Love's Healing Touch (10 page)

All of those responses, every one of them, were proper ways for a CA to answer a doctor. Why did they upset her so much?

She hit the roof when she looked down the hall and saw Mike and Mitchelson joking and laughing. Why couldn't Mike do that with her? They'd had a nice time at the family gathering a few days earlier. She thought they'd gotten to know each other, but he was more distant than ever.

That was the reason she lost it when she asked him to check on the trache tubes in OR 3 and, again, he'd answered oh so politely, "Right away, Dr. Ramírez."

"All right, Fuller," she'd said in the voice she'd practiced since med school to be as intimidating as possible.

He stared at her in surprise. The staff of the E.R. looked at her amazed. She didn't care. At least this time he had noticed her, really noticed her, but he only said, "Dr. Ramírez?"

"I need to talk to you. Privately." She turned to the clerk and said, "I'm going to use the empty office on E wing."

She stalked off. Once she got to the door, she looked over her shoulder to make sure Mike was following. He'd better be.

"Okay," she said once they were inside and she'd slammed the door behind them. "What's going on?"

He blinked. "What do you mean, Dr. Ramírez?"

"Why are you behaving this way?"

"What way?"

Now she felt foolish and a little embarrassed. She seldom allowed her temper to take over. Now she was in a mess, acting both unprofessional and resentful. How could she accuse him of being too courteous? "So…so cold?" In an instant she realized her mistake. She'd showed him how vulnerable she was, revealing much more about herself and her feelings than she'd meant to. This man muddled her brain and made her forget how she should behave.

"Dr. Ramírez," he said slowly and with great emphasis on the word
doctor.
"If you have a complaint about my work, please discuss that with me in detail and put a note in my employment record."

"I'm sorry. This is so unprofessional." She dug her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. "But you're really confusing me," she whispered.

She caught a glimpse of uncertainty in his expression before he cleared all emotion from his face. He turned to leave without saying a word.

"I need you to…I don't know." She studied his back but his rigid stance wasn't encouraging. "Just don't be so cold. Everyone's thinking something's going on between us. They believe you're angry with me for some personal reason."

He turned back to her with an eyebrow raised. "They are?" He considered that. "No one's mentioned it to me."

Well, of course not. Only
she
thought he was angry with her for a personal reason.

"I don't understand," she said, "We had such a nice evening together, I thought maybe we'd— " She bit her lip to stop the revealing words. "We have to be professional but you're more than that. You're overly polite, and it drives me nuts."

"Dr. Ramírez." He used the same courteous tone he'd used before. "I have two choices in the way I act around you— cold and professional or…something else."

"Something else?"

"Yes." He searched her face. "Like this." He took her by the shoulders, moved her to the corner, away from the window in the door, and pulled her against him to rub his cheek on hers.

The feel of his breath on her neck, the warmth of his embrace filled her with longing and almost made her toes curl up. Confused, she looked up into his face. "What do you mean?"

"If I allowed myself to do what I want to do, I'd kiss you, now."

That
sounded terrific.

Ana wound her arms behind his neck. His nearness and his scent— a mixture of man, musky aftershave and disinfectant— jolted her both physically and mentally. She should pull away but was completely thrown off balance by Mike's closeness and, when she glanced up at him, the need in his eyes. She refused to give it up, to shorten the time of this amazing connection.

When at last Mike stepped away, he rubbed his index finger down her cheek. "Dr. Ramírez," he spoke softly but firmly, "your choices for my behavior around you are cold and polite or what just happened between us. I don't know how we could handle this attraction without people starting to talk."

She yearned to return to the circle of his arms but he'd crossed them firmly on his chest. She shook her head in an effort to kick-start her brain, to understand what had happened.

What had happened was that Mike had embraced her, and she'd folded herself in his arms with great delight and enthusiasm. "Could we ignore this? Could we go back to working together in a friendly way?"

