Buch lesen: «The Surgeon's Baby Bombshell»

CHAPTER ONE

FRANNIE WATCHED AS every head at the nurses’ station turned. That was everyone’s but hers. She didn’t have to look to know that Dr. Ian Spencer had just arrived on the pediatric ward. As always, the gorgeous doctor walked onto the unit and a group of highly intelligent women suddenly became brain-dead.

She had been witness to the phenomenon for the last five months and she still didn’t understand it. Yes, the man was good-looking, if you went for the tall, dark and brooding type, but that still didn’t explain the near hero-worship that followed him wherever he went. She certainly didn’t think of him as a hero. He’d been a pain in her backside ever since she had convinced the hospital board members to agree to fund her therapy program, working with critically ill and traumatized children on the pediatric trauma and surgical unit. Her program was five months old now, and still every time she tried to discuss their mutual patients he was too busy to talk with her.

So, while she would have to admit that the man could audition for the part of a sexy doctor in a TV drama, with his thick dark hair and baby blue eyes, she found him to be very much removed from anything to do with his patients’ care beyond their medical needs. The man might be a genius in the operating room, but in her opinion he really needed to learn better social skills to be able to work well with the rest of the medical staff.

Looking up from her notes, she noticed that even Miss Emily, an elderly volunteer, had stopped to ogle the doctor coming down the hall. When the gray-haired woman looked over at her and gave a wiggle of her thick gray eyebrows, then winked at her, Frannie couldn’t help but laugh.

“Excuse me,” said a deep voice from behind her.

Shivers ran up her back and she could have sworn her heart paused for a beat. For some reason the man set her nerves on edge and her mouth stuttering. Why he made her nervous, she didn’t know. Okay, maybe it was those baby blues of his that sent her traitorous heart skipping, or perhaps it was the way his wide shoulders filled out the blue OR scrubs he usually wore that took her breath away.

And now she sounded just like every other drooling woman on the unit.

No. She would not fall for this man’s looks. There were lots of more important things to consider than someone’s looks. She’d learned that lesson in residency, after being wooed by a handsome co-worker. She’d not do that again.

Running her hands down the sides of her lab coat, she pasted on what she hoped was a pleasant smile and turned to face him. “Ian, I was wondering if you had a minute to discuss...”

She was staring at the man’s back. Had he just walked away from her in the middle of a sentence? A hot flush of temper rolled over her. Her face was burning with it. The man had no manners!

Turning back to the nurses’ station, she noticed that several of the nurses were watching her—some with looks of pity.

It was no secret that the chief of pediatric surgery had not been happy when her therapy program had been implemented on his floor. For months she had tried to get the man to sit down and discuss the progress she was making with her young trauma and surgical patients. She had done everything but lock him up in a closet with her to make him give her a chance, but he had just continued to avoid her, no matter what she did.

Yes, the money for her program was coming from his budget, but couldn’t he see how much providing psychiatric support to his patients could help him? Of course he couldn’t. How could he when all his attention was on their medical files instead of looking at the way their problems were affecting their behavior and their mental health? If only she could figure out why he insisted on ignoring her she might be able to work to fix the problem.

This attitude was not working for her or the children she represented—and enough was enough. If she had to ride through the halls half-naked, sitting on the hospital’s Mardi Gras float, to get his attention, she would do it.

The thought of being even partially naked on the purple and gold papier-mâché float in front of the grumpy surgeon had her thoughts screeching to a halt and her face flaming a brighter red. Okay, maybe that was going a little too far—but she did have to do something. She needed to know what he had against her and her program.

Oh, she knew how temperamental surgeons were—she’d lived with one most of her life—but that didn’t excuse the man’s attitude toward her and the work she was doing with his pediatric patients.

She watched as Ian Spencer stopped outside the room of one of their mutual patients, Danny Owens. She handed the chart she’d been reviewing back to the unit coordinator and followed the surgeon down the hall. She’d worked hard to achieve the little bit of progress she had gotten out of this young trauma patient in the past two days, and she wasn’t going to take any chances of the surgeon setting that progress back. If Ian went in there and upset the young man there was no telling what would happen.

Stopping before she entered the hospital room, she straightened her white lab coat, pushed her glasses back on her nose and adjusted the black badge declaring her “Dr. Francis Wentworth, Staff Psychiatrist.” While her friends might make fun of her oversized glasses, she’d found that a no-nonsense professional look worked well. She had no desire to be judged by her looks either.

She took a deep breath. She’d be pleasant, but direct, and after he’d finished in Danny’s room she and the crabby surgeon were going to talk.

She gave the door a quick knock. Entering the room, she noted that her patient was looking just as brooding as his surgeon. Standing across the room, seventeen-year-old Danny Owens was staring out at the road that ran in front of the hospital.

