The Doctor's Guardian & Tempted By His Target

by Marie Ferrarella

  Nika wasn’t sure what made her confess. Ordinarily, she kept her own counsel when there was no one she felt comfortable talking to. But her brief, unfruitful meeting with Ms. Silverman had left a really bad taste in her mouth and, before she was actually aware of what she was doing, she found herself sharing what had sent her to the hospital administrator’s office in the first place.

  “One of my patients died today.”

  He immediately related the occurrence to his grandmother being there.

  “Because of a surgery?” he asked. Was she trying to subtly tell him something, or was he just worrying because life and his job had made him paranoid?

  “No. Mr. Kelly died in his room in the Geriatrics Unit. I’m not sure why. I was just talking to him this morning. His discharge papers were being prepared and he was set to be transported back to the nursing home later today.” She blew out a deep breath, thinking how ironic life could be. Here one moment, gone in the next blink of an eye. “Instead, he’s in the morgue now, waiting to be claimed by someone or wind up being buried in the city’s version of a potter’s field.” The man had seemed so vital, so eager to get back and beat his friend at chess. “I can’t believe he died just like that.”

  “What did he die of?” Cole asked.

  “Unofficially?” Nika nodded. “His heart stopped.” That was what was being written down on the death certificate.

  “That’ll do it every time,” Cole commented. From all indications, this doctor had nothing new to share with him. That meant he should be on his way to go see his grandmother. Instead, he lingered a moment or two longer and shared an observation he’d made.

  “That wasn’t just lip service you were giving me earlier, was it?” He watched her eyebrows draw together in a silent query. “You really do care about these patients.”

  Well, at this stage of the game, she certainly wasn’t in it for the money. For the pleasure of pulling double shifts and turning into almost a zombie, as a resident she was getting somewhere in the neighborhood of forty thousand dollars a year. To be honest, she wasn’t altogether sure just what the exact sum was. But that didn’t matter because that wasn’t why she was doing it.

  “Of course I care,” she told him with feeling. “I wouldn’t be in this if I didn’t care—although Mama had other ideas,” she recalled with a touch of fondness. She knew—or believed she knew—all of her mother’s flaws and she still loved the woman, still accepted, for the most part, the way her mother was.

  In the long run, though they’d had their clashes, she was grateful to her mother. It couldn’t have been easy, raising four daughters all alone, even if she did have Aunt Zofia around for moral support.

  “Mama?” he questioned. Who called their mother Mama these days? He assumed she was referring to a grandmother. His own hadn’t liked the title, which is how he’d come up with calling her G.

  “My mother,” Nika answered, not seeing where the mystery was.

  Okay, so maybe this doctor was the old-fashioned type. It was rare, but there was nothing wrong with that, he thought. In a way, he kind of found it intriguing. “Your mother wanted you to be a doctor?”

  Wanted was a very weak word in this case. Demanded was more like it, but she let that go. What she did say was, “She wanted all of us to be doctors.”

  “All of you,” he repeated, waiting.

  The silent question was obvious, Nika thought. The detective wanted the term all defined.

  “My sisters and me. There’re four of us,” she added before he could raise a quizzical brow again.

  Four. Four doctors, no less. He had to admit that was impressive. Cole thought of what the average higher education cost these days, and just how much he’d had to scrape together in order to earn an undergraduate degree in criminology.

  “Your mother certainly had lofty ambitions for you and your sisters.”

  It wasn’t exactly as noble as it might sound, she thought. “Actually, I’d say she was probably more driven by a sense of competition than ambition.”

  He was silent for a moment as he tried to make sense out of what she’d just said, then shook his head. “I don’t think I understand,” he told her. “As a matter of fact, I know I don’t understand.”

  “It’s very simple, really. My aunt and uncle have five daughters. They all became doctors. After my father died, my mother carried around a lot of resentment toward my uncle and, well …” Her voice trailed off for a moment and then she shrugged. “Well, you get the picture.”

  It wasn’t hard to fill in the blanks. Most families were far from ideal. His own mother was a perfect example of that. “Yeah, I do. Sometimes parents don’t always think clearly.”

  As he said it, Nika had the impression that Cole wasn’t talking about her mother any longer. Curious, she forced herself to table the questions that immediately arose in her mind. Something about the detective reminded her of a knight in tarnished armor and warned her not to ask too many questions—unless she wanted to get rebuffed. She had the feeling that Cole Baker wasn’t the type who shared his thoughts, his feelings, or his past easily with others.

  She could feel him withdrawing even as he still remained standing there. His next words bore out her impression.

  “Well, I’d better go see my grandmother before she puts out an APB—an all points bulletin,” Cole elaborated.

  “I know what APB means,” she told him with a smile, then added, “I get to watch crime dramas on TV sometimes.” He started to turn away. “Before you go,” she interjected.

  Stopping, Cole looked at her over his shoulder. “Yes?”

  “There’s something else.” The moment she said the sentence, she saw his face become rigid. He was on his guard again.

