PATIENT CARE (Medical Romance) (Doctor Series) (6 page)

“I see.” He turned to leave, then turned back. “Would you have time for a coffee with me tomorrow morning, out at Rudy’s trailer?”

She considered it. It would mean getting up even earlier than her usual 6 a.m., but she hadn’t been sleeping much, anyway.

“Yeah. Yeah, I could manage that. How early is Rudy there?”

“Six-thirty. I asked. He’s an early riser.”

Melissa nodded. “I’ll be there at quarter-to-seven.”

He smiled again. “Great. Good. Quarter-to-seven it is.”

James Burke wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine. Did she really want to be with him first thing in the morning? Still, there were those wonderful teeth, very white and even.

The better to bite your head off with, my dear. Lord
. She needed to get a grip.

She also needed to find a bathroom, and then something to eat. She hurried off in search of both, but her thoughts lingered on Burke. Where had he learned to kiss like that? Had he ever been married? Did he have kids, a family, a mother and father, sisters and brothers?

Doctors weren’t employees of the hospital, so there wouldn’t be a personnel file on him. And even if there were, it would be unprofessional and unethical of her to read it simply to satisfy her own very personal curiosity.

She’d have to get the information another way.

She’d ask Arlene.

“Burke just turned forty. He’s a Leo. His long-term goal is to be chief of Surgery. He was married once, when he was twenty-six or -seven,” Arlene related later that afternoon, lowering herself into a chair with a sigh and rubbing a hand absently across her burgeoning belly.

“Lasted eighteen months. She’s an eye surgeon in Victoria. Dr. Anita Malpass. She married again, to a GP. She and the doc didn’t have kids. The word is they were both more interested in their work than they were in each other. He doesn’t date anyone from St. Joe’s, although one of the lab techs saw him walking down Granville one night with a blond bimbo in a miniskirt. Great legs and lotsa hair. He was holding her hand. They went into a vegetarian restaurant. This was six or seven months ago now. Nobody knows who or even if he’s dating at the moment. Many have offered, but none was chosen. All of that’s scuttlebutt. I asked Frank about him, and all he said was that Burke doesn’t eat meat, works out on a treadmill and a weight machine, rides his bike to work every day, and that he’s a pain in the butt about details. But Frank would trust him with his life in the OR. He likes the guy.”

“Thanks, Arlene.” Melissa felt like a spymaster being briefed by a mole who’d pumped her own husband for secrets. The bulk of the information came from the underground gossip network at St. Joe’s, which was extensive and surprisingly accurate, but because of her position, Melissa was out of the loop. She wondered briefly what was being said about her, but she didn’t dare ask. She had enough to worry over.

Arlene heaved herself to her feet. “This kid’s got his foot stuck in my ribs. I wish there were some way to get him to move it.”

“You’ve only got four more weeks to go. You sure you don’t want to take some time off and just relax?” Melissa dreaded being without her, but she also fretted that Arlene was on her feet too much.

“Not on your life. I’d go snaky at home with nothing to do all day long. Nope, I’m staying right here until my water breaks and the baby crowns. You better get going. You’ve got that meeting with the department heads in ten minutes.” She lumbered out of the office.

Melissa watched her go, wistfully wondering if the day would ever come when she’d be able to complain of a baby having a foot stuck in her ribs. She wondered, as well, if the gossipmongers at St. Joe’s knew about Nadim Salem, the Egyptian internist Melissa had married in haste and divorced the same way.

She’d been twenty-three, newly graduated as a nurse. He was an internist at St. Joe’s on an exchange program. She’d known him three weeks, married him and had it annulled two weeks later, a result of Nadim’s making it plain he expected her to quit her job and devote herself to being his wife. She’d suspected that being someone’s wife wasn’t a smart career move.

Getting Nadim out of her system had involved taking food in, and she’d gained twenty-seven pounds in the next six months. She’d lost confidence; she’d hated the way she looked; she’d mourned the loss of her first real love. It had taken effort and a great deal of self-discipline to regain her slender figure.

She’d learned from that disaster. She’d vowed never again to let a man disrupt her life, and she never had. Other men had come along, some of whom she’d even thought she loved. Each time, in one form or another, she’d ended up having to choose between them and her career. And her career had always won, hands down. She wondered if it had been the same for James. She guessed it probably had; he was ambitious.

