“That’s from the breathing tube. It’ll go away.”
Kyle was now fully awake and watching P. J. with those contemplative eyes that looked more caramel today than brown. “How was your day, Kyle?” She tried to keep her voice upbeat, conversational—just a doctor talking to her patient’s son.
He smiled at her. “Great. Sure beats being at work.”
“Very good.” She pulled out her stethoscope and listened to the front and sides of her patient’s chest. “Everything sounds fine. I’m off for the next two days, but I’ll check on you again after that. Tomorrow, if all goes well, they’ll sit you up on the side of the bed and start you on milkshakes for your meals. By the time I get back, they should have those drain tubes out of your chest.”
“All right. I’ll look forward to that.” A brief smile touched Mrs. Thornton’s lips. “Have a good couple of days off.”
“Thank you. I plan on it.” P. J. looked at Kyle. “See you later.”
His eyes held hers. Something in his expression caused her pulse to thrum like a motor against her neck. “You can count on that.”
She blinked, not sure how to respond. “Goodbye,” she squeaked as she left the room.
The sun was already down when she got to her car. Driving home in the dark, her mind ran crazy on her. Here she was, a successful surgeon. In less than a year she’d be done with her fellowship and be able to work any where in the country, even the world if she wanted. There was no shortage of jobs for cardiothoracic surgeons, and one who could do transplants was in even higher demand. Her meal ticket was just waiting to be punched. She would be a very highly sought-after commodity.
Some would say she had it all, which was especially impressive because she’d done it in a profession that was so male-dominated. She should be proud of her accomplishments, but there was still a hole in her heart that work hadn’t filled. The other surgeons on her team were all married and had kids. They had someone to go home to at night, someone calling them Daddy, little ones to snuggle with on the couch, to look at them with hero-admiring adoration. She passed the display window of Jefferson’s Toy Fantasy, and realized she had no one to hide Easter eggs for in a month and a half, no one to ride a new bike around a front lawn, no little girls for her to curl their hair and no little boys to dress up in bow ties for church.
She breathed out a lonely sigh. Too bad Kyle was a patient’s son. That made him off limits for a doctor. Too bad he was so attractive. That made the ache more acute.
She spent her days off cleaning her apartment, catching up on errands, and playing golf when the weather allowed. March in North Alabama was a mixed bag. Saturday it was warm enough so that she joined three other women who needed a fourth at the clubhouse and played eighteen holes. Even though she enjoyed making friends this way, their conversation often revolved around their husbands, children, and grandchildren. She felt like an outsider listening in, and really, she was.
When she got back to work, Mrs. Thornton was sitting in her chair eating breakfast. “You look amazing,” P. J. said cheerfully when she entered the room.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” came the reply.
“What have they done with you so far?”
“Not much for the first day you were gone, but yesterday we walked around the nurse’s station twice, two laps each time. I didn’t get short of breath or anything, but they made me slow down anyway.”
P. J. grinned. “They don’t want you stressing your new heart.”
“Stressing it? They told me it came from a teenager. It’s the youngest part of me, by several decades. No doc, if any part of me gets worn out, it won’t be my heart.” They shared a laugh. “Kyle says to tell you hi.”
P. J.’s heart skipped. “Thanks. How’s he doing?”
“This whole thing’s been so hard on him. He has a phobia about hospitals. He hates them, to be more exact.”
“Really? What did we ever do to him?”
Mrs. Thornton paused, staring into the depths of the green gelatin that was her entire meal. “He spent a lot of time in one when Annie was fighting her cancer. Not here. Over at St. Vincent’s.”
“Annie was your daughter?”
“No. She was his wife. They only had five and a half years together. It just about broke him in two. I watched him withdraw into himself, his work, his computers. He didn’t shut us out on purpose. It was just that his grief was so deep, so heavy, that he took months to come out of it.” She let out a heavy sigh. “My poor boy. He’s back now, but I don’t imagine being here with me has been comfortable for him.”
