“Nope. I’m going to watch it with you,” he said, kissing her one more time before pulling back the coverlet and pulling her in close to his side. “You ready?”
Yeah, she thought, holding Jonah as tightly as he held her. Life was definitely wonderful.
“LOOKS like someone had a very Merry Christmas,” Tess sing-songed across the lounge in the ED two days later. Natalie had been back at work for exactly—she checked her watch—twelve minutes, and even though she’d texted both Tess and Charlie a fairly detailed update yesterday, she’d known far better than to think they wouldn’t both want the full rundown now that she was physically back in the building.
She turned her gaze around the lounge, which was empty except for the three of them, and headed for the coffeepot. God, the last couple of days had taken it out of her. Even with their good outcome.
“Yeah, we really did. It was kind of quiet, since we spent it at the hospital with Jonah’s dad and Vivian. But it was still great.” They’d been able to catch A Christmas Carol on an old movie channel, then share some eggnog and fruitcake as football took center stage. In between Mr. Sheridan’s naps, of course.
“I’m glad Jonah’s dad is recovering nicely,” Tess said. “But I meant you, specifically. You’re all humming and smiling over there, like you’ve got happiness squishing right out of you—”
“Even more than usual,” Charlie chimed in, and Tess tilted her head in nonverbal agreement.
“It would be gross if it wasn’t so cute, plus, you used the W-word.”
Natalie took a sip of coffee to A) bury her smile, and B) try to shake some of this exhaustion. “The W-word?”
“We,” Charlie said with a grin. “And not the royal we, either. You, my friend, have it bad for The Orgasm Whisperer.”
Thank God Jonah had decided to stay in Charleston for a few more days to help his dad with the transition home, although, really, he could probably see Natalie’s blush from here.
And her happiness. “I might.” She bit her lip, but really, there was no sense in holding back. She and Jonah were going to box up the rest of her stuff and move it to his place—their place—as soon as he got back from South Carolina. The fact that they’d ditched friends-with-benefits was going to become really obvious, really fast. She might as well spill the beans. “So, um, Jonah asked me to move in with him.”
Tess’s mouth fell open. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Are you serious?” Charlie asked past her laughter. “That’s wonderful!”
Natalie nodded, unable to keep from laughing, too. “He asked me on Christmas Eve.”
“One of these days, we’re going to teach you to lead with the good bits,” Tess said, sitting down on the couch and waving Natalie over. “Although, I suppose we have to find a different nickname for him, because now…anyway.” She waved a hand through the air. “Spill. And remember, I am living vicariously here. The only romance I have in my life is the novel on my bedside table, so don’t leave out any details unless they’re R-rated.”
“Okay,” Natalie said. She gave Charlie and Tess a basic version of what had happened, although she kept the personal details of Jonah’s past and the conversation they’d had the night before Christmas Eve to herself. That wasn’t her story to tell. But it was all too easy to recount how she and Jonah had grown closer over the past month, and to admit the truth.
She had hope. Jonah had hope. And they’d taken that leap together.
“So, you rented a car and came back last night?” Charlie asked, and Natalie nodded. Before she could continue, though, Parker opened the door to the lounge and came sauntering in.
“Dr. Michaelson, I’ve got a patient in curtain three with…” His dark eyes went wide as he looked up from the chart in his hands. “You know what, I will find Dr. Tanaka and ask her because this is not urgent and you are going to kill me if I don’t leave this room right now.”
“Your fiancé is very smart,” Tess said to Charlie, who grinned and mouthed I love you in Parker’s direction.
Parker laughed and turned to duck back through the door, and Tess called out, “If you can’t find Tanaka, text me, Drake! God, it’s never a dull moment, I swear.”
The truth of it sent a pang through Natalie’s belly. Tess wasn’t wrong by any stretch, she still loved the bustle of treating patients. She’d missed it, even after only a few days.
