A Daddy for Her Daughter (12 page)

“Yes, that's them. Thank you.” He took them from her with a perfunctory smile.

Then the worst thing that could have happened did. Without a word to her, Maddy's mother marched right up to him and held out her hand.

“Since my daughters have evidently forgotten all their manners, hello, my name is Linda.”

A muscle worked in his jaw, but he shook her hand. “I'm Kaleb McBride. I work at the hospital where your daughter practices.”

Her mom blinked. “Nice to meet you. You work there as a...”

“I practice concierge medicine.” As if anticipating her next question, he added, “The hospital has a contract with the hotel across the street. I split my time between the two places.”

She could practically see the wheels in her mom's head turning, rotating far too many times for comfort. Two towels. A colleague leaving his keys at her place. Her granddaughter staying with Roxy overnight.

Please don't.

She sent her mother a quick look begging her not to take this line of questioning any further. Instead her mom nodded. “Well, it was nice to meet someone that Maddy works with.” She took her granddaughter's hand. “Now, if you'll tell me where that medicine is for her headache, I'll get it for her.”

“It's already all better,” Chloe said. “It wasn't one of the mean ones.”

Her mom leaned down to kiss Chloe's cheek. “I'm glad.”

“Could I have a glass of apple juice, though?”

Maddy swallowed, glad for the distraction and an excuse to send them away for a few more minutes. “Chloe, would you show Nana where the glasses and juice are? And see if she wants something to drink as well.”

“I'll show them.”

Roxy was being extraordinarily helpful all of a sudden, moving away with the duo and talking a mile a minute about the kite festival.

Once again, she was left alone with Kaleb.

He flipped his keys into his palm, brown eyes meeting hers. “Sorry about that. I got all the way to my car and realized I forgot to put them back in my pocket.”

She'd forgotten as well. But now she could see it happen all over again in her mind's eye. Kaleb's big hand sliding into the front pocket of his jeans as he slowly extracted his keys and dropped them on the vanity in the bathroom. Of the way her breath hitched in her throat when she realized he was going to step into her tub without removing his pants. She wasn't likely to forget what they'd done. Not for a long, long time.

It was then and there that Maddy realized she was in serious trouble. She'd dug herself a deep pit and had hopped right into it, not thinking about the consequences of her actions. And now she was stuck at the bottom with no way to escape. But she'd better either figure it out or find a ladder tall enough to climb to the top. And soon. Because if she didn't, her mom would discover what she'd done last night. And not only her mother. But her sister, her daughter and probably the whole damn hospital.

CHAPTER NINE

“
I
DON
'
T
WANT
to go to the hospital.”

The woman lying in the bed in her hotel room was in obvious respiratory distress, her words coming out in a disjointed series of wheezes that reminded him of his encounter with Maddy in the lobby of this very hotel.

Last week had thrown him for a loop, and he realized what a huge mistake he had made by staying at her place. It was why he never stayed at a woman's house. The less he knew, the easier it was to walk away when the night was over.

Instead, he'd wandered around Maddy's living room, looking at intimate glimpses of her life. He'd even met her mother, for goodness' sake. Something that never would have happened if he'd stuck to his internal rule book. He could have brought her back to his own place and made love to her without a care in the world. But no. He had to go and act as if he could do whatever he wanted without it costing one red cent.

How wrong he'd been.

Chloe saying that her head hurt had sent a shaft of pain through him that had cut him to the core. He'd heard that same phrase almost word for word from his own daughter. “Daddy, my head hurts.”

A few weeks later, she'd been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

Forcing his attention back to his patient, he put the stethoscope in his ears and asked her to sit up for a minute. “When I tell you to, can you breathe deeply for me?”

“I'll try.”

He pressed the chest piece of the instrument to her back. “Okay, breathe.”

Where Kaleb should have heard deep clear chest sounds, there was an ominous crackling instead, that originated in the lower lobe of Gloria Lowell's right lung. He moved it a little higher. “Again.”

The crackling sound diminished dramatically the higher he got. He moved to the other side and had his patient take another deep breath. There it was again. Bi-basal crackling. Could be pneumonia. Could be something interstitial. But whatever it was, it wasn't going away without treatment.

Her husband, who was standing nearby, must have seen something in his face. “What is it?”

“She needs to go to the hospital.” It was his second attempt to convince Gloria to head across the street. He addressed her directly. “I need to do a chest X-ray. You could have pneumonia.”

“Are you sure?” She gave a labored cough that left her gasping for breath all over again.

“That you have pneumonia? No. But I am hearing some sounds in your lungs that are cause for concern. Your husband can stay with you every step of the way.”

Mrs. Lowell had to be pushing seventy-five or maybe eighty. Lung infections at that age were worrisome. The couple was in Seattle on a whirlwind vacation. He could understand why she didn't want to wind up in a hospital so far away from home.

