by Natalie Ann
“Thanks,” Grey said, standing up. “And I’m assuming this needs to be kept quiet?”
“I wouldn’t talk too much about it, or watch who you do tell. Colt obviously isn’t an issue. It’s your choice on if you want to tell family or Sierra, but be discreet. We don’t know everything and it’s best not to say too much.”
He left Lucas’s office and called Colt first. “I’ll get right on it,” his brother said. “Send me over his name and records and I’ll have our PI look into his past and history.”
“I’m sure the hospital is doing that too,” he said.
“And I trust Lucas, but wouldn’t you trust your brother more?”
“Of course. I’ll send over what I can when I get back to the office.”
When he was in his office, Jack knocked on his door. “Hey, sorry.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Lucas asked me to look over the MRI and diagnose before I even knew who it was or what was going on. You know as well as I do that happens here. Other doctors are asked and not told why they are doing it, but in this case...”
“Six degrees of separation, I know.”
“It will work out. Lucas is the best there is.”
“Colt tells me Ryan is the best.”
Jack smirked. “As a defense attorney, no offense to your brother, but Ryan is hands down the best in this area. Are you bringing Colt in?”
“Yeah. I just talked to him. Lucas is aware.”
“It’s going to be fine. Call Sierra, spend the night together and put it out of your mind or confide in her. Whatever makes you feel better. Trust me, sometimes it’s good to know you’ve got some shoulders to lean on when you need them.”
That just reminded him that when Sierra was going through her issues she didn’t have anyone she could depend on.
Well, that was wrong. She had her family just like he had his. But wouldn’t it be nice to have someone else?
Someone special.
Someone he was growing to care for.
Someone he saw himself falling in love with and spending the rest of his life with.
He did what Jack suggested and called Sierra, leaving a message for her.
When Sierra had a break, she pulled her phone out and listened to the message from Grey. He never called her, only texted.
“Hey, it’s me. Do you mind coming over tonight and staying? It’s not been a good day and, well, I’d like to just have you around.”
That racing heart she had last week was nothing compared to the reaction she was having now from the words that Grey’s recording was saying.
She knew he was troubled, she could hear it, and wanted to call him back right away but assumed he was probably seeing a patient.
She texted that she’d go home and pack a bag and meet him at his house when he was done.
He replied ten minutes later to say he’d be out on time to just come over when she was ready.
She put her phone away and went back to work.
When she got to his house around five thirty, he was holding the door open for her making her a bit nervous as to what was going on.
“Hey, you,” she said, going into his arms and giving him a hug. He looked like he needed it. And part of her was just losing herself daily to him making her want to make him feel better. Making her realize that as much as she said she couldn’t handle standing up to people anymore because she couldn’t go through it again, she realized that was wrong.
That she’d do it every day of every week if it was for someone she cared for.
“Everything okay?”
“No,” he said, pulling her in and shutting the door. “I’m being sued.”
“For what?” she asked, pushing back.
“I’ve got a patient that said I misdiagnosed him and he ended up getting injured even worse, had surgery with another surgeon, and experienced complications from that.”
She didn’t want to jump the gun and knew she couldn’t really say what she wanted, at least at this moment, without knowing who he was talking about. “Did you misdiagnose him? Please don’t think I’m insulting you, but I’m just asking.”
“No,” he said, threading their fingers together. “I didn’t. We can all make mistakes. I went back and looked over his MRI. If it came across my desk right now, I’d do the same thing. Lucas had a few other doctors look it over without saying what was going on and they all diagnosed it the same. Even the same treatment. Jack was one of the doctors and came in to talk to me.”
“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” she said, running her hand down his arm.
“That is what Lucas tried to assure me. The thing is they sent over the MRI of his knee before he had surgery a few weeks ago and there was significantly more damage. No one knows what happened. I told him to keep the brace on until he saw me again and he never came back. He canceled his appointment.”
“Oh.”
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Your face just paled.”
“I’m not sure what to say or do right now.” She hated the position she felt like she was in. Would talking make things worse without knowing everything? But it was Grey in front of her. Someone she knew she was falling in love with.
“Meaning what?” he asked. “Do you know something? You don’t even know who I’m talking about.”
“I think I do. Is it the same one who saw you after he saw me the first time?”
He paused. “Actually I think it was. You told him I was a nice guy and he thanked me and shook my hand. He was thrilled he didn’t need surgery. Do you know him?”
“He had a follow up with Dr. Boswell last week which has nothing to do with you, but he was limping and talking about having surgery and said some things.”
“Did he mention my name?” he asked.
She nodded. “I just let him talk and didn’t say anything. You know how patients are. Sometimes they just want to gab, but I’m not stupid enough to give my opinion, medical or not, on something that doesn’t pertain to that appointment.”
