A Therapy Pup to Reunite Them
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Luana DaRosa
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CHAPTER ONE
THE RECEPTION AREA outside the office of Whitehall Memorial’s Head of Neurology was surprisingly quiet. As a neurologist herself, Raquel had heard tales about Whitehall Memorial and, though she had never dreamt of joining this elite group of neurologists and neurosurgeons, she knew plenty who wanted to and none who had. That was how competitive this programme was for medical professionals around the globe. Even sitting in front of the office filled her with the nervous bubbles of impostor syndrome, as if she had somehow swindled herself into the locum tenens position they had offered her a few weeks ago.
Though that wasn’t the main reason her stomach was tied in a solid knot. Raquel had been accepting short-term placements at different hospitals all over the United States for two years now to fund her research into training seizure-alert dogs.
The Head of Neurology here, Dr Mia Brett, had contacted her about placing a dog with a teenage patient of hers and had offered her a part-time position. Settling a dog with a new handler took several weeks and a lot of spot training, so when that offer had come in, Raquel hadn’t hesitated before accepting. A chance to convince the Head of Neurology at Whitehall Memorial of her research didn’t come along every day—and she really needed to find some hospitals willing to work with her if she wanted to continue her non-profit work.
She looked down at the Golden Retriever lying in front of her feet with a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Raquel had been working with Nesta and several of her siblings, training them to respond to seizures in epileptic patients. Their mother, Lily, had been part of service-dog training facilitated in a women’s prison. There, they had worked with diabetic inmates to train dogs to alert to low blood-sugar.
Lily had been responding well to the training but then suddenly had stopped and hyper-focused on a specific inmate to the great confusion of her trainers—until the person had started seizing, thereby revealing what the dog had responded to. Raquel’s friend, who had worked at the prison overseeing the project, had given her a call, as she knew that she was studying seizure-response dogs and how to train them.
That had been two years ago and it had been the moment Raquel had started her own business focusing on seizure-response dogs. A dream that was hanging in the balance right now because seizure response was such a new field in neurology and dog training alike, and there weren’t many people keen on investing in something so experimental. But after a lot of hustling, cajoling, and pleading, she had found some investors to back her financially with an interest in epilepsy.
These investors now wanted to see that she knew what she was doing—which, on most levels, she did. She knew how to train these dogs, knew what to look out for and how epileptic seizures worked. As a neurologist, she had worked with plenty of patients on several neurological conditions that led to seizures.
What she struggled with was business acumen. No one had told her how hard it would be to run her own business. People spoke about difficulties when chasing their dreams, and on an intellectual level Raquel had understood that. It was the emotional level that was now catching up with her and robbing her of her sound sleep: investors getting nervous that she hadn’t signed any new contracts for half a year. Though they assured her they were still interested, they needed to see results to justify the investment.
Two years of spotty contracts had stressed the patience of her investors to breaking point. She was due to meet with them in four weeks to discuss progress—and they had laid out that, if Raquel couldn’t get a major hospital or institute interested in her work, they’d pull their investment.
So, this placement was about more than just work. If she couldn’t impress the decision-makers at Whitehall Memorial, her days of doing research and training dogs would be over. This was her chance. She would be working with the Head of Neurology for the next month on both a specific case to place her dog and as a generalist in the department. There would be opportunities to talk about the benefits of service dogs for neurological disorders and she would have to seize every single opportunity.
The first one being a meeting with Dr Brett to get situated in her new role as locum neurologist and to kick off the meeting with the patient with whom she would place Nesta.
The assistant looked up from her screen and caught Raquel’s eye. ‘Dr Brett is ready to see you now,’ she said with a smile, then nodded her chin towards the door.
Raquel stood, her grip around Nesta’s lead so tight with nerves, she had to will her hand to relax. There weren’t many moments in her life when she’d known something extraordinary was about to happen, but she knew in her gut that this moment would be one to remember.
‘You got this, girl,’ Raquel whispered to the dog, as much as to herself, then approached the door and let herself into the office of the woman who would have the power to decide the fate of her charity at the end of four weeks.
The interior of Dr Brett’s office was as modern as the rest of the hospital. She sat behind a glass desk with large windows at her back from which Raquel could see New York City’s skyline. Raquel tried not to stare, keeping her eyes on the older woman looking up at her with a smile.
Though Dr Brett seemed to have noticed for, when she stood, she said, ‘Dr Pascal, what a pleasure to meet you. Have you been to New York before?’
Raquel took her outstretched hand and gave it a firm shake, whilst shaking her head. ‘No, this is my first time visiting the big city.’
