Side Effects

by Bobby Hutchinson

  "That apply to me as well?" Alex kept her voice light. She felt terribly responsible for the scene that had just occurred, and she longed to apologize, but she knew it wasn't the time.

  "Yeah, it does." He sighed. "Why the hell didn't you just let me die, Alex? Why did you have to save me? It sure as hell wasn't any favor to me." His tone was ironic, his voice infinitely weary, and she felt as if he were tearing out her heart.

  "I need to do some heavy thinking. All on my own. Surely I deserve privacy. God knows there's not much else I can have."

  Tears prickled behind her eyes, and she had to clear her throat before she could speak. "You got it. I'll talk to your doctor if you like. I saw him downstairs a while ago, and the nurses put in a call for him to drop by just now, but I'll probably see him before you do."

  "Yeah. Please." His words were barely discernible, his good eye still closed. "Do that for me, sis, okay?" His voice faded and his breathing regulated. He'd fallen asleep.

  Alex wrapped her arms around herself, shaking with the impact of Wade's words. She had to get control of herself. She had to get back to work. She had to carry out her brother's wishes. Steeling herself not just from her own pain, but also against the inevitable outrage and hurt of her family, she hurried along the corridor to the visitors' lounge.

  The resulting scene with Eleanor and Bruce was terrible, every bit as bad as she'd anticipated. Hearing that Wade didn't want to see them, not now, and not in the days ahead, shocked and angered them. Alex listened patiently to their comments, telling herself this was painful and hard for them to accept, that they were hurting the way she was herself.

  Eleanor insisted Wade needed therapy instead of privacy. Bruce, furious that Wade was behaving in a way he considered reprehensible for a son of his, finally took his wife's arm and marched her off, insisting he'd find Wade's doctor, Mike Parsons, and have a word with him.

  Thea didn't say anything at all. Her emerald eyes widened and darkened with hurt when Alex quietly related Wade's wishes, and then she shrugged, nodded, shouldered her leather backpack and strode off down the hallway in the direction of the stairs.

  Cam had been sitting apart from the rest of them, and he got to his feet when everyone was gone, putting an arm across Alex's shoulders.

  "God, I'm sorry about all that," he said quietly. "I sure as hell didn't intend to start a riot."

  "You didn't start it, I did." Alex felt bone-weary and totally exhausted, and she had another four hours of work before she was done for the day. And in spite of her words, she realized that she felt deeply and irrationally angry with Cam.

  She shrugged off his arm and moved away. "They had to know sooner or later about the move, but I should've waited, instead of getting Wade involved in a family brawl," she snapped. "That's about the last thing he needed right now. No wonder he's decided he doesn't want any of us around." She swiped at the sudden tears that trickled down her cheeks and added fervently, "I don't blame him one bit. My parents are enough to make anybody crazy. Why can't they consider Wade for once, instead of themselves?"

  Cameron stood beside her, but he didn't touch her again, and she was glad. She didn't want his arms around her right now, she thought rebelliously. She didn't even want to be around him until she cooled down a little.

  "I've got to get back to work. See you later, Cam."

  Her voice was brittle. She didn't kiss him or suggest he accompany her back to the ER, the way she normally would have done. She wasn't certain she could contain the pent-up anger and sense of betrayal that had simmered inside her ever since he'd told her of the transfer. She was afraid if she was with him alone right now, she'd explode. She'd say things that would damage their relationship even more than it was damaged already.

  He spoke to her as she hurried away, but she didn't turn around.

  CHAPTER SIX

  CAMERON WATCHED her walk away.

  "I'll be home when you get there, Alex," he called after her, but she didn't indicate she'd even heard him.

  He swore viciously, earning a reproving glare from a heavyset woman walking slowly down the hall dragging her IV pole.

  Cam glared right back, too frustrated for social niceties. He knew by Alex's body language, by the expression in her eyes, that she was deeply angry with him. Her lovely face was an open book. Every emotion showed clearly on her mobile features. He'd often teased her about it, saying that she'd missed her calling. She should have been an actress—she'd sure never have made it as a poker player.

