The M.D.'s Surprise Family (9 page)

“Did you bribe the head nurse?” he asked to know.

“It wasn't a bribe,” she replied patiently. “Sonia asked me if I was related to the Songbird family. I told her that my brother and I were all that was left of the Songbird family. We talked for a little while. Did you know she has eleven brothers and sisters?”

Peter failed to see her point. “Why would I know that?”

She started to tell him, but then changed her mind. For now, she let it drop. He'd just saved her brother and didn't need any speeches. “Never mind. Anyway, when she told me she always loved the scarves my mother created, I gave her one.”

He saw her purse sitting beneath her chair. It certainly didn't look very large. “Just how many scarves do you carry around with you?”

“Just enough,” she answered. She couldn't help the self-satisfied expression that rose to her face. “She let me stay after that.”

“Yes, small wonder.” Peter frowned, looking at the chair again. It was one of those hard orange plastic ones that populated hospitals from one end
of the country to the other. “You planning to spend the night on that?”

She pretend to regard it. “I've slept on harder surfaces.” His concern, however gruffly voiced, made her smile. “My parents led a pretty nomadic life when I was a kid.”

So had he in the early years. His father had been stationed in various parts of the country. He'd hated the moves, hated having to adjust to being the “new kid” again and again.

“What about school?”

She laughed softly at the memory. “I must have attended fifteen different schools at one point or another.”

“Didn't you hate that?” He wanted to know.

“No, I always liked meeting new people, finding new friends.”

Finding new friends. As if it was some kind of glorious treasure hunt. There was no doubt about it, he thought. They were worlds apart. Faced with relatively the same situation, they reacted to it in a completely different fashion.

“Anyway,” she was saying, “the point is, I'll be fine. Don't worry about me.”

“I'm not. I'm worried about George when he finds out you're sleeping on a chair. Man his age and condition tends to get heart attacks more readily.”

This time, she saw right through him. “If you're
trying to use guilt to get me to leave, I'm afraid you're going to have to do better than that.” She'd met people like George Grissom before. The man was bent on culling her favor because he needed a handy, open pocket for his hospital. She didn't fault him, she just understood him. “I have a feeling that if I asked, Mr. Grissom would probably try to transfer an intensive care facility into one of the tower suites upstairs for me.”

Peter sighed. “You're probably not wrong.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the head nurse approach, then stand like a silent sentry, waiting in case he had any instructions for this newest addition to the ICU.

“Nice colors,” he commented, indicating the scarf around her neck.

He saw the older woman exchanging glances with Raven. The nurse raised her head up proudly. “Yes, they are,” she acknowledged.

He knew when he was outnumbered. Peter lifted the top layer of bandage from the small of Blue's back. The boy stirred, but didn't wake up. He had Blue on the maximum dosage of painkiller for his size. Sleep was the best medicine for him now.

“Everything looks good here.” Peter covered the boy again, then, stepping away from the bed, he looked at Sonia. “Page me if anything changes.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

With a nod toward Raven, Peter left without another word.

“He's a spooky one,” Sonia commented. Raven merely smiled.

 

Peter visited to the ICU one more time that evening. Actually, it was closer to the middle of the night. Unable to sleep—so what else was new?—he'd returned to the hospital at around one-thirty and walked quietly into the closed-off area. There were partitioned cubicles along both sides of the wall. Two thirds of the beds were empty, giving the space an eerie appearance.

As he moved closer to Blue's cubicle, he could see that Raven was still there. Curled up in the chair, she was sound asleep.

She really could acclimate anywhere, he thought.

Someone had given her a blanket, but it had slipped off and had pooled onto the floor around the base of the chair. He stepped around it to get to the chart.

Angling it to the available light, Peter read the newest notations. The boy was being given regular doses of antibiotics. He'd woken up twice, then fallen asleep again. Nothing eventful.