‘Then, as a native, let me welcome you to New York City. I hope you will have some time to enjoy the sights while you’re here,’ Dr Brett said as she pointed at the empty chair in front of her. When Raquel sat down, she continued, ‘I’m glad you could accept such a short-term placement. Dr Prem won’t be out for long, but the way we are staffed even one person less is a noticeable strain.’
At her feet, Nesta settled down at Raquel’s silent command, and Raquel caught Dr Brett’s gaze travel down to the dog, a bright spark in her eyes. She had already caught her interest—good. That would go a long way to convince the woman they should work together.
‘Thank you for the welcome, Dr Brett. I’ve done many of these placements in the past. The short-term ones are the trickiest to do—even locum doctors like a bit of stability,’ she said with a laugh. ‘But, since you have a patient for one of my dogs and some additional work, this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.’
Dr Brett waved a hand in front of her dismissively. ‘Please call me Mia. I’m very hands-on in the department and I want to be on the same level with the neurologists on my team.’ She paused, her eyes drifting towards Nesta again. ‘I don’t know how much information you have, but Alexandria is the relative of one of our doctors here, and she herself suggested getting a seizure dog after doing the research. We don’t usually see such participation. The research on it is still new, from what I can tell.’
Nervous energy bubbled up within Raquel as she nodded. The lack of research was one reason she was working so hard to gain the recognition of larger institutions such as Whitehall Memorial. An endorsement from Dr Brett—Mia, she reminded herself—would go a long way to convince other hospitals. If she couldn’t convince them, then the last two years would have been for nothing. One more thing to add to the list of her failures in life—her marriage sitting on top of that list.
Raquel swallowed the sigh building in her throat, forcing her attention back into the moment. ‘I’m here to change that, and Nesta will show you exactly how much your patient’s quality of life will improve with this,’ she replied, her skin flushing at the approving smile she received from Mia.
‘Good, I’m keen to see it. Now...’ She opened a drawer under her desk and retrieved a tablet, which she handed over to Raquel. ‘There is only one long-term patient of Dr Prem’s that needs your immediate attention. She’s a prime candidate for deep-brain stimulation and is waiting to finalise the treatment plan before surgery. Other than that, you’ll be spending most of your time doing consults for the emergency room, since you requested to work evening shifts. I had all the information loaded onto the tablet. Have a read through it tonight so we can discuss questions tomorrow.’
Raquel took the tablet with a grateful smile, slipping it into her bag. Since Nesta’s new handler was a teenager, she needed to have the day time free to do their training at school and after-school activities, leaving only the evening shifts to do the other half of the work she had agreed to. She’d known going in that most of her time would go into the one-off patients, since longer treatment plans needed a consistent neurologist on it—which was why the deep-brain stimulation, or DBS, case had taken her by surprise. Organising surgery for deep-brain stimulation would require coordination with the neuro-surgical team.
Raquel was about to ask for an introduction when Mia got off her chair and waved a hand. ‘Shall we go see her? Since you have this afternoon scheduled for your introduction with Alexandria, we’ll start your rotation in the neurology department tomorrow.’
They walked out of her office, Nesta, dutiful as ever, padding along behind her.
‘Can you call ahead and let Dr Wolf know we are on our way?’ Mia said to her assistant as they passed her, who nodded and picked up the phone. ‘He is the head of the neurosurgical department, and Alexandria’s uncle.’
Raquel’s eyes widened in surprise as she absorbed that information. Just the person she needed to see about her new patient. If he was involved in setting his niece up with a service dog, maybe he too might consider giving her an endorsement for her charity. Those two people together carried a lot of sway in the medical world and could open a lot of doors for her if she proved herself good enough in her time here.
So, the head of one of the most prestigious neurosurgical departments in the US was a Dr Wolf... She searched her memory for a neurologist or neuro-surgeon named Wolf, trying to remember if she had ever heard of him or read some of his research. But the only picture that came up when she thought of the name ‘Wolf’ was a blurry one of her brother’s best friend—Christian Wolf. He was a medical doctor, but not in the neurology field. Wasn’t he a plastic surgeon...?
A tendril of warmth unfurled in her chest, sparking alive a feeling that Raquel immediately stomped on to kill it before it could derail her thoughts. Now was not the time or place to think about her high-school crush who also happened to be her brother’s best friend, and to whom she hadn’t spoken or seen in fifteen years.
