Undercover M.D.

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Go do a profile on someone else, Riley.” The subject was closed.

  Riley nodded, backing off for now. He’d worked with McCall off and on over the past six years, the last two steadily. He knew it would do no good to press Terrance, who came around according to his own timetable.

  “That’s what they pay me for.” Riley glanced over his shoulder and saw the head nurse was looking his way. She didn’t look pleased. “Time to get busy.”

  Terrance sighed, thinking of the afternoon that was ahead. His endless days and nights as an intern came rushing vividly back at him. “I never stopped.”

  “Catch you later,” Riley murmured, beginning to guide the cart toward the service elevators and ultimately the kitchen located in the basement. “Don’t look now, but your lady friend is walking this way.”

  Terrance turned in time to see Alix heading in his direction. Now what?

  Alix had never been one to shirk her duty, no matter how distasteful or difficult it was. She placed dealing with Terrance in that category.

  Telling herself that she was no longer the young woman she’d once been did no good. In her heart Alix sincerely doubted if she would ever be completely over Terrance McCall.

  But there was absolutely no reason to let him know that.

  As she drew closer, a foul odor assaulted her nose. She sniffed, then realized that the smell was coming from the same vicinity as Terrance.

  “Is that coming from you?”

  He nodded. “Patient in Bed K threw up on me, just like you predicted.” He was wearing a lab coat that was entirely too snug in the shoulders and had had to change his shirt and pants. “One of the residents lent me his clothes.”

  Alix nodded. “That would explain the scrubs.”

  She’d forgotten how good he looked in the attire. And how much it had once turned her on. This time, however, he looked like someone who’d gotten caught in the rain and had his clothes shrink. The cuffs of his pants exposed a section of dark sock.

  “Rafferty?” she guessed, referring to one of the residents on the floor.

  He glanced down to see if the man’s name was written on the lab coat. It wasn’t. Terrance looked at her, surprised. “How did you know?”

  “Process of elimination. He’s shorter than you are. Adam Hathaway’s about the same height,” she judged. “They’re the only two doctors in the E.R. right now.” The odor was getting to her. She wrinkled her nose. “I’d suggest you take a shower.”

  “Can’t.” When she looked at him quizzically, he leaned over and whispered, “In case you haven’t heard, the head doctor’s pretty strict. If I leave my post for more than a minute, she’ll have my head.”

  Alix wasn’t amused. She looked at him pointedly, making herself, she hoped, perfectly clear. “The head doctor doesn’t want your head, Doctor. Or any other part of you, either.”

  Maybe he’d overstepped his boundaries. Feelings for her or not, the woman was married and he had his rules. She had nothing to worry about from him. “Duly noted. Just so I’m clear on this, are you telling me to take a shower?”

  Alix nodded. “For the good of the hospital,” she affirmed.

  He wasn’t about to argue the point. Terrance couldn’t help wondering how many people he’d offended in the last hour. “Where would I—”

  “There’s a facility directly behind the doctors’ lounge. Slightly bigger than a bread box, but if you’re not planning to do any acrobatics while showering, it’ll do the trick.”

  Funny she should mention that. It brought back to mind the showers they’d taken together, fitting against each other in a tiny stall. Sometimes they would even remember to turn the water on.

  “Thanks. And Alix—”

  She knew that tone, that pause. He was going to say something she was better off not hearing—even though part of her hungered to.

  But that was her weakness, and she would deal with it. The way she’d always dealt with everything else that life had thrown her way. She’d learned to savor the good moments, trusting the memory of them to see her through, like a bridge to the next good moment.

  “Go take your shower,” she ordered. With that, she turned on her heel and walked away.

  Terrance raised his voice. “It’s good to see you again,” he called after her.

  Without bothering to turn around, Alix waved her hand at him, dismissing the words.

  Dismissing him.

  Telling himself he didn’t feel stung, Terrance turned away. Like he’d just told Riley, they weren’t here to fraternize or enjoy the “scenery,” they were here to bring the operation to a successful close.

