Conflicts of the Heart (10 page)

He leaned back and stuck his chin out. “Negotiating and compromising are always difficult.”

She wanted to laugh at his profundity. She strolled to the window, stared at the arbor of yellow roses a few feet away. “You speak of compromise. We're not.” The most stunning orange and black monarch butterfly she'd ever seen sat on the petal of a rose, its wings
outstretched, resting between flights.
Oh, that I was as free and unfettered as that beautiful carefree creature
. “They haven't compromised one iota either.”

“Please.” She turned to him. “Let me work out some of the flex-shift issues. They're already in place. I can work a few new ones with the least cost to the hospital.”

“Okay.” He came to stand next to her, his hands clasped, eyeball to eyeball. “Work out a plan and let me see it before you go back tomorrow. They're not used to your Bay Area drive down here in our peaceful valley. Play it a little softer, my girl.”

She pursed her lips and clenched her jaw. “Is that all?”

“Good luck tomorrow.”

Luck.
Ha! She needed more than that.

Dana stayed up most of the night finishing the concessions she felt the nurses might accept. Before retiring, she called Teal. No answer.
Strange. It had been three weeks since Dana had seen her. If she wanted to make any headway in Templeton, she wasn't spending much time at it.

The next afternoon, Dana, with her offer approved, arrived back at the hotel. Patrick sat with his arms across his chest in a pompous manner and a defiant expression on his face. He made it quite clear yesterday he wasn’t going to meet again unless she gave on something. Both teams were seated and eagerly awaiting to hear what she had to offer.

She sat in her seat, folded her hands on top of her unopened briefcase, and smiled.

“Are we negotiating today, or are we going to hear more about Templeton's financial doldrums and their new wing?” Patrick snapped.

She stood up and announced in a voice like steel wrapped in silk, “We're negotiating, Mr. Mitchell.” She glanced from person to person until she circled the table. After three weeks of bantering, she experienced a heady feeling knowing she had exactly what she needed to put the entire process in motion for the first time since they began.

Dana removed the copies from her briefcase and carefully counted out enough proposals for the members of PNA's team. Then with panache, she rose from her chair and walked confidently around the long table, personally handing each member a copy.

She walked back to her seat. “We'll be keeping all flex-shifts in place.” She paused deliberately for effect. “Plus we've approved the seven-seventy (ten hour days, seven on, seven off) for the critical care areas. They’ll have to be designated as professional and give up the hourly rate and overtime.”

A long, unbroken silence settled over the room. The nurses turned to each other with baffled expressions. One clapped and soon the others, one at a time, stood, giving Dana a standing ovation.
A first in her career. She had struck a chord. She felt wrapped in a cocoon of euphoria. Burning the candle at both ends had been worth the effort.

Patrick stared at her in sheer amazement. The twinkle of admiration in his green eyes sent a shiver through her.

Following the clamor, Patrick called his team back to order. “When you decide to give, you really give, don't you?”

She heard joy in his seductive tone.
She winced, torn by the conflicting emotions that drew her to him.

“I know my nurses will be happy to know their flex-shifts are protected. I've been fighting for the seven-seventy for two years.” He
scannedtheproposalforamoment.“You’llbedesignatingthe emergency room, operating room, and dialysis units as critical care?”

“I can't.”

Patrick cooled as quickly as molten lava flowing into the Arctic Ocean. “We'd like to caucus and discuss your interpretation of critical care.”

Well, the glory had felt good for a minute. Why did he have to beat a dead horse? It wasn’t going anywhere. He knew it and she knew it. If he took the rest of the day, she claimed this round.

Resigned to spending the afternoon in caucus, she rose and started to leave. At the door, she turned to Patrick. “To save you time, I have the criteria for a critical care unit. That's what we'll be using.”

“We don't need any criteria.” He waved her on. “We make our own criteria.”

At five o'clock, he still hadn’t called Dana and her team back from the caucus room. She had to make the necessary arrangements for Michael to stay late at the day care center. Anxious, she stood. “I'm going over to check and see if we're working late. I'll be right back.”

She knocked. Patrick opened the door. “How late are we going tonight?”

He glanced at his watch. “I'd like to put this offer to bed today. How about we try and finish by eight?”

“Okay.” Now extremely tired and anxious to pick up Michael, she got the feeling Patrick intended to drag this on. If he planned to dissect everything she offered
, she’d never wrap these talks up by the end of August.

“We'll be ready for you in ten minutes.” He smiled. True to his word, he called them back in ten minutes. For three hours, without a dinner break, he argued her proposal.

Dana raised her hands to stop the proceedings. “It's eight o'clock. My original offer stands. We cannot afford it. We're using fact-based criteria. Take it or leave it.”

He took it. Was this yet another bluff she won?

She started putting her papers into her briefcase without looking up. “Tomorrow we'll see what you have to offer, Mr. Mitchell.”

“We're going out for dinner, Dana,” Ann said. “Would you like to join us?”

“I'm sorry. I can't.” She patted Ann's arm and whispered in her ear, “Chalk dinner up as work time and make it a long one.”

“Thanks, boss.”

Moments later in the underground garage, Dana slung her briefcase into the backseat of her Toyota and slid behind the wheel. Before she turned the ignition, Patrick strolled by, swinging his briefcase and smiling. Away from negotiations, he always acted lively, oozing self-confidence from every pore and wearing a permanently etched smile on his craggy face. Each time she saw him, she scolded herself for her attraction to him. No men. I’m going at this alone, remember? Now she must stop thinking of a man who infuriated her ninety percent of the time and remained totally inaccessible.

