Not at the top, not at the bottom.

He'd gone to get Scotty. Maybe to have that chat, maybe to convince Scotty to sail down the hill just once. Whatever it was, he'd gone to get Scotty, and that was a good thing. Because the boy needed him. And Mark needed Scotty. “You'll find yourself,” she whispered. Truly, he really wasn't as far away as he thought. Maybe buried at the moment, but not really lost.

 

“What are you doing with Sarah?” Angela asked. “Edith took the morning off to spend time with Fallon Galbraith, and Emoline was sitting with Sarah a little while ago.”

“Emoline was called to the hospital, and there was no one else available but me.” Mark shifted position, looking like a natural with a baby on his hip. Actually, he'd encouraged Emoline to go, promised her that he didn't mind babysitting for a while. And he didn't. Something about Sarah relaxed him, made him think about all those things he'd planned on
for his own life so long ago, things that had made him happy for a little while, things that had
all
been a lie.

“You don't have a class right now?”

“Walt and I traded. He wants a little time alone with Catie later on, and as I didn't have any plans, I was glad to make the switch. Which worked out well because Sarah needed a play date now. And Sarah, Fred and I have been having a nice time, haven't we?” He asked that last of Sarah.

“I'll admit she looks happy.”

“She's decided she loves sledding.”

“You took my daughter sledding?”

Mark laughed. “Let's just call it a variation on a theme. But Sarah definitely has a preference for the great outdoors. We built a snowman, took a walk up to Hornaday Bluff…”

“No rock-climbing and skiing?” Angela asked, taking a very reluctant little girl back from Mark. So reluctant, in fact, that Sarah made her preference clear, holding onto Mark for dear life.

“I think she's expressing an opinion,” he said over top of what was turning into some loud vocal protests. “Reminds me of you in a lot of ways.”

“Sarah, it's OK,” Angela said, trying to calm down her screaming daughter. But Sarah wasn't about to be consoled, not in Angela's arms at the moment.

“Want me to take her back?” Mark asked.

“Did you hypnotize her?”

He chuckled. “I'd prefer to think that it's just about my nice way with the ladies.” He held out his arms for Sarah, and the child practically leapt over to him. And was immediately happy again.

“Look, if you have plans…”

“I did promise Sarah I'd teach her how to make a snowball.” He tweaked Sarah's nose and her response to was to
reach out and tweak him back. Something he'd worked on for the better part of an hour with her. Just to impress Angela.

“Did she just…? Mark? What's going on between you two, really?”

“We're getting along,” he said, gesturing for Angela to follow him to the lodge's front door. “Sarah's teaching me what a one-year-old likes to do…”

“She doesn't talk.”

“No, but she's got definite opinions. Just like her mother does.” He pushed the door open and Angela preceded him outside. “What about her father?” he asked, once they were out on the front lawn.

“He's never met her. Doesn't want to be tied down to anything so permanent. He'd wanted me to…” She shook her head. “Let's just say that the pregnancy wasn't anything he wanted to invest himself in, and if I'd made other choices, he might have stayed for a while. At least, that's what he said at the time. His family loves Sarah, though. They've been great to her…great to me. But he hasn't even wanted to see a picture.”

“It's amazing, isn't it? He's the luckiest man in the world, being father to this little spitfire, and he's too stupid to know it. And
stupid
is a mild word for what I'm thinking!” At the clearing near the front of the entryway fountain, he sat Sarah down on an ornamental rock, where three copper frogs, frolicking on the edge of the fountain, caught her attention.

“She doesn't need him, and I'm glad he's not part of our lives. I only want good things and good people around her. And he's not good. At least, not for my daughter.”

“But what if he comes back someday? Changes his mind, decides he wants the daddy experience?”

“He lost that privilege when he asked me to have an abortion. As far as I'm concerned, he doesn't get it back. Besides,
he doesn't want it. He's made that pretty clear in any number of ways. She's mine, not his.”

“Stupid, like I said.”

“I guess I have to agree with that. But what does that make me, hanging onto him for so many years?”

“Strong. Naive. Misguided, maybe. Not stupid, though.”

