by Janice Lynn
“He can stay with either of us,” the older offered. “My daughter just left for college. He could stay in her room.”
The younger woman nodded her agreement.
“After the pacemaker placement, he’s not to do any pulling or tugging. He’ll possibly be able to go home the day after tomorrow if the procedure goes as expected.”
“That soon?” the women asked, looking back and forth at each other. Panic registered in their eyes.
“It’s what we’ll plan on, but of course it all depends on how he does during surgery and how he responds afterward, but I don’t foresee any problems.”
The women gave each other a frightened look. “That seems so quick. We don’t know CPR or anything like that. Are you sure we should take him home that soon? That we can take care of him?”
Daniel shook his head. “Nothing’s for sure at this point, but if it makes you uncomfortable, not knowing CPR, there’s a class offered through the hospital. Basic first aid and resuscitation is good for everyone to know. You should stop at the front desk and sign up for the next class.”
Both women nodded.
“I would feel better if I knew what to do if Daddy couldn’t breathe.”
“Me, too,” the other agreed, her gaze going to Kimberly. “Are you a doctor, too?”
“No.” Kimberly shook her head. “I worked as a cardiac nurse in Georgia for five years, but currently I’m employed by the medical company that supplies the pacemaker Daniel, uh, Dr. Travis will be placing in your father’s chest.”
“Really?” The woman looked fascinated. “I guess I never thought about where doctors got stuff like that.”
Kimberly smiled. “Most people don’t.”
“I…need…a…drink,” the patient said between pants, calling their attention back to him. Both of his daughters immediately jumped to their feet to do their father’s bidding.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t have anything by mouth tonight. I can get one of the nurses to swab your mouth to moisten it, but that’s it.”
Daniel handed Kimberly the electronic chart and she glanced over it, skimming Evert’s medications as that’s what Daniel had pulled up and must want her to review.
Immediately, she spotted a problem. “Daniel?”
“Hmm?” He didn’t glance up from checking the man’s feet and ankles.
“Did you notice anything on his medication list?”
The hint of a smile told her he had noticed and was testing her. Either the attending physician in the emergency department or the medical transcriptionist putting orders into the computer had mistakenly left Evert on his high-dose oral medications for fluid, despite the fact that he was now receiving them by IV. Evert would have been double-dosed when the morning nurse gave him his by-mouth meds.
If he got any oral medication in the morning, which was unlikely as Daniel planned to write a nothing-by-mouth order until after Evert’s pacemaker placement.
Daniel finished checking Evert and answered some of the family’s questions. When they stepped out into the hallway, he grinned.
“Good catch on the medication list. I’ll stop the oral meds when I write the nothing-by-mouth order, but I want whoever entered the order to be notified so the mistake won’t happen again.”
Kimberly nodded. Had the error not been caught and the nurse given the medication, Evert’s electrolyte imbalance would have worsened. It could have thrown him into muscle cramps, organ shutdown, or even a heart attack.
She followed Daniel to a small dictation room and watched as he entered changes into the computer. He meticulously went over the record and put in orders of his own to prepare the patient for the planned procedure next morning.
He also spoke with the nurse in charge of Evert’s care, making sure she was aware of his plan to take the patient into the cardiac lab for pacemaker placement and the medication error.
The computer would have sent a message to the pharmacy to cancel the oral doses, but Daniel liked to be thorough. Kimberly appreciated that. Too many times she’d seen assumptions made that had led to mistakes being made.
She watched his every action, admiring him more and more for his dedication to his patients, for the way he gave his all to what he did.
Although she’d worked with several excellent cardiologists, none of them compared to Daniel.
He really was the great Dr. Daniel Travis, heart surgeon extraordinaire, that she’d been hearing about weeks before arriving in Boston.
The great Daniel Travis she’d fallen in love with at first sight when she’d been only sixteen years old.
Based on the way his kiss made her feel, a lot of unresolved emotions still dwelled in her heart.
But, then, she’d never denied that she had strong feelings for Daniel. Hadn’t that been why she’d done the things she’d done? Because she cared?
It was after ten by the time they left the hospital.
Kimberly sat in the creamy leather passenger seat of Daniel’s sporty black Mercedes.
Although tired, her nerves jumped like a live wire.
Being alone with him on the way to her hotel triggered anxiety she hadn’t felt when they’d rushed to the hospital to check on Evert Reed.
Would Daniel come to her room and attempt to seduce her?
Not that she’d let him.
She wouldn’t.
But a girl needed a plan when thwarting the efforts of a man she desperately wanted.
She wanted Daniel.
Desperately. Insanely. Completely.
If she wasn’t careful she’d be the one doing the seducing, and then where would she be?
Right where she wanted to be.
In Daniel’s arms.
She gulped and stared out her window.
The drive from the hospital to her hotel only took a few minutes, but Kimberly’s eyes drooped. At first to shut out the silence looming between them, but she hadn’t slept the night before for worry at seeing Daniel, and exhaustion had caught up with her. She rested her eyes until Daniel pulled the car under the hotel awning. In only a couple more minutes she would have been fast asleep.
