Crossroads

Chapter Fifteen

Annie left the ER the way she had come in, turning right at the automatic double doors and following the waist-high red line on the wall marked “visitors” back to the main lobby. She hadn’t been a visitor in the ER, but she hadn’t exactly been staff either. She’d felt a bit in limbo, unsure of her position in this new environment. Hollis had assumed control easily, and why shouldn’t she? That was her territory. Annie had been the outsider. That was a position she did know well, and she didn’t accept it without complaint any longer. Linda was still her patient, and she wouldn’t be usurped. Not that she didn’t understand the hierarchy of hospital politics or patient care. She accepted there’d be times she would have to step away when a patient needed care she couldn’t give. But she wouldn’t be sidelined because of red tape and someone else’s rules.

And wouldn’t Barb be glad to hear her say that. Laughing softly at her own shifting views of the big picture, she halted outside on the hospital’s main walk to call the clinic and rearrange her afternoon schedule. She wanted to get back to the hospital to check on Linda in a couple of hours. Hopefully, Linda would be stable and ready to go home by evening, and she’d need to organize her follow-up care.

“Hi, it’s Annie,” she said when Barb answered. “I got delayed at PMC—one of my patients is here, early contractions. They’re treating her in the ER.”

“Does it look like she’s going to stop?”

“I think there’s a good chance she already has. The OB consultant started her on mag sulfate, though, prophylactically.”

Barb was silent a moment. “What’s your thinking?”

“I want to come back to check her status later, so if you don’t mind, I need to take a couple hours now to pick up Callie from school. I didn’t have anything scheduled except for a birthing class this afternoon. Okay if I have someone cover that for me?”

“Don’t worry about it—Andrea is here. She can handle it. Take the rest of the day. How did the meeting go?”

“We were interrupted—we both got called for the same patient.”

“That’s a handy coincidence,” Barb said.

“I guess that’s one way of looking at it.” Annie laughed. If she believed in fate, she’d think it was somehow conspiring to throw her and Hollis together in the most awkward situations possible. But as she didn’t believe in much of anything beyond her own will any longer, coincidence was probably as good an explanation as any. “We had to coordinate our care on the fly, but I think we worked together all right, considering the circumstances.”

“Good. Maybe that bodes well for future cooperation.”

“Maybe.” Annie had liked watching Hollis work. She was direct, confident, and compassionate. Her therapeutic approach was different than Annie’s would have been, but not necessarily wrong. Not even all that aggressive. Plenty of practitioners would have agreed with Hollis’s treatment, including some of Annie’s midwife colleagues. If Linda had continued to have contractions, Annie would have recommended the same thing. The only difference was timing—and she did tend to be more conservative than most, opting to delay aggressive intervention as long as possible. Medical judgment wasn’t always cut and dried—that’s why it was called judgment. Hollis hadn’t been wrong in her treatment, not today. Annie forcibly drew herself away from the pull of the past, recognizing that Hollis triggered emotions that should be long gone.

She’d never be able to go back and relive those events, she’d never be certain that what had happened couldn’t have been changed. If only she’d been able to say yes or no, if only the choice had been hers, she could have lived with it so much more easily. Instead, all these years she’d been haunted by not knowing, her absence of memory creating a black hole that taunted her with uncertainty and doubt. Hollis’s was the only face she could remember, other than the one who hadn’t been there. Jeff. The lover who had lied to her, the father of the child he had urged her to abort.

Annie rubbed her eyes. The Hollis of her past was still bound to the pain and sorrow of so many losses, and that wasn’t Hollis’s fault. Being around Hollis now only raised more questions to which she had no answers, and she was tired of asking. She needed to stay focused on what mattered.

“So do you think you’re going to be able to work with this doctor?” Barb asked.

“What?” Annie said. “Oh, yes. It’s early yet, and if it turns out I can’t, I know you can get someone who will be able to. Hollis is reasonable.”

“Reasonable. That’s an interesting word. So she isn’t opposed to the concept?”

Agitated by her lapse into the past, Annie walked toward her car as she talked. The sky was nearly cloudless, a blue so pure it barely looked real. Hollis’s eyes were that crystalline blue when she laughed. Annie jerked her gaze back to the concrete walkway shimmering in the afternoon heat. God, she needed to get Hollis out of her head. “Actually, I don’t think she’s in favor of a formal association, but she’s willing to investigate the options.”

Barb laughed. “She sounds a lot like you.”

Annie fished her keys out of her shoulder bag and pressed the remote for her car. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. We’re absolutely nothing alike. She’s an interventionist. I like to give the body a chance to take care of itself.”

“The two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.”

Annie slid into her car and started the engine. “I know. But we’re about as far apart as you can get on the professional spectrum.”

“Well,” Barb said, sounding philosophical, “maybe that’s a good thing. At least we know you will have looked at this thing from every side when you two make a decision.”

“Right,” Annie said, thinking of the agreement she and Hollis had made to go through the motions of an exploratory review so they could render a report to satisfy their bosses, even though they agreed from the outset a working association wasn’t really tenable. All they’d be doing was legitimizing a foregone conclusion. She sighed. She wasn’t really going to be able to put her name to a decision she hadn’t thoroughly investigated. She knew Hollis wouldn’t be able to either. Hollis was too much of a professional. So was she, and there was more than just professional purview at stake—the bottom line was patient welfare. She’d just have to go into this with an open mind. A weight lifted just at having admitted as much to herself. “Right. I’ll give it my best shot.”

“I never doubted it. Keep me in the loop.”

