скачать книгу бесплатно
A sour sensation filled his stomach, and all the anticipation regarding his new job leached away in an instant. It didn’t matter that he didn’t plan on staying at Hepplewhite very long. He’d only signed a one-year contract and, although the board had made it clear they hoped he’d renew at the end of that time, the plan was to move on to somewhere else. Have another adventure.
Right now, though, this felt less like an adventure and more like a mistake.
So much for a fresh start.
Cell phone held to her ear with one shoulder, Dr. Liz Prudhomme stepped out into the quiet of the staff parking lot and let the door swing shut behind her. Although there had been a midwinter thaw of sorts along the east coast, it was still cold, but after the dry heat of the hospital the damp chill felt good against her face. Grabbing the phone before it slipped, she found an alcove out of the wind and took a sip of her rapidly cooling coffee.
She normally didn’t make personal calls while on duty, but her mother had just flown in from Milan the day before and this was the first opportunity Liz had had to speak to her. With the time difference between New York and California, it was perfect. Her mother would have just finished breakfast.
“The dress is delightful. Giovanna picked a strapless mermaid gown, made completely of Guipure lace. It’s elegant and suits her so well. Although the designer isn’t one I would have chosen, I have to admit it is beautiful.”
In Liz’s opinion, her future sister-in-law could wear a gunny sack and still look gorgeous. After all, Giovanna modeled for some of the world’s best designers and probably wore a size negative three. Pulling off a dress like the one her mother was describing wouldn’t be difficult for her at all.
Even if she wanted to, that wouldn’t be the case for Liz. When it came to height and bone structure, she’d inherited her father’s mostly Anglo-Saxon genes, rather than her mother’s mix of Latin and Asian. She had a farm-girl sturdiness that once upon a time had been the bane of her existence. Now she was proud of her strength, and confident in her womanhood.
Most of the time.
Unless she let old insecurities rise up and blindside her.
But it wasn’t jealousy making Liz feel out of sorts as she listened to her mother breathlessly give her all the details of the dress and their subsequent orgy of shopping. It was the usual feeling of inadequacy, knowing her ex-beauty-queen mother would have loved to have a daughter like Giovanna, rather than the one she had. Someone as passionate about fashion and decorating as Lorelei Prudhomme was herself. A daughter who could follow in her footsteps and excel at being a member of high society, not single-mindedly focused on her medical career.
Better to be useful than decorative.
Funny how often, at times like these, Nanny Hardy’s voice popped into her head, reminding her of what was important. The nanny had left when Liz was eight, but her legacy was lasting.
“I don’t know why they chose New York for the wedding.” Lorelei sighed the special sigh that usually turned all members of her family to mush, and had them falling over themselves to give her whatever she wanted. She’d learned, however, that it didn’t work on the strong-willed Giovanna. “It would have been so much nicer here in San Francisco.”
Liz stifled a prickle of annoyance at hearing the same complaint for the hundredth time but just replied, “It’s where Giovanna and Robbie wanted to have it.”
“I know.” There was no missing the pique in her mother’s delicate tones. “But it’s so inconvenient for us, really.”
So said the woman who flew to Milan to look at a wedding dress, and help her future daughter-in-law shop for a trousseau! Liz shook her head silently, amusement making the corners of her lips quirk. Her anxiety, which always made itself known whenever she spoke to her mother, abated slightly. Taking another sip of her coffee, she swallowed her instinctive, somewhat snarky reply along with the strong brew.
“However, I’m sure it will be lovely. Giovanna has exquisite taste. Are you bringing anyone to the wedding?”
Caught off guard by the quick change of subject, although that was her mother’s usual style of conversation, Liz said the first thing that came to mind. “Highly unlikely.”
As her mother sighed again, Liz got that familiar sense of being not quite enough of a woman to suit.
Despite it being eight years since Liz had had a serious romantic relationship, her mother never stopped hoping, asking leading questions whenever the opportunity arose. Although she’d never say so to her mother, there was no way Liz was going down that painful road again. Lessons learned the first time around didn’t have to be repeated, and Andrew had certainly taught her to keep her heart closed.
“Your father sends his love.”
The muscles in Liz’s neck and shoulders tightened so suddenly, so painfully she almost gasped aloud. Instead, she pressed her lips together for an instant and clenched her fingers around the cup. When she replied, it was years of practice that allowed her to keep her tone level.
“Tell him I said hello.”
It was the best that she could do right now. The wounds were still too fresh, her sense of betrayal still too painful for anything more.
“Eliza...”
