Revealing the Real Dr. Robinson (8 page)

“I’m sorry,” she called to him. A frantic look for rags or a towel to clean up the mess netted nothing. “I thought you’d like some tea before you went back on duty...”

“I’ll clean it up,” he shouted, his voice flat, inhospitable. “Just leave me alone and shut the door on your way out. And in the future, when I want tea, I’ll take care of that on my own.”

She’d made an effort, and even though it had turned out badly, that was all she got from him?
Shut the door on your way out?
She wasn’t angry. More like hurt. Okay, so maybe she’d overstepped the mark, and maybe she shouldn’t have barged into his room because he was, after all, a very private person. But, darn, she hadn’t expected this reaction. Hadn’t deserved it either, in her opinion. Well, so much for trying to be nice. “Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll shut your door.”

She really wanted to slam it, but she didn’t. Instead, she shut it quietly, listened to the hollow click, then went across the hall to her own room and listened to her own hollow click. It really wasn’t right, feeling so dejected about what had just happened, but she did. And for the next ten minutes she sat on the edge of her bed, wondering why she’d bothered in the first place.

Was she simply trying to get Ben to like or notice her, the way she’d spent a lifetime trying for those very same things with her family? Or were her feelings for Ben turning into something she’d never counted on?

Neither would come with a happy ending because they were hinged on something in Ben that wouldn’t be budged. Yet here she was, trying to budge him anyway, when she was the one who needed budging.

For the first time it occurred to her that Ben wasn’t going to be able to teach her what she wanted to be taught. Which meant there was no reason to stay.

Except she wanted to.
And that was the thought that sent her running for the shower, to wash off the tea and, hopefully, wash away some of the confusion. Because she really, truly didn’t want to leave here, and the only reason that could be happening was that she was falling for someone who would never return her feelings. And that was what had got her here in the first place—her feelings.

CHAPTER SIX

H
E
REALLY
wanted to lob the damned medical reference book at the wall. In fact, it was in his grip, ready to go, and the only thing stopping him was that someone out in the hall would hear it and come running. Then there would be questions, and he’d have to make up answers because he wasn’t about to tell anybody that he’d spent the last two hours fretting over things he couldn’t control. So what if she’d seen him...all of him? Did it make any difference? They weren’t involved, weren’t going to get involved. And she was a doctor after all. She’d seen scars. Even ones as bad as his.

But the look on her face...had he imagined it there? Or really seen it? Because it was no different than the look on Nancy’s face that day he’d trusted her enough to let his guard down. Nancy had gasped. So had Shanna. And Nancy had turned away. Shanna? He didn’t know what she’d done because she had been so involved in reacting to her spilled tea that he’d seized that opportunity to run for his clothes.

He shouldn’t have yelled at her, though. After all, he was the one who’d invited her to stay in his cottage. Sooner or later she’d have noticed more than the few scars that showed on his neck. She would have seen those on his arm, shoulder, chest, down his belly to his hip, and halfway down his leg. It’s who he was.
What
he was. And Shanna was perceptive. She’d already asked. Already started connecting the proverbial dots. Alcohol in his past, scars... And a lot more hideous dots to connect.

Tension running the length of his arm, Ben gripped the medical reference book so tight his knuckles turned white, then he stared at the book, willing it back to its spot on the shelf lest his frustration got the better of him. Normally, these things didn’t matter. He resigned himself to what he could and couldn’t have, and got on with life. But Shanna...why the hell was she stirring up these longings after he’d put them to rest? After he’d convinced himself it didn’t matter anymore? And there were so many regrets attached to those longings. Damn, he had a list of them.

Ben looked at the book in his hand again, started to relax his grip then without thought or further provocation hurled it at the wall, knocking his medical diploma to the floor, along with the photos of his parents. It hit so hard it actually dented the wall. Didn’t break through so much as dimple it. But it was a dimple heard up and down the hall outside because immediately someone knocked on the door. Then there were shouts. And more knocking.

“I’m fine,” he shouted out to them, trying to maintain more control in his voice than he felt. “Just dropped something.” More like his self-confidence dropping to the floor, shattering.

“Don’t suppose a pot of yerba maté would fix something for you, would it?” one familiar voice rang out.

Naturally, she would be there to hear. Humiliation heaped on his earlier humiliation. Still, just hearing her voice, even though it was locked away on the other side of the door, made him unbend just a little. “But didn’t you break my teapot?” he yelled back when he was convinced he could control the sharp cut that wanted to overtake his voice. Normally he wasn’t this edgy. Normally he let these things go without acting out. Normally... What the hell was normal, anyway?

“I bought you another one in the village. Actually, I bought two, just in case.”

