The Doctor's Undoing (11 page)

“Sorry, I can't answer any of that,” Haley replied honestly. “James has been a good friend and study partner, but he keeps his private life to himself, for the most part. I know he's brought a few dates to school social events, but I can't tell you much more than that.”

“Dates,” Elissa repeated. “So there hasn't been anyone serious since you've known him?”

“Not as far as I'm aware.”

She had no intention of saying more than that. Anything else of a personal nature Elissa wanted to know about James, she would have to ask him herself. Haley took another bite of her juicy apple, trying not to get the caramel coating all over her face.

Maybe Elissa got the unspoken message. She nodded and let the subject drop, moving slightly away again.

A group of noisy teenagers ran up to the ride entrance, jostling Haley's elbow. She tried to move out of their way, though the area was already almost shoulder to shoulder with
people stopping to watch the shrieking riders or trying to pass toward the children's ride section or surrounding games and concessions.

“Let's go on this one,” one of the three boys in the group of seven insisted, pointing toward the ride Ron and James were just climbing into.

The four girls squealed and giggled and dithered, but all were persuaded to get in line. One boy hung back, coughing into his hand. “Y'all go ahead. I just ate that giant funnel cake with chocolate topping. I don't want to lose it when the ride starts flipping over.”

His friends teased him, using mildly profane language, but he merely waved them on, trying to suppress another cough. Because of the limited space, he stood rather close to Haley as he watched his friends. Even over the noises surrounding them, she could hear the wheezy edge to his increasingly labored breathing.

She bit her lip to keep her concern to herself. Medical students were too prone to offer unsolicited advice, she reminded herself. She should just mind her own business.

Looking out of the corner of her eye, she decided he might have been fifteen. Skinny, his face a little pale beneath the scattered zits, his hair fashionably shaggy and limp. He gave another wheezy cough. Because she'd spent two weeks on the pediatric pulmonology ward, she knew the sound of asthma when she heard it. The dust and animal dander and cigarette smoke and other pollutants at the fairgrounds had to be hard on asthma and other breathing disorders.

Because his wheezing seemed to be getting worse and she simply couldn't stand it any longer, she finally turned to him. “Do you have an inhaler?”

He blinked and looked around as though checking to make sure she was talking to him. “Uh—yeah,” he mumbled, smothering another cough.

“Don't you think you should use it? All the stuff in the air here can't be good for your breathing.”

He glanced quickly at his friends. “I don't want to use an inhaler right here in front of everyone. They'd think I was a nerd.”

Kids, she thought with a suppressed sigh. Specifically, male kids. Did he really think it would be cooler to succumb to a full-out asthma attack than to ward it off with his inhaler?

“See that little alleyway between the two games?” she asked, nodding toward her right.

Following her glance, he nodded.

“Duck in there and use your inhaler. My friend and I will stand in front of the opening so no one can see you. Won't we, Elissa?”

Elissa seemed a little startled, but nodded with a shrug. “Sure. Why not?”

After only a momentary hesitation, the boy agreed.

Standing with their backs turned to the narrow opening, Haley and Elissa waited until they'd heard the boy take a couple of deep hits on his inhaler before moving away. He coughed a couple of times when he rejoined them, but already Haley could hear the wheezing subsiding a little.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, shuffling a sneakered foot against the littered asphalt.

“You're welcome. I assume you know the warning signs if your asthma is really starting to get out of control?”

He nodded. “I'll be careful.”

She doubted that, but she'd done all she could—probably more than she should have. “Have a good time.”

He grinned. “I'm going to tell the guys I've been hitting on you two hotties.”

She laughed. “If I were ten years younger, I'd take you up on that.”

Grinning, he swaggered toward his pals, who were watching him in open curiosity now. Haley noted that the other boys looked rather impressed—exactly what her asthmatic friend had hoped to accomplish, she thought with a chuckle.

A little disheveled from the wild ride, Ron and James rejoined them then. Ron glanced from Haley to the departing teen. “What have you been up to?”

“Flirting,” she answered with a smiling look toward Elissa. “We're certified hotties, you know.”

Elissa actually returned a full smile, which made her look so pretty that Haley could see why James had asked her out.

