Marie Ferrarella

by A Doctor's Secret

  Hitching her purse onto her shoulder, Tania was already striding toward the shop.

  “Sorry, Mama. I lost track of the time.” It was a lie. The traffic had been the problem, but saying so would only prompt Mama to ask where she was coming from and so on. Giving Mama an inch usually had her constructing a condominium.

  But Magda was not looking at her daughter. Approaching the car, she leaned over to look into its interior, specifically at the driver.

  “Is this why you are not tracking time?” she asked, gesturing at Jesse.

  Turning back around, Tania hooked onto her mother’s arm. “Let’s go in, Mama. It’s not nice to keep your friend waiting like this,” she urged, trying to tug her mother around toward the shop’s entrance.

  But Magda continued looking into the car. Directly at the lone occupant. “Why you are not getting out?” she asked Jesse.

  Tania came to Jesse’s defense. “This is a no parking zone,” she said, pointing to the sign several feet away.

  Magda seemed unimpressed by the information. “It is not parking if he is standing near the car,” she argued with the conviction of someone married to a former member of the police force. “Come out,” she urged Jesse. “I would like to see you.”

  “Ma-ma.” Tania’s voice vibrated with warning. She slanted a quick glance toward Jesse. “You don’t have to listen—”

  But Jesse was already getting out of his car. As he rounded the front of the vehicle, he extended his hand to the petite, dark-haired woman who was obviously Tania’s mother.

  “Hello, I’m Jesse Steele.”

  Magda nodded, slipping her small hand in his. It was obvious that she was pleased the young man had obeyed. She made no effort to hide the fact that he was being scrutinized, dissected and measured by those sharp hazel eyes.

  “The hero. Yes, I have read about you,” Magda told him, removing her hand after a beat. “You look better in your skin.”

  Amused, Jesse grinned. “I’m hardly ever without it.”

  Tania stifled an exasperated sigh. “She means in person. You look better in person,” Tania explained. “She gets her idioms confused.”

  “You do not have to talk for me,” Magda told her, not bothering to turn her head to look at her daughter. She was too busy still assessing the young man who had driven Tania here. “He is understanding what I mean.”

  Tania rolled her eyes. “Nobody could talk for you, Mama.” Again she tugged on her mother’s arm, but for a small woman, Magda Pulaski could exude a great deal of strength when she wanted to. Her mother remained exactly where she was. Tania let her hand drop, but insisted, “They’re waiting, Mama, remember?”

  Magda waved her hand, every iota of her attention focused entirely on the tall, blond-haired, handsome man before her. She had questions.

  “They were waiting before, they can be waiting a few more minutes.” Her eyes pinned him. “You are seeing my daughter?”

  “As much as I can,” Jesse replied, his amusement growing. He slanted a quick glance in Tania’s direction and saw that she was less than happy with her mother’s version of the inquisition. “If she lets me.”

  Nodding, Magda told him confidently, “She will let you.” Only then did she turn toward her daughter. “All right, Tatania, say goodbye to him.”

  Tania shook her head. She should have insisted on taking the bus and spared both of them from witnessing her mother’s reenactment of a benevolent dictator.

  “Goodbye,” she said to Jesse, her teeth only slightly clenched.

  Magda frowned. “Not like that. Like a woman says goodbye to a man she is going out with. I will wait in the store.” She glanced toward Jesse. “I will not look,” she informed with solemnity. Before leaving, she inclined her head toward Jesse. “It is nice to meet you.”

  Then, turning smartly on her heel, she walked back into the bridal shop. Visible through the large bay window, Magda came to a halt in the center and crossed her arms before her, her back deliberately to the street.

  There were no words for this, Tania thought, but she tried. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Why? Your mother obviously cares about you. It’s nice having people care about you,” he added with feeling.

  He had a point, of course, but there were times she could have done with a little less “caring.”

  Tania glanced over her shoulder. She’d thought as much.

  “She’s watching,” she told Jesse.

  Jesse looked again at the figure in the bay window. Was he missing something? “Her back is to the window,” he pointed out.

  Her mother, the illusionist. “The shop has mirrors everywhere,” she told him. “Her back might be to the window, but her eyes are fixed on the mirror in the corner. Gives her a perfect view.”

  Tania saw his mouth curve. A wicked gleam flared in his eyes. “Then let’s not disappoint her.”

  Before she could demur, Tania found herself not just in his arms, but dipped back as if the last note of a passionate tango had just resounded. She was at a forty-five-degree angle.

  Her eyes went wide. “What are you doing?”

  His grin grew. “Giving your mother what she wants.”

  And then, there was no more time or space for questions. It was impossible to talk when his lips were sealed to hers. Just like that, her breath deserted her, while the rest of her swiftly turned to jelly. Mama, the bridal shop, the sidewalk, everything, just disappeared.