  He blew out an exasperated breath and tossed the paper cup with its dregs of awful coffee into the garbage, aware that bis hand was trembling slightly. Until he'd heard her tell her family she was moving with him, he'd resigned himself to the possibility that Alex might let him go to Korbin Lake alone. In spite of their differences, her ties to her family were strong, and her sense of duty to them powerful.

  Her announcement at the party had made him half sick with relief. The alternative would have meant the end of their marriage. Hell, they had to struggle now to snatch a few hours together. How would they ever get together living at opposite ends of the province?

  He sank into a flimsy orange plastic chair and let his head flop forward on his chest. He was such a damn failure when it came right down to it. He'd messed up his career and he felt as if he'd deserted the young guys he was responsible for, guys who relied on him. Sure, they'd be assigned another trainer, but who knew whether his replacement would be an all-right guy or an idiot?

  Cameron shuddered. For the first time in his life he was choosing to run away from a situation rather than stand and fight. Somehow, he'd learn to live with that. He'd go to Korbin Lake and do his job the best way he knew how, and sooner or later, if he was lucky, the nightmares would go away and this tight, nagging ache in his chest would ease. The thing he'd been most afraid of, the thing he couldn't have lived with, was losing Alex. On impulse, he pulled his wallet out and flipped it open to a favorite snapshot of her, one he'd taken last summer.

  She was sitting on a log at the beach, wearing shorts and a halter top, her arms balanced on the log, her long, shapely legs stretched out, bare toes digging into the warm sand. She was grinning at him, a roguish, sexy grin. Her nose was sunburned, her curly hair a golden nimbus around her delicate, expressive face. She'd had a navy bikini on under her clothes, and he'd marveled that day at the lushness and lithe strength of her body as she tumbled playfully with him in the waves.

  He was so proud of his wife, of her beauty, of her efficiency and compassion as a doctor. He loved her so much. He shook his head, and his mouth twisted in a parody of a grin as he remembered how she'd stood just an hour ago in front of her family, hurting and furious with him, but loyal as could be, sticking her chin out and acting as if everything were just great between the two of them.

  He didn't deserve her. He didn't have much use for Eleanor Keenan, but she was right about one thing—he, Cameron Ross, wasn't half-good enough for her daughter.

  He tucked the wallet back into his hip pocket, and the steely control he maintained on his emotions slipped a little more, horrifying him. Tears burned at the back of his eyelids, and he clenched his fists and fought them away.

  He'd make it up to his wife. He had no idea how, but he'd do his damnedest to make it up to her. Not now, though. There was nothing he could think of to do right now to ease away her anger. It would have to run its course, and if it made his life tough for the next while, well, he richly deserved that, didn't he?

  He had ten days before he left, ten days to make some sort of peace with Alex, and he'd do his best to accomplish that.

  Making peace with himself was another story altogether.

  NINE OF THOSE ten days passed in a flurry of things to be done. The day before he was to leave, Cameron's mother invited him and Alex over for a farewell family dinner.

  "More lasagna, Alex?" Verna didn't bother asking Cameron or David if they wanted more—she simply ladled generous second helpings onto their plate
s.

  Alex shook her head. "Thanks, but I can't eat another bite."

  "There's chocolate cheesecake for dessert. Make sure you save some room for that." Verna gathered up several plates and dumped them in the already littered sink. She picked up the half-full wine bottle on the counter and poured more wine all round, then held up her glass in a toast.

  "To new beginnings," she said softly. "May Korbin Lake bring you both prosperity and happiness." Her exotic face creased in a loving smile, but there was more than a hint of tears in her dark eyes.

  "Hey, now don't go all weepy on us, Mom," David warned, raising his glass to acknowledge the toast. "Alex, Cam, hope this move is a good one." He smiled at them, his infectious, open smile, and Alex smiled back, sipping her wine and musing on the physical differences between the two Ross brothers.

