Unbreakable (Unrestrained #4)

by S. E. Lund

  I heard her take in a deep breath when we reached the alley entrance.

  I stopped her and turned her to face me. “You’ll do fine,” I said and ran my hands over her hair, cupping her face. I bent down and kissed her warmly. “I’ll stay with you the entire time.”

  She smiled and we went inside.

  I led her through the prep area and popped my head in Mrs. O’Riley’s office, half expecting to find her there, but she must have been in the private dining room. We arrived at the bar and Colin was there, pouring drinks for the last tables. The restaurant was never open for dinner on Sunday, although the pub was open and people could order appetizers and finger food. Mrs. O always believed that you should spend Sunday dinner with your family, not working or with strangers.

  The kitchen staff who didn’t have families of their own worked preparing the dinner, which was usually some kind of roast with all the trimmings, then joined the O’Rileys for the meal.

  “Hey, Drake,” Colin said as he finished pouring a drink. He turned to Kate. “You must be Kate. Pleased to meet you,” he said and leaned across the bar, extending his hand. “My God, we’ve all been dying to meet the woman who finally captured Drake’s heart.” He grinned widely. They shook hands I could see the color in her cheeks even in the low light of the bar.

  He let go of Kate’s hand and then returned to the drinks. “Just doing last call in the bar.”

  Then Sarah came over and stood beside us. She put a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God, mom said you might come. Are you Kate?”

  Kate nodded and smiled.

  “Oh, my God, you’re Kate,” she said and waved to Colin. “Hey, Colin – she’s here. It’s Kate!”

  Colin laughed. “We’ve already met,” he said and waved us over. “Come and sit at the bar.”

  “I’m Sarah,” she said. “Colin and Ken are my brothers. We’ve heard so much about you. I’ll go get mom. She’ll want to meet you.”

  Sarah left us and we turned to Colin, who was busy mopping up the bar with a cloth. “Can I get you guys something?”

  I turned to Kate. “How about a toast of some Anisovaya? Colin keeps a bottle in the refrigerator for me.”

  Kate nodded, but said nothing, so I squeezed her hand.

  “Two shots of Anisovaya,” I said and Colin nodded, reaching behind the bar for a couple of shot glasses, which he placed on the bar in front of us. Then he bent down to the bar fridge and took out the bottle of chilled Anisovaya.

  “Here you go.” He poured two shots and then nodded. “Bottoms up.”

  “Relax,” I said quietly to Kate, and we pulled up a stool and sat at the bar. We each took a glass and clinked them together, then shot them back. The chilled Anisovaya had a nice bite to it, and I smacked my lips when I was finished. Kate made a small face but smiled at me.

  “One more for good measure,” I said to Colin and he complied. We shot another glass down and Kate wiped her mouth and forced a smile. She still wasn’t quite used to the bite but I knew it would loosen her up, relax her. Not too much, but enough so that she could enjoy herself without feeling so self-conscious. I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer then kissed her, my tongue finding hers and sucking briefly.

  I smiled at her and she finally smiled back, the smile reaching her eyes for the first time.

  “Don’t worry,” I said and squeezed her shoulder. “They already love you because I do.”

  “You gotta know that we’re all really happy to meet you,” Colin said while he mopped the bar top.

  “Thanks,” Kate said. “Nice to meet everyone. Drake thinks of all of you like his second family.”

  “We are. Drake's kept you hidden but Ken finally convinced him to bring you, since Ken’s going to stand up for Drake. He wanted to at least meet you before the wedding.”

  Kate nodded. “I’ve been hoping to meet everyone,” she said and settled in on her stool beside me.

  “What’s on the menu?” I asked while Colin finished wiping down the bar.

  “Robin did something with pork tenderloin,” he said and shook his head. “Don’t ask me what. It’ll taste good, no matter what he does.”

  I turned to Kate. “Robin is the chef. He’s really good.”

  Kate nodded. “Mrs. O’Riley doesn’t cook?”

