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Joan’s long, delicate hands flew up to her mouth as she tried to keep the sob back. She paled, growing whiter than her sheet. He knew one could be braced for the worst, but never fully be prepared for it. Losing Alma had proven that to him.
“Oh God,” Joan cried. “Oh God, oh God.”
“But,” he continued gently, taking her hand and holding it tightly, as if to anchor her to the world, “there is every indication that once we remove it, everything’ll be fine.”
“It?” Her voice was hollow, numb, as she repeated the single word. Her hand went to her right breast, covering it protectively. Joan was terrified. “You mean my breast?”
He empathized even if he could not relate. “No, just the tumor.”
It would have been prudent to add “For now” and cover his bases, but Christian refused to do that to the woman. Refused to hedge at her expense. They’d cross each bridge when they came to it. And they might not have to make that final journey. For now, that was all he was going to focus on.
“It’s very, very tiny,” he assured her. “I’ve already spoken to the surgeon. You can be scheduled for surgery as early as this afternoon.” He saw fear rise in her eyes. She had to be feeling that things were careering beyond her control. In her place, he knew he would. Christian did what he could to make her feel that it wasn’t all out of her reach. “The final decision, of course, is yours.”
Joan nervously passed her tongue over her lips as she raised her eyes to his. “What’s your opinion?”
He gave her the benefit of his experience—and all the extensive reading he’d done on the subject. Christian didn’t believe in entering into a situation unprepared. “I think an aggressive course of action is the most effective way to go. Have the operation and recover. Your life’ll be on track again soon.”
Joan swallowed hard. The lump in her throat was almost choking her. That’s all she needed, another lump, she thought cynically. Her fingers dug into his hand as her eyes searched his face. “Do you promise?”
His profession had long since gotten away from making promises. The day of the promise had gone the way of exchanging medical services for a chicken and three potatoes. These days, people were far too eager to sue over the smallest of things, and this was by no means a small thing. But he couldn’t divorce himself from his patients, couldn’t think of them as merely names on a file, statistics in a computer, the way so many of his colleagues did.
That wasn’t his way. His way was to care. Usually too much.
Christian closed his hand around hers and looked into her eyes. “I promise.”
Joan let out a shaky breath. Nervously, she ran her hand through her pale reddish hair and wondered if she was going to lose it in the treatment. She’d always been so proud of her hair. So vain. “I should discuss this with my husband.”
He moved over to the telephone on the nightstand beside her bed, picked up the receiver and handed it to her.
“Call him.” And then he nodded toward the door. “I’ll be back in a little while. I have a few other patients to see to.”
Joan nodded mechanically. She looked like a woman whose whole world had been turned upside down, and who could blame her? he thought. It had. And he of all people could identify with the helpless feeling that had to be coursing through her veins.
With any luck, though, all this would be temporary and they would have her back on her feet soon. In his case, the helpless feeling was permanent. Nothing was ever going to change that.
He heard Joan begin to press the numbers that would connect her to her husband’s telephone at work. He moved out of the room to give her privacy.
Preoccupied, Christian walked right into a woman standing directly outside Joan’s door. The impact was sudden and startling.
He had close to a foot on her and nearly knocked her to the floor. Instinct had Christian’s hand shooting out to grabbed her and keep the woman from falling. Pulling too hard, he wound up pulling her into him. He was vaguely aware of soft breasts brushing against him a second before he stepped back.
He was also mildly aware of the buzz of electricity just before contact was broken.
“Sorry.”
The woman, blond, twenty-ish and dressed for business, shrugged and forced a smile to her lips. “My fault.”
He could feel her eyes sweeping over him, as if she was trying to place him. Did he know her? No, he was fairly confident he would have remembered a woman who looked like her.
Christian sank his hands deep into the pockets of his lab coat. The almost pleasant hum throughout his body had yet to cease, even though he willed it to. “Are you looking for someone?”
Still staring at him, she appeared to hesitate before finally answering. “An outpatient here.”