Ron slung an arm around Haley's shoulders. “You don't have to tell me you're hot. I've been aware of it for quite some time.”

Flushing a little in pleasure, she let her speculation about James and Elissa fade to the back of her mind.

 

Ron would have been perfectly happy to leave the fairgrounds without playing any of the carnival games lining the fairway. He'd nodded cordially to the barkers and game operators as he'd passed, but he had no desire to try to conquer their house-slanted challenges.

He'd only wanted an excuse to spend an evening out with Haley, he admitted to himself, smiling down at her as they ambled toward the exit. True, he'd suggested the fair on impulse at Mia's party partially as a way to make it clear to the encroaching Drew that Haley wasn't available. But then James had commented that he'd never actually been to the fair, and Ron had seized on the idea of making it a double date. His way of announcing to everyone—Haley, included—that he saw them as a couple now, he supposed.

He'd had a great time on this outing with her. He loved it when she laughed, and she'd laughed a lot tonight. She needed
to play occasionally rather than focus all the time on excelling in her education. He figured he was the best choice to make sure she took time for frivolities.

Surprisingly enough, it was Elissa who talked them into trying a few of the games on their way out of the fairgrounds. “Win me a stuffed animal?” she asked James, waving toward some colorful toys dangling from beneath a brightly lit awning.

He glanced at the game—a challenge to toss a small basketball through a barely larger hoop only a few feet away—and shrugged. “Sure. Looks easy enough.”

Ron groaned. “Looks are definitely deceiving when it comes to carnival games, buddy. The games always favor the house.”

James lifted an eyebrow. “They're fixed?”

“Not necessarily. Just designed to look much easier than they are. The way that hoop is shaped, you have to hit it at exactly the right spot to get the ball through.”

A buxom, bleached-blonde in a very tight T-shirt passed by them, carrying a giant purple bear. A cowboy in tight jeans and denim shirt strutted beside her, toting a big yellow bear.

“Looks like that guy knows how to win,” James commented.

“The guy probably works for the carnival.”

James looked intrigued.

“Hey, fellas! Three tries for five bucks!” Seeing that they had paused in front of his booth, the carnie motioned them closer. He tossed a basketball in one hand as he urged them to give it a try.

“Get just one ball through the hoop and win one of the prizes on the wall,” he told them, waving a hand toward a display of normal-sized stuffed toys.

James glanced at Elissa, who smiled at him. Probably figured he'd like her to play up to his ego, Ron thought cynically. Elissa was obviously angling for James, but he couldn't tell that his friend was particularly smitten with her in return.

But James was as susceptible to a male ego challenge as the next guy. He reached for his wallet. Ron sighed.

Ten dollars and six shots later, Elissa's hands were still empty. James gave her a rueful smile, holding up his hands in defeat.

“Told ya,” Ron muttered.

The carnie looked at Ron with a slight frown that he immediately smoothed into a toothy grin. “How about you, pal? Think you can show your buddy there how it's done?”

“No, that's okay.”

Haley patted his arm. “Don't waste your money, Ron.”

“She doesn't think you can do it,” the carnie taunted. “Are you gonna take that?”

Ron sighed again. Hell, he had an ego, too. He slapped a five into the carnie's outstretched hand. “Give me the ball.”

Three shots. Three hoops. “Pick your prize,” he told Elissa. “I'll win Haley one at the next booth.”

James was laughing, totally at ease with being shown up by Ron. The bored carnie next to the hoops game perked up.

“Think it's that easy?” he asked Ron. “Can you knock all the bottles completely off the stand with a baseball? All you have to do is clear the stand one time and win a big prize for your lady.”

Sounded easy enough. Just knock down the stacked bottles with a baseball. Of course, the rules stated that the bottles had to be completely off the stand, not scattered across it. And that took a direct hit in exactly the right spot to accomplish.

A spot Ron just happened to know.

The bottles flew off the stand with a satisfying clatter. He pointed to a green bear, which he then presented to Haley with a little bow. “Everyone ready to go now?”

All three of his companions studied him with open curiosity. Haley, of course, was the one to ask, “How do you know how to win these games so easily? How much time have you spent at carnivals, anyway?”

