Marie Ferrarella

by A Doctor's Secret

  She hadn’t heard from him in three days and had begun to think that she wouldn’t. “I’ll call you” was such a throwaway line. Her smile widened. “Why are you calling me at the hospital?”

  “Because your home number’s unlisted and you never gave me your cell number.”

  She realized he was right. Self-preservation? “I didn’t, did I?”

  “You know,” he told her, his voice deliberately lofty, “if I wasn’t as secure as I am, I’d say you were trying to avoid me.”

  Tania felt her mouth curving and told herself she was just still riding high from her OR experience. “Good thing you’re so secure,” she agreed.

  “Listen, this hero thing has a few perks attached to it. The theater manager at the Schubert is somehow related to Mr. Epstein, the jewelry store owner. A nephew or second cousin, twice removed, something like that. Anyway, he called to tell me that there would be theater tickets waiting for me at the box office if I wanted to use them.”

  Tania’s eyes widened. “For Colors of the Rainbow?”

  The theater wasn’t his thing and he wasn’t sure if she had the right name. “I think that’s the name of the play he mentioned.”

  She’d tried unsuccessfully to buy a pair of tickets for her parents. “That’s the hottest musical in town,” she told him. “The show is sold out for the next nine months.”

  “Since you know that, I take it that you like musicals.”

  She could hear his smile over the phone. “It’s my guilty pleasure,” she freely admitted. Her father had taken her to her first Broadway musical when she was ten. It was a Wednesday matinee on a two-fer ticket. He’d called in sick in order to take her to the play. She’d fallen in love that afternoon and had adored musicals ever since.

  “Then would you like to go with me? It’s for a week from Thursday night.” He paused as he realized that he really didn’t know her hours. “Unless you’re on duty.”

  She was scheduled for the night shift on Thursdays until the end of the month, but that didn’t daunt her.

  “I can find someone to switch with.” She said it as if it were a done deal. She’d put in so much extra time covering for other people, Tania was fairly certain that she could get someone to take her shift. If need be, she’d bribe someone.

  “Great. I’ll pick you up at your place at five-thirty.”

  That sounded pretty early. “Doesn’t the show start at seven-thirty?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “But I thought I’d wine and dine you first.”

  What was the harm in that? she thought. As long as she knew what was ahead, she was prepared and could call the shots. And she did want to see the play. “You do know how to show a girl a good time.”

  “I do my best.”

  Tania could almost feel his words traveling along her skin and it took effort for her not to let herself drift with the sound of his voice. She abruptly changed the subject.

  “Say, what’s this I hear about you turning down an interview on The Today Show?”

  “Not my thing, remember?”

  Because she liked to fill the apartment with sound when she was alone, Tania always turned on the TV set in the living room. She’d caught part of the local heroes segment before she hurried out the door this morning. “Maybe you should have made an exception this time. They had Mr. Epstein on in your place and to hear him tell it, Joshua storming the walls of Jericho was a wimp in comparison to you. I think he just drummed up another fifteen minutes of fame for you.”

  She heard Jesse sigh. “I keep hoping this’ll all blow over.”

  “It will.” Everything always did. “But in the meantime,” she reminded him, “you do have those tickets to the hottest show in town.”

  She heard him laugh softly and the sound went straight to her stomach despite her efforts to block it. “Yes, I do. Which allows me to take out the hottest woman in town. See you next Thursday.”

  Tania ran her tongue along her extradry lips. “See you.”

  Hanging up the receiver, Tania stood where she was for a second, trapped in the excited moment.

  “I heard you just assisted in your very first kyphoplasty. Congratulations.” Coming to, Tania turned to see Sasha approaching. “By the way, did that candy striper ever find you?”

  Tania forced herself to focus. Was it her imagination or was Sasha looking thinner these days? “What candy striper?”

  “I guess she didn’t, then,” Sasha surmised. “Just some candy striper who wanted to know where to find you earlier. I said you were in surgery.”

  Tania shook her head. She couldn’t imagine why one of the volunteers would be searching for her. Maybe whoever it was had her confused with one of her sisters. That seemed the more likely scenario.

  “Did she say what she wanted?”

  “Not to me, although I did tell her you were my sister so I’d pass any message along if she wanted me to. But she said that was okay.”

  Mildly curious, Tania asked, “Did she give you a name?”

  “No, but she had ‘Carol’ sewn on her blouse.” Sasha began to walk toward the elevator banks. Tania fell into step with her. “Funny thing, though, when I called her that, she didn’t respond right away.”

  Tania didn’t see anything unusual in that. “Okay, so Patience Memorial doesn’t attract rocket scientists as volunteers.” She shrugged. “I guess whatever she wanted to tell me couldn’t have been all that important, otherwise she would have left a message in my in-box.”

  Sasha nodded as she pressed for the up elevator. “How long are you going to keep grinning?”

