CATHERINE paced back and forth in tiny her office for an hour before she finally sank down onto the couch, kicked off her shoes and pretended she was going to sleep. She knew it wouldn’t happen. Not after what she and Dante had just done…almost done. Would have done right there had it not been for Gianni sleeping in the next room.
What was it in her make-up that made her keep falling for him the way she did, even when she knew what it would get her? Why couldn’t she resist, or simply find the will to walk away?
They’d had their rules the first time. Their relationship was supposed to have been casual and convenient. No strings, or anything that even hinted at permanence. She’d known that going in, yet it hadn’t stopped her from developing feelings. Feelings that, frankly, had surprised her as the rules had been hers, not Dante’s. But then he’d asked her to marry him and the rules had changed. Which had been a mistake that had changed so many other rules in life, including the one where she intended staying single because she’d said yes to him even before she’d taken a breath.
Now here she was, heading in exactly the same direction and, if anything, she needed those rules back now more than ever. Yet look at her. Willing. Able. So close. And she wasn’t able to stop it. So what was it? Something in her? Or in Dante? Was it that unbelievable chemistry that came along only once in a lifetime, the chemistry that stripped away all sense and left only…vulnerability?
Or was it…?
No! She wasn’t going to admit that. Not out loud. Not to herself. She’d called him a selfish bastard for walking away from her all those years ago and not giving her any choices about the way he had been willing to return, then cheating on her when she hadn’t done it his way. That’s where she was going to leave it now because she wasn’t ready to admit that what she’d thought long since over had never stopped.
Catherine let out an exasperated sigh. Another moment or two lost in his kiss would have been too late. That’s one thing she knew for sure, amid all the other uncertainties. “Stupid,” she muttered, as she reached above her head to pull the chain on the light.
As the room was pitched into darkness, though, the memories she was trying to blot out flooded in even more. Dante five years ago, Dante just this evening. She desperately needed that time off she’d asked Max for. He’d said no, but now she was going to have to insist. He’d agreed if that became the case, she could go. So she would.
For the sake of her sanity.
And her heart.
That was it. The perfect solution. She’d go home for two weeks. Back to the States to visit her mother. Back to the States where she would be nowhere near Dante, and she’d have time to think. Good plan. Brilliant, in fact!
That resolve made, Catherine yanked the chain, turning the light back on, then she hopped up from the couch, padded across the carpeted floor to her desk, and turned on her computer. Her first site—one of those travel services. Three clicks later and she was looking at a whole host of airline schedules…One more click and she’d have a ticket.
She was debating the number of stops she was willing to make in her flight in order to get the best deal, her fingers poised above the mouse that would click her acceptance, when a soft knock at her door broke her attention. Dante come to apologize? Or to finish what they’d started?
She didn’t say anything. Maybe he’d think she’d gone back to her house. Or was seeing a patient.
Another knock sounded, however, this one louder. Whoever was out there wasn’t going away. “Come in,” she finally said, bracing herself in case it was Dante. But it wasn’t. It was one of the night nurses, a young woman by the name of Inga who’d been at Aeberhard only a few weeks. She was looking positively stricken about something.
“I didn’t want to bother you, but…”
Catherine gestured her in further than the doorway in which she stood, clinging to the wooden frame.
“But I haven’t been able to find Dr Mitthoeffer. Mrs O’Brian is having muscle spasms and I wanted him to look at her, maybe prescribe a light dose of a relaxant. But he’s not answering his pager or his cellphone.” Dr Johann Mitthoeffer was one of the two general surgeons employed here—he had his own surgical practice and stepped in as a part-timer for a few shifts a week. In fact, the majority of her other doctors did the same—ran their own practice elsewhere and came here for several shifts.
“Have you checked in his office?”
“Lights are out, door is locked,” Inga replied.
Most odd, Catherine thought as she picked up the phone to dial Dr Mitthoeffer’s cellphone. He was reliable, he didn’t just wander off. None of her doctors did. But after three rings, when his phone switched to voicemail, a tiny chill wiggled up her back. Mitthoeffer didn’t know she was in the building tonight so, as far as he was concerned, he was the only Doctor actually in the clinic.
Yet he wasn’t answering!
