“Don’t give me that look,” he told her. “We had a deal. You go out with me then I’ll review the cases. First one. Then the other.”
“Are you serious? You’re waiting until our date?”
“It’s sort of how this favor process works. If I review the cases, then you might decide to renege.” In fact, he was sure she would. She wouldn’t do anything so dishonest as to flat out tell him she had no intention of holding up her end of the bargain. However, she would have no problem delaying and putting him off indefinitely with some flimsy excuse like an emergency surgery.
“I don’t believe you. This is a matter of life and death.”
“Not life, just death. The cases aren’t going anywhere and we had a deal. You go out with me and the very next day I will review the cases.”
She looked away from him and he could tell she was trying to formulate her next argument. Her foot tapped on the linoleum to the beat of her brain. He didn’t see her thinking. He heard it.
But nothing she could come up with was going to deter him. Because, for whatever reason, the prickly, uptight, unfunny hypochondriac, with the brown hair and hazel eyes, made his heart beat and his stomach flutter and he wouldn’t even mention what she did to all regions south.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, her voice tight. “We tried this, remember? It was horrible. We argued. You were nasty.”
“You threw a glass of water in my face.”
“Because you were nasty.”
“I wasn’t nasty. I was honest. You were condescending.”
“I wasn’t condescending, I was…curious.”
He had her cornered. “Then there is no problem with us trying it again. I wasn’t really nasty. You weren’t really condescending. If you avoid drenching me, it should be a lovely evening.”
“Fine. But not this week.” Her hand reached for her throat and he knew what was coming. “I feel something, possibly strep, coming on. If you could review the cases, and as soon as I’m feeling better—”
Wyatt barked out a laugh. “You don’t have strep. You have an active imagination. And if I waited until you felt perfectly fine, we’d be dead before the date happened. It’s now or never, Camille. I’ll pick you up at your place tonight.”
“Tonight!” she squeaked. “I can’t possibly be ready by tonight. I don’t know what I’m going to wear. I need a dress and shoes. And perfume…”
Her voice trailed off as he could see her running through the categories of things women needed to have in order to go out on a date. What thrilled him was knowing that she wanted to look pretty for him. She wanted to smell good. She might disagree with him out loud, but deep down he knew she wanted this second chance almost as much as he did.
“Camille, whatever you wear I’ll think you’re lovely.”
He could see vulnerability in her eyes and it touched him. She wasn’t good at this. He knew that. This meant he had to be good enough at this for the both of them.
“Trust me.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
She turned to leave and he found he couldn’t stop himself. “Oh, and Camille, remember to lose the mask.”
Her hand rose to the white cotton that was still stretched over her mouth.
“I’m going to want to have access to those lips.”
With that, she opened the door and, with everything she had, slammed it behind her.
Chapter 3
Wyatt made a right onto the street where Camille lived. He’d been surprised the first time he had picked her up for a date to learn that she preferred living in a small single-level ranch house rather than some sleek, sophisticated condo or town house. Being on call for Memorial meant she needed to be close, but Old City in Philadelphia wasn’t much farther away than sleepy town suburbia.
The street was lined with big oak trees and the houses were dominated by families with young children and dogs if the crowds playing on the street were any indication. It was after seven o’clock but in late summer the sun was still up and a game of kickball was in progress.
Carefully, Wyatt negotiated around the kids of varying sizes and ages and approached Camille’s house. His plan was to park on the street, but her street always seemed to be lined with cars as the driveways only accommodated one vehicle per family. He spotted a black car idling directly across from her house and figured he got lucky. Putting on his blinker he waited for the person to pull out.
After a moment, when the car made no move to leave, he assumed he’d been wrong. Maybe the person had parked. But as he was about to drive away the black car roared out in front of him, speeding down the street to the end of the block.
Jerkoff. Shaking his head, Wyatt maneuvered his Jeep into the vacant spot.
Once parked, he paused for a second before getting out. It was a thunderbolt to realize his hesitancy was based on nerves. Nervous for a date with Camille Larson. The idea was absurd, but there it was. This date was important and if he screwed it up…again, he didn’t know how many other chances he would get. It wasn’t like he could count on Camille to ask him for favors on a regular basis.
With one last glance in the rearview mirror he checked the knot in his tie and his teeth as a precaution. Yes, he’d showered, shaved—something he did only when the scruff on his face was about to turn into a bad beard—and put on a tie. An article of clothing he only wore when forced to attend either a wedding or a funeral.
That was one of the perks of working solely at the clinic in the hospital. Without the hassle of a practice, he could spend his days in scrubs rather than real clothes. It was like wearing pajamas. Hugh Hefner knew what the hell he was doing when it came to being comfortable all day.
But this was a date and a date called for a tie, didn’t it?
Acting quickly, Wyatt pulled the silk from around his neck. He was being ridiculous. A tie would be over the top. Hell, if he was going to wear a tie, then he should have brought her flowers.
Flowers. Oh, shit.
He should have brought her flowers. They would have softened her. Or made her suspicious. It was hard to tell. Wyatt tossed off the sports coat and threw it into the back seat of his Jeep. He rolled up the cuffs of his button-down shirt and felt halfway normal again.
