In Good Hands (16 page)

“I
T'S
J
ACK,”
she said, and Roger did his best not to say something he'd regret.

They were just enjoying some very intimate afterglow. It was on the tip of his tongue to confess that he was falling in love. Yes, him, the man his entire office thought was gay, was finally opening his heart to a woman. And who should interrupt? Her former lover.

Great.

“I better take it,” she said just before she popped open her cell. “He might be trying to reschedule.”

Roger nodded against her back, doing his best not to feel his world slipping away. How had she come to be so important to him in two weeks? Just two short weeks, and he didn't care about his damn blood pressure or this meeting that could very well be the answer to RFE staying in business. He didn't care. He just wanted her in his arms and beside him for the rest of his life.

But that was just crazy. It was like one of Sam's flights of engineering fancy when he suddenly started spouting about some idea he'd had while showering and how it was going to revolutionize the world. Roger was always the one who said hold on. Test the waters. Create the prototype and see
about financing. Saving the world could come after he made payroll.

And so he said that to himself.
Hold on. See if she's moving back to Arizona and Mandolin before you start talking forever. See if you can make it a month before you go shopping for diamonds. And most important, see how she reacts to Jack's dinner invitation.
Because he could hear her phone clearly enough to know that that was exactly what her former lover wanted right then. Dinner and drinks. The bedsheet mambo was implied.

The bastard.

“I'm going to meet him for a few drinks, Roger. He wants to reconnect, talk about stuff, see what I think of RFE without you there trying the hard sell.”

“Of course,” Roger said, because that's what reasonable, sane guys did. “Sounds like a good idea. I'll just grab some food with Sam. Maybe work on our presentation.”

“Thanks, sweetie. You're the best.”

Yeah, he was the best. The best damned schmuck in Arizona and Illinois combined. He waited, watching with every appearance of calm as she slipped into a dress and those damned stiletto boots. Flirty makeup, a smart twist and her hair was up in a statuesque bun, grab the purse and give him a quick, careful kiss so as not to smudge her lipstick. Ten minutes after getting the phone call, Amber was out the door.

He waited, listening like the loser he was as her heels clicked down the hallway and the elevator dinged. Two minutes after that he got sick of his own morose thoughts, so he rolled over, grabbed his cell and dialed Sam. “You hungry?” he growled into the phone. “I'm sick of rabbit food. I want a damned steak.”

 

J
ACK HADN'T CHANGED
. Dark, swarthy skin, perfectly cut waves of black hair, and those eyes. Damn, he was handsome, thought Amber with a smile. And he was also on the move.

He was waiting at the bar for her, leaning back in a casual pose as he watched the ebb and flow of the people in the restaurant. It wasn't that he expected anyone except her, but several of the movers and shakers of the medical world were known to drink and dine here. It was only prudent to keep an eye open for the happy chance of running into someone who needed to know about your latest medical success.

She remembered doing exactly the same thing when she lived here. And she remembered the first time she went out to dinner in Chicago and didn't even attempt to notice anyone around her except her sister who had come out for a visit. She had felt free for the first time in years. As if the simple act of eating without keeping an eye out for a career opportunity had dropped shackles from her feet. And now here she was, stepping back into the cuffs. At that moment, Jack stood up to talk to someone at a nearby table. Amber saw who it was and stepped forward, sliding into the old meet-and-greet pattern of a mover and shaker.

“There you are, Jack! Hope I didn't keep you waiting long,” she said as she easily sidestepped a chair to cross to his side.

Jack turned with his trademark smile. Half sex god, half exotic South American, it had charmed the hearts of women throughout the country. Which was especially funny since he'd been born and raised in Southern California and was the son of two lawyers. Latin American he was not. Latin lover, on the other hand…

“Amber! My God, look how beautiful you are! Whatever you've been researching it's done miracles for you. You practically glow!”

She kissed him on both cheeks as was their custom. He caressed her arm the way he'd always, with warmth, the right amount of pressure, and then an added little brush of a fingertip at the end.

“I cannot lie,” she said, loud enough for the people at the table to hear her. “I have found some unexpected benefits to my research. My skin has never been this clear, my hair stopped going gray—”

“Stopped going gray? Really?” The question came from a dark-haired woman in her fifties with bright curious eyes and the wrinkles around them that were typical in one her age.

