Jennifer

Jennifer’s Story

Doctor Jennifer O’Malley turned the corner of the hospital hallway and slammed open the ER doors with her shoulder. “Watch his burned hands!” In order to be heard over the angry screams of the young boy, her order had to cut like a sharp blade and she pitched her voice accordingly. She headed toward the nearest empty exam area. She had a pretty good lock on the young boy from behind, and he wasn’t going to reach anything but possibly her with his flailing feet and hands. It was the head buts that were going to make her lose her grip if they didn’t get this situation quickly under control.

“Can he handle Amit?” the chief ER resident shouted, already pushing open the medicine cabinet door and grabbing for a syringe.

“Three milligrams. And follow it with two milligrams of Doram for the pain.” The boy’s bandaged hands covered healing second and third degree burns and she was determined to not let him land one of his swings. She could feel the adrenalin in the child, combining with the fear, anger, and pain. The boy managed to get a foot on the bed and shove it away.

The rough brush of a white coat across her shoulders combined with the smell of sweat and aftershave as a man reached over and around her to help hold the boy. “Easy, son. What happened?”

“His brother thought the bed restraints were some kind of punishment and undid them. Peter slid out of the bed, started running to find his mom, and we didn’t catch up with him until he’d tried to put himself through a glass door.”

“Yeah, that would make for a brutal afternoon.”

The resident managed to get two clean injections into the boy’s thigh. Within minutes Jennifer was holding a drowsy little boy that was looking more for a place to lay his head than a struggle.

“Okay?”

She nodded. The doctor behind her shifted the boy’s weight fully back to her. She turned and placed the boy onto the bed. She ran a hand lightly across his cheek and brushed back his hair as he gave a last half sob. She was ready to share a few tears for him herself. “I’m sorry, honey. It’s just not your week.”

The boy began drifting away with the meds. She lifted his left hand, saw the new damage under the disarray of the existing bandages, and looked over at his right. The skin was too fragile for the kind of impact he’d made with the glass door. “Carrie, page John. See if the OR can take him straight from here.”

He’d need the burns cleaned again and the open blisters tended, and that would have to be done with the boy under heavy sedation. She cut off the existing bandages and used new gauze to protect the open wounds from drying out.

“Where’s his mom?”

She glanced over and saw a face to go with the white coat for the first time. A tall man, sandy hair, blue eyes, and a rather nice face. “In the ICU burn unit. There was a cousin trying to be helpful who brought the older brother in with her.”

“Has the hospital assigned a family aide to assist the kids?”

“If they haven’t, I’m next going to go chew out someone who probably signs my paycheck.”

He smiled.

She liked the smile. The ER hadn’t been her normal terrain for close to six years now, and the fact she didn’t know the man didn’t surprise her, but she guessed from the garb he wore that he wasn’t on his normal turf either. Those were surgical greens under the white coat.

Carrie rejoined them. “John said ten minutes, Jen. I’ll take the boy up myself.”

“Thanks.” Jennifer was aware of her own adrenaline fading away. She hadn’t been expecting to step off the elevator and find herself thrust into the middle of a chase to stop a desperate little boy looking for his mom.

She gently straightened his superman pajamas, hoping he wouldn’t be that mad at her when he woke up later. “He’ll do for now. It was just bad luck they didn’t open that door for him and let him keep running.”

“You took a couple knocks yourself. Let me see that eye.”

She held still because the doctor was already probing. “It’s a bruise. And I’m late for rounds.”

“It’s definitely bruised.” He glanced at the suckers in her lab coat pocket. “What floor?”

“Oncology, pediatrics side.”

“Go handle rounds. I’ll back up Carrie to see our sleeping boy safely upstairs.” But he paused her for a moment and offered a hand. “I’m Tom Peterson by the way.”

She took the offered hand and hers disappeared in his. “Jennifer O’Malley.”

“Nice to meet you, Jennifer.”

She decided again that she liked the smile. And his timing. There wasn’t much she could do but smile in reply. She headed back to work, wondering what other surprises were going to be waiting in her day.

Tom Peterson stretched out in the staff break room, half dosing as he listened to a ballgame on the radio behind him. The surgical wing had more silent stretches than most of the hospital floors. To the extent the surgery work could be scheduled, rotations started before seven a.m., and tended to end by mid-afternoon. The were still two cases coming through tonight, both relatively minor procedures, and he’d offered to be the one to stay so his partners could go on home.

He missed the hands on general practice where he had begun his career, and Peter this morning had reminded him of it again. Rarely did he encounter screamers any more. The kid’s hands had to have been really hurting.

“Tom, we’re about ready. The anesthesiologist is beginning his countdown.”

