The Surgeon's One Night to Forever
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Ann McIntosh
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CHAPTER ONE
A FRESH START. That was how Dr. Cort Smith thought of his position at Hepplewhite General.
A new beginning, far away from Denver, the snide remarks and pitying glances he’d gotten after being dumped by his fiancée just weeks before the wedding.
It was the type of move he now wished had been possible right after his honorable discharge from the army five years previously, but it hadn’t been. He’d had a promise to fulfill, and now, having done so, was free to go on with his life.
The New York City job couldn’t have come at a better time.
When he’d applied for the trauma surgeon position at Hepplewhite General, the board members who’d interviewed him had explained the hospital was undergoing a period of expansion and regeneration. There had been a sizable, anonymous donation, which, coming at exactly the right time, had allowed them to purchase land where an old warehouse had stood and begin construction to increase their capacity by twenty percent.
As the surrounding neighborhood was also undergoing some regentrification, they’d been able to raise additional funds to revamp the emergency room and surgical floor. Hepplewhite had always been rated a level two trauma center but the plan was for it to be ungraded to a level one, once all the improvements were finished. Cort didn’t mind that things were in flux. Serving in the Army Medical Corps had made him pretty much immune to chaos and, since he’d wanted to move from Denver as soon as possible, taking the job had been a no-brainer.
Walking alongside Chief of Surgery Dr. Gregory Hammond, Cort tried to take in everything the older man said, although he knew, from experience, it was only with time that he’d remember it all.
“There have been, in the past, some...friction between the ER staff and the surgeons, but we’re working assiduously to iron everything out before the expansion of the hospital is complete. Once we’re upgraded to a level one trauma center, we must have things running smoothly.”
“Of course.”
No doubt he’d find out soon enough what types of friction Dr. Hammond referred to. Yet, in Cort’s experience, there were always disputes between ER and Trauma, no matter how smoothly the hospital was run. That was just a product of human nature, and the instinctive need most doctors had to be in control.
They’d toured the surgical floor, and Cort was aware of the stares and murmurs of the staff as Dr. Hammond and he passed by, the searching glances of those he was introduced to. Not unusual, or unexpected, since everyone would want to check out the new surgeon, but he’d started to feel a bit like a specimen in a bottle. Something strange, like a teratoma, or a two-headed fetal pig—seldom seen and therefore gawk-worthy.
It didn’t really bother him, though. He’d gone through too much in his life to be annoyed or made uncomfortable by others’ curiosity.
Downstairs now, Dr. Hammond was showing him the construction zone, explaining what the various rooms still being built would be and how the new configuration would work.
“The expansion should be completed in about four to six months, and we’ll be hiring new staff to fill the newly created positions in Trauma. There will be a slowdown in our emergency intake, so all the departments can be set up, and, as the board of directors indicated, you’ll be assigned some general surgery cases to keep you busy.”
Dr. Hammond turned down another corridor lined with heavy plastic sheets to contain the dust, beyond which a construction crew was working. There was a flurry of sound as an air hammer started up, and then the cacophony was overlaid by shouts.
“Hey, stop—stop—stop—stop!” followed by a string of curses so foul they would have made a sailor blush.
Dr. Hammond’s face took on the pained expression of a man not used to such salty language, and he picked up the pace, heading for the exit at the end of the corridor. Once on the other side of the door, the noise reduced to almost nothing, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“Sorry about that. Huh, construction workers.”
His disgusted tone made Cort’s hackles rise, but he didn’t have time to say anything as just then the other man’s cell phone rang. Taking it out, Dr. Hammond glanced at the screen and was already moving away as he said, “Excuse me a moment, Smith. It’s my assistant.”
Cort sighed. His annoyance faded, to be replaced by amusement at the memory of the older man’s expression, but with it came familiar pain.
Brody had cursed like that all the time, even when he hadn’t been on a job site.
“My goodness, Brody. Not in front of the kids,” his wife, Jenna, would say after a particularly colorful outburst.
Hearing it had sometimes felt like going back in time to the foster home where Cort and Brody had met as teenagers. Except back then the admonition would usually come with a backhand slap from one of their foster parents too. Brody and Cort had always agreed that the place wasn’t the worst either of them had been in, but they had both been glad to age out of the system and leave it behind.
They’d stayed close, even when life had taken them in different directions, Cort to the army and Brody into construction. The only reason Cort had returned to Denver when he’d been on leave, rather than travel the world the way he’d always wanted to, had been to see Brody and Jenna. He’d stood as godfather for their son, had luckily been on leave and in the hospital waiting room when their daughter had been born. They’d been the closest thing to family he had.
