Out of the Shadows

by Loree Lough

  “I might just tell him you said that!”

  Patrice hung up slowly, remembering how years ago she’d jokingly speculated that Gus’s feelings for Molly were more personal than professional. Stern as a fire-and-brimstone preacher, he’d said, “Molly is a good person, and she deserves only the best.” Patrice read that to mean he didn’t consider himself “the best,” and knew he wouldn’t feel that way—if not for the condition that kept him confined to a wheelchair.

  And if it hadn’t been for your self-centeredness, Patrice thought, he wouldn’t be in that chair in the first place.

  Covering her face with both hands, Patrice sighed heavily.

  The phone rang, startling her so badly she nearly knocked the pencil cup from her desk. One hand over her chest, she pressed the intercom button. “Yes, Lisa?”

  “You asked me to let you know when it was eleven o’clock,” said her secretary. “Need me to call ahead, let ’em know you’re on your way over to Pediatric ICU?”

  “No, that’s okay, but thanks just the same.”

  “Have fun,” Lisa said. Another click and the intercom went silent.

  She had to get into a better frame of mind, for the kids’ sake. Standing, Patrice squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “He only gives you what He knows you can handle,” she reminded herself, grabbing Mort McMonkey from his special spot on the bookshelf. Exhaling, she forced a big smile and started for the elevator. She’d make the rounds in the children’s wards, then head back to her office, where, with any luck, she’d find that Wade had called with news about Gus’s condition.

  She punched the up button, then stepped back and watched the pale yellow numbers above the double doors light up. “Let it be good news, Lord,” she prayed, as one by one, tiny pings announced each floor.

  Because if it wasn’t, that Bible verse was going to be tested to its limits this time.

  As he stepped out of the elevator, Wade pulled back his sleeve. Eleven twenty-five, read his watch. He’d examine Emily Kirkpatrick, then use the phone at the nurses’ station to call Patrice—make sure she hadn’t forgotten about their lunch date.

  He’d been in a rotten mood till that thought, what with one emergency room procedure ending badly and post-surgical complications arising for another patient. The thought of sitting across from Patrice in one of the cafeteria’s padded booths raised his spirits. He could almost hear her delightful laughter, her lilting voice. If he closed his eyes, he could see her smiling face and dancing brown eyes, and that adorable way she had of tilting her head whenever he spoke, as if every word out of his mouth was truly important to her.

  She made a man feel good, he decided. Made him feel like the center of her universe. Well, not exactly the center; she’d made it abundantly clear that spot was reserved for God.

  Lost in thought, Wade rounded the corner and nearly crashed headlong into his partner.

  Adam laughed. “Where are you headed in such a hurry?”

  Red-faced, Wade grinned. “Hey, how goes it?”

  “Never better.”

  And it appeared to be true. Wade had practically grown up with Adam Thorne, and couldn’t remember seeing him look more fit…or happier. “Seems marriage agrees with you, ol’ buddy,” he said, slapping his bicep. “Maybe you oughta go away on a honeymoon every couple o’ months.”

  Adam laughed. “I’d say ‘practice what you preach,’ but God hasn’t created the woman who could pass your Miss Perfect test.”

  That might’ve been true…once. But not anymore. Not since he’d met Patrice.

  As if on cue, he heard her voice. “You take a nice, long nap now,” she said on behalf of Mort McMonkey. “I’ll be back tomorrow to make sure you ate all your supper tonight, so you’d better clean up your plate, y’hear!” Waving, she stepped into the hallway and hurried into Emily Kirkpatrick’s room, oblivious to the two lab-coated men standing several yards behind her.

  Wade sensed rather than saw Adam follow his gaze. Arms crossed over his chest, his friend nodded.

  “Ho ho,” Adam said, smirking, “what’s this?” He leaned in for a closer look at Wade’s face, then straightened and chuckled. “Has the Bachelor of the Year hung up his certificate?”

  The heat of a blush crept up his neck. “Get real,” Wade said. “She’s cute, but—”

  “Don’t gimme that, pal. I’ve seen you gawk at ‘cute’ before, and you never looked like that.”

