The Doctor's Perfect Match Page 12

  Every day he got in a little deeper. Every day he cared a little more. One day soon it would be completely out of his hands. It was time to start praying for his own survival.

  Chapter Nine

  Brooks got up from the chair, asking casually, “Want to grab some dinner before prayer meeting?”

  “Actually,” Eva said, “dinner’s on me tonight.”

  His eyebrows leaped. “I wasn’t aware that you had the resources to—”

  “I have access to a kitchen,” she interrupted, “and if you’ll stop by the grocery on your way to Chatam House, we’ll be all set.”

  “By rights,” he began, glancing around at his office, “I owe you more than a dinner for what you’ve done here this afternoon.”

  “And you’re going to pay me,” she pointed out. “Now let me do something nice for you.”

  Bowing his head in acquiescence, he lifted an arm toward the door. “After you.”

  Slipping past him, she skipped eagerly into the hall.

  She wished later that she’d splurged on the chicken breasts, but it had been so long since she hadn’t squeezed every penny that Eva didn’t even think before she picked up the package of chicken legs to go with the frozen spinach and noodles. The capers, onion, cream and chicken broth she appropriated from Hilda’s kitchen. The single-pan dish came together and cooked up in fewer than thirty minutes, and that included skinning the chicken.

  Brooks hovered around the kitchen watching while she put it all together, then they ate there, just the two of them, in that big quiet house. She sliced a tomato, just to add a little color to the plate, and when they were done, there remained nothing that couldn’t be wiped up with a paper towel. Brooks sat back with a satisfied smile.

  “She cooks, too,” he quipped, his golden eyes crinkling at the edges.

  “She has to cook if she’s going to eat,” Eva said. “Don’t you cook?”

  He shrugged. “Some people might call it that. Mostly I warm up stuff. When I’m not mooching off one Chatam or another.”

  “They really are family to you, aren’t they?”

  “Yes. Some are actual family.”

  “Reeves and Melinda.”

  “Yes. My cousins.”

  “You’re lucky,” she told him. “I don’t have any cousins, and my aunt is a nightmare.”

  “Not lucky,” he refuted gently. “Blessed.”

  She nodded, unsure why he suddenly looked sad.

  He got to his feet. “We need to go.”

  The ride to the church seemed oddly strained. As they walked to the door, Brooks suddenly burst out with a comment.

  “Look, it can’t hurt to request prayer for a good report for your tests on Friday.”

  “I never said it could,” she muttered, wondering what had bitten him. So much had happened in the week since they’d last been here that she’d sort of gotten used to the idea of prayer.

  “The point is,” Brooks went on gently, “you need to be the one asking.”

  She sent him a curious glance but said nothing to that as they had entered the foyer and others came forward to greet them.

  Even without the usual presence of the Chatam triplets—only Morgan’s wife, Lyla, Kaylie’s husband, Stephen Gallow, Asher Chatam and his sister, Dallas and the twins, Harmony and Lyric, were in attendance—Eva felt more comfortable than she had the first time she’d attended the prayer meeting. Perhaps that was because she knew what to expect, or perhaps it was because Brooks remained at her side. Whatever the reason, when it came time for those in attendance to voice their personal prayer requests, Eva raised her hand.

  “I, um, will be having some tests on Friday, and I’d reeeallly like to get good results.”

  Someone asked what sort of tests, and Eva quipped, “They’re looking for my brain.”

  Even Brooks chuckled at that, but then he squeezed her hand.

  Much of the prayer that night centered on Hypatia. Eva felt humbled by the personal thanks so often mentioned. The Chatam sisters must have put half the town through college and paid more light and gas bills, bankrolled more ministries, housed more vagrants, sponsored more weddings, invested in more chancy businesses, endowed more studies than all the rest of the town put together, and every time someone spoke up, someone else said, “I never knew!”

  “And now you know why I love them,” Brooks whispered.

  “You and everyone else,” Eva said, gripping his hand.

