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And so it went until they found a benign node after six specimens.
* * *
Early afternoon, stowed away in the comfort of her dark office, studying yesterday afternoon’s surgical slides, Charlotte sipped chamomile tea. With her heart loaded down with emotions, feeling like a brick around her neck, it would be a long day that she’d just have to force herself through. She’d had plenty of experience willing herself through days at a time, beginning as a teenager and more recently two years ago after her surgery had been done and she’d had to deal with the reality of her decision. She’d stripped herself of part of her female identity and hadn’t yet figured out how to move forward. Derek’s reaction the first time they’d made love after surgery, his expression when he’d seen her, would forever be tattooed in her mind.
A light double tap on her closed door drew her out of the doldrums she’d been intent on wallowing in. “If it isn’t important, I’d rather be left alone.” She went the honest route, hoping the staff would understand, especially since they all seemed to already know about Dr. Gordon’s diagnosis.
The door opened, and Jackson, ignoring her request to be left alone, stepped inside. He was still in OR scrubs, his wavy hair mostly covered with the OR cap as he closed the door behind him. “I thought you could use a friend right about now.”
Not giving Charlotte a chance to respond, he walked to her desk, took one of her hands and, finding little resistance from her, pulled her to standing like a reluctant dance partner, then into his arms. He hugged her tightly and sincerely and the warmth washed over her like a comforting cloud, all soft and squishy, with every surface of her skin reacting to his embrace in goose bumps. Yes, she did need this, and Jackson had no idea how much it meant to her.
They stood together like that for several moments, her breathing in his scent and finding it surprisingly not sterile-smelling at all, even though he’d just come from surgery. She leaned into his solid body, enjoying it, knowing this was a man she could literally lean on. One of his hands wandered to her hair, as if unable to resist the opportunity to feel it. She liked that he was so obvious about it, and smiled against his shoulder.
Before standing in the dim light and holding each other became awkward, Jackson spoke. “Chemotherapy can work wonders these days. I’ve already got Marv Cohen working on Jim’s case, and I feel that already shifts the prognosis into a more positive direction.”
Who was he kidding, trying to cheer her up? He was talking to a pathologist. She was a doctor from the end-of-the-road department where patients wound up after all the great medical plans hadn’t panned out. The thing that hurt was that she knew Dr. Gordon himself had taught her to think that way. “We have to be realistic, Charlotte,” he’d say. How would he feel when he woke up and got the news?
With all her dreary thoughts, she appreciated Jackson’s desire to make her feel better. But this fight wasn’t about her, it was Jim Gordon’s to fight, and she promised she’d do everything in her power to help him. “I’ll read the slides first thing in the morning, and report directly to Marv, after you, of course, so he can come up with a magic potion and stop this mess.” No matter what, her mother had insisted to the very end, don’t lose hope. Becoming a pathologist had made her cynical.
“I’m sure you will.” His hands slid to either side of her face, fingers gently cupping her ears. Then he studied her eyes. She’d never been this close to him before, and loved looking up into his angled features and, in her opinion, handsome face, into those often world-weary eyes. Distracted by the thickness of his eyelashes, she didn’t see what was about to happen until his mouth lightly kissed hers. Surprising herself, she let him, relaxed and enjoyed the feel of his lips pressing on hers. This kind of comfort she could get used to really fast.
But wait. This couldn’t happen! It meant things, like getting close to another human being again. A man. Which could lead to, well, sex. Which wouldn’t happen because once Jackson found out about her surgery and the fact she’d stripped herself of many a man’s favorite playground, the breasts, he’d be like Derek. Not able to accept her as she was—still a woman, but scarred and different.
The pain from Derek’s walking away had sliced too deep.
She ended the kiss, not abruptly, just not allowing it to go any further. She prepared a quick cover, with a single thought planted in her head since yesterday. “Didn’t I see you with Yuri yesterday?” By his confused expression, it seemed like she had the perfect antidote to stop this kiss cold.
“You did. I was doing her a favor.”
Charlotte was very aware that even though they were no longer kissing, he hadn’t let her out of his arms. “A favor?” Did he really expect her to believe that line?
“She’s got a thing for Stan Arnold.”
“The head of the medical lab?” Trying to picture petite Yuri with tall, gangly Stan made Charlotte smile.
“He would be the one. Apparently she’s had a thing for him for years, and recently found out his wife had dumped him. So she cooked up this plan to make him jealous.”