Catherine stood, grabbed a set of pass keys from her desk, pulled on her white jacket and headed for the door, slipping into her shoes on the way. Two minutes later she was entering Dr Mitthoeffer’s office. “Perhaps he left a note,” she said to Inga, who was right on her heels. She hoped so as with any other scenario, she was afraid she’d have to relieve him of his duty here. Which she didn’t want to do. While they rarely had an occasion to use Dr Mitthoeffer as a surgeon, it was always good to know he was on staff and available as he was an excellent doctor.
Two steps into the office Catherine turned on the light. Immediately, she discovered Mitthoeffer’s tan wool coat hanging on the coat tree. Next to it sat the boots he wore for trudging through the snow.
So he was here.
The warning hairs on the back of her neck shot up, and Catherine practically ran to Dr Mitthoeffer’s desk where, behind it, she found him sprawled in a heap on the floor. His face was the whitish-gray shade of death, causing her to fear the worst as she dropped to her knees next to him, immediately searching for a pulse. Thank God it was there. Faint, thready, but definitely there. “Call a code,” she instructed Inga. Normally a code blue was reserved for a resuscitation and, technically, Dr Mitthoeffer didn’t need that as he had a pulse and he was dragging in tiny gulps of air. But she needed what was available on the crash cart—a cart chock full of emergency medical supplies.
“Johann, can you hear me?” she called, pulling the penlight from her pocket to assess his pupillary action. Sluggish, not following the light.
Stroke?
“Johann, listen to me!”
At first, she wasn’t sure he could hear, but after a long moment he did stir a little, attempting to raise his right index finger. He didn’t open his eyes, though.
“Look, Johann, I need you to tell me what happened, if you can.” A heart attack was a strong possibility, too, and she was beginning to rule out a stroke as he was moving both his arms reflexively now. “Good, Johann,” she said, grabbing her stethoscope from her pocket, sticking in her earspieces and taking a listen to his chest. Seemed normal enough. Heart ticking away, too fast, too faint, but fighting to keep going.
It wasn’t acting like a heart attack either as he was burning up with fever. Even without a thermometer, she could feel the heat rolling off his body. Infection of some sort? “Have you been ill?” she asked, beginning a rapid assessment, starting at his neck. She felt for swelling, abnormalities, and finding none moved on down. “Or allergic to anything?” This could be an anaphylactic reaction of some sort, but she didn’t think so.
His eyes fluttered open briefly. Normally a robust man of fifty, right now Johann Mitthoeffer looked twenty years older than that as he struggled to focus on her. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. His hand fluttered away from his side, though, and he pointed weakly to his right lower abdomen.
Appendicitis? Most people felt the pain of it, but in some rare instances that wasn’t the case. Occasionally it manifested as only a twinge, or there were no symptoms at all. Was that what was happening here? “Your appendix?” she asked, shifting her position at his side.
He blinked, rather than nodding.
“I think it’s ruptured, Johann.” That made sense. Ruptured appendix, infection. Elevated temperature. Critical illness. She was fairly certain now that the infected appendix had burst, spread its poisons, and Johann had probably been close to dying even before he’d known he was ill.
He blinked again, shuddered out a ragged sigh when she gently prodded his right lower abdomen, and faded back into unconsciousness.
“Dr Wilder?” Inga called, pushing the crash cart in through the office door.
“Oxygen first,” Catherine said, rising up on her knees to look over Johann’s desk. “Get his blood pressure reading, then start an IV. Also…call Dr…No, I’ll do that.”
She pushed herself up off the floor, made way for Inga to get through, then instructed the other nurse who’d followed her in to go and prepare the operating theater for surgery. Yes, they did have a small one there. Rarely used, and not set up for anything major. She’d rather have sent Johann to the city—bigger facilities, more doctors—but the trip would kill him, if the poison surging through his body didn’t get him first.
Another of the nurses came in—the director of the night shift. Marie Ober was a stout woman, very no-nonsense, and once she was on the scene Catherine trusted her to make sure everything was done properly. “Get his vitals, then get him ready to transport to surgery. I’ve got to go call Dr Rand and get him in here as fast as I can,” she said, on her way out the door. Dr Rand was the second of their surgeons.
Such good staff, Catherine thought as she ran back to her office to look up Dr Eric Rand’s telephone number. Thank God, he lived only a few short kilometers from the clinic. Otherwise…well, she didn’t want to think about that.
