Nightwatch

CHAPTER TWO

THE DRIVE TO RACHEL’S did nothing to calm Guy’s mind. He wavered between the respect he had for her as a doctor and the pain and rage he felt as a parent. He simply didn’t understand how she could have been so incompetent.

His tires squealed as he came to a stop in her driveway, and once the keys were out of the ignition he was heading for her front door.

He rang the bell several times, then beat on the wood with his fists, almost hitting Rachel as the door suddenly flew open.

“What is it?”

Guy’s tirade stopped before he was even able to start it. Dr. Rachel Browne, aka the Iron Lady, well known for her strict code of ethics and her somewhat aloof manner at the hospital, stood before him in a loose robe and tiny, see-through red nightie.

“Put your eyes back in their sockets, Guy, and tell me why you’re waking me up two hours after I got off the seventeen-hour shift from hell?”

He tore his eyes away from the vision she presented and looked straight into her eyes. “What the hell happened in there last night?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Heather Corrigan. Healthy eighteen-year-old. And she’s dead, Rachel.”

Rachel blinked at him as if his words weren’t English, as if she didn’t know she’d killed a girl in his E.R. Killed—

“I’m sorry I didn’t get the full report to you, Guy, but the girl had severe preeclampsia. I did everything possible to save her.”

“Everything possible,” he said, not believing that for a minute. “Where the hell was Williams?”

Rachel folded her robe tightly around her and slowly tied the knot in front. “There was only one OB on last night, and she was in the middle of a C-section with complications.”

He knew he was scaring her, that her step backward was a precursor to slamming the door in his face, but there had to be something she’d missed. Something she could have done.

“Guy? What’s going on?”

He focused on her face, realized his vision was blurry with tears. “She’s…she was my stepdaughter.”

Rachel’s eyes closed for a long moment, and when she opened them she touched his arm. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

“Damn it, Rachel, she was always perfectly healthy. There’s no reason this should have happened.”

“She hadn’t seen a doctor in a long time. No prenatal care at all. By the time she came in, her blood pressure was through the roof, the baby was almost dead. Guy, it was too late.”

He swallowed, leaned against the doorframe. Blinked his eyes clear. “I don’t understand any of this. She was supposed to be in Europe with her mother.”

“Why don’t you come in. Sit down.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you did everything. I just—”

“Of course.”

“Go back to sleep. You must be tired.”

“Are you sure you ought to be driving? With all the storm damage—”

“I’m fine. Sorry to have bothered you.” He turned and walked to his car, wishing like hell he could blame her. Blame anyone except himself.

RACHEL WATCHED as Guy got into his Range Rover, worried that he’d do something crazy, get distracted. Just plain run off the road.

Heather Corrigan had been his stepdaughter. She could hardly believe it even now, but why would he lie about something so awful?

Guy pulled out of her driveway too quickly. When he jerked to a stop, she saw him wipe his face with his hand, and when he started up again, he was moving at a much saner pace. Only when he turned the corner, out of her view, did her focus shift to her street. Tousled and windblown for sure, it still had the peaceful mien that had drawn her here in the first place.

There were mostly two-story houses with manicured lawns. Bikes, ten-speed and trainers, leaned against garage doors or lay on the sidewalk, making it difficult for the mailman.

She’d been so drawn here, and yet she’d never felt truly at home. Her night shifts, her single status. She was the odd duck, the silent stranger her neighbors nodded to when they couldn’t avoid her gaze.

Exhaustion washed over her, and she wasn’t quite sure whether it was the night before or the thought of the night ahead that made her so weary. Poor Guy. She’d had no idea. Yeah, she’d heard he’d been married before, but that was about the extent of her knowledge of his personal life.

The man was a hell of an administrator and an even better trauma surgeon. She was lucky to work with him.

But he was also terribly attractive, and not just because of his good looks. He pulled at her in a way that was too scary to examine closely. So she didn’t. She avoided him by working nights most of the time. By never letting down her guard. By being a doctor first, and a woman a distant second.

She closed her door, debating whether to get a glass of orange juice, but her body led her to the bedroom and her Egyptian-cotton sheets. To sleep.