Her brother, Ramón, still lived in Puerto Rico and had never left their home country—unlike Raquel, who’d been excited to leave and see the world when she’d landed a spot at an American college. And a part of it had been because of Christian and the stories he’d told about living all over the globe. Coming from a small island nation, her horizons had expanded by several magnitudes when she’d arrived in the United States.
Though the kernel of gratitude towards her brother’s best friend remained, most of her feelings for him were wrapped up in a tight ball of chaos that she’d shoved into a dark corner of her mind, never to be examined again. Because, when Ramón had brought Christian home after school and invited her to hang out with them, Raquel had fallen under his spell almost immediately. And, the longer she had spent time with him, the more convinced she’d become that he had feelings for her too. So much so that she had acted on what she’d sensed between them and kissed him during a slow dance at his prom—only for Christian to back away.
As an adult, thinking back to their time together, she had asked Ramón if he’d sensed something between them back then, but her brother had always refused to talk about it. He said that, since they were still very much best friends, he wouldn’t gossip about his hermano. All Raquel knew was that Christian had gone on to train as a plastic surgeon somewhere on the west coast. She shoved the thoughts of Christian away into the dusty corners of her mind where they belonged. This Dr Wolf was her priority, not the boy she used to like.
They approached a reception desk, and the assistant sitting behind it waved at them as they approached. ‘Dr Wolf asked me to send you right through,’ he said in a chipper voice.
A lump appeared in her throat as they approached the door, and she swallowed hard to banish it. She knew what to do, knew what to say, and had the utmost confidence in Nesta and the value she provided. There was no way she should be nervous now, when she had never in her life believed in anything more than what she was doing with these dogs.
Raquel knew where these feelings were coming from—her ex-husband. She had met Tom in her last year of medical school and married him not even a year later. He’d been the owner of a medical device start-up company that was now worth quite a bit more money. The company’s meteoric rise had coincided with their divorce and, even though she knew it had been necessary for them to separate, part of her ached at seeing the success he’d achieved once they had made that decision. It was as if she’d been holding him back.
But they had been holding each other back. Tom might have spent less time building his company than he had wanted to so he could be with his wife, but Raquel had also put her own career aspirations on hold, giving them the flexibility to uproot their lives and move whenever they’d needed to. They had both believed it to be a good idea when they’d spoken about it. The ramifications of what it meant to devote her life to the success of someone else had only become apparent to her when they had split up.
Because of that decision, she was further behind in her career than her peers and fighting to keep her head above water. Maybe she should never have taken the leap into her own business, knowing how hard it had been on Tom. But seeing him succeed without her, while Raquel had been left with a broken heart and a career in tatters, had triggered something in her: a fighting spirit. She needed to leave her mark on something meaningful, and she knew that her non-profit work would be it—if she could also convince other people of the same.
The thoughts kept bubbling up inside her, and Raquel once more pushed them away, focusing on the moment at hand. If she could impress Mia and this Dr Wolf, they could be her staunchest allies in bringing in a contract with Whitehall Memorial for her investors.
Much like Mia’s office, this one was in the same clinical, modern style with large windows making up an entire wall. Though, unlike earlier, this time Raquel noticed nothing inside the office—nothing except that blurry picture in her mind’s eye that now came into focus with a sudden ferocity that pushed the air out of her lungs.
Because standing up from behind the desk to greet her was Christian Wolf.
‘Are they coming?’ Alexandria stood close to the door, peeking through the window now and then to look at the foot traffic outside her uncle’s office.
Christian looked up from the patient file he’d been working on all morning. The scans weren’t very encouraging. A brain tumour was causing his patient to have seizures in a rare form—the seizures only took place in certain parts of the body. A colleague from the neurology department had sent him the case, along with the scans, to see if Christian could remove the tumour after the team at a smaller hospital in Arizona had declined to do the surgery—the risks of it going wrong were too great.
This wasn’t the first time a smaller team had elected to send him a patient. Christian had worked hard to craft a reputation for his unparalleled skill as a neurosurgeon. Most of his patient roster now comprised people who were sent to him from all over the United States—a fact that made him proud, he had to admit.
When he had first started his career as a surgeon, his goals had been a lot different. He’d wanted to help people, of course. But he had thought that he would do that by giving people the looks they desired by fulfilling their visual fantasies of themselves—help them attain their ideal self.
Then his brother had got sick, changing Christian’s life for ever. He’d quit his job in Los Angeles and moved to New York to be with his niece and him throughout the progression of his Huntington’s disease diagnosis. Anthony’s wife had taken off shortly after the birth of their child, leaving him all alone to care for his now-teenaged daughter, when they had received news of his diagnosis.
