The Texan's Royal M.D.

by Merline Lovelace

  “And now that I think about it, doesn’t your corporation own this resort? Along with another dozen or so commercial and industrial facilities in the greater Houston area?”

  “We do.”

  “I’m guessing that’s why we got such a good deal on the lease for this condo.”

  “We try to take care of our valued customers,” Brennan acknowledged with a grin.

  “Which we certainly appreciate.”

  Devon’s positive endorsement might have carried some weight with outsiders. The two other males on the terrace preferred to form their own opinions, however. Skilled diplomat that he was, Gina’s husband, Jack, hid his private assessment behind a cordial nod and handshake. Dominic was less reserved.

  “Zia told us your young nephew almost drowned this morning,” her brother said, his dark eyes cool. “Pretty careless of your family to let him go down to the beach alone, wasn’t it?”

  Brennan didn’t try to dodge the bullet. A ripple of remembered terror seemed to cross his face as he nodded. “Yes, it was.”

  Aiming a behave-yourself glance at her brother, Zia introduced her guest to Gina, Maria and Natalie, who kept a firm hand on the collar of the lean, quivering hound eager to sniff out the new arrival. The twins regarded him from the safety of their mother’s knee, but Brennan won giggles from both girls by hunkering down to their level and asking solemnly if that was a tree sprouting from Charlotte’s head.

  A giggling Amalia answered for her sister. “No, thilly. Those are antlers.”

  “Oh! I get it. She’s one of Santa’s reindeer.”

  “Yes,” Charlotte confirmed as she held up two fingers, “and Santa’s coming to Texas in this many days!”

  “Wow, just two days, huh?”

  “Yes, ’n it’s our birthday, too!” She uncurled another finger. “We’re going to be this many years.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got some busy days ahead. You guys better be good so you’ll get lots of presents.”

  “We will!”

  With that ringing promise producing wry smiles all around, Zia led Mike to the snowy-haired woman ensconced in a fan-backed rattan chair. He swept off his hat as Zia made the introduction.

  “This is my great-aunt, Charlotte St. Sebastian, Grand Duchess of Karlenburgh.”

  Charlotte held out a blue-veined hand. Mike took it in a gentle grip and held it for a moment. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Duchess. And now I know why Zia’s last name seemed so familiar. Wasn’t there something in the papers a couple of years ago about your family recovering a long-lost painting by Caravaggio?”

  “Canaletto,” the duchess corrected.

  Her eyelids lowered and her expression turned intensely private, as it always did when talk drifted to the Venetian landscape her husband had given her when she’d become pregnant with their first and only child.

  “Would you care for an aperitif?” she asked, emerging from her brief reverie. “We can offer you whatever you wish. Or,” she added blandly, “a taste of one of the finest brandies ever to come out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.”

  “Say no and make a polite escape,” Gina warned. “Pálinka is not for the faint of heart.”

  “I’ve been accused of a lot of things,” Brennan responded with a crooked grin. “Being faint of heart isn’t one of them.”

  Sarah and Gina exchanged quick, amused glances. Downing a swig of the fruity, throat-searing brandy produced only in Hungary had become something of a rite of passage for men introduced into the St. Sebastian clan. Dev and Jack had passed the test but claimed they still bore the scorch marks on their vocal chords.

  “Don’t say you weren’t warned,” Zia murmured after she’d splashed some of the amber liquid into a cut-crystal snifter.

  Mike accepted the snifter with a smile. His dad and grandfather had both been hardworking, hard-living longshoremen who’d worked the Houston docks all their lives. Mike and his two brothers had skipped school more times than they could count to hang around the waterfront with them. They’d also worked holidays and summers as casuals, lashing cargo containers or spending long, backbreaking hours shoveling cargo into the holds of cavernous bulk carriers. All three Brennan sons had been offered a coveted slot in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union after they’d graduated from college. Colin and Sean had joined, but Mike had opted for a hitch in the navy instead, then used his savings and a hefty bank loan to buy his first ship—a rusty old tub that made milk runs to Central America. Twelve years and a fleet of oceangoing oil tankers and container vessels later, he could still swear and drink with the best of them.

