Книга - Undercover M.D.

Undercover M.D.
Marie Ferrarella


When he began his mission at Blair Memorial, undercover agent Terrance McCall collided with the only woman capable of rattling his equilibrium. Dr. Alix DuCane had grown haughty over the years, and he'd been the one to put the ice in her soul. Their love had been something so strong–something he wanted back….So Terrance assumed she would come running when he waltzed back into her life, did he? Well, Alix had a new life; she couldn't afford to let Terrance shake up her heart again. But the more time they spent together, the more she felt herself slipping back into the love that had almost destroyed her. Was there hope for them to start again…?









It couldn’t be.


Terrance McCall. The breath in her throat caught. For one frightening second, it was as if all the carefully reconstructed pieces of her once-shattered world—the pieces she had worked so hard to put together after Terrance had vanished from her life—threatened to crack apart again.

“Alix, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Do you know him?” her colleague asked.

“Yes,” she replied quietly, her mouth dry, her palms damp. “I know him.”

A ghost. It was a good way to describe Terrance. He was a ghost from her past. How many times had she wondered if he was dead? Had been convinced of it? Because if he were alive, she was certain he would have tried to explain how he could have gone from loving her to disappearing into some black hole, forever out of sight.

Here he was, older, handsomer, looking for all the world as if he’d just been away on an extended vacation.

And he was smiling.

Damn him to hell.




Undercover M.D.

Marie Ferrarella







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




MARIE FERRARELLA


earned a master’s degree in Shakespearean comedy, and, perhaps as a result, her writing is distinguished by humor and natural dialogue. This RITA


Award-winning author’s goal is to entertain and to make people laugh and feel good. She has written over one hundred books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide and have been translated into Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Polish, Japanese and Korean.


To

Sherry and Rick Newcomb,

with affection




Contents


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15




Chapter 1


She didn’t make a sound.

Even so, she felt as if her whole body had just been turned inside out and twisted. Hard.

She pressed her lips together. A silent scream filled her.

One moment, Alix DuCane was sitting in the third floor conference room, trying not to nod off as the combination of lack of air and Blair Memorial’s chief of staff giving his weekly “informal” talk conspired to put her to sleep. The next, adrenaline was charging through her body like an F15 Tomcat the split second before it broke through the sound barrier.

And all because of the name that Dr. Beauchamp had just uttered. The name of the newest addition to the hospital’s pediatric ward. Dr. Terrance McCall.

It couldn’t be.

The words vibrated within her chest.

It couldn’t be.

Almost afraid to look, unconsciously holding her breath, Alix shifted her eyes to the right as she detected movement from that side of the room.

It couldn’t be, but it was.

Terrance.

Terry.

Oh God.

The breath in her throat caught there like a solid, immovable lump. She felt as if she was choking. For one frightening second, it was as if all the carefully reconstructed pieces of her once-shattered world threatened to crack apart again. The pieces she had worked so hard to put together after Terrance had vanished from her life, leaving her with haunting questions and a heart that ached so badly she was certain it would literally break.

“Alix, you okay?”

The whispered question came from her right, from Reese Bendenetti. The surgeon leaned forward as if to get a better look at her face.

Reese was as close a friend as she had at Blair. She appreciated his concern, but this was something she couldn’t share. Not yet.

Very carefully she took in a deep breath, trying not to appear as stunned, as upset as she was.

“Yes, I’m okay. Thanks for asking.” The quip lacked her usual verve. She hoped he wouldn’t notice. The last thing she wanted right now were more questions.

Reese looked from Alix’s face to the man who had come up to join Beauchamp at the podium. Blair’s newest physician was tall, blond and good-looking in a rugged sort of way.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Do you know him?”

“Yes,” she replied quietly, her mouth dry, her palms damp. “I know him.”

A ghost. It was a good way to describe Terrance, she thought. He was a ghost. A ghost from her past. Literally.

How many times had she wondered if he was dead? Had been convinced of it? Because if he were alive, she was certain Terrance would have gotten in touch with her, if only just once. He would have tried to explain how he could have gone from loving her, from being the center of her universe, to disappearing into some black hole, forever out of sight.

Wouldn’t he have at least tried?

Yet here he was, older, handsomer, looking for all the world as if he’d just been away on a long, extended vacation.

He was smiling.

Damn him to hell.

She felt Reese shifting beside her. “You want to go out for some air?” he prodded, his voice low as Beauchamp went on talking.

Alix had known Reese for five years, and they had been there for each other, through good times and bad. He knew her as well as anyone. In all that time, she knew he’d never seen her like this. Not even when Jeff, her husband of two years, had been killed in that boating accident.

Reese could no doubt see that the man at the front of the room had left one hell of a footprint on the beach of her life.

As if set on delayed reaction, Alix waved away his suggestion, never taking her eyes off the front of the room. Off Terrance.

“I’m okay,” she declared in a whisper that was a little too fierce to be true.

She wasn’t okay. But she was a survivor and she would be. Even now, she tried to tell herself, the shock of seeing Terrance after all these years was abating.

Her heart rate was returning to normal.

Alix took another deep breath and let it out slowly as she forced a smile to her lips. She turned to look at Reese. She could feel the waves of his concern washing over her. It helped. Some.

“Really,” she added with what she prayed was a convincing note.

Alix didn’t want to admit to anything being wrong. She was incredibly independent and incredibly proud. Any show of weakness was inexcusable. She prided herself on being there for people, not vice versa.

Resigned, he nodded. “Okay, but I’m here if you want to talk.”

Just as she had always been for him, Alix thought fondly. Fighting to rally and regain control over her emotions, she placed her hand over his and gave it an affectionate squeeze.

“Ditto.”

Reese shook his head. “I’m not the one who just turned whiter than fresh snow at Big Bear.”

And he wasn’t the one who had lost his heart, utterly and completely, to the man at the front of the room, she thought. A wave of bitterness struggled to take hold of her.

Terrance McCall had been her first love, her truest love, in the days when she believed that love made you invincible and that happy endings existed beyond the pages of fairy-tale books.

What are you doing here, Terrance? After all this time, what the hell are you doing here?

Willing herself into an almost coma-like state, Alix stared straight ahead and tried to listen to what was being said. Words kept bouncing off her ears, refusing to enter or register.

Dr. Clarence Beauchamp, whose skills as a surgeon, luckily for his patients, far surpassed his oratory abilities, was still meandering his way through the introduction.

“…and Boston General’s loss, of course, is Blair Memorial’s gain.”

The tall, portly man addressed the clichéd observation to both the young doctor standing beside him and the audience being held captive before him. Beauchamp’s small lips struggled to widen into the smile that was always larger than he was actually capable of accommodating.

“Of course, we show no favoritism here at Blair. All created equal and that sort of thing.” His clear blue eyes sparkled at what he must have deemed a display of wit. “Which means in your case, Dr. McCall, that you will be treated like a cross between a god-like healer and a fledgling intern. A situation,” he hastened to add in case he was ruffling the pediatrician’s feathers, “if your record is any indication, that will change quickly, I’m sure.”

