Emergency in Alaska

by Dianne Drake

  “When do you need me on shift?”

  “Not until tomorrow morning. Mariska’s on all night tonight and Maggie’s taking the last shift while I take on-call, so we’re fine.”

  Mariska, a local nurse trained by Dimitri, had been a fixture at the clinic for longer than Alek could remember. She and Eyanna, another nurse trained by Dimitri, ran the clinic, and they could not get along without them. They didn’t have formal training—something Michael would undoubtedly call quackery if he found out. In spite of their lack of it, though, she would put their skills up against those of any other nurse anywhere because both of them were that good. Certainly, it was an unorthodox situation, but it worked.

  There were several others who came to help from time to time—mostly volunteers looking for a way to pay for their medical services—and Michael would look at that as quackery, too, she supposed. But Dimitri never turned down a volunteer, and the volunteers were what kept this place up and running. So for such a remote area, they were well staffed, especially now that there were three physicians.

  Of course, as the staff grew, so did the demand for their services, which was good because that meant more people in the area were seeking medical help. “Since everything is taken care of, and I’m assuming the reason you were here when I got home was to stock my refrigerator with whatever you want me to cook, I’ll cook dinner for the two of you. Unless you have other plans.” She gave him a little wink. “If you do, I’ll certainly understand.”

  “Me turn down one of your dinners?” He snorted. “Not a chance. My only plans are to spend my evening with two beautiful women, eating a lot of food, like pelmeni, if that’s what happens to be on the table when I get there.” He walked to the door, then turned back to Alek. “I think Maggie’s going to stay here with me permanently. It’s not completely settled yet because she has some ideas she wants to work on, and I know I should have discussed this with you before I invited her, since this is your clinic, too. But I wasn’t sure it would work out, and I didn’t want to make too big a fool of myself. Especially since a man my age has no right to expect as much as I’m expecting.”

  “You have every right, Dimitri, and I’m glad your chat room worked out,” she replied. “And I know I’ll love her. But we need to talk about…” She couldn’t do it. Not now. Michael would be here soon enough, and they’d sort it out when he was. Until then, she wanted Dimitri to stay as happy as he was right now. Alek blew Dimitri a kiss. “We’ll talk later. Now, get on back to that lady of yours before she finds another handsome Russian doctor to take your place.”

  “I’ve heard so much about you!” Maggie exclaimed an hour later as she hugged Alek. “And I’m glad to finally meet you after everything Dimitri has said.”

  Alek stepped back and couldn’t help but stare. Maggie Morse was the exact image of her son—same charming smile, same twinkling green eyes, same slightly curly brown hair, close cut without a single strand of gray. Beautiful woman, striking, vibrant…no wonder Dimitri had been taken with her so quickly. She had what Michael had. “Well, he didn’t tell me nearly enough about you,” she responded, giving Dimitri an approving wink. “Not nearly enough.”

  “Something we’ll soon fix,” Maggie said, latching on to Dimitri’s arm as they crossed into the great room of Alek’s cabin. “Because I’m hoping that we’ll become good friends.” She glanced up adoringly at Dimitri. “Since we both share an affection for the same man.”

  True love unfolding right before her eyes. Alek had never seen it before. She didn’t recall anything of her mother, and she’d never seen her father involved romantically. She’d seen love between Dimitri and Olga, but it had been a longstanding kind, one of people who had always loved each other and grown mellow in it. What she saw now was young and fresh, and in a way she envied them.

  And she worried, because Michael was going to ruin it if he could. “I’m sure we’ll be great friends,” she said in all sincerity, even though she wasn’t sure how long it would last once Michael arrived. “So how about we feed this man we both adore, and get to know each other better over pelmeni, draniki, svejie ovoshy and—?”

  “And it can only be pumpkin oladi,” Dimitri exclaimed, practically licking his lips. “She gives me my favorite meal, and now I can only wonder why.”

  Alek latched on to the arm Maggie didn’t have hold of and gave him a squeeze. “Partly because you stocked it in my refrigerator, but mostly because I missed you.”

