The Doctor's Damsel (Men of the Capital Book 3) (3 page)

She nearly ran to him and kissed him. Only the fact that he had been so stern with her held her back and she left the hospital without saying another word to him. She did, however, have a lot of words for herself on the drive home. How she could approach him, make him see her for who she was: another believer broken down by life.

Becca tumbled into bed at the apartment. When she woke, she called her sister.

“Hey, Han!” she bounced.

“Good morning, Becca. You slept late,” Hannah muttered, glancing at the clock that read six in the morning.

“I was up till after three. I had to go to the ER.”

“Oh my lord, are you okay? What happened? Did you try to use the stove?”

“No, and for your information, I know how to cook. None of your kitchen appliances attacked me. I was opening a box and the knife slipped. I’m fine. I just had to go get stitches.”

“You should have called me! I would have gone with you!” Hannah clucked.

“I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.”

“You promise you’re okay?”

“Yeah. For sure. I just wanted to talk to you about your bachelorette night. I need a final guest list. I know you, me, Annelise, Shannon, your friend Joanie, but why do I have to invite Cynthia?”

“I like Cynthia. Why shouldn’t I have her?”

“Because she’s your ex-husband’s sister.”

“If she doesn’t hold it against me that I divorced her brother, why should I blame her for being related to him? She’s an awesome person and I love her. She stays on the list. What about Katie?”

“Ugh! Katie, our cousin?”

“Yes. We only have one cousin, babe, it’s not like we can forget to include her.”

“But she’s so uptight. She won’t enjoy it, and I don’t want her judging me.”

“If she comes to the bachelorette night, she’s guilty by association and automatically forbidden to judge any of us, I swear. Do you have her number?”

“Yuck.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Anything else?”

“No. I mean, the doctor who stitched me up was really hot, but that doesn’t qualify as news, probably.”

“Sure it does. I figured after the Chris episode you’d be single for a while. Why am I not surprised you’re looking for a replacement?”

“Because love finds you in the most unexpected places, Han.”

“Love? I thought you just said he was hot. It’s not the same thing, you know.”

“Of course I know that. He’s tall and good looking—“

“Is that all? There’s loads of those around.”

“He bandaged a doll’s arm. This kid was crying and she was all bandaged up her arm. He bent down and made a matching bandage on her doll to stop her from crying.” Becca practically swooned.

“So he’s a decent person. Just because he wasn’t mean to a sick kid doesn’t make him your soul mate.”

“You are so cynical. How are you even engaged?”

“I have a ring to prove it, trust me. I just don’t want you throwing yourself at some doctor because you got dumped.”

“Honestly, Hannah, is that really what you think of me? That I can’t go twenty-four hours on my own without jumping on the first guy who walks by? Because I’m a lot stronger than that. This doctor was just very kind to an injured child, and he didn’t take any crap off me, and he had gorgeous blue eyes. I wouldn’t mind playing doctor with him.” She grinned.

“Becca, just go slow with this one. You can stay at the apartment as long as you want. Seriously, years. It’s fine. There’s no rush to move in with anyone else. Promise you’ll take care of yourself.”

“Only if you’ll stop fussing over me.” Becca rolled her eyes and hung up the phone.

Chapter 3

Harrison Abrahemson shoved a hand through his dark hair in frustration. He was a couple of weeks overdue for a haircut...he could tell by the way his hair was curling up at the ends. He dodged into the locker room and, finding it empty, punched his metal locker door as hard as he could.

“God DAMN it,” he said, digging his phone out of his locker and dialing a number.

He waited for the automated menu, pressed in the right codes from memory.
“Yes, I’d like to make a report. As an emergency room physician I am a mandated reporter. My name is Harrison Abrahemson, and I work at Central Hospital. My report concerns the minor child Deonte Richmond, birth date 07/16/09. This is my third report. He was in my ER again tonight, this time with a broken collarbone and dislocated shoulder. There are distinctive marks on his left upper arm that could only be the handprint of an adult. Someone, namely his drunken father Deonte Senior, jerked this kid’s arm out of the socket and snapped his collarbone. I want a child welfare call in the next twenty-four hours. I have the names of other personnel who saw the child, and they’re willing to give their names as well,” he rattled off woodenly.