“However, for the time being you are going to need someone to show you the ropes, so to speak.” Dr. Beauchamp looked pointedly around the sea of faces before him. “Someone in your department, of course. To that end, I have reviewed all the likely candidates and decided that your best bet…and ours—” he beamed again, his thin lips straining, all but disappearing into his smile “—is Dr. Alix DuCane.”

Surprise speared through Terrance.

He managed to retain the easy smile on his lips. But that had come from years of training. Years of knowing that one false, unguarded moment could cost him not only the success of the operation he was involved in, but perhaps even his very life. Or worse, the lives of others depending on him.

Alix DuCane? Here?

“Alix is one of the finest young physicians on the staff,” Beauchamp was saying. “No small compliment, considering that Blair Memorial was voted one of the finest hospitals not just in Southern California, but in the entire country. But you undoubtedly already know that, or you wouldn’t have chosen to transfer here in the first place. Am I right, Dr. McCall?”

“Absolutely,” Terrance agreed readily.

Beauchamp’s voice droned on like so much well-intended noise in the background as Terrance scanned the small, crowded room and the occupants who sat almost shoulder to shoulder in the twelve rows of chairs arranged before the podium.

Accustomed to zeroing in on his target with skilled precision, Terrance found Alix in less than two beats of his admittedly agitated heart.

For a split second everything around him froze as he looked at her.

She was sitting beside a dark, good-looking man. From his vantage point, Terrance could see her hand was covering the man’s.

Friend?

Lover?

Once, he’d been both of those to her and more. So much more.

But that was in the past, Terrance reminded himself sternly, and this was the present. A present where he couldn’t afford to allow his emotions to get in the way of things…the way he had once allowed his emotions to bring him into this chosen profession of his. A profession that had forced him to turn his back on everything and everyone else who had been important before.

A profession that had forced him to turn his back on Alix.

She looked pale. Shock. Small wonder if it was in response to seeing him. He felt the same way about seeing her. It was only his survival instincts that prevented him from showing it.

Even pale seemed to suit her, Terrance couldn’t help thinking.

God, was it possible that Alix had grown even more heart-stoppingly gorgeous than when he had left? It appeared that the wildflower had bloomed into an exquisite orchid.

Whose life did she adorn?

Not your concern, he told himself. He’d given up the right to know, when he’d left town.

When he’d left her.

With effort Terrance roused himself, forcing his mind back to the droning voice beside him and the man who was trying his level best to make the transition easier for him.

If Beauchamp only knew….

But he didn’t. A great many people had gone through a great deal of pain to ensure that. Beauchamp, along with the others, was going to be kept in the dark until the operation was over. With any luck, that would be soon.

Beauchamp took a deep breath as he ended his narrative. “Is there anything you’d like to say or add, Dr. McCall?”

Yes, Terrance thought, there was something he’d like to say. But not to the crowd of physicians looking at him. Not even to Alix. His words would have been directed to his immediate superior, uttered in quiet, steely tones and demanding to know why someone hadn’t thought to let him know that he was going to be coming in contact with a vital portion of his past. That he was going to be coming in contact with the only woman he had ever loved.

Because no one knew, that’s why, he reminded himself. He’d left his past behind the day he’d walked away. Still, he wished that he’d somehow been forewarned, had thought to go over the hospital roster before he’d walked through Blair’s doors.

Too late now.

He could only make the best of the situation and hope that damage control would do the rest.

Terrance’s mouth curved in an easy smile that gave absolutely no indication of the inner turmoil he was attempting to quell.

He leaned over the small, unnecessary microphone that Beauchamp had insisted on using. “Just that I hope to live up to the standards that the name of Blair Memorial Hospital has come to represent.”

Like a proud father receiving a compliment about his favorite child, Beauchamp beamed.

“I’m sure you will, my boy.” The chief of staff laid a paternal hand on Terrance’s shoulder. “I’m sure you will.” His eyes swept over the room and its occupants. “Well, that’s it, ladies and gentlemen, meeting’s adjourned. Go back to saving lives and being miracle workers.”

Beauchamp chuckled at his trademark closing line. Then he raised his voice to be heard above the mounting din. “Alix, would you mind joining us?” He beckoned her forward.

Reese looked at her pointedly as he rose. “Call me,” he told her firmly. “Night or day.”

As if she would intrude on his life now that he was a married man. “London might have something to say about that,” she reminded him.

At the mention of his wife’s name, Reese grinned. Married just three months and he’d perpetually been in this state of grace that caused him to laugh to himself at unexpected, sporadic moments. As if he’d no idea that a person could feel this good and not be dreaming.

“Yes, ‘Come on over,’ if I know her.”

Alix merely nodded. He was probably right. The daughter of the ambassador to Spain had captured her best friend’s heart the instant she’d been wheeled into the emergency room last year. She was a warm, vibrant woman who had a great ability to empathize and give comfort. The two firmly deserved each other.

And what do you deserve? Alix thought as she approached the front of the room, her eyes fixed on Beauchamp and not Terrance. Certainly not to have my heart whacked around like a giant Ping-Pong ball at some phantom gaming table.

I’m over you, Terrance. I’m over you.

She silently chanted the refrain over and over again in her mind like a life-giving mantra as her steps brought her closer to the two men.

She wished she’d called in sick today. Played hooky and stayed home with her daughter. But that would have meant that Norma would have found out. The very woman who now baby-sat her child had once baby-sat her, as well. And if Norma knew something, it was only a matter of time before her father found out as well. The woman had been his housekeeper for forty years.

Daniel DuCane wouldn’t have said anything to her about her lapse, but she knew he would have been disappointed that she would flaunt the principles to which he had dedicated his life all these years. After all, it was because her father was a doctor that she had become one, too.

“Dr. Terrance McCall,” Beauchamp gestured from Terrance to Alix as he made the formal introduction, “This is Dr. Alix DuCane, and any compliment I could give her wouldn’t be nearly enough.”

“No, it wouldn’t be,” Terrance agreed, his voice a cross between being amiably impersonal and intimately warm—a trick, Alix felt, that only he could pull off.

It was time to turn the herd before it stampeded out of control and ran through the town, trampling the citizens, Alix thought. She turned toward her superior, ignoring Terrance.

“Dr. Beauchamp, I really don’t think I’m the best one for this assignment.”

“Did I mention that she was also modest?” Beauchamp asked Terrance. “Dedicated, skilled, modest, don’t know how we got so lucky. Nonsense, Dr. DuCane, you are most definitely the best one for the assignment. Besides, if only half of what I was told is correct, Dr. McCall won’t require much hand holding.” The older man, a grandfather five times over, chuckled to himself. “At least, not during official hours.”

Once the words were uttered, Beauchamp must have realized the way they could be construed. His eyes slid over Alix’s face nervously as if to see whether he had gone too far in his comment.

Alix knew the man meant no offense. Clarence Beauchamp wasn’t capable of making any lascivious comments. He was like everyone’s overly friendly, slightly addle-brained favorite uncle. Unlike his operating methods, the humor he subscribed to resided decades in the past where innocent comments were just that and carried no veiled meanings or hidden agendas. The hospital’s mandatory P.C. training had taught the older man to be cautious, but that usually kicked in only after he had said something that was jarringly out of sync with the times.

Alix had her mind on something more important than imagined incorrect statements. Survival. “I’ve got a full load, Dr. Beauchamp.”