“But I feel stupid now that I can finally see how he is.”

“He's like my ex-wife. A mistake.”

“A
stupid
mistake,” she said, arching amused eyebrows.

“Different kind of stupid altogether.”

Angela sighed. “What we do for love.”

“In my case, not love. More like a delusional event.”

“You mean a stupid event?” she asked, grinning.

“OK, stupid. But I got over it.”

“So did I. And the good thing is I got Sarah. That makes up for everything.”

“It sure does.” Mark bent down, scooped up a little handful of snow. “Now, Sarah, the object here is to make it nice and round.” He dropped to one knee in front of her and showed her the steps to rounding out a nice, perfect snowball, even though she was still more interested in the copper frogs. “The reason you want it to be round is so that when you throw it at your mommy, it will travel far enough to hit her.”

Angela laughed. “You want her to hit me?”

“In years to come, when she's a teenager, and you're tearing out your hair over something's she's done, you'll long for the days when it was only about a snowball.”

“Daaa…” Sarah responded.

“That's right,” Angela said. “You can hit Daaa with a snowball, too.”

“Not what I had in mind,” Mark said, placing the snowball in Sarah's tiny hand. “Now, what you need to do is rear back just a little before you throw…” He kept her hand in his for
a moment, then moved it enough that the snowball flew out and landed on his knee.

“Good job!” Angela said, bending to give her daughter a kiss. “Very good job, Sarah. I couldn't have aimed better myself.”

“You want to hit me with a snowball?” Mark asked.

“No. Not as long as I have Sarah to do my dirty work.” Angela scooped up another little handful of snow, rounded it into a ball then handed it to Sarah, who immediately threw it down on her own. “She's a natural,” Angela boasted, turning to Mark.

His reply was a soft snowball right smack in Angela's face. Which made Sarah laugh with delight.

“You know this is war, don't you?” Angela said, scooping up more snow, rounding it and launching it at Mark, hitting him in the shoulder.

His reaction was to hide behind Sarah. “It's just you and me, kid,” he said to her.

“Hiding behind the baby now, are you?” Angela said, threatening him with a snowball half the size of his head. “Step out from behind the child and I'll go easy on you.”

“Should I believe her, Sarah?” he asked, placing a baby-sized snowball in her hand. But this time he didn't let go of her hand, he guided it into a launch of the snowball and, amazingly, it launched a good two feet, before dropping and hitting Angela on top of her snow boot.

Angela's response was to scoop that snowball up and assimilate it into her own. “Coward,” she accused, arching her eyebrows and keeping a poker face underneath them.

Damn, she was sexy. Even playing in the snow, she had such an effect on him. “I'm just staying loyal to the fairy princess here. Protecting her from the likes of the evil snowball queen.”

“But the evil snowball queen only has eyes for you.” She
showed him the giant snowball in her hand. “And it has
your
name on it. So step out here. Take it like a man.”

“Should I surrender?” he whispered to Sarah.

Her response was to stretch out her hand and wiggle her fingers. Well, the assumption was a wiggle since her snowball fight was taking place in mittens.

“You saw her answer. She's in this to the end. She wants a snowball…
your
snowball.”

“That's what she said?” Angela laughed.

“As plain as the red nose on your face. The fairy princess has claimed her victory and the evil snowball queen must surrender her snowball. I'm sorry, but the decision is final.”

Angela knelt down to her daughter. “Then I surrender.” She laid her giant snowball down and bent to kiss Sarah's chubby cheek. When she did so, Mark seized the opportunity, grabbed up the snowball, and…

“No,” Angela squealed, falling backwards.

That's when Mark pounced right on top of her, his knees straddling her, his snowball poised right above her face. “It was
her
idea,” he said, nodding sideways at Sarah. “I'm just the minion here.”

“You wouldn't,” Angela said, looking him straight in the eye.

“If it were up to me, I probably wouldn't. But the choice clearly isn't mine. So, Sarah…” He turned to look at her. “What will it be? The snowball, or not?”

