Marie Ferrarella

by A Doctor's Secret

  Sasha shook her head. “You’d think that having two weddings to help plan would be more than enough to keep Mama busy.”

  Tania laughed. Their mother was nothing if not a whirlwind. “You know Mama. Multitasking should have been called ‘Magda-tasking’ in her honor since she practically invented it.”

  As Kady began to put in her own two cents, Tania’s cell phone went off again. The sound reminded her of the call she’d ignored earlier on her doorstep. She angled her cell phone’s LCD screen to see who was calling her even as her sisters checked to see if it was their phones that were ringing.

  “Mine,” Tania declared with a note of resignation. “It’s the hospital.” So much for spending the rest of the evening at home. Taking the phone off the clip, she held off opening it for a second. “My advice is to get Mama entrenched in the idea that she’s been toying with off and on for the last five years—her own catering business.” She looked at Sasha. “That plus the two weddings should keep even Mama too busy to make you crazy.”

  Mama seemed to be tireless and to never need any sleep. Sasha had her doubts that even if they could convince her to finally turn her dream into a reality, that Mama would back off—even a little.

  “If only,” Sasha sighed.

  As Tania turned away, placing the cell phone to her ear, Natalya took up the suggestion. “You know, Tania just might have something there. Mama loves to cook and she’s really good at it.” Her tone indicated that they had nothing to lose by championing the idea and bringing it to their mother’s attention as a unit. “Hey, it’s worth a shot.”

  Tania moved away from the others. One hand to her ear to block out the noise, she held the cell phone to her other ear. “Dr. Pulaski.”

  “Are you up to taking on another shift?” the voice on the other end of the line asked. She didn’t have to ask who it was. She recognized Mark Howell’s crisp, precise enunciation. The chief attending’s speech was as neat as his work in the E.R. He also didn’t wait for an answer before adding, “Two doctors called in sick.”

  Of course they did, Tania thought. To be fair, there was a particularly strong strain of flu making the rounds. “When do you want me?”

  “Now would be good.” His tone indicated that the conversation was a formality and that he expected her to comply.

  Tania longed for the day when she was finally at the top of the heap and her own boss. She began to doubt it would ever come. Biting back the sigh, she told Howell, “I’m on my way.”

  “I’ll expect you.” The line went dead.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sasha looking in her direction. The moment she closed her phone, Sasha crossed to her. “I know you’re indestructible, but shouldn’t you get some rest?”

  Yes, Tania thought, that had a nice sound to it, but she was the one who’d put her name down as backup for any no-shows in the E.R. So she forced a smile to her lips and said, “I take after Mama.”

  Sasha didn’t back off. “That’s when it comes to multitasking, not doing an imitation of some deranged mechanical bunny that never stops going. In case you don’t remember, you don’t run on batteries—and you just came off another one of your famous double shifts before you went out for dinner.”

  She knew Sasha meant well, but there were times when she felt everyone was looking over her shoulder, critiquing her life. “How would you know?” she asked. “You don’t even live here anymore.”

  Sasha smiled as she unconsciously slipped her hand over her stomach. “I’m studying to be a mother, remember? Omniscient powers come with the territory. It’s a package deal.”

  “Well, don’t practice on me, okay?” And then, because she did know that Sasha was only looking out for her, Tania added, “Don’t worry, if I get too tired, I’ll take a cat nap.”

  “Just don’t do it while you’re sewing someone up,” Kady deadpanned.

  “Hey, she might do a better job that way,” Marja pointed out.

  Tania gave her a look before she went to her room. “That’s enough out of you, Marja. You need to respect your elders.”

  “You’re only my elder by thirteen months,” Marja protested.

  “And every second counts,” Tania called back.

  In her room, Tania went to her closet to get a change of clothing. Unlike her quandary while getting ready for Jesse, she pulled out the first two items that she came to, a navy-blue skirt and a light gray pullover. Less than ten minutes later, she was ready.

  “Want to take the car?” Kady asked as Tania crossed the living room to the front door. “The car” was the one they all shared now that Sasha had moved out, taking hers with her.

  Like the rest of her sisters, Tania had a driver’s license. Unlike them, she was never completely comfortable behind the wheel. Her mind, so disciplined in the E.R., wandered too much when there was so much to look at. And besides, she grew impatient with the traffic that, at best, moved like petroleum jelly on a cold day.

  So she shook her head in response to Kady’s question. “It’s a nice night, I think I’ll just walk to the hospital.”

  Mike, Tony and Byron all exchanged glances and rose to their feet, propelled by the same thought. Tony and Byron put it into the exact same words almost simultaneously. “The hell you will.”

  Mike, the easier going of the three, grinned and jerked a thumb at the other two. “What they said, except maybe not so gruffly.” He looked at Natalya. “You stay here with everyone. I’ll be right back,” he told his fiancée.

