He liked that about his job. But he’d had to learn that he couldn’t fix everything, nor every kid that was broken. He thought of his own little boy—his son. If only he could have fixed him... If only he had been there for him...
He shook his head and looked at Frannie. Sometimes he felt as if she was reading his mind—finding the parts that hurt and poking at them. Like that counselor Lydia had insisted they see. The one who had just sat there as his wife had spilled every hurtful thought she’d had about him, tearing down their marriage with each accusation.
He would never allow that again. He would never sit there while someone broke him into pieces without him being able to defend himself.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be sarcastic. It’s just that I’ve heard all my life that being a surgeon puts you at the top of the food chain in the medical field,” Frannie said.
“It’s very satisfying to be able to help kids. To be able to put them back together,” he said.
Even to himself the answer sounded trite. Was that what his life had come down to? He’d made it sound more like a conveyor belt job than the art he knew it to be.
How long had he been just going through the motions without feeling more than satisfaction? Where had all the empathy he had once felt for his patients gone? The excitement of diagnosing a child’s injury and then being able to help that child return back to his life had been slowly stripped from him, till now all he could be was a fixer of broken bodies who didn’t know how to fix his own life.
Then he thought about Sarah. Frannie had helped him to see a different way to interact with her, and he had felt the satisfaction of seeing the little girl smile and laugh.
“Are you okay?” Frannie asked. “I’m sorry. I know you’re tired. We should be going home instead of sitting here talking.”
He noticed she was looking down at his hands. Glancing down, he was surprised. In his hands he gripped the letter from his ex-wife. When had he taken it out of the drawer? Why?
He remembered opening the desk drawer to get his planner out, but he didn’t remember picking up the letter. Pulling the planner out of the still open drawer, he threw the letter back in and then slammed it. He was going to have to do something about that letter, but it wouldn’t be tonight.
They made one more pass through the ER and then headed for the parking lot and his car. How Frannie was still awake he didn’t know. He almost started to tell her that with her pregnancy she shouldn’t miss her sleep, but didn’t. Frannie was an intelligent woman and it wasn’t her normal practice to be out late. He knew she had to be exhausted after the night they’d had, but she’d never admit it to him.
Back at her place, he walked her to the door of her condo and waited while she opened the door.
“We never got to dance,” she said as she turned to him.
“How can you even think about dancing now?” he asked. “You think your feet hurt now? You have no idea how much pain you were spared from my big feet stomping all over yours.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “I bet you’ve got all kinds of moves I haven’t seen before.”
“Believe me, you don’t want to be anywhere around me and a dance floor,” he said. “Of course if you want I could show you?”
Frannie laughed.
“You never answered my question tonight,” he said.
“What question?” she asked.
“About my marriage offer,” he said, and the words came out jumbled.
“That wasn’t a question,” she said, and then to his surprise she leaned in and kissed his cheek before shutting her door.
He walked back to his car and headed home—to a hot shower and a cold bed and a dream of dancing with Frannie.
* * *
After shutting the door, Frannie toed her shoes off before she took another step. She’d loved the shoes when she’d put them on earlier that night, but now she would gladly burn them before she put them on again. After tonight she’d be sticking with flats till after the baby came.
She hung her bag in the entry, then headed up the stairs to hang her dress up. She hadn’t been able to make herself put it on after she’d retrieved it from the staff locker room. She put it back into the closet.
The evening had taken such a turn after that call had come from the ER about the school bus crash that it seemed as if it had been days since the krewe dinner. Her stomach picked that time to growl, reminding her that she had spent more time talking with Ian than eating while at the ball.
She ate a quick sandwich, then headed to bed.
She was spending more time with Ian every day, and enjoying that time more and more. It didn’t take her degree in psychiatry to tell her that she was falling in love with the man. She was surprised he couldn’t see it himself.
She could see him changing a little bit every day too, and she liked what saw. It would be so easy to agree to marry him, but in her heart she knew that it would be a mistake. Ian was still struggling with the death of his son, and from what he had said about his problem with relationships she suspected that he was still dealing with issues concerning his divorce.
Even the love she knew she was coming to feel for him couldn’t change his past. He had to be the one to decide to move on with his life.
She yawned as she climbed into bed, then fell into a deep sleep.
* * *
Ian knocked on the door to James’s room and was greeted with a laugh and a smile. One look at the doctor standing at the boy’s bedside told him why. Frannie stood there, laughing along with the boy and looking fresh and rested, though he knew she couldn’t have gotten more than a few hours of sleep. She wore her hair pulled back into a ponytail—the style he had expected—but when she looked up at him there was a different look in her eyes.