Disappointment settled onto P. J.’s mind like a curtain being pulled across a window and obscuring the sun. Kyle was married. A lot of guys didn’t wear rings, especially here in the South. It wasn’t as important to them as it was to wives. “How’s she doing now?”
“No, no, Annie didn’t make it. She had surgery. She had chemotherapy and radiation. Nothing worked. Over seven months she wasted away to nothing. It got into her bones and the pain was unbearable. She would cry at night in her sleep. He finally took her home when there was no more hope. She died in his arms.”
Part of P. J.’s spirit sighed in relief that he was single, but only a very tiny part of it. The vast majority of her feelings swelled with sympathy for what he’d been through, losing the love of his life, so young. People don’t get married to go through that. Suddenly she wanted to throw her arms around Kyle and comfort him.
“I know leukemia’s highly curable nowadays,” Mrs. Thornton went on. “The problem was that, with her being so young, nobody was looking for it. They all tried to blame her symptoms on something else. By the time they finally figured it out, the cancer was all over her body. She’d already shrunk down to ninety pounds from it.” She shook her head slowly. “It’s been almost three and a half years now. I’ve been trying to gently encourage Kyle to look for someone else to love and make him happy. It seems like he’s about to the point where he might be willing to try.”
P. J. said nothing. Mrs. Thornton shook her head again, this time briskly, like she was shaking a thought out of her mind. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to burden you with all that.”
“No, no, don’t worry about it. I don’t mind.” She forced a smile. “I’d better get going, though. I’ve got a lot of people to visit.”
“Will you be coming back around this afternoon?”
“Of course. I’ll stop by after clinic hours.”
“Kyle should be here by then. I know he’ll have some questions for you that I haven’t thought of. I know he’d like to see you.” There was an unmistakable twinkle in her eye.
I’d like to see him too, thought P. J. She smiled and walked out of the room.
4
Mrs. Thornton’s recovery continued on a fast track compared to the norm. P. J. looked forward to rounding on her each morning and talking to Kyle. He seemed like he genuinely enjoyed speaking with her too. On day three post-op, Dr. Stone wrote orders in Mrs. Thornton’s chart to transfer her out of CCU to a regular room, and three days later she moved to a rehab floor. At that point P. J. signed off her case and turned her over to a cardiology team. She knew that would be the end of her casual conversations with her patient’s tall and handsome son.
As it often has, Fate had other plans. On the news one evening barely a week later, there was a story that several million dollars had disappeared from P. J.’s hospital’s charity care fund. A well-known local accounting firm, Asher and Dunforth, had been called in to do a forensic audit and see if they could figure out where the money had gone.
The next morning, P. J. carried a packet of paperwork to the hospital’s administrative offices. She set them on the edge of the secretary’s desk in the medical staff office. “Here are those certificates you wanted, Mary Jane. Sixty-two hours of continuing education credit, all official and everything.”
“Perfect. I’ll put them in your file.” She glanced at the floor behind P. J. “Watch out for all the cables. The
accountants are setting up their war room in the board room.” She nodded to the door beside her desk.
“Thanks for the warning.” P. J. turned around to leave and collided with someone carrying a large computer server. He nearly toppled over onto her, but she caught him and pushed him back upright.
“Oof! Sorry. I didn’t mean to— Oh, hi, Dr. Bandy.”
She squinted to look between the racks of the server to try and make out the face behind them. She could only see the liquid brown eyes flecked with gold, but they were unforgettable. Her heart turned a somersault. “Kyle? Kyle Thornton? Is that you?”
“Yeah! Hi, Doc. How’ve you been?”
“Good. Great. Why don’t you set that down?”
He grunted a little as he held the server rack out from his body a little to fit it through the doorway and put it on the floor. “Our CPAs are going to be looking through your hospital’s books, so I’m setting up their computers. Once my geeks and I are finished putting together the computer network, then the nerds from Accounting will come take over.”