  Natalya appreciated Mike’s thoughtfulness. It wasn’t something she’d take for granted anytime soon. “Looks like we’ve picked out good men,” she said, addressing Kady and Sasha.

  “Then hang on to them,” Tania advised. She tried to beg off as politely as she could. “Really—” as she talked, she made her way to the door “—I just want to stretch my legs, maybe do a little thinking.”

  But Mike wasn’t about to stay behind. The Pulaski women were all headstrong, but he’d been raised with sisters and he was not about to be talked out of what he knew was right.

  “I won’t interfere with your thoughts,” Mike promised her, following her out the door. “But I’m not taking no for an answer, either.”

  Mike walked her to the elevator.

  “You know, I am a big girl now,” Tania told him as they rode down together to the first floor. “Been crossing the street by myself and everything ever since I was five years old.”

  He put his hand out to keep the doors open as he waited for her to walk out first. A second later he fell into step beside her.

  “Knowing your mother, it was probably closer to eight, not five,” Mike guessed, his voice easygoing. “You remind me a lot of one of my sisters,” he continued. “Everyone else would say white, Gina would say ‘black’ just to stir things up and be different.”

  Where was this edginess coming from? she demanded of herself. He was just trying to be nice to her. She should be grateful that Natalya was marrying such a good guy, not sulking because she couldn’t be alone. Alone wasn’t a good thing, she reminded herself. When she was alone, thoughts would come crowding into her head. Memories she didn’t want, blocking out the myriad memories that were good.

  “I’m not trying to be different. Or difficult,” she added, guessing what might be crossing his mind. “I’m just trying not to inconvenience anyone.”

  In the basement, he led her toward where he had left his car in guest parking. Mike spread his hands wide. “Do I look inconvenienced?”

  No, he didn’t. He also wasn’t quite as easygoing as he pretended, she thought. Her sister’s marriage was going to be an interesting one.

  “You look like a man who’s going to spend a lot of time locking horns with Natalya. You know—” she waited for him to unlock her side “—Nat’s not as easygoing as she might have led you to believe.”

  “Believe me, ‘easygoing’ was never a word I would have associated with your sister.” He grinned. “Besides—” he put his key i
nto the ignition and turned it “—a little bit of friction is what makes life interesting.”

  She glanced behind her as he pulled the car out of the parking spot. She thought she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. Someone running. But when she looked, there was no one there. Maybe she was too tired, like Sasha said.

  “Maybe not,” she agreed absently. “But you know, you really don’t have to go out of your way like this.”

  “The sooner I drop you off at the hospital, the sooner I’ll be back,” he pointed out.

  She nodded. “I guess I can’t argue with that.”

  He laughed, guiding the car out into the street. “That would be a first in your family.”

  Chapter 7

  The light at the corner turned green. Tania went with the flow, working her way across the busy street. Even at seven-thirty in the morning, the streets and sidewalks were crammed with traffic, both vehicular and human.

  She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched.

  As she walked, she looked around. No one stood out, no one made eye contact. Just the opposite, if anything. The feeling refused to go away. Tania told herself that it was just her old paranoia revisiting her. She could feel the hairs standing up at the back of her neck.

  Maybe she was just going crazy.

  Granted, Jeff had been paroled recently and there was a part of her that worried he might try to make contact with her, might want to avenge himself because of the years she’d supposedly cost him.

  But that would only put him back in jail. As part of his parole, he was supposed to stay far away from her. Her father had seen to that. And Jeff had sounded sincere at his allocution years ago, rendered just before he’d gone to prison. He’d apologized for the anguish and bodily harm he’d caused her. He’d blamed it on alcohol consumption, saying that none of it would have happened if he hadn’t gotten drunk.

  Of course, that had all been part of the bargain for a reduced sentence, his allocution and the fact that she didn’t have to go through the gut-wrenching ordeal of a trial where she would have had to tell and retell her story before a courtroom full of strangers.

  Jeff had been out for several months. Why was this uneasiness descending over her now?

  Because her life was being shaken up, she thought. Shaken up for the first time since she’d consciously pulled her emotions out of the game, sealing them away. It was all Jesse’s fault. Jesse and that damned hot mouth of his.

  She enjoyed physical contact up to a point, but not to the degree where she’d lose herself, lose the ability to think clearly and function. For more than just a split second, when Jesse’d kissed her at her door, her mind had gone blank and her body had grown hot. As for the longing—well, she just didn’t do that, didn’t “long” for lovemaking.

  And yet…

  He’d made her long, made her want.

