He looked truly surprised. Cocking his head to the side, he asked, “We did?”
“Yeah. They were lower-level classes.” From there she’d gone into business classes, he into sciences. She’d still seen him around campus, though.
He appeared to give that thought, as if searching back through his memories of those days. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.”
His tone led her to believe he was sincere. “There’s no reason that you would.”
Tanner leaned back in his chair and studied her. “So how does a woman with an education from Berkeley become a matchmaker?”
“Mostly by accident. I helped some people in college meet someone and then later did the same thing for my boss, and the rest is history.”
He nodded sagely. “Just that easily you started a business matching people up?”
“It wasn’t all that easy at first. But the word got around that I am discreet and, most of all, successful.” She glanced toward the front door then raised her hand, drawing Michelle Watkins’s attention.
Tanner looked over his shoulder then quickly stood. Whitney gave him points for being a gentleman. But she wasn’t the one he needed to impress. Michelle was. She was smiling, which was encouraging.
When the woman reached them Whitney introduced them. “Michelle, I’d like you to meet Tanner Locke.”
Tanner offered Michelle his hand, along with a warm smile that Whitney recognized from their college days when he’d been charming a crowd of women. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Michelle. Please, join us.”
Michelle couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off Tanner. Was she already bowled over by him? Whitney was tempted to roll her eyes. The man’s magic knew no bounds.
“Thank you,” Michelle cooed, and took the chair Tanner held for her.
“Why don’t I order us all something to drink?” Whitney suggested as a waitress came to the table.
“That would be nice,” Michelle agreed, not taking her gaze off Tanner.
Whitney placed the order and the waitress left.
Tanner looked at Michelle. “I understand you like the outdoors.”
“Yes,” Michelle simpered. “I love to hike when I have the time.”
Whitney sat back and listened as the two traded stories about their favorite hikes. They seemed to have forgotten she was there, something that had happened to her more than once in her life. She’d learned to live with it. This time it was part of her business.
The waitress brought their drinks, which swung Tanner’s attention back to her. “Thank you for the lemonade. I’ll get these this time,” he said to Whitney, then his attention returned to Michelle.
Whitney took a long swallow of the cool, tart liquid. Setting the glass on the table, she said, “I’ll leave you both to get to know each other better. I’ll be in touch.”
Tanner nodded.
Michelle said, “Thank you, Whitney,” before her attention went straight back to Tanner.
Whitney walked to the front door. She looked back at them. They made a nice-looking pair. Two dark-haired, well-groomed, professional people who looked as if they were enjoying each other’s company.
That was what her matchmaking was all about. So why couldn’t she do that for herself?
* * *
Two days later, Whitney answered the phone.
“We need to talk.”
Whitney didn’t have to question who she was speaking to. She knew that voice at the first roll of a vowel. This time it wasn’t warm and creamy. It was icy and sharp.
“Tanner, is something wrong?” She kept her voice low and even. She didn’t often have to talk a client down after a social or a date.
“Michelle won’t do. We need to meet again. Bring that file.”
Whitney stiffened. She wasn’t one of his OR nurses to be ordered around. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have time to talk about it now.”
And he thinks I do?
“Let me see. How about the coffeehouse on Market Street tomorrow morning around nine?”
“I have surgery then. Could you come to the hospital in about an hour?”
What? She wasn’t at his beck and call. She’d already gone out of her way for him once and now he wanted her to drop what she was doing and drive downtown. “I don’t know. That isn’t how I like to conduct business. I thought you didn’t want anyone to know you were using my services. Aren’t you afraid someone might ask you questions?”
“They might but I don’t have to answer. Whitney, it would really help me out if you could come here. I’m tied up with cases but I’d really like to get this other stuff rolling along.”
Other stuff rolling along.
Was that how he thought of the woman who would share the rest of his life? She was glad she didn’t fit his list.
Unfortunately, she didn’t really have a good excuse why she couldn’t help him out. “Okay, but I won’t be doing this again.”
“Great. Just give me a call when you get here.” He hung up.
Tanner hadn’t even said goodbye. It was time to have a heart-to-heart with him about whether or not he was really interested in doing the work needed to find a soul mate.
The traffic was light so she made good time going up and down the hills of San Francisco. The city could be difficult to drive in but the views of the bay made it worth it. She was just sorry a streetcar didn’t run close enough to the hospital for her to take one of those.
She found a parking spot in the high-rise lot next to the hospital. Crossing the street, she entered the towering hospital. In the lobby, she pulled out her phone and called Tanner’s number. Never in her wildest dreams would she ever have imagined having it at her fingertips. She and Tanner didn’t move in the same circles and never would.
He answered as he had before. There was an arrogance to how he responded but the crisp sound of his last name seemed to suit him.
“It’s Whitney.”
“Hey.” His tone changed as if he was glad to hear from her. She liked that idea too much. Obviously since he’d gotten his way he had calmed down. “From the main lobby door continue down the long hallway to the second bank of elevators on your right. They’ll be about halfway down the hall. Take one of them. Come up to the fifth floor. I’ll meet you at the elevator.”
