Best Friend to Doctor Right

by Ann Mcintosh

  “Yes. I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to hack the program. That they’d figure out I was a fraud and kick me out.”

  “Plus, your mom had that breast cancer scare, and your grandfather had just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. It was a bad time for you.”

  “But you talked me down off the ledge. Plus turning me down for the freedom flight.”

  “I didn’t know it was a flight to freedom,” he said with a soft chuckle. “All I could picture was your dad and Warren hunting me down like a dog, thinking I’d kidnapped you.”

  She snorted. “I doubt either of them would have minded much.”

  He was quiet for a while, and that was when she realized his heart was pounding, too. He shifted his body slightly away from her and, guided by an impulse she couldn’t control, she shifted, too, bringing his erection flush against her stomach.

  Kiah inhaled, his chest expanding, muscles rippling, and Mina caught back a moan of desire.

  How could she want him so much, even knowing it would never lead anywhere? Where was her pride? Her sense of self-preservation?

  “Why do I want you the way I do, Mina?” Kiah’s voice was quiet, almost contemplative, but rough. “When I close my eyes at night, all I can see is you. When I hear your voice, I remember you crying out my name. It’s like you’ve gotten into my blood, and now I can’t get you out.”

  She was trembling, but made one last-ditch effort to lighten the mood, to break the spell of moonlight and lust that had settled over them.

  “Are you calling me a virus?”

  “If you are, I’m afraid it’s incurable.” Now his voice was anguished, the pain unmistakable to her Kiah-sensitive ears.

  It made her realize how much he didn’t want to feel that way, how much the change in their relationship hurt him, although she didn’t know why. And knowing he was hurting made her hurt, too.

  She took a step back, easing out of his arms so as to look up into his beautiful, moonlit and shadowed face, wishing she could see whatever it was in his eyes.

  “We don’t have to go on with this, Kiah. We can just be friends, no matter how hard that might be. We’ve come too far to lose what we do have, and we can move forward from this.”

  When he pulled her back in against his chest and buried his face in the space between her neck and shoulder she thought he was going to acquiesce.

  But instead, he murmured, “One more night, Mina. Please. Give me one more night with you.”

  And it didn’t even cross her mind to refuse.

  * * *

  Kissing on the beach, in the moonlight, was enough to drive him to lunacy with the sheer, urgent intimacy of his mouth on hers, the interplay of their tongues.

  He knew it wasn’t right, that he was flirting with destruction, but Kiah couldn’t resist Mina’s lure, the need that drove through him each time she spoke, or laughed, or simply breathed.

  His hands roamed her body, slipping beneath her shirt to slide across the skin of her back, and he felt the goose bumps rising in their wake when he reversed course. And he shivered at the sensation of her hand on his nape, pulling him closer, and her soft breasts against his chest.

  Wanting was like fire in his veins, or lava, making him hard, reducing him to a column of desire, ready and willing to be incinerated by the woman in his arms.

  Something about Mina spoke to his soul, called to him, so he raced to her like a sailor to a siren.

  She’d joked about being a virus, but at times it felt exactly like that. A virus without treatment or cure, that never left the system but flared up at will.

  This, he promised himself, would be the last time he made love with her. If this madness wasn’t corralled, contained, it would devour him whole, leaving nothing behind.

  “Let’s go home,” he said, coming up for air. “Before I try to make love to you here.”

  “We can’t, not yet.” Her voice was raw, as desire-rough as his own. “Miss Pearl will still be up.”

  He cursed, dropping his chin down to his chest, her giggles lightening his heart, although they did nothing to tamp down his libido. It was on the tip of his tongue to say he didn’t care, but that wasn’t strictly true. Granny not only had very traditional views on how men and women should behave, but she also harbored hope he and Mina would get together as a couple.

  She hadn’t been reticent about saying so to him either, over the years, although surprisingly she hadn’t mentioned it recently.

  There was no way he was giving her any false hope by letting it be known he and Mina had slept together.

  Resting his forehead against Mina’s, he said, “The joys of being a thirty-five-year-old man who lives with his grandmother. Why do I feel so much like a teenager right now?”

  Her giggles increased, but her hand swept lightly across his cheek.

  “Because we’re in the kind of predicament teenagers find themselves in all the time. All revved up, and nowhere to go.” She kissed the tip of his nose. “Let’s go have that drink and regroup. Then we can see how we feel after that.”

  But he recognized a reprieve when he saw one, and shook his head.

  “Let’s just go home. This was a bad idea anyway. We both know this isn’t healthy.” It almost killed him to say it, but he knew it was true. “We can’t be together, as a couple, so we probably should stop torturing ourselves this way.”

  Her amusement fell away, and she tried to search his gaze. With the moon behind him, he hoped she couldn’t read the anguish he knew was reflecting in his eyes. Then one corner of her mouth tipped up, and she nodded.

  “Okay. Probably a wise plan.”

  And she bent to pick up her sandals from where they’d dropped onto the sand, and they headed back to the car.

