“The hospital can’t afford to let him go. We barely have enough to cover the ER now.”
She nodded. “I know you and him used to be close. Maybe you could talk to him.”
“And say what? He is under additional stress and pressure, Peggy.” I hated that I was essentially giving her the same line Dick would. I wanted to go to Nick and do what I could to help him.
“I don’t know. Maybe counseling?”
I quirked a brow. “He’s being sued and you think he should go to counseling?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m surprised at you, Mia. I know your job is to protect the hospital, but he’s hurting. Don’t you have any compassion for him?”
I hated her accusation, but my job required that I stay neutral. “Do you really think he’d go?”
“Maybe if you talked to him.”
“What do you think his lawyer would tell him about it? The lawsuit isn’t just the hospital, it’s him too. Counseling could be construed as a sign of guilt.”
“Fuck the lawsuit,” Peggy stood up. “This is Nick’s mental health we’re talking about.”
I stood too, inhaling a deep breath. “I know what you’re saying, but this lawsuit could hurt his career. How do you think that would help his mental health? I’ll talk to him—”
“Yeah right. You’ll probably tell him to get his act together because he’s a liability.”
I wanted to tell her she was wrong, but with my legal hat on, she wasn’t. “I care about Nick too.”
“Not as much as you want to kiss the admins’ ass.” She headed to the door.
“Should I apologize for my job? If the admin comes down and wants to put this fiasco on you, should I let them do that to protect Nick?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you saying the admin is setting Nick up to take the fall?”
I hoped I didn’t wince outwardly. “I’m saying that just like you, when I’m working, I have to be professional.”
She studied me for a moment and then shook her head. “Forget I was here. If you tell anyone what I told you, I’ll deny it. I won’t let you use it against Nick.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“I don’t believe you. After all, you have to be professional. Your job requires you to protect the hospital.” She opened the door and walked out.
My legs felt wobbly as I sank to my chair. How could all this be going so wrong?
25
Nick
I hated the way Peggy looked at me. Like she thought I was one second away from a full mental breakdown. There were moments I wondered if maybe I wasn’t. So much so, that a few nights ago, I researched PTSD in doctors to see if Mia was right. I couldn’t deny that I had some of the symptoms. Guilt and feelings of inadequacy could be brushed off. Didn’t most people, doctors at least, feel that? But the dreams and the fear each time I went to meet a patient suggested something was up. Twice now, I’d had a moment in which I thought I saw Ms. Mason when I pulled back the curtain to see a patient. All this, of course, led to me feeling like I was weak, another apparent symptom of PTSD in doctors. Fuck, just what I needed.
I couldn’t get help for it without risking my career, but I knew I wouldn’t have gotten help even if I wasn’t being sued. I liked to think I was stronger than all that. Once this lawsuit was done and the protesters knew the truth, it would be over and I’d be able to go back to my old self. That was what I was banking on anyway.
The only time I didn’t feel the weight of the world on me was with Mia, but since our night at the river, I hadn’t seen her except in passing at the hospital. We couldn’t seem to help ourselves when we were alone together, so the answer was to not be alone.
I wondered if things would be different if being with me didn’t risk her job. Would she want to see where this thing between us could go? Or was it just old feelings resurfacing and lust?
I knew that for me, it was more than lust. Maybe it was old feelings, and a desire to rekindle the past, but it certainly felt real here and now. I wanted her and not just her body. She was smart and funny, and while I didn’t always like being called on my bullshit, I liked that she was real with me. She wouldn’t let me get away with anything.
Life continued on, except there were no more visits by Mia to my house. That meant I was on my own to find ways to deal with the dreams and guilt and anger. My solution was to focus on clearing my name and fixing my reputation. After work, I met my lawyer at a local restaurant. I hoped to hell she had something good to tell me.
I ignored the stares and whispers as I made my way to a table away from others. Not only did I want to avoid a public spectacle, but also, I didn’t need the town to hear my business. I’d have preferred to meet her at my place, but I was out of the way, and this restaurant offered her an easy in and out of town so she could get back home within a reasonable hour.
She walked in looking a bit out of place in her power skirt suit and long hair pulled into a fancy twist. A few men took notice, and eyebrows lifted when I stood, shook her hand, and held out her chair.
“I love Italian food,” she said.
“I was expecting you’d say something about it being quaint.” I took a seat across from her.
“It is,” she said looking around. “What they say about small towns is true. People are staring.”
I nodded. “Not very subtle, are they?”
“Does it bother you?”
“Not usually. About this case, yes.”
“Well, then let’s get to it.” She pulled out some papers from her large bag, while I ordered me a drink and her seltzer water.
“Tell me you have good news?” I said, drinking the water until my drink arrived.
“This is one of those situations in which it’s unclear what, if anything, could have been done differently and lead to another outcome. In some ways that’s good. There’s no glaring mistake.”
“I hear a but coming,” I said, leaning back to ready myself for bad news.
