by BETH KERY
“What are you doing here?” she asked him quietly instead.
Eric held up a chart. “Dr. Fielding consulted with me about Brendan’s case today. I examined Brendan. Even though your son hasn’t quite finished his course of penicillin, I recommended an X-ray and bone scan. We’ve received the results.”
“You recommended them?” Colleen repeated. She hadn’t realized he’d examined her son, although she now recalled Brendan mentioning a funny, cool young doctor dude who had looked at his foot last week before Colleen had taken him for X-rays in a different part of the hospital. Dr. Fielding had said he’d have a specialist take a look at the foot, but neither that comment or her son’s description had brought to mind Eric Reyes, who, in Colleen’s opinion, was an interfering, arrogant block of ice. Sure, he might have that glossy, dark, movie-star-quality hair and angular jaw that kept the secretaries at The Family Center wide-eyed and breathless. And she conceded he possessed an authoritative yet trustworthy bedside manner.
But Colleen’s days of being overwhelmed by those surface charms were long over.
“Dr. Reyes is Harbor Town Memorial’s finest orthopedic surgeon, Colleen. I immediately went to him when I had questions about Brendan’s foot problem.”
Her brow crinkled. She glanced anxiously at Brendan. Her son gave a small, sheepish shrug and rolled his eyes. Her heart squeezed in her chest in compassion for him. She knew how much he longed to be back playing football, how much he despised all these doctor appointments. The “foot problem” had become the bane of his twelve-year-old existence.
Over the past month, Brendan had acquired a limp. Initially, it’d hardly been noticeable, but it became more pronounced every day. Brendan denied any serious pain, insisting there was only a dull ache in his right foot. Colleen had assumed he’d pulled a muscle or gotten run over by an unusually big kid at Little League football practice, although Brendan and his coach insisted nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. She’d made an appointment with Dr. Fielding, not really expecting anything more than the normal bruises and sprains Brendan had acquired over his active boyhood years. Dr. Fielding had discovered internal swelling and recommended a course of antibiotic treatment. Much to Brendan’s distress, Dr. Fielding had also put the kibosh on any more football for the rest of the season.
Eric Reyes was an orthopedic surgeon, though. His presence at this day-long hospital visit implied the foot problem was a good deal more significant than a bruise or infection.
“He needs a specialist? It’s that serious?” Colleen asked Eric.
“Brendan hasn’t responded to the course of oral antibiotics. The swelling of the soft tissue has increased, as has his pain. Considerably,” Eric replied.
She knew patients at The Family Center responded to Eric to an uncommon degree, seeming to instinctively trust his intelligent, incisive, perpetually unruffled manner. What he was saying in that even, authoritative tone didn’t soothe Colleen at the moment, however. It frightened her.
This did sound serious.
“Your pain is worse?” Colleen said, turning to Brendan. Her son shrugged again.
“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” Brendan mumbled.
“On a pediatric scale of pain, Brendan is scoring in the high category,” Eric said.
“Brendan, why didn’t you tell me you were hurting so much?” Colleen asked worriedly. Brendan hunched down, revealing little to her but the crown of his dark gold, wavy hair. She forced down a maternal desire to go over and hug him. She swore her son had skipped preadolescence and moved right into teenage rebellion. It bewildered her at times, how independent he wanted to be, how withdrawn he could get. One second he’d been an adorable, chubby two-year-old, the next he’d become an impenetrable puzzle.
Colleen wasn’t ready for her little boy to grow up. She wasn’t prepared to deal with Eric Reyes. She wasn’t ready for any of this.
“Some people are underreporters of pain,” Eric said, diverting her attention away from Brendan. He approached her and opened the medical chart. “It’s actually fairly common among active, athletically inclined kids. Brendan’s not being dishonest when he says it doesn’t hurt that bad. He just has a high pain tolerance, that’s all.”
She glanced up quickly into his face. Typically, she made a point of not standing so close to him when they worked together at the Center. At five foot eight inches, she was tall for a woman. Her brothers were both tall men, but in general, she wasn’t used to having to look up so far into a man’s face. She especially hated having to do it with Eric.
He showed her the contents of the folder, pointing at an X-ray. “Here’s the problem. Do you see this dark portion here? That’s an osteolytic lesion at the first metatarsal of Brendan’s foot. It’s beginning to punch into the bone.”
“Lesion? Wait…you don’t mean—” Colleen stopped herself short, her mouth hanging open. She gaped at Eric as the beginnings of panic started to roil around in her belly. The word she’d stopped herself from saying in Brendan’s presence echoed around in her skull like a ricocheting bullet.
Cancer.
“It means that the inflammation of the soft tissue is starting to eat away at a portion of Brendan’s bone,” Eric said quietly. She stared up at him, unable to look away from his eyes. The compassion she saw in them couldn’t penetrate her alarm. Neither did Dr. Fielding’s reassuring touch on her upper arm.
“Dr. Reyes is recommending surgery on the foot, Colleen,” Dr. Fielding said in his warm, grandfatherly manner. “I’d like to admit Brendan this afternoon. We’ve already briefed him, and Dr. Reyes has generously made room in his schedule. He’ll be able to do the surgery first thing tomorrow morning.”
