From House Calls To Husband

by Christine Flynn

  “My tray should be up by the time I give him these.”

  Jan headed into the hall with the gloves in her pocket and her hands twisting her heavy hair into a knot so she could drop it down the back of her top.

  From the med room door, Katie watched her disappear into the room halfway down the long hall. Fifteen seconds later, just as Katie returned to the computer to finish inputting diet changes, Jan was back out, her eyes trained on the floor as she shook her head.

  “What?” Katie asked as she hurried past her again.

  “I took him a pair of sevens.”

  “He wears nines.”

  “I know,” she mumbled, skirting a nursing assistant before disappearing into the med room again.

  The woman looked as if she were on the verge of tears. Katie had been there herself. There were simply some days when nothing went right, and Jan seemed to be having one of them. Though Katie couldn’t imagine Mike deliberately upsetting a nurse, his quiet censure could be devastating.

  She should know. She’d been on the receiving end of it herself a while ago.

  “Your tray should be here any second. I’ll go check on it for you.”

  The threat of tears mingled with faint hope. “Would you mind taking it in to him? All you have to do is drop it off and go. He said he could do the procedure himself.”

  To Katie, it was a fair indication of Mike’s frustration level—and his lack of confidence in Jan at that point—that he’d sent her packing. For a number of reasons, everything from having the extra pair of hands, to having someone available to get more supplies, a doctor always liked to have a nurse handy when he was performing such a procedure.

  No one was more aware of that at the moment than Jan, and it was painfully evident that she’d rather stand naked in a hailstorm than walk back into that room.

  Having been in that awful, awkward position herself before, too, Katie snatched a tan packet marked Sterile Gloves Size 9 from a box and gave Jan’s shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. She had her own reasons for not wanting to face Mike at the moment, but she murmured, “No problem,” and bravely headed into the hall.

  The runner was coming through the unit’s double doors with the blue cloth-wrapped tray when, seconds later, she left Jan banging her head softly against the med room wall.

  Katie truly did not want to deal with Mike just now. After he’d left her yesterday morning, she’d stood motionless in the middle of her living room while the awful ache in her chest caused her throat to burn and her eyes to sting. Had he been any other man, she’d be cutting a berth around him a mile wide. But it wasn’t that simple with them. He wasn’t willing to give her his heart, but she still wanted him so badly she ached. Another part of her was missing the friend he’d been, and clutching the hope that he wanted their friendship back, too.

  That hope, however, had dimmed considerably half an hour ago.

  The contact had been so brief it scarcely qualified as an encounter, but his coolness had been unmistakable. Coming out of a patient’s room, she’d spotted him on a phone at the nurses’ station. He’d looked straight at her as he’d spoken into the mouthpiece. Then, having held her glance long enough for her heart to take a few erratic beats, he’d simply turned away.

  The blatant rejection had frozen her in her tracks. Seconds later, she’d returned to the patient’s room on the pretext of having forgotten something.

  She hadn’t seen him since.

  “You can leave it and go.”

  That was exactly what she planned to do. “Here are your gloves.”

  Mike’s head jerked around as she picked up the contaminated setup from the patient’s tray table and slid the new one into place. Standing with his back to the door, he hadn’t seen who’d come in. He’d just heard the squeak of soft soles on the polished floor.

  His expression cooly professional, he took the tan packet she’d set atop the covered tray and tore it open. “I thought you were that other nurse. If you’re not tied up right now, I’d appreciate an assist. We’re prepped for a central line.”

  Nothing about his manner indicated that this was Mike talking to Katie. This was a doctor speaking to a nurse. Every bit as professional as he was, Katie put her anxiety on hold and moved to the opposite side of the bed.

  As Mike had pointed out, the patient had already been prepped. The emaciated gentleman with the tufts of silver hair surrounding the liver spots on his scalp, lay with his head to the side, his jaw hidden by a sterile blue drape that exposed his neck through a hole, and reached the covered tray table at his waist. The skin visible on his neck was stained orange from the surgical scrub used to clean it and, by now, deadened with an anesthetic.

