Читать книгу The Surgeon's Baby Bombshell - Deanne Anders - Страница 12

IAN FINISHED HIS NOTES for the monthly department heads’ meeting scheduled for the next day. He’d hoped to be setting up the education on new robotic equipment in the OR by next month, but the cost of the newest model had increased above his approved budgeted amount, and now he was stuck with going back to ask the finance board for more money.

He ran his hands through his hair and stood. It was ridiculous that he was continually having his hands tied by upper management, who wouldn’t know a scalpel from a pair of forceps. The new equipment would help cut down on the invasiveness of so many surgeries—which in turn would decrease recovery time and complications. It shouldn’t have to be so hard to get the tools his team needed to take better care of their patients. How was he supposed to operate his department like this?

Ian opened the drawer in his desk and pulled out a pamphlet on the new equipment. The advances they had made in robotic surgery had quickly made their current equipment outdated. He knew the city had struggled for years after Hurricane Katrina to replace the older equipment, and this would be a big start in that direction if he could only get the budget increase he needed.

Under the pamphlet he spotted the unopened letter he had received from his ex-wife weeks before. The plain white envelope glared up at him. It sat there accusing him, as Lydia had, of being cold, heartless and uncaring. He feared the envelope contained more of the hurtful words she’d spat at him in front of their counselor. Words that had cut him to the bone and severed any feelings he’d had for her. Had Lydia always been that cruel? That heartless? They’d had problems, sure—what couple didn’t?—but he would never have guessed that the woman he’d loved since high school could turn on him that way.

But then, hadn’t he deserved it? At least some of it? Like she said, if he’d been at home maybe he would have been able to save his son. He glared at the envelope and slammed the drawer shut. No, he would not be dragged back to that pit of hell where he’d lived after the loss of his son.

He looked down to his watch. There were only minutes before his meeting with Dr. Wentworth and he was determined not to show any of his weaknesses. The last thing he needed was the woman with those soul-searching eyes of hers trying to pry into his personal life.

Picking up the phone, he made a call to the robotic medical equipment company, to check once more on the new prices, while he forced the pain back down deep inside his chest where he kept it hidden.

* * *

Frannie stood against the wall outside Ian’s office. She knew he was in there. She could hear him moving around his desk and papers being shuffled. She knocked on the door and waited for an answer while she fought her instinct to run. This was going to be a disaster—especially after the way she’d tricked him into meeting with her.

Hearing a bark ordering her to enter, she opened the door.

“Ian, thanks for meeting with me,” she said as she entered the room.

She’d never gotten the nerve before to seek Ian out in his office. At least now she’d have him cornered. He had no choice but to talk to her.

Sitting behind his desk, the man looked even more powerful, and the hospital-issue furniture seemed dwarfed by his size. Watching as he looked up at her with eyes that flared with impatience, she caught herself taking a step back.

No, he wasn’t going to scare her off this time. Squaring her shoulders, she forced her chin up and held her ground. This man was not going to ignore her again.

“I know we’ve both been busy, but I would really like to talk to you about some of the progress I’ve been seeing with your patients this week.”

Ian leaned back in his chair and gave her his usual uninterested stare. It was as if the man looked straight through her—as if he couldn’t stand to look her in the eye. Or was scared to.

“Is Danny Owens eating?” he asked.

She’d checked on the teenager during her afternoon rounds and knew Ian wasn’t going to like her answer. While Danny’s nurse had reported that he had eaten a few bites of his lunch, his appetite was still far from what it should be for a growing teenage boy. Frannie had an idea that until his girlfriend started making some progress toward recovery they wouldn’t see a lot of change in his appetite—but he had started to talk to her and his parents now, so at least she had begun to see some improvement.

“Some, but not enough. He’s not eating like he needs to.”

The pointed look he gave her told her the conversation was over as far as he was concerned. But if he thought she was going to be that easy to get rid of he’d underestimated her. They needed to get everything out in the open. No more tiptoeing around Dr. Spencer and his issues. If she was going to work with the man they needed to do it now.

“Exactly what is it, Dr. Spencer, that you don’t like about me? Is it that the board chose to fund my program without your approval? Or is it something more personal?”

She wanted the truth. If she could take it.

“There is nothing ‘personal’ between us, Dr. Wentworth. And the fact that the board approved your program is not surprising, considering your family’s involvement in the hospital.”

She burst out laughing, aware that it sounded more bitter than humorous. “You think my father helped me?” she asked. “You should take some time to talk with my father. He wants nothing more than for me to fall flat on my face, so that I’ll come to my senses and go back to school so that I can become a ‘real’ doctor.”

He had to have heard how disappointed the senior Dr. Wentworth was that his only child hadn’t followed in his footsteps. Her father had been very public about it.