Only two of the patients on the floor were his. The others were in the maternity ward two floors up. The woman with the soft smile would do best to ask for her friend’s room number where the names were listed.
“The nurses’ station is right over there.” He pointed it out to her.
Cate had already been there. It was her first stop off the elevator, despite the fact that she had asked for Joan Cunningham’s room number at the information desk on the ground floor. “I know. They sent me here.”
He had a full schedule even without assisting at Joan’s lumpectomy this afternoon. But he noticed that the young woman was looking at the door behind him as if that was her intended goal. The small bit of curiosity he still retained got the better of him. “Who is it you’re looking for?”
“Joan,” she told him. “Cunningham,” the woman added after a moment, as if the surname was difficult for her to work her tongue around.
Moving slightly for a better light, he looked at her more closely. And realized that, despite the different hair color, there was a resemblance between the two women, especially around the mouth and eyes. Younger, fixed up, Joan Cunningham must have been a very pretty woman.
This woman, however, was beautiful. Even in the muted lavender suit, with her silver-blond hair pulled back and away from her face, she was more than just striking. With very little effort, she could have been—what was it that his brother John called it?—drop-dead gorgeous.
He’d never met any of Joan’s relatives. Was this her daughter? A younger sister? They seemed to be too far apart for the latter, too close for the former. But then, anything was possible these days.
“Are you related to Joan?”
As he watched, the woman straightened her shoulders, pulling them back as if she was bracing herself for something.
“Yes.”
At least, that was what she thought, Cate added silently. If the woman in the room behind this door turned out to really be the Joan Cunningham, nee Haywood, that she was looking for.
Nerves danced through her. Taunting her. She hadn’t felt this unsettled even on her very first day out of Quantico, facing her first real boss. But she’d had confidence in herself then.
This was different.
The more he looked at the woman, the more he was certain that she was related to Joan. And if she was a relative, she couldn’t have timed her appearance better. Joan looked ready to fold when he’d talked to her. There was no doubt in his mind that she was going to need all the support she could get. Even with all the positive feedback he’d given her before she’d gone in for her test, and despite the fact that the numbers were increasing every day regarding survival rate, this news had to be devastating for Joan.
“She’s on the phone right now,” he told the woman. “Trying to reach her husband with the news. But any encouragement you can give her will be very good.”
“Encouragement?” Cate didn’t like the sound of that. “What’s wrong with her?”
Telling her wasn’t his call. His role here was limited, which at times frustrated him. “You’ll have to ask her.”
Cate nodded, really expecting nothing less by way of an answer. Joan’s daughter hadn’t been very informative, either, when she’d spoken to her on the phone earlier. But that was probably because she really didn’t know what was going on. The girl was eighteen, too young to be burdened with anything that might be happening behind hospital walls. Her mother was undoubtedly keeping this from her. Whatever “this” was.
“I will,” she told him. Moving around him, Cate rapped once on the door, then opened it. She assumed that the dark-haired doctor with the electric-blue eyes had gone on his way.
The moment she slipped into the room and closed the door behind her, Cate forgot all about the physician she’d encountered. Forgot about everything except for the woman she saw sitting up in the hospital bed.
The irony of the situation was not lost on her.
A little more than four weeks ago, she was entering another hospital room more than four hundred miles to the north. Entering it to say goodbye to her mother, although she didn’t realize it at the time. Her mother slipped into a coma that evening and died twelve days later.
And now here she was, walking into another hospital room, attending possibly another sickbed; this time, though, it was to say hello to her mother. Another mother.
A host of emotions charged through Cate, riding horses with jagged hooves. There was anger, sorrow, joy and so much more. Too much to sort through and catalog. She felt as if she had no room in which to think.
The woman in the bed—was that really her birth mother?—was talking on the phone just as the doctor had told her. Unable to help herself, Cate listened. The redhead’s voice was shaky. As shaky as the hands that were desperately clutching the receiver.
