“I need an attractive unmarried doctor.”

Catherine Prentice looked him straight in the eye. “Don’t worry, it’s not for me. It’s for the hospital. We need you to be on the show Professional Match. All you have to do is answer a few questions and get in a plug for Western Memorial.”

“No, thanks.” Martin rose and walked round the desk, signaling—he hoped—that the matter was closed. “I don't watch TV. I'm really busy and—”

“And?”

“And to be honest…” He hesitated, then decided to let her have it. “I think this sort of thing…this puffery…is ridiculous. Empty-minded drivel. It has no place in medicine.”

“Other than that, though,” she said with a straight face, “you kind of like it?”

Martin resisted the urge to soften what he'd said with a joke or a crack; even to his own ears he'd sounded self-righteous. But he had more important concerns. “I don't have time for this.”

She turned to leave, then took a step back into the office. “Since you don't watch TV, you probably read a lot. I was just thinking there’s a character in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol you’d probably recognize.” A tight little smile, a flutter of her fingers and she was gone.

Dear Reader,

Martin and Catherine and the other characters in this book have been a part of my life for so long, it's incredibly exciting to have the opportunity to introduce them to a wider audience.

If all fiction is a little bit autobiographical, it's certainly true in this case. Although I've lived in California for many years, I'm originally from Great Britain and, like Martin, have never quite got used to eighty-degree weather at Christmas—or fake frost on the windows. I also share some common bonds with Catherine, including the struggle to raise two children as a single parent. For many years I worked in the public relations department of a large medical center, and more recently have written extensively about neonatal intensive care units for a number of publications, including the Los Angeles Times.

The specialized world of the NICU and the dedication of those who work in it never fails to impress me. But while modern medicine is responsible for breathtaking advances, it can also raise difficult and complex questions for which there are no easy answers. This was the inspiration for my story. I hope you enjoy it.

Janice Macdonald

The Doctor Delivers
Janice MacDonald

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my Mum,

who is nothing at all like Catherine’s mom and who never stopped telling me she believed in me. And to Joe, who had to endure me talking about Martin in my sleep.

Thanks for all your support.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER ONE

PHONE CRADLED between her head and shoulder, Catherine Prentice padded around the kitchen in a ratty yellow robe and thick woolen socks listening to her mother ramble on about colon irrigation. Her mother, who had never met a disease she couldn’t make her own, or self-medicate with the latest wonder cure.

Through the window, Catherine could see out into the small backyard. The grass needed cutting and Santa Ana winds had tossed purple bougainvillea blossoms over the rippling turquoise waters of the swimming pool, a picturesque effect marred by the floating aluminum chair and a double page of the Los Angeles Times sports section.

She dumped oatmeal into the saucepan for the children’s breakfast. On the phone, her mother moved on to St. John’s Wort and how it had really helped the woman downstairs and maybe she’d try it herself if Wal-Mart had it on sale. Sounds from the living room suggested that her ten-year-old son and his six-year-old sister were engaged in mortal combat. Catherine yelled for a cease-fire. Who ordered this day? Make it go away. I had something different in mind. Something wild and exotic. The yellow, happy face clock on the kitchen wall told her it wasn’t even seven. She had an insane urge to go back to bed and stick her head under the blankets. She was trying to imagine actually doing this when, in a blur of sound and movement, the children burst into the kitchen.

“Listen, Mom…” Catherine cut short her mother’s description of the heartburn that had plagued her since the previous evening’s spaghetti dinner, promised to call later and hung up the phone. “Okay, you guys.” She regarded her children. “What’s going on?”

“Make Julie quit sticking her feet in my face, Mom.” Peter, small for ten, his face dominated by large glasses, glared at his sister whose halo of blond curls and wide blue eyes gave her a deceptively angelic look. Peter’s breathing had an asthmatic rattle and his chest heaved slightly with each intake. “She knows it makes me mad and she keeps doing it.”

“I’m not sticking my feet in his face.” Julie kicked her pajama-clad leg high and stuck a small pink foot in Peter’s face. “I’m airing them out.”

“You need to, they stink,” Peter said.

“They do not.” Julie stuck out her tongue. “Yours stink. Yours stink worse than anything else in the world. They stink like two hundred million skunks.”

“Peter, you need to use your inhaler. And then go pick up your homework from the bedroom floor. Julie—” Catherine pointed the wooden spoon she’d been using to stir the oatmeal “—you go get dressed before breakfast. Go on. Move it, I have to be at work early today.”

On the stove, she caught the oatmeal just as it was about to erupt over the edge of the pan. She turned down the burner, then reached into the cabinet for brown sugar. Absently, she watched it dissolve into the oatmeal, her thoughts already on the day ahead. In her office at Western Memorial, where she worked in the public relations department, there were news releases waiting to be proofed, a half-finished newsletter article and a reminder that she still needed to track down the elusive Dr. Connaughton.

She’d promised the producer of Professional Match that Connaughton would be happy to appear on tomorrow’s show, but Connaughton hadn’t answered any of her pages and when she’d gone up to the NICU to track him down, he’d been with a patient’s family.

“Mommy.” Julie tugged at the belt of her robe. “I have to tell you something. Peter keeps calling me a geek.”

“Ignore him, sweetie. Please go get dressed, okay?” Maybe she’d goofed by promising Connaughton’s participation. The show was fluff, a sort of career-oriented version of Love Connection, but her friend Darcy watched it every week and, according to marketing, it had exactly the demographics Western was targeting. Personnel had given her the names of three unmarried physicians. Two of them, thrilled to be chosen, had already taped segments. Now she had to find Connaughton.

The phone rang again. “Mom, I said I’d call you. I’m trying to get the kids off to school…what? Mom, listen to me, okay? Unless you have a prostate you didn’t tell me about, Saw Palmetto isn’t going to help you. I’ve got to go, okay? I’ll call you tonight to see how you’re feeling. Yeah, I love you, too. Bye.” God. She rubbed at the knot of tension that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in the back of her neck. “Okay, kidaroonies,” she called. “Who’s ready for yummy oatmeal?”

“I’m not hungry,” Peter said.

“I don’t want oatmeal,” Julie said. “I hate oatmeal. I want eggs.”

“You had eggs yesterday. Today’s oatmeal day.”

“Nah hah. It’s Wednesday.” Julie cackled at her joke. “It’s not oatmeal day Mommy, it’s Wednesday.”

Catherine turned from the stove to smile at her daughter. A little girl in a Big Bird nightie and a gap where just two days ago she’d lost the first of her baby teeth. God, it had to get easier than this. Thinking about work when she was home with the kids, thinking about the kids when she should be focused on work. Wanting to be there for everyone, but never quite being there for anyone. Peter, still in his pajamas, hadn’t touched his oatmeal.

“Peter, eat your breakfast and get dressed. And please use your inhaler. I can hear you wheezing.” She made a mental note to call his allergist when she got to work. Call the allergist then go find Connaughton. A niggling feeling told her he might be difficult. He was new on staff and Catherine had never met him, but a nurse on the unit had rolled her eyes at the mention of his name.

“How come we never have the kind of cereal I like?” Julie asked, scowling at her bowl of oatmeal. “I like the kind of cereal Nadia gets. Nadia gets good cereal. Nadia lets us have Little Debbies for breakfast.”

Nadia. Catherine held her breath and counted to ten. Slowly. Nadia—her onetime best friend and, as of a month ago, her ex-husband’s new wife. Just hearing Nadia’s name was enough to ruin Catherine’s day. Sometimes she entertained herself by picturing Nadia ballooned up to two hundred and twenty pounds with a bad case of cellulite. Nadia could eat a case of Little Debbies and never gain an ounce. To hell with Nadia. She didn’t want to think about Nadia. “Okay, guys, let’s get this show on the road.” Arms folded, she looked at Julie. “If you’re finished, go get dressed.”

“I want some juice. Please.” Julie grinned. “See, I said please.”

“I noticed that,” Catherine poured apple juice into a Big Bird glass. Her daughter was a big Big Bird fan. “That’s very good.” As she dropped a kiss on the top of Julie’s head, she heard Peter’s asthmatic rattle, louder now. She watched him for a moment. Never a robust child, his drawn face and laboring chest reflected the effort of each breath. “Not feeling so good, huh? Where’s your puffer?”

He shrugged, and she pulled a pale blue inhaler from the cabinet drawer and waited while he used it. She had them stashed everywhere. Without intervention, mild wheezing had a frightening way of developing into a full-fledged attack. Like the last time he’d stayed at his father’s. She’d blamed the rain and the dog Gary had bought—even though he knew Peter was allergic to dogs. Gary had blamed her for upsetting Peter by making a big deal about a missing homework assignment. And forgetting to pack an extra inhaler. Which she was absolutely certain she’d done. But Gary, a trial attorney, was a master at verbal self-defence…and attack. She glanced at the clock and wondered whether she should try and make an appointment for Peter this morning and risk going into work late again.

“Daddy said Peter wheezes because you don’t dust enough.” Julie had returned to the kitchen after dressing herself in the clothes Catherine had set out the night before. Yellow leggings and a bright red woolen sweater. “Daddy said Nadia likes to clean house because it’s good for Peter’s asthma.”

Catherine opened her mouth to speak. Closed it. Let it go. She saw with relief that the inhaler was working. Peter’s breathing looked less labored, the wheeze not so audible. She poured more juice for both kids, stuck a piece of bread in the toaster for her own breakfast. Doesn’t dust enough. The words branded into her brain. Maybe Daddy should keep his lame-brained opinions to himself. Okay, she had to let it go. She spent far too much time obsessing over what an incredible jerk Gary could be. She spread a smear of peanut butter on the toast and resisted the urge to dip the spoon into the jar for a soothing mouthful.

“Daddy said he’s the luckiest man in the world to have Nadia.” Julie’s legs dangled from the chair. “I like Nadia, she’s pretty.”

Catherine looked at the spoon in her hand, still poised over the open peanut butter jar. She is only six, she reminded herself. She isn’t trying to hurt you. You can kill Gary later. Nadia too, just on general principle. Angry, she dug the spoon into the peanut butter, brought it to her mouth. And didn’t taste a damn thing. Which further incensed her.

“Daddy said when we come to live with him and Nadia, I can pick my own bedroom in the new house,” Julie said. “And I’m going to get twin beds so if you get lonely you can come and sleep in my room.”

Catherine slowly replaced the lid. “If I get lonely?”

“When we go to live with Daddy.”

“Jeez, Julie, you’re so lame.” Peter reached across the table to push her shoulder. “Dad told you not to say anything.”

“Owww,” Julie squealed. “Peter pushed me, Mommy.”

THE DAY CONTINUED on a steady downhill drift. In the office, Catherine discovered a stack of news releases that should have gone out yesterday, managed to spill a cup of coffee over the top one and splash it down the front of her cream wool skirt. And Martin Connaughton continued to play hard to get. At noon, on her way down to the lobby to meet her boss, she paid another visit to the unit.

As she pushed open the double doors to the NICU, a rush of green scrub-suited figures flew past her wheeling a Plexiglas case. She watched as they pushed it to an empty spot in the row of bassinets, watched as a nurse reached inside and lifted out a red, wizened baby, watched, transfixed, as the nurse applied sensors to the baby’s skin then threaded a tube into its tiny mouth. And then she couldn’t watch anymore. Heart racing, she turned away and stared hard at a bunch of pink Mylar balloons, but they dissolved in a blur of tears.

Peter had spent six weeks in an NICU. Even ten years later, she could vividly recall it all. The hot lights and machinery, the alarms that shrieked like police sirens when babies forgot to breathe, the nurses sitting vigil. Frantic suddenly to be somewhere else, Catherine hurried to the nurses’ station and forced herself to smile at the clerk behind the desk.

“I’m looking for Dr. Connaughton,” she said. “Is he around?”

“He was a while ago.” The clerk had white-blond hair and burgundy lips. Half a dozen small gold earrings ran up the side of her left ear. She peered out at the rows of bassinets, shrugged. “I don’t see him now. Did you try paging him?”

“Three times.”

“And he didn’t answer.” She smiled knowingly. “Yeah, well, he’s kind of famous for ignoring pages. That and being late for everything. It drives Dr. Grossman up the wall. They don’t get along,” she whispered. “At all.”

