The man with allergies never got the girl, at least in the movies Ian Zamora had seen, and Ian had watched enough of these films to last a lifetime. The man with the allergies couldn’t enjoy life because he was busy sneezing in his soup or looking for tissues. He was fussy. He was hapless. He was the one who the girl always dumped after she met the hero. Well, Ian was going to be the hero this time. He certainly had the other credentials. When they weren’t itchy and watering, his brown eyes glinted with steel. He could run a mile in seven and a half minutes (okay, eight) and use a belt sander. He looked good in jeans. Ian Zamora did not hunt for goddamn tissues—usually. Most of all, Ian was determined to get the girl, so the only solution was to get rid of his allergies.
If only his doctor would turn up.
The office of Dr. Petra Lale was completely empty that Tuesday afternoon. There was no receptionist in the waiting room and no one to greet Ian after he had climbed the stairs from the busy Portland street. The room was silent. At least it was clean, he thought, taking a step inside. Three magazines sat on a square coffee table, and the reception desk was clear of everything except a colorful paperback. In fact, except for a vague antiseptic tang in the air, there was no indication that any testing, checking, or healing was taking place at all in the white-walled office. Ian glanced at the door again. Petra Lale, MD, Allergist, it said, in shiny new lettering. He nodded to himself, of course—who else was there to acknowledge him?—and sat gingerly in one of the shiny plastic chairs. It glistened like a gummy bear. At least it was comfortable.
Okay, so he didn’t really want to be here.
He wasn’t scared of doctors, or blood. He could bear needles with a minimum of flinching. Still, the idea of being tested for itches, then returning week after week for more jabs, just so that he could coexist with Danielle’s cat—well, it wasn’t his idea of the best time in the world. But he was determined to make a go of it with his new girlfriend and he was willing to think of the long game. That meant accommodating Snuffmaster Six—Snuffy for short. And because Ian preferred to live his life clear-eyed and clean-nosed—and his colleagues at the restaurant liked him that way, too—allergy shots were the order of business.
This relationship had better work out.
Just think of a cozy, domestic future, Ian told himself, squaring his shoulders. Danielle was smart and optimistic. She smelled like a cupcake. She was just the kind of woman he needed. For some sort of stable relationship, he was ready to endure a hundred thousand pricks of the needle.
At least.
Probably more.
The doctor had probably just stepped out for a moment. Or maybe she had been called away on an allergy emergency. Maybe some teenager had ingested too much pollen on a dare. Flowers: the natural high. All the kids were doing them. They’d have to license and regulate all the florists, hire extra security at the botanical gardens.
Where the fuck had that come from? Maybe he was scared of needles.
This was ridiculous. He had spent half his life in mining towns all around the world, crawling under fences, getting mud all over himself, learning how to use Swiss Army knives, and getting splinters while making lean-tos. He had a scar between his thumb and forefinger from the time he had accidentally grabbed some barbed wire while trying to help his friend retrieve a soccer ball. Hell, he was comfortable with drills and axes, and he worked around knives now. A couple of thin, stainless-steel needles administered by some chilly old woman in a lab coat would hardly hurt him.
He called out an irritated “hello,” and stood up. In the restaurant business, you didn’t keep people waiting. There was always something to offer: a glass of wine, a basket of bread, a refolded napkin, new silverware, a lighted candle. Professionals knew how to distract before they struck. He liked to train his wait staff as if they were assassins. Each little gift, each inquiry, each movement was part of a master plan.
Evidently, someone had heard him, though. After a thump and a muffled curse, the doctor finally swept open the door to the inner office. Ian pressed his lips together, ready to face a cranky old woman who didn’t know or care about the state of her waiting room. He was going to march in, get poked, and march out. It would be easy.
A woman strode through and looked right at him.
Wow, he thought for a dazed minute. Wow.