“The geeks and the nerds. Your company picnics must be a blast.” There was an awkward pause. Her heart did a wild swirl as she tried to think of anything somewhat intelligent to say. “I saw your mother the other day. Typically, once we’re done with the surgery, we have the cardiologists, the medical side of the business, take over so we can move onto the next person who needs to be cut open. She looked great. She was bright, cheerful, pink, and pleasant.” She winced inwardly. Bright, cheerful, pink, and pleasant? Seriously? That’s all she could come up with? Geez. This guy was tying her in knots.
“I’m just glad to see her upright. She’s been driving herself around, you know.”
“At her age? Yikes.” P. J. felt like her senses were on overload with Kyle being this close. He looked great in a black button-down shirt and gray trousers.
“Don’t let her hear you say that. She’s convinced she’s a kid again with that new heart.”
“She’s a spectacular woman.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.”
P. J. blushed with pleasure. Had he really just given her a compliment? “How much longer are you going to be here today?” she asked.
He glanced at his watch. “As long as it takes. I hope to be done by three, barring any unforeseen disasters.”
A wicked thought circled her mind. Did she dare voice it? A smile quivered on her lips as she went for it. “I’ve been involved with new computer networks a couple of times. I understand that as soon as you switch it on for the first time, all the parts work perfectly, right?”
Kyle gave her a cynical smile. “Careful there, lady. That’s my pride you’re poking fun at.”
P. J. giggled. She didn’t mean to giggle. It just slipped out. She was a highly trained heart transplant surgeon, the pinnacle of professionalism. People like her didn’t giggle. Kyle made her feel so, well, so normal. She swallowed, gathering her courage. This could either go really well or really badly. The words spilled out before she could decide if she should speak them. “I’ll be finishing up around five. Why don’t we go grab a bite this evening?” She held her breath, awaiting his answer.
Kyle stepped back, surprise widening his eyes. “Sure. I’d love to.” He had such a terrific smile, a twinkle in his eyes, a confident air.
She pulled a felt-tip pen from her pocket and took his hand. A spark of awareness rippled through her as she began scrawling on his palm. His hands were long-fingered, strong. “Here’s my phone number. Text me when you’re getting done and we’ll figure out where we can meet.”
“Will do. What kind of food do you like?”
A grin curved her lips. “The edible kind. How about you?”
“Yup. That’s my favorite too. Let’s go for some Indian.”
They shared a smile. “Indian it is.” They said their goodbyes. It was all P. J. could do to keep from skipping as she traipsed away.
P. J. went off to her lunch seminar and then had office hours for the afternoon. Her first patient was a pre-op visit to patch up a tetralogy of Fallot. That evaluation took an hour, once she examined the scans, went over the patient from head to toe, and explained to him and his family what to expect. Even though he’d been born with this complex combination of heart and blood vessel defects, his case was pretty mild, which explained why he’d made it to age twenty-two before he needed to have surgery. Her only other patient for the day was much easier, an older woman with such severe mitral valve prolapse that she was beginning to have heart failure. It would be an intricate repair, but it would change the patient’s life.
Three o’clock arrived and P. J. hadn’t heard anything from Kyle. She finished her charts at four. Still no response. Apprehension clutched at her. Had he changed his mind? She opened her email and started deleting messages she didn’t need. Four fifteen came and went. She walked to the bathroom to fix her hair and freshen her makeup. Four forty-five and still nothing. She tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter, but her heart thudding dully in her chest told her otherwise. Finally, at four forty-seven her phone buzzed. “Meet you in the lobby in ten?” it read.
Her spirits lifted. “Sure,” she texted back. She picked up her keys and purse before heading down the stairs.
Her plan was to get to the lobby first, but when she reached the bottom of the stairs, there he was, smiling and rocking on his feet. “Hi,” he said.
Was he a little nervous? That was a good sign, wasn’t it? She’d been nervous enough for them both! “Have you been waiting?”