Satisfied, Peter placed the chart back at the foot of the bed, then stooped to pick up the blanket. As carefully as he could, he draped it over Raven. Moving quietly, he left the area, completely un
aware that when he'd placed the blanket on her, Raven had woken up.

She'd followed him with her eyes and smiled to herself as Peter tiptoed out. With a small, contented sigh, Raven went back to sleep.

T
he following morning, he heard Raven talk to her brother as he approached the ICU cubicle. It was his first stop as he began his rounds before going to his office. Soft, melodic, soothing, he could almost feel the words as they drifted through the air.

What was there about the woman that he found so mesmerizing? That spoke to something inside of him?

And then, as if sensing his presence, Raven turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Hi.”

He muttered something in return, not quite sure what, feeling strangely tongue-tied.

How did she manage to look so fresh, as if she'd
slept in a huge, comfortable double bed instead of on a chair that might have easily been used for penance by some tenth-century Christian? At the very least, she should have looked exhausted, her hair tousled and her face pale. But she looked like a fresh flower. Beautiful even without a trace of makeup on her face.

He would have said it was some trick accomplished through the crafty use of mirrors, except that there weren't any in the area.

Her eyes gazed not through him but into him, stirring up all sorts of things inside. Making him wish he were witty or at least coherent.

And what the hell did that have to do with the price of tomatoes? he upbraided himself. He was here in only one capacity, as a neurosurgeon, not a man who was inexplicably entranced by a woman who seemed as if she belonged inside the pages of a fairy tale.

He crossed to the foot of Blue's hospital bed and picked up the chart. Aside from filling in the gap between last night and this morning, the chart gave him something to focus on.

Clearing his throat, he nodded at Blue. “What kind of a night did he have?”

“He slept most of the time, thanks to the pain medication.” She'd spent a rather wakeful night herself, watching him. And each time Blue had woken up, she could see his struggle to not cry out
from the pain. Sonia had come to administer the prescribed dosage that allowed him to mercifully slip back into unconsciousness.

Blue tried to twist his head so that he could see him. To Peter, the boy looked like Peter Pan, sailing over the skies of London, looking for a place to land.

Where had that come from? he wondered. He wasn't given to imaginative descriptions. His were based on fact, not flights of fantasy. He was going to have to get a grip on himself.

“I hurt, Dr. Sullivan.” It wasn't a whine, but a stated fact.

Peter moved over to where the boy could see him without having to crane his neck. “It's going to be a while before that changes.”

She wished he hadn't phrased it that way. Honesty was a quality she admired. Up to a point. Where it ran up against hope and much needed optimism, she felt that honesty should take a back seat.

“Think yourself past it, honey.” She'd already said the words to Blue several times, but she repeated them as if she'd just thought to share her philosophy with him. The philosophy that had seen her through so much already in her young life. Whenever she couldn't endure the moment she was in, she thought herself beyond it, sometimes hours, sometimes days. Anything that would get her to a stable point.

“All this pain will be behind you before you know it,” she told him.

“Promise?”

Peter could see that it never occurred to Blue to doubt her. The boy was still young, he thought, still ignorant of all the things that could go wrong in life, despite the best of promises.

“Promise.” Raising her eyes, she looked toward Peter for backup.

Something old and hardened within him told him to resist the silent entreaty. Something just a little larger told him to go along. What did it cost, making the boy feel better?

“Right,” he finally said. “Every day, it'll get better. With a little time and some physical therapy, you'll be back to doing all the things boys your age do.”

Whatever that was.

It had been a hundred years since he'd been a boy. And even then, under the strict discipline of his father, he'd been old for his age, expected to pull an adult's load long before his time.

Flipping back the chart cover, Peter quickly reviewed the new entries. Blue was getting his medication on time.

“I'm kind of hungry,” the boy murmured.

Peter closed the chart again, looking at Blue in mild surprise. In his experience, most people were nauseated after surgery, not hungry. He hung the
chart back in place and returned to the headboard so Blue could see him.

“Right now, you're getting all the nutrition you need through this feeding tube.” He indicated one of the IV drips attached to Blue's thin arm.