Chief of Surgery, huh?
He’d get her vote. He was well qualified for the position.

She glanced at her watch and snatched up the notes Arlene had prepared. She had no time to think of babies with their feet stuck in her ribs. She had no time to think about James Burke and the blonde with the big hair, or whether or not he still took her to the vegetarian restaurant on Granville.

She had work to do, a ton of it, and for the rest of the day she attended to it, but at odd moments she thought about meeting James the next morning and realized she was looking forward to it.

He was already waiting when she drove into the lot at 6:45. He was at the food trailer, standing beside Rudy, and wearing biking shorts and a short-sleeve blue golf shirt. His butt definitely rivaled his smile for appeal.

Melissa pulled into the new parking spot Lennie had commandeered for her and walked over to the trailer. She’d put on a sky-blue silk thing with a short-sleeve tailored top and a skirt that ended well above her knees, and she could have sworn that James did a swift survey of her legs as she approached the trailer.

“’Morning, Melissa.”

He smiled at her, and she smiled back. It was hard not to smile; the early morning was still cool, the air was fresh and tinged with the smell of the sea, birds were singing in the cedars that shaded the lot and the food smells drifting out the door of the trailer were intoxicating.

“Sit down, you two.” Rudy grinned at her. “You look pretty as a picture in that rig,” he boomed. “I always had a weakness for red hair. Don’t tell the wife I said so, though.” He filled two mugs with coffee, and before Melissa could object, he put warm cinnamon buns in front of them.

“Thelma didn’t make the buns this mornin’,” he confided. “George’s wife did. They’re not up to Thelma’s standards. She uses way more butter, but they’re not bad. Try ’em, Melissa. See what you think.”

To be polite, Melissa took a small piece off one corner. It seemed to melt away on her tongue in an orgy of yeasty dough and sweet icing and cinnamon. Her taste buds begged for more.

“They’re delicious,” she told Rudy. She said to James, “Are you on the picket line this morning, Doctor?”

He shook his head. “I’m lucky. I get to hang around the ER in case something comes in that can’t be transferred. There was a stabbing yesterday, brought in from skid row, but that was the extent of it.”

He sounded so disappointed at the lack of desperate injuries that she had to smile. “I guess not being able to do your job has to be frustrating.”

He nodded. “Surgery’s my life,” he admitted.

Rudy was listening. “C’mon, Doc, I know firsthand how good you are at opening folks up and sewin’ em back together, but you gotta have other stuff you like doing just as much. Hell, I like what I do, but plumbing don’t come close to being with Thelma, dancing up a storm, holding my new granddaughter. You got kids, Doc?”

“No kids. I’m not married.”

“How ’bout you, Melissa?”

She shook her head. “No kids, no husband.”

Rudy whistled between his teeth. “You two gotta get with the program,” he chastised, leaning toward them. “Neither one of you is getting any younger, no offense. Careers don’t keep you very warm in bed when you get to be my age.” He laughed his big, booming laugh.

Melissa noticed the look that James gave Rudy. It was thoughtful, as if his words might have struck a chord.

“You know what the kids say,” Rudy went on. “Getta life. I can’t believe neither of you is married.”

“Well, Rudy, the statistics on marriage aren’t very reassuring,” James said. “About fifty percent of marriages end in divorce these days.”

“Doc, if somebody told you there was a fifty-percent chance of savin’ somebody’s life, would you go for it?” James had to laugh, and Melissa joined him. Rudy definitely had a point.

“Either of you ever been married?”

“Once,” James admitted with a shrug. “We were both doctors, both busy all the time. It didn’t work out.”

So Arlene’s info had been accurate.

He turned to Melissa.  “How about you?”

She cleared her throat. “Once. Same as you. To a doctor. Didn’t last.” To sidestep any more questions about that fiasco, she said, “How long have you and your wife been married, Rudy?”

“It’ll be thirty-one years next March,” he said. “We had four kids, had some rough times. I took to drinking a little too much for a coupla years there. Thelma had to sort me out good over that.” His blue eyes grew somber. “And we lost one of our kids. Little Kenny drowned in the neighbors’ pool. He was only three. That was a tough one. Thought for a while the old gal was gonna go off the deep end. But we got through it.” He shook his head. “You never get over it. You just get through it. Know what I mean?” Melissa thought of Betsy. How would she get through, if what James believed was true—that Betsy would never wake up? The dark cloud that haunted her had lifted a little during the past half hour, but now it was back. She refused the offer of more coffee.