  On that thought he began to walk quickly to the doctors’ lounge.

  Just behind him, he heard the rear emergency room doors opening and the sound of a gurney being hurried in. Turning around, he could see the blood even from where he stood.

  The shower was going to have to wait.

  Terrance broke into a run. He caught Alix’s expression out of the corner of her eye as she approached from another direction. He wouldn’t have been able to say why the unguarded look of approval pleased him the way it did, but it did.

  Chapter 4

  Terrance frowned slightly as he set down his tray on the table and slid into the corner booth in the hospital cafeteria. The vantage point allowed him a full view of the area just beyond the entrance.

  Things were going slower than he wanted. He’d been at Blair Memorial for almost a week and had learned nothing.

  No, that wasn’t strictly true, he amended silently. He might not have gotten anywhere in his investigation, but he had learned that his first career choice did hold an attraction for him, even after a self-imposed absence of six years.

  He’d learned, too, that the woman who had been so important to him while he was studying to be a doctor most definitely still held an attraction for him. Time had done nothing to diminish that. But then, he hadn’t left her because he’d lost interest in her the way he had with medicine. Alix hadn’t been the reason he’d gone numb inside, becoming all but clinically dead yet still somehow going through the motions. Medicine had done that. Or rather, medicine’s failure had done that to him.

  The inability of medicine to save his father’s life after Jake McCall had been shot during a DEA stakeout had shaken the very foundations of Terrance’s world, had made him question everything that he felt he was about.

  The moment his father had taken his last breath, medicine had ceased to hold any allure for Terrance. He found he had to get away, to think, to somehow try to reinvent himself. That meant leaving his old life behind.

  That meant leaving Alix behind, as well, because she deserved someone who was whole—not him. She deserved someone who could love her, and he no longer knew if he was capable of the kind of love she needed.

  So he’d left Bedford and Alix and refused to look back. Left her without saying a word. It was the coward’s way out, the only time he’d taken it, but it was the only way he could have walked away.

  Now he wasn’t so sure that he had done the right thing.

  Too late for second thoughts now, McCall. She’s married to someone else.

  That meant that he’d lost the right to let that bother him, certainly lost the right to try to reaffirm his position in her life. Even if he were so inclined, which he wasn’t.

  He was what time and circumstances had forced him to become. A loner. In his chosen profession, that was viewed as an asset. No wife to worry about, no family to slip into his thoughts at the wrong moments, taking his edge off, blurring his focus. The best agents were the ones who were married to the job, not to a flesh-and-blood person.

  He knew all that, and yet…

  And yet nothing, Terrance thought. He was here to try to get close to William Harris, the grandson of the founder of this hospital, not to conjure up regrets and fantasize over what might have been.

  He was familiar with the hospital, the first in Bedford. Known then as Harris Memorial, the eig
ht-story, multiwinged edifice had only recently been renamed Blair Memorial in honor of the woman who had bequeathed her entire fortune to the hospital upon her death.

  Terrance smiled to himself. For a fifty-million-dollar bequest, he would have allowed himself to be renamed Shoe.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Terrance roused himself from his thoughts.

  You’re not doing your job, he admonished himself silently. Looking up, he saw the chief of staff standing beside his table, holding a tray in his hands. It contained a single plate of deep-dish apple pie.

  Terrance indicated the empty seat opposite him. “Please.” He tried not to notice that easing his considerable bulk onto the booth bench took a bit of maneuvering for Beauchamp.

  The older man slid his plate from his tray onto the table and smiled a little self-consciously. He rested the tray against the side of his seat, out of the way.

  Beauchamp picked up a fork with enthusiasm. “Yes, just dessert. I really set a poor example, I’m afraid.” He sank the fork into his serving. A look of anticipation entered his eyes. “I know I should be eating better. ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ and all that, but quite honestly, come midafternoon all I want to do is eat something sweet.” The first mouthful had him sighing with pure contentment and pleasure.

