Her Denali Medicine Man

by Denise Gwen

  Chapter 14

  University of Nebraska Medical Center

  January 24th

  Jake caught an American Airlines flight out of Anchorage at 5:10 a.m. and was in the air for two hours and twenty minutes to Seattle. While there, he endured a one-hour and thirty-minute wait, then, at 10:00 a.m. caught a flight to Dallas, arriving at 3:53 p.m. Exhausted, wired, and jittery, he cooled his heels for one-hour and eighteen minutes, then caught the 5:11 p.m. Dallas flight to Omaha, finally disembarking at 6:55 p.m.

  He’d traveled three-thousand one-hundred fifty-seven miles. It’d taken ten hours and forty minutes, with two stops, but it’d all be worth it if he got to Sarah in time.

  As he walked out of the Eppley Field Terminal in Omaha, Nebraska, he did a double take at the surroundings.

  I traveled over three-thousand miles to end up in a climate just like Anchorage?

  He punched in the key code information on his cell and ordered an über. As the driver pulled up to the curb, he leaned out the window. “You the fella heading to the medical school?”

  “Yes, to the University of Nebraska Medical Center.”

  “Hop in.”

  It was only a five-minute drive, but it was the longest ride of his life as he sat in the car and stared straight ahead. Finally, thankfully, he was dropped off at the corner of 42nd and Emile Street. He climbed out of the car and stood on the sidewalk, gazing in awe at the most enormous building he’d ever seen. The thing was gigantic, easily, twice the size of the medical center in Anchorage. Wow, and to think that this was in a Midwestern state. Who’d imagine that the hospitals of the lower forty-nine could be so terrifyingly big?

  Jake walked into the lobby and looked around at the gorgeous interior and goggled at the magnificent artwork. Wow. This place made the Tlingit Medical Center look downright puny in comparison. No wonder Sarah had been so keen to get back. She’d enjoy a much finer career here than in tiny Sitka, or out at the Tlingit Reservation.

  A wave of sadness washed over him.

  He got it, now.

  It wasn’t just the hot-shot doctor boyfriend who’d pulled her back here. The city itself beckoned to her… A city where the newest forms of treatment were being discovered on a daily basis, where medical students worked alongside experienced doctors, and where, if she wanted, she could do anything in her career. She could become a professor, a famous researcher, or else simply remain as one of the finest physicians he’d ever had the pleasure of working alongside, and he couldn’t bear the idea of not having her in his life.

  A sobering thought.

  How could he ever hope to compete with the kinds of medical advances that Sarah would be exposed to on a daily basis?

  A lady, seated at reception, gestured for him. “Sir, hello, sir?”

  “What, oh, yes?”

  “May I help you?”

  Well, HIPPA laws prohibited her from giving him the name of a patient, but the name of a doctor . . . couldn’t she give him that information?

  Sure, she could.

  “Yes, um, hi, I’m, ah, looking for Doctor Sarah O’Reilly.”

  “Oh, Doctor O’Reilly?” she asked, and her eyes lit up.

  “You know her?”

  “Oh, of course, I do. What a lovely young physician she is. She just got back from a trip to Alaska, helping out her sister with her baby.”

  “Oh, ah, yes,” he stammered.

  The lady typed in some keys, gazed at the screen, then nodded. “Okay, just as I thought, she’s in, but you’re going to have to take a little walk to get to the building she’s in today.”

  “Oh, where is she? What floor?”

  “Not so fast, young man. You need to find the right building.”

  “Oh,” he said, his shoulders sagging.

  “No worries, hon. What you’re going to do is this.” She pointed to the door. “Walk out this door, turn right, and walk up the next block to the building on forty-second street. You’ll walk into main reception, and it’s really too complicated to tell you any more than that. Once you reach reception, someone will direct you to the pediatric oncology unit.” She beamed at him. “Good luck, young man.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  I’ve got to hurry.

