by JoAnn Ross
“The cards don’t imply the woman is without relationships,” Ophelia stressed calmly. “Only that she’s at peace with herself. And her situation.”
Lena’s fear ebbed slightly, even as she glumly wondered if this meant that she and Reece were destined never to have children.
She dealt another card. The Wheel of Fortune.
“The Wheel teaches us that although our circumstances are predetermined, we remain responsible for our own destiny. When joy or sorrow come into our lives, what’s important is that we turn to face it. We’re all constantly being presented with decisions and choices to make. Learning to take responsibility for our own destiny is the most difficult of life’s lessons. But it’s well worth the struggle,” Ophelia said encouragingly. “And now the last one. Which will foresee your long-term future.”
Feeling again as if her fingertips were tingling, Lena dealt a fifth card and drew in a harsh breath as she viewed the evil half-goat, half-human figure holding a flaming torch toward a couple who stood naked and vulnerable, chains around their necks. “A devil?” she whispered feeling goose bumps rise on her flesh.
“Like everything in life, this card cannot be taken at face value,” Ophelia assured her. “The devil represents all energy, positive and negative. He teaches us that if we don’t accept both sides of our nature—the light and the dark—we can develop inhibitions. And phobias. In many cases, he represents the shadowy side of our psyches we prefer to ignore.”
Having taken an intro psych course in college, Lena recognized the Jungian shadow term. Although she’d received an A in the course, she’d never thought of the concept in relation to her own personality.
She stared down at the unappealing card for a long time, allowing another silence to stretch between them.
“Although it’s not wise to take the cards too literally,” Ophelia said quietly, “the devil often symbolizes the removal of fears and inhibitions that hinder personal growth.”
“Like not being able to love openly?”
“That could be an example. In the fifth position, this is a very good card. You’re facing a time of great growth. A time when much good could come from apparent evil.”
Lena knew a lot about evil. The trick was to somehow learn to accept the good.
“Thank you.” She reached into her purse and added more bills to the ones she’d already paid when she’d first sat down. “You’ve given me a great deal to think about.”
“It was your own willingness to open your heart and your mind to the message of the cards,” Ophelia reminded her.
Open your heart. The words reverberated over and over again in her mind as Lena drove away from funky Venice to the privileged enclaves of Pacific Palisades. That was something she’d never been able to do. Not since that long-ago Christmas Eve.
She’d tried to tell Reece that she didn’t have it in her to love him the way a wife should love her husband. Oh, she admired him, of course. And respected him without question, which wasn’t difficult since he was the most noble, honorable, caring man she’d ever met. And she was truly fond of him.
Her mind drifted back to that day, six months after they’d first met, when he’d taken her hand and led her to a secluded bench in Griffith Park.
“I love you, Lena.” His handsome face had been so earnest, so sincere, it almost made her weep.
She’d dragged her gaze from his to the children pouring out of the yellow school bus that had pulled into the planetarium parking lot. Dressed in a parochial school uniform similar to the one she’d once worn, they were laughing and obviously enjoying their field trip. Lena had been unable to remember a time while growing up when she’d felt even half as carefree as those children looked.
She’d been about to tell Reece yet again that she couldn’t marry him. But as she watched the children lining up in double lines, something inside her moved. The response to the children was as unbidden as it was unfamiliar. Perhaps, she’d thought, if she married Reece and had a child, she wouldn’t feel so empty.
She’d drawn in a deep breath and hoped she was making the right decision. “If you’re really serious…”
“Of course I am,” he’d answered in that calm, rational way she assumed he must have learned growing up in that mansion in North Carolina.
Feeling as if she were perched on the edge of a steep and dangerous precipice, she’d taken another deep breath and leapt daringly over the edge. “Then my answer’s yes. I’ll marry you.”
His joyous whoop had drawn the attention of the children, who’d laughed at the sight of the man picking the pretty woman up and twirling her around in his arms. What neither they, nor Reece had seen, was the shimmer of tears in Lena’s eyes.
The memory of that day, along with the knowledge of how unfair she’d been to the only man who’d ever loved her, made Lena’s eyes fill with tears all over again.
Open your heart. Dear Lord, how she wanted to do that! For Reece, and for herself.
As she turned onto the winding road leading up the cliff to their ocean-view house, Lena realized that unfortunately she had no idea where—or how—to begin.
Then the answer came to her, so bright and vivid, she wondered why it hadn’t occurred to her before.
Molly could help her sort this out. As she had every other problem in Lena’s life. Even before that horrifying night their daddy had gotten drunk and made them orphans.
She’d talk to her big sister first thing tomorrow, Lena decided. After Christmas dinner.
Although it had been a very long time since she could remember having anything to feel hopeful about, Lena was smiling as she pulled her Jaguar into the half-moon driveway.
Chapter Two
“Emergency department.” Impatience crackled in Molly’s usually calm and reassuring voice. She sighed and prayed, as she was so often forced to do, for patience.
“Hello?” There was a slight pause. “Is this Mercy Samaritan Hospital?” Molly thought the hesitant female voice sounded slightly slurred.
