Mac’s Bedside Manner

by Marie Ferrarella

  Jolene gave it a halfhearted try. “I’ve still got unpacking to do.”

  He wasn’t about to accept any excuses. “Then you can use an extra pair of hands.”

  She couldn’t help looking at them and remembering the other night. The way his hands had felt along her body. Touching her. Possessing her. “Depends on what those hands are doing.”

  The grin was unabashed. “Absolutely anything you want them to.”

  She flushed, turning on her heel. “I’ve got to get back to E.R.” Jolene pushed open the door, then stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Seven-thirty.”

  That’s all he wanted to hear. “With bells on.”

  “Wear more than that,” she advised. “My neighbors talk.”

  The sound of his laughter followed her into the E.R. It warmed her for a considerable amount of time.

  Her initial plan was to put Amanda to bed before MacKenzie got there. But that entailed something just this side of major warfare and Jolene was running short on energy. Besides, perhaps having the little girl around might be the better way to go. There was safety in numbers. Even short ones.

  Though she tried to tell herself she was imagining it, there were definitely nerves jumping around all through her. They’d taken up residence in her stomach and were making friends with the butterflies that already lived there.

  She needed, Jolene decided, to keep busy. Very busy. So busy that she wouldn’t think about the fact that she was actually walking back into the lion’s den and doing it willingly.

  As long as she remembered that it was a lion in that den and not a pussycat, Jolene told herself firmly, she was going to be all right. This was a fling, nothing more.

  She had to keep that uppermost in her mind. Otherwise, she was toast.

  “Book, Mama, Silly book.”

  Amanda was standing before her, her tiny hands fisted on her waist, looking like a pint-size miniature of herself, Jolene thought. It was hard not to laugh, but she managed. Amanda had been following her all around the house ever since they’d come home, begging her to find one of her favorite books.

  Always at the worst time, Jolene couldn’t help thinking. She’d already checked every place she could think of where the book might be hiding. She’d unpacked it when they’d first arrived and placed it God-only-knew-where.

  She tried to appeal to the little girl’s sense of fair play, knowing she was hitting her head against the wall.

  “I’ll find it later, honey. I don’t know where it is now.” She knew why Amanda was being so insistent. It was the latest Silly Sandy adventure and ever since she’d told her that Mac was coming over tonight, the little girl had begun pleading for her to find the book. She wanted Mac to read it to her at “be’time.”

  So far, the search had been fruitless. She’d unpacked so many things in the last few days, working whenever she had a free moment, that she couldn’t remember where she’d put the book.

  “Now,” Amanda pleaded. “P’ease?”

  The only thing to do was to begin at the beginning and look for it again. Jolene found the thought daunting. But it was even more daunting listening to Amanda plead in three different octaves of whine.

  She ran her hand along her neck, glancing up toward the bookcase.

  And then she saw it.

  The thin, light blue covered book was on the top shelf of the bookcase, tucked into a corner.

  Whatever had possessed her to put it there? She didn’t have a clue.

  It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she’d found it.

  “Missed it completely,” she muttered under her breath. She looked around for the ladder she’d used when she’d dusted the shelves and then put the books away.

  The ladder wasn’t in the garage where she could have sworn she left it.

  Amanda haunted her tracks like a mischievous, dancing shadow. “Find it?”

  “The book, yes, the ladder, no. Now that’s missing.” Jolene sighed as she walked back into the living room. “You know, Amanda, the next thing’s that’s going to go missing is my mind.”

  With another sigh, she improvised and grabbed a chair. It wasn’t tall enough for her to be able to reach the top shelf, but if she placed the telephone books that had arrived on her doorstep last week on the seat and stood on her tiptoes, she could just about make it.

  Why would she have put the book that high up? Jolene wondered again, positioning the chair before the bookcase. Obviously she hadn’t been thinking.

  She was doing a lot of that these days, she thought. There was no other explanation for allowing Mac back into her life. She didn’t need sex that badly.

