In His Protective Custody

by Marie Ferrarella

He was powerless to act, but for now, he would just enjoy it.

  So he did.

  And thought about later, when he could finally get her all to himself. When he could peel off her gown and just enjoy her, just pleasure her.

  The thought sustained him for the next five hours.

  The reception continued until well past midnight. Because it was being held in the restaurant that Magda owned, there was no cutoff period. People were encouraged to stay and only left when too tired to remain.

  Because of that, there was no mass exodus. Many of the guests stayed long after the bride and groom had escaped, amid a hail of good wishes and rice—a tradition Magda insisted on—to begin their honeymoon: a trip to Hawaii, which was a gift from Josef and Magda.

  During the course of the reception, Zane met the rest of Alyx’s cousins and their husbands. Full of life and enthusiasm, the members of Alyx’s family seemed to more than fill the room on their own, without the benefit of the rest of the wedding guests. And although he was a loner and an outsider observing the festivities and interactions, Zane had to admit that he envied Alyx this family unit.

  For him at this point, “family” had been narrowed down to one brother whose whereabouts were unknown and another he rarely saw unless Billy needed money or to be bailed out—literally and otherwise. Beyond that, he didn’t hear from his troubled youngest brother for months at a time. In the beginning, after their mother had died, he’d attempted to reach Billy more than once in between life-and-death calls, but that, for the most part, had been unsuccessful. Billy just went deeper into the imaginary world his drugs created for him. After a while, Zane just gave up.

  The only other “family” he had comprised the men and women in blue he worked with. There was a brotherhood of sorts, a code to be honored. But he was alone.

  Which suited him just fine. Every now and then, he caught himself wondering what it would be like to have his existence—the very fact of whether he lived or died—matter to someone. The way each member of their extended family seemed to matter to Josef and Magda Pulaski.

  “They take a bit of getting used to,” Alyx agreed, reading the pensive expression on his face as he watched her aunt and uncle on the dance floor.

  Josef had finally managed to get Magda to stop being the owner of the restaurant catering the reception and just be his wife and the mother of the bride for the space of a long, romantic dance. They glided along the floor now, two people very much in love despite all the hardships and trials they had been through in their years together.

  Zane inclined his head. “They’re not so bad,” he allowed with a shrug.

  She smiled at him in response. “I’m just getting to know them myself.”

  Just then, Natalya leaned in between them. Her words were intended for both of them. “Don’t they look cute together?” she asked, nodding at her parents. She glanced toward Zane. “Dad claims to have won several tango competitions back in Poland with Mama as his partner.” There was no missing the pure affection in her voice. “They still have that magic between them after all these years.”

  “They’re lucky,” Zane commented. He thought of his own parents and many other failed relationships he’d witnessed. “Most people these days don’t stay together for very long, much less have anything ‘magical.’”

  Sasha had come over to join them in time to hear Zane’s last comment. “You sound just like my husband before he became my husband and the family got hold of him,” she told Zane, then studied him for a long moment. “He’s a lot happier now,” she added. “Everyone says so.”

  Alyx’s radar went up. Her family—bless ’em—seemed bent on trying to convert Zane and bring him over to their side of the rainbow. She knew the comment would only get Zane’s back up. Time to get him out of the line of fire.

  Picking up her purse, she rose to her feet. “We can go now if you like,” she told Zane.

  He laughed, amused by the timing. “I was just going to tell you that we could stay a little while longer if you wanted to.”

  She did, but for practical reasons—and to spare him—she needed to get going.

  “I’m on call tomorrow,” she told him, then glanced at her watch. It was past midnight. “I mean I’m on call today. I’d better try and get some rest. I’m going to need it to do battle with the Wicked Witch of the West.”

  Sasha’s ears perked up. “You mean Gloria Furst? The chief resident from hell?” she asked, turning around to face her cousin. “Haven’t you heard? She’s taking some time off. Something about meeting the man of her dreams and wanting to spend some time with him. Probably before he comes to his senses,” she added. Everyone at the hospital knew of Gloria’s reputation.

