by Laurie Paige
Three
“Do I know you?” Michael asked when he stood face-to-face with the two men in his living room.
Both men wore suits and ties. One, obviously several years older than the other, had a diamond pinky ring. From their appearance, Michael didn’t think this was a burglary.
“You know Carmine Mercado,” the spokesman of the duo informed him.
“Ah.” He indicated the comfortable grouping of chairs. “Have a seat, gentlemen. Would you like a brandy?”
The two men exchanged a glance and nodded. Michael poured each of them a brandy and one for himself, then joined them. “I suppose Mr. Mercado has more questions.”
“Nah,” the younger man said.
“Maybe,” the older one corrected. He leaned forward, his manner suddenly earnest. “He needs a heart.”
Michael nodded. “So he said.”
“His doc tells him he probably won’t get one because of his age.”
Michael nodded again. The don had little hope unless a perfect match came in and there was no one younger and healthier who could use it. Fat chance of that happening.
“How does a half mil strike you?” the mobster asked.
“As in, half a million dollars?”
“That’s right.”
“Sorry, I don’t follow you. What’s the half mil for?”
“For the operation,” the older man said impatiently. “You arrange for the operation, get the hospital to agree and the money will be deposited in your name in any bank in the world, plus the insurance will pay your regular fee.”
Michael swirled the brandy, then took a sip, letting it glide across his tongue while he composed an answer.
“Tell Mr. Mercado I’m sorry,” he said, and truly meant it. A man’s life hanging in the balance wasn’t a joking matter, no matter how that life was lived. “It isn’t up to me. There’s a hospital medical board that decides who gets the next available heart, provided a match comes up. You do understand that there are several blood factors that have to match before we can even take a chance on surgery?”
“Huh.”
Michael wasn’t sure what the grunted answer meant. He waited for their next move, not at all threatened by their presence now that he knew they were sent by Mercado. The Mafia boss controlled his operations and his minions with an iron fist in a velvet glove, or so he’d heard.
“So, you’re refusing to do it?” the older mobster asked, his eyes narrowed.
“I didn’t say that. Mercado has my office number. Tell him to call me tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be glad to explain how the system works.” Michael stood, dismissing the men.
The older thug set the half-full brandy glass on the coffee table. The younger one polished his off in a final gulp before standing when his superior did.
Michael walked the men to the door and politely held it open for them. “Good night, gentlemen.”
“By the way, Doc, you forgot to set your security alarm.” The thug smiled before stepping outside.
Michael nodded once in response. In truth, he never armed the device. He had very little in the house to steal.
After locking the door, he returned to the living room and picked up his brandy glass. It occurred to him that the goons had no doubt searched every inch of his house.
They probably had a wax impression of his front door key or the code to his garage door opener or whatever means the Mafia used nowadays to enter a person’s house unbidden.
He laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Susan Wainwright and Carmine Mercado. His life was definitely getting interesting.
Susan paced restlessly in front of the hangar. She wouldn’t be here at all except for the constant worry she saw in her mother’s eyes. So she would let the arrogant Dr. Michael O’Day do a few tests, conclude that her heart was doing just fine and that would be the end of it.
A niggle of fear belied that conclusion.
“Well, hello,” a surprised male voice said.
Every nerve in her body twitched at the sound of the indecently sexy tone. “Hi,” she said grumpily. “It should be a crime to sound so cheerful this early in the morning.”
Michael glanced at his watch as he opened the hangar door. “The sun was up hours ago.”
His light-blue gaze swept over her, making her heart speed up. She willed it to a normal beat.
“No luggage?” he asked.
“No. My apartment is in Houston, along with my city clothes. I keep my ranch duds here.”
“Good thinking. Come inside. It’ll take me a few minutes to run through the checklist.”
She observed him as he went through the routine of the preflight check, his attention totally focused on the job.
He wore light-blue slacks and a white polo shirt with blue edging on the collar and sleeves this morning. A bit of silver gleamed among the strands of black hair as sunlight shone briefly on him when he moved around the front of the plane.
“Yo, Doc,” another man called and came over to them.
Susan exchanged greetings with the handsome black man dressed in baggy shorts and a leather vest when Michael introduced them.
“Chuck is the best airplane mechanic in these parts,” Michael explained. “He manages the airstrip, too.”
Chuck accepted the praise as his due. “I checked the engines over on this baby. She’s cool, man.”
“Thanks.” Michael put the checklist in the plane. He glanced her way. “You can board, if you like, then I’ll push the plane out.”
“I’ll help,” she volunteered.
His grin was quick, charming and easy. “Okay.”
She was relieved he didn’t argue or make a fuss about her heart. Her father and brothers would hardly let her lift a finger when she was at the ranch.
The three of them pushed the plane into position. She and Michael climbed aboard. She waved at Chuck, who gave her a thumbs-up sign and an approving smile. She wondered if he thought there was more to her being with Michael than a doctor-patient relationship.