“And you handle it beautifully,” he readily testified.

Alix tried again. “I’m on E.R. rotation this morning.”

If she’d hoped to deter the chief of staff, it back-fired badly.

Beauchamp clapped his hands together. “Perfect.” He turned to Terrance. “This’ll be your trial by fire, so to speak. Can’t ask for anything better than that. You’ll be hurdled into the thick of our operation here. Blair prides itself on its outstanding emergency room facilities.

“Of course,” the chief of staff philosophized, “Murphy’s law being what it is, the E.R.’ll probably be deadly dull and quiet this morning.”

Hardly that, Terrance thought, doing his best not to look at Alix as if he’d known her beyond these past five minutes. Trying not to look at her as if he knew every inch of her smooth, supple body and as if the memory of that body hadn’t haunted his days and nights in vivid detail.

Pushing the past into the small, steely box where it belonged and mentally slamming the lid shut, Terrance looked down at Alix and smiled. He did his best not to take note of the dark look in her eyes.

Did I do that to you, Alix? Did I take the light away? If I did, I’m sorry that I hurt you. Sorrier than you’ll ever know.

“It looks like you’re going to be stuck with me for a while, Dr. DuCane,” he said lightly. “I’ll try my best not to get in your way.”

Too late, Alix thought.

Resigned to her fate, she nodded at Beauchamp without really looking at the man. “All right, but I still think Dr. McCall would be better off with someone else. I’ve never been a very good teacher.”

“We teach by example, Dr. DuCane, and quite truthfully, you set the best example of anyone I can think of,” Beauchamp assured her.

“I guess I’d better say yes before you flatter me to death,” Alix replied.

There was affection in her voice. Clarence Beauchamp had several failings, but the ability to make a person feel good was not one of them. Though they were very different in their approaches, and her father was by far the more superior orator, Beauchamp did in some ways remind her of Daniel DuCane.

She barely spared Terrance a glance, not trusting herself.

“Follow me,” she instructed as she turned sharply on her heel. Shoulders squared, Alix quickly walked out of the room.




Chapter 2


“Alix, wait up.”

She gave no indication of having heard him as she walked quickly to the bank of elevators. With a sigh, Terrance lengthened his stride to catch up to Alix. He caught himself paraphrasing Bogart’s famous line from Casablanca. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, I walk into hers.

“When Dr. Beauchamp said you were to show me the ropes,” he told her as they reached the elevators, “I didn’t think he meant that we should be swinging from them at the time.”

She didn’t trust herself to look at him just yet, not when he was so close. She pressed the button for the elevator. Hard.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize I was moving too fast for you. I would have thought that moving quickly was something you were accustomed to.”

It was, he thought, like trying to ignore the elephant in the living room. You could only do it for so long. In this case, the sooner it was addressed, the better. “Alix, maybe we should talk.”

The extent of the anger that suddenly shot up inside her took Alix by surprise. It wasn’t easy to force it down. But she didn’t want to start shouting here, where everyone knew her. Shouting at him and demanding to know how he could have just walked away without a backward glance.

Alix took an even breath. “And maybe we shouldn’t. This is a hospital, Doctor, usually a very busy place. There isn’t time to sit and reminisce about old times that really didn’t exist except in the imagination of someone who was very young and very foolish.”

The heart he’d learned to keep on ice twisted a little. “You.”

Oh, no, no pity, Alix thought fiercely. She refused to be the object of his pity. “The operating word here is was. In case you don’t know, Doctor, that was past tense. And we’re in the present. For some people that means there is no past, there is no future, there is only now.” Her voice was crisp, brittle, her look cold. “I suggest that we turn our attention to now, shall we?”

Terrance looked into her eyes just before she averted them. He’d hurt her. Until this moment he hadn’t realized just how much. Somehow he’d pictured her getting over him, had ached at the thought even while he assumed it was reality. He’d convinced himself that the pain over their separation had been his alone. Now he knew better.

But this wasn’t the place to make apologies, even if he could fully explain to her what he’d done and why—which he couldn’t. Even a minor apology necessitated somewhere quieter than the third floor of a busy hospital at midmorning.

For now, he decided, it was best to let things slide a little longer. They could pretend they were merely two former med school students whose paths had crossed again instead of two former lovers who fate—with its twisted sense of humor—had whimsically thrown in each other’s way.

“You’re the boss,” he told her amiably. The elevator finally arrived. Getting in, Terrance watched Alix punch the button for the first floor. She jabbed at it a little too firmly. “You’ve gotten more assertive since the last time I saw you.”

Alix felt it was more prudent not to answer.

Terrance looked down at the hand at her side. “You’ve also gotten married.”

The words tasted like ashes in his mouth, but what had he expected? She’d move on with her life. Time didn’t stand still, except for those times when he thought of her and what could have been—if a fateful bullet hadn’t snuffed out his father’s life and changed the course of his.

“Yes,” she replied coolly, her very tone locking him out of her life. “I did.”

She saw no reason to tell him that Jeff was gone, or given him any other pertinent details of her life. She just wanted to get through the day as quickly and painlessly as possible.

But it was too late for that, she thought cynically.

The elevator doors opened again on the ground floor. Alix swept out, not bothering to see if Terrance was following her. She pointed down the long corridor.

“The E.R. is this way.”

Electing to bypass the patients who were seated out front, Alix took him in through the side entrance, accessible only to the hospital personnel.

Just beyond the rear nurses’ station were two long rows of hospital beds, separated by partitions or floor-to-ceiling white curtains. Here and there were rooms where the more intense exams or stopgap surgeries were performed before patients were taken to the operating rooms on either the first or third floors.

Everything was in pristine condition. Blair prided itself on keeping up-to-the-minute and new. A nonprofit hospital, it relied heavily on the local community’s goodwill and philanthropic donations. Its sterling reputation afforded it both.

She gestured at the rows of beds, most of which had their curtains pulled shut, signifying occupancy. Alix glanced at the large white board to the left of the nurses’ station. Names and conditions were written in orange erasable marker.

“As you can see,” she told him in a clipped tone of voice she was unaccustomed to using, “we’re pretty full.”

She noticed that Donna and Alice, two of the day nurses, were at the desk. Both stopped working the moment Terrance came into their line of vision. Both women’s eyes lit up.

Some things never changed, she thought. Terrance had always been a magnet for female attention. To his credit it had never affected him. At least, not while they’d been together.

But then, who knew, maybe that had been a lie, too. Just as his words to her had been. He’d told her he loved her. And then he’d left.

Eyes riveted to Terrance, the nurses approached them as one. Alix took pity on them. “Donna, Alice, this is Dr. Terrance McCall. He’ll be joining us for a while. Dr. McCall, this is Donna Patterson and Alice Brown, two of our best.”

“How long a while?” Donna, never one to be shy, wanted to know.

“Time is a relative thing,” Alix couldn’t help saying. “What’s long to some is just a moment to others.”

Though he gave no indication, Terrance knew the comment was aimed at him. He smiled at the younger of the two nurses. “I plan on settling here in Bedford.”

Alice lost no time in flanking his other side. Alix had the impression of two women about to launch into a tug-of-war.

“Maybe you’ll need someone to show you around,” Alice offered eagerly.