“Always.” Annie rang off and dropped her cell phone onto the seat beside her. She ought to be a few minutes early picking up Callie. The idea of a surprise visit in the middle of the day and the expectation of Callie’s uncensored delight made her smile. Callie was the best thing in her life. She regretted everything about her relationship with Jeff, except for Callie. Maybe that’s why she’d never been able to put that segment of her past behind her—it was hard to dismiss her relationship with him as a mistake, something she wanted to forget, when the miracle of her life had resulted from it.

She pulled out, still puzzling over the tangle of her past. Jeff might have fathered Callie, but he was no part of Callie’s life—not her past or her future. Jeff was her past too, if she’d let him be. She’d believed in him, and that had been her mistake. She’d paid for that naïve belief with a broken heart and a wounded spirit, but maybe she was the winner after all—she had Callie. Smiling, she headed for the exit and felt the past slip a little further away.

*

Hollis jogged out through the ER loading area and headed for the medical education building across the street. With luck she’d only be a few minutes late. She cut through the parking lot, zigzagging between rows of cars, and skirted around the empty security office kiosk toward the street. She blinked in the bright sun, enjoying the few stolen moments in the sultry afternoon, relaxing for a second away from the harsh artificial lights and urgent clamor of the ER. A horn blared, shattering the calm, and sunlight glinted off metal in the corner of her eye. Her heart leapt into her throat and she jumped back, shielding her eyes with her hand. A car slammed to a stop inches from her. Heat wafted off the bumper and an image of splintered leg bones flashed through her mind an instant before relief squeezed out the terror. No pain. She was okay. “Sorry! Wasn’t looking where—”

The driver’s door burst open and Annie shot out. “Oh my God! Are you crazy? I almost ran you down.” Annie clutched the top of the door. “Are you all right? You came out of nowhere!”

“Hey, my fault.” Hollis forgot about the near miss. Annie sagged against the open door of the car, her eyes wide with anger and concern. The golden highlights in her hair danced in the gleaming sunshine. Even ruffled and mad, she looked all kinds of sexy. Hollis grinned, just glad to see her. “No harm done.”

“That’s what you think.” Annie pressed a hand to her heart. “You just took about a million years off my life.”

“You still look pretty good to me.” The words were out before she could stop them, but then, why not? They were true. Annie was beautiful. Great to look at, but something more than her undeniable attractiveness teased at Hollis’s mind like a whispered caress. Annie’s freshness, her untamed spirit, captivated her. Annie made her think of things she’d long forgotten—lazy mornings and days filled with possibility, cool nights and promises under a canopy of stars. Annie made her feel like life still held surprises that weren’t cloaked in pain.

Annie colored, her brows drawing down. “Could you be a little more careful?”

“Sorry—late for a class.” Hollis tilted her head toward the street, keeping Annie in her sights. If she looked away a second, she’d be gone. Always disappearing, was Annie. “Got a lecture to give. What are you doing later?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re coming back to check on Linda, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Annie said. “I’m picking up Callie right now. I thought I’d come back here around five.”

“Good. I’ll meet you in the ER. Might as well put this joint-care research to good use.” Annie might shy away from a personal interaction, but she was dedicated to her patients. Another thing Hollis found appealing about her. Annie knew what she was about.

“All right,” Annie said. “We should talk—”

Hollis was tired of everything being about their differences. She wanted to connect again like they had at the barbecue. She’d been wanting it since Annie had walked away. “Have dinner with me after.”

Annie shook her head as if she was having trouble understanding. “What?”

“Dinner. No work. Just dinner.”

“Thanks, but I can’t,” Annie called and started to get back into the car.

Hollis stood her ground. Annie couldn’t run if she was in front of the car. She wanted to see her later—away from the distractions of the hospital and the demands of patients. Hell, she wanted a date. “Why not?”

“Callie—I have to leave her with a sitter to come back over here. I can’t leave her all evening too.”

“No problem.” Hollis shrugged. “Meet me in the ER early—four thirty. We’ll see Linda and then pick up Callie. Take her with us. That’s not too late for her to eat, is it?”

“No, but she’s four, Hollis. Going out to dinner with a four-year-old—”

“Will be perfect. She won’t be fussy about where we go.” Hollis waved and jogged backward toward the street. “See you later.”

“Right,” Annie muttered, sliding back into her seat as Hollis turned away and ran for the building across the street. She held her breath as Hollis dodged traffic and reached the sidewalk safely. “Later.”

The woman was crazy. She obviously hadn’t had the interesting experience of taking a four-year-old out to dinner. But then, maybe she had. Hollis had brothers and she probably had nieces and nephews. Annie didn’t know because Hollis was very good at getting her to talk about herself but even better at not revealing much of her own story. That would have to change if they were going to see each other.

Annie drew a breath, dispelling the cloud that seemed to fog her brain every time Hollis was around. What was she thinking? The idea of seeing Hollis again made her heart race, which proved only one thing. She was alive and breathing. Hollis Monroe was a very attractive woman—who wouldn’t get a little sidetracked by that killer smile and those devilish eyes and that tight, powerful body? God, she was gorgeous. So what? There were plenty of other hot, charming women around—just because she hadn’t noticed any in, well, ever, didn’t mean anything. She knew better than to be caught up in the thrill of attention from someone like Hollis—someone who made her feel attractive and sexy, as if she was the sole focus of their interest, as if what she thought and felt really mattered. Once, she’d been hungry for the kind of attention Hollis promised, starving to be seen and valued. She’d learned the hard way what happened when she lost all common sense over a handsome charmer who looked at her as if she was a beautiful, fascinating woman. She wasn’t about to forget, no matter how many butterflies Hollis set loose inside her. She wasn’t a cloistered girl any longer.

Dinner—or any other interaction that wasn’t strictly business—was out of the question. She put the car in gear and edged toward the street, relieved to have sorted that out. She had Hollis and her own irrational response to her in perspective now. She gripped the wheel harder, willing her hands to stop shaking.