Crossroads

Chapter Thirteen

“You can go right in,” Sybil said. “She’s waiting for you.”

“Thanks.” Annie suppressed the urge to glance at her watch. She knew she wasn’t late. She’d been in the hospital lobby for fifteen minutes, drinking a cappuccino she didn’t need to kill time until her appointment. She didn’t want Hollis to think she was eager to see her by arriving early, but she’d been too agitated to wait at the clinic any longer, and she hadn’t been able to concentrate enough to fill out the ever-present insurance forms she should have been doing. Even a walk around the pond didn’t calm her nerves the way it usually did. Her secret paradise was filled with lingering images of Hollis now, and the warmth that flooded her as she pictured Hollis waking from sleep on a park bench, soft and tousled, was more disconcerting than the unwanted urge to see her again.

She stared at the plain wooden door, wondering what waited for her on the other side, wishing it was as simple as a business meeting with a doctor she didn’t care about offending or hurting. Somehow she’d wandered far away from the safe paths she always traveled, where nothing but Callie and her patients mattered. Where the longing for comfort from someone who truly knew her was rare and quickly brushed aside. Well. It was up to her to get things back on the right road. Nothing new there. She’d forged this life out of necessity and the desperate drive to survive when everyone she’d trusted had turned away. She’d been right then and she was right now. Business only. She took a breath, grasped the handle, and pushed open the door.

Hollis was behind her desk in hospital greens. Her eyes were shadowed, and the faint line of her surgical mask still creased her cheeks. The desk was neat, although piled high with work—much like Hollis herself, who always seemed in control even when she was obviously exhausted. Like now.

“You look tired,” Annie said, unable to stop the rush of concern. “Were you up all night again?”

Hollis stood as Annie closed the door and leaned on her desk, both palms flat on its plain brown surface. A smile flickered over her generous mouth. “Not quite. How have you been? No more storms?”

“No.” Annie took the chair she’d occupied the first time she’d been in the office. “Nice and peaceful.”

An awkward silence filled the space between them, space that had been anything but quiet the last time they’d been together. Annie struggled not to think of the moments they’d huddled together in the small shed with Callie between them, thunder and rain obliterating the universe. God, the things she’d told Hollis. How had she managed to reveal so much of herself without meaning to? Why was it so easy to talk to Hollis about things she rarely thought of herself? And why was she thinking of them now? Annie took a breath. “I realize we got off to a bad start the last time, and that was my fault. I apol—”

“Annie,” Hollis said quietly. “We’re past apologies now, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know,” Annie said, hearing the brusqueness in her voice and the overture toward accord in Hollis’s and not knowing how to change it. She wasn’t certain she could deal with this Hollis—the one with kindness in her eyes and a hint of confusion swimming in their deep blue depths—today. “I suspect you and I are going to disagree, and we ought to find that out, shouldn’t we? Isn’t that why we’re both here?”

“Why don’t we both say what we have to say and then see where we are.” Hollis dropped into her chair and pushed back a few inches from the desk. She crossed one leg over the other, her ankle resting on her knee. Her surgical clogs were dark brown, and Annie wondered if that was intentional, to hide the bloodstains.

“All right,” Annie said, although she thought it might be anything but all right. Once they’d said aloud what was likely to divide them, once their differences—ethical, personal, fundamental—were irrevocably etched in the air, they wouldn’t be able to pretend there was a middle ground where those differences wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t be able to pretend friendship was possible—that something else might be possible…but then, there couldn’t be anything else. So perhaps it was all for the best. She ought to go first before she changed her mind. “I told my boss—the regional director—that I didn’t agree with establishing a joint working relationship with your group, even for high-risk patients. We already have a system in place to deal with emergencies, and the statistics have shown those methods are effective. To be blunt, Dr. Monroe, we don’t need your permission or your support to practice a profession as old and well-established as yours.”

“The state disagrees,” Hollis said quietly.