“Actually, I was already here when I texted. I just didn’t want to rush you, so I said ten minutes.”
P. J. smiled. He wasn’t just hunky and charming, but also considerate. “I’m starving. Is this place far?”
“Nope. We can walk.” He gestured toward the door, which he held open for her as they stepped out into the waning early spring sunshine. “It’s two blocks that way, on the other side of the street.” They started walking. “Are you from here?” he asked.
“Kind of. I grew up in Fort Payne. I went across the state line to Rome, Georgia for college and then came here for med school, thoracic surgery residency, and transplant fellowship. There’s not enough transplant business to keep us busy full time, so we do a lot of other cardiac surgery too. What about you?”
“My folks lived in Clementine, about an hour from the Gulf. They were already in their forties before I was born. Daddy died from a heart attack when I was in middle school.”
She flinched slightly. “I’m sorry.” P. J. was grateful that Mrs. Thornton had been able to get a transplant. She couldn’t imagine him losing both of his parents to bad hearts.
“Thanks,” he acknowledged, continuing with his narrative. “Mom finished raising me and sent me over to Montgomery for college where I majored in computer security. A guy from the accounting firm came down when I was in my third year and hired me.”
The light turned green and they started across the crosswalk. “Really? Did you graduate?”
“Yeah. I finished with online classes and finally got my diploma two years ago. The firm’s attitude was that they had specific processes they wanted me to learn, and they’d arrange for me to learn the software they were using instead of what the school was using in our classes. My advisor at the school was madder than a trapped hornet. He said that always happens with their IT majors. What can I say? When you’re a starving student and someone comes waving nearly a hundred-grand salary in your face, who wouldn’t jump at it?”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
They arrived at the restaurant and Kyle pulled the door open for P. J. There was no hostess, so they sat at a table close to the kitchen and picked up the menus, which were tucked behind a napkin holder.
“The shrimp curry is amazing,” Kyle said.
“How’s the mango chicken?”
“I’ve never had any better.”
The conversation revolved around small talk. P. J. liked country and rockabi
lly music, and being from Fort Payne, she wasn’t allowed to dislike it. He was more of a hard rock guy. She loved the beach. He’d been there a thousand times growing up because it was the only entertainment his mother could afford, and now was more of a Smoky Mountains fan. His dream car was a Corvette. Hers was a four-wheel drive pickup.
There was a pause in the conversation. P. J. was itching to know more about Annie, but she didn’t know Kyle well enough yet to ask. Still, his mother had brought her up, and maybe there was a reason she’d done that. She nibbled on her lower lip before deciding to plunge right in. “Your mother told me about Annie,” she said hesitantly. “I just want you to know how sorry I am. You didn’t deserve to go through that. Neither of you did.”
Kyle stopped eating. He nodded, pain streaking across his features. Time seemed to halt as P. J. waited for him to respond. “You’re right,” he said. “She was a wonderful woman. I believe she still is, somewhere. She didn’t deserve leukemia, but it happened.” He took another bite. P. J. waited. His tone grew recollective as he continued, “I was in the same grade as her older sister, Andi.” He smiled. “Her parents told me that they really regretted naming their girls Andi and Annie. When they were growing up and one of them would get in trouble, it was too easy for their mama to mix up the names when she was hollering for one of them.” He chuckled, and P. J. joined him with a nervous laugh of her own.
“So you knew Annie most of your life?” How was P. J. supposed to compete with a lifelong connection? Then again, maybe she wasn’t supposed to compete. Maybe Kyle had room in his heart for both her and Annie.
“Sure did. She was one of the popular girls. She had lots of admirers, starting in seventh grade. All the boys loved her. I was the shy weird kid, but like I said, Andi was in my grade and we were actually good friends. So when junior prom rolled around and I didn’t have a date, Andi convinced me to ask her baby sister, even though Annie was just a freshman.”
“And it was good?”
Winning the Doc's Heart Page 3