Over the Waters

In researching this book, I am deeply indebted to countless people who helped with the research, technical aspects, caring for my family and home while I wrote, and especially those who prayed for this book every step of the way.

There is always the danger that someone will be missed when making a list of names to thank, but I must at least attempt to do so.

For help with research: Suzanne Beecher, Yvonne Fast, R.N., and Joanne King, along with Dr. Ted Grimes, who offered his medical experience and his love of the Haitian people; Lee and Carol Birch, Dorothy Grimes, Jeff and Vicky Miller, Samantha Miller and Max and Winifred Teeter, who shared their experiences of working in Haitian orphanages.

After twice having airline tickets to Port-au-Prince and twice having our trip canceled due to civil unrest in the country, I was provided with hours of video from Haiti by my brother-in-law, Rev. Jeff Miller, and by author friend Mindy Starns Clark. Then, through my friend Tammy Alexander, I was put in contact with Bill and Darla Moxon and family. The Moxons are former missionaries to Haiti, and I have no doubt their long-distance friendship was a gift from the Lord at just the time I needed the information they could provide. I can't thank them enough for the incredible insight they offered, and particularly for Darla's help with the culture and Creole language.

For reading my manuscript in its early stages and offering excellent advice and direction, I am grateful to Tammy Alexander, Lorie Battershill, Meredith Efken, Dr. Ted Grimes, Terry Stucky and Max and Winnie Teeter.

To my fabulous "Debbies Gang" (Deb, Deb, Deb and yes, Bev and Elaine, too!), thank you for always asking about my work, for rejoicing with me, and praying for me, but most of all, for just letting me be Deb. I love you guys!

To the Midwest contingent of my authors' group, ChiLibris--Colleen Coble, Dr. Mel and Cheryl Hodde aka Hannah Alexander, Judy Miller, Nancy Moser and Stephanie Grace Whiston--once again, this story would not exist without our wonderful brainstorming sessions.

Gratitude is also owed my talented editors, Krista Stroever and Joan Marlow Golan, along with the staff at Steeple Hill Books. Thank you for polishing my words until they shine.

Deep appreciation goes to my agent, Steve Laube. You are simply the best.

Love and thanks to:

My husband, Ken--my very best friend for more than thirty years now--who makes me laugh like no one else can.

Our children (with special thanks to Tavia for a fantastic week of pampering while I raced to the finish line with this manuscript).

My parents, siblings, in-laws and extended family--how can I ever thank you all for the enthusiasm, encouragement and love you have shown me?

To my readers--the very reason I write! You each have made this journey one of deep joy.

And to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I owe my all.

"A special thanks to all the readers of the 2005 edition of
Over The Waters,
at whose request I added a brand-new Epilogue to this edition, leaving no doubt about the conclusion of Max and Valerie's story."

I love hearing from my readers. To e-mail me or learn more about my books, please visit my Web site at www.deborahraney.com or write me care of Steeple Hill at 233 Broadway, Ste. 1001, New York, NY 10279.

Chicago, Illinois, November 16

D
r. Max Jordan finished his dictation, clicked off the recorder, and slid from behind the polished mahogany desk. He strode across the plush celery-colored carpet to gaze, unseeing, out the window of his seventeenth-floor office overlooking Lakeshore Drive. After a minute, he turned and walked down the hall to his receptionist's desk.

"Okay, Dori, I'm ready," he said quietly.

"Yes, Doctor." Dori Banks rose gracefully from her seat and stepped into the waiting room.

Max heard her well-modulated voice call Felicia Sinclaire's name. Back in his office, he washed his hands in the corner lavatory.

A few minutes later he opened the door to the treatment room where his nurse had prepped Ms. Sinclaire. The woman, forty-three according to her chart, reclined in the comfortable chair, but her death grip on the padded armrests revealed her apprehension.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Sinclaire."

"Hello." She smiled tightly, her sun-baked skin crinkling into fine crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes.

It was obvious that Felicia Sinclaire had once been a stunningly beautiful woman. But the clock was ticking on her youth. She was a perfect candidate for Botox. She would be pleased with the results of his handiwork. Women like her were the reason Max Jordan enjoyed minor celebrity.

He glanced at the chart. "Felicia, is it?"

She nodded.

