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“And an attitude that precedes him. I have a friend at Mercy who said—”
“He’ll adjust,” Jason interrupted. “In spite of what you’ve heard, he’ll fall into our routine nicely.”
“And if he doesn’t?” she asked, too perplexed to turn around to confront her brother-in-law.
“Then I’ll fire him, the way I would any other staff member who becomes a detriment to the facility or its patients.”
She spun around. “No, you won’t. It’s not in you to do something like that. Especially since he’s a wounded soldier.”
“Then we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed he works out, won’t we?”
Anne heaved a dubious sigh. “Hannah married a real softie. You know that, don’t you?”
Jason blushed. “You do know that no one else on my staff talks to me the way you do?”
“Family prerogative. Besides, she’s confined to bed until she delivers, so, as your wife’s twin sister, older by eight minutes, might I remind you, it’s up to me to make sure things are running the way they should.”
Anne was an internist who’d earned an additional PhD in psychology, and turned her medical practice into one that specialized in post-traumatic stress disorder. Her sister, an ear specialist, worked with combat vets who’d suffered hearing loss due to trauma. And Jason was also a radiologist who oversaw all the X-rays generated in his clinic.
Jason overexaggerated a wince. “A daughter. Between you two and her, I’ll never be able to win an argument.”
“Poor Jason,” Anne teased.
“Poor Jason is right. Speaking of which, our new hire, Marc Rousseau …”
“Do we have to talk about the man?”
“Not if you don’t want to. But since your office is going to be close to his, I was hoping you’d show him some consideration.”
“Consideration?” she asked. “If you mean taking him on as a case …”
“Not as a case. As a colleague who, like you, started over. It wasn’t easy for you. Remember? Anyway, he comes with glowing references as a doctor and miserable mentions as a human being. He admits his anger. Almost embraces it. But to get his skills, we take the whole package. That’s all there is. Promise. No underhanded scheme to try and fix him or anything like that. Just be his friend. Make him aware that he’s welcome here.”
“Why did you hire him, Jason, when you’ve got so many doubts?”
“Because he can unquestionably do the job. That’s my first consideration. And I’m also thinking that he’s one of the soldiers who got overlooked in the process. It happens every day, Anne, and you know that better than anybody else. We get the worst ones, the ones who can’t function, for whatever reason. With one in every eight soldiers suffering from PTSD and only about thirty percent of those ever getting help, the rest are living in a personal hell.
“They could benefit from what we do here, and I happen to think Marc Rousseau might be great at spotting troubling issues others have missed. He’s perceptive.” He raised teasing eyebrows. “And who better to put a man in his place if he needs it than you?”
She winced. “All it takes is a bad marriage. Want to hear my opinions on that?”
Jason smiled sympathetically. “Ah, Bill. The vanquished husband. I could go beat him up if that makes you feel any better.”
“I’m sounding like the one with the rotten attitude, aren’t I?”
“You’ve been through your share of misery.”
“And come through it wiser than I was.”
“Look, I know the divorce was tough, but you never let it affect your work when you were going through the various aspects of it. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and hired you pretty much untested in PTSD because I believed in you, and I’d hope you’d do the same for Marc. Give him the same chance I gave you.”
“Tough divorce is an understatement. It was devastating, discovering how many times Bill cheated on me when I was overseas.”
“And you’re better off being rid of him.”
“I am, but still …” She shrugged. “Look, I know Rousseau by the reputation that precedes him, but I wouldn’t recognize him if he walked right by me, and I’m still a little on edge.”
“Then you don’t know?” Jason frowned. “I’d assumed since you knew he was a returning wounded soldier …”
“Know what?”
“Marc Rousseau is a paraplegic. Incomplete, lower injury. Full sensation, but not enough muscle recovery to get his legs back under him.”
Anne’s eyes widened. “Bad attitude and disabled?”
