Nursing The Doctor (18 page)

“It’s romances for alto flute. The selections were written in honor of the world’s most beautiful women, and tonight it’s most appropriate.”

He tilted his wineglass in her direction and made a tiny bow, and she grew warm as she met his gaze and acknowledged the open admiration there.

He broke the sudden tension. “What sort of music do you like, Lil?”

“Rock and roll. Blues. Some classical, but not a lot. I had a pretty middle-class upbringing, we didn’t listen to opera or anything like that. My dad used to sing cowboy songs when I was little.”

Funny, she’d forgotten that until right now.

“Did he have a good voice?”

“I guess you’d call it an Irish baritone.”

“Sullivan. I should have guessed. Was your family from Ireland?”

“By way of Saskatchewan. Sullivan wasn’t actually dad’s family name, it was his stepfather’s. Gram’s family emigrated from Scotland. How about you, Greg?”

“Grandpa Stanley was born in England. He took his medical training there, went to war as a young doctor and met my grandma. She was a nurse from Vancouver, and they married and came to Canada when the war ended. They moved to Greenwood and stayed.”

“Did you hear how his funeral was?” She’d been thinking of how difficult it was for Greg to miss it.

“I only know that it was held yesterday at two o’clock.” He obviously didn’t want to talk about it. Instead, he gestured at the soup tureen. “Want to serve us some of that before it gets cold?”

It was a fresh vegetable broth, light and delicious. There were warm, yeasted buns to go with it in a napkin-covered basket. Lily buttered two and they ate for a while in companionable silence.

“So, your mom was born in Greenwood?” She was curious about his background.

“Yeah. They only had Elise. Grandma couldn’t have any more kids.”

“That’s your mom, Elise?”

He nodded. It was also obvious he didn’t want to talk about his mother.

“And your dad?” She knew she was probing, but the need to know about his life overcame her better judgment.

He answered readily enough. “I never knew much about him. Both he and my mother were still teenagers when they married. He was a construction worker doing roadwork around Greenwood one summer, and Mom met him and eloped a couple of days later. He was an American and they lived in Washington State. She had Theo and Jeremy and I within five years, and then divorced my father when I was four. He joined the American Air Force after that and died in Vietnam.”

“That must have been rough for your mom, raising three little boys on her own,” Lily ventured. “I only have one niece on a part-time basis, and it takes all my time and energy to care for her.”

“Yeah, well, Elise couldn’t handle it. She sent us to Greenwood to our grandparents right after the divorce.”

“So all of you grew up there?”

Greg shook his head. “Nope, just me. See, after three years, she remarried, moved here to Vancouver and sent for us. My brothers stayed with her and the man she married, but I went back to my grandparents six months later.”

The bare facts left a great deal unsaid, Lily realized.

“How old were you then?”

“Seven.” A ghost of a smile came and went. “I guess I was a really difficult kid. Elise couldn’t do anything with me, and I hated the guy she married. I ran away a few times, trying to get to Greenwood, but a seven-year-old can’t
really hitchhike all that well, and I never managed to get enough money for the bus. I kept getting picked up by the cops, so finally I just stopped eating and talking. And I refused to go to school. It worked. She finally got the message and drove me home to Greenwood.”

In her mind’s eye, Lily saw the desperately unhappy little boy he must have been to go to such extremes. For some reason it broke her heart She blinked back tears.

He noticed. “You’ve got a soft heart Lil.” His voice was like a caress.

Nervous suddenly, she made a production of serving the rest of the dinner. There was West Coast salmon in a dill sauce, tiny oven-roasted potatoes and peas and carrots, but when she was finished she had the feeling he was waiting for her to go on talking. When she was sure her voice was steady, she did.

“Your grandparents must have been glad to have you back.”

“They were. They loved all of us boys a lot.”

She smiled at him. “But you the best?”

He nodded. “I was the youngest. The youngest always gets spoiled, I guess. I was the one Grandpa Stanley always took along on his hospital visits and house calls, because even then I was fascinated by medicine.”

“Maybe you needed spoiling.” The specter of the sad little boy haunted her.

“Maybe so.”

“Did you see much of your brothers as you grew up?”

“They’d come and stay for a couple of weeks each summer. We were never really close, though. Our lives were too different. And they resented me for getting to live with Gramps and Grandma.” He grinned and said cheerfully,
“They used to beat the hell out of me until I learned to fight back. It was good training for contact sports.”

“Where are your brothers now?”

“Here, in the city. Theo’s an elementary school teacher, and Jeremy’s an electrician with B.C. Hydro. They’re both married, and Theo’s got two kids, both girls.”

She knew better than to ask to see pictures of his nieces. She remembered that he’d called security and told them to escort his family out of the hospital when they came to visit him.

“Okay, Lil, that’s my entire life story. Now tell me yours. You only have the one brother?”

Lily nodded. “Kaleb’s three years older than me. Our mother died when I was eleven, and Gram sold her farm in Saskatchewan and came to live with us in Vancouver. Dad was a police detective, and he wasn’t around much at all.
Gram raised us.”

She’d heard it said time and again by worshipful admirers of her father that Michael Sullivan was devoted to his job. He probably was, almost as much as he was devoted to chasing and seducing women. Lily had learned about her father’s affairs in her early teens, and to a young girl missing her mother and needing her father, being ignored was devastating.

