A Matter of the Heart

Looking down, Rob shoved his free hand into his front jean pocket. “Am I fired?”

“I’ve given Carter a monthlong trial assignment in our Middle East bureau. If he does well, I may make it permanent. I haven’t decided yet.”

“Then there’s a chance I can go back?”

“All I’m going to say is dig deeper, Rob. Make every story important. Use your instincts. Don’t make me regret giving you this job.”

Derrick hung up, and after a second Rob closed his own phone. He stuffed it in his front pocket but didn’t move from his place outside the surgical waiting room.

How could he have missed that his buddies at Memdelholm were involved in something shady? The fact that he had been so easily deceived was hard to swallow.

Derrick’s right. I wasn’t looking hard enough. I thought it was a simple piece and I blew it.

When he had been among the soldiers and marines on the front lines, the best stories had all but fallen into his lap. Over there, his gut instincts were never wrong. He knew that world inside and out.

He needed to be back there, but that wasn’t going to happen now. Not until he proved to Derrick Mitchell that he had what it took to get to the bottom of any story.

Lord, I failed to make the most of Your gift. It won’t happen again. You sent me here for a reason. I don’t know what that reason is, but I’m going to keep looking until I find it.

He glanced toward the surgery doors. His gut told him that Dr. Nora Blake was more than a woman who didn’t grant interviews. He had no idea what a woman like her might be hiding, but he was going to find out. He intended to dig deep.

Chapter Two

“Y ou can’t be serious!”

In stunned disbelief, Nora sat in the black leather chair in front of Willard Branson, the CEO and chief administrator of Mercy Medical Center, and stared openmouthed at her boss. In the chair beside hers, Rob Dale sat with a smile on his face that wasn’t quite a self-satisfied smirk, but it was close.

She had hoped that their confrontation outside of surgery the day before yesterday would have convinced the reporter to leave her alone. Apparently, it hadn’t.

His audacity provoked a slow burn of irritation, but it didn’t prevent her from noticing how attractive he looked in charcoal slacks, a sage dress shirt that accentuated his lean, athletic body and a tasteful silk tie that made her wonder if a wife or girlfriend had picked it out for him.

“I’m perfectly serious, Dr. Blake,” Willard replied, drawing her attention back to him. “You are free to donate as much time and energy as you wish to Children of the Day, and I applaud your dedication to the organization, but the hospital must weigh the pros and cons of each case. We have already donated many hours of the staff’s time and much of our limited resources to helping your cause. It’s time we got something back.”

“Saving the lives of needy children isn’t enough payback for you?” She didn’t bother hiding her sarcasm.

Steepling his fingers together, Willard leaned forward on his wide mahogany desk. “I hired you because you had a reputation for being the brightest new pediatric cardiologist to come out of the Cleveland Clinic in years. I hired you because I wanted someone who could grow our program.”

“Haven’t I done that?”

“You have to an extent. Your surgical success rate is impressive, but the publicity generated by a series of articles like Mr. Dale is proposing could very well increase the number of patients referred to this facility. Patients you will operate on.

“It might even generate substantial donations to us and to Children of the Day. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that Liberty and Justice is an international and very well-respected paper. Frankly, I don’t understand why you aren’t jumping at this opportunity.”

Everything Willard said was true, but Nora couldn’t abide the thought of someone poking about in her life and in her work.

She tried one last avenue. “I’m sure Dr. Kent would be delighted to have Mr. Dale shadow him on a day-to-day basis.”

“But he doesn’t do volunteer work for Children of the Day,” Rob interjected.

She glared at him. “Dr. Kent has aided me a number of times. If you’re so interested in the organization, I suggest you spend your time with Anna Terenkov. She is the founder of Children of the Day. I’m certain she will answer any questions you have.”

“I’ve already spoken to Ms. Terenkov. She’s the one who pointed out how frequently your expertise has been utilized even before little Ali Willis’s case was brought to their attention.”

He pulled a small notebook from his shirt pocket, flipped it open and began to read. “And I quote, ‘Dr. Blake is personally responsible for saving the lives of a dozen children in the past year who would otherwise have died of their congenital heart defects in war-torn third world countries.

