The Wife He's Been Waiting For
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“Repeat a finger-stick in about five minutes,” he instructed Ina Edwards, one of the ship’s nurses. “And let me know what it is.”
“You OK, Mike?” she asked him. “Your leg? Can I get you something?”
Old enough to be his mother, Ina doted on him. And while she meant well, and he appreciated the concern, it annoyed him. He was fine. Perfect. Just dandy. Except people didn’t want to believe that. One war injury and a couple of years later so many pieces of his broken world still weren’t back in place. But he didn’t take it out on those who cared about him. He merely smiled his way through it. People cared. They wanted to show compassion he didn’t deserve, though, considering what he’d done.
Sighing, Michael faked a smile at Ina. “I’m fine, thanks. Just not prepared to start duty so early into the cruise. Normally they don’t start coming in until after the first round of bon-voyage parties. Hangovers and all that.”
“Well, I can go fix you a cup of tea,” she offered, not to be put off. “I brought my own special blend on board again. The one you like.”
It was bitter. Harsh in his belly. He hated it, and usually poured it out when she wasn’t looking, but Ina was hard to refuse. Sometimes he wondered if she was in cahoots with the other women in his family who wanted to over-mother him. “I’d love a cup,” he lied.
“Cream?”
Cream did it no earthly good, and it was a waste of good cream. “I’d love cream,” he said, still forcing a polite smile.
That was all Ina needed to be pleased, as she rushed away to brew up her hideous potion, leaving Michael to take Sarah Collins’s blood test. Well, that didn’t matter, did it? It was a simple finger stick. Took ten seconds. But there was something about her…something that bothered him. Maybe it was the way she’d clung to him when in the elevator, or the little tingle he’d felt when they’d touched.
Or maybe it was the haunted look in her eyes. He knew that haunted look on a deeply personal level. Saw it in his own mirror sometimes.
Yes, that had to be it. Someone afraid. Someone numbed. He didn’t often think about the battlefield these days, or all the wounded men he’d treated during those months on active duty. Grueling hours, hideous wounds. Another life altogether that he didn’t allow to spill over into this one. What was done was done, and he wasn’t going back. Now he worked on a cruise ship, drank insufferably bad tea with an overly protective surrogate mother and spent his off-duty hours in the lounge on the Lido deck, listening to bad karaoke and drinking diet cola.
“This won’t hurt,” he said to Sarah, as he pressed the barrel of the lancet device to the index finger on her left hand, then pushed the button to let the lancet prick her.
She flinched involuntarily, turning away her head when he squeezed a drop of blood from her finger and smeared it on the test strip. Probably squeamish, he decided. “Are you on this cruise with someone else?” he asked, as he counted down the seconds for the results to register. “Friend, family member, group tour?” Spouse?
“Alone,” she said. “It’s the best way to travel. You get to go where you want, do what you want. No compromises, no one impinging on your time.”
Spoken like a true cynic, he thought. Or somebody badly burned by life. “One hundred and one,” he pronounced. “I think you’re good to go, so long as you don’t overdo it.”
Sitting up, then swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she said, “Believe me, I never overdo it.”
“If anything, I suppose you could say that you underdo it. Which is why I’d like to have you check in here three times a day so I can do readings. For a couple of days anyway. And since there’s always food available, I’d like to see you eating five or six times a day.”
She laughed over that. “What you’d like to see and what I’m able to do are two entirely different things, Doctor. I’ll take better care of myself until I get off the ship. That’s a promise since I don’t want to bother you again. But I’m afraid that doctor’s orders are falling on deaf ears otherwise. I can’t eat that many times a day.”
“Small meals,” he said. “Constant fuel for your body, so your blood sugar doesn’t fluctuate so much.” Was that a small spark of defiance flickering in her eyes now? Did the lady have a little challenge in her? “Unless you like being a patient in here. Because if you don’t take better care of yourself, we’re bound to meet under these very same circumstances again.” Not that it would be a bad thing, the part where they met again, anyway. But he surely didn’t want it to be under these circumstances. And now that he knew Sarah Collins was here, on the ship, all alone…
No! He didn’t do that. Hadn’t even been tempted before. He knew others of the crew indulged in little shipboard flings, but he didn’t. Even though the emotional scars had long since healed from his last try at something more enduring than a casual fling, he didn’t indulge at all now, and he was surprised that Sarah had brought out that little beast in him, especially with the resolution he’d made. Well, time to put the beast away. Michael Sloan was off the market, didn’t look, didn’t touch. Didn’t anything! Not until he knew what came next for him.
