She just didn’t want him to think that any of her shortcomings were his fault.
How could they be?
For a moment, Helena forced herself to forget her misgivings – to push aside all her fears. She stared at the man that stood before her and her heart stuttered in her chest.
Xavier’s innate good looks had only improved with age. While the man was still pale – despite their living in California, he always stayed in the shade when they went to the beach – he was broader, more sure of himself, and carried himself with much more confidence. Today, he wore a plain white t-shirt that showed off the mouthwatering definition of his arms and chest, along with black jeans and boots. He’d begun to wear his hair long when XTech had taken off, and since Helena had mentioned that she liked it just brushing her shoulders, he never cut it shorter. He’d taken to wearing his glasses more often than not, which, along with his usual five o’clock shadow, only enhanced the swarthy, intellectual appeal she’d fallen in love with. But, for all of Xavier’s nerdiness, the man could still lift her into the air like she weighed absolutely nothing – and toss her around in the bedroom in ways she dreamed about for days afterwards.
He had always believed in her.
From the day they’d met – from the moment he knew who her mother was – he had never doubted her. He, unlike his parents, had never believed her to be defined from where she’d come from. Even when chasing her dreams kept her away from home for long hours, when she came home and snapped at him, or even when she fell apart in his arms, Xavier never deserted her.
She could let him have this, couldn’t she? It was just a house. It wasn’t like he was asking her to marry him, or that they were planning children.
All of those things could be dealt with in the future.
Helena exhaled a long breath, and this time, when she smiled, the gesture was genuine. “I really do like the house, Xavier. If this is what you want, we can definitely talk to the realtor.”
His blue-eyes widening in ecstatic joy, the programmer grinned, showing off pearly whites. “Are you serious?”
Helena nodded. When it made him so happy, how could she possibly refuse? Within seconds, she was in his arms, breathing in the intoxicating, masculine scent of him. “Helena, honey, you won’t regret this. We’re going to have so much more space...this is going to be the beginning of…limitless possibilities.”
Closing her eyes, the young woman pressed herself against Xavier’s firm chest, reveling in the strength there. When she was in his embrace, feeling his heartbeat pump against hers, she could almost believe him.
Almost.
Two weeks later, Helena had almost forgotten the house they were closing on. Of course, the thought remained in the back of her mind, but her main focus was the absorption of everything her instructor taught her. In entering the last and more difficult leg of her medical school journey, she would have to apply everything she had learned about physiology and anatomy and enter the world of pediatric surgery.
It was strange, even though she thought she had once gotten over her squeamishness, she found that watching film of surgical procedures and seeing some of the more severe injuries of smaller children were beginning to make her sick to her stomach again. To combat her nausea, she’d begun to take Dramamine – which, of course, meant that she had to fight the fatigue that came with it. Xavier had promised to help find her a better solution, but currently, Helena had to depend on sheer dedication to get her through long days of work and school.
Luckily enough for her, she passed her first written surgical exam with flying colors and got to spend the remainder of the day in the clinic. Though her stomach wasn’t really cooperating with her, she entered the clean, bright office with a relieved smile – and was immediately rushed by a bevy of her smallest patients.
“Helena!” She stumbled slightly as she was hit around the midsection by about one hundred twenty pounds of force. No less than three children had latched onto her – and each of their enthusiastic faces made her grin as she greeted them in turn.
“Well, hello there! What are you three doing here? I thought I just saw you a few weeks ago!” The young woman looked expectantly to the mother of the triplets, who was smiling from her position near the door.
“Well, Melanie has picked up an ear infection and her brothers have been fidgety. Might as well see if either of them is coming down with something as well.” Nicole Thatch was a very active mother of triplets, and their doctor was Susan Forge, Helena’s mentor. From the moment she’d first met the triplets, Helena had only been able to imagine what a handful Melanie, Christopher and Jeffrey were. However, as nervous as she’d been about dealing with them the eight year olds were actually very sweet. It hadn’t taken long for her to fall in love.
“Well, guys, let me just get back into the office and see what’s going on with Doctor Forge, OK?” She touched Melanie’s forehead gently, feeling the heat of her fever. The tiny girl would get checked out, her brothers looked over, and then they’d send the family on their way. Helena gently extricated herself from the children’s grip to make her way behind the partition and into the office. She waved at Miranda, the secretary, in greeting before striding down the hallway towards Dr. Forge’s office.
To her surprise, she found it dark and locked.
“Susan called out sick today.” Starting, Helena turned to see that Miranda had followed her down the hallway. The red-head fixed her with an apologetic glance. “She just called, the moment after you walked past me. I was wondering why she was so late.”
Helena’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really? But the triplets...” She trailed off with a frown. Her stomach had been bothering her all morning, and news of Dr. Forge’s unexpected absence wasn’t helping. “Should we call down to the hospital and see if we can get someone else in to treat them?”
Miranda made a face, pursing full lips. “They might send someone, but it would be a few hours. Mrs. Thatch will have to come back later this afternoon.”