  “Mom supervises,” Colin replied. “It’s still her kitchen even if Robin makes the dishes.”

  While Colin finished closing the bar, we chatted for a while. We both drank some soda water with lime instead of anything alcoholic. Mrs. O always had a good choice of wine for the meal and I wanted to be able to have at least one glass to please her. I wasn’t a heavy drinker, preferring to remain sober so I could drive, but over the course of the evening, I could have a drink or two.

  Sarah returned with Mrs. O, who had her half-eye reading glasses on a chain around her neck and looked every inch the head of the family. An older woman with grey hair, she was matronly, with a thick middle and a cream cashmere sweater over a brightly colored sundress.

  “There you two are,” she said and came over, her arms open. She hugged me first and then turned to Kate. “Kate McDermott,” she said, her arms extended. “Come give me a hug and kiss.”

  “You must be Mrs. O’Riley,” Kate said and stood up, opening her arms to return the embrace.

  “I am,” she said and hugged Kate tightly and then pulled back, her hands on Kate’s arms as she gave Kate the once over. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. As soon as Drake said he met someone, and when I saw the way he smiled when he talked about you, I knew you were special. I’ve been bugging Drake to bring you to Sunday dinner for a while now, so I hope this means you’ll come on a regular basis.”

  Kate smiled back. “I’d be very happy to come as often as you’ll have us.”

  “Good,” she said and made Kate turn around in a circle. “Aren’t you a pretty little thing? Drake was right when he said you were beautiful.”

  Then, Ken came out of the door to the kitchen. “Kate,” he said and extended his hand. “Ken O’Riley. So nice to meet you.”

  Kate shook his hand and he leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Nice to meet you, too.”

  “Isn’t she just the prettiest thing?” Mrs. O said. “Drake, she’s so beautiful. What a cute figure.”

  Kate blushed profusely and smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “I was so looking forward to tonight.”

  “I’m sure you were regretting you ever agreed but don’t worry, dear. We’ll be on our best behavior.” She winked at Kate and then me and waved us to follow her.

  I took Kate’s hand and led her into the private dining room at the back of the restaurant. Separated from the main dining room by a wall with a large entry, the room had a private feel to it. A long table that seated thirty filled the room. Landscapes from the Irish countryside, pastoral scenes of rural life and posters from Dublin lined the walls.

  Ken was busy talking to a couple of waiters who would serve the meal, but he nodded to me when he saw us. We found our chairs and took our seats while Mrs. O went over to speak with the chef, who was dressed in a black tunic and chef’s cap, and was fussing over some chafing dishes on a huge wooden sideboard. She lifted a cover off a chafing dish and leaned in to check the food. Then she patted the chef on the back and smiled.

  Sarah and her family entered the room. As soon as she saw us, she brought her husband and two children over to introduce us, and then they took their places at the table. Ken’s wife and two sons also arrived and Ken led them over to say hello to us as well. Finally, everyone was seated around the table and the room was very noisy as everyone chatted with everyone else, catching up on the week. Servers poured everyone water and then wine.

  Mrs. O stood up and turned to us, her glass of wine in her hand.

  “To our guests, Drake and Kate. Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. You’ll be starting your own family, but please, welcome to our family. There will always be two chairs for you at our table. And when it’s necess
ary, a high chair or three.” She winked at us.

  “Hear, hear,” the others said and they all raised their glasses to us. Kate turned to me and we toasted each other and then took a sip.

  While servers placed a bowl of soup on our plates, Ken regaled us with news of his son making the football team. With the focus turned to everyone else, Kate seemed to relax beside me and ate her soup, listening to everyone talking about family news.

  In the end, the meal was delicious, the conversation loud as usual. Mrs. O sat beside Kate and kept her busy talking about the upcoming wedding plans, while Ken sat beside me and we talked about the pediatric neurosurgery fellowship and how Liam was doing since his stem cell transplant. Kate seemed to enjoy herself and she and Mrs. O were busy talking. I listened in and heard them talk from time to time, to make sure Kate didn’t need me to step in, but there was no need. Mrs. O was adept at conversation with strangers, and asked Kate about her father’s illness and recovery, her plans for her MA and of course, her wedding dress.