Brody’s death had sent him reeling and, coming just before Cort had been due to reenlist, had seemed like a sign. How could he not have known his best friend had been in so much pain? He’d known, of course, about Brody’s original, job-related injury, but not that his best friend had descended into a full-blown opiate addiction. Jenna said she hadn’t known either, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. Cort felt as though he should have known, despite being so far away.
He’d always promised Brody to look after Jenna and the kids should anything happen, but leaving the army hadn’t been easy since it had been his life for so long. But there really hadn’t been an option, and he’d headed back to Denver when his tour was over and his contract had expired.
Now, in hindsight, he realized he’d been drifting along ever since.
Even getting engaged to Mimi had been done almost unthinkingly. She was Jenna’s cousin, and she and Cort had gotten close during the dark days following Brody’s death. It had felt good to be a part of Jenna’s wider family, and when Mimi had hinted it was time to get married, Cort had agreed without thinking too deeply about what that entailed.
Three weeks before the wedding she’d called it off, saying she just didn’t think it would work out. That she’d realized she didn’t love him enough to be his wife, and she’d already found someone else.
After months of soul-searching, Cort knew he’d been unfair to Mimi. In a way, she’d been a crutch, holding him up after Brody’s death. An imperfect replacement for the companionship he’d lost.
Despite the embarrassment and hurt, he’d known she’d been right not to go through with it.
Brody had always been the one who’d longed for a family, for roots, while Cort had wanted to see as much of the world as possible. Perhaps the difference stemmed from the fact Brody had lived with his mother until the age of seven, and knew what it was like to be a part of a real family. Cort had never had that, and knew he wasn’t cut out to be a part of a family, didn’t even know how to be.
Apparently he wasn’t even fit to be a family member by proxy either since, soon after, Jenna too had cut him loose.
“Me and the kids, we’ll be fine,” she said, while they sat on her back step. “Mimi is a flake for waiting so long to break things off, and I know you’re just hanging around here because of us. Brody always said you wanted to see the world. Go. Do it.”
The sadness had weighed so heavily in his chest he’d been unable to even look at her. How many evenings like this had he and Brody sat in this same spot, beers in hand, talking? The twilight sky had gleamed between the branches, and a cool wind, harbinger of fall, had rustled the leaves, making them whisper and sigh. Her words had felt like another rejection, in no way softened by the squeeze of her fingers on his shoulder.
It was then he’d accepted that nothing good in life lasted. He was better off not getting attached, because to do so just brought heartache.
But this was a new day, full of potential and future adventure, and he wasn’t going to let the past encroach on it. Shrugging off his dark thoughts, Cort wandered along the corridor, away from the chief surgeon and the construction zone.
At the end of the corridor was a T-junction, with a bustling nurses’ station on his right and, as first one person and then the next turned to look at him, he once more became the cynosure of all eyes. Making eye contact with a few people, he nodded and smiled, until a noise to his left caught his attention, and he turned to look.
A woman stood at an exit door, holding a travel cup and tucking a cell phone under her chin. Something about her carriage, her profile made Cort’s heart stumble over itself. And, as she turned slightly to swipe her access card to open the door, for the second time in less than five minutes his world tilted on its axis.
It can’t be.
Yet, as she used her hip to push open the door and slip outside, he knew he wasn’t imagining things.
It definitely was the woman he’d met in Mexico, who’d given him the most sublime night of pleasure he’d ever had, and had then run out on him without a word.
Without even giving him her name.
Worse, he’d confided in her about being dumped just before his wedding. No doubt, with the way hospital grapevines worked, that tidbit of news would be on everyone’s lips by the following day.
A sour sensation filled his stomach, and all the anticipation regarding his new job leached away in an instant. It didn’t matter that he didn’t plan on staying at Hepplewhite very long. He’d only signed a one-year contract and, although the board had made it clear they hoped he’d renew at the end of that time, the plan was to move on to somewhere else. Have another adventure.
Right now, though, this felt less like an adventure and more like a mistake.
So much for a fresh start.
Cell phone held to her ear with one shoulder, Dr. Liz Prudhomme stepped out into the quiet of the staff parking lot and let the door swing shut behind her. Although there had been a midwinter thaw of sorts along the east coast, it was still cold, but after the dry heat of the hospital the damp chill felt good against her face. Grabbing the phone before it slipped, she found an alcove out of the wind and took a sip of her rapidly cooling coffee.
She normally didn’t make personal calls while on duty, but her mother had just flown in from Milan the day before and this was the first opportunity Liz had had to speak to her. With the time difference between New York and California, it was perfect. Her mother would have just finished breakfast.
“The dress is delightful. Giovanna picked a strapless mermaid gown, made completely of Guipure lace. It’s elegant and suits her so well. Although the designer isn’t one I would have chosen, I have to admit it is beautiful.”
