The Groom (4 page)

Katrina sang the words, swaying
from side to side on her stool, her fingers moving skillfully over the strings,
plucking out the chords she had practiced over and over after learning the song
by ear, having never learned to read sheet music.

Your eyes took their sweet
time silently penetrating mine,

All the while, her eyes remained
locked on the source of her inspiration, the hazel and green orbs that had
caused her to change the direction of her entire set.

Spoke to me, slowly

Just to me.

The words stayed with her through
the night, long after she’d finished singing, long after she’d collected her
tips and closed her guitar case, long after Parson’s had emptied for the night
and she’d hailed a cab home.

Even as she lay in bed that
night, she couldn’t forget the image of the only pair of eyes she’d ever seen
that were as pain-filled as her own.

_________

“GOOD
MORNING, DR. Cummings.”

“Good morning, Lindsay.”

One foot in front of the other
, Lyle told himself as he navigated the familiar corridors of Mount
Sinai Medical Center, watching the lines of the white tiles pass under his
brown loafers. Left, right, left, right. He concentrated on making it to his
office, on avoiding the pitying stares of nurses, orderlies, and other doctors
as he walked. Many avoided his gaze, which was good. He’d forgone his contact
lenses on purpose this morning, donning his slim, rectangular glasses in an
effort at hiding from the world.

He focused on the square gray
signs pointing the way down various hallways as he walked, reading them in his
head even though he had the entire surgical floor memorized.

Neurology.

CT, MRI, and X-Ray.

Pediatrics.

Oncology.

General Surgery.

“Hi, Dr. Cummings!”

He didn’t slow his step as he
nodded to a nurse in pale blue scrubs. He didn’t know her name, but recognized
her as one who always brought cupcakes for people’s birthdays.

“How are you?”

Left, right, left, right. Lines
between white squares passed under his feet and Lyle quickened his pace as he
entered the Cardio wing. As the attending surgeon of cardiothoracic surgery,
Lyle had many people working under him, none of whom would be expecting to see
him in the office two days after his botched nuptials.

“Dr. Cummings?”

Lyle forced a smile for Dr.
Thomas, a promising, young, second-year resident. “Hi, how are you?”

“I . . . uh . . . I mean . . .
aren’t you supposed to be in Greece, Sir?”

Lyle froze, his hands clenching
and flexing at his sides. His bruised knuckles throbbed, bringing back images
of pink and purple rose petals sprinkled over a white aisle runner and an angel
dressed in white floating toward him.

“Sir?”

Lyle shook the image free from
his mind and narrowed his eyes at the bumbling young doctor. The area outside
his office had gone strangely still. Conversation stopped and eyes swiveled his
way. He couldn’t tell whom they felt sorrier for: him for being dumped at the
altar, or Dr. Thomas for his misstep.

“Dr. Thomas, what time is it?”

The resident blinked furiously,
his eyelids fluttering as he fumbled around in his white lab coat for his cell
phone.

“It’s, um, eight o’clock a.m.,
Sir.”

Lyle nodded. “Then you, the other
residents, and your interns, should all be ready for rounds, should you not?”

Dr. Thomas straightened his spine
like a soldier being chewed out by a drill sergeant. “Yes, Sir.”

“Make it happen,” he snapped,
thrusting the key to his office into the lock as the other residents scurried
to gather their interns.

Lyle couldn’t resist a little
smirk as he swept into the office, flipped on the lights and traded his suit
jacket for a white lab coat.
When in doubt, torture the residents,
he
thought with an inward chuckle. There might be a plus side to returning to work
early.

The residents were waiting for
him as he exited the office, and he led them on the daily trek through the
Cardio wing, stopping in on their surgical patients. Lyle’s spirits lifted a
bit when they came to the door at the end of the hall. As he swung the door
open and allowed his three residents and their interns—twelve in
all—to file in behind him, he looked on the face of his favorite patient
and allowed his smile to grow. Twelve-year-old Yolanda Gutierrez glanced at him
quizzically but gave him a small wave. Once the door was closed, Lyle looked
over the most recent entries in her chart and nodded, satisfied at what he
found there.