Tanner didn’t wait for her to answer before closing the connection. That she wasn’t as accepting of. She’d rather be told goodbye.
Whitney found the bank of elevators and took the next available car. At the correct floor she stepped off. As good as his word, Tanner stood there, talking to another man also dressed in scrubs. When he saw her he left the man and strolled over to her.
He was the epitome of the tall, dark and handsome doctor. He still had the looks that drew women’s attention. What had happened between him and Michelle she couldn’t fathom.
Michelle had called yesterday morning all but glowing about the social and the date they’d had the night before. How she could have seen it as being so wonderful while Tanner was so unhappy was a mystery to Whitney.
“Thanks for coming.” Tanner ran his hand over his hair. “I know it wasn’t what you wanted to do. I had to come in last night to do an emergency surgery. I just couldn’t get away today. I have one more patient to see. Would you mind hanging out for a little bit?”
If he’d asked her that in college she might have fainted. Now Whitney only saw him as a man who needed her services. “Sure. I wouldn’t mind watching what you do. It might help me better understand you, which would assist me in matching you.”
“All business, all the time.”
“You’re one to be talking,” she quipped.
He grinned. “You’re not the first person to say that. After I see this patient we’ll go to my office to talk.�
��
They walked down a hall until they came to double doors. Tanner scanned a card and the doors opened from the middle out. They entered a hallway with patients’ rooms. He stopped at the third doorway along the passage. “This is Mr. Wilcox. Let me get permission for you to come in.”
“I don’t mind waiting out here.”
Tanner touched her arm when she started to move to the other side of the hall. A zing of awareness traveled up her arm. “He’s rather lonely. He’d like to have the company. See a face that has nothing to do with the hospital.”
That was a side of Tanner she hadn’t expected. Compassion beyond the medicine. “Then I’ll be glad to say hi.”
Tanner raised his hand to knock on the door but turned back to her. “He has a lot of pumps and drips hooked to him. That stuff doesn’t bother you, does it?”
She smiled. “No, I promise not to faint or stare.”
“Good.” Tanner appeared pleased with her answer. Had other women he’d known acted negatively to what he did for a living? He knocked on the door and stuck his head around it. There was a rumble of voices, then Tanner waved her toward him.
“We’ll need to wear masks.” He pulled a yellow paper one from a box on a table outside the door and handed it to her before entering the room. She followed.
Mr. Wilcox was about her father’s age, but his skin was an ash gray. Beside him was a bank of machines with lights. There was a whish of air coming from one. A clear rubber tube circled both the man’s ears and came around to fit under his nose.
“Mr. Wilcox, I brought you a visitor,” Tanner said.
The man’s dull eyes brightened for a second as he looked at her.
“Whitney Thomason, I’d like you to meet Jim Wilcox.”
“Nice to meet you, young lady,” Mr. Wilcox wheezed as he raised a hand weakly toward her.
“You too, Mr. Wilcox.” Whitney stepped closer to the bed.
“So how’re you feeling?” Tanner asked, leaning forward, concern written on his face.
Whitney was impressed with the lower timbre of his voice, which sounded as if he truly wished to know. She could grow to admire this Tanner.
“Oh, about the same. This contraption—” Mr. Wilcox nodded toward the swishing machine beside him “—is keeping me alive but I’m still stuck in this bed.”
“Well, maybe there’ll be a heart soon.”
“That’s what you’ve been telling me for weeks now. I’m starting to think you’re holding out on me.” Mr. Wilcox offered a small smile and perked up when he looked at her. “At least you were kind enough today to bring me something pretty to look at.”
Whitney blushed. “Thanks but—”
“Aw, don’t start all that stuttering and blustering. I have a feeling your beauty goes more than skin deep.”
Whitney really did feel heat in her cheeks then. “I think that might be the nicest compliment I’ve ever received.”
Tanner’s eyes met hers and held. Did he agree with Mr. Wilcox? Did he see something that others didn’t?
The older man cleared his throat.
Tanner’s attention returned to him. “Okay, Romeo. I need to give you a listen.” He pulled his stethoscope from around his neck. “I might have done a bad thing by inviting Whitney in.”
“If I promise to be nice, will you bring her back again?” Mr. Wilcox asked with enthusiasm in every word.
Whitney touched the older man’s arm. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t have to invite me for me to come again.”
She felt more than saw Tanner glance at her.
“Then I’ll look forward to it. So tell me how you know this quack over here?” Mr. Wilcox indicated Tanner.
Her gaze met Tanner’s. There was panic in his gaze. He probably didn’t want the man to know she was helping him find a wife. “Oh, we were in college together.”
Tanner’s brows rose. He nodded as if he was pleased with her response.
“Where’d you go?” Mr. Wilcox rasped.
“Berkeley,” she told him.
“Then you got a fine education.”
Tanner interrupted them with, “So, are you having any chest pains?”