“‘Besides doing these surgeries without compensation, she has been instrumental in convincing Mercy Medical Center to provide the additional care needed at a greatly reduced fee. She oversees the donated medical supplies and has convinced numerous drug companies to donate badly needed medications—medicines that families in these countries would otherwise have to buy on the black market at exorbitant prices.’”

He paused and looked up. “Shall I continue? There’s a lot more. Like the fact that you also work part-time at Fort Bonnell Medical Center and have even traveled overseas on a medical mission for Children of the Day. It must be difficult to maintain any kind of private life with this much on your plate.”

“I’m well aware of my workload, and my private life is off-limits. Is that understood?”

His eyes brightened. “Then you’ll allow me to tag along with you for Ali’s surgery?”

She glanced at Willard, the man responsible for hiring her and approving the amount of charity work Mercy did. He nodded slightly. She closed her eyes in resignation. “It seems I have little choice.”

“You won’t regret it, I promise,” Rob quickly assured her.

“Strange, but I already do.” She looked at Willard. “Are we done here? I have rounds to make.”

She hated confrontations, especially when she didn’t emerge the winner.

“We’re done, Dr. Blake. Mr. Dale, when would you like to start?”

“There’s no time like the present. Care to show me around, Dr. Blake? May I call you Nora?”

She rose to her feet already uncomfortable with his close scrutiny. How was she going to tolerate having him around for days? She had to see that he kept his distance. Cool professionalism was the key.

“You may address me as Dr. Blake. Ali’s surgery isn’t scheduled for another two weeks. I see no reason for you to hound me until then.”

He tucked his pad and pen back in his shirt pocket. “I’ll need some background information about how heart surgery is carried out, and the best way would be for me to see a few surgeries for myself.”

“I’m not taking you into the operating room.”

Turning on her heel, Nora left the CEO’s office and walked quickly toward the elevators. She knew Rob was following without looking back.

“Now, Nora, I know that you have students and visiting physicians who observe your surgeries. It won’t be any different having me in the room.”

For some reason, she knew it would. She was aware of him on a level that she had never experienced before. The last thing she wanted was him disturbing her concentration while she was operating.

At the end of the hall, she punched the down arrow and the elevator doors immediately slid open. The car was empty. Why couldn’t it have been crowded? She stepped inside and turned to face the opening. Rob slipped in behind her. The doors closed, shutting them in together.

Music played softly overhead. She could see a blurred reflection of herself and Rob in the brightly polished metal panels. The simple white blouse and fitted navy skirt that she had picked out that morning made her look like a schoolgirl instead of a thirty-five-year-old woman with a demanding career.

The scent of his cologne tickled her nose. It was a brand she liked, and on him it smelled particularly good—spicy but not overpowering. She tried not to breath.

His reflection leaned toward hers. She tensed as he spoke; his breath tickled her earlobe and the nape of her neck. “I think you have to push the button.”

Blood rushed to her face, staining it crimson above her white collar. She jabbed her finger into the button for the third floor so hard it hurt.

Rob leaned away from Nora and let his gaze skim over her trim figure. She was tall for a woman, maybe five foot eight or five foot nine. She wore her hair pulled back into a French twist today, and the style accentuated the graceful curve of her neck. She radiated cool grace.

“I have my patients to think of, Mr. Dale. I can’t allow just anyone access to their information.”

She was still fighting even after the battle was lost. A part of him admired her tenacity.

“Mr. Branson has made me aware of the patient confidentiality issues. Everything I see or hear regarding patients will remain strictly confidential.”

While he might admire her determination to get rid of him in spite of the pressure Willard Branson put on her, Rob couldn’t help but wonder why. He decided to try a direct approach.

“Do you have something to hide, Dr. Blake?”

Her head snapped around and she stared at him with wide eyes. For a second, he thought he saw fear in their depths, but it was quickly replaced by anger. She turned her back on him. “I have no idea why you would even suggest such a thing.”