The knowledge didn’t do much for Catherine’s mood, nor did the fact that she was now five minutes late to meet her boss. Breathless from running down five flights of stairs, she pushed her way through the crowd of visitors and employees in the lobby. She found Derek in front of a makeshift stage watching Western’s employee choir singing “Winter Wonderland” under a canopy of stylized snowflakes. He wore a leather bomber jacket opened to show a pale cream shirt, a lavender tie patterned with mathematical equations and an expression of barely concealed impatience.

“You’re late.” He handed her a paper cup. “Libations. Hot apple cider, I think. Courtesy of the auxiliary. Too bad it’s nonalcoholic.”

Catherine smiled, not sure how to respond. Derek Petrelli was a puzzle she hadn’t quite solved. While administration clearly respected his ability to court the media, he made a virtual art form of flouting convention. Flamboyant and openly gay, he either behaved as though things were too tedious to endure or, for no apparent reason, turned almost childishly manic. She suspected that he saw her as a suburban hausfrau forced back into the workplace and easily shockable. Which was, in fact, pretty close to the truth.

“How are you doing with Professional Match?” he asked during a break in the choir’s offerings. Have you found anyone yet?”

“I’m still trying to reach Connaughton. That’s why I was late. I went up to the unit to see if I could find him. He hasn’t answered any of my pages.”

“Connaughton.” Amusement played across Derek’s face. “Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“I didn’t know that was who you’d lined up.”

“Personnel gave me his name. You don’t think he’s right for the show?”

Derek shrugged. “He’s telegenic enough and he has an accent of some sort, Irish, I think. A little detached and aloof at times, but he’s got that brooding quality women go gaga for. Supposedly, he and Valerie Webb are an item.”

“Valerie Webb? The pediatrician?” Catherine stared at Derek. “She’s Julie’s doctor.”

He grinned. “News flash. Physicians have sex lives.”

“I realize that, Derek…” She felt blood rush to her face. God, who ordered this day anyway? “Anyway, about Connaughton,” she said after a moment. “I told the producer he’d do the show. You think—”

“I think it might have been prudent to wait until you’d cleared it with Connaughton.” Derek paused to sip his cider. “The man is not exactly easy to work with. Either he’ll withdraw so you think you’re talking to the wall, or fly into a rage. When I had to turn down his request for publicity for that drug addict program he runs…” He rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t pretty. I didn’t dare tell him the thing is deader than a dodo. Of course, you didn’t hear that from me.”

Catherine sipped the cider. “Of course not.”

“Let me try and explain Connaughton.” Derek brought the rim of his paper cup to his lips, thought for a minute. “He’s a cowboy. A thorn in administration’s side. Never met a rule he couldn’t break. A brilliant doctor, which is one of the reasons they haven’t booted him out, but something of a law unto himself.”

Catherine felt the day slip down another notch. This time a year ago, the most complicated thing she’d had on her mind had been Christmas shopping and what kind of cookies to bake for the PTA bake sale. Now she was dealing with outlaw doctors and contemplating custody battles. Her left temple throbbed.

“But don’t let him intimidate you,” Petrelli said. “Professional Match is the most popular morning show in this area and it reaches the audience we want. Getting Connaughton on would be worth God knows how much in advertising. Be firm with him. I’d do it myself, but I’ve got a meeting downtown.”

“And if he does refuse?” She thought of the unanswered calls she’d made to the unit. “Should I try to line up someone else?”

“Connaughton’s too tough for you to handle?”

“No, I didn’t mean that.” The paper cup had started to crumple, and she tossed it in the trash. “I just meant—”

“You’ve been with Western for how long? Two months?”

“Nearly three.”

“Still on probation though.”

“Well, yes.” Her stomach did its familiar flip-flop thing. “I, uh…is there a problem?”

“Mmm.” Derek examined the paper cup he held as if it were an object of great interest. “Well, that’s the whole theory behind probation, isn’t it?” He turned the cup, peered inside, inspected the pattern of holly berries around the rim. “Wait and see how things go. Ask me in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, work on getting Connaughton for Professional Match.” He drained the contents and smiled up at her. “Imagine your job riding on it. That should get the adrenaline flowing.”

DR. MARTIN CONNAUGHTON leaned his head back against the seat of his battered black Fiat and closed his eyes. He’d had to get out of NICU before he lost it. An hour earlier, the Washington baby had died, and one of the residents had said it was probably a good thing.

“Some make it. Others don’t,” the resident had said. “I never really believed that kid was salvageable though.”

Martin listened to the dry rustle of Santa Ana winds in the eucalyptus trees, smelled the heated air through the car’s rolled-down windows. He hated the word salvageable and had yelled at the resident for using it, but he couldn’t mourn Kenesha Washington’s death. What haunted him was her short cruel life.

After a moment, he opened his eyes. Through the windshield, he watched the pink and white blossoms on the oleander bushes tremble in the wind. A strip of eucalyptus bark whipped across his line of vision. In the arid air, his eyes and mouth felt parched, the skin on his face dry and stretched taut across his skull.

One of the E.R. physicians claimed that the number of attempted suicides rose when the Santa Ana winds blew. Martin believed it. He was from Northern Ireland, more accustomed to enveloping mists and soft rain. California’s hot, roaring winds with their banshee-like howls seemed sinister, full of dangerous energy. They made him tense and edgy, as if he’d offended a malevolent presence who would soon exact revenge.

He ran his finger under his collar—unsettled by the Santa Anas, by thoughts of Kenesha Washington and by the knowledge that today marked the fifth anniversary of his wife’s death. Five years. Enough time that it was no longer Sharon he really mourned, but what had happened to his own life in the years since her death. Somehow it had drifted so far off course that he’d started to wonder about the direction in which it now seemed headed.

In the next week, he had to make a decision. A medical team, leaving to set up a pediatric hospital in Ethiopia, had invited him to join. It was a two-year commitment, similar to other expeditions in which he’d participated, with doctors he knew and respected, yet for some reason, he couldn’t commit.

“But we were counting on you,” the group’s leader said when Martin had asked for more time to decide. “Most of us have family considerations, mortgages, all that stuff. We’re not as footloose and free to wander as you are.” He’d laughed. “Don’t tell me, you’ve settled down.”

Martin had laughed too, but the laughter was hollow. He could leave without creating a ripple. At thirty-eight, he had few possessions. The Fiat, the sloop he lived on in the Long Beach Marina, some books and an eclectic collection of music that leaned toward Celtic traditional. Back in Belfast, his family, or what remained of it—was far removed from his life.

After a week of sleepless nights searching for reasons not to go to Ethiopia, he’d finally come up with just one. The WISH program. He ran his hand across his jaw, seldom smooth even when he took the time to shave closely, and felt the coarse stubble of his beard.

WISH was about Kenesha Washington. Kenesha, the tiny junkie. Shaking, sweating, born in need of a fix. He stared down at the medical journals that littered the Fiat’s floorboards. Kenesha, who had never seen the sun or the sky. Never known anything but the brightly lit world of the NICU and people who did painful things to her.

With a sigh, he unfurled himself from the Fiat and started across the parking lot. Wind whipped at his hair, blew gritty dust into his eyes. At the edge of the lot, he stopped at a brightly painted mobile home covered with images of pregnant women, smiling under banners that read: WISH— Women, Infants, Staying Healthy.

He unlocked the back door, climbed inside. Dust motes swam in a beam of sunlight, settled on boxes of charts and folding chairs stacked against the walls. Until a week ago, the camper had rolled through the streets and housing projects of Long Beach providing free medical services to crack-addicted mothers. Now it sat idle in the lot, the prognosis grim.

His reaction to the news that Western’s executive committee had essentially pulled the plug on WISH had prompted Edward Jordan, the hospital administrator, to suggest, once again, that Martin consider taking an anger-management course. Jordan apparently saw nothing amiss with the idea of packing the indigent off to other facilities, or with turning the vehicle into a mobile cappuccino bar.

Filled with a dull anger that demanded an outlet, Martin began sorting through manila folders in one of the packing boxes. Maybe it was him. Maybe he lacked the insight to see that two-dollar lattes were a better reflection of the up-scale image Western’s public relations department wanted to project. And maybe it really was time for him to move on.

Which he would. After he gave WISH one last chance. In a couple of hours he was scheduled to make a presentation to the executive committee. The prospect of going to them, hat in hand, galled him but if he could prevent one child from going through what Kenesha Washington had, the effect would be worthwhile.

A knock on the side of the van broke into his thoughts, and he turned to see Dora Matsushita, one of the social workers in the unit, peering through the open door.

“I thought that was you I saw loping across the parking lot.” She held up a bag of oranges. “From my tree. It’s a bribe.” She winked. “I need a few minutes of your time.”

“Ah, sure, I can always be bought with oranges.” With a grin, he bent to take the bag and help her into the van. Dora had a bit of the rebel about her, a quality he admired. When they first told him to phase out WISH, he’d ignored the injunction, rounded up a small volunteer staff and taken the van out himself. Dora had been behind the wheel. A small, spare, fiftyish woman, she was a shrewd assessor of character, as quick to set straight a muddleheaded administrator as a young father.

“I want to talk to you about this little fifteen-year-old girl,” she said.

He listened, frustration building. Twice that week he’d been warned about admitting new patients, told that one more infraction would result in his dismissal. That threat didn’t trouble him as much as the knowledge that WISH would almost certainly die without his involvement.

“I’d like to, Dora. I’m not sure I can. We’ll know later this afternoon.” He told her about the upcoming presentation. “It’s the last hope we have. I’ve got all the supporting data, all the clinical documentation—”

“Oh, Martin.” She shook her head. “Facts and figures aren’t going to do it. Show some emotion. There’s a rumor up in the unit that you’ve got two temperatures, ice cold or—”

“Boiling over.” He shrugged. “I know, I’ve heard it all. So what should I do then, break into a chorus of ‘Danny Boy’?”

“WISH is your baby.” She ignored his attempt at humor. “Your passion. No one who didn’t care would put all the effort you’ve put into it. Let it out. Let yourself feel. Show the committee how important the program is to you.”

He turned away and stared through the dusty window and out to the windswept parking lot. An image of Kenesha’s face, contorted in a silent scream, filtered through his brain. Dora might be right, but emotional expression wasn’t his specialty. He turned to look at her again, shifted uneasily under her steady gaze.

“I was just thinking,” she said after a moment. “About these girls that come through WISH. By the time we see them, they’re usually right on the edge. They can go one of two ways—completely destruct, or get their lives together and find some peace.”

She paused and in the beat of silence, he heard the distant wail of an ambulance. He rolled the manila folder into a cylinder, unrolled it, tapped it against his chin. Without moving his head, he raised his eyes up at Dora. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, her expression impassive.

“Before they can find that peace and move on, they have to drop all the baggage they came in with,” she said. “Let go of who they thought they were and what they thought they knew.” She waited a moment. “I suppose, in a sense, you might say that something old has to die for something new to be born.”

DORA’S WORDS still rang in his ears as he walked into Western’s main lobby, but the sight of all the fake snow momentarily distracted him. Piles of it, flocking the branches of a massive Christmas tree, piled in drifts upon window ledges, heaped upon the roof of the Santa’s cottage. Streamers of sunlight shone like a benediction, filling the lobby with tropical warmth. Underneath his lab coat, the scrub top stuck to his back.

Unbidden, a memory of that last Christmas in Belfast surfaced. Sharon had wanted snow, and late on Christmas Eve, the rain had turned to a sleety mix that frosted the rooftops.

A voice beside him broke into his reverie, and he turned to see a tall, green-eyed woman with a glossy plait of brown hair. She had a wide, sensuous mouth and the fresh pink complexion of a child. Something about her seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place where he might have seen her. He saw her eyes widen as she read the name embroidered above the pocket of his lab coat, but as she started to speak, the employee choir, cued by a visibly perspiring Santa, broke into a loud rendition of “Frosty the Snowman.”

His mind back on WISH, Martin started to move away, but she caught his arm. Tiny charms hung from the thin silver bracelet she wore: a baby’s rattle, a gingerbread house, children’s toys. Her nails were short and unpolished.

“Dr. Connaughton.” She brought her mouth closer to his ear to be heard above the music. “Catherine Prentice. From Public Relations. Lucky coincidence, huh? I’ve paged you a whole bunch of times, left messages up in the unit and suddenly here you are.”

