An Engagement for Two

by Marie Ferrarella

  “No, it didn’t grow back, and yes, your mother was mistaken about it being removed when she was a little girl. As I said to you before we took her into the OR, your mother’s very lucky that she hadn’t had her appendix removed the way she thought she did. Having her appendix there was what saved her life.”

  But Jeff shook his head. “You saved her life,” he corrected.

  She was definitely not going to argue with him. The operation had been a complicated one, and she was tired. Tired with a full day still ahead of her.

  “Let’s compromise and call it a team effort,” she told him. “Now, I’ve got a whole office full of patients waiting for me,” she said, already backing away. “But I will be back to look in on your mother tonight. And, of course, she’ll have nurses monitoring her progress all day.

  “If you have the time now,” she said, raising her voice so that it would carry as she continued backing away, “stop by inpatient registration and give them your mother’s insurance cards and her personal information. They get very nervous if that’s not entered into the system for someone staying in one of the hospital’s single-care units.”

  He had brought all the necessary papers with him. They were in his wallet.

  “I’ll do that,” he told her. Then looking around, he asked, “Um, which way—”

  “Inpatient registration is to your left,” Mikki called out. Then, seeing him start to go the wrong way, she prompted, “Your other left.”

  He gave her a quick salute as he changed directions.

  There was a lot of background noise, but he still managed to hear her laugh. The sound connected with something within him and buoyed him up.

  Jeff hurried off to comply with the doctor’s request. After everything Dr. McKenna had just done, he wasn’t about to drop the ball and neglect to register his mother.

  He knew that they couldn’t very well evict her—did patients get evicted from hospital rooms? he wondered. But he had no doubt that there was probably someone who was in charge of all this who might take it upon themselves to admonish Dr. McKenna about her unregistered patient.

  After everything that she had just done, he wanted the doctor canonized, not given grief for an oversight, especially if it was his oversight.

  And after he got his mother all squared away and properly registered, Jeff told himself, he was finally going to call Tina and Robert to let them know that their mother was in the hospital and that she had gotten through her operation with flying colors.

  He intended to emphasize that she was doing just fine thanks to a very able, very kindhearted surgeon who also happened to be extremely sexy.

  Maybe he’d keep that last part to himself, Jeff amended. At least for the time being.

  Chapter Six

  “Wow, you look as if you were rode hard and put away wet,” Virginia Masson, Mikki’s head nurse, commented the moment she saw her walking in through the rear entrance to the medical office.

  “Words every woman longs to hear,” Mikki said with a sigh.

  The moment she’d finished the operation, she’d raced back into the locker room and changed out of her scrubs into what she’d worn when she came in this morning. She hadn’t even bothered look in the mirror before hurrying back to the medical building—on foot because she’d made the trip to the hospital in Jeff’s car.

  Mikki ran her fingers through her hair in lieu of using a brush and looked in the general direction of the waiting room. “How many are out there?” she asked.

  “Enough to put a chill in your heart if you were Marie Antoinette,” Virginia answered.

  In other words, a crowd scene, Mikki thought. “My, you are colorful today. Fill me in on why after I see a few of these patients.”

  “They all waited for you, you know. Angela did her best to try to get them to reschedule, but they wanted to wait it out.” Virginia shook her head. “Must be wonderful to have so many adoring fans,” the dark-haired nurse teased.

  “They just appreciate a good doctor,” Molly Campbell, her other nurse said, coming out of the last exam room to join them.

  Mikki flashed the second nurse a smile as she shrugged into her lab coat. “You—I think I’ll keep,” she quipped. “Her—I’m not so sure about,” she added, nodding toward Virginia. “Okay, who’s in exam room one?” she asked, mentally rolling up her sleeves to plunge into her day.

  “Emily Rodriguez. She’s waiting to hear the results of the lab tests she had done last week.” As Virginia spoke, she produced several sheets of paper the lab had sent over and placed them in the file Mikki had just picked up from the reception desk.

  A quick study, Mikki scanned all three sheets before she reached exam room one. She looked over her shoulder at the remaining files on the desk.

  “Maybe I should have gone home,” she murmured to herself.

  Centering, she summoned a wide smile, opened the door to the exam room and walked in. “Afternoon, Emily. Sorry to keep you waiting so long—”

  It was nonstop from there. Mikki saw one patient after another, pausing only to take an occasional sip of coffee, which went from hot to lukewarm to cold. She hardly noticed. All she cared about was that it was black. As such it served as her fuel and kept her going.

  By three forty-five, she had made a sufficient dent in her patient load. Going nonstop, she’d almost managed to catch up.

  Tired, Virginia leaned against the wall as another patient received her paperwork from Angela and left the office. The woman looked at Mikki, not bothering to hide her admiration.

  “Damn, lady, you have to let me know what brand of vitamins you’re on, because they just can’t be anything normal people have access to,” Virginia commented.

  “It’s called fear of letting anyone down,” Mikki told her.

  Overhearing her, Molly laughed. “Like you ever could,” the young redhead responded.

