In Good Hands (17 page)

“I was going to the salad bar!” Roger huffed. Sadly, he'd forgotten to tell Sam to keep his mouth shut. And sure enough, the traitor had to speak up.

“But you ordered the halibut.”

“Fish! Healthy, lean fish!”

Amber touched his hand. “It's okay. I never really expected you to stay on it completely. I just wanted to lower your pressure and build other foods back in slowly.”

“Which is working,” Roger said. How had everything turned around so that he was the bad guy? He lifted his chin. “I've made my decision,” he said loudly. “I'm going to stop taking my pills.”

He never thought to hear both women scream the same thing at the same time. In fact, he wondered if the nurse had spoken aloud, too, because suddenly his little cubicle echoed with one word:
“No!”

He blinked. Okay. Clearly, not what he had expected. He turned to Amber, looking her in the eye. He didn't know the other doctor, and frankly, he didn't like her. Even if she did seem scientifically correct.

“What do you think I should do?”

But before Amber could speak, the doctor stepped forward, her voice calm and reasonable, and all the more powerful because what she said sounded so right.

“I'm the professional here, Mr. Martell. I'm the one with years of science and research on my side. I'm telling you to stay on the
full
dosage of your medication. If you continue to feel light-headed in six months—which is long enough to see
if your recreation lasts—you and your regular doctor can discuss alternatives. Any other choice risks a cardiac event.”

Roger opened his mouth to speak, but she would not let him get a word out. In fact, she flowed right into an impassioned speech that she must have given dozens of times.

“I see patients in here every day who try some New Age hocum only to have their entire lives destroyed by idiocy. Supplements, acupuncture, prayer trees, and the weirdest diets ever. They all think they know something that medical science hasn't found. Do not allow yourself to be victimized by that. Don't became another sad statistic. Please. You seem like a reasonable man. Go with reason now.”

She stopped, and Roger had to admit that he was inclined to go with what she said. Science and medicine against meditation and a weird diet. Especially since she was right. As much as he might plan to stick to both—as well as the nightly sexfest—reality told him it wasn't going to happen. He'd started to tire of salad. Hell, he was completely fed up with green stuff. And the nightly sex couldn't possibly last.

He looked at Amber who read the answer in his eyes. She nodded and smiled gently at him.

“It's okay, Roger. You have to go with what seems right to you.”

Roger released a slow breath of relief. Amber wasn't going to damn him for staying on his medication at the regular levels. But apparently she wasn't done yet. She turned to the doctor and spoke, her voice resigned, but no less compelling.

“Remember that day, Dr. Hamilton? The first day you realized you were just putting bandage after bandage on wounds that would never heal. Constant medication for conditions that shouldn't exist in a healthy person. Diabetics who had to turn their lives upside down to stay alive. Cures that might just be killing the patients slower instead of helping them.”

“Science is never perfect,” responded the woman, her voice
calmer now that she had won Roger over. “Medicine even less so. That doesn't mean it's wrong.”

“One day—I hope one day soon—you'll get a larger perspective. And you'll wonder what huge piece of the puzzle you're missing. I didn't say medicine was wrong. I just think it doesn't know more than a tiny fraction of the whole.”

“Of course, diet and prayer helps,” Dr, Hamilton said with only a slight sneer. “But it'll never replace medication.”

Amber wanted to argue. He could see it in every line of her body. But even he could tell that it would do no good. There didn't seem to be much common ground between the two women. Which was potentially very bad because that meant that Roger didn't have much in common with Amber either. After all, hadn't he just agreed with Hamilton about his medication?

“Never say never, Dr. Hamilton.”

That was Amber's final word on the subject. Dr. Hamilton's as well, apparently, because the woman just shook her head and walked out. Roger thought Amber would make some excuse to leave, too. After all, she'd just lost a knock-down-drag-out with a bitch. But she didn't. She stayed by his side and held his hand. She didn't even make him feel like an ass for taking the other woman's advice over hers.

“Amber,” he began, not even sure what he wanted to say.

She silenced him with a tender kiss to his lips. “Slow and steady is good, Roger. We'll keep an eye on your pressure. If it's down for good, we'll know, and you can start cutting back on your meds.” Then she eyed him critically. “But until your fainting spells stop, I'm going to insist on driving you places.”

He blinked. “Fainting
spells?
It was one time!”

“Or you could make an appointment with your regular doctor. Talk realistically about your new diet and that we are
not
going to cut back to once a week—”

He snorted. As if.

“Promise that I'll monitor your pressure daily, and see what he recommends.”

Roger thought that over for about a half second. It took a little longer to frame his response.

“How much more than once a week?”

She smiled, but it was Sam in the corner who responded with a loud snort. “That's my cue to get some coffee. And call my fiancée. Maybe she'll be up for helping me moderate my pressure.”