  Oh, yes, you do, a little voice whispered.

  Feeling color creep into her face, Jolene shut the annoying little voice out. “Once more into the fray,” she muttered under her breath.

  Amanda stood beside the chair, her arms raised. “Gimme.”

  Jolene glanced down reprovingly. “That’s ‘thank you,’ not ‘gimme,”’ she corrected.

  Bracing herself against the shelf, she stood up on her tiptoes, her fingers just brushing against the bottom of the book. Maybe she needed an extra phone book, she thought.

  And then she heard Amanda declare, “Kitty!” like a battle cry. She looked down and saw the stray kitten they had adopted two days ago when it had shown up on their doorstep. It darted under the chair. Amanda was trying to grab its tail to pull it back.

  Either the cat or Amanda hit the chair, jarring it. Jolene found herself airborne.

  The last thing she remembered was hitting her head on the base of the fireplace.

  Mac pressed the doorbell again. He’d already rung twice and was beginning to get a little concerned. The lights were on inside the house, but no one was answering the door.

  Had she changed her mind?

  But she wouldn’t just leave him standing here. She wasn’t like that. Besides, there was no reason for her to do an about-face.

  Maybe she was experiencing the same quakes of uncertainty that he was, he thought. The ones that almost had him picking up the phone and calling her to cancel at the last minute. Cancel because he wanted to come here too much. But that was irrational and he liked to think of himself as a rational man.

  Mac knocked this time, hard. Jolene’s car was in the driveway, so she hadn’t left, unless someone had picked her up.

  No, she would have called, he insisted. Unless something had happened to Amanda—

  He stopped himself before he could get carried away. Deciding on trying another approach, he took out his cell phone and called her number. The phone inside the house began ringing. No one was picking it up.

  He was going to get the answering machine, Mac thought.

  And then he heard a childish voice on the other end of the line.

  “’lo?”

  “Amanda?” He peered into the window, trying to look inside. But he couldn’t see her from his vantage point. “This is Dr. Mac, is your Mommy around?”

  “Mommy sweeping.”

  “Sweeping?” Why would she be cleaning? And then he remembered the little girl had a lisp. “Oh, you mean sleeping.” That made no sense, either. Why would Jolene be sleeping if she was expecting him?

  “Uh-huh. Sweeping. On da floor.”

  Maybe Amanda did mean sweeping—unless—

  He had a bad feeling about this. “Amanda, can you open the front door? I’m right on the other side. Just turn the latch—” She probably didn’t know what that meant. Mac tried again. “The round thing above the doorknob—” Did she even know what a doorknob was?

  Frustrated, he knew that none of the words he’d used probably made any sense to the little girl. How did he describe what he wanted her to do so that she could understand?

  Mac regarded the door before him. It was solid and there was no way he was going to break it down in the fine old Western tradition of John Wayne. The only thing he’d break doing that would be his shoulder.

  The window, he thought sudden
ly. He could break the window and get in that way. It would probably frighten Amanda, but right now, that was beside the point. He had this uneasy feeling that time was of the essence.

  Hurriedly taking off his jacket, Mac wrapped it around his hand. He was just about to swing it through the side window when the front door opened.

  Amanda stood there, her hand resting on the latch, looking very proud of herself. “I watch Mama,” she told him.

  He grabbed her and kissed her quickly on the forehead. “Don’t ever do that for anyone else,” he instructed, hurrying into the room.

  He didn’t have to ask where “Mommy” was. Jolene was lying on the floor in the living room, face down and unconscious.

  A panic swept over him. “Oh God,” he groaned, rushing to her.

  “See,” Amanda said importantly, “Mama sweeping.”

  “Yes, Mama sleeping, honey,” he said softly. He knew it was important not to scare her. Mac quickly felt for Jolene’s pulse. It was strong. Good. Very slowly, he rolled her over onto her back. There was blood matting her bangs.

  Jolene moaned.

