FRANNIE WATCHED AS every head at the nurses’ station turned. That was everyone’s but hers. She didn’t have to look to know that Dr. Ian Spencer had just arrived on the pediatric ward. As always, the gorgeous doctor walked onto the unit and a group of highly intelligent women suddenly became brain-dead.
She had been witness to the phenomenon for the last five months and she still didn’t understand it. Yes, the man was good-looking, if you went for the tall, dark and brooding type, but that still didn’t explain the near hero-worship that followed him wherever he went. She certainly didn’t think of him as a hero. He’d been a pain in her backside ever since she had convinced the hospital board members to agree to fund her therapy program, working with critically ill and traumatized children on the pediatric trauma and surgical unit. Her program was five months old now, and still every time she tried to discuss their mutual patients he was too busy to talk with her.
So, while she would have to admit that the man could audition for the part of a sexy doctor in a TV drama, with his thick dark hair and baby blue eyes, she found him to be very much removed from anything to do with his patients’ care beyond their medical needs. The man might be a genius in the operating room, but in her opinion he really needed to learn better social skills to be able to work well with the rest of the medical staff.
Looking up from her notes, she noticed that even Miss Emily, an elderly volunteer, had stopped to ogle the doctor coming down the hall. When the gray-haired woman looked over at her and gave a wiggle of her thick gray eyebrows, then winked at her, Frannie couldn’t help but laugh.
“Excuse me,” said a deep voice from behind her.
Shivers ran up her back and she could have sworn her heart paused for a beat. For some reason the man set her nerves on edge and her mouth stuttering. Why he made her nervous, she didn’t know. Okay, maybe it was those baby blues of his that sent her traitorous heart skipping, or perhaps it was the way his wide shoulders filled out the blue OR scrubs he usually wore that took her breath away.
And now she sounded just like every other drooling woman on the unit.
No. She would not fall for this man’s looks. There were lots of more important things to consider than someone’s looks. She’d learned that lesson in residency, after being wooed by a handsome co-worker. She’d not do that again.
Running her hands down the sides of her lab coat, she pasted on what she hoped was a pleasant smile and turned to face him. “Ian, I was wondering if you had a minute to discuss...”
She was staring at the man’s back. Had he just walked away from her in the middle of a sentence? A hot flush of temper rolled over her. Her face was burning with it. The man had no manners!
Turning back to the nurses’ station, she noticed that several of the nurses were watching her—some with looks of pity.
It was no secret that the chief of pediatric surgery had not been happy when her therapy program had been implemented on his floor. For months she had tried to get the man to sit down and discuss the progress she was making with her young trauma and surgical patients. She had done everything but lock him up in a closet with her to make him give her a chance, but he had just continued to avoid her, no matter what she did.
Yes, the money for her program was coming from his budget, but couldn’t he see how much providing psychiatric support to his patients could help him? Of course he couldn’t. How could he when all his attention was on their medical files instead of looking at the way their problems were affecting their behavior and their mental health? If only she could figure out why he insisted on ignoring her she might be able to work to fix the problem.
This attitude was not working for her or the children she represented—and enough was enough. If she had to ride through the halls half-naked, sitting on the hospital’s Mardi Gras float, to get his attention, she would do it.
The thought of being even partially naked on the purple and gold papier-mâché float in front of the grumpy surgeon had her thoughts screeching to a halt and her face flaming a brighter red. Okay, maybe that was going a little too far—but she did have to do something. She needed to know what he had against her and her program.
Oh, she knew how temperamental surgeons were—she’d lived with one most of her life—but that didn’t excuse the man’s attitude toward her and the work she was doing with his pediatric patients.
She watched as Ian Spencer stopped outside the room of one of their mutual patients, Danny Owens. She handed the chart she’d been reviewing back to the unit coordinator and followed the surgeon down the hall. She’d worked hard to achieve the little bit of progress she had gotten out of this young trauma patient in the past two days, and she wasn’t going to take any chances of the surgeon setting that progress back. If Ian went in there and upset the young man there was no telling what would happen.
Stopping before she entered the hospital room, she straightened her white lab coat, pushed her glasses back on her nose and adjusted the black badge declaring her “Dr. Francis Wentworth, Staff Psychiatrist.” While her friends might make fun of her oversized glasses, she’d found that a no-nonsense professional look worked well. She had no desire to be judged by her looks either.
She took a deep breath. She’d be pleasant, but direct, and after he’d finished in Danny’s room she and the crabby surgeon were going to talk.
She gave the door a quick knock. Entering the room, she noted that her patient was looking just as brooding as his surgeon. Standing across the room, seventeen-year-old Danny Owens was staring out at the road that ran in front of the hospital.
Frannie had been working with the teenager for the last two days, but so far hadn’t been able to get him to talk to her or to eat. She had been called to the emergency room when Danny and his girlfriend, Ashley, had been brought in, after a car had swerved into their lane while they were driving home from school. The teenager had suffered some broken ribs and a laceration to his liver, along with a fractured femur. Ashley had suffered a traumatic head injury and had been unresponsive and intubated on a ventilating machine since she’d arrived at the hospital.
The neurologist on the case was hopeful, but the longer Ashley remained unconscious the more Danny was withdrawing. She had spoken with his parents, and encouraged them to be patient, but after two days they were getting anxious and she couldn’t blame them. He was keeping everything bottled up inside, and at some point he was going to explode.
Watching Danny’s hands as they clenched into fists, then relaxed, over and over again, she