“I don’t remember seeing Stan at the party yesterday.”
“That’s the joke. Yuri sets up this elaborate plan, me pretending to be her date, and the guy doesn’t show up.” He smiled and shook his head. “She’s got it bad.”
“I guess I shouldn’t listen to everything Antwan tells me.”
His eyes widened, as if amazed she’d listen to anything Antwan said, let alone everything. “Like what?”
“That you’re a ladies’ man, and you’ve dated a lot of women from St. Francis.”
An odd look crossed his face. “Not at all true. I’ve had only a couple of dates since I’ve moved here, no one from the hospital, and once they got to know me, neither lady bothered to stick around.” What was he telling her? Was there a Mr. Hyde to his charming Dr. Jekyll? Before she could delve into that loaded statement, Jackson spoke again. “And by the way, I noticed Dr. Dupree hanging around you a lot yesterday. If you hadn’t already told me you don’t have anything going on with him, I might have thought you were there together.” He’d expertly changed the subject.
“Oh, no! I hope no one else thought that.” She was well aware of still being in Jackson’s arms, and was also dying to know if she’d made him feel jealous yesterday, even though she knew it was pointless, just a little ego bump.
“I don’t really care what anyone else thinks, but I’m relieved.” He kissed her again, this one far from a comfort kiss and sending shivers dripping down her spine. If she’d had any doubt about his interest before, he’d sure proved her wrong now. This kiss felt intimate, like they kissed like this every day, and she liked it. Kissing Jackson shut down her never-ending thoughts and questions, allowing her to stay in the moment and enjoy the soft yet persistent feel of his lips on hers. At first he kissed like a gentleman, but something she did—she’d got carried away and opened her mouth and pushed her tongue between his lips, to be exact—had fired him up. She reeled with the feel of him getting a little wild with the kisses because of something she’d set off. How long had it been since she’d done this to a man?
As his mouth worked down the side of her neck, finding many of her trigger points and setting loose chills, his hands began to wander over her shoulders and down her arms, soon skimming the sides of her chest down to her waist and back up. As much as she was enjoying everything, he’d moved into “the zone” and it shocked her back to reality.
This can’t happen. Not here. Not now. Not ever?
She pulled herself together and stepped back, letting him know they’d crossed a line for which she wasn’t ready. She searched for and found her voice, barely able to whisper the words. “Though this is really nice, it probably isn’t the best way to work out my concerns for Dr. Gordon.”
“Seems like a pretty damn good replacement, though.” Jackson, like the perfect gentleman that he usually had been until about five minutes ago, took a second to pull it together. “I’m pretty sure Jim will be out of Recovery by now. Want to go visit him with me?” It had been spoken as if nothing monumental had just happened between them, like he kissed women in their offices all the time.
“I’d love to.” She’d also love to continue kissing him, but only in her dreams could she have what she really wanted from Jackson. Just like the reality of Dr. Gordon with metastatic cancer, some things weren’t easily worked out.
With more questions about Jackson than she’d ever had before, and a boatload of mixed-up feelings, both mental and physical, for him, she still managed a daring last kiss. She’d call it a gratitude kiss. Granted, it followed a quick hug of thanks and was only a buss of the cheek, but at least it was something.
After graciously accepting her parting gift, and searching her stare for an instant, he headed for the door and she followed him toward the elevators for the post-op ward. Something significant had happened between them. Figuring out what it meant would be left for another time.
Before just now, never in her wildest imagination could she have seen that kiss coming.
* * *
Dr. Gordon’s eyes were closed. The head of the hospital bed was elevated slightly, and the white over-starched sheets seemed to bleach what little color he had from his face. Oxygen through a nasal cannula helped his shallow breathing. The sight of her mentor looking so vulnerable made her stomach burn. She took his hand, the one with the IV, and his eyelids cracked open. He needed a few seconds to focus before he smiled.
“Hello, Jim. Glad to see you survived surgery,” Jackson said, as if he’d had nothing to do with it.
“Yeah, some lunatic tried to kill me today.” His gaze shifted to Charlotte rather than look at Dr. Hilstead any longer, and his tough facade softened as he did.
“How’re you doing?” She could hardly hear herself.
“Besides feeling like I’ve been shot with BBs in my gut, okay, I guess.”
“When was the last time you had pain medicine?”
