The M.D.'s Surprise Family

by Marie Ferrarella

  Renee never hesitated for a moment. “That you weren’t in the car with them.” She placed her hand on top of his, making a connection. Willing him to take strength from it. “That I still have you.”

  He felt completely outnumbered as he shook his head. “You’re a lot like her.”

  “Lisa?”

  “No, Raven.”

  Renee beamed at him as she reached for a third slice. “I like her already.”

  The problem was, he was beginning to think that perhaps he did, too.

  Chapter Ten

  Putting aside his stethoscope, Peter motioned for Blue to get dressed again. With the help of his sister, the boy got dressed then followed him into the next room, which was his office. Blue sat in the chair that faced his desk. Raven took the other chair.

  Both of them waited for him to say something.

  “He’s made remarkable progress in an incredible amount of time.”

  As a rule, he wasn’t given to using glowing adjectives. But after examining the boy and looking at the latest set of scans that had been taken, he found that there was no other way to describe the situation. If an adult had had the kind of operation that Blue had gone through, it would have taken at least ten days before they would have attempted so many assisted steps from their bed. That would be followed by a period of time in which they would have to rely on a walker. Blue broke the rules.

  With the aid of a nurse and his sister, Blue had been down the hall a day and a half after his surgery and had come in for his two-week follow-up holding on to Raven’s arm. Otherwise, he had entered unassisted.

  Peter thought of what Raven had endured emotionally after her parents had been killed. Obviously courage or grit ran in the family.

  He leaned back in his chair, momentarily giving in to himself. He studied not the boy but Raven. Suppressing a sigh, he knew he had to make a break and soon. The first step was to discharge Blue from his care, because that was his way, and because he’d been looking forward to the appointment too much.

  Looking forward to seeing Raven.

  That was the truth of it, no matter how deeply he tried to bury the fact. She’d been lingering on his mind too much.

  He was getting too close to her.

  He didn’t want to get close to anyone, not after what he’d already gone through. Having his heart sliced up into tiny slivers once in a lifetime was more than enough for him.

  Raven could always sense when something was wrong. But this time she knew it didn’t have anything to do with Blue, but with the darkly handsome man who was looking at them so solemnly.

  Turning, she smiled at her brother. “He’s always been resilient that way,” she said fondly. “So, when do you want to see him again?”

  “I don’t.” The words were crisp, without feeling. Final.

  So that was why he looked the way he did, Raven thought.

  He was cutting them loose. Something inside her chest stung, surprising her at the depth of the impact. “I thought this kind of surgery required several follow-ups. I know I said Blue was resilient, but—”

  “I’m handing the case off to Dr. William Rhys. He’s a board certified neurologist, on staff here at Blair and he can follow your brother’s progress from here on in.”

  “I see.” Raven felt as if something had hit her in the hollow of her stomach. It wasn’t quite like when she’d been told about her parents’ car accident, but it was close enough to numb her for a moment.

  It was Blue who broke the silence, allowing her to gather herself together. “Don’t you want to see me again, Dr. Sullivan?”

  This was something new. He’d never been put on the spot by a patient before. But then, he’d never spent this much time with a surgical patient before, either. Served him right for getting this involved. For allowing a face, a voice, to become imbedded in his mind along with all the necessary statistics and procedures that were needed to successfully perform the operation in the first place.

  Peter tried his best to sound detached, not understanding why it seemed so much harder than usual for him to do it this time around.

  “Dr. Rhys is more qualified for follow-up care than I am,” he told Blue.

  Blue looked at him, his open face completely mystified. “Why? You did it. If something’s wrong, wouldn’t you know better than anyone?”

  Unable to help himself, Peter looked at Raven, surprised by the simple depth of the boy’s question. “Are you sure he’s only seven?”

  Her mouth curved. He could almost feel it curving against his mouth. It convinced him that he’d made the right choice. If he waited even a little while, it might be too late for him.

  “Seven going on forty,” Raven replied. “But Blue has a point, you know, Peter. More than anyone else, you are the one who’s the most familiar with the case. Someone else would have to get up to speed before they could do Blue any good.”

  “Dr. Rhys is familiar with cases like your brother’s.” He didn’t like her challenging his decision—especially when a very small part of him felt as if he was taking the coward’s way out. “This is the way I’ve always handled my cases.”

  She looked at him knowingly. “So it’s just sew and go, is that it?”

  He pulled himself up in his chair. He’d never had to defend himself before. “I’m a surgeon, Raven. By definition, that means I operate.”

  She just wasn’t buying his quick dismissal of responsibility. “You’re not some two-dimensional noun in an oversize dictionary, Peter. You’re allowed to expand.” She leaned forward on her chair. “We don’t bite. Honest.”

  He didn’t know about that. He felt as if he’d been bitten and if he didn’t act quickly, there was no telling how fast the serum would spread within his system. Or just what it would do, what it would undermine once it did spread. Without being completely conscious of the process, he’d allowed both Raven and her brother to get to him. It was time he pulled himself free.

  Opening his desk, he took out one of William Rhys’s business cards and held it out to Raven. “Here’s Dr. Rhys’s phone number. His nurse is already expecting your call.”