Abe listened as the social worker took his report, made him repeat details, assured him they would take care of it. They hadn’t taken care of it the two times previous, he knew, because the laws protected child beaters, not kids. Even though he knew that this was as hard for the social workers whose hands were tied as it was for him, he couldn’t stifle a sigh of frustration. He struggled to think of a good reason he shouldn’t beat Deonte Richmond, Sr. to a bloody pulp the next time he came in with some bullshit story about how his son had fallen down the stairs again. He felt there might be a certain satisfaction of yanking that man’s arm right out of the rotator cuff himself ,but he knew he wouldn’t stop there. He wouldn’t be able to do any good for these kids who needed medical care if he was in prison for killing an abusive father.

After the melodramatic girl with the cut on her hand, there had been the heroin overdose who slipped his restraints and punched a nurse, the girl who got stabbed by her boyfriend, who evidently also enjoyed burning her with cigarettes, and then Deonte, Jr. There were days when Abe felt like he was really helping people, patching them up and sending them off to be more careful. Then, there were days like this one. The stabbing victim had wanted her boyfriend in the cubicle to hold her hand while she was examined...she’d be going home with him in a day or two once she was on the mend. The overdose would come out of his sedation and leave the hospital looking for his next fix. Abe knew that DJ would get smacked around the next time his dad got his hands on a bottle of anything cheap.

Abe had chosen emergency medicine because he wanted to use his skill at fixing things where it was most needed. There was just so much he couldn’t fix, so many wounds that were deeper than antiseptic and stitches could reach. Today he was nobody’s hero. Today he was bailing water out of a sinking boat; he was Sisyphus condemned to the ceaseless battle of rolling a boulder uphill.

Head in his hands, he took a long breath and started to strip off his scrubs. Emptying the pockets, he found two ink pens, a gum wrapper, and the balled-up scarf that actress had left behind. He’d picked it up when he pulled the curtain aside and found her gone. Knowing she hadn’t meant to leave it, Abe considered giving it to the front desk in case she came back looking for it. It was a ridiculous thing—all greens and yellows in a riotous floral pattern. Frivolous and bright, and with absolutely no right to be in such a hopeless place as Harrison Abrahemson’s emergency room after nineteen hours on duty. For some reason, he was loathe to let it go, to turn it over to Agnes, the front desk nurse. He knew she’d throw it away if the girl didn’t come back in twenty-four hours. They only came back if they forgot an iPhone, she always said.

There was a spot on the scarf, two small dots of her blood from where she’d pulled it off her neck. He remembered then. He’d had a funny impulse to kiss her hand when he finished stitching it. Abe wasn’t a sentimental man, the sort who went around kissing hands or wasting sympathy on people who would always land on their feet. He had been overtired and was taken momentarily by the need to comfort her somehow. Obviously it was just a sign of exhaustion, he thought. Still, after he changed into his street clothes, he snagged the girl’s chart off the rack and punched her contact number into his phone. He biked home, and before he even got in the shower, he dialed her up.

“Hi!” A bright voice answered. “This is Becca. I can’t answer right now. If this is my big break and you’re calling about a job, please press 1 and leave a message! If it’s personal, press two and let me know what’s up. Otherwise, if it’s a wrong number, hang up already...I’m a struggling actress and I don’t have unlimited cell minutes, you know! Just kidding, have a great day! Bye.” He had never in his life heard such a lengthy, bubbly inbox message.

Dumbfounded, he stammered, “Uh, this is Harrison Abrahemson, from the ER. The guy who stitched up your hand? Yeah. Okay, you left your scarf there, and if you want it back, I’ll send it to you or drop it off or—whatever. Bye.” He pressed the end key and shook his head. He’d left better messages for girls in high school than that.

As he was getting in the shower, his phone rang. He grabbed it, thinking irrationally that it might be the scarf girl, but it was his uncle.

“Shit,” he muttered, and answered the phone. “Abe here.”

“This is your Onkle Knut, boy. Your Opa is very ill. How long has it been since you have seen him, Harrison? It is not fitting that you should set yourself apart from the family who loves you. It is a great grief to my father how you distanced yourself from the business he worked so long to build.”

