Micah accepted the man’s offered handshake, thinking it might have been the first time he’d ever seen this man in this area of the hospital. At least since the groundbreaking ceremony for the new wing and hospital tour a couple of months back. Of course, trauma and everyday maladies didn’t have the lure of Hollywood superstars and the Lakers. Howard Brill must have been going to or coming from a business meeting; his well-cut suit and spotless white shirt made him look like a foreigner in this sea of scrubs.
“I’m on my way to a Rotary meeting,” the man said, confirming Micah’s impression, “but I wanted to stop by and see Brittany.” He patted his pocket. “I promised her aunt I’d snap a few pictures of the big day.”
Micah scrunched his brows.
“Brittany Brill, my niece.” The board member’s nod looked like a bullet point. “Niece, godchild, and more of a daughter since my brother’s passing.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“She works in the newborn nursery. They love her there—the staff, the patients. She’s highly valued. Ask anyone. Britt’s new, but she’s already making her mark. Making a difference.” There was obvious pride on the uncle’s face. “And today she’s taking a huge step in responsibility. Showing her leadership skills.”
Micah waited.
“She’s demonstrating a baby bath in a video for the new mothers. It will be used throughout the Hope hospital system.”
“Ah.” Baby bath?
Micah didn’t doubt it was a good thing, a valuable tool. But . . . He had an image of Sloane facing off with that male nurse in defense of a foul-smelling homeless man. Leadership, dedication, compassion . . . with fire-and-ice eyes. No comparison.
“It’s scheduled for 2 p.m.,” Brill was saying. “You might drop by and talk with some of her coworkers. We’d be delighted to see you there.”
“Thank you,” Micah said, offering his hand again. “I’m sure you’re really proud.”
“Newborn nursery. Twenty minutes.”
Micah watched the man walk away and then headed back through the emergency department, fighting an uncomfortable feeling not unlike that awkward moment when he’d had to discuss the old chief’s drunken act. The staff nurse had been spot-on with her comment: “He . . . used his power and position . . .”
Something about the exchange with the board member left a similar bad taste in Micah’s mouth. And reminded him that this job was far different from what he accomplished as part of the crisis team. But he wasn’t going to let the conversation with Brill get to him. He’d invested a huge amount of time and effort in this campaign and—
“I’ll finish up here.” A voice floated out from the open doorway of a treatment room. “Then I’ll see if we can find you some clean clothes.”
Sloane. With that homeless man.
Micah paused and caught a glimpse of her inside. The man was talking, Sloane listening intently. He shouldn’t be watching, but he couldn’t look away. Sloane was washing the man’s feet. A basin of water, towels. Gently, carefully.
“Did you need something?” Sloane asked, noticing Micah there.
“No . . . Sorry; I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No problem.” Sloane peeled off her gloves, patted her patient’s knee, and walked toward the doorway. “I need to go check on my staff—the ones I haven’t already run off.” Her lips quirked. “I guess you saw that little skirmish earlier.”
“Yeah.” Micah glanced toward the man in the treatment room. “I’d say your patient won.”
Sloane’s smile smacked at his heart.
“Now if I can get through the rest of the shift without raising the hackles of the nurses’ union or blowing my probation.” She shook her head. “It’s been that kind of day.”
“I get that,” he said, imagining Brill drumming his fingers as he waited for Micah to show up for the baby bath. It wasn’t going to happen. He wouldn’t waste time on that phony, transparent ploy. Micah wanted something real.
“Look,” he heard himself say, “I’ve had more than enough of this place myself. When you get off shift, want to grab some dinner with me?”
Her eyes met his and she hesitated; Micah told himself to breathe.
“I could do that. But . . .” Sloane glanced down at her scrubs, damp in places from the bathwater. “I’d need to go home first. Shower, change.”
“No problem,” he assured her, feeling better than he had all day. “I’ll jot down some ideas for places to eat. Run them by you later. Then you can let me know when to pick you up. And where.”
Sloane’s brow puckered.