Handing the chart off to Dr.
Thomas—who seemed to have just recovered from his foot-in-mouth syndrome—Lyle
folded his arms over his chest and stared at the young resident over the rims
of his glasses.

“Dr. Thomas, please present.”

The young doctor scanned the
chart briefly but didn’t need to do much reading. Yolanda had been stuck on the
Cardio floor for months now waiting for a transplant.

“Yolanda Gutierrez,
twelve-year-old female suffering from congenital heart disease resulting in
pump failure caused by irreparable muscle damage, which until a few months ago
was treated with diuretics and afterload reducers. Patient is currently on the
UNOS transplant list awaiting a new heart.”

“Dr. Brown?” Lyle turned his eyes
on a female resident with chocolate skin and dark eyes. She stepped forward and
folded her hands in front of her demurely.

“Patient is thirty-six hours post
op from implantation of an LVAD. All vitals are stable and urine output is
outstanding. Patient is able to ingest fluids and take medications orally, as
well as consume solid foods. Recommendation for a portable LVAD device is
pending.”

“That decision will be made by
myself and Dr. Ames after the patient has had more time to recuperate,” he said
with a glance in Yolanda’s direction. She lifted her head from the book she was
reading and shrugged.

“Doesn’t bother me to stay here.
I get out of school for this.”

The doctors all chuckled but Lyle
wished to high hell he could send the girl back to school. She’d been out for
months, having her assignments delivered to the hospital by her parents, unable
to leave her hospital bed. She should be playing soccer and singing with the
school choir, both activities she’d had to put on hold because of her health.
Now, a heart transplant was the only thing that could save her. The LVAD was a
temporary fix and a portable unit was only for candidates who showed marked
improvement after surgery.

“Shush, you,” he said with a
smirk. “Let me finish presenting.”

Yolanda shrugged again and went
back to her book, closing herself off to the world with a swish of
shoulder-length cinnamon brown hair over her face. Seeing her just after his
ruined wedding and the loss of everything he’d thought he was gaining by
marrying Holly only exacerbated the pain. She wasn’t much younger than Reagan,
and her sharp wit only reminded him of the girl who’d almost been his daughter.

He cleared his throat and
continued.

“Dr. Brown, can any of your
interns tell me the purpose of the LVAD device?” Lyle asked. He liked to keep
the young, eager interns on their toes. They’d yet to hold a scalpel—any
of them—and he was the gatekeeper, the one who decided which among them
was worthy of making the first cut.

Four hands shot up and Dr. Brown
gestured toward a petite Asian doctor with a pen hanging from her mouth.

“Dr. Huang?”

“The LVAD device hooks through
the left ventricle on one end and the aorta on the other, and works to pump
blood to the lungs and other vital organs while giving the heart a much-needed
rest. It is only a temporary fix, until such time as a new heart can be
transplanted.”

“What are the risks and
complications?”

“Infection, blood clots forming
in or around the device, pulmonary embolism, internal bleeding, and mechanical
breakdown of the LVAD device itself.”

“None of which will be a problem
because the surgery went well and we are keeping a close eye on the surgical
wound for infection, yes?”

The wide-eyed doctors all nodded
and Lyle accepted the chart from Dr. Brown. Sliding it into its compartment at
the foot of the bed, Lyle crossed to a chair at her bedside and crossed his
legs. He dismissed his interns to their various assigned duties and turned back
to Yolanda as they filed out of the room.

“So, how’s my favorite patient?”

“Bored,” she said with a sigh and
roll of her eyes. “I can only read
The Hunger Games
so many times. I
think this makes the fifth time I’ve read Book One since coming here. I’m
starting to think naming my first child Katniss is a really good idea. Which
means a) I’ve been here too long, or b) it’s the meds talking. Either way I’m
really hoping you can give me that portable thing-y ’cause I’m sick of being
here. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“What are you doing here anyway?
Aren’t you supposed to be off on the world’s greatest honeymoon?”