“Nevertheless, as I said, this isn’t personal. I have nothing against you or your program. I’m sure your services are useful in some cases. But with the tight budget we have to operate on at this time I just don’t think that your services make enough difference for these children to justify their cost. These kids need a lot of healing time and physical rehab which is expensive.”

“So what you’re saying is that as long as we take care of a patient’s medical problems their psychological issues will go away? Because I can tell you a lot of people look healthy from the outside while hiding deep psychological scars inside. If you’d read any of the literature on adverse childhood experiences I handed out when I started my program, you would know that these children often suffer from both mental and physical problems later in life. Many of these children will never be the same, no matter how well you fix the trauma to their bodies. For some there will be scars deep down inside them that will never heal if they don’t get help. Is that what you want? Is that what you’d want for your child?”

His jaw tightened and his eyes jerked away from hers. She saw his hands whiten as he gripped the chair-arms. All telltale signs that she was getting to him. Maybe the man wasn’t as indifferent to her cause as she’d thought. Maybe he did have a heart.

She watched as his fingers relaxed their hold and his body sank back into his chair. When he opened his mouth, once more the distant man she had seen earlier, she knew she had lost him.

“My job is to fix the injured kids who come into this hospital,” he said. “I do that by using all my surgical skills and the best technical equipment I can get my hands on. My goal is to make them well so that they can get back to their lives as soon as possible. I understand that you want to help these kids, but—”

He put up his hand to stop her when she would have interrupted. She held her comments. She’d let him finish his high-and-mighty speech, but then she’d have her say.

“I’m a surgeon. I use test results, vital signs and physical examinations to tell me how a patient is recovering. All of those give me tangible information that helps me make decisions for the patient’s care. I’m sure you want to help these kids, and I’m sure you do in your own way, but my focus needs to be on their medical health. I’m a surgeon—it’s what I do, what I’m good at. I’ll be glad to leave their psychological wellbeing in your hands as long as it doesn’t interfere with the plan of care I have for them.”

“And if it does interfere? I understand your need for control of your patients’ care. I get that. But what you did with Danny today could have set him back. Using ultimatums with teenagers can often backfire. I only want what’s best for your patients too. All I’m asking is that we work together. If you have a problem with something I’m doing, tell me. My ego can take it, believe me. But this has to go both ways. If I disagree with how you’re handling a situation, I get to tell you, too.”

She sat still and waited as Ian stared at her. She’d let things go too long between the two of them. They needed to settle their differences. She suspected he was trying to find a way to avoid agreeing with her, but she’d put it to him in a way that left him no loophole. He either agreed to work with her or he came off as the biggest jerk in the hospital.

“I’ll agree to that, but for anything related to my patients’ physical health I get the last word. Now, if we’re finished here, I need to check on a couple of my surgery patients,” he said as he rose from his chair.

She’d been close to getting through to him—she just knew she had—but then he’d retreated, shutting down those emotions she was certain she’d seen and turning back into the same detached surgeon she had been dealing with for the past five months.

She wanted to fight him. To tell him that she had seen that crack in his armor before he’d closed it. But she knew it wouldn’t help. She’d spent years trying to get through the barriers her father had built around himself after her mother’s death until she’d finally realized that it was useless to continue.

Not that she was giving up on Ian. She’d seen enough of a response from him to know his heart hadn’t hardened completely—at least not yet. There might not be any hope for her father, but maybe someday Ian would see that the children he treated didn’t just need him for his surgical skills. They also needed the emotional support that the two of them working together could give them.

She stopped as she got to the door and then turned back toward him, curious now that she’d made the comparison between him and her father.

“Ian, do you ever do anything besides work?” she asked.

“My work is important to me,” he said as he reached up to take his white coat from the hook by the door.

“But do you ever relax? Let yourself enjoy life? Take time to play?”

“What? Are you worried about me, Dr. Wentworth?”

He reached for the door handle and she stepped back, the movement almost sending her into his arms for a moment. Her breath caught, freezing in her lungs. The warmth of his body teased at hers and her legs refused to move away from him. A second turned into two and neither of them moved away.

How had she missed this? She spent too much time studying people’s emotions and reactions not to have seen it. The speeding of her heartbeat when he was around...the magnetic push and pull between the two of them whenever they were together—they were all signs that she had ignored. Did he feel them too? Was that why he was always finding ways to avoid her?

“Some of us don’t have the time to play,” he said, breaking the silence between them, “and I never play with my co-workers.”

She continued to stand there, between him and the door, waiting to see any sign that would hint that he felt it too—this attraction that sent all of her vital signs rising.

He wanted test results? She’d give him test results.

She moved in closer, so their bodies were mere inches apart. She watched as his eyes drifted down to her lips, the look in them so hot that she wet them with her tongue. Oh, yeah, he felt it—and he wasn’t happy about it at all.

