The M.D.'s Surprise Family Read online

  There was almost awe in his voice, Raven thought. “So are you.” She said so without fanfare, as if the fact was one of life’s givens. She pressed her lips together and looked up at him. The tears had returned, more urgent this time. She didn’t bother trying to hold them back. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you.”

  Peter’s shrug was dismissive. “I was just doing my job.”

  “Not a job, a miracle.” He heard the hitch in her voice and glanced at her. She covered her mouth with her hands, trying to compose herself at least a little. “When you didn’t come out…when the surgery just kept going on and on…I thought…I thought…” She couldn’t finish.

  Oh, God, she was crying, he thought helplessly. He didn’t know what to do with tears. He never had. A strong inclination to just walk away came over him, but he knew he couldn’t do that. Somehow, he had to make her stop. “Don’t cry,” he told her, his voice harsh with his own frustration and ineptitude. “The surgery’s over. He’s still alive.”

  “I know, that’s why I’m crying.” She saw the confusion come over his face. “Because it is over. Because he’s all right.” Peter still didn’t look as if he understood. “These are tears of joy.”

  “Oh. Maybe they should come labeled,” he muttered. “In my line of work, I usually see the other kind.”

  A tear trickled down her cheek and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. Opening the small purse she kept with her, she began to rummage around for a handkerchief. “Doesn’t anyone ever cry when they thank you?”

  “No one’s ever thanked me.”

  Unable to find a handkerchief, Raven used the heel of her hand to wipe away the tear stains on her cheeks. “I can’t believe that. What kind of people have you been dealing with?”

  He made it a point to interact with patients and their families as little as humanly possible. Which was what made this whole scenario so unusual for him. Ordinarily, he would have allowed the doctor assisting him to give Raven the prognosis. For reasons he didn’t quite understand, he’d left the operating room in search of her before he had even shed his surgical scrubs. He hadn’t wanted her to suffer a single extra moment of crippling doubt.

  But he wasn’t about to explain himself or to let her know that this was an aberration. “Because I usually let the assistant surgeon talk to the family.”

  “If the surgery goes badly, you tell the patient’s family. But if it goes well, you have someone else tell them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” She wanted to understand his reasons. She wanted to understand him. “Don’t you want to know how happy you made someone?”

  She kept insisting on making it personal. He’d always been determined to keep it just the opposite. Breaking his rule this time had been a mistake. “It’s not my job to make people happy. It’s my job to use the latest technology and whatever skills I might possess to do what I said I would do.”

  Raven shook her head. The man put new meaning to the term self-efface.

  “You make it sound as if you’re some kind of mechanic doing a tune-up.” He didn’t try to negate the impression.

  “Don’t you realize how gifted you are? How special you are? How—”

  Peter held his hand up. “Enough—”

  To his surprise, she didn’t back away, didn’t just shoot a smile in his direction and pick another topic. She continued doggedly on. “No, I don’t think it is. Peter, you’ve just done something wonderful. You’ve given my brother his childhood back. Why can’t you congratulate yourself for that?”

  He’d given Blue his childhood back, but he hadn’t been able to give his wife and daughter their lives back. By the time he’d realized that it was his car that he’d seen all mangled up and had doubled back to the scene of the accident, Lisa and Becky were both gone. And all his skills couldn’t bring them back.

  He didn’t answer her. Instead, he nodded toward the operating room. “Your brother’s going to be in the recovery room for a couple of hours before they take him to the ICU—”

  “ICU?” The initials sent a cold chill down her spine. Didn’t people with intense problems stay there? Was there something he wasn’t telling her, something that was wrong with Blue?

  He saw the fear scurrying into her eyes. “Don’t look so alarmed,” he told her. “It’s standard procedure for this kind of surgery. ICU is where all the latest equipment is kept. We need to monitor him—”

  She was three thoughts ahead of him. “So something can still go wrong?”

  She looked as if she was about to gather another one of her full heads of steam and go charging off. Peter placed his hands on her arms, as if that could somehow calm her down enough to listen.

