Love on Call

by Shirley Hailstock

  Just then the lights went out, plunging them both into absolute darkness.

  The blackout was surprising, but it gave Mallory the opportunity she needed. She had known it was Brad chasing her. She’d seen him standing in the stairwell and had panicked. Then the hunt had begun.

  She recovered from the sudden blackness before he did. Yanking her arm free, she dropped to a crouch, grabbed his ankles and pulled him off balance. He went down hard on the concrete floor.

  Mallory heard Brad cry out in pain, but knew he hadn’t hurt more than his pride. Sitting might be difficult for a day or so, but he would be all right. She fled.

  She was accustomed to darkness and stairwells. She knew exactly which landing they were on and how many stairs she had to descend in order to reach the exit. Counting to herself, she agilely negotiated the steps, her feet as sure as if she’d grown up climbing mountains.

  With only a second to spare, Mallory went through the door on the ground floor as the emergency generators kicked in and the lights came on. There were no patient rooms or nurses’ stations on the first floor. The space was designed for admitting and discharging patients, giving information and directing visitors. The emergency room was on the other side of the building.

  Brad wouldn’t be far behind her. There was an exit only a few feet away. Mallory turned toward it; that was the logical place for her to go. She opened the door wide, but instead of going through it, she let it swing shut, and ran along the corridor instead. All elevators in the hospital automatically returned to the first floor when not in use. She pushed the button and the doors opened with a silent whoosh of air.

  Mallory got in.

  She laughed as she drove away from the hospital long minutes later. She’d escaped. She’d escaped from Brad. He would love to find out who she was, who the ghost was. He was adamant about turning the intruder over to hospital security. She would have loved to have seen his face when he discovered it was her.

  Her laughter stopped. It would be awful if he did catch her. What would happen to Margaret Keller? She hadn’t wakened. She still had no visitors. And the other patients? The ones Mallory hadn’t gotten to?

  Tonight she’d had a close call. She couldn’t let it happen again. And she knew security would be tighter from now on. Brad would make certain of that.

  Her phone was ringing as she came through the door. Mallory ran for it, shrugging out of her coat and picking up the receiver.

  “Hello,” she said, sure at this hour it had to be the hospital.

  “Mallory.”

  “Brad?”

  Nature dictated that the oldest had more experience and was therefore the wiser. But there were exceptions to every rule, and Brad and his older brother, Owen, constituted an exception. Brad had been the one finding food and places for them to sleep after their mother left. He’d eluded the police and come up with the meeting place in case the two of them got separated. Brad had taken care of Owen instead of the other way around. But they loved each other, bonding by blood and circumstance. No one could separate them and they would never abandon each other.

  Owen had long ago come to terms with their mother’s disappearance. Or so he’d led everyone to believe. He played the happy-go-lucky role, but Brad understood his brother well and knew it was only an act. Still, how Owen would react when he learned their mother was alive and living only a few hundred miles away was an unknown.

  Brad’s own reaction to the news had been unexpected. He’d always sworn that if he ever found out where she was, he would be there in no time, confronting her, accusing her, demanding to know why she’d left them, why she’d stopped loving them. Why she’d allowed them to spend the last twenty years living in limbo, not knowing if she was alive or dead. Yet he hadn’t done it. He’d kept the information to himself. He hadn’t called Owen or his adopted brothers and sisters. He hadn’t flown to Austin to confront her. He hadn’t told a soul. Only Mallory.

  He missed seeing her, holding her. As much as his reaction—rather his nonreaction—to his mother’s situation had surprised him, his reaction to Mallory was an equal, though pleasant, surprise. He’d gone to her on several occasions when he needed someone. And he wanted to keep going. He liked the way he could talk to her, tell her his secrets and not find them on the lips of every nurse in the E.R. He liked the way she felt in his arms, the way she handled a hot-air balloon. He liked everything about her. He needed her.

  Earlier tonight he’d almost driven to her house. After learning the news about Lori’s death and then chasing and missing the “ghost,” he could only think of going to see Mallory. He wondered about her all the time. Yet when he saw her he wouldn’t let on that she was anything more to him than one of the hospital residents.

  But she was more.

  Much more.

  He knew he was acting like jerk. Owen would be the first to tell him so. Brad had called her from the police station, had gone ballooning with her and had spent the most wonderful night of his life in her arms. Still, he couldn’t let Mallory think that their night together meant anything more than two adults needing sexual gratification. He couldn’t let her see that it meant more than that to him.

  It was his way of slowing things down before they led anywhere. He didn’t often find himself in this position. He stayed away from entanglements with women. Those he slept with were one-night stands or women who weren’t looking for long-term relationships.

  But with Mallory it was different. It hadn’t started out being serious. It had just happened. And he couldn’t let it go any further. Every woman he’d ever been close to had left him, starting with his mother.

  Sharon Yarborough. Thinking of her reminded him of Owen. Brad needed to tell him.

  He reached for the phone….

  Brad’s deep baritone voice came across the line. Mallory froze. Had he known he was chasing her?

