“Can you picture Brad Clayton in love?” Mallory asked. She could very well imagine it. In fact, her body was passionately aware of his lovemaking. Him being in love wasn’t a huge leap. Him acknowledging he was in love was a gulf as wide as the Pacific.
“I guess not,” Dana finally said with a sigh. “But it was a nice thought. And I still think he feels something for you.”
“He doesn’t feel anything for me, and if he did, it would probably scare him.”
“I’m sure it does. He’s been around here for years and never looked twice at anyone until you walked through the door.”
“Dana, he never noticed me until that day in the E.R.” She couldn’t bring herself to mention the incident by name.
“There has to be something that initiates every meeting. Yours was a little unconventional.”
“Yeah, we all want to meet during a near-death experience.”
“And the hero rushes over to take care of the damsel in distress.”
“I was not in distress, and Brad certainly didn’t rush over. He only acted like a doctor. There was nothing more to it than that.” Mallory bit into her sandwich to avert her eyes.
“I know Dr. Clayton has a lot of problems, but it would do him good to talk them out with someone. And I think the someone he’s chosen is you.”
“When did you go into psychology?” Mallory wanted to end this discussion. Her feelings for Brad were a little too close to the surface, and if Dana looked closely enough, she was bound to see them.
“Psychology is only human nature, and I’ve seen enough of that. They pay me to observe, read what people say and what they don’t say.” She stared directly into Mallory’s eyes. “Like now.”
“What does that mean?” Mallory controlled her voice, which wanted to rise an octave. She felt a nervousness in her stomach and wondered if she’d already played her hand.
“It means you’re defending him. And that is something in itself. It means something must have changed between you two.” Dana paused to let her words sink in. “So tell Dr. Dana what it is.”
Mallory was about to burst, wanting to tell someone how she felt, what had happened. But she’d promised Brad she would keep his secret. Dana was waiting for her to say something. She could lie to her, but Dana was smarter than that.
“Dana, is the staff gossiping about Dr. Clayton and me?”
Dana shook her head. “There have been a few comments on his change in attitude toward you, but mostly the talk has to do with the ghost. She was seen last week while you were away.”
Mallory expelled a relieved, yet controlled, breath. The temptation was there. She tried to think of one tidbit she could tell Dana, but anything she said would lead to something else, and soon she would have to tell everything, including Brad’s secrets. She knew she wouldn’t do that.
“Dana, there is nothing I can tell you that has changed.” Mallory chose her words carefully.
This was highly unusual, Mallory told herself for the thirtieth time that afternoon. Since when did a doctor get transferred in the middle of the day, let alone after lunch? And without notice. Yet here she was on the second floor. In pediatrics. Where Brad ruled. He had to have a hand in this, and Mallory didn’t like it. She didn’t like being manipulated.
Still, it was her job to be cheery, so she put a smile on her face before she went into the room where a little girl, Loretta Emery, lay on a hospital bed. The smile was genuine. As soon as Mallory saw the small child her mouth automatically curved up.
“Hi, Loretta,” Mallory said.
The child’s eyes opened slowly. She turned her head toward Mallory, but said nothing. The child was alone and Mallory wondered where her mother was.
“I’m Dr. Russell. I’m here to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m sick.” Her voice was thin.
“Can you tell me what made you sick?”
She shook her head. “When I woke up I didn’t feel good. Dr. Clayton said I should come here.”
Mallory went to the head of the bed. She felt the child’s forehead, not so much to check for a temperature as to comfort her. The child looked small and afraid. Mallory consulted the chart where the nurses noted the child’s vitals. She had a slight fever and an elevated blood pressure. Flipping through the pages, Mallory noted a previous diagnosis: acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Her heart sank. The child had been admitted earlier today. Blood had been drawn, but the lab results were not available yet. Looking further, Mallory discovered the child’s spleen had been removed seven months ago. Her prognosis didn’t look good.
“Where do you live, Loretta?” Mallory tried to sound happy. Until the lab work came back there was little she could do except stay with the child and keep her from being frightened.
“I’m Lori,” she said. “Everyone calls me that.”
“All right, Lori, where do you live?”
“At the shelter.”
Homelessness in Philadelphia was rapidly reaching epidemic proportions. The foster care system was so overburdened that children stayed in shelters longer than they should.
“How did you get here?” Mallory asked.
“I brought her.” Mallory jumped at the sound of Brad’s voice. She steeled herself to look at him. She hadn’t seen him since the night they’d made love. She didn’t want their reunion to be here, over a sick child. She wanted to see him someplace outside the hospital, where she could run into his arms and feel the strength of that magnificent body.
When Mallory turned to look into his eyes what she saw turned her blood to ice. There was no warmth in them at all. She could tell he’d crawled back into the shell he presented to the world. Mallory had thought she’d cracked it, broken it open, but the look in his eyes showed her it was solidly in place. She knew the words. She’d heard them before. Forget we ever had anything together.
Brad moved to the side of the bed and ran his hand over Lori’s hair. The child tried to smile at him, but she was too weak.
“I’m still waiting for your test results,” he told her. “I want you to get some sleep.”