  I kept her hand in mine as much as I could, squeezing it from time to time to let her know I was thinking about her.

  After dessert and coffee, we said our goodbyes and promised to return every Sunday that we had open, and then we left, the evening having gone as well as I could have hoped.

  I took Kate’s hand and we walked down the street to the car.

  “I thought that went well,” I said, as we reached the parking garage.

  “It did,” Kate replied, smiling. “Mrs. O kept me talking almost the entire time. She’s so glad you finally met someone.”

  “I know,” I said and laughed. “She was always trying to match me up with various cocktail waitresses she knew. I told her I wasn’t going to get married again and she always said ‘Never say never’. She was right, of course.” I kissed her knuckles.

  “Ken said he was afraid you’d never meet anyone who could mend your broken heart,” Kate said softly.

  “He said that?” I was surprised that Ken got so personal with Kate. “When?”

  “When you went to the washroom. He leaned over and told me how glad he was that you met me and that we were getting married. He said you never got over Maureen leaving until you met me.” She raised her eyebrows at that, a coy smile on her face. “That I must be pretty damn special.”

  “You are,” I said. “Very special.”

  We drove on in silence, and when I glanced over at Kate, she was smiling to herself.

  “So, do you think you’d like to go back every now and then?”

  She turned to me. “Of course,” she said. “We have a standing invitation at my dad’s place on Sunday, but we can switch whenever we want.”

  I nodded and finally we arrived back at our building. After I parked in the parking garage, I took her hand and we went up to the apartment. As soon as I got her into the entryway of our place, I pushed her against the closed door.

  “And now, Ms. Bennet, future Mrs. Morgan, I’m going to ravish you.”

  So I did.

  I had my meeting with Fred Parker at NYU that week, and spent quite some time thinking about my research project. My specialty was robotic surgery, and if I contributed anything, I hoped to bring my experience with robotics to pediatric neurosurgery. Pediatric neurosurgeons were already performing minimally invasive procedures using endoscopy and so I had been thinking of doing a study that compared various procedures in terms of efficacy and what conditions are best suited to such procedures.

  He thought the topic was excellent and would bring together my own expertise with an expanding field of interest for pediatric neurosurgeons. With that settled, we went over my schedule and the students I’d be supervising. It would be a great year.

  “So,” Kate said when I returned to the apartment, “how did your meeting at NYU go about the fellowship?”

  I put my jacket in the hall closet and smiled at her, excited to tell her about my plans. We sat on the sofa and I went through all of the details, talking far too long about the research I’d be doing and how excited I was.

  “I’m going to be really busy this year,” I said, my voice lowering a bit. “I’ll be leading a research project, supervising neurosurgery residents and doing surgeries. Plus, I have everything else.”

  Kate kissed me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “And I’ll be busy as well, writing my thesis, painting, writing for the student magazine. We’ll be like two ships passing in the night.”

  “We’ll have to have very good nights to make up for the long days at sea.”

  “We will. I am so excited for this year. Our wedding, renovating the 8th Avenue apartment…”

  We kissed. “You are so good to me,” I murmured against the skin of her throat, kissing my way up to her ear. “So willing to accept my hectic schedule.”

  “You deserve it,” she said, her voice warm. “Of course I accept your busy schedule. I know you’re a neurosurgeon. You have the Foundation. The Corporation. Your music. Now you have me, too. I know you’ll schedule me in. What kind of relationship would we have if I didn’t accept you just the way you are?”

  We kissed, softly, affectionately. Then she tightened her arms around my neck and kissed me more passionately, and that ignited my desire for her, my body responding to the need in her kiss.

  I was looking forward to the fellowship, the opportunity for research and for getting more experience. Hopefully, Kate and I would both be completely engrossed in our careers during the day and would return home each night eager to be with the true love of our lives – each other. I had worried that she’d feel neglected but she had her own very busy life and plans.

