The M.D.'s Surprise Family (10 page)

A program came on that Blue was particularly fond of and Raven took the opportunity to move away from the bed for a moment. She lowered her voice as she said, “He's pretending that his back doesn't hurt, but I know it does. He's always been a very brave little trouper. When do you think he can go home?”

She stood close to him again. So close that he could smell the soap she'd used. Something floral. Life up here in the tower suites was a world apart from the seven other floors below.

“Four days should do it,” he told her. “Ordinarily, the hospital likes as fast a turnaround as is medically feasible, but in this case I think George'll
arrange a few extra days if you feel more comfortable with that.”

“What I'd be more comfortable with is taking Blue home as quickly as possible. If you said the word, he'd be out of the door like a shot, a slow-motion shot,” she qualified, “but a shot nonetheless.”

In the true nature of a child, Blue was already healing faster than an adult in his place. “We'll take it one day at a time,” Peter responded.

Raven looked at him for a long moment, her eyes holding his. “That's all that anyone can ask.”

He had the strangest feeling that she wasn't talking about the same thing he was.

 

As he began to drive home after more than a full day at the hospital, he remembered that it had been some time since he'd even picked up a phone to call Renee. Taking out his cell phone, he placed an order for pizza at a local restaurant that wasn't far from her house.

He picked it up on his way. The aroma filled his car before he even got out of the parking lot, managing to block the scent that still lingered around him. Her scent.

“Hi, stranger.” Renee's greeting was warm as she opened the door to him. “Bearing gifts again? Or is this your subtle way of telling me you don't like my cooking?”

“I thought you could use a break—and I haven't had a pizza since I can't remember when.”

“You also can't remember to wear your coat,” she chided, closing the door. “Pete, it's cold out there.”

He saw she was wearing the scarf he'd dropped off the day after he'd received it. “Not if you're wearing a scarf.”

She fingered it, smiling as she led the way to the kitchen. “Lovely, isn't it?”

“On you,” he allowed.

She opened the cupboard and took out two plates. “You are good for me, Pete.” Placing the plates on the table, she took two sodas from the refrigerator, then made herself as comfortable at the table as her condition allowed. “So, how's your patient coming along?” She fingered the scarf again to indicate who she was talking about.

Opening the pizza box, he took out a slice for his mother-in-law and then put one on his own plate. “Surgery was uneventful.”

She laughed shortly at his modesty. “Which is neurosurgeon shorthand for only one miracle was called for instead of three.”

He was doing his best to distance himself from the event as well as the boy and his sister. So far, he was having only marginal luck. Especially with Raven.

“He's mending fast. I discharged him at the end
of last week and he's due for his follow-up visit at the end of this week.” It seemed that every time he looked at his calendar, that was the only appointment he saw. A hell of a thing for a man who liked to keep his surgical patients at arm's length.

Renee popped the top of her soda can. “And then?”

He followed suit, taking a long drink. “And then what?”

Renee grinned at him as she took a bite of her slice. “I asked first.”

“I don't think I understand.”

“Yes, you do, you just want to play dumb, that's all.” Renee shook her head. “Doesn't become you, Peter.” Playing along, Renee spelled it out for him. “Are you going to see the boy after that?”

He'd already made his mind up about that. He'd talked to a neurologist earlier in the day. “Dr. Rhys can take over.”

Her expression was patient. Understanding. He balked slightly at it.

“Maybe he won't be comfortable with Dr. Rhys,” she suggested.

He could see the same argument coming from Raven once he told her about the change. So far, he'd held off, telling himself it was because the opportunity hadn't arisen yet.

“I'm a surgeon, Renee. That means I do surgeries. I make sure they take and then I move on.”

She looked at him knowingly. “Seems to me that this one is a little different than the others.”

“Why?”

“For one thing,” she pointed out blithely, “you've never talked about any of the others. For another, his sister is very generous. I heard she's donating money for new equipment.”

Renee was an endless source of surprise to him. “How did you find out about that?”

Taking another slice, she slipped it onto her plate. “Unlike you, my doctor doesn't need much encouragement to talk.” She became more animated. “Seems that the hospital is very excited about this.”

“Free is always good.” Uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was heading, he turned it back to her. “So, how have you been feeling?”

She lifted only one shoulder, and marginally at that, in a half shrug.

“Can't complain.” And then she paused, a self-depreciating smile curving her mouth. “Well, I could, but what good would it do? Doesn't change anything.” Her eyes met his. “I've got good days and bad—just like you, Pete.” Leaning over the table, in typical motherly fashion she pushed back the hair that was falling into his eyes. Her voice was soft as she said, “She would have wanted you to be happy, you know.”

