The Wife He's Been Waiting For

Too bad he was hiding away on a ship, she thought as she unwrapped the breakfast bar. The world needed good doctors like Michael. Of course, she was hiding away on a ship too, wasn’t she? And by most accounts she’d been a pretty good doctor herself.

It was turning into a long day, and the hospital was getting busy. Predictable conditions, the lot of them. Upset stomachs, seasickness, diabetic upheavals from people going wild over so much food available to them. People underestimated their stamina on a ship and he got to patch up the results. It was very different from general surgery, and sometimes he did long for the days when he’d spent his life in the operating theater.

But now… “Take two of these pills this afternoon, and two more before you go to bed. If you’re still nauseated in the morning, come back and see me and we’ll try something different.” He handed the bottle to the fifty-something woman, and watched her leave the examining room, her face a little less green than it had been when she’d come in. “And no seafood for a couple of days,” he called after her, remembering that this particular incident of gastric upset had come after a rather large consumption of lobster for lunch.

He couldn’t blame her, really. Cruises were all about overindulgence. Of course, there was Sarah, who wouldn’t indulge at all. He was willing to bet she hadn’t eaten a thing since her breakfast bar. She was a hard one to figure out. Last night, in the lounge, after she’d relaxed a little, she’d seemed like she had been enjoying his company. He’d certainly enjoyed hers. But just when things had finally slipped into a nice, casual mood, she’d upped and left him there. It wasn’t his place to ask her questions, but he was curious. He saw all kinds of people on the ship. Lonely widows and widowers, people getting over the break-up of a relationship, people pressed with tough life decisions running away for a while to think. And people who were simply on holiday. As for Sarah, well, he wasn’t sure where she fit in. Normally he was pretty good at telling, but he couldn’t get a reading on her. Other than the fact that he liked her, and something about her drew him in, he simply didn’t know.

One thing was certain, though. She didn’t want a personal relationship in her life as much as he didn’t want one in his. That alone made a shipboard friendship seem appealing. “Hello,” he said to his next patient, as he stepped into the examining room to have a look at a casualty of a volleyball game—a soft-looking fortyish man who didn’t exercise at home but who took the opportunity to start once he’d hit the high seas. “I understand you hurt your back? Maybe twisted an ankle, too?”

The man, who was sitting on the edge of the exam table with his bare, skinny legs sticking out from under the sheet draped over his lap, nodded, looking up from his bent-over position. “Guess I’m a little out of shape.” he admitted. “Haven’t played in a while.”

Michael wasn’t going to ask how long that translated into. Instead, he took a look, diagnosed a few strained and sprained muscles and sent the man off to the spa to spend the afternoon in a whirlpool. It wasn’t a precise medical therapy exactly, but why not give the man what he’d come for? Something he didn’t have in his real life.

So, after what seemed like an interminably long day of routine aches and pains, Michael signed the next watch over to the following doctor on duty, a competent general practitioner named Reese Allen, and headed for his quarters. His leg ached a little more than usual, although it shouldn’t, and it was time to get off it for a while. But as he walked down the corridor to his cabin, which was adjacent to the hospital, he changed his mind and caught the elevator up to the sundeck. He didn’t actually get outside much on these cruises, and right now he felt the urge for a little sun on his face. And he knew the perfect place. It was amidships, in a little tuck-away behind one of the bars that didn’t usually go into use until dark. There were a few deck chairs there, maybe three or four, and no one ever lounged there because there was no real view, unless you enjoyed looking at the back bar or the bottom side of the little rise holding the deck chairs with a perfect view of the pool. Good spot, he thought, heading off in that direction. Very good spot. He’d spend an hour, maybe two, go to the lounge and have Hector fix him a Cubano for supper, then…well, nothing came after that. He didn’t make plans, although the thought of a little time spent with Sarah Collins suddenly popped into his mind.