“I was a carnie for almost a year,” he said with a shrug and a wry smile for the game operator, who gave him a little salute in acknowledgment. “After I dropped out of college the first time.”

“You never told me that,” Haley said almost accusingly over the head of the green bear.

He added a little swagger to his steps toward the exit. “Sugar, there's a lot I haven't told you.”

She punched his biceps.

Laughing, he slung an arm around her shoulders.

He didn't want to think about the past right now. Too many painful memories there. Too many dumb mistakes he didn't want to dwell on now.

The future was still so vague and daunting. He hadn't liked Elissa's questions about residency programs, and her implication that one of them—and no one had to question which one—might have to compromise if they wanted to stay together in the future. He would never allow himself to be responsible for holding Haley back in her chosen career. So he wouldn't think about the future, either.

He would be content, for now, with enjoying every minute he could spend with Haley.

H
aley and Ron were assigned to the newborn nursery for one week during their pediatrics block. Both found the experience interesting, though they agreed that neonatal medicine was not for them.

As part of the pediatrics team, Haley was called to scrub in on high-risk deliveries. Her initial case was a first-time mother in her mid-thirties whose escalating hypertension had made her doctor decide on a C-section at thirty-four weeks of pregnancy. Careful to remain in the sterile zone, Haley hovered close to the table while the resident, under close observation by the attending physician, wielded the scalpel.

The four-pound, six-ounce boy, still covered in goo, flailed weakly when he was placed into Haley's gloved hands. Staring down at her tiny patient in awe, she carried him carefully, but quickly, to the warmer for cleaning and a stimulating,
full-body massage. His Apgar scores would be determined at one and five minutes, possibly again at ten minutes if warranted.

She ran through a quick litany of the factors that contributed to the Apgar score: heart rate, breathing, reflex irritability, activity and appearance. Each factor received a score from zero to two, which were all added up for a total of ten points on the Apgar score, the healthiest of babies. This little guy earned a score of five at one minute, but after suctioning and supplemental oxygen, was up to a seven by five minutes, to everyone's satisfaction. Considering his prematurity and low birth weight, he was reasonably healthy and had a good prognosis.

The boy's mother was also doing well, Haley noted with a quick sideways glance, though the mother was not her concern as a pediatrics student.

Almost three hours after that delivery, Haley and Anne had a few minutes to meet downstairs for a cup of coffee. Haley had lunched with her resident, but Anne, who was on her internal medicine rotation, hadn't yet had a chance to eat. She downed an energy bar while they chatted about the birth Haley had witnessed and some of the cases Anne was monitoring on the adult wards.

Anne glanced at her watch, carefully keeping track of her short break time before she had to report back to her duties. “Long day.”

Haley shifted in her chair to stretch out a few kinks. “It has been. Remember back when we used to get eight full hours of uninterrupted sleep? When was the last time? College?”

“High school, more like,” Anne answered ruefully. “I was an overachiever in college, too, remember?”

Haley stifled a yawn. “You'd think after almost two and a half years I'd be used to it.”

Anne studied her short fingernails. “Ron keeping you out late?”

The question was very casually asked, but more loaded than it seemed on the surface. Haley had finally admitted to her best friend that she was seeing Ron, though as she'd planned, she'd quickly added her caveat about it not being a serious courtship. Anne hadn't looked surprised by the news, but neither had she looked convinced about Haley's definition of a mutually casual affair. At least she hadn't asked any awkward questions; she was too good a friend for that.

Come to think of it, none of the study group members had asked any questions, Haley mused with a slight frown. Connor and James, too, had acted as if they'd been expecting this development. Had her attraction to Ron really been so obvious to them, even before she'd acknowledged it herself?

“We've done a few things. After work. When we aren't studying for shelf exams. Ron thinks it's important to play a little when we can to avoid third-year burnout.”

“Sounds like a good plan. Liam and I try to make time for a little fun when we both happen to be in the same town and free for a few hours. My dad thinks a medical student should live, breathe and dream studying, but Liam has convinced me that it's best for both the student and the relationship to try to keep some balance between studying and having a life.”

Haley started to remind Anne that she and Ron didn't have a relationship, exactly—certainly not the kind Anne had with her husband—but her pager's beeping interrupted her. She sighed and set down her coffee cup. “Gotta go. I'll see you…well, whenever I see you.”