The elevator doors opened and she rushed off. He followed at a slower pace, but more intrigued than ever. She entered the second doorway on the left and slammed it shut behind her.

After pausing to read her name and the name of her partner stenciled in gold lettering on the glass panel, he made a mental note to look up her partner’s credentials. Rob had already checked Nora’s. They were impressive.

He opened the door and stuck his head inside. A middle-aged woman with impossibly black hair teased in a 1970s flip sat behind an immaculate rosewood desk centered between two identical doors. Nora stood beside her. Two additional open doorways at each end of the reception area revealed examination rooms that were currently empty.

Rob winked at the secretary. “You must be Carmen. I’m Rob Dale. Is it safe to come in?”

She hid a smile with difficulty as she glanced between Nora and him. “For the moment.”

“Good.” He entered the stark office with plain white walls and a half dozen reception-style maroon chairs lining the perimeter. “How’s Harold getting along?”

“He’s much better, thank you.”

Nora’s frown deepened as she glared at her secretary. “Do you know this man?”

Rob walked forward and grasped Carmen’s plump fingers. He gave them a squeeze. “We’ve spoken on the phone so many times this week that I feel like Carmen is an old friend.”

Carmen batted her eyes. “You’re just as charming in person as you are on the telephone.”

“Not nearly as charming as you are. I would have braved the dragon days ago if I had known how pretty you were. I’m so glad to hear Harold is doing better. I’ve been praying for him.”

Nora’s mouth dropped open. “Who are you calling a dragon and who is Harold?”

“Harold is Carmen’s husband. He had a nasty bout of pneumonia. It’s a good thing her daughter was able to come over and take care of him since Carmen couldn’t get time off from work,” Rob said, enjoying Nora’s obvious confusion.

Nora folded her arms across her chest as she frowned at her secretary. “You didn’t mention you needed time off.”

Tilting her head to one side, Carmen said, “Actually, I did ask for a few days off last week, but you said your schedule was full and that I was needed here.”

“Oh, yes. I remember that. Well…you should have made a point of telling me it was a family emergency.”

“I’ll be more clear in the future, Dr. Blake.”

“Carmen is not my regular secretary,” Nora said, giving Rob a pointed look.

Carmen nodded. “I’m a temp. I fill in for Delia when she takes time off. She goes to Vegas every chance she gets. I think she has a boyfriend there.”

“All right then.” Nora’s smile looked forced. “Carmen, Mr. Dale will be shadowing me for a few days. Please get him a set of scrubs.”

Rising from her chair, Carmen said, “Dr. Kent has several sets in his office. I’ll get one for you. You look about the same size.”

Nora walked toward the inner office on the right and Rob followed.

Inside, a quick glance around the room revealed a large oak desk with two chairs facing it. They matched the chairs lining the outer office—none of which looked made for comfort. On the desk were an oversized paper pad and a computer screen. Several filing cabinets sat beneath a wide window with a nice view of downtown Austin in the distance. A tall, gray metal wardrobe took up the remaining space in the corner. There was a closed door on the near wall. Rob assumed it connected to the exam room. On the opposite wall was a small taupe sofa. He crossed the room and sat down.

Reaching out, he plucked several long blond hairs from a faint depression in the padded arm. A green-and-red plaid throw blanket lay draped over the other end of the couch.

“Do you sleep here a lot?” he asked, looking to where she stood pulling open the small wardrobe.

She withdrew a set of green scrubs on hangers. “Occasionally, when I need to remain in the hospital.”

“Your home is in Prairie Springs, isn’t it? That’s only thirty minutes from here.”

“Thirty minutes is a long time when a patient needs their chest reopened.” Spinning around, she held the scrubs close to her chest like a flimsy cloth shield. “How do you know where I live?”

He rose from the sofa and crossed to stand in front of the wall behind her desk where a half dozen framed certificates hung in two neat rows.

“I do my research, Nora. You graduated from Albertville High School in Boston at the precocious age of fifteen and at the head of your class. You finished pre-med at Columbia in three years and entered medical school with top honors. You joined the army and studied at Walter Reed where you chose to specialize in cardiac surgery. After that, you did your peds cardiac fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic. You were married briefly—”

“I know my own history,” she interrupted quickly.