Clearing her throat, she returned to Charlie’s question. “Yeah, I wanted to give Jonah some one-on-one time with his dad, plus, I have some surgeries scheduled that I didn’t want to bump. Mr. Sheridan should be released from the hospital later today, tomorrow at the latest, and Jonah’s going to stick around until the home health aide and the occupational therapist are all set.” With each of them scheduled for twice-weekly visits, plus Vivian there for daily assistance, things were truly moving forward.
“Wow.” Tess shook her head, her ponytail brushing the shoulders of her doctor’s coat. “On the one hand, I want to be shocked that Jonah Sheridan is off the market. On the other…”
“They’re totally perfect for each other and it’s about damned time?” Charlie supplied.
Tess pointed at her best friend with both index fingers. “That.”
“I’m never going to live this down, am I?” Natalie asked, her grin breaking free for the billionth time.
“You showed The Orgasm Whisperer the light,” Tess said, arching a brow. But her smile put a happy edge to the words. “No. You are never going to live this down. In fact, I’m going to be forever convinced that you’re part unicorn beneath that perky, smart-girl exterior.”
The conversation dissolved into laughter, and they parted ways a minute later, Tess going to follow up with Parker on the patient in curtain three and Charlie heading upstairs with Boldin for rounds. Natalie found Vasquez, her intern du jour, at the nurses’ station, standing between Connor and Mallory and looking thoroughly put out.
“Good morning,” Natalie said cheerily, but it barely put a dent in Vasquez’s frown.
“Morning, Dr. Kendrick,” she mumbled.
“I’m afraid Dr. Vasquez’s bad mood is my fault,” Mallory said, and funny, he didn’t look the least bit apologetic about that, his pleasant smile on full display.
Vasquez snorted. “I’m not in a bad mood.”
Connor tried to hide his laughter in a poorly constructed cough. “If this is you happy, I’d hate to see a real bad mood.” His laughter died at Vasquez’s frosty stare. “But you know what, I have labs to go check on for Dr. Brooks. Like, right this second. Bye!”
For a huge guy, Connor sure could hustle when the occasion called for it. Natalie turned back to Mallory and Vasquez. She didn’t know what was going on between the two of them, but right now, she didn’t have time to run interference. “Well, you’re on my service today, Dr. Vasquez, and I’m about to make your day.”
Natalie scooped up a tablet from the charging station and tapped through a handful of screens until she reached the chart she was looking for. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”
“Abdominal scans of a juvenile patient who looks like…” Vasquez’s eyes narrowed over the scans. “That’s an appy. No question. The inflammation is obvious, his history says his temp is elevated, and the notes list right-side guarding upon examination.” She hesitated, but her curiosity seemed to get the better of her. “That one wasn’t even close to hard. No disrespect, but how are you making my day?”
“Because I want you to book an OR, then go get Billy here from exam five and take him upstairs. Prep him for surgery, and I’ll meet you up there. We’re going to see how good your surgical skills are.”
“Yes, Dr. Kendrick.” The intern’s entire demeanor changed in a breath, and she clutched the chart to her chest and smiled. “You won’t be sorry!”
“That’ll go right to her head, you know,” Mallory said as soon as Vasquez had disappeared around the corner, practically skipping.
Natalie shrugged. He might not be wrong, but still. “
Do I even want to know what’s going on between the two of you?”
“It’s strictly professional,” he said, so adamantly that she believed him. “But Vasquez has got some sort of weird hate thing for ortho. I might’ve implied that it was because the specialty is her weak spot.” Now Mallory looked a little sheepish. “I did it to light a fire in her because she’s competitive as fuck, and she needs to learn like all the other interns, but yeah. Let’s just say she’s not my biggest fan.”
“Hmm.” Not necessarily the tactic Natalie would’ve picked, but honestly, maybe not a bad one to motivate Vasquez to learn. Even if it did also motivate her to hate Mallory. “Well, hopefully it’ll inspire her and not make her try to throttle you.”
“Always with the bright side, Kendrick. Always with the bright side.”
Natalie laughed. She wanted to check in with Jonah to see how his dad was doing this morning before she headed into the OR, so she said a quick goodbye to Mallory and headed for the elevator. She’d taken a tablet with her so she could review Billy’s chart one more time, scanning his ultrasound images and making mental notes on her way down the hallway toward the surgical unit. She was so lost in thought that she didn’t hear the voice behind her until the person belonging to it had caught up to her at a near-run and whoa.