Stealing a glance at her companion as he completed the checklist then taxied to the runway, she wondered the same. Those fleeting kisses, hardly more than the lightest glissade across her lips, had left her sleepless last night.
As the plane rose, she watched the landscape fall away. “There’s our ranch,” she said.
“Shall we buzz it?”
“Is it legal?”
“As long as we don’t get caught.”
With a chuckle, he swooped down on the ranch house. Susan waved to the ranch hands as they walked toward the stable. “Oh,” she said, seeing someone else.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Michael dipped the right wing so he could see what she was staring at. “Who is he?” he asked, spotting the man fixing a flat by the side of the road.
“Hawk Wainwright.”
“You can’t just drop it at that,” he told her in that gentle way he had when he knew a person was upset.
“My father had an affair with someone. A Native American woman. Hawk was the result. I never knew of him until he moved here and took a job at a nearby ranch.”
“Is he why your parents divorced?”
“Yes. My mother found out when I was a baby. My father admits nothing, but Hawk bears his name and…and there is a family resemblance. The three legitimate kids, Justin, Rose and myself, have never known how to handle the situation, so we’ve mostly ignored him. He’s pretty standoffish, too. It must be terrible to be an outsider to your own family—” She stopped abruptly. Hawk was a family secret that no one talked about.
“Yeah, tough,” Michael agreed.
She appreciated his sympathetic yet nonjudgmental tone. “We lived in Houston while growing up, but Mother moved back here to be near her family a couple of years ago. Father remodeled a house on the ranch for her. She stays there when she’s not in Houston. I think they still love each other, but…”
“It’s hard to forgive and forget?”
“Yes.”
“Would you?” he asked.
A chill attacked her neck at the softly spoken question. She shook her head. “I think women still require fidelity in a marriage. Otherwise, why bother?”
“Yet, in a recent report in a medical journal, twenty-eight percent of the DNA tests for paternity turned out not to be the reputed father’s, but some other man’s kid. Females don’t appear to be much more faithful than males.”
“That number doesn’t extend to the whole female population. Those were cases in which paternity was already being questioned. I think it’s pretty revealing that in seventy-two percent of them, from marriages that were obviously in trouble, the child was the husband’s.”
“A point well taken,” he conceded.
“You said that once before, on Saturday when you nearly ran over me.”
“You have a good memory.”
His eyes met hers. They suddenly seemed darker as thoughts she couldn’t read darted through them. She pulled her gaze away from the mesmerizing quality of his.
“I’ll never marry,” she said, then was appalled at herself. Why should he care?
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t have time for a husband or children.”
“Mmm,” he said. “Childbirth would probably be too much of a strain on your present heart, but with a new one, once past the early rejection stages, there’s no reason you couldn’t have a normal life.”
“My normal life is ballet,” she reminded him.
“You might have to give up professional dancing,” he told her. “But you could probably teach.”
The unvarnished truth was a bitter pill to swallow, she found. “You can afford to be sanguine about it, but this is my life we’re talking about.”
“I’m always truthful with my patients, Susan,” he said quite gently.
Tears stung her eyes. She forced them back and managed a laugh. “Maybe we’d prefer a little less honesty.”
He considered, then shook his head. “I would never lie to you. Perhaps you’re more courageous than you think. I think you’re capable of taking whatever fate dishes out.”
She wished she was as sure. However, she discovered she did feel better about this trip and the possible diagnosis the famous Dr. O’Day might give her.
“I haven’t agreed to an operation,” she quickly reminded him. “I’m only here because of my mother. And my grandmother. She’s nearly ninety, but her mind is good. They ganged up on me yesterday.” Her laughter sounded more like a nervous whinny. “So I agreed to see you because of them, because I care about them.”
“Of course,” he said smoothly, and began the descent into Houston.
“How long have you been having chest pains and shortness of breath?” Michael asked on Thursday.
It was after five. His office was closed and only his most stubborn patient was still there. He’d asked Susan to come over after hours to discuss the results of the tests she’d had taken that week.
She tilted her head to one side. “Who says I am?”
For a second he actually considered kissing that mulish expression off her lovely face, but that might lead to other complications and he couldn’t afford them.
Monday, he’d had a hard enough time doing his job when he’d had her undress and put on an examining gown. Listening to the erratic beat of her heart had made his own go a little crazy. Barely touching her smooth skin had conjured up visions of climbing onto the table with her and making love instead of checking her health.
He hadn’t had those kinds of problems with a patient since his early days in medical school. He smiled grimly to himself. Sometimes his job was tougher than usual.
“You can lie to your parents and yourself, but not to your doctor,” he chided, injecting a hint of humor into the moment. It didn’t work.
“You don’t know everything.”
Denial was common in patients with serious conditions. To make progress, she had to get past that. As with the death of a loved one, a person had to go through the stages of grief before acceptance could come. Coming face-to-face with your own mortality wasn’t easy.
Susan wasn’t at that point yet.
