Undercover M.D. Page 2

Daniel DuCane wouldn’t have said anything to her about her lapse, but she knew he would have been disappointed that she would flaunt the principles to which he had dedicated his life all these years. After all, it was because her father was a doctor that she had become one, too.

  “Dr. Terrance McCall,” Beauchamp gestured from Terrance to Alix as he made the formal introduction, “This is Dr. Alix DuCane, and any compliment I could give her wouldn’t be nearly enough.”

  “No, it wouldn’t be,” Terrance agreed, his voice a cross between being amiably impersonal and intimately warm—a trick, Alix felt, that only he could pull off.

  It was time to turn the herd before it stampeded out of control and ran through the town, trampling the citizens, Alix thought. She turned toward her superior, ignoring Terrance.

  “Dr. Beauchamp, I really don’t think I’m the best one for this assignment.”

  “Did I mention that she was also modest?” Beauchamp asked Terrance. “Dedicated, skilled, modest, don’t know how we got so lucky. Nonsense, Dr. DuCane, you are most definitely the best one for the assignment. Besides, if only half of what I was told is correct, Dr. McCall won’t require much hand holding.” The older man, a grandfather five times over, chuckled to himself. “At least, not during official hours.”

  Once the words were uttered, Beauchamp must have realized the way they could be construed. His eyes slid over Alix’s face nervously as if to see whether he had gone too far in his comment.

  Alix knew the man meant no offense. Clarence Beauchamp wasn’t capable of making any lascivious comments. He was like everyone’s overly friendly, slightly addle-brained favorite uncle. Unlike his operating methods, the humor he subscribed to resided decades in the past where innocent comments were just that and carried no veiled meanings or hidden agendas. The hospital’s mandatory P.C. training had taught the older man to be cautious, but that usually kicked in only after he had said something that was jarringly out of sync with the times.

  Alix had her mind on something more important than imagined incorrect statements. Survival. “I’ve got a full load, Dr. Beauchamp.”

  “And you handle it beautifully,” he readily testified.

  Alix tried again. “I’m on E.R. rotation this morning.”

  If she’d hoped to deter the chief of staff, it back-fired badly.

  Beauchamp clapped his hands together. “Perfect.” He turned to Terrance. “This’ll be your trial by fire, so to speak. Can’t ask for anything better than that. You’ll be hurdled into the thick of our operation here. Blair prides itself on its outstanding emergency room facilities.

  “Of course,” the chief of staff philosophized, “Murphy’s law being what it is, the E.R.’ll probably be deadly dull and quiet this morning.”

  Hardly that, Terrance thought, doing his best not to look at Alix as if he’d known her beyond these past five minutes. Trying not to look at her as if he knew every inch of her smooth, supple body and as if the memory of that body hadn’t haunted his days and nights in vivid detail.

  Pushing the past into the small, steely box where it belonged and mentally slamming the lid shut, Terrance looked down at Alix and smiled. He did his best not to take note of the dark look in her eyes.

  Did I do that to you, Alix? Did I take the light away? If I did, I’m sorry that I hurt you. Sorrier than you’ll ever know.

  “It looks like you’re going to be stuck with me for a while, Dr. DuCane,” he said lightly. “I’ll try my best not to get in your way.”

  Too late, Alix thought.

  Resigned to her fate, she nodded at Beauchamp without really looking at the man. “All right, but I still think Dr. McCall would be better off with someone else. I’ve never been a very good teacher.”

  “We teach by example, Dr. DuCane, and quite truthfully, you set the best example of anyone I can think of,” Beauchamp assured her.

  “I guess I’d better say yes before you flatter me to death,” Alix replied.

  There was affection in her voice. Clarence Beauchamp had several failings, but the ability to make a person feel good was not one of them. Though they were very different in their approaches, and her father was by far the more superior orator, Beauchamp did in some ways remind her of Daniel DuCane.

  She barely spared Terrance a glance, not trusting herself.

