Doctor In The House

Harold laughed. “Don’t put ideas in my head, Ivan. Tomorrow, eight.”

“Eight.” Ivan sighed mightily and then nodded, his slightly unruly mop of deep chestnut hair underscoring the motion almost independently. “Well, not that this hasn’t been fun, but I have a surgery to scrub in for.” He paused one last time to level a steely gaze at Harold. It was obvious that his seas were choppy. “If Mr. Dombrowski never dances again, it’s on your head.”

It was hard to tell whether or not Ivan meant it. The man did not possess what passed for a typical sense of humor. Maybe it was time to start thinking about retiring, Harold thought as the door to his office closed, with Ivan on the other side.

To reassure himself that he had done the right thing, Harold pulled over the dark blue folder and reviewed the pages in it again. He looked down at the picture in the file. The young blonde was smiling.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the image. “But he really is as good as he thinks he is. And you’ll learn a great deal. Once you get over hating me.”

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Ivan briefly entertained the thought of picking up the phone and calling in sick. The idea died. Not out of some misplaced nobility on his part, nor did he revisit his resistance and find it suddenly appalling. What he found appalling was the idea of a resident living in his shadow and calling it hers. He didn’t call in to postpone the inevitable because he didn’t know how. Didn’t know who to call because in the twelve years he’d been with Blair Memorial, he had never done it.

Sick or well, he had always shown up at the hospital. Even on the worst of days, he mustered on. Day in, day out. Ivan took no note of the months or even the seasons. Had Blair’s chief administrative assistant, a young woman aptly named Debi by her intuitive parents and afflicted with a case of terminal perkiness, not felt compelled to decorate the hospital halls, he wouldn’t have known what month it was. The woman felt some sort of obligation to celebrate every holiday known to God, man and the eternally vigilant greeting card people.

If the woman had left well enough alone, he wouldn’t have even known when holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas came around. Except for his older brother John, who he hadn’t heard from in years, he had no family. No one to drag him off for the purpose of spending the holidays with them. Because of that, each day seemed identical to the one that had come before. Some days necessitated short-sleeved shirts, others generated a need for sweaters, but by and large, the days Ivan experienced were all the same except for the weather.

Ivan switched on the TV just before he prepared to leave the apartment he’d been living in for the last twelve years. Living in Southern California, he was accustomed to periodically hearing the dire predictions of “the big one” coming, the earthquake of the magnitude that would destroy life and civilization as they all knew it.

He should only be so lucky today, he mused.

Buttoning his shirt and tucking it into his slacks, Ivan paused to listen as a very blond woman with flawless skin, what looked to be surgically enhanced lips and hypnotically blue eyes, summarized the day’s current local news.

Same old, same old, he thought.

“C’mon,” he murmured under his breath, talking to her as if she could hear. “If the big one’s coming, now would be a good day for it to get here.”

But the woman seemed entirely oblivious to the idea of earthquakes or any disturbances that might be called upon to rescue him. Contrarily, she appeared quite content to pour her heart into a story about how the department stores were bearing up to the after-Christmas slump in sales.

Ivan gave it a few minutes, waited to hear something promising, then shook his head as the story dragged on forever.

If more people were like him, he thought, the department stores would find themselves in a permanent slump. As a rule, shopping had never tempted him. He bought only what he needed and he needed very little. A few serviceable shirts and slacks with an equal number of socks and underwear to go with them were practically all he ever required.

His one weakness, his only hobby, was Philharmonic concerts. He attended them religiously, going all over the western map, arranging his schedule and people’s operations, whenever possible, around concert dates. Music was the very core of his existence, the only time he ever felt mellow, although he would have opted to be burned at the stake rather than admit that to a living soul.

He preferred to be viewed as a godless, soulless, unrelenting holy terror who inspired admiration, respect and fear in his fellow surgeons, not necessarily in that order. As for the hospital’s fresh crop of residents, in Ivan’s view, they hardly existed, ranking only slightly higher than the rodents that could be found on the food chain.