“Who?”

“Lisa. She wouldn't have wanted you to spend your whole life mourning her.”

His appetite waning, he put the second slice down and looked at the woman across from him. “It's not something I can control.”

“Sure you can. Mind over matter, Pete.” Her tone was firm, encouraging. “You of all people know that.”

He picked up on the words she'd used and fed them back to her. “In my mind, ever since Lisa's been gone, nothing else seems to matter.”

“It should,” she insisted. And then, because she must have known how Peter reacted when too much pressure was applied, she backed off. “Now then, did you tell her how much I liked the scarf?”

He hadn't said anything to Raven about the gift she'd given him for his mother-in-law. “Slipped my mind.”

She passed a napkin to him. “Then you'll have something to talk about the next time you see her.”

Accepting it, he wiped his fingers before picking up the soda can again. “The next time I see her will be for her brother's follow-up.”

Renee nodded, reading between the lines. “I think you should do a follow-up of your own after that.”

He sighed. He knew she meant well, but at the end of a long day, it was hard to hang on to his temper. “You don't stop, do you?”

Renee just smiled back at him. “Not until I reach my goal.”

“Which is?”

“Seeing you happy,” she answered simply, then added, “And maybe getting a grandchild out of the bargain.”

“Just how do you figure that?”

Renee laughed. “At your age and position, I'd think you'd have a pretty good handle on the birds and bees by now, but if you want—”

He cut her off. “You know what I mean.”

The amusement faded. Renee grew serious. “You're my son-in-law, Pete, and you've become like a son to me. Nothing is going to change that. When a son has a child, that automatically makes his mother a grandmother.”

“Overlooking a few things here, aren't we?”

“Only way to go through life, Pete. Fix what you can, accept what you can't and always, always look for the upside of everything.”

He suddenly felt very tired. “What was the upside of Lisa and Becky dying?”

Renee never hesitated for a moment. “That you weren't in the car with them.” She placed her hand on top of his, making a connection. Willing him to take strength from it. “That I still have you.”

He felt completely outnumbered as he shook his head. “You're a lot like her.”

“Lisa?”

“No, Raven.”

Renee beamed at him as she reached for a third slice. “I like her already.”

The problem was, he was beginning to think that perhaps he did, too.

P
utting aside his stethoscope, Peter motioned for Blue to get dressed again. With the help of his sister, the boy got dressed then followed him into the next room, which was his office. Blue sat in the chair that faced his desk. Raven took the other chair.

Both of them waited for him to say something.

“He's made remarkable progress in an incredible amount of time.”

As a rule, he wasn't given to using glowing adjectives. But after examining the boy and looking at the latest set of scans that had been taken, he found that there was no other way to describe the situation. If an adult had had the kind of operation
that Blue had gone through, it would have taken at least ten days before they would have attempted so many assisted steps from their bed. That would be followed by a period of time in which they would have to rely on a walker. Blue broke the rules.

With the aid of a nurse and his sister, Blue had been down the hall a day and a half after his surgery and had come in for his two-week follow-up holding on to Raven's arm. Otherwise, he had entered unassisted.

Peter thought of what Raven had endured emotionally after her parents had been killed. Obviously courage or grit ran in the family.

He leaned back in his chair, momentarily giving in to himself. He studied not the boy but Raven. Suppressing a sigh, he knew he had to make a break and soon. The first step was to discharge Blue from his care, because that was his way, and because he'd been looking forward to the appointment too much.

Looking forward to seeing Raven.

That was the truth of it, no matter how deeply he tried to bury the fact. She'd been lingering on his mind too much.

He was getting too close to her.

He didn't want to get close to anyone, not after what he'd already gone through. Having his heart sliced up into tiny slivers once in a lifetime was more than enough for him.

 

Raven could always sense when something was wrong. But this time she knew it didn't have anything to do with Blue, but with the darkly handsome man who was looking at them so solemnly.

Turning, she smiled at her brother. “He's always been resilient that way,” she said fondly. “So, when do you want to see him again?”

“I don't.” The words were crisp, without feeling. Final.

So that was why he looked the way he did, Raven thought.

He was cutting them loose. Something inside her chest stung, surprising her at the depth of the impact. “I thought this kind of surgery required several follow-ups. I know I said Blue was resilient, but—”

“I'm handing the case off to Dr. William Rhys. He's a board certified neurologist, on staff here at Blair and he can follow your brother's progress from here on in.”

“I see.” Raven felt as if something had hit her in the hollow of her stomach. It wasn't quite like when she'd been told about her parents' car accident, but it was close enough to numb her for a moment.