“And you didn’t tell me?!” he shouted at her, standing up and pacing.
“Whoa. Where is this coming from?” she asked, feeling her blood pressure rising enough to spin the needle on the meter and break the glass.
“You. You get burned for speaking up in the past and now you don’t.”
“Don’t compare the two. That was different. That was something I witnessed and that put lives in danger. This is one person’s word that I don’t have any of the details on.”
“But he said my name and you know me. You know me damn well too.”
“I’m beginning to think I don’t know you well enough!” she shouted back. It was yell or burst into tears. How could this be happening again? She should have kept her mouth shut.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that you are jumping down my throat over something that I didn’t think I could say because I wasn’t going to violate any HIPPA laws. He was just talking. He’d never said anything about a lawsuit. Do you know how many patients come in complaining of their own doctor or other doctors? If it’s a serious allegation then we pass it on. You know that. This wasn’t.”
“What did he say?” Grey asked.
“You know what?” she said, grabbing her purse. She refused to cry in front of him. She was done crying. “I’m not going to be put in the middle of this.”
“You said you’d do what is right if you had to do it over again. You’d do it every day of the week,” he accused her.
“Yes, I will, but that doesn’t mean I need to tell it to you.”
She walked out of his door, got in her car, the tears running down her face. She couldn’t believe the position Grey was putting her in. She didn’t need this again. She didn’t need this pressure or this stress.
But she did have the information and she did know the right thing to do, and if it meant having more problems again or losing Grey, then she’d have to deal with it.
> When she got home, she called Cori, “Can I have Lucas Mathews’s phone number? I need to talk to him about something.”
“Oh boy,” Cori said. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing bad. Not like you think. It’s something to help, at least I hope, but I need to talk to him and find out if it will or not and what I can and can’t say.”
“It sounds like you’re crying,” Cori said.
She sniffled a little. “The number please?”
“Sure, I’ll text it to you now.”
She took a deep breath, disconnected the call with Cori, waited for the text and hit the blue lined numbered. “Hi, Lucas, this is Sierra Stone. I’m sorry to bother you at home, but I think I might have some information regarding Grey Baxter’s lawsuit.”
24
Cool His Jets
A week had gone by and Grey hadn’t heard one word from Sierra. Not that he’d made any attempt to contact her either. He wanted to. He’d picked his phone up to call or text multiple times and then put it down.
He was still ticked off she’d never said a word even though he understood where she was coming from. But saying a patient spoke his name isn’t that big of a deal. She wasn’t releasing anything pertaining to the reason Sean was at Dr. Boswell’s office. He was complaining about another doctor.
About the man she was sleeping with. The man he was hoping she was falling in love with but now he had to wonder if he messed up.
Was he determined to find someone and then lose her again?
His email went off, so he switched over to see what it was. It was lunchtime and normally he would have tried to meet up with Sierra but knew asking for that wouldn’t work. He’d need more time for them to talk.
If they did.
The email was from Lucas asking him to come up when he had a chance. He replied back he’d come up now if that worked.
It wasn’t a minute later when he got the reply, so he pushed back and went to the legal department hoping not to be delivered any more bad news.
The secretary was nowhere to be found, but Lucas walked out. “Come on in.”
“Thanks for seeing me so fast,” he said. “I’ve got about forty-five minutes before my next patient.”
“It won’t take that long and aren’t doctors always late anyway?”
He smiled. Lucas was grinning so maybe it wasn’t all that bad. “We don’t plan it that way. At least I don’t.”
“I know. So I spoke with Sierra last week.”
“You did?” he asked. Why wouldn’t Sierra have told him?
“Yes. You didn’t know?”
“No. We haven’t talked in a week,” he admitted.
“Interesting. Care to share why? I was under the impression you two were pretty close which is why I was hesitant to look into what she’d said.”
“I knew she’d spoken to Sean and we’d fought. I wasn’t happy she withheld that information,” he said. There was no reason to say the reason that Sierra moved here. For all Grey knew, Lucas was aware of it anyway.
“I could see where that might tick me off being in a relationship with someone. But the truth is, what she said helped us know where to look, but it wasn’t enough on its own to change anything.”
“Colt has been looking into Sean and hasn’t found anything.” At least when he talked to Colt a few days ago he hadn’t said much.
“I’ve spoken to Colt too.”
“He never told me.” What the hell was going on that no one was letting him know anything?
“No reason he would. We are representing you and he is also representing you individually should you need it. You shouldn’t, but lawyers share information without telling the clients a lot of the times.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Just know that what Sierra said made no difference. Her reason for not saying anything was a sound one. If she’d told you two weeks ago before you knew of the lawsuit, what would you have done?”
“I might have looked at his chart and seen he hadn’t followed up with me and then just brushed it off.”