He could feel Alix watching him. Terrance wasn’t about to allow himself to get distracted, although socializing with either woman would have been good for his cover. But with Alix here, the intended role of a carefree doctor who doubled as a ladies’ man was going to have to be rethought.

“I’m originally from Bedford,” Terrance told the two women.

“Nurse!” The head nurse, Wanda Monroe, called out the single title. Both women instantly turned to answer, knowing better than to ignore the imposing woman. Wanda was fair, but she brooked no nonsense when it came to the way the E.R was run. After her husband and grandchildren, the E.R. was her baby, her pride and joy, and she wasn’t about to have things go lax.

Alix glanced at Terrance as Alice hurried away beside Donna. “From what I hear, you just turned down a really good time.”

Terrance paused to study Alix. Was she deliberately trying to get him paired off with someone? Or was she just baiting him? “I’m not here to have a good time, I’m here to work.”

Alix looked at him, then shook her head. His eyes were as unfathomable now as they’d ever been.

“You’re just as much of a puzzle as you ever were. FYI, the lady who just bellowed is Wanda Monroe, our head nurse. You’d do well to stay on her good side, which, fortunately for us, there is a great deal of. She’s part mother hen, part martinet and the most competent nurse I’ve ever known.”

He looked from the light-coffee-complected woman to Alix. “That’s some testimonial.”

“She deserves every syllable. C’mon, I’ll introduce you to her.” Not waiting for Terrance to say anything, Alix led the way over to Wanda.

Terrance took the older woman’s hand and shook it, offering a disarming smile. Wanda, he’d noted, had been giving him the once-over from across the room. He wondered if he passed inspection.

Wanda returned his handshake, nodding in approval. “We can always use another set of good hands.” Wanda cocked her head, peering at his face. “Are you wet behind the ears?”

This was a woman who didn’t take lies well, he thought. But he had a feeling that she appreciated humor.

“Maybe a little,” he allowed.

Alix narrowed her eyes as she looked at him. “I thought Dr. Beauchamp said you had a glowing record at Boston General.”

“I’m new here,” he pointed out.

He could always turn words around to his advantage, Alix thought.

“One E.R. is like another, more or less,” she heard herself saying.

She wasn’t ordinarily this annoyed, this distant and impatient, Alix thought with a touch of self-deprecation. But the sight of Terrance after all this time had sent her reeling. It had also sent her sense of humor into a tailspin.

“Don’t you listen to her,” Wanda contradicted gruffly. “They all have their own personalities. Just like doctors,” she added, looking pointedly at him. “Boston General, eh?” When he nodded, she said, “I hear it’s a fine hospital.” Wanda crossed her arms before her ample chest. “What brings you here?”

Terrance had discovered that when confronted with questions he couldn’t answer truthfully, it was best to keep his replies simple. That way there was less to trip him up later.

“I needed a change,” he told her.

“Of weather?” Wanda asked.

Terrance smiled, managing to completely charm her and every other women within a quarter-mile radius. Except for Alix.

“Yes.”

He was lying, Alix thought. Something else had brought him here. She could feel it. But lying or not, she reminded herself, it made no difference to her. His reasons for doing things had long since stopped being any business of hers.

Changing the subject, Alix nodded at the sign-in board. “Who needs attending, Wanda?”

Wanda didn’t bother looking at the chart. At any given moment she knew exactly what was going on in her E.R. and who was in which bed. She didn’t think of them as patients, or even by their last names. To her they were conditions in need of curing.

“Got your choice of a bad case of stomach cramps in bed K, possible urinary track infection in bed L, some woman complaining of the worst back pains she’d ever had in bed M or—”

The electronic back doors flew open as four paramedics charged in, pushing two gurneys between them. A much-battered woman lay very still on the first, a screaming child on the second.

“Incoming,” Alix announced, snapping to life. “Looks like you’re on, Doctor.”

Terrance wished she’d stop calling him that. She sounded so formal, so distant. He fell into step beside her, wondering if he could get used to the new Alix.

But he supposed that he had it coming to him.

He couldn’t afford to dwell on the past now. This was a bona fide emergency he had before him. Terrance prayed that the week he’d spent at the hospital in Boston was enough to refresh his memory about how to deal with whatever came his way.

“Oh, God,” Alix groaned. Her eyes were focused on the second gurney, on the child who looked to be just a little older than her own daughter. “What happened?” she demanded of the closest paramedic.

“Mother’s got a history of unstable mental behavior,” the man with “Jerry” stitched on his uniform pocket answered. Details came spilling out as quickly as vital signs ordinarily did. “Happened at the courthouse. She was despondent over a custody hearing. Grabbed the little girl and ran up to the roof. Jumped holding the kid’s hand.” He saw Alix looking from one gurney to another. “She’s DOA, Doc, just waiting for you to make the official call.”

“And the little girl?” Alix wanted to know, raising her voice above the screaming child.

The head of the second team rattled off the small victim’s vital signs. The readings could all be far better, but there was reason to hope.

“How is it she’s still breathing?” Terrance marveled.

“Kid fell on top of the mother,” he was told by the paramedic on the gurney’s other side.

“Probably saved her life,” Alix commented. She looked up. “Wanda?”

The head nurse understood her shorthand and pointed. “Room four’s free.”

Sliding her arms through the sterile, yellow paper gown one of the nurses was holding out for her, Alix never took her eyes off the child.

“You know the way,” she told the second team. Together they hurried down the corridor.

“Hey, what about Mom?” the first paramedic wanted to know.

Alix spared the dead woman a glance. “She wasn’t a mom, she was a monster.” She looked at Terrance. For a moment she thought he almost appeared lost. “I’ll leave the honor of calling it to you, Doctor. Welcome to Blair,” she added dryly.

With that Alix hurried alongside the gurney into Room Four to do everything in her power to save the life of an innocent child whose only sin was to have the misfortune of being born to the wrong woman. Mentally she recited a prayer as the doors closed behind her.

A moment later a man came tearing in through the same electronic doors that had parted to admit the two teams with their gurneys. Frantic, he grabbed the first person he encountered, an orderly who spoke next to no English and looked terrified by the man’s demeanor.

“My little girl, they just brought her in.” The man looked up and down the hall. Everything blurred before him. “She’s only two—”

There was barely harnessed hysteria in the man’s voice. Terrance looked up from the bloodied woman on the gurney. Even if he were the most skilled doctor in the world, he could do nothing for her now.

But there was something he could do for the father.

Placing his body between the gurney and the man, he stopped the latter from plowing into it. Terrance clamped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “They’ve taken her into the exam room.”

It took a second for the words to process. “Is she…is she…?” He couldn’t bring himself to utter the unutterable.

Terrance’s hand remained on the man’s shoulder, holding him in place. “She’s alive,” Terrance assured him.

“And my wife?” Utterly beside himself, the man was blind to the still figure that lay on the gurney directly behind Terrance.

Terrance noted that the man referred to the woman as his wife, not his ex-wife. There were feelings there, he judged, vividly brought out by the tragic events of the moment.

He wondered if there were doctors who got used to saying this. He knew he didn’t. “I’m sorry. She didn’t make it.”

