Fall From Grace

No, she had loved him too much.

Her tears fell in earnest now. She didn’t know what to do, what to feel. She only knew she couldn’t breathe in this stifling atmosphere. She needed air. She needed to get back to work. She needed to think.

Anne walked away and headed past windows revealing the deluge outside that was no match for the storm of emotions within her. She reached the elevator where she would travel to the labor and delivery floor to resume her shift, a place to forget the prospect of death while welcoming new life. And if that didn’t work, she would go home and prepare for her daughter to return from school.

Hank let her go without protest, but she could sense his accusing glare while she waited for the next car to arrive. The doors sighed opened and several people streamed out, family members of loved ones clinging to life. She didn’t want to count herself among them, so she brushed past the group, seeking an escape, only to run into another man from her past, hospital administrator Maxwell Crabtree, as always looking polished in his tailor-made blue suit, his thinning sandy hair held in place by a light coat of gel.

Before Anne could hand out a polite greeting and be done with it, Max took her by the arm and led her away from the elevator. He stopped outside the ICU waiting room, his expression grim. “I’ve heard about Jack, Anne. Tough break for him.”

His tone was less than compassionate—something that didn’t surprise Anne in the least. He’d despised her ex-husband for many years. “He’ll recover from this, Max,” she said, with only minimal conviction.

“I’m sure he will,” Max replied. “And I’m sure he’ll have plenty of people helping him with that recovery. I only hope you don’t get it in your head that you should be one of them.”

The exact opposite of what Hank had told Anne a few moments ago. She felt as though she was engaged in a mental tug-of-war of opposite opinions. “This isn’t any of your business, Max.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You are considering it, aren’t you?”

Anne could barely think at the moment, much less make any solid plans. “Jack is Katie’s father, and Katie needs him. If that means putting aside the past for her sake, then I have no choice.”

“Maybe you don’t have a choice as far as your daughter’s concerned, but you do have a choice when it comes to how involved you’re going to be in his life.”

Anne tugged her arm from his grasp and backed away. “Again, this isn’t your problem. It’s mine.” A problem that seemed almost insurmountable.

Max slid his hands inside his pockets and leaned against the wall. “I’ll still be here for you, Anne, the way I’ve always been whenever you’ve needed someone to pick up the pieces after Jack tore you apart. Feel free to call me. Or stop by, day or night, if you want to talk.”

An offer she didn’t intend to accept this time. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine.”

Anne rushed back to the elevator and managed to catch a car before the doors closed her out. But she couldn’t close out the decision weighing heavily on her heart after Hank’s comment had sliced through her mind.

“He’s got no one, Anne…. No one but you.”

1983

In the country-club ballroom housing Dallas’s most prosperous physicians, he stood out like a black diamond against a drift of snow. His stance exuded unmistakable confidence. His unkempt dark hair, faded jeans and sport jacket, sans tie, hinted at the unconventional.

Anne Cooper appreciated anyone who went against the norm in this setting. She detested these New Year’s Eve snob-fest soirees. But the stranger across the way had made the obligatory event somewhat bearable. For the past half hour she’d pretended to socialize while covertly watching him, and playing the part of secret admirer suited her fine. Although her mother made an attempt at subtlety, Anne realized Delia Cooper’s insistence that her daughter attend the annual shindig had to do with one thing only—introducing Anne to prospects with M.D. behind their names in the hope that she would eventually find one who suited her discriminating tastes.

“His name is Dr. Jack Morgan, Anne.”

At the sound of the familiar voice coming from beside her, Anne closed her eyes briefly and muttered a silent oath. She should know by now that her mother qualified as a master mind reader. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

“The man you’ve been staring at since we arrived.”

Anne saw no use in denying her interest. Only mild interest. “Actually, he doesn’t look like a typical doctor. Are you sure he is?”

In her usual efficient fashion, delightfully refined Delia sent a wave at the hospital’s chief of staff while murmuring through her compulsory smile. “Of course he’s a doctor. Everyone here is a doctor. He’s a first-year surgical resident. He graduated from medical school with honors—”

“Did you take his résumé at the door, Mother?”

Delia didn’t seem the least bit irritated over the question. “Your father’s mentioned him a time or two. He claims Jack’s going to be a brilliant surgeon. The man also happens to be single, so this is your lucky day.”

Lucky? Ha! Maybe if he’d been a tennis pro. For all of her twenty-three years, Anne had been steeped in the sanctity of medicine. Her father was a preeminent surgeon; her mother, a member of every medical auxiliary of acquaintance to God and man and even the inventor of a few; and she herself had become an R.N. She intimately knew the arrogance of physicians, the obsession, the insistence that the lowly folk bow and scrape in their presence. She bowed and scraped for no man.

Before Anne could issue a protest, Delia had her by the hand and was dragging her toward the doctor in question.

Anne stopped dead a few feet prior to the point of no return. “Mother, what are you doing?”

“I’m introducing you. Now, be nice.”

“But I don’t want—”

“Hush, Anne, and smile.”

As much as Anne wanted to run in the opposite direction, as much as she wanted to dive beneath one of the pristine cloth-covered tables, she allowed her mother to lead her forward until she came face to shoulder with the mystery M.D.

Delia patted her blond bob, linked her arm through Anne’s and then cleared her throat to garner his attention. “Good evening, Dr. Morgan. I’d like you to meet my daughter, Anne.”

Considering his look of surprise, Anne could just imagine what he was thinking—another matchmaking mother foisting her hapless daughter off on a prospective groom. Still, for the sake of civility, she offered a slight smile. “Very nice to meet you, Dr. Morgan.”

He gave her hand a brief shake. “It’s ‘Jack,’ and it’s nice to finally meet you, too. Dr. Cooper talks about you all the time. I hear you work at the hospital.”

The fact that her father had actually mentioned her shocked Anne. Bryce Cooper had never been the demonstrative-daddy type. “I’m a labor and delivery nurse.”

“You’re at the other end of the building,” he said. “That must be why I haven’t seen you before. I’m on a general-surgery rotation right now.”

Without warning, Delia added, “I’ll just leave you two young people to visit,” before breezing away with a flip of one manicured hand.

Anne wasn’t all that surprised by her mother’s abrupt departure. She was surprised that Dr.Morgan hadn’t made an excuse to do the same. Following a few moments of awkward silence, she said, “Your apparel definitely makes a statement.”

He sent her a cynical yet still charming smile. “What? Screw tuxedos?”

Her laughter earned a curious glance from one of the medical matriarchs standing nearby, who was polishing her snobbish air. “I guess you could say that.”

“I like what you’re wearing. Nothing better than a little black dress.”

His tone was suggestive, and that was when Anne decided it would be best to leave, before she began to make a few suggestions of her own. “Again, it was nice to meet you. Think I’ll head home.”

“Don’t go yet,” he said. “I could use the company.”

“I’m sure you’ll find plenty of company as the night wears on.” From single women looking for the consummate catch, and she didn’t fall into that category.

“I haven’t run into anyone here I care to keep company with. Too much bowing and scraping.”

Surely he hadn’t really said bowing and scraping. “Excuse me?”

When a roving waiter passed by, Jack snatched two glasses of champagne from the tray and offered her one. “You know, kissing ass for the sake of appearances. I work forty-eight-hour rotations, and I can think of several things I’d rather be doing in my spare time than sucking up.”

So could Anne, even if it meant curling up on the couch in her apartment and ringing in the new year alone. “I know what you mean. I’m only here because my mother asked me to come. I need to get a life.” Wonderful. She’d just admitted she didn’t have one.