The door opened and in rolled the trolley with his patient on it, a woman in her thirties who had three children.
That was what he needed to focus on, doing well by this patient and her family. Never be the one who broke a family.
He always learned what he could about his patients so he could keep in mind what was riding on successful surgery. He took a moment to check with her, make sure she understood what the neuro-endoscopy entailed, and to reassure her again that he’d do his best. Things he always did for his patients, even those who didn’t have children at home or in the waiting room—or, as had been the case with him, waiting in the chapel, praying it all would go all right.
His gentle encouraging words delivered, he nodded to the anesthetist. The sooner their patient was unconscious, the sooner she’d stop worrying. And, he hoped, the sooner he’d have out the Rathke cleft cyst growing behind her pituitary gland.
One more tally removed from the ledger where he kept memories of his old ways, and he hoped to eventually get out of the red.
* * *
No sooner had Dante left the surgical suite than Sandy Carrasco repeated her earlier demand.
“Tell us how the date went.”
Lise had avoided thinking about the date all weekend, and that had included preparing what she was going to say when inevitably asked.
“Oh, just great, I guess.” Messing with rude people was a bad habit she’d apparently picked up from Dante.
When Sandy laughed, Lise went with it.
“I got a brand-new dress for the evening. Jefferson and I had spoken briefly on the phone a few days before and confirmed where we’d meet in texts—deciding on a club he liked. Since I never go to clubs, I got the new red dress. I arrived, went in on my own as he wasn’t waiting for me outside. Drank a mojito. Danced.”
“He was inside, waiting?”
“Oh, no. He wasn’t there, either. I amused myself. Mojitos. Dancing. Talking with a handsome musician.” Not. Dante. Don’t mention Dante. Then she laid out being stood up, the Large Woman nonsense, and that he’d tried to come after she’d sent him a picture of her red dress.
Confrontation wasn’t usually her thing, though it sometimes came with being truthful and direct about things—or when humiliated and inebriated. But sometimes, like right now, it came in handy.
Before Sandy could do anything but look embarrassed, Lise—having already discarded her surgical gown—gestured to the new well-fitted scrub top and her relatively flat tummy and waist.
“I’m not tiny. But I’m pretty sure Large doesn’t describe me. I tend to wear a ten in scrub bottoms and, of course, a higher size when I require a cut that accommodates disproportionate breasts. And before you get any ideas, I’m still counting that as my third date, so that’s only...”
She paused then and revulsion for the whole experience changed her mind. “Whoever was in charge of picking Bachelors Four and Five should cancel now. I’m done. Be disapproving all you like, but my plans don’t hinge on whether or not my coworkers approve of my decisions. And now, I apparently need to go be yelled at by Dr. Valentino. Please excuse me.”
THE DOOR TO the office Dante used when staffing the neurosurgery unit swung open. He looked up just as he flipped off his phone, and caught Lise closing the door behind her.
Brows pushed together, mouth actually turning down at the corners in a frown, posture stiff, hands balled into fists... She was either very angry or very worried.
Something other than unflappably calm for the first time ever in his presence at Buena Vista, but she’d also embraced another first—at least as far as he was concerned: No scrub cap. The silky blond locks he’d spent the weekend remembering the feel of on his hand had been braided around her head like a crown. She didn’t keep her hair just tucked up beneath those caps. Still nice.
But not what he should be focusing on.
She stepped in front of the chairs opposite the desk, appeared to think better of it, and moved around until she stood behind them again and dropped her hands onto the seatback.
Rather than question her, he let her get around to it. She knew why he’d summoned her.
When words again failed to come, she stepped around to the front again, but this time sat.
“Do you have a cat?” he asked, unable to help himself.
“Because I’m unmarried and twenty-nine? How many cats am I supposed to have at this point?”
“You just walked all the way around that chair about one and a half times before you sat down. My guess was either cat or a musical-chairs aficionado.”
“You’re funny today.” Yet she neither looked nor sounded amused.
“I was funny on Thursday too. You should’ve stuck around to find out.”
“If you said anything funny on Thursday, it would’ve been in some kind of Spanish purr and I wouldn’t have understood it anyway.”
Quiet Lise had been once more replaced by a snarky copy. She was there to entertain him, it seemed. But he had a plan for this meeting, so he moved past the cat conversation.
“Are you all right? You looked anxious when you came in. Afraid I was going to yell at you for your tardiness?”
“A little. And I just told off Sandy and called off the remaining fix-ups. Told them I didn’t need their approval to live my life. It was really...I don’t know, either empowered or rude. Maybe both.”
“Sometimes you have to be rude to get things done,” Dante murmured, leaning back in the other chair as he tried to decide how to handle this.
“You didn’t need to be rude to get things done.”
Her phone.
“I didn’t know you well enough to trust you.”
Getting off track.
“You’ve worked with me for two years.”
“And yet I barely know you.”
Rarely did he ever do anything in his adult life without having a plan for how it should work out. That was how he’d gotten through the time after his parents’ murders, through college and medical school, fellowships, even to securing a placement at his preferred hospital. His career path still had an ongoing plan. He had plans for the club, and a great manager to make those plans happen. The only goal he was flying blind with was on how to go about finding a wife with his particular marital complications.
It was time he had his own family. And he had to marry if he was to have a happy family.
Lise had a habit of disrupting his plans. When he’d gone to her table at first, his plan had been simple: find out what she knew and make sure she didn’t tell anyone about The Inferno. That plan had lasted all of two minutes.
He’d formed a new plan for the way that evening should’ve ended as they’d danced and the chemistry had grown, and that hadn’t worked out either.
When he’d instructed she come to his office, he’d been planning to demand answers to her tardiness—mostly to make sure she hadn’t overslept after a long sexy weekend with the jerk who’d stood her up.
“Why did you stand me up?” he asked.
And another plan went down the drain. Probably not the best use of a work environment, but his plan to keep