“Yes. You’ve reached the emergency department. How can I help you?”
“It’s my husband.”
Molly groaned inwardly, realizing this was going to be one of those calls in which she had to drag the information out one word at a time. Frustrated, she pushed a long jet curl that had come loose from the knot at the back of her neck.
“Has he been injured?”
“Not yet.” There was a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “Although I’m thinking about cutting his prick off with the electric carving knife.” The words were definitely slurred.
“I’d advise against that, ma’am. The police frown on such things. Meanwhile, if your husband isn’t hurt right now, I’m afraid we’re very busy and—”
“He’s got the clap. And he didn’t get it from me.”
Molly rubbed unconsciously at her temples where a headache hammered. “I see.”
“And now I have this goddamn rash, which is the only reason the son of a bitch confessed to screwing around in the first place. So, I guess I’d better come in for a test.”
“That would be my suggestion. You need to be seen by a doctor and get started on antibiotic treatment,” she told the caller. “You should also have an AIDS test.”
“You think I have AIDS?”
Molly heard the sudden panic in the woman’s voice. “I’m only suggesting the test as a precaution,” she said as soothingly as possible. “Since your sexual relationship with your husband was not the monogamous one you believed it to be—”
“I’m not taking any AIDS test.”
“It can be done confidentially, if you’re worried about—”
“If you have AIDS, you die. And if I’m gonna die, I damn well don’t want to know it. I’m also going to kill the bastard if he gave it to me.” That said, the woman slammed down the receiver.
Her ears ringing, Molly took a deep breath, said a quick prayer for both the philandering husband and his angry wife, then returned to the f
ray.
Her next patient was a two-year-old child who’d been nipped by the family’s new German shepherd puppy.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Molly soothed as she cleaned the puncture wound, gave the little girl a tetanus shot and advised the mother to keep the child away from the puppy until things quieted down after the holidays.
“I need a prescription for a seven-day course of penicillin,” she told Reece, when he paused at the desk to pick up the next chart. “It’s for a dog bite.”
He pulled a prescription pad from a pocket bulging with tongue depressors, a pen light and ampoules of medications.
“I wish people would listen when the Humane Society tells them this is the worst time of year to try to introduce a new animal into the home.” He scribbled the order onto the pad. “Was that a VD call I heard you taking?”
“You’ve got good ears.” Molly wondered how he could have heard anything over the din.
“Nah. I’m just nosy.” He ripped the script off and handed it to her. “So, have you heard the county health department’s new venereal disease slogan?”
“I don’t think so. What is it?”
“VD is nothing to clap about.”
Although it was a terrible pun, an involuntary giggle escaped her lips. “You’re making that up.”
“That’s the trouble with working with you, Sister Molly,” he said on an exaggerated sigh. “You make it impossible to lie. But it’s still pretty good, don’t you think?”
“I think I should have Dr. Bernstein come down for a consult.” Alan Bernstein was the psych resident. “No one should remain this upbeat at the twenty-fourth hour of a thirty-six-hour shift.” Before he could answer, she was off to meet another paramedic who was wheeling in a woman on a gurney.
The patient was dressed for a party in a thigh-high, formfitting red sequined dress and skyscraper heels, one of which had cracked in two. Her hair, the color of a new penny, had been fashioned in an elaborate up-sweep and Christmas trees had been airbrushed onto each of her long, scarlet fingernails. Her dress had been torn up one side, and one sleeve had been cut open to allow for an IV drip.
“She was crossing Sunset and got hit by a car,” the paramedic began. The man, whose badge read Sam Browning, had earned the nickname Big E his first night on the job when he’d excitedly radioed that he and his partner were bringing in a twenty-year-old male who’d been “ejaculated” from his Corvette.
“It was my fault,” the patient interrupted, struggling to sit up. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“Fault’s for the cops to decide,” Big E said. “Why don’t you just lie down, ma’am, and let me tell the nurse what she needs to know to treat you, okay?”
“I’m sorry.” The woman gave Molly an apologetic look through lashes coated with navy blue mascara. Molly was momentarily distracted by the thin row of rhinestones bordering her eyelids.
“That’s all right,” she soothed. “I can understand you’ve suffered a great deal of stress.”
“I just don’t want that poor driver to get in trouble. Especially on Christmas Eve.”
“The driver’s pretty shook up,” Big E told Molly. “He insisted on coming along. He’s out in the waiting room. You might want to talk to him after you’re finished.”
“I’ll do that.”
“You won’t be sorry. He’s very handsome,” the patient informed Molly, earning a glare from the paramedic who was obviously frustrated at having been interrupted again. “A girl could certainly do worse.”
“Anyway,” Big E doggedly continued, “according to witnesses, the patient suffered a brief period of unconsciousness—”
“I suppose that’s why I can’t remember what happened.”
“It’s possible you’ve suffered a slight concussion,” Molly said.
“She had some labored breathing in the vehicle coming over here, which suggests a cracked rib,” Big E said, grimly determined to finish his report. “We started her on glucose, thiamine and naloxone. As you can see, there’s no loss of verbal skills and her only other symptoms are retrograde amnesia and a few scrapes and bruises.”