He jerked back from her. The moment was gone, but she had what she needed. Was this the reason they had such a hard time working together? This attraction that he seemed to want to ignore?

She turned back to him once more as she stepped out into the hall. She tried to keep a straight face, but managed to put just a touch of huskiness into her voice.

“Really, Ian? Than exactly who do you play with?”

The look on his face before she turned and left him was priceless.

* * *

It had been a week since he had met with Dr. Frannie Wentworth—or Dr. Frannie, as his patients called her. A week during which he’d struggled with the conversation they’d had and his own response to her.

He’d come out of it sounding like a royal jerk, who didn’t really care about his patients. But he did care. He gave his patients everything to help them recover. All his skills as a surgeon and all his diagnostic knowledge. That was all he had now—all he could afford to give.

Once he had been like the young psychiatrist, letting himself get drawn into his patients’ emotions and needs, but that wasn’t him now.

And then there was that other response. The one when for a second he’d almost held her in his arms and his body had taken over, leaving him in no doubt about what it wanted to do.

It was the giggle of a little girl, the sound so sweet, that had him stopping, and an answering laugh that made him turn around. He knew the room he’d just passed. He’d been consulted on the child’s case by her oncologist, and knew she was at the end of her third round of chemo and that the results were draining the child. Her parents were considering having a feeding tube surgically inserted, but he had not heard anything concerning their decision.

Looking through the cracked-open door to the room, he watched as the child, wearing a pretty pink-flowered bandana on her head, pulled a brush through the hair of the brunette psychiatrist he had been thinking about. Sitting on the bed with her legs crossed in front of her, dark hair flowing down her back, Dr. Frannie looked perfectly at home playing with the little girl.

Was this how she worked?

“You know your parents only want what’s best for you, Sarah. Is it that you’re scared of the surgery?”

Ian watched as the child’s mouth tightened and the look of enjoyment left her face.

“Amy had one of those tubes. She showed me. She said it was yucky and it hurt,” Sarah said.

“Did it look yucky to you?” Frannie asked.

“It’s a tube sticking out of her tummy. It’s gross. She said they used it to give her nutrition—whatever that is.”

“It’s what you need to make you strong again. What if I bring one of my dolls in to show you how it works? Would that make you feel better?”

The child scrunched her eyes, as if concentrating really hard, and then pulled the brush back through the thick brown hair.

“Maybe, but it’ll still look yucky. And Amy said it hurt when they put it inside her. She didn’t like it and I won’t like it either.”

“Is that why you told your mommy and daddy that you didn’t want to let Dr. Spencer put the tube inside you?” Frannie asked.

“Maybe...” the little girl said.

* * *

Frannie slid off the bed and turned around, looking back at the beautiful little girl who still held the brush in her hand. She fought back the tears that threatened to spill. This child had been through so much in the last two years. She’d only been in remission for a year before cancer had struck her small body again, and it appeared that this time it might win.

“Dr. Spencer is a real good surgeon. I can’t tell you it won’t hurt, but I know he will give you some medicine to help.”

Frannie watched as the little girl chewed on her bottom lip.

“Will it be that bubble gum medicine? I like the bubble gum one.”

“I’ll talk to Dr. Spencer and see what I can do, okay?”

Frannie turned around and gave the little girl a hug, being careful not to get tangled in the IV line running to the child’s chest.

“Dr. Frannie, I know I’m real sick. I heard Mommy and Daddy talk about it and they were crying.”

“Yes, Sarah, you are real sick. That’s why the doctors are giving you this medicine that makes you feel so bad. They’re trying to make you better.”

Frannie released her and stepped back and took the child’s little hands in hers.

“All the doctors are going to do everything they can to help you get better, but your parents love you so much that it hurts them to see you sick.”

“I don’t like to see them so sad. I don’t want to make them sad. I’ll try harder not to cry when it hurts. Will that make them feel better?”

Frannie swallowed as she straightened the bright bandana around the little girl’s head, still working to hold back the tears.

“I think your parents would be more upset if you tried to hide what you’re feeling, but I bet a bunch of hugs and kisses would make them feel a lot better.”

Sarah smiled, then picked up the doll whose hair she had been brushing before Frannie had walked into the room. “I can do that,” she said, then returned to the doll.

Frannie held it together as she said goodbye and promised Sarah that she would be back the next day to see her with her own doll.

Sarah’s parents had requested that she speak to the little girl after she had become upset at the mention of having a tube placed inside her to help with her nutrition. Now that Frannie knew about her conversation with Amy, she understood why. She’d speak with the little girl’s parents to let them know her concerns.

She walked out to the hallway and almost ran straight into Ian.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, then looked up into troubled eyes that matched her own. “You heard?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, then took a step back from her.

“Sarah’s been through so much already, and I just don’t know how the parents keep doing it,” she said.

“Keep doing what? Watching the doctors trying to save her life?” he asked.

