by Ginna Gray
“Sure you were.”
“I was!” she cried. “It’s just that...it was so hard to do that, well, I kept finding reasons to wait. But I was trying to tell you a few minutes ago,” she added in a rush when his mouth twisted with disbelief. “When you asked me to marry you, I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to explain before I gave you my answer.”
“He asked you to marry him?” Julia exclaimed. “Honestly, Leah, that really was bad of you to let things go that far. You know you were only seeing him to distract his attention from Quinton.”
Mike stiffened.
“No! No, that’s not true! Don’t listen to her, Mike!” Leah pleaded, but she could see the ice in his eyes. She took a step toward him with her hands outstretched. “Please, darling, you have to believe me. I do love you.”
“I think you’d better do as you were told and pack your things,” he said in a voice as cold and unyielding as granite. “I want you out of this house. Out of my sight. Out of my life. The sooner, the better.”
Each word struck like a knife stabbing her heart. Gazing at Mike’s unforgiving face, Leah barely managed to hold back the cry that rose from the depth of her soul. She glanced around at his family but found no ally there. Most refused to meet her gaze, and the few who did looked at her as though she were vermin.
Tears filled her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Mustering what was left of her wounded pride, her movements wooden, she forced her pain-racked body to move and walked from the room.
Mike watched her leave, his gaze fixed on her rigid spine, and refused to be swayed by her fragile dignity. She had deceived him. Used him. Dammit, his heart felt as though it had been cleaved with an ax.
“What about me? You want me to get out of your life, too?”
The quivering hurt and insecurity in Quinton’s voice cut through his pain. Mike sighed and shook his head. “No. No, of course not. But look, tiger, you’re gonna have to give me a few days, okay? For now, you go on home with your sister. I’ll be in touch soon. I promise.”
“You most certainly will not,” Julia snapped. “You stay away from Quinton. I don’t want him to have anything to do with the McCalls, and that includes you.”
“Just shut up!” Mike advanced on her and stabbed his forefinger in the air at the end of her nose. His expression was so fierce Julia gasped and took a step back. “This is between Quinton and me. What you want doesn’t enter into it. You got that?”
Julia blinked and swallowed hard, speechless for the first time in her life.
Chapter Fourteen
“Why don’t you give him a call?”
Leah looked up from the patient file she was reading to find Sandy standing in the doorway of her office. “What?”
“You heard me. Give Dr. McCall a ring. It’s been three weeks. He’s probably cooled down by now. Everyone knows he can’t stay angry for long.”
“Wanna bet? I passed him in the hall this morning. He looked right through me.” Ignoring the stab of pain in the region of her heart, Leah resolutely returned her gaze to the file and made a notation in the margin of the top page.
“Well, you’ve got to do something. I can’t stand to see you so unhappy.”
“Really? I got the impression you thought I was getting what I deserved. You and Mary Ann have made it clear that you disapprove of what I did.”
Leah abhorred being the subject of gossip, but there was nothing she could do about it. Her breakup with Mike was the hot topic on the hospital grapevine. She was deeply ashamed of her part in deceiving him and prayed that the story would not leak out, and so far, it had not. Nevertheless, she had felt a moral obligation to reveal the truth to Sandy, Mary Ann and Cleo, the three people, other than Mike and Quinton, who meant the most to her.
All three women had been shocked and had made no secret of their disapproval. Cleo had been the most offended by her actions. For the past three weeks the elderly woman had gone about her duties with a stony face, barely speaking to Leah. It was no more than she deserved, Leah knew. Still, it hurt.
“Look, I may think you were wrong, but I understand why you did what you did, knowing how devoted you are to Quinton.”
“Hmm. It’s too bad he doesn’t see it that way.” Since their ignominious departure from Mike’s grandparents’ home, Quinton had barely been civil to her. These days, he didn’t even speak to her if he could avoid doing so. He was so angry she supposed she should be grateful that he had chosen to remain in her home at all.