She was definitely not old. In fact, she looked a lot younger than his thirty-two years, a fact emphasized by her elfin features, her pointy little nose, tawny skin, and short, dark hair. He shook his head to clear his addled brain. This small, vivacious woman with the sharp gray eyes was the doctor, he reminded himself. Suddenly, the thought of receiving a thousand hurts from her hands was nothing compared to the way her eyes flashed when she caught sight of him.
Then he remembered. He was beginning something meaningful with a great, wonderful woman. He certainly wasn’t attracted in any way to a disorganized, jumpy-looking allergist—his doctor, for heaven’s sake. He was here for shots to smooth his way to move in with his girlfriend and her damned cat and live happily ever after. His time in this office was sure to be unpleasant, and full of stabbing and bleeding and itching. As she approached, he told himself that Dr. Lale smelled nothing like baked goods. She probably had chilly fingers and cleaned her skin with alcohol swabs. She probably wore latex gloves to bed.
Dammit, he was not picturing the allergist’s lithe little body in bed, was he?
Eyes on the prize, he reminded himself. Eyes on the prize.
He thought of his plans for the future and gave the doctor a dark glower for making him forget.
• • •
Wow, Petra thought, taking in her new patient’s dangerous glare, this guy really doesn’t like me.
Granted, she was supposed to stick him with a bunch of tiny needles today, and some of those pricks were bound to itch. But he was one of the first patients in her new office, and she needed all the allergy-ridden bodies she could bring in to keep her fledgling practice afloat. She needed him to like her or, at least, return.
Petra led him into her office and stifled a sigh. She hadn’t honestly thought that attracting people to her practice would be so difficult. She was already a worrier, and her puny patient base was making her desperate. She wasn’t asking for much, just enough money to keep her in sensible shoes and make regular contributions to her retirement fund. She was fascinated by the immune system and all the little signals and subtleties that made it go haywire. But she admitted that she also thought allergy and immunology would afford her some measure of comfort and serenity. She would have regular hours. Patients would come by for shots, maybe a panel or a breathing test. Sometimes she would deal with a patient’s asthma, but, for the most part, no shrieking at nurses in the ER, no crazy hours, no loonies, no nonsense.
No patients.
Well, no, there was one patient, right here, right now, with molten brown eyes framed by silver glasses. He glared at her as if she had already plunged a syringe into his arm. She wondered how long he had been sitting in her waiting room, and why she hadn’t heard him come in. Somehow, somewhere, she needed to locate a scrap of professionalism.
She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she was the physician. She was in charge and she had some big needles. “You’re here for an allergy screening, is that right, Mr. Zamora? I’m sorry there wasn’t anyone to greet you today. My receptionist must have stepped out.”
That wasn’t exactly the truth. Business was so slow, Petra could only spring for a part-timer named Joanie who studied acting at the Willamette Academy of Drama. Joanie read from the complete works of J.R.R. Tolkien when the phone wasn’t ringing—which was almost always. So, yes, the receptionist had stepped out.
For the rest of the week.
The Two Towers still lay on Joanie’s desk.
Ian Zamora was making Petra so nervous that she was lying.
Petra put on a perky smile. She noticed that he waited until she sat down. Good manners, nice hair, great deltoids, she tol
d herself, then tamped down the thought immediately.
“Maybe I should tell you a little bit about the test. It’s called an allergen-specific IgE panel,” she said, straightening her spine.
As she spoke, she cast her trained eye over the patient. Fit, she thought. Lean. Tall. Dangerous.
He’s a patient, she reminded herself before her thoughts meandered in an unethical direction. Fibulae, tibulae, T cells, and lymph nodes, pecs, those deltoids again—well-developed deltoids outlined subtly under a tailored, blue button-down—beautiful, long quadriceps under his jeans. A runner maybe? He was certainly rangy but gifted with a graceful elasticity that was evident even in the way he walked and sat down. She shied hastily from that thought. An image of Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, appeared in her head. He waggled his finger and tried to make himself heard over the shrill voice of Petra’s hormones. Do no harm, he intoned, and quit ogling your patient. But really, did this Ian Zamora have to have such piercing brown eyes? Did he have to have knife-like cheekbones?