And, though the thought really bothered him, he was going to have to put up with one for the sake of continuing to do that which gave his life purpose and meaning.

Grunting, he switched off the television set and then tossed aside the remote. It bounced off his sofa, falling on the floor beneath the glass-topped coffee table. He left it there.

“No earthquakes,” he muttered, disgruntled. That meant that he was going to have to find a way to get this resident to request a transfer. And quickly.

He smiled as he left the house. No problem. By the time he was finished with this resident, she would think pairing up with Satan was an improvement.

CHAPTER 4

She sternly told herself that she wasn’t going to be nervous.

In all honesty, she hadn’t thought she would be because ordinarily, she wasn’t. Life, which had tossed its curveballs and its change-ups at her when she least expected them, had trained her to be prepared for anything. An ordinary case of first-day nerves did not figure into it.

Having gone through all that she had in her thirty-four years, Bailey DelMonico liked to think of herself as fearless.

For the most part, especially in the eyes of her family, she was.

And she should be now, she told herself. With a stifled sigh, she discarded the plaid garment she’d just tried on and returned to her first choice, a subdued pencil skirt. Black to match the chief of neurosurgery’s heart. Or so she’d been led to believe. Her two housemates, Jennifer and Adam, first-year residents at Blair Memorial, same as her, had sworn to it more than once.

Could be all talk, she reasoned, zipping up the skirt. Besides, no matter what this neurosurgeon’s reputation was—justified or not—she was fairly certain that he wouldn’t consume her for breakfast.

Bailey smiled to herself. She had already faced someone like that. Several “someones” like that, actually, if she were keeping count. Reformed cannibals. Those were part of the “perks” of having missionary parents who were famous for being the first to tread where angels feared to go.

Those angels, her father was fond of scoffing, were an overly cautious breed. And then he’d follow his comment up with his booming laugh. A laugh that somehow always made everything seem so much better. A laugh that was full of warmth and hope. And love.

Bailey pulled her honey-blond hair back and stuck in a few strategic pins to hold it up. It made her look older. Constantly mistaken for someone in her early twenties, she had a feeling she needed all the help she could get to be taken seriously.

God, but she wished she could hear her father’s laugh now. But she had left all that behind her. Her parents, their mission and her other life.

Her second other life, as well, she thought cryptically. Technically, she was about to embark on her third life. The first had involved being the daughter of two prominent, dedicated missionaries. She’d been halfway toward fulfilling her parents’ fondest dream and becoming a missionary herself before she realized that was not what she wanted. Her “second life” began when she’d decided, after a visit back to the States to check out colleges, to rebel against “all that goodness” that surrounded her. In her third year at Stanford, during spring break, she ran off and got married to the son of a professor. At the time, she’d thought that was what she wanted.

And it was. For about two months.

Slowly, she discovered, much to her surprise, that “all that goodness” she was fleeing was actually packaged inside of her. Not in such a way that she felt compelled, as her parents, Grace and Miles, were to spread the word of God and medicines in the darkest parts of the world. Her take on “goodness” was to help the sick and make them well. She wanted to become a doctor, a surgeon. The best surgeon she could be.

That was where she and her husband, Jeff, differed. She wanted to be a surgeon, he wanted her to be his wife and nothing else. He’d laughed and told her that taking care of him and his needs would always be more than a full-time job for her.

It took very little for her to realize that he was serious, that “carefree” was perilously close to “irresponsible” and that “dropdead gorgeous” only went so far in the scheme of things and was a very poor trade-off for respect. There was nothing about Jeff she could respect and he in turn seemed to have none for no one, least of all her.

What she’d foolishly believed was the greatest love of all time was merely a case of intense infatuation. She was more in love with the idea of love than she was with Jeff. She just hadn’t been smart enough at the time to know the difference. Jeff had been a feast for the eyes, beautiful in every sense of the word, but only outwardly. Inwardly, he lacked even the simplest of attributes that went into comprising her parents and her older brother, Simon.