Gone was the woman whose insecurities had shone out through those ridiculous black-rimmed glasses she had worn. Now a new woman stood there, with a confidence that had surfaced only in the last few weeks. Frannie had somehow found her place in her position and he couldn’t help but be glad for her. From what he had learned from her she had fought hard against her dad to succeed as a psychiatrist, and he respected her for what she had accomplished.
“Hey, Doc! Man, y’all are making me feel like a superstar with all this attention,” James said from his bed.
Ian noted the dry dressing that covered his wrist.
“From what I heard from one of your teammates last night in the ER—Josh?—you are a superstar,” Frannie said.
James smiled, then looked back down at the bed.
“I don’t think I heard about that,” Ian said.
“Don’t pay any attention to Josh. He’s always saying something he shouldn’t,” said James.
“It seems that before the impact James, here, grabbed Josh and pulled him out into the aisle—away from where the car crashed into the bus,” Frannie said. “If he hadn’t grabbed him Josh’s injuries would have been a lot worse than the cuts he ended up with. Josh’s parents have sent a basket of food.”
Frannie nodded to the half-empty basket on the side table. Apparently James’s injuries weren’t slowing down his appetite.
She laughed at the embarrassment she had caused in the young boy, and then excused herself from the room.
“That’s one nice-looking lady, there, Doc,” James said, as soon as the door had shut behind Frannie, and his smile was now that of an infatuated teen with his eyes full of puppy love.
“She’s a very good doctor,” Ian said, unable to keep the laughter from his voice.
He suspected there were many young boys throughout the hospital suffering from the same ailment as James. He’d have been happy himself as a teen if his doctor had looked like Frannie. Instead he’d had Dr. Murray, with his thick gray mono-brow that had made him look like he had a second mustache.
“I notice there isn’
t any ring on that finger of hers. No ring on your finger either,” James said. “If I was you I’d be chasing her down. She looks a little high-class, but I bet she’d give you a chance if you were really nice to her. And bring her some chocolate. My momma loves it when my daddy stops by the candy store over in the French Quarter on his way home. Or I’ve got a chocolate bar left in my basket if you want it.”
Ian laughed so hard that one of the nurses peeked into the room to see what was going on, then waved at James and walked out. The boy had been on the floor for only a few hours but already all the nurses were fond of him. The kid was one of a kind, and Ian knew his parents must be proud of him. He’d be sure to grow up to be a great man someday—which was what every parent hoped for their son. What he had hoped for his own son.
“Thanks for the offer, but I think it would be best if you kept your candy for now. Me and Dr. Wentworth are good friends.”
Friends who had made a baby together, but still just friends. Only the more time he spent with her the more he discovered he wanted more.
“Okay, but I’ll save it for you—just in case you change your mind. Or maybe I’ll give it to her myself,” James said, then winked.
Ian left James in the care of one of the floor nurses who had come in to give the boy some more pain medication. Looking at his watch, he saw that he needed to head toward the operating room for his first case of the day.
CHAPTER TEN
IAN HELD THE board as Frannie set the nail in place. He had shown her how the nail gun worked and she had then taken over the job. He looked around the warehouse and watched the different groups working on separate projects.
He’d not been happy when Dr. Guidry had roped him into this working party, but now he looked forward to the nights when they got together. Okay, mainly that was because they were the only nights he managed to spend with Frannie, due to their schedules, but he was also enjoying getting to know some of the other volunteers.
The float was finally taking shape, with the base completed and the miniature model of the hospital that would be the background almost finished. And he could see another group of volunteers making good progress with molding chicken wire to the sides of the float, which would later become the profiles of comic book villains.
He’d never worked on a float before, but it looked to him as if they would be finished with time to spare before the Mardi Gras season began.
His phone rang and he looked down to see the hospital ER number. He held out a finger to Frannie, telling her to stop. He wasn’t on call but he answered the phone anyway.
He listened to the ER doctor on shift apologize and then explain his reason for calling. A young girl had been brought into the hospital and she had been Ian’s patient once before. The girl’s grandmother was asking to speak with him. The grandmother appeared to be under a lot of stress, and he thought seeing Ian in person would help.
Ian told the ER doctor that he would take the case before hanging up.
“What’s up?” Frannie asked as she came to stand by him.
The noise of the warehouse made it hard to talk, so he motioned her over to the back door. They stepped out into a soft mist, then moved under the awning. It was starting to get cooler—especially here, down near the docks.
“I’ve got to leave. A former patient of mine has been brought in to the ER. I need to talk to her family—her grandmother,” he said. “I think I’ll be putting a request in for you to see her, but it can wait till in the morning. I’ll try to come back and pick you up, but I might be late so you might want to get a lift.”
“She’s a trauma patient?” Frannie asked.
She’d moved closer to him, trying to get further under the awning. He moved back, letting her squeeze in front of him and blocking the mist from wetting her.