Lori closed her eyes and settled into the pillow. Brad had a talent with children. They loved him and he had a genius for showing them he cared about their well-being. Mallory was exactly the opposite. She could cope with any emergency, but to see children suffering tore at her heart.
“Dr. Russell?” Brad had called her name twice before she heard him. She looked up. “Come with me.”
Outside the child’s room Mallory’s composure came back. She walked along with Brad as they headed down the hall.
“I see you went back to the Bradley School of Charm in the last few days.”
“What?” He stopped.
“Your attitude is back. What happened to you? I haven’t seen you since…” She paused, remembering their night together and their morning. When he’d left her she would have sworn he was a changed man. “I thought you’d act more human.”
“Human?” Brad looked around. A couple of people were staring at them. They quickly looked away when his eyes settled on them. Grabbing her arm, he pushed her down the hall to his office. Closing the door, he turned to face her. “We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“About us.”
“There is no us. You’ve already decided that.”
Brad looked at the floor, then back at her. “I’m sorry things got out of hand at your place, but they can’t spill over here.”
“Things didn’t get out of hand at my place. They changed after you left. After you had time to think about us. After you saw how good we were together. It scared you, didn’t it, Brad?” She waited a moment. “It scared me, too.”
“This is pediatrics, Mallory, not psychiatry.”
“You won’t acknowledge it. You’re so wrapped up in trying to save every child, trying to find that child who was lost on the street, you can’t even see what you’re doing to yourself.”
“And what am I doing to my
self?”
Mallory wanted to hit him. He was mocking her. “You’re trying to find yourself. It’s too late, Brad. The kid that was you is not out there. He’s in here.”
“What do you know of it? You grew up in the well-ordered world of people who loved you from the day you were born. You weren’t left to fend for yourself, eating out of garbage cans and never knowing who the next bully would be who wanted to take you out.”
“You’re right, I don’t know. I don’t know life on the streets. But I do know what it’s like to be alone and afraid and feel as if no one understands you.” Mallory drew in a deep breath. “I also know what it’s like to have a mother abandon you.”
With that she pushed him aside and opened the door to leave.
Chapter Seven
Brad’s eyes snapped open. The dimness of his bedroom revealed familiar objects as the cloud of dreams in his mind vaporized. His heart drummed inside his chest. He swung his feet to the floor, sitting up and dropping his head in his hands. He hadn’t had that dream in years. And now he’d had it three times in one week.
It was raining hard. Water ran in rivers down the gutters and lightning flashed over trash cans in back alleys. He’d been running, jumping over fences, skidding around corners, the police on his heels. But he knew the alleyways, knew where to find unlocked doorways, vacant buildings and the maze of tunnels that offered sanctuary or escape. Brad had been alone. He didn’t know where his brother was, but Owen and he had a meeting place.
Brad didn’t give any further thought to Owen. He concentrated on running, getting away from the cops behind him. His breath came in short gasps and his feet pounded the ground with the same rapid cadence as his heartbeat. His lungs burned from exertion and he thought his legs would burst into flames at any moment. Still the cops followed. He searched his brain for a way out, a place he could go that would throw them off, slow them down, but he couldn’t think.
He sucked in air and remembered to breathe through his nose. The rain soaked his clothes. Water squished inside his sneakers as he ran through puddles in his quest to remain free. He wasn’t going to make it. He could feel the cops getting closer. What would he do if he was caught? Where was Owen?
Brad hopped the fence, bending both knees and angling his agile body sideways. Surefooted, he hit the ground, continuing his escape without missing a beat. Sweat poured off him and he was hungry. That’s how he’d gotten into this foot race: he’d stolen a candy bar. He hadn’t had anything to eat all day and didn’t think anyone would see him. He’d been nearly through the door of the convenience store when the cop came in. Chaos broke out and he took off, focused solely on escape. He could usually lose the cops within a block or two, but whoever was behind him this time dogged him like a shadow.
Brad pushed himself on, despite his burning lungs and fiery legs. The rain did nothing to cool the heat in his muscles. He kept going, but he could feel the hand behind him. It was close. Soon he would feel it on his collar, yanking him back. He feared that hand more than he feared going without food or never seeing Owen. There was something about it that would change his life, if not end it. He had to get away.
He ran as fast as he could, but it wasn’t fast enough. He was slowing already, allowing the man behind him to shorten the distance between them. Suddenly he felt the hand on his collar.
And he opened his eyes.
Brad drew breath into his lungs. He took long, deep gulps of air, filling his lungs as if he’d been a drowning swimmer who reached the surface in the nick of time. Relief spread through him. He was in his bedroom, safe. No one was chasing him. The wind outside was thrashing rain against the windows….
That had to be it, he thought. Rain was the trigger that had caused the dream. It took a while for his heart rate to return to normal, but the feeling in his stomach told him something was utterly wrong.
The clock dial read one o’clock. He’d only been in bed for an hour, yet he knew his night’s sleep was shot. The dream always disturbed him. Growing up in a secure environment after he’d been caught and sent to the Claytons didn’t negate the time he and Owen had been homeless.