“Thanks, Gina.” He stretched his arms out and flexed the tiredness away. “Gina—”

His chief surgical nurse paused in the doorway.

“Did you hear back from your sister?”

“Marla says Dr. O’Malley is in same building as you and your partners, but on third floor. She’s one of the five partners in the LMR group. Kids that no one else can keep healthy, she does.”

“Thanks.”

“Just let me know before you go out with her so I can forewarn Marla. O’Malley’s the sweetheart of the building, and there’s a list floating around among her staff for who she should ideally date. Your name’s not on it by the way.”

“Really?”

The door swung closed on her laugh. “Let’s go, boss.”

“This isn’t good. You pulled your back helping the boy this morning.”

The concerned words had Jennifer moving her hand away from the ache she had been rubbing deep in the muscles around her lower spine, and she straighten, trying to not show the wince she felt. “Just twisted it a bit,” she murmured, accepted the second cup the man carried, realizing he must have spotted her long before she realized there was even someone else on this floor tonight beside the two nurses she had already spoken with. “Tom, was it?”

She knew it was, but there were protocols for first introductions becoming second ones when it was a guy she thought she might enjoy getting to know, and she thought this was a situation that warranted all the protocols she could remember.

“Good memory. Heading somewhere in particular?”

He was definitely a surgeon she decided, for he still wore the booties over his shoes that spoke of the ultra clean scrub rooms lining this seventh floor. She picked up the two charts she had been reading. “Not really. My patients tend to spread across most of the hospital. Any hallway leads somewhere interesting at this point.”

She specialized in wellness care for kids who were chronically or terminally ill. They already had the heart surgeon or cancer doctors in their lives. What they needed most was someone doing the preventative care so their colds and ear aches didn’t tip into something much worse for them. There was no such thing as a minor cold in a child who was already desperately ill.

Rather than walk, Tom chose to lean against the wall beside the nurses station. “My emergency eight o’clock started bleeding into his chest again, meaning the thoracic guy takes precedence over my starting work to rebuilding the boy’s jaw. And I’ve got a patient being medivaced in that won’t be here for a couple hours. So this is me stalling, carrying around two cups of coffee looking for someone who is equally bored or trying to stay awake.”

She sipped at the lukewarm coffee he’d offered even as she studied him. She liked the fact there was a sense of calm patience about the man. He wasn’t the typical type-A personality she so often met on the surgical floor. “Who do you normally find at this time of night?”

“The guy in B-312 is recovering from a third heart attack, and he’s always good for a story or two, even if it means I end up drinking both coffees because he’s been banned from caffeine for life. And the janitor who handles the surgical floor can always be counted on for a decent baseball update when I’m bordering on desperate.”

He was just about begging her to feel sorry for him, and she found herself both amused and a touch charmed. She guessed him to be in his late-thirties. To be working as a surgeon at this point in his career – there hadn’t been many slow hours in his life. The man wouldn’t be doing surgery in this hospital, under this surgical department chief, without being one of the best in the nation at his job.

“How’s the boy, Peter? Have you heard?” he asked.

She pointed toward the east hallway. She had a child coming out of a second round of ankle surgery that should be reaching recovery any time now. Tom fell in step beside her. “John doesn’t think there was any lasting damage. The boy’s mother improved enough we were able to give Peter a couple minutes looking through the ICU glass to know we weren’t lying about his mom being right upstairs. He’s intent on getting better so he can sit with her. It breaks my heart sometimes, how adult a child can be at times.”

“At least with youth comes a resiliency that adults rarely have. But seriously – there was at least one casualty today. I think you need an ice pack before your back tightens up more and turns into a pretzel. You’re not walking all that well at the moment.”

“My leg is a bit numb,” she conceded, “but I think its more like twelve hours on my feet without the good pair of tennis shoes. I grabbed what I had near me and ran this morning.”

“Overslept?”

“In my defense, I got four hours of sleep before the alarm went off. The alarm blared, I forgot what day it was, and I was halfway to the airport to pick up my sister before I realized my mistake. She comes into town tomorrow. Some days I don’t think I’m handling this job as much as it is handling me.”

“Been there. What you need is an excuse to take an couple hours off work. Would you like to go out to dinner with me? The nurses will assure you I’m single, relatively interesting, and have a mom in town that still keeps me careful about being a gentleman.” He glanced down and offered a rueful smile. “I promise I clean up into something better than scrubs and booties.”

“I admit, the booties are kind of cute.”

“Tomorrow. Say seven o’clock. You can introduce me to your sister, we can duck out for an hour and eat, and then I’ll have you safely home so she can pester you with all kinds of questions about your date.”