“Your address,” he explained, hoping that her expression didn’t mean she was changing her mind. “So I can swing by and get you?”
“I . . .” Sloane took a breath. “I’ll text it to you.”
20
“I CAN’T BELIEVE WE’RE DOING THIS,” Sloane said, a giddy laugh rising. Giddiness warring with nerves; it had been a worthy duel since the moment Micah walked up her driveway. No, from the instant she gave him her address. She’d met him on the porch dressed in her worn-soft denim skirt, a peasant-style top, and sandals. She’d had to take more than a few slow breaths to diffuse the jittery mix of excitement and anxiety.
“The quintessential Hollywood Hills . . . tailgate picnic,” she said, tossing him a teasing smile. She raised her paper cup. “The ad man gets points for originality.”
“What can I say?” Micah popped the top on a second bottle of sparkling pomegranate juice as Sloane settled herself on the tailgate of his SUV. “You’re really okay with this? All cheesy tourist?”
“Yes and yes. I’m fine, and it is cheesy.” She let him fill her cup, then surveyed the Mulholland Drive overlook. “Postcard cheesy but still very cool.”
Sloane gazed out across the panorama nestled in the hills: the Hollywood freeway winding like a child’s snapped-together LEGO creation through trees, red-tile roofs, and on toward the hazy high-rise cityscape of downtown LA. If she closed her eyes, she could hear the thrum-honk of the endless freeway commutes, catch a whiff of asphalt and smog, but up here, even next to the highway, there was a breeze and an almost-delicious sense of escape. As if she’d actually satisfied that deep yearning at last. Sloane pointed, picking out the familiar, iconic landmarks. “Hollywood Bowl . . . Griffith Park . . .”
“Don’t forget the sign,” Micah teased, pointing to the nine famous white letters perched high on Mount Lee. “As if you could miss them, at thirty-some feet wide and—”
“Forty-five feet tall,” Sloane finished, remembering. “And there were originally four more letters to spell out Hollywoodland, for a new real estate development.”
“That’s right.” Micah shook his head, laughed. “Now there’s an ad campaign. Nine decades and still going strong.” He looked sideways at her. “I didn’t take you for a trivia geek.”
“Not me. My mom,” Sloane explained. “She knew everything about films, Hollywood, and movie stars. It was sort of her passion, I guess.” In an instant, memories floated back: her mother brushing her hair with fifty strokes, her red nail polish and the rose-and-lily scent of face cream. Sloane took a sip of her juice, swallowing against the old ache. “We had bookcases full of videotapes, mostly the really vintage films. Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, Giant, Philadelphia Story.” She decided against admitting she and Marty had watched that one recently. “An Affair to Remember . . .”
“Classic romance,” Micah said, refilling his own cup. “I didn’t hear The Dirty Dozen or Red Badge of Courage anywhere in there.”
“No action movies or war films.” Sloane pushed aside an image of that old crucifix in her mother’s hands. “Tragic romance, romantic comedy . . . movie magazines piled knee-high, and dozens and dozens of framed black-and-white celebrity photos. That was us. For the longest time, I thought Elizabeth Taylor was a relative.”
“I would buy that,” Micah said, holding her gaze for a long moment.
A flush crept up Sloane’s neck. She reach
ed for a sprig of grapes, only a minuscule part of the food Micah had assembled when the prospect of a dinner reservation proved daunting. He’d thrown himself on the mercy of the Whole Foods deli: a loaf of artisan sourdough, Brie and Humboldt Fog cheeses, fig jam, fresh fruit, chilled pinwheels stuffed with herbed chicken, and a small assortment of chocolates wrapped in jewel-colored foils. It was a picnic that would have fit a scene in one of her mother’s movies. Though, amazingly, there was no wine. No temptation to drown her jitters. All the while she’d been dressing for the date, she’d agonized over how she’d refuse a drink but never had to say a word. If Sloane even half believed God had a soft spot for someone like her, she’d have shouted, “Hallelujah.”