“Daaa…”

“You heard her. It was her decision, not mine.” Mark pushed the snowball straight down into Angela's face, and didn't try one iota to resist her when she came back up at him, fighting. In fact, he rather enjoyed the fight as she struggled to flip over and pin him down. The skirmish lasted all of thirty seconds then when she was on top and he was the one flat in the snow, he looked up and smiled. “I win.”

“But I'm on top,” she protested.

He winked at her. “I know you are. Which is why I win.”

She bent down, dangerously close to his lips, then whispered, “You're bad, Dr. Anderson,” then proceeded to smush a snowball in his face. “Good plan, Sarah,” she said rolling off Mark and grabbing Sarah into her arms. “He never saw it coming.”

The truth was, he had. But nothing in him had wanted to stop it. Lying here in the snow with Angela and Sarah, the three of them probably looking like idiots to passersby, this was the only place he wanted to be right now.
The only place.

“S
OUND
asleep. Even before I got her into bed.” She crept out of the suite's bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her, taking one last look back at Sarah before she did so.

Mark was seated on the sofa, with Fred asleep in his lap, snoring gently. “She has a lot of energy. I wouldn't have expected her to stay up and be so alert for as long as she did.”

Angela dropped down beside him, stretched out, relaxed. Appreciated the nice, cozy feeling. A feeling she didn't have too often. “She was enjoying herself. And the one thing I'm going to make sure Sarah learns is that she has to enjoy her life. When something amazing comes around, grab it and hang on. There are so many other serious things happening, situations that will pull us down if we let them, and it's those moments of pure pleasure that will make the difference, make life bearable. Kind of like a beacon, I suppose. Something you know is there, something shining out in the dark, waiting for you to latch onto it. She has to know that beacon is there for her.”

“But you don't take that advice yourself. Someday, when she's older, won't she notice that? Won't she realize that while you're teaching her one thing, you're doing something entirely different? Will she see any enjoyment, or fulfillment, in you, Angela? Will she see you reaching out for that beacon
yourself, or turning your back on it because you have yet another goal to accomplish?”

“That's not fair. My goals will ensure that Sarah does have those beacons in her life. But I do have fun, and I'm certainly fulfilled. I spend time with Dinah and her family, I cook. I deal with these amazing kids on a daily basis now, here and at the hospital. And I have Sarah. It might not be anything you'd enjoy, anything that would fulfill you, but from where I'm watching it all happen, it's all good.” She paused for a moment. Closed her eyes, pictured all the good things in her life. Amazingly, Mark was one of them now.

“Fulfillment may be the simple things like snowball fights, especially if you're getting it with the people you care about. Or something on a much grander scale, like seeing your dreams for your daughter coming true. But if you limit your fulfillment to only isolated incidents, to things that may happen on rare occasions, you're missing out on all the other amazing things around every minute of every day And I don't want Sarah missing out on any of that. I want her to see everything, to experience everything. And not with a narrow view the way I did for most of my life. The way
you
do now. I want so much more for her than that, Mark.” With a weary sigh, she kicked off her shoes and pulled her feet up.

“You think my view is narrow?”

She twisted to look at him. “Isn't it? You're here to teach one thing, then you're leaving, when there could be so many good things here for you, things that, if you'd let them, would be your reason to stay. But leaving is all you see in front of you, which, in my opinion, makes your focus about as narrow a one as I've ever seen.”

“Earlier, I taught a class on ocular health and how it relates to the diabetic condition. Then I taught a class what the hemoglobin A1C means in terms of their overall health.
I taught that class, by the way, in the snow, using the various components of a snowman as my example. You know, the more out of balance the various parts are, the more unstable the snowman. So how do you figure that's narrow?”

“It's narrow because Neil and Eric are appealing to your greater sense of obligation to be here and do all this. It's not you being here on your own, doing it on your own. And there's a difference.”

“Not really. They're trying to put all my little pieces back together again because they're good friends. You know, trying to fix a broken friend, while I'm trying to help out some friends who need help. It's not a big deal.”

“Because you want to be
fixed
?”

“Because I'm not as narrow as you think.” His voice gentled. “Neil Ranard and Eric Ramsey are the two best friends I've ever had, and I wouldn't have turned them down, no matter what the circumstances. In my own life, I may be pretty far gone. But you don't turn your back on friends.”