“There’s no obvious evidence to clear your name or the hospital’s, which is probably why they’ve got you on the back burner as the scapegoat.”
“Did they say that?”
“No, but I think you’re right to be concerned. There are some notes in your record indicating concerns about your mental status.”
“What?” My heart immediately jackhammered in my chest, although I didn’t know why I was surprised. Peggy had made a couple of comments. Mia had outright said I should see a counselor for PTSD. Then it hit me—had Mia put those notes in my record? Hurt and anger seared in my chest.
“There are a couple of notes in your personnel file that indicated you might be having some issues. They don’t start until after Ms. Mason’s death. It’s reasonable to think you’d have some feelings around that, so I don’t see it as a problem, but you need to pull it together if it’s continuing.”
I shook my head and looked away wondering if Mia had betrayed me. Granted she and I weren’t an item. She was the hospital lawyer, but I thought perhaps she cared enough not to toss me under the bus.
“I’m fine now.” Or I would make sure I was from now on.
“There is a question about the EMR system—”
“That’s what I wondered about.”
“The hospital is going to have a tech person to look at it. I’m going to ask for those records. Until we get to court, it’s difficult for me to compel them to share them, and I have no idea what they’ll say.”
“Maybe they’ll say why my order for a chest x-ray didn’t go through.”
“You know that?”
I nodded. “I know I entered it correctly. It’s not an error.”
She leaned in closer. “To be honest, Nick, I wonder if any of that would have made a difference.”
“What do you mean?” Although I suspected I knew exactly what she meant.
“If the order went in right away, and let’s say in ten or fifteen minutes, they’d been done. They still needed to be analyzed. Would
she have been able to be saved?”
“I don’t know.” That was the truth.
“But it’s possible it was already too late for her, right?” she said sitting back as the waitress set her water on the table.
“It’s possible,” I admitted, looking up at the waitress to see if she was taking in our conversation. I didn’t need the town getting the word that I was blaming Ms. Mason for seeking help too late. Fortunately, she looked more bored with us than intrigued by our conversation.
We ordered food, and then discussed my case some more. I felt good that she was thorough and had a solid plan. But I didn’t feel like any headway to absolving me had been made. And now that I knew my work was being tracked and recorded, and that Mia was probably adding information I’d revealed to her, I had to consider that this wasn’t going to go well for me.
“You have some fucking nerve.”
I looked up from my personal pizza to see Eli glaring down at me from behind Victoria.
“Eli.”
He stepped to the side and looked down at Victoria and then at me. “And here I thought you were getting into my sister’s pants again—”
I shot up from my chair. “Have some respect, asshole.”
His eyes widened. I realized it was the first time I’d ever barked back at him. He’d been right that I’d fucked his sister before and that I hadn’t been his mother’s doctor. I felt bad enough about both that I hadn’t ever contested him. But I wasn’t going to let him talk about Mia that way, even if she was betraying me.
“Respect? What do you know about respect? You betrayed our friendship. You betrayed our family. Look at you, now betraying Mia.”
“Mia and I aren’t together, Eli,” I said looking around the restaurant. “That would be against hospital policy.” I leaned forward, getting into his face. “You trying to get your sister fired? Jealous that Daddy is spending time with her?”
“You’re a fucker, Nick, you know that?” He looked at Victoria. “He’ll fuck you and leave you.”
She made a face of disdain. “I can see why living in a small town is difficult.” She stood when Eli frowned. “I’m Victoria Manning, Dr. Foster’s lawyer.” She held out her hand.
“Eli Parker, Dr. Foster’s worst enemy.” He shook her hand once, and then released it.
She gave a cool nod. “Parker, huh? I could be wrong, but it appears that you’re the brother of the hospital’s attorney. I can’t help but wonder if you’re trying to intimidate my client. Did she send you here?”
“What?” He jerked back.
I wanted to tell her no. Mia wouldn’t do that. But Eli might take the information she shared with him and use it against me.
She looked at me across the table. “I know you’re just looking for representation on the malpractice case, but if this is how hospital staff retaliates, you might have a case for harassment.”
It took a minute for Eli to respond. “Did he tell you he let my mother die?”
“Did you hear me when I said this encounter was going to go on the record against Mia Parker, the hospital lawyer?”
He sneered at me. “You’d let her do that to Mia?”
I shook my head. “Eli, you’re doing it. When are you going to take responsibility for your own fucking life?”
He glared at both of us, and then at me. “You use this against Mia and you’ll be sorry.”
“Are you threatening my client, Mr. Parker?”
“It’s a promise,” he said and then left.
Victoria sat down and started eating. Me, I needed a moment to get my shit together. I sat and downed my drink, lifting my hand to signal the waitress to order another one.
“You’re not really going to use that against her, are you?”
She looked up from her lasagna. “My job is to represent you, so yes, I’ll use whatever I have to. I’d like you to tell me who is here in this restaurant since they’re witnesses to his outburst in case we need their statements.”
