THE PASSION OF PARICK MACNEILL

by Virginia Kantra

  "Your commitment to Jack is commendable. I wish all my patients had that kind of support. But I want you to realize the burden this will place, not only on him, but on you. This development has to have come as a surprise. If there's anything I can do… Anything you want to discuss… There are psychologists here on staff who can help you."

  Patrick crossed his arms over his chest. Any minute now, she was going to invite him to share his feelings, like that misguided grief counselor he'd been forced to see after the accident. He wondered what the curvy little doctor would say if he suggested she help him work out his worries and frustrations in bed. Probably toss him out on his ear. He flashed her a smile of pure amusement at the thought.

  To test his theory, to tease her, to turn her focus away from him, he lifted an eyebrow. "If you think analysis is really necessary. Your couch or mine?"

  She flushed the color of his mother's wild Irish roses, but her eyes were steady. "You're joking," she said flatly.

  He grinned at her, oddly pleased both by her discomfiture and her recovery. "Yeah." He could have dropped it there. He should have dropped it there. But some impulse from his Top Gun days made him push. "Unless you're free on Friday night."

  "I'm never free, Mr. MacNeill. If I'm not on call or doing rounds or paperwork, I catch up on my sleep."

  "And sometimes on your laundry," he guessed.

  "Sometimes. How did you know?"

  He shrugged. "I do the same. Only it's clients and planes, not clinics and patients. I run a charter business out of Dumont airport."

  She sat back, clasping her hands together on top of her clipboard. "You're a pilot."

  He nodded, wondering what had brought the reserve back into her voice.

  "Doesn't that take you away from your son?"

  He stiffened at the challenge. "No. That's the advantage of being your own boss. I handle the books, the lessons and the day trips. Ray—my partner—takes the longer flights, and his wife helps out with the schedule. When Jack can't come up with me, he stays with Shelby in the office." He didn't add that with Ray and Shelby's first baby on the way, that arrangement was going to have to change soon. He didn't believe in anticipating trouble. It would find him in its own good time.

  The doctor fingered the edges of the thick file on her desk. "I don't mean to criticize. It's clear you've done a wonderful job with Jack. But with all the other demands on you, are you sure you can handle the kind of physical therapy he will need?"

  "Sure."

  "Because without it—"

  "I can handle it," he interrupted. To deflect her persistence, he asked, "So, do we have a date?"

  Her lips curled in a cool approximation of her pretty smile. "You don't have time for a social life," she said.

  That was one way to put it. He hadn't had sex with a woman in years. Amused by her prim assessment, he relaxed in his chair. "No, I don't. But maybe I'm prepared to make an exception."

  He was still teasing. Jack had been his single focus and his only passion since the accident. Of course he was teasing. But even as he kidded with the lady doctor, he realized with a sense of shock that he could mean it. Something about that tart mouth and those wary, intelligent eyes got under his skin. He didn't understand the needling attraction. He didn't want it.

  And apparently neither did she, because she recapped her pen with a decisive click. "Well, I'm not. I don't date."

  Intrigued despite himself, he raised his eyebrows. "Ever?"

  She flushed. "Patients."

  "I'm not your patient."

  "Jack is."

  "No, he's not. You just told me Dr. Swaim would do the operation."

  She pounced on that one like a cat going after a cricket. "Yes. He'll be back next week. I've told Sharon to schedule his appointments on a need-to basis. She'll go over the paperwork with you and give you the forms for Jack's lab work. I'm sure Dr. Swaim will meet with you then to explain the procedure further and answer any questions you might have. So." She stood, straightening the edges of the already squared stacks on her desk. "Best of luck, Mr. MacNeill. I'm sure everything will go well with Jack."

  I'm a busy woman. Now get out of my office. The words were as clear as if she'd spoken them out loud.

  Patrick shrugged and unfolded from his chair. He had no more time to waste than she did, and even less energy. If the doctor wanted to keep things impersonal, that was fine with him.

  "Thanks," he said.

  They shook hands. He turned to the door and saw what he hadn't seen coming into the room. What he couldn't see while he faced her across her neat, hyper-organized desk.

