Kenderly sat back, eyeing Delaney with a glimmer of respect, rather than distrust. Then she nodded slowly. “Now this is a conversation I’m happy to have.”
Chapter 11
“You’re slouching, dear.” Delaney’s mother raised a sculpted eyebrow as she sipped zinfandel from a crystal goblet.
Delaney sighed, adjusting her shoulders. It was Wednesday night, she was seated in her customary position at her parents’ dining room table, and though she’d only been there for fifteen minutes, she was already stealing glances at the grandfather clock in the corner. She’d left the hospital so she could be here at six o’clock sharp, as expected, but she still had hours of work on her desk, so after dinner, she’d be heading back to Mercy.
She wondered if maybe Dr. Mackenzie would still be there, too.
Her father sat in his seat, scrolling on his phone with one hand while he shoveled in steak and potatoes with the other. He’d spoken perhaps ten words to her, which was par for the course. Mom sliced her steak into tiny pieces, pushing them around her plate more than eating them, so as usual, the burden of conversation fell on Delaney.
It was her fault, really. She was the one who’d insisted long ago that they set aside one night a week to eat together, in some vain attempt to preserve the illusion that they were a connected, happy-ish family.
But every time they sat at the table, Mom’s eyes would dart to Parker’s spot, even these many years later. And every Wednesday night, Mom would make brownies for dessert, because it was family night and they’d been Parker’s favorite.
Delaney had never had the heart to remind her that she, too, had a favorite dessert. It wasn’t brownies.
“So … how’s everyone’s week been?” Delaney took a bite of her steak, which was to-die-for delicious. Before Parker had died, Mom had been the queen of the dinner party. If there was a surgery department celebration, their home had been the de facto location, and Mom had gladly served as the de facto chef. Her home had sparkled, her kids had sparkled, and—Delaney glanced at her—even she had sparkled, way back then.
“Oh, the usual,” Mom replied, a tight smile on her face. “This and that. You know.”
Delaney nodded. She had no idea.
“Dad? How about you? Any fascinating cases this week?” She braced herself. “Remembering, of course, that we’re at a table, eating food?”
Dad put down his phone and actually looked at her. As he cut his meat, he shook his head. “I imagine you have a pretty good idea how my week’s going.”
Though they worked in the same hospital, Delaney rarely saw him, so his response stymied her.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“The budget cuts?” He paused his fork halfway to his mouth. “Imagine you’ve heard?”
“Oh.” She nodded. Must be his department had made the short list, too. “Of course. Sorry.”
“Not your fault. Frigging economy’s in the toilet, nobody can pay a living wage, and now we’re supposed to make cuts where there isn’t any room to do so. I offered to stop stitching my patients back up after surgery to save on thread, but Gregory wasn’t amused.”
Delaney smiled. “They told us to be creative, right?”
“So where do you fall on this? Whose budget did they assign you to butcher?”
“Ouch.” She winced. “Butcher’s kind of a strong word, don’t you think?”
He leaned his elbows on the table, pushing away his plate. “Tell me this—you know of any budget at Mercy that isn’t already running on empty?”
“I—don’t have my hands on all of them. I really don’t know.”
“You’re a smart girl. I’m sure you have a pretty good idea. You tell me why they’re going after surgery. Radiology just bought another MRI machine. Where’d that money come from?”
“Those things pay themselves off much faster than a lot of—other things.” Delaney shrugged apologetically, knowing it sounded lame. “They have an easier time making a case for it.”
“Meanwhile, I’m going to have to put my patients just half under so we can save on anesthetics. That oughtta be fun.”
“What?”
He matched her shrug. “It’s the only thing I can see to cut. What’s a surgical department to do?”
“Dad, seriously. Gregory gave me pediatrics, so believe me, I’m in hell as well.”
“How much do you have to cut?”
Delaney rattled off the figure, and to her surprise, Dad sat back in his chair, shaking his head in disgust.