Just go away,
he thought.
Please, just go away, Shanna.
Even as he was thinking the words he was on his way to open the door to her. No barriers in place to stop him. “Before you come in, not a word. Okay? I’m just like everybody else. Get angry. That’s all it was. Me getting angry.” He pointed to the book. “I’m sorry about earlier, too, when you came to my room, and now I’m just...”

“Letting off a little steam.”

“A whole lot of steam. Sometimes it builds up.”

“I know the feeling. I threw a chair through a plate-glass window once,” she said, bending down to pick up his diploma and photos from the shards of broken picture glass. “Meant to do it, too.”

In spite of himself, Ben laughed. “I can picture that.”

“You can?” she said, looking up at him. “Nobody else in my world could. In fact, they were pretty indignant about the whole thing, about how I’d had the audacity to react.”

“React how?”

“In opposition to my family. I was fourteen or fifteen. I had a boyfriend. You know, love of my life and all that. And I wanted to go somewhere with him...don’t remember where.” She laughed. “Don’t even remember his name. But my father refused to let me go because the Brooks family was going to be hosting some kind of event...we always hosted events. So, true to my teenage nature, I threw a tantrum.” She stood and handed the photos and diploma to Ben.

“My tantrums were pretty much overlooked, though, because they were...quiet. No throwing books at the wall and breaking glass. More like a very passive
please let me.
Except that never got heard. Or if they heard me, they ignored it. So this one time I decided to get their attention. Actually, it was the beginning of several times I tried to get their attention. Other stories for other days because this was the beginning of Shanna, the wayward teenager.”

“Who threw a chair out the window as her prelude.” An image he liked.

“Actually, it was an antique Windsor sidechair worth about fifteen thousand dollars. Broke it to pieces. Dozens of pieces. No way to have it restored.”

The smile on his face widened. “But did you feel better afterward?”

“Did you feel better after you threw the book?” she countered.

“A little,” he admitted.

“A lot,” she admitted. “Probably because that one act got me the first honest reaction I’d ever seen from my father. He was really...mad. Yelled at me. Stood over me when I cleaned up the broken glass. Took away all the privileges a girl that age has.
For a month!
”

“You liked that?”

“What I liked was knowing that I had the ability to make my father respond.”

“Which you used over and over?”

She shrugged. “Like I said. Stories for another day.”

“So, overall, how did that turn out for you?”

“Don’t know yet. Time will tell, I suppose, because I’m still wayward, or willful, or whatever you want to call it. Look, I’m going to run down the hall and grab a broom and dustpan to get the glass cleaned up. You get to clean it up, though.”

“After which you’re going to suspend my privileges for a month?”

“Only if you want them suspended, Ben.”

She was like a magnet. He couldn’t help himself. As much as he didn’t want to be drawn, he was. “Guess that depends on what’s being suspended, doesn’t it? Like my common sense,” he said. “I’m really sorry about earlier, Shanna. You caught me...off guard.”

“We all have our moments. Don’t worry about it.”

“But you didn’t deserve one of
my
moments. They’re...”

“Intense?”

“That’s putting it mildly.” Only there was nothing mild about his reactions. Most of the time he held them back, but with Shanna...seeing him figuratively bare came close to seeing the worst of part him, the part that still festered. And he couldn’t deal with her seeing that. Just couldn’t deal with it.

“You’ve got a way to go to equal some of mine, Ben.” She smiled. “Like I said, we all have our moments, and a couple of mine really stand out.”

“That bad?” he asked.

She laughed. “Worse.” Spinning, she headed off in the direction of the supply closet, and while he was tempted to step out the door and watch her when she turned and scurried down the hall, he didn’t. An old-fashioned page over the loudspeaker called him to Pediatrics, where Nurse Teresa Vera stopped him just short of entering the ward. “We’ve just readmitted Maritza Costa. She was complaining of another cold, had a little congestion in both lungs. Dr. Francis saw her in Emergency a little while ago and decided to have her stay.”

Maritza Costa, a beautiful little girl with a bad heart. He didn’t have the facilities here yet to treat her the way she needed, and her parents didn’t want to send her to another hospital. Truth was, the child needed surgery very badly. Attempts to seal the hole in her heart through a cardiac cath had failed, and now it was a waiting game. Waiting, and a lot of finger-crossing, because Maritza wasn’t going to get better without the surgery, and their best hope at present was to pray she didn’t get worse. With an extra prayer tossed in that her parents would have a change of heart. No such luck, though. “Any problems other than congestion? Did you run an EKG?”

“EKG showed no significant changes. And no other medical problems except...”

Vera paused, obviously not sure that she should proceed.

“Except what?”

“She hasn’t smiled, Doctor. Not once.”