  Sarah was in an agony of despair. Grant didn’t yet know what she’d just learned, and she could still pretend that nothing’d happened. She’d tuck away the gossip she’d overheard from the nurses and keep it in the deepest recesses of her heart, and not confront Grant over it. Because, obviously, he still loved her, right? He’d put a huge diamond ring on her finger, after all.

  She hurried to her office to think and to process her disordered thoughts.

  She jammed the key into the lock, yanked open the door, and shut it closed behind her. Six weeks ago, her life had been going according to plan. She and Grant had just become engaged—well, he’d given her a friendship ring, whatever that meant—and then her sister had called, begging her to come help run her practice until she recovered from the birth of her second child.

  She’d been happy enough, right?

  Up until that fateful moment, she’d planned to marry the king of the hospital and become his queen. She’d enjoy a high standard of living as Grant’s wife. A doctor in her own right, and by attaching herself to Grant’s rising star, who knew how high he’d go? They’d get invitations to join boards around the city. She’d chair medical research fundraising committees and attend society events and galas. She’d host fundraisers to bring support and awareness to pediatric cancers. She’d be admired, heralded.

  And they’d have a family, don’t forget that. Children. At least two, and she’d hire a nanny to take care of the kids while she tended to her high-ranking position as a doyenne of society.

  And while I’m out hosting a fundraising tea, my husband will visit the nanny and have sex with her in our master bedroom.

  She’d drive a sleek black Mercedes, the finest, with heated, leather seats, and all the amenities she could possibly want.

  She sank down into the chair behind her desk and put her head in her hands.

  And everyone in the hospital will gossip about my husband’s affairs and wonder if I have any idea as to how much running around he’s doing behind my back. I’ll be the laughingstock of the community.

  Her life, her future with Grant McCall, in all its wretched, technicolor nightmare hues, but at least she’d be wealthy, right? Wouldn’t the vast amounts of money he earned be enough to keep her content?

  Such a life . . . before she went to Alaska, yes, she’d believed that such a life would make her happy, or if at least not happy, then she could accept it, right?

  Whenever she thought of what she’d left behind in Alaska, she became miserable.

  If only she hadn’t gone to Alaska.

  Her cell phone reverberated in her pocket. She lifted her head, pulled the cell phone out, and examined the screen.

  Grant.

  Grant was calling her. He wanted her. He wanted to marry her, not Marilyn Palmer. She’d won. There’d be many more mistresses and girlfriends to come, but as long as she kept him on a tight leash . . .

  Was that any way to live?

  She sighed, tucked the cell phone away, and stood up.

  Showtime.

  “Ah, there’s my bride,” Grant said, as she rapped lightly on the mahogany door and walked into his corner office. As she walked toward his desk, she glanced off to the left and saw the en-suite bedroom, for those late nights when he worked late at the hospital.

  Yeah, right.

  “What’s up, sweetheart?” Grant asked. He looked up, she saw his guileless blue eyes shining at her, and she fought back the sorrow rising in her throat.

  There is no amount of money in the world that can ever compensate me for the heartache I’ll feel, being married to you.

  Instead of saying these words, she eased down into the chair across from his desk and placed her hands on the armrests. Under the incandescent lights shining
down on her hand, the enormous diamond ring glittered with a radiant fire.

  Grant leaned forward, leafed idly through the file that Marilyn had thrown onto his desk. “Ah, I see that Hannah Mendelson is doing well with the new drug protocols. Perhaps you could check in with her mother, see if she’s got any thoughts or concerns?”

  He pushed the file gently across the desk to her, but she did not move to reach for it.

  “Grant.”

  “Yes, my love?”

  What really hurt . . . the part that really hurt . . . a part of her still loved him.

  “I need to tell you—”

  “Ready to start planning our wedding?” he asked, a loving smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

  She smiled at him through her tears. “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Who’s going to plan my wedding, then, to the most beautiful doctor in the entire state of Nebraska, if not the world?”

  “Grant, this isn’t going to work.”

  “Honey, you don’t have to do a thing,” he said, his eyes still bright and flashing with eagerness. “I’ll pay for a wedding planner.”