“Yes,” Amber responded, her manner easy, breezy, and just perfect for an “accidental” run-in with someone important. “I actually had my hair shift from gray to brown again. It was quite the surprise.”

“Oh, where are my manners?” Jack interposed smoothly. “Everyone, this is Dr. Amber Smithson, a brilliant mind that I'm trying to seduce back to Mandolin. Amber, please let me introduce…”

And they were off and running. The feeling was so strong, Amber would swear she heard the starting whistle as she stepped smoothly back into the rat race. Within moments, she and Jack were joining two members of the Mandolin board of directors for drinks. Fine wine flowed easily as did the conversation. She began munching on high-priced potato skins while arguing liver functions. Before long, someone was ordering crab cake appetizers. She ate her first cooked food in nearly two years and didn't even realize it until she'd finished the cake.

As was typical in one of these impromptu meetings, conversation wandered, but always with an agenda. Jack clearly meant to spin her two years away as scientific research in the tradition of Dian Fossey going to live with the gorillas. She'd immersed herself in the weird half-truths of holistic medicines to emerge victorious. And didn't Mandolin desperately need a woman who could credibly speak to patients about all the nonsense that was out there?

The directors listened, of course, because everyone listened
to Jack. He was that mesmerizing. And then they responded with their agenda, asking pointed questions about how her résumé could build up the clinic's reputation and revenue stream.

She answered as diplomatically as she could, spinning her years away in much the same way Jack had. Research, blah, blah. Interesting anecdote. Exciting possibilities of a focused study, etc, etc.

It was very well played on everyone's part. A game she'd learned from the cradle, and as usual, Jack was as smooth a partner as one could ever wish. But by the time their new friends headed out, Amber had a headache that started at the top of her head and clenched her muscles down through her lower back.

“Well, that went perfectly, don't you think?” asked Jack as he topped off her glass of wine despite her negative shake of the head. “A few more evenings like that, and they'll be begging to take you back.”

“How'd you know they'd be here?”

He grinned. “Dr. Cordon's assistant has a weakness for a certain type of ganache.”

Of course she did. And of course Jack would know of it. “Just imagine,” she drawled, “how much you could accomplish if you put all of your effort into helping your patients instead of splitting your focus between ganache and crab cakes.”

He laughed, as this was an old argument between them. “Doctors who only worry about patients don't get research dollars.”

It was a simplistic answer, but one that held more than a grain of truth. Like any high-dollar field, politics always played a roll. The field didn't matter—medicine, oil fields or baseball diamonds—who you schmoozed made a difference.

And that made Amber angry. Perhaps it always had, but just like Jack, she had accepted it as the price of modern
science. But for some reason, that irritated her more than usual. Perhaps it was her pounding headache or maybe the stress of smiling and spinning and drinking again. Whatever the reason, she wasn't willing to pay the price right now. She just wanted to get back to Roger.

“Thank you, Jack,” she said as she pushed to her feet.

“My pleasure,
cara,
” he said, the endearment rolling off his tongue. Once that word had been a signal for more. Buddies with benefits. But not tonight. And obviously never again because the word and the caress just left her flat.

“I think it's time I got back to my hotel,” she said as she stepped away.

He frowned, obviously surprised by her lack of reaction. “But Amber, we have so much more to discuss. The top people have changed. If you're coming back, you need to know who is who and what they want.”

She bit her lip, torn between the career possibilities in front of her, and the desire to snuggle tight against Roger and let her headache melt away. But she was an adult, not an adolescent girl. And she had a decision to make. So with a sigh, she sat back down. “All right,” she said firmly. “Hit me with it all. Who's here, who's not and what do they think about alternative therapies.”

Two hours later, her head was pounding, she felt sick from the food she'd been snacking on and her mind was exploding with names and strategies for maneuvering back into Mandolin. Jack had wanted to talk longer. Lord, knowing him, they would have sat there all night. But she couldn't. After two years of silence inside her loft, even this quiet bar was too much for her. So she pushed back from the table with clear resolve.

“I'm done for tonight, Jack.”

He stood up from his seat. “So soon? But it's not even ten.”