  Raven took the card after a beat, closing her hand around the small shell-colored paper. The look in her eyes told him that she knew this wasn’t about standard procedure. That he’d felt a connection being made and that it scared him.

  He wasn’t the only one.

  “Then I guess we shouldn’t disappoint her.” Raven rose to her feet. Taking his arm, she supported Blue as he got to his. “Thank you for everything, Doctor.” She gave him one of her dazzling smiles, the kind someone had once told her could unfreeze the hardest heart. “And if you should ever feel like taking another look at your handiwork, feel free to stop by. You already know where we live.”

  Peter made no response. He merely nodded as he remained behind his desk. It was a safe place to be as he watched them leave the office.

  Yes, he thought, he already knew where they lived, but it was a piece of information he was going to do his best to delete from his memory.

  He couldn’t delete it.

  Worse, after a week, it seemed to be on his mind constantly. Along with the woman he didn’t want to see. The more he attempted to ignore it, the more it loomed over him, like some huge billboard on the side of the road that only kept getting larger and larger.

  He tried, in vain, to cram as much work as he could into a day, to keep at bay thoughts of Raven, of the way her body had leaned into his when she’d kissed him.

  The thoughts came anyway, like relentless kamikaze soldiers with but one focus. To completely disrupt life as he knew it.

  He held out as long as he could. It amounted to fifteen days.

  On the fifteenth evening, he discovered himself driving toward the Songbird estate. His rounds had been completed and for once, there was neither someone nervously sitting in his office, waiting to discuss a possible surgery, nor a single scheduled surgery.

  Two weeks had gone by.

  Two week
s in which, except for today, his life had been as hectic as it got. Dr. Welles had approached him not two days ago, asking him for his opinion. It wasn’t about some case he was overseeing, but about himself. Severe headaches had caused the chief of surgery to have CAT scans taken of his brain. The tests had revealed an aneurysm. Surgery was the only option he would consider. And Welles wanted him to perform the surgery.

  Peter had agreed, but not without some silent concern. Despite this newest burden on his shoulders, he caught himself thinking about the woman whose smile refused to erase itself from his mind. The memory of her smile, her eyes and the feel of her mouth on his kept insisting on replaying itself over and over again.

  Only when he was in the middle of surgery did these troublesome images disappear. But he had no idea how long it would be before they disrupted his work. So he decided to take the bull by the horns. It was a known fact that in many instances, memories were far better than the actual event, or the actual person involved. He was hoping that this applied to a raven-haired woman with laughing blue eyes.

  Before he was aware of any time having gone by, Peter pulled up to her driveway. Highlighted by several strategically positioned old-fashioned street-lamps, the driveway appeared to be just as colorful at night as it had been when he’d seen it in broad daylight.

  Peter was out of the car and ringing the front doorbell before he could talk himself out of it. But once he had pressed the bell and the door hadn’t opened immediately, he came to his senses. This was crazy. What was he doing here? He needed to go home, not chase after…what? A dream? He knew what happened when you chased after dreams. Dreams ended. They always ended, leaving you with nothing.

  Better not to have anything than to mourn its loss.

  Turning on his heel, Peter began to walk away.

  He heard the sound of a door opening behind him. Heard Raven calling out his name in both surprise and pure delight.

  “Peter?” Not waiting for him to respond or to turn around, Raven ran out of the house. In a few quick strides, she managed to get in front of him, aborting his exit. “Peter, you’ve got to give me a chance to get to the door.” She laughed, her hand on his arm, holding him in place. “It’s a big house.”

  Damn it, she looked better than he remembered.

  For once, she wasn’t dressed like some Gypsy or woodland sprite fresh out of the forest. She wore a simple pullover blouse that hugged her torso the way he found himself longing to. The jeans she had on were faded and adhered to her body like a second skin. He found himself jealous of frayed denim and convinced that he was losing his mind.

  She appeared a great deal smaller now than she had in his office or the hospital. He realized that it was because she was barefoot. It had to be no more than thirty-five degrees outside and she stood on the pavers without shoes or socks. Raven pivoted on the balls of her bare feet, as if sustaining minimum contact with the cold ground could keep her from shivering.

  Peter looked at her accusingly. “You’re barefoot.”

  She ignored his tone. “I never wear shoes in the house unless there’s a party going on,” she told him as she hooked her bare arms through his and began to tug him back toward the door. “C’mon into the house before I catch something more than you,” she teased.

  He was behaving like an idiot, he upbraided himself again. There was no reason for him to be here. None except that he’d missed her. He looked over his shoulder toward his car. “I should really—”

  She smiled up into his eyes. “Yes, you should really,” she murmured. The next moment, as she crossed the threshold still holding on to her prize, she was calling out, “Blue, guess who’s here?” Not waiting for a response, she answered the question for him. “Dr. Sullivan’s decided to pay you a surprise check-up visit.”

  The house echoed with the melody of her voice, much like his head had for the past two weeks. Turning to face him, she gave him the feeling that she was not about to allow him to make a face-saving getaway.