“OK, so maybe you’re right. But I don’t like your prescription, Doctor, so here’s my compromise. I’ll eat my three meals a day, maybe have a small bedtime snack, but that’s still up in the air, depending on how I feel at bedtime. And I’ll stop in here once a day to have my gluco…blood-sugar level checked. Not the three times you wanted.” She smiled sweetly at him. “That’s my final offer.”
“Most people don’t defy doctor’s orders.” He liked it that she did.
“And most people don’t go on a cruise to avoid social interaction, which is why I’m here, Doctor. To avoid social interactions, or even professional ones such as yourself. Once I get myself accustomed to the ship and its schedule, I’ll be fine. I’m sure you’ll be very busy tending patients who really want your attention once this cruise gets well underway, so there’s no need to bother about me. I know how to take care of myself.”
“No, you don’t, or you wouldn’t be lying here in my bed right now, arguing about it.” He charted her latest blood-sugar result then set the clipboard on the stand next to the bed. “I can’t force treatment on you, and I’m not even going to argue with you about it. You know what I want, and it’s up to you to decide how you want to take care of yourself. You can do it the right way, or…do whatever you want to do.” With that, he spun around and walked away. No use arguing with her. She was already dead set on what she intended to do and, as pretty as she was, that didn’t always translate into smart. Which seemed to be the case with Miss Sarah Collins.
Or maybe not. He couldn’t tell. She’d be back, though. One way or another—following doctors orders, or going against them—she’d be back. He was counting on it.
Sarah returned to her cabin under the escort of a nurse named Ina. She was a nice sort, had even fixed her a decent cup of tea, which had hit the spot. Ina probably would have stayed to tuck her into bed, but Sarah opted for a shower in preparation for going for a late-night meal. OK, so she was going to be good and eat the way she was supposed to. Either that or have herself another time of it in the hospital, and while she certainly had nothing against the hospital—it looked to be magnificently equipped—she had a thing against medicine in general. Loved it, hated it, wanted it, wanted to avoid it.
Mixed feelings all the way around, and the best way to avoid that was to avoid the issue causing the problem. Which was why she’d eat, which was why she’d consent to one, maybe two blood tests a day. Her mother used to say something about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, and since with her condition a pound of cure came in the form of a hospital and a good-looking doctor, she would opt for the ounce of prevention. For a few days. Then she’d get off the ship and see what else she could find for herself. Maybe Japan. Or, better yet, Hong Kong. Nobody there would force food and blood tests on her.
After a quick shower, Sarah finally gave in and went off in search of a light meal. Off the beaten path…not in any of the main dining rooms, or at the continual buffet of lobster and fruit and so many other delicacies it nearly caused her to go queasy thinking about all the choices. No, she stayed away from all the main sources and instead opted for a dark, cozy little lounge on the Lido deck where one of the passengers, who was a little too inebriated to show good sense, was attempting a tune on the karaoke, and doing a miserable job of it. He was singing about an anguished phantom and sounding more like a walrus with bellyache. Which suited Sarah’s purposes as the lounge was practically empty.
She ordered a small salad and a cup of seafood chowder, and settled into one of the back booths to wait, trying hard not to listen to the off key warblings that were getting more off-key by the moment. Shutting her eyes, she leaned her head against the back of the booth, fighting away the image of the good doctor, which had been lingering there a while longer than was comfortable.
Bad impression, she decided. That’s why she kept thinking about him. He’d made a bad impression on her. But the images there were anything but bad, which was why she decided to force her concentration on the second verse going on at the front of the lounge. More off key than the first. And much louder.