She laughed, the sound strained. How had she forgotten the late hours they used to keep? Back home, ten was almost bedtime. Here? It was barely getting started.

“Big day tomorrow,” she quipped, as she kissed his cheek. “Meeting with a hotshot neurosurgeon.”

“Damn right you are!” Jack shot back with a grin. Then he tried to pull her into a different kind of kiss. She backed away double time. Whatever questions she had about her future, they didn't include Jack.

“Good night,” she said firmly as his face fell.

“Good night,
cara,
” he finally answered. She barely heard him. She was already halfway out the door.

She was in a cab, nearly back to the hotel when she got the call. It was Sam, his voice tight with panic. And he said the words guaranteed to make her reconsider her lack of credentials at the clinic.

“Amber! You've got to come to the hospital right now. Roger's collapsed!”

“I
DIDN'T COLLAPSE,”
Roger grumbled as he glared at his best friend. “I just stumbled a bit.”

“And went down face-first in my mashed potatoes.”

Roger huffed and rubbed his hand over his face again. God, he wanted a shower, not to be sitting here in Emergency when he knew he was perfectly fine. But, of course, he wasn't perfectly fine all the time. Like when he had stood up to go to the salad bar and had abruptly lost his vision. Hence the face-plant in Sam's mashed potatoes. He felt fine now but he was sitting in an E.R. cubicle while Sam made way too big a deal out of something that he prayed was really nothing.

Problem was, after years of being told he was one stressful moment away from a coronary, he was terribly afraid that his time had just run out. And so he sat and tried not to think of worst-case scenarios while Sam paced circles around his bed. The man had just finished detailing everything to Amber—and he did mean everything, mashed potatoes and all—when he abruptly stopped, said a heartfelt thanks, then snapped his phone shut.

“Amber's on her way,” Sam said.

“You're not supposed to have a cell phone on in the hospital. Interferes with the equipment or something.”

Sam arched his brow. “Lousy shielding, much? Hey, maybe that's something RFE could—”

“Sam! Just shut up, will you? For once in your brilliant life, just…be quiet.”

His friend sobered immediately, but his brow deepened further into a frown. Eventually, the man just couldn't take it anymore and started running at the mouth again. “I thought you were doing better. I mean, you seemed happy. Got that great sex vibe going, you know?”

Roger gave his friend a look. “Sex vibe? The sixties just called. They want their lingo back.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. You seemed calmer since your vacation. Less urgent about everything. I thought you were
better.
”

“I was better. I mean, I
am
better,” Roger groused. “Mashed potatoes aside, I feel great.”

Sam opened his mouth to speak, but a firm female voice interrupted, “People in the peak of health don't usually nosedive into their food, Mr. Martell.”

The voice was followed by an efficient brunette in low heels and tight braids that crisscrossed over her head. She looked to be somewhere in her late twenties, but could have been forty with a good plastic surgeon. And she just felt like one of those people who would have a good plastic surgeon.

“Um, hello?” he said as he read the name on her tag “Dr.—”

“Dr. Alexandra Hamilton, but you can call me a founding father.” She barely paused to indicate that was a joke as she surveyed his chart. “You're not healthy, Mr. Martell, you are in fact teetering on the edge of disaster. Fortunately, we've got a crack team here and after a few tests we'll be ready to tweak you right back to your three-martini lunches.”

“I don't drink martinis. Don't like them.”

She looked up from her chart, her eyebrows raised
in a frozen kind of disbelief. “It's a figure of speech, Mr. Martell.”

Actually, it was a kind of stereotyping that always annoyed him. People assumed because he was a certain size and had a certain type of job, that his high blood pressure was due to a lack of exercise, regular steak, and those martini lunches. But that wasn't him, and he'd like his doctor to know that. But he never got the chance. Dr. Hamilton just bowled right over him.

“I'm going to order a few tests,” she said as she made some notations in his chart. “And then we'll have you back to your mashed potatoes in no time.” Then she walked out. Simply walked out, though they could hear her giving orders to the nurse just outside the curtain.

Sam and Roger exchanged annoyed glances, but neither of them dared to say anything for fear of interrupting. And how ridiculous was that? They were both high-powered people, men assured of their own competence, and yet neither of them dared to say boo because it would interfere with the flow of medicine. The doctor had come in, said a few things, then just as quickly disappeared. It was how health care worked, and both men trusted that they would know something when there was something to know. Just because one doctor was a bit snooty did not mean that she was wrong.