GUY DIDN’T GET BACK to his office and privacy for two hours. The longest two hours he’d ever spent.

It was just that he had to know. For certain. So he’d gone to the morgue. In that cold room, with the sterile sinks and the gleaming drawers, he’d found her. Death had changed her, stiffened her soft features, made her face a mask. But it was Heather. God, what had she done to her hair? It was short, uneven, as if cut by ragged scissors without a mirror.

He stood there for a long time, wishing he could remember some prayers. Finally he spoke, quietly, hoping someone, something, listened.

It was over now, and he knew for sure. After he put all the paperwork on Heather in front of him, he sat down behind his desk, sinking into the fine leather, and closed his eyes. Memories of Heather laughing, braiding her hair, begging him for a Madonna album despite the adult lyrics. He’d only had her for four years. Four years of emergency calls, late-night surgeries, missed school plays, forgotten birthdays. He’d been as lousy a stepparent as he’d been a husband. But he’d loved Heather. More than her mother, at the end, although that was no one’s fault but his own.

He’d never blamed Tammy for leaving him. She had every right, and in fact, she’d probably stayed too long. His damn job. That was what she’d always called it. His damn job. And it had given him the only real satisfaction in his life.

He wasn’t meant to be married, but the lesson had been learned the hard way. With other people’s pain. And now, Heather was gone.

Guy hadn’t known she was pregnant, or even that she’d had a boyfriend, a lover. He’d lost touch, and whose fault was that?

It took him a moment to locate Tammy’s number in his Rolodex. She was living in Bordeaux, France, away with husband number three, studying art and learning to cook. Last time they’d talked, she’d sounded happy.

He got through after dialing all those numbers, and Tammy’s voice sounded as if she were in the next room, not overseas.

“Bonjour.”

“Tammy.”

There was a pause, long and static-free. “Guy.” She always used the French pronunciation. “To what do I owe this honor?”

He swallowed, picked up his pen and squeezed it. “I don’t know how to…Oh hell, Tammy…Heather.”

“What about Heather?”

He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Tammy. She’s dead.”

Nothing. No sound. No sharp cry, no keening wail. Just perfect silence.

“If this is a joke—”

“It’s not. I wish it were.”

Then came the sound of pain, and it was as terrible as anything he’d heard in all the years he’d been telling parents about their children, husbands about their wives…This was his grief, and her grief, and it was too real. It hurt like hot metal in his gut, like a gunshot wound.

“How?” Tammy said, her voice slurred.

“I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”

“What? What are you talking about? Heather’s not pregnant. She’s with her father. With Walter. In Los Angeles.”

“No, she’s not. She’s here, in Courage Bay. I think—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I think she was trying to find me.”

“Wait a minute. This makes no sense. I spoke to her two weeks ago, and she said everything was fine. That she was in L.A., that Walter was at the office, but that she would tell him hello.”

Guy ran a hand over his face. “So you had no idea where she was? Who she was with?”

“No.”

“Tammy—”

“Wait, stop right there. Don’t you dare use that tone with me, not now. Not when…”

He listened to her weep and cursed himself for being an insensitive fool. “We should call Walter. Find out what he knows.”

She sniffed. “Yes, right. But she was really pregnant?”

“She had a baby boy.”

“Oh, God.”

“And, I’m sorry, Tammy, but he’s not doing all that well.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure, except that he has jaundice and his blood pressure isn’t stable.”

“What do you mean, you’re not sure? You’re a doctor, for God’s sake—that’s all you’ve ever cared about. And now your grandchild is ill and you don’t know why?”

Guy’s first thought was that the boy wasn’t his grandchild, but he said nothing. His second thought was that he was a complete ass. “I’m sorry. I’ve been having a tough time with this, too. I’m going from here to the NICU.”

“I’m going to call Walter. And then I’ll get on a plane. Please, Guy. You have to take care of the baby. Please.”

“Of course.”

She wept quietly for another moment. “I have to clear things with Ted. He’s got this…It doesn’t matter. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“You have my cell. Call me if you need me.”