  “No, I hadn’t heard.” Alyx breathed a sigh of relief. “I hope for his sake, he’s deaf. She’s not the type to hold that sharp tongue of hers for long.” Alyx turned toward Zane. “The offer to leave is still on the table,” she told him.

  He nodded, ready to take her up on it, then stopped. The orchestra was playing another slow song.

  “Want the last dance?” he asked her.

  She did, but she didn’t want to take advantage of him. He’d been exceptionally kind tonight.

  “That’s okay. You’ve more than done your time,” she told him.

  Because there was no pressure, he laced his hand through hers and drew her back to the dance floor.

  Out of the corner of his eye, as he placed his other hand to the small of her back, Zane saw Josef looking at them from across the room. The patriarch nodded his head in approval. Zane knew he should have resented it. Ordinarily, he would have. But this time around, he didn’t.

  He didn’t bother exploring why.

  Chapter 14

  S tanding at the foot of his bed, Alyx looked from her chart to the old man her hastily filled out paperwork was referring to.

  Paramedics had brought him in less than an hour ago. They, like a good deal of the ER personnel, were on a first-name basis with the man.

  Alvin Weinberg was not a new face at Patience Memorial.

  Self-described as “eighty-four years young,” the spry, amiable octogenarian had already turned up twice in the ER in the short period that she had been working at the hospital. She’d come to view him as the grandfather she’d never had.

  Setting the chart down, Alyx appraised the man in the hospital bed. He met her gaze head-on, the personification of innocence.

  “What did we talk about the last time, Mr. Weinberg?” she asked him.

  The old man’s face contorted slightly as he pretended to think and come up empty. Alvin shook his head sadly. “I can’t seem to remember.” And then his expression turned wistful. “Your brain’s so much younger than mine. I’m afraid that you can keep track of these things so much better than I can.”

  She knew he knew what she referred to, but because he was so likeable, she played the game. “We talked about making sure you took your blood-thinning medication.” She nodded toward the chart she’d set down on the metal cabinet. “It says here that you told the nurse you ran out of medication.”

  “I did,” he told her, shaking his head sadly, the picture of solemnity.

  “The last time you were here,” she reminded him, “I gave you a month’s worth of free samples and wrote you a prescription for six months of refills.” She didn’t have to bother looking it up. Although she saw a lot of people during the course of her day, she distinctly remembered her interactions with Mr. Weinberg.

  Alvin appeared properly contrite. “I know, and I’m sorry, but I don’t remember where I put the prescription. The more I looked for it, the more nervous I got.” As he spoke, he started making concentric circles on his chest, as if to illustrate his next point. “And then these funny little pains started in my chest…” He dropped his hand and widened his eyes. “I called 911 right away because that’s what you told me to do. So I did,” he concluded with a flourish.

  “I remember,” she replied. She drew closer to him an
d took his hand, trying to connect with the elderly man and drive her point home. “This is serious, Mr. Weinberg. If you skip your medication, you could wind up getting a blood clot and die. You really need to remember to take your blood thinner,” she said, emphasizing each word. “The medicine you take to keep your erratic heartbeat under control.” She used the simple explanation rather than refer to the condition by its name, atrial fibrillation, because it might further confuse him. “It makes you more susceptible to blood clots, which is why you need to take the warfarin,” Alyx concluded, using the medication’s pharmaceutical name.

  Alvin shook his head, a nineteenth-century man caught in a twenty-first-century world. “Why can’t they make a medicine that doesn’t have all those side effects?” he asked.

  “Someday, they will,” she promised, “but for now, you have to be careful not to skip your doses.”

  “I bet you could come up with medication without side effects if you put your mind to it,” Alvin speculated with confidence as she made a few notations on the bottom of his chart. “You’re a very bright girl. Like my granddaughter, Valerie. You remind me a lot of her, you know,” he told her affectionately.