It was Blue who broke the silence, allowing her to gather herself together. “Don't you want to see me again, Dr. Sullivan?”

This was something new. He'd never been put on
the spot by a patient before. But then, he'd never spent this much time with a surgical patient before, either. Served him right for getting this involved. For allowing a face, a voice, to become imbedded in his mind along with all the necessary statistics and procedures that were needed to successfully perform the operation in the first place.

Peter tried his best to sound detached, not understanding why it seemed so much harder than usual for him to do it this time around.

“Dr. Rhys is more qualified for follow-up care than I am,” he told Blue.

Blue looked at him, his open face completely mystified. “Why? You did it. If something's wrong, wouldn't you know better than anyone?”

Unable to help himself, Peter looked at Raven, surprised by the simple depth of the boy's question. “Are you sure he's only seven?”

Her mouth curved. He could almost feel it curving against his mouth. It convinced him that he'd made the right choice. If he waited even a little while, it might be too late for him.

“Seven going on forty,” Raven replied. “But Blue has a point, you know, Peter. More than anyone else, you are the one who's the most familiar with the case. Someone else would have to get up to speed before they could do Blue any good.”

“Dr. Rhys is familiar with cases like your brother's.” He didn't like her challenging his de
cision—especially when a very small part of him felt as if he was taking the coward's way out. “This is the way I've always handled my cases.”

She looked at him knowingly. “So it's just sew and go, is that it?”

He pulled himself up in his chair. He'd never had to defend himself before. “I'm a surgeon, Raven. By definition, that means I operate.”

She just wasn't buying his quick dismissal of responsibility. “You're not some two-dimensional noun in an oversize dictionary, Peter. You're allowed to expand.” She leaned forward on her chair. “We don't bite. Honest.”

He didn't know about that. He felt as if he'd been bitten and if he didn't act quickly, there was no telling how fast the serum would spread within his system. Or just what it would do, what it would undermine once it did spread. Without being completely conscious of the process, he'd allowed both Raven and her brother to get to him. It was time he pulled himself free.

Opening his desk, he took out one of William Rhys's business cards and held it out to Raven. “Here's Dr. Rhys's phone number. His nurse is already expecting your call.”

Raven took the card after a beat, closing her hand around the small shell-colored paper. The look in her eyes told him that she knew this wasn't about
standard procedure. That he'd felt a connection being made and that it scared him.

He wasn't the only one.

“Then I guess we shouldn't disappoint her.” Raven rose to her feet. Taking his arm, she supported Blue as he got to his. “Thank you for everything, Doctor.” She gave him one of her dazzling smiles, the kind someone had once told her could unfreeze the hardest heart. “And if you should ever feel like taking another look at your handiwork, feel free to stop by. You already know where we live.”

Peter made no response. He merely nodded as he remained behind his desk. It was a safe place to be as he watched them leave the office.

Yes, he thought, he already knew where they lived, but it was a piece of information he was going to do his best to delete from his memory.

 

He couldn't delete it.

Worse, after a week, it seemed to be on his mind constantly. Along with the woman he didn't want to see. The more he attempted to ignore it, the more it loomed over him, like some huge billboard on the side of the road that only kept getting larger and larger.

He tried, in vain, to cram as much work as he could into a day, to keep at bay thoughts of Raven,
of the way her body had leaned into his when she'd kissed him.

The thoughts came anyway, like relentless kamikaze soldiers with but one focus. To completely disrupt life as he knew it.

He held out as long as he could. It amounted to fifteen days.

On the fifteenth evening, he discovered himself driving toward the Songbird estate. His rounds had been completed and for once, there was neither someone nervously sitting in his office, waiting to discuss a possible surgery, nor a single scheduled surgery.

Two weeks had gone by.

Two weeks in which, except for today, his life had been as hectic as it got. Dr. Welles had approached him not two days ago, asking him for his opinion. It wasn't about some case he was overseeing, but about himself. Severe headaches had caused the chief of surgery to have CAT scans taken of his brain. The tests had revealed an aneurysm. Surgery was the only option he would consider. And Welles wanted him to perform the surgery.

Peter had agreed, but not without some silent concern. Despite this newest burden on his shoulders, he caught himself thinking about the woman whose smile refused to erase itself from his mind. The memory of her smile, her eyes and the feel of
her mouth on his kept insisting on replaying itself over and over again.

Only when he was in the middle of surgery did these troublesome images disappear. But he had no idea how long it would be before they disrupted his work. So he decided to take the bull by the horns. It was a known fact that in many instances, memories were far better than the actual event, or the actual person involved. He was hoping that this applied to a raven-haired woman with laughing blue eyes.