Frannie had been working with the teenager for the last two days, but so far hadn’t been able to get him to talk to her or to eat. She had been called to the emergency room when Danny and his girlfriend, Ashley, had been brought in, after a car had swerved into their lane while they were driving home from school. The teenager had suffered some broken ribs and a laceration to his liver, along with a fractured femur. Ashley had suffered a traumatic head injury and had been unresponsive and intubated on a ventilating machine since she’d arrived at the hospital.

The neurologist on the case was hopeful, but the longer Ashley remained unconscious the more Danny was withdrawing. She had spoken with his parents, and encouraged them to be patient, but after two days they were getting anxious and she couldn’t blame them. He was keeping everything bottled up inside, and at some point he was going to explode.

Watching Danny’s hands as they clenched into fists, then relaxed, over and over again, she knew it wouldn’t be much longer before he reached boiling point. Soon he was either going to break down in grief or express his anger in violence. She had to find a way to stop him before he went spiraling out of control. Until then, she needed to keep him as calm as possible. Pushing the teenager at this time would be like setting off a bomb.

But from the look Ian was giving the young man the doctor was out of patience. She was standing in a room full of dynamite and Dr. Spencer seemed to be ready to light the fuse.

“Danny, I know you’re upset, but not talking to us isn’t going to help,” the surgeon said. “Your nurse tells me you’re not eating, and that you didn’t sleep last night. If you continue like this you’re just going to prolong your hospital stay. Is that what you want? To stay in the hospital?”

“Dr. Spencer,” Frannie said. “I’ve spoken with Danny and told him we won’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to—unless it puts him in danger medically, of course. I have also ordered something to help him sleep if he wants it.”

“If he doesn’t start eating soon I’m going to order a feeding tube,” Ian said. “He needs the nutrition to help his body heal.”

Damn the man—he’d gone and struck a match in a room that was already about to detonate. If he’d read any of her notes on Danny’s chart he would have known that pushing the kid was just going to blow up in his face. This was just one more reason he needed to stop this silly game of pretending she and her program didn’t exist. It wasn’t as if ignoring her was going to make her go away.

Danny turned and looked at them. The haunted look in his eyes tore at her heart. He was too young to have to face something this traumatic in his life.

But that was the problem with most of her patients: they were too young to have learned any type of coping methods that might help them. That was why they needed her help. They needed help to find the tools to get them through the things life was throwing at them and to help them come out as whole as possible. Sure, they’d be changed in some ways—nobody could go through the things these kids were going through without being affected—but they’d be stronger and more able to cope with the changes in their lives.

“Danny, I’m sure Dr. Spencer isn’t planning on force-feeding you unless it becomes evident that you’re making yourself more sick,” Frannie said as she shot a look at Ian, daring him to interrupt her. “But you have to know that your parents are very worried about you, and I know you don’t want that. Can you agree to at least try to eat something today? For them?”

Danny’s shoulders slumped and he looked down at the floor before nodding his head in agreement. He was a good kid, and she knew he loved his parents. Having his parents involved would help him get through this more than anything she could do. Unfortunately a lot of her patients didn’t have that kind of strong family support.

* * *

“I’ll agree to forget the tube if you promise me you’ll eat at least half of your meals today. I’ll tell the nurse to order whatever you want, or we can get your parents to bring in something for you. Agreed?” Ian said, and he stuck his hand out and waited for the kid to shake it.

When Danny looked up and locked his gaze on the outstretched hand he thought the kid was going to refuse this sign of a truce, but he followed through with the handshake.

Ian held on to the young man’s hand for a few seconds. He tightened his grip and eased his fingers up his patient’s arm till he felt a strong, steady pulse. Loosening his grip, he felt an unsteady tremor in Danny’s hand. The kid was in a bad way. Dr. Wentworth could baby him all she wanted, but Ian was responsible for his patient’s health, and this kid wasn’t going to sit there and starve himself on his watch.

Would he really force-feed the kid? Probably not—but neither Danny nor Dr. Wentworth needed to know that. If his threat resulted in his patient eating then it had done its job—which was a lot more than all that feel-good talking Dr. Wentworth was doing.

He let go of the teenager’s hand and promised to return to see him the next day. He had no doubt that this psychiatrist wouldn’t be happy with him, but that really wasn’t a concern of his. He was a surgeon. His job was to help these young patients to recover from their injuries and return to their lives. He didn’t have time to stop and ask them how they felt about it. He had to get to the next injured child and somehow make them better. That was his job.

He’d leave all the psych stuff to Dr. Wentworth. Wasn’t that what she was getting paid to do?

He heard his name being called behind him and tried to pretend not to hear. But it became evident that Dr. Wentworth wasn’t going to give up. The woman never gave up. She was determined to get him involved with her therapy program, but it wasn’t going to happen. He’d seen firsthand how therapists worked. Or didn’t.

He turned around and reached out to stop the young woman from plowing him down.