“Um, did you need me to fill out any paperwork?” he asked, shifting his athletic frame in the chair.
She gave a startled jump. Christ, she’d forgotten about the insurance forms. She straightened and tried to look like she’d been doing this forever and that he wasn’t one of the first patients in her practice.
Maybe he hadn’t noticed. “You can fill it out while we’re waiting for the results of the test,” she said. “It’ll keep your mind off things.”
“That’s actually a good idea.”
“Hum. Yes. Well, let me get a few more of your particulars, Mr. Zamora.”
“Ian.”
“Right,” she snapped. “Ian.”
She took out her smartphone and began asking him the standard questions about medications. The next moments flew by. She felt soothed by the familiar rhythm of the exam. She loved being a doctor. Even the routine things felt good: washing her hands, listening to heartbeats and checking blood pressure, pricking and marking the skin. It was the peripheral stuff—filling out insurance forms, figuring out the copays, even just talking to her receptionist (when she was there)—that threw her for a loop. She took out the panel and settled it into his skin, then withdrew it carefully. She gave him his paperwork, took his insurance card, and told him she’d be back in a few minutes. In front of the photocopier, she held her head between her hands.
Six years of med school, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Now, Petra was standing in front of a combination fax/copier/printer that she barely understood. She stabbed at a button with her finger. It worked! You are awesome! she told herself.
It was the little things.
She looked around her. The honey-colored floors of the office were unscuffed by feet, and the coffee table shone glossily at her, polished to within an inch of its life. There was no dust lurking in the corners or curling under desks. She had beautiful equipment: an automatic blood pressure cuff, a customized records system, a USB spirometer that plugged into her laptop, a slim, European medical refrigerator with rows of tiny bottles filled with allergens. Her office was perfect. It was everything that she had ever dreamed of. Except…
Except, if she didn’t start getting patients soon, she would tear through her savings and the money her father had left her. And if she lost all of her nest egg, she’d definitely have to close up the office. She rubbed her forehead. She would have to go work at Pronto!Docs, known among her classmates as The Factory, a multi-armed practice with offices in malls across the city. A couple of her medical school buddies worked there and they loathed it. Patients shuttled through the offices as if transported in and out on conveyor belts, and physicians acted like prescription-writing machines. But business poured in regularly and everyone got paid, which was far more than Petra could say for her own modest office.
She took a deep breath. She could stick out this early dry spell. She had a few patients. Ian Zamora could potentially be another. She just had to be friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. Professional. She knocked on the office door and let herself in, then scrutinized his forearm. She touched his skin gently and for a moment, they were silent.
“Looks like you reacted to the dust,” she said, blinking. “Cats, too. But that’s all.”
She took her hand away.
“I want the shots,” Ian Zamora said, delivering the line with the coldness of an aristocrat. His eyes behind his glasses were inscrutable.
Was this guy for real?
“Uh, yes. Well, we can book them for your next visit, but first, I should probably discuss some of the options open to you,” Petra said, pursing her lips to keep from an irrational urge to laugh. “Immunotherapy—the shots—will certainly lessen your reactions. But you’d have to come in once a week for the jabs and stay here for at least half an hour afterward so that we can monitor your reaction. It takes a long, long time—some people do this for years. And since you’re only really allergic to dust and cats, you might be able to control the reaction with medication and avoidance of allergens.”
Ian Zamora cleared his throat. “So if I understand you correctly, Doctor, you’re actually trying to discourage me from coming here, week after week for a year or more, for your services?”
“I’m just trying to make sure you know all your options.”
Ian Zamora shook his head and the beginnings of a smile finally began to play on his face. “That is what we call bungling the upsell.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you should try to convince people to use the full extent of your services, no matter what.”