“Natalie! God, I’m so glad I found you.”
Her brows popped. Jeffrey Wells looked like he’d sprinted the entire way from his office in the oncology unit just to flag her down.
“Hey, Jeff. I was just running to remove a pissed-off appy from a nine-year-old’s belly. What’s up?”
For all the man’s rushing to catch her, he hesitated at her question, and okay, that was weird. “I need to talk to you about something. It’s pretty urgent.”
They’d collaborated on a handful of cases together over the time Natalie had worked at Remington Mem, but Jeff usually didn’t handle peds patients. In fact, Hoover took all of those cases, now that Natalie thought about it. But whatever he wanted to talk to her about must be pretty serious, judging by the look on his face, so she nodded.
“Okay, sure.”
“Great.” There were three small, private waiting rooms along the wall to their right, the sort where they usually let the families of gravely injured patients stay to have privacy, and he led her into the closest one and shut the door. He sat down in one of the chairs, and Natalie sat across from him automatically, unease trickling into her belly.
“Really, Jeff, is everything okay?”
“Actually, I’m afraid it’s not.” He looked down at the printout that Natalie just realized he’d been holding, then back at her. “Your lab results came in a little while ago.”
“My…”
She trailed off before she understood that Jeff wasn’t talking about a patient’s workup. He was talking about her lab results, personally. With everything that had happened directly after her appointment, she’d completely forgotten she’d had her blood drawn a few days ago for her re-check.
Oh. God.
Natalie’s blood turned to ice in her veins, realization slapping her directly across the face. She knew the tone in Jeff’s voice, calm, yet serious. Knew the look on his face, because she’d given it to other people more times than she wanted to count. Hell, she’d probably gotten that look twenty-two years ago from the first doctor who had diagnosed her with leukemia.
Oh, God. Oh, God, oh, God.
Jeff didn’t have to say it. Natalie didn’t want him to say it.
Her eighteen-year streak of perfectly normal results was about to end.
Jeff looked at her. “There are some red flags with your test results. I ran them twice, the second time myself, to be sure, but—”
“Let me see.”
He blinked. “Natalie, I don’t think that’s the best idea. It’s one test, and it’s not conclusive of anything until we can—”
For the second time in as many minutes, she cut him off, even though she knew it was less than polite. But she needed to think, to process and find the bright side so she could figure out how to be okay, and she couldn’t do that without facts.
“I’m a board certified surgeon, not an untrained patient who won’t understand what she’s looking at, and I am asking you for my lab results. Please.”
His hesitation filled the room like a boulder, but it only lasted for a beat before he said, “Of course.”
Natalie forced herself to remain calm as she sought out every positive sign on the sheet. Between her white cell count and her platelets, there were damn few of them.
Which meant they needed more facts. “Can we do the biopsy today?”
She knew it was the next step, and it wouldn’t be her first, or even her fourth, bone marrow biopsy. The procedure was painful, yes, but it was possible that she was anemic, or had some other sort of infection. She didn’t have any weird bruises, like when she’d been diagnosed with cancer as a child, and she’d had no fever or abnormal bleeding. Yeah, she’d been tired lately, but that was normal.
It was normal. She was fine.
She had to be fine.
Thankfully, Jeff decided that treating her with kid gloves was no longer his tactic of choice. “We can do the biopsy today, although I’d like to repeat your CBC and do a full workup with blood chemistry studies first. Get all of our ducks in a row so we’ll know for sure what we’re dealing with. You’ll be off your feet for a couple of days,” he said apologetically. “But I’ll rush the results, and I’ll have the head of hematology read them herself. Anonymously, of course.”
“Okay.” This was a plan. Plans were good. God, why couldn’t she breathe? “Let me pass my surgery off to a resident and clear my schedule for the rest of the day. I’d like to just tell Dr. Langston I’m not feeling well and leave it at that, if you don’t mind?”