  “Then you should go away and come back more often,” he teased, leading both his ladies into the kitchen.

  “And here I am, barely able to boil water,” Maggie said, taking her seat. “My poor Michael…” She glanced up at Alek. “My son,” she explained, then continued, “He didn’t have the benefit of many home-cooked meals, I’m afraid. I couldn’t cook, and didn’t particularly like it even if I could. And my husband was even worse than I was. So Michael learned to cook, which was a saving grace for us because if it hadn’t been for him we would have eaten nothing but sandwiches. But Michael could have gone to culinary arts school, he was so good.”

  “And my Aleksandra is magnificent in the kitchen,” Dimitri said, beaming. “Almost as good a chef as she is a doctor. Just like your Michael.”

  “Which is a good thing,” Maggie added, then laughed, “because at my age, I don’t particularly care to learn fine arts in the kitchen. Sandwiches, takeout food, a can of soup…those were always fine for me after my husband was gone and Michael moved out, especially the takeout, although I’m betting I won’t find much of that around here.”

  “But I always have a can of soup to share,” Dimitri said, then gave Alek a wink. “When I can’t convince my Aleksandra to cook for me.”

  “His way of convincing me is to show up at mealtimes,” Alek said. “It’s a good thing I love to cook for an army because Dimitri loves to eat like one. And you’re always welcome,” she said to Maggie. “Even when I’m not here, there’s usually something in the refrigerator. The cabin door’s never locked, so feel free to help yourself.”

  “You’ve raised a nice young lady,” Maggie said.

  “I’ve raised a magnificent young lady,” Dimitri responded. “And, lucky for me, a magnificent cook.”

  Dimitri and Maggie chatted on while Alek served up the mincemeat-sausage dish, along with the potato pancakes and the cucumber, tomato and onion salad, and by the time she finally took her seat the conversation was long past Maggie’s lack of domestic skills and well into one of Dimitri’s tales of an adventure somewhere north of the Arctic Circle—exactly how far depended on Dimitri’s mood when he was telling it. “We were floating on a one-man raft, just the three of us on the Jim River.”

  Alek smiled as the story progressed. It was one of her favorites, and now Dimitri had a brand-new audience for the tales of his escapades. She was happy for him.

  “Didn’t see a bear anywhere. Not a single one. But there was this big old cow moose, and she took a liking to me. Followed us along on the shore for a good while with love in her eyes, and there’s nothing more frightening than a cow moose with love in her eyes. Especially when you know that look is for you. I’d rather have tangled with a bear than that little lady.”

  Dinner was pleasant, and somewhere into the svejie ovoshy Alek learned that Maggie was not only a doctor, she was a surgeon. And Michael had been perpetuating a myth of helplessness about her. Apparently, he hadn’t paid much attention to his mother because she was anything but the helpless, vulnerable woman he’d described.

  “You may have taken your wilderness certification classes from him, Alek,” Maggie said, snapping Alek back into the conversation.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “My son, Michael. He teaches wilderness classes in Seattle, and Dimitri said you went down there a few years ago to get your certification. So maybe you ran into him, or even took one of his classes. His name is—”

  Before Maggie could utter his name, there was a sharp knock at the door and Alek had t
he sinking feeling that he, whom she would prefer would remain nameless, was the one knocking. She glanced at her watch. He’d made amazing time. She really hadn’t expected him until after the pumpkin oladi.

  “Want me to get it?” Dimitri asked, starting to stand.

  “Good heavens, no!” Alek exclaimed, practically falling out of her chair to beat him to it. “You stay there and enjoy your supper. I’ll take care of whoever’s out there.”

  “I’m on call this evening,” Dimitri said, as he speared another plump pelmeni. “We’ve got two nurses on, but if someone needs a doctor…”

  Before he finished, Alek ducked out of the room and into the entry hall, wishing now she had a much larger cabin, one where she could actually hide Dimitri and Maggie while Michael came in ranting and raving. Which was exactly what he was about to do.

  Slowly, she opened the door a crack, and took a peek outside.