“Dad died about six weeks after I graduated from nursing school,” she added. She didn’t say that by then, she’d finally learned not to expect anything from him.

“He must have been really proud to have such a smart and beautiful daughter.”

“If he was, he certainly never showed it.” Her voice was tart Greg was watching her reactions closely, and Lily did her best not to reveal any more of her negative feelings about her father. “He just wasn’t much of a family man, I guess,” she added lamely.

He certainly hadn’t been even interested enough in his family to attend any of their graduation ceremonies, not high school, university or her nursing. She’d wasted so much time and energy trying to wrest from Michael what he was incapable of giving them...his attention, his love, a few scant hours of his time. And she didn’t want to waste any more precious time thinking of him. Especially not on this magical evening.

“Enough of family trees,” she declared in a light tone. “Tell me what you like to read, what movies you enjoy.”

For the next half hour they talked about romance and murder and science fiction. They discovered that they both liked to play poker. They had a heated discussion about sexuality versus sensuality in literature and films. Lily was
amazed to learn that Greg had read all the works of her favorite mystery writer.

“I didn’t think you read much,” she commented. “You were always...” She stopped abruptly.

“Always what?”

“Oh, busy. You know. Going places, doing things.”

Working your way through the single female population of Vancouver.

“Funny how a couple of measly casts can slow a guy down.” But his joking had none of the bitterness that had been there before. “I’ve been sitting here thinking that if the accident hadn’t happened, we never would have done this, Lily.”

“Probably not.” But she was reminded forcefully that it wasn’t just his accident that had brought them together. It was a man named Victor Nefstead and the infection that might be in the blood they shared. Her cheerful mood suddenly took a nosedive, and she couldn’t help asking, “Greg, did you tell your doctor about the Hep C?”

“Yeah, I did. He said exactly what I think, that the possibility is remote and that there’s no point worrying until the time comes when an accurate test is possible.” He reached across the table and took her hand, stroking the palm with his fingers and sending shivers up her arm.

“Try to forget about it, Lily. Let’s just enjoy the moment. Why don’t you serve that apple cobbler, pour us some coffee and tell me what’s going on down in the ER.”

She did. She told him about the signs some wit had posted on her last shift. One said, If You Must Smoke, Don’t Exhale, another, Be Nice To Bacteria, It’s The Only Culture Some People Have.

He laughed, and they reminisced about some of the more outrageous things they’d shared at work, but she noticed that he was shifting in the wheelchair, obviously growing uncomfortable.

“Don’t you think maybe you ought to get back into bed, Greg? This is a long time for you to sit in that chair, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he admitted reluctantly. “Do you mind giving me a hand, Lil?”

The transfer was smooth and efficient. She marveled at how strong he still was, despite his injuries. When he was settled against a bank of pillows, he took her hand again and linked their fingers, palm to palm, as he’d done before.

She was very aware that they were alone.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Maybe it’stime I left, Greg.”

“Stay, please.” He gave her the one-sided grin she’d never been able to resist. “The evening’s just beginning.”

It wasn’t, but she couldn’t bring herself to disagree.

“Come closer, Lily. Come here.” He patted the bed. “Sit here beside me.”

She perched nervously on the edge, glancing toward the door and voicing her apprehension. “I can’t believe that no one’s come in here yet. What’s up with the nursing staff? I’ve been here for a couple of hours, and there’s no sign of medications or thermometers or charts,” Lily said, trying to divert the almost painful physical awareness that zigzagged through her nervous system like chain lightning.

“Oh, relax. I made certain there wouldn’t be any interruptions,” Greg said in an offhand manner. “I had my doctor leave strict orders at the desk that we weren’t to be disturbed.” His voice took on an authoritative note. “Under any circumstances.”

She shot him a horrified look. “Greg, you didn’t! You know what the gossip mill’s like around here. It’ll be all over the hospital tomorrow that we spent three hours in a private room with the door closed.”

“Yup,” he said smugly. “I’d say your reputation is shot, Sullivan.” He raised her hand to his lips and slowly kissed her knuckles, one by one, looking straight into her eyes. “Do you really mind? If you do, we can always open the door.” He turned her hand over and trailed his lips across her palm, and she shuddered.

She thought over what he’d said. She really didn’t care one whit what people thought. She kicked her shoes off and swung her legs up. She wriggled closer to him, making herself more comfortable, leaning back on the pillows.

“That’s good,” he murmured, pulling her still closer. “That’s wonderful.”

He kissed her palm again and then her wrist, his lips hot and moist against her quickening pulse. She could smell his hair, fragrant from some masculine shampoo. She longed to sink her fingers into it, discover its texture. He was wearing an aftershave that was subtle and pleasing, neither sweet nor spicy, but somewhere in between, and underneath was the warm, musky odor of his body. She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes and giving in to sensation.

His mouth against her skin was intoxicating.

Leisurely he trailed his lips up the inside of her forearm, nibbling, teasing, pausing at the inside of her elbow, touching the skin with the tip of his tongue.

“You smell so good, Lily,” he breathed. “Sammy was the one who pointed it out after you left the ward the other day. I love your smell.”