by Milly Taiden
He laughed weakly. “You have me all figured out.”
I turned my canvas around to show him the colors I’d done so far.
“Very nice,” he said.
“I’m not sure how realistic I want to make the mother and son,” I said.
“Your hand will decide,” he said. “Have you done enough work over the years to find your style?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve been kind of all over the place.”
He waved at the painting. “Then you’ll do this image many times in your life before you get it right. Consider it a trial run. Don’t get too attached to this one effort.”
I laid the canvas flat on the table. No one had said anything like that to me in art school.
A movement in the hall window caught my eye. Darion walked by, slowly, looking in. It wasn’t the first time I’d caught him doing it.
Albert noticed and turned. “An admirer?” he asked.
“Something like that.”
“Ah, a love affair.”
I waved at Darion and turned to face Albert. “What gives you that impression?”
“You changed when you saw him. Even the air around you was different. Suffused with this magnetic charge.”
I folded up the easel. “Time to reverse my polarity, then.”
“Trouble in paradise?”
“I don’t think there ever was any paradise.” Not true, I thought. Most of it had been amazing. But it was the same as the one-and-dones, only it had just lasted a little longer this time. Encounters. Nothing more.
Probably for the best.
“You should draw him,” Albert said. “I found I could unknot most of my women problems by putting their image on paper.” He drew a face in the air. “Always, the answer was right in front of me.”
That was an interesting idea. Draw Darion.
Then add horns and a tail and cast him into hell.
***
Chapter Forty: Dr. Darion
That hadn’t gone well. I had to stop walking by Tina’s room. She seemed downright annoyed with seeing me.
I stopped by the nurses’ desk to pull up the day’s labs.
And felt like dancing.
Cynthia’s bloodwork was spectacular. ANC at 1000! We hadn’t seen that in weeks. If it weren’t for the clinical trial protocol, I would have been sending her home for a few days.
I ordered a bone marrow aspiration, certain she wouldn’t be hypocellular. If we were very very lucky, this new drug was the thing we were looking for. Something to knock this cancer into remission so Cynthia could go back to the business of being an eight-year-old girl.
I began to think ahead. I could enroll her in school instead of using tutors, which I hadn’t even bothered with since we’d been here. She had been too sick.
But now, I felt positively giddy.
My hospital phone buzzed. Odd. It wasn’t a patient code. Duffrey himself wanted to see me in the admin offices.
I glanced through my schedule. I might as well do it now. I wouldn’t have another free moment for hours. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted me for.
Unless it was Tina. Or Cynthia.
Either choice was bad.
I girded myself as I wound through the maze of halls to Duffrey’s office. I didn’t much care what happened to me. But Cynthia. And Tina. Both were vulnerable.
Duffrey’s dour secretary waved me on by as I approached. I didn’t knock on the door, just pushed through.
Duffrey was perched on the corner of his desk, talking on the phone. He motioned for me to sit down.
“Must run, love,” he said. “Meeting. Love you.” He set the phone down. “Mrs. Duffrey number three,” he said. “Trying not to piss this one off.”
I was still standing. I didn’t particularly care to sit for whatever was about to transpire.
Duffrey walked around his desk and picked up a file. “Do you have any idea why you’re here?”
“I can think of twenty reasons.”
Duffrey chuckled. “Good.” He held the folder up. “Pretty good snow job you did on this.”
I glanced at it. The colored labels at the top didn’t match St. Anthony’s system, which was mostly electronic anyway. This was an old file from somewhere else.
“Birth records,” Duffrey said. “Of one of your patients, a girl named Cynthia Miller.”
I kept my face carefully neutral. This was it.
“I know her. Pediatric leukemia, tough case, responding well to the NCI trial. We’re working with M. D. Anderson on it.”
He waved away my summary. “I noticed something in her file.”
My heart hammered, but I didn’t react. “What’s that?”
“A paternity test.”
“She has no father of record.”
“But the man who took the test is your father.”
Where the hell had he found that out? Time to shut up and listen.
“When I saw that, I looked up the mother. Sandy Miller, mother of Cynthia Miller and Darion Marks.” He glanced up at me. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
So, it was out, then. “She was a spectacular lady.”
“And now you’ve brought your sister to my hospital for a clinical trial.”
Time to play it straight. “I have.”
“And you’re violating our rules on the treatment of immediate family.”
“She’s got no one to look after her.”
“And you for damn sure aren’t going to be now.”
My jaw clenched. “My care of her has been perfectly in order.”
“And it’s been transferred to Clements. All your current patients will be.”
“What?”
“You’ll be taking a four-week leave of absence. We’ll convene again at the end of it.”
“What about her drug trial?”
“She’ll remain on it. No reason to discharge her over this. She’s our patient. It’s you with the problem. You violated our protocols from the beginning, covered up your relationship, altered records.”
“Nobody was harmed in it,” I said.
“Which is why this is just a leave of absence. I expect you to obey visiting hours.”