Accustomed to selfless people, selfishness, especially of the magnitude that Jeff eventually displayed, was something Bailey found she just couldn’t get used to or accept. So, eighteen months after she said “I do,” she said “I don’t” and the marriage she’d thought would last forever was terminated.

Her parents waited for her return with open arms. And for a while, it was all right. But from the very beginning, she was restless. Restless because she’d discovered that there was another road she wanted to follow. One she was certain she was capable of traveling to the very end. One she swore to herself she wasn’t choosing just on a whim. She was a different person than she’d been six years earlier.

In their work, her parents were predominantly concerned with healing the soul, but not exclusively. They also fed the belly and brought medicines to the body. It was that part that interested her, that captured her imagination and fed her passion.

She applied to twelve medical schools, was interviewed by nine and was eventually accepted by six. She chose Johns Hopkins and threw herself into her studies. Being away from home the first time around, the taste of freedom in abundance had made her almost giddy. But the second time she was away, it was with a clear purpose. Bailey settled down and settled in, focusing on her goals and the career that she wanted with all her heart.

She had something to prove to everyone, most importantly, to herself.

The course work was hard, she was harder, determined to make up for what she considered lost time. With single-minded purpose, even though she worked to put herself through school, Bailey managed to graduate in less time than the average medical student. She fed on her own energy and enthusiasm, sometimes going for thirty-six hours at a time. Her letters of recommendation were glowing and well deserved.

She came to believe there was nothing she couldn’t do.

“I have the strength of ten because my heart is pure,” she murmured to the image in the mirror as she inspected herself one last time, reciting something her father had once read to her. Right now, she’d settled for the strength of two and a half.

Her pulse was beating fast. She closed her eyes and told herself to calm down.

Breathe, Bailey, breathe. He’s just a man, like everyone else. He has to put his pants on one leg at a time, same as you.

God, but she wished they were here right now, just for a few minutes. Her father and her mother. Or Simon. Or her uncle and aunt with whom she’d lived as an undergraduate. Someone she could turn to for an encouraging word. She liked her housemates, but right now, they were just contributing to the problem, telling her every single frightening encounter anyone had ever had with the great and terrible Ivan Munro.

Bailey pressed her hand against her abdomen. There was one hell of a huge butterfly inside, insisting on spreading his wings and flapping so that she felt utterly nauseous.

She hadn’t felt this nervous since that time she’d looked into Jeff’s eyes and knew that he was going to make love to her. Knew and worried that he would be disappointed because she was a virgin. So she did what she always did when she felt the slightest bit uncertain. She forged straight ahead. That time, she’d pulled out all the stops and made love to Jeff first, completely overwhelming him. She’d been so eager, so gungho, he hadn’t even noticed the momentary resistance he encountered when he’d entered her. He’d been too busy just trying to keep up.

Jeff never even suspected that she hadn’t been acting on instincts but on something she had witnessed as a young girl. Unknown to her parents, she’d snuck out to watch an elaborate mating ritual between two young people in one of the tiny African countries whose names kept changing nearly as often as the seasons.

Emulating it, she’d knocked Jeff’s socks off and kept him enamored of her for months.

Before the bloom finally came off the rose and the sexiest guy on the planet became someone she found she really didn’t like. Definitely not someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Not unless she was firmly committed to doing what the Catholics had once referred to as penance. Because being with Jeff had turned into penance.

She laughed softly to herself, shaking her head. One of the pins in her hair began to slip. Bailey shoved it back, tucking her hair back around the pin.

All that seemed like more than a lifetime ago. And very small potatoes now that she looked back at it. It was not nearly in the same league as what she’d accomplished in the last few years.

And definitely not in the same league as what she was about to undertake today. She squared her shoulders and turned away from the reflection. Today, she was about to face the biggest challenge she’d ever gone up against.

Surviving Ivan the Terrible.

CHAPTER 5

He didn’t look like an unholy terror.