“And here I am.” He looked directly into the light green eyes of Catherine Prentice from Public Relations. “Will wonders never cease?”

Her face flushed pink. Arms folded across her chest, she returned his level stare.

“Actually, you mispronounced my name.” Even as he corrected her, he wondered why it mattered. “It’s Connotun not Connaughton. There’s no accent in the middle.”

“I’ll remember that.” A flicker of a smile. “Dr. Connaughton.” This time she pronounced it correctly. “That’s an Irish province, isn’t it? Connaught?”

“It is,” he said, surprised she knew of it, “Connacht in Gaelic. It’s in the west. A bit of a barren place. Have you been there then?”

“No, but my grandfather’s from County Sligo. He used to tell me all these stories. He said Connacht was so rocky and desolate that Oliver Cromwell’s men gave prisoners the choice of death or exile there.”

“To hell or Connacht,” he said, inordinately pleased by the exchange. “That was the term.” Her eyes weren’t exactly green, more of an aqua. Unusual color. And there was something different about one— He realized he was staring.

“Anyway…” With one hand, she flipped the long braid of hair back over her shoulder. “You didn’t get any of my pages?”

“I did, but I ignored them.”

“Shame on you.” She fixed him with a reproving look. “People like you make my job very difficult. Consider yourself lucky I’ve got the holiday spirit.” As she brushed a strand of hair from her face, the silver bracelet slid down her arm, lodged at her wrist. “The thing is, I’ve also got a producer breathing down my neck. Do you have a couple of minutes?”

“No, I don’t.” If this had something to do with the press, he wanted no part of it. His one-and-only encounter with reporters still gave him nightmares, and he had no desire to repeat the experience. “I need to check on a new admission and after that I have to be somewhere else. Sorry.”

Before she could respond, he plunged into the crowd and bolted for the elevator.

CHAPTER TWO

MARTIN LET the white noise of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit wash over him, waiting for it to restore some degree of equanimity. All around him, the sounds and sights of technology. The gadgetry brought in to rescue when the natural process went awry. The hiss and screech of ventilators. Machines that pumped and pulsed and calibrated. Electronic monitors with their waves and spikes and flashing signals. Delicate, intricate and complex all of it, but a damn sight easier to deal with then human emotions.

Martin gazed at the jumble of lines that snaked in and out of the baby boy in the incubator, a 28-weeker who weighed slightly more than a carton of eggs, and tried to put the scene in the lobby out of his mind. He couldn’t. What the hell was wrong with him anyway? If he’d deliberately set out to antagonize Catherine Prentice, he couldn’t have succeeded more completely.

A voice broke into his reverie and Martin saw the baby’s teenage father, his face anxious under a baseball cap turned backward.

“So, like, what are all those wires and stuff?” The boy looked from Martin to the baby.

“Well, this blue one in his mouth is the ventilator,” Martin said. Then, seeing that the boy was on the verge of tears, he glanced around for one of the other physicians on the unit. He was all right explaining the technical side of things, not so good with the emotional side.

“So what does it do?” the boy asked.

“It’s attached to a computer that regulates how fast he breathes, and how much oxygen he gets.” As he looked up at the gangly kid, Martin thought of the responsibilities facing the boy, enough to daunt someone twice his age. He tried to think of something reassuring to say. Or do. Put your arm around his shoulder, for God’s sake, he thought. Instead, he launched into an explanation of the various tubes and lines that he could see by the boy’s dazed expression meant nothing.

“So do those IV things hurt?”

“Only for a second,” Martin said. “After that, no.”

“How come he’s got those things over his eyes?”

“To protect them from those lights.” Martin pointed to the bank of bright lights over the baby’s warmer. “See how yellow he is? That’s because his liver isn’t working properly. Those lights will help lower the bilirubin.”

“Kind of looks like he’s sunbathing, huh?” The kid gave a nervous laugh. “So is he, like, gonna make it?”

“Probably. He’s got some problems, but they’re all fixable.” Arms folded across his chest, he watched the boy watching the baby. Minutes passed, the years rolled away and it was a younger version of himself. The day he’d learned Sharon was pregnant. The image faded, and he looked up to see Catherine Prentice.

“Poor kid,” she said after the young father had left. “He looks scared to death.” Her bottom lip caught in her teeth, she shook her head as though clearing the image. Then she shot him an accusatory look. “How come you just took off like that? You didn’t even give me a chance to tell you what I needed.”

“I’m not really here.” He started for his office next door to the unit. She followed him. “What you’re seeing,” he said as he moved over to his desk, “is an illusion.”

“Tell you what then. Why don’t I pretend you’re there and explain what I need?”

“Make it quick then.” Despite himself, Martin suppressed a grin. A quick comeback always appealed to him. But he wouldn’t be distracted. Head bowed, he searched through a stack of folders on his desk, looking for the report he wanted to use in his presentation. “What is it you need?”

“An attractive, unmarried doctor.”

His head snapped up. Then he saw the amusement in her eyes. Her reply had thrown him as she obviously knew it would, and he’d reacted just as she’d intended him to. Challenged, he let his gaze travel to her left hand, now on the doorjamb, linger on her bare fourth finger.

“Not for me.” She looked him straight in the eye, but a faint blush colored her face. “For Professional Match. Every week they match up single men and women representing different professions. This week it’s medicine. You’ve seen the show, I’m sure.”

“Actually, I don’t watch TV.” He scribbled a note. $60 a day for the WISH program v. $2,000 a day for a crack baby in NICU, then looked up at her. It occurred to him that she was attractive. He liked the long, thick braid of hair and she did have a great mouth. No lipstick that he could tell, but an almost crushed look to her lips. The way a mouth that had been kissed for the better part of the night might look. What the hell was he thinking? He began to dig through the papers again. “I don’t even own a TV.”

“That’s very admirable of you, Dr. Connaughton.”

“Thank you very much.” He met her eyes. Mocking him, he could see. Probably saw him as a stiff, humorless workaholic. Probably right too, but what did he care? “If you’re going to ask me to be on the show though, the answer is no.”

She looked surprised. “Why not? They’ve got doctors from three other hospitals, and we need someone to represent Western. All you have to do is answer a few questions, get in a plug for us. You’re going to be really fabulous, I know. The women will love your accent. You might even meet the woman of your dreams.” She smiled as though it were all settled. “Okay, it’s tomorrow morning at ten. I can either drive you down myself or meet you at the studio.”

“No thanks.” Martin rose, walked around the desk to where she stood, signaling—he hoped—that the matter was closed. “I’m really busy and…”

“And?”

“And to be perfectly honest…” he hesitated, then decided to let her have it. Maybe this was one way to get rid of her. “I think this sort of thing…this puffery, is ridiculous. Empty-minded drivel. Rubbish. It has no place in medicine.”

“Other than that, though,” she said with a straight face, “you kind of like it?”

He resisted the urge to soften what he’d said with a joke or a crack; even to his own ears he’d sounded self-righteous. So what? He didn’t care what she thought. He had more important concerns. “I believe I explained. I’m trying to get ready for a presentation. I haven’t time for this.”

“Western is right in the middle of a huge marketing campaign, Dr. Connaughton, and Professional Match has just the demographics we’re trying to reach. It would be a perfect tie-in to have you on the show.” She flashed another bright smile. “And besides, it’s the holiday season. Goodwill to men and all that stuff.”

“Yes, well…look, I’ve already explained my feelings.”

“I know. But I wish you’d reconsider.”

“Sorry.” He looked at her. “And I do have work to do.”

“Hmm.” She frowned and bit her lip. “There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?”

“Nothing.” He leafed through a stack of papers.

“Well, sorry I wasted your time.” Her smile gone now, she turned to leave, then, as though struck by another thought, took a step back into the office. “Since you don’t have a TV, you probably read a lot, huh? Ever read Charles Dickens, Dr. Connaughton?”

“Of course,” Martin looked at her, puzzled. “Why?”

“I was just thinking that there’s a character in A Christmas Carol that you’d probably recognize.” A tight little smile, a flutter of her fingers and she was gone.

Moments later the phone on Martin’s desk rang. A secretary informed him that Edward Jordan, Western’s president and chief executive officer, would like to see him. STAT.

GOD, WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HER? Face burning, Catherine left Connaughton’s office and ducked into the nearest rest room. Scrooge. She’d called him Scrooge. Her hands on the washbasin, she stared at her reflection. You are definitely losing it.

You…oh please. Tell me this is a bad dream. Tell me I didn’t…forget to put makeup on one eye.

Yep. Gary had called that morning just as she was brushing on mascara. By the time she’d finished telling him that it would be a cold day in hell before he got the kids, she’d been so rattled she couldn’t see straight. Grhhhhhhhhhhh. Now her mirrored self stared back at her. One eye wide and perky, the other…not. No wonder Martin Connaughton had given her such a weird look. And now she’d called him Scrooge, which meant that even if he might have been a teeny bit inclined to do the show, which he obviously wasn’t, but if he’d had a last-minute burst of Christmas spirit, well, she’d blown it.

Imagine your job riding on it. She left the rest room and started across the hall to the elevator. Derek couldn’t really mean that. He couldn’t fire her just because some surly, stubborn Scrooge of a doctor didn’t want to be on a stupid TV show. And it was a stupid show. In a weird way she kind of admired Connaughton for turning it down. The other two doctors had practically kissed her they were so happy to be chosen. Not Connaughton.

Admirable, but it didn’t make her job any easier. She punched the elevator button. With any luck, she’d get back to her office and fix her makeup without running into anyone. After that she’d figure out what to do about Connaughton.

“Catherine,” a voice behind her said.

Nadia. Even before she turned, she recognized the voice. Why wouldn’t she? She and Nadia went way back to junior high school where they’d both been in love with Brett Malley. Things cooled between them after Catherine started dating Brett, then got downright icy when Nadia stole him away. But they’d made up and, in the years since, had supported each other through various emotional upheavals including Nadia’s divorce from her first husband. In turn, when Catherine’s marriage had crumbled, she’d cried on Nadia’s shoulder. And, when she’d needed a job, Nadia, who headed Western’s marketing department, had recommended her for the public relations position. Unfortunately, she hadn’t learned about Nadia and Gary’s year-long affair until after she’d started working at Western. Encounters with Nadia were definitely one of the downsides to the job, but she was determined to stick it out. If only to prove that, although strings had been pulled to get her the job, she could keep it on her own merits.

“Gary said you were kind of upset when he called this morning.” Nadia smiled and reached to touch Catherine’s arm. “He can be such a brat sometimes, I told him not to spring things on you but he just had to get it off his chest. Are you okay? I mean you’re not mad or anything?”

Nadia had a breathy, little-girl voice, guileless blue eyes and a cloud of wispy blond curls. Even in the strappy high heels she favored, she was barely five feet. Next to Nadia, Catherine felt like a lumbering ox. Now, as she looked at Gary’s new wife, in her pale blue cashmere sweater and matching skirt, she imagined locking her fingers around Nadia’s tiny neck, just above the heart-shaped locket Gary had undoubtedly given her, and squeezing very hard.

“You know what, Nadia? I don’t intend to discuss this while I’m at work. And I especially don’t intend to discuss it with you. Anything I have to say about my children, I’ll say directly to their father.” She forced a tight smile. “Understood?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Nadia agreed. “You should talk to Gary, I’ve tried to stress that, but…” She smiled as if to say, What can you do? “Anyway, what I really wanted to talk to you about was that Professional Match show. We’re trying to get our ducks in a row for the marketing campaign, and Derek said you were working with Dr. Connaughton. She smiled. “Lucky you. He is such a doll. So is he all excited about being on TV?”

HE’D NEVER BEEN KNOWN for sunny optimism, but as he headed for the executive committee meeting where he was to make his last-ditch effort to save WISH, Martin tried to think positive thoughts. It wasn’t easy. He steered the Fiat north on Pacific Coast Highway. Past the taco stands, the auto-salvage yards and pawnshops, past the pink stucco apartment blocks where barefoot children spilled out onto threadbare patches of green. WISH territory, but a summons to Ed Jordan’s office just as he was leaving the medical center had temporarily eclipsed thoughts of WISH.