“I lost track of time a while ago. I’m supposed to push this.” He nodded toward the medicine dispenser attached to his IV pole, which allowed the patient to regulate pain control on the first day post-op. He pressed it. If enough time had passed since the last dose, he’d get more now, which of course would put him back to sleep.
“Can I give you some ice chips?”
“Sure.” He let her feed the ice to him from a plastic spoon, and it struck her how over the past few years he’d spoon-fed her knowledge as her mentor. Helping now was the least she could do. She found a pillow on the bedside chair, fluffed it and exchanged it for the flattened one behind his head, just like she’d learned to do with her mother. He groaned with the movement but let her do it.
Their eyes met briefly. Appreciation, with flecks of hard-won wisdom, conveyed his thoughts. Jackson had probably already talked to him about the findings, and Dr. Gordon had assigned her to the frozen sections for the surgery. They all knew the outcome. There was no point in bringing it up.
She tried to keep sadness from coloring her gaze as they shared a sweetly poignant moment, almost like father and daughter. Emotion reached inside her and gripped until her throat tightened and she feared she’d start to cry. She inhaled as reinforcement. “You probably feel like sleeping.”
He let her use the excuse, squeezed her hand one last time and let her go. “Thanks for coming by.”
“I’ll be back later, okay?”
He nodded, snuggled back on the pillow and shut his eyes again.
Jackson guided Charlotte at the small of her back from the bedside out the door to the nurses’ station. “He knew before going in what the likelihood was of his having mets.”
She hated this part of her job, verifying the worst outcome. Seeing her mentor’s tired face just now, looking nothing like the strong head of the department she’d always looked up to, had knocked some of the air from her. She gulped and the swelling emotions she’d tried to ward off with little bedside tasks took hold. Her eyes burned, and her chest clutched at her lungs. Memories from nearly twenty years ago threw her to the curb, and she broke down.
Jackson swept her under his arm and walked her to a quiet side of the ward, back near the linen cart. “Let’s go get a cup of coffee, okay?”
Trying her best to get hold of her runaway feelings, she nodded and swiped at her eyes. He handed her some nearby tissues, and she used them. Then, with his arm around her waist, he led her back to the elevator, which they had all to themselves.
“I didn’t realize how close you are to Jim.”
“He’s been like a father figure to me. I lost my mother to breast cancer when I was fifteen, and my dad a few years after that. Dad just couldn’t go on without her, I guess. I still miss them.” Jackson’s grasp tightened around her arm. “Dr. Gordon pretends he’s an old grump, but I knew the first time I met him that he was a teddy bear. I guess I let him step into that vacant parental role. I don’t know what I’ll do—”
“Don’t go down that path. We’ve got a lot of options at this point.”
She nodded, further composing herself in preparation for their exit from the elevator. “My mother’s missed diagnosis and subsequent illness was the reason I went into medicine and pathology.”
“I wondered why a beautiful woman like you had chosen that department.”
His honest remark helped lighten her burdens for the moment, and she smiled. He thought she was beautiful? “Do you think I’m ghoulish?”
It was his turn to grin, which definitely reached his eyes, and he laughed a little, too. “I can safely say you and that word have never come to mind at the same time.”
“Whew.” She mock-wiped her brow. “Wouldn’t want to make the wrong impression.” Because I really like you.
They entered the cafeteria and, taking the lead, he grabbed a couple of mugs and filled them with coffee, after verifying with caffeine or not for her. Then he picked up a couple of cookies on a plate, and after he’d signed off on the charge, they went to the doctors’ seating in a smaller and quieter room than the regular cafeteria. Leading the way, he chose a table and removed the items from the tray then waited for her to sit before he did. Yeah, a take-charge gentleman all the way.
“You feel like talking more about what tore you up back there?” He got right to the point.
She inhaled, poured some cream into her coffee and thought about whether or not she wanted to revisit those old sad feelings about her parents any more, and decided not to. “I’m good. Just worried about Dr. Gordon.”
He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “I understand.”
She hoped her gratitude showed when their gazes met. From his reassuring nod she figured it did. She accepted a peanut-butter cookie and took a bite. “Mmm, this is really good.”
He picked his up and dipped it in his black coffee before taking a man-sized bite. His brows lifted in agreement. “So,” he said after he’d swallowed, “since we’re going to change the subject, I have an observation. I’m thinking you might be dating someone?”
Her chin pulled in. “Why would you think that?” Hadn’t they been making out in her office earlier?