  With that concern out of the way, I felt elated and pushed Kate down on the sofa, lying on top of her, kissing her deeply. All worries about the fellowship faded away while I lost myself in Kate.

  If you would have asked me, I would have said it was the happiest time of my life up until that point – the weeks after we returned from Africa and I was back in Manhattan getting re-established in my practice and starting, the research project…

  That happiness was shattered all too soon by one Dr. Lisa Monroe, resident in neurosurgery at NYU.

  On the first day of the fellowship, I met the other fellowship candidate, and the residents – eight of the brightest medical graduates who had done their internships and were now going to specialize in neurosurgery. We would be assigned four residents each and would be responsible for them for the year.

  On my way to my office, after we had a joint meeting of residents and fellows, Dr. Monroe, an attractive woman with black hair, blue eyes and a very intense expression, followed me down the hallway.

  She caught up with me when we reached the elevator.

  “Dr. Lisa Monroe,” she said and extended her hand once more. “We met earlier at the luncheon.”

  “Dr. Monroe,” I said and took her hand, shaking. She had been a medical student at Columbia.

  “I’m really glad to be working with you,” she said, her voice low.

  “You’re with Brodinski?” I said, remembering she was assigned to his group for the semester.

  “I would have preferred to be working with you, given your experiences,” she said.

  “Oh, how so?”

  “You were in Africa; you do robotic surgery.”

  I nodded. “Brodinski seems like he’ll be great to work with. Lots of experience and he’s done some robotics as well.”

  She nodded and that was that.

  While she wasn’t one of my residents, we would often scrub in on cases, since residents had the right of first refusal for all appropriate surgeries. If I had a case, she could scrub in if she wanted to gain experience.

  She seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t place her. I assumed I’d seen her around at Columbia for she’d been a medical student when I was teaching, and she did her internship at NYP. I must have seen her but I couldn’t remember where.

  Over the next while, we were often together during
rounds or weekly conferences going over cases. She always stood close to me and tried to engage me in discussion about patients or procedures. I assumed she was just a bright student hoping to show off her knowledge and skills. Surgeons, as a rule, are brimming with self-confidence. You have to have that kind of confidence in order to cut into the human body, especially the brain. So I took her attention as just a new resident eager to please and to show off.

  On a bright sunny Manhattan morning in mid October, just a week before my wedding, I saw her standing at the edge of the group of physicians gathered for the first grand rounds for all residents and fellows, held by the faculty and senior pediatric neurosurgeons. I felt her gaze from across the room, and when our eyes met, she smiled. I glanced away, not interested in her nor did I want her interested in me.

  After rounds were finished, I left on my way to the conference room, having forgotten about her, only to hear her call out my name.

  “Dr. Morgan.” She caught up and walked by my side. “Good morning, Dr. Morgan,” she said, as I strode down the hallway to the boardroom where we were scheduled to meet. “Can I call you Drake?”

  “Hello, Dr. Monroe.” I didn’t look at her when we got to the room and went inside. “Of course. Can I call you Lisa?” I said, trying to be friendly.

  “Of course.”

  “How is your day?” I asked, not that I was curious, but wanting to be polite.

  “I’ve been busy adjusting,” she said. “Resident life is a lot different from being an intern. You’re responsible for a lot more and there’s a great deal to learn.”

  “You’ll do fine,” I said, distracted, trying to find a spot to sit. A number of our colleagues were already inside so I took a seat between two others and tried to focus on the white board where a case file was projected for our conference discussion. I sensed that Lisa sat across from me, but I didn’t meet her eyes.

  Throughout the session, I felt her glance on me, but I never met it. Instead, I kept my focus on the front of the conference room, on the monitor on which the patient charts were projected. Dr. Brodinski, the other fellow in the program with me, was leading the session and asked Lisa a question about a particular case. She was bright and knew her stuff.