“No,” Colleen blurted out.
“Uh…no?” Dr. Fielding repeated, confused. “Colleen, this is my recommended course of treatment. Dr. Reyes feels the surgery should be done as soon as possible, and I agree wholeheartedly. “
“May I talk to you for a moment? In private?” Colleen asked Eric in a high-pitched voice.
She distantly noticed through her rising anxiety that Eric looked much calmer than Dr. Fielding, almost as if he’d expected Colleen’s reaction. He nodded toward the door.
She gave Brendan a reassuring smile and brushed back his bangs. “I’ll be right back. Okay?” She waited for her son’s nod before she followed Eric. He led her down the hallway to a dark, empty exam room.
“What do you mean, lesion?” she demanded the second he flipped on a light and closed the door. “What is it, exactly, that’s eating into Brendan’s bone?”
“It’s likely that some kind of foreign body somehow managed to lodge itself in the tissue. I questioned Brendan about it. He does recall stepping on a good-sized thorn when he was at the beach months back.”
“But—”
He held up his hand in a “pause” gesture.
“I know he probably never said anything about it to you. He wasn’t aware that something had lodged in his foot. I won’t know more until I can get in there and clean up the tissue.”
“But you said lesion. You said something was eating away at the bone. Does that mean it’s cancerous?”
The edges of her vision darkened, as if just saying the word out loud had taken everything out of her. Eric stood just inches away, one hand on her upper arm, steadying her. When had he moved closer? Colleen wondered dazedly.
“No, no, it’s not cancerous,” he said hastily. “It’s an unusual situation. The cells are irregular, yes, because of the persistent inflammation. The location of the lesion is isolated, though. A minor surgery and debridement of the tissue will take care of things completely. On the other hand, we shouldn’t wait, because the health and structure of Brendan’s bone is at risk. I wouldn’t want it to develop into osteomyelitis. He’ll get an intravenous cocktail of antibiotics, but that’
s the only postoperative treatment he’ll require besides some physical therapy. We’ll follow him closely afterward, but there’s every reason to believe that a cleanup of the tissue and removal of the foreign body will resolve things.”
Colleen stared blankly at the light blue shirt he wore beneath his blue lab coat. “The bone hasn’t been damaged permanently?”
“No,” he replied, his firm tone reassuring her despite her disorientation.
“I want another opinion.”
“I thought you might say that.” She glanced up. A shock went through her when she finally took in how close he was to her. He’d combed his hair back, but the long bangs had fallen forward and brushed his cheekbone. A five o’clock shadow darkened his lean jaw. He had a cleft in his chin. She didn’t know how it was possible that his midnight eyes could be as cold and hard as onyx at times, and so warm at others.
Like now.
“The only other orthopedic surgeon at Harbor Town Memorial is Marissa Shraeven.” He leaned his head to the side and hitched his chin toward Brendan’s chart, keeping his gaze on her the whole time. Colleen realized he’d tossed the chart on the exam table before he’d reached out to steady her. “I had her review the case. She agrees one hundred percent with my course of treatment.”
The pressure of his hand increased subtly. She turned out of his hold and took several steps, distancing herself. His nearness was only increasing her unrest.
“I’d like Dr. Shraeven to operate, then.”
“Really?” he asked dryly.
She spun around. “What’s that mean?” He looked so calm that for a split second, she was sure she’d misunderstood the edge of sarcasm in his tone. He reached and retrieved Brendan’s chart.
“I think you know what it means,” he said mildly, his gaze flickering over the chart.
“I just don’t think it’s appropriate for you to operate on Brendan.”
“Are you questioning my ability?” he asked, looking up.
“No.” She gave an exasperated sigh when he merely quirked up one brow in a challenging gesture.
“My integrity, then?”
“I’m not questioning your ability or integrity. I just think that given everything…given our pasts, there has to be a better option.”
For several seconds they just stared at one another while Colleen listened to her heartbeat drum loudly in her ears.
“So you’re falling back on the excuse of the crash, is that it?” he finally said.
“Does it surprise you? My father killed your mother sixteen years ago in a car wreck. I know how you feel about the Kavanaughs. I know how you feel about me,” she finished under her breath.
“Do you?”
She hoped her incredulous glance reminded him of it all—the deaths of their parents, his sister’s considerable injuries and facial scarring, the lawsuits brought against Colleen’s father’s estate by the Reyes and Itani families, their silent battle of wills while the two of them worked together at The Family Center…
“I’m not buying it,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not buying that you don’t want me to operate on your son because your father killed my mother in a case of reckless homicide.”
“Oh, really? You can think of a better reason why I wouldn’t want you to operate on Brendan?”
“I can,” he said quietly, glancing up from the chart. “Sunset Beach, Memorial Day weekend, last summer.”
His image swam in her vision. She breathed through her nose slowly, trying to calm herself. Her knees went weak. She felt flattened and numb at once.
She couldn’t believe he’d just mentioned that night so casually. They’d worked together at The Family Center now for over a year—distantly and infrequently, granted—but still, they’d seen one another, spoken to each other…
…simmered in each other’s presence.