At the point where it became nearly unbearable Sarah decided not to wait around for her food. She wasn’t hungry, and she could eat in the morning. So she opened her eyes, started to scoot out of the booth, only to be stopped at the edge of the seat by a large form she recognized from the sheer size of him, since in her little corner of the lounge it was too dark to see much of anything. “Spying on me?” she snapped.
He placed a cup of chowder down in front of her, along with her salad, then wedged himself into the seat right next to her, pushing her back from the edge. “Apparently, I am,” he said, handing her a soup spoon.
CHAPTER TWO
“SO, WHAT do you want, Doctor? What do you really want?” She was a little flattered by his attention, actually. It had been a long year avoiding everybody with whom she’d come into contact, and there were so many nights when she would have enjoyed a dinner companion, a male companion especially. No strings attached, separate checks, light conversation, going their separate ways at the end of the meal, of course. Someone to share a little space with her at the same table, someone staving off the appearance that she was so pathetically alone.
She wasn’t antisocial, even though it appeared she was. Just cautious these days, as getting involved came easily to her. Easily, but with such a high price…costly mistakes she was bound to make again if the occasion arose. And she simply didn’t trust herself to do otherwise, which was why she kept to herself now. “Did you follow me here, or do you moonlight as a waiter when you’re off duty in the hospital? Are you serving up syringes of penicillin by day and dry martinis with a lemon twist by night?”
He laughed, raising his hand to signal the waitress. When he caught her attention, she gave him a familiar nod, then scurried off to the bar. “Some might think that’s the same thing, one cure being as good as another. When you’re on holiday, a ship has amazing opportunities, with so many things to do. But when you’re on a ship for your employment as well as your living space, those opportunities are pretty limited and the space gets rather small, the longer you’re confined to it. I don’t fraternize with the guests in the planned social activities, don’t date them, don’t play shuffleboard with them, don’t serve them drinks either. Most of the time I try to keep to places where there aren’t so many people hanging around. Keep the separation between crew and guests intact. And right now this seems the place to do it.”
“Sounds…dull. So many things to do, and here you are with me, probably the one and only avowed antisocial passenger on board. Not very interesting at all, Doctor. Not for a man who could have other choices, if he so wishes.” She glanced at the waitress who was giving him an admiring appraisal, then at a table with three well liquored-up women, all of whom had that same look for him. It seemed the good doctor did have his opportunities if he cared to take them. “A number of other choices,” she said.
“If you want those choices.”
“And you don’t?” She arched a curious eyebrow. “That surprises me.”
“It surprises me too, sometimes. But it avoids a lot of complications in the long run and who needs complications when you can have all this?” He pointed to the karaoke singer standing under the dim blue light on the postage-stamp-sized stage, singing his off-key heart out.
“Sounds like a been there, done that to me. Once burned, twice shy, or something like that.”
“It’s that obvious?” He said that with a smile, but that wasn’t at all the impression she was getting from him. There was something deep, something disturbing in his voice. Some sadness, maybe? Or wistfulness? It was a hauntingly familiar tone, and one she recognized from her own voice when she wasn’t trying so hard to mask it with something lighter, something less truthful, the way Michael was trying to do. Something compelled her to hear his voice again, to elicit that emotion from him once more, but as she opened her mouth to speak, the karaoke singer hit a particularly loud, startlingly sour note that caused even him to sputter, then giggle an apology into the microphone—but not quit singing.
Michael cringed visibly, and this time the smile that spread to his face was genuine. “You can see why there aren’t so many people around here.”
The moment was gone. It was too late to try and discover something she had no right to discover. “Well, I think earplugs are a good remedy,” she said lightly, shaking off the building intensity and finally relaxing into the moment between them a little more. His motives seemed innocent enough, and she did understand how this was a good place to come if you were seeking solitude on a crowded ship—nice, dim room, secluded entryway making it easy to overlook, perfect low-key ambiance, comfortable booths arranged intimately so they gave the seeming appearance of aloneness. This one in particular, tucked in behind a column, was especially private, which was why she’d chosen it. For a moment it crossed her mind that this might be Dr Sloan’s regular booth for all the same reasons she had taken to it. “Or maybe he could do with an adenoidectomy.” Meaning the removal of the little piece of tissue located where the throat connected with the nasal passage. Often adenoids were the cause of nasal congestion, thick breathing or, in some cases, a nasal-sounding voice.