Before he was aware of any time having gone by, Peter pulled up to her driveway. Highlighted by several strategically positioned old-fashioned street-lamps, the driveway appeared to be just as colorful at night as it had been when he'd seen it in broad daylight.

Peter was out of the car and ringing the front doorbell before he could talk himself out of it. But once he had pressed the bell and the door hadn't opened immediately, he came to his senses. This was crazy. What was he doing here? He needed to go home, not chase after…what? A dream? He knew what happened when you chased after dreams. Dreams ended. They always ended, leaving you with nothing.

Better not to have anything than to mourn its loss.

Turning on his heel, Peter began to walk away.

He heard the sound of a door opening behind
him. Heard Raven calling out his name in both surprise and pure delight.

“Peter?” Not waiting for him to respond or to turn around, Raven ran out of the house. In a few quick strides, she managed to get in front of him, aborting his exit. “Peter, you've got to give me a chance to get to the door.” She laughed, her hand on his arm, holding him in place. “It's a big house.”

Damn it, she looked better than he remembered.

For once, she wasn't dressed like some Gypsy or woodland sprite fresh out of the forest. She wore a simple pullover blouse that hugged her torso the way he found himself longing to. The jeans she had on were faded and adhered to her body like a second skin. He found himself jealous of frayed denim and convinced that he was losing his mind.

She appeared a great deal smaller now than she had in his office or the hospital. He realized that it was because she was barefoot. It had to be no more than thirty-five degrees outside and she stood on the pavers without shoes or socks. Raven pivoted on the balls of her bare feet, as if sustaining minimum contact with the cold ground could keep her from shivering.

Peter looked at her accusingly. “You're barefoot.”

She ignored his tone. “I never wear shoes in the house unless there's a party going on,” she told him
as she hooked her bare arms through his and began to tug him back toward the door. “C'mon into the house before I catch something more than you,” she teased.

He was behaving like an idiot, he upbraided himself again. There was no reason for him to be here. None except that he'd missed her. He looked over his shoulder toward his car. “I should really—”

She smiled up into his eyes. “Yes, you should really,” she murmured. The next moment, as she crossed the threshold still holding on to her prize, she was calling out, “Blue, guess who's here?” Not waiting for a response, she answered the question for him. “Dr. Sullivan's decided to pay you a surprise check-up visit.”

The house echoed with the melody of her voice, much like his head had for the past two weeks. Turning to face him, she gave him the feeling that she was not about to allow him to make a face-saving getaway.

“Why don't I take your coat and you can look in on your patient?” she suggested. “He's in the family room,” she added. Moving behind him, Raven began to help him off with his overcoat.

He twisted around, trying to get a look at her. Trying to get her to stop. “I can do this myself.”

She peeked around his shoulder, her expression impish. “I don't trust you. If I leave it up to you, you and your coat will bolt out of here. And after
it took you two weeks to finally show up.” With a yank, she successfully removed the camel-colored overcoat.

“You were expecting me?”

“Sure,” she told him glibly. “Didn't you know? I cast a spell on you. You were bound to show up sooner or later. I just thought it would be a little sooner.” He looked as if he believed her. Unable to hold it back any longer, she laughed and shook her head. “I am kidding, Peter. I'm not a Gypsy or a would-be witch. I don't dabble in black magic or white, or any other color for that matter.” When she'd been a little girl, other kids would tease her because her mother was three-quarters Navajo and would sometimes create sand pictures the way her grandmother had taught her to do. “But I was really hoping you'd come by to look in on him.” After a second, because she was truthful, she added, “And me.”

He didn't know about her not being a witch. Or about her not casting a spell on him. If he were being honest, he certainly felt bewitched.

Why else would he be here?

Why else would he be bending his own rules, especially after he'd successfully made the break and sent the boy to another doctor? He'd been in the clear. And yet, here he was, hiding behind his credentials, playing the concerned doctor when all he really wanted to do was to breathe in the scent
of her hair one more time. See her smile one more time. Feel her vibrancy.

Feel her against him.

Damn, but he was losing it.

Blue had wiggled off the sofa in the family room and was at the threshold the moment he approached the room. The boy's face was a wreath of smiles, as if he was greeting a long lost friend instead of a physician he'd only seen a handful of times.

What kind of people were these? Peter wondered.

Bracing himself, he crossed the threshold and walked over to the boy. “So, how are you doing?”

“Great.” With a display of boundless energy, Blue attached himself to Peter's other arm. “You like video games?”