  So he tossed back a swallow of the brandy with absolute certainty that it couldn’t pack half the kick of the corrosive rotgut he’d downed in and out of the navy. He knew he was wrong the instant it hit the back of his throat. He managed not to choke, but his eyes leaked like an old bucket and he had to suck air big-time though his nostrils.

  “Wow!” Blinking and breathing fire, he gave the brandy a look of profound respect. “What did you say this is?” he asked the duchess between quick gasps.

  “Pálinka.”

  “And it comes from Austria?”

  “From Hungary, actually.”

  “Anyone ever tried to convert it to fuel? One gallon of this stuff could propel a turbocharged two-stroke diesel engine.”

  The smile that came into the duchess’s faded blue eyes told Mike he’d survived his initial trial by fire. He wasn’t ashamed to grab a ready-made excuse to dodge another test.

  “I’ve made reservations at a restaurant just a couple of blocks from here,” he told her. “Would you like to join us for dinner?” He turned to include the rest of the family. “Any of you?”

  Charlotte answered for them all. “Thank you, but I’m sure Zia would prefer not to have her family regale you with stories about her misspent youth. We’ll let her do that herself.”

  * * *

  Once in the elevator, Mike propped his shoulders against the rear of the cage dropping them twenty stories. “Misspent?” he echoed. “I’m intrigued.”

  More than intrigued. He was as fascinated by this woman’s stunning beauty as by the dark circles under her eyes. She’d tried to conceal them with makeup but the shadows were still visible, like faint bruises marring the pearly luster of her skin.

  “I guess misspent is as good a description as any,” she replied with a laugh. “But in my defense I only tried to operate on the family dog once. My brother, unfortunately, didn’t get off as easily. I subjected him to all kinds of torture in the name of medicine.”

  “Looks like he survived okay.”

  He also looked decidedly less than friendly. Mike didn’t blame the man. He and his brothers had threatened bodily harm to any male who let his glands get out of control while dating one of their sisters.

  God knew Mike’s glands were certainly working overtime. Despite those faint shadows under her eyes, Anastazia St. Sebastian was every man’s secret fantasy come to life. Slender, graceful and so sexy she turned heads as they crossed the marble-tiled lobby and exited into the six acres of lush gardens at the center of the Camino del Rey complex.

  The vacation complex was only one of several projects Mike’s ever-expanding corporation had invested in to help restore Galveston after Hurricane Ike roared ashore in September 2008. The costliest hurricane in Texas history, Ike claimed more than a hundred lives and did more than $37 billion in damage all along the Gulf. Parts of Galveston were still recovering, but major investments like this beautifully landscaped luxury resort were helping that process considerably.

  A frisky ocean breeze teased Zia’s hair as she and Mike wound past the massive Neptune fountain the landscape architect had made the focal point of the gardens. Beyond the statue were two tall, elaborately designed wrought-iron gates that gave directly o
nto the beach. On the opposite side of the garden, a set of identical gates exited onto San Luis Pass Road, the main artery that ran the length of Galveston Island.

  “I made reservations at Casa Mia,” Mike said as he took her elbow to steer her through the gates. “Hope that’s okay.”

  “This is my first trip to Galveston. I’m more than happy to trust the judgment of a local.”

  Temperatures in South Texas during the summer could give hell a run for its money. In the dead of winter, however, the balmy days and sixty-five-degree evenings were close to heaven...and perfect for strolling the wide sidewalk that bordered San Luis Pass Road. Smooth operator that he was, Mike casually shifted his hold from Zia’s elbow to her forearm. Her skin was warm under his palm, her muscles firm and well-toned. He used the short walk to fill in the essential blanks. Found out she was born in Hungary. Did her undergraduate work at the University of Budapest. Graduated from medical school in Vienna at the top of her class. Had offers from a half-dozen prestigious pediatric residency programs before opting for Mount Sinai in New York City.