“We had Oscar parties,” she said, filling the short stretch of silence. “She’d wear sequins. I’d help her glue on false eyelashes. We’d set up TV trays, make popcorn, roll little wieners in crescent rolls, and write our picks on Post-it notes. Mom even had some red JCPenney throw rugs that we’d line up end to end, and . . . Me on a red carpet.” Her heart tugged. “It was a rented house in Fresno, but that night she made it Hollywood.”
“Did you ever drive down here to visit? Do the studio tours?”
“Once. She took me to Disneyland when I was seven.” After Phillip . . . Sloane swirled the juice in her cup. “We took the Universal Studios tour. Went to the Walk of Fame. I think she used two whole rolls of film of me on that marble sidewalk with Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, and Lassie. She even made a movie of me pretending to tap-dance down a line of stars.” Sloane shook her head. “She’d read the names out loud, tug me along to the next one. It was only us, but it felt like we were at this huge family reunion.”
“Just the two of you?” Micah asked, his voice tentative.
“Yes.” Sloane would be a fool not to expect that question. After all, she’d started this line of conversation. Opened herself up. “My father died before I was born.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sloane inspected the grapes. What was she supposed to say? That she was sorry too? Sorry she inherited her father’s “amazing” blue eyes and her mother’s fatal weakness for booze? Or that she wished her mother never had a boyfriend who bought her angel wings and—?
“So . . .” Micah handed her a chocolate. “You’re a tap dancer?”
“No,” Sloane said, grateful for a laugh. She’d said far more than she’d intended, than she ever thought she could be comfortable with. But there was something about Micah. “There’s no Hollywood star with my name on it. Not a singer, dancer, or actor.”
“I’m surprised,” he said, unwrapping his own chocolate. The sun had begun to sink lower, casting a glow over their picnic site. It turned Micah’s shirt a little pink and lifted Oscar-gold highlights in his sandy hair. His smile spread slowly. “Considering all that red carpet experience.”
Sloane returned his smile and told herself she was doing fine. Better than fine, really. She’d accomplished a hurdle she thought wasn’t possible. An impromptu picnic in this unexpected setting could have spurred tears, an ugly flash of anger, or any number of inappropriate responses. Alcohol had jerked the strings of those humiliating performances countless times. Instead, she was holding up her end of a conversation with a man who treated her with nothing but respect. A decent man who’d sought her company because of a genuine interest in who she was now . . . not because he was tempted by a one-night stand. For the first time in forever it almost felt like Sloane’s mistakes and all those secrets were as far away as the big white letters on Mount Lee.
“She’s still in Fresno?” Micah asked. “Your mother?”
The immediate change in Sloane’s expression made Micah wish he’d never asked the question.
“She died when I was eighteen,” Sloane said, finding renewed interest in a grape stem she’d picked clean. When her eyes rose once again to meet his, there was a sort of decisiveness in her expression. “She drowned.”
Ah, man . . . He searched for something to say, but she wasn’t finished.
“They tried to say it was her fault because of pills and alcohol. Because she was that kind of person.” Sloane raised her chin, reminding Micah of that moment in the ER when she’d confronted the nurse. “It took a while, but her husband, my stepfather, was finally convicted of manslaughter. He’s at State Prison in LA. They’d moved here a few months before it happened.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Micah told her honestly.
Sloane attempted a small shrug. “It’s been almost fourteen years.”
“That thing they quote about time and how it heals all wounds?” Micah sought her gaze. “I think it’s overrated.”
“Probably.”
“But then chocolate,” he said, grabbing one wrapped in blue foil, “earns every bit of its good press.” He held the candy out to her, wishing he were holding her instead. “Medicinal.”
She smiled and took it. “You could sell snake oil, you know.”
“Thanks—I think.”
He watched Sloane unwrap the chocolate, wondering if her quip was closer to the truth than he’d like. It probably was the way people saw it. That his job was simply to hawk the hospital, put a positive spin on anything that didn’t otherwise vet. He couldn’t deny it was the carefully calculated reason he’d pitched the new campaign to the board. A plan to honor employees he’d never actually spent that much time with until . . .