  “Follow me,” she instructed as she turned sharply on her heel. Shoulders squared, Alix quickly walked out of the room.

  Chapter 2

  “Alix, wait up.”

  She gave no indication of having heard him as she walked quickly to the bank of elevators. With a sigh, Terrance lengthened his stride to catch up to Alix. He caught himself paraphrasing Bogart’s famous line from Casablanca. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, I walk into hers.

  “When Dr. Beauchamp said you were to show me the ropes,” he told her as they reached the elevators, “I didn’t think he meant that we should be swinging from them at the time.”

  She didn’t trust herself to look at him just yet, not when he was so close. She pressed the button for the elevator. Hard.

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize I was moving too fast for you. I would have thought that moving quickly was something you were accustomed to.”

  It was, he thought, like trying to ignore the elephant in the living room. You could only do it for so long. In this case, the sooner it was addressed, the better. “Alix, maybe we should talk.”

  The extent of the anger that suddenly shot up inside her took Alix by surprise. It wasn’t easy to force it down. But she didn’t want to start shouting here, where everyone knew her. Shouting at him and demanding to know how he could have just walked away without a backward glance.

  Alix took an even breath. “And maybe we shouldn’t. This is a hospital, Doctor, usually a very busy place. There isn’t time to sit and reminisce about old times that really didn’t exist except in the imagination of someone who was very young and very foolish.”

  The heart he’d learned to keep on ice twisted a little. “You.”

  Oh, no, no pity, Alix thought fiercely. She refused to be the object of his pity. “The operating word here is was. In case you don’t know, Doctor, that was past tense. And we’re in the present. For some people that means there is no past, there is no future, there is only now.” Her voice was crisp, brittle, her look cold. “I suggest that we turn our attention to now, shall we?”

  Terrance looked into her eyes just before she averted them. He’d hurt her. Until this moment he hadn’t realized just how much. Somehow he’d pictured her getting over him, had ached at the thought even while he assumed it was reality. He’d convinced himself that the pain over their separation had been his alone. Now he knew better.

  But this wasn’t the place to make apologies, even if he could fully explain to her what he’d done and why—which he couldn’t. Even a minor apology necessitated somewhere quieter than the third floor of a busy hospital at midmorning.

  For now, he decided, it was best to let things slide a little longer. They could pretend they were merely two former med school students whose paths had crossed again instead of two former lovers who fate—with its twisted sense of humor—had whimsically thrown in each other’s way.

  “You’re the boss,” he told her amiably. The elevator finally arrived. Getting in, Terrance watched Alix punch the button for the first floor. She jabbed at it a little too firmly. “You’ve gotten more assertive since the last time I saw you.”

  Alix felt it was more prudent not to answer.

  Terrance looked down at the hand at her side. “You’ve also gotten married.”

  The words tasted like ashes in his mouth, but what had he expected? She’d move on with her life. Time didn’t stand still, except for those times when he thought of her and what could have been—if a fateful bullet hadn’t snuffed out his father’s life and changed the course of his.

  “Yes,” she replied coolly, her very tone locking him out of her life. “I did.”

&nb
sp; She saw no reason to tell him that Jeff was gone, or given him any other pertinent details of her life. She just wanted to get through the day as quickly and painlessly as possible.

  But it was too late for that, she thought cynically.

  The elevator doors opened again on the ground floor. Alix swept out, not bothering to see if Terrance was following her. She pointed down the long corridor.

  “The E.R. is this way.”

  Electing to bypass the patients who were seated out front, Alix took him in through the side entrance, accessible only to the hospital personnel.

  Just beyond the rear nurses’ station were two long rows of hospital beds, separated by partitions or floor-to-ceiling white curtains. Here and there were rooms where the more intense exams or stopgap surgeries were performed before patients were taken to the operating rooms on either the first or third floors.

  Everything was in pristine condition. Blair prided itself on keeping up-to-the-minute and new. A nonprofit hospital, it relied heavily on the local community’s goodwill and philanthropic donations. Its sterling reputation afforded it both.