“As intriguing as that sounds, I have to say no. Kate is not the sister I spring a date on if I expect to actually leave the house. She’s a cop, and not inclined to trust an unknown guy with her baby sister.”

He laughed. “I already like her.”

Her pager went off. She looked at the text and headed toward the elevators, glancing over shoulder at him as she dumped the empty coffee cup in the nearest trash can. “Medivac incoming. Sorry.”

“Promise you’ll walk by this floor again during your odd hours around here?”

“I think that’s a safe assumption for even a Texas surgeon to make.”

“You’re not Texan, I’m thinking.”

“Chicago, south side.” The elevator doors closed before she could add, youngest of seven.

The elevator rose swiftly toward the roof of the building. She didn’t think her larger family would slow him down, but it never hurt to at least mention them early. There were three brothers who tended to be very interested in any guy that thought dating her would be a good idea.

She suspected Tom Peterson would see her family more as a challenge than an obstacle, he had that air of confidence about him, and surprisingly, she thought she was looking forward to finding out. Her self imposed sabbatical of a year off dating might be coming to end in a rather unexpected way.

She hurried through the receiving area and out onto the roof into the warm night air as the sound of the approaching helicopter overtook the silence. Caution still had its merits. It had saved her from starting a few relationships where she would have ended up with a broken heart.

She wouldn’t be finding extra reasons to be on the surgical floor hoping to run into him again. If Tom wanted to get to know her, he’d have to make the effort. As a final protocol in deciding what she thought of a guy, waiting always worked. She loved this job too much to let just anyone crowd into the time she spent with the kids she helped.

A downrush of air had her covering her eyes as the medical flight landed. Her coming evening looked to be long, and she didn’t mind it a bit. She’d been dreaming about being a doctor since she was young girl, and living that dream now was a blessing. The rest of what she dreamed for her future – she still had plenty of time in her life to see it come true too.

“Let’s schedule a follow-up for Annie in three weeks, and new bloodwork panels in two.” Jennifer passed across the paperwork for her favorite patient to the scheduling nurse, the notation at the bottom to no-bill this visit one of the few things she could do to help the family. “That sound alright with you, Annie?”

“Yeth!”

With no hair left, and less control over her speech than most children her age, Jennifer interpreted the reply in light of the smile the girl gave her. She smiled back as she knelt to help with the girl’s jacket. Three weeks was a vacation for her favorite patient. The stroke had done so much damage it was going to be a long term task to get this fun loving child back on track. “Just one prescription for you this time. I want to see the color of green on those tennis shoes next month, from all the running around you do on your new backyard grass. You can chase Elliot to your heart’s content.”

“He mt lme cath him.”

Jennifer shared a laugh with the girl. “You’ll tickle him if you catch him, I think.”

Jennifer look up at Annie’s mom. “She’s doing really well,” she repeated, knowing it never hurt to repeat the good news in situations like this one. “Her muscle tone is improving, and her ability to balance is much better. If you’re comfortable keeping up the pool routine, I think it’s doing everything we hoped it might.”

“I will. She loves it when we go exercising together.”

The girl nodded enthusiastically.

“You’re comfortable with the new physical therapist?”

“Like Tish.”

“Heather hit it off with Trish. They’re a good team,” her mom agreed.

“That’s good to hear. Her lungs are clear and there’s not even a bit of congestion to watch. I’ll see you again in three weeks if nothing comes up before then.”

“Thanks, Dr. O’Malley.”

“Call me, here or at home, if you have any concerns.”

Annie’s father, having gone to get the car, reappeared. Jennifer waved a final goodbye as she watched Annie leave. There was noticeable progress, enough to be visible now, and improvements still coming. Annie was a fighter, and fighters made it. She’d rest on that good news, since she could do nothing to reverse the stroke or the surgery needed after it.

The waiting room was crowded with kids, for all of her partners were holding office hours today. Jennifer glanced at her watch as she headed toward her office. Her day was flowing by smoothly and she was determined to enjoy that rare luxury. She wondered if Tom was having a decent day too, and thought again about her decision to not wander toward the surgical floor, but to wait until they otherwise met. She didn’t regret her decision, but she did wonder what was taking him so long to search her out. It had been ten days since they had shared coffee together, and their paths hadn’t crossed since then.

She found it a bit amusing, the thought that he might be doing a bit of waiting too, just to see if she would be the one who would came chasing. Mid-thirties, nice face to look at, doctor, single – he probably got pursued a bit. He needed a challenge. She’d never been one to be part of the crowd. Any O’Malley would tell him that.

She pulled the chart for her next patient. Gregory. The little guy was a ball of energy. She headed down the hall to exam room two.

