"Why would you want to deal with it, anyway?"
"Because it makes sense. You don't have time to take care of it and I do."
It was hard to argue with a person when he sounded so reasonable. It was even harder when he was right.
"You wouldn't refuse if Ryan or Tanner made the offer, would you?"
He posed the question mildly, but she didn't doubt for a moment that he knew exactly how loaded it was. If she told him she wouldn't, she'd be admitting she was refusing because of him and she'd be walking on quicksand if they headed there. If she said she would refuse, he'd want to know why and she wasn't sure she could answer that without sinking herself, either. He had her nailed anyway.
"I didn't think I was the only one who had trouble accepting help," he finally said, his voice as flat as a slab. "You don't like to do it, either, do you?"
There was accusation in his words. What threw her was the understanding there, too.
The understanding lured her. The accusation required defense.
"Sometimes it's just easier not to rely on other people too much."
"I know I have a problem with that," he admitted, since he knew she was already well aware of it. "But why do you?"
His eyes held hers, the quiet intensity of them drawing her in, drawing her closer even though she never moved from where she stood beside his bed.
"Does it have anything to do with your son's father?"
His perception startled her. "What do you know about Matt?"
"Absolutely nothing. Except that you didn't marry him."
He spoke as if it had been her choice. But that wasn't how it had been at all. She'd adored Matt—until she'd realized that the only thing they'd truly had in common was their love of medicine. "It was the other way around. He didn't marry me."
"Why not?"
The question was so simple, so blunt, so … Chase. "Because I got pregnant and a baby wasn't in the plan."
"The plan?"
It was more of a grand scheme actually. Alex didn't usually talk about the direction she'd once thought her life would take, but that was more because she'd grown beyond that time than because there was any pain in the recollection. At least, there wasn't any now.
"Matt and I were going to get married and open a clinic with two of our friends when I finished my residency," she explained, her voice low and matter-of-fact. "It takes an enormous amount of planning and money to open your own practice, and when I got pregnant, Matt wouldn't even hear of me keeping the baby."
"He didn't like kids?"
"That wasn't it. We'd planned for them later." After the clinic was up and running. After they'd built their home, toured Europe. "A child just then would have been a drain on our time and our money. He had no intention of delaying or jeopardizing his investment."
He'd pleaded with her for a solid week to think about what she was doing to their project, to them. He reminded her of how hard they were working and of the life they would have. She tried to tell him they could still have it. They'd just have to adjust a little, focus more on their work and family than the big house and big vacations. He wouldn't listen. He'd dreamed all his life of doing exactly what he had mapped out for himself, and he'd finally told her they were through if she didn't get an abortion. The clinic would proceed on schedule, with or without her.
She'd told him it would have to proceed without.
She didn't mention to Chase how devastated she'd been. How she'd walked around in a numb fog for weeks feeling as if her heart had been cut out of her chest. Matt had insisted that he loved her, but he insisted, too, that she was the one ruining their chance to be together. She'd been so stunned by his rationale that she hadn't even bothered to point out that she hadn't gotten pregnant on her own.
What she did tell Chase was that she didn't remember exactly when she'd realized how completely different she and Matt really were. So much about that long, interminable year was a blur. All she remembered was knowing she needed to protect the tiny being growing inside her—and that she'd tried hard to be adult about their breakup because her residency had depended on it.
The intention was honorable. The execution had lacked a lot. Matt had been the chief surgical resident. Her boss. With her presence a constant reminder of the child he didn't want, their professional relationship deteriorated as rapidly as a patient removed from life support.
"So what did you do?" He tried to picture her pregnant, dealing with the stresses of her occupation, the circumstances. He could barely get past the pregnant part.
"I quit my residency in my seventh month. A surgeon who felt I had promise helped me get on at another hospital and I finished my training there after Tyler was born. My parents watched him for me. That feels like a lifetime ago," she murmured.
He imagined it did. But what impressed him even beyond the way she'd moved on, was what she had just revealed about who she truly was. She'd given up a way of life that could have been so much easier in order to keep her son. He'd never known any woman who didn't think of herself first.
"So that was when you started building over. When you left the guy."
Puzzled, Alex glanced up, dropping the edge of the sheet she hadn't realized she'd been toying with. A breath later, comprehension moved through her eyes as she remembered the conversation they'd had the first time he'd called her. "I suppose that was the defining moment."
Just as the moment that had changed everything for Chase had been at the reading of a will.
She didn't need to say the words to know that was where his thoughts had headed. And he didn't need to say anything for her to know that building over was what Chase was trying to do. He'd reached his own turning point—and found a new family waiting for him. The relationships he formed now could well define the rest of his life.
"Oh, hi, Dr. Larson. I didn't know you were still here."
At the sound of the nurse's voice, Chase's brow furrowed and Alex stepped back from the bed.
"Mr. Harrington wanted to go to the solarium." The scrub-clad woman pushed a wheelchair ahead of her, her smile bouncing between Alex and the man who suddenly looked a little edgier than he had moments ago. "I'll just leave this here and come back for him later. I forgot to bring a robe, anyway."