  She elicited the same basics from him. “Texas born and bred,” he admitted cheerfully. “I traveled quite a bit during my years in the navy, but this area kept pulling me back. It’s home to four generations of Brennans now. My parents, grandparents, one brother and two of my three sisters all live within a few blocks of each other.”

  She eyed the ultraexpensive high-rises crowding the beachfront. “Here on the island?”

  “No, they live in Houston. So do I, most of the time. I keep a place here on the island for the family to use, though. The kids all love the beach.”

  “And you’re not married.”

  It was a statement, not a question, which told Mike she wouldn’t be walking through the soft evening light with him if she had any doubts about the matter.

  “I was. Didn’t work out.”

  That masterful understatement came nowhere close to describing three months of mind-blowing sex followed by three years of growing restlessness, increasing dissatisfaction, angry complaints and, finally, corrosive bitterness. Hers, not his. By the time the marriage was finally over Mike felt as though he’d been dragged through fifty miles of Texas scrub by his heels. He’d survived, but the experience wasn’t one he wanted to repeat again in this lifetime. Although...

  His psyche might still be licking its wounds but his head told him marriage would be different with the right woman. Someone who appreciated the dogged determination required to build a multinational corporation from the ground up. Someone who understood that success in any field often meant seventy-or eighty-hour workweeks, missed vacations, opting out of a spur-of-the-moment junket to Vegas.

  Someone like the leggy brunette at his side.

  Mike slanted the doc a glance. One of his sisters was a nurse. He knew the demands Kathleen’s career made on her and on the other professionals she worked with. Anastazia St. Sebastian had to have a core of steel to make it as far as she had.

  His curiosity about the woman mounted as they turned onto a side street. A few steps later they reached the Spanish-style villa that had recently become one of Galveston’s most exclusive spots. It sat behind tall gates with no sign, no lit menu box, no indication at all that it was a commercial establishment. But the hundreds of flickering votive lights in the courtyard drew a pleased gasp from Zia, and the table tucked in a private corner of the candle-lit patio was the one always made available to the top officers and favored clients of Global Shipping Incorporated.

  “Back to subjecting your bother to all kinds of medical torture,” he said when they’d been seated and ordered an iced tea for the doc and Vizcaya on ice for Mike, who sincerely hoped a slug of white rum would kill the lingering aftereffects of pálinka. “Did you always want to be a physician?”

  “Always.”

  The reply was quick but not quite as light as she’d obviously intended. Mike hadn’t survived all those summers and holidays in the bare-knuckle world of the docks without learning to pick up on every nuance, spoken or not.

  “But....?” he prompted.

  She flashed him a look that ran the gamut from surprised to guarded to deliberately blasé. “Med school’s been a long and rather grueling slog. I’m in the homestretch now, though.”

  “But...?” he said again, the word soft against the clink of cutlery and buzz of conversation from other tables.

  The arrival of the server with their drinks saved Zia from having to answer. She hadn’t shared her insidious doubts with anyone in her family. Not even Dominic. Yet as she sipped her iced tea she felt the most absurd urge to spill her guts to this stranger.

  So why not confide in him? Odds were she’d never see the man again after tonight. There were only a few days left on her precious vacation. And judging from Dev’s comments about Global Shipping Inc., its president and CEO had a shrewd head on his shoulders. Granted, he couldn’t begin to understand the demands and complexities of the medical world but that might actually be a plus. An outsider could assess her situation objectively, without the baggage of having cheered and supported and encouraged her through six and a half years of med school and residency.

  “But,” she said slowly, swirling the ice in her tall glass, “I’m beginning to wonder if I’m truly right for pediatric medicine.”

  “Why?”