“Jennifer.”

She paused to let her chief nurse catch up with her. She accepted the call slip. She tried to not let the sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach show on her face as she read the note. “Tell Linda to come on in. I’ll see Veronica as soon as they can get here.”

Four months of working to get Veronica strong enough for surgery, and it was going to be postponed because of a fever. She could only hope it wasn’t as bad as the note suggested the situation might be.

“Should I give Doctor Travers a heads up as well?” Marla asked.

“I’ll do it once we’ve got the blood cultures in the works. Alert his nurse for me so he doesn’t leave tonight without us touching base.”

Marla nodded and headed to make the calls.

Jennifer pushed the note into her pocket. It wasn’t easy to clear her emotions, but she did it because they couldn’t carry forward right now. She cleared her face, relaxed, and opened the exam room door. “Hi, Gregory. How’s my buddy today?”

The boy perched on the exam table threw out his hands, and the airplane he held landed against the wall, the teddy bear hit the floor, and his face lit up in laughter. “Take it off! You’re taking it off today.”

“I am indeed.”

She tickled his toes on the uncasted foot in a private hello, and glanced over at the boy’s mom. “I gather he was ready to come in early for a change.”

“He was encouraging me to drive faster.”

The cast he wore to keep his ankle together after three rounds of surgery would become just a special boot today. “First we check all these other toes and elbows, then I’m taking you over to see Jim and this hard little cast is going bye-bye,” she promised. At the age of five he had brittle bone disease snapping bones like they were twigs. The damage to his ankle from simply running and falling had nearly been unfixable.

She warmed up the stethoscope in her hand. His doctors were finally making some progress halting the bone disease progress, but the drug combinations being used left the boy’s liver badly stressed. He was prone to catching every bug that came around. She listened to his chest and thought he was no worse than his last visit, but not clear either. “Has mr. cough come back to visit?”

Gregory shook his head.

“How about mr. sniffle?”

“Can I have a sucker if he visited just a little?”

She offered her labcoat pocket. “There is every flavor to choose from this time.”

“Grape.”

She handed over the sucker. “So mr. sniffle just kind of passed through?”

Gregory nodded.

She checked his ears and his throat, and got him to hold still while she repeat the temperature check her nurse had done. Her instincts were telling her Gregory was heading for a chest cold, for the minor signs hadn’t dissipated in the last week. “All done, Gregory. Let’s go have this cast removed.”

“Can I take the blue bomber?”

“You may.”

Out of habit she moved him by sliding her hands under him and lifting him up from the exam table and over into the blue child-sized powered wheelchair, rather than picking him up under the arms. A normal grip would risk breaking his ribs. “Remember mr. blue goes faster on the down slopes.”

“I remember.”

She held the door open for him, glad at least this part of his doctor’s visits were considered fun. It didn’t hurt either that he was best buddies with his bone doctor.

She followed the boy toward the lab doors, hanging back a few paces from him so she could talk privately with his mom while they walked. “The blood work is still in range, so there are no new worries on that front. His docs are ecstatic at the rate of bone density growth they are seeing. I’m worried about the cold that never fully clears, but at this point more medication seems counterproductive. It’s something that will have to just be watched.”

“I’ll bring him back in if the congestion gets any worse.”

“Good. Have you noticed anything that has you concerned, or anything new in symptoms?”

“He’s been stable, which is a nice relief.”

“For both of us.”

Jennifer moved to open the door for Gregory and the boy powered ahead in the chair to join Jim who was already working to size the new boots.

“He wants it off today, Jim.”

“So he tells me. I think we can oblige him too. Thanks for shooting over the film. Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?”

“I get to be the one to do remove the boot when therapy is done.”

“Okay, then let’s get this show on the road. Do you want to watch, Gregory? Or play your favorite video game, and ignore what I’m doing to your foot until I’m all done?”

“Wanna watch,” Gregory insisted.

“Then let me show you how this done,” the doctor said, smoothly transferring him from the chair to the table with hands under the boy. He set to work arranging the protective mat. “So tell me more about this backyard fort of yours. I hear it’s a masterpiece.”

Jennifer’s pager vibrated. She looked down and saw from the text message that Veronica and Linda had arrived.

She coded a reply, and then looked over at Gregory’s mom. “After Jim fits the special boots he’ll wear, why don’t you come back by my office and we’ll talk about what makes sense for physical therapy this summer. I’ll have copies of his latest lab work and x-rays for you as well. When you see the specialist in Maryland next month, he’ll use them as the new baselines.”

“I’ll do that.”

Jennifer exchanged a wave with Gregory, and headed back to her office to meet Linda and Veronica.