She expected him to hand his keys over to the valet, to insist he would accompany her inside, to at least steal another kiss, but he shook his head at the car attendant.
“I’m not staying.”
“You’re not?” She turned to him, failing to hide her surprise.
By the pleased look in his eyes she’d also failed to hide her disappointment. Disappointment she shouldn’t feel since she didn’t want him to stay. Not really.
Becoming involved with Daniel again would only complicate her life in ways she didn’t need.
“It’s late. We both have to be at the hospital early in the morning.” He placed his thumb over her lower lip and gave it a soft tweak. “No worries, love. When we share a bed again, I won’t have you so tired you’re dozing off.”
Her body shouted its protests as she climbed out of the car, smiled at the valet, and went to stand inside the hotel lobby.
She watched Daniel drive away, her heart crying that she was a fool for not persuading him to stay. What would one week of passion with Daniel hurt?
Besides everything?
Long into the night she pondered how with just a kiss he’d had her body aching for his touch. How with just seeing him so many old wounds had opened and threatened to spill all she held inside. Clearly, a good indication she needed to keep things just business between them.
Allowing Daniel to get close to her in any capacity was only begging for heartbreak, and how would she explain that to Ryan?
On Tuesday morning Kimberly arrived at the hospital bright and early to observe Evert Reed’s CRT placement. The procedure went beautifully, with Daniel allowing her to stand directly beside him during the placement.
She spent the entire day with him, shadowing his every move and becoming more and more impressed with how he handled his patients and the attentiveness he gave to every detail of their care.
Fortunately, he stuck with his truce promise while at the hospital and never made an untoward gesture. He never even acknowledged the kiss they’d shared, and other than the times she’d find herself looking at his lips, she didn’t either.
She actually enjoyed lunch, laughing as he recited some of his more humorous patient anecdotes, with Gregory occasionally throwing in a punch line or two. But her nervousness about Daniel’s plans for the night grew exponentially with each passing minute.
Would he offer to give her a ride to the hotel? Perhaps come inside for drinks? For her?
And if he did, what would she do? Because she’d be lying to herself if she thought she’d find the strength to say no.
But Tuesday night saw Daniel working late on a project that had nothing to do with CRT so she wasn’t needed, and Gregory dropped her at her hotel.
She ended up ordering room service and eating in her hotel room. Alone.
As crazy as it was, as she needed to avoid Daniel at all costs, she missed him.
Insane. She really was insane.
She slept restlessly again that night. Dreams of Daniel seeing Ryan and taking her son away from her haunted her sleep. By morning, she wanted nothing more than to pack her bags and head home before she did something really stupid.
But she couldn’t go home.
Wednesday went much as Tuesday. She spent the morning with Daniel in the cardiac lab, had lunch with him in the hospital cafeteria, and spent the afternoon observing him teaching a cardiology class on pacemakers to a group of medical students. She particularly enjoyed her visit to the university campus and found herself imagining how Daniel must have enjoyed living there during his university days.
That evening Kimberly did rounds with him to discharge a couple of the patients to whom he’d given pacemakers.
Kimberly wondered if tonight would be the night Daniel pushed to come to her hotel room.
She’d say no, of course, having decided that she couldn’t handle a physical relationship with Daniel. But if he asked, she’d suggest going to dinner. Maybe they could talk—she could learn about his life now and if he was happy.
Right or wrong, sitting alone in her hotel room just didn’t appeal when she could be with Daniel.
She glanced at him, thinking how handsome he looked in his blue scrubs, how they brought out the intensity of his eyes. How hard he worked and how admired he was within his field by the nurses, doctors, and the ancillary staff in the hospital. With good reason, his patients adored him.
“Hello, Mr. Reed. How are you feeling?” Daniel asked when they entered his hospital room.
“He’s feeling much better,” Estelle said from where she sat beside her father’s bed. “His breathing is fine, even after the respiratory therapist took off his nose thingy.”
“I can…talk for myself,” Evert corrected his daughter, giving her an annoyed look. He turned his head to Daniel and flashed a toothless smile. “Hello, Dr. Travis.”
Daniel walked over to the bed and returned his patient’s smile. “I looked over your chart and your daughter’s right—you are doing much better. Your oxygen saturations have been in the nineties this evening. I’m very pleased with how you’re doing.”
“We are, too,” Virginia spoke up, dropping her knitting into her lap. “He’s actually been laughing at things on television.”
Kimberly smiled. The simplest things often meant the most and when you didn’t have the energy to talk you sure didn’t do much laughing.
Daniel glanced at the television. “Gunsmoke. What’s Marshal Dillon up to tonight?”
A pleased smile on his face, Evert told all about the cowboy sheriff and his humorous sidekick while Daniel checked pulses in all four extremities and checked his feet and ankles for edema.
“Shh, Daddy,” Estelle said when Daniel slipped on his stethoscope and listened to the man’s chest.
When he had finished, Daniel handed Kimberly the stethoscope so she could listen. A regular heart rate and rhythm. No extra lung sounds, indicating that the fluid in Evert’s lungs was resolving.
“Excellent.” Kimberly nodded her approval. The adjective pretty much described everything Daniel touched.