  Tania thought of the operation she’d just assisted with—and the phone call from Jesse. Her grin grew. “Not sure. A while. Why, does it bother you?”

  Sasha’s eyes crinkled as she smiled back at her little sister. “No, just reminds me how much I miss seeing you look like that. Happy.”

  Just like Mama, Tania thought. “I’m happy, Sasha.”

  An elevator dinged, then opened, but it was going down to the basement. Sasha pressed the up button again. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with that guy you were kissing the other evening, would it?”

  “Kissed, not kissing,” Tania corrected. Sasha had been the only one who hadn’t come to the door the other night. “‘Kissing’ implies something that was ongoing. He just kissed me good-night.”

  Sasha shook her head. “Not to hear Nat tell it. She said the two of you were so sealed together, not even air could have slipped in between you.”

  Tania sighed. Privacy was not a viable word in her family. “Natalya exaggerates.”

  “If you say so, kid.” Sasha’s tone indicated that she was more inclined to believe Natalya over her protest. The up elevator finally arrived. “Well, I have a baby to usher into the world. I’ll see you tonight at Mom and Dad’s,” she said, stepping into the car.

  “Oh, dinner.” Tania caught her lower lip in her teeth. “I forgot.”

  The doors began to close and Sasha put her hand in the way, causing them to spring back. “I kinda thought you might. This is the push to get Mama to start up her own business—and back away a little from ours.”

  “I’ll be there with bells on,” Tania promised as the doors closed again.

  Josef Pulaski sat at the head of the dining-room table, hands placed on either side of his plate, his eyes all but disappearing as he smiled broadly in deep, nostalgic satisfaction. All five of his daughters were present, along with his son-in-law, his two sons-in-law-to-be, as well as his much beloved wife. If there was any man who was more fortunate than he was, Josef wanted to meet him.

  “Ah, all five of my girls sitting at my table at the same time. It is making me remember when they were all young,” he said to Byron who sat closest to him.

  “We still are young, Daddy,” Natalya corrected. “The word you’re looking for is ‘younger.’”

  “No.” Josef sighed dramatically—years with Magda had rubbed off on him. “The word is old. I am getting old. Old, an
d my babies are getting married, getting babies, too.”

  “Baby,” Kady interjected with feeling. She’d made it clear she wanted children, but not immediately. “There’s only one in the immediate future.”

  “But there will be more babies, yes?” Josef looked hopefully at all three of the men seated around him at the table.

  Mike laughed. “Hey, if it were up to me, you’d have a houseful—and soon.”

  “Houseful, huh?” Natalya’s eyes went from Mike to Byron to Tony and then back to the culprit. “And you men can take care of them.”

  Josef took the words at face value and beamed. “Now that is what I want to be hearing. I will be watching them for all of you,” he promised.

  Sitting at the other end of the table, Magda made a small, dismissive sound as she waved away her husband’s words. “Like you watched Marja when she put all those fuzzy plants into her nose?”

  Marja cringed. “The pussy willow story again.”

  Josef rolled his eyes and looked at the three men at the table for empathy. “One time.” He held up his index finger. “One time I am looking away, watching baseball game, and this one—” he waved a hand at Marja “—is breaking my record as a good father.”

  “Can we move on, please?” Marja pleaded.

  “All right,” her mother allowed magnanimously. “Tony, have some more of my dessert,” she urged her son-in-law. It was a golden bundt cake made with wine and drizzled with melted powdered sugar and more wine. As Sasha reached for one of the sliced pieces herself, Magda drew the dessert back. “Not you, Sasha. You do not want the baby to get too much wine.”

  “Alcohol evaporates when you bake,” Sasha reminded her mother, and then she exchanged looks with Kady and Natalya. It was time.

  Natalya rose to the occasion. “Mama, we’ve been thinking you need a hobby.”

  Magda looked put off. “What ‘hobby’? I have your father. I have all of you—and the baby. I have no time for this ‘hobby.’”

  Undaunted, Kady put in her two cents’ worth. “We were thinking of a catering company.”

  Magda frowned. They had danced this dance before once or twice. She loved to cook, but to charge for that cooking was another matter. “That is not a hobby, that is a business.”

  “Wouldn’t you want your own business?” Sasha asked, trying to sound supportive.

  “I have my own business,” Magda insisted. She gestured around the table. “Family—this is my business.”

  “We’re going around in circles,” Tania pointed out to her sisters.

  “Yes, we are,” Magda agreed. “So, we step out of that circle,” she declared, then turned intent hazel eyes on Tania. “How is that new young man?”

  Josef looked from his wife to Tania and then back again. He was obviously not happy about being out of the loop. “What new young man? There is a new young man?”

  “No,” Tania said firmly.

  “Yes,” Magda contradicted. “The hero,” she informed her husband. “The one who stopped that thief. In the paper,” she said with exasperation when Josef continued to eye her blankly. “I showed you.”