Roger didn't speak until Sam had disappeared around the curtain. Then he grabbed Amber by the shoulders and hauled her half on top of him. She squeaked in surprise, but relaxed against him almost immediately.

“How much?” he repeated. “How much more than once a week?”

“As much as you like,” she said.

“Deal,” he said, right before he kissed her.

 

A
MBER WAITED OUTSIDE
while the last of Roger's exit paperwork was done. She felt bruised inside and out and had needed to step away just to get enough space to breathe freely again.

Back in her loft, she was the authority on everything. People came to her, begging for her guidance. Whatever she said carried power and authority. But out here, back in the real world, she was butting heads against a larger foe than anything Spike could conjure. Out here, she was fighting the entire weight of the medical establishment. Sure they gave reluctant deference to the power of diet and meditation. Everyone agreed in the mind-body connection. But it was a fuzzy connection at best, and they put their real faith in pharmaceuticals.

She didn't. Which put her in a real disconnect with a large
portion of the medical establishment. Which left her exactly where?

Perversely enough, her argument with the oh-so-sure-of-herself Dr. Hamilton made her want to return to Mandolin more than ever. The E.R. doctor wasn't evil, just very set in her belief that chronic conditions could only be managed by drugs. Amber believed differently. What if hypertension was because a body's qi energy was out of whack? What if diabetes, arthritis, even attention deficit disorder could be corrected the same way?

She didn't know if it was true, but she sure as hell wanted someone asking the questions.
She
wanted to be asking the questions right here on the front lines in a high-profile hospital like Mandolin. And in a way that made the Dr. Hamiltons of the world
think
about their assumptions. Because that was the only way that medicine would evolve and grow into something better.

That's what she wanted. But was she delusional? Would she even be allowed to bring up the debate, much less address it in her own way? She didn't know. The directors she had talked to this evening had seemed open enough to the idea. But how many of them were on her side of the fence and how many on Dr. Hamilton's?

And what about Roger? His job, his life and his best friend was in Chicago. If she moved back to Arizona to fight the good fight, then what about him? What about their relationship?

They'd never last long distance. That never worked. So one of them would have to give up everything and move. She couldn't ask him to do that. Similarly, she wasn't sure she wanted to compromise her goals for him. There just weren't hospitals like Mandolin in Chicago. At least none that would look past why she'd been fired in the first place at what she brought to the table now.

She sighed and dropped her head back against the coarse
brick wall of the hospital. So, she supposed the real question went like this: Did she break up with Roger now? Or wait until their life choices and geography tore them apart?

A
FTER THE DRAMA
of the night before, the meeting the next day was anticlimactic. Sam and Jack got along great. Two nerds talking bioengineering. Roger didn't even need to be there, which was a good thing because he couldn't stop thinking about Amber.

He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong between them. After leaving the hospital, they had gone back to the hotel and collapsed into bed. He'd tried to talk to her, ask about her meeting with Jack, but she'd just yawned and shaken her head. This morning had been even worse. She'd been up and gone for breakfast with her parents while he and Sam had prepared for the meeting with Jack. In short, there was nothing he could do but wait it out and hope she talked to him.

So he went into business mode. He did what he could to charm Jack and not hate the man for his past relationship with Amber. He tried to listen closely enough to prevent the two geeks from planning something ridiculously expensive and completely impractical. And then he spent the rest of his time trying not to obsess about every word, every gesture that had gone on the night before. It didn't help that Amber was sitting in the conference room, too, looking cool and professional
and so unlike the woman he'd gotten to know over the last two weeks.

In the end, he had to just man up and do his job. Amber was an adult. If she said everything between them was fine, then he would take her at her word. She'd tell him the truth when she was ready, and in the meantime, he had to focus on how Mandolin and RFE could work together. He managed. Barely. And he was never more thankful than when they stepped out of Mandolin and finally, blessedly, got onto the plane back to Chicago.

He hoped he'd get a chance to talk with Amber on the flight, but luck was not with him. Sam was practically high from the meeting, so bursting with ideas the man wouldn't shut up. While Amber buried her nose in a book, Roger ended up taking an entire pad of paper's worth of notes on what RFE's next big projects were going to be. Knowing Sam, there would be a ton more refinements by tomorrow morning, but at the moment, his friend needed someone to write like the wind and ask hard cost-benefit questions now. That was Roger's job and always had been. All girlfriend questions had to wait until later.

Except there was no later. They got to Chicago and went straight to bed. In separate homes. Roger didn't like it, but while they were in Arizona, Amber had received word from the police. Spike was in custody and no threat to anyone right then. Which meant that Roger had no legitimate reason to keep her with him that night. Especially since he was dropping with exhaustion as well.