  “Alek,” he said, surprisingly civil, all things considered.

  “Michael,” she choked, inching her eyes from his toes upward, ever so slowly, since she really didn’t want to see the frown there.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me inside? It’s been a long, cold trip from Beaver Dam, and I believe you owe me a little hospitality after the delay you put me through.”

  Her eyes stopped at his kneecaps. “No,” she said, tying to sound forceful about it. “I can’t invite you in. Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.” Then she tried shutting the door, but he pushed it back at her.

  “I intend sleeping here,” he stated, still maintaining his place outside on the porch. “In your cabin, since Elkhorn doesn’t have a hotel, in case you didn’t know that. But I stopped at the hospital, told them I was a doctor, and they pointed me in your direction.”

  Her eyes inched on up his legs and stopped near his chest. “I don’t have a guest room, Michael, but the hospital has rooms. I’ll call over there and make arrangements—”

  “I want these arrangements, Alek. Your cabin. You owe me that much.”

  His voice was so deep, so quiet, so sexy, it caused her to shiver.

  “And I’m not even going to bring up the fact that you persuaded the good people of Beaver Dam to delay me so you could get here first. Nice try, but I haven’t changed my mind.”

  Finally, her eyes reached his, and they were narrowed, yet still twinkling. How could that be? Angry yet…yet what? She hadn’t seen that look before, and once again she shivered, and not from the cold. “Your mother is where she wants to be.”

  “She’s inside, isn’t she?”

  She wouldn’t lie. “Having supper.”

  “And I’m not invited?”

  He arched one eyebrow at her, and if she hadn’t known better, she would have almost thought this a prelude to seduction. But this was Michael, which meant that it was, more likely, a prelude to an outburst. With that in mind, she took a firmer grip on her door. “No,” she stated flatly. “You’re not invited. The woman is an intelligent, sensible physician and you go on about her like she’s a feeble, dithering old woman.”

  “So you’re attempting to hide her from me.” He chuckled, but it was so low she could barely hear it. Although she could feel it all the way down to her toes. “Like I said before, Alek, nice try, but I haven’t changed my mind.”

  “I’m going to let her eat a meal in peace before you ruin her digestion. Afterward, if she wants to see you, I’ll let her know you’re staying at the hospital. Under lock and key in our psychiatric ward.” Of course, they didn’t have a psychiatric ward, but the little threat did sound good.

  “You threaten the lock and key an awful lot,” he taunted. “As an officer of the law, as a physician.”

  “Get off my porch,” Alek snarled. “Get off right now, or I’ll show you what this officer of the law can do with her lock and key.”

  He actually grinned at her—a big, bodacious grin that said he didn’t take a thing about her seriously. “And that, Alek, is one more reason to get my mother out of all this lunacy, which is what it is when someone like you has the power to arrest someone like me. So let’s just make this easy on both of us. Let me in.”

  “Fine. Do what you want. But let me warn you, Michael, your mother is happy here, and she won’t be going home with you.” She hoped. For Dimitri’s sake, she surely did hope.

  “Michael! I thought I heard your voice,” Maggie said as she stepped around the corner into the hallway.

  “He came to kidnap you,” Alek muttered.

  Maggie laughed aloud. “He’s always been so protective of me. Especially since his father died.” She stepped around Alek, and went to kiss her son. “I appreciate your concern, Alek, but I promise, Michael’s not going to take me anywhere.”

  As the two stood in the doorway, exchanging greetings, Alek returned to the table. “It’s Michael Morse,” she said glumly. “And I really wanted to talk to you about this a little while ago, but you were so happy, and I just couldn’t.”

  “So talk to me now,” Dimitri said, lowering his voice so it was barely above a whisper.

  “He was with me in Beaver Dam. I met him at the four-way and he followed me there. And he’s not a nice man, Dimitri. He’s determined to take his mother home because he thinks you’re…” It was so difficult to say the next words. She couldn’t, because she would not hurt Dimitri. Not for anything. “Because he thinks she’s not ready for an involvement.”