He ignored that suggestion. "Coldness or this." He waved his hand as if to encompass what had just happened in this office. When he looked at her, she saw the same confusion she felt. "I've already passed friendship."

"I prefer the second choice." She blinked. "Very much, but you're right. This." She waved her hand around the office as she spoke. "This isn't the best way to act in the hospital or for either of us professionally."

The focus that had guided her for twenty years came back to clear her head. Being found in the embrace of another staff member in a hidden corner of an unused office was not how she wanted to be remembered, was not what she'd worked for all these years.

And yet, how could she forget that moment? Maybe whatever was between them might be better than what she'd prepared for all her life.

She took a step closer and rubbed her fingers along the stubble on his cheeks. When she paused, he moved her hand to his lips, kissed the palm and held it.

With a sigh of resignation, she tugged her hand away. "You're right. As wonderful as this was, it can't happen again."

He nodded, attempting to look cool and distant. It didn't work. The tautness of his expression told her the attraction between the two of them bothered him as much as it did her and that he had made the same decision.

"Let's go back to how we were before— staff members, people who work together," she said.

He nodded again. "Yes, Dr. Ramírez."

"Fuller." The voice of Olivia, the RN on duty, filtered through the thick door. "Transfer."

Ignoring the voice for a second, he kept his eyes on her.

"Fuller, we've got a lot of patients backed up out here. We need you. Now!" Olivia shouted.

Without a word, he strode toward the door, opened it and left the room.

Ana moved to look in the mirror. Light whisker burns colored her neck and right cheek. That was going to be hard to hide and harder still to explain. Her makeup bag was in her locker, but she did have the small tube of lotion she carried in her pocket to keep her hands soft after so many washings. She took it out, squirted a bead into the palm Mike had so recently touched and rubbed it on her reddened skin. That would have to do.

"Dr. Ramírez?" Olivia's voice came from the open door.

"Yes?" She turned.

"I'm sorry I bothered you and Fuller."

What? Did the entire E.R. know what had happened between them? How embarrassing. There hadn't been time for him to tell anyone. Also, she was sure he wouldn't have, so how did Olivia know? Had she been able to see them in the corner? She glanced in that direction.

"I think Fuller is a great CA," Olivia said. "But if you had to call him down, I'm sorry I interrupted. I wouldn't have if we didn't have an emergency."

"No, that's not what I had to talk to him about." Not that she was about to say what the topic had been.

"I know how much you hate to counsel employees on behavior." Olivia nodded sympathetically. "I hope you got your business finished."

"It wasn't— " She stopped midsentence. "Yes, we completed our business." Remembering their business, she grinned. Very inappropriate.

Olivia stepped back into the hall. "You're needed in Trauma 3. Possible broken back from a swimming accident."

"Thanks, Olivia. What are the vitals?" She hurried out of the office and toward the trauma room.

She'd figure out some way Mike wouldn't take the fall for their disappearance, but not now. At the moment, she had a patient and she'd better focus on that, not the touch of that gorgeous but elusive man.

Besides, after a few hours of the rush and stress of emergency room life, maybe everyone would forget about the incident. Almost everyone, but not her and, she felt certain, not Mike.

What had he been thinking? Mike pushed a gurney into the elevator. Obviously, he hadn't been thinking at all.

An orderly didn't go around holding head residents during working hours, no matter how much the head resident had liked it. There could
not
be anything between them. He was in no position, either financially or mentally, to consider having a relationship with anyone.

Maybe when he finished medical school, they could pursue this.

Oh, sure.
If
he finished med school. By then she'd be married and have a couple of kids.

Why couldn't he get it through his head that a man who'd quit school and was trying to support his mother and brother wasn't exactly a prize? Better to treat Dr. Ramírez with the respect and courtesy she deserved, to pretend he'd never held her against him, that she hadn't leaned into his arms. He had to remember where he was in his life. On top of the emotional turmoil the incident had awakened, he needed this job too much to behave unprofessionally.