  Over one of the file cabinets, where she could see it every day from the other side of that desk, the brisk, impersonal lady doctor had taped Jack's drawing of eagles.

  * * *

  So the man had made a pass at her. For heaven's sake, Katie Sue, get over it.

  Kate jiggled her refrigerator door, staring with a total lack of enthusiasm at eggs and ketchup and a hardening loaf of bread. A suspect carton of cottage cheese occupied the top shelf. The vegetable drawer revealed a pale green stalk of celery, a limp reminder of her resolution to watch her diet.

  Blackwell twined around her ankles, complaining it was late, she was bored and where was dinner?

  "In a minute, Blackie."

  Kate groaned. Oh, great. She was turning into a cliché: the harried professional, hip-high in her thirties, eating alone and talking to her cat.

  Why on earth had he made a pass at her?

  She wasn't the type of woman guys hit on. Scorned in middle school, dateless in high school, driven in college, she knew most men found her combination of brains and ambition either boring or intimidating. Even at the hospital, where frustration, exhaustion and stress made unlikely bed fellows, she held herself aloof from casual affairs. Hot glances and surreptitious brushes in the hall were not her style.

  Eggs and toast, she decided. It would have to be eggs and toast again. Balancing the bread on top of the egg carton, she reached for the butter. Blackwell crouched as Kate banged the door closed with her hip. Only once in her first year of residency had Kate allowed herself to believe that a man could actually be interested in her. By her third year, she'd learned better. It wasn't a lesson she was eager to repeat.

  Which made Patrick MacNeill's reaction to her, and her response to him, even more confusing. She slammed the bread into the toaster and set the butter sizzling on the stove. After the wreckage of that one romance, she'd trained herself not to send out the signals of a woman interested in or vulnerable to a man's notice. She reserved all her attention for her patients.

  So why had Jack MacNeill's father come on to her?

  It didn't mean anything, Kate decided, breaking eggs into a bowl. He didn't mean anything. She attacked the eggs with a fork. Obviously, he'd felt threatened enough by her assessment of his parenting skills to retaliate by turning on his flyboy charm.

  Well, it wouldn't work. The days when she could be rattled by unadulterated male magnetism were in the past. Shy, plain, socially awkward Katie Sue from Blue Moon Trailer Park was Dr. Kathryn Sinclair now.

  As if to give the lie to her words, the phone rang. With sinking feeling, Kate recognized her sister's soft, plaintive voice.

  "Hey, sis." She heard her own lapse into their childhood drawl and winced. Shifting the receiver to her other ear, she turned down the burner under the eggs. "No, no, it's all right. It's not too late. I was just making myself some dinner. What do you need?"

  "I don't need anything, Katie. Can't I just call to say hello?"

  "Sure, you can," Kate said heartily. Too heartily. "How are you?"

  "Good."

  "The kids? Mama?"

  "They're good, too. Katie—" excitement swelled in her sister's voice like a shiny soap bubble "—I got another job."

  Well, Kate thought resignedly, transferring her eggs to a plate, at least it wasn't another man. A string of Prince Charmings had ridden through her sister's life, and non
e of them had stuck around for happily-ever-after. The last one hadn't even hung on long enough to see his infant daughter born.

  "What kind of job?" Kate asked.

  "Waitress down at Newton's Steakhouse. Pay's not much, but the tips are going to be good."

  "Hours?"

  "Four nights a week. That's all I can manage with Billy out of school. Mama's coming over to sit."

  Kate rummaged for a clean fork and tried to remember what Amy had said the last time they'd discussed their mother. What could she say that would be supportive without her sister taking it as know-it-all Kate buffing in again? "I thought you didn't want her watching them any more. Something about Jenny's formula, wasn't it? Or Billy sassed her or something."

  "Jenny's on premixed formula now."

  Kate backed off. "Okay."

  "And Billy's going to be good. He promised."

  "Fine."

  "You don't have to sound so discouraging."

  Kate set down her fork and pushed her plate away, old hurts, old resentments rising like bile. Obviously, she'd said the wrong thing. Again.