But that was all her mother said, and the silence stretched between them, filled with the ghosts of past mistakes and family secrets too long hidden. Liz wasn’t surprised by her mother’s inability to articulate whatever it was she wanted to say. Heart-to-hearts and speaking about emotional subjects weren’t “done” in their family.
Things might be a damned sight better if they were but, after all these years, they wouldn’t know where to start.
She was gripping the phone so hard her fingers were beginning to ache, mirroring the pain in her suddenly roiling stomach. She didn’t have time for this. Not right now. Probably never.
“I have to get back inside, Mother. I’m still on duty. I’m glad you enjoyed your trip.”
“Thank you, dear.” Her mother spoke softly, almost wistfully, and Liz wondered if she, like her daughter, wished things could go back to the way they used to be. “We’ll talk again soon.”
Disconnecting the call, Liz thrust the phone into the pocket of her coat and turned her face up toward the murky sky, taking a deep breath, trying to relax.
It was actually funny, in a twisted type of way. She’d always been an outsider in the family, set apart. While she loved her parents, she’d often felt emotionally distant from them, while Robbie, three years her junior, had been the affectionate one, the glue holding the family together. The fact that he was adopted hadn’t mattered. She’d been too young when he’d arrived to care, and had loved him, unconditionally, ever since.
Perhaps it was the thought of settling down with Giovanna and starting a family of his own that had prompted Robbie to ask for information about his biological parents. Whatever the reason, neither he nor Liz had been prepared for the answer, delivered one summer’s evening last year while the family had spent a couple of days together at the beach house.
Robbie was Brant Prudhomme’s biological son, conceived when Brant had had an affair not long after Liz’s birth.
“We went through a bad patch,” Lorelei had said, her still-beautiful face pale, her eyes damp. “But, in the end, we decided to make it work. And when Brant told me Robbie’s mother was dying...”
“Your mother is a wonderful woman,” Brant had interjected, in the tone Liz had known from experience meant the conversation was all but over. “I don’t think either of you would argue that point.”
Too stunned to say anything, or ask questions, Liz had watched her father walk out of the room, his back stiff and straight. Lorelei had looked suddenly more fragile but, as usual, it had been Robbie who’d gone to her, hugged her, and reassured her everything would be fine.
Liz hadn’t shared his optimism. From that moment, her world had felt off kilter, and she doubted it would ever be completely put back to rights again. Knowing that her father, who Liz would have sworn was a good husband, had betrayed her mother’s trust like that had devastated her.
What little faith she’d had in men had practically been destroyed.
Since that day, anger had lain like a rock in her chest. Why the situation affected her this way was something she was loath to look at too closely. All she knew was she couldn’t deal with being around or speaking to her father yet. Maybe the anger would fade over time and she’d relent, but not yet. Sometimes that anger spilled over to her mother too, but Lorelei, for all her bustle and chattiness, had somehow always struck Liz as being in need of protection. Being careful not to let her know the extent of the rage her daughter felt was important.
Suddenly realizing her face tingled from the cold, Liz took one last deep breath and twisted her head from side to side, trying to work out the stiffness in her muscles. It was time to get back to work, to lose herself in the job she loved more than anything else in the world, at the hospital that held a special place in her heart.
Liz’s great-grandfather had been one of the founding fathers of Hepplewhite General, which eventually had been named after him. When she’d completed her residency and applied there she hadn’t revealed her connection to the hospital, which had made winning the position that much more satisfying.
She was sure that somewhere, in the afterlife, her great-aunts had chuckled.
Her Great-Aunt Honoria had wanted to study medicine, but her father had refused to allow it. And when Liz’s father had expressed reservations about his daughter going into what he’d described as “a grueling, heartbreaking profession” Honoria and her sister, Eliza, had paid for her schooling.
“Do what you want in life,” Aunt Honoria had said. “Be useful, and don’t allow your father, or any man, to dictate to you. Eliza and I wish we’d had the courage to do that ourselves.”
The advice had been sound, and in line with what her nursemaid, Nanny Hardy, had taught her as a child. Heeding their collective guidance had led to her success, while the one time she’d not followed it had led to disaster and heartbreak.
No, she loved her work and Hepplewhite, with its associations with the past, and had made it the main focus of her life. Never had she been more grateful for how busy the ER kept her than now.
There was nothing like a full workload to keep the chaotic thoughts at bay. This winter had seen a particularly active flu season, still in full swing, and with the waves of snowstorms hitting New York City had come an uptick of heart attacks, slip-and-fall injuries and the like. The hospital staff wasn’t immune to the flu either, and there were a few out sick, which increased everyone’s workload.