Lyle winced and removed his
glasses, wiping them on the bottom of his lab coat. “Unfortunately, if I had
gone, it would have been a honeymoon for one. I’d rather be here with you.”

“Runaway bride?”

“’Fraid so.”

“Ouch. Dude, what is she, crazy?
I mean, you’re no McDreamy, but you’re decent. Besides, you’re a heart surgeon,
so you’re probably rich. Yeah, she’s crazy.”

Lyle couldn’t help it this time.
He laughed out loud—really laughed—for the first time in days. “I
don’t know who McDreamy is, but I’m thinking I should count myself fortunate to
be compared to him at all.”

Yolanda nodded. “Definitely.”

“And as for Holly . . . well . .
. it seems we both want different things. It was just better that we part
ways.”

Yolanda rolled her eyes and
huffed, blowing her overgrown bangs out of her face. “That’s what all adults
say when they don’t want to tell kids the truth. I’m not
that
young you know.
I’m practically a teenager.”

She hardly looked like one, as
her congenital heart disease had vastly inhibited her growth. However, she was
smart as a whip.

“Right you are. Maybe someday
I’ll tell you what really happened.”

“You got yourself a deal.”

“Meanwhile, I can hear that
you’re getting out of breath. You need to rest. And to give you a break from
Katniss . . .” Lyle slipped his hand into the deep pocket of his lab coat and
removed a paperback book, dropping it onto the bed in front of her.

Her eyes lit up as she lifted the
book, grinning at the stunning image of a young girl on the cover wearing a
turquoise gown. The woman at the gift shop downstairs had said it was one of
the hottest Young Adult books available when he’d gone down there looking for
new reading material for Yolanda.

“
The Selection
?” She read
with a grin.

“The girl at the gift shop
recommended it.”

“Cool. Thanks, Lyle.”

Lyle stood ruffled her hair and
turned to leave. “When your parents get in from work, tell them I said hello.”

The Gutierrezes had two other
children and full-time jobs to hold down in addition to caring for Yolanda.
Lyle could only imagine how hard it must be for them to go to work every day
not knowing if their daughter would be alive by the time they clocked out. Fortunately,
the LVAD had bought them some time. There were people much sicker than Yolanda
on the transplant list, but Lyle was holding out hope that because of her rare
blood type, she’d snag a heart even though she wasn’t at the top. He’d already
checked, and she was the first person with her blood type on the list for now.
It seemed like such a macabre wish, hoping for someone to die so that Yolanda
could live, but Lyle had stopped second guessing those thoughts years ago. He’d
been doing this long enough to understand that people died and that was just
the way it was. The good part about people dying was that if they were organ
donors they could save a life. Hopefully, in this case, Yolanda’s could be
saved.

As Lyle made his way to his boss’
office, he slipped his glasses back on and tried to push her from his mind. It
wasn’t easy. He had always prided himself on being professional. He was cool,
collected, precise, and detached; everything a good surgeon was made of. Yet
somehow that little girl had gotten under his skin where no other patient had,
and more than the others, he found himself hoping every day that she’d beat the
odds.

_____

“How’d it go with the Chief?”

Lyle was surprised to find Dan
waiting in his office when he returned from his meeting with the Chief of
Surgery. He lifted his now bandaged hand, which the Chief had insisted he have
treated with Cortisol injections until the swelling and tenderness went away.

“I had to do some fast talking to
convince him to let me come back. He wanted me to take some more time, but I
talked him into letting me stay on desk duty until my knuckles heal. You’ll get
all the good surgeries for now.”

Also a Cardiothoracic surgeon,
Dan Ames was often his wingman on complicated procedures, and a great giver of
advice when Lyle needed it. The two had completed their residency together and
had gone from being competitors to being friends, which was why Lyle felt so
crappy about his behavior the day before.

“Look, man, about
yesterday—”

“No apology necessary,” Dan said
with a shrug, running his hand through his midnight black hair. “I should never
have come, and I should have given you some space.”

“Still, I acted like an ass. I’m
pretty sure Twila’s going to quit on me.”