Marla met her in the back hallway of the practice. “Veronica is in exam room six. She was fine last night, woke with a bad headache, developed a fever mid-morning, vomited twice in the last hour. I’ve already called over to see if pediatrics has a bed available.”

“She’s deathly afraid of the cardiac unit since her friend passed away. Ask them to give me a bed in orthopedics if they have to.”

“Will do.”

Jennifer tapped on the exam room door and then opened it. She offered a smile to Linda, and then looked to her patient. “I hear you’re not feeling well today, Veronica. What’s happening, honey?”

Jennifer clicked off her desk light, picked up her briefcase and the box she wanted to drop into the outgoing mail, and stepped out into the quiet hall. Gregory had forgotten his bear, she’d found it tucked in her office couch cushions, and she had boxed it to mail back to him. Her partners in the practice, the nurses and support staff who worked with them, had all left for the night.

Going home didn’t appeal. She turned back on the lights in the waiting room. She sat down at a child’s height table, in a child’s chair, and searched to find a piece or two to fit into the jigsaw puzzle. Friday nights in Houston didn’t seem much different than Friday nights in Chicago where she’d grown up and done her residency. There always came an hour where the work for the week was done and a few hours of down time stretched ahead unfilled. Maybe she should go buy herself an ice cream tonight; a movie didn’t appeal.

“I hear you had a tough day.”

She looked up.

Tom was leaning against the glassed entry doors to the practice, watching her. She was surprised to see him here at this time of night. She knew he had offices in the same medical building, but surgeons tended to work the very early hours of a day.

“Veronica developed a fever. Her surgery will likely have to be postponed, and she can’t afford the delay. She’s got a mass the size of a walnut trying to grow in her chest and it’s pressing on her esophagus.”

Veronica had been a patient since the girl was three years old, and every year brought something new to fight. The growths were not malignant, didn’t have a known cause, and didn’t respond to treatment. The first one had appeared beneath her heart and nearly pinched off a major artery by the time it could be surgically removed. The second had affected her right lung. The third had appeared in the soft tissue behind her knee. This one had hit when she was too weak from other medical problems to handle the surgery to remove it. The poor kid just couldn’t get a break. “I’m hopeful the fever is only the flu.” But she worried, and it was one of the reasons she couldn’t settle tonight.

She held up a hand and offered Tom a puzzle piece. “Come on, help me out.”

He walked over. Rather than risk a child’s size chair, he took a seat on the carpet.

He worked on the puzzle with her, filling in the puppy ears.

He leaned into her space. “Want to come get a bite to eat with me?”

She glanced at him, but his attention was on orienting a furry piece of white. “Maybe.”

“You should say yes. I know all kinds of good places to eat that are still open at this time of night.”

Jennifer nudged him out of her space so she could work on the puppy’s eyes. “I may need to come back to check on Veronica if her fever gets worse.”

“Not a problem.” He finished the puppy’s ears and then got to his feet. “Come on, Jennifer.”

He offered her a hand up from the child’s chair. She didn’t think her legs would hold her, and shifted her hand to grasp his arm. She shook off the weakness with a apologetic laugh. “Sorry.”

He was frowning. “Your back is still bothering you.”

“Just at the odd moments when I act younger than my age,” she replied, gesturing to the short stature chair. She picked up her briefcase, and felt no twinge at holding the weight. “Do you know any place that does a Chicago style pizza? I’m getting desperate for a taste of home.”

“That’s a challenge.” He thought a moment and nodded. “But one I think I can meet.”

He kept the meal low key, and she appreciated that. The pizza came on paper plates, with plastic forks and knives, the tables small and round and squeezed around the cramped edges of the pizza cafe. There were pizza’s on the menu called New York, and California, and even a challenger from Ohio. Tom had ordered two Chicago’s, and they were massive deep dish offerings.

“Close enough?”

“It’s not bad,” she agreed happily after the first couple bites, wondering how she had not heard about this place before. “You heard about my day. How was yours?”

“A kid skateboarding tried to jump down a flight of concrete stairs and ended up putting his knee square into a riser with the full weight of his body behind the contact. I spent most of the day assisting while Dr. Sandover put the puzzle of broken bones back into some semblance of order again.”

“Was it successful?”

“He’s got a chance, which is about as far as anyone wants to predict with this one. He’ll likely end up as the first fourteen year old in his school with an artificial knee.” Tom got up to get them more napkins. “Talk to me about how a Chicago native ended up in Texas. You grew up in Chicago. You went to medical school there too?”

“I did. I came to Texas because I wanted Dr. Marish as my pediatrics mentor ever since I read the book she wrote, Thriving Kids, and there was an opening in the residency program here. I gambled liking her would be enough to make up for the move.”

