When You Wish (Contemporary Romance)

by Handeland, Lori

  He leaned against the door in an effort to see better and the hinges creaked. Both Grace and the child glanced up and saw him. Their expressions, which had been soft, and warm, and full of joy, became guarded once more, and Dan wanted to kick himself for destroying the beautiful picture.

  “Dr. Chadwick, how nice to see you.” The ice in Grace’s voice revealed the lie to her words.

  “Doctor?” The panic in the child’s voice made Dan hesitate before stepping into the room. She seemed to shrink in upon herself as he approached. Grace held her more tightly, and Becky inched the blanket up her face until only her eyes could be seen above the hem.

  “I don’t know you. Are you a new doctor? You aren’t going to hurt me, are you?”

  Dan froze in the middle of the room, uncertain what to say, unwilling to come closer and scare her any more.

  “No, sweetie,” Grace intervened, and her voice was no longer cold but warm as a summer day. “Dr. Chadwick’s not that kind of doctor.”

  A surprised snort of laughter escaped Dan at hearing his own words turned around to the good for a change. The child, uncertain what was so funny, nevertheless, smiled at him, and he felt, for just a minute, how he’d felt when he’d kind of saved Em’s life. Grace looked at him over the child’s head, and when she smiled, too, his heart warmed.

  For the first time he was glad to be “not that kind of doctor.” For the first time he was glad to be exactly who he was—because Grace had smiled at him.

  Grace kissed the top of the child’s head and set her back on the bed. “I’ll be back, Becky. You hold on to your magic blanket, and everything will look brighter. I promise.”

  Dan’s joy evaporated. He’d forgotten about the magic blanket stuff. That really had to stop. “Grace—”

  She held up a hand. “Be right there.”

  “I really don’t think you should—”

  The smile she’d given the child turned to a glare for him. “Take your opinion outside, Doctor. It wasn’t asked for in here.”

  Dan hesitated, but a glance at Becky, who looked back and forth between the two of them with confusion in her eyes, made him move toward the door. “Bye, Becky, nice to meet you.”

  She waved and smiled sweetly, still clutching the magic blanket. Darned if she wasn’t the cutest thing he’d seen in half a lifetime. Dan waited outside, feeling like a child sent to his room for insubordination at the dinner table.

  A minute later Grace stepped into the hall and shut the door behind her. “For some reason, she likes you.”

  “Me?”

  “That’s what I said. Becky thinks you’re cute.”

  “I thought I scared her.”

  “Once she knew you weren’t that kind of doctor, you were just like the rest of the world—fit for Becky’s love.”

  “Well, I’ve never been described as cute before.”

  “And probably won’t be again.”

  “Hey!”

  Grace looked him up, then down, in a slow perusal that made him hot all over in an instant. “One thing you are not is cute.”

  “What am I then?”

  “A pain in the behind.”

  Her words hurt a bit, but he kept the hurt tamped down with all the others. Big, bruiser research scientists weren’t supposed to be sensitive. “What did I do now?”

  “I saw your face in Becky’s room. You were going to say something about the magic blanket, weren’t you?”

  “Well, Grace, you have to admit—”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Would you let me finish?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’ll give me your opinion regardless of if you know diddly about the subject.”

  “It’s just common sense—”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “But you have to admit—”

  “I do not.”

  “Grace!” Dan said, a bit too loudly.

  All the nurses at the desk and several in the hall turned to them and frowned.

  “Shh,” Grace hissed, and took his arm. “Let’s take this to the cafeteria. You could use some tea.”

  “Tea?” Dan resisted the urge to stick out his tongue and make a gagging noise. The way Grace was dragging him off the pediatric wing, she’d probably ground him for life for inappropriate behavior.

  As she hustled him toward the elevators, he did notice one thing. Every child who held a blanket cuddled it close.

  Minutes later, ensconced in a corner table of the nearly empty cafeteria, Dan nursed a bottle of apple juice. Grace dabbed her herbal tea bag in the steaming water and stared at the swirling cinnamon surface.

  He waited for her to speak, and when she didn’t, he had to. “You told me you’d explain Project Hope in a language I could understand. I still don’t understand.”

  Her gaze seemed far away, as if she were trying to figure out how to talk his language. Hell, half the time he didn’t know.

  “You saw Becky.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “You know.”

  Dan nodded. He did. The pale, thin face; the short, short hair. “Will she . . .?” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “No one knows. It’s hope and pray time.”

  “How long have you known her?”

  “An hour.”

  “No way.”

  Grace frowned. “What do you mean, ‘no way?’”

  “She was hugging you like you were her long lost best friend.”

  “She’s a kid. I paid attention to her and gave her a present. Bingo, I’m her new best friend.”

  “Seriously?”

  Her frown became an indulgent smile. “Seriously. The nurse called yesterday and asked me to bring Becky a blanket. She still has some tests and treatment to go through.”

  “The nurse called?”

  Grace nodded. “The nurses support Project Hope. They see how much the blankets help the kids.”

  “So why do you need the administration’s approval if the nurses are calling you?”

  “An isolated case here and there isn’t enough. In order to give every child the opportunity to get what they need, the project must be approved at the top levels.”