  Like what? he wondered as the heat moved to his cheeks. Running a hand through his hair, he grinned. “Maybe you should have stayed in Cancún another couple of days, cuz you’re seeing things.” But he knew Adam. Once that guy got on a topic…

  “So how’s Kasey?” he asked, hoping to change the subject. “All tan and rosy from hours on the beach?”

  “She’s great, just great.”

  Adam hadn’t needed to say it; what the man felt for his bride was written all over his face.

  “Glad to hear it, because she promised to make a home-cooked dinner for me when you guys got back from the Yucatán.” Wade tapped a forefinger to his temple. “Some things, a guy doesn’t forget.”

  “Yeah, well I’ll remind her, just in case.” Adam glanced toward the room where Patrice was doing her monkey voice, then met Wade’s eyes again. “You want to invite somebody? I’m sure it’ll be fine with Kasey….”

  The last blush had barely faded when he felt another tint his cheeks. “So, have you been to the office yet?”

  Grinning, Adam shook his head. “Subtle, Cameron. Real subtle.” He chuckled, then added, “Matter of fact, I just came from the office. Man, y’wouldn’t believe the stack of paperwork on my desk!”

  Wade and Adam had been partners in their cardiac practice for several years now, sharing office space, a secretary, a receptionist and one another’s caseload. “You should’ve seen it before I sorted out the junk mail for you.”

  “Thanks, pal. I was just telling Kasey this morning that you’re a handy guy to have around.” He laughed, playfully punched Wade’s shoulder. “Well, got me a patient to check on. Catch you at the office in the morning…or do you have surgery?”

  “Nah, easy day tomorrow, for a change.”

  “Catch you there, then.”

  Adam headed for the elevator, and Wade caught up to him as he hit the down button. “Set aside half an hour or so for me, will you? I have this new patient, see, and I’d like a consult.”

  “Sure thing.” The elevator doors opened, and Adam stepped inside. Smirking, he leaned forward and whispered, “If you get the lead out, you can probably catch the Monkey Lady before she moves to the next floor.”

  The doors hissed closed before Wade had a chance to make a comeback. Just as well, he thought, smiling despite himself. What sort of retort could he have made, considering Adam had practically read his mind?

  He started for Emily’s room, mentally thanking Patrice. By showing up when she did, she’d spared him the ordeal of groveling with the head nurse for use of her phone. Judging from the scowl on the nurse’s face, she’d have put him through his paces.

  Frowning, the head nurse looked up from her clipboard as he passed her in the hall. “What’s that, Doctor?”

  “Nothing,” he said, topping off his plastic smile with an equally halfhearted salute. “Just thinking out loud….”

  The soothing softness of Patrice’s voice stopped him just outside the door to Emily’s hospital room. “Aw, don’t cry, sweetie,” she was saying. “Dr. Cameron is a friend of mine, and I happen to know that he’d never let a thing like that happen!”

  A thing like what? he wondered. He was about to enter the room, when Emily’s small, weak voice said, “My roommate Julie says I’m going to die….”

  Wade heard the little girl sniff before continuing. “Julie says she heard the nurses talking about it when I was downstairs, having X rays this morning.”

  Patrice clucked her tongue. “She actually heard them say your name?”

  “Well, no-o-o
-o, but Julie says they were sayin’ stuff ’bout my heart condition.”

  “My goodness, I’m very impressed with Julie!”

  Wade listened to an instant of silence, then heard Emily’s timid “Why?”

  “Well,” Patrice explained, “she’s awfully young to be a doctor, don’t you think?”

  Emily didn’t answer right away, but when she did, Wade heard the smile in her voice: “Julie’s only nine. Ever’body knows nine’s too young to be a doctor!”

  “Hmm, then tell me, Emily Kirkpatrick, how would she know it was you the nurses were talking about? Do you have any idea how many patients there are on this floor of the hospital?”

  “I dunno. Lots, I guess.”

  “Yes, lots. And I know, because Mort and I visit them, almost every day.”

  “So how many kids are here?”

  “Today, there are eighteen.”

  Silence.