“Thank you.”

He heard her hang up, and he listened to the dial tone for a second, then put his phone in the cradle. He had to go see the baby, make sure everything was being done to save him. A baby boy that Heather would never know. Who the hell was the father, and where had he been last night? Where had he been during the whole pregnancy?

A knock jerked him out of his thoughts and his sister, Natalie, poked her head in. “Can I come in?”

He nodded.

She stepped into his office, closing the door behind her. Six years his junior, she bore the distinctive Giroux high cheekbones and dark eyes. Natalie was a burn specialist, and their brother, Alec, worked in the E.R. with Guy. “I heard about Heather, Guy. I’m so terribly sorry.”

“Does everybody know?”

She smiled the way she did with her patients. Kind, concerned, ready to listen. “This isn’t L.A. County General, Guy. These things get around pretty fast.”

His head dropped into his hands. “She deserved better, Nat. I don’t know how it happened.”

She walked behind him and massaged his tense shoulder muscles. “Things happen, Guy. Mom—Dad. You have to believe there’s a reason.”

“Don’t get all metaphysical on me. Does Alec know yet?”

“He’s already left for Cabo with Janice and the kids. But I’ll call him. Let him know what’s going on. I know he liked Heather a great deal. We both did. She was a sweet girl.”

Guy’s throat tightened, and he had to change the subject before he made a fool of himself. His sister had recently married the city’s fire chief, Dan Egan. “How are things with you and Dan?”

Natalie walked to his side and smiled. “Really good. Thanks. In fact, why don’t you come for dinner tomorrow night?”

Guy appreciated the invitation. He liked Dan, and was happy that Nat had found herself a good man. Both his siblings had been through so much in the last year, and yet they’d come out stronger, better. In love. And he’d never felt so distant from them. “Thanks, Nat, but I’m going to stick close to the hospital. I’ll take a rain check.”

“Anytime, big brother.”

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I swear it.”

Her beeper went off. Natalie sighed, patted his still-tense shoulders and headed for the door. “You’re an incredible doctor, Guy, and a pretty decent man. I know you’ll do the right thing, whatever it is.” With a final smile, she left his office, closing the door behind her.

CALLIE BAKER SET ASIDE the damage report and her master list of what had to be done to get the hospital back to perfect working order, even though she hadn’t even started on the delegation sheet. It was time for rounds.

She knew most chiefs of staff didn’t go on master rounds, but for her it was a sacred ritual. Although she could only manage it once a week, twice if she was lucky, it was the one duty that kept her heart and her mind completely focused on who she was and what her job was all about.

Above all else, she was a doctor, and she liked to think she was a damn good one. The administrative duties would swamp her if she let them, and that wasn’t going to happen as long as she had something to say about it.

It had taken her a long time and a hard road to get where she was, and one of the key ingredients to her success was her ability to see the big picture while never losing sight of the details.

Before she left the office, she stopped in the small restroom and made sure she was put together. After a quick application of lip gloss and a readjustment of the hummingbird pin on her jacket lapel, she straightened her white coat and headed out to the front lines.

Everything went according to plan until she hit the ICU. Callie read through Bruce Nepom’s chart three times. His prognosis wasn’t good. In fact, it was a miracle that he was still breathing. His injuries had been severe, especially the cranial damage. That’s what had caught her attention. Something didn’t fit. A deep, focused trauma at the back of the skull.

She looked at the man, swathed in bandages. His blood pressure was so low as to be a hint instead of a statement, and she knew it was only a matter of time. A short time. She wondered why he was here alone.

After making a note on the chart that she wanted to be updated on his progress, Callie continued her rounds. Bruce Nepom’s injuries lingered in her mind, however. A fuzzy question that had to be answered.

RACHEL WOKE UP SUDDENLY at two-thirty from a dream. Guy Giroux had been to her house. But unlike the real event, this time he’d come in and he’d wept like a child. In her dream she’d tried to comfort him, but her own discomfort made her awkward and jerky. He didn’t seem to notice, but Rachel was beyond mortified. It was like seeing the man naked, or walking in on him making love.