“I’m going through with it,” she said to the person on the other end of the line. “I just wanted you to know. Dr. Graywolf said it was important to do it as quickly as possible.”
The familiar name had her snapping to attention. Dr. Graywolf? Was her partner’s husband this woman’s doctor? Just how small was the world? Cate wondered.
The fact that there was someone in the room, silently watching her, slowly penetrated the wall of fear around Joan. She murmured “I love you” to her husband and then hung up the phone, her eyes now on the young woman in her room. An eerie feeling wafted through her, as if this wasn’t real. As if none of this ever since she’d first detected the thickness on her right breast was real.
As if she was looking into the mirror and seeing into the past.
Joan cleared her throat, her nervousness growing. “Can I help you?”
Cate kept looking at the woman in the bed, searching for some foolproof sign. All the while knowing that there wouldn’t be one. “That all depends.”
“On what?” Joan whispered the words, now clearly frightened.
Cate took a single step toward her, then stopped. She was afraid that the woman would pass out if she came any closer. Did she know? On some instinctive level, did Joan sense that she was her mother?
Cate put her thoughts into words. “On whether you’re willing to admit that you’re my mother.”
Chapter 9
The woman in the bed drew in a sharp breath. “Excuse me?”
Cate’s heart was in her throat as she confronted a piece of her life. The very air felt still, despite the soft whoosh made by the air-conditioning system.
Was this woman lying in a hospital bed, looking small, frightened and disoriented, really her biological mother, or had Jeremy’s information led them in the wrong direction?
She searched for signs of resemblance and thought she saw a few, but her desire to belong could have colored her perception. Maybe she looked like her father. So far, the only picture she’d managed to find of Jimmy Rollins was his last DMV photo. In true DMV fashion, the photograph was terrible.
“My mother,” Cate repeated. The word tasted chalky on her tongue. Part of her felt disloyal to Julia for even addressing someone else by that name, but part of her felt this need to connect, to still be someone’s daughter. The confidence with which she’d helmed her life was nowhere in sight.
Joan pressed the button on the side railing, moving the bed into more of an upright position. She struggled to get hold of herself.
This can’t be happening, it wasn’t real.
She was still reeling from what Dr. Graywolf had just told her, she couldn’t handle this on top of that.
Despite the reading about breast cancer that she’d done, despite having talked to several women at her club who had lived through the horror that she now faced, she’d discovered in the last five minutes that she wasn’t prepared at all. Not emotionally. Not for this horrible gut-twisting feeling that threatened to cut off her very air. She felt trapped, unable to know which way to run or where.
And Ron, well, Ron didn’t know how to deal with anything that couldn’t be solved with some kind of an elaborate mathematical equation. Her husband of the last twenty-two years had all his emotions stored somewhere in a bank vault and she had no idea what the combination to it was.
Her nerves frayed, her future uncertain, Joan was in no condition to field this latest shock.
Avoiding the young woman’s eyes, Joan grasped at a lie. “I’m afraid that you must have me confused with someone else.”
Then why won’t you look at me? Cate silently demanded. People lied to her all the time, attempting to avoid the consequences of their actions. Part of her job was to see through the lies and get down to the truth.
She saw through Joan’s.
Cate moved closer to the bed. “Are you Joan Cunningham?”
The woman’s breathing became more audible. Like a cornered animal, Cate thought.
“Yes, but—”
Holding up her hand, Cate didn’t let her finish. “And are you formerly Joan Haywood?”
The look of panic in the woman’s eyes increased. “Yes, but—”
Cate pushed on, refusing to allow the woman a chance to regroup. “And did you live in the San Francisco area twenty-eight years ago? Did you know someone named ‘Blue?’”
Joan dug her fingers so deeply into the bedclothes that she was pulling loose not only the white blanket, but the sheets beneath it. Panicked, unable to cope, she cried, “Get out.”
Cate remained where she was. Rather than triumph, she felt anger welling up inside of her. This was the woman who’d given her away. People gave away things they didn’t want, not children.