He gunned his engine and backed out, tires squealing on the slick
cement. Her engine refused to turn over. She could hear the lifeless click of a dead battery. What about Michael? What about being alone down in the empty garage in the middle of downtown, Ashton after everything had closed? Jack, Ann, Hildy, and Donna were gone. Everyone had left for the day

She shivered down to her bones being alone in the empty cavern.

* * *

Patrick reached the top of the ramp, swung right onto the one way street and pulled up to a red light a half block away. He glanced in his rearview mirror to see if Dana followed. No sign of her. He thought she had started her car when he pulled away. His thoughts traveled back to the stories he’d heard of women trapped and raped in the cavernous underground garage with no one around to help. Without a second thought, he wheeled the car around the corner and headed back down to Level D where they’d parked. He had to make sure she was all right.

His brakes screeched to a stop next to her car. He chuckled at seeing her bent over under the hood, with grease on her hands. What a woman. She had car trouble and instead of running for help, she lifted the hood on her own and tried to solve the problem. He set his brake and got out.

“It won't start.” She wiped her hands on a grease rag. “Think it's the battery?”

“Sounds like it. Do you have jumper cables?”

He nodded and within moments, their cars were life-lined with blue cables. Patrick gunned his engine.
Nothing. It wasn't the battery. He got out.

“Where’s the rest of our crew?”

“They went some place for dinner. They didn't say where. I'll call Triple A.”

Thirty minutes later, they towed her car away, leaving Dana bereft. She didn’t have a way to pick up Michael at day care. What about getting home and then to work tomorrow?

“How about a ride?” Patrick held up his hand as if he were offering a peace sign.

“Thanks, but I have to pick up my son on the other side of town.” She had no intention to expose her private life to this man.

Patrick smiled. “You have a son. My, my, you are a private person. Let's pick him up. I’ll help you get a rental car.”

A rental car.
She palmed her forehead, feeling like a complete idiot. How simple. “Let's do that now, then I'll pick up my son.”

“Why are you being so stubborn? All I want to do is help. Most of the offices are closed, except at the airport. Let me call a friend of mine for you in the morning. He won't rob you blind, and he'll deliver it to your door.”

Dana hesitated a moment, then got into his car and they sped away. Her heart palpitated. Why should she fear Patrick's reaction to Michael? Sometimes she couldn't understand herself. She was proud of her boy, proud she was caring for him and not sticking him in some cold institution.

While maneuvering his sporty red Fiat through town and onto the freeway, he whistled softly under his breath to “You’ve got your troubles, I’ve got mine” on the radio
’s oldie-station.

Before they arrived at the day care center, she'd have to tell him about Michael's condition. Her stomach clenched at the thought.

Patrick turned down the music. “We made some real movement today at negotiations. I was afraid I was going to pull out the stops and call for a walkout.”

“You give up too easily. Where I come from, those are fighting words.”

“It worked, didn't it?” With his eyes still on the road, he smiled. “I feel pretty good so far. Hope we keep it moving so I can get out of Ashton.”

“Where are you going?”

“New York. That’s if I get what PNA wants.”

Her heart sank with the same slow precision as the
westering sun slipping down to light the other half of the world.

“What happens if you don't get what PNA wants?”

“I'll get it,” he said in a firm, yet gentle voice. He had a seductive quality about him, and she could feel the pull of the man sitting next to her in the car.

On a positive note, if he left the area, she could stop worrying about controlling her feelings for him. Why the sudden pang of emptiness in the pit of her stomach? She almost broke out laughing when she admitted to having a secret mental affair with the man and he didn't even know it. Good thing he had plans to leave the area. Win his contract, no way. The fight had just begun. Did he think that because she gave in on one issue he had his contract in the bag?

“How old is your son?”

That familiar sinking feeling hit her in the gut.

Eight

“Michael's going to be six soon.” Dana’s voice had a slight quiver.

“Does he look like you?” Patrick kept his eyes on the road as he questioned her.

“More like his dad.”

“Starts school this year?”

The dreaded moment had arrived. She had to brace herself against the usual round of pity.
“Maybe.” Her gaze focused on the rolling hills silhouetted to her right. A slight moan escaped from her lips. “He's autistic.”

Patrick drew in a quick breath. “How are you coping?” His tone sounded nonchalant, as if Michael just had some little malady.
He reached over and touched her arm. “I knew there was something very special about you.” With a snap of his fingers he added, “If I'd known, I would have cut our meeting short tonight. No more late-night sessions.”

“Look, I do whatever’s needed on the job. Michael is well cared for. No special treatment, okay? Let's just keep playing the game straight. I'm doing fine the way things are.”

Not being a woman who wanted pity or to be coddled, she knew her destiny and how to get there. “I understand you have a daughter.”

“I do. She’s in New York with her mother for the time being.”

“How old is she?”

“She'll be twelve this year.” A frown creased his brow. “Her name is Lisa.
”

“Turn right up there.” Dana pointed to the
Nees Avenue sign illuminated by the headlights.

He swung onto the pocked road and slowed down.

“It's that big house.” Her tension lifted when she saw the old mansion looming up in the dusky sky. Since she had no intentions to see this man outside of work again, she didn’t give a
sou
what he thought of her ability to raise an autistic son by herself.