"May I call you Felicia?"

"Yes...Of course."

He put a steadying hand on her forearm. "How are you feeling today?"

"I'm...a little nervous."

"This is your first treatment. That's completely understandable. You've seen the video?"

"Yes."

"Good. I'll go over the procedure in detail again before we begin. Of course, you can decide at any time to reschedule if you feel you're not quite ready. But as I'm sure you know, this is an extremely simple and safe procedure. We do hundreds of injections a year and pretty much the only complication we've had in the five years since we began using Botox is an occasional treatment that didn't 'take.'"

He'd started adding the "pretty much" clause to his disclaimer after a prominent Chicago businessman's wife had had an allergic reaction to the Botox, developing a severe resiratory infection along with swallowing difficulties. She had nearly died. Lawyers for Jordan & Associates were still trying to settle the case out of court.

Max opened a drawer in the tabouret beside the chair and pulled out a laminated card that illustrated the procedure. He pointed to a photograph. "Very rarely a muscle simply won't respond to the botulinum toxin. It's nothing more than an inconvenience. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time everything goes just fine."

Felicia Sinclaire relaxed visibly, her fingers unclenching from the armrest. "It's just that it's a little scary shooting something into my skin that's...well, it's a poison, isn't it?"

It was a common question. Among his golf buddies, it was a joke that he'd made his fortune injecting women with poison. But he doubted Felicia Sinclaire would appreciate the humor just now. In practiced tones he soothed her fears. "Yes, Botox is derived from botulinum toxin, the bacterium that causes botulism, a severe form of food poisoning. But to be lethal, it would take up to two hundred times the quantity I use cosmetically. As you saw on the video, the amount I use for this procedure merely interrupts the nerve impulses to the specific muscles I inject. That's the beauty of it." He watched her face, waiting for the slow release of her breath that would tell him she was convinced. He'd become a master at reading body language.

"Well," she said, her voice reedy, "let's do it."

"I think you'll be extremely pleased with the results. You'll be gorgeous for the holidays."

She shifted in her seat and beamed at him.

Max yanked a surgical glove from the dispenser and pulled it on with a practiced snap.

Twenty minutes later, Felicia Sinclaire walked from his office with a few barely discernible bruises, a wan smile and Dr. Jordan's cheerful instructions: "Remain upright for the next four hours, exercise the facial muscles often, drink plenty of fluids and look forward to waking up in the morning even more beautiful than you already are."

He washed his hands again and took the short walk down the hallway to the waiting room. He usually used the back elevator to the surgery center and rarely set foot in his own waiting room. But today, for some reason, he felt the need.

Strains of Mozart met his ears as he poked his head into the forty-by-forty-foot space that could have belonged to a suite in a five-star hotel. The Qom silk carpets were plush beneath his feet, muffling his footsteps. Intimate groupings of overstuffed chairs sported Brunschwig & Fils upholstery, each cozy trio anchored by an expensive antique table. The tabletops were artfully arranged with softly lit lamps that illumined tasteful sculptures commissioned by a local artisan. The decorator had excelled here, and the room exuded exactly the aura of extravagance and indulgence Max had envisioned when he designed the place.

The walls were lined with expensive framed art prints that he and Janie had shipped home from the South of France ten years ago. The prints had doubled in value since then. Not that it mattered. The image they imparted to his practice was worth many times their monetary value.

His gaze panned the half-dozen women who graced the chairs, legs crossed elegantly, fashion magazine or carefully chosen
New York Times
bestseller in hand. Max Jordan knew that each of them could identify the art these walls bore as easily as they recognized the Hermes and Fendi the other women in the room wore.

He'd expected the climb to the top to be far more painful. Instead, he'd reached the summit at the tender age of thirty-five when he'd opened his now-renowned Jordan Center for Aesthetic Surgery.

He shuddered to think how his entire career had almost gone down the tubes with Janie's announcement that she was pregnant before he'd even earned his bachelor's in biology from Southern Illinois University. It had cost him a semester of college, but he'd stuck it out through a quickie wedding, the birth of a colicky baby and a wife who complained constantly that he was never home. Four hard years later he'd become Maximilian Alexander Jordan, M.D., graduating with honors from the university's school of medicine. He'd even had one of his papers published in
The Journal of Neuroscience.