Those had been Adam’s parting words to her, to take care because Ivan the Terrible lived up to his name and ate residents for breakfast. Adam had issued the warning a minute before she, Jennifer and he had gone their separate ways just inside the entrance of the hospital. Adam was heading for the pediatric ward while Jennifer’s residency was in cardiology.

Apparently, it didn’t matter that Adam and Jennifer were assigned to different disciplines that had, in essence, nothing to do with neurosurgery. All paths at the hospital seemed to cross Dr. Ivan Munro’s in some manner, shape or form. Everyone who worked at Blair Memorial knew about the man. His reputation preceded him, both as a surgeon and as a devourer of residents. Which was why, legend had it, he hadn’t been given any residents to mentor in the last few years.

But maybe that reputation was exaggerated, Bailey thought now as she turned in her chair to look toward the doorway.

The man didn’t seem scary at all.

As instructed, she had entered Dr. Bennett’s office at exactly eight o’clock sharp. She’d arrived nearly half an hour earlier and had spent the time circling the floor. Punctuality counted, but sometimes, she’d learned, showing up early acted against you if people weren’t prepared for you. So she had moved around on the first floor, never far from where she was ultimately supposed to be, all the while practicing every known remedy for stress she could think of. The last thing she wanted was to appear like some wild-eyed, overeager idiot who didn’t know her left hand from her right, much less a suture from a scalpel.

Trying not to look as if she were drawing in a sustaining lungful of air, Bailey took measure of the man who walked in, or rather, sauntered in as if he owned the office and the hospital that went with it.

Bailey desperately tried to be impartial. Nerves would bring cold hands, a dead giveaway. She didn’t want to seem too inferior on their first meeting.

Ivan the Terrible was tall, with an athletic build and wide shoulders. The cheekbones beneath what she estimated to be a day-old stubble were prominent. His hair was light brown and just this side of unruly. Munro’s hair looked as if he used his fingers for a comb and didn’t care who knew it.

The eyes were brown, almost black as they aimed at her. There was no other word for it. Aimed. As if he was debating whether or not to fire at point-blank range.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a line from a grade-B movie, “Be afraid. Be very afraid,” whispered along the perimeter of her brain. Warning her. Almost against her will, it caused her to brace her shoulders. Bailey had to remind herself to breathe in and out like a normal person.

Dr. Bennett had tried his level best to put her at ease and had almost succeeded. But an air of tension had entered with Munro. She wondered if the chief of staff was bracing himself, as well, bracing for some kind of disaster or explosion. Forewarned by everyone she encountered, she still didn’t really know what to expect.

“Ah, here he is now,” Harold Bennett announced needlessly. The smile on his lips was slightly forced, the look in his gray, kindly eyes held a warning as he looked at his chief neurosurgeon. “We were just talking about you, Dr. Munro.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Ivan replied dryly.

Harold cleared his throat, as if that would cover the less than friendly tone of voice Ivan had just displayed. “Dr. Munro, this is the young woman I was telling you about yesterday.”

Now his eyes dissected her. Bailey felt as if she were undergoing a scalpel-less autopsy right then and there. “Ah yes, the Stanford Special.”

He made her sound like something that was listed at the top of a third-rate diner menu. There was enough contempt in his voice to offend an entire delegation from the UN.

Summoning the bravado that her parents always claimed had been infused in her since the moment she first drew breath, Bailey put out her hand. “Hello. I’m Dr. Bailey DelMonico.”

Ivan made no effort to take the hand offered to him. Instead, he slid his long, lanky form bonelessly into the chair beside her. He proceeded to move the chair ever so slightly so that there was even more space between them. Ivan faced the chief of staff, but the words he spoke were addressed to her.

“You’re a doctor, DelMonico, when I say you’re a doctor,” he informed her coldly, sparing her only one steely glance to punctuate the end of his statement.

“I have a certificate from Johns Hopkins University that says differently.” Her tone was nonconfrontational and matter-of-fact. She was determined not to let Ivan the Terrible see that her insides felt like jelly. And she was just as determined not to be crushed into the ground like an insignificant bug at their first meeting.