For a second Terrance thought the man was going to crumple before him at his feet. He seemed to get weak at the knees and sagged against Terrance as he saw the body of his wife.

“Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe Jill’ll finally be at peace.” There were tears in his eyes as he turned them toward Terrance. “But why did she have to try to take Wendy with her? She’s just a little girl, a baby.” His voice hitched badly. “She’s got her whole life in front of her.”

It never made any sense, but Terrance tried to find an explanation for him.

“Maybe your wife thought that Wendy couldn’t survive without her.” That was the most common psychological profile when it came to mothers who killed their children and then themselves. It revolved around a fear that the children left behind couldn’t really function in a world without the parent.

The man didn’t seem to hear. Instead he began to look around frantically, heading for the first curtained bed. “Where is she? Where did they take Wendy?”

Terrance drew him away before he could frighten a patient. “To Room Four for examination.”

He indicated the room Alix and the nurses had entered. The man hurried over to it. Terrance was right behind him, wondering if the man, in his grief, was going to have to be restrained. He cut him off before he had a chance to enter the room.

“They’re doing all they can for her. If there’s even an infinitesimal chance of saving your daughter, they will. Dr. DuCane’s with her right now, and they’re sending for an internal surgeon.”

At least, he assumed they were. Terrance knew he had to keep up a steady stream of conversation to distract the man. It was the best service he could offer in this situation. He knew how to treat common ailments, but what was going on behind the closed swinging doors to his right was beyond the scope of his expertise. Surgery for him meant removing pieces of glass from a cut or stitching up a simple wound.

Cushioned fall or not, the little girl they had just brought in was going to need some serious surgery—and someone who was up on what they were doing. That left him out.

Terrance thought of the lounge where patients’ family members waited for the results of operations. He’d passed it on his way in this morning. “Why don’t I take you someplace where you can sit down and—”

But the man shook off the hand that Terrance placed on his arm. “I don’t want to sit. I want to be right here. Right here,” he repeated numbly, “in case they need me.”

Angling around Terrance, he tried to get a better look through the windowed portion of the swinging doors. There was a ring of people around the table. He could make out the small form on the gurney.

“She’s so little,” he sobbed.

“Somehow they mend quicker when they are.” Terrance knew he was mouthing every platitude he could think of, but he needed to calm the man down. “She’s going to be all right.”

He saw the head nurse he’d met only minutes ago looking in his direction. He could tell by her expression that she’d overheard him. Wanda shook her head. His earlier training reminded him that he was violating a cardinal rule at the hospital: you never made promises you couldn’t keep.

But he knew how important it was to hand out hope, to offer it at least for a moment. Because he’d been on the other side of the operating room doors once himself, when his father had been the one the medical team were working over.

Small bits of precious hope, however unfounded, had kept him functioning and sane, had enabled him to keep his mother’s spirits up. And, eventually, had helped him cope with his father’s death.

It was the least he could do for the man who looked as if his whole world had shattered right before his eyes. The least and the most.

Down the corridor he saw Wanda waving to the orderlies who were taking the woman’s body away. He thought of directing the man’s attention to that, then decided against it. Instead, he stayed beside the father, whose eyes remained fixed on the activity around his daughter’s table.

“She’ll be all right,” Terrance repeated and prayed that Alix wouldn’t make him a liar.




Chapter 3


“Doctor, why don’t you go on in there now?”

Unnoticed—a remarkable feat considering her size—Wanda had come up behind Terrance and the little girl’s distraught father as they stood outside the examination room.

“I’ll take care of Mr.—” Wanda paused as she looked at the man. Her eyes were filled with understanding and compassion.

“Carey,” the man mumbled without seeming to be aware that he had said anything. He leaned his fisted hands against the upper portion of the exam room door, as if to somehow brace himself and help ward off the very worst.

“I’ll take care of Mr. Carey,” Wanda repeated, slipping a comforting arm around his shoulders. Though the man was taller than she, he seemed vulnerable and smaller. The events of the morning had diminished him.

Wanda glanced over her shoulder toward Terrance when he made no attempt to move. She made a slight movement of her brows, narrowing them quizzically, as she led Carey away to the lounge.

Terrance had no choice. Unless he wanted to arouse the head nurse’s suspicions, he had to go into the exam room. Feeling incredibly out of place, he pushed open the swinging door and entered.

The instant he did, a wall of noise and chaos reached out and grabbed him, sucking him into its midst.

Alix glanced up in his direction. There were tubes running into the little girl’s mouth and attached to both her arms. The readings didn’t look promising, but at least there was still activity going on.

“Nice of you to join us, Doctor,” she noted coolly. Several of the nurses exchanged glances. They weren’t used to Alix being anything other than warm and friendly. “Where have you been?”

“With her father.” Terrance’s answer was lost in the shuffle of people as behind him, another man entered the room.

“You called for a miracle worker?”

Terrance turned and saw the man who’d been sitting beside Alix in the meeting join the fray. Despite the obvious circumstances, the latter smiled warmly at her.

“You got that right,” Alix said. It was beginning to look to Alix as if the little girl might need more than just one doctor to help her make it. Alix rattled off a capsulized version of what had happened. “Mother jumped from the roof of the courthouse, taking her daughter with her.” It never did any good to try to distance herself from her cases. Her heart was too big to allow it, even though it cost her emotionally. “She’s got all sorts of internal damage going on, but she’s hanging in there. She’s a fighter.” Alix brushed the bangs away from the girl’s forehead. “Poor little thing.”

“Wendy,” Terrance said. Alix looked up at him sharply. “Her father said her name’s Wendy.”

“Well, she certainly wasn’t meant to fly, at least not without Peter Pan,” Reese commented, looking toward the closest nurse. “Call up to the O.R. and tell them to get a room ready immediately, Donna. Then page Dr. Owlsey. I have a feeling I’m going to need all the help I can get here.” As the nurse ran to the wall phone, Reese looked at Alix. The orderly beside him was taking the brakes off the bed, mobilizing it for the trip to the elevator. “Want to come along?”

Alix shook her head. She knew she’d be of more use down here. “I’ll only get in your way. I’ll stop by later to see how she’s doing.” She smiled at him. “I’ve got faith in you, Reese.”

Terrance tried not to remember when that smile had been his alone to absorb. He clamped down on any extraneous feelings that threatened to seep through. Like the lady had said, the past was the past. There was no use in going there.

“Good to know,” Reese quipped. He looked at Terrance as he hurried beside the bed from the exam room. “Reese Bendenetti, internal surgery.”

“Nice to meet you,” Terrance called after the man. Reese, the bed and the two nurses and one orderly with him disappeared around the corner.

Terrance blew out a breath, realizing that he’d been in the midst of an adrenaline rush without knowing it. Ordinarily when he experienced one there were guns involved. And usually a drug bust.

With one drama now beyond her control, Alix turned toward Terrance, annoyance etched into her expression. “Where the hell were you?” she demanded. Shedding the yellow gown, she shoved it into a trash basket, her eyes blazing. “You were supposed to be in there with me.”

“I was.”

Typical. He was playing with words. Just as he always had. “From the beginning, Doctor.”

She was swiping at him. He figured he owed this to her. “I already told you. I was outside, comforting the father.”