His face changed suddenly and his voice dropped into the discreet tones of a waiter. “May I suggest a bottle of the 1927 Grapé de Welch’s to go with your entrée, ma’am? Our sommelier can recommend a wine pairing for your salad. Dessert? Coffee? Tea? Dessert wine? Cookie plate? Surely a woman of your beauty hardly need watch her figure. An aperitif to go with your crème brulée, perhaps?”
“I’ll take it all,” Petra said dryly. Then she flushed. She wasn’t here to joke around. “But it’s not really the same thing. I’m not out to make piles of cash off of people’s ailments. Although I do need to start thinking of it more as a business. But my main duty is to make sure that patients stay well and, I don’t know, live to come in another year. I don’t believe in making people do something completely unnecessary and potentially harmful.”
Ian looked wry, and a dimple appeared at the corner of his mouth. “So earnest. You’re new at this, aren’t you?”
“How can you tell?”
“The last doc told me I was allergic to ragweed, oaks, elms, dogs and feathers, and twenty different kinds of flowers. She recommended that I come in for a whole fusillade of needles, prickles, and ointments and pills. She wanted me to buy four different medications, and she told me we should do some food allergy testing. I balked, of course. Until now, I hadn’t seen a reason to do anything about my allergies.”
“Well, I’m not saying that she’s wrong about your other sensitivities,” Petra said carefully. “But some physicians find it, um, worth their while to err on the side of caution.”
This time, Ian Zamora gave a real laugh. His eyes crinkled at the corners and his mouth opened wide to reveal slightly snaggled teeth. It was appallingly charming. Petra felt the full force of it in her solar plexus. “You’re not saying she’s wrong, but you are trying to find a nice way of telling me that she was full of shit,” he said.
“If we must use layman’s terms.”
They exchanged a long look.
“Well, I want to receive the full, long treatment, Doc. I won’t avoid cats because I have a special fondness for crazy cat ladies. My girlfriend is one.” He smiled at Petra for some unspecified reason. “And nothing’s going to persuade me to clean under my couch. I’ve got a little dust-bunny commune going there. They’re like my roommates.” He paused, and glanced at Petra almost coyly. “I’ll bet your place is immaculate.”
Underneath the glasses, he had long lashes.
Petra grimaced. “Uh, no, my place is not immaculate. Why would you think that?”
“I guess I imagined it would be like this office.”
They both glanced around at the shiny floors and Petra’s bare desk. The glass and steel refrigerators hummed quietly in their corner. Petra laughed again even as she felt a little pang. “It’s very spartan, isn’t it? But it is supposed to be a place of business. It doesn’t reflect who I am.”
Not that she cared who he thought she was under the white coat, of course.
He quirked an eyebrow, which caused Petra to stop breathing.
“No, I suppose not,” he said. “Besides, I hate to think what my office says about me.”
Don’t ask him any personal questions. He was clearly too dark and intense and masculine for the likes of her. It wouldn’t inspire confidence if the allergist began hyperventilating in her own office. She turned away to hide her blush, and let out a small stream of air from her nose. “Okay, because you’ve decided you want to come in for the full course of shots, let me write out a couple of prescriptions and set up the first appointment for you for next week.”
Rattling off instructions about nasal spray and pills helped restore her competence, in her own mind at least. She loaded his arms with leaflets about immunotherapy and a pile of samples, and practically pushed him out the door.
When he was safely gone, she sat down in one of the waiting room chairs. Her body tingled. She had never had this kind of reaction to a patient before. She hoped it would get better over time.
CHAPTER TWO
Somewhere, in some handbook about single life, there was a chapter on what reasonably attractive, professional women should be doing at eight o’clock at night in the city. Staring at the ceiling while lying in bed, twitchy and alone, was probably not one of those things.
But it was hard to think about going out when she didn’t have any money, or rather, when she was acutely aware of the trickle of pennies clinking from her purse. Ramen noodles had started to seem outrageously expensive.
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