  Any tiny headway she might have made with the man instantly vanished. He was a man who didn’t trust easily, she thought. A man who always expected the worst. What had happened in his life to make him that way? she couldn’t help wondering. Whatever it was had crushed him—but not completely. Because if it had, he wouldn’t have rescued her, no matter what the excuse. He would have stood on the sidelines and let someone else do it, telling himself it was none of his concern.

  “Yes?” he asked warily.

  “I have to tell you that I’m still a little concerned about your grandmother’s blood pressure. Luckily, the procedure Dr. Goodfellow is ultimately going to perform requires only a local anesthetic—”

  “You already said that,” he reminded her, a note of impatience breaking through. It was, she thought, as if he was waiting for some sort of bombshell to drop. But there was no bombshell. She’d told him what her concern was.

  “My point is that a local isn’t as hard on a person’s body as a general anesthetic is,” she explained. “If the surgery your grandmother was having done needed a general anesthetic, I’d advise holding off on performing it until such time as we get her blood pressure under control.”

  “Is her blood pressure really that bad?” he asked.

  “It’s not astronomical. I’ve heard of patients who had elevated readings double what your grandmother has and they went on to live long lives. However, blood pressure can spike both when a person is being put under and being brought out of anesthesia, and that’s when a stroke can happen. Or worse. It’s best to have her blood pressure within acceptable parameters just to stay on the safe side. I don’t like taking any kind of chances with my patients, unless there are no other options.”

  Offhand, he would have said that she sounded sincere. He wondered if it was an act. There was a time when he would have bet everything he had in the world that his mother loved him—and she’d tried to kill him just before she’d turned the gun on herself.

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Anything else?” he asked.

  Nika pressed her lips together. She found herself fighting an urge. She really wanted to share her uneasiness about the recent deaths with someone, and who better than a near stranger—even if he was as sexy as all hell?

 
; But in this case, if she shared this burden she was struggling with, the information—if it actually was that—would only add to his uneasiness about his grandmother’s condition. She definitely didn’t want to do that. There were enough things to worry about during the normal course of a procedure without adding this to his stress level.

  So she pulled back her lips into a bright smile and shook her head. “No, there’s nothing else.”

  “I’ll see you later,” he said, turning away. He started to go down the corridor that would ultimately lead him to his grandmother’s room.

  Dazzling smile not withstanding, Cole couldn’t shake the feeling that the perky young doctor was lying to him. But that could just be his imagination. Or, more aptly described, his paranoia. He’d been tense ever since he’d walked in on his grandmother when she was in the throes of one of those “episodes,” as she’d referred to the massive palpitations that weakened and all but disabled her. Just like that, the woman he’d always thought of as a pillar of strength threatened to become a mere pile of rubble.

  Even now, he couldn’t shake the image of her, pale and sweaty, lying on the sofa and almost unable to move. It forced him to see her in a different light. Ericka Baker was a fragile woman. One who wasn’t always going to be in his world.

  The thought haunted him.

  Served him right for breaking his own rules and growing attached. He’d upbraided himself more than once, but it did no good. The time for taking to the hills had long passed.

  The sense of dread anticipation had brought with it was exactly why he was never going to allow himself to grow attached to anyone ever again. Because he knew the ultimate outcome of that attachment.

  It was better just to continue to harden his heart and remain alone.

  Turning the corner, Cole entered the second room on the right.

  His grandmother was sitting up in bed. For a brief moment, she lit up when she saw him. Then, just as quickly, she resumed her role as the somber matriarch of their very small family unit.

  “I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind about coming to see me,” she pouted.

  “How could I?” he asked, brushing his lips against her cheek. “It’s the highlight of my day.”

  “Then you’re having a very dull day,” she informed him, sitting back against her pillows. She looked at both his hands, which were empty. Her pout intensified.

  She asked anyway. “Did you bring me anything decent to eat?”

  Instead of answering her, Cole unbuttoned his jacket. Holding the left side open, he extracted a carefully wrapped item from his inner pocket and placed it on the table in front of her.

  “Baklava,” he announced. “As you requested.”

  “You really are a joy to me in my old age,” Ericka declared, gleefully unwrapping the confection. Taking her first small, dainty bite, she closed her eyes and savored the honeyed confection. For all intents and purposes, she looked as if she was in ecstasy.

  Cole pulled over a chair and made himself comfortable, content just to sit and silently watch his grandmother consume, with unabashed pleasure, the dessert he’d smuggled in for her.

  He lived in the moment and refused to allow in any thoughts about tomorrow.

  Chapter 6

  “Don’t you ever take a day off?”

  Dr. Darel Goodfellow asked the question as he glanced over his shoulder to see who was entering the darkened room. His back was to the door as he reviewed the three x-rays that were currently resting against the screen and backlit to enable better close scrutiny.

  Nika flushed. She’d wanted to slip into the small room unobtrusively, but the sliver of light that entered with her made that impossible. She had to admit that she was surprised that the cardiologist was even remotely aware of all the time she’d been putting in. Since she’d come in yesterday on her day off, she was scheduled not to come in today. Heaven knew she needed a day off, but since things were still up in the air as far as Ericka Baker’s surgery went, she wanted to be here, rather than in the apartment worrying about the woman.

