A Date with Dr. Moustakas

by Amy Ruttan

  “What’re my options?” Stavros asked calmly.

  “I would like to get some more scans to see if the cancer has spread anywhere else first, and then I can form a plan of attack. But ideally I would operate to remove what I can and then give you a course of chemotherapy.”

  “Chemotherapy?” Stavros shook his head. “But who would run my taverna? I can’t agree to that—and I doubt I could afford it either.”

  “Stavros, if you refuse treatment, you’ll have maybe six months to live.”

  “It’s a risk I’m willing to take. I can’t be so sick that I’m unable to work. The taverna is my livelihood, and without it I can’t pay for the surgery.”

  “I’ll pay for the surgery.”

  “With all due respect, Dr. Moustakas, I don’t take charity.”

  “Let me at least do the scans in Athens. I’ll set you up an appointment for a Sunday so that it won’t affect your work. If it hasn’t spread, then you won’t have to have chemotherapy. I would just do the operation.”

  Stavros frowned. “Can I think about it?”

  “Of course. I’m really sorry.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Moustakas. I really appreciate it.”

  Chris left the exam room and took the file back to the filing cabinet. Naomi was standing next to it, and she cocked one of her finely arched brows when she saw him.

  “You look terrible. You okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I just had to deliver the bad news to Stavros.”

  Her expression softened. “I’m sorry. How did he take it?”

  “He’s stubborn, but that’s not surprising. He’ll come around, but at the moment he’s refusing any kind of charity. He wants to pay for surgery on his own—except the surgery will take everything he’s saved and probably his taverna as well.”

  “It’s pride. I get that. And I’m still trying to find a way to have the relief fund pay for the surgery,” she said.

  “I don’t think he’d accept it. He doesn’t want charity, but then again he may take it if it’s a last resort. I’m hoping he’ll at least agree to go to Athens to have a full body scan, just so I can see if the cancer has spread, because if it has spread, then all I can offer Stavros is comfort measures.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Do you have an in with the chief of surgery at an Athens hospital?”

  “I do. Why?” she asked.

  “The only way I can get Stavros to agree to a scan is to have it done on a Sunday, when his taverna is closed.”

  Naomi smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  All he wanted to do was go home and sleep, but Naomi lingered and he had a feeling that he wasn’t going home anytime soon.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  She handed him a piece of paper. “Information about the bachelor auction in Athens that you agreed to yesterday. I’ve already talked to my cousin about watching your son that night.”

  “I know Lisa is your cousin, but you shouldn’t be arranging things with my child’s nanny behind my back,” he said stiffly.

  Even though he was grateful she’d done it, he didn’t want her wiggling her way into his life. He didn’t want her to get hurt when he couldn’t give her what she wanted. He had to protect Evangelos. Chris didn’t deserve her kindness or concern.

  “I know. I’m sorry. But she was very glad to do it. I confess she’s the one who suggested you when I found out that all the other doctors here in the clinic are already spoken for.”

  “She suggested me, eh?”

  He would have to have a talk with her later, but he was glad that Lisa was willing to work an extra night to watch Evan. Chances were that someone from outside Mythelios would win him, and he didn’t want anyone to know about his son. His son wouldn’t be used as a selling point in this bachelor auction.

  “There will be no mention of Evangelos. You can talk about my medical career, and even who my father is, but you will not mention at the auction that I am a single parent.”

  Naomi nodded. “Of course. I understand. So who is your father? I always knew you were well-off, but we didn’t talk much about our families.”

  Warmth spread through his body as he thought about what they’d done instead of talking. An image of her in his arms, naked, his hands in her hair as he kissed her over and over, flitted through his mind.

  Focus.

  “You ever hear of Mopaxeni Shipping?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “The big shipping empire? Of course—who hasn’t heard of it?”

  “My father is one of the head figures behind that enterprise. I’m sure just a mention that I am a Mopaxeni heir will drive up the bids.”

  “Most certainly—but aren’t you worried that some fortune-hunting heiress will get her hooks into you and sweep you off your feet?”

  She’d meant it as a joke, but it hit a little too close to home and reminded him of Evangelos’s mother.

  “Give me a million and I’ll keep the baby. You can have it, and I’ll sign away my rights to it, but a million is my price. As well as an apartment in Central Park West.”

  “Are you serious?” Chris had shouted.

  “Very,” Lillian had said coolly. “I won’t have this baby for less than that.”

  “What about marriage?” Though he’d cringed inwardly even thinking about that, he’d known it was the right thing to do.

  “I don’t want marriage. I want money, Chris. If you won’t agree to my terms, then I will get rid of this baby.”

  Chris had clenched his fists. What had he ever seen in her? She was cruel, vicious and greedy.

  You did this to yourself, the voice in his head had told him. You had it all with Naomi and you threw it away. This is your punishment.

  “Fine. I’ll agree to your terms and you will relinquish all rights to our child. And you will agree to attending medical appointments and keeping yourself healthy. Doing nothing to jeopardize our child.”