“Of course.”

He turned to study the silver-framed photo on her desk. Picking it up, he compared the young woman’s face in the picture to Nora’s. There wasn’t a resemblance. The snapshot was of a smiling woman in her early twenties with thick brown hair that cascaded around a delicate oval face. “Pretty girl. Who is she?”

Nora took the frame from him and replaced it in the exact spot at the right-hand corner of her desk. “My stepdaughter. Since you seem to be so well versed about me, Mr. Dale, I think it’s only fair that you reciprocate.”

He held his hands wide. “My life is an open book.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

“What would you like to know? I graduated from high school in Dodge City, Kansas—not even close to the top of my very small class. I drifted between majors at the local junior college and finally ended up in the army. It didn’t take me long to realize that I wanted to be a ranger. Those guys do the fun stuff. Twelve years later, I decided I was getting too old to go jumping out of planes. A desk job or training new recruits didn’t appeal to me, so I opted to leave the service.”

“How does one decide that digging into other people’s lives makes a worthwhile second profession?”

“That was easy. I was sitting in a café in the busy capital of a small Middle Eastern country and relating the tale of how I met a pair of gunrunners to some friends. A man at the next table leaned over and asked me if I could help him get an interview with the unsavory duo. The guy turned out to be Derrick Mitchell, a senior reporter for Liberty and Justice . When my story panned out, he got promoted and asked me to come to work for him.”

“Just like that? You didn’t study journalism for years or work your way up from copy boy to the newsroom?”

Her sarcasm didn’t offend him. He rather enjoyed the way she lifted her chin and tried to talk down to him although she was a good four inches shorter than his six-foot frame. He sensed it was a ruse designed to put him off. It didn’t work.

“Nope. The job just fell into my lap. I believe the good Lord puts me where I am needed most.”

She looked down and smoothed the fabric she held with one hand. “Yes, I imagine you would have a simplistic outlook. I think a person should have to work hard to achieve what they want, otherwise it is meaningless.”

“You don’t believe that God led you to become a surgeon in Austin?”

She gave an emphatic shake of her head. “No. It took fifteen years of hard study, grueling clinical hours and painstaking attention to detail. I’ve earned my place here—it didn’t fall into my lap. God had nothing to do with it.”

Something about her answer intrigued him. At first he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, then he knew. Her vehement denial of God’s role in her life, like her sarcasm, didn’t ring true. There was more to this woman than she allowed others to see. His sudden intense urge to understand her better caught him off guard.

This was more than his usual need to find the story behind the person. He studied her face for a long moment, noticing her high cheekbones and full lips, the stubborn jut of her chin and the delicate winged brows above her expressive eyes. And then it hit him.

He expected annoyance, even arrogance from her, but what he saw in Nora’s eyes was infinite sadness—a longing for something precious that had been lost. In the war-torn countries where he had served he’d seen the same look all too often. It touched something deep inside him.

Gently, he said, “That doesn’t mean God didn’t lead you here. What made you stop believing?”

He watched the struggle on her face. For a second, it seemed as if he had connected with her, but the outer door opened and Carmen entered with a pair of scrubs over her arm.

The moment was lost and Nora turned away. Rob moved to take the scrubs from Carmen and offered his thanks. She nodded and left without speaking.

Nora closed the door of her closet. “I don’t have time to argue the existence of a higher power with you, Mr. Dale. I have rounds to make. If you’ll excuse me, I need to change. You may use the exam room through that door.”

Her cool tone conveyed in more than words that she was done talking to him. Rob touched one finger to his forehead in a brief salute and pulled open the door she indicated. As it closed behind him, he heard the lock click with a snap. Unbuttoning his shirt, he acknowledged that he’d uncovered more questions than answers in his brief time with Dr. Nora Blake.

He looked forward to the rest of the day with a growing sense of anticipation that he hadn’t experienced since he’d arrived back in the States. Dr. Nora Blake presented an intriguing puzzle—one he found himself eager to solve.