  She gestured at the rows of beds, most of which had their curtains pulled shut, signifying occupancy. Alix glanced at the large white board to the left of the nurses’ station. Names and conditions were written in orange erasable marker.

  “As you can see,” she told him in a clipped tone of voice she was unaccustomed to using, “we’re pretty full.”

  She noticed that Donna and Alice, two of the day nurses, were at the desk. Both stopped working the moment Terrance came into their line of vision. Both women’s eyes lit up.

  Some things never changed, she thought. Terrance had always been a magnet for female attention. To his credit it had never affected him. At least, not while they’d been together.

  But then, who knew, maybe that had been a lie, too. Just as his words to her had been. He’d told her he loved her. And then he’d left.

  Eyes riveted to Terrance, the nurses approached them as one. Alix took pity on them. “Donna, Alice, this is Dr. Terrance McCall. He’ll be joining us for a while. Dr. McCall, this is Donna Patterson and Alice Brown, two of our best.”

  “How long a while?” Donna, never one to be shy, wanted to know.

  “Time is a relative thing,” Alix couldn’t help saying. “What’s long to some is just a moment to others.”

  Though he gave no indication, Terrance knew the comment was aimed at him. He smiled at the younger of the two nurses. “I plan on settling here in Bedford.”

  Alice lost no time in flanking his other side. Alix had the impression of two women about to launch into a tug-of-war.

  “Maybe you’ll need someone to show you around,” Alice offered eagerly.

  He could feel Alix watching him. Terrance wasn’t about to allow himself to get distracted, although socializing with either woman would have been good for his cover. But with Alix here, the intended role of a carefree doctor who doubled as a ladies’ man was going to have to be rethought.

  “I’m originally from Bedford,” Terrance told the two women.

  “Nurse!” The head nurse, Wanda Monroe, called out the single title. Both women instantly turned to answer, knowing better than to ignore the imposing woman. Wanda was fair, but she brooked no nonsense when it came to the way the E.R was run. After her husband and grandchildren, the E.R. was her baby, her pride and joy, and she wasn’t about to have things go lax.

  Alix glanced at Terrance as Alice hurried away beside Donna. “From what I hear, you just turned down a really good time.”

  Terrance paused to study Alix. Was she deliberately trying to get him paired off with someone? Or was she just baiting him? “I’m not here to have a good time, I’m here to work.”

  Alix looked at him, then shook her head. His eyes were as unfathomable now as they’d ever been.

  “You’re just as much of a puzzle as you ever were. FYI, the lady who just bellowed is Wanda Monroe, our head nurse. You’d do well to stay on her good side, which, fortunately for us, there is a great deal of. She’s part mother hen, part martinet and the most competent nurse I’ve ever known.”

  He looked from the light-coffee-complected woman to Alix. “That’s some testimonial.”

  “She deserves every syllable. C’mon, I’ll introduce you to her.” Not waiting for Terrance to say anything, Alix led the way over to Wanda.

  Terrance took the older woman’s hand and shook it, offering a disarming smile. Wanda, he’d noted, had been giving him the once-over from across the room. He wondered if he passed inspection.

  Wanda returned his handshake, nodding in approval. “We can always use another set of good hands.” Wanda cocked her head, peering at his face. “Are you wet behind the ears?”

  This was a woman who didn’t take lies well, he thought. But he had a feeling that she appreciated humor.

  “Maybe a little,” he allowed.

  Alix narrowed her eyes as she looked at him. “I thought Dr. Beauchamp said you had a glowing record at Boston General.”

  “I’m new here,” he pointed out.

  He could always turn words around to his advantage, Alix thought.

  “One E.R. is like another, more or less,” she heard herself saying.

  She wasn’t ordinarily this annoyed, this distant and impatient, Alix thought with a touch of self-deprecation. But the sight of Terrance after all this time had sent her reeling. It had also sent her sense of humor into a tailspin.