The administrator had wanted to hear Martin’s version of the altercation he’d gotten into with the teenage son of Western’s chief of pediatric neurosurgery two days earlier. He’d caught the boy making a drug deal in the parking lot. Enraged, he’d grabbed him by the collar, hauled him up close then recognized his face.

“My dad’s going to hear about this,” the boy had said.

“I hope he does,” Martin retorted. “There are babies up there fighting for their lives because of idiots like you.”

“He’ll get your ass.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” He’d held him suspended for another moment, then let go so suddenly that the kid had staggered backward against a Mercedes. “You’re lucky I’m giving you a chance,” he’d told the boy. “It’s a damn sight more than a lot of others get. Now take off before I call security and have you picked up.”

The kid had mumbled something under his breath, then climbed into the Mercedes and drove off. Martin knew they’d never touch the kid, his father was too influential. According to Jordan, Nate Grossman was responsible for bringing in more patients to the medical center than any other surgeon on staff.

Sun beat down on the Fiat’s canvas top, heating the car’s interior. Mid-December and it had to be eighty degrees. In the three years he’d spent in California, he hadn’t managed to overcome the feeling of strangeness at Christmastime. The merriment seemed as contrived as the artificial frost that glazed Western’s lobby windows, only partially concealing the swaying palms outside.

A pulse in Martin’s temple tapped a staccato beat, the familiar throb of anger. If the situation wasn’t serious, the irony would make him laugh. While he tried to convince administrators to keep funding an antidrug program, the chief surgeon’s son was out in the parking lot drumming up business.

Figure out what was making you so angry, Jordan had said. It wouldn’t take long. Overprivileged punks selling crack in the parking lot; the kind of skewed priorities that poured money into salvaging infants but cut it off for prevention. And then, thinking again of Catherine Prentice, money lavished on fripperies like public relations.

It should have been easy to dismiss the exchange, but the memory of her standing there lodged in his brain like the fragment of a song. Something elusive about her, something he couldn’t name. She reminded him of someone. A fleeting expression, the way she held her head.

Stifling in the Fiat’s cramped quarters, he rolled down the window. A symphony of freeway sounds poured in. Latin rhythm from the low-slung cruiser to his left, a jangle of jazzed-up Christmas music from an adjacent Toyota. Buses, big rigs, all trumpeting out their presence. Acrid, coppery-smelling air filled his lungs. Ahead of him, a tan station wagon made an abrupt lane change, then, as Martin pulled into the gap, the car darted back. He slammed on the breaks and hit the horn, then noticed the sticker on the station wagon’s bumper: Mean People Suck.

Jordan had actually suggested he apologize for roughing up the kid. Martin loosened the tie he’d worn especially for the presentation and wondered whether Jordan had actually been serious.

He switched on KNX, the all-news radio station. Someone had thrown a bomb through a living-room window in Northern Ireland, killing three residents. It had happened half a mile from the flat where he and Sharon had lived. He switched the radio off. Ireland was a distant memory. A faded picture in an album he seldom opened anymore.

A quick lane change brought him up behind a gravel truck. Pebbles, like buckshot, smattered the Fiat’s windshield. With a glance over his shoulder, he changed lanes again. Red taillights began to wink on. He rubbed the back of his neck, readjusted his lanky frame in the car’s cramped interior and flipped the radio back on. The traffic report told him something he already knew: the northbound Long Beach Freeway was jammed.

Two fifty-three. His presentation was scheduled for three. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. The traffic had ground to a complete halt. Up ahead, he saw a helicopter circling slowly, a metallic vulture above the sluggish body of traffic. He craned his neck out of the window, peered up into the grimy primrose sky. A second bird had joined the vigil, the call letters for a local TV station painted on its side.

Two fifty-five. Martin slammed his palm on the steering wheel, then, unable to tolerate the inactivity, pulled onto the shoulder, got out and started along the line of stationary cars. Traffic was completely immobilized on both sides of the freeway. He ran back to the Fiat and grabbed the medical bag he kept there. Maybe there’d been an accident.

Half a mile or so ahead of him, a crowd had gathered around a large beige clunker. As he drew closer, he saw a woman in a gray sweatsuit emerge from a Toyota. Carrying what appeared to be folded blankets, she made her way to the beige car and disappeared through the driver’s-side door.

He pushed his way through the crowd, squatted on the asphalt next to the car’s passenger door and looked inside. A woman, in her mid-to-late thirties, he judged, lay sprawled at an awkward angle across the seat, a blanket draped across her lap.

“I’m a doctor,” he called into the car. “What’s the problem?”

“She’s having a baby,” the first woman said without looking up, “And it’s in a hurry to arrive.” She placed a folded blanket behind the woman’s head and eased out of the car, crawling backward across the seat. “You’re a doctor, huh?” she said when she was back out on the freeway again.

“Right.”

Her expression registered a brief battle between distrust and relief.

He met her eyes, but said nothing. If he’d stepped out of a Mercedes wearing a three-piece designer suit, he thought, he would have had no trouble convincing her of his profession.

“Hey, take over,” she said finally, apparently deciding to take him at his word. “Her water broke. She’s having contractions. Someone called the highway patrol, but it looks as though the kid will get here before they do.”

He heard a moan from the car and crawled inside. Conflicting thoughts raced around in his brain. If he stopped to help her, he’d be more than just a few minutes late for the presentation, and the highway patrol would have an air ambulance dispatched, he reasoned, so she was in no real medical danger. As he considered what to do, the woman screamed and her body went rigid. He looked at his watch and noted the time. Three-ten. Right now he should be well into the presentation. He blocked the thought, waited for the contraction to subside and surveyed the interior of the car. Packing cartons and boxes were jammed into the back seat, clothes on and off hangers piled to a height that all but obscured the rear window.

“Right, then, I’m going to help you.” He looked at her. A sheen of perspiration covered her face. Fine lines around her eyes and mouth put her age close to forty. “Martin Connaughton,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Rita.” The woman bit her lip and her eyes filled with tears. “Hodges. You’d think I’d know better after four kids, wouldn’t you? I figured this one wasn’t due for another two months.”

“Have you seen a doctor?” he asked, but he’d already guessed the answer.

She shook her head. “My husband and me just got out here from Tennessee. He’s got the other kids. I was supposed to be checking out some apartment in Downey, then this happens… Oh God—” her face contorted “—here comes another one.”

Her scream filled the car, ricocheted off the windows.

He checked his watch again. Three minutes since the last one. Outside, the crowd of onlookers, faces up at the glass, jockeyed for a better view. Anytime now, he thought, there’d be vendors hawking soft drinks.

“You’re the star of the Long Beach Freeway, Rita.” He caught her in an awkward embrace and maneuvered her around until she was stretched across both seats. Then he tented the gray blanket over her knees. “Everyone wants a look.”

She grinned weakly. “Yeah, a look up my crotch. Jeez, I hope they don’t flash it on TV.”

It wouldn’t surprise him, he thought as he checked the make-shift delivery set-up. Since she occupied both seats, there was no room for him inside the car so he climbed out and stood on the asphalt. Like an old-time photographer covered by a black cloth, he peered into the tented area between her knees. Sweat trickled down his back.

“Okay, Rita, let’s see what’s going on here.” A routine task under normal conditions, the examination seemed surreal against the backdrop of freeway activity. He listened for a police siren, an air ambulance.

The air in the car grew stifling. Sweat dripped into his eyes. Wiping his face, he tried to remember the last time he’d actually delivered a baby. Eight years at least. In New Guinea or Ethiopia, he wasn’t sure. All he remembered was that everything had been fine. Mother and baby okay.

Rita screamed again and pushed. A head appeared, black and slick as a seal. He heaved a sigh of relief.

“How’s it going?” He emerged from his blanket tent and smiled at her, playing the combined role of coach and obstetrician. “Doing okay? Almost over. A couple more pushes and we’re there.”

She moaned. Her abdomen rose and tightened up into another contraction and she moaned again, a slow ascent into a full-pitched scream. The veins in her face and neck bulged. She screamed and pushed some more.

“Come on, Rita,” he urged. “Now. You can do it. Now.”

She gave one last shrill cry and a baby girl emerged. The crowd at the car window, larger now, drawn by Rita’s screams and the unfolding drama, broke into applause.

Martin looked up to a sea of grinning faces and waving hands. He took a deep breath, trying to slow his heart rate to something approaching normal.

With one glance at the baby, he realized that his relief, like the infant, was premature. About twenty-eight weeks, he guessed. A little over two pounds. Viable in that sense. Her dusky color wasn’t good though, neither was her muscle tone. Less reassuring still was her single weak cry. As he cut the umbilical cord, he felt a prickle of fear. The feeble sound was hardly a declaration of life.

Where the hell was the air ambulance? He cleaned out the infant’s nose and mouth as best he could and handed her to Rita.

“A daughter.” He forced a smile and a note of reassurance to his voice. “Hold her tight against you, inside your clothes. All right? Make sure she stays warm.”

Rita looked from him to her new daughter. A range of expressions played across her face. She fumbled with the buttons of her shirt, got it open and yanked her bra away from her breasts. “Is she okay? She’s not crying much. My others all yelled their heads off.”

“We need to get her to the hospital.” He pulled the edges of her shirt together so that they covered the baby. “The ambulance should be here any minute.”

Fervently hoping he was right, he watched for a moment, then returned to the tented canopy. As he reached up inside her for the placenta, his hand caught a tiny foot. He released his grip, felt around again. No doubt, it was a foot. He shook his head. This couldn’t be happening. Exploring, he found what had to be the shoulders of a third infant.

“Holy Mother of God.” For a moment he couldn’t move, his grip frozen on the tiny limb. Rita’s scream galvanized him into action. “Where the bloody hell is the highway patrol,” he yelled over his shoulder. “Tell them…”

A second, louder scream interrupted him.

CHAPTER THREE

“JOSH GILLESPIE, right.” Catherine cradled the receiver between her ear and shoulder and consulted the scrawled jottings on her notepad. “Eight years old,” she said, reading from a sheet of yellow paper. “Life-Flighted here about seven this morning. Hit by a car as he was crossing the road. We need a condition report for the media.” She hesitated a moment. “A couple of reporters want to speak to the parents.”

“Josh is in surgery.” The voice of the nurse in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit was abrupt. “He’s—” She stopped, a hint of suspicion evident now. “Who did you say you were?”

“Catherine Prentice. Public Relations.”

“I don’t know your name.”

Catherine drew a square around the boy’s name. If she’d sounded more confident, would the nurse have questioned her? She pushed the thought away. Her head ached, her stomach felt as if she’d swallowed a lump of lead. And the Professional Match producer had called again. Now she’d have to go plead with Martin Connaughton to see if she could get him to change his mind. Which might have been easier if she hadn’t called him Scrooge. All of this when what she really wanted to do was go and pick up her kids, start a new life somewhere where Gary and Nadia would never find them.

“I’ve just started working here,” she told the nurse. “You can call me back to verify if you want.”

“I’ll take your word,” the nurse said. “He’s critical. On life support. The mother’s here, but—” she lowered her voice “—she’s pretty hysterical. Try back in an hour or so.”

After she’d hung up the phone, Catherine stared at the small framed picture of Peter and Julie on her desk, wondered how she’d cope if anything happened to either of them. A sudden superstitious dread washed over her as though she’d tempted fate by even contemplating the possibility. She touched the picture: first Peter’s face, then Julie’s.

Like a tornado, the divorce had hurled her around, ripped away the sheltering protection of domesticity, battered her confidence and self-esteem. In the aftermath, she’d looked at the transformed landscape and recognized nothing at all that was familiar. Even now, she couldn’t get rid of this image of herself, standing Dorothy-like on a Kansas plain, her two children sheltering under her skirts. Winds whipped around her and, off in the distance, was another tornado just waiting to strike.

She shook her head to dislodge the image and dialed the NICU. Connaughton was off-site, the clerk told her, so she left a message for him then called Professional Match to say she was still working on getting someone. After she hung up, she tried to focus on another project, but her thoughts kept drifting to Gary’s demand for custody.

What she didn’t know was just how far he would go. He had a habit of threatening her just to keep her a little concerned and insecure. Like the time when Julie was two months old and he’d gone on a white-water rafting trip with a couple of his buddies. He’d complained that he was unhappy and stifled, that she’d let herself get fat, that she cared more about the children than him. Without the trip to restore his spirits, he would walk out of the marriage, he’d said. The third time he used the same threat, she’d called his bluff, forcing him to find new material.