“I don’t want to fuck up Mia’s—”
She studied me for a moment. “Is he right? Do you and Ms. Parker have a thing going on?”
I shook my head. “We had a thing in the past. Now we just work in the same place.”
“She’s the hospital lawyer. Her responsibility is to the hospital, not you.”
“Which is why I have you.”
“What was that about the mother? Does the hospital have something on you I don’t know about?”
I was thankful when the waitress showed up with my second drink. The last for the night, unfortunately.
“No. He blames me because it’s easy. She was in a car accident, and he thinks I should have treated her. But she was like a second mother, so the other doctor on duty did. I think Eli’s just pissed because I was the one by her side instead of him when she died.”
“He also doesn’t like your past with his sister.”
“No. I can hardly blame him for that. I do feel a bit like I betrayed him.”
“So, what’s with you and his sister? Does she blame you for the mom too?”
I shook my head. “No. She and I were close, but she was in grad school and I was in my residency when we were together. After we graduated, she went her way and I went mine.”
She looked at me with scrutinizing eyes that I suspected made her scary on the stand. “Now she’s here. And it sounds like it’s against the rules for you two to see each other. If she’s broken that policy, you’d have—”
“No.” I hoped I looked nonchalant. Instead, I was sick. I didn't want to lose my job, but I didn’t want to take Mia down trying to save it. If I thought I was weak already, the idea of outing Mia made me pathetic.
“So, if I invited myself to your place, there’d be no reason for you to say no?”
I jerked in surprise. “Ah … no.”
She leaned forward, close enough that I could smell her perfume. “So how about it. We’d be out of the prying eyes and eager ears of your neighbors.”
“To work?” It was strange how discombobulated I felt that she was hitting on me and I wasn’t taking her up on it.
“Or whatever. I don’t have to be in the office until after noon tomorrow.”
I took in her sharp, smart blue eyes, full pink lips, thin body with a nice set of tits, and couldn’t believe I wasn’t already escorting her out the door. “I’m okay with working, not with whatever.”
She sat back with a smirk, and I wondered if her moves were a test. A test that I just failed.
“You sure about you and Ms. Parker?”
“Mia and I can’t be together.”
“But you wish you could. You have feelings for her.”
I inhaled a breath, wondering if I could admit out loud to what I’d only thought before. “I’m not sure I ever stopped.”
“She doesn’t feel the same about you?”
“It wouldn’t matter. She’d lose her job.”
“There are other jobs.”
I shrugged, watching my drink as I swirled the glass. “We chose work when it ended, we choose work now.”
She sipped her water. “All that fairy tale stuff is bull shit anyway, don’t you think? Even when you think you have a perfect love, it’s not.”
“You sound like you’re talking from experience.”
She laughed. “Oh yeah, I have experience. That’s why I’ve given up on the idea of love ever after.”
“No wedding in your future?”
“No relationships.”
“None?”
“I can have sex without a relationship, if that’s your concern,” she said.
Wasn’t that what Mia and I had? “I think relationships are possible for some people. My parents are happy, living their best lives. I know Eli and Mia’s parents were happy.”
“And then his wife died. Who wants that sort of heartbreak? Nah, I’m happy with a few good lays to get me by.”
“I do see the wisdom of that.” To be honest, a few weeks ago, she’d have b
een perfect for me.
“And yet, you’re in love with Ms. Parker.”
I downed my drink. “Doesn’t matter. It was nearly perfect the first time we were together and it didn’t work out. There’s no way it could work now. I have my work. She has hers.”
“Well then. Let me work to make sure you keep yours and don’t lose this suit.”
I wished I still had some of my drink, as I’d have made a toast to that.
26
Mia
I enjoyed spending time with my father, but I wouldn’t deny that I missed seeing Nick. It was stupid, because there was no getting around the fact that my job prevented me from seeing him. So why pine for him? I needed to get him out from under my skin. The easiest way to do that was to keep myself busy. At work, I did that by reviewing contracts, dealing with insurance issues, and of course, working to show that the hospital hadn’t been negligent in Ms. Mason’s care. That was made slightly more difficult when the IT person I hired was able to confirm that Nick ordered the chest x-ray, but the order had gone to pathology and not radiology. That meant there was something with the EMR program, that the IT person worked on, but to be safe I talked with the administration about putting in safeguard follow-ups with emergency patients.
After work, I spent the evening with my father. I’d cook us dinner, and I had him teach me chess, but finally convinced him to switch to checkers, which he still beat me at.
Sometimes Eli would come over and have dinner with us, but with my being there, he could keep the store open longer, and often chose that so he could keep it going now that he had more support.
My father and I had just settled in to watch a nature show about sea turtles when Eli came in.
“You’ll never guess who I saw down at Toscano’s.”
“Nick,” Dad and I said at the same time.
“Jinx,” we said simultaneously again and then laughed.
Heart of Hope: Books 1-4 Page 16