Alix pressed her lips together to keep back choice comments. She’d never felt so out of control, so unsettled. “We have nurses for that.”

“I know,” he replied quietly, refusing to be drawn into an argument. “Wanda took him over. But at the time, it seemed like the thing to do.” Maybe if he complimented her, she’d back off. “Besides, you seemed to be on top of it.”

She never felt on top of it. She always felt that there was a little more she could do, even as her patients were pulling through. There was always the nagging concern that something had been overlooked, that her efforts weren’t enough.

But part of her success, part of the reason her patients did so well and their parents always returned to her, was that she knew how to make it seem as if she was on top of a situation. She knew how to make them think that she had all the answers even before the questions were formed. Knew how to make them feel confident.

She wished she could say the same for herself. It was all a ruse. She supposed that gave her something in common with magicians and actors.

“That’s no excuse,” she told him tersely. “You’re here to assist and learn our way of doing things.” She fisted her hands at her waist as she looked up at him. He was a good ten inches taller. “Or don’t you think you need to?”

The fire in her eyes had him feeling nostalgic despite the sharpness in her voice. There was a time when he would have warmed himself at that fire, rather than feel it as a threat. “I know better than to be lured into a fight with you, Alix.”

She resisted the temptation to tell him to call her Dr. DuCane. She wanted no more familiarity between them than was absolutely necessary. “Oh, really? I wouldn’t have thought you knew anything about me at all.”

Terrance looked around for someplace more private. “Look, I—”

Whatever he had to say, she didn’t want to hear it. There was nothing that could be said to whitewash what had happened six years ago.

“Why don’t you make yourself useful and take the patient to Bed K?” It was not a suggestion, but an order, issued crisply. “I’ll be around if you need me.”

Terrance remembered how she used to say that to him when they were studying for their MCATS. She’d always been the better student. The familiar phrase brought a smile to his lips. “Just like old times.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Nothing at all like old times,” she informed him tersely. “Bed K,” she repeated, pointing toward the general area as she walked away. “The nurse said he has projectile vomiting, so I’d stand clear if I were you.”

As Alix rounded the desk at the nurse’s station, Wanda made a comment. “Seems to be sparks flying between you and that new miracle worker.”

Alix punched her ID into the computer. A screen popped up, and she began a search for information she needed to treat one of the patients she’d admitted early this morning.

God, this was all she needed, hospital gossip. “No sparks, Wanda.”

The woman snorted. “Didn’t look that way from where I was standing.”

Alix slanted a quick glance in her direction. “Then I’d say that you were obviously standing in the wrong place.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Wanda’s tone was sing-songy and falsely deferential.

Alix looked up from the screen, flashing a contrite smile. “Sorry, Wanda. I didn’t mean to snap.”

“No,” Wanda readily agreed, “you didn’t. Need to talk?”

That was the last thing Alix wanted to do. The less said about Terrance, the better. “No.”

But Wanda wasn’t put off. Cocking her head, she crossed her arms before her ample chest. “I’ve got three kids and a passel of grandkids, Doctor D. I know when someone needs to talk.”

Alix looked at her for a long moment, then sighed. “Maybe I can’t.”

“Now that’s different,” the older woman allowed. “I can understand that.” She gave Alix’s shoulder a maternal pat. “But don’t hold it in too long, Dr. D., or you’re liable to explode. And I’m not cleaning up that mess when you do.” Her pseudo-serious warning faded as she studied Alix. Something was most definitely going on here. She was far too good a judge of human nature not to notice. “In case you’re wondering, he seems to have a good bedside manner.”

“No.” Alix’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “I wasn’t wondering.”

From the way Wanda smiled, it seemed she was willing to bet that Alix knew all about Terrance McCall’s bedside manner firsthand.

“I meant with your patient’s father. Just because they issue someone a stethoscope doesn’t mean they know how to handle people. Sometimes the best medicine they can dispense is a dose of hope, even if there’s not much available.”

Alix nodded dismissively. Wanda was right. A good bedside manner was a much-underrated ability. But right now she wasn’t willing to give Terrance any accolades, deserved or otherwise. Finding what she needed on the computer, she made a mental note and logged off.

“You’ve got my number if you change your mind,” Wanda called after her.

That made two people who’d offered her a shoulder to cry on, she thought, walking away. Not that she was going to take either of them up on it. She’d cried herself out a long time ago. There were literally no tears left. Not for anything.

If there had been, she would have shed them for the little girl she’d worked on.

Since the turmoil in the E.R. had gone down a notch after Reese had taken Wendy Carey up into surgery, Alix decided that it wouldn’t hurt anything to stop by the small chapel on the premises before she went on with her duties.

And maybe it would even help a little—both her and the little girl. Involuntarily her thoughts turned to Terrance’s sudden reappearance. She could do with a little something extra on her side right now.



“So how’s it going?”

Rounding a corner, Terrance stopped short. He’d almost walked directly into a dark-haired, cocky-looking orderly wielding a cart of empty lunch trays.

He recognized the voice even before he looked at the man. Terrance smiled wearily.

“That stint in Argentina’s beginning to look better and better in comparison all the time. At least no one threw up on me in Buenos Aires.”

True to Alix’s prediction, the patient in Bed K had vomited all over him. An hour and one change of clothes later, he still felt the smell of the incident clinging to him. It was a hell of a start.

Riley Sanchez, a perfect blend of an Irish mother and a Spanish father, flashed a row of brilliantly white teeth. “But you’ve got to admit that the scenery’s nicer here.” Riley leaned in closer, lowering his voice. “Have you checked out some of the nurses?”

“We’re not here to check out nurses, remember?”

“Can’t help it if they walk into my line of vision.” Riley’s grin broadened. “I noticed that the lady doctor they assigned you to isn’t exactly someone who’d stop a clock. That’s one fine-looking woman.”

Riley’s laid-back, easygoing demeanor belied the sharp mind that lay beneath. Nothing worth noting ever got past Riley, which was what made him so good at his job. His humor made him an asset when times got tough. But right now Terrance was in no mood for any of his partner’s witticisms.

Riley saw the way Terrance’s jaw tightened at the mention of his guide. “Something wrong?”

He didn’t feel like getting into it, certainly not here. “No.”

Like a dog with a bone, Riley didn’t let go. “Well, it’s not right,” he observed. He stopped, thinking of the man they suspected. “She’s not connected to…?”

“No,” Terrance said firmly, “she’s not.”

That much he knew. Alix couldn’t and wouldn’t be involved in the reason he and Riley were here. Alix DuCane was as honest as they came, incapable of lying or anything more serious. He’d stake his life on it. Some things, no matter what, just didn’t change.

Shifting, Riley studied him. “Judging by the way you just said that, you’re pretty certain. It’s too soon for you to have bonded with the lovely lady doctor, which means that you know her from a previous life.”

Terrance took the high road and dismissed Riley’s words at face value. “I’m not into reincarnation.”

“Neither am I. I was talking about the life we had before we sold our souls to the agency.”

“Go do a profile on someone else, Riley.” The subject was closed.

Riley nodded, backing off for now. He’d worked with McCall off and on over the past six years, the last two steadily. He knew it would do no good to press Terrance, who came around according to his own timetable.