  “And when will I get my payment?” Lillian had asked.

  “Half now and half when the child is born.”

  He remembered that call to his father, when he’d had to ask for the money to buy the apartment and a check for a million. His father had scolded him about his irresponsible ways and Chris had had to agree with him on that score.

  He might be a brilliant neurosurgeon, but when it came to matters of the heart, he was a bit of a fool.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t give them too good of a time,” Chris finally said, breaking the tension that had descended between him and Naomi.

  “What are your big plans, then?” she asked.

  “That’s a secret,” he replied.

  The yacht idea that Ares had suggested was good, but he really didn’t know much beyond that.

  “I have to know beforehand. The date is sort of pitched as part of the package,” she said. “I really hate doing this too, but it’s a means to an end.”

  A smile quirked his lips. He loved it when she got all worked up and her Tennessee accent became thicker.

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

  She nodded and then glanced at her watch. “I’d better go if I’m going to catch the next ferry to Athens.”

  “Yes—and I should go home and relieve Lisa so she can have her dinner.”

  No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than there was a shout from the front of the clinic.

  “Help! Please! It’s my son! He was in a crash and he hit his head—he’s unconscious!”

  The woman was beside herself.

  Chris followed the woman into the street just outside the clinic. A young man had been riding a scooter without a helmet and he’d hit a tree. And from the way he was lying on the road, with his right temple against the stone curb, Chris had no doubt the man would have a co
ncussion.

  Naomi knelt down next to him and gently began to examine the young man.

  “Airway and breathing is good,” she said.

  “I need to get him inside,” said Chris. “But first I want to assess him for any injury to his spine.”

  Naomi nodded. “What do you need?”

  “Get a backboard and I’ll examine him.”

  She nodded and disappeared back into the clinic as Chris made his preliminary examination. The left pupil was blown, but the right was responsive. The young man was alive, and that was all that mattered.

  Naomi returned with the backboard just as Chris finished his examination. Together they gently lifted their patient on. He didn’t have to bark orders to Naomi. She knew exactly what was needed, what he wanted to be done as head neurosurgeon. They had always worked well together—which was why he had been so drawn to her when he’d first met her.

  There was still something there.

  He wasn’t blind.

  Or could it be that she’s also a neurosurgical fellow on top of a general surgeon?

  He shook that errant thought away as they strapped the man down and together carried him into the clinic.

  Right now he couldn’t think about all the what ifs and reminisce about working with Naomi. Not now, when a man’s life was hanging in the balance.

  * * *

  “Malakas!”

  Naomi cringed as she heard Chris curse from the other room. The CT scanner was on the fritz again. She’d been told by Theo that it hadn’t been working well since the earthquake, and they urgently needed a new one.

  Their patient, Maximos Ponao, was still unconscious, and Chris was positive that there was a hematoma. There was a definite depressed skull fracture.

  “Aha!” Chris shouted triumphantly as the scanner finally fired up. He joined her in the observation room as Maximos was scanned. “If this keeps working like this, I’m going to have Stavros scanned here. An MRI is less invasive, but a CT scan will do just as well.”

  “That will make Stavros happy,” Naomi remarked.

  They sat next to each other, waiting for the scanner to send images to the computer.

  “What will you do if there is a hematoma? There is an operating room available, and we can call staff back in,” she said.

  But she was really hoping that Chris wouldn’t attempt to evacuate the hematoma and the fracture and would just wait for the air ambulance to land. Once they had Maximos stable, she’d call for the air ambulance from Athens to come and get him.

  “Unless he’s at death’s door, no, I don’t want to do brain surgery here,” Chris said. “The surgical staff are great, but they’re not used to brain surgery and a depressed skull fracture requires a certain finesse. I’m not comfortable doing it here.”

  “Yet you are the best neurosurgeon in the United States. There’s no denying it—you’re at the top of the game. This young man could do worse.”

  Chris’s jaw tightened and he didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes fixed on the computer screen, but he said, “Thank you.”

  The images came up and Chris swore under his breath. “I’m glad you called the air ambulance. You can see he has clotted blood along the interhemispheric fissure and he’s developing hydrocephalus. He needs surgery at once to relieve the pressure.”

  “They’ll be here soon.”

  As if on cue they could hear the distant whir of the helicopter as it crossed the few miles between Mythelios and mainland Greece.

  “I’ll go let them in,” Naomi said.

  She ran as best as she could in the flip-flops that had replaced her broken heels and met the paramedic team as the helicopter landed on the roof. She explained what had happened, and which hospital to take the patient to.

  Chris was waiting for them, and he helped the paramedics carry the stretcher up to the roof. The young man’s mother followed. She would travel with the air ambulance to the mainland, since the ferry had stopped for the night.

  Once Maximos was loaded, Chris put his arm around Naomi as the helicopter’s blades came to life, nearly blowing her over. He led her out of their path, back into the doorway, and they watched the helicopter disappear into the inky-black night, its lights flashing as it headed swiftly back to the mainland.