  Terrance grinned at the unabashed display. “I wasn’t looking at your choice, Dr. Beauchamp. I was just surprised to see you here. I didn’t think you frequented the cafeteria.”

  “Oh there’s a small dining hall across the way reserved for doctors only, but I find I like getting down in the trenches with everyone else. We all put our pants on the same way,” he said lightly. Another forkful disappeared into his mouth before he asked, “So tell me, how is it going? Fitting in?”

  The pie was disappearing at an impressive rate, yet the man seemed to be slowly savoring every bite. Terrance marveled, watching him. “I’d like to think so.”

  “I’ve been hearing good things about you from the staff,” Beauchamp informed him. “You seem to have gotten on Wanda’s good side.” He nodded his whole-hearted approval. “Always a good thing. She can be a formidable adversary if she doesn’t like you.”

  Though no pushover, the head nurse had been nothing but amiable to him. She made him think of a mother hen. “I can’t see Wanda actually giving anyone any grief. She seems fair enough.”

  “Oh, she is, she is,” Beauchamp agreed enthusiastically, then confided in a lower voice, “But she doesn’t like people who think they know it all.” The older man shook his head. “She and young Harris have never gotten along, I’m sorry to say. But then, he does seem to have a problem.”

  Beauchamp suddenly looked startled, as if he’d just heard his own pronouncement. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said quickly, launching into damage-control mode. “William Harris is a good doctor and all that, it’s just that—” It wasn’t in him to lie. “Well, he could stand to have his ego taken down a notch or two. But that’s what comes of having everything handed to you, I suppose. A little hard work is good for everyone.”

  Terrance estimated that he probably knew far more about William Harris than the man sitting opposite him. There was a two-inch-thick file on the man on his desk back at the agency. But it was one thing to have information before you and another entirely to listen to it being rendered firsthand. Sometimes, that kind of insight was just the thing to break an investigation wide open.

  He looked at Beauchamp innocently. “If you feel that way, why keep him on?”

  “Oh, it wouldn’t do to release the grandson of the founder of the hospital. The money might be coming from other sources these days, but the waves something like that might generate—” Beauchamp shook his head, finishing his statement silently as he retreated into another bite of his pie. “Well, it just wouldn’t do, that’s all.” He peered at Terrance, wanting to change the subject. “Getting along well with Dr. DuCane?”

  Terrance wondered if he was actually being grilled a little. The man had an innocent face, but Terrance was willing to bet Beauchamp wasn’t as guileless as he seemed. “Yes.”

  “She’s a wonderful woman. And dedicated.” Beauchamp nodded as he recalled past events. “Refused to take any time off after that terrible accident. She was in the very next week, acting as if nothing had happened. She’s a strong, strong woman.”

  Terrance looked at him. He’d deliberately refrained from looking into Alix’s past, feeling as if he were taking advantage of his position and invading her privacy. But now that Beauchamp had drawn back this curtain to reveal her life, he had to know. “What terrible accident?”

  “Why, the one that took her husband, Jeff,” Beauchamp said, then seemed to realize Terrance’s confusion. “Jeffrey Caldwell. He was on staff here, too. Just like Dr. DuCane not to mention anything. For a bright, sunny woman, she doesn’t talk about her own life very much. Me,” he confided, “I tend toward ear bending, but Dr. DuCane is more concerned with listening than talking—other than to bolster spirits, of course. They don’t make them like her anymore,” he said wistfully.

  No, Terrance thought, they didn’t. But then, he already knew that. He pressed for more information. “How long has her husband been dead?”

  “Jeff? Let me see.” Beauchamp paused as he made a few mental calculations. “It’s been almost two years—no, wait,” he corrected himself, “a little more than that. Yes, two years ago in April.” His head bobbed up and down in confirmation. “It was a boating accident. One of those freak things you don’t believe is happening until it’s over.”

  “Was she there?” Terrance couldn’t think of anything worse than Alix witnessing her husband’s death.

  “No, she was home with her little girl,” Beauchamp recalled. “Julie had a cold.” Intent on the last of his pie, he didn’t see the look that suddenly came into Terrance’s eyes.