In Liz’s opinion, her future sister-in-law could wear a gunny sack and still look gorgeous. After all, Giovanna modeled for some of the world’s best designers and probably wore a size negative three. Pulling off a dress like the one her mother was describing wouldn’t be difficult for her at all.
Even if she wanted to, that wouldn’t be the case for Liz. When it came to height and bone structure, she’d inherited her father’s mostly Anglo-Saxon genes, rather than her mother’s mix of Latin and Asian. She had a farm-girl sturdiness that once upon a time had been the bane of her existence. Now she was proud of her strength, and confident in her womanhood.
Most of the time.
Unless she let old insecurities rise up and blindside her.
But it wasn’t jealousy making Liz feel out of sorts as she listened to her mother breathlessly give her all the details of the dress and their subsequent orgy of shopping. It was the usual feeling of inadequacy, knowing her ex-beauty-queen mother would have loved to have a daughter like Giovanna, rather than the one she had. Someone as passionate about fashion and decorating as Lorelei Prudhomme was herself. A daughter who could follow in her footsteps and excel at being a member of high society, not single-mindedly focused on her medical career.
Better to be useful than decorative.
Funny how often, at times like these, Nanny Hardy’s voice popped into her head, reminding her of what was important. The nanny had left when Liz was eight, but her legacy was lasting.
“I don’t know why they chose New York for the wedding.” Lorelei sighed the special sigh that usually turned all members of her family to mush, and had them falling over themselves to give her whatever she wanted. She’d learned, however, that it didn’t work on the strong-willed Giovanna. “It would have been so much nicer here in San Francisco.”
Liz stifled a prickle of annoyance at hearing the same complaint for the hundredth time but just replied, “It’s where Giovanna and Robbie wanted to have it.”
“I know.” There was no missing the pique in her mother’s delicate tones. “But it’s so inconvenient for us, really.”
So said the woman who flew to Milan to look at a wedding dress, and help her future daughter-in-law shop for a trousseau! Liz shook her head silently, amusement making the corners of her lips quirk. Her anxiety, which always made itself known whenever she spoke to her mother, abated slightly. Taking another sip of her coffee, she swallowed her instinctive, somewhat snarky reply along with the strong brew.
“However, I’m sure it will be lovely. Giovanna has exquisite taste. Are you bringing anyone to the wedding?”
Caught off guard by the quick change of subject, although that was her mother’s usual style of conversation, Liz said the first thing that came to mind. “Highly unlikely.”
As her mother sighed again, Liz got that familiar sense of being not quite enough of a woman to suit.
Despite it being eight years since Liz had had a serious romantic relationship, her mother never stopped hoping, asking leading questions whenever the opportunity arose. Although she’d never say so to her mother, there was no way Liz was going down that painful road again. Lessons learned the first time around didn’t have to be repeated, and Andrew had certainly taught her to keep her heart closed.
“Your father sends his love.”
The muscles in Liz’s neck and shoulders tightened so suddenly, so painfully she almost gasped aloud. Instead, she pressed her lips together for an instant and clenched her fingers around the cup. When she replied, it was years of practice that allowed her to keep her tone level.
“Tell him I said hello.”
It was the best that she could do right now. The wounds were still too fresh, her sense of betrayal still too painful for anything more.
“Eliza...”
But that was all her mother said, and the silence stretched between them, filled with the ghosts of past mistakes and family secrets too long hidden. Liz wasn’t surprised by her mother’s inability to articulate whatever it was she wanted to say. Heart-to-hearts and speaking about emotional subjects weren’t “done” in their family.
Things might be a damned sight better if they were but, after all these years, they wouldn’t know where to start.
She was gripping the phone so hard her fingers were beginning to ache, mirroring the pain in her suddenly roiling stomach. She didn’t have time for this. Not right now. Probably never.
“I have to get back inside, Mother. I’m still on duty. I’m glad you enjoyed your trip.”
“Thank you, dear.” Her mother spoke softly, almost wistfully, and Liz wondered if she, like her daughter, wished things could go back to the way they used to be. “We’ll talk again soon.”
Disconnecting the call, Liz thrust the phone into the pocket of her coat and turned her face up toward the murky sky, taking a deep breath, trying to relax.
It was actually funny, in a twisted type of way. She’d always been an outsider in the family, set apart. While she loved her parents, she’d often felt emotionally distant from them, while Robbie, three years her junior, had been the affectionate one, the glue holding the family together. The fact that he was adopted hadn’t mattered. She’d been too young when he’d arrived to care, and had loved him, unconditionally, ever since.
Perhaps it was the thought of settling down with Giovanna and starting a family of his own that had prompted Robbie to ask for information about his biological parents. Whatever the reason, neither he nor Liz had been prepared for the answer, delivered one summer’s evening last year while the family had spent a couple of days together at the beach house.