The next day was work as usual, but Sam was in extra-productive mode. Everyone was scrambling to keep up, Roger more than everyone else because he also had to make up for the two weeks of vacation he'd just taken. So he set his sights on the weekend, praying that Amber wouldn't choose to break
up with him by email while he was buried deep in accounting projections.

Except, of course, that he forgot one thing: Sam's wedding. The man was getting married that weekend. There were all the usual festivities, of course, and a very full schedule of events for both groom and best man.

Thankfully, Sam was the very opposite of an anxious bridegroom. He and Julie were so very much in love that Sam was bursting with joy. “Bursting” being the key word because when Sam got happy, he got productive engineering-wise. If the man got any happier, RFE would have to triple in staff just to cover the extra work.

Which left even less time for Roger to spend with Amber. He did manage to see his doctor, though. He'd had two near fainting moments and was more convinced than ever that his dosage was too high. Surprisingly, his doctor was fascinated with what he and Amber had been doing. He had a ton of questions Roger wasn't even remotely qualified to answer. After twenty minutes of grilling, the man wrote the lower dose prescription almost as an afterthought. Truthfully, Roger didn't care what the man thought. He was going to go with a lower dosage just so Amber would be forced to take his blood pressure daily as she'd promised.

She did, of course. With every appearance of love and concern for him. But something was wrong between them. He was sure of it. She was preoccupied and remote, but every time he thought they could get a moment to talk, he was called back to work. Sam had another brilliant breakthrough. Or the lab caught on fire—again.

In short, he was as preoccupied and distracted as she was. They had to have it out. He couldn't live like this—questioning everything, watching for a sign or a clue. They had to talk. But when? And how? Between his schedule and her saying everything was fine, he couldn't find an opening.

The night before the wedding, he reached his wit's end. He needed help big time, so he grabbed his best friend and abducted him. But they didn't go the usual prewedding stripper bar—Sam couldn't care less about that kind of stuff. Instead, they went to the lab and together they began to plot.

 

A
MBER GOT THE CALL
three days after their return to Chicago. It was from the director of Mandolin, the same man who had fired her two years earlier. He'd been hearing great things about her, he said, from the board members she'd talked to at dinner, from Jack and from her parents. Yes, he and her father still golfed every Wednesday and Saturday mornings.

He asked her about what she'd been doing in the last two years. She answered with the right amount of spin, explaining her research and her conclusions, and framing it all in terms that would be the most palatable to him. He countered by saying that, yes, her old boss was retiring and it was only now that the director was seeing how very damaging that man had been to Mandolin. In short, he should have taken more time to think about her resignation two years earlier. She responded with appropriate contrition. She'd been young and impulsive. She understood the value of procedure and policy now that she was so much older and wiser.

And then came the final clinch. He said that the world was a new place, that patients were insisting on using the internet to help with their diagnoses and treatments, and that Mandolin could really use a doctor who spoke “New Age bullshit, no offense.” She'd laughed and lied that she hadn't been insulted at all. That had resulted in an invitation to meet next week in Arizona to discuss her career.

It wasn't a job offer, but with the right maneuvering, it would be. She could probably step back into her old job as if she'd never left.

She was still staring at her phone, wondering what to do
and wishing Roger had time to talk when something completely unexpected happened. Roger's doctor called.

 

A
MBER LOVED A WEDDING
. Ever since she'd been the flower girl for her aunt when she was five, she'd had an addiction to white lace and rose petals. She'd secretly watched every reality TV show about wedding dresses, speciality cakes, and best of all, bridezillas. But actually attending weddings? That hadn't happened so much.

She'd always been too busy and too focused to develop the friendships that got someone invited to big events. She'd been to the odd relative's wedding, but even that had felt obligatory. Today, however, was all about fun.

She really liked Sam, and from what he'd said, she thought she and Julie could be friends. Plus, it was obvious that the man was head over heels in love. She'd known it from the tone of his voice and the way his eyes got dreamy when he spoke of her. When geeks fell in love, they fell hard and Sam was no exception. Roger had let slip that their courtship had gone beyond the usual series of dates. He hadn't said more, but she was intrigued.

She dressed with care, wearing a simple dress and sweater combo with low heels. She was sick to death of her stiletto boots. It wasn't her anymore, and she was planning on giving them to Goodwill. She was also sick to death of angsting over her relationship with Roger.