“Oh...sorry,” she said as she brushed her hair back out of her eyes. Dark brown eyes that flashed with irritation behind an overly large pair of black-framed glasses.

Of average height, and as far as he could see of an average build—there really was no way to know what she hid behind the oversized lab coats she always seemed to wear—the only thing that really stood out about the woman was the fountain of dark brown hair that flowed down her back. And those eyes... There was just something about the dark depths of them that made him feel as if she was seeing into his soul...into that part of him that he made sure he kept hidden from everyone.

He’d bared his soul once, when his heart had been broken, and the person he had trusted with it—the person he had trusted with what had been left of his heart after the death of their son—had torn it up until there hadn’t been enough left to save. He’d never let another woman do that to him, and he’d never allow another shrink inside his head.

“Ian, we need to talk,” he heard her say.

He shook away the memories that threatened to crush him and realized he still held the woman’s arms. Removing his hands, he made to turn once more and escape.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Wentworth, I’m in the middle of rounds right now,” he said.

“That’s not going to get rid of me this time, Ian,” she said, stressing his name as if to emphasize the fact that he refused to call her by her first name—which just made him want to pull her chain some more.

“Dr. Wentworth, I’m sure whatever you have to say is important,” he said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice, “but I have surgery in the next hour and I need to finish my rounds.”

“We need to discuss what just happened in there,” she said.

“You mean me getting my patient to start eating?” he asked. “I think it went pretty well.”

He watched those deep brown eyes narrow and almost laughed. Did she think he could be intimidated with a look? If she really wanted to scare him she’d have to take lessons from his ex-wife, Lydia. Now, that woman had been scary—even before their marriage had collapsed.

“I’ve been working with Danny for two days now. As you know, his girlfriend is still in critical condition. Though he knows that the car accident wasn’t his fault, he still feels a lot of guilt over it—and he’s also feeling a lot of anger right now. He needs to work through those emotions and I’m working with him and his parents on a daily basis. Threatening him with the placement of a feeding tube only gave him another reason to be angry. He needs to feel like he’s in control of something right now, and taking away more of his control is not going to help.”

Ian looked down at the psychiatrist. It was as if the woman could just magically see which buttons to push on him. Working through emotions. Yeah, he’d heard the same psychobabble from his marriage counselor. He’d paid a hefty price for the hours he’d spent “working through” his emotions with his wife after the death of their son—and that wasn’t even counting the ridiculously large check he’d written every month. And what had that gotten him? A painful divorce and a scarred reputation.

“Good morning,” said a voice behind him.

Turning, Ian saw the hospital’s Chief Medical Officer approaching them. From what he’d learned since relocating to New Orleans, Dr. Richard Guidry had been on the staff here since he had started in practice. Now white-haired, and a little round about the middle, the man led his staff with a firm but gentle hand, and with his top concern always for the care of the patient.

Ian admired the man, and had always found him easy to work with. He actually found it easy to work with all the staff here—the only exception being this psychiatrist who was hounding him right now. He couldn’t say what it was about her that sent him running whenever she came around, but his fight-or-flight instinct always kicked in, sending him hurrying away from her.

“Good morning.”

He and Dr. Wentworth replied at the same time, then looked at each other. He wondered if she knew just how forced the smile on her face looked.

“Am I interrupting anything?” the older man asked, and then gave the two of them a disapproving look, letting them both know that he had witnessed at least part of their conversation.

Ian knew that one of the man’s strictest rules for his staff was that there must be no confrontations between them. His expectations were high, but they all tried to meet them.

Now, after the trouble Lydia had caused for him in Atlanta, Ian tried especially hard to avoid any trouble, and for the two and a half years he’d been here he’d had no problems with Richard Guidry. It would be the department’s resident shrink that got him in trouble.

“We were just trying to set a time when we can get together to discuss a mutual patient,” Ian said, then looked over at Dr. Wentworth, aiming for a smile that would at least look less painful than the one she wore. “Isn’t that right, Dr. Wentworth?”

The woman gave him a look that started out as disapproving and then turned sly as she tilted her head and smiled up at him.

“That’s right, Dr. Guidry. Ian was just agreeing with me that we need to get together today to discuss this patient. Your office this afternoon around five, right?” she asked. “I’ll see you then.”

She walked off before giving him an opportunity to reply, leaving him with no doubt that he had just been outmaneuvered.

“I’m glad to see that y’all are working so well together,” Dr. Guidry said as he turned back to Ian. “Frannie’s an excellent psychiatrist, and she’s very passionate about the work she’s doing here on the pediatric floor. I wouldn’t want there to be any issues between the two of you”

The man gave Ian a pat on the back, then continued on his way down the hall. Ian had no doubt that their performance hadn’t fooled the older doctor—the man was too sharp for that—so he would have no choice but to meet the psychiatrist as he had agreed. Which was the last thing he wanted to do.