Guy had a place, and it was at the hospital. He had a role, and that was as her boss. Anything that disturbed that picture was uncomfortable and to be avoided at all costs.

Only, the picture was disturbed now. Guy had lost his stepdaughter. Someone he cared about, loved. He’d been married, which Rachel had known but never thought about, and there had been a little girl in his life. It was altogether too personal.

At work, Rachel was an attending physician and little else. She listened to her staff, joked with them, even went for the occasional drink after a tough night. But she kept her private life to herself.

She’d learned early that, as a doctor, emotional objectivity was a good thing. Not that she didn’t care what happened to her patients. In fact, that’s where all her nurturing went—to the people who needed her. The truth was, she was too emotional. Things affected her deeply, and she cared way too much when confronted with pain and suffering she could do nothing about.

Rachel had been that way all her life, and it had made for a roller-coaster puberty. Her friends’ lives all became larger than life, their joys were hers to share, and their pain cut her to the core.

Her decision to become a doctor was born from a deep need to make things better. Not just for others, but for herself. She couldn’t stand feeling helpless.

In grade school she’d had a dear, wonderful friend. Molly had moved two houses down when they were both in fourth grade, and it had been love at first sight. They lived at each other’s houses, played together constantly, dreamed big dreams. Molly was like a sister to Rachel, only they fought less.

And at fifteen, Molly got bone cancer. Two years later, she’d died, and Rachel had nearly gone with her, her grief was so consuming. Standing by, watching her friend’s body waste away was the most excruciating experience of her life, and from that time on, nothing had swayed her from her course.

It was in medical school that Rachel realized she couldn’t help anyone if she was engulfed in grief herself, so she decided she simply wouldn’t let it in. It was as if she’d created an invisible bubble around herself, and nothing came through.

Nothing.

The strategy had worked so well it almost scared her, whenever she let herself think about it. Because there was one problem: she’d never been able to figure out a way to let the positive emotions enter through the barricade.

Not that she was unhappy. The satisfaction she got from her job was deep and fine. But was it enough?

Waking up alone, going to sleep alone, cooking for one…It fell short. Not short enough to make her give up her career or even curtail her hours. If she ever did meet anyone, he’d have to deal with that, or hit the road.

For some unknown reason, she thought of Guy again. She needed to think of him as her boss, not a man. A really attractive man.

That was one road she wasn’t going down. Nope. No way. He was off-limits. Completely and utterly. He was the reason she preferred the night shift and why she did all she could to keep their communication on paper.

Rachel threw the covers back and headed for the shower. Her shift didn’t start until nine, but she had shopping to do, some calls to make. And she wanted to get to the hospital early to review her paperwork and check on Heather Corrigan’s baby boy.

CHAPTER THREE

ELEANOR FITZ, the charge nurse in the NICU, wasn’t someone Guy new well. He dealt with her during administrative meetings and whenever a preemie was born in the E.R. They’d never talked, aside from work. He didn’t understand his reticence to approach her now, and he pushed it aside, intent on seeing Heather’s child.

When Eleanor saw him standing just inside the room, she seemed startled, but she quickly hid her surprise. “Dr. Giroux, how can I help you?”

He walked directly to the large sink and scrubbed his hands as if preparing for surgery. Then he draped a sterile mask around his neck and walked across the room to the nurses’ station, his gaze sweeping the incubators, isolettes, infant warmers and bevy of monitors hooked up to the tiny charges. The other nurses, most of whom he recognized, were busy, and there were two fathers, one holding his child, the other looking desperately through an incubator at his.

“I’m looking for Heather Corrigan’s baby,” he said.

For a split second Eleanor’s forehead creased, but perhaps he imagined it because when she smiled, she seemed all business. “He’s right over here.” Turning, she led him to the incubator at the far end of the room. Both a heart and a respiratory monitor were connected, and when he got closer, he saw an IV tube inserted into the hand of an incredibly tiny, very yellow baby.

“What’s his condition?”

The nurse didn’t even pluck the chart from the corner of the incubator. “He’s doing better than he was, but that’s not saying much. Very low blood pressure. You can see his jaundice is advanced and his kidney is only at ten percent. There’s still a lot we don’t know. His blood work isn’t finished.”