Nora walked to her chair and sank onto the familiar seat. A second later, she put her elbows on the desk and dropped her head into her hands.

Why now? Why after all these years? The pain of her past never truly went away, but there were days that she didn’t think about those difficult, sad hours and what she had lost. In the past year, there had even been times when she didn’t think about Bernard and the terrible debt she had to repay.

How ironic that the charity work she was doing to make amends was the very thing that might shine a spotlight on things best left hidden.

Looking up, she focused on Pamela’s picture. Her stepdaughter had endured enough pain in her life. Nora wasn’t about to let Rob Dale add to that burden.

He might appear cute and harmless, but so did a terrier puppy. It was only after one had turned your backyard into a crater-filled moonscape that you realized their true purpose. They had been bred to dig out vermin.

Rob Dale of Liberty and Justice struck her as the same kind of animal. He was no one’s lapdog.

She needed to steer him away from anything that involved her personal life. As a plan it wasn’t much, but it was all she had.

She rose and quickly changed out of her skirt and blouse and into her scrubs. She didn’t have any surgeries today, but she needed to follow up on three of her patients who were still in the hospital.

At the door leading out to the reception area, she paused with her hand on the knob. Letting Rob or anyone on the staff see her rattled would only undermine what she hoped to accomplish at Mercy Medical Center. When she felt she had control of her emotions, she exited the room with brisk strides. Rob, already changed, hastened to follow her.

“Where are we going?” he asked, working to tighten the drawstring on his scrub pants while he tried to keep pace with her.

“We are going to the PICU. That stands for Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. I have three patients there.”

“I thought we were going to surgery.”

“Not today, but I have an AV canal repair scheduled for the day after tomorrow.”

“AV canal. What kind of injury is that?” He finished cinching up his pants and pulled a small notebook from his breast pocket.

“An atrial ventricular canal is a congenital cardiac defect, as are the vast majority of the patients I see at this hospital. When I work at the base hospital, I do mostly follow-ups on adult patients after bypass surgery.”

They passed the elevators, but she didn’t stop. Instead, she pushed open the stairwell door and headed up. Two floors later she opened another door and strode out onto the pediatric floor. Unlike the rest of the hospital, the walls here were brightly colored and decorated with oversized cutouts of cartoon characters.

Rob noticed she didn’t seem winded by the rapid climb. “So you don’t get many injures like Ali’s?”

“To be perfectly honest, I have never seen a case like Ali’s and I’ve only read about a very few in the literature. Most of them were adults involved in motor vehicle accidents. The vast majority of people who sustain enough trauma to tear apart an internal structure of the heart don’t survive.

“The fact that Ali has is amazing. Two of the cases I studied healed on their own. Two required surgery to repair the tear when they began to show signs of fluid buildup in the lung. Three others died due to heart tissue death after approximately four days. However, Ali’s operation will be the same as for a simple VSD repair.”

“How can you operate on the kid if you haven’t had a case like this before? What’s a VSD?”

Nora paused outside a pair of wide double doors marked with PICU in large letters. “A VSD is a congenital cardiac defect.”

“You said that before.”

“And my answer was correct both times. We have several good handouts that we give to parents explaining the defects in detail and how they are repaired. I’ll make sure Carmen gets you some to study.”

“When do you see patients in your office?”

“Consults and a few follow-ups are scheduled once a week on Mondays. Ninety-five percent of my patients are direct admits to the PICU. Heart defects in children often go undetected until they are in crisis. Unless they have need of a second surgery in the future, I don’t normally see them after they leave the hospital.”

“Doesn’t that make it hard to get to know the families?”

“My focus is on my patients, not the families. There are social workers and others who deal with any issues that arise with them.”

Pushing open the doors, Nora entered the unit and walked to the nursing desk. Theresa Mabley, a stout woman with short salt-and-pepper hair was dressed in her usual blue scrubs. Standing behind her were a collection of residents and nurses, all waiting to begin reporting to Nora on the patients.