  “Are you still my therapist?” he asked.

  He was sending such mixed messages. He’d stood over Lori’s bed and virtually told Mallory to steer clear of him. And now he was on the phone asking her to be his confidante. If he were someone else, she would have thought he was playing head games with her, but the tone of his voice said something else.

  “Of course,” she heard herself saying. She sat on a kitchen stool, apprehension causing her heartbeat to accelerate. “Are you in need of therapy?”

  Mallory wondered what kind of therapy. It was the early hours of the morning. Did they need a session tonight? Would she see him? How she hoped so. She wanted him…in her bed.

  “I’m sorry, Mallory. I don’t need to involve you in…” He left the sentence hanging.

  “Has something happened?” Mallory asked, genuinely concerned.

  “Lori died tonight.” His voice was strained. Mallory could hear the pain in it. Like cold water, his words instantly doused the fire that had ignited inside her, and she also felt a little guilty for her thoughts.

  “Are you at the hospital?”

  “No, I’m home.”

  “I’ll be right over.” Mallory hung up and grabbed her coat. She didn’t give Brad time to refuse her offer. He was concerned about all his patients, but since she’d found out about the shelter, she’d discovered he had a special connection to the children who came from there.

  She was almost out the door when she remembered where she had been tonight and what she was wearing. Backtracking, she removed her white uniform, and hid the key hanging from the green chain in her pocket and changed into jeans and a sweater.

  Morning rush hour hadn’t begun yet. The wind had died down and the storm had passed over the city. Power lines were down and tree branches scattered the road. Mallory wove her way around them and drove to Brad’s.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said when he opened the door. “I know Lori had a special place in your heart.”

  “You didn’t have to drive all the way over here. I’m all right.”

  “I know you are. I’m the one who needs therapy.” Mallory rush
ed into his arms. In a second she felt Brad’s arms encircle her. He pulled her close, burying his face in her hair and holding her almost as desperately. They stood in the doorway taking deep breaths and drawing what they needed from each other. Mallory let Brad take strength from her. She took the comfort of his arms, even knowing that there was no future for them.

  When he finally loosened his hold, he kept his arm around her waist and closed the door. Together they walked into his living room and sat on the sofa. The lights were off, leaving only a wedge of illumination coming from the hall.

  “When your residency is over, are you going into psychiatry?”

  “I gave it some thought,” Mallory told him seriously.

  “Many of the nurses have said you’re very easy to talk to. It seems like a natural direction for your career to take.”

  Mallory smoothed her hands over Brad’s. “Tell me about the kids at the shelter.”

  He took a deep breath and rested his head against the back of the sofa. “Lori had only been there a few months.”

  “Not the shelter here,” she murmured. “Tell me about the shelter you and your brother were sent to.”

  He untangled his fingers from hers and leaned forward.

  “There wasn’t a shelter for us. We were sent directly to foster care. And we ran away after the first night.”

  “Didn’t the family care for you?”

  “They weren’t really interested in us. They were in it for the money, but that’s not why we left.”

  Mallory waited in the darkness.

  “Owen and I were sure our mother was coming back. If we weren’t there she wouldn’t know where to find us. But she never returned.”

  “And you and Owen eventually found a happy family and grew up to be a doctor and an architect.”

  “We were lucky.”

  “About Lori…”

  “She wasn’t so lucky. She’d been abused, not properly cared for. She was afraid of anyone who came near her.” He turned then and looked over his shoulder. Mallory knew he couldn’t see her features. “Except you. She trusted you immediately.”

  “Her counts weren’t good. There was nothing you could have done.”

  In the dark his head bobbed up and down. “I know.”

  Mallory recognized something else in his voice. “Was there anything you wanted to say to her that you didn’t get to say?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t want her to be afraid.”

  “Of dying?”

  “She wasn’t afraid of dying. She was afraid of being hurt. So little in her life had been pleasant. I wanted to do something for her.”

  “You did,” Mallory told him. “You made her laugh. Do you know how powerful that is? For a child who has nothing, laughter is the first sign of trust. You gave that to Lori.”

  Brad was quiet. He would need time to let it sink in, time to believe he had done something truly worthwhile. Perhaps bringing laughter to a patient wasn’t considered hard to do, but to a child who’d been abused, his efforts amounted to a miracle.

  “Are you sure you’re not going into psychiatry? Because you’re very good at it,” he finally said.

  “The mind does interest me, but I’m more interested in its physiology than its psychology.”

  “Brain surgery?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are full of surprises. Had I been given a list, that is the last one I would have chosen.”

  She hunched her shoulders. “Looks can be deceiving.”

  “You’ve proved that more than once.”

  “We’re not talking about me. This is your session. Why don’t you tell me about Owen?”

  She needed to get his mind onto other things.

  Brad sat back again. He didn’t take her hand, but he smiled. Mallory heard it. “He’s the best architect in Texas.”

  “I suppose he says that.”

  “All of the time. But he is good, exceptionally good.”

  “What else does he do?”

  “He collects marbles.”

  “Marbles? Why marbles?”