“You put a quick stop to our...” He let her finish the sentence in her mind, rather than spell it out.
She lifted her gaze and nailed his, which was, not surprisingly, looking expectant. He was definitely interested in her, which caused thoughts to flood her mind. She’d gone through a long, tough day already, and it wasn’t even two o’clock. She’d once again seen firsthand how things people took for granted, like their health, could change at any given moment. It made her think how much more out of life she longed for. Shouldn’t she grab some of what it had to offer, especially when it, or rather, he, was sitting right across from her, dunking his cookie like it was the best thing on earth? Instead of day in and day out spending most of her time with the biggest relationship in her life, her microscope?
But would Jackson want her as she was? Admittedly, she’d always been proud of her figure, never flaunting herself too much but not afraid to show some cleavage if the occasion and the dress called for it. Now every day when she showered she saw her flat chest, the scars. There wasn’t anything sexy about that. Yet she was a woman, lived, breathed and felt like a woman, but one who strapped on her chest the symbols of the fairer sex every day before she came to work. Pretending she was still who she’d used to be.
The decision had seemed so clear when she’d made it. Get rid of the tissue, the ticking time bomb on her chest. Never put herself in a position to hear the words that had devastated her mother’s life. You have breast cancer.
Because of lab tests and markers, she’d thought like a scientist, but now she had to deal with the feelings of a woman who was no longer comfortable in her body.
Then there was tall, masculine and sexy-as-hell Jackson sitting directly across from her, smiling like he had a secret.
She bet his secret was nowhere as big as hers. “You took me by surprise earlier.”
“I took myself by surprise.”
She liked knowing that the kiss had been totally spontaneous. “So, since you asked, I’m not seeing anyone. Today’s just been hard. That’s why I—”
“I understand.” His beeper went off. He checked it. “Let me know when you’re leaving later and after we pop in on Jim again I’ll walk you to your car.”
It wasn’t a question. She liked that about him, too. “Okay.”
Except later, when Jackson walked her to her car, after visiting the hospital and finding Dr. Gordon deeply asleep and looking like he floated on air, Jackson reverted to perfect-gentleman mode. No arm around her shoulder or hand-holding as they walked. Whatever magic they’d conjured earlier had worn off. He simply smiled and wished her good night, told her to get some rest, more fatherly than future boyfriend material, and disappointingly kept a buffer zone between them as she got into her car.
As she drove off, checking her rearview mirror and seeing him watch her leave, his suit jacket on a fingertip and hanging over his shoulder, looking really sexy, she wondered if he’d had time to come to his senses, too. Something—was it her?—held him back. Then, since she knew her secret backward and forward, and how it kept her from grabbing at the good stuff in life, she further wondered what his secret was.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_7ce212d3-e004-5e4a-8ce9-c8490536f8ad)
JACKSON TOSSED HIS keys onto the entry table in his Westlake condo, thinking a beer would taste great about now, but knowing he’d given up using booze as an escape. It had cost what had been left of his marriage to get the point across.
A long and destructive battle with PTSD had led to him falling apart and quitting his position as lead surgeon at Savannah General Hospital just before they’d planned to fire him three years ago. The ongoing post-traumatic stress disorder had turned him into a stranger and strained his relationship with his teenage sons, frightening them away. It had also ensured his wife of twenty years had finally filed for divorce.
He’d lost his right lower leg in an IED accident in Afghanistan. It had been his second tour as an army reservist. He’d volunteered for it, and for that his wife had been unable to forgive him. She’d deemed it his fault that the improvised explosive device had caused him to lose his leg. He’d returned home physically and emotionally wounded, and, piled onto their already strained marriage from years of him choosing his high-maintenance education and career over nurturing their life together, she couldn’t take it.
His fault.
Their marriage had been unraveling little by little for years anyway. High-school sweethearts, she’d then followed him on to college. His grandfather used to tease him that she was majoring in marriage. Then they’d accidentally got pregnant the summer before he’d entered medical school. With their respective families being good friends, there was no way he could have let her go through the pregnancy alone. So he’d done the honorable thing and they’d got married right before he’d entered medical school.
It hadn’t been long before they’d realized they may have made a mistake, but his studies had kept him too busy to address it, and the new baby, Andrew, had taken all of her time, and, well, they’d learned how to coexist as a small family of three. In his third year of medical school she’d got pregnant again. This time he’d got angry with her for letting it happen when he’d found out she’d stopped taking birth control pills. Evaline had said she wanted kids because he was never around. And so it had gone on.