  And just as her head began to spin out of control, Jesse drew his lips away from hers and straightened. His arm was still hooked about the small of her back, for which she was very grateful. Otherwise, she was certain that she would establish a close relationship with the sidewalk below.

  Trying hard to breathe, Tania murmured, “Well, that should make her happy.”

  “She’s not the only one,” Jesse told her. His expression looked so serious, she wasn’t sure if he was pulling her leg or not. “Doctor, you pack quite a punch.”

  So do you, Jesse.

  But it was better for everyone if she kept that thought to herself.

  “I better go,” she said.

  Jesse nodded. He would probably wind up burning the midnight oil—even if every second thought wasn’t about her. And if it was, well, then, he knew he might as well prepare himself for an all-nighter.

  “Me, too. There are blueprints on the desk at my apartment, waiting for me to make them magical.” Damn, but he wanted to kiss her again. And again and again. “I’ll see you soon.”

  She said nothing, merely nodded.

  It was hard getting back his bearings. Making his legs function again. Initially he’d kissed Tania for fun, to give her mother a show. But then, once he’d started, he’d wound up giving himself something, as well. At the very least, a great deal to think about.

  The only thing he knew for sure right now was that somehow, some way, they were going to make love. There was far too much going on between them for him to ignore or turn his back on out of some sort of half-baked attempt at self-preservation. Tania wasn’t Ellen, nor was she like any other woman he’d ever known.

  Tania was in a class by herself.

  And while she kept putting up obstacles between them, he was certain that Tania felt this pull, this electricity for lack of a better word, between them, too.

  He could taste it on her lips, feel it in his soul.

  Jesse rounded the front of his car again and got in behind the steering wheel. He had to find a way to make that look of wariness disappear from her eyes.

  “So, he knows how to kiss,” Mama said with more than a smattering of satisfaction the second Tania entered the shop.

  Thinking that discretion was the better part of valor, Tania said nothing.

  Over in the corner, wearing one of the wedding gowns and pretending to look at herself from all angles, Natalya couldn’t resist saying, “I could have told you that, Mama.”

  Magda turned and glanced at her second-born sharply. Her pleased look melted
away faster than an ice cube in the oven. “Why? You have been kissing him, too?”

  “No, Mama,” Natalya answered patiently, “I love Mike, remember? But I did see Jesse kissing Tania at the front door of our apartment.”

  Magda exhaled a deep, no longer troubled breath. Her face softened as she took Tania’s hands in hers. “Maybe you would like to look at some of the wedding dresses, too, while you are being here.”

  “No,” Tania told her mother firmly. “No wedding-dress looking. I’m a bridesmaid. I need to find a bridesmaid dress. Two,” she added as Kady came out from one of the rear dressing rooms wearing a particularly beautiful wedding gown. “Unless you’re serious about a double wedding,” she said to the two brides. “In which case, Sasha, Marysia and I will need only one.”

  “Sorry, two,” Natalya told her, slowly giving herself the once-over again. “Otherwise, it’ll turn into a competition.” She turned toward Kady and fluttered her lashes. “And we all know that I’ll be the more beautiful bride.”

  “Ha,” Kady countered. “In your dreams, Nat, in your dreams.”

  Tania knew what her sisters were doing, bless them. They were creating a diversion so that Mama’s attention would be directed toward them and not her. Mama would no doubt remember when she had to be the peacemaker when they were all growing up.

  “No competition,” Magda declared. “There will be two weddings.”

  “Guess that’s that,” Kady said, turning around and seeing how well the train moved behind her.

  “Yes, Mama,” Natalya responded obediently, “whatever you say.”

  “Two weddings,” Magda repeated, then looked at Tania. “For now.”

  Tania picked up a light blue bridesmaid dress from the nearest rack. This was her cue to duck into a dressing room. She didn’t feel up to taking on her mother right now.

  “Dr. Pulaski, do you have a minute?” The question, directed to Tania, came from the attractive candy striper. She moved around the desk at the nurses’ station, coming into the small, glass-walled alcove that comprised the main station in the E.R.

  As happened every so often, just a little more frequently than a blue moon, there was a lull in patient traffic. Tania was hoping to use it to catch up on some of the files she’d left in less than stellar condition. Dr. Howell had been breathing down her neck to rectify her omission.

  Even though she knew it was necessary, Tania hated this part of doctoring, hated having to sit and carefully make sense out of her own notes so that anyone could pick up the file and go forward from there. She regarded it much the way she had homework while in school—a necessary evil.

  Happy to grasp any excuse, Tania looked up. The woman seemed familiar to her, but for the life of her, Tania couldn’t place her.

  “That all depends on what side of the paperwork you’re on.” An excellent surgeon and teacher, Dr. Howell was a stickler for crossing t’s and dotting i’s and her t’s and i’s were way overdue. Still, she argued silently, if someone needed medical attention, that came first.