“Well, for sure, if you can survive working with him, you’ll regain some of the self-confidence you lost in the divorce mess. But the man is worth saving because he’s a damned good doctor and I want him to work out here, Anne. We need him as much as he needs us. So, besides your self-confidence, I’ll give you a trophy or something for enduring him.”
“Damn the disability …”
Jason laughed. “It gets you in the soft spot every time, doesn’t it?”
“How did it happen?”
“He was a medic, got hit by shrapnel … nails, wire, that kind of stuff … from an IED. Was a pretty bad injury, touch and go for a while. But luckily—if you can call anything about it lucky—his injury could have been worse. He’s pretty independent. In fact, the only thing he can’t do is walk.”
“And that’s not going to happen?”
Jason shook his head. “He’s in the chair for the count.”
“With a lot of anger issues you’re attributing to PTSD.”
“He worked through the physical end of it like a man possessed, but he neglected … himself. Lost himself in the whole affair. Which is a damn shame because he saved lives, was commended as a battlefield surgeon.”
Anne walked over to her desk and sat down. “OK, I’ll cut him some slack, but only some. That’s the best I can offer you right now.”
“He’s going to be spotting a lot of your patients and referring them to you. You do realize that, don’t you?”
She nodded.
“And I’m not going to soft-pedal this. He’ll be a challenge, Anne, but, unlike Bill and all his affairs, it won’t be directed at you.”
All Bill’s affairs. She’d been overseas in one medical capacity or another for three tours, while the husband who’d vowed to be true had been tracked to nine different affairs. Even Bill’s attorney hadn’t tried too hard to help him during nearly a year of divorce proceedings. “I can take on a challenge as long as it’s not personal,” Anne replied. “And apart from a husband having all those affairs while his wife was off, serving her country, I don’t think anything could be much more challenging than that.”
“I really want Marc stable enough to stay with us,” Jason said. “We need someone who’s been through it so he can get to others who are going through what he did.”
“I know. And you’re right. So I’ll be on my good behavior with him.”
“And you’ll help him get acclimated to the way we do things here?”
“Yes,” she answered. “But he’s got to meet me halfway.”
“That takes believing in himself. And what better way to do that than being involved in his job?”
“When does he start?”
“He’s started. I couldn’t see any reason to put him off. I hired him on the spot and sent him down to his office.”
“Then there was no point to this discussion.”
Jason smiled. “You’re my other volatile physician, so I thought I’d give you fair warning. Let’s just call it a family courtesy.”
“Speaking of which, tell Hannah I’ll be by soon,” Anne said as Jason headed to her door, leaving her to study her surroundings. She loved this place, loved the contemporary chrome look. Most of all, she loved the Gallahue Rehabilitation Center for Veterans for the good work it did. It was small, limited in the cases it could take. But the services it offered, thanks largely to Maynard and Lois Gallahue in memory of their fallen son, were amazing and much more extensive than one might expect from a relatively small clinic. And waiting lists for admittance were long.
Rumors had it the Gallahue Foundation for returning wounded soldiers would be upping its contribution, and she’d heard other notable companies were making funds available. So, as far as Anne was concerned, the sky here was the limit. She hoped so, anyway, because she saw the work being done every day. Witnessed firsthand the miracles.
“Got a minute?” she asked a little while later, poking her head through the semi-open door that read “John Hemmings” in gold letters and would soon read “Marc Rousseau”.
“Depends on what you want to do with that minute. If you’ve come to gawk, then, no, I don’t have a minute.” Marc looked up at her. “If you’ve come to be sociable, I’m not sociable. And if you’ve come about a patient, I haven’t even figured out how to fill out all my employment forms, so patients are a no-go as well for the next day or so.”
His office was sparse—a desk with a chair shoved into the corner, empty shelves, no diplomas. It was as if the man didn’t exist. But he did, and she couldn’t help but admire his massive, muscular arms, and the way his reading glasses slid to the end of his nose, revealing clear, dark brown eyes. And his hair cut … longish, over the collar, dark brown as well. He was goose-bumps-up-the-arm handsome, but the attitude … wow, was it bad!