It was a wish that came true almost immediately as he rounded the corner to his little tuck-away and found her in one of the deck chairs. Just her. Nobody else was around. She was there, stretched out almost elegantly in the chair, wearing a simple, one-piece black swimsuit that exposed beautiful long legs, even though they were pale. The black of the swimsuit complemented her black hair and the milky color of her skin was a startling, sexy contrast. Sarah had on black sunglasses, through which she was reading…he couldn’t tell what, for sure. It looked like a copy of the New England Journal of Medicine, but she snapped it shut and tucked it into her big straw bag the instant she saw him. It was probably a fashion magazine, he decided as he headed toward her. Or another of the women’s specialty magazines available from the ship’s store.

She tilted her head down and gave him a long, cool glance up and over the top of her dark glasses before she finally spoke. “So, you are spying on me.”

“I admitted it once, and I’m sticking to it.”

“Have you come to do a blood test? You’re so dedicated that you’ll chase your patients down no matter where they’re hiding?”

“I’d like to say yes but, unfortunately, I don’t have my medical equipment with me. I’m afraid I’m off duty right now, too.”

“Somehow, I doubt that you’re ever really off duty,” she said, that cool stare of hers continuing. It was cool, but not unfriendly. More like wary. “You strike me as one of those doctors who lives and breathes his work. Dedicated beyond reason. Otherwise why would you become a ship’s doctor? I don’t imagine you can ever really get away from it here, can you?”

“Actually, I have this little hiding place where I go so I can get away. No one knows about it, no one goes there, except…”

“Me?” she ventured. “Just like I know about your booth in the karaoke lounge?”

“It is funny, isn’t it, how we keep bumping into each other in all the places no one else wants to go? You know, the secluded places.”

“I’m antisocial,” she reminded him with a hint of a smile tweaking her lips. “What’s your excuse, other than you’re spying on me?”

His leg was starting to ache even more now, that dull throb he despised that had never completely gone away, and he really needed to sit down. He hated it when this happened. The reminder, the memories…of so many things he wanted to forget. Damn, he hated it! “My excuse is that I’ve been coming here for the better part of a year now.”

She arched her eyebrows…beautifully sculpted eyebrows. Everything about Sarah Collins was beautifully sculpted, in fact. “Well, then, by all means, you should sit down.”

“And interrupt you?”

“You’re assuming that you being here would interrupt me.”

“Would it?” he asked, summoning every bit of determination he had to fight off the inevitable limp that came when he was tired…fight it off long enough to take the last ten steps toward the deck chair next to her. Gritting his teeth, he took one step, then another. Sure, it was a vanity thing, being self-conscious like he was. There was no disgrace in his disability. But, damn, he had the right to hold onto a little vanity, didn’t he? His limp caused questions, which required explanations. And the whole sordid story, once he’d explained it, brought pity, which he didn’t want. Especially not from someone like Sarah Collins. So he took another few steps toward her, until he finally reached the chair. Then he sat, letting out an involuntary sigh of relief. Two hours off his feet, and he’d be fine. But one thing was sure—those two hours were going to be spent right here. He didn’t have it in him to get up again. So if Sarah stayed, he’d spend them with her, and if she didn’t stay…

“There’s nothing to interrupt,” she said. “I was doing exactly what you intend to do, enjoying a little sun well away from the crowds. Having someone else doing the same alongside me wouldn’t be an interruption.”

“But an intrusion, perhaps?” he asked, shifting to find a comfortable position.

“I don’t think you’re an intrusion. But if that becomes the case, I’ll let you know.” With that, she pushed her sunglasses up again, making her intention not to converse quite clear. Then, out of the blue, “You don’t snore, do you?” she asked. “Because if you do, that’s an intrusion.”

He chuckled. What was it about her that he liked so much? She put up walls, and she wasn’t engagingly friendly either. Polite when interaction was forced on her but remaining at a distance. And so damned intriguing that he didn’t even care if they spent the next two hours lounging next to each other without speaking a word.

The truth was, he liked Sarah Collins.