  “Why?” Tania glanced past the volunteer down the corridor. “Is there a patient?”

  A sheepish expression came over the volunteer’s heart-shaped face. “Kind of.”

  Tania closed the file she’d been working on and rose to her feet. “Where?”

  “Here.” The candy striper spread her hands to either side of her. Embarrassment colored her neck and cheeks. “Me.”

  At first glance, there appeared to be nothing wrong with the woman. Her color was good, she wasn’t standing in a manner that indicated pain. But then, she could just have been a trooper.

  “What’s wrong?” Tania asked gamely.

  The woman pressed her lips together, as if she loathed to take up a doctor’s time. After a moment she said, “It’s my back, Doctor—they told me that you’re going to be a spinal surgeon,” she added quickly.

  Tania responded with a small, self-deprecating smile. “In about a hundred years.” And some days, it actually felt as if her goal was that far away. Her comment, she noted, seemed to make the woman hesitate. “What about your back?” Tania coaxed.

  Relaxing a little, the volunteer placed her hand to the small of her back, as if that helped her manage the pain. “It’s been giving me a lot of trouble lately. I think I might have pulled something the other week,” she confessed. Lowering her voice so as not to be overheard, she added, “They had me restocking the supply closet and some of the boxes were pretty heavy. I felt a strong twinge on my back when I put one of the boxes up on a high shelf—”

  Tania frowned. “You should have asked one of the men to do it.”

  The volunteer nodded. “I know.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Tania asked.

  The question was met with a hapless shrug. “Pride, I guess.” She sighed. “Not a very good excuse, I know, but I hate bothering people.”

  “Okay, you’re forgiven,” Tania told her. She looked back at the board. Several rooms were empty. “Trauma room three is free. Let’s go have a look at that back.”

  The volunteer smiled broadly. “I appreciate this, Doctor.” She stopped, as if realizing she had omitted something. “I’m Carol, by the way.”

  “Well, Carol-by-the-way—” Tania led the way to the trauma room “—let’s see if we can do anything to make you feel better.”

  “It’s all up to you,” Carol said as she walked into the room.

  That was an odd way to put it, Tania thought. “Why don’t you get up on the exam table?” she suggested, crossing to the cabinet.

  Opening the top set of doors, Tania took out the glove dispenser. Carol watched her every move. Probably afraid, Tania thought as she slipped on the gloves.

  “I was hoping to catch you before you went out to lunch,” Carol confided.

  “No lunch plans today,” Tania told her, approaching the table. “I need you to turn over on your stomach so I can examine your spine.”

  Carol did as told. “You mean, you’re not going out with that guy for lunch?”

  Watching Carol shift to her stomach, Tania frowned. “What guy?”

  Carol’s voice was partially muffled as her cheek was pressed against the pillow on the table. Her answer came in bits and pieces. “The one who was in the paper. He stopped a robbery. Jason something.”

  “Jesse,” Tania corrected.

  “Right, Jesse.” Carol raised her head slightly, trying to look at her. “You’re not seeing him anymore?”

  Tania carefully kneaded her fingers along Carol’s spine. “I was never really seeing him.”

  “Huh.” Carol lowered her head again. “I guess I was mistaken. I thought I saw you kissing him the other day. Outside the E.R. doors.”

  That was where she knew her from, Tania realized. She’d bumped into the woman on her way back into the E.R. that day. “I’m not sure what any of this really has to do with your back pain, Carol.”

  “Nothing,” the young woman said quickly, retreating like a rabbit that had spotted a coyote. “I was just making conversation. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be asking personal questions like that.”

  She sounded so contrite, Tania felt guilty for being so frosty. “That’s okay, I guess I’m a little touchy.”

  Carol tried to turn her head again. Tania gently pushed her back down. “How come?” And then Carol laughed, the sound rumbling against the exam table. “There I go again, asking more personal questions. My mother always said I was a chatterbox, always talking when I should be listening.”

  Tania made no comment. Instead she continued to work her fingers up and down the woman’s spine. Nothing felt out of the ordinary and Carol had not reacted to her touch.

  “Any of this hurt?” she finally asked.

  As if on cue, or maybe by coincidence, Carol stiffened, sucking in her breath.

  “There,” she murmured breathlessly. “Right there. It feels like needles and pins are being pushed into the small of my back.”

  “You can sit up now,” Tania to
ld her. Standing back, Tania stripped off the gloves. She hadn’t really needed them this time.

  “What’s the verdict?” Carol asked, seeming a little like a deer in the headlights.

  “It’s probably just a strain, but just to be sure, we’ll need to take an X-ray. If that doesn’t show anything—and a good deal of the time, it doesn’t—we might need to take an MRI.”

  Carol looked intimidated. “An MRI? That’s expensive, right?”

  Some of them, depending on the number of views done, cost more than two thousand dollars. “Sadly, yes.”