“I guess we’d better hope the fund-raising dinner goes well next week, then. Think we should tell the donors that if they don’t give generously, their next surgery might be anesthesia-free?”
Delaney froze, her glass halfway to her mouth. How had she forgotten about the dinner? She’d been going to it every year since her dad had started at Mercy, but for the past five years, Delaney had skated a tightrope between representing the finance office and playing the dutiful daughter to one of Mercy’s preeminent surgeons. It wasn’t necessarily hard to smile for the publicity cameras and make small talk with donors … or it wouldn’t be, if she didn’t still practically break out in hives at the thought of talking with strangers who knew she was only talking with them about their grandchildren and pets because she really, really just hoped they’d open up their pockets and give generously.
She hated the annual hospital fund-raiser.
She always practiced her spiels in front of the mirror before she left, had them written on index cards in her purse, and drank a glass of wine as soon as she got there to help calm her nerves, but it was never, ever comfortable. While Kevin worked the room like a used-car salesman, stunning people into donor submission with his sparkling smile and gelled hair, she had to call up every ounce of courage to approach even one person she’d targeted ahead of time.
But this year, of all years, her pet programs were at stake, and after just three days on pediatrics, she knew without a doubt that their only hope for balancing the budget was to find additional funding. Unfortunately, grants took forever—and were hardly guaranteed—and they’d finessed the insurance-payment process to the highest efficiency possible already.
That meant she had a date with her event dress, her event shoes, and her event smile. She, Delaney Blair, poster child of the clinically shy, needed to find the pediatric floor a big, fat donor pocket. And she needed to find one who was ready to sign on the proverbial dotted line in the next three weeks.
One glass of wine was never going to be enough.
* * *
Two days later, Delaney was heading past Ian’s room when something made her back up. She could see his mother fiddling with his IV tubes, which wasn’t necessarily odd. The darn tubes got tangled on arms and pillows and bed rails constantly, so she’d seen moms do this all over the floor this week. Something pinged Delaney’s radar, though, and without really knowing why, she felt like she should stop.
Then Ian’s monitors started beeping in a wild cacophony, and his mom looked panicked. Before Delaney could take a breath—or call for help, because she knew Millie would have her head if she didn’t—three nurses emerged from other rooms and strode purposefully into Ian’s.
The beeps stopped as someone punched buttons on the monitors, and his mom stepped back as the nurses took over, untangling tubes and talking quietly to one another. Before long, Ian was settled and quiet, and the nurses filed out one by one, leaving his mom wringing her hands beside his bed.
Delaney stepped into the room. “You okay?”
Ian’s mom jumped, like she hadn’t heard Delaney come in.
“I’m Delaney.” She put out her hand, and the woman shook it with her own icy, trembling hand.
“Fiona.” She pointed to Ian. “That’s Ian.”
“How’s he doing?” Delaney kept her voice quiet, trying not to startle Ian.
“Not good. Not good at all.” Tears escaped the corners of Fiona’s eyes as she looked at him, and something twiste
d inside Delaney. “They just can’t figure out what’s wrong with him.”
“Really?”
“This is our third admission this year. He just keeps getting sicker.”
“I’m really sorry, Fiona. I’m sure they’re doing everything they can to figure it out.”
“Oh, yes.” She nodded. “Everyone here’s so wonderful. They treat us so nicely. I just wish”—she patted his little foot under the covers—“I wish they could figure him out so he could go back to being a little boy.”
Delaney watched him for a moment, seeing the blanket over his chest rise and fall evenly. What must it be like to sit here day after day and watch your own child suffer? The pain in her stomach tightened again, remembering another little boy, another little blanket rising and falling in a rhythm too slow.
“Do you want to—play cards or something?” Delaney grasped at anything she could think of. Fiona looked so lonely, her scared eyes so much like Delaney’s own mother’s that Delaney had to look away so she didn’t get sucked in.