  She wondered if her presence here annoyed Goodfellow and if she was somehow overstepping her parameters. Her enthusiasm had made her guilty of that more than once.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Goodfellow,” she apologized. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  The cardiologist sighed, shaking his head as he looked at the X-rays. “You’re not what’s disturbing me, Dr. Pulaski.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Are those Mrs. Baker’s X-rays?” She asked the question as a matter of decorum. She knew they were. She’d asked Dr. Allen, the radiologist, if he’d read them yet and was told that they were already with Dr. Goodfellow, who was in the process of studying them in the small, windowless room set aside just for that purpose.

  “Yes.” Indicating the lineup with a nod of his head, Goodfellow asked, “See anything there that might concern you?”

  Her first thought was that he was referring to some anomaly that had to do with Mrs. Baker’s heart. After all, that was why the woman was here in the first place. But as she looked at the X-rays, Nika was struck by the appearance of something else.

  Her eyes widened as she drew closer for a better look. Her heart began to race. Not good.

  “Is that …?” Her voice trailed off for a moment as the magnitude of what she was looking at sank in. She raised her eyes to meet Dr. Goodfellow’s. “There’s a mass in her right breast.”

  “Yes,” the doctor acknowledged very quietly, “there is.”

  “Is it benign?” she asked hopefully, despite the fact that she knew there was no way to tell without a biopsy.

  “That is the million-dollar question,” Goodfellow replied solemnly. “We’re going to have to do a biopsy in order to find out.”

  She thought of the heart surgery the woman was supposed to have tomorrow. “What about her ablation?”

  He shook his head. “That’s going to have to be put on hold. Doing a biopsy of the mass takes precedence over the ablation,” he informed her.

  There was still another matter to take into consideration. Something that interfered with either procedure. “What about Mrs. Baker’s elevated blood pressure?”

  “That is a complication,” the doctor agreed. “But since the mass is rather a large one, I really don’t think we have the luxury of sending her home and waiting until the reading is on a more even keel. We need to keep her here and monitor her,” he said, thinking out loud. He looked at the center X-ray. “This really doesn’t look promising.”

  Nika always focused on the hopeful aspects, no matter how small. It was what had seen her through more than one unnerving situation. Mentally, she crossed her fingers, hoping that she could get Mrs. Baker to see things that way.

  It wasn’t going to be easy.

  Nika glanced toward the surgeon. “She doesn’t know about this yet, does she?”

  “I didn’t know until just a few minutes ago when Jake got the films and brought them to me,” he said, referring to the radiologist.

  Nika slowly felt the doctor out. Some doctors didn’t like including residents in their sessions. “If it’s all right with you, doctor, I’d like to be there when you break the news to her.”

  Darel Goodfellow looked at her in surprise. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked her. “Most of the doctors I know go out of their way not to be the one to give a patient what might be tantamount to a death sentence.”

  Nika fought against the premature assumption. “We don’t know for certain that it’s malignant yet, Dr. Goodfellow.”

  After a beat, the doctor inclined his head, as if remembering. He smiled indulgently. “Oh yes, I’ve almost forgotten what it was like, being new on the job and full of optimism. By all means,” he agreed, “you can come along with me when I tell her. You might do her more good than you think.”

  Nika didn’t bother correcting the doctor, but she knew exactly what the power of positive thinking could do for
a patient. It was the difference between being resigned to die and finding the will to fight.

  “Am I going to die?” Ericka Baker asked.

  The stoically voiced question broke the eerie silence that immediately ensued after Dr. Goodfellow had informed her of the new complication the X-rays had uncovered. The woman’s already ashen complexion seemed to grow just a shade grayer.

  “No,” Nika answered as the cardiologist searched for the right words that neither asserted nor denied the woman’s fears. She faced Mrs. Baker, deliberately avoiding any sort of eye contact with Dr. Goodfellow. She knew she was going out on a limb, but the woman needed to hear these words. “You’re not going to die, you’re going to fight,” she told the noticeably frightened woman. “And just because there’s a mass, doesn’t automatically mean it’s malignant. There’s a very good chance that it’s benign.”

  Ericka wanted reassurance, but she was not a fool—she never had been. “I want to hear him say that,” she retorted, jerking a thumb at Dr. Goodfellow.

  This time Nika made eye contact with the other doctor, silently requesting that the man pick his words carefully and kindly.

  “Dr. Pulaski is correct,” he finally said. “Until we perform the biopsy, we won’t know what we’re dealing with. And,” he allowed since the woman was obviously waiting for a word of encouragement, “there’s a good chance that it’s nothing.”

  “A lot of ruckus for ‘nothing,’ if you ask me,” his patient commented with disgust.

  Nika took the woman’s thin hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You’re right, but it’s just better to be safe than sorry, Mrs. Baker.”

  Leaving her hand in Nika’s, Ericka looked at her cardiologist. “Could she be any more clichéd?” she asked him.

  Dr. Goodfellow laughed quietly, clearly amused by the question. “Give her time, Mrs. Baker. She probably will be,” he predicted.