  "I thought you'd be happy for me," Amy continued, aggrieved. "You're always telling me how satisfying it is to work."

  Kate thought of the cases she'd seen that afternoon, the young mother maimed when a smoldering cigarette caught her mattress on fire, the baby scalded in a hot tub. She thought about little Jack MacNeill, and the burn director's probable reaction when he returned from vacation next week and found she'd put off one surgery and scheduled another. Satisfying wasn't quite the word for it. But she wasn't about to confess as much to her sister.

  "I am happy for you," she insisted, trying to return to a rational plane. "I just thought you didn't want Mama watching the kids."

  "It's not like I have a choice, is it?" her younger sister asked.

  "Day care?" Kate suggested tentatively.

  "I can't afford day care."

  Kate sighed. "If you need more money, Amy…"

  "No! I didn't call asking for money. I don't want your money. I wanted to tell you about my new job, and all you ever do is tell me how I'm screwing up."

  Kate felt a familiar kick of guilt. "Sorry. I didn't mean… I'm sure it will all work out the way you want it to. Congratulations," she added for good measure.

  "Thanks. Are you coming out on Saturday? The kids would love to see you. So would I."

  "Um, I don't think so." The phone line hummed. Kate tried to explain to the reproachful silence on the other end. "I'm on call this weekend, I have a paper to present on Monday, and Swaim gets back sometime early next week. I've been seeing his patients for him, and I want to make sure my paperwork's all caught up. I just can't make it."

  "Sure," her sister said. "I understand."

  But she didn't, not really. Kate could hear it in her voice, the disappointment that once again Kate was putting her duties at the hospital before her responsibilities to her own family. "Maybe next week."

  "Sure," Amy said again.

  They chatted a few minutes longer, but the chance for any real conversation was lost. Frustrated, Kate hung up. She couldn't be the friend her sister hoped for, any more than she'd ever been the daughter her mother wanted.

  It was true, what she'd told Patrick MacNeill. She wasn't free to pursue emotional involvements. For one thing, she didn't have the time. But it was more than that.

  Face it, Katie Sue. You're a bust at personal relationships. She should remember that the next time she was tempted to get involved with appealing little Jack MacNeill or his sexy father.

  Kate pressed her hand to her stomach, staring disconsolately at her plate. It didn't matter that the toast was cold and the eggs were tepid. She wasn't hungry anymore.

  * * *

  "You want me to assist in the MacNeill boy's surgery?"

  Kate heard the lack of enthusiasm in her own voice and struggled for control.

  Gerald Swaim, director of burn medicine at Jefferson University Hospital, flicked her an impatient glance. He wasn't used to having his pronouncements questioned. A handsome man in his late fifties with a full head of silver hair and a massive medical reputation, he expected instant understanding from his students, instant compliance from his nurses, and instant adulation from women. He usually got all three.

  "Do you have a problem with that, Dr. Sinclair?"

  "No," Kate assured him.

  Of course, she lied. Something about the boy who drew eagles and the man who flew airplanes threatened her hard-won and carefully-preserved objectivity. She didn't want anything further to do with little Iron Man or his father.

  And yet her objections were completely unreasonable. She knew the procedure. In this case, she'd actually been the one to recommend it. More and more, as a senior fellow, she worked independently, but it wasn't uncommon for Swaim to request her presence in his OR. She should welcome the opportunity to observe his technique, to refine and perfect her own.

  "Seven o'clock Friday morning?" she confirmed, writing it down.

  "Yes. And I'll want you to scrub in on the Helter case after that."

  Kate nodded and made another note. Eight months ago, when Janet Heller was severely disfigured in a house fire, Kate had been part of the admitting hydrotherapy team. Pressure garments had done their work. Now Swaim would remove the thick, swollen red scar tissue and replace it with grafts of the patient's own skin. Kate was eager to assist a process that would help restore not only Janet's face but her spirits. Burn medicine demanded a lot from its doctors, but it paid them in dividends of courage and hope.

  So Kate studied both cases and read up diligently on both procedures. She scrubbed in on Friday morning prepared to answer questions and admire Swaim's expertise.