“Former trauma. Her name’s Carrie. She and her parents were involved in a car crash. She was the only survivor. She’s only thirteen and is having problems coping. Her grandmother caught her with a razor tonight, cutting her arms.”
Frannie’s body stiffened and she looked up at him.
“A suicide attempt?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. Neither does the ER doctor. But her grandmother is upset and is asking for me. I need to go talk to her.”
“I’ll come too,” Frannie said as she turned. “Just let me grab my bag and tell Mrs. Guidry we’re leaving.”
“No problem,” he said.
Ian watched as she headed back into the warehouse. He hated to pull her away from working on the float, especially after seeing how much fun she was having working with the nail gun, but after telling her about his young patient he had known she’d want to go ahead and see her now.
He’d have to make it up to her. He had a house full of power tools and projects that needed to be done. He couldn’t think of anything that would be more fun than showing her how to use another power tool!
Frannie came out through the door as she slipped her jacket on, flipping her dark wavy hair over her shoulder as she walked toward him.
Okay, maybe there was something else that he could imagine the two of them doing together that would be a hell of a lot more fun than playing with power tools, but it was definitely not something he should be thinking about if the two of them were to remain friends.
He’d worked through some ways to tell Frannie that he wanted more out of their relationship, but he couldn’t seem to make himself do it. He just wasn’t sure he was ready yet. Besides, Frannie seemed to be happy with the relationship as it was, and he didn’t want to do anything that would threaten their friendship—especially not with a baby on its way.
They’d need to work together very closely after the baby was born—he didn’t want to take a chance on doing anything that would jeopardize the relationship they had now.
* * *
Frannie stepped into Carrie’s room and found a miserable young girl sitting up in the bed. Ian had already been in and dressed the child’s arms, and Carrie now sat cradling them in her lap.
“Carrie, I’m Dr. Wentworth. I’m a psychiatrist and Dr. Spencer has asked me to come see you.”
“He thinks I’m crazy, doesn’t he?” Carrie said, and she looked up at Frannie with eyes brimming with tears.
“No one thinks you’re crazy, Carrie.”
“My friend Julie does,” Carrie said. “She said that I was acting crazy and that she’d heard when you cut yourself you don’t feel crazy anymore.”
“Well, some people do cut themselves when they’re depressed or stressed, but it only gives them temporary relief, and most people regret it after. Why did Julie tell you that you were acting crazy?” Frannie asked as she moved closer to the bed and sat in a chair.
“Some days I can’t stop crying and I don’t feel like hanging out with her.” The young girl looked up at her. “But I don’t feel like hanging out with anyone anymore. I want to go out with her and my other friends, but it doesn’t feel right, you know? It doesn’t feel right to be out there having fun now that my parents are gone.”
Frannie couldn’t help but think of Ian and the way he had been when she had first met him. Did he recognize himself in the way this child was grieving?
“Everyone doesn’t grieve the same way, Carrie. Julie is probably worried about you, but she was wrong when she told you to cut yourself. Now, I’ve got to ask you one question, Carrie, and I want you to be honest with me.”
Frannie looked Carrie in the eyes. It was a hard question to ask the scared girl, but it had to be asked.
“When you cut yourself tonight, were you trying to kill yourself?”
“No, ma’am,” Carrie said, and all color blanched out of the child’s face.
Frannie told Carrie that she believed her, and they talked for a few minutes more, until Frannie felt confident that the girl wouldn’t be a danger to herself. Then she went looking for C
arrie’s grandmother. She headed back to the visitors’ waiting room, where she knew Ian was talking with her.
They both stood when she entered the room.
“Mrs. Long?” she said as she held out her hand to the older woman.
From what Carrie had told her she had expected to see a gray-haired woman, bent double. This woman was in her late fifties or early sixties, and except for the dark rings under her eyes, which hinted at a lack of sleep, she didn’t look anything like the frail woman Carrie had described.
“Yes.” The woman took Frannie’s hand and shook it, then sat back down. “How’s Carrie? Was it...? Did she...? Was she trying to kill herself?”
“No, from what Carrie is telling me I don’t think so.” Frannie sat down on the other side of the woman from Ian. “Carrie’s having problems dealing with the loss of her parents—which is to be expected. She just doesn’t know how to handle her feelings.”
“I don’t understand... I’ve tried to talk to her, but she keeps telling me she’s okay,” said Mrs. Long. “My husband and I even moved into my son’s house, so that she could stay around her friends. She’s an only child, but my son and daughter-in-law always made sure she had relationships with other children in the neighborhood. I didn’t want her to lose that too. My son would have wanted—”
The older woman broke down and Ian put his arm around her. Frannie knew that Ian would be able to relate to the woman’s loss of her son.
“We know you’re doing everything that you can for Carrie,” Ian said. “Your son would be so thankful that Carrie has you to take care of her.”
The Surgeon's Baby Bombshell Page 10