As his daughter had?

They too had been on vacation when Grace had got her first headache. They'd gone to an emergency room, and had left with antibiotics. But things had got better, so they chalked it up to a sinus infection. In the end, they'd waited until they got home to follow up with their regular doctor, not knowing it was already too late. If he'd just taken her symptoms more seriously, would things have ended differently?

“It's right across the street. We won't even need to call an ambulance.” He crossed his fingers mentally, hoping this would work and that Gloria wouldn't board her scheduled flight later on today. “I have a friend who can bring a wheelchair over from the hospital. We'll just take you across, and if nothing's wrong we'll bring you right back. You still have several hours before you need to be at the airport.”

He prayed what he was thinking would work.

“Clyde? You'll stay with me?”

He took ahold of her hand. “Always, baby.”

The obvious love between the husband and wife made his gut tighten. If Grace had lived, would he and Janice have made it until “death do us part”? Although if their relationship had been strong enough, it should have survived even Grace's illness and death. But it hadn't.

Gloria took a deep breath and then immediately went into another coughing fit. Once she stopped, she nodded. “Okay. But no ambulances. My daddy died after going to the hospital in one of those.”

“No ambulance.” He paused. “Let me just make a quick call.”

Pulling out his cell phone, he hoped he wasn't making a terrible mistake. It had been less than a week since he'd spent the night with Maddy. She could very well hang up on him. He knew he'd acted like a jerk on his way out of her house, but Chloe's headache...

Damn.

He pressed the numbers for the hospital and then asked the operator to connect him with Maddy. He waited as the line started ringing. He could only hope she wasn't with a patient and picked up rather than letting the phone go straight to voice mail. Although once she realized who it was, she might very well not answer it.

The ringer sounded for the third time when he heard a familiar click. “Dr. Grimes.”

“Maddy? It's Kaleb.”

“Hi.”

“Sorry to bother you, but I have a patient over here at the Consortium. Breathing problems—”

“Asthma?” The tone of her voice immediately shifted, moving into the realm of a professional in a single breath.

“Bilateral crackles.”

“Can you bring the patient in?”

He hesitated, then forged ahead. “She doesn't want an ambulance. I told her that I would try to arrange a wheelchair transport.”

“A wheelchair what?”

“Are you busy with patients right now?”

“Not right this second. Do you want me to come over and take a look?”

Well, at least she didn't sound irritated. “Would you? It's the only way I can get her to agree to get checked out.”

“I'll be right there.” She paused. “And I'll bring that wheelchair with me, just in case.”

* * *

Maddy arrived at the hotel ten minutes later. When she went into the lobby, the concierge was expecting her. He came right over. “She's on the tenth floor, room 1021. Do you want me to go up with you?”

“No, I'll be fine.”

Would she? She no longer knew.

She walked over to the bank of elevators, pushing the wheelchair. It only took a minute until she was headed up to the patient's floor. She had no idea how she was going to feel when she saw Kaleb's face. She'd been actively trying to avoid him ever since he'd left her place. Her mom coming to spend the week with her had not only put a crimp in her schedule, but it had also brought a lot of other complications. She'd begun hinting that it was time for Maddy to start looking for love again. Reminders that Matthew had died a little less than a month ago had done nothing to deter her. And Maddy's attempts to get her mom to change her mind about moving to Seattle had also fallen on deaf ears.

Did she really want her mom here, messing in her business?

She closed her eyes. Since when did she consider it messing?

Since Kaleb?

Ping!

The sound came just as she was mulling over the answer to that question.

She shook her head and pushed the wheelchair out of the elevator. And the man she'd been worried about seeing was in the hallway, waiting for her. The air left her lungs in a rush.

It was bad. Just as bad as she expected. Her legs trembled and her mouth went completely dry in the space of a few seconds.

The man did it for her. Really, really did it, in a way that no man ever had, and that included Matthew.

She swallowed and forced as normal a smile as she could, even though her heart was beating out of her chest. “You called for a chariot?”

“I did indeed.” He gave her a smile in return that was a lot warmer than hers had been. “Thank you. I owe you.”

“No, you don't. Tell me what's going on.”

Within two minutes he'd filled her in on the situation. He then introduced her to Gloria and her husband. Kaleb hadn't been exaggerating. The patient's breathing sounded labored and there was a definite congested rattle to it. They needed to get her to the hospital. The woman was in no hurry to leave, though, despite how hard it was for her to catch her breath.

Maddy sat on the bed next to her. “Tell me why you're afraid to go.”

Gloria's eyes tracked away to her husband and then back. “My father went to the hospital. He never came out.”

That she could understand. When she glanced up at Kaleb, he was standing by the big bank of windows looking out over the city.