  They were forty-five minutes into the first operation when all that changed. Swaim had sutured the first graft into the crease of Jack MacNeill's ring finger. He was tying the long stitches down over the glycerine-soaked cotton packed into the joint when he made a muffled sound of impatience and stopped.

  Kate's heart thumped. From her vantage point, everything was fine. She glanced from the monitors to the child's face, bleached above the faded dinosaur print of his hospital gown. Jack was okay.

  The delicate instruments poised above the child's hand glinted as Swaim lifted them, stepping back.

  "Are you prepared to do the next graft?" he challenged Kate.

  Her surgical mask helped hide her surprise. "Of course," she said, and moved smoothly to take over.

  She did the graft on the middle finger, anticipating Swaim would correct her, expecting him to stop her. He did not. She relaxed into the next procedure, letting her skill and training take over, repairing and creating with tiny pressures and sensitive movements, with sure joy and confident precision. She split, grafted and packed the crease of index finger and thumb, unconscious of the passing time, uncaring of the sweat that plastered her hair under her cap and ran between her breasts to soak her bra. The burn unit was always hot, the temperature adjusted to keep their patients warm. Destroyed skin could no longer do its job of regulating body temperature.

  It was almost two hours later that Kate knotted the last suture and looked up to find Swaim avidly watching her. He nodded.

  "Not too bad," he said grudgingly. "Wrap it up and put a bulky dressing over the top. I'm going to talk to the father."

  Kate retrieved her jaw and found her tongue. "Don't you want to wait until the patient comes out of anesthesia?"

  A mottled red climbed above the strings of Swaim's mask. "Wrap up MacNeill and scrub in for Janet Heller. I want you ready when I get back."

  Fine, thought Kate furiously, staring at the surgeon's retreating back. She'd prefer to see the little boy on the table settled and recovered herself. She didn't want to talk to Patrick MacNeill anyway.

  "Whew," the OR nurse muttered, once the door had closed safely behind Swaim. "What bug got in his briefs?"

  Kate paused her binding of Jack's small hand in gauze. It wouldn't do to
let the nurse see that she agreed with her. "It's a difficult case," she said primly.

  The nurse wouldn't be discouraged.

  "Well, you did all right, Dr. Sinclair. Wonder why he stopped. It's not like him to turn his surgery over to another doctor."

  It wasn't, Kate acknowledged. Gerald Swaim, an accomplished surgeon at the height of his powers, was proud of his skill and jealous of his prerogatives. He might assign his scut work to the residents, but he rarely relinquished command in surgery.

  Her pleasure in the perfectly executed procedure ebbed, replaced by a small, hard kernel of doubt. What had happened to make the department chief abandon his customary control? Had he simply been testing her, or had something gone wrong?

  And, if it had, how would Patrick MacNeill respond to the news?

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  «^»

  At one-twelve in the morning, Kate emerged from her dinky office clutching her fifth cup of coffee and an armload of charts. The unit was never totally dark or entirely silent. The halls vibrated with a fluorescent hum and the blips and beeps of monitors. From behind closed doors, she heard a cough, a moan, a muted television. Laughter and chatter drifted from the nurses' station as they celebrated somebody's birthday.

  Solitary Kate hadn't been invited, though she knew that if she stopped by the charge nurse would offer her a piece of cake. She turned the other way, down the hall, toward the patient rooms.

  The kernel of doubt hadn't gone away. It swelled under her breastbone, a small, indigestible lump, a tiny hot spot that upset her stomach and her concentration.

  She wasn't on call tonight. Roberts, the attending, had taken the four o'clock rounds. She had no real reason to drop her sliding stack of paperwork and squeak down the brightly painted, dimly lit floor like a ghost in orthopedic shoes. No reason. Only a burning in her gut. Quietly, she depressed the handle to Jack MacNeill's room and opened the door.

  A pale rectangle of light spilled across the bed to the raised footrest of the recliner on the other side. Between the tall metal guardrails, Jack sprawled with little-boy abandon, covers pushed down and arms and legs every which way. A teddy bear with a limp bow and well-loved plush supported his bandaged hand.