“Knut, look, he lives in Germany. I live in New Jersey. I can’t just pop over and say hi on Sundays. I work long hours. The last time I checked, my poor pitiful Opa has a private jet. He could come see me any time he wanted to. You can give the guilt a rest now.” Abe said through gritted teeth and hung up. Knut didn’t call back, thankfully.

It did make him miserable, when he thought about it. He’d spent summers with his grandparents when he was growing up. His Opa had taught him to swim on Rugen Island, had hiked the chalk cliffs nearby. Abe had loved his grandparents very much but he always felt the weight of his Opa’s expectations—that he would study business and take over his Oma’s shipping dynasty.

His grandparents had two sons. Knut, who became a rabbi and never married, and Ambrose, who had, at last count, divorced three women without producing another heir . He wished he could have the good memories without the taint of his family’s disappointment. He wished for a lot of things. When he stepped under the stream of hot water, what he wished for most was a woman who could make him forget.

As he dried off and crashed into bed, he realized he’d left a message on a patient’s voice mail, a personal message that would link back to his private cell number. He groaned. Abe took great pride in his professional ethics—which made dating difficult, since he worked long hours and didn’t go out much. He kept his record clean, his hands clean. He didn’t want to be one of those sleazebag doctors who hit on the nurses and tried to get phone numbers from the attractive patients. Now he was trailing around after some hysterical blonde actress, using a scarf as an excuse to talk to her. He wished he could take it back, make that voice mail disappear, but it was too late. Now she had his number.

Chapter 4

Becca checked online for open auditions before her shift a Caliccio’s, hoping something would pop out at her and announce a new, successful phase of her life. As it was, she sent in her headshot and copy for a weird sounding sci-fi play and a commercial for yeast infection treatment. Becca tried to avoid those sorts of commercials, but once she topped 25, it was harder to get commercial work that didn’t involve a pregnancy test, a yeast infection or birth control—what she called vagina-centric work. No longer the ingénue who got mascara and zit cream commercials, she had to go for a more mature product set. Even though she used moisturizer religiously and kept her blonde hair a very summery shade, it was getting kind of obvious that she wasn’t a college co-ed. She stared at herself in the mirror like she did every day.

“Still pretty,” she reassured herself, but with less enthusiasm than she used to.

Becca knew she was a pretty good actress, but not one of the greats. She had dreams of taking classes at the Tisch if she ever made enough money for tuition, but no one was going to mistake her for Oscar-bait, the next young America’s sweetheart-type prodigy. Becca used to really believe that would be her story—gorgeous, relatable wunderkind, embraced by both the critics and the fans. Her face on a magazine cover would guarantee that it would fly off the racks. She’d have enough clout to choose her roles, do one movie a year, and eventually retire to the south of France in a little stone cottage. Once she was really old, like forty, she’d only do really juicy character roles that always got nominated for awards. Now here she was, waiting tables in her old boyfriend’s pasta joint, pining over some ER doctor who was hateful to her. She felt really pathetic, so she put on extra eyeliner for her shift and took her phone off the charger.

There was a voice mail from Hannah and one from some stammering guy who seemed like he was threatening to murder her scarf if she didn’t pay ransom or something. She played it back and realized it was Dr. Abrahemson from the emergency room. She did a little joy dance and put it on speaker to listen to it again, in celebration of how nervous he sounded. He had her scarf and wanted to meet up with her. She did a little twirl, slammed her shin against the bed, cursed it again for being in the living room, and snatched her phone up to retrieve his number.

She dialed it up and waited, pacing around the apartment gleefully. It might not be a real date, but it was at least an excuse to see him, be adorable and sexy, and hope for the best. That was what Becca was best at, after all—hoping for the best. She had needed that call for sure. It had come just when she was feeling truly hopeless and now, something to look forward to. She was musing about how it was obviously meant to be when he answered.

“Abe, here,” he said brusquely.

“Hi, Dr. Abrahemson? This is Becca Bennett from the ER. Becca—” She winced, “Abbracciabene. You called and left a message that you had found my scarf.”