“I hope Texas has grown on you a bit more since then.”

“It’s been trying. But I miss home.”

“I remember you mentioned your sister was coming to town. Did you have a good visit?”

She grinned at the memories of what it was like to have Kate around her place for a to brief thirty-six hours visit they had been able to squeeze in given Kate’s schedule. “We had a great time. Think energy explosion and laughter and you’ll come close.”

Because it was easier to show what was unusual about her life, than just explain it, she reached for her billfold and unzipped the back compartment. A cascade of photos slid out into her hand, the majority of them current and former patients, but toward the back she found a few of the snapshots she sought. She held one of them out to him.

“The O’Malleys. There are seven of us, but it’s not exactly a traditional family. We’re all orphans. Kate, whom I mentioned. Marcus. Stephen. Lisa. Rachel. Jack. We sort of adopted each other. Legally changed our last names, became our own family.”

He looked at the picture, looked at her, and then looked back at the picture. “Wow.” He shook his head. “I’d say something about how creative a solution that is, and how strong the desire is to be part of a family, but I’d just sound more stupid than wow. Really?”

“We might not share a blood connection, but the group is as strong as if we do. We’ve been together twenty plus years now, and I don’t think a one of us regrets it. We are constantly stepping in and out of each others lives.”

He smiled and offered the picture back. “You look happy in that photo, and I can hear the joy in your voice just mentioning them. I envy you a bit – that closeness you have with them.”

“Only child?”

“Humm. And have regretted it for a decade.”

“Why?”

Mom wants grandkids.”

She laughed at his rueful tone.

“One of the trials of being the only son. I can’t blame her. Family matters. The older I get the more I enjoy my parents company, and them, mine, I think.”

“They live here in town.”

He nodded. “They do. I see them at least a couple times a week; talk to them even more often. Dad’s a research doctor, which is where I got the bug in the first place. They are getting to be in frail health, can no longer travel like they once did, but otherwise are doing well.” He gestured to the larger stack of photos. “Can I see?”

“Sure.” She handed them over to him. “My kids,” she explained, suddenly feeling awkward about that personal connection she made with so many of her patients.

He laughed at the animal costumes. “You do believe in laughter being good medicine.” He turned one of the birthday party pictures toward her.

“Boredom is a problem when you have to spend days on a hospital ward.”

“No need to explain. When I worked the pediatrics floor I adored having someone like you around to keep their spirits up.”

She finished her pizza while she watched him turn photos.

He’d had the tact not to immediately ask how she’d ended up an orphan, how her parents had died, and she quietly gave him points of that. Some memories hurt when they were stirred up, and the memory of the night the drunk driver hit her parent’s car was still very raw. The added hurt that there had been no one stepping forward to take her in after her parents had been killed just intensified the pain.

She knew how rough a time so many kids had in life before they ever reached sweet sixteen. It was one of the reasons she was so determined to help kids and do whatever she could to brighten their days. Trevor House had given her the O’Malleys, and her focus on becoming a doctor. It was enough. She gestured to one of the photos. “My sister Kate was the one who thought up the sheriff’s badges for those who were fighting cancer.”

“You mentioned she was a cop?”

Jennifer nodded.

“I think I would like her a great deal.” Tom turned one of the photos to show her. “Can I keep this one? You have two prints here.”

She blushed, for it was one of her smiling at the camera, blue twinkle stars hand-painted on her cheeks and silver glitter eyeliner highlighting her eyes. “Sure.”

He slipped it into his shirt pocket. “I’ve watched you with the kids. I think you are a doctor because you love kids first, and enjoy medicine second.”

“Probably so.”

“No desire to start your own family?”

“When the time is right.” She shrugged, not sure what to do with the question. “If I end up waiting too long, I’m not opposed to adopting.”

He finished his pizza. “Loving kids as well as treating them, makes being a doctor much more of a lifestyle than a career for you.”

“Yes, I think it is.”

“I like that fact.” He nodded to the counter. “Care for dessert?”

“I’ll pass, and suggest a walk. It’s a nice evening out, even if it is pretty late.”

“A good idea.” He got to his feet and cleared the table, carrying the plates to the trash. “Let’s wander toward downtown and enjoy the lights?”

“Please.”

The fountain by the city hall was brightly lit. They wandered toward it in mutual agreement, the sound of the cascading water welcoming in the night. She took a seat on the wide encircling bench. The bottom of the shallow pool sparkled with tossed in change. She pitched in a penny, watching the coin circle in the air before landing with a soft plop into the water.