But it would have to come. And soon. He decided on brutal honesty. He laid the reports in a neat pile on his desk, his eyes locked on hers. “If you try to continue your present lifestyle, I’ll give you three months. If you take it easy, you might have a year.”
She looked stunned. “What? What are you saying?”
“The tests indicate your heart is failing. It drops beats regularly. You didn’t get five minutes into the stress test before you became dizzy and weak. You have angina and shortness of breath. How much plainer can I get? In how many more ways does your heart have to warn you it needs help before you listen?”
He had to give her credit. She didn’t blink. She didn’t cry or curse or do any of the things a patient usually did.
Lifting her chin, she said, “I see. Well, I suppose I’d better get my affairs in order. Isn’t that what you tell terminal patients—to get everything sorted out?”
He shrugged. “I find most patients do as they please without hints from me.”
Her eyes flashed green fire. Fox fire. Again he suppressed an urge to kiss her into…what?
Acceptance of her fate? Acceptance of his touch?
Turning away abruptly, he pocketed the charts in her folder and laid them in the file basket. “Your life is in your hands. You’ll have to decide the future.”
“If I have a transplant, won’t I have to take medication the rest of my life?” she asked, her manner now almost subdued.
He liked the fire better. “Probably. A lot at first, then it’ll gradually taper down as your body learns to live with the new heart.”
“Quits fighting the alien invasion, don’t you mean?”
Ignoring the sarcastic question, he stood. “Would you like to join me for dinner?” He hadn’t realized he meant to ask until that moment.
She shook her head. “I’m going to watch the new ballet the company is putting on tonight.”
“A classic, or one of those modern things I never seem to understand?”
“We call it fruit salad,” she replied with an endearing little laugh. “A mixture of light, fun pieces from a variety of ballets. Pure fluff, but audiences love it.”
He liked her sharing this little insight with him, as if he, too, were an insider to the workings of the art form.
After she departed in that fluid, effortless manner she had, he dictated a report on her condition. The computer printed it out. After reading it over, he placed it in an envelope, put a stamp in the corner and stuck it in his pocket. He’d been asked for the report by Friday. The ballet director should get it tomorrow if he mailed it tonight.
Taking the letter with him, he walked the two blocks to his condo. His pad was on the fourteenth floor, a nifty but rather plain two-bedroom penthouse that was convenient to the office, the hospital and the gym where he worked out while in Houston.
No one had ever spent the night there with him, except his nineteen-year-old niece, Janis.
Ironically the youngster was also avid about ballet and wanted to come to Houston to study dance, but her dad, who was his brother and some twenty years older than himself, was against the idea. Her parents wanted her to stay at the University of Hawaii.
Jim and his wife lived in Hawaii, and they naturally wanted their daughter close. Michael could identify with that, even though he’d never had a close family life himself.
For a moment, nostalgia rolled over him. Recalling his evening at Matt’s house with Susan and the other couples, he considered the camaraderie of the Carson brothers. It was one of the things that he’d noticed about the whole family when they had all showed up in mutual support of their father during his bypass surgery.
A nice family, he concluded, made even nicer by the addition of Josie and Rose and the expected babies.
Changing his direction, he d
ecided to go to the gym for an hour and work off the restless energy that plagued him. Oh, one other thing. He dropped the envelope into the mailbox on the corner next to the gym.
There. The grisly deed was done.
He smiled grimly. Now it would be a race between who would finish him off first: Susan Wainwright or Carmine Mercado. He was personally betting on Susan.
“Tell him Susan Wainwright is here,” Susan told the polite but implacable doorman who wouldn’t let her go farther than the lobby of the expensive condos.
She glared at the polished pink granite tiles on the floor and the wall housing the elevator. She knew that Michael lived on the top floor.
The penthouse, where he seduced unsuspecting women, she added with vicious sarcasm.
“Uh, he says you’re to go right up,” the doorman finally told her, hanging up the phone.
The man briskly opened the elevator, saw her inside and punched a button on the panel before stepping back into the lobby and watching as the doors slid closed.
Susan crossed her arms while she rose with smooth speed to the fourteenth floor. When the doors slid open, she stepped out into a large granite foyer with flowers and palm trees, illuminated by a skylight. Chaises and padded chairs were placed at strategic points, making the space seem like a formal living room. Four penthouses opened off the foyer.
Michael stood at one solid oak door. “Welcome to my humble home,” he said, a half smile on his lips. He gave a little bow.
“Huh” was her reply to his mock graciousness. She sailed inside when he stepped back and waved her in.
She stopped abruptly. The lights of the city were laid out at her feet, a banquet of sparkling jewels wrapping around the living room in a breathtaking sweep through floor-to-ceiling windows that lined two sides of the elegant room. She had only to stoop and grab a pocketful of riches.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said softly behind her.
She became aware of his body heat along her back. When she stepped forward, then turned, she found his eyes on her.
Pain, sharp and hungry, speared through her.