  “What do the doctors think?”

  “They think I’m a flake. Like you.”

  “I don’t think you’re a flake, Grace.”

  “No? But you were going to take me to task over my magic blankets, weren’t you?”

  “I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s appropriate for a four-year-old to have cancer!” Her voice was a bit too loud and a bit too shrill. Grace’s passion for everyone and everything only made her all the more fascinating to Dan. He’d never known someone who cared so much about so many.

  She took a deep breath, swallowed some tea, and continued—more quietly, but no less intensely. “Sometimes all you can do is give them something to hold on to. But at least it’s something.”

  “But telling them there’s magic? Isn’t that false hope?”

  “Hope is never false—that’s why it’s called hope. If you believe in magic, magic happens.”

  “Bull.”

  Grace blinked a few times. “Well, don’t spare my feelings, Dan. Tell me what you really think.”

  He ignored her sarcasm. “I still don’t understand why you’d think this project warrants a grant from the Cabilla Foundation. This is charity work. Like doling out juice at a blood drive.”

  “Project Hope is no more a charity than your work is.”

  Dan flinched at the word charity. Grace reached down and yanked her huge purse into her lap. Dan figured she was pulling out the puppets, so she could explain in a language he’d understand. Instead, she extracted a three-ring binder and slapped it onto the table in front of him.

  “Here.” She opened the binder, stabbed her finger at the first page. “A language you can understand.”

  Dan l
eaned over and read the bold print. Stress reduces immunity. Reduction of stress aids in fighting immune-deficient disease.

  He glanced at Grace. “True enough.”

  “Read on, Macduff.”

  Because children suspend their disbelief more easily than adults, who have learned to disbelieve, they are perfect candidates for trials. Preliminary studies in children have found that a sense of well-being aids in recovery. The more a child believes they will heal, the higher their chances of healing.

  Dan continued to read and found himself caught up in the report. The research wasn’t scientific, but it was intriguing, citing several cases where a child’s diagnosis had turned around once their attitude improved, and one case where a terminal child had been cured completely.

  “Placebo effect,” he murmured.

  “Pardon me?”

  He glanced down at the binder. He’d read through the entire report. “Uh, I said placebo effect. They believe the blankets are magic, and so they are.”

  “And this is bad because . . .?”

  “It’s not true.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “Come on, Grace, you don’t believe in magic.”

  “I don’t? What other word do you have for this?” She tapped the binder with her fingernail.

  “Placebo.”

  “Magic. Placebo. You’re splitting hairs, doctor boy. Hope. Faith. Believe in the power of what you can’t see.”

  “You don’t actually think your blankets can cure children, do you?”

  “So what if they don’t?”

  Dan gaped. He probably looked like a fish out of water, gasping for air on the banks of Lake Superior. This entire conversation made his head ache. “So what? You give a child a blanket. You tell them it’s magic, and it doesn’t work. They die! That’s terrible.”

  “I give them a blanket. I tell them it’s magic. They have something to hold on to, and they feel safer, stronger, happier. That’s magic. So sue me.”

  Dan’s entire house of cards began to crumble before his eyes. What did science mean if all you had to do was believe in magic, and magic happened? Dan still didn’t quite buy that, but the research in his hands was so intriguing, he felt the pull of the zone right here in the middle of town.

  “This child.” He flipped to the case that intrigued him the most. “The one in the last stage who went into remission.”

  “Hope.”

  Dan frowned. “Yes, we’ve been over that.”

  “No, her name is Hope. She’s a miracle. The doctors are stumped.” She smirked. “I love it when that happens.”

  “She’s fine?”

  “Completely. Lives in Minneapolis. She’s in high school now. Still sleeps with her blankie.” Grace reached into her bag and pulled out the scrap of peach flannel the right-hand puppet had cuddled. “She gave me a swatch for luck. I’d say it’s pretty lucky, wouldn’t you?”

  “And you named your project after her?”

  “Why not? I told her I wouldn’t stop. That I’d keep helping kids. I don’t make promises I can’t keep. I saw that child. She was almost an angel. She believed, and she survived. I believe. Admit it, Dan, don’t you want to believe, too?”

  Dan looked into her eyes and saw the Pied Piper. He did want to believe. He wanted to throw years of research to the wind and start studying her project. But if he gave up on paronychial infection when he was so close he could taste it, he’d never respect himself in the morning—and his parents would never respect him at all.

  Dan straightened and shut the binder. “I’m supposed to be helping you with ‘the stiffs,’ as you so elegantly put it. Which stiffs have you spoken with, and what have you said?”

  She was silent for a moment, perhaps sensing his withdrawal, then she sighed and tugged the binder back to her side of the table. “I’ve spoken with the administrator of St. Mary’s and the chief of staff. I also tried several hospitals in Minneapolis before we moved here. Everyone thought my idea was a great big joke.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t tell them you had magic blankets for the children.”

  “All right, I won’t tell you.”

  Dan groaned. “Jeez, Grace. What did you wear? What did you say?”

  “I wore my favorite bone through my nose and rings on my toes. I said, ‘Ugga-wugga, smelly cheese, won’t you approve my project, please?’”