Robbie was Brant Prudhomme’s biological son, conceived when Brant had had an affair not long after Liz’s birth.
“We went through a bad patch,” Lorelei had said, her still-beautiful face pale, her eyes damp. “But, in the end, we decided to make it work. And when Brant told me Robbie’s mother was dying...”
“Your mother is a wonderful woman,” Brant had interjected, in the tone Liz had known from experience meant the conversation was all but over. “I don’t think either of you would argue that point.”
Too stunned to say anything, or ask questions, Liz had watched her father walk out of the room, his back stiff and straight. Lorelei had looked suddenly more fragile but, as usual, it had been Robbie who’d gone to her, hugged her, and reassured her everything would be fine.
Liz hadn’t shared his optimism. From that moment, her world had felt off kilter, and she doubted it would ever be completely put back to rights again. Knowing that her father, who Liz would have sworn was a good husband, had betrayed her mother’s trust like that had devastated her.
What little faith she’d had in men had practically been destroyed.
Since that day, anger had lain like a rock in her chest. Why the situation affected her this way was something she was loath to look at too closely. All she knew was she couldn’t deal with being around or speaking to her father yet. Maybe the anger would fade over time and she’d relent, but not yet. Sometimes that anger spilled over to her mother too, but Lorelei, for all her bustle and chattiness, had somehow always struck Liz as being in need of protection. Being careful not to let her know the extent of the rage her daughter felt was important.
Suddenly realizing her face tingled from the cold, Liz took one last deep breath and twisted her head from side to side, trying to work out the stiffness in her muscles. It was time to get back to work, to lose herself in the job she loved more than anything else in the world, at the hospital that held a special place in her heart.
Liz’s great-grandfather had been one of the founding fathers of Hepplewhite General, which eventually had been named after him. When she’d completed her residency and applied there she hadn’t revealed her connection to the hospital, which had made winning the position that much more satisfying.
She was sure that somewhere, in the afterlife, her great-aunts had chuckled.
Her Great-Aunt Honoria had wanted to study medicine, but her father had refused to allow it. And when Liz’s father had expressed reservations about his daughter going into what he’d described as “a grueling, heartbreaking profession” Honoria and her sister, Eliza, had paid for her schooling.
“Do what you want in life,” Aunt Honoria had said. “Be useful, and don’t allow your father, or any man, to dictate to you. Eliza and I wish we’d had the courage to do that ourselves.”
The advice had been sound, and in line with what her nursemaid, Nanny Hardy, had taught her as a child. Heeding their collective guidance had led to her success, while the one time she’d not followed it had led to disaster and heartbreak.
No, she loved her work and Hepplewhite, with its associations with the past, and had made it the main focus of her life. Never had she been more grateful for how busy the ER kept her than now.
There was nothing like a full workload to keep the chaotic thoughts at bay. This winter had seen a particularly active flu season, still in full swing, and with the waves of snowstorms hitting New York City had come an uptick of heart attacks, slip-and-fall injuries and the like. The hospital staff wasn’t immune to the flu either, and there were a few out sick, which increased everyone’s workload.
As she swiped her badge to open the door, Liz’s stomach rumbled. She’d been heading for the cafeteria a couple hours ago when a commotion in the ER waiting area had caught her attention. Four clearly frightened young men had been at the intake desk, supporting a fifth who’d appeared to be unconscious and bleeding from a facial wound. They had all been talking at once.
“He fell—”
“Momma’s gonna kill us—”
“He won’t wake up—”
Lunch forgotten, Liz had grabbed a nearby gurney and hit the electronic door opener, not waiting for an orderly. Even from a distance she had been able to see the youngster had needed immediate treatment.
As it turned out, the teens had cut school and somehow found their way past the protective fencing surrounding the hospital’s ongoing construction project. Once there, her patient decided to use the equipment and building rubble to practice his parkour skills. Probably not the best of ideas, given the slick of ice that still covered some surfaces. It had cost him a broken jaw, a concussion and the kind of laceration that, without plastic surgery, would leave a disfiguring scar.
By the time she’d examined him, made sure he was stable and sent for the oral and plastic surgeons, she’d only had another two and a half hours before her twelve-hour shift would be finished. Rather than bother with a break, and cognizant of the full waiting room, she’d only taken enough time to call her mother.
Striding down the corridor toward the ER, Liz put her family drama, and its attendant pain, aside. There was no place for it here in the hospital, where all her attention had to be on her patients’ well-being.
That was what was truly important.
On the way home she’d stop at her favorite diner and treat herself to an everything omelet with home fries. Just the thought made her mouth water and her stomach rumble again.