Office noises drifted around her. The low hum of conversation in the next room, the whoosh of a file drawer sliding shut, a burst of laughter from the reception desk. In the coffee area, a microwave oven pinged its readiness and, seconds later, the whiff of hot popcorn filled the air. In her first week at Western, she had decorated her office with pictures of the children, a couple of trailing green plants, a small amber lamp and a glass bowl which she kept constantly replenished with jelly beans. It was her thing, creating nests.

She stared at the computer screen, tried to think of a snappy lead for the release she was working on, but nothing came to mind. Somehow it was difficult to concentrate on promoting a bunch of wealthy, golf-playing doctors when she was worried about losing her kids. A movement in the doorway made her look up and she saw Derek, cellular phone in one hand, a bran muffin in the other.

“Forget about Connaughton,” he said around a mouthful of muffin. “The producer called me just now, they’ve found someone else.”

“Derek, I’m sorry, he just refused—”

“What about the kiddie on the trike?”

“Bike.” Catherine corrected. “He’s in surgery.”

“There’s a TV crew camped outside the E.R.,” he said. “See if you can get mommy to talk.”

“I already tried,” Catherine said. “The nurse said to call back later.”

“The nurse isn’t on deadline.” He finished the muffin, crumpled the paper wrapping into a ball and aimed it at her trash bin. It missed. “Reporters are. That’s why you’re here. Never mind, I’ll take care of it.” As he walked away, his cell phone rang and he grabbed a pen and yellow pad from her desk and started scribbling notes. Moments later, he clicked the phone shut and looked across the desk at her, an expression on his face she couldn’t quite discern.

“Big media event. One of our docs delivered triplets on the Long Beach Freeway this afternoon. He stayed until the air ambulance arrived then took off like a bat out of hell. Said he was in a big hurry.” He glanced at his notes. “Babies and mommy are on their way here. Security says the press are already swarming all over the lobby. I’m going to get them corralled in one of the conference rooms. Once the kids are stabilized, we’ll arrange for some pool footage.”

Catherine followed him out of the office, eager for an opportunity to redeem herself. “Do you want me to put some background stuff together?”

“Later. Right now, everyone wants to talk to this guy. What I need you to do is find him and get him down to the conference room, pronto.”

“Sure,” Catherine agreed. “What’s his name?”

“Martin Connaughton,” Derek said. “And don’t drop the ball this time.”

SHE GAVE HERSELF a pep talk as she made her way up to the NICU. You can do this. You will overcome Connaughton’s resistance. You will prove Gary wrong about Nadia being the only reason you got this job. And tonight, to celebrate, you will take the kids out for pepperoni pizza without thinking about the calories. Then after they’re in bed, you will have a bubble bath and, maybe, a glass of wine, because you will have deserved it. Go do it, girl.

Outside the unit, a dark-haired reporter with glossy red lips and a tightly fitting suit in matching crimson, flashed Catherine a smile that appeared and disappeared as precisely as if a button had been pressed.

“Selena Bliss,” she said. “I’m looking for Dr. Martin Connaughton.”

“Connotun.” Catherine smiled as she corrected the reporter’s pronunciation. “I’m looking for him, too.” Not sure how Selena and her cameraman had managed to escape both security and Derek’s corral, she figured that if you looked like Selena Bliss, a lot of things might be possible. “You need to be in the conference room,” she said. “In a few minutes we’ll be giving a briefing.”

“I’d rather wait here for Dr. Connaughton,” Selena said.

“I’ll bring him down to the conference room.” She maintained her smile. “That’s where he’ll be doing the interviews.”

The reporter glanced at the cameraman standing nearby, then looked at Catherine. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.” The smile began to feel forced. “Ready?”

“Maybe you’re not aware of it, but that’s not the way I work.” Selena Bliss smiled again. “Derek Petrelli said I could have an exclusive with Dr. Connaughton.”

“Derek never mentioned an exclusive to me,” Catherine said. “But I’d be glad to check it out with him. If that’s the case, we can set something up. For now though, if you’ll go down to the conference room—”

“I’m not hanging around a conference room waiting,” Selena said. “I’ll wait here.”

Struggling for a way out of the impasse, Catherine heard a voice behind her and turned to see Nate Grossman, chief of pediatric neurosurgery. Ignoring Catherine, he stuck out his hand to the reporter, his face a beam of delight.

“Selena Bliss! Do I have a story for you! Have you heard about the new surgical technique that we’ve perfected here at Western to—”

“Actually, I’m here to interview Dr. Connaughton,” Selena said.

“Connaughton?” Grossman’s face darkened. “Why would you want to talk to him?”

“He’s quite the hero of the hour.” Selena summarized the freeway rescue. “So we want to talk to him about what he did. How he felt at the time. How the babies are doing, that sort of thing.” She smiled. “It’s a really nice heart-warming story.”

“Tell you what,” Grossman said. “How about I take you into the unit and let you get some shots of the babies? Meanwhile, I’ll fill you in on the new procedure. It was written up in the New England Journal—”

“Excuse me, Dr. Grossman.” Catherine felt the situation slipping out of her control. “We wanted to avoid having camera crews in the unit, so we’ve arranged for pool footage of the babies.”

“Oh, Selena doesn’t want pool footage.” Grossman winked at the reporter as if to say he knew her lingo. “Come with me, I’ll have someone get you a gown.” He looked at Catherine. “If anyone complains, tell them to talk to me.”

Selena gave her a triumphant little smile and followed Grossman into the unit. May you go on the air with lipstick on your teeth, Catherine thought as she tied on a protective cotton gown and made her way down to the end of the unit where Grossman was holding forth for the benefit of the camera.

“The tall one is Connaughton.” He pointed to a figure in scrubs whose hair and lower face were covered by a surgical cap and mask. “Right now he’s putting in a breathing tube. He’s already wired up the other two.”

“Everyone seems kind of tense.” Selena looked at him. “Is the procedure complicated?”

“No, but it’s kind of tricky—like threading a needle, but a lot more exacting. The baby can’t breathe while it’s being done and the heart slows down.” He chuckled. “There’s always the risk you’ll get ’em properly tubed, but dead.”

Posturing idiot. Angry, Catherine saw Selena’s eyes widen, saw her scribble something else in her notebook. “Of course, that sort of thing doesn’t happen here at Western,” she added quickly.

“Of course it doesn’t,” Grossman agreed. “That was just a little joke. In our intensive care unit—” he tapped the reporter’s notebook “—we care intensively. You can quote me on that.”

God, this guy was truly insufferable. Catherine saw Connaughton look up and stare at the camera, then turn his attention back to the baby.

“Heart rate dropping,” a voice said from the cluster around the bassinet. “Heart rate sixty—fifty.”

The cameraman began filming.

“Heart rate forty.” The voice was urgent. “Come out now.”

Catherine saw a hand whisk something from the baby’s face. Someone else started pumping a black rubber bag. Moments later people began moving away from the bassinet. Connaughton said something to a nurse, then pulled his mask around his neck and walked over to where she stood with Selena Bliss and Grossman.

The cameraman followed with his lens.

“Dr. Connaughton.” As she moved toward him, Catherine felt the blood rush to her face. “Catherine Prentice. I met you this morning. I, uh…is the baby okay?”

“Turn that damn thing off.” He gestured at the camera. As he wiped his forehead with his mask, he looked from the reporter to Catherine. “The baby’s fine.” His face darkened. “What the hell is going on here?”

“You’ve created quite a stir.” She smiled at him. “There’s a whole conference room full of reporters downstairs all waiting to talk to you. Including—” she nodded toward Selena still standing with her microphone outstretched “—this reporter here—”

“Perfect opportunity for a nice little plug for Western,” Grossman said. “I’ve been telling Selena about some of the work we’re doing.” He winked at her. “Including, of course, some of our state-of-the-art neurosurgery—”

“Excuse me, Dr. Grossman.” Catherine looked from the surgeon to Connaughton and saw the strain of the past few hours evident in his eyes. Empathy vied with demands of the job. She motioned Selena Bliss and her crew to stay put and drew him aside. “Are you okay?”

“Okay?” With a glance at the reporter and cameraman clustered out of earshot on the other side of the unit, he stared at her as though he’d forgotten why she was there. “Sorry?”

“You look kind of…” Self-conscious, she decided to take a different approach. “How are the babies?” It wasn’t an idle question, she really wanted to know, but nerves made her plow on. “And the mother? I hear she’s up on postpartum. God, what an ordeal. Lucky for her you were there.” His eyes, a dark blue, were fixed on her, but she sensed his mind was elsewhere. Across the room, Selena Bliss pointedly glanced at her watch. “Look, I’m sure talking to the press is the last thing you want to do, but—”

“The press?”

“Every reporter in town wants to talk to you.”

“Tell them I have nothing to say.”

She smiled, although something told her he wasn’t joking. “Dr. Connaughton, I realize that you probably thought the request this morning was, uh—”

“Frivolous?” The faintest flicker of a smile crossed his face. “Well, I suppose you’d expect Scrooge to think that way, wouldn’t you?”

“Ah.” She tried to smile. “About that. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it.”

“It’s hardly the most damning thing I’ve ever been called.” He pulled off his surgical cap, ran his hands through unruly reddish-brown hair. “Look, I can’t discuss this now.” He started off down the corridor at a fast clip. “I missed an important meeting.”

“Okay then.” She ran along beside him. “When would be more convenient?”

“Never.” He reached the door to the emergency stairwell, pulled it open and started up the stairs. “Nothing’s changed. I don’t talk to the press.”

“Look, Dr. Connaughton…” She tried another tack. “What you did this afternoon, delivering those babies, was a wonderful, humanitarian gesture. People are really interested in that sort of thing. And with the babies here at Western, it’s really great public relations.”

“That’s what you said about Professional Match.”

“Right.” She thought quickly. “I know I did, but that was kind of fun PR. This is different. It’s terrific exposure for Western’s NICU. We could spend millions and not get better advertising.”

“I’m sorry.” He took the stairs, two at a time, glanced back at Catherine who trailed a step or two behind. “I don’t want to do it. Humanitarian gesture or not, had I known that helping would create all this attention, I’d probably have stayed in my car.”

“Just a minute, Dr. Connaughton.” She reached him on the top landing. “People want to know how the babies are doing. Can’t we at least do a brief condition update?”

“Two of them should be fine. I’m very concerned about the smallest one.” He pulled open the stairwell door and headed for administration. “If you want to relay that on my behalf, feel free to do so.” With that, he disappeared through the polished wooden doors into Paul Van Dolan’s office suite.

“HOW THE BLOODY HELL can he be tied up?” Martin looked from the chief financial officer’s secretary to the clock on her desk and tried to banish the image of Catherine’s dismayed expression. Surely it was his right not to talk to the press? “It’s five past four,” he told the secretary. “My presentation was at three. It was supposed to last for two hours. If I’d been there, we’d be right in the middle of it at this moment—”

“But you weren’t there, were you, Dr. Connaughton?” The secretary bared her teeth in a tight smile. “So Mr. Van Dolan made another appointment. He’s a very—”

“Busy man. I know, you already told me.” Later, he would stop by Catherine’s office and apologize, he decided. Explain that he’d been under pressure. “When is he available?” he asked the secretary.

“He’s tied up with budget meetings for the next two weeks.”

“All I need is half an hour, forty-five minutes.”

“He’s tied up with budget meetings for the next two weeks.”

“Are you telling me that from the time he comes in to the time he goes home, he doesn’t have thirty minutes to spare?”

“Dr. Connaughton.” The secretary sighed. “Mr. Van Dolan is a very busy man.”

“Did you check his calendar?”

“It isn’t necessary, he’s tied up with budget meetings for the next two weeks.”

After he left the administrative suite, Martin used a phone in the hospital lobby to call Van Dolan’s secretary.

“Afternoon, ma’am,” he drawled. “I’m Randolph Manwell with the Mallinkamp Foundation. As you know, Western’s a top contender for the medical humanities grant—”

“Yes, Mr. Manwell—”

“Just flew in from Houston and ah know it’s kinda last minute an’ all, but ah sure would like to have a few minutes of Mr. Van Dolan’s time this afternoon.”