“Parents of pediatric patients are allowed to visit anytime.”
“Don’t make me call in CPS to reassign her guardianship.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Be a normal parent,” he said. “Do normal parent things.”
Duffrey hesitated before he said the next thing, and I wondered if the hammer was coming down about Tina too.
“What’s the deal with your father?” he asked. “He took a paternity test with his own wife’s child.”
“You’d best stay out of that one,” I said.
Duffrey held up his hands. “Works for me. I don’t tangle with the personal lives of men on the medical board.”
“He won’t appreciate my leave of absence.”
“You going over my head on this? With Dad?” His voice was a challenge.
Of course I wouldn’t. I would do everything I could to make sure my father didn’t even know. But Duffrey could sweat it out for all I cared.
I turned on my heel and headed for the door.
The office doors were a blur as I headed through the halls. Damn it to hell. I’d only been at this godforsaken place for two months. A four-week leave! At least I hadn’t been escorted off the premises like Tina.
Tina. I wanted her with a fierceness I had no intention of denying.
I tore through the corridors. She would see me. I would make her.
***
Chapter Forty One: Tina
Darion looked like he was ready to blow his stack when he stormed into my room. I was cleaning markers with antibacterial wipes. This was my longest break in the day, lunch and a prep period.
“Come with me.” He took my arm and pulled me to standing.
I resisted, jerking free of him. “What has gotten into you?”
“I just tanked my
career. Will you come with me already?” He stalked to the door, then turned to see if I was coming.
I refused to follow. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m out. Four-week leave of absence.” He yanked the door open. “Will you come?”
I glanced around. Everything was mostly ready for my next session. “I only have an hour.”
“That’s enough for me.”
I followed him down the hall. He was walking a hundred miles an hour, shucking his lab coat as he went.
“You going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Not here.”
We took the elevator down. Darion stood angry and silent, glowering at the numbers as if he could make them move faster.
I relented a little and reached for his hand, squeezing it. He held on to it, and even when the doors opened, didn’t let go. This surprised me, but I didn’t pull away.
We headed toward the exit, and I realized nobody cared about us. We were just two people in regular clothes heading for the parking garage, like any visitors.
When we got in his car, he didn’t start it right away. He turned to me, and pulled me in close, hanging on to me across the console.
I had a million questions, but I let them go for the moment. His grip on the back of my neck was intense. He definitely was not the stoic guy I was used to seeing in the halls.
“Did you just want to talk here?” I asked.
He pulled back. “No, we’ll go somewhere.” He started the car.
“You want lunch?” I asked.
“Are you hungry?”
“Not particularly.”
He backed out of the spot and we left the garage, flying down the side street. After a couple turns, I knew where he was headed.
The cliff.
Torrey Pines was different in broad daylight than it had been just before sunset. The scrubby bald landscape seemed bleak. A cold front had blown in the day before, so it was considerably colder. I should have grabbed a jacket.
We picked our way along the path to the cliff, Darion leading. The winter day was bright and clear. When we reached the edge, the Pacific spread out in blinding white blue, the waves sparkling like they were newly sprinkled with pixie dust.
It was still magical to me. I looked down at the narrow strip of beach that edged the water, taking in more details for my painting. In the light of day, the drop seemed more treacherous. You could see every outcropping, every sharp rock.
Darion plunked down, sitting with his legs dangling over the edge like he was considering a jump. That seemed too close to me, as the dirt was crumbly on the rocks. I pictured Albert’s painting of this scene, the ground dropping away below the oblivious circus.
But I sat next to him anyway. The danger of it made my belly buzz. We were completely alone. Between it being Monday and the frigid wind, no one was in the park. Nobody walked the beach below either.
We were the only people as far as either of us could see in any direction.
Darion stared out at the water for a while. I waited for him to talk. Maybe now he would say all the things I’d asked about yesterday. Maybe it was tied to what happened today.
“Cynthia is my sister,” he said finally.
Suddenly everything made sense. Her mom was his mom. He was taking care of her now that she was gone. And he couldn’t lose her too. God. How difficult.
I moved closer and laid my head on his shoulder. “Is she doing okay?”
“Fantastic, actually. Everything is going perfectly with the new drug.”
“But —”
“I lied to the hospital. Scrubbed any family references from her records before they were transferred here.”
“Why?” I shivered, and he drew me against his body, blocking the wind.
“It has to do with my mother. How she was cared for. And the mistakes the last hospital made with Cynthia. She lost a kidney because of them.”
God, no wonder he lied. “You wanted to be in control.”
“I changed my whole career path, my whole life, so that I could.”
I let my hands wander along the path of his ribs, although I couldn’t feel them for the muscle. “And now it was all for nothing.”
“Maybe not. If this drug works, and it looks like it is, I can discharge her. Well, Clements can.”
“And try it all again somewhere else?”
He sighed. “No. Hopefully have a normal life.”