This was a big date, yes, but he needed to be himself. He needed to be comfortable. In truth, he was probably going to have to be comfortable for both of them, so shucking the tie and coat was dead on the right call.
Jogging up the front steps, he rang the bell and waited. Through the beveled glass panes on the side of the door, he could see movement. Fidgety movement. She was either straightening her hair or her dress. As soon as the door opened the nerves he thought he’d gotten control over flared up again, but he was less concerned with them now that he knew she was equally nervous.
There she was before him with her hair down around her shoulders, wearing a conservative black dress and low pumps. She smiled softly and one thought dominated his thinking.
He wanted her.
He’d worked at the same hospital with Camille for over ten years. She’d done her residency there and stayed on after it was finished. He’d allowed her to scrub in on his surgeries. He’d critiqued her technique. He’d taken breaks with her in the coffee room on the fourth floor surgical lounge.
But it wasn’t until a year ago that he finally woke up and saw her. Saw all her complexity and wanted her.
“Did you want to come in? Or do we have reservations somewhere?” Her voice was soft but clipped in a way that told him she’d spent her whole life on the East Coast. A shame, because a few years of California living might have helped her unwind a bit.
“We’ve got time.”
She seemed undecided so he moved forward until she had no choice but to back up. Once inside he took the time to study her fortress of solitude more closely. A workaholic, he might have expected sparse furnishings and the bare minimum.
Instead there was color. An explosion of color. A yellow couch. Green w
alls, a patterned rug over hardwood. A lounging chair with what looked to be an impossibly soft blue blanket tossed over it.
Not a surprise that her cat took residence on the comfy blanket.
“And what’s his name again?”
“Her name. Aphrodite.”
What the heck did that say about Camille? She’d named her cat after the goddess of love, beauty and sex. Yet she did everything in her power to conceal those very traits about herself.
Wyatt sat on the edge of the lounge chair, but the cat didn’t budge. Instead she pushed her head under his hand as if demanding that he stroke her. So he did.
Camille stood with her hands clasped together awkwardly. “Can I get you something to drink?”
How long had it taken her to come up with that line? he wondered?
“Sure.”
“I have wine. Red or white—” Her face fell and he could see the color leak from her cheeks. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot.”
Wyatt shrugged. “It’s okay. Sometimes I forget, too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ordered a burger, fries and a cold beer only to realize that I can’t have the beer.”
“Is it hard?”
Sobriety wasn’t easy. Wyatt could admit that. But after five years it was definitely easier. “I’m used to it. And happier than I was as a drunk.”
“I have club soda,” she offered.
“If you have a lime, I’ll worship at your feet forever.”
She smiled a little and retreated to the kitchen that was on the other side of an arched opening from the living room. Wyatt took a look at the artwork on the walls. No prints of O’Keeffe and Monet for his girl. No, the artwork that dominated was the real thing. Oil on canvas. A fairy tale scene in a forest. A woman alone in a café. An explosion of muted colors that at the center contained a couple dancing.
Stone cold and practical, Camille Larson was at heart a romantic. He’d known it. When he’d finally woken up and saw her for who she was, he knew she had a big mushy heart that was buried in ice.
She brought a glass of wine for herself and handed him a tall glass with fizzy clear soda and a hearty chunk of lime. “So where are you taking me?”
“I’ve got a place in mind. But we’ve got time. Sit down and relax.”
Camille chose the couch across from the lounge, her eyes falling to where Wyatt’s fingers still played with Aphrodite’s ears, he noticed.
She shook her head. “You know it occurs to me, now that you’ve…recovered…well, you could go back to surgery. You were a brilliant surgeon. I learned a great deal from watching you.”
Wyatt smiled. “I have no intention of going back to surgery.”
“Why? That doesn’t make sense.”
Not to a woman who valued surgical talent above all medicine. “Trying to lure me away from my woo-woo ways?”
“You need to stop using that word. I only meant that you had talent.”
“Thank you. I had exceptional talent. But here’s the trick. I had to stop being a surgeon because I was an alcoholic. But I was an alcoholic because I was a surgeon.”
She shook her head as if rejecting such a premise. “Was it the pressure?”
“No, I thrived on the pressure. I loved it. It was the chest cutters.” He shuddered with the memory of the feel of cutting through bone.
“If you didn’t want to talk about it, you should have said so.” She crossed her legs and folded her arms as if she’d been insulted. She thought he was making light of the situation but he wasn’t. Still, he understood her pique. It wasn’t a normal thing to say. Whoever heard of a surgeon who hated to cut open a body?
Wyatt leaned forward, elbows on knees, the club soda fizzing in the glass and making a lot of noise. “I never felt like I was worthy.”
“We don’t have to—”
“No.” This was important.
He had blackmailed her into another date for many different reasons. The most eminent one being he wanted to get into her pants. Having been denied two months ago had left him in a constant state of sexual frustration. But he knew sex was a fleeting thing. If he’d wanted to, he could have found someone else’s pants to get into without much of a hassle. If he’d really wanted to, he could have forgotten Camille completely.