He heard a rustle of paper

“You’re in luck, Mr. Manwell,” the secretary said. “Mr. Van Dolan had a cancellation. If you could be here at, say, four-forty, he could talk to you for a few minutes.”

“Why, thank you, ma’am, ah sure am obliged to you.”

He hung up, called the NICU and asked for Tim Graham, another neonatologist.

“Is it all clear up there, Tim? No more bloody reporters?”

Graham laughed. “For now, but I’d take the back stairs if I were you. You’ve suddenly become a celebrity. Everybody’s talking about what you did.”

“Listen, Tim.” He hesitated. “If that woman from public relations, Catherine her name is—”

“Long braid? Stacked?”

“I, uh…right. Anyway, if she stops by, tell her…never mind. I’ll tell her myself.” On the way back to the unit, a woman called his name.

“Dr. Connaughton. Mrs. Edwards, Parking Enforcement. I understand you failed to affix a sticker to your car. All cars parked in the physicians’ lot must have a parking sticker affixed to the left side of the rear bumper. It’s hospital policy, Dr. Connaughton. After tomorrow, security is instructed to tow away cars without stickers.”

Martin gave her a blank look.

“Your parking sticker, Dr. Connaughton. Where is it?”

“I think I’ve lost it.” Aware of the double meaning, he couldn’t suppress a grin. With a what-the-hell abandon, he added, “The dog ate it.”

“Dr. Connaughton, you might find this amusing—” the woman’s tone made it clear she didn’t “—but we have these rules for a reason. It makes it very difficult when people don’t take them seriously.”

“I’ll go and have a look for the sticker.” Martin wanted only to terminate the exchange. “If I can’t find it, I’ll come and get another one. Don’t tow my car though, okay?”

Her pert little smile suggested the triumph that comes with having the last word. “As long as it has a sticker, Dr. Connaughton.” She started to walk away, then called his name. “You know, I just thought of something.” Her eyes narrowed. “Weren’t you the doctor who delivered those babies on the freeway today?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Different doctor.”

“I’M WONDERING if you were aggressive enough with Connaughton.” Derek gave Catherine an appraising look. “You’ve got to be tough with these doctors. Insistent. They’ll sniff out any weakness, just like a dog, and then they’ll walk all over you.”

“He didn’t walk all over me.” Catherine pictured Connaughton’s eyes as he’d refused her entreaties—eyes exactly the color of the cobalt blue in Julie’s box of Crayola—and wondered whether he had, but then dismissed the thought as nonproductive. “Short of bodily dragging him down there, I don’t know what else I could have done. He just plain doesn’t want to talk to reporters.”

After he’d eluded her for the second time, she’d achieved a temporary save by having one of the other neonatologists deliver a medical update. That, and an interview with the triplets’ parents, had mollified Selena Bliss and the rest of the press corps. Derek, to her relief, also seemed satisfied—at least he’d dropped no more hints that her job was in peril. The problem was that everyone still wanted to talk to Connaughton about his role in the rescue.

“So.” Derek slumped down in the chair in front of her desk. “What we need to do now is rethink our strategy. Regardless of what he says, Connaughton wants to be on TV. They all do. It’s an ego thing. Sooner or later they all succumb.”

“I honestly don’t think he will,” Catherine said. “He made it pretty clear what he thinks of talking to the press.”

Derek shook his head. “He’s no exception. Trust me. You just didn’t go about it in the right way. Here’s what I want you to do. Call a news conference for tomorrow morning around ten. Alert everyone that Connaughton will be there ready to spill his heart out about his heroic deeds.”

Catherine frowned. “I don’t understand. He’s already said—”

Derek held his hand up. “But you didn’t offer him an incentive, did you?”

“An incentive?”

“Of course. Something he wants very badly and for which he’ll willingly pay the price.”

“Talk to the press, you mean?”

“Exactly.” Derek beamed. “Your learning curve is impressive.”

“But, Derek…” She watched him amble out of the office. By the end of the day, especially when she was tired, Derek’s theatricality got on her nerves. “Come back here. How am I supposed to know what he wants?”

He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Well, that’s what you have to find out, isn’t it?” A few minutes later, he stuck his head around her office door. “By the way, the holiday party at the Harbor House tonight? Are you going?”

“Oh Jeez.” She ran her hand across her face, thought of the pepperoni pizza and the bubble bath. The two hours of quality time she’d actually penciled in on her calendar. “I wasn’t really planning to be there. I thought you were going.”

“I am, but, politically, it would be a good idea for you to attend as well. Jordan takes it rather personally when he holds these bashes and people don’t show up.” He dug into the glass jar of jelly beans she kept on her desk, popped a handful into his mouth. “Anyhoo, I’m splitting. See you later.”

Catherine looked at her watch—five-fifteen. On days that Gary didn’t collect the children from school, her mother picked them up and baby-sat until she got home, usually around six. Twice in the past week though, Derek had wanted her to attend evening meetings and she’d had to call and extend the baby-sitting hours, which inevitably prompted her mother to suggest that what she really needed to do was look for a husband so she could stay home full-time and be a proper mother.

With the tips of her fingers, Catherine massaged her forehead, tried to clear her brain enough to figure out what might get Connaughton to cooperate. And, while she worked that out, how to give her kids enough quality time that she could honestly believe they were better off with her than Gary. A moment later, as she picked up the phone to call, she noticed the pink message slip, half hidden under a stack of papers. Written in her secretary’s neat round handwriting, the note said:

(1) Your ex called to remind you he needs a decision pronto. He said you’d know what he meant. (2) Your daughter wants to remind you that you’re supposed to go shopping for her ballet-recital dress tonight. DON’T BE LATE!!!

IN THE CORRIDOR outside the NICU, Martin pushed some coins into the vending machine. Two Snickers bars, a package of cheese and crackers and an orange. Lunch and dinner. The day before, one of the dietitians had caught him having a similar meal and hinted that a more balanced diet might improve his disposition.

Doubtful. Although he’d made it in to see Van Dolan, he could have saved himself the trouble. Essentially, he’d been told the chances of WISH funding were slim to nonexistent, which pretty much resolved the Ethiopia question. Tomorrow he would tell the group to count him in. Why stick around?

He watched a young couple walk hand in hand past the nursery windows, the girl in a cotton hospital gown stretched tight over her extended belly. As though it were yesterday, he saw his wife’s heavy, late-pregnancy walk, the baggy blue cardigan of his that she’d worn because he’d still been in medical school and they couldn’t scrape up the cash for maternity clothes, the way she’d smiled when…a thought flashed into his consciousness.

Catherine Prentice reminded him of Sharon.

CHAPTER FOUR

STRUCK BY the realization, Martin leaned back against the wall, playing images of his wife’s face against those of Catherine’s. It explained why he’d reacted to her as he had. As Catherine had stood in his office smiling at him, the resemblance was strong enough that he’d been angry with her for not being Sharon. Which, he thought as he finished the orange, was as good a reason as any to leave Western.

The loud ping of the elevator interrupted his thoughts. Martin watched as the doors opened and a stocky man with closely cropped hair emerged, pushing a woman in a wheelchair.

“Dr. C.” The woman waved to him. “Just the person we were looking for.”

Martin stared blankly at the woman before he recognized Rita Hodges. With her hair brushed and caught up in a pink ribbon and her mouth outlined in matching color, she bore little resemblance to the bedraggled woman he’d assisted earlier in the day. The man with her grinned widely, revealing a mouthful of even white teeth.

“Eddie Hodges, Rita’s husband.” He pumped Martin’s hand. “The triplets’ dad. Nice to meet you, Dr. Connor.”

“Connaughton.” Martin felt his hand caught in the man’s vigorous grip. Short, but powerfully built, Eddie Hodges had blue eyes, so pale they seemed almost opaque. His tight black jeans were topped by an equally formfitting red polo shirt. The cream-color cowboy boots added a good two inches to the man’s height. Martin imagined Eddie Hodges selling time shares of dubious market value.

“Just took Rita here to see our girls,” Eddie said. “Now we’re going back to the room to catch the whole thing on the tube.”

“How come you weren’t on TV tonight, Dr. C.?” Rita asked. “You did all the work.”

“Publicity shy,” he said. “I couldn’t stand the thought of screaming mobs of fans chasing after me.” Rita gave him a look that suggested she half believed him. “Actually, I’m glad I caught the two of you without any press around.” He looked from Rita to Eddie. “I wanted to talk to you about the babies.”

Eddie consulted his watch. “The news is gonna be on in ten minutes.”

“I won’t take long.” Martin shoved his hands into the pockets of his lab coat, briefly described each baby’s condition. “I think two of them will do fine,” he said. “Frankly, though, I’m very concerned about the smallest one.”

“Her name’s Holly.” Eddie seemed undaunted by the medical news. “We got all their names picked out. The other two are Berry and Noelle.”

“Seeing as they’re practically Christmas babies,” Rita added with a wavering smile. “That reporter gal just had a baby herself, but it was a boy. She said if it’d been a girl, she was going to call it Holly Noelle.”

“So she said we could have the names,” Eddie grinned. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“About Holly though, Dr. C.” Rita looked up at him. “She’s going to make it, isn’t she? I mean, she’s not going to…”

“It’s too soon to tell.” Up close now, under the makeup, he saw the dark smudges beneath Rita’s eyes and wished he had more encouraging words for her. “We’ll know more in a day or two.”

“She’ll be fine,” Eddie Hodges looked again at his watch. “I feel great about all of them. They’ve got my genes, if you get what I’m saying. And they’re all going to make it. Holly, too.”

Martin rubbed his hand across his jaw, refrained from comment.

“See, Dr. C., I’m real big on positive thinking. Me and Rita’s been kind of down on our luck lately, but what I’m saying is, that’s all changing. Things are looking up. It’s going to be like those Siamese twins with agents and commercials and everything. What we don’t need is negative energy, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say nothing else about Holly not making it.” He smiled. “Okay?”

“Got it.” He decided that he wasn’t at all keen on Eddie Hodges. If the next few days went as he expected them to, Rita was going to need a lot of emotional support. It was doubtful that she’d receive much from her husband.

“So that’s dad, huh?” Tim Graham had come in at the end of the conversation. “I caught him on the news tonight. You’d have thought he pulled the whole thing off single-handedly.”

“He sees the triplets as a ticket to financial freedom, I think,” Martin said. “Doesn’t want reality to mess up his rosy picture.”

“Could be trouble.” Graham dropped onto one of the chairs that stood around the bank of desks at one end of the unit. “Speaking of which, I guess you missed your WISH meeting, huh?”

Martin nodded, then recapped the less-than-productive meeting with Van Dolan.

Graham removed his glasses and rubbed them on the pocket of his scrubs. “You know something?” he said after a minute. “As much as I understand the need for programs like WISH, you can kind of see why administration isn’t falling all over themselves to fund it.”

Martin just stared at him.

“Think about it. Western depends on services like intensive care for revenue. Administration considers NICU a cash cow, for God’s sake. Every time WISH succeeds in preventing an admission, Western loses another paying customer.” Yawning, he flipped the carousel where messages for staff were written on pink notes and filed under each individual’s name. “Let’s see if Christie Brinkley or Demi Moore have been trying to reach me. Nope. I guess they finally took no for an answer.” He gave the device another twirl. “Two love notes for you though.”

Martin glanced at the slips of paper. Both were from Catherine Prentice in Public Relations. The last, marked Urgent, was sent nearly two hours earlier at 5:00 p.m. He crumpled the slips into a ball, tossed them in the trash.

“Press still hot on your heels, huh?” Graham shook his head.

“You’d think it was the Second Coming, wouldn’t you? I’m a doctor, for God’s sake. I just stopped to help out.” Martin rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I should do a bait and switch,” he said in jest. “Tell Catherine Prentice I’ll talk to the press and then start yammering on about WISH and the need for prenatal care. That would thrill administration.”

Graham laughed. “Try it. What do you have to lose? Actually, you could probably catch her at the holiday party tonight.” He looked at the clock on the wall. “Right as we speak, the Harbor House is full of milling, fun-loving Western employees and doctors. Just apologize profusely for ignoring all her messages and tell her you’ve seen the light.”

Martin pulled up a chair, swung the seat around and sat down, his arms around the backrest. “You think she’d be there?”

