[The Sons of Lily Moreau 02] - Taming the Playboy Read online

  It never hurt to have one of the chiefattendings compliment your work, Georges thought. “Thanks.” But right now, he was more interested in the answer to his next question. “Who’d you call for the surgery?”

  “Rob Schulman. He’s on call for the night. I’m trying to get Darren Patterson to act as assistant on the procedures, but so far, Patterson’s not answering his page.” Georges didn’t even have to think about it. “I can assist,” he volunteered. Murphy eyed him skeptically. All surgical residents were eager to operate whenever possible, but this went beyond wanting to put in time in the O.R. He felt an obligation to the old man to see things through. “I’ve assisted Schulman before. If Patterson doesn’t answer by the time Schulman gets here—”

  “You scrub in,” Murphy concluded, agreeing. The night shift was always down on viable personnel, and they worked with what they could get on short notice.

  The baby’s screams grew louder again. Murphy gritted his teeth. “Any chance you want to fill in for me until Schulman shows up?”

  Georges laughed and shook his head. “Not a chance. I put in my eighteen hours today.”

  “Then why aren’t you dead on your feet?”

  Georges grinned as he spread his hands innocently. “Clean living.” “Not from what I hear,” Murphy responded. He turned around to walk back to the shrieking baby’s stall. “Into theValleyofDeath rode the six hundred,” he muttered under his breath.

  “A doctor who quotes Tennyson. That should look good on your résumé,” Georges commented.

  Murphy said something unintelligible as he disappeared into the stall.

  Georges made his way back toVienna .

  The second she saw him, she was on her feet, her eyes opened wide like Bambi. “My grandfather…” Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t bring herself to complete the question, afraid of being too optimistic. Afraid of the alternative even more. She held her breath, waiting for Georges to answer her.

  “Is going to need surgery,” he told her, saying only what they both already knew. “He got a little banged up inside and we’re going to fix that,” he assuredVienna in a calm, soothing voice.

  Relief wafted over her. Her grandfather was still alive. There was hope. And then she replayed the doctor’s words in her head.

  “We?” she questioned. “Then you’ll be the one operating on him?”

  “Dr. Schulman will be performing the surgery. He’s one of the best in the country. I’ll be assisting him if they can’t find anyone else.” She took hold of his hand, her eyes on his, riveting him in place. “I don’t want anyone else,” she told him with such feeling it all but took his breath away. “I want you. I want you to be there.”

  “They’re trying to locate another surgeon to assist, but—” “No,” she interrupted. “You. I want you.” Her fingers closed over his hand. “You’ll help. I can feel it. It’s important that you be there for him during the operation. Please.”

  Georges heard himself saying, “All right,” but, like a ventriloquist, she was the one who was drawing the words from his lips.

  Chapter Four

  The next moment,Vienna suddenly pulled back.

  Georges probably thought she was crazy, she thought, and she didn’t want to alienate him. But she was certain that hehad to be in the operating room.

  It wasn’t that she thought of herself as clairvoyant, she just had these…feelings,for lack of a better word. Feelings that came to her every so often.

  Feelings that always turned out to be true.

  She’d had one of those feelings the day her parents were killed. Viennahad been only eight at the time, still very much a child, but somehow, as they bid her goodbye, saying they would see her that evening, she instinctively knew that she was seeing Bill and Theresa Hollenbeck for the last time. She’d clung to each of her parents in turn, unwilling to release them, unable to make them understand that if they walked out that door, if they drove toPalm Springs to meet with her mother’s best friend and that woman’s fiancé, that they would never see another sunrise.

  God knew she’d tried to tell them, but they had laughed and hugged her, and told her not to worry. That she was just held captive by an overactive imagination. And her grandfather’s stories. AmosSchwarzwalden , her mother’s father, was visiting fromAustria at the time and they left her with him.

  And drove out of her life forever. The accident happened at six-thirty that evening. It was a huge pileup on I-5 that made all the local papers and the evening news. Seven cars had plowed into one another after a drunk driver had lost control of his car. A semi had swerved to avoid hitting the careening vehicle—and wound up hitting the seven other cars instead.

  Miraculously, there’d only been two casualties. Tragically, those two casualties had been her parents.

  It was the first timeVienna could remember ever having one of those “feelings.” After that, there were other times, other occasions where a sense of uneasiness warned her that something bad was going to happen. But the feeling never came at regular intervals or even often. It didn’t occur often enough for her grandfather, who was the only one she shared this feeling with, to think she had some sort of extraordinary power. She didn’t consider herself a seer or someone with “the sight” as those in the old country were wont to say.

  But her “intuitions” occurred just often enough for her not to ignore them when they did happen. And even though they had not warned her of the car accident that had nearly stolen her grandfather from her, they now made her feel that if this man who had come to their rescue was not in the O.R. when her grandfather was being operated on, something very serious was going to happen. Something that would not allow her grandfather to be part of her life anymore.

  Her eyes met Georges’ and she flashed a rueful smile that instantly took him captive. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound as if I was coming unhinged,”Vienna apologized, but all the same, she continued holding on to his arm. “But I really do feel very strongly about this,” she emphasized. “Youhave to be in the operating room with my grandfather.”