“I think it was great what you did today,” Micah said, “for your patient.”
Sloane’s tongue swept across her lower lip, catching a bit of chocolate. “You mean doing battle with that nurse from the unit?”
“That too, but I meant taking the time to really care for that homeless man. Personally, when you could have easily handed it off to someone else.”
“Not so easily. Sir George has a reputation.”
Micah had overheard plenty to confirm that—graphic details that made him especially glad his office was way upwind of the ER. And he’d heard enough about the man’s history of DUI arrests to stir his own bias.
“Still,” he insisted, “you took him on when you didn’t have to. And went more than the extra mile. I saw what you were doing for him.”
“Cleaned him up a little, that’s all. It wasn’t like I was saving his life.”
“No, but . . .” Micah hesitated, remembering her washing the man’s feet. The image had hit him hard in the gut. A small task but so full of compassion. It was like he was seeing a physical embodiment of what drew him to crisis work. “It’s not the first time people have noticed that about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“She treats every patient with dignity, whether they are rich or poor, highly educated or seriously challenged. They all have worth, and she gives them her best.”
“Things I hear. Things like . . .” Micah cautioned himself against revealing that she’d been nominated for the Face of Hope. Sloane would probably hate it. “What you proved today. That every patient is worthy of the best care regardless of their circumstances. Sure, it’s not a new concept. It could be the hospital’s mission, printed on a T-shirt—probably has been, by some eager-beaver marketing man way back when.” He shook his head. “But more often than not, that’s simply talk. We all wish it weren’t so, but it is. And you . . . you walk the walk, Sloane. You work like you’re carrying the banner of the Golden Rule. People notice.”
A flush rose on her cheeks. “Maybe I’m a better actor than I give myself credit—”
“No.” Micah cut her off. “I’m not going to let you do that. Even if you don’t see it, other people do. That man today did. That kid, Zoey Jones, she saw it.”
He reached out, gently lifted a dark, silky length of hair framing Sloane’s forehead and then trailed his fingers slowly down. From the small, intriguing scar at the corner of her eye to the sweet curve of her jaw. Soft, warm . . . “I see it too. You’re special. The more I learn about you, the more I want to know.”
Sloane stiffened,
her breath catching.
“I’m sorry,” Micah said, letting his hand drop. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t. No problem,” she said, the breathless relief in her voice making Micah feel even worse. “I just don’t know what to do with all that, I guess. I mean, it’s nice, but . . .”
“But the last thing you need is a campaign from a snake oil salesman.” Micah found a smile.
“I’m sorry I said that. Which makes us even, if we’re counting apologies—which I’m not.” She looked around; the parked cars had dwindled now. “Does this place close at sunset?”
“Yes,” he confirmed, smart enough to get the hint. “You need to get home.”
“Not really.” The golden light had turned her eyes an incredible shade of violet. “I was thinking it might be nice to put this food away and take a walk down to the Bowl. But I guess we can’t now.”
“I know a side path,” he told her, feeling hope rise like he was a Hollywood actor walking the red carpet.
“Sounds good.”
Zoey clutched the cell phone and held her breath, listening as the number rang a second time. Her hands were shaking. Would someone answer? It had gone to voice mail the other two times she’d tried, and she’d hung up without saying anything. Stack could be back at any time, and he was already bugged that Zoey complained about this latest job. It felt wrong, and she didn’t want to be a part of it. He’d laughed at her, dropped Viktor’s name again, and asked if that “job” was more to her liking. Then Stack gave her a new bit about how things were turning around for him, how it was finally coming together and this would be their last job. And how he wasn’t going to let anything or anybody screw it up.
Zoey peered through the open door to his side of the motel rooms, her pulse quickening. He’d check her call list; he always did. But this time she didn’t care. This time it would be worth the fight and—
The voice mail greeting: “This is Susie. Do your thing.”
Zoey squeezed her eyes shut against a rush of tears, told herself to disconnect, but . . .
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