  She knew. He’d told her that the last time he’d been here. She had a suspicion that Mr. Weinberg wasn’t nearly as forgetful or absentminded as he pretended to be. Mr. Weinberg was lonely. His only son, Jason, had moved to Texas, taking his family with him. Alvin Weinberg, a lifelong New Yorker, had stubbornly remained behind. She was certain that he regretted it now, but, at eighty-four he probably felt he was too old to start over again somewhere new.

  He was here just as much for the company as he was for the treatment. Maybe more.

  She pocketed her pen and flipped the pages closed on the chart. “Well, it looks like we’ll be keeping you overnight again for observation just to make sure that you’re all right, Mr. Weinberg.” She patted his hand to reassure the man that this was just a precaution.

  Mr. Weinberg nodded, the few wisps of white hair he still had left moving in the slight breeze created by the air conditioning system.

  “Will you be up to visit me?” he asked hopefully. “Like last time? Just to make sure I’m not in a coma or anything,” he added for effect.

  “Of course I’ll be up to see you,” she told him with a reassuring smile.

  Alyx made it a point to look in on the patients she wound up admitting to the hospital. Medicine wasn’t an anonymous discipline to her, but a hands-on career that required concern and total commitment. That meant treating the person, not the condition. Part of that entailed checking in on the patient to make sure that no new problems arose and that the existing ones were being handled and resolved.

  Signaling Jaime, one of the orderlies working the floor on this shift, Alyx stepped back as he came into the small cubicle. “Time to whisk Mr. Weinberg upstairs to his room,” she told Jaime. “Room 314.”

  Taking another step back, she bumped up against what felt like a rock-hard chest. That could only belong to one person.

  Zane.

  She turned around to face him, a grin instantly blooming on her lips. Always sunny, her countenance lit up even more. “What are you doing here?”

  “I had some extra time,” he told her. “So, because I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d take you to lunch,” he said, conveniently skipping the part where he’d bribed his partner to go eat somewhere else so he could use the squad car during lunch.

  His ears perking up, Mr. Weinberg latched on to Zane’s wrist as Jaime pushed the man and his bed into the main ER area. The journey came to a sudden halt. “Hey, you got a really good doctor there,” the old man told him with enthusiasm. Unusually sharp blue-gray eyes gave him a very thorough once-over. “She your girl?” Alvin asked.

  Alyx got between them and deftly disengaged the old man’s hand from Zane’s wrist. “I’ll see you later, Mr. Weinberg,” she said firmly.

  “’Cause if she’s not,” Mr. Weinberg went on talking as if she hadn’t said a word and the orderly wasn’t pushing him toward the service elevator, “I’m staking my claim on her. Don’t forget, Doc,” the old man was almost shouting now as he twisted about to look at her. “You said you’d come by to see me later.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “I won’t forget,” she called after him just before the service elevator doors shut, cutting off any further communication.

  “Fan club?” Zane asked, raising an eyebrow in mild amusement.

  “Mr. Weinberg? He’s a sweet, lonely old man. His only son moved his family to Texas three years ago and now he has nobody. So he ‘forgets’ to take his medicine and gets brought in here every so often to socialize.” She was very fond of the old man. “I’m sorry if he embarrassed you.”

  “Takes more than an old man daring me to stake a claim on the woman he adores to embarrass me,” Zane told her, a very seductive smile slipped along his lips. She felt her heart do a little flip-flop. “So, are you free for lunch?”

  She’d managed to clear her board this morning. This would be a perfect way to reward herself.

  “Yes.”

  But even as she said the word, the two-way regulation issue radio clipped to Zane’s belt emitted an unnerving, high-pitched sound. That was quickly followed by the voice of the dispatch desk asking if he heard her.

  “But obviously you’re not,” Alyx concluded with a resigned laugh. She saw the reluctant look in his eyes. “Go.” She waved him on.

  Zane sighed and nodded as he removed the radio, pressed a button and listened to the instructions coming over the unit. The message was short, succinct. There was a three-car accident not many blocks away from the hospital.