  “Don’t you listen to her,” Wanda contradicted gruffly. “They all have their own personalities. Just like doctors,” she added, looking pointedly at him. “Boston General, eh?” When he nodded, she said, “I hear it’s a fine hospital.” Wanda crossed her arms before her ample chest. “What brings you here?”

  Terrance had discovered that when confronted with questions he couldn’t answer truthfully, it was best to keep his replies simple. That way there was less to trip him up later.

  “I needed a change,” he told her.

  “Of weather?” Wanda asked.

  Terrance smiled, managing to completely charm her and every other women within a quarter-mile radius. Except for Alix.

  “Yes.”

  He was lying, Alix thought. Something else had brought him here. She could feel it. But lying or not, she reminded herself, it made no difference to her. His reasons for doing things had long since stopped being any business of hers.

  Changing the subject, Alix nodded at the sign-in board. “Who needs attending, Wanda?”

  Wanda didn’t bother looking at the chart. At any given moment she knew exactly what was going on in her E.R. and who was in which bed. She didn’t think of them as patients, or even by their last names. To her they were conditions in need of curing.

  “Got your choice of a bad case of stomach cramps in bed K, possible urinary track infection in bed L, some woman complaining of the worst back pains she’d ever had in bed M or—”

  The electronic back doors flew open as four paramedics charged in, pushing two gurneys between them. A much-battered woman lay very still on the first, a screaming child on the second.

  “Incoming,” Alix announced, snapping to life. “Looks like you’re on, Doctor.”

  Terrance wished she’d stop calling him that. She sounded so formal, so distant. He fell into step beside her, wondering if he could get used to the new Alix.

  But he supposed that he had it coming to him.

  He couldn’t afford to dwell on the past now. This was a bona fide emergency he had before him. Terrance prayed that the week he’d spent at the hospital in Boston was enough to refresh his memory about how to deal with whatever came his way.

  “Oh, God,” Alix groaned. Her eyes were focused on the second gurney, on the child who looked to be just a little older than her own daughter. “What happened?” she demanded of the closest paramedic.

  “Mother’s got a history of unstable mental behavior,” the man with “Jerry” stitched on his uniform pocket answ
ered. Details came spilling out as quickly as vital signs ordinarily did. “Happened at the courthouse. She was despondent over a custody hearing. Grabbed the little girl and ran up to the roof. Jumped holding the kid’s hand.” He saw Alix looking from one gurney to another. “She’s DOA, Doc, just waiting for you to make the official call.”

  “And the little girl?” Alix wanted to know, raising her voice above the screaming child.

  The head of the second team rattled off the small victim’s vital signs. The readings could all be far better, but there was reason to hope.

  “How is it she’s still breathing?” Terrance marveled.

  “Kid fell on top of the mother,” he was told by the paramedic on the gurney’s other side.

  “Probably saved her life,” Alix commented. She looked up. “Wanda?”

  The head nurse understood her shorthand and pointed. “Room four’s free.”

  Sliding her arms through the sterile, yellow paper gown one of the nurses was holding out for her, Alix never took her eyes off the child.

  “You know the way,” she told the second team. Together they hurried down the corridor.

  “Hey, what about Mom?” the first paramedic wanted to know.

  Alix spared the dead woman a glance. “She wasn’t a mom, she was a monster.” She looked at Terrance. For a moment she thought he almost appeared lost. “I’ll leave the honor of calling it to you, Doctor. Welcome to Blair,” she added dryly.

  With that Alix hurried alongside the gurney into Room Four to do everything in her power to save the life of an innocent child whose only sin was to have the misfortune of being born to the wrong woman. Mentally she recited a prayer as the doors closed behind her.

  A moment later a man came tearing in through the same electronic doors that had parted to admit the two teams with their gurneys. Frantic, he grabbed the first person he encountered, an orderly who spoke next to no English and looked terrified by the man’s demeanor.

  “My little girl, they just brought her in.” The man looked up and down the hall. Everything blurred before him. “She’s only two—”