Michael shot her a curious look. “You know what an adenoidectomy is? I wouldn’t think that’s too common a term.”
Her comment had been too medical, especially when she was trying to hide from everything that connected her to medicine in any way. But sometimes it just slipped out. Natural instincts coming back to haunt her. Well, that was a mistake she wouldn’t repeat. “I don’t suppose it is common but a friend of mine had it done,” she lied. It had been a patient of hers, so in the longest stretch of the word maybe that hadn’t been a lie after all. “Opened up her nasal passages quite nicely, helped her stop talking through her nose, breathing easier….” Too medical again. “You know. Whatever goes along with that kind of surgery.” Sarah watched, out of the corner of her eye, to see if he believed her, which apparently he did because he turned his attention to the waitress who was on her way over to the table with a soda and a sandwich. She placed them on the table in front of him, bending much too close for anything other than what she had in mind, which had nothing to do with serving him food, practically slathering him with a come-hither smile. Of which he took no notice.
Most men, having it flaunted in their faces that way, would at least look, but Michael Sloan did not, which made Sarah wonder all the more about him.
Michael and the waitress chatted for a another moment about someone who worked in the business office—she still showing the same interest in him while he showed none in her—then when the waitress had decided that she was wasting her time she scampered away to wait on a another customer. That’s when Michael returned his attention to Sarah. “It’s like a little city here. Everybody knows everybody else’s business.”
Like the waitress who knew what Michael wanted even though he didn’t have to order it? Briefly, Sarah wondered how much business the waitress and Michael knew about each other, and if his lack of a show of interest in her had been for appearances only. She was young, blonde, built the way every good plastic surgeon wanted his surgical enhancements to turn out. Of course, he’d already denied involvements or, as he called them, complications. Still, a man like Michael…good-looking, smart… She wondered. “The same way it is in a hospital,” she said, trying to sound noncommittal.
“Do you work in a hospital?”
Damn. She’d slipped again, when she’d promised herself she’d be more careful. Twice inside two minutes. Something about him eased the tension right out of her, made her feel almost normal again, and she was going to have to be very careful around him. “No, but I like to watch those hospital shows on television. They’re very…realistic. Make you feel like you’re really there.” Ah, the lie of it all, but the look of mild amusement on his face told her he’d bought her rather impaired explanation.
He chuckled. “Real life wrapped up in an hour, minus time out for commercials, once a week. Everybody gets cured or killed at the end, don’t they? Or falls in love and lives happily ever after. Well, you are right about one thing. Gossip prevails in the hospital, too. Sometimes it can get so bad it’s like it takes on an existence of its own.”
“Which you can’t live without?” she asked.
“That might be putting it too strongly. Personally, I can live without it quite nicely, like I can live without a good cup of strong, black coffee if one’s not available to me. But for some people a little good gossip can start the day off with a bang, the way a good cup of coffee can.”
“If you indulge,” she said. Somehow, she didn’t see him as the type.
“Which I don’t. In the gossip, anyway. Can’t say that I’d turn down a good cup of coffee, though.”
She was glad he’d redeemed himself with that one because she didn’t want to picture Michael Sloan as petty in any way, and gossip could be so petty. Being the brunt of it herself over her break-up with Cameron Enderlein, she knew. “So why did you choose a cruise ship?” she asked, knowing she probably shouldn’t get that involved. But it seemed right to her. The mood between them was pleasant enough, his company nice. And she desperately missed companionship, not only in a personal way but in a medical one. It had been such a long time since she’d talked medicine with anybody, and while this wasn’t going to go into any medical depth, it seemed harmless enough on a superficial level. An encounter with someone from her own profession was stimulating. Then, after tonight, she’d get lost in the ship’s crowd, and he’d get busy in the ship’s hospital, and that would be that. So it didn’t matter. “Rather than a hospital or a clinic somewhere, why here?”