  “Grace, be serious. If this is how you talk to the administrators and doctors around here, no wonder they won’t take you seriously.”

  “What does how I dress have to do with anything?”

  “Nothing. I agree. But sometimes you have to play their game to get them to play yours.”

  “I don’t play games.”

  “You’d better start. These guys like to say no; that’s why they have the jobs they have.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “Did you show them that?” He indicated the binder.

  “If I could have gotten past, ‘Hello, I’m Grace Lighthorse,’ I would have.”

  Dan ground his teeth. He could see the scene in his mind. Grace so earnest, so hopeful, so bright and shiny, she made your eyes hurt. And the stiffs, as he was beginning to think of them, too—looking down their noses, elbowing each other, and laughing behind her back when she left. Just the thought made him want to do violence. But since Dan was not a violent man, he would handle things the way his father would.

  By talking them to death.

  He picked up Grace’s binder. “Can I borrow this?”

  “What for?”

  “I’d like to look at it awhile.”

  She shrugged. “Feel free.”

  He didn’t think he knew how, but he was starting to wonder if he might like to. Dan shook his head to clear it of the images that seemed to invade his habitually preoccupied brain all too frequently of late. Grace made him think of silly things—moonlight on water, sunshine turned to rain, purple dinosaurs dancing through acres upon acres of evergreen trees and little girls who were almost angels but smelled like fresh oranges and cinnamon toast.

  Dan stood and his chair scraped back. “I’ll see you at the lab.”

  He didn’t wait for her to question his abrupt departure or even say good-bye before he fled the cafeteria. Only a few minutes later he was ushered into the offices of Dr. Randal Moss, head cook and bottle-washer at St. Mary’s Hospital. In other words, the main administrative honcho, a man of Dan’s father’s circle.

  “Daniel!” Moss came around the desk with a hearty smile on his face and pumped Dan’s hand like it was the air compressor on a beer keg.

  Dan’s lips twitched at the comparison. Dr. Moss wouldn’t know a keg from a cashew. He probably hadn’t had a beer since high school, if then.

  “Sir.” Dan tightened his mouth to keep from laughing. What was the matter with him? Too much Grace, that’s what. But he was here for Grace, so he’d better shape up.

  “I was hoping you’d stop by and say hello. Your father told me the last time we spoke that you were doing a bit of work in my neck of the woods.”

  “Yes, sir. But I came here to discuss another project with you. Project Hope.”

  Moss’s face still held a pleasant smile but his eyes went blank. He had no idea what Dan was talking about. And here Grace was hoping against hope that if she had got funding this man would let her do some good.

  “Grace Lighthorse spoke to you recently. Security blankets for seriously ill children?”

  “Ah, the Indian girl.”

  Dan’s eye started to twitch. “I have her research here.” Dan held up the binder. “It’s quite good.”

  “You think so?” Dr. Moss made no move to take the binder, and Dan’s hand fell. “Tell me again what it is you research, Daniel?”

  Here we go, Dan thought. Off come the gloves. Moss might have met with him because of his father, but because Moss was like his father, he would also think that Dan was little short of a moron, despite his intelligence, to be doing what he was doing. That
was why Dan preferred to do just about everything alone. Time to start talking the language of his father.

  “My research is apart from the research of Miss Lighthorse. One has nothing to do with the other.”

  Moss ignored him. “Wasn’t it toes?”

  “Paronychial infection.”

  “Ah, yes. I’m supposed to take the word of a man who spends years trying to cure toenail rot?”

  “Not rot exactly.”

  Moss shrugged. He could care less about anything but his own little world. As Dan had told Grace, men like Moss loved to say no. And Dan heard a great big no coming. Why had he thought he could outtalk a master like Moss? Just because Dan had been raised to be a stiff, and was one still according to Grace, didn’t mean he was accepted by them. Or that he ever had been.

  “Never mind.” Dan tucked Grace’s binder beneath his arm and prepared to go.

  Unfortunately, Moss felt the need to get a few licks in for the enemy first. “You’re an embarrassment to your parents. I don’t plan to let you embarrass me with another of your hare-brained ideas.”

  “It’s not my idea, it’s Grace’s. And it’s a good one.”

  “Grace, huh? Well, that explains it. Don’t get yourself in trouble, son. Or rather, get her in trouble.”

  Dan’s eye was twitching so hard tears gathered at one corner and threatened to run down his face. He blinked rapidly, which only made the twitching worse.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine,” he ground out. How did Grace keep going forward when all these stiffs were so backward? “What would it take for you to give Miss Lighthorse’s project a chance?”

  “I can’t think of a single thing.”

  “What if she got the Cabilla Grant?”

  The barely contained amusement on Moss’s face fled. “She’s up for the Cabilla Grant? That’s different. Mrs. Cabilla is well respected.”

  “Or at least her money is.”

  “Money makes the world go around. If the Indian girl’s project gets funding like that, I’ll give her research a look-see. But not before.”

  Dan sighed. Grace had been right. She needed the Cabilla Grant to gain respect in a world that should be above such things but sadly wasn’t.