  Josef’s eyebrows drew together to form one wavy, gray line. “She is seeing a hero? Why am I not knowing about this?”

  “You are knowing about it now, Josef,” Magda said, slipping another piece of cake on his plate.

  It was going to be a very long night, Tania thought, bracing herself.

  Chapter 8

  “You know, maybe I’ll just elope,” Natalya muttered as she stood outside the rear E.R. doors beside Tania.

  She’d sought out her younger sister a few minutes ago, opting to take Tania’s break with her before going back up to her own office. The sigh that followed sounded as if it came from her very toes.

  “All these plans, all these choices, it’s just driving me crazy. I’ve been so busy, I haven’t seen Mike in three days, not since dinner at Mom and Dad’s. But somehow, whether I want to or not, I’ve managed to see Mama every day. She keeps popping up like toast.” Natalya flashed a semicontrite smile that was gone the next instant. “Not that I don’t love her, but—”

  Tania didn’t need to hear the disclaimer. They all loved Mama, but they all knew she could be a bit much at times. However, there was no getting away from a few simple facts. Tania pinned her sister with a look.

  “You elope and Mama’s going to have heart failure. And you know you’ll have that on your conscience for the rest of your natural life.”

  “I’ll tell her with Kady around.” Kady was the heart specialist in the family. “If anyone can bring Mama back from the dead, it’s Kady.” And then she surrendered with another deep sigh. “Don’t give me that look. I know, I’m only talking. I’ll go through with this three-ring circus.” Natalya shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her crisp lab coat. “I just think it’s too much of a fuss. Who cares what kind of flowers are used as the centerpieces?”

  “Mama does,” Tania replied simply. She ran her hands along her arms and glanced up at the less than blue sky. More rain was coming. “What does Mike think about all this?”

  Natalya smiled at the mention of her fiancé’s name. “Mike comes from a large Italian family. He’s used to mothers fussing over nonsense.”

  Tania thought someday Natalya was going to look back at all this organized chaos and laugh. But probably not anytime soon. For a second she found herself envying her older sister for having found someone so understanding. She really liked the police detective who was joining the family. “Lucky for you.”

  “Yeah,” Natalya agreed, echoing the sentiment. “Lucky for me.”

  “You have that goofy grin on again,” Tania teased.

  “It is not a goofy grin,” Natalya said defensively, then relented just a little. “Wait’ll you fall in love, Tania. You’ll see.”

  As far as Tania was concerned, it was a promise without foundation.

  “Maybe,” Tania said carelessly.

  She sincerely doubted she would ever be in that position, ever find anyone she wanted to love. And even if she did, even if she met someone absolutely perfect in every way—and what chance was there of that?—opening up to someone wouldn’t be easy for her, if not impossible. A part of her was completely blocked off inside, unreachable.

  But there was no point in discussing it. So Tania humored her sister and agreed. She winced as she heard the squeal of brakes in the distance. But it wasn’t followed by the sound of metal meeting metal and the tension left her shoulders.

  Tania glanced at her watch. “Looks like my break’s over.” She turned toward the rear doors. “Time to get back to work.”

  Natalya stopped leaning against the wall. “Yeah, me, too.” She hurried inside and turned left, heading toward the back elevators. “See you later.”

  “Think honeymoon,” Tania called after her.

  “It’s the only thing keeping me sane,” Natalya assured her as she walked quickly to the elevator bank.

  The moment she walked back into the E.R. area, one of the nurses handed Tania a file. There was a broad grin on her face as she did so.

  Tania raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  “Mr. Wonderful is back,” the young woman told her. There was a hint of a sigh attached to the statement.

  “Excuse me?” Tania glanced at the file for some edification.

  The nurse gave Tania the answer before she had a chance to read the name neatly typed across the tab. “That hunk that made the newspapers. By the way, he asked for you.” There was envy in the nurse’s brown eyes. “Room five,” she added, needlessly nodding in the trauma room’s direction.

  File in hand, Tania quickly made her way to the last trauma room.

  She didn’t like the way her pulse quickened for a second, wasn’t happy that anticipation suddenly surged in her chest. And certainly wasn’t thrilled by the way her heart all but leaped up when she pushed open the door and Jesse looked in her direction, their eyes meeting.

  She wasn’t s
upposed to feel any of these things. Wasn’t supposed to feel, period.

  “Been tackling another thief?” she asked, coming closer and opening the file.

  It wasn’t his imagination, Jesse thought. She was gorgeous. Even more than he remembered. “No.”

  She placed the folder on the side counter. “Then to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

  My God, that sounded as if it had come out of a grade-B movie straight out of the seventies, Tania berated herself. What the hell was the matter with her? She didn’t talk like that.

  A smattering of confusion brought his eyebrows together. “You told me to come, remember? Follow-up care,” he prompted when she gave no indication that she knew what he was talking about.