“You're not as
gone
as you let on.”

“What I'm not is in anything for the long haul. If you want to call that a narrow view, feel free. I call it a goal, not unlike the goals you have. Except mine are simple. Get it done, get out. No lists.”

“And my goals are moving me toward something, while yours are moving you away.”

“You're right. I'll admit it. Mine are moving me away from…everything I want to move away from. Your goals are admirable, mine are survival. Self-indulgent, some people would call it.” He sat Fred down onto the sofa next to him and reached over, picked up Angela's feet, pulling her into a foot-rub position.

“You may be a lot of things, Mark Anderson, but you're not self-indulgent.” She settled back into the cushions to enjoy the feel of his hands on her feet. Now, if anything could ever
be called self-indulgent, this was it. She liked being pampered. Wasn't used to it, but she definitely could get used to it. Especially from Mark. “You really don't have to do this,” she said, hoping against hope he wouldn't quit.

“If I had the narrow view you seem to think I have, I'd probably agree. But my view is wide enough to see how you're running about twenty-five miles a day, between the camp and your daughter. And I have it on good authority that you're still managing hospital dietary stuff from here. So, in my not-so-narrow view, I think that deserves a foot rub.”

His first squeeze to the arch of her left foot was pure heaven, and all she could manage in reply was a contented sigh.

“Not bad for a man with a narrow view?”

“Maybe I'm changing my mind, because I've never had a foot rub before, and this is so—”

“Did he ever treat you nicely?” Mark interrupted. “Indulge you a little bit? I mean, I was the first with flowers, but I can't believe I'm the first with a foot rub.”

The question jolted her out of her languid mood. “What?”

“Treat you nicely. Did your ex-husband ever treat you nicely?”

She thought about it for a minute. Flashed back to those years, when she'd been the one doing the pampering, doing the indulging. The one giving
all
the foot rubs,
all
the back rubs… “Probably not. But at the time I don't suppose I realized that.”

“But he never hurt you.”

She shook her head. “Not physically. Brad's not a violent type. Not even a mean type. I don't think he ever sets out to intentionally hurt anybody. But the thing is, he never really considers anyone's feelings other than his own. So I guess you could call him selfish.”

“And you never saw that in him?”

“Oh, I probably did. But I was deluding myself into thinking I could change him, that once I'd shown him how nice life could be after we'd settled down, he'd be happy to change. But the thing I never took into account was that we didn't want the same lives.”

“You're not mad as hell at him over Sarah? For not being involved with her, not even wanting to see her?”

“Maybe I should be, but I'm not. It's his loss, not having her in his life. If anything, I should probably be sad for him because he's missing so many wonderful things. In all honesty, though, Brad wouldn't be a good father. A child requires so much attention and Brad wouldn't know how to handle himself if someone around him needed more attention than he did. Too bad, too, because Sarah's the best thing he'll never get to know.”

“You're an amazing woman, Angela Blanchard. Because I'm still mad as hell at my ex-wife, and there's nothing in me that wants to change the way I feel.”

Angela sat up a little bit, to look at him. Not enough, though, to pull her feet out of his amazing touch. “Hanging onto the anger will tie you in knots. As long as you're dealing with it you can't move on.”

“But what if I want to stay angry? What if she deserves that anger every day I can give it to her?”

“She might deserve it, Mark, but do you? Because the anger will cost you, not her. She's not here, she's not seeing it or feeling it. Which means the anger is for you. Not her.”

He squeezed her arch too hard and she flinched.

“Is it because your father-in-law died? Is that why you're so angry at yourself? Because, as a doctor, you know that sometimes the hard choices don't work out the way you want them to. I've seen that with Eric. Two months ago he lost a patient—a little girl. She had leukemia, and he'd done
everything in his power to make her better. Dinah said he didn't sleep, didn't eat… And after she died he sat in a dark room for two days, refusing to let anybody in. He hated losing that child, but he dealt with it because that's what you deal with when you're the doctor. And I know you've gone through losing other patients…”

“Not the same.”