  They sat quietly with heads bowed some time later while a lady several rows behind them prayed aloud for her son and daughter-in-law when Brooks’s phone vibrated in his pocket. Eva felt it against her thigh. He let go of her hand to fish it out and check the message. When the lady finished, Brooks lifted his head to catch the eye of the prayer leader.

  “Hypatia is out of surgery,” he said softly. “It was touch and go, but she came through safely. They’ll be moving her to ICU soon, and everything looks good at this point. The numbers they’re showing me are strong.” He sat up straight, threw his arm around Eva’s shoulders and smiled broadly, relief obvious in every line of his face and body. “It’s a tough recovery, but she’s up to it.”

  A collective sigh ruffled the partition, which was quickly pushed back as the news spread through the cross-shaped sanctuary. The remainder of the meeting had a celebratory feeling to it. Everyone had questions for Brooks afterward, and he hung around to answer them, but Lyla was still in the foyer talking to Jessa Willows and her handsome husband, Garrett, who held a baby girl in the crook of his muscled arm.

  “Oh, she’s gorgeous!” Eva gushed. “All that black hair.”

  They’d named her Maggie, short for Magnolia, with the middle name of Lynn. Her ten-year-old brother Hunter couldn’t keep his hands off her and kept tickling her tummy. Bri reached for Eva’s hair, unbound tonight, and got her chubby fist around a long lock of it.

  “Oh, my,” Lyla exclaimed, trying to free Eva one-handed. Eva just laughed, but then Bri yanked Eva’s head sideways and tried to cram Eva’s hair into her mouth. Lyla shoved Bri into Brooks’s arms and went to work opening those strong little fingers, saying, “Oh, no you don’t. Let go.”

  “I always make an impression on the diaper set,” Eva quipped as Brooks juggled the baby and Lyla pried open a tiny hand. “It’s my fault, anyway. I teased her with my ponytail last time.”

  Finally, Eva could gather her hair into one hand, twist it into a thick rope and tuck it into the collar of her turtleneck. Bri reached for her again, so she caught that little hand and kissed it, but Bri stubbornly reached for her hair.

  “Uh-uh-uh,” Brooks scolded mildly, turning away with the baby so Eva stayed out of reach. At the same time, he tried to pass Bri back to her mom. Bri wasn’t having it, though. She grabbed onto his ears, “kissing” his forehead with her open mouth. Everyone laughed as she effectively mauled Brooks until Lyla managed to peel her off him.

  “Baby slobber looks good on you, Brooks,” Garrett teased.

  “What doesn’t?” Eva asked dryly.

  He sent her a narrow-eyed look, drying his face with a handkerchief pulled from his coat pocket.

  “Oh, all right, you’re not just a pretty face,” she bantered. “You’re my hero.”

  His golden eyes narrowed further as he stuffed the handkerchief back into its pocket. “I’ve done nothing more than sew up your scalp.”

  “And take me to the Chatams and redeem my van and give me a job and set up medical tests and—”

  “Stop it,” he ordered quietly.

  She shut up, clamping her lips together primly. Just because he wanted her to, which was the height of stupidity. The man was a genuinely good guy, one of the best, and like every other woman in Buffalo Creek she had a bad case of the Dr. Leland Crush, but she couldn’t fool herself into b
elieving that it could ever mean anything. Even if he was right and she had a chance at a normal life—and she wasn’t holding her breath on that—it didn’t mean she had a chance with him.

  If he ever got over his dead wife, Doc Gorgeous could have his pick of women, and after all he’d been through he certainly wouldn’t choose a woman with health problems, especially if she’d lied to him from the very beginning of their acquaintance. She did her best to put all romantic thoughts of him out of her mind.

  Such things usually proved quite easy. A girl with a ticking time bomb inside her head didn’t waste time dwelling on the future. Eva had buried all thoughts of the future along with her personal dreams the first moment she’d realized she was speaking in a language no one else could understand, just as her mother had done before her.