“The state,” Annie said, unable to keep the heat from her voice, “decides in favor of those with the money to buy opinions, and we both know which group has the advantage there.”

Hollis didn’t move except to steeple her fingers on her thigh. Her gaze never wavered, her expression never changed. Thoughtful. Remote. The distance between them was so vast Annie felt as if she were standing on the edge of a chasm and one misstep would plummet her into its endless depths. If she reached out her hand, she’d find no one to grasp it, no one to stop her fall. Unlike that weekend, when the ever-present solitude had disappeared for a few hours in the middle of a rainy afternoon, she’d be all alone again. The ache of loss was familiar—she remembered feeling the same hollow sadness after she’d delivered Callie and her world had imploded. The urge to get up and run from her past was so powerful she trembled. She grasped the arms of her chair to keep from bolting.

“I told my boss I thought it was a bad idea.” Hollis smiled wryly. “Pretty loudly, actually. My specialty is high-risk pregnancies, and I know how quickly things can go bad. Lives can change in the blink of an eye, when there’s no time for a phone call or to wait for an ambulance to transport a mother in trouble or an infant in distress to even the closest hospital. Sometimes we know when a mother is at risk for complications, but all too frequently it’s the ones we thought were going to be easy that go bad. Those are the ones I worry about. Those are the ones you are not equipped to deal with. Why ask for trouble?”

“Statistics—”

“I don’t care about statistics.” Hollis’s eyes darkened and her control fractured just long enough for Annie to catch a glimpse of fury—and something else, something wounded and bleeding—beneath her calm expression. “One preventable death is one too many.”

“Who was it?” Annie asked.

“What?” Hollis pulled back in her chair.

“This is personal, isn’t it?”

“Of course it’s personal. Isn’t it for you?”

Annie knew there was more, but Hollis was right. She was entitled to her secrets. “We’re not going to disappear, Dr. Monroe.”

“I know that.” Although, taking note of the formal address for the second time in as many minutes, Hollis wasn’t so sure. Annie had been girded for battle, shields up and sword drawn since she’d walked in the door, just as she’d been the first day she’d come to the office. She was that Annie now—defensive, angry, distrustful. Knowing what Annie had gone through in her past, Hollis understood a little better where those feelings came from, but the knowing couldn’t help deflect the pain of being shut out. One misstep here and Annie would be gone. “Now that we’ve spelled it out, what are we going to do about the situation?”

“We could make it simple,” Annie said. “We’ll both tell our superiors it’s not tenable. It’s a win-win.”

“Not a bad solution,” Hollis said. Annie’s answer to the impasse would avoid any more questions she didn’t want to answer. She wouldn’t have to worry about the attraction that grew stronger every time she saw Annie. But if Annie walked out the door now, if they solved their dilemma by simply agreeing nothing was possible, she’d probably never see her again. Oh, she might run into her on some rare occasion passing in the hall, but that hadn’t happened yet and probably wouldn’t happen often. She didn’t want Annie to walk out of her life, and that might mean changing her mind about the clinic—at least in the short term. After all, they were only at the information-gathering stage. It didn’t mean anything would change in the end. She could still vote against any formal relationship between the OB department and the midwifes. “I don’t know about your boss, but I doubt mine will accept our decision without some indication we’ve explored all possible avenues of working together.”

Annie grimaced. “Unfortunately, mine would probably feel the same way.”

Hollis breathed easier. So they’d have a little more time. Right now, that was enough. “Okay. Why don’t we at least do the initial fact-finding? Then we can both appease our bosses and still get what we want.”

“What do you suggest?” Annie’s tone held the slightest edge of suspicion.

“The only way we can justify a decision about the feasibility of an OB-midwife joint care center is if we assess our clinical practices. See how we mesh.”

“Why do I get the feeling that your idea of assessing clinical practices means you’ll be grading midwifes on their care? And by whose standards?”

Hollis barely managed to clamp down on a hot wave of temper. “Is that really what you think of me? That I won’t be fair or objective?”