Then at the age of twenty-seven and in the second year of his surgical residency, he’d signed up for the army reserves. One weekend a month he’d trained in an army field medical unit, setting up mobile triage, learning to care for mass casualties. When he’d finished his surgical residency and had been asked to stay on at Savannah General, his wife had thought maybe things would get better. But he’d started signing on with his reserve unit for two-week humanitarian missions for victims of natural disasters at home in the States. Soon he’d branched out to other countries, and when he’d been deployed to Iraq, Evaline had threatened to leave him.
He’d made it home six weeks later in one piece, his eyes opened to the need of fellow US soldiers deployed in the Middle East, and also finally accepting the trouble his marriage was in. They seeked out marriage counseling and he’d focused on working his way up the career ladder at Savannah General, and things had seemed to get better between them. He’d stayed on in the army reserves doing his one weekend a month, catching hell from Evaline if it fell on either of his sons’ sports team events, but he hadn’t been able to pick and choose his times of service. They’d limped on, keeping a united front for their boys and their families, while the fabric of their love had worn thinner and thinner.
Then, after a brutal series of attacks on US military personnel, they’d needed army reserve doctors and he’d volunteered to be deployed to Afghanistan. He had been one week short of going home when the IED had changed everything.
His fault?
He’d come home, had hit rock bottom after that, then eventually had got help from the veterans hospital, and had spent the next year accepting he’d never be the man he’d once been and cleaning up his act. He’d been honorably discharged from the army, too. But the damage to Evaline and his sons and his reputation as a surgeon had already been done. She’d filed for divorce.
As time had passed his PTSD had settled down and he’d felt confident enough to go back to work. That was when he’d figured there wasn’t anything for him back home in Georgia anymore. His wife had divorced him. His oldest son had wanted nothing to do with him. So since his youngest son would be attending Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, he’d sought employment in the area, hoping to at least mend that relationship. St. Francis of the Valley Hospital had been willing to give him a chance as a staff surgeon. With less responsibility, not being the head of a department but just a staff guy for a change, not having to deal with his ex-wife and her ongoing complaints anymore and enjoying the eternal spring weather of Southern California, his stress level had reached a new low.
Until today, when he’d had to tell his friend Jim Gordon some pretty rotten news—that he had metastatic cancer—and they both knew there’d be one hell of a battle ahead. Then, in a moment of weakness, seeing the distress Charlotte Johnson had been in, he’d let his gut take over and he’d moved in to comfort her. But it hadn’t worked out that way, because he’d played with fire. He knew he’d thought about her far, far differently than any other colleague. That he’d been drawn into her dark and alluring beauty while sitting across from her, looking at patient slides, for the last year. Come to think of it, could he have been any slower? How long had he had a thing for her anyway? At least three-quarters of the last year, that was how long.
Could he blame himself for kissing her when she’d fit into his arms so perfectly, and she’d shown no signs of resisting him? Still, it had been completely improper and couldn’t happen again because he wasn’t ready to have one more woman reject him because his lower leg had been replaced with a high-tech prosthetic. Maybe it wasn’t sexy, but it sure worked great, and he’d been running five miles a day to prove it for the last two years. In fact, he’d never been in better condition.
Ah, but Charlotte, she stirred forgotten feelings, that special lure of a woman that made him want to feel alive again. Something about her mix of confidence on the job and total insecurity in a social setting made him hope what they had in common might be enough to base a new relationship on. When he’d kissed her, because of her response, he’d got his hopes up that maybe she felt the same way. But she’d stopped the kiss and an invisible barrier had seemed to surround her after that. He’d pretended everything had been fine when he’d walked her to her car—he hadn’t noticed her need to be left alone—but the message had got through to him. Loud and clear.
He wandered into his galley kitchen and searched the refrigerator, hoping there might be something halfway interesting in the way of leftovers. He grabbed a bottle of sparkling water and guzzled some of it, enjoying the fizzy burn in his throat. Today he’d kissed the woman who held his interest more than any other since his high-school sweetheart. That was the good news. The bad news was he knew he couldn’t do anything further about it. Her invisible force field wouldn’t let him through, and if that wasn’t enough, his boatload of baggage held him back.
Out of curiosity, though, he did have one little—okay, monumental—test for Charlotte, one that would really determine her mettle before he totally gave up.