  Mike slipped his hand into the folded cuff of the first sterile glove. Touching only the part that would touch his skin, he pulled it on. “We’ll get this done now, Mr. Weineke,” he said, lifting his hand so the cuff fell down, covering his wrist. Picking up the other glove with his “clean” hand, he snapped it on and offered a smile that didn’t come quite as easy as usual. “I’m sure you’d like to get back to your television show.”

  Katie glanced toward the silent TV mounted high on the wall. As she opened the blue cloth with a rip of tape and exposed the assortment of instruments and supplies, she couldn’t help thinking that the elderly gentleman didn’t care whether he got back to the game show or not. He was sick and he clearly felt terrible. From the apprehension in his rheumy eyes, she could tell he was also nervous about what the surgeon was going to do.

  Katie offered him a smile of her own as she slipped on her gloves. She would stay “dirty” so she could handle any nonsterile item the doctor might need moved, so she didn’t hesitate to rest her hand on the patient’s thin, wrinkled arm. The fact that his assigned nurse had just departed under less than ideal circumstances probably hadn’t done a whole lot for his comfort level, either.

  “I’ve told Mr. Weineke this won’t take long at all.” Mike reached toward the tray. “He knows we’re putting in this line because all his other intravenous sites are shot.”

  His deep voice held a wealth of reassurance for the patient, and a verbal nudge for Katie. Some doctors didn’t like unnecessary conversation when they worked. Others, like Mike, understood the value of letting certain patients know what was going on.

  “That means no more poking in your arms for a vein,” she elaborated, promptly picking up the cue to focus on whatever positives she could find for the man. “And no more blood draws. We can get them out of your new line.”

  “That’s what the other nurse said,” the man replied, his voice a rusty warble. “She’s a sweet girl.”

  Reminding herself to pass on the comment to Jan, she murmured, “She’s very nice.”

  “She didn’t mean to mess up, you know.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t. She’s an excellent nurse.” She cast a careful glance at Mike. “She’s just not having a very good day.”

  “Neither is Mr. Weineke,” Mike defended. “I’m sure he’d rather be just about anywhere else, doing something other than this.” The censure in his voice was mirrored in his tight expression as he peeled open a pack he’d taken from the tray. Whether the other woman was having a bad day or not, he clearly didn’t want to hear excuses. “Ready?”

  The question was for his patient. But the man didn’t answer. He just looked apprehensively at Katie, who calmly met the shuttered expression in the doctor’s eyes. Knowing she was not the person to go to bat for Jan, she took Mr. Weineke’s hand.

  “Hold your head still,” she gently reminded him, watching Mike feel for the vein. “You’re doing fine.”

  His features fixed in concentration, Mike deftly inserted a needle long enough to skewer a turkey. Had Mr. Weineke seen the size of it, his anxiety level would have shot through the ceiling.

  “You’re halfway there already.” She gave the cool, bony hand a comforting little squeeze, then waited a beat before telling him that all he needed now was a couple of stitch
es and he was through.

  Her quiet commentary visibly eased the man. He closed his eyes, his breath sighing out as if he’d been holding it forever. He didn’t even care that the capped catheter had to be sewn in. As far as he was concerned, the worst was behind him.

  Katie wished fervently that it were so for her and the doctor wordlessly placing the neat stitches that would keep the catheter in place. But as she clipped the sutures for him, marveling at the deftness with which his long fingers tied off the delicate filaments, she had the awful feeling that, for the two of them, the rough part was only beginning.

  “Mrs. MacAllister called me yesterday afternoon,” he informed her when they left the patient’s room a few minutes later. Glancing down the hall to make sure no one was within earshot, he motioned her to a stop. The distance she’d sensed in him seemed to increase even as he stepped closer. “She invited us to a reception she’s giving for her son.”