“Exactly. Anyway, once I got his full chart here from his other surgeon and read the notes that he injured his knee playing basketball, we noticed the date. He was playing basketball three weeks after you’d put him in a brace. Our investigators found the gym he goes to and asked around.”
“Do I want to know how you found it or what you asked?”
“No, you don’t,” Lucas said. “But know that Sean was there playing basketball with his buddies a few times that week and none of them said he had a brace on his knee.”
“Idiot,” Grey said.
“Exactly. There are also security cameras going in and out and all I need is a warrant to see him walking in without the brace, walking out without it, and the dates. I informed his lawyers of that, along with copies of our medical records and that he never followed up. On top of playing basketball, which wasn’t on the list of things to do, he wasn’t wearing the brace, which he was told to do for four weeks.”
“What was his lawyer’s response when you sent that all over?”
“Well, we held off sending over all our notes until we got the complete file,” Lucas said, grinning.
Grey would never understand lawyers and how they worked. “And?”
“And the suit is no longer against you or Albany Med. What he chooses to do about the complications he had from surgery is not your concern. My guess is he doesn’t have much there either. We all know the risks of surgeries. St. Peter’s has sent over a request for Mr. Webster’s medical files too, and of course he’d signed off to let them be released. They will most likely see he didn’t follow up with you and they will bring up that he may not follow orders.”
“Will you let them know what you found out about him playing basketball?” he asked.
“Not unless they ask. My battle was to clear your name. I did. Cut and dry and easier than I would have hoped for.”
“Thanks,” Grey said, standing up and shaking hands.
“Not a problem. Now it seems to me you need to fix another problem.”
“Yeah, don’t remind me.”
Sierra was in the tub when her phone went off. She reached over and picked it up to see the text from Grey asking if they could talk.
She snorted, picked up her wine and downed it. What she wanted to do was send him the emoji of the middle finger, but that would be childish.
She didn’t do anything wrong in her eyes. Even Lucas told her he appreciated her coming forward but it wasn’t anything that could be used. They already knew how the injury occurred to Sean and they were looking into it.
Which meant she looked like a snitch by going to Lucas and that made her feel even more like shit.
If she hadn’t had to deal with what she had in Buffalo she wouldn’t have said anything to Lucas at all, as it wasn’t that big of a deal, just like she’d try to tell Grey.
Even then, Grey hadn’t even attempted to call her in a week. She wasn’t reaching out to him and stuck to her guns, even if she felt like shit and missed the hell out of him.
Well, he could just cool his jets. She was going to enjoy her bath.
Twenty minutes later she was shivering in the water. Staying in to prolong responding was just punishing herself.
Of course she could just ignore him completely, but that would be immature.
She finally got out of the water, dressed, and went to get herself another glass of wine. Once she thought she was prepared enough, she texted him back. I’m here.
That was all she was going to say. The last thing she wanted was to be texting all night, but if he wanted to communicate that way, so be it.
He didn’t. The phone rang. “Hello.”
“I’m sorry.”
Wow, the first words out of his mouth. “About what?”
“You aren’t going to make this easy, are you?”
“Do you think I should? Would you in my place? I didn’t do anything wrong
and yet here we are a week later and you are just reaching out to me.”
“The phone works both ways.”
“It also disconnects easily. Is that what I should do?”
“No. Listen. A lawsuit is a doctor’s fear. We work our asses off in school. We put everything into our careers and getting there. Everything else ceases to exist so we can get to this point. We go in debt, we lose friends, we lose lovers. Then when we think we’ve finally made it, something like this can take it away too easily.”
“I understand that,” she said. “Probably better than most. I’m still being blamed for someone losing his career.”
“It’s not the same thing and you know it. What you did before was the right thing. You saved lives. My situation is different and I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. It was just a fast reaction.”
“It didn’t even make a difference, you know,” she said.
“I know. Lucas told me today.”
“So that is why you are calling to apologize?” She picked up her bottle of wine to see it was empty. What the hell!
“No. I’ve missed you. All I’ve done is punish myself and you with my behavior. I don’t know what I can say to make you believe that. I’m truly sorry. I’ve wanted to reach out so many times and then just stopped.”
“Why?”
“Eating crow isn’t easy. Those damn feathers just stick in your throat, you know?”
“That’s what wine is for,” she said.
“How much have you drunk lately?” he asked.
“Nothing until tonight. I opened a small bottle and filled a large glass for my bath.”
He groaned. “You know telling me that just turns me on. The first time we talked you were in that navy robe having just gotten out of the tub and I have all these images in my head. Now I know what you look like and it makes me hard.”
“Don’t try to be cute,” she said. “I’m still annoyed over this.”
“I know. I want to make it up to you. I want you to know I won’t do this again. That I trust you to do the right thing.”