  “Grant, how can you talk of a wedding, to me, when you’re actively engaged in an affair with Marilyn Palmer?”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then blinked.

  “I’ve had my suspicions for a long time,” she started. “But I’ve since had confirmation.”

  “You shouldn’t listen to the gossips,” he said evenly.

  “Grant, come on.”

  “You’re upset,” he said, gently, “because I didn’t come home last night, but what you don’t understand, my love, is this. I didn’t expect you home last night, and so I didn’t make any plans to come home, and I ended up spending the night in the en-suite bedroom here, in my office.”

  “Oh, Grant,” she said.

  “Wait, wait,” he said urgently, and he got up from behind his desk and walked around to sit beside her. He took her left hand in his and spoke.

  “I love you, and I don’t know what you’ve heard, and I’m sure you’ve heard something, because these gossip mongers love to spread lies. You must know how things are in an intimate setting like this, and yes, Marilyn has been working very closely with me these past several months, but a lot of her involvement will come to an end, now that I’ve become the department chair.”

  She knew he was lying.

  He was lying right to her face. And, for some unfathomable reason, he still loved her enough to want to marry her. A tiny part of her wanted to believe him or would’ve believed him if there hadn’t been someone else, someone far superior to Grant McCall in both character and temperament and mood and kindness. This superior person had saved her from a grizzly, and he’d done it in a moment when his own survival was at risk.

  He’d been willing to sacrifice his life for her.

  If she’d been a certain kind of woman, she still would’ve jumped at the chance to marry Grant McCall and enjoy the privilege of a life as a woman married to an important man.

  But I’m not that kind of woman anymore.

  He smiled at her, kindly.

  He’d always had a kind smile.

  Gently, yet slowly, she pulled the huge ring off her fourth left finger and placed it in the palm of his hand and closed his fingers over it. His expression changed as she did this, and at last, he seemed to register what she’d just done.

  “Grant, you should marry Marilyn Palmer. She adores you.”

  “But I love you,” he said, still gazing at her, his eyes betraying a sudden emotion.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Why won’t you marry me?” he asked.

  “Because,” she said slowly “I don’t love you.”

  Jake half-hobbled, half-stumbled up forty-second street and was panting as he burst in through the front lobby of the pediatric oncology hospital. He went to reception, was guided through a labyrinthian series of hallways and corridors, until he found the north bank of elevators, and pushed the button to the fourth floor. As he walked out onto the floor, he noticed a cluster of nurses hovering at a station. Ordinarily, this was a perfectly normal thing for nurses to do, as they went about their daily rounds of tending to patients and discussing lab results, but as he approached, he noticed something different, a quality that he couldn’t quite place.

  Something looked wrong, somehow.

  The nurses buzzed with excitement and apprehension.

  In a good way.

  “Marilyn walked in on them as—”

  “I heard she threw the ring at him and—”

  “He got down on his knees and promised her—”

  “I heard she and Marilyn got into it—”

  “Oh, hush, hold on.”

  Jake stood there, bemused, not quite sure what to say or do, when a sudden silence fell over the assembled nurses. They turned as one to gaze at him, and one nurse said, “Sir, can I help you?”

  “I’m here to see—”

  “A patient?”

  “Ah, no,” he said.

  “Here she comes,” someone whispered, and Jake craned his neck to the left. Yep, sure enough, there she was, walking down the hallway toward him. She didn’t see him; her head was down, her hands shoved deep in her pockets.

  She looked as if she’d been crying.

  “I’m here to see . . . ”

  “Are you visiting a patient?” the nurse asked politely.

  Ah, no,” he said, taking in the measure of this absolutely gorgeous woman, and loving what he was seeing, “I’m actually here to see the hottest doctor of the lower forty-nine.”

  “Sir?”

  The nurse looked between Jake and Sarah, her face cleared, and a broad smile broke out over her face. “You’re Jake!”

  He looked at the nurse and smiled.