  “Us?”

  “She specifically asked me to bring you.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I haven’t talked to her yet. She left the message on my answering machine.” A muscle in his jaw twitched, his bridled tension twinning around her like smoke. “I wanted you to know about it before I called her back. I thought if Dr. MacAllister happened to mention it to you and you didn’t know the invitation had been extended, it might be kind of awkward. Under the circumstances, I don’t think we should go. Not together, anyway.”

  It seemed that Maggie MacAllister was either thinking of them as a couple already or planning to do a little nudging to see that they became one. It was also as plain as the cafeteria’s custard that the last thing they needed was someone trying to push them together.

  An orderly moving an empty gurney was threading his way between laundry carts. Taking her arm, Mike nudged her back so the young woman in the blue surgical cap and booties could navigate between the wall and the portable monitor someone had left in the hall. His nearness brought the clean scent of his soap. With that same breath came disturbing memories. But his touch was deliberately businesslike, clearly intended only to get her from point A to point B. The instant they were out of the way, he pulled back and pushed both his hands into the pockets of his lab coat.

  “You’re right,” she told him, feeding off the defensiveness she could feel radiating from him. The last thing they needed was another evening like the last one. “We probably shouldn’t.”

  “I thought you’d feel that way.” He gave her a tight nod, his eyes deliberately avoiding hers as the accusation sunk in. “Thanks for the assist in there.”

  He turned away without another word, leaving Katie to stare numbly at his retreating back. She didn’t know if he was angry with her, annoyed or plain old disgusted. He’d never been any of those things with her before—except for the time she’d borrowed his car when he was home from college and she’d dented the fender, but that was light years from the coolness she sensed in him now. He was almost acting as if she were somehow at fault for the way things were falling apart.

  “I know you say you and Dr. Brennan are just friends,” Alice said when Katie returned to the nurses’ station after Mike had gone, “but you two sure looked intense down there.”

  Thinking that the last thing she needed was Alice’s good-natured nosiness, Katie picked up the list of diet changes she’d been entering in the computer earlier and tapped her ID number out on the keyboard. “We’d just finished with a patient,” she hedged, dangling the possibility that they’d been talking about the procedure.

  Knowing a false lead when she was tossed one, Alice didn’t bite.

  “You weren’t talking about a patient, honey. When you were standing down there,” she said, using the papers in her hand to indicate where Mike had stopped her, “you looked edgy as a doe cornered by a buck.” She peered over the top of her orange rims. “You went to that heart thing with him Saturday night, didn’t you?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Nothing,” she said, sounding dismissing despite the shrewd look in her eyes. “He’s just been acting kind of strange around you for nearly a month now, and I’ve never seen him as short with people as he’s been this morning. Now, if he was Dr. Aniston, I’d say his mood was downright pleasant But that man,” she continued, apparently meaning Mike, “isn’t himself at all.”

  “You’re losing me, Alice.”

  “I’ll catch you up here in a minute,” she assured her, adding more paper to her stack as she rattled on. “And when was the last time you brought in a plate of brownies or banana bread? Or that caramel-fudge torte that adds a pound to each thigh with every bite?”

  “I am now officially lost.”

  Alice rolled her eyes. “You always bake when you’re happy, girl. You know that. And since you’re always on a diet, you always bring in what you bake for the rest of us to stuff ourselves with. Not lately, though,” she said, standing up to take her stack of papers to the copier. “I’d say you haven’t been happy in about a month. I’d say the same for Dr. Brennan. If there’s nothing going on between the two of you, I’ll eat these reports.”

  “If you need salt, there’s some in the lounge.”

  Alice stopped in her tracks. “You’re serious? There’s nothing?”

  Katie kept her attention on the computer screen. As astute as Alice was, she’d never believe her if she could see her eyes.

  “Nothing, Alice. Really.”

  It was the truth. At that moment she couldn’t honestly even say they were friends anymore.