“So, have you had enough time to get what you came for?” he asked her.
“What do you mean?”
“Your first glimpse of a doctor in a wheelchair.”
Truth was, she hadn’t even noticed the wheelchair.
“That’s why I didn’t stand to greet you. Can’t.” He shrugged indifferent shoulders. “Don’t particularly want to, either.”
“You are a piece of work, Dr. Rousseau.”
He stared at her over the top of his glasses for a moment. Appraising her. Taking in every last little bit. “So how would you like it if someone came to your office just to look at your blond hair …?” Shoulder length with a slight wave. “Or your green eyes. How would you like that, Miss …?”
“Dr. Anne Sebastian.”
“How would you like that, Dr. Sebastian?”
“Actually, if a man wants to look, it’s not a big deal.”
“If you were in a wheelchair, it would be.”
“Then that’s who you are? Who you want to be known as? The doctor in the wheelchair?”
“Your minute’s up,” he said, pushing his glasses back up his nose and turning his attention to the mountains of employment paperwork on his desk.
“Then give me another minute.”
“And the reason for that would be?”
“Lunch?” She heard herself say the words, and couldn’t believe they’d come out of her mouth. What in the world had possessed her?
“Seriously? You want to have lunch with me? Or did you draw the short straw and you’re the one elected to be nice to the disabled guy?”
“Believe me, if that was the reason, I’d be the first one backing out of it and running away. And I do mean running because I’m not about to give in to your poor-me-in-a-wheelchair attitude and cop some wary attitude when I’m forced to be around you.”
Marc actually laughed. “My reputation really has preceded me, hasn’t it?”
“Let’s just say that one of your former colleagues at Mercy wished me luck and said something to the effect that it was better me than her.”
“If I were insulted, I’d try to guess which one, but I really don’t give a damn because this is a job and I’m not here to win a popularity contest.”
“Trust me, you’d come in last place.”
He actually gave her a genuinely nice smile. “Is your motive really just to ask me to lunch?”
Her heart fluttered just a bit all because of a single smile. “Someone has to.”
“I can carry my own tray.”
“In our doctors’ dining room we have table service. Otherwise, by the end of the week, I’m sure someone would have already dumped their tray on your head.”
“Lucky for me,” he said as he wheeled out from behind his desk. “And just so you’ll know, I’m an incomplete, I have full sensation, full function, except for walking.”
“And just so you’ll know, I don’t give a damn about your sensation or your function or any other man things you might wish to confide.”
“Man hater, are you? Or do you prefer the ladies?”
“Oh, I prefer men. Just not right now and not for the foreseeable future.”
“I’m assuming it’s a long, sad story,” he said as he followed Anne to the hall.
“Longest and saddest. And the rest of it’s none of your business.”
“You know how hospital staff talks,” he said, shutting the door behind him.
“Let ‘em talk. Better them than me.” Surprisingly, he picked up a brisk pace, one she found quite difficult to keep up with. Was he testing her or trying to prove something? Admittedly, he did have a lot of strength, and the way he wheeled was something to behold, something athletic.
“Keep up,” he said, slowing his pace a little. “I don’t know where the dining room is, and I’m trusting that you’re going to show me sometime this afternoon. But at that slow pace …”
“Just shut up and wheel,” she said as a smile crept to her face. Yes, he was going to be a challenge. Maybe her biggest one ever. But he did have a grudge to work out, and a whole lot of anger he was going to have to learn to curb. Without therapy! Now, that was the part that was going to be difficult for her—just as Jason had anticipated—not getting involved in such a way as to help him solve his issues.
“By the way, since you asked me to lunch, you are paying for it, aren’t you?”
“Seriously?” she said, fighting back a laugh. If she did get through to this hulk of a man, Jason was going to owe her big time. Big, big time!
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_3f1999e4-7163-5c7f-bed1-8fe122b48f0d)