  She’d been on the island for only a short time, but it had been enough to tear his life, his heart, apart. The years stretched ahead, threatening his sanity with the knowledge of what his options were—either seeing her all the time but not touching her anymore, or not seeing her at all.

  He couldn’t decide which would be worse.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE TENSION IN the house hadn’t abated the next day, and Mina was glad to be working, although speculative glances at the hospital upped her stress. Knowing the entire staff had heard about the offer from the director and was wondering what she planned to do added to the pressure.

  While Mina was in the small staff cafeteria having lunch, there was an all-hands emergency, after a bus carrying dozens of people overturned on one of the country roads. The call went out for all available doctors and nurses to go to the emergency department, stat. Quickly tossing the rest of her sandwich, she took off at a gallop, deciding to take a shortcut through an older part of the building, which would get her to emerge quicker.

  Once inside, she was surprised at how quiet it was but then realized they’d probably pulled staff from here, as well. There was only one baby visible in the NICU, with a nurse tending to him or her, and through an open door she glimpsed a mother nursing her child. Obviously, unlike the emergency room, it was a quiet day in the maternity and labor ward.

  As she got to the doors leading back outside, they swung open, and a hugely pregnant woman pushed through, almost falling into the corridor. Mina grabbed her, lending her support.

  “The baby coming.” The woman was panting, holding her belly, and her face was covered in perspiration. “The baby coming.”

  “Come with me,” Mina said, hastily leading her around the corner, toward the labor ward.

  But the woman stopped and bent double, moaning.

  Obviously, they wouldn’t make it to labor without some help.

  “Nurse!” Mina called. “Nurse!”

  But no help was forthcoming, so, as soon as the mother-to-be seemed able to walk again, Mina hurried her into the first room they came to.

&n
bsp; “I’m a doctor,” Mina told the woman, trying to be reassuring, although her own heart rate was going wild. It had been years since she’d delivered a baby, and back then she’d had two hands. “Let’s get you on the bed and take a look.”

  “It’s coming,” the woman moaned, after Mina got her partially undressed and lying down, and went to the end of the bed to examine her.

  One peek told Mina the woman knew exactly what she was talking about. Right there, in plain sight, was a little patch of hair.

  “Nurse!” Mina bellowed, just as the cell phone in her pocket buzzed. Did she even have time to answer?

  A quick glance showed Kiah’s name, so she jammed it on speaker and threw it onto a handy chair, on her way to the sink to wash her hand as best she could.

  Gloves? What the hell was she going to do about gloves?

  “Mina? You there?”

  “Yes, but I can’t speak for long.”

  “Did you get the call out for the bus crash?”

  “Yes,” she shouted in the general direction of the phone, while looking in vain for a sterile towel to dry up. “But I’m delivering a baby.”

  “You’re what?”

  “It’s coming! I want to push!” yelled her patient.

  “Hold on, Mama,” Mina said in response, trying not to yell, too, as she grabbed a handful of gloves she couldn’t even put on. “Wait until I tell you to push, okay?”

  “No. No. I want to push now!”

  “Mina, where the hell are you?”

  “Maternity!”

  Another peek showed it was almost time for the baby to make its appearance, with the mother’s cervix almost perfectly dilated. Looking around, Mina spotted a package of disposable bed pads, and, sticking it between her knees, held it with a corner of a glove and tore it open. At least now the baby would have something clean to land on, she thought, as she spread it between the mother’s legs.

  Having put a glove over it, she laid her stump on the mother’s belly, hoping it wouldn’t freak her out, and rubbed soothingly, saying, “It’s okay, Mama, you’re doing real good. Give it a couple more seconds, then you can push all you want, okay?”

  “Argh!” was the reply, as the mother arched with the pain of her contractions, but she waited until Mina told her, before she pushed in earnest.

  The baby crowned before retreating slightly, and then, as Mina chanted, “Push, push, push,” at the mother, the little head emerged.

  “Good job, Mama,” Mina said. “Now don’t push again, until I tell you.”

  She hadn’t been able to put a glove on her hand, so now she used the sterile latex like a pot holder, while turning the shoulders.

  Then they were off to the races again, and in a trice, the baby slid out, already crying.

  “It’s a boy, Mama.” Mina felt tears prickle her eyes as she looked down at the wrinkled, slippery little bundle lying on the bed. “You have a baby boy.”

  “Woo-ee,” was the weary reply. “Another one?”

  Then, suddenly, there was what seemed like a dozen people rushing into the room, and Mina was able to abdicate her position, although she felt strangely aggrieved about it. She’d delivered the baby, all by herself, but they weren’t going to let her cut the cord? It didn’t seem right.

  But her part in it was over, so, as the obstetrician took her place, she dodged a nurse pushing a cart and turned toward the door.

  And there was Kiah, shaking his head, amusement tipping his lips, although his eyes looked solemn, maybe even a little sad.

  Haunted.

  Why that touched her so deeply, she didn’t know, but she stepped close to him, wishing they weren’t in the hospital, so she could hug him tight, the way she wanted to.

  “Delivering babies now? What’s next? Juggling?”

  So they were going with the jokes. That suited Mina just fine, and she wrinkled her nose at him.