While she hadn’t been looking for him, not consciously, on some unexplainable level she wasn’t displeased that he’d found her. On a limited basis, Michael Sloan was rather pleasant company. Sarah found herself wishing, just a little, that she could talk in-depth about medicine with him, though. She’d just read a brilliant article in the New England Journal on advances in medication used to treat hypertension, and she would have loved some lively discussion on that with a colleague. But she had to remind herself almost daily that she’d left medicine behind her, then content herself with the void in her life that that decision had caused.

Unfortunately, the passion hadn’t left her, which was why she wasn’t engaging him this very moment. She stayed away from medicine because she could so easily be drawn back.

Although, as a doctor, she had noticed his limp. She hadn’t stared, of course, especially with the way he had been trying so hard not to limp. Male ego, probably. In her experience as a doctor, the one thing she’d learned well was that men preferred to grit their teeth and bear it rather than admitting a weakness. Actually, that’s what had almost killed Cameron. He’d been tired, he’d been losing weight. He’d blamed it on working too much, even though she’d asked him to have himself checked out. And he a doctor! Well, the dreadful truth had turned out to be leukemia. The other dreadful truth was that she should have insisted on him getting checked, then kept on insisting when he’d refused. Even tied him up and dragged him to a clinic, if she’d had to. But she hadn’t. Probably because avoidance and denial had been easier.

Luckily for Cameron, his ending turned out to be a happy one in so many ways. He’d beaten his cancer, found a perfect wife and now they had a family.

It seemed, though, that the good doctor lying next to her right now was much the same as Cameron. Too stubborn, or too large an ego…she didn’t know which. But it was on the tip of her tongue to say something to him. To ask him what was wrong, and if he’d sought medical attention. Which was none of her business. Still, he’d shown a sufficient amount of pain to someone with a trained eye, and whether or not she was calling herself a doctor these days, she was concerned. “Do you ever get time off?” she asked, not sure how to broach the subject without seeming too medical about it.

“Between cruises. A few days here and there.”

“Nothing sustained, though? Maybe a few weeks where you can go and treat yourself to some real rest? On one of these tropical islands where we’re going to stop on the cruise, perhaps?”

“Social worker,” he said.

“What?”

“Last night, I was trying to figure out what you do. My guess right now is social worker. You show just the right amount of concern for other people’s concerns, which would make you a very good social worker.”

“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment because I admire anyone who has the dedication to be a social worker but, no, that’s not what I do. And I’m not a librarian either, if that was going to be your next guess.”

“I might have. I’ve always thought librarians have a smoldering, secret sensuality about them, which fits you.”

Sarah laughed. “Nothing smoldering in me.”

“But there is, Sarah. It’s there, and you do a nice job of hiding it, which is why you’d make a good librarian. They have that reserved exterior, but on the inside—”

“Let me guess,” she interrupted. “When you were young you had a secret crush on a librarian.”

“Not so secret. Her name was Mrs Rowe, and the way she pinned up her red hair, and those tight tweed skirts she wore…” Michael faked a big shiver. “I used to check out books every day. Big books, adult books that I thought made me look intelligent and old. As many as I could get in my canvas bag, like I thought she believed I was taking them home and reading them every night. I was eight, by the way.”

“So what brought an end to the love affair?”

“After a couple of weeks, Mrs Rowe asked me if I wouldn’t rather have books from the children’s section, then she handed me one about a precocious monkey and told me I’d do better with that than the one on quantum physics I was attempting to check out.”

“She was probably right, unless you were a child genius.”

“Not even close.”

“Then I’d say Mrs Rowe had good insight.”

“And a good figure, too,” he commented under his breath.

Sarah laughed. “Not to be missed, even by a boy of eight.” Which further proved her theory about men. They were not all alike, as some people said, but they were certainly similar in some ways. Even now, as he shifted in his deck chair, she saw a little grimace of pain on his face, yet, come hell or high water, he wasn’t about to admit it.

Well, back to the original premise and she was sticking to it. It was none of her business.

She was still concerned, though.