Biting her lip, Helena contemplated. That probably wouldn’t work for Nicole at all. It took her an hour and a half to get her children ready to come to the doctor’s office in the first place. They’d been waiting so patiently, and they probably wouldn’t be happy to find out that it was for nothing. And, atop that, Melanie was sick. “Well,” Miranda shrugged, looking thoughtful for a moment before she spoke again, this time more slowly. “Why don’t you just treat them, Helena? The kids seem to like you well enough, anyway, and you know everything in this office back to front.”
The young woman’s eyes widened. While she was flattered that Miranda had that kind of confidence in her, as a medical intern, she couldn’t legally administer any care to patients without an actual MD present. Biting her lip, she merely stepped past the receptionist, shaking her head.
“I can’t, Miranda. You know the rules. I don’t want to do anything that might endanger this office, or my position as an intern.”
Miranda merely sighed, casting the intern a small smile. “Helena, you know that no one here would report you. It’s not like you’re negligent. You’re practically a walking medical textbook.”
Helena felt her heart stutter in her chest. On the one hand, the prospect of treating patients on her own gave her a neat little thrill of anticipation. On the other, she feared intensely what might happen if something went wrong. Without Dr. Forge to look over her shoulder, who would be there to correct her procedures – to make sure she was following regulations correctly?
“Helena?” Startled, the dark-skinned woman whirled to see Nicole leaning over the reception desk down the hall, looking slightly frazzled. “I hate to bother you, but any idea when Doctor Forge will be ready to see the kids? They’re getting a little…impatient.”
Helena swallowed the nausea rising in her throat. Of all the days for Dr. Forge to call out…The young woman took a deep breath. Xavier was always telling her that she overreacted – that she was fully capable of handling anything that cam
e her way. Helena, being as high-strung as she was, usually had difficulties believing in herself. After all, she still had a full year and a half between her and a full MD.
“Nicole.” Helena hurried down the hall to stand behind the reception desk and face the triplets’ mother, her face flushed with stress. “I’m so sorry, but Dr. Forge called out sick today. We could try and get someone in, but-”
“Well, couldn’t you just see them?” The young mother looked nervously back at her children who were, for the moment, still behaving – but her nervousness told that things might soon take a turn for the more uncomfortable. “They love you. I’m sure they won’t mind.”
Helena bit her lip. Raising a hand to place over her churning stomach, she took a deep breath, before her insecurities spilled from her mouth. “Nicole, I…I’m not a licensed physician. I don’t want to do anything…I mean…your children-”
“Helena.” Reaching out, Nicole took her opposite hand, looking slightly desperate. “I trust you.”
Those three words did more to galvanize the young woman than anything that had been said to her all morning. She would, she promised herself, be safe. She would just be diagnosing the children’s ills, and she could always refer them to another doctor to confirm any prescription she might want to give the triplets if, indeed, she did find any problems. “Ok.”
Nicole’s face lit up at her reply. “Oh, thank you!” She turned to call to her children, giving Helena precious little time to prepare herself for their stampeding into her. The physician-in-training took a deep breath, tried to calm her churning stomach, and then called to Miranda to help her ready the examination room.
To Helena’s immense relief, the examination went off without a hitch. Melanie was as cooperative as a little girl suffering from a fever could possibly be, and it didn’t take long for Helena to discern that she was, indeed, suffering from a slight ear infection. The good news, however, was that neither of her brothers had contracted it. Instead, they were simply suffering from slight summer colds.
The dark-skinned woman was able to breathe a sigh of relief as she doled out lollipops to the triplets and prepared to call Doctor Forge in order to check things over with her before she issued a prescription for Melanie’s infection. She was just seeing the family out into the waiting room, when she was greeted with a sight that made her mouth fall open.
Doctor Forge was waiting for her at the receptionist’s desk next to Miranda, a wide smile on her face. Helena looked from the middle-aged woman to the receptionist at her side. The only one who seemed equally surprised to see her there was Nicole, who gathered her children to her as she stared at the woman in disbelief. “Dr. Forge? Helena told me that you wouldn’t be in today! That you had called out sick.”
“Mrs. Thatch. I’m so very sorry about this little mishap.” Dr. Forge stood, towering over everyone present at her lofty six-three height as she held out her hand to shake Nicole’s. “But I’m sure you’ll be proud to know that you have helped us do something I thought we might never achieve.” The doctor glanced down at Helena, her gaze not unkind. “We’ve been trying to give our young intern here the confidence she needed to make her own diagnoses for months and finally decided that it might be easier if she had no choice but to treat patients herself. I hope you’ll forgive the deception…and look at it as having done Helena a favor.”
The dark-skinned young woman gaped. So, Doctor Forge hadn’t been sick at all? This had all just been some kind of elaborate ruse to get her to treat patients of her own free will? For a moment, Helena wanted to be upset. Everyone who worked in the office knew how nervous she was about being alone with patients. They knew how her nerves tended to be. Why would they do this to her? It raised her stress levels to amazing heights, made her pulse race…and induced her to do the very thing she feared.
To overcome her inhibition.