“No, it's not the same. And I can't even begin to imagine what it's like when that patient is someone you love. But you yourself said he wanted you to take care of your wife first. How could you
not
do that?”

“The thing is, I think he probably knew he was dying, but he also knew that…that my wife was pregnant.”

“What?”

“Not far along. Not far enough for her to tell me. But her father knew. And naturally he wanted her cared for first.”

“I do understand that. If it were between Sarah and me…” She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the sad picture there. “It would always…
will
always…be Sarah.” Once again, the pressure he applied to her foot turned hard, almost to the point it hurt. So she wiggled out of his grasp and sat up, cross-legged, looking at him. “You can't fault the man for that, or even be angry with yourself for how it turned out. You weren't the one making the choice.”

“No, I wasn't. But I'm mad as hell anyway for the way it turned out.”

“The baby. Did your wife…?”

He shook his head. “At the hospital, the doctor told me how lucky she was. She had some substantial cuts on her face, some that would require plastic surgery.
After
she had the baby. That's how I found out.” He frowned the frown she knew so well. “After that, I had a month to live with that pregnancy, trying to console my wife over the death of her father, trying to keep her calm for the baby's sake. Trying to
remember that Tom had given his life to protect that baby. And in that month I became quite the doting husband. Started making plans, thinking about what it was going to be like being a father. Of course, I was blocking out the fact that my wife was in a different place altogether. Fixing on her scars. Obsessed with not looking pretty. And hating me, at the same time, because her dad was dead. The accident was my fault, not saving his life was my fault. Her scars…”

“Your fault.”

He nodded. “But that was fine, because if she needed someone to blame, which she did, I had broad shoulders. And all along I was sure it would get better once the baby was born. Honestly, I didn't give the marriage a chance, but at that point it was all about…” He swallowed hard. Didn't finish the sentence. “Then one day Norah went on a trip. Didn't tell me, didn't let me know where she was. I was worried to death. Hired an investigator to look for her. No luck. But two months later she came home without facial scars and also without our baby. She'd had an abortion because the plastic surgeon wouldn't do elective surgery on her while she was pregnant.”

“I can't… I don't know what to say.”

“
She
did. She told me the only reason she'd wanted the baby, to make her father happy. He'd wanted a grandchild. With Daddy gone, there was no reason to continue the pregnancy. So she didn't.”

“Without telling you? Didn't you even have a clue?”

“You'd think I should have, wouldn't you? But no. Once again, I'd missed the obvious. So what the hell kind of a track record is that for a trauma surgeon?” He shut his eyes. “And you can't get around the fact that I should have seen it coming.”

“But even if you'd known, could you have stopped her?”

“I've asked myself the same question a million times. Maybe I could have said something…convinced her to wait a few more months. Hell, I'd have gotten on my knees and begged if it would have done any good. But…”

“But she did what she wanted to do. And it wasn't your fault, Mark. She made a horrible, regrettable decision that was
not
your fault.”

Mark dropped his head back to the sofa. Opened his eyes, stared up at the ceiling. “And you wonder why I'm leaving medicine? Well, that's it. The most important thing in my life that I should have seen coming, and I missed it. Totally missed it.”

“Because that's what Norah intended. She hid it from you. And, as you recall, I already
did
trust my daughter to you. Remember? After you pulled us out of the Christmas train, when the avalanche covered us…you were so good with Sarah. And with her hysterical mother. I trusted her with you then, and I would right now.”

“Then you'd be wrong to do it.”

“I burnt a perfectly good goulash last month. Maybe the best goulash I've ever made.”

He twisted his head to look at her. “What?”

“Goulash. You know, stew beef, tomatoes, onion, garlic, paprika…Hungarian goulash. It was cooking away ever so nicely, then all of a sudden it was burnt to a crisp. Smoking in the pot.”

“OK, so you burnt your goulash. And that means…?”

“In and of itself, nothing. Goulash is easy to burn. But the thing is, I know that's the case when I cook it. Most of the time my goulash makes it to the table, gets served up on some rather tasty homemade poppy-seed noodles, instead of being dumped down the drain. Yet that wasn't the first pot of goulash I've lost.”