CHAPTER THREE

SARAH hadn’t planned on going ashore, yet when the passengers started to leave the boat to spend a few hours browsing the shops, seeing the sights and eating the food in Nassau, on New Providence island in the Bahamas, she’d changed her mind and followed along after them. Her cabin was small and she wasn’t enjoying her private time there as much as she’d thought she would. While it wasn’t her intention to join in with any of the activities on board ship, she wasn’t exactly avoiding some minor mingling…walking about, nodding a pleasant hello here and there, making idle chat where it was necessary.

Something about the sea air had caused this change in her, she supposed as she took one last look in the mirror before she dashed out the door, amazed that in only two days she’d taken on a little color. She’d probably gained a pound or two, too, since eating seemed to be the number-one cruise pastime for just about everybody, and the good doctor did keep watch over her to make sure she did her fair share. Michael deserved his due credit, though. Her blood sugar had been perfect three checks in a row now, and she was actually feeling better—not so tired all the time. His vigilance reminded her to take care of herself. That was the reason she was going off the ship this afternoon. For the first time since she couldn’t remember when she actually wanted to take a walk, soak up some of the local culture. Her past holidays had been lackluster affairs overall, where she’d showed mild interest at best and, more commonly, no enthusiasm whatsoever, and while she wouldn’t go so far as to admit to any enthusiasm over this little outing, she wasn’t dreading it as much as she could have.

Too bad Michael wouldn’t be coming along. At least, she didn’t think he would be. What he’d told her at the start of the cruise, that he didn’t usually fraternize with the guests, was holding true. She’d seen him only in passing since they’d spent a couple of quiet hours together in the deck chairs, and even her blood tests were done by somebody else and reported to Michael who, in turn, relayed messages back to her through somebody else.

Well, it didn’t matter, really. She would have enjoyed spending more time with him, catching the edge of a medical conversation where she could, but it didn’t seem that it was meant to be. Admitting she was disappointed was an exaggeration, but in all honesty she wouldn’t have objected to bumping into him on the docks. As it turned out, however, a casual enquiry of the medical technician who’d last tested her blood revealed what Sarah wanted to know—the medical crew probably wasn’t leaving ship at this port of call.

Oh, well…

Once Sarah was off the ship, she had several choices. She could see the area by taxi, take a walking tour, hire a horse-drawn carriage, or the one that appealed to her the most—take a jitney, a small bus overcrowded with locals. It made frequent stops, went to the areas the tourists avoided, and she was in the mood for that. She didn’t want to shop, didn’t want to see the museums or the city’s renowned colonial architecture. She didn’t even want to go have a dolphin encounter—swimming or snorkeling with trained dolphins—which was a very popular attraction. Instead, she wanted to ride, and watch. Meaning, be alone again. But that was fine. It was a beautiful day, the air was warm, and this sure beat staying in her cabin, reading another medical journal.

So Sarah caught the jitney, and was rather amazed by it. Bright green, small, and chugging along loudly and smokily, like it was about to roll over and die at the side of the road, it wasn’t comfortable transportation, but the thirty or so people squeezed into a space that should have accommodated twenty or so didn’t mind the inconvenience. In fact, they all got rather chummy as the bus bumped its way through town, stopping at various street corners, letting people out, then letting other people back on.

From her rear seat which she shared with a plump woman named Mimmie and her chubby son who answered to the name Delroy, Sarah stared through the bus window at tourists scurrying into the various shops, some on the tourist map, some not. They were lining up at the doors of all the recommended cafés, happy to queue simply to have a taste of the local food, and flock into the Straw Market for the best of the best souvenirs. After fifteen minutes of being pinched against the side of the jitney, though, with Delroy smearing his sticky red lollipop up and down her arm, Sarah decided it was time to get off and find something better to do. Maybe take a walk through the botanical gardens.

So, at the next stop, she managed to squeeze her way past Mimmie and force herself through the standing passengers until she was down the aisle and out the door. Mimmie followed right behind her, though, with Delroy, who made sure his lollipop came into contact with the back of Sarah’s white shorts at least five times. But once they were on the sidewalk, and Sarah was sure Delroy’s candy was not attached to her shorts, she started to head down a side street, paying more attention to a street map than she was to her surroundings. Behind her, when she heard the sound of the jitney rev its clanking engine, she assumed it to be off on its route, but all of a sudden the sound of a horn, followed by screams of hysterical men and women, split the air.

