Читать книгу To Save This Child - Darlene Graham - Страница 11

“PARDON ME?” Kendal tapped the security guard’s huge shoulder, which felt like it was carved out of marble. “You’re Ben Schulman, right?”

He turned, and Kendal looked up into the kindly handsome face that went with the killer body. The name tag on his massive chest read SCHULMAN, so of course this had to be the Gentle Ben that the nurses all talked about. Usually their talk bemoaned the fact that this fabulous hunk of male was not interested in women.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kendal always greeted the younger man when she came into the hospital early in the mornings, when she was trying to catch up with the surgeons before they got too busy. He was always polite, always calling her “ma’am.”

Covering the night shift, Ben Schulman made for an imposing presence at the front entrance of the hospital. He was a six-foot-four blond wunderkind with a body builder’s physique and a choirboy’s face. The endless, swirling hospital rumors had painted Ben with a pretty broad brush. Religious fanatic. But a not-so-latent homosexual. But Kendal’s impression of him was that he was totally professional. Stoic, polite, nice. Approachable, should one need help. Aggressive, should one be up to no good. Definitely idealistic. A real “serve and protect” kind of guy.

“I’m Kendal Collins.” She extended her hand and he gently shook it. “I understand you accompany Dr. Bridges on his Doctors Without Borders missions to Mexico.”

His face broke into a boyish smile. “We’re not associated with Doctors Without Borders, per se. But yes, this will be my third trip to Chiapas.”

“Could I ask you a few questions about that? When you have a minute?”

He frowned. “Why? Are you a reporter or connected to the hospital PR department or something? I was under the impression you did sales of some kind.”

“I do.” She handed him the card she had at the ready. “I’m in sales for Merrill Jackson. But Dr. Bridges has asked me to accompany him on the Chiapas trip as an interpreter. I thought we should meet, and I’d like to find out a little more about what I’d be getting myself into.”

Ben studied the card, then her. His expression was carefully neutral, not surprising considering his job, but even so, Kendal could see that he was uncomfortable about something. “Working with Dr. Bridges is quite an experience. But I’ll be happy to tell you everything I know.” He checked his watch. “I get off in twenty minutes.”

“Meet me at the Daylight Deli then. I’ll buy breakfast.”

DAYLIGHT DELI was situated in the middle of the hospital concourse that connected four enormous buildings. It faced an open courtyard and had the kind of atmosphere desperately needed in a place where people were suffering and worrying and working too hard. An atmosphere that said, “Peace. Relax. We’ll feed you.”

The food was excellent, and the place was often packed with hospital personnel in lab coats and scrubs, business-suited executives, casually dressed visitors, exhausted relatives and even the occasional patient. It was especially busy at eight o’clock in the morning. Everybody was hustling for a mug of the deli’s gourmet coffee, a cup of fragrant herbal tea, a fresh-baked muffin or one of its infamous sticky buns.

Kendal felt fortunate when two lab techs vacated a small table that was out of the way by the windows. She rolled her cart into the nearby corner, sat down and waited, thinking about what she should ask the security guard.

Before long Ben came in. From behind the counter the owner looked up. The man wore an earring and a kerchief on his head and called most of his customers “sweetie.” He hollered, “Ben!” and Ben answered, “Hey, Nolan!”

When Ben spotted Kendal in the corner, she waved at him.

“What can I get for you?” Kendal offered as Ben approached the table.

“A strawberry banana smoothie would be great, thanks.”

The owner winked at her when Kendal and Ben walked up to the counter. He was already making the smoothie. “He always has the same thing. What can I get for you, sweetie?”

Kendal craved a sticky bun in the worst way, but she ordered a small serving of fruit salad instead. This kind of discipline was second nature to her by now, but it was never easy.

Once he got the smoothie whirring in the blender, the owner said, “You guys know each other?” while looking back and forth from Ben to Kendal.

“Kendal Collins. Nolan Nelson. Kendal’s a pharmaceutical sales rep around here.”

“Didn’t I fill a big order for you a few days ago?”

“Yes. For Dr. Bridges’s office. The quiche was excellent.”

“Kendal wants to ask me some questions about the Chiapas trip,” Ben said. “Dr. Bridges has asked her to go along.”

The owner’s eyebrows shot right up to the edge of his kerchief. “Bridges asked you to go to Mexico? Don’t do it, sweetie! That man’ll break your heart.”