  She could toss out a hundred reasons. Like the overwhelming sense of responsibility for patients too young or too frightened to tell her how they hurt. The aching helplessness when faced with children beyond saving. The struggle to contain her fury at parents or guardians whose carelessness or cruelty inflicted unbelievably grievous injuries.

  But the real reason, the one she’d thought she could compensate for by going into pediatric medicine, rose up to haunt her. She’d never talked about it to anyone but Dom. And even he was convinced she’d put it behind her. Yet reluctantly, inexplicably, Zia found herself detailing the old pain to Mike Brennan.

  “I developed a uterine cyst my first year at university,” she said, amazed that she could speak so calmly of the submucosal fibroid that had changed her life forever. “It ruptured during winter break, while I was on a ski trip in Slovenia.”

  She’d thought at first that she’d started her period early but the pain had become more intense with each hour. And the blood! Dear God, the blood!

  “I almost died before they got me to the hospital. At that point the situation was so desperate the surgeons decided the only way to save my life was to perform an emergency hysterectomy.”

  She fell silent as the waiter materialized at their table to take their order. Mike sent him away with a quiet, “Give us some time.”

  “I love children,” Zia heard herself say into the silence that followed. “I always imagined I’d have a whole brood of happy, gurgling babies. When I accepted that I would never give birth to a child of my own, I decided that at least I could help alleviate the pain and suffering of others.”

  “But...”

  There it was. That damned “but” that had her hanging from a limb like a bird with a broken wing.

  “It’s hard giving so much of myself to others’ children,” she finished, her voice catching despite every attempt to control it. “So much harder than I ever imagined.”

  Her doubt and private misery filled the silence that spun out between them. Mike broke it after a moment with a question that cut to the core of her bruising inner conflict.

  “What will you do if you don’t practice medicine?”

  “I’ll stay in the medical field, but work on another side of the house.”

  There! She’d said it out loud for the first time. And not to her brother or Natalie or the duchess or her cousins. To a stranger, who didn’t appear shocked or disappointed that she would trade her lifelong goal of treating the sick for the sterile environment of a l
ab.

  Like all third-year residents at Mount Sinai, she’d been required to participate in a scholarly research project in addition to seeing patients, attending conferences and teaching interns. Worried by the seeming increase in hospital-acquired infections among the premature infants in the neonatal ICU, she’d searched for clues via five years’ worth of medical records. Her extensive database included the infants’ birth weight, ethnic origin, delivery methods, the time lapse to onset of infections, methods of treatment and mortality rates.

  Although she wouldn’t brief the results of her study until the much anticipated annual RRP—Residents’ Research Presentation—her preliminary findings had so intrigued the hospital’s director of research that he’d suggested an expanded effort that included more variables and a much larger sample base. He’d also asked Zia to conduct the two-year study under his direct supervision. If the grant came through within the next few months, she could start the research as her spring elective, then join Dr. Wilbanks’s team full-time after completing her residency.

  “The director of pediatric research at Mount Sinai has already asked me to join his staff,” she confided to Mike.

  “Is that as impressive as it sounds?”

  A hint of pride snuck into her voice. “Actually, it is. Dr. Wilbanks seems to think the study I’ve been working on as a resident is worth expanding into a full-fledged team effort. He also thinks it might warrant as much as a million-dollar research grant.”

  “That is impressive. What does the study involve?”

  Lord, he was easy to talk to. Zia didn’t usually discuss topics such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, aka MRSA, with someone not wearing scrubs. Especially during a candlelit dinner.

  As the incredibly scrumptious meal progressed, however, Brennan’s interest stimulated her as much as his quick grasp of the essentials of her study.

  * * *

  She couldn’t blame either his interest or his intellect for what happened when they left the restaurant, however. That was result of a lethal combination of factors. First, their decision to walk back along the beach. Zia had to remove her borrowed stilettos to keep from sinking in the sand, but the feel of it hard and damp beneath bare feet only added to her heightened perceptions. Then there was the three-quarter moon that traced a liquid silver path across the sea. And finally the arm Mike slid around her waist.