Her voice was deadly calm, even though her insides were in turmoil. “Well, did you?”
“I said get out!”
The order came out in almost a high-pitched scream. Frantically, Joan searched for the buzzer to summon a nurse, an orderly, someone, anyone, to come and help her. To come and save her.
This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t real. She was back in her own bed in her own bedroom and this was some nightmare she was having. If she could only scream, Ron would shake her awake and tell her that this was just one of those awful dreams she sometimes had. Dreams of small girls with huge green eyes looking up at her.
It had been a mistake ever to hold that baby, to even look at it. If she hadn’t, she would have been able to sweep this out of her life forever, like the nightmare it was.
But she had held her little girl. Against her mother’s wishes, she had held her baby. Held Bonnie Blue to her breast. And left a piece of her heart wrapped up in those small, curled fingers when the nurse came to take her away.
The woman looking at her had green eyes. Accusing green eyes. Joan shrank back in her bed, still frantically trying to locate the call buzzer that had somehow gotten loose.
“I just need to know that I’m right,” Cate said, struggling to remain calm. To keep from crying because the hurt went down deep, scraping against the bone.
Shaking now, Joan felt as if she was falling completely apart. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m too upset to deal with this—”
“I’d like an answer, please.” It was hard keeping the emotion that choked her out of her voice.
“Get out!” Joan screamed again. Finally finding the buzzer, she clutched it in both hands as she pressed the button frantically. Her entire body was trembling. Any moment, she thought she was going to begin convulsing.
The door flew open.
“What’s going on here?” Christian demanded as he strode into the room. He looked accusingly at the young woman by his patient’s bedside. He’d been right outside, about to go in when he’d heard Joan’s raised voice. Coming in, he recognized the other woman as the one he’d bumped into earlier.
Just who the hell was she and why was she agitating his patient?
Joan looked ready to collapse. “Oh, God, Doctor, please get her out of here,” she sobbed, covering her face with her hands. “I can’t deal with this right now, I just can’t.”
Christian had no idea what was going on, only that his patient was on the verge of hysteria, which didn’t do her present condition any good.
He turned his attention to the blonde. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Mrs. Cunningham obviously doesn’t want you here.”
Cate continued looking at the woman fate and genetics had made her mother. Despite the frustration she felt at the moment, she was still determined to find out all she could about Joan. “I’m sure she’d rather I wasn’t anywhere. She should have thought of that twenty-seven years ago.”
Christian had no idea what was going on, only that he needed to have the blonde leave before Joan became even more agitated. “Don’t make me call Security.”
Cate suppressed a sigh. She didn’t want to create any trouble. And getting tossed out on her ear wasn’t going to get her what she wanted. At this point, she wasn’t completely clear what it was that she did want, other than recognition.
Acceptance, she supposed. Something to make this awful restless feeling in the pit of her stomach go away, to help dam up this gnawing, gaping hole in the center of her being. She didn’t expect to have the space filled, but at least the rent could be repaired before she began hemorrhaging.
Angry, frustrated, Cate turned on her heel, away from Joan and under her doctor’s watchful eye.
It was hard not to succumb to the dark mood that was vying for possession of her. It wasn’t supposed to go this way. She wasn’t supposed to have lost her temper like this.
But then, she supposed her nerves had been on edge ever since she’d discovered that she had been adopted. And now it was as if she was waiting for something else to happen, something to further tear down the foundations of her world.
What foundations? she mocked herself. What was left? Between Gabe’s death and her mother’s deathbed confession, there were no foundations. Only empty air under her feet. And, unlike the cartoon characters who could walk on air until they realized what they were doing, she couldn’t. She was plunging down swiftly. Toward what, she didn’t know.
Maybe the chasm was bottomless.
No, damn it, it wasn’t. She was going to stop feeling sorry for herself and rally. Because Joan Cunningham was going to give her some answers.
Reaching the door, Cate looked back over her shoulder toward the woman who refused to admit to being her mother. “This isn’t over yet,” she warned, then left the room.