“Sure. She’s in PR. Those people always hang out at social functions,” Graham said. “They’re social animals. Party people. It’s their thing.”

“WHAT WAS THAT, sweetie?” Catherine stood in the lobby of the Harbor House Hotel, the receiver jammed up against one ear, her palm flattened against the other, straining to hear what her daughter was saying. Behind her, sounds of revelry poured out of the ballroom where Western’s holiday party was in full swing.

“Daddy called,” Julie announced in her child’s singsong voice. “Twice. He said if you don’t have time to get my ballet dress, he and Nadia would take me to get it. He said they saw a real pretty one in the Little Ballerina shop. And Nadia’s going to get me some new tights because mine have holes in them. And she’s going to get Peter a new jacket because his old one is yukky.”

Catherine’s fingers tightened around the receiver. A rush of adrenaline made her pulse race. So this was going to be Gary’s tactic. Keep the pressure on until she broke. “Listen, Julie.” She tried to keep her voice slow and steady. “If Daddy calls again, tell him I said not to worry about it.” Tell him to stay the hell away and stop trying to buy you. “We are going to get your dress, okay? Just you and me. I promise.”

“Tonight?”

“No. Not tonight.” Catherine closed her eyes. A band had struck up in the ballroom, the bass notes seemed to reverberate through her body. “I’m going to get away as soon as I can, but the stores will be closed by the time I get home. You’ll be in bed, but we’ll go tomorrow, okay?” Silence on the other end. “Julie, sweetie, I know you’re disappointed, I am, too. If there was any way I could have got out of this thing, I would have.” More silence. “Tell you what, kiddo. How about we make tomorrow really special? We’ll get your dress then go get a hot-fudge sundae? Brownie sprinkles, whipped cream, the whole works.” She heard Julie’s slightly mollified assent. “Good, now let me talk to Grandma, okay?”

She told her mother about the a tuna casserole in the freezer, tried not to snap as her mother launched into a rambling account of the dangerous things microwave rays could do to food, reminded her to be sure Peter took his asthma medication and, in a slightly wheedling voice, asked if she would mind very much just running an iron over the blue dress Julie wanted to wear for school tomorrow.

When her mother complained that stooping over an ironing board aggravated her back, Catherine urged her not to bother, she would do it herself in the morning. With a final reminder to be sure all the doors were locked, she hung up. Tomorrow night, she thought as she headed down the corridor to the rest room, she’d do the pot roast for dinner. Before she took Julie to Little Ballerina and thwarted Gary by spending money she didn’t have.

Inside the rest room, she squinted in the bright white light, frowned at her reflection in the mirrored walls. Pale, drained and a little disheveled. Definitely not a thing of beauty. With everything else there was to juggle, how the hell did single mothers manage to date? Some of them did, she’d overheard a couple of nurses in the cafeteria discussing how soon it was okay to let a boyfriend sleep over. One of them said she always had sex at his house, never at her own if the kids were there. The other said she didn’t bother about it, sex was a fact of life. Kids adjusted.

She leaned over the washbasin, splashed her face with cold water. Sex and dating were the last things on her mind, especially now that Gary had started this custody thing. A man in her bed would be all the ammunition he needed.

Swept by a stew of emotions—fatigue, anger, frustration, self-doubt, she grabbed a paper towel from a dispenser, held it tight against her face. Life felt like one huge compromise. Worrying about finding Connaughton while she scrambled eggs for the kids this morning, standing in some stupid hotel bathroom when she wanted to be home, reading a bedtime story to Julie, helping Peter with his homework.

For a moment, the disillusionment and anger seemed to engulf her. She took a few deep breaths and splashed more cold water on her face. Tomorrow, she’d do something really special for them. Exactly what, she didn’t know yet, but something. And then she would work on Dr. Martin Connaughton.

Five minutes later, she pushed her way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd in the ballroom looking for Derek. At one end, a small forest of bleached, tumbleweed Christmas trees twinkled with tiny white lights. In the middle of the room, dancing couples swayed and grooved to “Jingle Bell Rock.” Administration reportedly spent big bucks on the annual holiday party and this year was obviously no exception.

She spotted Derek at one of the buffet tables, paper plate in one hand, a plastic glass of wine in the other. He had changed into black linen slacks and shirt and his hair was combed straight back off his forehead.

“Gawd, what a day it’s been.” He speared a piece of bacon-wrapped shrimp. “One damn thing after another. D’you reach Connaughton yet? Selena Bliss paged me twice tonight. Says I owe her a favor and she has to talk to him, or she’ll never give us any decent coverage again. What are these things?” He gestured at a silver chafing dish. “Alpo balls?”

“Swedish meatballs, I think.” Catherine piled some celery and carrots on her plate, doused them with a scoop of diet ranch dressing. “No luck with Connaughton. I’ll go up to the unit first thing in the morning. The babies should have all stabilized by then, so maybe he’ll be more receptive.”

“Good.” He ladled meatballs on his plate then stopped to inspect a silver tray. “Keep trying. There’s been a new development, and we need to be sure Grossman and Connaughton are singing out of the same hymnbook.” He lowered his voice. “There’s no love lost between the two of them.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Grossman thinks he’s God and so does everyone else at Western, except for Connaughton. Now Grossman wants to try this new surgery that’s never been tried on a kid this size, but Connaughton thinks the kid’s too sick and he’s not making any secret of it.” He dug a toothpick into a meatball. “The problem is, I want to promote this teamwork concept and…what are these little numbers?”

“Rumaki.” Catherine dipped a carrot stick in dressing. “Teamwork concept?”

“Exactly.” Derek winked at a passing reveler in formfitting black leather pants. Face flushed with wine, he poked a toothpick into a wedge of cheese. “What was I saying?”

“Teamwork.”

“Right. The Freeway Triplets and Western’s team of miracle workers. Connaughton who delivers them, cares for them in our state-of-the-art NICU. Grossman who performs this miraculous, life-saving surgery. Fabulous PR. Jordan loves it.”

Catherine watched a conga line form a few feet away. A man she recognized as one of the lab techs, motioned her over to join him. She shook her head, then leaned closer to hear Derek’s voice over the noise. A wave of wine-scented breath forced her back.

“What makes this whole triplet thing particularly timely—” Derek brought his face closer “—is that Ned Bolton has been nosing around lately—”

“Ned Bolton?” Catherine frowned. “The medical writer with the Tribune?”

“The same.” Derek nibbled a piece of cheese. “Bolton’s specialty is striking fear into the hearts of public relations people. I suspect he secretly wants to bring every hospital in his circulation area crashing down in an avalanche of scandal. Anyway, last month we had a couple of, uh, surgical mishaps that Bolton thinks we’re trying to cover up. He hinted—not very subtly—that the incidents were a result of underlying management difficulties.” Derek drained his wine. “Jordan nearly hit the roof when he heard that one.”

She nodded. Although she hadn’t yet dealt with the chief of administration directly, she had attended executive meetings with Derek and, on occasion, had seen Jordan’s sudden bursts of temper. “Is there any truth to the allegations?”

Derek waggled his hand, palm down. “Yes and no. It’s a long story. The point though is to divert Bolton and the rest of the pack with this triplet thing. That’s why we need to milk it for all it’s worth.” He glanced at his watch. “Listen, I’ve had about all the holiday cheer I can handle for one night. Jordan gives his speech at eight. We need to get something in the newsletter. Stick around for it, will you?”

Catherine opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, silenced by the thought of how much she needed her job. Another half hour seemed like a life sentence, but she dragged up the phony smile she’d perfected during her marriage and sweetly agreed to stay. In need of a stimulant to keep her going, she started over for the coffee urn at the far end of room and collided with a tall blond man. He introduced himself and, in amazingly short time, regaled her with details of his stock portfolio, real estate and assorted collection of cars and boats.

“I ski Mammoth,” he rambled. “Got a condo up there, all exposed beams and glass, hot tub, wet bar. Ski all day, party all night.”

Catherine smiled politely and considered possible avenues of escape. Her head ached and the smell of overheated bodies and reheated food was making her feel slightly sick. Even if she had the time or inclination to date, she reflected, if this was an indication of what was out there, she’d go without.

He flashed dazzling white teeth and moved a little closer, his eyes appraising. “So, what do you do for fun?”

“Not a whole lot.” She inhaled a cloud of aftershave, took a step back to avoid nose-to-nose contact and searched her mind for a sufficiently unexciting activity. “Gardening,” She took another step backward. “Cooking.” In this way, she could eventually backstep her way out of the room. “Work.”

He shook his head and moved a step closer, continuing their little pas de deux. “Y’know what they say about all work and no play, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but I don’t care.”

“Hey, babe.” He looked into her eyes. “Want to split this place, go get a drink somewhere?”

As she formed the words of refusal, she heard a male voice behind her.

“Excuse me, I need to talk to Catherine.”

A male voice with an Irish accent. She knew without turning that it was Martin Connaughton.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE MARKETING MAN, caught momentarily off guard by the intrusion, rallied quickly. “Hey, that’s cool. No sweat, I’ll just mosey over there and check out the munchies.” He shot Catherine a parting wink. “Catch you later.”

Catherine watched him disappear into the crowd, then turned to Connaughton. A beer bottle in one hand, he wore a battered tweed jacket, some sort of collarless shirt under it and jeans. His reddish-brown hair fell untidily over his forehead, and his eyes were lined with exhaustion. But as she looked at him, all she could think of at that moment was how attractive he was—not handsome, or conventionally good-looking, but attractive: sexy, slightly disheveled, more than a little weary and, she suspected, completely unconcerned about the way he looked.

“Martin Connaughton,” he said as though perhaps she’d forgotten. “You’re looking for me?”

“I was looking for you. About four hours and five messages ago. You didn’t answer your page or your messages. Again.”

“Well, now I’m here.”

“How do you know you didn’t just barge into an important conversation?” A vestige of irritation lingered. Now he was ready to talk. “That guy might have been…I don’t know, the love of my life.”

He raised an eyebrow. “In that case you were managing to conceal it remarkably well. I’ve been watching you from across the room for the last…” He glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes. You looked bored stiff. Actually, I thought I’d do you a good turn by rescuing you.”

“You did?” Surprise deflated her anger like air from a balloon.

“I did.” A faint smile played across his face.

She stood there, momentarily robbed of words by an intense awareness of his physical presence. His height, the way his jacket fit across his shoulders, the slight shadow of beard. Maybe he’d come straight from the hospital, just changed from his scrubs. She felt weird, breathless almost. Everything around them seemed distant and unconnected.

“So?” His smile grew wider.

“So.” She felt her face color. “We need to talk.”

He caught her arm, shepherded her to an empty space by the door. “I suppose that this is the part where I throw myself on your mercy and tell you that it’s been a hell of a day so please accept my abject apologies for my earlier behavior.”

The remark, with its teasing undertone, once again caught her off guard. The cool, distant doctor had metamorphosed into a sexy guy who had a definitely disconcerting effect on her heart.

“You don’t really seem too abject.” She matched his tone. “I like a lot of groveling before I forgive.”

“Unfortunately, groveling isn’t one of my strong suits,” he said solemnly. “But supposing I did want to grovel my way into your good graces. How would I go about it? Could I redeem myself by talking to your pals out there?”

“My pals. You make it sound so frivolous.” She suppressed a smile and an errant thought: she could fall for him, big time. Her face felt warm. “As a matter of fact, you can meet them tomorrow. I’ve scheduled a press conference at ten.”

“You’ve already set it up?” Dark blue eyes widened slightly. “How did you know I’d do it?”

“Just a hunch.” She realized she was beginning to enjoy the exchange. “Can you be there?”

“There’s nothing I’d rather do. Just tell me what you want me to say.”

“We can work on that in the morning.” She leaned her shoulders lightly against the wall, her arms at her sides. Relief, but more than that, something about Martin Connaughton had completely transformed her mood. “Back to groveling though.”

“Yes?”

“Just this morning, I seem to recall you making some sort of comment about public relations. How did you put it?” A hand cupped to her chin, she pantomimed deep thought. “I think the word you used was puffery.”

“Temporary insanity on my part,” he replied with an obvious effort to maintain a solemn expression. “I retract everything I might have said. Public relations is a calling of the highest order.”

“You know something?”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Not for an instant.” She smiled into his eyes. “So what produced the dramatic change?”