During that awful drive back to Houston three weeks earlier, Julia had ranted and raved and accused Leah of stabbing her in the back. “How could you do this to me, Leah? How? You know how I feel about those people. I’ve lost one son to them. I will not lose another.”
Leah had remained quiet, but she knew all Julia’s complaints were false. Privately, she was certain the reason Julia hated Mike’s family was that in that large, boisterous group she had not constantly been the center of attention—a state of affairs her stepmother would have found intolerable.
Leah’s heart had almost stopped when Julia had angrily announced her intention to take Quinton back with them to Europe, where she could be sure he would have no contact with Mike or any of the McCalls.
To everyone’s surprise, most of all Julia’s, Quinton had rebelled. He informed his parents that if they forced him to go with them, in two months’ time, when he turned eighteen, he would return on his own and never speak to either of them again.
Julia and Peter had argued and pleaded—they’d even tried to bribe him with the promise of a sports car—but Quinton had refused to budge. Leah had been almost sick with relief.
Even now, merely remembering the scene gave Leah the shakes. She had lost the only man she had ever loved. She could not have borne it had she lost her brother, as well.
Sandy walked into her office and bent over Leah’s desk, bracing her palms flat on the top. “Look, you can’t go on this way. You go through each day by rote, you’ve got circles under your eyes and you’ve lost weight you couldn’t afford to lose. In short, you look like hell.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“It’s the truth, and you know it. For heaven’s sake, Leah, you have to do someth—”
“Uh, excuse me.”
Leah shot up out of her chair like an uncoiling spring. “Tess!”
Her reaction sent Sandy’s eyebrows skyward, and she straightened and studied the woman curiously.
“I hope I’m not interrupting something important, but the young woman at the front desk was leaving just as I walked in. She said I should come on back.”
“No, it’s all right. We were just chatting. I don’t believe you’ve met my nurse, Sandy Johnson. Sandy, this is Tess McCall. Dr. McCall’s stepmother.”
“Really?” Interest and speculation glittered in Sandy’s eyes. Leah could almost see the wheels turning in her head. “I’m pleased to meet you, ma’am. Dr. McCall is one of my favorite people.”
“Thank you. His father and I are very proud of him.”
“Well, look, I’ll just get out of your way. I need to run anyhow. See you in the morning, Doc.”
Sandy scooted out of the room, leaving an awkward silence behind. Neither Leah nor Tess spoke until they heard the outer door close.
“Won’t you have a seat,” Leah offered.
“Thank you. Leah, I hope this isn’t too uncomfortable for you. Neither Ryan nor Mike know that I’m here. In fact, I’m sure they would both have a fit if they did, but I had to see you. I wonder if you would answer a question for me.”
Leah sat back in her chair and picked up a pen from the desk. Rolling it between her thumb and forefinger, she eyed Tess warily. “That depends on the question.”
“Is Mike right? Were you just using him? Or were you telling the truth when you said you loved him?”
“I was telling the truth. I love him with all my heart,” she replied without hesitation. “I always will.”
Tess sighed
and closed her eyes. “I knew it. I just knew it. I watched the two of you together, saw the way you looked at each other. Those kind of feelings can’t be faked. And I’m positive that Mike loves you, Leah. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so miserable. He hasn’t smiled or told one of those foolish jokes he’s so fond of in weeks.”
“I’m sorry. I know this is all my fault. I wish there were something I could do to make it right, but I can’t.”
“Have you heard from Mike at all?”
“No, though I believe he has contacted Quinton and the two of them have gotten together. When and where, I couldn’t say. At the moment, my brother isn’t speaking to me.”
“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I have no one to blame but myself.”
“You know, Leah, Mike is easygoing and good-natured, but he does have his father’s pride. Perhaps if you made the first move and contacted him you two could work this out.”
Leah met Tess’s hopeful look and shook her head sadly. “I can’t do that, Tess. Mike has every right to hate me. The truth is, I did set out to use him. Falling in love was never part of the plan. I won’t lie to you. What I did was neither right nor ethical, but if I had it to do over again, given the same set of circumstances, I would probably do the same thing. My brother was dying. I would have done anything to save him. Anything.”