Catherine flipped though her card file and rang up Eric as quickly as her fingers could punch in the numbers. After three rings, his wife answered. “Eric’s not here tonight,” she informed Catherine. “He’s gone to Paris for the next two days, a medical seminar. Since he wasn’t on your surgical schedule, neither was he on call…” The rest of the words were a blur, and when Catherine hung up, her mind was already racing ahead to another plan. Maybe Dr Franz? He was retired from surgery now, and lived some way out, but he could be here in less than two hours. Or Dr Dowd? He wasn’t a surgeon, but he’d gone through part of a surgical residency before switching to sports medicine. And he was just an hour away.
Not good choices, she thought as her mind went to Dante. He could do it. For him, it would be easy even after all this time. She’d seen that before with Mrs Gunter. Dante’s surgical skills were still polished, still perfect.
But would he do it? Resuscitating a woman from anaphylactic shock the way he had done was a simple thing, but this was a life-threatening condition.
And Dr Dante Baldassare was her only hope because this was a procedure she could not work her way through the way she could have with Mrs Gunter’s tracheotomy. This required precise surgical skill, and she wasn’t a surgeon.
There wasn’t time to think, wasn’t time to debate the choices. Johann was hovering so close to death there wasn’t a minute to waste.
Quickly she rang up Max, explained the situation, and asked him to come in and take call, as she expected to assist in surgery. Then she ran down the hall to Dante’s suite and pounded on the door. When he didn’t answer immediately, she went in. “Dante!” she shouted, flipping on the overhead light in the entry vestibule then rushing into his bedroom.
“What the hell?” he shouted.
“I have a patient with a ruptured appendix. Don’t have a surgeon here, can’t get one in time, and can’t get Johann out in time to save his life.”
“And you expect me to do what?” Slowly, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, but made no attempt to get up.
“Operate.”
He shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice dead serious. “I can’t do that.”
“You’re the only one who can.”
“But I can’t. Do you know how long it’s been?”
“Then he’ll die,” she said, not even trying to soften the impact of her words. “Dr Johann Mitthoeffer, our surgeon, is unconscious, his appendix has ruptured, and right now infection is spreading though his body. His vital signs are weak, he’s barely hanging on, and we have no other options. Either you do it, or I’ll have to take a try at it myself.” A thought that horrified her as she was wholly unqualified. But there was nothing else.
“You can’t operate, Catherine. If it’s ruptured, and the infection is already spreading…” Dante gave his head an impatient shake. “You’ll kill him if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“He’s going to die anyway.”
“Do you have someone for anesthesia?”
“My chief nurse was a nurse anesthetist. She’s already prepping.”
“And a scrub tech?”
“Inga will do.”
Forcing out an angry sigh, he rose to his feet. “Have someone call my father or Cristofor to come stay with Gianni. The number for their hotel is in the medical chart.”
Catherine blinked her surprise. “You’ll do it?”
“I sure as hell don’t want to. I haven’t held a scalpel in five years except in those few minutes with your peanut allergy patient, and you’re giving me a patient who probably won’t make it. It’s not a good situation, Catherine, and I hate like hell that you’re dragging me into it. But, yes, I’ll do it but only because you don’t give me another choice.” He pointed to the wheelchair at the side of the room. “Take me down in that. It’ll be faster.” Then he threw on a robe and dropped down into the chair, and they were off, not a word spoken between them until they reached the operating theater.
“Your father is on his way,” Inga told Dante, as Catherine wheeled him into the prep room. “I’ve assigned one of the nurse aides to stay with your son until your father arrives.”
Dante managed a pleasant smile for Inga. “I appreciate that,” he said, then pushed himself to the edge of the wheelchair, and stood. “Now,” he said, turning towards Catherine as Inga scurried from the room, “I need surgical scrubs, shoe covers and whatever the hell they use as protective gear in surgery these days.”
He was in a snit. She didn’t blame him. Under the same circumstances she would have been, too. In a snit, or worse. And as she watched him pull off his silk pajamas and slip into surgical scrubs, paying no heed to the fact that he was quite naked underneath or that she was watching, and as he limped his way over to the surgical supply shelf for protective eyewear, it hit her. That admission she didn’t want to say aloud, or even think. An admission that was pounding at her. She loved Dante. Was in love with him. The real kind of love. The kind that hadn’t died over all these years.