  “When we were kids he was the champion marbles player. He had all kinds, cat’s eyes, clear, steelies, aggies. He has a whole room in his house where he has them on display. You’d be amazed at some of the designs he’s made with them.”

  “And what do you collect, Brad?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t you? What about children?”

  “I don’t collect—”

  “Ellen Grant, Michael Jamison, Barbara Correy, Kadeshia Speer.” She listed them. “They’re all at the shelter because you found them on the streets and took them in.”

  “I couldn’t leave them out there.”

  “That’s not the point. The point is you didn’t just happen upon them. You went looking for them.”

  “They needed someone to look for them.”

  “They needed the police or social services. They didn’t need a doctor out scouring the streets, getting arrested for kidnapping, or a worst fate. You have important work in the hospital to tend to. There are lives there that depend on you. Working all day and combing the streets at night will burn you out, and then you’ll be no good to anyone.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “No, you can’t.” She paused for effect, and to take the sting out of her words she grasped his hands and held them. “If you could handle it, you wouldn’t have called me.”

  “All right, I admit it. I collect homeless children. Is that the first step in curing me?”

  “It’s not a joke, Brad.”

  His fingers squeezed hers and quickly released them. He didn’t want her to know that her words really affected him. And she was about to increase the pressure. “You’re not looking for homeless children. You’re trying to find yourself. Don’t you know they’re all you? That each one of those kids represents a piece of you.”

  “Is that what you think? That I’m out there trying to find myself?”

  “Can you tell me different?”

  “Sure I can.” He got up and pushed his hands into his pockets, pacing back and forth.

  “Brad, you’re a very talented doctor. If something happens to you, medicine would lose, and all those children you’re trying to save won’t have you as their advocate.”

  He stopped pacing. Mallory remained quiet. Her voice was only a whisper in the dark. After a while she stood up. It was time for her to go. Brad needed to be by himself. He needed to think about some of the things she’d said to him.

  At the door she turned. “Get some sleep. And for a few hours try to forget everything that’s going on,” she said.

  Brad nodded. He stared at her for a moment, making her uncomfortable. Then he took a step forward, reaching out to take her in his arms.

  Mallory stepped back. “Don’t,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t want you to, but our lives don’t connect.”

  Chapter Eight

  Rumor spread like a plague through the hospital. Rosa Clayton, star of billboards, subway posters and magazine covers, was in the building. Brad knew there was nothing he could do about it. Rosa couldn’t help the disturbance she caused. She was beautiful and Brad was proud she was his sister. Tall and slender, with hair that swung in direct opposition to the wiggle in her hips, she naturally drew attention. Brad had seen many a guy glance in her direction. An equal number had to contend with him and Rosa’s other brothers.

  People had seen them together, and since her arrival, a steady stream of doctors and nurses gawked at them in the public cafeteria. Rosa had clear brown skin with undertones of yellow. She wore a yellow scarf today, enhancing even more her perpetually happy look the camera loved.

  “Why can’t we go somewhere else and eat?” Brad asked with irritation.

  “And miss all these nurses staring at you?” she said sardonically, her mouth forming a mischievous pout.

  “They’re not looking at me.”

  Rosa Clayton glanced around and smiled. She raised he
r hand and waved her fingers at a first-year resident who couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. Brad wasn’t in the mood for his sister’s antics today.

  “And where is this lady doctor? I want to meet her.”

  “Rosa, let it go. There is nothing between the two of us.”

  Rosa opened her eyes wide, “It’s been months,” she told him. “Even you should have made a move by now.”

  “Rosa…” There was a warning in his tone. At that moment Mallory walked into the room and Brad couldn’t help reacting. Whenever she was around his eyes were a slave to her. He looked away abruptly, becoming supremely interested in his half-eaten sandwich.

  “Is that her?” Rosa turned around, following Brad’s line of sight.

  Not only did Rosa’s gaze go to Mallory, half the people in the room swung around to look at her. Brad could see the expression on her face. She wanted to back out of the cafeteria. He wouldn’t blame her if she did. But she wasn’t going to get the chance. Rosa Clayton was on her feet and moving toward her.

  Brad couldn’t hear what Rosa said or what Mallory answered, but his sister returned to the table and Mallory went to the food line.

  “She’s going to join us.”

  “You know you aren’t too big to be spanked. And that little act warrants a walloping.”

  Rosa raised her eyebrows. “You?” she said. “Hit someone? You’d just as soon cut off your right hand.”

  Brad didn’t like living in a fishbowl. If he was sure Rosa would behave herself he would leave the two women alone and return to work. But he wasn’t sure what either of them would say.

  “So when are you going home again?” Rosa’s change of subject caught him off guard.

  “It just so happens I have a conference in Dallas, and I’ll be going next week.”

  “Wonderful,” she said. “We can make a reunion of it.”

  “I’m not going home for a reunion.”

  Rosa halted abruptly. It was her way of getting attention. Her entire body, which could be as fluid as water, turned to granite. He supposed it had something to do with her having to stand still for photos.