  Georges could all but feel the urgency rippling through her, transmitting itself to him. The woman was dead serious. They were running out of time and as far as he knew, Patterson had still not been located. “All right,” Georges agreed gently. “I’ll go talk to the surgeon.” Placing his hand over hers, he squeezed it lightly and gave her an encouraging smile. “You sit tight, all right?”

  Viennawas barely aware of nodding her head. She forced a smile to her lips.

  “All right,” she murmured. “And thank you. Again.”

  He merely nodded and then hurried away. In the locker room, he quickly changed into scrubs. As he closed the locker door, he felt as if he was getting a second wind. Or was that his third one? He wasn’t altogether sure. By all rights, at this point in his day—or night—he should have been dead on his feet, looking forward to nothing more than spending the rest of the night in a reclining position—as he’d planned with Diana.

  Instead, as he headed to scrub in, he felt suddenly invigorated. Ready to leap tall buildings in a single bound. The prospect of facing a surgery always did that to him. It put him on his toes and, Georges found, instantly transformed him into the very best version of himself.

  He all but burst into the area where the sinks were and after greeting the surgeon, began the laborious process of getting ready to perform the procedure—in double time.

  Rob Schulman was carefully scrubbing the area between his fingers with a small scrub brush. Every surgeon had superstitions. Schulman’s was to use a new scrub brush for every surgery. He glanced over toward Georges.

  He seemed mildly amused at the energy he witnessed in the other man. “Someday, Georges, you’re going to have to tell me what kind of vitamins you’re on.” When Georges looked over toward him quizzically, he elaborated. “I saw you eight hours ago and they tell me that except for two hours, you’ve been here all this time. What kind of a deal with the devil did you ma
ke?” Schulman asked. He paused to rotate his neck. Several cracks were heard to echo through the small area. The surgical nurses, waiting their turn, exchanged smiles. “Why is it you’re not falling on

  your face?” “I scheduled that for after the surgery,” Georges replied with an easy air that hid the electrical current all but racing through him. Done, he gave his hands another once-over, just in case. “I want to thank you for letting me scrub in.”

  Schulman laughed softly to himself, the high-pitched sound incongruous with man’s considerable bulk. “You’re welcome, but this time, it’s more of a matter of supply and demand, Georges. Murphy told me that they can’t find another assistant in time.”

  They could have opted to wait. Or, in an emergency, Murphy could have scrubbed in. Carefree to a fault, Georges still knew better than to take anything for granted. He inclined his head toward the senior internal surgeon. “I’ll take what I can get.”

  Schulman concentrated on his nail beds, scrubbing hard. “They tell me you brought him in.” He raised his brown eyes toward Georges for a second. “Hunting down your own patients these days?”

  Georges pretended he hadn’t heard that line twice already this evening and flashed an easy smile at the man.

  “I was onPacific Coast Highway ,” he told Schulman. “The accident happened right behind me.” “Lucky for the driver you were there,” Schulman commented. Finished, he leaned his elbow against the metal faucet handles and turned off the water. Bracing himself, he looked toward the swinging double doors that led into the operating room. “All right, let’s see if I can keep that luck going.”

  Georges nodded. Finished with his own preparations for the surgery, he followed Schulman into the O.R., his own hands raised and ready to have surgical gloves slipped over them.

  An eerie feeling passed over him the moment he’d said the words. Exactly one moment after he had pointed out to Schulman that an artery the latter had cauterized wasn’t, in fact, completely sealed.

  With the old man’s organs all vying for space, it had been an easy matter to miss the slow seepage. The surgeon was focused on what he was doing, removing the spleen andresectioning the liver by removing a small, damaged portion no more than the size of a quarter. As all this went on—not to mention the presence of various instruments, suction tubes and clamps within the small area—the tiny bit of oozing had almost been overlooked.Would have been overlooked had something not caught his eye in that region.

  He still wasn’t sure exactly what had prompted him to push back the retractor and look, but he was so glad he had. The seepage could have cost the patient his life.

  I don’t want anyone else. I want you. I want you to be there. It’s important that you be there for him during the operation.

  Had she known? Had the blonde with the intensely blue eyes somehow known that this was why he had to be inside the O.R.? Lily believed in things that went beyond religion and beyond any reason known to man. Ever since he could remember, she made it a point to rule out nothing. Not spirits, not things beyond the realm of the everyday and the norm. Periodically, his mother would seek the guidance of a palm reader and have her future told.

  According to his mother, that was how she’d known which of the men in her life to marry and which merely to enjoy. In the end, her insecurity and restlessness had her leaving all of them, husband or lover, but she claimed that her fortune-teller helped her “see” which path to take.

  Both Philippe and Alain placed no stock in that, pooh-poohing her fondness for fortune-tellers as just another eccentric attribute that contributed to her being Lily Moreau. But he was inclined to go along with the that line fromHamlet . That there were more things in heaven and on earth than could possibly be dreamt of in anyone’s philosophy.

  Now, as he watched Schulman swiftly reassess the situation, he caught himself wondering about the blonde he’d left in the surgical lounge.