She’d never, ever been just a little in love with him, as she’d tried to convince herself she was. In fact, she’d never loved him as much as she did right now.
She’d never tell him, of course. Couldn’t tell him. His life scared her. And he scared her for all the things he was, and wasn’t. But the man she was watching at this moment was the man she’d always known he was…the one she’d fallen in love with years ago, when she’d been too stupid to realize that it had been more than a crush or a reaction to their chemistry.
Catherine wasn’t sure that this startling revelation meant anything in terms of her own life, because she still couldn’t have Dante. But the little tangle of apprehension that had been sitting in the pit of her stomach since he’d come to Aeberhard had just shrunk. Knowing for sure what she felt was bad. But it was good, too. “Thank you,” she whispered, as he pulled on a surgical cap. “Thank you for doing this.”
He gave her an odd look, and his eyes softened. “It scares the hell out of me, Catherine. I shouldn’t be going anywhere near that patient, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. If the man wasn’t about to die, I wouldn’t.”
She smiled sympathetically. “You’ll save him, Dante. You’re a brilliant surgeon.”
“In the past. A long time ago.”
“Maybe. But I don’t believe you’ve forgotten it, or lost your skills,” she said softly. Walking over to Dante, she stopped in front of him, leaned up and kissed him lightly on the lips. “I don’t believe that at all.”
Turning to the sink to commence scrubbing, he tapped the foot pedal to let the water flow, then dipped his arms into the spray. “You’ll be there?”
“Right across the table from you.”
He turned and studied her face for a moment, as she studied his. From that point on they didn’t say another word to each other. Not as they scrubbed, not as they finished dressing, pulled up masks and walked into the operating theater.
Not until she was standing across the operating table from him, and he was calling for a scalpel.
If he’d thought the pain after his accident had been the worst thing he’d ever experienced, he’d been wrong. This was the worst pain. Right now! His legs burned so badly he couldn’t move them. His hands ached from the tension of gripping the scalpel so tightly he’d actually cut off circulation in his fingers twice during the three-hour procedure. And there were no words to describe what was going on in his neck and back.
He was so out of shape. How had he ever done this before?
Honestly, he couldn’t remember. He’d been in top condition back when he had been a surgeon, but overall he was in much better physical shape now. His body was toned in only the way an athlete would be. He worked out and exercised daily because races were an event of endurance. They were long, hard, fast. A human body had to be ready for the competition, had to be ready for the pounding that went on for hours. Yet a human body also had to be ready to do what he’d done, and his body was not. Thank God Hans had heard news of what was happening and had come into the clinic. For the last hour and a half he’d literally acted as a prop to Dante, letting Dante shift his weight to Hans when he’d needed to. Then afterwards, when the surgery had ended, and Catherine had been closing the incision, finishing the other last details, Hans had been the one to help him into the wheelchair, then brought him here to the whirlpool.
Aeberhard had a good staff. Dedicated beyond the call of duty. Word of the crisis had spread quickly and, according to Catherine, most of the staff had wandered in, without being asked, to see if they could be of help. She was lucky to be working in such a place, and in many respects he was sure that the quality of the staff reflected the quality of its director. Catherine was extraordinary. She’d proved that tonight, staying with him throughout the surgery, assisting in everything he asked, even though her surgical experience could have been measured in a thimble.
He admired her…as a person, as a physician. Something he wished he’d done all those years ago. He also wished he hadn’t taken her so for granted. That, perhaps, had been the worst mistake he’d ever made.
“You decent?” she asked, stepping into the therapy room.
Hans had gone to catch up on some overdue paperwork, leaving Dante alone in the warm water, at Dante’s request. After the surgery, he hadn’t been in the mood to be around other people. Still wasn’t. Except for Catherine. “Depends on what you mean by decent,” he said, his voice sounding so weary, even to his ears.
“Well, I came by to tell you that your dad took Gianni back to the hotel. He thought that you might want to sleep for a while before you have to deal with him.”
Dante sighed. “Gianni doesn’t even know I’m a doctor.”
“You’ve never told him?”
