He had to have heard how disappointed the senior Dr. Wentworth was that his only child hadn’t followed in his footsteps. Her father had been very public about it.
“Nevertheless, as I said, this isn’t personal. I have nothing against you or your program. I’m sure your services are useful in some cases. But with the tight budget we have to operate on at this time I just don’t think that your services make enough difference for these children to justify their cost. These kids need a lot of healing time and physical rehab which is expensive.”
“So what you’re saying is that as long as we take care of a patient’s medical problems their psychological issues will go away? Because I can tell you a lot of people look healthy from the outside while hiding deep psychological scars inside. If you’d read any of the literature on adverse childhood experiences I handed out when I started my program, you would know that these children often suffer from both mental and physical problems later in life. Many of these children will never be the same, no matter how well you fix the trauma to their bodies. For some there will be scars deep down inside them that will never heal if they don’t get help. Is that what you want? Is that what you’d want for your child?”
His jaw tightened and his eyes jerked away from hers. She saw his hands whiten as he gripped the chair-arms. All telltale signs that she was getting to him. Maybe the man wasn’t as indifferent to her cause as she’d thought. Maybe he did have a heart.
She watched as his fingers relaxed their hold and his body sank back into his chair. When he opened his mouth, once more the distant man she had seen earlier, she knew she had lost him.
“My job is to fix the injured kids who come into this hospital,” he said. “I do that by using all my surgical skills and the best technical equipment I can get my hands on. My goal is to make them well so that they can get back to their lives as soon as possible. I understand that you want to help these kids, but—”
He put up his hand to stop her when she would have interrupted. She held her comments. She’d let him finish his high-and-mighty speech, but then she’d have her say.
“I’m a surgeon. I use test results, vital signs and physical examinations to tell me how a patient is recovering. All of those give me tangible information that helps me make decisions for the patient’s care. I’m sure you want to help these kids, and I’m sure you do in your own way, but my focus needs to be on their medical health. I’m a surgeon—it’s what I do, what I’m good at. I’ll be glad to leave their psychological wellbeing in your hands as long as it doesn’t interfere with the plan of care I have for them.”
“And if it does interfere? I understand your need for control of your patients’ care. I get that. But what you did with Danny today could have set him back. Using ultimatums with teenagers can often backfire. I only want what’s best for your patients too. All I’m asking is that we work together. If you have a problem with something I’m doing, tell me. My ego can take it, believe me. But this has to go both ways. If I disagree with how you’re handling a situation, I get to tell you, too.”
She sat still and waited as Ian stared at her. She’d let things go too long between the two of them. They needed to settle their differences. She suspected he was trying to find a way to avoid agreeing with her, but she’d put it to him in a way that left him no loophole. He either agreed to work with her or he came off as the biggest jerk in the hospital.
“I’ll agree to that, but for anything related to my patients’ physical health I get the last word. Now, if we’re finished here, I need to check on a couple of my surgery patients,” he said as he rose from his chair.
She’d been close to getting through to him—she just knew she had—but then he’d retreated, shutting down those emotions she was certain she’d seen and turning back into the same detached surgeon she had been dealing with for the past five months.
She wanted to fight him. To tell him that she had seen that crack in his armor before he’d closed it. But she knew it wouldn’t help. She’d spent years trying to get through the barriers her father had built around himself after her mother’s death until she’d finally realized that it was useless to continue.
Not that she was giving up on Ian. She’d seen enough of a response from him to know his heart hadn’t hardened completely—at least not yet. There might not be any hope for her father, but maybe someday Ian would see that the children he treated didn’t just need him for his surgical skills. They also needed the emotional support that the two of them working together could give them.
She stopped as she got to the door and then turned back toward him, curious now that she’d made the comparison between him and her father.
“Ian, do you ever do anything besides work?” she asked.
“My work is important to me,” he said as he reached up to take his white coat from the hook by the door.
“But do you ever relax? Let yourself enjoy life? Take time to play?”
“What? Are you worried about me, Dr. Wentworth?”
He reached for the door handle and she stepped back, the movement almost sending her into his arms for a moment. Her breath caught, freezing in her lungs. The warmth of his body teased at hers and her legs refused to move away from him. A second turned into two and neither of them moved away.
How had she missed this? She spent too much time studying people’s emotions and reactions not to have seen it. The speeding of her heartbeat when he was around...the magnetic push and pull between the two of them whenever they were together—they were all signs that she had ignored. Did he feel them too? Was that why he was always finding ways to avoid her?
“Some of us don’t have the time to play,” he said, breaking the silence between them, “and I never play with my co-workers.”
She continued to stand there, between him and the door, waiting to see any sign that would hint that he felt it too—this attraction that sent all of her vital signs rising.
He wanted test results? She’d give him test results.
She moved in closer, so their bodies were mere inches apart. She watched as his eyes drifted down to her lips, the look in them so hot that she wet them with her tongue. Oh, yeah, he felt it—and he wasn’t happy about it at all.
He jerked back from her. The moment was gone, but she had what she needed. Was this the reason they had such a hard time working together? This attraction that he seemed to want to ignore?
She turned back to him once more as she stepped out into the hall. She tried to keep a straight face, but managed to put just a touch of huskiness into her voice.
“Really, Ian? Than exactly who do you play with?”
The look on his face before she turned and left him was priceless.
* * *
It had been a week since he had met with Dr. Frannie Wentworth—or Dr. Frannie, as his patients called her. A week during which he’d struggled with the conversation they’d had and his own response to her.
He’d come out of it sounding like a royal jerk, who didn’t really care about his patients. But he did care. He gave his patients everything to help them recover. All his skills as a surgeon and all his diagnostic knowledge. That was all he had now—all he could afford to give.
Once he had been like the young psychiatrist, letting himself get drawn into his patients’ emotions and needs, but that wasn’t him now.
And then there was that other response. The one when for a second he’d almost held her in his arms and his body had taken over, leaving him in no doubt about what it wanted to do.
It