  “Yep,” she answered, swinging by him and tossing her gloves into the bin by the door. “With knives.”

  The triage situation at the hospital lasted most of the day, and Mina found herself back in theater that afternoon, supervising a delicate spinal operation on the driver of the bus.

  “In the past, we’d have airlifted him to Port of Spain, but if you think you can guide Dr. Golding through it here, we’ll get him prepped for surgery,” Director Hamilton said.

  Mina looked at the MRI and CT scans, and talked the operation through with John Golding. Then, reassured the young doctor seemed up to the task, she agreed to oversee the surgery.

  Kiah, who’d also been in theater most of the day, came in to observe the operation.

  “You missed the best part already,” Mina told him, sending John Golding a wink when he glanced up from the endoscope. “John’s just about finished, and ready to close.”

  Since they hadn’t been in the operating room more than fifteen minutes at that point, Kiah knew she was just talking smack.

  “Why are you even here?” he asked her. “I thought you’d be down in the mat ward again.”

  Mina sent him a dirty look, before concentrating once more on what was happening on the table. With her guidance, John performed the bilateral thoracic laminotomy, to relieve pressure on the patient’s spinal cord, and then spinal fusion on two lumbar vertebrae, all without a hitch.

  But, although pleased with the outcome of the surgery, it was the delivery of the baby that stayed with her afterward.

  In that moment, when she’d seen the newborn lying there, she’d realized she really was ready for a family. She’d probably never have a baby of her own, but adoption was definitely an option, in her books.

  The decision was bittersweet, since with the realization came the knowledge that the only man she wanted to father her child wasn’t interested in doing so. Kiah Langdon, although ideal father material, didn’t want children. And even if he did, it was doubtful he’d choose her as the mother anyway. Theirs was a relationship that had taken a turn neither of them expected, but the physically intimate part of it wasn’t destined to continue. He’d made that plain despite his obvious desire for her, which, although he’d said it wasn’t, actually probably was just a by-product of his self-imposed sexual drought.

  Yet, however despondent that thought made her feel, Mina knew she’d make it through, no matter what. She’d come to comprehend that, prior to the accident and the end of her marriage, she’d lived a pretty charmed life. There’d been little struggle—if she didn’t count medical school—and things had come far too easily for her. Who was she to rail at fate, rather than try to steer her own destiny?

  She’d always love Kiah, as a friend and more, but she wasn’t going to stop living, just because he didn’t love her as a woman.

  * * *

  As exhausted as he was that evening, Kiah felt restless, and jumpy, too.

  When he’d gotten to the door of the maternity ward and seen Mina kneeling at the foot of the bed, looking at the newborn, he’d thought his heart would explode. The expression on her face, one of mingled wonder, joy and elation, was so beautiful he could only stare, enraptured.

  Wishing for a moment like that for her.

  Wishing he could be the one to share it with her wasn’t something he could contemplate and still retain his sanity, so he pushed that particular thought aside.

  The barrier he’d built up over the years about fatherhood was too strong to overcome. Seeing his father die, knowing the pain that loss caused both him and Karlene, had made him leery. Recognizing his anger issues, inherited from his mother, had cemented the decision not to have kids of his own. Who knew what kind of parent he’d turn out to be? One who devastated his family by dying early, or one who did it by staying alive and bitter?

  Sure, he was nominally Charm’s father now, but that in itself only made his choice seem even more sound. There were times when he bar
ely controlled the impulse to holler at her, and he couldn’t help thinking sometimes that she was at the age now that he’d been when his father died. She’d already been through so much. He could only pray she would be a little older, on steadier ground, before she had to suffer any more losses.

  Like losing Miss Pearl.

  After all, she was already in a tailspin over hearing Mina was going back to Canada. Hopefully, she’d weather the parting with a minimum of trauma.

  Yes, having a family was something Mina wanted. He could only hope she would one day get it, and he’d have the strength to be happy for her.

  Then, as they were all in the living room watching TV, there was a news report about a baby who’d been born weighing a whopping seventeen pounds.

  “What is it with babies today?” he muttered, earning a sideways glance from Mina.

  “Lawks,” Miss Pearl commented. “His poor mother, carrying that much weight around.”

  “How much did I weigh when I was born?” Charm asked, obviously intrigued.

  “Seven pounds, three ounces,” Mina said, before Kiah could even think back that far.

  “How do you know that, Auntie?”

  Mina smiled, and the fondness in the way she looked at Charm was almost his undoing.

  “I was there,” she said. “It was me who coached your mom, and I got to cut your umbilical cord, too.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Kiah thought that would be the end of the conversation. Even though Mina had warned him that Charm was asking about her mother, he expected her to retreat from any further discussion.

  But instead, she asked, “How come?”

  “Well, your daddy was in the army, and your mom was alone when you decided you were ready to be born, so I went to the hospital and was there when you popped out.”

  “Where were you, Uncle Kiah?”

  Taking a deep breath, and trying to sound as though talking about it didn’t hurt almost more than he could bear, he replied, “I was here, with Granny. You weren’t supposed to come for another two weeks, so I didn’t get there in time.”