His buddies from med school christened him Max-a-Million, a name he didn't mind so much, now that he'd lived up to it. After a disastrous stint on an Indian reservation in Arizona--a misguided attempt to get his student loans paid off--he was accepted into residency in the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Stanford University Medical Center. Janie had dragged her feet all the way to Palo Alto, where Max excelled, little Joshua thrived and Janie languished in misery.

But after six years, he'd moved them back here to Chicago and opened his own practice. As optimistic and self-confident as he was, even he couldn't have predicted how rapid his rise to prominence would be.

Standing in the shadows of a massive silk ficus tree, he continued to watch his glamorous clientele wait their turn to see him. Though he'd been warned in more than one ethics class about the romantic fixation some women developed for their physicians, he was surprised when it proved to be true. He'd lost count of the patients over the years who had practically thrown themselves at him. He prided himself on his absolute fidelity. Even after Janie had divorced him, he had never breached that wall with his patients. He wasn't about to risk everything he'd worked so hard for.

Besides, he didn't have time for a woman in his life. Janie had proven that beyond a doubt.

He straightened a corner of the silk carpet with the toe of his black Belvederes and bit his lower lip. Usually, looking out over his small kingdom filled him with a deep sense of satisfaction and security. But that faded now as he thought of his ex-wife.

As quick as his rise to medical stardom had been, the fall of his marriage had been equally swift. By the time Joshua started middle school, Max was on a fast track to becoming Chicago's best-known, best-loved plastic surgeon. Catering to the jet set of the Midwest, Dr. Botox, as the local media dubbed him, had it all--a stunning home in Lincoln Park, a beach house in Santa Barbara, the limelight of celebrity, the adoration of hundreds of beautiful women. And a faithful, if frustrated, wife of his own, and a son who was proving to be as bright as his father. The future had seemed rosy.

But Janie's discontent had turned to depression, and the great Dr. Botox was unable to cure what ailed her. Or perhaps unwilling was more accurate. He refused to listen to her constant complaints about the fact that he was never home. She couldn't get it through her head that he was busy making a future for her and Joshua.

But the winter Joshua turned fourteen, she'd destroyed any future they might have had when she took their son and went to live with her parents in Arlington Heights.

Four years later, Joshua graduated a semester early and headed for college. With their divorce final, Janie married an insurance salesman and moved to St. Louis. She soon gave birth to two more sons and Joshua seemed to relish the role of big brother.

His family's exit from Max's life hadn't changed much for him, but Janie's standard of living took an astronomical nosedive. Amazingly, she'd never seemed so content, and it irked him to no end whenever Josh mentioned how happy his mother was now. But then she never had appreciated the finer things in life--all he'd worked so hard for.

He ran a hand through his thick, wiry hair. As threads of gray encroached his temple and fifty barreled down on him with frightening speed, he'd begun an irritating habit of evaluating his life. He supposed it had something to do with Joshua. His son had started well, following in his father's footsteps, graduating with honors from Southern Illinois med school, one of the youngest in his graduating class.

But the boy had gone straight to a small town in Iowa to intern for a struggling family practice clinic, a choice Max didn't understand or approve of. It wasn't as though Josh couldn't afford to go further, specialize. Max had seen to that. He'd even dared to dream that his son might join him in his lucrative practice. There was certainly plenty of business to go around.

If that had been the extent of it, he could have lived with his son's choice, but in April, Joshua Jordan, M.D., had traveled with one of the clinic's doctors to the Republic of Haiti and, while there, he'd "found God"--whatever that meant. All it meant to Max was that his only son--his only heir--was throwing his life away on some godforsaken, impoverished island where his hard-earned skills would be wasted on orphans and indigents.

After the events of September 11, Max had thought his son would come to his senses and return to the States, but if anything, the national tragedy had hardened Josh's resolve.

He hadn't spoken to his son since a terse long-distance conversation September 15 when Max was finally able to get a call through to Brizjanti, the small village where Joshua was working at an orphanage. Max had all but demanded that Joshua return home. Josh had informed him curtly that he had no such intention.

Max shook his head in a futile attempt to erase the disturbing memory. Turning, he leaned again over Dori's desk and swallowed back a sigh. "Okay. Next?"