So they sat. Or, rather, Roger sat while Sam paced. And they both prayed in their own way. In Roger's case, that meant he tried to find that meditative place of stillness and space that he had been working on with Amber. In Sam's case, it meant that the man slipped into engineering mode, staring at cables and analyzing equipment, babbling the whole time. Or he would have if Roger didn't glare him into silence.

Thankfully, the nurse came in a few minutes later and explained what had just happened. The doctor had ordered a
battery of tests and would return later with a diagnosis. But for the moment, they just had to be patient.

Ten minutes later, he was giving blood. A lot of blood. Ten minutes after that, he was put in a wheelchair and whisked away for something else. All very efficient, all very frightening. More than once, Roger worried that the stress was going to touch off the stroke that everyone feared.

And where the hell was Amber? Rushing over here, he was sure. But what if in her haste she had a car accident? What if she wasn't allowed in the back to see him? She didn't have privileges at this hospital. Not anymore. Maybe she wouldn't be allowed…

Almost as if she had spoken in his head, he heard the words,
“Stop thinking!”
There was a lot more that came after that.
Be in the
now.
Focus on your breath. Pretend you are listening at the door of sick child. Let everything go quiet and listen.
All of that rolled through his brain, but sadly it didn't stop his thinking.

So he forced himself. With an act of will, he shut up his brain. He let everything that was happening just happen. He was in a hospital, after all. Whatever was going on with his body, this was the perfect place for him to be in case something terrible was happening. And so, he needed to just stop thinking. Just. Be. Quiet.

That got him through the EKG. Well, trying to keep not thinking passed the time during the test. If he were honest, he'd only been mentally quiet for a fraction of the time. Didn't matter. He wasn't worrying nearly so much. And he knew that Amber was waiting for him downstairs as soon as he was finished here.

Except, she wasn't. Sam was, and his expression was more relaxed than it had been a half hour ago.

“Sam?”

“Amber's here. She took a look at your chart, asked me
some questions and said she'd be right back. But she's here. And she told me not to worry because she was pretty sure that everything's fine.”

Roger exhaled in relief. She hadn't gotten into an accident. She hadn't run off with Jack. She was here. And he was ten times more anxious to see her and a zillion times more relaxed at the same time.

Then Sam took a step forward, his manner indicating that he was imparting a great secret. “In fact, she said that she thought you were getting better. That this is just a glitch because your medication's wrong.”

Roger frowned. “I've been taking this medication for years.”

“But it's too much now,” said Amber as she rushed around the curtain to his side, “given the changes we've been working on.”

God, she looked beautiful. Even with her hair frazzled and her makeup smeared, she was the most beautiful sight in the world. Roger reached out and grabbed her hand only to have it collide with her chest as she leaned down to kiss him. If he'd had more presence of mind, he would have shifted his grip to give her an inappropriate squeeze. As it was, he simply allowed himself to relax into the glory that was all Amber.

“Ah, I believe the picture is getting clearer,” said Dr. So-Not-A-Founding-Anything Hamilton. Her voice was cool, professional, and yet still managed to convey a subtle superiority. “Let me guess. This relationship is about two, maybe three weeks old?”

Amber stiffened and Roger sighed. He couldn't concentrate on the incredibly wonderful, reassuring and delightful fact that Amber was here. Not with Sam, a nurse, and Dr. Interrupting Hamilton right there. So he simply reached out with his free hand to entwine his fingers with Amber's. While she, in turn, slipped into doctor mode by extending her right hand.

“Hello. I'm Dr. Amber Smithson.”

“Hello.” The woman shook Amber's hand, but without any apparent warmth or interest. And the minute she let go of Amber's hand, her attention centered back on Roger. “Well, Mr. Martell,” she said as she again pulled out his chart and began making notes. “It appears that you've been having a lot of fun recently. Did you just get back from a vacation with a new girlfriend?”

Roger nodded slowly, simultaneously pissed off by her condescending tone but also impressed that she got it right. “Yes, I just went back to work a couple days ago.”