As she swiped her badge to open the door, Liz’s stomach rumbled. She’d been heading for the cafeteria a couple hours ago when a commotion in the ER waiting area had caught her attention. Four clearly frightened young men had been at the intake desk, supporting a fifth who’d appeared to be unconscious and bleeding from a facial wound. They had all been talking at once.
“He fell—”
“Momma’s gonna kill us—”
“He won’t wake up—”
Lunch forgotten, Liz had grabbed a nearby gurney and hit the electronic door opener, not waiting for an orderly. Even from a distance she had been able to see the youngster had needed immediate treatment.
As it turned out, the teens had cut school and somehow found their way past the protective fencing surrounding the hospital’s ongoing construction project. Once there, her patient decided to use the equipment and building rubble to practice his parkour skills. Probably not the best of ideas, given the slick of ice that still covered some surfaces. It had cost him a broken jaw, a concussion and the kind of laceration that, without plastic surgery, would leave a disfiguring scar.
By the time she’d examined him, made sure he was stable and sent for the oral and plastic surgeons, she’d only had another two and a half hours before her twelve-hour shift would be finished. Rather than bother with a break, and cognizant of the full waiting room, she’d only taken enough time to call her mother.
Striding down the corridor toward the ER, Liz put her family drama, and its attendant pain, aside. There was no place for it here in the hospital, where all her attention had to be on her patients’ well-being.
That was what was truly important.
On the way home she’d stop at her favorite diner and treat herself to an everything omelet with home fries. Just the thought made her mouth water and her stomach rumble again.
CHAPTER TWO (#ub469555a-2e6e-596e-abd4-131cdddacefd)
AFTER TAKING OFF her coat and making her way back to the ER, Liz noticed a certain buzz in the air that hadn’t been there before she’d gone outside. Before she could ask one of the other doctors what was going on, she was called away to deal with a patient brought in by ambulance.
Paramedics had received a report of a man acting irrationally and, on arrival, had found Mr. Josiah Collins combative and uncooperative, with a severe laceration on his arm. Although they also said he’d calmed down quickly, and there’d been no problems with him since, there was something about the man’s watchful quiescence and refusal to give much information that had Liz on high alert.
She ordered blood tests, and stitched the laceration. Then, signaling to one of the nurses to join her, she stepped out and walked a few paces along the corridor leading to the ER nurses’ station.
“Put a rush on those samples. I need those results, stat, so I can know whether he’s on something or is just having a psychotic break. And have one of the security personnel keep an eye on him, please.”
“Yes Dr. Prudhomme.”
The nurse immediately started off, but paused as Liz said, “And, Stella? Nice job on that thoracotomy patient earlier. I appreciate it.”
With a smile and a nod of acknowledgement, Stella went on her way, and Liz walked toward the nurses’ station.
There was no need for her to elaborate. Stella knew to what she was referring. The patient had been awake, alert and in extreme pain. Taking advantage of the brief thaw, he’d been working on a roof and slipped, the fall causing chest trauma and fractures to both arms and one leg. Already distressed, he’d grown more distraught as a massive hemothorax had caused blood to fill his chest cavity, compressing his lungs and making breathing increasingly difficult.
Inserting a chest tube was a great deal easier to do when the patient was unconscious and Liz had been prepared to have a difficult time of it until Stella, with impeccable timing, had distracted the patient, held his attention and kept him calm through the painful procedure. Stella’s intuition and ability to connect quickly and effectively with the patient deserved acknowledgement.
Liz was more than aware of her own shortcomings in the human interaction arena. Her lack of affectionate gestures, her cool contemplation of, and reaction to, life had been pointed out repeatedly, and not as positive traits. She wasn’t into giving constant praise for every little thing. They all had their jobs to do, from the ER doctors and trauma surgeons to the orderlies. She didn’t expect congratulations for every correct diagnosis she made or course of treatment she set in motion, and neither should anyone else for doing their job.
However, she also knew her reputation was one of a hard-assed, unsmiling witch. It was true, and she had no complaints on that score. However, just because she didn’t make nice with everyone, it didn’t mean she didn’t care about the people she worked with.
It was just simpler not to care too much, not build friendships and relationships that could, potentially, interfere with her job. She already had close friends from her university days. Although they were now scattered across the globe, Liz really didn’t see any need to make new ones.
She was heading to the nurses’ station to get a jump on her charting when she was interrupted by a nurse informing her that her young parkour patient’s mother had arrived, and was in the waiting room.
Her stomach rumbled again, reminding her she’d been on duty for eleven and a half hours and hadn’t ingested anything more than a couple of energy bars and half a cup of coffee. It was just one of those days.