“They didn’t fire you, though, right?”
“No. Just put me on leave. But that’s a big deal.”
“It’s four weeks to spend with your sister. No long shifts. No work stress. That’s a win.”
He lifted my face up to his. “How do you do that? Make everything seem like it was supposed to happen exactly as it did?”
I choked out a short laugh. “Don’t be calling me Little Miss Sunshine. I’m all about the doom and gloom. It’s just obvious this time. Cynthia is better. You got busted. Now you can have a normal life for a bit.”
He pulled me onto his lap. This had become a familiar place.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he said. “I should have.”
Yes, he should have, I thought. But I said, “I’m just the girl you were banging in Surgical Suite B.”
“You’re the only thing I’ve looked forward to for a long time.”
His hand moved along the sweater, feeling the curves of my body. I wasn’t cold anymore.
“I should have had dinner with you yesterday,” I said. “We wasted a day.”
“And a night,” he added.
His mouth came down to reach mine, just a whisper of a kiss.
I responded, but upped the ante, my tongue on his lips. He deepened the kiss, and now we were crazy, falling into it.
I shifted over on him, and bits of dirt fell off the end of the cliff to the beach below.
“Maybe we should move back a little,” I said.
But he didn’t let me, lifting me so that I straddled him like I had on the beach. He pulled the skirt out from between us so that it settled around our bodies like a cloud.
His hands went beneath the sweater. When he reached my breasts, he groaned against my mouth. “Your lack of bras drives me insane.”
His thumbs on the nipples sent sparks flying through me. Outdoors. Public park. Broad daylight.
He was my kind of boy.
Darion reached beneath the skirt and tugged on my panties. “Should I just tear them off again?” he asked.
“I’m too poor to keep buying underwear,” I said. “And you’re temporarily unemployed.”
He fingered the slender strap. “I think lingerie is the perfect use of my trust fund,” he said. And with that, he snapped the waistband.
Before I could even chastise him for ruining another pair, his fingers were inside me, and my mind was erased. My forehead dropped to his shoulder. God, he had this figured out.
His breath puffed warm against my ear. “I didn’t bring a condom,” he said.
I reached for his belt buckle. “I think we dispensed with those in that cabana.”
He sucked in when the cold air hit his newly exposed skin, but I didn’t leave him that way for long. I slid over him, reveling in the feel of each inch entering my body.
The wind blew his hair around, but mine was neatly tied in pigtails. His hands moved to my hips and lifted me up and down.
I was lost. Occasional pebbles rolled off the cliff and fell to the rocks below. The sky was bright white, and between breaths I could hear the waves crashing against the shore.
I’d never done anything quite like this. But the doctor was already familiar, and he knew me too. When I started to tighten around him, he increased the pace, moving me over him. I clutched his shoulders, thighs working, driving me up and down. There was no stopping this, and I cried out against his neck, the orgasm blasting through me like a tidal wave.
He gripped me tightly around the hips and held me steady as he pulsed up into me, hot and wet.
I started giggling immediately.
He started laughing too, even as he said, “You can give a guy a complex this way.”
“Oh…it’s not…that,” I said, gasping. “I’m just trying to picture myself later, no panties, trying to manage art therapy, after…this…stickiness.”
“Oh,” he said. “Right. I think I have some duct tape in the trunk.”
I smacked his shoulder. “You’re going to make me duct-tape panties?”
“No! I mean to fix the strap I broke.”
“So, panties mended with duct tape.”
“You’d rather leak on the floor?”
I pressed my cheek into his. “Oh my God, we somehow went from new lovers to crazy old couple in four days.”
He gathered his arms around me and held me close. “Perfect. I want to be a crazy old couple with you.”
“With duct-tape panties.”
“Exactly.”
And that was how I ended up teaching the rest of the day with silver duct tape up my skirt.
***
Chapter Forty Two: Dr. Darion
I sat in the parking garage a solid half-hour after Tina went back into the hospital, wondering what to say to Cynthia. I needed to do it sooner rather than later, before Clements came in and introduced himself as her new doctor.
My phone beeped. A message from Angela.
Who is this new doctor? Where are you?
Too late.
Just go with it. I’ll explain later. Buzz me when he’s gone.
I’d let them talk for a moment, then I’d go up as a random visitor. I had no idea who knew what had happened. Clements, obviously. Whatever nurse was on shift with Cynthia. The charge nurse, surely.
My patient load was too big to dump on Clements, no matter what Duffrey said. It would be split between other oncologists. I thought of Harriet. I wouldn’t be there when she got discharged from ICU. Hell, I wouldn’t even be able to log in to check on her.
Cars passed behind me, other doctors coming in for rounds. The hospital routine would go on. But unlike in the main wards, the subspecialty clinic had fewer workers, so patients were used to getting to know their caregivers.
I had to let it go. I’d done this thing.
Maybe Duffrey could be swayed. I hadn’t even argued my case.