  “So you think the nurses were talking about one of the other kids?” Another sigh. “I’ll say a prayer for whoever it is, ’cause it’s sad if they’re gonna die….”

  Despite her empathy, there was no mistaking the note of hopefulness in Emily’s voice. Wade made a mental note to thank Patrice for that later, over lunch.

  “Oh, you know how those nurses are,” Patrice said, laughing. “I’ll just bet they were talking about a character on one of their TV shows!”

  “Yeah. I never thought of that.”

  Emily’s weak giggle made Wade sad, wishing he could do something to help her. It didn’t matter that he’d already done everything medically possible; he wanted to send her home, healthy and happy, with a long bright future ahead of her. The helplessness reminded him how he’d felt when his mother was dying of cancer.

  One thing was certain: First chance he got, he intended to have a word or two with those nurses, make sure they paid a lot closer attention to anyone who might be listening when they swapped confidential patient information as if it were yesterday’s gossip.

  But first things first….

  “Hey, there, Miss Emily Kirkpatrick,” he said with all the cheerfulness he could muster. “How’re you today?” After grabbing her chart, he stood beside her bed. “Uh-oh, it says here that you didn’t eat your lunch again.”

  Emily wrinkled her tiny nose. “Soupy mashed potatoes and some kind of gray meat. Oh, and green Jell-O.” She grimaced and shook her narrow shoulders. “Bloooey.”

  He glanced at her food-laden tray. What did it matter whether or not she cleaned up her plate, when he knew full well that her poor little heart wasn’t going to heal, even if she ate every morsel? “Green Jell-O, eh?” He gave a sympathetic wince. “Yuck.” Glancing around the room, he added, “Where’s your mom?”

  “In the chapel.” Emily rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “She’s there all the time!”

  It had been Wade’s experience that certain family members sensed the truth about their sick relatives long before he reeled off a prognosis. “Goodness,” he said, ruffling Emily’s hair, “then, maybe we’d better get her some knee pads!”

  Patrice sent him an apologetic half grin, telling him she understood his predicament. She didn’t know it, but that expression told him that she was one of those sensitive few whose loving, nurturing ways made them aware of things that bypassed most folks.

  He smiled feebly. “So how ’bout we have a look at that incision?” he said, bending over Emily.

  “Can Mort stay?” she asked, clutching the covers to her chest.

  He glanced at Patrice, who nodded her assent.

  Finger-combing Emily’s bangs from her forehead, Wade smiled. “’Course he can stay.” He leaned closer and whispered, “But don’t tell the other kids. Then they’d all want Mort around when their doctors examine them.”

  While Emily giggled, Wade decided that Mort could take up permanent residence right there in her bed, could take her on a sight-seeing tour of the toy store jungle where he was born, if that’s what she wanted. Even if her family had been rich or important enough to get her name moved from the bottom to the top of the list of patients waiting for compatible transplant donors, her condition had weakened too many of her other vital organs. The horrible fact was, little Emily Kirkpatrick had, at best, a month to live.

  Carefully, he pressed the stethoscope to her tiny chest. So many “ifs,” Wade thought, listening to the meager beats of her debilitated heart. If he’d met her a couple of years ago…if she’d been stronger…if God had seen fit to spare her in the first place….

  “What’s wrong, Doc?”

  He looked into Emily’s sweet blue-eyed face and straightened. “Nothing. Why?”

  “Well, you look so…so mad….”

  Truth? He was mad. Furious, even. Because this so-called merciful God that Patrice thought so highly of had allowed his mother to die a long, agonizing death, and He hadn’t lifted an Almighty finger to protect little Emily from—

  Wade had blocked out a lot of what he’d learned in Sunday School, but he remembered this: “Ask and ye shall receive.” Well, he’d asked on behalf of his mom—pleaded was more like it—but like everything else he’d prayed for in his life, God had turned a deaf ear.

  The child continued to look up at him with enormous, trusting eyes, waiting for an answer to her simple question.

  To admit what he’d been thinking was a surefire way to take away the one thing she had left: Hope.