Her maps slipped from her fingers and slid to the ground as Sarah spun around.

What was going on? It was hard to tell from where she was, but multitudes of people were running to surround the jitney, and those on the bus were scurrying to get off. And Mimmie…Sarah caught a glimpse of the woman trying to shove her way through the crowd, screaming at them, crying, pounding people aside with her fists.

Warning hairs on the back of Sarah’s neck prickled and she immediately broke into a run, pushing herself past even more people crowding in to see whatever was happening. When she reached the jitney, she was still at the rear of the congested knot, but even from there she heard someone shouting about the little boy. Then a blood-curdling scream pierced the noise of the crowd. “Delroy!”

“Let me through!” Sarah cried. “I’m a doctor.”

Some people moved for her, others didn’t. “Let me through,” she cried again. “I have to get through. I’m a doctor!”

All of a sudden, the crowd stepped aside for her, almost creating a corridor that led her straight to the front of the bus where Delroy laid sprawled, unconscious, most of the way under the bus, with only his toes sticking out. His mother was on her knees at his side, wailing, pulling on him, trying to get him free.

“Don’t,” Sarah warned her. But Mimmie was so frightened she was comprehending nothing but her son’s dire injury. “Don’t move him,” Sarah said anyway. Once she’d dropped to her knees she immediately checked Delroy for a pulse. A quick press to the femoral artery in his groin, which was the only pulse point she could reach without actually crawling under the bus, did reveal a pulse, but not a good one. It was thready, cutting in and out like his heart was deciding whether it wanted to keep beating or quit. “He’s alive,” she told Mimmie, who was still tugging on Delroy’s arm.

She had to get the woman to stop. “Somebody, please, don’t let his mother move him,” she called to the crowd. “I need help here. I need someone to hold his mother back.” With that, two women jumped forward and wrapped arms around Mimmie, forcibly pulling her away from her son. She struggled for a moment then, with big tears rolling down her cheeks, looked pleadingly at Sarah. “Please, please, help him!”

“He’s alive,” she told the woman. “But he can’t be moved.”

“He must come out from under the bus.”

“No, he has to stay where he is.” There was no time to explain, no time to waste trying to calm a tortured mother when the pulse she was feeling under her fingertips was fluttering even more tentatively now. “I need an ambulance,” she cried to the crowd, not sure what the procedure was in Nassau. Then she bent down, pressed her cheek to the black pavement to see what she could of the little boy.

Nothing was trapped under the bus tire. That was good. But he was pressed very close to it, just inches away, with his shirt actually caught under the tire, and nothing about him was moving. That was bad. Head injury, perhaps? At the very least, internal damage. And here she was without a medical kit. This was the first time she’d regretted that since she’d left her practice. Funny thing was, it was still intact, still packed with all the necessities, sitting just inside her apartment ready to go, like it had always known she’d back for it someday.

Today was that day! And now she had to get closer, had to have a look before anybody touched the child or moved him. So, without another thought, Sarah got down on her belly and inched her way slowly along the pavement under the bus, trying all the while to forget that she’d been claustrophobic lately. Her hands were shaking, her head going light…all the classic signs of a panic attack coming on. Except she couldn’t do that. Had to get control. Had to save a life.

Breathe, Sarah.

She inched even farther in, stopping every second or two, taking a look at what she could see from her angle, feeling for a pulse point, running her fingers lightly over the boy’s body for an assessment.

You’re the doctor. This child needs you. She couldn’t let him down. Wouldn’t.

As she moved her way alongside his limp body, she saw that Delroy still clutched the red lollipop in his hand, and that caused a hard lump to form in her throat. “We’re going to get you out of here, Delroy,” she said to the boy, even though he wasn’t conscious. “Then take you to a hospital, where they’ll give you a brand-new lollipop. Is red your favorite color? I like green.” She felt stickiness over his abdomen, and was sure it wasn’t from his lollipop. Hopefully, it was only blood from a cut, and nothing significant.