Christian had not hesitated, and had even changed his specialty, as he’d wanted to learn more about neurological diseases and how to support his brother and niece. Without a cure, all they’d been able to do was live life to the fullest until the day had come for them to say goodbye to Anthony. That had been three months ago, and the loss burned as hot today as it had back then. Though he knew he would eventually become Lexi’s guardian and would step into the role of father figure for the rest of both of their lives, he still felt under-prepared—ill-suited, even.
Especially as Lexi had special needs herself. The seizures had begun when she’d been four years old, and it hadn’t taken long for her to be diagnosed with epilepsy. One of his most pressing concerns with her diagnosis was how to give his niece the freedom a thirteen-year-old craved without endangering her. The discussion of summer camp had come up. With all her friends going, she wanted to sign up as well. Only, the location was upstate and, with her seizures being unpredictable, how could he make sure she was safe?
Hours of research in medical journals and countless conversations with his colleagues in the neurology department had yielded precious few leads, and the frustration within Christian had grown. He was used to being the person with a plan, so not knowing how to help his niece get the life he wanted her to have was something he struggled to reconcile within him.
His confidence at being her new father figure was already shaky. Not being able to help her with her needs had only compounded the sense of failure that rose within him in the quiet hours of the night.
It had been Lexi who’d made him aware of the existence of seizure-response dogs—a shortcoming of knowledge he’d rectified the moment he’d heard of the concept. When he had spoken to Mia—who oversaw his niece’s ongoing treatment as her neurologist—about the potential of Lexi getting a service dog, she had done a similar deep dive into the world of seizure-alert animals. It hadn’t taken her long to find an organisation specialising in training these dogs, and Hannah, the liaison he’d been speaking to via phone and email, had confirmed that a trainer would bring a dog.
Ever since they had confirmed the date, Lexi had been a bundle of nervous excitement. Today, the day when she would finally meet her service dog, had by far been the most exhausting. After finishing school, she’d come straight to hospital, where Christian had found his niece in his office after his surgery. Now she was loitering at his door and staring outside, to the great amusement of his assistant, Dino.
‘Sit down, Lexi. Hannah sent over the schedule when we confirmed the appointment and gave us a timeframe, not an exact time of day.’ He scrolled through his emails and clicked on the one from Hannah. His eyes flew to the first line after her greeting paragraph:
Meet and Greet with Nesta and Alexandria. Four p.m.
There were different appointments on the spreadsheet Hannah had sent over, spanning the next four weeks, but Christian had been happy to leave the rest of the plan to his niece and the dog trainer. He’d asked how much of his involvement would be necessary, so that he could talk to the chief and potentially clear his schedule, and had to admit he’d been happy to hear that his involvement would be minimal. Though guilt had mingled with the relief, only deepening the doubt in his parenting skills. Because of how busy he was, and how his job had him working such irregular hours, he’d never felt suited for the father role. Surely a father was supposed to be right there with his child, experiencing every moment with them?
Lexi jumped when his phone rang and ran to his desk, hopping from one foot to the other as he picked up the phone and said, ‘Dr Wolf speaking.’
He listened to his assistant on the other end, then nodded. ‘Thanks for letting me know. Send them right through when they arrive.’
Lexi’s eyes grew wide at his words and she raced back to the door to press her forehead against the glass, surveying everyone who walked by his office. Christian chuckled at her excitement, then closed the email. Hidden behind it were the patient scans he’d been looking at all day. He wasn’t any step closer to working out how to perform this surgery, or if surgery was even the best option at this point.
‘I can see Nesta! She is so pretty,’ his niece said, earning a confused look from him that she couldn’t see with her forehead pressed against the door.
Christian lifted his head, trying to see past his niece. Though the dog would no doubt be interesting, he was more keen on seeing the trainer. With the dog needed to perform such specific tasks, he wasn’t sure what kind of person to expect.
Lexi backed away from the door as footsteps echoed on the other side of it, coming closer to his desk in two big leaps, and then the door swung open. Dr Mia Brett walked in first and behind her a short woman in a curve-hugging jeans and a loose shirt that hid most of her upper body’s curves. Not that this was a problem. The jeans were showing enough for an errant mind to fill in the blanks—like his at this very moment.
He forced his eyes up to her face, which was framed by straight, black hair, and he started when he looked into brown-green eyes that completed the woman’s familiar appearance. Eyes that were staring back at him with an expression as surprised as he felt.
‘Raquel?’ he asked, his brain not able to comprehend that the person standing in front of him might be who he thought she was.