Tom dug out a handful of change from his pocket and offered it to her.

She carefully selected another penny. “Why haven’t you gotten married, and given your mom those grandkids?”

He studied the penny balanced on his finger, and then smiled and sent it spinning into the pool of water. “Some things in life don’t get better when they’re hurried. Marriage is one of those things. Do you know how many people get married who are not even friends yet?”

“I don’t think either one of us is the type to make that particular mistake.” She sorted through his change and chose a dime. “I think I’m more interested in just not being the first in my family to do something. Definitely not being the first to get married.”

“Scary thought?”

“We’re a close family. And there’s rocking the boat, and then there is tipping it over. I’m not the one who normally tips it over. That would be Kate occasionally, when her work gets her shot at, or sometimes Jack, because he fights fires a little too close at times when someone has to be rescued and he gets himself singed. One of us getting married would feel like a pretty big shift.” She sent the dime sailing through the air, spinning in the moonlight. “I’ve got to remember this. My kids would get a blast out of flipping coins into the water.”

He laughed and held out another dime. “I’m beginning to appreciate the kid still in you every time you let her show up.”

“I’m normally too responsible, but then there’s moments like this—” she stopped the slide of change into her hand and closed his fist back around the coins. “Take me home, Tom. It was a nice pizza, a good walk, and I’d rather be home by midnight than not.”

He studied her face, and smiled. “Can we do this again? Maybe not the pizza, but the time? I enjoyed myself Jennifer.”

“So did I. Which is why you are taking me home before midnight.”

“Cautious, wise, and something else…someone is calling you tonight? Family perhaps?”

“Let’s just say I’m aware it’s Friday night and most of them don’t respect sane hours on the clock when they have a free minute to call.”

“You can safely be home before midnight.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“With you. I think I like your family already. Miles away, and still they keep you on your best behavior.”

“Just try being the youngest of seven for a while; it’s a very different world than you can even imagine.”

Jennifer began to look forward to the slices of time when Tom would track her down at the office, or she’d linger around the hospital taking evening rounds when she knew he was scheduled for late surgery. It became the pattern for their friendship, walking together when the work day ended, sharing the occasional meal or drink at the end of the walk to continue their conversation.

It was raining on Tuesday night when she ducked out from under the canopy and hurried from the restaurant toward his car pulling up to the curb. He leaned over to open the door for her. “Not the clear weather they forecast.”

“I’d say.” It had put an early end to their walk plans. The pizza tonight had been more upscale than the first place he had taken her, but she couldn’t say it was better than the first. She settled in as Tom pulled back into traffic.

“So are you planning to work this weekend?” Tom asked.

Jennifer tried to remember the calendar on her desk. “I’m off, not even a pager, but Saturday morning is planned.”

“Would you like to do something together? I was thinking we eventually ought to schedule something.”

She smiled. “I happen to like spontaneous. There is less dress up time and pacing involved.”

He glanced over, amused. “True. But it’s hard to get tickets to a ballgame or concert on the spur of the moment. Let’s find a newspaper and see what is going on around town this weekend.”

“I’d lean toward the ballgame in that list of options.”

Tom idled at the light where he would turn to take her home. “Do you want to call it a night? It’s early yet. You could come by and see the house I’ve been talking about and I’ll find us a movie to watch.”

“Sure, I’d like to see your place. Just have me home by midnight.”

He turned south rather than north. “Does family really call you that late?”

“Occasionally. It’s more the fact I’m too old for late nights. I like my sleep.”

He laughed. “There are priorities that come with the job, sleep being high on the list. I’m just fortunate I don’t have surgery scheduled for tomorrow, or I’d already be calling it a night.”

Jennifer wandered around Tom’s home, intrigued to put together her image of him from work and from their conversations as they walked, with the tangible things he had collected. The place was much more sparten than she had expected. The furnishings were comfortable, guy sized, and the colors on the walls well chosen. But the walls were mostly bare, and the table tops clear. She found stacks of artwork leaning against the wall in the dining room, and a wonderful collections of blown glass globes and paperweights, still wrapped, in the box by the fireplace hearth. Tom had moved in, but not yet finished making it home.

That he was a reader she had known from just the variety of subjects that came up during their conversations, but seeing the shelves of books he had collected reminded her of that fact again. The number of books spoke of a man comfortable with his life and not needing to fill every evening with people to be content. She liked that about him.

She lingered, scanning titles, trying to catch a bit more knowledge about the man and what had intrigued him over time. The books on medical matters were expected, the ones on the old west were not, and the fiction section was vast. She saw several shelves that looked like bible commentaries and wondered at them.