Dr. Hamilton nodded. “Well, I'll spare you the technical jargon and put it in layman's terms. You need to lay off the, um, couple's recreation for a little bit. Not completely—say once a week should be fine—until your blood pressure stabilizes. Then you can slowly ease back into moderate relations.”

“What? You're kidding, right?” Amber cut in, shock in every line of her body. “He's overmedicated. His blood pressure was too low. That's why he fainted. He needs to cut back on his meds.”

Dr. Hamilton lifted her gaze out of the chart to stare coldly back at Amber. Then she abruptly smiled…at Roger. When she spoke, her voice was crisp, efficient and cut like a chilled razor. “There are excellent reasons why doctors don't treat their loved ones, Mr. Martell. Emotions tend to cloud judgment. So you can understand, I'll explain my prescription to you. Sex tends to lower blood pressure in men. In some cases, a lot of sex…” Her voice trailed away and right on cue, Roger picked up the sentence.

“Tends to lower it a lot.” And why had he done that? He didn't even like this woman, and yet the way she addressed him, plus the authority of her position as a doctor, made him settle right into the flow of her words.

“Exactly.” Her expression warmed as if he was a good student.

“But that's a good thing.”

“Of course it is. Until the sex slows down.”

Amber spoke up, her voice excruciatingly dry. “Which is what you just prescribed. It's like you want to keep him on medication.”

“I do,” returned the doctor with her first show of true feeling. “It's the responsible course. His blood pressure was under control that way.”

No, actually it hadn't been. That's how this whole thing had started: with a doctor telling him to quit his job or he'd have a stroke. But he didn't get a chance to say that because Amber was stepping forward.

“But he's getting better. His pressure is lower, so lower his medication.”

The woman took a deep breath, but continued to speak at Roger. Apparently, she didn't even want to acknowledge Amber. “You're back at work now. The stress will come back, your—uh—stress relief will slow down because you don't have the time, and then your blood pressure will go back up. If your medication isn't at the usual level, then you risk an event that neither of us want.”

The way she said “event” brought up every nightmare that haunted Roger. His father drooling on himself in the treatment facility after his stroke, the funerals of his uncle and grandfather, every family gathering where someone remarked that he was just like them. He looked like them, had high-pressure jobs like them and would probably die early like them. Whether rational or not, whether he'd eaten a mountain of salad or not, the fear was just too strong. Especially since what the woman said made sense. There was no way Amber and he could keep up their “recreation” at the same levels. No one had that much endurance.

“Or,” returned Amber calmly, “his pressure really is getting better. In which case, he needs less medication. Or he might pass out again when he stands up too quickly.”

“I'm not so worried about him fainting as I am a stroke.”

“But he doesn't have to do either! Just cut back on his meds.”

Finally, the doctor turned to Amber. Her voice was almost kind, but Roger could feel the hauteur beneath the words. “I understand that you've been trying some New Age stuff to control his hypertension. But as a doctor, you know that genetics don't change, that a predisposition to high blood pressure guarantees that he will need medication for life. To suggest otherwise is wishful thinking at best. At worse, it's extremely dangerous.”

Amber straightened, her voice colder than he had ever heard it before. “I didn't say take him off the medication, just cut it back. As for the rest…” She shook her head and sighed. “You have no idea what's possible and not possible, Dr. Hamilton.”

In response, the doctor threw up her hands in what had to be a calculated display of temper. It conveyed the perfect blend of frustration with an idiot patient and overwhelming patience for remaining calm and rational with her next words.

“Mr. Martell, please consider what seems more logical to you. That prayer and New Age voodoo has miraculously reconstructed your DNA, or that your new diet and a ton of whoopee has
temporarily
helped your situation.”

Roger bit his lip. Obviously, diet and sex made more scientific sense. But he really didn't want to say that. So he focused on the most logical compromise he could.

“Well, what if I stay on the diet and continue recreating whenever I want? Then my blood pressure will remain down and I can cut my medications. That sounds reasonable, doesn't it?”

Sadly, both women sighed and he had the oddest feeling that he had just said something wrong. Thankfully, Amber was able to explain it to him in a gentle voice.

“She doesn't believe you will stick to the diet, Roger. And frankly, given that you fainted at Dougie's Steak Barn, I can hardly blame her.”