Undercover M.D.

“I guess I’d better say yes before you flatter me to death,” Alix replied.

There was affection in her voice. Clarence Beauchamp had several failings, but the ability to make a person feel good was not one of them. Though they were very different in their approaches, and her father was by far the more superior orator, Beauchamp did in some ways remind her of Daniel DuCane.

She barely spared Terrance a glance, not trusting herself.

“Follow me,” she instructed as she turned sharply on her heel. Shoulders squared, Alix quickly walked out of the room.

Chapter 2

“Alix, wait up.”

She gave no indication of having heard him as she walked quickly to the bank of elevators. With a sigh, Terrance lengthened his stride to catch up to Alix. He caught himself paraphrasing Bogart’s famous line from Casablanca. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, I walk into hers.

“When Dr. Beauchamp said you were to show me the ropes,” he told her as they reached the elevators, “I didn’t think he meant that we should be swinging from them at the time.”

She didn’t trust herself to look at him just yet, not when he was so close. She pressed the button for the elevator. Hard.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize I was moving too fast for you. I would have thought that moving quickly was something you were accustomed to.”

It was, he thought, like trying to ignore the elephant in the living room. You could only do it for so long. In this case, the sooner it was addressed, the better. “Alix, maybe we should talk.”

The extent of the anger that suddenly shot up inside her took Alix by surprise. It wasn’t easy to force it down. But she didn’t want to start shouting here, where everyone knew her. Shouting at him and demanding to know how he could have just walked away without a backward glance.

Alix took an even breath. “And maybe we shouldn’t. This is a hospital, Doctor, usually a very busy place. There isn’t time to sit and reminisce about old times that really didn’t exist except in the imagination of someone who was very young and very foolish.”

The heart he’d learned to keep on ice twisted a little. “You.”

Oh, no, no pity, Alix thought fiercely. She refused to be the object of his pity. “The operating word here is was. In case you don’t know, Doctor, that was past tense. And we’re in the present. For some people that means there is no past, there is no future, there is only now.” Her voice was crisp, brittle, her look cold. “I suggest that we turn our attention to now, shall we?”

Terrance looked into her eyes just before she averted them. He’d hurt her. Until this moment he hadn’t realized just how much. Somehow he’d pictured her getting over him, had ached at the thought even while he assumed it was reality. He’d convinced himself that the pain over their separation had been his alone. Now he knew better.

But this wasn’t the place to make apologies, even if he could fully explain to her what he’d done and why—which he couldn’t. Even a minor apology necessitated somewhere quieter than the third floor of a busy hospital at midmorning.

For now, he decided, it was best to let things slide a little longer. They could pretend they were merely two former med school students whose paths had crossed again instead of two former lovers who fate—with its twisted sense of humor—had whimsically thrown in each other’s way.

“You’re the boss,” he told her amiably. The elevator finally arrived. Getting in, Terrance watched Alix punch the button for the first floor. She jabbed at it a little too firmly. “You’ve gotten more assertive since the last time I saw you.”

Alix felt it was more prudent not to answer.

Terrance looked down at the hand at her side. “You’ve also gotten married.”

The words tasted like ashes in his mouth, but what had he expected? She’d move on with her life. Time didn’t stand still, except for those times when he thought of her and what could have been—if a fateful bullet hadn’t snuffed out his father’s life and changed the course of his.

“Yes,” she replied coolly, her very tone locking him out of her life. “I did.”

She saw no reason to tell him that Jeff was gone, or given him any other pertinent details of her life. She just wanted to get through the day as quickly and painlessly as possible.

But it was too late for that, she thought cynically.

The elevator doors opened again on the ground floor. Alix swept out, not bothering to see if Terrance was following her. She pointed down the long corridor.

“The E.R. is this way.”

Electing to bypass the patients who were seated out front, Alix took him in through the side entrance, accessible only to the hospital personnel.

Just beyond the rear nurses’ station were two long rows of hospital beds, separated by partitions or floor-to-ceiling white curtains. Here and there were rooms where the more intense exams or stopgap surgeries were performed before patients were taken to the operating rooms on either the first or third floors.

Everything was in pristine condition. Blair prided itself on keeping up-to-the-minute and new. A nonprofit hospital, it relied heavily on the local community’s goodwill and philanthropic donations. Its sterling reputation afforded it both.

She gestured at the rows of beds, most of which had their curtains pulled shut, signifying occupancy. Alix glanced at the large white board to the left of the nurses’ station. Names and conditions were written in orange erasable marker.

“As you can see,” she told him in a clipped tone of voice she was unaccustomed to using, “we’re pretty full.”

She noticed that Donna and Alice, two of the day nurses, were at the desk. Both stopped working the moment Terrance came into their line of vision. Both women’s eyes lit up.

Some things never changed, she thought. Terrance had always been a magnet for female attention. To his credit it had never affected him. At least, not while they’d been together.

But then, who knew, maybe that had been a lie, too. Just as his words to her had been. He’d told her he loved her. And then he’d left.

Eyes riveted to Terrance, the nurses approached them as one. Alix took pity on them. “Donna, Alice, this is Dr. Terrance McCall. He’ll be joining us for a while. Dr. McCall, this is Donna Patterson and Alice Brown, two of our best.”

“How long a while?” Donna, never one to be shy, wanted to know.

“Time is a relative thing,” Alix couldn’t help saying. “What’s long to some is just a moment to others.”

Though he gave no indication, Terrance knew the comment was aimed at him. He smiled at the younger of the two nurses. “I plan on settling here in Bedford.”

Alice lost no time in flanking his other side. Alix had the impression of two women about to launch into a tug-of-war.

“Maybe you’ll need someone to show you around,” Alice offered eagerly.

He could feel Alix watching him. Terrance wasn’t about to allow himself to get distracted, although socializing with either woman would have been good for his cover. But with Alix here, the intended role of a carefree doctor who doubled as a ladies’ man was going to have to be rethought.

“I’m originally from Bedford,” Terrance told the two women.

“Nurse!” The head nurse, Wanda Monroe, called out the single title. Both women instantly turned to answer, knowing better than to ignore the imposing woman. Wanda was fair, but she brooked no nonsense when it came to the way the E.R was run. After her husband and grandchildren, the E.R. was her baby, her pride and joy, and she wasn’t about to have things go lax.

Alix glanced at Terrance as Alice hurried away beside Donna. “From what I hear, you just turned down a really good time.”

Terrance paused to study Alix. Was she deliberately trying to get him paired off with someone? Or was she just baiting him? “I’m not here to have a good time, I’m here to work.”

Alix looked at him, then shook her head. His eyes were as unfathomable now as they’d ever been.

“You’re just as much of a puzzle as you ever were. FYI, the lady who just bellowed is Wanda Monroe, our head nurse. You’d do well to stay on her good side, which, fortunately for us, there is a great deal of. She’s part mother hen, part martinet and the most competent nurse I’ve ever known.”

He looked from the light-coffee-complected woman to Alix. “That’s some testimonial.”

“She deserves every syllable. C’mon, I’ll introduce you to her.” Not waiting for Terrance to say anything, Alix led the way over to Wanda.