  No wonder she was paranoid, Tania thought, annoyed. Jesse had thrown a huge monkey wrench into her life. She couldn’t allow that to happen. From now on, she just needed to concentrate on her work and nothing else. God knew that was more than enough to keep any two people occupied.

  Coming to the end of another block, Tania waited for the light to turn green and the Walk sign to beckon her forward.

  She was walking to work, not exactly by choice but necessity. The bus she normally took when one of her sisters wasn’t driving in at the same time she was due at the hospital had broken down and the one sent in to take its place, the driver had informed them, was running late. There’d all but been a mutiny as all the passengers got off the grounded bus.

  Instead of waiting for another bus, Tania opted to walk off some of her nervous energy. The hospital really wasn’t all that far. The sky above her was ominous with dark gray, pregnant clouds. She could almost smell the rain, but for now the air was heavy with oppressive humidity that seeped its way into everything. Running late, Tania had left the apartment without taking an umbrella.

  Mentally she crossed her fingers that she’d reach Patience Memorial before the rain finally began to come down.

  Waiting at yet another corner, Tania glanced to her right and thought she saw a long-range camera lens emerging from the driver’s side of a car stopped at the light. The car had tinted windows so she couldn’t look in to see the driver. Just the camera.

  Her heart jumped. The camera was pointed in her direction.

  It’s a tourist, idiot, she upbraided herself. Probably some native from a tiny town in Montana whose entire population could fit on any New York street corner with room to spare.

  The city could be overwhelming to people unaccustomed to the street’s crowds at any given time of day or night.

  So why did it feel as if the damn lens was focused on her?

  Because you’re overwrought and tired and your imagination is running away with you, she silently insisted. Just as it had the other day when someone had accidentally bumped into her, sending her off the curb and into the path of an oncoming bus. If someone else hadn’t quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her back, she had no doubt that she would have found herself spending time in the hospital on the other side of the guardrail.

  Tania picked up her pace. Even as she did, a fat raindrop fell directly on her head.

  Terrific.

  The car with the camera lens kept pace with her.

  Drawing some of the oppressive air into her lungs, Tania wove her way through the crowd, moving faster. Four more long city blocks to go.

  All the while, out of the corner of her eye, she continued to watch the car.

  To her relief, the car disappeared at the end of the next block.

  See? You’re worried about nothing.

  Her nervous feeling refused to retreat into the shadows.

  Tania stripped off her surgical mask and took a deep breath. What a difference a few hours made.

  She’d arrived at the hospital wet—it had rained for the last block—with her nerves close to the surface. And then her current attending, Dr. Thomas Benedict, had asked her if she wanted to assist in what he whimsically referred to as a “simple procedure.” It was a kyphoplasty. Her very first.

  In essence the operation was a cousin to an angioplasty, except that it concerned itself with the spine rather than the heart. It entailed making a cut in the groin and snaking a wire up to the spinal area where, in this case, two balloons were inserted, one in each section where the patient had a minor spinal fracture. The balloons moved the spine back to its original position and then bone cement was squeezed into the newly created spaces to make the restoration permanent.

  Under Benedict’s watchful eye, Tania had inserted the cement, as well as closed up the initial incision. She left the operating room feeling as if she walked on air. The power to help, to heal, was an exceedingly heady sensation. It was like nothing else she’d ever experienced.

  If, at dark times, she doubted herself, doubted the wisdom of her choices, being in the operating room lay those doubts to rest.

  Surgery gave her a purpose, an identity.

  Walking through the operating room’s swinging doors, she leaned against the wall and savored the feeling.

  One of the surgical nurses came out behind her. The woman raised her eyes as the P.A. system went off. She glanced at Tania. “Are you going to answer that?”

  Tania blinked, realizing that she’d temporarily slipped into her own little world. She straightened, standing away from the wall. “Excuse me?”

  The older woman pointed up in the general direction of the loudspeaker. “You’re being paged.”

  Tania focused, listening. The woman over the P.A. said her name and asked her to pick up the nearest phone.

  “Oh, right, I am. Thanks.” She flashed a grin at the nurse and hurried over to the first interhospital wall phone she could find. “This is Dr. Tania Pulaski. You paged me?”

  “You have a call,” the operator told her. “Would you like me to put it through?”

  “Sure, go ahead.” Sh
e noticed a few of the hospital staff glancing in her direction as they went toward the elevator bank. Probably because she couldn’t stop smiling, Tania thought.

  “Go ahead, please,” the operator said. Whether it was to her or whoever was on the other end of the line, Tania didn’t know.

  “This is Dr. Tania Pulaski,” she repeated, turning to face the wall. It gave her the illusion of privacy.

  “Finally,” she heard the deep male voice on the other end say.

  Tania felt an immediate, involuntary reaction. Her pulse accelerated. “Jesse?”

  “You recognize my voice. I’m flattered.”