  “Dr. Cameron is just concentrating, sweetie,” Patrice said, rescuing him. “Do it again,” she pressed, smiling and wiggling her eyebrows. “Show us your ‘I’m concentrating’ face.”

  If they’d been alone, he’d have hugged her for that. But the child in the bed beside Emily’s, her parents and siblings, and Emily, too, watched and waited.

  And so Wade summoned the most serious frown he could, inspiring peals of laughter from every corner of the room. “Well, it wasn’t that funny,” he said, feigning hurt feelings. The laughter continued even as he added, “Keep it up, and you guys are gonna give me a complex.”

  “A complex, eh? Quite a feat,” Patrice said, “considering you’re the most uncomplicated man I’ve ever met.”

  She blushed as if she hadn’t expected the compliment to pop from her gorgeous, curvy pink lips any more than he’d expected to hear it.

  He might’ve reddened, too, if not for the thoughts jumping in his head. For one thing, if anyone had asked him to describe himself in a word, uncomplicated wouldn’t have come to mind; for another, it was about the last word he would’ve hoped Patrice might use to characterize him.

  “Well,” she said, breaking the uncomfortable silence, “guess I’d better go.” Putting Mort into action, she added in the monkey’s voice, “So many children, so little time!”

  “Bye, Mort,” Emily said, waving.

  “G’bye, you li’l sweetie!” Patrice stepped up close and kissed the girl’s forehead, made Mort mimic her actions. And pressing a palm to Emily’s cheek, she said, “See you later, okay?”

  Wade doubted anyone else heard her voice waver, didn’t think the others had seen the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. He couldn’t say how she knew Emily didn’t have much time left, but Patrice knew….

  As if reading his mind, she met his eyes. What message was she trying to send him on the invisible current that connected them? he wondered. She seemed trapped in the sadness of the moment. She’d rescued him earlier, now he’d return the favor.

  “So, you ready for lunch?”

  She frowned slightly, then blinked. “You didn’t get my message?”

  “What message?”

  “I, um…” Shrugging, she sighed. “Just…well, it’s no big deal.”

  Wade offered her his elbow, and she took it.

  “I’ll be back later today,” he told Emily over his shoulder.

  “Me, too,” Patrice said as they stepped into the hall.

  She continued to hold on to his arm as they moved silently toward the elevator. He rather liked the war
m weight of her hand pressed into the crook of his elbow. How much nicer it’d be, he thought, if she leaned her head on his shoulder, too.

  Get a hold of yourself! he told himself. Daydreams were for fools. Especially romantic dreams…. “So,” he began again, “what’re you in the mood for today? Pizza? Hot dogs? Hamburger?”

  She hit the down button, both hands now clutching Mort to her chest. The spot where her hand had rested on him was noticeably cold. He was wondering about that when she said, “Oh, soup and a salad probably. I try to eat light at lunch, since I fix a big supper every night.”

  Wade nodded, trying to imagine what it would be like, having balanced meals, prepared lovingly for him every night. “Just the opposite with me. My fridge is too small for real food, so I eat most of my meals here.”

  She looked up at him, then. “You’re welcome to join us. Gus probably won’t eat much, anyway, considering he’s still under the weather.”

  I’d love to, he wanted to say. “Hate to wear out my welcome” is what he said, instead.

  Patrice’s soft laugh filtered into his ears. “Impossible.”

  The elevator arrived, and as several staff members stepped into the hall, he held out a hand, inviting her to enter the car ahead of him. She grinned. “So chivalry isn’t dead, after all.”

  “Easy to be gentlemanly around a true lady.”

  While Patrice’s blush intensified, two nurses, leaning against the back of the elevator, exchanged knowing looks. One of them, Wade recognized as working Emily’s floor. Eyes narrowed, he almost read her the riot act for talking about the child’s case in front of the patients. That’d wipe that smirk from her face. But there was a time and a place for everything.

  Besides, he didn’t know if he wanted Patrice to see what he could be like when riled. “You ladies heading for the cafeteria?” he asked.

  “Nope,” said Emily’s nurse. “Just getting back.” She smiled sheepishly and patted her purse. “Forgot my kid’s birthday, so I’m headed to the gift shop for a card.”