“I’ve got a project that’s very important to me.” The laughter left his face. “It’s called WISH. I’d like to talk to you about it.” He glanced around the crowded room. “Maybe we can find somewhere a little bit quieter.”

“SO THAT’S REALLY what WISH is all about,” he said after he’d given her the overview of what he was trying to do. “Drug counseling and adequate prenatal care can go a long way toward preventing tragedies like Kenesha Washington.”

Music and laughter from the hotel floated out to where they sat on a low stone wall. Above them a smattering of stars, ahead a narrow strip of beach and the dark ocean. What surprised him was how easily the words had flowed. The emotions that just that morning Dora Matsushita had urged him to unlock were right there as he explained, and he knew by Catherine’s expression that he’d touched her.

“And you’re hoping that administration will be so pleased with your glowing tribute to Western’s NICU that they’ll change their minds and decide to fund WISH after all? Is that your strategy?”

“Something along those lines.” He smiled. “As the PR expert, how does that sound to you?”

“As the practitioner of fluff and puffery you mean?”

“I already apologized for that, remember? Besides, you called me Scrooge.”

“And I apologized for that,” she replied. “Although you did seem kind of dark and gloomy this morning.” She glanced at him from under her lashes. “I figured that maybe it was typical Irish behavior. You know, all brooding and melancholy.”

He laughed. “That’s a myth. The truth about the Irish is that at any given time in history, half of them were starving. If they’d had enough to eat, they’d have been as bright and cheerful as yourself.”

“So you missed breakfast this morning? That’s your excuse?”

“There’s no excuse for me. I’m just cantankerous.”

“Yeah, I’d heard that,” she said. “A loose cannon was the way someone described you.”

Martin laughed again, well aware of his reputation at Western.

“About WISH though,” she said after a moment. “I’m kind of low on Western’s totem pole of influence, but I’ll do what I can to put in a good word.”

“Thanks.” Tempted to shift now to the personal and ask her more about her family, Martin reminded himself he was here for a purpose. And, if he’d read her correctly, she understood his concerns. In fact, her face, which seemed to register the slightest emotion, made her a fairly easy read. And if that didn’t give her away, he thought with amusement, her hands did.

“What’s the joke?” she asked. “You’re sitting there smiling to yourself.”

“I was just thinking that perhaps you had Italian somewhere in your ancestry.”

“Oh, the hands?” She grinned and her face colored slightly. “I know, everyone teases me about it. If I ever get rheumatism, I probably won’t be able to talk. There’s no Italian though. Irish on both sides.”

He said nothing, struck by an odd sense that he’d come home, that he knew this woman with her long plait of hair and blushing smile. Years away from Ireland had done little to dilute the strain of Celtic mysticism in his veins, and the feeling awed him. “Your children?” he said, finally giving in to his need to know. “How old are they?”

“Peter’s ten and Julie was six last week.” She grinned. “For her birthday cake, she wanted carrot and pineapple with chocolate frosting.”

“God.” He pulled a face. “That sounds revolting. Did she get it?”

“Yeah, I baked it myself. Birthday cakes are kind of my thing. Any cakes actually. Chocolate, apple, cheesecake, you name it. Don’t tell Ed Jordan—” she brought her face closer “—but I’d rather be home with my kids, frosting a cake, than doing public relations.”

“But then we wouldn’t be sitting here talking.”

“True.”

“How long were you married?”

“Nearly twelve years.”

“That’s a long time for a California marriage, isn’t it? I thought they all self-destructed after five years.”

She smiled. “It takes work, I guess. You both have to want it. In our case, I guess I wanted it more than he did. We had this really terrific house and sometimes I’d sit in the kitchen and the sun would be pouring through the windows, and there were cookies or something like that in the oven and the kids would be playing. I just remember feeling so happy. I mean, who needs a career? That was my career.”

“The perfect wife and mother, huh?”

“I guess not so perfect since we’re now divorced.”

“You didn’t want the divorce?”

“You could say that. When he told me he wanted to end it, I felt as though I’d been fired from the only job I’d ever wanted.” A quizzical smile on her face, she turned to look at him. “Do you have any idea why I’m telling you all this?”

“Probably because I’m asking.”

“But it’s all one-sided. What about you? Have you been married?”

“A long time ago.”

“Any kids?”

He shook his head. “So would you try it again?” he asked. “Marriage, I mean?”

“Probably not.” She frowned at her hands, folded in her lap. “It was a pretty powerless time in my life. I had no real stake in anything. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see it then. I just deferred to him without really thinking about it. Sometimes I’d decide I was tired of living under a dictatorship and complain. Then he’d do something really sweet and generous and I’d feel like a bitch.”

He laughed.

“It’s true. I don’t think I started out that way, it just happened gradually. A little compromise here, another one there.” She shrugged. “It’s an insidious thing. By the time we got divorced and I really looked at myself, I barely knew who I was anymore. I guess in a weird sort of way, I’m grateful to him for forcing the issue. It’s probably the only thing I am grateful to him for—except the children, of course.”

“And I was going to ask if it had left you embittered.”

“It shows, huh? Embittered and embattled. But wiser. I’ll never let myself be dependent on someone like that again.”

“But surely it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.” He wondered why it seemed important to convince her. “Marriage doesn’t have to mean giving up all your autonomy.”

She shrugged. “Maybe not. But I’m kind of gun-shy.”

A moment passed and neither of them made a move to leave. A breeze blew a wisp of hair across her face. He watched her push it away. Watched the silver charm bracelet she wore slide down her arm as she did. Leave, he told himself, but she was smiling at him and the breeze carried a whiff of her floral perfume. You’ve accomplished what you came here to do, he told himself, but the sky was sprinkled with stars and the moon was a pale crescent suspended above them. Leave. But each time he looked at her, he felt a yearning for a time when the future had seemed bright and full of promise and a small voice in his head asked, Well, why not again?

“This morning when I saw you in the lobby,” he finally said, “you reminded me of someone I used to know. Now though I can see that you’re not really like her, it’s just an expression you get.”

She watched his face. “Old girlfriend?”

“No.” He shook his head, felt her waiting for more. “No,” he said again.

Moments passed. The oleander bushes that lined the lawns trembled in the breeze.

He watched her face. She’d moved slightly so that she now sat in profile to him. Back rigid, bottom lip caught in her teeth. Vulnerable somehow. A wave of fierce protectiveness swept him, stunning him with its intensity. He wanted to put his arm around her, to pull her close, to promise that he’d prevent anything bad from ever happening to her. Sure, a voice in his head scoffed, like you promised Sharon. He glanced at his watch.

“It’s getting late.” She turned to face him. “I should probably go back in.”

Laughter floated out from the hotel, heels clattered on the flagstone pathway. Words clattered in his brain. Inside, the band started up again.

“Listen, Catherine,” he finally said. “I think you need to do something crazy.” He stood, held out his hand to her. “Let’s dance.”

She laughed. “I’m the world’s worst dancer.”

“Second worst. I guarantee.”

“Ed Jordan’s probably looking for me. I was suppose to listen to his speech.”

“Is that going to be a problem for you?”

“It might be. Tomorrow.” She took his hand. “Come on, let’s live dangerously.”

IF YOU HAD ANY SENSE, Catherine thought as she whirled around the room in Martin’s arms, when this dance is over you will thank him very nicely and make a quick exit. That would be the safe thing to do. The sort of thing that Julie and Peter’s mommy would do. The sort of thing that the Catherine Prentice she thought she knew would have done. But his arms were around her, and her chin rested on the rough tweed of his jacket and her lips were tantalizingly close to the skin of his neck, and the Catherine Prentice she thought she knew, the cookie-baking, homework-checking, PTA president Catherine, had gone AWOL. In her place was this strange, barely recognizable woman. A woman whose body turned into mush every time she looked into Martin Connaughton’s eyes.

“What do you think?” He pulled away slightly to look at her. “Pretty bad, aren’t I?”

“The worst.” She smiled up at him. “My feet will never be the same again.”

“Do you want to stop?”

“No.” Never, she thought as couples glided around them, shadowy and indistinct in the spangled light. She was bewitched. The evening had become this magical shimmering thing that much later she would unwrap and slowly examine like a precious gift. He pulled her closer, his long body hard against hers, hummed softly in her ear. Outside, as he’d asked about the children, the real Catherine had briefly returned to issue warnings, but he’d taken her hand and the words had melted like snowflakes in the sun. The music played on and, caught up in the dreamlike spell, they danced and danced. When the band played its last number and the lights were raised, she felt as though she’d awakened from a trance.

Minutes later, they were back out in the dark night, the air cool on her overheated skin. Reality slowly returned. As they stopped beside her pale blue Plymouth van, she felt like Cinderella. Her magic coach had turned back into a pumpkin.

“Very glamorous.” She grinned at Martin. “Probably couldn’t guess I had kids, huh?”

“What have you got in there?” He peered inside the window. “Toys and bikes?”

“Pretty much.” She unlocked the door and slid it open. On the carpeted floor were red and blue plastic crates of toys. One marked Julie, the other Peter. Two smaller cartons contained books. Pegs on the wall of the van were hung with jackets. She watched his face as he looked around, his expression rapt.

He turned to her. “It’s all so…organized.”

Catherine laughed at his interest. “Well, it’s easier that way. Keeps them occupied when we’re driving.” She reached under the seat and pulled out two smaller cartons. “See. Cookies. Pretzels. Sodas. Helps cut down on impromptu fast-food visits,” she said with a grin.

“You go on a lot of outings, do you?”

“We go to the beach. Camping. Sometimes we go up to the mountains. My mother has a cabin in Big Bear.”

“And do you have campfires? Cook marshmallows? That sort of thing?”

“Uh-huh. Sing songs, the whole shtick.” She laughed, suddenly self-conscious.

“What?”

“I’m just surprised that you find it interesting. I love doing this kind of thing, but…” She bit her lip, already sorry she’d embarked on the story. “Their father always made me feel that it was the only thing I was capable of doing. He used to call it my Becky-Home-ecky stuff. I guess it never seemed particularly interesting or valuable.”

“You’re wrong about that,” he said.

A moment passed and they stood together looking at each other and she realized she was holding her breath. The Martin Connaughton she’d first seen that morning was not the man with whom she’d spent the last few hours and she wondered who exactly the real one was. If it was the man standing before her now, with this look of tenderness on his face, she could be in big trouble. Very big trouble.

But a moment later, as if a curtain had been drawn, the look was gone.

“Ten o’clock tomorrow?” Unsmiling, he inclined his head slightly. “I’ll see you then.”

As she pulled out of the parking lot, Catherine felt as dazed as if she’d been hit on the head with a baseball bat.

BY THE TIME Martin drove into the Long Beach Marina, the bewitched feeling he’d had with Catherine was mostly gone, dissipated by the two messages he’d had from the unit. One was a new admission, the other an update on Holly Hodges, whom he’d twice caught himself calling Kenesha. Nothing about her condition reassured him. He had called for a neurological consult because he suspected that, in addition to all her other problems, she was bleeding into her brain.

Still a glow lingered, a small pinpoint of light in the dark. He stopped at the row of marina post office boxes to collect his mail and strode down the wooden gangway whistling.

Fog had fallen like a gray shroud over the water, cocooning the dense thicket of sailboat masts. Among them was his own dwelling, an old forty-foot Coronado sailboat. It had once provided diversion for weekend sailors on jaunts to Catalina and Mexico and needed some cosmetic work, but it suited his needs just fine.

It occurred to him as he jumped aboard that the way he’d felt as he’d talked to Catherine, he would have agreed to speak to the press, WISH or no WISH. The thought both exhilarated and unnerved him and was still on his mind as he bent down to put the key in the padlock. Then a movement behind him made him look up and do a double take.

Valerie Webb stood in the shadows watching him, a small smile on her face.

“Greetings.” Valerie moved into the marina light’s cool glow. A silvery veil of moisture covered her red hair and pale trench coat. “I was hoping you wouldn’t be too late. It’s a touch chilly out here.”

“Val.” Martin pulled himself up, the padlock still in his hand. “What the hell are you doing here?” His mind scrambled for an explanation, then he remembered that she’d done the press briefing. It seemed an unlikely reason for her visit, but he thanked her, apologized for not having done so earlier.

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