  Was the woman clairvoyant? He didn’t know. Didn’t know if he actually believed in clairvoyance—but shehad been adamant that he be here in the O.R. And if hehadn’t been here, her grandfather would presently be bleeding out. By the time Amos’s condition worsened enough for them to reopen him again and locate the bleeding artery, it might have very well been too late to remedy the situation.

  “Nice catch, Georges,” Schulman was saying as he called for more sponges to help clean out the blood from the small cavity. Unlike some physicians, the internal surgeon had no problem with giving credit where he felt credit was due. “You very well might have saved this man’s life.” Schulman glanced up and his eyes above the mask were smiling as they looked at Georges. “Again. When this is over, the man should adopt you. Or at least put you in his will.”

  Georges made no comment. He was still trying to sort things out in his head.

  It was another three hours before the surgery was finally over. Feeling drained and spent and yet experiencing that exhilarating high that always accompanied any surgery he was part of, Georges untied his mask. For the moment, he left it dangling around his neck as he walked back to the sinks just beyond the operating room. Behind him, AmosSchwarzwalden was being wheeled through the opposite set of doors into the recovery room where he would remain for the next hour or so to be observed.

  As always, washing up after a surgery took far less time thanpresurgical preparation. Finished, Georges dried his hands and happened to glance down at his scrubs. He realized that if he was going to seeVienna , he needed to stop off at his locker and change. His shirt had her grandfather’s blood on it.

  Not exactly the best way to look when he went to give her a firsthand report about the way the surgery had gone.

  “Any more people you want me to operate on?” Schulman asked as he finished up himself.

  “No, not tonight,” Georges answered.

  “Good.” He glanced around the area. “Then I bid you all good night, people.”

  The last thing Schulman did before he left was throw away the scrub brush he’d used on his nails.

  Georges hurried to the locker room for a clean shirt, not wanting to keepVienna anxiously waiting any longer than she had to.

  Viennawas the only person waiting in the surgical lounge. Ordinarily, during the course of a normal day, the large, spacious room, with its soft lighting, comfortable sofas and large selection of surprisingly up-to-date reading material, was anywhere from half to completely full with anxious friends and relatives waiting to hear the outcome of their loved one’s surgery. But at this hour of the night, the area was usually empty.

  Not tonight. Viennahad the considerable length of the room to move around in. Initially, she’d sat, first on one sofa, then another, then yet another, until she had, like Goldilocks, tried out every seat in the lounge. She’d also looked through every piece of literature in the lounge. Or attempted to.

  The pages had moved, and so had her eyes, as she flipped from magazine to magazine. Not a single word had stuck during the course of her entire waiting period. So she had given up and wound up pacing from side to side, trying desperately to plumb the depth of her optimism and make herself truly believe that everything was going to be all right, just as the doctor had said.

  Just as he’d promised. But try as she may, and despite the fact that he had gone in as she’d asked him to, she still could not allow herself to fully relax. Worry became her constant companion.

  Her face, a battlefield between concern and her inherent optimism, which ordinarily insisted on seeing the best in any situation, lit up the moment she saw Georges approaching in the distance. She didn’t wait for him to come to her. Instead, she rushed over to him before Georges had a chance to reach the lounge.

  Holding her breath,Vienna searched his face for a sign that she’d been right to beg him to go into the O.R. That the doctor fate had brought into her life so unexpectedly had saved her grandfather.

  “Well?” she cried, her voice all but cracking.

  He smiled at her. “Your grandfather’s going to be
fine,” he told her. It amazed him that yet again, a fresh wave of energy, coming out of nowhere, seemed to find him. Three was usually his limit for one twenty-four-hour period, not four.

  The next moment, her face glowing with relief,Vienna threw her arms around his neck. But instead of kissing him the way she had the first time, she turned her face into his chest and began to sob.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” Georges told her soothingly. After a beat, he closed his arms around her and slowly rubbed her back, the way he would a distraught child. “There’s no reason to cry. Your grandfather came through it like a trouper.” Despite the fact that Lily Moreau was the personification of drama, Georges always felt at a loss when faced with a woman’s tears. Especially when those tears had nothing to do with sorrow. Why would a woman cry when she was happy? “We fixed everything that was wrong with him.”

  Georges held her for as long as she seemed to need it, secretly enjoying the warmth of her body against his, murmuring words of comfort. But when she finally stepped back, wiping away the tears from her cheeks and pulling herself together, he couldn’t hold his question back any longer.

  “How did you know?” he asked her. Blinking back the last of her tears from her lashes,Vienna lifted her head. Though her eyes weren’t swollen, her cheeks were streaked with tears. Georges reached into his pocket and found a handkerchief. Handing it toVienna , he drew back just far enough to study her face.

  “How did you know?” he asked again.

  “Know what?” Viennalet out a long, ragged breath, then drew in another one, trying to steady herself. Trying to sound normal again. For more than an hour, despite all her best efforts, she had begun to succumb to fear. She loved the old man who had dedicated his life to her, who had given up his home, his business inAustria , to come toAmerica and be her family. Steadier now, she wiped her cheeks and looked at Georges, waiting.