Guy stopped himself before he snapped at the woman in his frustration. “Please call the lab immediately and have his bloods done, stat.”

“Yes, Doctor,” she said, the words an unasked question.

“This is my stepdaughter’s child. I’d like to be informed immediately of any changes. You have my beeper, I assume.”

“Yes, Doctor,” she said, and it was if she had changed into another person. Softer. Sympathetic.

He wanted to make her leave, and he could have with a glance, but he didn’t. The child deserved all the sympathy in the world, considering his stepgrandfather.

“I’ll get right on it, Doctor,” Eleanor said, stepping aside. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.”

He nodded, his gaze on the boy.

“Doctor?”

He turned, surprised that the nurse was still there. “Yes.”

“Does he have a name?”

Guy stared without seeing. Thought about his girl, the way her hair insisted on flying about in the most undisciplined manner, no matter how she tried to tame it. About the way her laugh made him smile, even when he was in the foulest mood. “Heath,” he said. He looked at the baby once more. “His name is Heath Corrigan.”

RACHEL WAS STILL a little stunned at the storm damage she’d seen on her errands. Roofs had blown off, trees had toppled, electrical wires had been ripped from their housings. It was amazing the E.R. hadn’t been ten times as busy.

She’d finished her grocery shopping, gone to the post office and to the dry cleaners. Tonight would end her graveyard shift, and the day after tomorrow she would begin days. It wasn’t an easy transition to make, not only because of her body clock, but because of the social aspects of the day shift.

There were more patients, more interactions, more staff. She’d be doing rounds with Guy, seeing him in the call room, in the lounge. It was also time for her yearly review, and while she felt confident her performance was up to par, she didn’t like the fact that Guy had so much power over her.

Not that she hadn’t had supervisors and bosses before. She’d done her residency at Baylor in Houston, and they were notorious for their brutal reviews, but no one had ever flustered her the way Guy did. For all her expertise at disassociating her emotions, she failed miserably when she was around him.

She’d given up denying her attraction to him. It was there. Big time. But just because she felt it didn’t mean she had to act on it.

She just wished it would go away—that she could cure her attraction like a headache and be done with it.

And now, given his grief at the loss of Heather, she needed to be extra attentive, more personal, giving.

Okay, she wanted to be those things because no one should have to go through his pain, but the territory was dangerous and she had to be so very careful not to let him get too close. Not to let her guard down.

Once Rachel arrived at the hospital, she headed straight for the NICU.

In the elevator to the fourth floor, two nurses joined her. Rachel smiled at them and stood to one side. Of course she knew them both—they worked in cardiology—but not well.

“I know,” Cathy said, her voice just above a whisper, yet clear as a bell to Rachel. “I couldn’t believe it. His own stepdaughter.”

“I heard he was just devastated,” Ilene whispered back.

The elevator stopped on Two, and the nurses left without a backward glance. Rachel sighed. Courage Bay was a small hospital, and rumors raced through it like a fire. That was another reason she had no intention of letting Guy’s situation get to her. Nothing went unnoticed around here, and she would rather die than be the subject of staff gossip. It was enough that she’d earned herself the nickname of the Iron Lady. No one had ever said it to her face, but she’d heard it in the lounge, even on the floor. Better she should be known by that moniker than as a soft touch.

At the fourth floor, she headed toward the NICU, but as she passed the big windows, she came to an abrupt halt. Guy Giroux, her tough-as-nails boss, sat in a rocking chair, a sterile mask covering the lower half of his face, a tiny bundle, still hooked up to an array of monitors, cradled in his arms.

A wave of compassion swept through her, as strong as the winds that had toppled the trees last night. Without her permission, tears filled her eyes and she had to blink them away as she struggled to regain her composure.

This wasn’t the plan. She hadn’t even spoken to the man and she was getting blubbery. This never happened to her. Not anymore.

She got a grip on herself, straightened her shoulders and headed into the room, stopping to wash her hands and grab a mask before she walked over to him.