“I know, but—” she started. She could hear the anger in his voice. What had she said this time? She’d just been going to say that it had to be hard on the parents of the little girl, as every day they had to face making decisions that would impact their child.

“No, Dr. Wentworth, you don’t know. You know nothing about the pain a parent experiences when losing a child. Nothing. And no matter what your program does it won’t bring back a child to grieving parents. It won’t put them back together. It won’t fix their marriage. They’ll spend the rest of their lives waking up and questioning themselves, wondering if they did everything they could, if they missed some sign and whether that would have made a difference in their child’s life, if things would have been different if they had been there more for their child. You know nothing about how it feels to lose a child,” he said.

He turned and started to leave.

“Well, hello there,” said Dr. Guidry. “I have to say it’s a bit of a surprise to see the two of you having another discussion out here in the hallway.”

Frannie felt as if she was fourteen again, getting caught smoking in the girls’ bathroom by Sister Agnes.

“We were just...” She looked at Ian, waiting to see if he was going to help her out.

He lifted an eyebrow and continued to glare.

“It was just a misunderstanding,” she said. She gave Dr. Guidry a guilty smile, then continued. “We should have been more discreet,” she said, and forced herself to smile at Ian. “It won’t happen again. Will it, Ian?”

“I apologize, Dr. Guidry.” Ian finally spoke up. “Dr. Wentworth is right. We should have moved out of the hallway.”

Dr. Guidry studied the two of them with a stern look that had Frannie fighting the need to run. They were in big trouble.

“What we seem to have here is a communication problem, and I think that’s something the two of y’all could use some help with. So I’ll tell you what we’re going to do about it,” he said as he turned toward her. “My wife has been worried to death about not having enough volunteers to help with the hospital’s Mardi Gras float this year. I think it would be a great idea if the two of you help her out a bit—do some of that team-building the higher-ups are always preaching at me about. Doesn’t that just sound like fun?” he said as he turned toward Ian.

The look on Ian’s face—a face that was usually so unreadable—showed signs of shock and maybe a little bit of horror. Did the thought of working with her scare him that much?

Or maybe he was one of those men who didn’t like to get his hands dirty with actual physical work? Though judging by the hard build of his body the man worked at something besides what he did in the operating room. He was probably one of those gym rats, and the only sweating he did was on a machine surrounded by other people.

Or maybe it was fear of injuring his hands. Her father had always refused to do anything in which he could injure his hands.

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Dr....um... Richard,” Ian said. “I’m sure you’re aware how busy the hospital is right now.”

“The hospital’s always busy. Look at it this way: you’ll be helping an old man out here. Happy wife, happy life and all that. And don’t worry—I’ll be right there with y’all. Like I said, it’ll be fun.”

The two of them watched the older doctor as he headed back down the hall, calling out hellos to other staff members as he went.

“Maybe if you talk to him you can get him to change his mind,” Ian said as he turned back to her.

“Me? It’s your fault. You talk to him,” she said. “But I can tell you you’ll be wasting your time.”

“None of this is my fault,” he said. He looked down at his watch, then back up to her. “And now I’m running late for a case. Talk to him. Make him see reason. Tell him we’ll play nice together.”

She couldn’t help but smile at his comment.

“Hmm... Didn’t you tell me just the other day that you didn’t play with your colleagues?”

He gave her a look so sharp that it would have drawn blood—except for the fact that she dealt with traumatized teenagers on a daily basis. It would take a lot more than a look to intimidate her.

“Again, this is not my fault,” she said. “If you want to risk it, talk to him yourself. Dr. Guidry is a teddy bear most times, but break one of his rules and the teddy bear turns into a great big grizzly—and a hard-headed one at that. If I was you I’d just accept your sentence and deal with it. Which is exactly what I intend to do.”

She watched as the man walked off, muttering something about busybody doctors and nosy psychiatrists. She hadn’t been nosy—though she’d wanted to be after the way he had gone off after her comment concerning Sarah’s parents.

Did he really think she was judging them? She would never presume to understand what the little girl’s parents were going through, but there had been enough anguish in Ian to know that he did relate to Sarah’s parents. It was the first time in the five months they’d been working together that she had seen any true emotion in the man. But why?

Had he lost a patient in surgery who haunted him? Or was it someone closer? Had he lost a sister or a brother? She had heard that he was divorced, but she’d never heard anything about him having children.

Whatever it was that had caused the pain she had heard in Ian’s voice, it had been traumatic and he was still suffering from it. And even after the way he had acted she couldn’t help but be concerned for him. He was hurting and he needed help. She knew he’d never ask for it, but maybe if she could get him to trust her, he would open up to her.

The idea of working with him on the hospital’s Mardi Gras float was actually sounding good now. It was exactly what the two of them needed so they could begin to work together—and if in doing so she found a way to help Ian, then that would be even better.