“That’s what they pay me for.” Riley glanced over his shoulder and saw the head nurse was looking his way. She didn’t look pleased. “Time to get busy.”

Terrance sighed, thinking of the afternoon that was ahead. His endless days and nights as an intern came rushing vividly back at him. “I never stopped.”

“Catch you later,” Riley murmured, beginning to guide the cart toward the service elevators and ultimately the kitchen located in the basement. “Don’t look now, but your lady friend is walking this way.”

Terrance turned in time to see Alix heading in his direction. Now what?

Alix had never been one to shirk her duty, no matter how distasteful or difficult it was. She placed dealing with Terrance in that category.

Telling herself that she was no longer the young woman she’d once been did no good. In her heart Alix sincerely doubted if she would ever be completely over Terrance McCall.

But there was absolutely no reason to let him know that.

As she drew closer, a foul odor assaulted her nose. She sniffed, then realized that the smell was coming from the same vicinity as Terrance.

“Is that coming from you?”

He nodded. “Patient in Bed K threw up on me, just like you predicted.” He was wearing a lab coat that was entirely too snug in the shoulders and had had to change his shirt and pants. “One of the residents lent me his clothes.”

Alix nodded. “That would explain the scrubs.”

She’d forgotten how good he looked in the attire. And how much it had once turned her on. This time, however, he looked like someone who’d gotten caught in the rain and had his clothes shrink. The cuffs of his pants exposed a section of dark sock.

“Rafferty?” she guessed, referring to one of the residents on the floor.

He glanced down to see if the man’s name was written on the lab coat. It wasn’t. Terrance looked at her, surprised. “How did you know?”

“Process of elimination. He’s shorter than you are. Adam Hathaway’s about the same height,” she judged. “They’re the only two doctors in the E.R. right now.” The odor was getting to her. She wrinkled her nose. “I’d suggest you take a shower.”

“Can’t.” When she looked at him quizzically, he leaned over and whispered, “In case you haven’t heard, the head doctor’s pretty strict. If I leave my post for more than a minute, she’ll have my head.”

Alix wasn’t amused. She looked at him pointedly, making herself, she hoped, perfectly clear. “The head doctor doesn’t want your head, Doctor. Or any other part of you, either.”

Maybe he’d overstepped his boundaries. Feelings for her or not, the woman was married and he had his rules. She had nothing to worry about from him. “Duly noted. Just so I’m clear on this, are you telling me to take a shower?”

Alix nodded. “For the good of the hospital,” she affirmed.

He wasn’t about to argue the point. Terrance couldn’t help wondering how many people he’d offended in the last hour. “Where would I—”

“There’s a facility directly behind the doctors’ lounge. Slightly bigger than a bread box, but if you’re not planning to do any acrobatics while showering, it’ll do the trick.”

Funny she should mention that. It brought back to mind the showers they’d taken together, fitting against each other in a tiny stall. Sometimes they would even remember to turn the water on.

“Thanks. And Alix—”

She knew that tone, that pause. He was going to say something she was better off not hearing—even though part of her hungered to.

But that was her weakness, and she would deal with it. The way she’d always dealt with everything else that life had thrown her way. She’d learned to savor the good moments, trusting the memory of them to see her through, like a bridge to the next good moment.

“Go take your shower,” she ordered. With that, she turned on her heel and walked away.

Terrance raised his voice. “It’s good to see you again,” he called after her.

Without bothering to turn around, Alix waved her hand at him, dismissing the words.

Dismissing him.

Telling himself he didn’t feel stung, Terrance turned away. Like he’d just told Riley, they weren’t here to fraternize or enjoy the “scenery,” they were here to bring the operation to a successful close.

On that thought he began to walk quickly to the doctors’ lounge.

Just behind him, he heard the rear emergency room doors opening and the sound of a gurney being hurried in. Turning around, he could see the blood even from where he stood.

The shower was going to have to wait.

Terrance broke into a run. He caught Alix’s expression out of the corner of her eye as she approached from another direction. He wouldn’t have been able to say why the unguarded look of approval pleased him the way it did, but it did.




Chapter 4


Terrance frowned slightly as he set down his tray on the table and slid into the corner booth in the hospital cafeteria. The vantage point allowed him a full view of the area just beyond the entrance.

Things were going slower than he wanted. He’d been at Blair Memorial for almost a week and had learned nothing.

No, that wasn’t strictly true, he amended silently. He might not have gotten anywhere in his investigation, but he had learned that his first career choice did hold an attraction for him, even after a self-imposed absence of six years.

He’d learned, too, that the woman who had been so important to him while he was studying to be a doctor most definitely still held an attraction for him. Time had done nothing to diminish that. But then, he hadn’t left her because he’d lost interest in her the way he had with medicine. Alix hadn’t been the reason he’d gone numb inside, becoming all but clinically dead yet still somehow going through the motions. Medicine had done that. Or rather, medicine’s failure had done that to him.

The inability of medicine to save his father’s life after Jake McCall had been shot during a DEA stakeout had shaken the very foundations of Terrance’s world, had made him question everything that he felt he was about.

The moment his father had taken his last breath, medicine had ceased to hold any allure for Terrance. He found he had to get away, to think, to somehow try to reinvent himself. That meant leaving his old life behind.

That meant leaving Alix behind, as well, because she deserved someone who was whole—not him. She deserved someone who could love her, and he no longer knew if he was capable of the kind of love she needed.

So he’d left Bedford and Alix and refused to look back. Left her without saying a word. It was the coward’s way out, the only time he’d taken it, but it was the only way he could have walked away.

Now he wasn’t so sure that he had done the right thing.

Too late for second thoughts now, McCall. She’s married to someone else.

That meant that he’d lost the right to let that bother him, certainly lost the right to try to reaffirm his position in her life. Even if he were so inclined, which he wasn’t.

He was what time and circumstances had forced him to become. A loner. In his chosen profession, that was viewed as an asset. No wife to worry about, no family to slip into his thoughts at the wrong moments, taking his edge off, blurring his focus. The best agents were the ones who were married to the job, not to a flesh-and-blood person.

He knew all that, and yet…

And yet nothing, Terrance thought. He was here to try to get close to William Harris, the grandson of the founder of this hospital, not to conjure up regrets and fantasize over what might have been.

He was familiar with the hospital, the first in Bedford. Known then as Harris Memorial, the eight-story, multiwinged edifice had only recently been renamed Blair Memorial in honor of the woman who had bequeathed her entire fortune to the hospital upon her death.

Terrance smiled to himself. For a fifty-million-dollar bequest, he would have allowed himself to be renamed Shoe.

“Mind if I join you?”

Terrance roused himself from his thoughts.

You’re not doing your job, he admonished himself silently. Looking up, he saw the chief of staff standing beside his table, holding a tray in his hands. It contained a single plate of deep-dish apple pie.

Terrance indicated the empty seat opposite him. “Please.” He tried not to notice that easing his considerable bulk onto the booth bench took a bit of maneuvering for Beauchamp.

The older man slid his plate from his tray onto the table and smiled a little self-consciously. He rested the tray against the side of his seat, out of the way.