  Mikki nodded toward the waiting room. “How’s it going out there?” she asked.

  Virginia looked down at the sign-in sheet. “Eight more patients and then I believe freedom is yours,” she said, peering out into the waiting room to double-check. And then she looked again. “Oh, wait, I think we have a walk-in.”

  Mikki closed her eyes. “I don’t know if I’m up to this.” Her day had felt like an endless parade of patients. “Angela, see if Dr. Graves is available to take the overflow.”

  “No,” Virginia told her, forestalling any such inquiry. “I think you’re going to want to take this one yourself.”

  Mikki was about to tell her head nurse that the woman was crediting her with being superhuman. But just as she opened her mouth to protest, she caught a glimpse of the person who had just entered the waiting room—a deliveryman holding a large crystal vase filled with what looked like at least two dozen long-stemmed pink roses.

  Virginia looked at her in utter stunned surprise and cried, “You’re seeing someone and you didn’t tell us?”

  It took a second for the words to sink in. Another to realize that both nurses and the receptionist were staring at her. Virginia appeared a little envious, while Molly seemed almost hurt.

  “No, I’m not seeing anyone,” Mikki responded. “There must be some mistake.” Leaning over the reception desk to peer into the waiting room, she told the deliveryman, “You have the wrong suite.”

  The young man looked at the clipboard tucked under his arm, then at the card attached to the arrangement. The name on the envelope was facing him. He raised very pale eyebrows to look at her. “You Dr. McKenna?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then I’ve got the right suite. I need one of you to sign for this,” he said, setting the vase down on the reception desk and holding out his clipboard.

  Both nurses were now flanking Mikki. “If I sign for them, do I get to keep the flowers?” Virginia asked her.

  Molly, a veteran of fi
fteen years of married life, made a dismissive noise. “I’d probably have to die before Walter would send me flowers that looked like that,” she commented. “Hell, I’d probably have to die before he sent me a single daisy.”

  “They certainly are beautiful,” one of Mikki’s remaining patients said from the waiting room.

  Well, there was no denying that, Mikki silently admitted.

  Quickly signing her name on the line the deliveryman pointed out, she returned the clipboard to him. Pausing only to take the small envelope that had come with the flowers and pocketing it, she turned toward her receptionist and said, “Please send in the next patient, Angela.”

  Virginia looked at her, totally mystified. “Don’t you want to know who the flowers are from?” she asked Mikki as she went into exam room three to prepare it for the next patient.

  “They’re probably from some broker who’s trying to sell me a retirement plan,” Mikki guessed. “This is just a sales ploy, and things like this pop up all the time. I’ll look at the card later.”

  There was no one in her life who would be inclined to send her flowers, much less do it. And there certainly was no occasion, large or small, coming up in the near future that necessitated any sort of celebration. She was convinced that it had to be some mix-up at the florist, and she’d see about straightening it out after she saw her last four patients of the day.

  And once she did that, she still had to get back to the hospital, Mikki reminded herself. She wanted to look in on Mrs. Sabatino before she called it a day. Mikki was fairly confident that the woman would still be asleep—and would remain that way through the night—but that didn’t change the fact that she wanted to check on her just to see how her impromptu patient was doing.

  * * *

  “Okay, you did it. Mr. Meyers was your last patient of the day,” Virginia announced three hours later.

  Crossing the reception area, the head nurse locked the office door, then turned around to waylay her friend and employer before Mikki had a chance to slip away.

  “Now will you look at that card and see who sent you those flowers?” she asked.

  Mikki suppressed a laugh, not wanting to hurt the nurse’s feelings. “I think you’re more excited about those flowers than I am,” she told Virginia.

  Frowning, Virginia shook her head. “That’s another thing. You’re not excited about them. What’s wrong with you?” She waved her hand in the general direction of the vase with its profusion of pink roses. “These are gorgeous, not to mention expensive. If someone had gone to all this trouble for me, I’d certainly be excited.” She looked at Mikki closely. “Do you know who sent them?” she asked.

  “No,” Mikki admitted. And then she let the woman in on a little secret. “And as long as I don’t know, I can pretend that they are for me. Once I look at the card and see that the florist did make some kind of a mistake, then I’ll know that they’re not for me.”

  Virginia read between the lines. “Then you would like to get flowers,” she concluded, happy to discover that Mikki was as normal as any other woman.

  “I’m not a robot, Virginia. Of course I’d like to get flowers. But I’m pretty confident that these aren’t for me, so—”

  Uttering a sigh of exasperation, Virginia reached into Mikki’s lab coat pocket and, with the expertise of a pickpocket, pulled out the card.

  She was taller than Mikki and held the envelope out of the doctor’s range while she extracted the card from the envelope.

  “Give that to me, Virginia,” Mikki ordered.

  But it was too late. Virginia had managed to read the card. She looked at Mikki, curiosity etched on her brow. “Who’s Jeff Sabatino?”

  The name immediately caught Angela’s attention. “Isn’t that the name of the woman you operated on this morning?” she asked.