Everything he was.
Time hadn’t changed the parts of him that she found so entrancing.
Oh, how she hated admitting how much he got under her skin, but the more time she spent with him the more difficult it became to deny how he made her body feel. To deny what he did to her heart rhythm without the aid of a three-lead battery-operated device.
“You had an odd look on your face a moment ago,” Daniel said after they stepped out of Mr. Reed’s room. “What were you thinking?”
“Just that you’re an excellent doctor, Daniel.” She wouldn’t humiliate herself again by telling him how proud she was of what he’d accomplished.
As proud as if she’d been by his side the whole way and had crossed that graduation platform with him. Proud that Ryan’s father was such a good man, such a good doctor.
Daniel stared at her long moments that made her wonder if she had something on her face or if perhaps he could read her mind, then he flashed a smile that melted her heart.
“Thank you.” He turned, heading toward the next patient room scheduled for a visit. “I’ve got quite a bit of paperwork to go through after I finish making rounds, but how about grabbing a late dinner?”
Happiness flittered through her, making her feel lighter than she had in ages. She should avoid him. She really, really should.
But he hadn’t said, Let me take you back to your hotel room and strip you naked. He’d offered dinner.
“I’d like that.”
“Me, too.” He grinned and went in to check on another patient, with Kimberly floating behind him.
Dinner with Daniel.
They’d have a chance to talk, catch up away from the hospital, and he wasn’t on call tonight.
Excitement fluttered through her. Crazy excitement that her mind berated her heart for feeling.
At the end of the week, her heart would break.
She’d gone through the pain of losing Daniel from her life once. Did she really think herself strong enough to face that pain anew?
Yet wouldn’t it be much worse to not spend every moment she could with a man she’d given her heart to fifteen years ago and had never got back?
She hadn’t. No matter what she’d told herself over the years, her heart belonged to Daniel. Always had, likely always would.
But minutes before they were preparing to leave the hospital an off-duty police officer took a bullet in the chest and all plans came to a halt.
The cardiologist on call was the injured man’s cousin and he specially requested Daniel to perform the tedious task of removing the bullet from the left heart wall and trying to repair the damage.
Although the task before him offered little hope of success, Daniel, being Daniel, didn’t refuse his colleague’s appeal.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, pausing only long enough to tell Kimberly he’d see her in the morning.
“Me, too, but I understand.” She bit back her disappointment, feeling ashamed that she dared feel loss when a man’s life teetered in the balance.
“Kimberly?” Daniel’s fingers tipped her chin, making her look at him. “Something changed this afternoon, didn’t it? In Evert Reed’s room? When you look at me now…”
She met his eyes, and could have lost herself in how blue they were.
“We’ll talk later.” He took a deep breath and gave a self-derisory shake. “I’ve got to get into surgery, stat. Wish me luck.”
It wasn’t what he was going to say. They both knew it, but Daniel had already headed to join the surgical team trying to save the police officer’s life.
“Good luck, Daniel,” she said, watching him disappear through a set of double doors without a backward glance.
Kimberly lingered in the hallway, feeling silly and out of place, but she hated to leav
e until she heard the officer’s status.
Daniel would be in surgery for hours.
That was, if things went well, because the only way Daniel would finish sooner was if the officer died. Unfortunately, no one expected the man to make it through the surgery, much less through the night.
If the worst happened, she’d like to be there for Daniel.
She grabbed dinner in the hospital cafeteria and chatted with Gregory for a few minutes when he joined her at her table.
“You and Daniel knew each other in Atlanta?” he asked, eyeing her from across the table.
If she refused to talk, it would only raise Gregory’s suspicions.
“We both lived in a small suburb outside Atlanta.” She decided to tell Daniel’s colleague the same thing she’d told Sage. “Daniel was a grade ahead of me in high school.”
“Was he Mr. Perfect back then, too?”
“Mr. Perfect?” She hadn’t caught any sarcasm in Gregory’s tone, but she asked for clarification just in case.
“You know, popular, athletic, smart, good with the ladies?”
She laughed. “Yes, Daniel was all of those things.”
So was his son.
“You and he were an item?”
How did she answer that? She wouldn’t lie to one of Daniel’s partners, but she really didn’t want to discuss their past with a virtual stranger.
Then again, from watching them together, she could tell Gregory and Daniel were good friends and had been for some time.
“We were dating when he moved to Boston for medical school.”
“He dumped you for Boston?” Gregory looked a bit incredulous.
“Not exactly.” She wouldn’t tell him she’d been the one to end things. For some reason, what Daniel’s friends thought of him mattered, and she didn’t want to sully his image in any way. “It was more of a mutual decision.”
For a moment she thought Gregory was going to push for more details, but he took a sip of his soda. “And now work sends you here to him.” He shook his head in wry humor. “Funny how life works, isn’t it?”
Funny, indeed.
After a couple of hours of not hearing anything, Kimberly caught a cab back to her hotel and called Ryan. She caught her son and his friend playing their guitars. They sang a new song they’d written the night before and she listened over the line, her eyes closed, wondering what Ryan would say if he knew who she’d spent her day with.