“I skinned my leg when I landed,” the patient revealed as Molly took her blood pressure.
Molly observed the red-and-purple scrape along one firm thigh. The skin around it was darkly bruised. “Don’t worry, we’ll have the gravel cleaned out in no time.”
“But it won’t scar?”
“No.” Molly smiled reassuringly. “It shouldn’t.”
“I’m so relieved. I’m a dancer. My legs are my livelihood.”
“When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a ballerina.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“My family couldn’t afford the lessons.”
“Oh.” The woman pursed her vermilion lips and thought about that for a moment. “That’s too bad.”
“Not really.” Molly began swabbing the wound while she waited for Reece to arrive. “Because I know now I was meant to be a nurse.” She didn’t mention being a nun, since that always seemed to lead to questions, and this patient was already talkative enough.
“I’ve always admired caretaker personalities,” the woman said. “Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of them in the world. Especially these days.”
“I don’t know about the world, but we could use a few more in here tonight.”
“Amen,” Reece agreed as he joined them in the curtained cubicle. “I’m Dr. Longworth. Looks as if someone had a close encounter with Santa’s sleigh.”
The woman laughed, as Reece had intended. When the laugh deteriorated into a wheezing cough, he and Molly exchanged a look.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to remove your dress, Ms….”
“Fuller. Dana Fuller,” the woman responded in a breathy voice that Molly suspected had little to do with a possible cracked rib.
Molly had seen this happen innumerable times. Reece Longworth was a devastatingly attractive man; whenever he appeared in the emergency room, women invariably took one look at his laughing emerald eyes, perpetually tousled chestnut hair, boyish smile and lean muscular body, and experienced an immediate increase in their heart rates.
“And I’ll be more than happy to take off anything you’d like, Doctor.”
The sexual invitation was unmistakable. Molly was amused by the flush rising from the collar of Reece’s white jacket.
As Molly helped Reece remove the sequined dress, he stared in momentary puzzlement at the flat brown nipples. As comprehension crashed down on him he lifted the sheet he and Molly were pulling up over the patient’s chest and viewed the penis nestled in the curly dark hair.
He’d learned in medical school never to make assumptions, and he assured himself that the only reason he hadn’t realized he was treating a man was because he’d already been working for twenty-four hours. Now, as he managed to keep a straight face and examine the patient’s breathing, Reece reminded himself again why he was hooked on the ER.
He enjoyed the action, the constant surprises. There was nothing worse, he reminded himself as he referred the patient to neurology for a CAT scan, than being bored. Fortunately, that damn sure wasn’t going to happen tonight.
The driver of the car that had struck the cross-dressing dancer was still pacing the waiting room when Molly came to assure him that the patient was going to survive with a minimum of injuries.
“Thank God.” He took both her hands in his. “I’ve been so worried.”
“I can certainly understand that.” Molly smiled her professional caretaker’s smile. “But you can go home now and sleep easy.”
“Sleep.” He thrust his hands through his hair. He was a good-looking man in his mid-thirties. “Lord, I doubt if I’ll sleep for a week, after this.”
“If you’d like, I can ask the physician on duty to prescribe a sleeping pill for you. Just for tonight.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’ll be all right.” He took another deep breath. “I want to t
hank you, Nurse…” He glanced down at her name tag, which, due to security measures lobbied for by the female employees of the hospital, had only her first name along with the alphabet soup of initials representing her numerous professional credentials.
He tilted his head and studied her. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look much like a Margaret.”
“My friends call me Molly.”
“Molly.” He considered that a moment. “That’s much better. Do you have a last name?”
“McBride.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “I can see the emerald isle in your face, Molly McBride. My mother, Mary Keegan, was black Irish. I should have recognized those lovely blue eyes and dark hair right away.”
“You had other things on your mind.”
“True. But the day I fail to notice a beautiful woman is the day I need to reassess my priorities. My name is Patrick Nelson.”
The conversation was getting more than a little sticky. Molly pulled her hand out of his grasp. “Well, it’s a very busy night, Mr. Nelson, and I’d better get back to work—”
“Would you have a drink with me when you get off shift, Molly?”
“I’m sorry, but—”
“A cup of coffee, then. Or a glass of eggnog. It’s Christmas,” he reminded her. “I transferred down here from San Francisco last month and don’t know many people. I’ll also admit to being so desperate for company that I’m throwing myself on your mercy.”
Patrick Nelson seemed sincere. And nice. Which left Molly feeling a bit like the Grinch about to steal his Christmas. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“If you’re involved with someone, that’s all right. I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t find you very attractive, Nurse Molly, but if you just want to share some friendly, platonic conversation, that’d be great, too.”
From the flirtatious, masculine gleam in his eyes, she suspected he was looking for more than mere conversation. “Mr. Nelson—”
“Patrick,” he reminded her.
“Patrick.” She decided the best way to handle this was to just go straight to the point. “I’m a nun.”