How much he needed the job was reinforced when he leafed through the mail on the kitchen table a week later. The electric bill was higher than he'd budgeted. In the credit card statement, he found a charge no one had told him about. Where would he find an extra ninety-eight dollars to cover it?

"I bought some delicious Canadian bacon for you." His mother put a plate on the table in front of him and he began to eat. "It was a little expensive, but I know how much you loved it when you were little." She sat next to him and sipped her coffee. "And I found some wonderful fresh orange juice at the grocery store. I had to get that for your breakfast."

"Mom." He put down his fork. "Thanks for thinking about me. I appreciate it."

"You're welcome, Mike. You take such good care of Tim and me. I want to spoil you a little."

"But we don't have money for extras like freshly squeezed orange juice."

"Oh, dear, but it's not all that expensive. Only about a dollar more a bottle."

"We don't have that extra dollar. I don't know how we're going to pay the credit card bill."

"I had to buy a pair of jeans and some shirts for Tim." She bit her lip. "His were in such bad shape."

"I know, but you need to tell me so I can plan to work more shifts."

"Oh." She nodded. "I promise."

He took a drink of the delicious freshly squeezed orange juice that was worth every penny it had cost. He might as well drink it since they had it. "How's the job hunt going?"

"Not well. Not at all well. I've found nothing since I helped Antonio for a week." She shook her head. "Too bad he doesn't need me anymore, although I'm delighted he's feeling so strong." She sighed. "Employers are so closed-minded about ex-cons, Mike. Almost no one will give me a chance."

He glanced up from his breakfast. "You said
almost
no one. Were there any who would hire you?"

"Yes, but I don't think I would enjoy doing the kind of work they wanted." She fluttered her hands.

"What were they?"

"One was working in a cleaners." She counted off on her fingers. "That would be such hot work. I did that for a year in prison, and it's not pleasant. Another was working in a fast-food place like Tim. I'm his mother. I should have a better job than my son has. One was in a restaurant, washing dishes, I believe."

"I hope you can find a job you'll enjoy, but right now, I need you to get a job. Any job. We need more money and you have to consider your parole status."

She frowned. "Darling, I didn't realize we were in such dire straits."

"Until I got these bills, I thought we were doing better. I haven't had to take money out of the savings account until now."

"I guess I could take one of those jobs."

"Mom, we're going to run out of money soon. After I pay the rent, we might not have enough for other necessities."

"Why didn't you tell me before?" She reached out to pat his hand. "When you don't communicate, no one knows what you want. I'll take the next job I find, even if it's cleaning out a horse stable."

The vision of his mother mucking out a stall in one of her long, spangled dresses and her jingling bracelets made him smile. "Thanks, Mom. You should be able to find something better than that."

"And I'll talk to Tim about what he's doing with the money he's earning. More of that should go into household expenses."

"Great. Tim gets upset when I tell him that. He says it's his money, and I can't tell him what to do because I'm not his father."

"Tim doesn't behave like an adult sometimes."

"No, he doesn't. I bet you can get him to put some in the pot and to buy his own clothes."

"I'll talk to him." She patted Mike's hand. "If you wouldn't hold everything inside, life wouldn't be so hard for you."

As if he didn't know that already, but the habit of a lifetime was hard to break.

When she stood and waved her hand, her bracelets clinked together. "I'll get the want ads and make some phone calls now." She'd almost reached the arch to the living room when she turned back. "By the way, I've invited Antonio and his family to dinner Thursday."

Antonio and his family to dinner Thursday? Where would he find money to buy food to feed that many people?

"Tim said he'll help buy groceries. Antonio's going to bring the meat so I only have to provide the rest."

That helped on the cost.

She looked at him and bit her lip. "I'd really like you to be here."

Which brought up the more important question: where could he hide from Dr. Ramírez? After what happened in the empty office, the idea of seeing her outside of the hospital, probably dressed like a normal person and with her beautiful hair down, filled him with panic. He opened his mouth to say he was working the afternoon shift when his mother cut him off.