Parker had always hated the hospital. The doctors had scared him, the nurses had scared him—even the lights had scared him. He’d hated the noise, hated the stretchers that brought him to scary places, and hated sleeping, always fearing that someone would come in and do something to him if he wasn’t vigilant.
Delaney wondered again what it would have been like for him if he’d had just one safe person he could rely on—someone like Kenderly to play Go Fish with him or rock him to sleep or make him laugh before a procedure instead of cry. Her mother had done her level best, but even little Parker could feel the waves of fear and hopelessness wafting from her.
Delaney had always wanted to serve his memory by becoming the kind of doctor who could have saved him, and had spent eons feeling like a failure because she hadn’t made it through med school.
And now? She’d studied her ass off to get her MBA. She’d worked herself into a hospital position because she’d thought she could make a difference for kids like Parker. She sighed. Instead, she was now in the unenviable position of cutting the very services that could help children like Ian and her little brother survive their stays without long-term psychological scars.
She really should have found a way to stick with med school.
* * *
Four hours later, she sat in Dr. Mackenzie’s office, hoping she could speak to him before he left for the night. The faint scent of his aftershave was in the air, like he’d been here not long ago, and she took a deep breath. Then she shook her head, feeling heat creep up her cheeks. She was here to talk to the man, not lust after his cologne—or him.
As she waited, she looked around, trying to get a better feel for him. On the wall behind his desk, there was a collection of framed pictures, all of Dr. Mackenzie with a variety of kids. She stood up to look at them, and as her eyes traveled from frame to frame, she felt her fingers slide up to her mouth. The photos were so—poignant. Some of them looked like they’d been taken here at the hospital, but a slew of others had Avery’s House in the background.
She stepped back, eyes wide. She’d known about Avery’s House for years—the getaway home for kids with life-threatening illnesses was local legend, really. Ethan and Josie Miller ran it, in addition to Snowflake Village, the adjoining theme park, and their venture had been covered by the Boston Globe, NPR, and probably every news outlet in New England.
Was Dr. Mackenzie involved, too? She stepped closer to the pictures again, noting the wide front porch of the converted old hotel in the background of many of them. Her eyes noticed the kids, of course, but they seemed a lot more intent on checking out the doctor in the shots.
All week long, she’d felt like a teenager with a crush, and had had to stop herself more than once from asking the nurses if he was dating anyone. The sound of his voice coming from a patient room had her leaning against the wall just to listen. The sight of him coming down the hallway toward her had her practically tripping over her own shoes.
The way he touched her arm as he spoke, or winked at her over a patient’s head, or smiled like they had a secret kept her knees going to Jell-O, and she hated to admit that she’d gone to sleep with him in her head every night since she’d met him.
Hardly professional.
She shook her head, focusing on the wall. In the pictures, he didn’t have on a white coat, or a tie, or scrubs. He usually had jeans on, maybe a polo shirt, maybe a dress shirt. He looked omigod-hot in every single one, and she fought not to steal one right off the wall.
“Hey there.”
She turned quickly at the sound of his voice, knocking over a picture on his desk, then banging into a shelf while she scrambled to put it right.
He laughed as he touched her elbow, and she felt it low and deep. “Remind me not to trust you with fragile equipment, would you?”
She steadied everything with her hands, then moved slowly out from behind his desk, making room for him to slide by.
“I’m so sorry. I was just looking at your pictures.”
He glanced at the wall as he set his laptop on the desk. “They’re great, aren’t they?”
She nodded. They really were. She mentally calculated how long it would take to grab one off the wall, run down to the copy shop, and get it back before he noticed.
“So.” He sat down in his chair, looking at her with his eyebrows raised. “Want to sit?”
“Thanks.” She took a deep breath. “I wanted to catch you before you left for the weekend.”
He looked at his watch. “It’s seven o’clock. How long have you been waiting?”
“Long enough to know that your favorite color shirt—at least for pictures—is green, you have way too much paperwork on your desk, and we really need to get the facilities crew to paint your walls.”