"You can take him now." Matching the woman's expression, Alex picked up the file from the rumpled bedding. "We just finished."
"Except for that insurance matter," Chase reminded her as the nurse headed back out for the robe.
"Except for that," she echoed.
Chase had implied that Matt was somehow responsible for her need to do things on her own. In a way, she supposed, he was. Not that it mattered. The need wasn't even that big a deal. She'd just had to accept so much help from her parents that she felt compelled now to prove, to herself anyway, that she was capable of handling her life. Most of it anyway. But she was more concerned with Chase's restlessness than any need to set him straight on that score.
She already knew he was trying to stay busy to keep from going stir-crazy. He'd told her as much himself. If helping her would help occupy his time, his taking over the task would benefit them both.
"If you wouldn't mind," she finally said. "I'd appreciate it."
She wouldn't be at the hospital tomorrow. But she'd just told him she would call him with her agent's phone number and give the man permission to deal with him when the nurse walked back in. Moments later, she was on her way down the hall, waving to Tanner who was headed for his brother's room and trying not to think about why she would miss seeing Chase tomorrow.
Alex knew that the solarium at the end of the hall had become a refuge of sorts for Chase the past few days. His nurses had told her that when the walls started closing in on him, he'd gather up whatever he was working on and ask for a wheelchair so he could escape the confines of his room. Not once had anyone seen him pushing that chair himself, which told Alex just how desperately he wanted to get out of the hospital. He wasn't going to risk another setback by doing something
he shouldn't.
His determination paid off. By Monday, he'd made it to the open and airy room at the end of the hall under his own steam. On crutches.
Alex hadn't seen him on them herself. When she walked into the solarium, smiling at the nurse escorting an elderly patient out of it, Chase was sitting at one of the two game tables by the windows overlooking the park. He was still wearing the clothes he'd worn for his workout in therapy: hospital-issue green T-shirt and jogging shorts. His injured leg was propped up on a chair, and a copy of the London Financial Times lay on the table in front of him.
The only other people in the room occupied two of the institutional, green plastic chairs near the wall of donated books and magazines. The middle-aged couple appeared to be visitors, relatives of the elderly woman who'd just left, Alex assumed from the gist of their furtive discussion. It sounded as if they were about to break the news that she was going to a nursing home.
Blocking out their tense conversation, Alex walked around the game table as Chase looked up, and lowered herself to the chair across from him. Her glance promptly slid to the crutches propped against a large potted ficus.
"You don't have to remind me to take it easy," he told her before she could say a word. "But just for the record, I'm getting around fine."
"That's what I hear." Forcing herself not to think of how his progress affected her, she laced her fingers together on the checkerboard laminated into the tabletop. Except for the quick sandwich she'd grabbed at lunch, she'd been in surgeries all day. It felt good to sit. "I just talked with Mike. He can't believe the progress you've made." Her mouth curved. "I have some good news for you."
She thought she would finally see him smile. Instead, amazingly, something like apology knitted his brow. The expression didn't look comfortable on him at all.
"I wish I could say the same for you."
An instant ago, she'd been thinking of how his formidable will had hastened his progress. Now, she was aware of nothing but a bated sort of dread. "You talked to the adjuster?"
"Actually, I've talked to him a couple of times today."
He leaned forward, mirroring her position by spreading his elbows on the table and linking his fingers six inches from hers. "I've always believed in saving the good news for last. Let's talk about you first. How do you want this—straightforward or sugarcoated?"
She swallowed. She didn't feel particularly brave at the moment, but it never hurt to pretend. "Straightforward."
He seemed to question her choice. Or, maybe, he was trying to figure out how she was going to react if he gave her what she asked for and plotting his strategy accordingly. The man took risks, but he wasn't reckless. Risks could be calculated, and she doubted he made a move without knowing what the next was going to be.
He'd probably figured out by now that she pretty much just took things as they came.
"It will be a month before you can move back in."
She sagged forward, staring. She couldn't possibly have heard correctly. "A month?"
"That's everyone's best estimate. The adjuster's, mine and Tanner's," he said, looking much as she suspected she did when delivering bad news to a patient. There was sympathy in his eyes, along with an unyielding sort of certainty that said the diagnosis wasn't going to change no matter how badly the patient wanted it to.
She'd figured it would take a week. Ten days, tops.
"After I talked to the adjuster the first time, I asked Tanner to run by and check it out. He feels the carpet is too old to be worth drying, stretching and reinstalling, so I'm talking to the adjuster about replacing it all. You've lost some books. Your furniture is salvageable. The problem is the walls and floors."
He'd warned her. Two days ago, he'd told her it wasn't the things she could see that she had to worry about. Feeling totally unprepared anyway, she listened with her eyes trained on the dark hair on his sinewy forearms while he explained exactly what the problems were.
He talked about water being pumped out and blowers brought in to dry out the hardwood floors. He talked about the underflooring where the carpet had been, the need to dry that, too, and the need to replace sections that had become so waterlogged they'd already buckled. But when he got to the part about drywall having to be cut out and support timbers dried, her numbing mind began to focus more on the low, confident, competent tones of his voice than on what he was actually saying.