  Cam looked like his mother, tall, slender, graceful. He'd inherited a male version of her dark gypsy beauty, his face a more rugged version of hers but just as dramatically drawn with its high cheekbones and strong jawline. Even when they smiled, Cameron and his mother retained an aura of somber mystery.

  David, just as handsome in an entirely different way, looked nothing like his mother and brother. He, too, was tall—well over six feet—naturally muscular, with well-defined biceps, a wide, sturdy body, broad hands and feet. He was fair skinned, with sun-streaked light brown hair that curled in an unruly mass around his shoulders. His eyes were green—strange, clear eyes that gave the mistaken impression David was a simple man with no hidden depths.

  Alex knew it was an illusion; her brother-in-law was anything but uncomplicated. He was a restless rogue, flitting from one job to the next. He was also what Verna despairingly called a ladies' man. She often told Alex her younger son was like her and would probably never marry.

  Cam and David had different fathers, and although Verna's apartment was littered with pictures of her sons, there were no photos at all of the men who'd fathered them.

  Early in their relationship, Alex had asked Cam whether he was curious about his father.

  "Not anymore. I was really curious when I was a kid," he'd confessed. "I used to ask Mom where he was, whether he'd ever come to see me, and like always, she was bone honest. She sat me down one day and told me everything she knew about him, which actually wasn't that much. His name was Martin Lathrop, he was in the U.S. Army, an intelligence officer of some kind, in Vancouver investigating draft dodgers. It was during the Vietnam war. Mom was waitressing at the restaurant in the hotel he was staying in, and he used to come in there for dinner every day. She said he was up front with her from the start, told her he was married and had four kids and that he'd be going back to them. She said they could talk to each other, that they'd fallen in love during the time he spent in Vancouver, which wasn't much, two months or so. He went back to his wife and four kids in Maryland, and she never heard from him again, never even told him she was pregnant with me."

  "Have you ever thought of finding him?"

  Cam shook his head. "He'd be a stranger. I'd upset his life, and for what?" His voice hardened. "Donating his sperm doesn't make him my father."

  "And what about Dave's father?"

  Cameron shrugged. "Dave's dad was a different story. His name was Michael O'Reilly. He was a contractor with a small business. I was eight at the time Mom was going out with him, so I remember him pretty well. I hated him, but at that age I hated every guy she dated. I don't remember much about him, but looking back, I think he was probably a pretty nice guy, big and blond and strong. Dave looks like him. I remember hearing him and Mom laugh a lot. He used to try to make friends with me, and he bought me a bike, the first and only new bike I ever had. He was killed in a construction accident a few months before Dave was born. Mom was pretty wrecked over it for a long time, and after that she never got seriously involved with anybody again."

  "Do you think they'd have gotten married?"

  Cam shook his head. "I asked her that just after I met you, and she said she decided early on that she wanted kids, but she never wanted to get married."

  Alex looked across the table now at Verna, relaxed and seemingly happy with her life, but also very alone as she grew older. Alex wondered if her mother-in-law ever regretted any of the decisions she'd made in her life.

  Life hadn't been easy for Verna Ross. She'd had minimal education and financially, she'd always lived a hand-to-mouth existence, holding down two jobs during the years the boys were growing up. Alex knew from talking to her that Cam had felt responsible for his mother and done his best to help from the time he was a small boy, first with paper routes and then with jobs in supermarkets and gas stations. As soon as he finished his RCMP training and started earning a decent wage, he'd taken over financial responsibility for his brother and tried to give Verna a generous monthly allowance. She refused the money, insisting that she was quite capable of supporting herself the way she'd always done. Alex respected and admired the other woman for that determined independence.

  At sixty-two, Verna was a singularly unusual and attractive woman, Alex mused. She shopped exclusively at secondhand stores, and she was dressed tonight in a worn burgundy velvet skirt and a man's white dress shirt. As usual, she looked elegant and rather bohemian. She had an enviable body still, tall, long limbed and slender. Only the white at her temples and the deep lines that bracketed the corners of her mouth and the similar ones etched around her dark brown eyes indicated her years.