  “So, it looks like you lost your only ride back to the mainland tonight,” Chris remarked. “And there’s already a doctor sleeping in the on-call room.”

  “It appears so. Well, the couch in the lounge looks comfy enough. I’m sure I’ll be fine there for the night.”

  Though she didn’t really relish the idea of trying to curl up on the couch that time had forgotten. It was fine for sitting on, or a short nap, but it really was as hard as a rock.

  “Nonsense. You can spend the night with me.”

  Heat bloomed in her cheeks as she thought of the last time he’d asked her to spend the night with him.

  “I want you to spend the night,” Chris had whispered against her ear, before trailing a kiss down her neck.

  “Do you think that’s wise?” she’d asked breathlessly. His hands had been all over her and her body had been thrumming with pleasure.

  “It’s just one night. Not a lifetime.”

  And then he’d kissed her, before scooping her up in his arms and carrying her to bed...

  She coughed nervously, trying to dispel the vivid memory. “No, I don’t think that’s wise.”

  “Of course it is. You can have my room and I’ll be more than comfortable on my large sectional couch. And your cousin will be asleep in the room next to Evan tonight.”

  Sleeping in a bed was far more ideal than trying to cram herself onto the clinic’s couch. Even if that bed belonged to the one man she’d sworn never to go to bed with again. And he’d be far away in the living room on his couch.

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  Chris nodded. “It’s the least I can do after you missed your ferry to help me.”

  “Well, it’s my job. I am a surgeon too—not just a wrangler of bachelors.”

  He grinned at her. “True—and you’re a damn fine surgeon, if my memory serves me correctly.”

  She blushed, heat flushing her cheeks as they closed down the clinic.

  They began to walk back to his home.

  “What about the scooter?” she asked.

  “The headlight is burned out, and I really don’t feel like riding a scooter after what happened tonight. I’ll have to get a helmet before I attempt that scooter again. It’s not really proper for a world-renowned neurosurgeon to be terrorizing the streets of Mythelios on a scooter without a helmet.”

  Naomi laughed at the image of him terrifying people on his scooter and then got an image of her yia-yia terrorizing people on a scooter—because she didn’t know what Chris’s yia-yia had looked like, so couldn’t picture her, but assumed that she must’ve been a lot like her own yia-yia.

  “You’re cursed!”

  She frowned, shaking her yia-yia’s voice from her head.

  “You okay?” he asked as they ambled up the hill toward his house.

  “Yeah, just thinking about my late yia-yia. She wasn’t as free-spirited as it sounds like yours was.”

  Chris chuckled softly. “I don’t think many were—and her free spirit caused my father many gray hairs. As do I, truth be told. I have a bastard heir.”

  Naomi winced. “That sounds like something out of an old Victorian novel. There are a lot of unmarried parents these days. Families are no longer traditional.”

  “Tell that to my father. Although he never really liked having kids either. It was just what was expected of him. So he and my mother had me, and then my mother grew disenchanted, or bored—I don’t know—and she left. Though as far as I know, my parents are still legally married. My father doesn’t believe in divorce either.”

 
“I’m sorry.”

  “And what of your family? I didn’t know that you were half-Greek.”

  “Well, we didn’t really ever talk about our families when we were together, did we?”

  Which was true, as the time they’d spent together they had been either working in the hospital or in bed together. Maybe that was why she’d been so blindsided when Chris had upped and left her for Manhattan.

  She’d been so blinded by love that she hadn’t been expecting it.

  Lust, not love. Remember that.

  And that was what she had to keep telling herself. As she’d picked up the pieces of her heart, she’d come to realize that it hadn’t been love, and that their whole relationship had been built on lust. She’d been a fool.

  “So tell me about them. You know about mine—or rather the whole world seems to know about mine, since my father is one of the wealthiest men in the Aegean.”

  “My father was Greek, but he left Athens and went to America when he was a very young man. He met my mother in Nashville, they fell in love and here I am. My father brought me only once to Greece when I was a young girl, when I met his mother and a few of my other Greek relatives. But it didn’t go all that smoothly, thanks to Yia-yia, and we never came back. Or at least he didn’t come back. He passed away last year. When I saw a posting in Greece to help with the earthquake relief, I thought I’d return.”

  “I’m sorry to hear of your father’s passing,” Chris said gently, his voice somber.

  “Thank you. I loved my father. We were very close—particularly after my mom died a few years ago.”

  “And your Greek family? Lisa is your cousin?”

  Naomi smiled. “Yes. I’m glad we’re getting to know each other now. All my older cousins are boys, and when I came here, I was only about fourteen, so we didn’t really have that much in common.”

  Chris chuckled. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

  “Do you have a large family?” she asked.

  “No. Just my parents. My father was an only child and I’m an only child. If there are cousins on my mother’s side, I don’t know them. My mother left my father and me when I was quite young. She’s in Corfu now. I have reached out to her over the years, but she wants nothing to do with me. I remind her of all the things she never wanted.”