“It’s a good job,” he said, this time his voice the guarded one she’d already heard bits of before. “The facilities are excellent, patients are usually pretty nice, and I like the tropical islands. Oh, and the food is great.” He picked up his sandwich and took a bite of something that looked to be a huge Cubano—pork, vegetables, and a whole lot of other ingredients that added up to one large meal between two pieces of bread.
And one large avoidance, too, she thought as she picked at her salad, finally spearing a grape tomato. But what was it to her? If he didn’t want to tell her, she didn’t care. They weren’t friends, after all. They were barely acquaintances.
“So what kind of job do you do?” he asked, after he’d swallowed and taken a drink of his diet cola. “Wait…let me guess.” He leaned back in his seat, folded his arms across his chest and studied her for a moment.
Studied her so hard she blushed under his scrutiny. Good thing the lights in here were dim and he couldn’t see her reaction.
“I don’t take you to be a lady of leisure,” he said. “You’ve too much purpose in your eyes.”
If only he knew how wrong he was. She’d been nothing but a lady of leisure for the past year, and there was absolutely no purpose in her eyes. Maybe once, but not any more.
“Am I right?” he asked, when she didn’t respond to his first guess.
Rather than answering, she played his game and busied herself with her soup. If he could indulge himself in a little avoidance, so could she.
“So the lady isn’t going to answer. Which means I’ll have to take a wild guess. You’re too short to be a fashion model, you don’t eat with enough passion to be a chef, this is October, which is the middle of the school year so you’re not a schoolteacher, and you’re too pale to be a professional golfer.”
“A golfer?” She laughed over that one. “Where did you come up with that?”
“I’m a doctor. I saw your muscles when I examined you. Very nice, but not overly developed. I can picture you swinging a golf club.”
“I’ll just bet you can,” she said. “Sorry to disappoint you but I don’t have a golf swing and I don’t play golf. Never have.”
“Well, that narrows the field down, doesn’t it?”
“That ends the field, Doctor,” she said, scooting toward the other side of the booth. This was entirely too enjoyable, and it would have been easy to spend another hour or two here, chatting about nothing and enjoying everything about it. Which was why she had to leave.
“Call me Michael, please,” he said, not trying to stop her from leaving.
That surprised her a little. She’d expected a small protest from him, or maybe even an offer to walk her back to her cabin, which she might have taken him up on. But as she climbed out of her seat, he stood and offered a polite hand to her, then turned and signaled the waitress back over to refill his glass—both with the same insouciant effort. All casual, all impersonal, as was his goodnight to her.
“I want to see you in the morning for a finger stick,” he said. “I’ll be on duty at eight.”
She nodded, offered him a half-smile, and scooted out of the lounge to a popular song being mutilated by a short, round, bald-headed Elvis impersonator who sounded like he needed an adenoidectomy, too.
* * *
She slept in, avoiding the morning finger stick, and when, at nearly ten, she heard a knock on the cabin door, she assumed it was Michael, coming to do her blood work. But she was wrong. It was one of the ship’s medical technicians. Cheery smile, bright face, she was more than happy to poke Sarah’s finger. “It’s a little low,” Paulina Simpson said, showing the monitor to Sarah, who read the blood-sugar result at sixty-five. “You need to eat something,” Paulina continued, fishing some sort of breakfast bar out of her pocket. “Doctor Sloan told me to bring this along, that you’d probably need it.”
“Dr Sloan thinks of everything, doesn’t he?” Sarah said amiably.
“He’s a good doctor. Most of the docs come and go, work a few weeks here and there, but the cruise line likes Dr Sloan because he keeps coming back. He’s reliable. The patients trust him and he does an outstanding job.”
A bit of a crush from the med tech, too? Sarah wondered.
“And he’s received commendations from the cruise line,” the girl went on.
Well, so much praise on Michael’s account was all well and good, but that still didn’t put Sarah in the mood to deal with him. For what it was worth, she felt a little slighted, being passed off to a tech when she’d expected the doctor to come calling on her. “Well, tell Dr Sloan thank you for the breakfast bar, but that I’m doing fine on my own and I no longer require medical attention.”