  At the moment, she was smiling a little but obviously not really listening to the good-natured banter going on between Cam and David—they were arguing the merits of some linebacker the Vancouver football team had just traded.

  Verna looked over and caught Alex's eye. She rolled her eyes in the men's direction and got to her feet, extending a hand to grasp her daughter-in-law's in a firm, affectionate grip.

  "C'mon. Let's go into the other room and have some tea and talk intelligent woman talk. A person can't hear themselves think around these two. I'll serve the cheesecake later. You boys can clear the table and do the washing up."

  Mock howls of protest from Cam and David followed the women into the small sitting room.

  Verna's apartment was old, cramped and more than a little messy, but it was also warm and welcoming. She drew Alex over to a comfortably worn armchair and sat down across from her on the sagging sofa. "I'll get us tea in a moment, but first tell me about this job you've got in KorbinLake."

  "Well, it was my father who found out about it. Apparently he knows the hospital administrator from years ago. Dad talked to him and learned that one of the doctors at the local clinic had just left and they were anxious to fill the vacancy."

  Alex felt a surge of excitement just thinking about it. "It seemed such a coincidence I could hardly believe it, but apparently the doctor who left didn't give them much notice—he had a chance to buy a practice up in the Yukon or something. So I faxed them my resume, and the administrator called almost immediately and interviewed me by telephone, and bingo, I was hired. I guess they didn't get a ton of applicants, and one of the deciding factors with me was the fact that early on I thought I'd go into anesthesia as a specialty.

  "Dad used to push me. He'd go on about regular hours and how exciting it was to be in the operating room—even though we both knew I didn't have the makings of a surgeon. Anyhow, I did a year and changed my mind. They were doing lots of studies just then on the bad effects all the chemicals an anesthetist uses might have on offspring. I want kids someday, and I sure didn't want to endanger them that way. And I also realized I wanted more personal contact with people. But I guess that year tipped the scales with this job—they need someone who can give anesthetic for the odd minor emergency procedure. The serious surgical cases are sent out, to Vancouver or Calgary, so giving anesthesia would only be an occasional thing. Mostly, I'd be doing family practice."

  "And how many doctors are there in the town?"

  "Only two, me and an older man named Hollister King, who's be
en there for years. It's a really small place, Verna. The only reason there's even a hospital is because of the coal mine. Years ago, the mine put up the money to build and equip a hospital and clinic, and they still help maintain it."

  "Well, they couldn't do better than to hire you, Alex. I hope they appreciate what they're getting."

  Alex jumped to her feet and gave Verna an impulsive hug. "My fan club. You don't think maybe you're just a trifle prejudiced?'

  Verna smiled and hugged Alex back. "Nope. If I ever need a doctor, God forbid, I'm coming to you, even if I have to take a bus to Korbin Lake."

  "With a broken bone, a bus trip could be a problem."

  They both giggled. It was a joke between them that the last time Verna had been to a medical doctor was ten years before, when she fell and broke her ankle. She had a deep-rooted distrust of both doctors and hospitals, dating from the death of her mother when she was a child.

  David walked in just then, balancing mugs and a cake on the old cookie sheet Verna used as a tray, a white tea towel folded across his arm.

  "Evening, ladies. May I tell you about our dessert choices?" He smirked in a wicked parody of an overzeal-ous waiter. "There's chocolate cheesecake that's to die for, and I strongly suggest you order it, seeing it's all we have."

  Cameron followed him with plates and the teapot, and with much buffoonery, the two men served the women and themselves cake and tea.

  As usual when Verna and her sons were together, the conversation veered to the past, when Cam and David were youngsters, and soon everyone was laughing over the time Verna, concerned about their diet, mixed up some vile concoction called moose milk, heavy on nutritional yeast and soy yogurt and lecithin, and insisted the boys drink it each morning before they left the house.