  Mikki had called her receptionist from the hospital just before she began the operation. She gave her the woman’s name and asked her to make an entry in the ongoing schedule that she kept on her computer.

  Pulling the lanky nurse’s arm down to secure the card from her, Mikki scanned it herself—twice to make sure she hadn’t made a mistake.

  “‘Thank you for everything. Jeff Sabatino.’” The last time Mikki read the card out loud.

  “Yes,” she said slowly, remembering to answer Angela’s question. Saying nothing further, Mikki tucked the card back into her pocket. And then she looked at the roses as if seeing them with fresh eyes. Despite her resolve to appear nonchalant and unfazed, she felt a smile slip over her lips.

  The flowers really were absolutely beautiful, Mikki thought.

  The next moment she realized that three sets of eyes were unabashedly watching her as the three women all grinned.

  Mikki turned to her employees. They seemed to have questions sizzling on their tongues, all but bursting to come out. That was when she realized that what had been written in the card might have sounded a little ambiguous, causing her staff to start thinking all sorts of things.

  That was all she needed.

  “Not a word,” Mikki warned. Shedding her lab coat, she left it slung over the back of Angela’s chair and picked up her purse where she’d left it in the desk drawer. “I’m going to the hospital to see how my patient is doing. After you lock up, you can all go home,” she told them. It was an order, not a suggestion. “You’ve put in a longer day than usual,” she said, letting herself out into the hallway.

  “You, too, apparently,” Virginia called after her.

  Mikki didn’t have to turn around to know that the woman was grinning.

  * * *

  She took her car this time, parking it in the spot reserved for her.

  Getting out, Mikki quickly hurried into the hospital and then up to the sixth floor, where most of her patients usually went after surgery.

  She tried not to think about the flowers or the card that came with it.

  Or the man who had sent them.

  Consequently, she couldn’t think of anything else, not just because the roses were so beautiful, but because no one had ever sent her roses before. She’d had grateful patients before as well as grateful family members, but none of them had ever sent her flowers.

  The truth was, Mikki wasn’t really sure how to react, or what she was supposed to say. She knew she had to acknowledge receiving the flowers. But there was this unusually warm feeling rattling around inside her that she wasn’t exactly sure what to do about.

  This isn’t about you. It’s about your patient, remember? Think about your patient. That’s why you’re here. Check in on her, then check out. Her son is probably long gone, back to his home or his restaurant.

  The thought that the man worked in a restaurant reminded her that she had been running on empty all day.

  You haven’t eaten since this morning, Mikki. Get something to eat. You need fuel.

  As soon as she finished with Mrs. Sabatino, she promised herself.

  Mikki paused at the nurses’ station when she got to the sixth floor. It was her habit to always check in with the head nurse first.

  “How’s Mrs. Sabatino doing?” she asked the nurse who was watching the monitors.

  The nurse, an older woman who had been on the job for close to twenty-five years, seemed a little preoccupied and didn’t respond at first. However, when Mikki asked about Mrs. Sabatino again, the nurse suddenly jumped, as if she was being caught falling down on the job. She flushed.

  “What? Oh, Mrs. Sabatino is fine. Doing fine,” the nurse corrected herself. Glancing at notations on the computer that had been left by the last nurse, she said, “She’s been asleep this entire time.”

  “But you have been monitoring her vitals, right?” Mikki asked. “And checking her temperature every hour?”

  The nurse nodded. “Every chance I got.”

  Mikki thought that was rather an odd w
ay to word the response, but it was getting late and it was obviously the end of this nurse’s shift. The woman’s eyes appeared to be drooping. Maybe the woman was just overly tired, she reasoned.

  No more than me, Mikki thought.

  She was just going to look in on Mrs. Sabatino herself and then, since the nurse had nothing to report, she was going to go home and collapse, Mikki promised herself. She was hungry, but there was nothing in her refrigerator that could pass for edible food and she was far too tired to stop to pick up something on the way home.

  She’d get something tomorrow on her way in, Mikki promised herself as she went down the hall. Missing a couple of meals wasn’t going to kill her.

  The door to room 616, Sophia Sabatino’s room, wasn’t closed. There wasn’t anything unusual about that. Mikki knew that it was easier for nurses to go in and out this way without waking up the patient.

  Slipping quietly inside the room, she could hear gentle snoring. Just as she’d expected, Mrs. Sabatino was asleep.

  That was good, she thought. The longer the woman slept, the longer her body would have to heal and recover from the trauma of surgery.

  Moving in closer, she checked the monitors beside the woman’s bed, all of which were hooked up to her patient, including an IV drip.

  Turning to leave, Mikki didn’t see him until he moved. Jeff Sabatino was sitting in a chair all the way over in the corner like a silent sentry, taking everything in.

  Mikki dragged air into her lungs as she consciously stifled a gasp. Doing her best to collect herself, she said, “I didn’t realize that you were still here.”

  Jeff smiled at her, rising. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he apologized. “You said you were going to look in on her. So I thought it was only fair, since you were going out of your way like this for my mother, that I’d stay here and wait for you.”