But when she nodded he couldn’t stop the smile from spreading over his lips. He got off his chair, his trance at her sudden appearance broken, and gave her a quick hug. ‘I haven’t seen you in...what?...fifteen years? What are you doing here?’
She returned the hug, her hands coming to rest on each side of his shoulder blades, and her fingers left tiny tendrils of warmth behind as he stepped away to look at her. Then his eyes snagged on the lead in her hand and followed it all the way down until he saw the Golden Retriever sitting at her heel.
Before Raquel could say anything else, Lexi came up to both of them, eyes sparkling with joy as she looked at the dog. ‘Is this Nesta?’ she said with quiet reverence.
Raquel gave a short laugh and then nodded. ‘Yes, this is her. You’ll get plenty of time to get to know each other, but for now we have some things to discuss.’
Had he been in contact with Raquel all this time and not known? No, the person in the email was Hannah, and he didn’t remember her ever having mentioned the trainer’s name. There was no way he would have read the name without feeling something, was there?
Though it had been well over a decade since they had last seen each other, there had been a time when he’d seen Raquel every day while visiting Ramón. With both his parents being important ambassadors for the United States, they had moved a lot in his youth, and one of those moves had brought them to Puerto Rico for three years, just as Christian had started high school.
Ramón had taken the new kid under his wing almost immediately, introducing him to his friend circle and his family within the first week. Christian had never received such a warm welcome in any other place, and it was a memory he cherished to this day—along with the deep friendship he and Ramón still shared. Though they didn’t see each other often, they texted almost daily to keep up with each other’s lives.
Raquel had been close to her brother as well, and all three of them had often ended up hanging out. Though their initial meeting had been only through Ramón, it hadn’t taken them long to establish a friendship of their own, to the point where Christian had been just as excited to see her.
Maybe too excited, when he thought back to that time. Because his family had moved around so much, he’d never been good at making permanent connections, so when he’d become aware of the magnitude of his feelings for Raquel he hadn’t known what to do with them—knowing that it would only be a matter of time before he would be gone again.
When it had become clear that their feelings for each other were mutual on the night of his prom, he’d lost courage—too scared of what would happen if he wanted her too much but couldn’t have her.
A lack of courage Christian had lamented over the years, especially when facing the failed relationships in his adult life. Would they have made it through the stressful medical school years or would she have been another casualty, another sacrifice he’d have had to make to get to where he was now?
The thoughts rushed through him as they stepped away from each other, the smile on her face bright but tentative. She had not been expecting him, either.
‘Erm...wow, okay. This is very surprising.’ She stared at Christian for a few breaths, then she lowered her gaze to Lexi. ‘You’re Alexandria, yes? I’m Raquel, both a neurologist and a dog trainer. It’s lovely to meet you and I can’t wait for you and Nesta to get to know each other. Did you read all the materials Hannah sent through to you?’
Lexi nodded, her mind too focused on the dog in front of her to notice anything untoward going on between her uncle and her dog’s trainer.
Christian took a deep breath, willing the flutter in his chest to calm as he processed the sudden appearance of Raquel and all the long-lost emotions stirring from somewhere deep inside his memory—a task that tested his will power when her deep-set eyes locked onto his once more.
‘Está bien si nos sentamos allí?’ she asked him, pointing at the sofa, and he nodded.
‘Por favor, ponte cómoda.’ He started towards the seat when he caught Lexi’s gaze and she looked at him, bewildered.
‘I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,’ she said, arms crossed in front of her chest and indignation lacing her voice.
‘Oh yeah, I learned it in Puerto Rico, where I met Raquel. Your father might not have mentioned it because he didn’t come with us, since he was in college when your grandparents moved us to Puerto Rico. We were suggesting we sit down and talk.’
Though he’d become fluent in Spanish during his time in Puerto Rico, he didn’t get many chances to practise any more in his day-to-day, and the right words didn’t come to his mind as easily as they used to. That was something Ramón loved to make fun of whenever they spoke on the phone, their conversations living in that beautiful intersection where English and Spanish met and became ‘Spanglish’.
A tiny flutter rushed over his niece’s face at the mention of her father, breaking through the excitement of the day. He knew this day was especially important to her, and it pained her not to have her father by her side to see this through with her.
Christian’s heart ached, and he took a seat by her side as they spread out around the sofa and loungers on the far side of his office. Anthony might not be here, but he was, and he would be for every other milestone, filling in as a father for whatever Lexi needed. If only he had the same confidence in his fathering abilities that he had in the operating room.