“What happened?” she asked.

“He had a heart attack. I was just a girl. They wouldn't let me go into the room.” Her chin wobbled a time or two and she took a gasping breath that was half cry, half cough. “I never saw him again.”

Maddy's heart ached for the little girl Gloria had once been.

“Are you worried that will happen to you?”

“Dr. McBride said that Clyde could stay with me. Is that true?”

She glanced again at the window, and this time, Kaleb had turned to stare at her. Was he wondering if she was going to contradict him? She would have promised Gloria the very same thing had she been in his position.

“Yes, you'll be in my department, so I can let the nurses know. He doesn't have to leave your side except when they take X-rays, but he'll be right around the corner behind the screen with the technician. Will that be okay?”

Her husband laid his hand on her shoulder. “Tell them you'll go, Gloria.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I'll go.”

Within a matter of minutes, they had her loaded up in the wheelchair and Kaleb was pushing her out of the hotel toward the crosswalk. It could have been any family out for a stroll, but it wasn't. And it was dangerous for Maddy to even allow herself to think along those lines. She had Chloe to think about. Just like Gloria, who had never been able to see her father, her daughter had never seen a
real
father. Matthew had not wanted to be a father. He'd been an unwilling sperm donor at best. At worst he'd been willing to kill his daughter's mother, and possibly even Chloe. Who knew what he would have done had he got into her office? Would he have gone to Roxy's and killed her too, before turning that gun on her daughter and then himself?

Kaleb is nothing like Matthew.

No, but, as good as he'd been with Chloe, there had definitely been moments when he'd seemed uncomfortable around her. As if he couldn't wait to get away from her.

Thankfully she was soon in the hospital, where she could concentrate on the task at hand: seeing what was going on with Gloria's breathing. They'd barely got up to the radiology department, though, when Gloria gasped harder, her breathing suddenly going haywire before she slumped over in the wheelchair.

“She's in respiratory failure. We need to get her flat.” Kaleb was beside them in an instant, lifting the frail woman out of the wheelchair and bodily carrying her to the nearest curtained-off area, laying her on the bed. Maddy yelled for help and several nurses immediately stepped into the cubicle, going to work to get her stable. Her husband was in the room with her, and Maddy didn't have the heart to ask him to step out. Not yet. She'd promised Gloria that he could stay, and she didn't want to go back on that if she didn't have to.

“Do you want to intubate her?”

“Let's try NPPV, before we do that. She wasn't febrile?”

“She was, but she took ibuprofen, so her temperature is artificially lowered at this point.”

Maddy nodded, her brain taking in that bit of information. “I still want to get an X-ray, but we'll have to do it in the supine position.”

They fastened the breathing mask over Gloria's face, hoping the positive pressure ventilator would help avoid standard intubation. Within a minute, her color looked a little better. “Let's get her into X-ray and see what's going on.”

Once they were in the room, they rolled Gloria to the side in order to put the film plate beneath her. They quickly set up the placement for the X-ray, pulling the tube down over the woman's chest. They got it done in record time. The results were two nasty areas on her lungs, the right worse than the left.

Pneumonia. Just as Kaleb suspected.

“We need to start her on an azithromycin drip stat.” Maddy glanced at Kaleb, who had stayed with the pair throughout everything that had happened. She couldn't blame him. Gloria had started off as his patient. “Can you get someone to make up a chart on her? Ask them to come up so that Mr. Lowell doesn't have to leave her side.”

“I'm on it.”

Soon they had Gloria in a room and hooked up to an IV that would pump strong antibiotics directly into her veins and hopefully fight off the infection raging in her lungs. If they didn't see improvement soon, they'd have to culture the bacteria and make some adjustments. Even as she jotted notes in her chart—with Gloria's husband seated in a chair next to her bed in ICU—the woman's eyes fluttered open. She immediately searched the room until her gaze fell on her husband's face. She gave a small nod as if reassuring herself that he really was there. Maddy wasn't about to break her promise to the woman.

She went over to the bed and explained what they'd done and what her treatment would be. Gloria seemed exhausted, but relieved. Maddy patted her hand. “You did the right thing by coming.”

Gloria nodded again, her eyelids flickering shut.

“How long will she have to stay here?”

“Let's wait and see how those antibiotics do, okay? We don't want her in here any longer than necessary. But we want to send her home healthy.”

Clyde wrapped his fingers around his wife's. “Can I call my children from here or do I need to step outside?”

“You're fine. I made a promise to her. Let's not break it.”

When Maddy had a moment to look around, she realized that Kaleb was no longer in the room. Her heart squeezed with disappointment. Had she really expected him to stick around indefinitely? He had his own job to do. Still. Something wished he'd at least warned her he was leaving.