But he didn’t want to. He wanted to be with her. On this date with her. In bed with her. Which meant she was more than some person who he worked with who he happened to think was hot.
So he would tell her who he was and they would see what she thought…together.
“I had a very easy life, Camille. Great family, easy upbringing. Great grades, popular, an athlete. I became a surgeon because, other than being an astronaut, it was the most exciting thing I could think of to do.”
She smiled. “It is.”
The smile helped. It relaxed him. “It is. But all that time I was cutting into people and opening up their chests and holding their hearts and their lives in my hands, I thought I wasn’t worthy. I didn’t respect the job the way I should have. I didn’t take it as seriously as I needed to. These people trusted me.”
“And you saved them. Many times over.”
“I did because I had nimble hands and a sharp mind. But it felt like luck. I didn’t care about the breakthroughs, the new techniques, the new technology. Not until someone pointed it out to me. I didn’t go looking to improve myself. I did what I had always done and relied on talent. And one day I took out the chest cutters and started cutting through the ribs of a woman on the table and I realized I shouldn’t be doing this. The patient deserved someone who cared more. She deserved the person who treats the cutting open of people with reverence and awe. I wasn’t that person.”
She opened her mouth as if to reply, but he could see she didn’t know how. She was one of those surgeons, he thought. He knew that about her. She didn’t do a job—she lived her calling. It’s what made her more than just a surgeon. It’s what made her special.
“Anyway.” He stood and set his glass on the coffee table. It was easier to pace during this part. “It started to eat at me. Day after day of cutting people open. I drank to ignore it. I drank to squelch it…but deep inside I think I drank because I knew it would get me out of it. It would destroy everything I had worked for and I was okay with that.”
“I’m sorry.”
He studied her face and wondered if that had done it. If his confession had ruined whatever chance they might have had. He wasn’t proud of himself. But at the same time he knew his struggle with alcohol had defined him more than any other event in his life had.
“Don’t be. I’m a better person today. I care more, I feel more, I explore everything more than I ever did before. I had lived, I am ashamed to say, a shallow existence. I took everything for granted. Now I don’t.”
“You make it sound like becoming an alcoholic was a good thing.”
“No, I don’t mean to say that. I could have done all this self-evaluation without the bottle. But a person who thinks he’s the luckiest and happiest man alive doesn’t really take the time to look at things too closely. The booze got me to the place I needed to go. I needed to be unhappy, I guess, and realize why I was unhappy, before I could fix myself. So it wasn’t a good thing. It was the thing.”
“Okay. I don’t know if I totally understand.”
He would have been shocked if she did. “You don’t need to.”
“But I accept that you don’t want to return to surgery.”
His lips twitched at her cool statement. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he didn’t need her acceptance of his decision. But she wouldn’t understand that what she said was condescending. In her mind she was stating a fact.
And he couldn’t deny that it pleased him on some level, that she did accept him.
Uncomfortable with his scrutiny she fidgeted in her seat. “This is supposed to be a date and we’ve gotten so serious.”
Good point. Normally he wouldn’t have touched on the heavy stuff with any other woman, on a
ny other second date. But once again, Camille made him behave differently. It was as though he needed her to accept him for everything he was. All his faults.
“I only said that about the surgery because I thought if you came back, Delia might not be so upset with me anymore for allegedly running off Dr. Dade. I know this is going to sound crazy, but she blames me for his departure. Today we sort of had it out.”
Wyatt wasn’t sure if that was the truth, but he was willing to play along. He’d spewed his soul on her open-toe shoes. He figured she needed a few minutes to recover from that.
“Ah, yes. Logan Dade. Memorial’s finest cardiovascular surgeon until you finished your surgical residency and started to obtain more referrals from every cardiologist in a hundred-mile area. How devastated he was.”
“Why do you sound happy about his devastation?”
“Because my opinion of Dr. Dade, in a word, is…asshole.”
Camille’s cheeks flushed but she giggled slightly behind her hand. Then her smile fell. “He used to ask me out. All the time.”
Not a surprise. Dr. Dade pursued every eligible and non-eligible woman in the hospital. The size of his sexual appetite was superseded only by his ego. The rumors of his sexual exploits—mostly spread by him—were still legendary. Everyone had wanted him and he had wanted everybody in return. Except Camille.
“And you said no.”
“Of course I did. For one, there were times when we were called upon to work as a team during a heart transplant. Any type of emotional issue could complicate a surgery like that and I wouldn’t risk it. For the other, I could tell he…”
“What?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I could tell he didn’t really want me. Wasn’t really attracted to me at all. He did it to…humor himself. To prove that he could have everyone if he asked. It’s sort of how I felt when you first asked me out.”
That hurt. To be put in the same category with Dade on anything was painful, but for her to think of him in those kinds of terms made him question if she knew him at all. “Why?”
“Because I’m not what you usually go for. I’ve been at Memorial almost ten years. I know all the stories about you. I knew your wife from the holiday parties.”
The Doctor's Deadly Affair Page 3