  “I’ve got a feeling you’re going to be in on this, too,” he remarked, breaking the connection.

  There went lunch, Alyx thought. It wouldn’t be the first time. And with the Dragon Lady still on her “love” vacation, they were short-handed. Happy, but short-handed.

  “Are you coming by after five?”

  The question had just popped out of her mouth on its accord.

  Alyx knew she shouldn’t ask, that asking made it sound as if she’d gotten used to his coming by the hospital to take her home. But the truth was, she had gotten used to his coming by. Not only that, but she looked forward to it even though she knew she shouldn’t allow herself to take Zane’s appearance in her life for granted.

  With each passing day, there was less and less logical reason for Zane to continue to spend his off-duty hours “guarding” her from a man who, more than likely, had fled the country by now. Or at the very least, fled the state.

  Zane nodded, hooking the unit back onto his belt. “I’ll be by,” he told her.

  The next moment, he was gone. The effect he had on her lingered like a bright glow for the length of the afternoon. Even though she tried very hard not to get used to his presence, not to get used to seeing his face beside her every morning when she woke up, she knew damn well that she was sinking further and further into that tender trap. The one that held her heart captive.

  She struggled against it, but there was nothing she could do. Certainly logic was no weapon. She was in love with Zane Calloway. In love with his strength, his dedication, his caring. She was even in love with the serious way he went about his responsibilities.

  It wouldn’t be easy, getting over this man when he finally slipped out of her life again.

  Not easy? Alyx mocked herself. It would be damn near impossible. She wasn’t the type to love easily—or to bounce back from that emotion easily either.

  She couldn’t recall ever feeling like this about anyone.

  With a shake of her head, Alyx forced herself not to think about the future and the pain lurking in the shadows, waiting to consume her. There were a great many other things to occupy her mind than the aura of sadness that she knew would sink into her soul once Zane left her life.

  She had seen a record number of patients today. All but Mr. Weinberg and a young mother of two who h
ad an appendix on the verge of rupturing, had been sent home after treatment. She’s certainly earned her meager paycheck today, she thought as she glanced at her watch. It was very close to the end of her shift. If no one came bursting through the ER doors in the next few minutes, she could start getting ready.

  After she looked in on Mr. Weinberg the way she promised, she reminded herself.

  No time like the present.

  Rather than wait for the elevator, she hurried up the stairwell to the third floor.

  “I was wondering when you’d get here,” Mr. Weinberg said as she entered the room. His round face lit up like a Christmas tree.

  “It’s been a busy day,” she told him.

  He shook his head in sympathy. “They work you too hard,” he told her. “How about that boyfriend of yours? He treat you well?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend, Mr. Weinberg,” she told him patiently.

  He chuckled. “Don’t lie to an old man,” he told her. “I see things. He has feelings for you. And you have feelings for him.”

  “Since when are you an old man?” she teased, changing the subject.

  “Figure of speech,” he corrected. Her pager went off. He frowned at it. “Don’t they know you’re going home?”

  “No rest for the weary,” she told him. With a sigh, she angled the pager at her waist to see who wanted her.

  “Who is it?” Mr. Weinberg asked. He made no apology for his curiosity.

  “It’s from the hospital pharmacist. Something about the medication I requested being denied.” She frowned. “I never requested any medication—other than the blood thinner for you,” she said. And that had been sent up. “Oh well, I’d better see what this is about. These things have a way of escalating and getting out of control unless they’re nipped in the bud.” She smiled affectionately at the old man and patted his deeply veined hand. “I’ll see you first thing tomorrow—to discharge you.”

  “I’ll be here,” he promised her.

  The pharmacist was probably going stir crazy, Alyx thought, this time taking the elevator. Cutbacks had forced the hospital to have only one pharmacist on duty at a time. Consequently, the man was alone for hours at a time in an eight-by-ten box of an office with no one to talk to. In his place, she’d be looking for reasons to get people to come in, too.