Blue looked at the tube critically. “I'd like the straw to be in my mouth, not in my arm.”

He noted that the simple request almost broke Raven's heart. It was obvious that she hated seeing him like this, with tubes running into his arms and as pale as a sheet.

“Soon, honey, soon,” she told him. And then, bracing herself, willing her lips to curve and doing her best to hide her fears from Blue, she added, “I just want to talk to the doctor for a minute.” She disengaged her hand from his and then grinned at him. “Don't fly off anywhere, okay?”

Blue sighed. It was obvious that he thought that if he could at least fly, all this might be worth putting up with. He did his best to return her encouraging smile.

“Okay.”

Peter looked at her quizzically. She'd been so adamant all along about Blue being part of everything, what was she going to ask him in private? Raven motioned him to the side. He followed in her wake, trying not to notice that she still seemed to have an arousing scent about her that lingered in her path.

Turning, she glanced over to watch the back of Blue's head. She wanted to be sure he couldn't hear her. Not until she'd had a chance to digest this first.

“Did you get the results back yet?” She took another breath before she added, “For the tumors?”

The lab had been his first stop. He'd gotten there as a sleepy-eyed technician was unlocking the door. The latter hadn't looked too happy about having to search for results first thing in the morning.

“All benign.” He gave her the answer she'd been waiting for, praying for, with absolutely no fanfare, as if he was reciting a stock market reading. He saw the glint in her eyes and he sighed. “You're going to cry again, aren't you?”

Raven pressed her lips together and nodded. She struggled to keep her voice from cracking when she spoke. “Sorry, can't help it.”

“Raven?” Blue called to her uncertainly. He twisted and winced, trying to see her.

She realized that he'd heard the tone of her voice. He probably thought the worst. She rushed back to his bed, mentally saying,
Thank you, thank you.

“Oh, God, I wish I could hug you right now.” She knew that the slightest attempt would only translate into a world of pain for the boy. Instead, she laced both her hands around one of his and gave it just the tiniest squeeze, converting the surge of joy she felt down to the minus ten power. “It's good news, Blue. Wonderful news.” Bending, she
pressed her lips lightly to the back of his head. “Everything's going to be perfect.
You're
going to be perfect.”

Peter noticed that the boy was taking his sister's tears in stride. Turning his head slightly so that he could make general eye contact with him, Blue confided, “She cries when she's happy.”

Peter laughed. “So I've noticed.”

She was notably too happy to care that they were making fun of her. Leaning over the top of the bed, she fished a tissue out of the small box on one of the side tables. She dried her eyes. Fresh tears insisted on replacing the ones that had been spent. She wiped those away, too.

“Men don't understand these things,” she told them both with a laugh.

“That's what she always says when she's being strange,” Blue told him.

Peter couldn't shake the feeling that the boy was trying to bond with him. Obviously this need to connect with strangers ran in the family. The thing was, he could feel himself being drawn in ever so slightly, as if he was part of some greater whole that they were part of as well.

“Don't give away all our family secrets at once,” she cautioned her brother with a wink.

Peter shifted, but didn't move. He had other patients to see, more rounds to make. Why he hesitated didn't make any sense to him.

Neither did the fact that his shoes felt as if they'd been glued to the floor.

“I'll see you tonight,” he told Blue.

The boy sighed staring at the wall. “I'll be here.”

As he began to leave the ICU, Raven followed him to the entrance.

“Something else?” he asked, thinking that she'd undoubtedly come up with another question for him to wrestle with.

“I just wanted to thank you.”

He thought of the way she'd kissed him outside the operating room. The way she'd managed to unseal his tight control. “You already did.”

“No, I meant for putting the blanket back on me.”

“You were awake for that?”

The smile she gave him could have melted the
Titantic
's iceberg without leaving a hint of its existence.

“As you pointed out, that wasn't the most comfortable surface. I'd only dozed off for tiny snatches at a time. Thank you,” she repeated.