In most patients that wouldn’t be considered a symptom, but in Maritza it was a huge sign that something else was going on because, no matter what else was happening to the child, Maritza smiled her way through it. It was something everybody at Caridad counted on. “I’ll go and take a look, see if I can figure it out.”

“I promised her ice cream but she says she’s not hungry.”

“Well, bring some anyway, and let’s see what we can do.”

In Pediatrics, Maritza had her own private bed, the one on the end where she could look out the window and watch the main street of the village. “So you’re back again?” Ben said, pulling up a chair and sitting down next to her. Right away he saw it—the listlessness in her eyes. All the brightness usually there had drained away.

Maritza nodded but said nothing.

“Maritza, sweetheart, where don’t you feel good? Can you tell me if something hurts, or just doesn’t feel right?”

She shrugged and looked away. But not out the window. More like, she was staring off into space.

“It’s okay if you don’t answer me, but I’m going to listen to your chest now. I need to figure out what’s making you feel this way.” He placed the stethoscope into his ears then leaned over to have a listen to her chest. Definitely congestion. Wheezing bilaterally. “Could you turn over on your left side just a little?” he asked, then listened again when she did. “That’s good. So, do you have a sore throat?” he asked. “If you do, I understand why you’re not talking. It hurts to talk, doesn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Can I have a look at your throat?” he asked, fishing through his pocket for his penlight. “I’m going to put a tongue depressor in your mouth, Maritza, so you may gag a little bit. But it will only take me a few seconds to look.” Which was what he did. Quick peek, pink throat. Not flaming red, thank heavens. No fever either, according to her chart. But he still had a nagging suspicion...

“Three ice creams,” Shanna said, carrying three bowls to the bedside, one of them so heaped with ice cream it was dripping over the sides. She looked at Maritza and smiled. “He really likes ice cream,” she said, perching herself on the edge of the bed, handing Ben’s bowl to Ben, setting her bowl aside and scooping out a spoonful for Maritza. “All they had in the kitchen was vanilla, but if you have a favorite flavor, I can look for it next time I’m down in the village.”

“Vanilla’s good,” Maritza whispered, then took the spoon from Shanna, looked at it for a moment and finally lifted it to her lips. Took a tiny bite, winced when she swallowed and tried again.

“Maritza’s been with us before,” Ben explained, picking up his bowl of ice cream then standing. He ducked out of the cubicle, gave his ice cream to the only other child in the room today, ten-year-old Nayla, admitted with appendicitis and now excited to be the lucky recipient of the largest bowl of ice cream she’d ever seen in her life. “Ventricular septal defect,” he said, stepping back over to Maritza’s bed.

“Repaired?” she asked.

Maritza shook her head as Ben answered, “No. Not yet.”

She addressed the girl. “Have you been to see a dentist lately, Maritza? Someone who looked at your teeth?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Your parents took you?” Ben questioned, picking up Shanna’s bowl of ice cream and simply holding it. Better the ice cream than clenching his fists. But he was angry. Damned angry. He’d specifically told her parents... “Was that when the traveling dentist came through last week?”

Maritza nodded.

He gripped the bowl even tighter. So tight the chill of it, combined with cutting off the blood supply to his fingers, caused a dull ache to set in. “Well, I think maybe I should...” The things he wanted to say to them, and would force himself to hold back, were giving him a headache, especially after he’d specifically given them the list of things Maritza should and should not do. “Should go find some medicine for you. But it’s going to be in an IV, Maritza. You remember what that is, don’t you?” Poor child. She didn’t deserve this.

“Yes,” she whispered as she attempted one more bite of the ice cream, then set the bowl aside and slid down into the bed, ready for a nap.

“Good. You sleep for a while,” Shanna said gently, pulling the sheet up over the child. “As soon as we get some of the medicine into you, you’ll start feeling better.”

Maritza nodded as her eyes fluttered shut, and Ben instinctively laid a hand to her forehead. Definitely a fever now. Too hot. Too sick. “Bacterial endocarditis,” he said gravely. “And she belongs in a hospital that can treat her heart condition as well as... You know, I specifically told them not to take her to the dentist. He comes through every few months, and Maritza’s parents asked me if it would be okay to set up an appointment for her.”

“But they didn’t listen,” Shanna said, sliding off the bed. “Are you okay, Ben?” she asked. “You seem agitated.”

“Try angry,” he said, walking away from the bed. “Enough to throw more than a book, which I’m not going to do.”

Shanna caught up to him and they didn’t speak until they were outside the ward. “Why hasn’t her ventricular septal defect been corrected?” she finally asked.

“Her parents won’t let us send her to one of the hospitals that can perform the surgery. They won’t go very far from the village, won’t let their daughter go very far.”

“But do they know it’s a correctable condition? That the longer they postpone it, the more difficult it’s going to be?”