  “Why don’t I take your coat and you can look in on your patient?” she suggested. “He’s in the family room,” she added. Moving behind him, Raven began to help him off with his overcoat.

  He twisted around, trying to get a look at her. Trying to get her to stop. “I can do this myself.”

  She peeked around his shoulder, her expression impish. “I don’t trust you. If I leave it up to you, you and your coat will bolt out of here. And after it took you two weeks to finally show up.” With a yank, she successfully removed the camel-colored overcoat.

  “You were expecting me?”

  “Sure,” she told him glibly. “Didn’t you know? I cast a spell on you. You were bound to show up sooner or later. I just thought it would be a little sooner.” He looked as if he believed her. Unable to hold it back any longer, she laughed and shook her head. “I am kidding, Peter. I’m not a Gypsy or a would-be witch. I don’t dabble in black magic or white, or any other color for that matter.” When she’d been a little girl, other kids would tease her because her mother was three-quarters Navajo and would sometimes create sand pictures the way her grandmother had taught her to do. “But I was really hoping you’d come by to look in on him.” After a second, because she was truthful, she added, “And me.”

  He didn’t know about her not being a witch. Or about her not casting a spell on him. If he were being honest, he certainly felt bewitched.

  Why else would he be here?

  Why else would he be bending his own rules, especially after he’d successfully made the break and sent the boy to another doctor? He’d been in the clear. And yet, here he was, hiding behind his credentials, playing the concerned doctor when all he really wanted to do was to breathe in the scent of her hair one more time. See her smile one more time. Feel her vibrancy.

  Feel her against him.

  Damn, but he was losing it.

  Blue had wiggled off the sofa in the family room and was at the threshold the moment he approached the room. The boy’s face was a wreath of smiles, as if he was greeting a long lost friend instead of a physician he’d only seen a handful of times.

  What kind of people were these? Peter wondered.

  Bracing himself, he crossed the threshold and walked over to the boy. “So, how are you doing?”

  “Great.” With a display of boundless energy, Blue attached himself to Peter’s other arm. “You like video games?”

  “What?”

  “Video games,” Blue repeated patiently, looking up at him serenely. Peter saw the huge TV monitor with a game in progress, presently frozen. He suddenly felt very ignorant.

  Raven indicated the screen. It featured the very latest in the video craze. “Don’t you hear about video games in doctorville?” she asked, amusement shining in her eyes.

  “I don’t have time for games in ‘doctorville,’” he informed her coolly.

  “Everyone has time for games,” Blue insisted. “It helps you relax. You could be any color you wanted,” Blue offered.

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass.” He needed to leave, before he gave in to the impulse to remain, Peter thought. Gave in to the need to be part of something that had been ripped away from him. This wasn’t his family. Blue wasn’t his child and this wasn’t his wife. “I was in the neighborhood and decided to see how you were doing.”

  He saw amused disbelief in Raven’s eyes, and he decided to ignore her.

  “Great,” Blue volunteered. “I’m doing great.”

  Raven held up one of the control panels that was attached to the console. “He might do better if you stuck around and played a game or two.”

  He’d never held one of those in his hands, didn’t even know the first thing that was necessary to make it work. “I don’t think so.”

  If Blue was disappointed, he hid it well. “Where do you want me?” he asked Peter.

  “For what?”

  Obviously thinking that he was being teased, Blue laughed. “For the exam, silly.”

  “Right here will be fin
e.”

  It was a quick exam, conducted by a doctor who only wanted to make a getaway before he made a complete idiot of himself. If it wasn’t too late already. In short order Peter was packing up his instruments, placing them into the black bag Dr. Welles had presented to him when he’d graduated from medical school. “He’s doing very well.”

  “Yes, I know.” She was pleased beyond words that each day found Blue a little less pain encumbered than the last. “Maybe even better than you.” She saw him look at her sharply and she offered him a smile in response. “Now can you play?”

  Like a man struggling against being taken down by the undertow, he took a step back from her. His bag was in his hand.

  “No, I’ve got to get going. Goodbye, Blue, Raven.” He nodded at her.

  She matched him retreating step for retreating step. She had her mother’s affinity for recognizing souls in pain and Peter Sullivan was definitely a soul in pain. “Have you had dinner yet? I could whip up something in the kitchen—”

  Fighting the temptation to give in, he cut her short. “No, thanks, I need to leave.”

  “If you say so.” Need to escape is more like it, she thought.

  Still barefoot, she followed him outside. The weather had dropped another few degrees. She wrapped her arms around herself as she stood looking at him.

  “You don’t have to go, you know.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  He had to leave, now, because he was having something very close to a panic attack, born of the desire to remain. To stay here and play some absurd video game and pretend that he was part of something, part of a unit, instead of the loner he was.

  But it would be a lie.

  He wasn’t part of this family, wasn’t part of anything at all really and he’d already made his peace with that before Raven had come on the scene and stirred things up inside of him. With a muttered good-night, he moved away quickly before the temptation to kiss her broke through his not-quite-steely reserve.

  Peter got into his car and slammed the door shut. Putting his key into the ignition, he turned it and heard a whining noise before all sound suddenly died. He turned the key again and this time, there wasn’t even the whining sound.