“Yeah. Don't mention it.” He inched toward the double doors that automatically sprang open when he was close enough. “Really,” he added.

She watched him go through the doors and then have them yawn shut again. The man had a problem accepting gratitude, she thought. He was swiftly becoming her project of the month.

 

“Nurse, where's the boy in bed six?” Peter asked when he returned that evening to the ICU. Preparing himself for another encounter with Raven, he'd found himself staring at an empty cubicle. The bed and the machines were gone.

Sonia looked up from the circular desk where she watched all the monitors for any signs of change. “You mean, the Songbird boy? Mr. Grissom had him moved to one of the tower suites.”

“Would have been nice to have been told,” Peter growled.

“Must have slipped everyone's mind,” she murmured, getting back to her post.

Keeping his response to himself, Peter crossed to the bank of elevators that were programmed to take him straight to the top floor where the tower suites were located.

He had figured as much. Given half a chance, George Grissom would find a way to transfer the boy and everything he needed up to the tower suites. It was where all the VIPs who came to Blair stayed, no matter what the reason.

Better suited to a grand hotel, the suites were the last word in luxury, erasing every hint that the patient was staying in a hospital. He had no idea what being in one of the rooms cost, but he had a feeling that the people who occupied one of the suites didn't worry about such trivial things.

He was feeling unusually edgy tonight and the sensation grew with each step he took toward Blue's room. Peter caught hold of himself just before he knocked on the door and entered the vast room. It was like entering a florist's shop, or a nursery. There were flowers everywhere, with teddy bears and stuffed animals pock-marking several surfaces.

Blue still lay on his stomach, his middle suspended a couple of inches from his bed while his feet and head just barely made contact with the mattress. But unlike in the ICU, here his bed was turned around so that he could see his visitors. A large television was positioned so that he was able to watch its reflection in the full-length mirror that ran along the opposite wall.

“All the comforts of home, huh?” Peter noted as he walked in.

Raven's smile was immediate and warm when she saw him. And no amount of sealing himself off rendered him immune to it.

“If he was a trapeze artist,” Raven quipped.

She'd changed her clothes, he noticed. Instead of the mass of swirling colors she'd had on earlier, she was wearing something soft and blue that brought out the intensity of her eyes.

As if she needed that, he thought. “You went home,” he observed.

She looked down as if to remind herself what she
had on. “No, actually the clothes came to me. I had Connie bring them when she came to visit Blue. I haven't been out of the hospital since yesterday.” She glanced toward the private bath. Instead of just the regulation handicap toilet, it was also equipped with a shower. “I did make use of the shower, though.”

He nodded. “No extra charge.”

An appreciative smile bloomed on her lips and she looked pleased. Why? he wondered. What had he said?

“You have a sense of humor.” The fact took her completely by surprise.

He didn't think he'd ever been accused of that. “Not so anyone would notice.”

“I did,” she pointed out.

There it was again, that feeling that she was looking into him, into his thoughts, his soul. He knew it was absurd, but he couldn't shake the feeling.

“We've already established that you march to a different drummer.” Trying to distance himself from his reaction to her, Peter looked back at the reason he was here. “How are his spirits?” It was a question he'd never heard himself asking before. Spirits or lack thereof weren't his realm. He dealt in what he could see, touch, taste, not assume. But somehow, the question seemed to be relevant here.

“Pretty good. The nurse and I already took him on a tiny stroll around his room.”

Hearing them discuss his maiden run, Blue interjected, “Tomorrow the hall.”

It was what she'd told Blue as he was placed, exhausted, back in the sling. It had quickly become his goal.

“He's amazingly resilient,” she told Peter, affection emanating from every syllable. As Peter did a quick exam of the surgical site, she forced herself to watch despite the fact that the sight of blood made her stomach flip over. She was relieved when he moved the bandages back into place. “Some of his friends came by earlier with their mothers.” She exchanged grins with her brother. “He's now officially the coolest kid in his group.”