Ivan didn’t bother sparing her a second glance. “Shall I tell her where she can put that certificate, or do you want that pleasure?”

Harold stifled a sigh. He knew this was all for show, to frighten off the young woman. He couldn’t very well discipline his chief neurosurgeon in front of a new resident, but neither did he want her madly running for the hills.

So instead, he smiled warmly at Bailey and shook his head like a weary father settling yet another squabble between his children. “I’m afraid that Dr. Munro is a little unorthodox,” he told her, then tried to sound as positive as he could as he added, “But I promise you that you’ll learn a great deal from him.”

It wasn’t hard to see that the man’s eyes were requesting her understanding. She appreciated that. Bailey smiled as she nodded. “Probably a lot of words I never heard before,” she allowed.

She thought she saw amusement flit across Dr. Bennett’s face and it heartened her. She’d gained an ally.

“Now, until I say differently, Dr. Munro is going to take over your education. Dr. Munro—” he fixed Ivan with a steely gaze that had been known to send lesser doctors running for their antacids but, as always, seemed to have no effect on the chief neurosurgeon “—I want you to award her every consideration. From now on, Dr. DelMonico is to be your shadow, your sponge and your assistant.” He emphasized the last word as his eyes locked with Ivan’s. “Do I make myself clear?”

For his part, Ivan seemed completely unfazed. He merely nodded, his eyes and expression unreadable. “Perfectly.”

“And if there’s any problem,” Harold continued, looking from the young woman to his chief sore spot, “I want to be informed of it immediately.” The sentence was no sooner out of his mouth than he saw Ivan raising his hand. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to guess exactly what the man was going to say. “After you give this arrangement at least several weeks to begin to work itself out.” Harold pushed his chair back from his desk and rose, signaling that the meeting was at an end. “Now, if you have the time, Dr. Munro, I would appreciate it if you showed our newest resident around Blair Memorial.”

To his credit, the chief of staff didn’t even flinch when Ivan shot a dagger in his direction.

“It’ll have to be another time,” Ivan replied. “My schedule’s full today.”

“That’s fine,” Bailey cut in quickly, refusing to be the source of a clash of wills between the two men. “I’ve already familiarized myself with the hospital layout, Dr. Bennett.”

“Oh?”

“My two roommates are residents here. I had them take me around during their off hours.”

Ivan smirked. “Enterprising little thing, isn’t she?” The words were only marginally addressed to the chief of staff.

His hand was on the doorknob. Bailey sprang to her feet, her chair making a scraping noise as she moved it back, then quickly joined the neurosurgeon before he could leave the office.

For his part, Ivan waited for her, nodded at the chief of staff and looked for all the world as if he had every intention of going along with the assignment that had been given him.

Optimist though he was, Harold Bennett knew better than to believe his eyes. A leopard did not change its spots and Ivan the Terrible was not about to become Ivan the Good because it was asked of him.

But he had seen something in the young woman’s eyes, something that gave him hope that Ivan had met, if not his match, at least someone who was not about to topple over like a loosely packed sandcastle the moment the first disgruntled words erupted out of Ivan’s mouth.

Ivan held the door open for her, allowing the young woman to leave first. He was male enough to notice that she was even better looking than her tiny photograph indicated and arrogant enough to feel that it had no bearing on anything as far as he was concerned.

Closing the door behind him, Ivan leaned over and whispered into her ear, “Just so you know, I’m going to be your worst nightmare.”

She gave him only the merest of looks as she appeared to consider the statement. “Funny, you don’t look like a burning cross on the front lawn.” And then she glanced up overhead at the ceiling. “I guess it must be the lighting.”

CHAPTER 6

Any hope that the man might possess a sense of humor and strike a truce died quickly. Munro looked angrier than Zeus upon learning of a rebellion spearheaded by the lesser gods. “First thing you’re going to have to do is lose the attitude, DelMonico.”

His eyes seemed to shoot thunderbolts. She refused to look away, although it wasn’t easy meeting his stormy gaze.