Brad grabbed his clothes and dressed. Water pounded at the windows as if someone was trying to get inside. Brad ignored it. He would go for a drive. He wanted to go to Mallory. Talking to her made him feel better. But he’d insinuated himself in her life too much and he didn’t want to go deeper. Last week he’d crossed the line. Hell, he had obliterated it. And today in pediatrics, she’d been right on the mark.
He wouldn’t go near her. He would just go out for a drive.
“Dr. Clayton, I didn’t expect to see you.” One of the night nurses at the pediatric station stood up when he stepped off the elevator. She inclined her head at a questioning angle, obviously curious about his presence.
“I just wanted to check on a couple of patients.” He took a step toward Lori’s room.
The nurse stopped him. “Dr. Clayton.” Her voice was soft, but commanding. Brad turned back. He could tell by her expression Lori was gone. The woman didn’t have to tell him. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in the unspoken communication that reached across the silent corridor.
“When?” he asked.
“Twenty minutes ago. We’ve had several power surges due to the rain. The wind scared a lot of the children. We’ve only just gotten them calmed down. I was about to call you.”
Brad felt the emptiness inside him. He glanced at the door to Lori’s room. It was closed. No light came from under it. He knew she’d already been moved. The cleanup crew had gone in, sanitized everything, remade the bed with clean sheets and replaced all the pitchers and cups. The drawers to the nightstand had been cleaned, the floors mopped, the tray table sterilized. It was as if Lori had never been in that room.
“It was quick,” the nurse said from behind him. She must have moved, for her voice sounded closer. He didn’t turn to look. “She slipped away in her sleep. There was nothing we could do. No warning. Suddenly the machines buzzed. We tried to resuscitate her, but it was too late.”
Brad turned then. “I understand,” he said as quietly as he could. He hadn’t thought she would last through the night, but he’d hoped… “I’m all right,” he told the nurse, who looked at him as if he needed medical care. She waited a moment, then returned to the desk.
Brad felt sick. He had to get out of there. He pushed open the door to the stairs and went through it. With his back against the wall and his hands in tight fists, he took in long breaths. Lori was so young. She’d come to the shelter only three months ago. She and her mother, both ill, were apparently too late for care. Her mother had run away from an abusive husband and had gone to the shelter. She’d been beaten badly. Christina, the shelter nurse, had called an ambulance and the paramedics had brought the two of them to the hospital.
The arriving siren had stopped Brad as he was on his way out of the hospital. He couldn’t go home after he’d seen the child. She was bruised, pale and afraid, and all around her people had been barking orders and using instruments that were scary to a child.
They had taken her mother to surgery immediately, but it was too late. She had died before she ever got to the O.R. And he had discovered Lori had leukemia.
Leaning his head back against the cold cement wall, Brad closed his eyes and practiced his breathing. It was a calming effort. He did it to bring down his stress level. He knew he couldn’t save the world. How often had Owen, Digger and Luanne said that to him? Still he wanted to try. Lori had been a beautiful child. In her short life she’d known few pleasures. He’d wanted to make her feel that she could laugh before she died. He’d known her time was short. There was nothing they could do to arrest the cancer, but he’d wanted her to lose the wariness, be content that no one was lurking about, ready to pounce on her if she let herself feel happy.
Brad hung his head and opened his eyes. He would be forever sorry he couldn’t help Lori.
Somewhere, his brain registered something
else—a faint sound. Brad latched on to it, wanting something to take his mind off the little girl. Then he heard them.
Footsteps.
He looked up. It was her.
The ghost, he thought.
Brad pushed away from the wall, trying to see better. She was wearing the outfit the nurses talked about—everything white except a green scarf that hung from the pocket of her pants. Brad had seen that first, but he hadn’t seen her face. He assumed she’d seen him and retreated. He started up the stairs. There were few places she could go. He would bet she’d get out on the coma floor. It had the least amount of people on it at this hour, and she could use the bridge to get to the other building.
Brad rushed up the stairs, bent on discovering the identity of the person who’d broken more hospital rules than he could count. His footsteps echoed in the stairwell and in his ears, but he kept his focus. He had something to keep him from thinking about Lori. He would find the ghost.
On the seventh floor he yanked open the door and stepped inside. He looked up and down the empty corridor. There was no sign of the ghost anywhere. Still, he knew she couldn’t have disappeared into thin air. He sprinted for the ward. Breaking through it without slowing down, he caught the hand rail of the next set of stairs to slow his speed.
His labored breathing obliterated any sounds. Forcing himself to hold his breath for a moment, he heard the cadence of footsteps below, and raced toward them. He saw the green scarf as the woman swung around a corner. He ran on, rushing down the steps toward the ground floor. Finally he was going to see who this was. She was only one flight away, and even if she reached the door, the only thing outside was the parking lot. He could easily catch her. There was no place to hide.
Brad reached out. His hand closed over her white-clad arm. She resisted, but he held tight. Pulling back, he forced her to slow down. Possessing a greater strength than the woman fighting him, Brad whipped her around.
Love on Call Page 10