Annie closed her eyes briefly. “No. I’m sorry. No. I know you’ll be fair.”

The tightness in Hollis’s chest eased. “How about we make sure it goes both ways? I’ll spend time with you however you want—seeing patients with you in your clinic, assisting at births, doing follow-ups—whatever you say.”

“And vice versa?”

Hollis nodded. “Although it’ll play hell with your schedule. My patients tend to be even more unpredictable than the norm.”

“You don’t have to worry. I can handle a difficult schedule. I’m used to being available when my patients need me.”

“I was thinking about Callie—”

“I appreciate that—” Annie paused and glanced down at her beeper. “Sorry, I’ve got an emergency page.”

“Of course, you can—” Hollis frowned at the sharp knock on her door. Sybil never interrupted when she was in a meeting except in the case of dire emergency. “Come in.”

The door opened and Sybil looked in. “I’m sorry, Dr. Monroe. The ER on two. Honor says she needs to talk to you right away.”

“All right.” Hollis reached for the phone. “Sorry, Annie.”

Annie rose. “That’s fine. I need to go take my call too.”

“I’ll call you when I’m free. We’ll set something up.”

“Fine.” Annie followed Sybil out the door, tapping her phone as she went.

Hollis watched the door close behind her, thinking Annie couldn’t get away fast enough. Shoving the twinge of disquiet aside, she picked up the phone.

“Monroe.”

*

“Hollis will be down in a few minutes,” Honor said, checking the readouts on the monitor above Linda’s bed.

“Did you get hold of Robin?” Linda asked.

“She’s on her way. She just had to call Phyllis to pick up Mike after school.” Honor took Linda’s hand. Linda’s fair skin was unnaturally white and her pupils huge, inky disks. Her pulsed raced. Stress reaction, and completely unlike her. Linda was a rock in a crisis—everyone’s rock. Honor’s heart twisted to see her so afraid. “Listen, you’re going to be all right. There’s no bleeding, the fetal heart tones are fine. It’s probably just a false alarm, but we’re going to do everything by the book. Are you hearing me?”

“If anything happens, you’ll make sure Robin—”

“Okay, you’re obviously not hearing me.” Honor stroked the damp hair off Linda’s forehead. When Jett had radioed that they were delivering two patients instead of one—the anticipated MVA, unstable and needing immediate surgery, plus a midtrimester female in early labor—Honor had known it was Linda without hearing the name Jett hadn’t sent over the airways. She’d called Quinn for the trauma, and then she’d called Robin. And for the next ten minutes she’d paced, double-checking that everything was ready for Linda’s arrival. Quinn had asked if she needed her to stand by, but she’d said no. Quinn would have her hands full with the multiple trauma patient, and Honor wanted to be the one to take care of Linda. Linda was one of the few people in her life she loved unconditionally. She’d lost Terry in this emergency room a dozen years before, and she wouldn’t lose anyone else. “Robin is going to be fine because you’re going to be fine. Nothing else is acceptable.”

Linda laughed shakily. “I forgot how close to God ER physicians are.”

“Well, best remember that in the future.”

“I was being careful—”

“Of course you were. I know that. Robin knows that. Stop worrying.”

Linda closed her eyes. “Okay. I’ll let you play doctor, then.”

Honor smiled. “Very wise. I’m going to step outside and wait for Hollis.”

“You called her?”

“By the book, remember? If you need anything, you know where the buzzer is.”

“You’ll make sure Robin gets through the red tape?”

“I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”

Honor stepped outside the curtain and scanned the ER. The automatic doors at the end of the hall opened, but the woman who strode through wasn’t Hollis Monroe or Robin. The pretty blonde paused at the nurses’ station, said something to the charge nurse, and then walked down the hall toward Honor. She stopped and held out her hand.

“Hello, I’m Annie Colfax. I’m Linda’s midwife. Robin called.”

Taken off guard, Honor hesitated for a microsecond before pulling the curtain aside. “She’s right here. Go on in.”