There was strength in his voice. Assuredness. She kept listening, absorbing the deep soothing tones, letting them wash over her. She'd yet to look from where his arms rested across from hers. There was strength there, too. The kind that could make a woman feel protected if he were to wrap her in them. The kind that made her want very badly to know how being protected would feel.
It occurred to her that he was saying something about scheduling a painter after the new drywall was in when she looked up and saw how carefully he was watching her.
Given the course of her thoughts, being close enough for him to read them added an element she simply couldn't deal with right now.
"A month," she murmured. She focused on his hands, his long fingers so close to hers. She wished he'd reach over. Just touch her and tell her it wasn't as long as it sounded. Even though it was, and he wouldn't.
With a little shrug that seemed to say, "Oh, well," she drew her hands back and rose from the chair. "I really didn't think it would take that long."
"I didn't think you did." He steepled his fingers, watching her as he leaned back. "But you don't want them to rush through the job. You'd just have problems later."
"No. Of course, I don't. But if it's going to be that long, I guess I'd better look for an apartment tomorrow instead of trying to make shorter-term arrangements. Make that tonight," she amended, her smile holding more defeat than bravado. "There's no medical reason to keep you here any longer. I came to tell you I'll discharge you in the morning … if you feel comfortable enough with the crutches."
The news should have pleased him. She'd been so sure that it would. But his expression didn't change. He didn't seem to react at all. He just sat with his eyes steady on hers.
"I'm comfortable," he finally said—just before his jaw locked.
His reaction wasn't what she'd anticipated at all. Patients were invariably eager to leave, especially patients who were accustomed to activity. Most especially those who'd fought the confinement in the first place.
Thrown by his response, struggling with a sudden need to regroup, she turned to the window. Two blocks of grass, evergreens and flowering dogwood stretched in front of her.
It was no wonder Chase spent time here.
For a moment, she did nothing but stare down at that peaceful spot, breathing in and out and telling herself everything would be fine if she just took it one thing at a time. Right now, she should focus on her patient. Not herself.
It was impossible, though, to figure out what was going on in Chase's mind. So she concentrated on the fact that finding an apartment might actually be simpler than finding a place for just a week or so. She would need someplace furnished, that took pets and wouldn't insist on a lease. She'd pick up a newspaper after she finished her rounds. Make calls while she fed the boys. If it wasn't too late. And, in the morning she'd make sure everything at his house was as she'd found it before she left for her eight o'clock arthroscopy.
A knot had formed in her throat.
Empty. With a dozen things demanding to be done, she couldn't imagine why she felt so … empty.
The couple was leaving. She could hear their movement behind her, the scrape of their chairs and their lowered voices as they walked past Chase to get to the door. The door thudded softly when it closed.
"Hey."
Chase's voice drew her, the quiet sound of it bringing her head up.
With her arms crossed like bands beneath her breasts, she turned around.
Looking straight ahead, all she could see was a solid wall of chest and shoulders and the crutches braced under his arms. Her gl
ance jerked up, past the tuft of dark hair peeking above the band of his shirt, the hard line of his jaw, the sensual cut of his mouth.
He was big. Solid. And close enough for her to touch. Close enough for him to touch her, though something about him said the thought had already occurred to him, and he'd thought better of it.
It seemed that they could talk. They could share little pieces of themselves. But whether it was because of where they were or what they'd be admitting, there was an invisible line beyond that odd friendship that neither seemed willing to cross.
"You don't need to worry about any of this, Alex. I said I'd take care of it and I will. How long is that boy staying with you?"
The question seemed to throw her. Confusion swept her face, making her look even more vulnerable than she had in the moments before she'd turned away. It was that vulnerability that had brought him to his feet, that had made him want to put his hand on her shoulder and soothe her the way she'd often soothed him.
Not trusting that need, he kept his hands curled around the grips of his crutches and reminded himself that he still owed her. He might care about her. But, ultimately, this was about payback. That was all.
"I'll have him for another week. Why?"
"When's your next day off?"
She shook her head as she thought, the light from the window touching hints of fire to the rich auburn depths of her hair. "Not until Saturday."
"Wait until then to look for a place."
"You don't want me to discharge you?"
"I didn't say that. I don't want to stay here a minute longer than I have to. But you and the kids can stay where you are. It's only for a few days," he pointed out, as if to make the idea easier for them both. "I have a basic idea of what the place is like, and you said yourself it has plenty of room. Just leave me the key so I can get in," he asked, refusing to let her balk. "Ryan said he'd take me to the house anytime I'm ready. What time are you letting me go?"
Doubt shadowed her eyes. It lingered there, letting him know she questioned the wisdom of his solution. But it was practical. And the thought of not having to deal with the situation now seemed to replace some of her misgivings with relief. "I'm rounding in the morning after surgery. Probably around noon."
DR. MOM AND THE MILLIONAIRE Page 12