Leah shrugged. “That being the case, how can I ask Mike to forgive me?”
“You went to see her? Behind my back? Dammit, Tess, how could you do that? I thought you were on my side.”
“Oh, Mike, dearest, of course I am. I love you—you know that. But I can’t stand to see you so unhappy. And Leah is as unhappy as you are. Whether or not you believe it, she does love you, Mike.”
He snorted and sent her a derisive look. “Yeah, right.”
“It’s true.”
Tess sat down on the sofa and watched Mike pace the length of his living room like a caged lion. His broad shoulders were tense and his jaw set. His anger and hurt were almost palpable, and her heart ached for him. For the first time in all the years that she’d known him, he reminded her of the wounded, bitter man his father had been when she had first met him.
“Mike, I’m not saying what Leah did was right. Even she admits that it wasn’t. But she was desperate to save her brother. Your brother,” Tess added softly, earning herself an angry glance from those icy blue eyes so like Ryan’s. “Surely you can understand that.”
“Dammit, she could have trusted me with the truth.”
“She didn’t know you then, darling. She was afraid to take the chance. In her place, would you have?”
He paced the length of the room one more time, then sank onto the sofa beside Tess, propped his forearms on his spread knees and stared at the carpet. “I don’t know. I like to think so, but...hell, I’m not sure of anything anymore.” He raked both hands through his hair. “Dammit, why, of all the women in the world, did I have to fall in love with Julia’s stepdaughter?”
His use of his mother’s first name did not escape Tess. She herself could not abide the woman. Still, she found it sad that Mike could not bring himself to refer to Julia Albright as his mother.
Tenderly, Tess rubbed her hand over his bowed back. If she had given birth to Mike, she couldn’t love him any more than she did. It tore her apart to see him in such pain.
“No doubt Leah has the same lament. But, dearest, none of us has any control over whom we love. If we did do you think I would have chosen to fall in love with the bitter, hard man your father was seventeen years ago? Never in a million years. But I had no choice. None of us does. We have to follow our hearts, and where the heart leads isn’t always the easiest of paths.”
She smoothed the dark hair at his nape in silence for several minutes before asking gently, “Won’t you at least talk to Leah and try to work this out? Love like the two of you share doesn’t come along that often. It’s a shame to let it slip away.”
Tess felt his back muscles tense under her palm. He shook his head, his gaze still fixed on the carpet. “I can’t. I’d like to, but I keep coming back to the fact that she deliberately deceived me, and no matter what her excuse was, I can’t forgive that.”
Leah stepped from the curtained cubicle in the ER, peeled the rubber gloves from her hands with a snap and tossed them into the bin for contaminated trash. Sighing, she arched her back and rotated her shoulders. Christmas Eve. A night for peace on earth and goodwill toward men. So far, in addition to the usual sprained ankles, sore throats and infants with ear infections, she’d treated an addict who had ODed on heroin, two stab wounds, a gunshot wound and eleven patients with cuts and contusions resulting from a brawl in a bar. And it wasn’t even midnight yet.
She certainly hoped that Tony Barella, the intern who was supposed to be working the ER tonight, was enjoying himself at the party he was attending. Working the ER on any night was hectic, but on Christmas Eve it was the pits. Still, she had nothing better to do.
As always on this night, Cleo was curled up with an eggnog in front of the TV in her room, watching It’s a Wonderful Life, and Quinton was out who knows where.
When she had approached him about doing something together to celebrate the holiday he had curtly informed her that he already had plans. So she had signed up to cover for any doctor who wanted the night off. Anything to pass the time and keep her mind occupied. It had been just her luck, though, that Tony Barella had been the first to see her name on the volunteer list.
Leah had just poured herself a cup of coffee and taken a sip when the double doors of the emergency entrance burst open and an ambulance paramedic crew raced in with a patient on a gurney. Following on their heels came three more crews pushing gurneys.