It was a simple question. Did she pursue the job at Mandolin or risk everything on her relationship with Roger? Her head said to go the practical route and the job in Arizona, but her heart said Roger was The One. But how could she possibly know that? They hadn't even known each other a month. They still had some major philosophical differences. He was science all the way, and she often thought she was getting weirder by the day. But on the other hand, stranger couples had worked.
And maybe he could come to accept something other than traditional medicine. Maybe…

So she dressed and went to the wedding, willing herself to stop thinking about her relationship with Roger. Except when she walked into the huge church, there he was, dressed in a tuxedo that made her knees melt. Sweet heaven, he was gorgeous. And when he spotted her in the door, his face lit with a joy akin to what Sam had when he spoke of Julie. Lord, she wanted to believe he loved her that much. She wished it could be true for her. But inside she worried she was just deluding herself. They were just too different.

Still, she couldn't stop staring at him. What would she give to be with him forever? To wake up every morning with him beside her? To walk down the aisle and have him standing there at the altar waiting for her?

“You look like you're about to cry,” he whispered when he came to her side. “Are you all right?”

“I have a terrible confession to make,” she whispered back. “I'm one of those horribly weepy women at weddings.”

He smiled, but the worry didn't leave his expression. And that's when she started looking at him as a doctor. There were lines of fatigue around his eyes, and she felt a tension in his shoulders.

“What about you?” she asked as he started escorting her down the aisle to her seat. “You're looking tired.”

“It's been a busy week,” he said, his voice terribly…neutral.

She looked at him. She knew he'd been busy with work. And as Homeless Tammy had come down with a nasty cough and was now sleeping it off on her couch, Amber hadn't really had the space in her schedule for him. She'd managed to see him every day, checking his blood pressure and the like, but beyond that, they'd had no time together.

“Look, I've got responsibilities here,” he said into her ear
as he sat her down toward the front. “But I've got something important to show you.”

“Roger, perhaps it would be best if—”

“Can't talk right now,” he said, glancing hurriedly down the aisle. She followed his gaze, wondering what was making him so anxious. There were more than enough handsome ushers—the bride's brothers, she believed—to carry the load. But he didn't give her a chance to ask. “Promise you'll come with me tonight after the reception.”

She sighed. “Roger, you're going to be exhausted. You should rest.”

He arched a brow. “Exhausted? Hardly. Plastered is more likely, in which case, you'll have to drive me home.”

She frowned. She highly doubted that he would get drunk. He just wasn't the type to binge drink, even at his best friend's wedding. “We'll get a cab—” she began, but again he cut her off.

“Promise me, Amber. Please.”

She bit her lip and nodded. “Of course. Whatever you need.”

 

T
HE WEDDING LIVED UP
to Amber's expectations. Julie was even more stunning than she'd expected and Sam couldn't stop grinning. And Amber started grinning right along with them, especially when an octopus-like robot with a white veil acted as flower girl. It rolled up the aisle, trailing rose petals beneath its wheels, and even had a little fan that made the veil billow out behind it.

It was the most adorable thing Amber had ever seen. But she had no idea why one of the octopus arms carried a small strap that would normally attach to a weight machine. Still, the ideas that popped into her mind were interesting. And one glance at Roger told her he was thinking the same thing as he flashed her a grin.

She supposed her favorite moment of the ceremony was when the bride and groom exchanged vows. Both of them spoke so clearly and with such conviction that goose bumps prickled up and down Amber's arms. They were so sure. One look at them, and there was no question in their eyes or their hearts. They could vow forever because they were that in love.

Tears slid down Amber's face and she discreetly wiped them away. What was this? She was a career woman all the way. Dedicated to her research, to changing the face of Western medicine. She was not someone who got weepy over a guy. And yet, obviously, she was. She wanted to be with Roger forever.

She sighed and refocused on the bride and groom. They were lighting a unity candle, the warm glow of the flame perfectly illuminating their smiles. A moment later, they were pronounced husband and wife, and Sam kissed his bride.

And what a kiss it was! He touched Julie's face with such reverence and then slowly pressed his lips to hers. It was so tender that Amber teared up again. And then the little robot released a horn fanfare and blew out confetti over everyone. Cheers erupted, applause and more robotic whistles. Sam and Julie were married.

And Amber needed another pack of tissue.

 

H
OURS LATER
, Amber's eyes had dried. She had gorged herself on the huge buffet. Beer and brats were the theme—apparently the groom's choice—but there was ample food for her. And the best chocolate wedding cake she'd ever tasted. Interestingly enough, the cake had been done up as an elevator with the bride and groom inside. It was quite the picture, and Amber had been blessed with getting the Door Close button. As she had her own fond memories of the RFE elevator, she took it as a special gift.

But now the food was nearly gone, her head was fuzzy from the champagne and she'd lost track of the number of handsome groomsmen who had asked her to dance. And there were quite a number of handsome groomsmen. Sadly, the only one she cared about had been conspicuously absent. Amber was just thinking it was time to leave despite her promise to Roger when the man in question grabbed the microphone.