  No one else could understand, either, how cruel even a small taste of hope was to someone in her position. Like a drop of water to a thirsting man in a burning desert, it awakened a desperate need for more, and trying not to think about it worked about as well as trying not to breathe. Without Hypatia’s surgery to worry about, Eva found herself dwelling on the upcoming tests and the possibility of a future. After Brooks dropped her back at Chatam House that evening, her mind spun with a hundred different scenarios of how that future might play out, and in far too many of them the handsome doc figured prominently, which wouldn’t do at all.

  She wanted desperately to call Ricky, but she didn’t dare. For one thing, he knew nothing about any of this, and she didn’t want him to. For another, just because she couldn’t seem to rest was no reason for him not to sleep. Sometime during that long night, she found herself resorting to prayer. Sort of.

  “Hey, You,” she said to the ceiling. “If You’re up there, and I guess You are because all the best people seem to think so, then I could use a little help here. We could start with a little sleep, and if it’s not too much of a strain, You could do something about those tests on Friday. I’d hate for the doc to come away from that with egg on his handsome face. Can’t think why else You’d take an interest, frankly, but I’d appreciate it if You did.” For some reason she felt like smiling then. “Hope You’ve got a sense of humor. You sure gave me one. I don’t know if You gave me this blip in my head or not, but I reckon You can fix it if You’re of a mind to. So, good night, then.”

  With that, she rolled over on the comfy bed and finally drifted into slumber.

  Morning came too quickly, nonetheless, but Thursday kept her busy enough that she didn’t have time to worry about Friday. Brooks’s partner tossed her some transcription work, and once she’d zipped through that, he asked her to take a look at the supply closet, which the practice shared. Eva’s hair nearly stood on end when she got a look at that long, narrow room and its jumbled shelves. They had to be burning money on a daily basis through that one debit column.

  “Who on earth is doing your ordering and dispensing?” she asked Brooks between patients.

  He gave her a halfhearted shrug. “Well, our nurses are most aware of—”

  “Your nurses!” she interrupted. “Your nurses are overworked already. Your nurses ought to be checking boxes on a list and handing that off to someone who tracks dollars and cents, the same someone who stocks the closet, in a logical fashion, and makes sure money gets spent where it’s actually needed.”

  “You go, girl!” Ruby called from inside an exam room.

  Brooks rolled his eyes. “Look, I have a patient waiting for me. Just take care of it. Organize it. Set up a new system or whatever. Do your thing.”

  Eva grinned and sauntered closer. “My thing, huh?”

  “You know what I mean,” he went on more softly. “Just don’t overdo it. Get someone to help you with the heavy lifting.”

  “Stop worrying about me,” she whispered.

  “No,” he said, and then he kissed her, right there in the hallway.

  It was just a peck, just a quick press of his lips against hers, and she didn’t know which one of them was more shocked, she or he. He blinked, pivoted away from her and disappeared inside the examination room.

  Eva stood there in the empty hallway for several seconds, her fingertips pressed to her lips, a smile growing in her heart. Then she turned and all but skipped back to the supply room.

  * * *

  Hypatia looked frail and tiny in the ICU bed, overwhelmed by tubes and wires and machines, but her color was good, and she was off the respirator. Best of all, she was awake and fully responsive when Brooks slid open the heavy glass door and walked into her cubicle.

  “Hello, dear one,” he said, walking over to kiss her forehead. “Are they taking good care of you?”

  “Of course,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Dr. Leland’s favorite patient.”

  “That you are.”

  She felt warm, but that was to be expected after having her chest split open and her heart sliced on. He wasn’t worried. Every report was positive now.

  “I’m glad to see you,” she told him. “I want to go home.”

  That set him back on his heels. “You’re going to have to give it some time, dear heart. We have to get you out of ICU first. Then we’ll start talking about getting you out of the hospital.”

  “I mean I want to go to the hospital in Buffalo Creek. I’m too far away for the family to come every day, but they won’t stay away. Besides, my favorite doctor is there.”