“Never been a reason to. In his world, I drive a race car. That’s enough.” He shifted in the water, then yawned. “He’s heard my father say too many bad things about doctors…”
“Because of Dario?”
Dante nodded. “My father blamed the doctors for his death. Initially, they told him the prognosis was good. But he’d suffered a little rip in his aorta. Something they didn’t catch right away.”
“And he bled to death?” she gasped.
“As a result, my father will ridicule a doctor every chance he gets. He’s bitter, and hurt. And I think me being a doctor reminds him. So we don’t talk about it.”
“I’m so sorry. That must be tough. Not just your brother’s death, but the rift in your family.”
“Sometimes avoiding the obvious is the easiest thing to do.”
“And sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it hurts so bad.” She turned away and walked over to the window, where she pulled back the blinds to look outside.
He saw the pain in her eyes and wanted to ask more, but he knew this side of Catherine, the side that was locked up emotionally. She dealt with the bad things in her life by walking away, just like she was doing now, even if the walk was only to the other side of the room. “Do you want to tell me?” he asked gently.
“Tell you what?”
“What really hurt you? Was it truly me, Catherine?”
“Don’t give yourself so much credit, Dante. You only had six months of my life. The impact wasn’t that great. We had a short-lived, superficial engagement neither of us was ready for. We both knew that.”
Yet she sounded so hurt. So sad. Hearing her voice, how could he believe her words? “Catherine, I…”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Dante. No deep, dark secrets to reveal. No admissions that when I kicked you out of my life, it ruined me, because it didn’t. I’m just fine. Always have been.”
Dante leaned his head back against the side of the whirlpool and shut his eyes. Her wall was up now, stronger than ever. Catherine wasn’t going to talk about herself, and that was that. The window had opened a crack, then slammed shut. “And you love what you do,” he said, almost sarcastically. “Love your life. Everything is just fine.”
“Yes. Just fine.”
Then why did her voice sound so sad?
“Would you ever go back to medicine, Dante? I know we’ve talked about this before, but if you don’t recover enough to race again, would you return to medicine?”
This was Catherine avoiding the subject again. Apparently, avoiding the obvious was the easiest thing for her to do, too. Better that than making her sad again. “I’ve thought about that. Sometimes I think I might, but I’m not ready to leave racing. I’ve got good driving years ahead of me yet, I hope, and after that, maybe team management. It doesn’t make any sense to live in a dream world, and for me that’s what medicine has become. A dream that doesn’t have a place in my life.”
“And you can’t find a place for it?”
“Doing what, Catherine? Rushing into surgery on call, as you’ve had me do? It doesn’t work that way. I’ve been good in a pinch, but I can’t run back and forth from one life to another and, so far I haven’t found a way to make all my lives fit together.”
“So your choice is set in stone.” Statement, not question.
“Stone.”
She finally turned to face him. “Then it’s a pity, Dante, because I stood across the table from you, saw the passion in your eyes. You love it. Love it as much as you do racing, I’d guess.”
“Like I said before, we don’t always get what we want.” And being in the same room with Catherine, so close to everything he wanted, and yet so far away from it, was proof of that. She hated his racing and that wasn’t going to change. He knew that. She wanted him to be a doctor again, but he couldn’t, and that wasn’t going to change, either.
“I’ve just spent three hours standing across the table from a brilliant doctor. You saved Johann’s life, Dante. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Of course it does. But that doesn’t change things. I gave up medicine five years ago, and I haven’t taken it back based on one surgery. That’s not my life any more, Catherine. I have a passion for surgery but I also have a passion for driving. I know you find it difficult to accept, but that’s what I want to do.” And so the argument started again. It seemed that it couldn’t be avoided. That’s what they did best these days.
Wearily, Dante grabbed the towel off the side of the whirlpool, wrapped it around himself and stood up, wobbling a bit as he did so. Catherine rushed forward to grab his arm to steady him, but he pushed her away. So she walked away, left him standing there with a towel wrapped around his waist as Hans came in to help him. And he watched her, too tired to argue, too tired to call her back. There was so much on his mind tonight—Catherine, Gianni. How much he missed his brother. How, if he’d been there that day, he would have stopped Dario from driving. But he hadn’t been there, and Dario had died.
Why the hell did he let down everybody he loved?