  There was a terrible throbbing weight pressing down on her head and her eyes felt as if they were sealed shut. Jolene struggled to rise above it, to open her eyes. Her baby was alone.

  She had to get to Amanda.

  With superhuman effort, Jolene forced her eyes opened, feeling like she was physically pushing up her lids. And they weighed a ton.

  She fought against the urge to sink back into oblivion and let the darkness cover her.

  Someone was touching her.

  She could feel hands moving gently, competently all over her, her arms, her legs, her neck. What was happening? Where was she?

  It hurt her head to breathe.

  With effort, she drew air in just as the hands moved along her rib cage, first one side, then the other. Pressing, testing. They hurt.

  She realized that despite her best intentions, she still hadn’t managed to open her eyes. She tried again. This time, she succeeded.

  MacKenzie.

  “Might have known,” she mumbled, weakly trying to push his hand away. “Don’t waste any time, do you?” Each word took effort to expel. Each word banged around in her head like so much noise in an echo chamber.

  He assessed the wound on her head. It was a gash, but it didn’t look serious. Wounds around the face tended to bleed a lot. “What happened?”

  Jolene felt foolish. She wasn’t supposed to do dumb things like this. “I took an unexpected flying lesson. I flunked. I’m all right, don’t fuss,” she mumbled.

  Pushing his hands away, she drew her elbows in to her sides and tried to sit up.

  And fainted again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When she opened her eyes again, she was no longer on the floor. Instead she was on the sofa. MacKenzie was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, looking very concerned as he regarded her.

  “I didn’t think you were the type to faint at my feet.”

  “I’m not,” she said weakly. She tried to sit up, but this time, Mac restrained her. Hands on her shoulders, he pressed her back down gently but firmly. Her spirit was willing, but right now, her flesh wasn’t, so she didn’t put up much of a fight.

  There was something on her forehead. Gingerly she tried to examine it, only to have Mac deliberately take her hand away.

  “Don’t touch that. As a matter of fact, don’t move until I tell you.”

  She wanted to ask him who he thought he was, but the words wouldn’t form. Her head was throbbing too hard.

  To her surprise, her exuberant daughter approached her with caution, looking more subdued than she’d seen her in a long while. Amanda turned her big green eyes up at Mac. “Mama aw right?”

  Mac swept his hand over the little girl’s head. Just seeing the unconscious display of affection brought an ache to the pit of Jolene’s stomach.

  “Yes, sweetheart,” Mac told Amanda, “Mama’s all right.” He looked at Jolene sternly. He’d righted the chair and pieced together the story when Amanda had shown him her new kitten. You’d think that a woman with a degree in nursing would know enough not to try to stand on a shaky pyramid of phone books. “At least she will be once I get her to the hospital.”

  Jolene was immediately alert. “Hospital?”

  He nodded. This was standard procedure. Why did she look so surprised? “I want you to get a Head CT, make sure everything’s all right.”

  She wasn’t about to go anywhere. “Everything is all right, I don’t have to go to the hospital.”

  His expression was reproving. “Practicing medicine again without a license, Doctor?”

  Jolene didn’t take the reference to her recent error in the E.R. with grace. Her temper flared. “I know my own body.”

  He knew that tone. Unless he was willing to carry her out, kicking and screaming, she wasn’t about to listen to him.

  “Well, I’m just getting to know it and I want to be sure it’s not damaged.” He fanned out his fingers before her eyes. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Your whole paw.” Jolene swatted his hand away. “I’m fine,” she insisted. “I just did a half-gainer off the chair, I didn’t plummet off a bridge into the Pacific Ocean.”

  Mac scrutinized her carefully again. Her pupils looked to be normal, so for now, he decided to opt for peace and leave the subject alone. But he intended to keep an eye on her, just in case.

  “Well, the good news is that it doesn’t look as if you’ll be needing any stitches, so my surgical expertise won’t be needed.” After he’d cleaned it, he’d used a butterfly bandage he’d found in the medicine cabinet on the wound. Mac pretended to regard her face for a moment. “I could, of course, give you a new nose.”