Tom joined her, carrying two mugs of hot chocolate. She accepted one with a quiet thanks, for the rain had left her a bit chilled, and waved a general hand toward the rooms she had explored. “I like your home. It has potential.”

He smiled. “I like yours more. This place needs time and energy, neither of which I’ve given it yet.” H knelt and pushed open a cabinet to search out a DVD option. “That was one of the reasons I wanted you to see it, so expectations would settle quickly into something closer to reality.”

She rested against the side of the cabinet and watched him work. “I think it’s the pictures and artwork. I tend to think in quantity. You have almost bare walls. Nice paint color choices, but not much on them yet.” That he had settled for a couple bedrooms and a home office, a kitchen not often used, reflected where he spent his time. The home office was the most put together space she had seen. Her place had more a feel of a home, but it wasn’t fundamentally much different.

“My mother would agree with you. When the rain stops, I’ll show you the back yard and the large deck. It’s the reason I bought this place, more than the house itself. One day when life is more settled, I’ll turn my attention to decorating this place and at least get the artwork on the walls.” He held up an option. “Season three of Next Generation?”

She studied the show listing, and nodded. “Perfect.”

He turned the stack of equipment next to his television and slid in the DVD and kicked on the surround sound speakers.

A scan of the room gave her several options of where to settle. She headed toward comfort. She sank into the leather couch and kicked off her shoes. She curled her feet up under her.

“How’s the pain tonight?”

“What?”

“You’ve got a nice tell – you rub what hurts. You’ve rubbed that right knee at least three times tonight since we went for dinner.” He settled into the big chair beside the couch and picked up the remote. “Can I at least get you something for it?”

“I wasn’t aware I was doing it. It’s just bruised. I lost my balance and turned into an exam table this afternoon.”

“Ouch.” He passed her the remote. “Set the volume where it’s comfortable. We need popcorn.”

He got up and reached for his mug. “Want a popcorn bag of your own? I’m pretty good at the microwave kind.”

“Sure.”

The show began while he was gone. She relaxed back into the couch. This wasn’t quite the ending of the day she had planned, but she wouldn’t have traded it for other options. She liked sharing space and time with him, in a way she hadn’t expected she would. This was the real man behind the layers, not one trying overly hard to impress her, and she liked what she was finding.

There wasn’t so much a dating him feel to the relationship as a solid friendship, and it made life so much easier to stay relaxed and normal around him. That he was still planning to one day try to turn the relationship into something more she was wise enough to see come, but he wasn’t being overly intense about it. For a middle ground of being friends they seemed to have hit the right note.

She caught herself rubbing her knee again. The bruise ached where she’d come up hard against the exam table. She had to get better at covering the tells. Tom had been watching her closer than she realized to have noticed it tonight.

“Do you remember this episode?”

She glanced over as Tom came back in carrying popcorn. She accepted a bag. “I vaguely do. If I’m remembering correctly, it’s pretty good.”

“I like repeats. I can enjoy the good parts again.”

Tom turned off the television and ejected the DVD. “You’re half asleep.”

Jennifer caught herself beginning to nod off and stretched as she uncurled from her position on the couch. “Guilty. I’m conditioned to fall asleep when I stop moving. I don’t often sit for a couple hours.” She yawned as she found the clock. It was comfortably late, but a nice kind of relaxed. She glanced toward the dark windows. “I think the rain stopped.”

“About an hour ago,” Tom agreed.

He didn’t look tired, and she wondered at where he got so much energy from. She felt dead at this time of night.

He offered her a hand up from the couch. “I’ll give you a ride home and you can go curl up under the covers and finish the rest of that dream. You were smiling as you drifted.”

His hand was warm where hers was still a bit cold, and she let hers linger in his for a moment, enjoying the contact. “Memories. The last time I got a relaxing evening like this my sister Rachel was in town. She’s always good for a hug, and a few hours of peaceful downtime. With Kate it tends to be more of a whirlwind of energy flowing by. I love that too, they are just very different visits.”

She stretched and worked the stiffness out of her back. “Take me home. We’ll do this again some night at my place. I can probably be talked into trying to make brownies or something to go with the show.”

“Now you’re talking.” He paused her long enough to remove something from her hair. “The pillow is shedding I think. A hazard of new purchases.” He showed her the small white tag.

“Thanks.”

She was more interested in the casual touch, and the fact he hadn’t moved his hand away. Half a step forward on her part and she could get a hug, but he wasn’t going to close the distance without her doing so. She smiled and stepped back. “I was thinking, if you were free, you should come join me Saturday morning. Say eight.”

“What’s planned?”

“It’s easier to show you than explain. Plan old jeans, and carrying stuff, and you’ll be prepared.”