“Yes, it is,” Joan insisted. Her voice broke as she attempted to raise it. A sob followed and then she began to cry.
“Calm down, Joan,” Christian instructed, his voice low, soothing.
The tears continued to come. Joan looked from the door toward her doctor, her eyes pleading with him again. “She’s not coming back. She can’t come back.”
Who was this woman to her? The question echoed in his head. He knew his asking would only contribute to Joan’s agitation. He wanted her calm.
Reaching over to the nightstand, Christian picked up the small box of tissues tucked behind the telephone. He held it out to her.
Instead of taking one tissue, Joan took the whole box and held it against her chest, as if having it there somehow comforted her. She looked up at him, the same silent plea in her eyes.
“No, she’s not coming back,” he told her. Christian crossed to the door. “I’ll send in a nurse in a couple of minutes with a tranquilizer for you. You need to calm down.”
He saw gratitude enter her face as she silently nodded her thanks.
Once outside the room, Christian looked up and down the hall. The blonde was just disappearing around the corner. Hurrying to catch up to the source of his patient’s agitation, he passed Joan’s nurse and gave her his instructions on the fly.
“Hold on a minute,” he called after the blonde.
Cate didn’t hear him. Or if his voice registered at all in the recesses of her mind, she didn’t realize that he was talking to her.
That certainly went well, she upbraided herself. If she’d interviewed suspects the way she had her birth mother, the bureau would have had her mowing lawns instead of where she was.
She did her best to calm down. Part of that entailed focusing on a plan. Now that she had located her birth mother, she was going to have to try talking to her again. Later, after both she and Joan had an opportunity to collect themselves.
As she approached the elevators it occurred to Cate that she still didn’t know what the woman was doing in the hospital. She needed to get a look at Joan’s medical records.
Christian lengthened his stride. He had considerable more leg than the woman did, but she moved quickly. He managed to finally catch up to her just as she pressed for the elevator. Rather than call out to her again, he simply got in front of her. She looked surprised, and almost as agitated as his patient.
“Excuse me.”
She could feel herself growing defensive. Was he about to lecture her on behalf of his patient? Right now, she was in no mood to have to listen. If he wasn’t careful, this good-looking doctor was going to find he had bitten off more than he had bargained for. “Yes?”
There were a great many diplomatic ways to begin. Since Alma’s death, he’d lost the ability to be diplomatic and patient. Christian went straight to the heart. “Who are you?”
Blunt. She admired blunt. Sometimes.
“Ah, the million-dollar question,” the woman he’d just chased down said sarcastically. Christian saw the same tears he’d just witnessed in Joan Cunningham’s eyes now making an appearance in the blonde’s. It struck him that they had the same light green color. “I wish to God I knew,” she whispered. It sounded as if she’d said the words more to herself than to him.
Chapter 10
Because it seemed as if tears were about to spill out of her eyes, Christian took out his handkerchief and held it out to her.
“Is that some philosophical statement,” he asked, commenting on her statement, “or do you have amnesia? Don’t worry—” he nodded toward his handkerchief which she still hadn’t taken “—it’s clean.”
Instead of accepting it, she passed an index finger under each eye, wiping away the excess moisture that had managed to leak out despite her best efforts to will her tears back.
Cate had never liked crying in front of people, certainly not in front of strangers. She liked losing control over herself even less. And she had done both just now, one the result of the other.
She sniffed, then blew out a breath, collecting herself.
God, but she wished she was ten again. Ten years old and sitting in the family room, watching reruns of some old western series her father had discovered on one of the cable channels. She remembered fondly that her dad always gave a running commentary on what was going on in case she didn’t understand. She’d understood far more than he thought, but she loved listening to the sound of his voice. It made her feel so protected, so safe from everything.
And now she wasn’t safe from anything.
“Neither.” The retort to his question sounded a little sharp to her ear. She dug deeper for control.
He wondered if perhaps he should have summoned Security. The woman wasn’t making any sense. “Then what…?”