  “So Michael’s protecting Maggie and you’re protecting me? Is that what’s going on here?”

  “Something like that, only I wasn’t very good at it. Look, he’s a mean-spirited man. I know he’s Maggie’s son, and that you and Maggie are, well, whatever it is that you are, and he’s an excellent doctor, but he’s going to cause trouble, Dimitri.”

  “Which you don’t think I can handle?”

  “Which I don’t think you should have to handle. Maybe you should go out the back door right now, put off meeting him for a while, because I think he’s probably in a horrible mood.”

  “Something you did to him?”

  Alek laughed halfheartedly. “I suppose you could say that.”

  Dimitri dropped his napkin onto the table, then stood. “I’m not running away from Maggie’s son, Alek. What I am going to do, though, is go take over her last round at the clinic so she can spend the rest of the evening with Michael. Tell her she can bring him over to meet me when she’s ready. Oh, and find a place for the man to stay, will you? Maggie’s in my second bedroom or I’d ask him to stay there. Take care of him. Get him settled in. Get him settled down.” He gave her a cheery wink. “Give him a pelmeni.”

  “Why?”

  “To show him there’s more to you than your pretty face.” Dimitri ducked through the kitchen and out the back door while Alek sat at the table, looking at the leftover pelmeni on the platter. It would take more than a sausage to settle Michael Morse—settle him in or settle him down.

  “Where’s Dimitri?” Maggie asked as she came back to the table, followed by Michael.

  “He took your last round for the night,” she replied, looking up at Michael for any sign of hostility. But she couldn’t read his face. He was smiling, his eyes seemed pleasant, but…but she didn’t know. “Care for a pelmeni, Michael?” she asked, for a lack of anything better to say.

  “He shouldn’t be taking my shift since he’s on call later,” Maggie said. “Besides, he’s had a long few days, so I think I’ll go on over and help him finish. Look, Michael, take Maggie up on her dinner offer. It’s wonderful. She cooks as well as you do. So eat, enjoy, and we’ll talk later.” She let go of his arm and headed to the door. “Oh, and you’ll need to find a place to stay the night, Michael. Maybe Alek can make a suggestion.” With that, Maggie hurried after Dimitri, leaving the two of them alone.

  “So, are you going to arrest me?” he asked.

  “I haven’t decided.” He stood in the doorway, filling up most of the space of it. She hadn’t realized how large he was until now, until he became su
ch an imposing figure in her cabin. “You can’t do this, Michael. You can’t force your mother to leave.”

  “But I can persuade. And I will, Alek.”

  “She cares for Dimitri.”

  “Because he gives her something she thought she’d lost. But once she sees that she doesn’t need to find it here in Alaska, she’ll leave.”

  “Or not. She has her work, and she and Dimitri have a good relationship going. So why persuade her to leave? Why interfere with what could be real happiness for her?” Alek pushed herself away from the table. “Have some pelmeni,” she said, pointing to the platter. “And draniki and svejie ovoshy. Have all of it. Stuff yourself till you choke on it!”

  “And what are you going to do? Go hide my mother from me again?”

  “I’m going to the hospital to take over her shift so Dimitri and Maggie can have their time together, since you seem bent on taking that away from them.” With that, she left the room and left Michael standing there looking over a dinner that certainly hadn’t gone the way she’d planned.

  “No, I insist,” Alek said. “I need to get back to work, and now’s as good a time as any.”

  “And Michael?” Dimitri asked, taking off his white lab coat and hanging it over the peg by the door in his cramped little office. Everything about the clinic was cramped—patient space was limited, the lab space was actually a converted storage room and the surgery wasn’t much larger than the laboratory. It was a compact little facility, but tidy. Lately, though, it had been undersized for the growing needs of the area.

  “I left him choking on dinner. I hope!”

  “I understand your animosity, Alek. But something tells me it runs far deeper than you trying to protect me from him. Normally you’re not so moody, but that’s what you’ve been since you returned home. Moody. Downright grumpy. And that’s not like you.”