Helena looked from Nicole, to Miranda, to her mentor and then down at the grinning children below her. They had each done their part, Nicole however unwillingly, but the end result had been that she had treated the children without a hitch, and somehow managed to have enough faith in herself – and fear for their well-being – to do her job. “I don’t think there’s any need for you to have that prescription approved.” The doctor nodded at the paper Helena held in her hand. “I watched the entire proceedings on the camera and, as I suspected you would be, your diagnosis was absolutely correct. Congratulations, Helena.”
Instead of holding out her hand to shake, however, Susan extended her arms, offering the younger woman a warm hug. Helena couldn’t resist the grin that spread across her face as she stepped into her mentor’s arms. Perhaps she had been a little too rash in fearing her own shortcomings. After all, Xavier told her that she often underestimated herself.
He’d been telling her the same thing over and over since they’d started dating four years ago.
As the children joined in the hug, simply caught up in the warmth that permeated the waiting room, Helena found herself believing for the first time in a long time that she could tackle the world. That everything would be OK, and she could be the best pediatrician on the west coast when her time came.
While she was riding this euphoric high, however, her body turned on her. All at once, a wave of dizziness washed over the young woman and she found herself suddenly light headed. She stumbled, holding tightly to Dr. Forge as a concerned sound escaped the elder woman. “Helena?” She inquired lowly, “Are you alright, dear?”
Before the young woman could answer that she was fine, a wave of nausea swept over her that had her fighting to keep her breakfast down. She broke from Doctor Forge’s embrace to steady herself against the nearest wall as the room began to swim around her. She caught sight of all six of the concerned faces in the room a moment before her discomfort swallowed her, and she plunged into darkness.
When Helena awoke, she did so slowly, fighting her way out of the blackness that had enveloped her. To her surprise, she found herself on an examination table in the office, and, almost immediately, Susan Forge’s worried brown eyes caught hers. “Helena! You were out for about three minutes, child. I was starting to get worried.”
As she spoke, another wave of sickness assaulted the young woman and she made a desperate gesture. Luckily, Miranda was present in the room and understood. She rushed to grab a basin moments before Helena emptied the contents of her stomach into it embarrassingly.
She felt absolutely awful.
God, what was wrong with her? Had she caught a bug? Some sort of virus? Because she’d been feeling this way for the past few weeks. Usually, she was able to get through her days without very much backlash from her stomach, but today, it seemed as if everything had come to a head. She had an intense ache right between her eyes and she felt as if she would fall over if she tried to stand. Helena flopped back down against the table, gratefully taking the cup Miranda offered her to wash out her mouth with cool water.
Jesus. She had gone from being a nervous wreck to being on top of the world to feeling like she was on her death bed. “God…” She breathed, wincing at the sour taste in her mouth. “This is awful.”
“You don’t look very well.” Miranda frowned. “Maybe you’ve got a bug? There’s been some stuff going around the building…”
“How long have you been feeling out of sorts, Helena?” Susan had now entered examination mode, and Helena winced at becoming a patient more easily than she was willing to administer to patients of her own.
Helena sighed, placing a comforting hand over her churning stomach. “Um…I don’t know really. I think it’s been brought on by the stress of starting my surgical trials. I’ve been feeling nauseous throughout the day for a couple of weeks now.” Her opposite hand found the place the pain in her head was radiating from and massaged it firmly. “Maybe I just need some rest? I’ve been pulling a lot of late nights recently.”
Dr. Forge nodded sympathetically, jotting a few things down on a pad before raising her gaze to me
et Helena’s. “Well, I’m sure it’s nothing serious, but would you mind giving me a few samples just so we can check things out for you? We wouldn’t want anything going unchecked.”
For once, Helena allowed herself to relax as the Doctor took a few blood samples and asked her to give a bit of urine. She was feeling a lot better after she was provided with a cup of soda water and a few crackers, and found herself sitting up on the examination table with Miranda keeping careful watch over her as she waited for her results.
When Doctor Forge re-entered the room, her expression was carefully guarded. Helena immediately found herself on high alert. Having worked with Susan for the past two years gave her the ability to tell when the doctor was going to deliver bad news. “What is it, Dr. Forge?”
The tall woman took a seat in the chair beside the examination table, looking through the results on the clipboard in front of her before fixing Helena with her steady brown gaze. “Well, Helena, before we talk about your results, I’d like to ask you a few questions. “
“…Alright.” Helena found herself slightly confused as to where the conversation was headed, but she nodded slowly.
“When was the date of your last period?”
The question caught the young woman completely unawares. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d even thought about her period. She’d been so stressed lately that she hadn’t really kept track of it. “I…I’m not sure, actually. Sometime last month? Maybe the month before?”
“But you have no idea of the date? Not even roughly, perhaps?” Embarrassed, the young woman shook her head. Xavier would probably know better than her as he observed how cranky she got when she was menstruating.
“Alright. And we had you on Depo shots, correct? When was the last time you had one?”
Well, Christ. She couldn’t quite remember that either. What Helena did remember was that she kept setting reminders on her phone for making her next appointment, and had never gotten around to actually doing it. But she’d had a shot within the last two or three months, that was for sure.
A Kiss of Color: A BWWM Interracial Pregnancy Romance (Book 2) Page 3