Beauchamp picked up a fork with enthusiasm. “Yes, just dessert. I really set a poor example, I’m afraid.” He sank the fork into his serving. A look of anticipation entered his eyes. “I know I should be eating better. ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ and all that, but quite honestly, come midafternoon all I want to do is eat something sweet.” The first mouthful had him sighing with pure contentment and pleasure.

Terrance grinned at the unabashed display. “I wasn’t looking at your choice, Dr. Beauchamp. I was just surprised to see you here. I didn’t think you frequented the cafeteria.”

“Oh there’s a small dining hall across the way reserved for doctors only, but I find I like getting down in the trenches with everyone else. We all put our pants on the same way,” he said lightly. Another forkful disappeared into his mouth before he asked, “So tell me, how is it going? Fitting in?”

The pie was disappearing at an impressive rate, yet the man seemed to be slowly savoring every bite. Terrance marveled, watching him. “I’d like to think so.”

“I’ve been hearing good things about you from the staff,” Beauchamp informed him. “You seem to have gotten on Wanda’s good side.” He nodded his whole-hearted approval. “Always a good thing. She can be a formidable adversary if she doesn’t like you.”

Though no pushover, the head nurse had been nothing but amiable to him. She made him think of a mother hen. “I can’t see Wanda actually giving anyone any grief. She seems fair enough.”

“Oh, she is, she is,” Beauchamp agreed enthusiastically, then confided in a lower voice, “But she doesn’t like people who think they know it all.” The older man shook his head. “She and young Harris have never gotten along, I’m sorry to say. But then, he does seem to have a problem.”

Beauchamp suddenly looked startled, as if he’d just heard his own pronouncement. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said quickly, launching into damage-control mode. “William Harris is a good doctor and all that, it’s just that—” It wasn’t in him to lie. “Well, he could stand to have his ego taken down a notch or two. But that’s what comes of having everything handed to you, I suppose. A little hard work is good for everyone.”

Terrance estimated that he probably knew far more about William Harris than the man sitting opposite him. There was a two-inch-thick file on the man on his desk back at the agency. But it was one thing to have information before you and another entirely to listen to it being rendered firsthand. Sometimes, that kind of insight was just the thing to break an investigation wide open.

He looked at Beauchamp innocently. “If you feel that way, why keep him on?”

“Oh, it wouldn’t do to release the grandson of the founder of the hospital. The money might be coming from other sources these days, but the waves something like that might generate—” Beauchamp shook his head, finishing his statement silently as he retreated into another bite of his pie. “Well, it just wouldn’t do, that’s all.” He peered at Terrance, wanting to change the subject. “Getting along well with Dr. DuCane?”

Terrance wondered if he was actually being grilled a little. The man had an innocent face, but Terrance was willing to bet Beauchamp wasn’t as guileless as he seemed. “Yes.”

“She’s a wonderful woman. And dedicated.” Beauchamp nodded as he recalled past events. “Refused to take any time off after that terrible accident. She was in the very next week, acting as if nothing had happened. She’s a strong, strong woman.”

Terrance looked at him. He’d deliberately refrained from looking into Alix’s past, feeling as if he were taking advantage of his position and invading her privacy. But now that Beauchamp had drawn back this curtain to reveal her life, he had to know. “What terrible accident?”

“Why, the one that took her husband, Jeff,” Beauchamp said, then seemed to realize Terrance’s confusion. “Jeffrey Caldwell. He was on staff here, too. Just like Dr. DuCane not to mention anything. For a bright, sunny woman, she doesn’t talk about her own life very much. Me,” he confided, “I tend toward ear bending, but Dr. DuCane is more concerned with listening than talking—other than to bolster spirits, of course. They don’t make them like her anymore,” he said wistfully.

No, Terrance thought, they didn’t. But then, he already knew that. He pressed for more information. “How long has her husband been dead?”

“Jeff? Let me see.” Beauchamp paused as he made a few mental calculations. “It’s been almost two years—no, wait,” he corrected himself, “a little more than that. Yes, two years ago in April.” His head bobbed up and down in confirmation. “It was a boating accident. One of those freak things you don’t believe is happening until it’s over.”

“Was she there?” Terrance couldn’t think of anything worse than Alix witnessing her husband’s death.

“No, she was home with her little girl,” Beauchamp recalled. “Julie had a cold.” Intent on the last of his pie, he didn’t see the look that suddenly came into Terrance’s eyes.

Julie. She’d named her daughter Julie. Was it a coincidence or had she deliberately named the child after his late mother? The two women had gotten close when he’d been seeing Alix. He’d always had the suspicion that it was because Alix was hungry for a mother’s affection. Her own mother had died when she was very young.

“I didn’t know she had a little girl,” he said quietly to the other man.

“Now that I’m surprised about. Dr. DuCane does like to show off pictures of her daughter.” Beauchamp pushed the empty plate away and looked at Terrance, studying the younger man. “Are you two getting along?”

“Yes,” Terrance assured him. “We’re getting along.” As well as could be expected, he thought. “I have no complaints.”

Beauchamp seemed pleased. “Good, good. Let me know if there’s anything I can help you out with.”

You already have, Terrance thought. But now it was time to get down to the crux of why he was here in the first place. “I was just wondering, have I seen this Dr. Harris you mentioned?”

Beauchamp shook his head. “Ordinarily, Dr. Harris would be on now, but he’s taken a few days off. Something about needing to catch a breather.” Terrance thought he detected a note of disapproval in the jovial man’s voice. “Does most of his breathing in Las Vegas, I hear. At the blackjack tables.” Beauchamp banished the slight purse of his lips. “Never liked to gamble myself. I go with sure things. Like this hospital,” Beauchamp said with no small pride. He seemed to make it his business to know the comings and goings of all the doctors on staff. “To answer your question, though, Harris should be back tomorrow.” He cocked his head, curious. “Why?”

Terrance shrugged carelessly. “Just wondering what the man who ruffles Wanda’s feathers looked like.”

“Oh, he ruffles more feathers than just Wanda’s, but like I said, good will is worth a great deal and everyone likes the man’s father.” The senior Harris had preceded Beauchamp as chief of staff and was now chairman of Blair’s board of trustees. “Arthur Harris is one of the most respected doctors in the West.”

Terrance merely nodded, as if all this was news to him. He couldn’t help wondering what the man sitting opposite him would say if he knew Terrance’s real purpose for being here.

Terrance glanced at his watch. “I’d better get going.” He rose, picking up his tray. “I don’t want to get on Dr. DuCane’s bad side.”

Beauchamp laughed. “Good thinking.”



Terrance’s afternoon was taken up by a man who came in complaining of chest pains which turned out to be a case of indigestion. He’d also had two cases of otitis media, the latter coming via a set of twins. It wasn’t until almost three o’clock before Terrance had a chance to catch up with Alix.

“Why did you tell me you were married?”

Alix made a notation on the chart of a girl who’d come in with an ectopic pregnancy. They’d had to rush her into surgery.

She didn’t bother looking up. “Because I am,” she replied mildly.

He knew he should drop it, that he was only getting in deeper, but the fact that she’d lied to him, or at least misled him, bothered him. It just wasn’t like her. “Doesn’t being married require that there be two living people in the union?”

She closed the chart and glared at him. “Who told you?”

He leaned against the side of the desk. “Dr. Beauchamp likes to socialize over apple pie.”





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