Anne chuckled and waved her off, understanding completely.

 

The medical school turnout for the Halloween party wasn't quite as good as it had been for the tailgate party in September. Though because grad students, law students, pharmacy and nursing students were also invited, the crowd was large. Haley and Ron attended together, but they were the only ones
representing their study group there. Connor and Mia were hosting a Halloween party at their house for Alexis and her friends. Liam was out of the country on an assignment and Anne hadn't been interested in attending without him. And James had simply declined, saying he wasn't interested.

Haley knew James wasn't seeing Elissa anymore, though she didn't know why or whether the parting had been amicable. Maybe he just didn't want to come stag and didn't have anyone he was interested in asking tonight.

She probably wouldn't have come, herself, if she wasn't a class officer. She was really tired, having just completed her outpatient peds rotation. The past two weeks had seen her in a different specialty every day, and her head was still reeling from all the information that had been crammed into it. She just hoped she'd retained enough for her shelf exam.

Because their time had been so limited, she and Ron had rented costumes rather than try to come up with ideas on their own. He chose them as soon as he saw them in the store. To her, they looked like ordinary Western-style clothes. A brown duster coat with faux buckskin pants, suspenders and hip-slung holsters bearing toy revolvers for him, and a long, full-skirted red brocade gown with a snug, low-cut bodice and matching parasol for her. Ron assured her that the costumes were equally appropriate if they were dressed as characters from a cult-favorite, TV “Space Western” that had played for only one season nearly a decade earlier.

“I'm Captain Mal,” he said, strutting in his costume, “and you're…well, you're Inara. The, um, paid companion.”

She had to chuckle at his description of her character. When she then confessed she'd never seen that particular program, he acted scandalized. He had the whole series on disk, he informed her, as well as the movie that had followed a couple years afterward. He was going to make sure she watched every episode.

She laughed wearily. “As if we have time to watch TV—disks or otherwise. Especially an entire series.”

“There are only fourteen episodes and a movie. Maybe we can manage one a week or so.”

Which would take them through the next almost four months, she thought with a slight frown. The holidays. Well into the next semester. It was the closest either of them had come to planning for a future together—and that only to watch an old TV series. “Well, we'll see.”

He'd looked at her rather oddly, as if hearing something in her tone he couldn't quite interpret, but he'd let the subject drop.

The Halloween party was a little wild, involving more than a few scanty costumes and free-flowing alcohol. Some people found it necessary to relieve the stress of postgraduate training with excessive partying when they had the chance. Haley wasn't one of them. After a couple hours, she was ready to leave.

“Hang on,” Ron told her, holding up a finger to indicate one minute. “I just need to ask Hardik something before we go. I'll be right back.”

She nodded with a smile. “There's no rush.”

He had just stepped away when a tall, slender woman in a fringed flapper dress approached her. “Hi, Haley.”

“Hi, Margo. Have I told you how cute you look tonight?”

Margo patted her perfectly waved and styled dark hair. “Thanks. You look nice, too.”

Coming from Margo, she supposed that was high praise. “Thank you. Where's your date?”

“He stepped outside to take a phone call. You're here with Ron?”

“Yes. He's over there, talking to Hardik. We're getting ready to leave, actually.”

“I won't be here much longer. Watching other people get smashed is hardly my idea of fun.”

Margo's idea of fun was being at the head of the class. Making sure all the residents and attendings knew her name. Positioning herself for the most competitive residency and to win as many class awards as possible at graduation.

Deciding exhaustion was making her cranky, Haley felt guilty about those less than gracious thoughts, which made her smile more warmly at her classmate.

Her smile faded a bit when Margo asked, “So, are you and Ron getting serious, or what?”

Haley cocked an eyebrow, the closest she would allow herself to pointing out that it was none of Margo's business.

“The only reason I'm asking is, I'm sort of surprised, you know? I mean, Ron's nice enough—he certainly knows how to make everyone laugh—but…well, he's not exactly serious about getting to the top, is he? Or about anything, for that matter. No offense, but I know you're looking to get into a good residency program and you wouldn't want to throw that away so you can find someplace that will also accept him.”