He laughed again, looking at the pictures. “Apparently all true.” Then he looked at her for a long moment. “So you survived the week.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Much to everyone’s surprise, I imagine.”
“How’d you like working with Kenderly?”
“Honestly? I think I want her job when I grow up.”
“She predicted as much.” He raised his eyebrows. “So is now the part where we finally get to look at your list together … before you go back to the sixth floor and do your calculator magic?”
Delaney took a deep breath, trying to corral the thoughts that had been circling in her head while she’d waited for him. “Actually, I have an idea.”
“Okay.” He sat back, linking his hands behind his head, and it was all Delaney could do not to get up and run her hands over the pecs that were straining at the front of his shirt. No wonder the nurses fought to buy him coffee in the morning. Good God, any catalog in the country would sign him immediately.
“Okay, what?” Delaney shook her head, feeling heat creep up her cheeks. What had she been saying before she’d started picturing him with fewer clothes on?
“You were about to tell me your idea.”
“Right. I … was wondering … what would you think of me maybe spending one more week down here?”
He lowered his hands and leaned forward, but she couldn’t read the expression on his face. “Why?”
She took a deep breath. “Because I was wrong. Wrong about every line item I was ready to propose. Wrong about every service I thought was ancillary.”
“Oh.” He shook his head. “Wow.”
“We need a new approach, and I have some ideas.”
“Excellent. Lay them on me.” He leaned forward, but his eyes were tired, and she felt guilty for making him stay even longer tonight.
Just then, her stomach let out an impressive, hollow rumble, and she clutched her midsection in embarrassment.
He smiled. “Hungry?”
“Sorry. I think I forgot to eat lunch.”
He laughed, but it was tight. “Now you’re getting a feel for pediatrics.” He stood up and closed his laptop. “Tell you what. I can’t think on an
empty stomach, and clearly you need to eat as well. How about I take you to dinner—somewhere that isn’t this hospital?”
“You want to—take me to dinner?”
“I’ll try not to be insulted by your shocked tone.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just—unexpected.” And sort of date-ish sounding.
“Do you like Bellinis?”
“Does anyone not like Bellinis?” Delaney smiled. Bellinis was the best restaurant in Echo Lake, but not because of its fancy menu or elegant service. It was an Italian place that looked more like an Irish pub, but the food Mama Bellini served could rival anything from Boston’s North End.
He shook his head. “Not that I’ve found.” He pointed at her. “You’ll have to change, though. Mama B has a no-scrubs-in-my-pub rule.”
“Really?”
“Something about not wanting to think about what people in scrubs do all day.” He shrugged. “I really don’t know.”
“Should we meet there?”
“Sounds good. Eight o’clock give you enough time?”
She pulled her purse from the back of the chair. By the time she made her way out of the hospital and back to her condo, she’d have a full two point five minutes to change before she’d need to leave again to meet him.
Eek. “Perfect.”
As she rode down the elevator two minutes later, she caught her reflection in the metal slats beside the door, and she brought her hands to her face. With her flushed cheeks and smile that wouldn’t quit, she looked like a woman who’d just been kissed silly.
Or maybe one who wanted to be.
Chapter 12
Forty-five minutes later, Josh scored the back booth in Bellinis and settled in. He pinched the bridge of his nose, blinking his eyes shut to try to clear the cobwebs sneaking in. Good God, it’d been a long week. The last thing he wanted to do right now was spend another hour discussing dollars and cents, but when he’d looked at Delaney sitting in that chair, asking for another week on his floor, he’d been torn.
On one hand, he couldn’t get enough of the woman. Every time he’d left a patient room all week, he’d caught himself scanning the halls for a glimpse of her. Every time he’d heard her laughter coming from the playroom, he’d made an excuse to stop in to talk to whoever else was with her. Every morning, when he’d stepped into the elevator, he’d toyed with whether to stop on the third floor … or head up to the sixth.
Heart Like Mine Page 10