Micah Johnston’s mother was by turns livid at her son and scared about his prognosis, and it took some time to calm her down. As soon as she’d escorted the lady to her son’s cubicle to speak to the surgeons, Liz strode purposefully once more toward the nearest nurses’ station.
She really had to get her charting done ASAP, so maybe, just maybe, she could leave the hospital on time and stop her stomach from devouring itself.
“Ah, there she is. Liz, a moment please.”
Damn it!
She turned toward Gregory Hammond’s voice, biting back a growl of annoyance at being waylaid once more. Luckily she’d assumed a politely questioning expression because, as she looked at the man walking next to the chief of surgery, her face, along with the rest of her body, froze.
There was no mistaking his carriage, the set of his head, the clear-cut features of the man she’d had a glorious one-night stand with in Mexico. To suddenly see him again, when she’d thought she never would, made her head feel light and her legs weak.
How could she not recognize him? First off, he was tall. Tall enough that she, five-ten in her stockinged feet, had to look up at him, a rarity indeed, and he carried himself with easy assurance, his back militarily straight, his strides long and strong.
Second, although she wouldn’t classify him as handsome, there was something compelling about his face. It was wide, with a prominent nose and deep-set, hooded eyes. A firm chin and mouth rounded out the picture. From a distance she’d been attracted, but it was seeing him up close that had cemented her interest. His eyes were spectacular. Dark amber in the center, shading to brown around the edge of the iris, they were serious and hinted at the kind of intelligence Liz always found appealing.
Heat rushed from her toes to the top of her head as her gaze was captured and transfixed by those unforgettable eyes, partially masked behind lowered lids. They gleamed, and she wasn’t sure what the glint in them was. Anger? Annoyance? Amusement?
Her heart went into overdrive, a mixture of irritation and mortification rushing through her in an instant.
Then all the years of training drummed into her by her mother and tutors arose to come to her rescue. Inner heat was replaced by cold tension, but she refused to allow it to show. Straightening her back and lifting her chin, she tore her gaze away from his companion and gratefully turned her attention to Gregory Hammond.
“Liz, I want you to meet our newest trauma surgeon, Dr. Cort Smith. Dr. Smith, this is Dr. Liz Prudhomme, one of our fine ER practitioners.”
Politeness dictated she look at Dr. Smith again, but it took considerable effort to make herself do it. Her brain was racing as fast as her heart, wondering if he was about to say they’d already met; if somehow he would make it clear their involvement had been of the intimate kind.
There were plenty of men who wouldn’t be able to resist doing so, just to up their reputations as ladies’ men.
But Cort Smith just stuck out his hand and said, politely, “How do you do, Dr. Prudhomme?”
Just the sound of that deep voice, so familiar and arousing, made her wish she were a hundred miles away. How could he be so cool, while she wanted to run for the hills? It was tempting to focus on his Adam’s apple or chin, rather than meet those compelling eyes again, but that would be the coward’s way out, so she met his gaze with what she hoped was a calm one of her own.
“Very well, thank you,” she replied, as she took his hand. A zing of electricity rushed up her arm, and she tugged her hand away as swiftly as she could without being rude.
The corners of Cort Smith’s mouth twitched, making Liz want to smack him.
“Dr. Smith starts his first full day tomorrow,” Gregory said. He seemed oblivious to the tension swirling between herself and Cort, which Liz swore was so thick she could taste it. “I hope you’ll take whatever time is necessary to point him in the right direction while he gets settled.”
She’d point him right out the door, if she had her way! But Liz only nodded, and decided the politic answer was best. “Of course.”
Thankfully, before the voluble Gregory could get chatting again, Stella interrupted.
“Dr. Prudhomme, I have the lab reports on Mr. Collins.”
“Thank you.” Her relief was almost strong enough to make her smile, but not quite. With a quick, “If you gentlemen will excuse me,” she hightailed it away as fast as she could without actually running.
Why did it feel as though the universe had decided her previously nice, orderly existence was too good to be true, and was throwing her curveballs left, right and center?
Cort watched Liz Prudhomme walk away, amazed at how unruffled she’d been by a meeting he’d found hard to face with aplomb. Besides a reddening of the tips of her ears when she’d turned and seen him, there had been no other discernible reaction to show she’d even recognized him.
After he’d caught sight of her at the door earlier, he’d tried to convince himself it wasn’t really the woman he’d spent the night with in Mexico. For the last seven months he’d been so hung up on the memory of that encounter he’d dreamt about her almost constantly, and had thought, erroneously, he’d glimpsed her in crowds at least a hundred times.