The man’s tone left no doubt about what he was implying. Kendal felt her cheeks flush to a neon red. “I—”

“Nolan,” Ben intoned with undisguised impatience as he looked around the crowded space. “The doc asked her to go along as an interpreter.”

Nolan looked abashed, but even so, he said, “Oh, right. That’s what he claims.” He turned to dish up Kendal’s fruit salad.

While she dug in her purse for the money, the caterer studied her with open skepticism. “He sure picked himself a pretty little interpreter. What happened to Kathy?”

“She’s sick and can’t go,” Ben supplied. Apparently Ben had an inside track on events in Bridges’s office.

“Nothing serious, I hope.” The smoothie was done and Nolan poured it into a glass.

“Gallbladder.” Ben took the glass.

“You take care, sweetie,” Nolan said as Kendal picked up the fruit salad.

As they walked away Kendal was still feeling her cheeks burn at the caterer’s implication that she might be accompanying Jason Bridges to Mexico as some sort of paramour. She wasn’t like that. Not at all. In fact, she’d suffered in stubborn celibacy this whole year since Phillip had left. A few men had asked her out, but she wasn’t attracted to them. She was beginning to wonder if she’d ever feel real passion again, or if Phillip’s betrayal had killed that part of her for good.

“Don’t mind Nolan,” Ben said quietly when they got back to their table. “He doesn’t like Dr. Bridges. Thinks he’s a player.”

“Is he?”

“How should I know? Nolan’s just bitter. His sister’s a nurse down in surgery. She dated Dr. Bridges for a while, went all gaga over him, baking him banana nut bread and stuff. Just because it didn’t work out, that doesn’t make Jason a bad guy.” Ben didn’t elaborate further, but Kendal could fill in the blanks. The relationship between the doctor and Nolan’s sister had probably ended with a broken heart—hers—and The Wolf had moved on to his next conquest. But Ben wasn’t about to criticize this doctor, who he obviously admired.

“You like Dr. Bridges?”

“Jason’s a stand-up guy.”

A small cross shone dully from the open collar of Ben’s shirt, and Kendal wondered what “stand-up guy” meant to someone with Ben’s convictions. Someone who serves mankind under the worst of conditions? Someone who plays around but apparently thinks he’s exempt from breaking hearts because everybody understands that he’s The Wolf? “What do you mean?”

“You’ll find out what Jason’s like soon enough if you go down to Chiapas with him.”

“You mean that he’s a good surgeon?”

“He is that, but it goes deeper. He’s put himself in some tight spots helping those people.”

“Like what?”

“Like there are factions down there that want to force the government to get involved and bring those people into the twenty-first century, and there are other factions that want the area to stay isolated. Jason has been caught between them a time or two, right along with the poor people he’s trying to help.”

“That’s why Dr. Bridges handpicked you? For security?”

Ben’s handsome face looked abashed. “I can use a gun—and my fists—if I have to, but the truth is, I’m really more like Jason’s pack animal,” Ben smiled. “Actually, I like to go because Dr. Bridges pays all my expenses and he gives me time off to visit the missions around San Cristóbal de las Casas. That’s what I really want to do someday—missionary work.”

“That’s wonderful! Tell me what it’s like in Chiapas.”

Ben’s descriptions of Chiapas were romanticized, but graphic. He told her about the fascinating culture, of the superstitions that persisted among the descendants of the Maya. About the beautiful waterfalls, lakes and rain forests. He didn’t pull any punches as he described the intense heat, the altitude sickness, the man-eating mosquitoes and the inevitable onset of Montezuma’s revenge.

“Turista, the locals call it. Thought I’d die the first time it hit me. The cramps! Never had such a bad case of diarrh—” He noticed the revolted look on Kendal’s face and stopped. “Sorry.”

He sipped his smoothie while he eyed her impeccable manicure and silk power suit. “Are you sure you’re up to this trip?” he asked. “No offense, but you seem like more of an indoor type gal.”

“I’ve had my share of adventures,” Kendal asserted. Which was at the least misleading and at the worst an all-out lie. Her “adventures” consisted of skiing down a double diamond slope at a fancy resort or finding her way on the Metro line in Washington D.C. “I’ve been to Mexico before,” she added for good measure, leaving out the fact that her trips had mostly been confined to the Miami-style resort areas of Cancún.