“I’ve got to go. I want to see my mom before work.”

“Your mother’s in the hospital?” Rudy leaned his beefy forearms on the table. “Whatsa matter with her?”

Melissa glanced at James. He was swirling his coffee around in his cup, not looking at her or at Rudy. As quickly and as diplomatically as possible, with no mention of James, Melissa outlined what had happened to Betsy.

“Hey, that’s a real shame. Now, if Doc Burke here had done the operation on her—”

“Actually, I did.” James looked crestfallen instead of defensive. He sat back in his chair and shook his head. “I’ve gone over every detail of the operation and the orders for your mother’s postop care, and I can’t figure out what I might have done wrong,” he said to Melissa.  “There must have been something.”

“You don’t think I blame you for what’s happened, do you?” As angry as she’d been at him for his less-than- sympathetic attitude, it had never once crossed her mind that he was responsible.

He shrugged. “I guess I blame myself.”

Melissa was astounded. No wonder he’d been so defensive. “James, you did your best. She’s had the very best care she could have had. I was a nurse long enough to know that where people’s bodies are concerned, there are never any guarantees. Mom must have had a weakness somewhere, something that no one could possibly have predicted.”

As she said the words, Melissa recognized the truth in them, and a little of her own guilt eased. She, too, had done her best in a difficult situation.

“Don’t fret over it. I’ll get Thelma on it,” Rudy said. Melissa and James turned to him, puzzled.

“Thelma’s got this group of women from our church. They pray for people every Tuesday and Thursday morning. What’s your mom’s name, Melissa?”

“Betsy Clayton.”

Rudy dug a pen out of his pocket and wrote it on a napkin. “I’ll give this to Thelma soon as I get home. It’ll help. You watch and see.”

“Thank you, Rudy.” Melissa didn’t share his confidence in the prayer group, but she was touched by his concern. “Bye, now. Thanks for the coffee.” She glanced down at the paper plate. “And the bun.” God, she’d eaten the whole thing. Again.

“Come by tomorrow mornin’. Thelma’s makin’ coffee cake.” He scrunched his fingers up and brought them to his mouth with a smack. “You don’t wanna miss Thelma’s coffee cake. Believe you me.”

“I’ll walk you into the hospital, Melissa. I have patients to check.” James fell into step beside her. When they were out of Rudy’s earshot, James said, “He’s a well-meaning man, very kind, but sometimes a bit misguided.”

“About marriage, you mean?”

“Well, yes. Certainly. That, too. Actually, I was thinking more of the prayer group. I think it’s unrealistic to build up false hope that way.”

“I’m not that naive,” Melissa said. “Although now that I’m in this situation with Mom, I can really understand how tempting it is to pin your hopes on an alternative when medicine has failed.” Realizing how that sounded, she put a hand on his arm. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know. I just wish there were something more I could do.”

“Thank you, James. It means a lot to hear you say so.”

He smiled. He was smiling more these days, Melissa thought. Maybe job action agreed with him. “I enjoyed our discussion with Rudy,” she added. “He’s an interesting man. And he’s your number-one fan.”

James rolled his eyes. “He’s impossible. As a post-op patient, I told him to stick to a low-cal, low-fat regime. Did you see the food in that trailer? Every scrap is high fat, sugar-laden. Almost everything has meat and dairy. It’s a dietary disaster area.”

“I heard him telling a buddy of his that now that you took out his gallbladder he can eat anything he wants, no more heartburn.” Melissa couldn’t help teasing James a little. “And Rudy said the other fellow shouldn’t worry about what he eats, either. You can whip his gallbladder out easy as anything if it starts giving him trouble. Sure you’re not drumming up business, Doctor?” She giggled at the horrified expression on his face. “And despite what they’re doing to my gallbladder, I did love the cinnamon rolls.”

“Enough to meet me again tomorrow morning?”

“Tomorrow it’s coffee cake, remember?” Why not meet him? It was the only time of the day she could really call her own. She’d actually had fun this morning.

“Okay, James. I’ll be there, same time.”

“I’ll be waiting.”