  Chapter Nine

  The night was cold and breathtakingly clear. Mike stood on his deck, his breath trailing off in a fog as he looked at the glittering sky. He should go inside. Check his answering machine. Unpack. But there was nothing inside except space. Nothing living. Nothing breathing. No plants. No pets. At least out here he could hear the rustle of the trees in the wind, the murmur of the creek that ran through the woods, the distant bark of a dog.

  Maybe he should buy a fish.

  He shook his head grimly at the thought and looked away from the swath of stars to run his hand over his face. The constellations usually seemed to jump out at him, their patterns immediately emerging from the millions of other stars surrounding them. Tonight, though he’d stood staring for the past five minutes, nothing even registered.

  He’d been on a natural high all day. His modest presentation at the conference in Seattle had been well received this morning, and the demonstration surgery he’d performed yesterday had gone flawlessly.

  It wasn’t often that he allowed himself to feel truly pleased with an accomplishment. Making certain he got his next effort right was more important than relishing a victory or massaging his ego over something he’d already done. In his mind, there was always room for improvement, an edge to be pushed, a different approach to be explored. But he hadn’t been able to deny the sense of satisfaction he’d felt when he’d left the conference that afternoon. That ebullient feeling had stayed with him on the plane, and accompanied him on the drive to his house. Then he’d walked in his front door, dropped his bag in the empty entry—and felt the pleasure slowly die.

  Not wanting to think about why that was, he’d come outside to enjoy the first clear night he’d seen in ages and wound up thinking, anyway.

  He’d actually felt better walking into a strange hotel room.

  Shaking off the depressing thought, he left the redwood railing and headed for the sliding glass door behind him, ignoring the telescope he could see in the angled window farther down the deck.

  He was a logical man. If he’d been on a natural high, then it followed that what he felt now was nothing more than a natural letdown. He’d been surrounded by the energy of his colleagues for three days. On the way back, the plane had been full, the airport busy. He’d had the radio on in the car so he could catch up on the local news, the chatter continuing to connect him with the outside world. His home was his sanctuary. It was su
pposed to be quiet

  Overlooking the fact that it wasn’t supposed to feel like a tomb, he closed the big sliding door and wandered through the vacant, vaulted space to the kitchen. After staring at the meager contents of his refrigerator—none of which held any appeal—he tossed a frozen dinner in the microwave. It was barely six-thirty in the evening. With his current research project completed and his findings delivered, he no longer had results to study or a paper to write. That gave him plenty of time to return calls, unpack and eat while he checked the status of the patients he’d left in his colleagues’ capable care.

  It took all of ten minutes for him to link to the hospital’s computer and get the information he was after, another five to hang his suits and dump everything else in the laundry hamper. Since his friends, family and office knew he’d been out of town, there were no calls to return. After spending ten minutes flipping through TV channels in his study while he refueled with the meal that tasted pretty much like the cardboard container it had come in, he punched off the electronic diversion and tried to decide if he should call his workout buddy and go to the gym or drop in on his parents. But he’d worked out at the hotel gym that morning, and if he’d intended to see his folks, he should have called before he’d subjected himself to the solitary meal. Feeling oddly restless, he wandered back to the kitchen and dumped the disposable plate in the trash.

  Swearing he’d heard the plate echo, he headed back to his office to turn on the stereo—only to find himself stopping on the polished parquet tiles as he passed the empty dining room. A brass chandelier hung from the coffered ceiling—the room’s total adornment. He didn’t even know if the teardrop-shaped bulbs all worked. He’d had no reason to turn it on. Looking to his right, his glance swept the unhampered expanse of neutral carpet to the vaulting stone fireplace.

  The muscle in his jaw twitching, he slowly took in the long, empty planter, the empty niches, the stark white walls. Katie said he needed greenery. She’d said he needed textures and natural colors. He should call in a marker on one of the favors she owed him—or maybe he owed her by now—and ask her if she wanted to go with...