Despite Margo's snotty remark about people getting smashed, she had obviously had more than a few drinks, herself. As blunt as she usually was, this was out of line even for her. Haley replied coldly, “Ron is a very good student and he'll be an excellent doctor, Margo. Believe me, he takes that seriously.”

“Someone talking about me?” Ron asked, sliding up beside her with a swish of his long coat.

Wondering how much he might have overheard, Haley searched his face, but couldn't read the expression behind his lazy grin. Margo didn't even have the grace to look abashed that he might have heard her cutting remarks. She merely gave him a cool nod and said she had to go find her escort.

“Ready to go?” Ron asked Haley.

“Definitely,” she said, turning on one heel toward the exit.

 

Ron shrugged out of the duster coat that had let him pretend for a few hours to be a dashing space cowboy. He tossed it over the back of a chair in Haley's living room and ran a hand through his hair. She'd gone into her bedroom to change out of the long dress, but he could still picture her wearing it.

The red brocade dress, trimmed with silver lace, had dipped low in the front, showing an intriguing amount of creamy cleavage. Fitted snugly to the waist, it had hugged her slender rib cage then draped away from her hips into a long skirt gathered into a bow in the back—right above her very nice tush. Long sleeves and lacy fingerless gloves had made the dress seem more modest than it actually was. She'd curled her brown hair so that it waved around her face beneath a flirty little lace-trimmed hat.

She'd looked both delectable and adorable. He'd told her so more than once that evening, though he wasn't sure she'd taken him seriously.

Ron's not exactly serious about anything.
The paraphrase of Margo's snippy contention echoed in his mind, making him scowl. She either hadn't realized he'd heard her or hadn't cared; there hadn't been a hint of apology in her eyes when she'd nodded to him and walked away. Maybe she simply thought she owed no apology for stating what she considered to be indisputable fact.

Or maybe she'd known very well that he could hear her. Had that been her way of subtly warning him not to hold Haley back?

Ron is a very good student and he'll be an excellent doctor.

He supposed Haley had considered herself leaping to his defense, and had said the first words that popped into her head, but it hadn't exactly been a ringing endorsement.

So, what had he wanted her to say? Brooding, he sank onto the couch, pushing at the holster belted around his waist. Had
he wanted her to declare her devotion to him? Her undying admiration for him? Had he wanted her to refute Margo's implication that he was too flippant about his studies and his training, that there was nothing he considered worth taking too seriously?

Maybe Haley hadn't said those things because she didn't quite believe them, herself. She had accused him in the past of having the wrong attitude, just because he'd admitted he was prepared to walk away if things didn't work out for him. It wasn't as if his life would be over if he didn't become a physician, he'd argued. He had Plans B, C and D to fall back on—not that he knew what those were, exactly.

Haley had retorted that if he wasn't committed to success at all costs, then he had the wrong attitude about completing this challenging, demanding career path.

Maybe he hadn't been fully committed to medical school at the beginning, he admitted now. Even though he'd worked his butt off to get this far, there had always been a tiny doubt that he'd ever hold that diploma in his hand.

Had he ever fully committed to anything in his life? Had he ever gone into any new endeavor without keeping one eye on the always-present escape hatch?

Would Haley believe him if he told her that he hadn't been looking for an escape from what he'd found with her? He wouldn't hold her back when she was ready to move ahead of him, but he wasn't in any hurry to take an alternate path, either.

She emerged from the bedroom dressed in a pink T-shirt and black yoga pants with a pink stripe down the side. She looked just as adorable as she had in her costume.

“Haley—”

She spoke at the same time, cutting off whatever he might have said in a clumsy attempt to express his feelings. “Do you want any coffee or anything?”

“No, thanks. Had plenty to eat and drink at the party. What I—”

“I forgot to tell you—” Realizing she'd stumbled over his words again, she stopped with a grimace. “You go ahead.”

“No. What were you saying?”

“Just that I forgot to tell you I'll be out of town this weekend. I'm going home to Russellville for a couple days to see my parents. I figure I'd better see them before we start the surgery rotation, because there won't be much time while we're on that block. I won't get to see them again until Thanksgiving.”