“Of course,” Jeff said. “We can do everything in the oncology unit, and it shouldn’t take too long at all. You’ll need someone to take you home, though. You won’t be able to drive after the procedure. Can I call someone for you? A partner or a family member? A friend?”
Jonah’s name formed in her mouth, pushed upward by her heart, but she bit down on it before it could emerge. If Jonah knew about this, he’d worry—not a little—and he’d already been overloaded with stress this week. Plus, he was helping his father get back on his feet after a stroke, for God’s sake. Natalie couldn’t justify calling him home early over a tiny little blip on her health radar, no matter how badly she wanted comfort. Even Tess and Charlie might be tempted to worry, or worse yet, say something to Jonah, if she asked for one of them to help her home, and anyway, they had people to care for here at the hospital.
“No, that’s okay. I’ve had biopsies before, so I know what to expect. I’ll take an Uber home. But in the meantime, I’d like to get this over-with, if that’s okay?”
Jeff nodded. “We can get started as soon as you’re ready.”
Natalie’s brain spun, her fear bubbling up in a sudden rush, but she shook her head. Jeff was right. Nothing was definitive yet. She shouldn’t worry until there was anything to worry about.
She needed to hope, now more than ever.
28
Natalie stared at her phone as if it might explode at any second. Or maybe that was just her that might explode, she thought, pushing up from the couch gingerly even though her hip throbbed in time with her heartbeat, thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP. Even now, forty-eight hours after the procedure, she was still sore, having sprouted one hell of a Technicolor bruise at the incision site. Jeff had assured her that everything had gone well and that he’d call her as soon as he got the comprehensive results.
For the first day and a half, she’d been able to remain hopeful, sleeping off the pain and telling herself there was nothing to worry about. She’d still erred on the side of caution and dodged actual phone calls with Jonah, telling him via text what she’d told everyone else—that she’d come down with a nasty case of the flu and was spending the bulk of h
er time in bed. Natalie hated to lie—especially to him—but he knew her far too well, and she had a consummately shitty game face. If he so much as got a whiff that she wasn’t one hundred percent fine, he’d come hauling back to Remington.
She had to be fine. She had to be.
She’d promised Jonah she’d never leave him.
She could not have cancer.
Her phone vibrated over the coffee table, startling her shitless and making her cut out a curse. Her pulse turned her veins into live wires, but she scraped in a breath and looked at the caller ID.
Remington Memorial Hospital.
“Hello?” Natalie said, forcing herself to inhale. She had to have hope. She had to find the bright side.
“Hi, Natalie. It’s Jeff. I’ve got your biopsy results.” The silence over the line was deafening in the two-second pause. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. Your biopsy showed atypical cells consistent with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. I’m so sorry, but your cancer is no longer in remission.”
He gave the news a second to sink in—it was an age-old strategy designed not to overwhelm the patient. But for fuck’s sake, she had cancer again. The news didn’t so much sink in as it stabbed her in the heart.
“I…how bad is it?” she heard herself ask, still grasping for something, anything that wouldn’t crush her.
No luck. “We’ll need to have you come in as soon as possible for an MRI and some other tests to determine that for sure. You’re not exhibiting a lot of symptoms, which is good. If we’ve caught it early and it hasn’t traveled to your spinal cord, we may not have to rely on longer, more aggressive treatments.”
The thought made Natalie’s stomach drop and fill with dread. “And if we haven’t?” She might like her glass half full, but she liked facts even better. Oh, God, this couldn’t be happening.
What Jeff said was, “Why don’t we cross that bridge if we get to it?”, but Natalie knew what he meant. Chemo. Radiation. Maybe even stem cell transplants, and yeah, Natalie was going to be sick. “You responded incredibly well to cancer treatments last time,” Jeff was saying, and she forced herself to focus on his voice. “And with the therapies available in some clinical trials now, I feel confident that we’ll find a strong plan of care. We have a lot of good options, and a lot of advances have been made since the last time you fought this disease.”
Better Than Me (A Remington Medical Contemporary Romance) Page 27