Never once during that time period had he acknowledged what had happened on the beach that hot, early summer night. Colleen had been all too eager to comply with his silence on the matter. She’d never been able to come to terms with that kiss; never could logically make sense of it. It shocked her to the core that he’d just brought up that forbidden topic in this situation. She’d long known Eric Reyes had nerves of steel, but she’d underestimated him.
His cockiness was titanium strength.
“I’m the most qualified orthopedic surgeon in Southern Michigan,” he continued. “Are you really going to waste precious time booking appointments with other specialists who are going to tell you exactly what I just did? All because you’re too proud to acknowledge a kiss? Or are you too stubborn to admit how much you liked it?” he added in a low, rough voice.
He’d done the impossible for the second time in her life. He’d made her hyperaware of her weakness, not to mention speechless with the knowledge. She responded precisely as she had that first time on Sunset Beach.
By turning and walking away.
Late the next morning, Colleen and her mother conferred across the hospital bed, their voices hushed because Brendan lay sleeping between them. He’d awakened in the recovery room earlier, but he’d soon fallen asleep once he’d been hooked up for his first round of IV antibiotics. To Colleen, he looked smaller than usual lying motionless in that bed, more vulnerable than she cared to consider with the tubes running from his arm to the machine administering the medication.
“I wish Dr. Fielding would come and examine him,” Brigit Kavanaugh said as she studied her grandson, her brow creased with worry.
Colleen experienced a twinge of annoyance at her mother’s uncertainty about Eric Reyes operating on Brendan. Guilt followed her mild irritation. What right did she have to be annoyed at her mother when she’d expressed even worse doubts about him just yesterday afternoon?
It hadn’t taken her long to work past her wariness about Eric. Of course she wanted the most qualified surgeon available. Brendan’s well-being was her top priority, and if that meant she had to squirm in discomfort because of the identity of the most qualified candidate, so be it. She heard from practically everyone on the planet how skilled, smart and gifted Eric was at his job. Working with him for the past year plus had proven to her the accolades weren’t overrated. He was talented, all right, even if his approach with her patients had occasionally set her on edge. He’d been known to trump her clinical opinion a time or two.
But truth be told, Eric’s kindness and attention both toward Colleen and Brendan before and after the surgery had cooled her uncertainties considerably.
“Brendan is under Dr. Reyes’s care, Mom,” she said quietly. “He says the surgery couldn’t have gone any better. He assured me the wound has been completely cleaned. Brendan is going to be fine.”
Colleen waited, her breath burning in her lungs, sure she knew what her mother would say next. He’s only a specialist because he took all of our money in that lawsuit and bought himself a medical degree. She’d learned to dread her mother’s hurt and defensiveness every time the crash or anything relating to it was mentioned.
But the bitter words never came.
Brigit had changed a lot in the last two months, ever since Liam—Colleen’s brother—had confronted her about her past; ever since old Kavanaugh family secrets had been exposed, secrets that revealed why Derry Kavanaugh had been so upset and intoxicated on that fateful night sixteen years ago. The Kavanaugh family was still reeling from the revelation of those painful truths, perhaps Brigit—the secret-keeper—most of all.
Brigit had not only hidden the fact that her daughter Deidre was another man’s child for Deidre’s entire childhood, she’d also withheld the identity of Deidre’s father until just a few months ago.
At times like this, Colleen found herself missing her mother’s anger. It was better
than the quiet, sad resignation that seemed to have replaced the bitterness.
“I know, but still…Dr. Fielding delivered Brendan. He knew Darin,” Brigit added, referring to Colleen’s husband, who had died in a special operation in Afghanistan three years ago. Brigit gently tucked the blanket around Brendan’s waist. “We’ve known Dr. Fielding for so long now.”
They’d known Eric Reyes longer, Colleen thought. Her mother hardly needed reminding of that, though. One of the innocent victims of the crash had been Eric Reyes’s mother, Miriam. Another victim had been his sister, Natalie. Natalie had escaped the tragedy with her life, but she’d spent the better part of her eleventh year in the hospital, suffering from severe injuries and scarring sustained in the accident. Eric had been both father and mother to his little sister since he was eighteen years old.
It was no wonder Eric could be so cool and businesslike at times, Colleen admitted to herself. He’d hardly ever had the opportunity to be a carefree teenager. None of the kids in the Itani, Kavanaugh or Reyes families had really had much of an opportunity for that. At least, not since the crash.
She stood like she’d bounced off springs when the object of her thoughts walked into the room. She was surprised to see him so soon after he’d conferred with her so extensively postoperatively only around an hour ago. He was so tall that he seemed to fill up the small, curtained-off area of the hospital room completely. Or maybe it wasn’t just his physical stature that caused her reaction, but the strength of his formidable personality.
He nodded at Colleen in a friendly, professional way.
“Out like a light, huh?” he murmured as he studied his patient.
“He’s been asleep for about forty-five minutes. Should I wake him?” Colleen asked.
“No, he’s fine. The nurse took his vitals before he fell asleep, and he looks likes he’s resting easy. I’ll come back in a bit and check on him.”