  “Blue’s young, he’s strong, but the hospital doesn’t want to take any chances. There’s someone at the nurses’ station watching the monitors at all times. There’s even one that goes off if your brother tries to turn over onto his back.”

  Blue was going to hate that, she thought. She flashed Peter an apologetic smile as she nodded. “Okay. I guess I am pretty frazzled.”

  “That’s one word for it.” Overwrought might have been another, he added silently. The last thing he needed was an overwrought guardian getting in the way. “Look, why don’t you go home?” But even as he said it, he knew she wouldn’t. She was one of those noble people who stood vigil. It made no matter if the object of their concern knew it or not, they stayed. “They’re not going to let you stay in ICU,” he told her crisply. “Visitors are only allowed in the area for five minutes every hour. Otherwise,” he felt bound to add, “you can get in the nurses’s way.”

  She had no intentions of getting in anyone’s way. She also had no intention of leaving Blue. What if he woke up and she wasn’t there? She didn’t want him being scared. “I’m small. I can stay off to the side.”

  Yes, she was small, he thought. Small enough to fit neatly against him without leaving a ripple—except in his gut.

  “Size doesn’t matter. They have their rules,” he informed her. Looking down, he realized that except for the surgical apron he’d shed, he was still wearing the clothes he’d operated in. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go change.”

  Raven pressed her lips together, stepping out of his way.

  “I didn’t mean to keep you,” she told him, then added, “Thank you,” with such heartfelt emotion that he thought she was going to cry again.

  He hurried away before she did.

  When he came down to the Intensive Care Unit later that evening to see how Blue was doing, the first person he saw was Raven. She sat on a chair beside her brother’s bed, her feet tucked up beneath her, the ends of her colorful blouse hanging down halfway to the floor. One hand was lost to his view, the other was firmly holding Blue’s, despite the fact that the boy was asleep. His small body was suspended a couple of inches above the mattress, lying in what looked like an oversize sling. It amazed him that the unnatural position didn’t have the boy fully awake and complaining.

  As if pretending that he hadn’t seen her sitting there, Peter checked the chart at the foot of Blue’s bed. Flipping the metal cover open, he saw that the boy had woken up from the anesthetic but, still very groggy, had fallen asleep again almost immediately.

  Good, he thought, best thing in the world for him is sleep.

  Glancing farther down the page, Peter saw that nothing eventful was happening—unless he counted the way seeing Raven affected him.

  But that belonged on a different chart altogether.

  Flipping the lid closed, he placed the chart back on the hook. Only then did he look at Raven. “What are you doing here?”

  “Holding Blue’s hand so he doesn’t get frightened when he wakes up.” To prove her point, she held up their interlocking fingers.

  He moved closer to the chair. And to her. “I thought I told you to go home.”

  “You did.” Her eyes bright, she made no apologies this time. “I didn’t.”

  “I noticed.�
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  He looked disapprovingly at the chair. Her shoes were tucked in beneath it. One bare toe peeked out from beneath the yards of fabric. It raised thoughts about bare legs and bare bodies that he felt unequal to at the moment.

  “How did you get them to let you drag a chair in here?” And then he fed himself his own answer. There could be only one explanation. George. The man was shameless in his pandering, he thought. “Did George—”

  Raven shook her head. “Last time I saw Mr. Grissom was outside the operating room. Sonia felt sorry for me.”

  The name didn’t mean anything to him right off the bat. “Sonia?”

  “Sonia Jakov. The head nurse at the desk,” she added when there was no sign of recognition on his part.

  As soon as she mentioned the woman’s title, he knew who she was talking about. It also made her victory that much more incredible.

  Peter glanced over to where the woman, known as the Dragon Lady to the nurses who worked under her command, was sitting. And then a bit of color around her throat caught his eye. The last time he’d checked, multicolored scarves were not part of the required uniform. Sonia was wearing one of Raven’s scarves.

  “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 unaware 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.

  Chapter Nine

  The 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.”