“We need a doctor, stat! Four injured, and we got one critical here!”
Instantly, Leah forgot her coffee, forgot Mike and her problems with Quinton, forgot the fact that her life was so empty she was voluntarily spending Christmas Eve in the ER.
“Nurse! Get me some help down here!” she shouted over her shoulder as she hurried over to the incoming patients.
The first thing she noticed was they were all teenagers and all were dressed in formal evening wear. The two boys and one of the girls appeared pretty banged up. They were hooked to IVs and sported temporary bandages applied by the paramedics, but they were conscious and moaning. The other girl lay motionless. Blood from a cut on her head matted her auburn hair and covered her face, obliterating her features. What Leah could see of her skin was pale.
Trotting alongside the gurney, she helped the paramedics guide it into a treatment cubicle. “What’ve we got?” she asked, already examining the victim’s obvious wounds.
“Auto accident. Two teenage couples on their way home from a party, broadsided by a drunk driver. The other three are hurt but they’ll live. This one...I don’t know, Doc. She’s in a bad way. Broken pelvis, broken right leg, possible brain and internal injuries.”
Sleepy-eyed interns, rousted out of their cots by the nurses, began arriving. All around, the ER became a blur of frenzied activity as teams of doctors and nurses surrounded each patient. Orders were barked; questions were shouted at the semiconscious teenagers; blood pressures and pulse rates were hastily taken; clothes were cut away from wounds amid groans and cries; and monitors were hooked up. Competent nurses with stoic faces calmly carried out each command the doctors issued. To an outsider the scene could only appear chaotic, but the doctors and nurses worked together like a well-oiled team.
Leaving the less critically injured patients to the interns, Leah snapped on rubber gloves and began a hurried examination of the first girl. As a nurse began to clean the blood from the teenager’s face, Leah bent over her and listened to her heart and lungs, examined the bloody bruise on her side and abdomen that was already turning a hideous black, checked her pulse and noted that it was reedy.
Straightening, she pulled a penlight from her surgical coat and moved to the head of the gur
ney to peel back the girl’s eyelids. The nurse had cleaned most of the blood from the girl’s face, and for the first time Leah got a good look at the victim. She froze.
“Oh, my Lord!”
“You know her, Dr. Albright?”
“What? Oh. Yes. Yes.” She shook her head, clearing away the haze of shock, and snapped, “Somebody get X ray up here! And get her ready for surgery. Stat!”
She whirled away and hurried to the nurses’ station. “Get a surgeon here. Find Dr. Ballard if you can.”
“I can’t call Dr. Ballard, Doctor. He’s at a party at Mr. and Mrs. Dunkirk’s. You know, the people who’re donating the funds for the new wing.”
“I don’t care if he’s having dinner with the president of the United States. Get him here! Now!”
“Yes, Doctor.”
As the woman put in the call, Leah snatched up the phone on the counter and punched out Mike’s home number. She fidgeted as the phone rang on the other end of the line. “Be there. Please be there,” she muttered, glancing back at the curtained cubicle.
She let the phone ring ten times, but there was no answer. Leah slammed the receiver down and ran a hand through her hair. She considered calling his pager, but she couldn’t stand by the telephone waiting for him to return the call; she had to get back to her patient. Playing a hunch, she snatched up the receiver again and punched his parents’ number.
Ethan answered, but she didn’t identify herself, afraid he might hang up on her. “I’m trying to locate Dr. McCall. Is he there, please?”
“Yeah, hang on,” he said, then yelled, “yo, Mike! Call for you!”
It seemed to take forever, but finally Mike was on the line.
“Hello.”
“Mike! Thank God.”
Silence hummed in her ear. “Leah?”
“Yes, it’s me. Mike, this isn’t easy, but I have something to tell you.”
“I don’t think we have anything to say to each other.”
“Mike, don’t hang up! Please, listen. It’s Molly. She’s here at St. Francis. She’s been in an auto accident.”