  Julie. She’d named her daughter Julie. Was it a coincidence or had she deliberately named the child after his late mother? The two women had gotten close when he’d been seeing Alix. He’d always had the suspicion that it was because Alix was hungry for a mother’s affection. Her own mother had died when she was very young.

  “I didn’t know she had a little girl,” he said quietly to the other man.

  “Now that I’m surprised about. Dr. DuCane does like to show off pictures of her daughter.” Beauchamp pushed the empty plate away and looked at Terrance, studying the younger man. “Are you two getting along?”

  “Yes,” Terrance assured him. “We’re getting along.” As well as could be expected, he thought. “I have no complaints.”

  Beauchamp seemed pleased. “Good, good. Let me know if there’s anything I can help you out with.”

  You already have, Terrance thought. But now it was time to get down to the crux of why he was here in the first place. “I was just wondering, have I seen this Dr. Harris you mentioned?”

  Beauchamp shook his head. “Ordinarily, Dr. Harris would be on now, but he’s taken a few days off. Something about needing to catch a breather.” Terrance thought he detected a note of disapproval in the jovial man’s voice. “Does most of his breathing in Las Vegas, I hear. At the blackjack tables.” Beauchamp banished the slight purse of his lips. “Never liked to gamble myself. I go with sure things. Like this hospital,” Beauchamp said with no small pride. He seemed to make it his business to know the comings and goings of all the doctors on staff. “To answer your question, though, Harris should be back tomorrow.” He cocked his head, curious. “Why?”

  Terrance shrugged carelessly. “Just wondering what the man who ruffles Wanda’s feathers looked like.”

  “Oh, he ruffles more feathers than just Wanda’s, but like I said, good will is worth a great deal and everyone likes the man’s father.” The senior Harris had preceded Beauchamp as chief of staff and was now chairman of Blair’s board of trustees. “Arthur Harris is one of the most respected doctors in the West.”

  Terrance merely nodded, as if all this was news to h
im. He couldn’t help wondering what the man sitting opposite him would say if he knew Terrance’s real purpose for being here.

  Terrance glanced at his watch. “I’d better get going.” He rose, picking up his tray. “I don’t want to get on Dr. DuCane’s bad side.”

  Beauchamp laughed. “Good thinking.”

  Terrance’s afternoon was taken up by a man who came in complaining of chest pains which turned out to be a case of indigestion. He’d also had two cases of otitis media, the latter coming via a set of twins. It wasn’t until almost three o’clock before Terrance had a chance to catch up with Alix.

  “Why did you tell me you were married?”

  Alix made a notation on the chart of a girl who’d come in with an ectopic pregnancy. They’d had to rush her into surgery.

  She didn’t bother looking up. “Because I am,” she replied mildly.

  He knew he should drop it, that he was only getting in deeper, but the fact that she’d lied to him, or at least misled him, bothered him. It just wasn’t like her. “Doesn’t being married require that there be two living people in the union?”

  She closed the chart and glared at him. “Who told you?”

  He leaned against the side of the desk. “Dr. Beauchamp likes to socialize over apple pie.”

  She laughed shortly, but couldn’t muster any anger toward the chief of staff.

  “Dr. Beauchamp likes to socialize over anything.” Her smile faded as she looked at Terrance. “But to answer your presumptuous question, as far as I’m concerned, I am married. I didn’t divorce Jeff, he died on me.”

  “Technically,” Terrance said, “that makes you a widow.”

  The word made her think of dark clothes and sad-eyed women who were old years before their time. “I don’t like the term.”

  It’d been a week, he thought. Some of the barriers should have broken down a little. “Okay, how does available sound?”

  Her eyes narrowed and darkened. Like her expression. “Like a lie. I’m not,” she said with finality. The last thing she wanted was to leave herself open to more pain. “My heart has seen enough action to last a lifetime, Doctor. It’s tired. It doesn’t need to buy another ticket to a roller-coaster ride.”