Mr. Wilcox paused. “No.”
“That’s good. You seem to be holding your own.” Tanner flipped through the chart he’d brought in with him and laid it on the bed tray. “You need to be eating more. You have to keep your energy up.”
“I’ll try but nothing tastes good.” Mr. Wilcox pushed at the bed table as if there was something offensive on it.
“Not even ice cream?” Tanner asked.
“I’ve eaten all those little cups I can stand. I’d like a good old-fashioned banana split that I could share with someone like your young lady.”
Tanner chuckled. “When you get your heart and are out of here I’ll see if I can get Whitney to come back and bring you a fat-free split.”
“Fat-free,” he spat.
“That’s it,” Tanner said with a grin.
“Well, if Whitney shares it with me maybe I can live with it. She has nice eyes. Windows to the soul, they say.” Mr. Wilcox smiled.
“That she does,” Tanner agreed.
Whitney looked at Tanner. Did he really mean that? She’d had no indication that he’d noticed anything about her.
“So is she your girlfriend?”
“Just friends,” she and Tanner said at the same time.
Whitney wasn’t sure that their professional association qualified as friendship. Tanner wanted his personal business kept private, so “friends” seemed the right thing to say. Could they be friends? She didn’t know. What she did recognize was that she liked the Tanner who was concerned enough about his patient’s loneliness to invite her to meet him just to cut the monotony of being in the hospital day after day. That was a Tanner she could find a match for. Sad that the other Tanner wouldn’t let this one show up more often.
“Even behind that mask I can tell she’s pretty enough to be your girlfriend. You can always tell a special woman by her eyes. My wife, Milly, had beautiful eyes.”
Tanner put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “I think we’d better be going.”
Whitney touched Mr. Wilcox’s arm briefly. “I hope to see you again soon. It was nice to meet you.”
He lifted a hand and waved as she reached the door. “You too. You’re welcome to my abode anytime.”
Whitney smiled. She liked Mr. Wilcox. “Bye, now.”
Tanner joined her. “See you soon, Mr. Wilcox.”
“You too, Doc.”
Whitney stepped out into the hall and Tanner followed, pulling the door closed behind him.
As they removed their masks Tanner said, “I’m sorry if he made you feel uncomfortable in there or put you on the spot about being with me. Mr. Wilcox can be pretty cheeky.”
“I didn’t mind. He seems like a nice guy who’s lonely.”
“He is. As a doctor I’m not supposed to have favorites but I really like the man. He’s been waiting too long.”
She watched for his reaction as she said, “That’s why you took me to see him. You knew he needed something to prick his interest. You didn’t mind him assuming I was your girlfriend because that would give him something to figure out, live for.”
“Why, Ms. Thomason, you are smart.”
Whitney couldn’t deny her pleasure at his praise. She also couldn’t help but ask, “I know you can’t tell me details, but what’s going on with Mr. Wilcox?”
Tanner’s eyes took on a haunted look. “Most of it you heard. He’s waiting for a heart. He needs one pretty quickly.”
“Or he’ll die,” she said quietly.
Tanner’s eyes took on a shadowed look. “Yeah.”
“You seem to take that in your strid
e.” She sounded as if she was condemning him even to her own ears.
“It’s a part of what I do. Medical School 101. But that doesn’t mean I like it.” His retort was crisp. He started down the hall and she followed. At the desk he handed a nurse Mr. Wilcox’s chart and continued on. “My office is this way. I’m on call tonight.”
Whitney had to hurry to keep up with him. They walked down a couple of hallways to a nondescript door. Again Tanner swiped his card. There was a click. He turned the doorknob and entered. She trailed him down a short hall to a small sterile-looking office. It became even smaller when Tanner stepped in.
There was a metal desk with a black high-backed chair behind it and a metal chair in front. What struck her as most interesting was the absence of pictures. Didn’t he have family? Nieces or nephews? A dog?
“Please, come in.” Tanner walked around the desk and settled into the chair. Was his home this cold as well? Could he open his life enough to have a wife and family?
Whitney sat in the uncomfortable utilitarian chair. Apparently whoever visited wasn’t encouraged to stay long. “I understand from Michelle that she had a wonderful time the other night. So what’s the problem on your side?”
Tanner picked up a pen and twisted it through his fingers, a sure sign he wasn’t comfortable with the question. “She wanted something that I won’t give.”
There was a chilly breeze in the words. “That is?”
“Let’s just say she was already getting more emotionally attached than I want to be. You need to go through your file and find me some women who are interested in security, financial comfort, social status, not whether or not they are loved. I’m looking for something far more solid than love. Companionship.”
Whitney felt like she’d been punched in the chest. She’d never heard anything sadder. All the compassion she’d just seen Tanner show Mr. Wilcox was gone. Now all she saw was a shell of a man. For him a heart was nothing more than an organ that pumped blood. Not the center of life she believed it to be. “The women I represent all want to be loved.”
The Surgeon's Cinderella Page 3