  Brooks grinned. “I’ll see what we can do once you’re out of ICU.”

  “Now that that’s settled,” she said, as if it were a fait accompli, “is that Eva Belle Russell I see in the hallway?”

  “It is,” Brooks answered, motioning for Eva to come inside. “She’s having tests done today. I have reason to doubt her prognosis.”

  Eva slid open the door and stepped inside, smiling at Hypatia. “You look so much better than I expected.”

  “I must look better than I feel, then,” Hypatia admitted weakly.

  “Oh,” Eva responded sympathetically. “Can I do anything?”

  Hypatia smiled, closing her eyes as if doing so required a supreme effort. “You’ve done so much already,” Hypatia told her. “The whole family has sung your praises.”

  “You should see what she’s done in my office,” Brooks said to Hypatia. “The staff is campaigning to have her made office manager.”

  Eva shook her head, blushing a vivid shade of pink. The woman obviously had little practice accepting praise.

  “I’ll be praying for you today,” Hypatia promised in a near whisper.

  Eva nodded and blurted, “I—I prayed for you.”

  Hypatia smiled wearily again. “Don’t stop now,” she murmured, clearly drifting toward sleep.

  “I won’t,” Eva vowed softly.

  Brooks bent and whispered in Hypatia’s ear, “We’re all praying for you, dearest. Rest now.”

  He and Eva tiptoed from the room. After conferring quietly with the nurse at the station outside the window for a few moments, they left through the heavy isolation door and made their way over to the proper floor of the proper building of the sprawling, multiple city block campus. Brooks had pulled some strings and “preregistered” Eva, so all they had to do was pick up a printed, color-coded bracelet and go to a particular waiting area. Brooks identified himself and was shown through a door marked Private, where he met the radiologist who would guide and read Eva’s MRI. He had requested this particular woman because of her reputation for accuracy and no-nonsense, straightforward reporting.

  When the attendant asked Eva if she was claustrophobic, Eva quipped that she’d been preparing herself for a pine box, so she ought to be able to handle a metal tube. The radiologist shook her head and chortled.

  “Pine box,” she parroted. “Me, I’m thinking in terms of a gold-plated ’57 Ford parked inside a pink marble mausoleum
.”

  “I think in terms of Pearly Gates,” Brooks said. “I couldn’t care less what comes after my last breath in this world.”

  The radiologist, a short curvy redhead, lifted her eyebrows. “Your lady must agree with you if she’s planning for a pine box. Let’s see if we can buy you some time together, hmm?”

  Brooks didn’t bother to correct any of her assumptions. All he cared about at this moment was what the tests could show him.

  It seemed to take forever, especially after the radiologist asked for contrast and they had to pump dye into Eva’s veins, but with every slice of the visual, his excitement grew.

  “I’m no radiologist, and I want to see good news,” he finally said, “but that doesn’t look like a tumor to me.”

  “That, my friend,” said the other doctor, “doesn’t look like any tumor I’ve ever seen. I’d say odds are it’s a cyst, but what type I can’t begin to tell you. Could be colloid. Could be dermoid. Thing looks like it could have hair.”

  “No way!”

  “Or those could be clusters of tiny blood vessels. It might have fluid. Won’t know until you get in there. Whatever it is, it’s certainly a rarity in that part of the brain. One thing’s for sure. It has to come out.”

  Convincing Eva to let a surgeon inside her head was going to be a problem. “I’m not sure she’ll consent to surgery.”

  “Then, you’d better outfit her for that pine box,” the doctor said, “because sooner or later that thing is going to blow up.”

  Brooks gusted a sigh and nodded. That was his prognosis, too.

  “On the other hand,” the spunky redhead went on, “surgery is no sure cure. It all depends on the type of cyst, the risk of infection, if it’s an inheritable condition...”

  “It is.”

  “Whether or not you can get it all...”

  “I’m fully aware, thanks,” Brooks said, cutting her off.

  “Anyway,” she went on. “Odds are better than with most tumors.”