  She tried to focus on the appendage under discussion and immediately regretted it. Her headache kicked up a notch. “What’s wrong with my nose?”

  “Nothing.” As far as noses went, it was rather well shaped and appealing—just like the rest of her. “But people are always thinking they need a different nose, or a better chin, or higher cheekbones, or any one of a number of other so-called improvements.”

  “I don’t want any improvements,” she informed him. “I’m happy with my body just the way it is.”

  Because she was hovering around, Mac scooped up Amanda and placed her on his lap so that she could face her mother and not be a moving target. “Good, so am I.”

  There was no way she was up to cooking, and going out wasn’t something she felt up to at the moment. So much for their date.

  “I guess you’ll be leaving now.” Jolene flushed. She hadn’t meant to sigh, but it had just come out, accompanying her words.

  “I guess I’ll be staying now,” he contradicted. “I’ve a patient to watch and from the looks of it—” he lightly bounced Amanda on his knee; the little girl giggled “—a little girl to take care of.” He set Amanda back on the floor and rose. “Have you eaten?” he asked Jolene.

  She’d skipped lunch to visit Tommy and had eaten an apple while trying to get ready at home. “I was just about to throw something together.”

  Spoken like a modern woman, he thought with a smile. None of the women he knew, with the exception of Dr. Alix Ducane, could cook worth a damn. He looked toward the kitchen. “Why don’t I take care of that?”

  He was an endless source of surprise to her. When she’d talked about him, Rebecca had never mentioned that he knew his way around a kitchen, only a bedroom. “You cook?”

  He winked at her just before he went into the kitchen. “I can throw something together with the best of them.”

  They had eggs Benedict and Mac insisted on cleaning up. All she had to do, he told her, was eat.

  “You’ll get no argument from me,” she told him. “I know a good deal when I see one.”

  The glance he gave her sent ripples through her abdomen. “So do I.”

  Finished, he wiped his hands on the kitchen towel and then took Aman
da’s small one in his. It was close to nine o’clock.

  “I think maybe it’s time I read that book of yours, what do you think?” A vigorous bobbing of her head met his question. “Funny thing about that book. I heard the story is better if anyone under three feet is wearing pajamas when they hear it. Want to give that theory a try?” He knew that Amanda couldn’t have understood half the words he used. It warmed his heart that she agreed so readily.

  Picking up the book that had started it all, he glanced back at Jolene. “I’ll be back in a little while. In the meantime, don’t fall asleep. That’s an order.”

  Jolene sat down on the sofa, using the remote to turn on the TV. “I know all about head wounds, Doctor.”

  He noticed that this time her voice had a smile in it instead of offense. Mac figured he had to be making progress. The thought brought an unconscious smile to his lips.

  It never ceased to amaze him how much comfort children derived from repetition. For him, everything always had to be new, fresh. Amanda had been thrilled to hear every word of the story spoken endlessly over and over again. It had taken almost an hour to read her to sleep. He’d almost succumbed himself.

  Returning to the living room, Mac sank down on the sofa beside Jolene. He had a glass of water in his hand.

  She’d been debating going upstairs to investigate, wondering if he’d been the one to fall asleep instead of Amanda. Seeing the glass of water, she smiled.

  “Thirsty?”

  He raised the glass slightly. “I was going to toss it at you if you were asleep. But since you’re not, I think I’ll make use of it myself.” He consumed nearly half the contents in one long gulp. His throat was completely parched. Setting the glass down on the coffee table, he looked at her. “How many times do you generally read Silly Sandy Meets Mighty Mandy to her?”

  His having endured multiple readings bonded them more than working at Blair did. She laughed, picturing him being held captive by Amanda’s plaintive “p’eases.”

  “More times than I’d like. In her defense, she hasn’t heard it for a while.” She looked at him, trying to gauge his limit. “How many times did you read it?”