  “You’re the hot physician’s assistant from Alaska,” the nurse said, and at this, the other nurses looked at him with interest.

  “Are you here for Sarah?” one of them asked.

  “I’m here,” he said, “to rescue my Sarah.”

  Sarah stopped short and looked up. “Jake.”

  “There’s my sweet girl,” he said. “And after I read your note, I knew I had to come get you.”

  “You read my note?” she asked, astonished.

  “I sure did,” he said, “and it’s tucked away in my wallet. I’ll never let it go.”

  “You came for me,” she said, with tremulous lips.

  “I sure did, baby,” he said, and held his arms out for her.

  Laughing through her tears, she jumped into his arms, and he gave her a long passion-filled kiss as the nurses applauded and wept.

  Epilogue

  A year later, the Tlingit Reservation

  “Are you ready for your big day?” Rachel asked Sarah, as she finished adjusting the white satin bow on the back of Olivia’s flower girl gown.

  “Yes, I certainly am,” Sarah said, smiling down at her little niece. “After all, I had to wait until Olivia was old enough to fully appreciate the role of being a flower girl before I could marry Jake.”

  “I could’ve been your flower girl when I was four,” Olivia said.

  “You sure could have, sweetheart,” Sarah said, “but your Aunt Sarah wasn’t ready last year.”

  “Oh,” Olivia said, not quite understanding. She held the wicker basket filled with rose petals and looked up at her. “I’ll do a good job, Aunt Sarah, I promise.”

  “Oh, honey,” Sarah said, laughing through her tears. “I’m sure you will.”

  “That’s why you waited till I turned five,” Olivia said solemnly. “When I was four, I couldn’t have done the flower petals right.”

  “I’m sure that’s it,” Sarah said, and a tremble of love tickled her heart.

  Today’s the big day.

  She took one last look at her reflection in the mirror. With full makeup, her hair swept up into a loose chignon, she thought s
he’d never before seen herself looking so fancy.

  “I’m not used to seeing you in anything but your scrubs,” Rachel said.

  “I know,” Sarah said with a mournful smile.

  Paul knocked, poked his head into the dressing room. “You ladies ready?”

  “We’re about there,” Rachel said, and she took Olivia by one hand, and Sarah by the other. “Aren’t we, ladies?”

  “Have you seen Jake?” Sarah asked Paul.

  “Jake?” Paul asked. “Oh, he left.”

  “He what?” Sarah gasped.

  “Hah, gotcha,” Paul said.

  “Paul!” Rachel cried. “Don’t scare the poor girl.”

  “You had me for a minute there,” Sarah said with a shaky smile.

  “Let’s get this show on the road,”

  Paul opened the door wide, and Sarah got a first glimpse of her groom, the handsome Jake Roundtree, her soon-to-be husband.

  “Aunt Sarah,” Olivia said, “are you nervous?”

  “No, I’m happy.”

  Her heart swelled with love at the sight of Jake as he cradled Rachel’s second child, eleven-month-old Samuel, in his arms. His mother, Marcheline, and his five-year-old son Joshua hovered at his elbow. Her father stood beside them. Again, she marveled at how at ease, how comfortable, he looked with the children.

  He’ll make a great father to the children we have together.

  He glanced up, caught her gaze, and his eyes widened at the sight of her in her ivory lace wedding gown.

  This is easily the best day of my life.

  Her heart burst with love. She thought she’d never love anyone more than this wonderful man, but she could easily imagine how it might become difficult, once children arrived.

  Sarah’s heart was filled with love for all the people in the room with her. For her father, Gus, her sister Rachel, her brother-in-law Paul, her niece Olivia, her nephew Samuel, her soon-to-be-stepson Joshua, her soon-to-be-mother-in-law Marcheline, and her own Jake, her dearly beloved husband.

  “Oh, Jake,” she wept, “Oh, I love you.”

  The pastor stepped forward. “Are we ready?”

  “I am,” Jake said, and he took Sarah by the hand.